Corona Virus

[Kopfkino]

Hi @leicsmac, did that job offer come from someone that goes by the name of Mr Xi?

 

We're supposed to just believe at some point a switch was flicked and they suddenly decided to start being honest halfway through the problem

[st albans fox]

22 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

 

'The CCP have consistently lied and deceived but I believe them now'.

 

Why on earth would you have any confidence in what they say? That should've been eroded over the last 10 years of half-truths and inconsistencies. Any figures coming out of China about infection, death, or recovery should be approached with a healthy cloak of distrust. The CCP will say whatever they can to ensure the communist regime is not destablised.

It may be a controlled environment but if there were ongoing CV cases out of control then it would be known by the general population. The people of Wuhan/Hubei  knew it was worse than the govt was saying but only the state has access to the actual stats.  Now they have come out of this, they know about local isolated outbreaks - word spreads like wildfire.  I wasn’t prepared to accept their numbers through jan and into feb but I am now ......... I can’t see why I’m unable to apply my own assessment ref what information I get from inside the country ......

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, yorkie1999 said:

It'll only do that if a person who survives the virus is still contagious for a period after they've recovered, it can't live forever without hosts.

Oh indeed, but if people can become infected a second time (Even worse if they are then asymptomatic), but still carry and can therefore transmit the virus, we risk a rather dangerous game of blind mans bluff

[foxile5]

5 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

It may be a controlled environment but if there were ongoing CV cases out of control then it would be known by the general population. The people of Wuhan/Hubei  knew it was worse than the govt was saying but only the state has access to the actual stats.  Now they have come out of this, they know about local isolated outbreaks - word spreads like wildfire.  I wasn’t prepared to accept their numbers through jan and into feb but I am now ......... I can’t see why I’m unable to apply my own assessment ref what information I get from inside the country ......

Aye. Fair enough - I do not think that all is as rosy as they'd like you to think, however.

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

Hi @leicsmac, did that job offer come from someone that goes by the name of Mr Xi?

 

We're supposed to just believe at some point a switch was flicked and they suddenly decided to start being honest halfway through the problem

Hahaha, I wish - it would be better paying than what I've got now, no doubt.

 

That being said, allow me to clarify I don't think it is in the long or even short-term interest of any government - not the Chinese, not Trump, not Bolsanaro, not Boris, not anyone - to lie about the scale of infection in their particular countries because there is simply no way such a lie leads to anything other than increased body count and thus increased economic, social and thus governmental pressure on them. Even ruthless authoritarians for whom self-interest and maintaining power is the guiding star are aware of that.

 

Of course, such folks may be lying about it anyway having not thought it through but if they are it's illogical and a long-term mistake I wouldn't expect power-mongers to make, to be honest. You'd think capable and ruthless leaders would be able to think this through to that logical conclusion.

[Milo]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Hahaha, I wish - it would be better paying than what I've got now, no doubt.

 

That being said, allow me to clarify I don't think it is in the long or even short-term interest of any government - not the Chinese, not Trump, not Bolsanaro, not Boris, not anyone - to lie about the scale of infection in their particular countries because there is simply no way such a lie leads to anything other than increased body count and thus increased economic, social and thus governmental pressure on them. Even ruthless authoritarians for whom self-interest and maintaining power is the guiding star are aware of that.

 

Of course, such folks may be lying about it anyway having not thought it through but if they are it's illogical and a long-term mistake I wouldn't expect power-mongers to make, to be honest. You'd think capable and ruthless leaders would be able to think this through to that logical conclusion.

And there's your answer, unfortunately  

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, Milo said:

And there's your answer, unfortunately  

 

Well, the Chinese leadership have a lot more experience at being bastards in charge than he does - so I'm thinking they're better at knowing when to lie.

[l444ry]

1 hour ago, messerschmitt said:

When it all started it was the "common market" that we signed up to, It somehow became a European super state that wants an army. The common market was the best and original idea. What the idea migrated to may well be it's ultimate undoing.

Just to make a friendly point and at the risk of reopening a whole new argument, the European Project was never limiting itself to just a *common market*. Although repeated continuously these days by Brexiters, it is a rewriting of history. 

[yorkie1999]

1 hour ago, Finnaldo said:

 

It’s not far from mine either to be honest.

 

It’s position as a political union just creates friction and it’s completely inconsistent. It’s treatment of Greece & Italy shows that as well as it’s radio silence Guardia Civil bashing in Catalonian grandma’s heads.  
 

It would be closer and more harmonious as a trade bloc. It would allow political issues to be resolved a lot easier as you don’t have countries trying to play chess with the commission and European Parliament.  

This is true but, the US have satellites flying over the place that can read a newspaper, i posted before of their claims of a handfull of people dying in bejing and shanghai, they're not going to be able to spirit away tens of thousands of bodies without someone knowing.

