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Leaked documents show China mishandled early COVID-19 pandemic: report
Leaked documents from China show the country mishandled the early COVID-19 pandemic through misleading public data and three-week delays in test results, CNN reported Monday.
A whistleblower, who worked in the Chinese health care system, provided 117 pages of internal documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to CNN.
The files, which CNN had verified by six experts, showed how the region struggled to manage the coronavirus between October 2019 and April 2020 – a critical time period in which the virus spread from China to cause a worldwide pandemic.
[2020-12-01 23:22:03 UTC; Ed. update follows.]
The referenced CNN article is nearly 5,000 words long. In addition there are numerous graphs and graphics. I strongly encourage the community to read the entire article before drawing any conclusions or making comments. Here are some excerpts taken from near the end of the article:
It is not clear to what extent the central government was aware of the actions taking place in Hubei at that time, or how much information was being shared and with whom. The documents offer no indication that authorities in Beijing were directing the local decision-making process. However, Mertha, the JHU academic, said the mismatch between the higher internal and lower public figures on the February death toll "appeared to be a deception, for unsurprising reasons."
"China had an image to protect internationally, and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to under-report -- or to show their superiors that they were under-reporting -- to outside eyes," he said.
Conversely, however, the leaked documents also provide something of a defense of China's overall handling of the virus. The reports show that in the early stages of the pandemic, China faced the same problems of accounting, testing, and diagnosis that still haunt many Western democracies even now -- issues compounded by Hubei encountering an entirely new virus.
[...] China and its healthcare workers were under immense strain as the outbreak took hold, said Yang, from the Council of Foreign Relations.
"They had a massive run on the medical system. They were overwhelmed. There was truly despair among medical professionals by the end of January, because they were extremely overworked and they were also enormously discouraged by the high number of deaths that were occurring with a disease they had not treated previously," he added.
Hubei, which lags far behind Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese administrative divisions in terms of GDP per capita, was the first region to confront a virus that would go on to confound many of the world's most powerful countries.
Schaffner, from Vanderbilt University, said many of the comments in the documents might have been made in the US, "where, over the past 15 to 20 years, at particularly the state and the local level, public health funding has become constrained."
The documents show health care officials had no comprehension as to the magnitude of the impending disaster.
[...] Tuesday marks exactly 12 months since the first patient in Wuhan started showing symptoms, according to the Lancet study.
Lastly, there are likely to be strong feelings about the situation; I strongly encourage folk to try and keep things civil. Let one's anger be directed at the disease; not at fellow Soylentils. We are all struggling to various degrees to make sense of these highly disturbed circumstances. Please wear a mask, maintain physical distancing, and maintain proper hand washing practices. I can attest these practices help; I live in a state with one of the lowest rates of infection and death in the US. Even with that, I have a friend who was hospitalized for a couple weeks with COVID-19 and of a couple more acquaintances who have lost loved ones to this pandemic. There are the occasional exceptions, and I know people are growing tired and just want things to go back to normal. It is all the more important to do what we can to reduce the spread of this disease. --martyb
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday December 04 2020, @06:52PM (5 children)
First off, we don't know China withheld information. The leak tells us officials in Wuhan were withholding information from the Chinese government.
Secondly, I don't know Chinese nor do I know any Chinese officials so how should I know what were their concerns? Maybe they classify large scale public health issues by default as a response to possible biological warfare... Maybe they were worried about the markets during a trade war... Maybe they just didn't get how bit it was and going to be... Point is, they made a decision and from the leak CNN couldn't find anything unusual about the decision making process.
Maybe. But not in this case as far as the CNN people are concerned. ergo case-by-case...
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 05 2020, @03:08AM (4 children)
Doesn't look like that to me, particularly when one considers the lack of penalty for the alleged withholding.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday December 05 2020, @03:01PM (3 children)
Dake Kang covered a different angle [apnews.com] for AP that hints why that might be the case. His twitter feed [twitter.com] has a discussion [twitter.com] where he brings up some points and the time line and mentions why there's enough uncertainty about the early days that he himself can't say the central government's officials were informed. And that's the same guy that wrote this [apnews.com] so I'm pretty sure he's no party spokesman.
Regardless, my only point is that CNN weren't being "inherently self-contradictory" and I think I've explained why. As for the actual story, I don't know. I don't speak Chinese nor do I follow up on the issue.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 06 2020, @05:28PM (2 children)
I see this a lot in governments all over the world (not something unique to China for those thinking about a little Whataboutism). You can tell how sanctioned a misdeed is by how they deal with the culprits. For another example, Saudi Arabia sentenced five [soylentnews.org] to death in the assassination of journalist Kamal Khashoggi. At first, that sounded pretty serious (as I noted in my journal at the link). Now the five are sentenced to 20 years due to an alleged appeal [bbc.com] from the family of Khashoggi for leniency.
Maybe they'll serve that latter sentence, maybe not, but they're getting treated a lot better than anyone else would be, given the circumstances of the murder. That indicates that the murder of Khashoggi was sanctioned by someone in authority (which I doubt surprises anyone, this just is more supporting evidence of that).
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday December 07 2020, @04:50PM (1 child)
Too many officials were involved for it to remain a secret. A more likely conspiracy would be one following Hanlon's razor where the officials fucked up not reporting sooner to protect personal business interests and when the shit hit the fan they worked their party ties to protect themselves from prosecution.
Regardless, for CNN there's no evidence to conclude either way so they have to do the responsible thing and say as much.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 07 2020, @06:41PM
I think Hanlon's razor cuts a different way here. Whistleblowing isn't a thing in China. It would be reasonable to expect the secret to remain secret. And connections and personal business interests don't matter when the central authority is embarrassed. Someone takes the fall. They wouldn't crucify everyone involved, but enough to make an example.
My take is that the central government was in on the loop from somewhere near the beginning. The appearance of lack of full control combined with mass panic would be a threat.