[Xen]

50 minutes ago, Desabafar said:

i've been reading about antibody dependent enhancement. that's a scary possibility, where the antibodies in your body from vaccine or surviving the infection can help the virus do more damage to organs if it gets into the body again 

That sounds suspiciously like something that the Anti-Vaxxer movement would claim... In other words, pay it no mind. 

[pazzerfox]

Anyone have a view on conspiracy theories of this epidemic?  Came across this yesterday.

 

 

[Heathrow fox]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

I hope it goes back to just being a trading bloc, hopefully with us involved, hopefully still with as much freedom of movement as possible. Unfortunately I think it may try to use this situation to go for deeper union, citing 'more Europe' as the solution to the crisis. 

Good luck with the as much FOM as possible bit.Really wouldn’t fancy selling that one in the coming years.

[bovril]

Just now, Heathrow fox said:

Good luck with the as much FOM as possible bit.Really wouldn’t fancy selling that one in the coming years.

I am sure over 50% of people in the UK still want to be able to travel and work in Europe easily. If things get bad here, we may see more British workers moving to mainland European countries as we have done before. Also we will need to be able to bring in foreign workers as easily as possible. 

The spread of corona wasn't caused by free movement of labour in the EU. We have seen that European nations are sovereign when it comes to controlling their borders, they just took their eyes off the ball. And apparently a lot of cases were spread by people skiing in North Italy or attending football matches, it wasn't Romanian fruit pickers that were taking it across borders. You could I suppose blame the Schengen agreement to a certain extent but we're not in that anyway. 

[Kopfkino]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

Hahaha, I wish - it would be better paying than what I've got now, no doubt.

 

That being said, allow me to clarify I don't think it is in the long or even short-term interest of any government - not the Chinese, not Trump, not Bolsanaro, not Boris, not anyone - to lie about the scale of infection in their particular countries because there is simply no way such a lie leads to anything other than increased body count and thus increased economic, social and thus governmental pressure on them. Even ruthless authoritarians for whom self-interest and maintaining power is the guiding star are aware of that.

 

Of course, such folks may be lying about it anyway having not thought it through but if they are it's illogical and a long-term mistake I wouldn't expect power-mongers to make, to be honest. You'd think capable and ruthless leaders would be able to think this through to that logical conclusion.

 

But we know that they lied quite significantly early on, we know that China has a history of lies and half-baked truths, and we know they're trying to spread misinformation still and have expelled foreign journalists. Yet I am supposed to believe that, at some point, they decided to just be honest about some things because that might be logical, as if politicians always tend towards doing what's apparently logical. As if a regime in control of people with some of the lowest level of freedom on the planet, that can send round the boys to sort anyone out not toeing the right line and has already done that with doctors and journalists speaking out about the virus early, just thought decided at the start of February to start being honest. It would have been logical to not to lift restrictions on wet markets post SARS but that's not what happened.

 

Problem is here, you quickly leapt to China's defence suggesting they had seemingly learnt from SARS when it turns out they probably half-learned from SARS at best, compared to say Taiwan, Singapore and SK. Add that to the fact you've equated criticism of China to excusing domestic governments anytime someone mentions China's role in this misery. It's puzzling to me that you're quite keen to defend China even beyond playing devil's advocate.

 

I mean tbh, by extension you must believe Iran to be honest. That would, of course, be ludicrous and that's a far more fragile regime.

[EastAnglianFox]

390 today 

 

I guess the number was likely to be a shocker given the new outside of hospital deaths being released

[st albans fox]

1 minute ago, EastAnglianFox said:

390 today 

 

I guess the number was likely to be a shocker given the new outside of hospital deaths being released

I read that the number outside hospital was only around 40 up to 20th March.  Without some detail it’s hard to know where the data is leading us ........

[st albans fox]

6 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

But we know that they lied quite significantly early on, we know that China has a history of lies and half-baked truths, and we know they're trying to spread misinformation still and have expelled foreign journalists. Yet I am supposed to believe that, at some point, they decided to just be honest about some things because that might be logical, as if politicians always tend towards doing what's apparently logical. As if a regime in control of people with some of the lowest level of freedom on the planet, that can send round the boys to sort anyone out not toeing the right line and has already done that with doctors and journalists speaking out about the virus early, just thought decided at the start of February to start being honest. It would have been logical to not to lift restrictions on wet markets post SARS but that's not what happened.

 

Problem is here, you quickly leapt to China's defence suggesting they had seemingly learnt from SARS when it turns out they probably half-learned from SARS at best, compared to say Taiwan, Singapore and SK. Add that to the fact you've equated criticism of China to excusing domestic governments anytime someone mentions China's role in this misery. It's puzzling to me that you're quite keen to defend China even beyond playing devil's advocate.

 

I mean tbh, by extension you must believe Iran to be honest. That would, of course, be ludicrous and that's a far more fragile regime.

The Chinese are not stupid. They will lie to their population as long as they can get away with it ....... the population will take the lies if they think it’s for the greater good.  but eventually they expect the truth in the ‘here and now’.  They will allow the nonsense of 3000 deaths to remain because they see no point in having a navel gazing exercise to reveal the true numbers - they know it’s huge and don’t want to know the true horror.  And now that the Chinese authorities realise that their lies have led western countries to make mistakes in planning which have led to extra thousands of lives being lost, they won’t reveal the truth. 

[Facecloth]

7 minutes ago, EastAnglianFox said:

390 today 

 

I guess the number was likely to be a shocker given the new outside of hospital deaths being released

As I said yesterday, the number of deaths is hard to use a marker. It's down to who gets it, the severity that person suffers it etc. When the number of case start coming down that will be the marker we can judge the progress on. Unfortunately the death toll is largely out of our control and is down to many factors. There could be no deaths tomorrow, but it wouldn't be good news of 10,000 new cases were recorded. 

[Guest Markyblue]

7 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I read that the number outside hospital was only around 40 up to 20th March.  Without some detail it’s hard to know where the data is leading us ........

That 40 would have shot up significantly in the last week and a half.

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

But we know that they lied quite significantly early on, we know that China has a history of lies and half-baked truths, and we know they're trying to spread misinformation still and have expelled foreign journalists. Yet I am supposed to believe that, at some point, they decided to just be honest about some things because that might be logical, as if politicians always tend towards doing what's apparently logical. As if a regime in control of people with some of the lowest level of freedom on the planet, that can send round the boys to sort anyone out not toeing the right line and has already done that with doctors and journalists speaking out about the virus early, just thought decided at the start of February to start being honest. It would have been logical to not to lift restrictions on wet markets post SARS but that's not what happened.

 

Problem is here, you quickly leapt to China's defence suggesting they had seemingly learnt from SARS when it turns out they probably half-learned from SARS at best, compared to say Taiwan, Singapore and SK. Add that to the fact you've equated criticism of China to excusing domestic governments anytime someone mentions China's role in this misery. It's puzzling to me that you're quite keen to defend China even beyond playing devil's advocate.

 

I mean tbh, by extension you must believe Iran to be honest. That would, of course, be ludicrous and that's a far more fragile regime.

They could well be being illogical and "panicking" (not sure of the word use there but not sure of a better one) and be lying about it, it's perfectly plausible. What I don't think is that it is a certainty in the way that has been displayed here (opinion being stated as fact on something like this pisses me off, frankly) and that doesn't change that it's a poor political move overall IMO.

 

And yeah, when I see comments criticising China with nary a mention of what other governments have or haven't done that has resulted in the spread of this virus in their own countries, in the absence of conflicting information I am going to infer that commenter doesn't think the latter worthy of discussion and as such unimportant. Qualifying one's remarks is a good thing to do.

 

Yes, China should take the lion's share of the blame for this situation starting off and building into the firestorm it has become. But they're hardly the only guilty party in this matter and I will continue to point that out when people ignore it.

[StanSP]

 

 

 

[Blarmy]

1 hour ago, pazzerfox said:

Anyone have a view on conspiracy theories of this epidemic?  Came across this yesterday.

 

 

You need to ignore everything that man says. 

[Heathrow fox]

38 minutes ago, bovril said:

I am sure over 50% of people in the UK still want to be able to travel and work in Europe easily. If things get bad here, we may see more British workers moving to mainland European countries as we have done before. Also we will need to be able to bring in foreign workers as easily as possible. 

The spread of corona wasn't caused by free movement of labour in the EU. We have seen that European nations are sovereign when it comes to controlling their borders, they just took their eyes off the ball. And apparently a lot of cases were spread by people skiing in North Italy or attending football matches, it wasn't Romanian fruit pickers that were taking it across borders. You could I suppose blame the Schengen agreement to a certain extent but we're not in that anyway. 

Of course FOM can’t be blamed for the spread of corona virus.Im talking about the potential rise in unemployment.It will affect the whole continent all at the same time.We could be on the verge of a depression here.Or at the very least a severe recession lasting who knows how long.You can just about get away with high no’s of economic migration when things are artificially doing fine.A 20% unemployment rate though,now the sh:ts hit the fan.Well good luck with that one.I still can’t understand how people who claim to be left leaning,think nothing of contributing to the brain drain of some of our less well off European neighbours.This will only continue.

[yorkie1999]

2 minutes ago, Blarmy said:

You need to ignore everything that man says. 

Apart from when he talks about Leicester winning the league was divine intervention. 

[HankMarvin]

2 hours ago, foxile5 said:

Aye. Fair enough - I do not think that all is as rosy as they'd like you to think, however

 

Interesting read here

 

 

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/business/media/coronavirus-china-journalists.amp.html