
Chinese scientists destroyed proof of virus in December? - zeveb
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-scientists-destroyed-proof-of-virus-in-december-rz055qjnj
======
dang
All: please do not post nationalistic or ideological flamewar comments to HN.
Commenters doing this have ruined this thread, and more of it would ruin the
site. We won't let that happen, a.k.a. we ban accounts that do this, so please
stop now and don't start again.

If you want to bash each other's countries, tribes, parties, and ideologies,
there are other places on the internet. This place is for curious, thoughtful
conversation. That's what the majority of the community comes here for, and HN
being a public forum does not entitle you to wreck it for them. The commons is
delicate. Posting is a privilege. Using this place as a battlefield will lose
you that privilege. Normally we'd bury any thread this wretched, but I'm
leaving this one up in the hope that people will learn from the examples
below.

Viruses are not the only thing that's spreading right now. If you're
commenting here, you are responsible for containing your share of the stress,
fear, and rage of the moment, and finding capacity for curiosity in
yourself—which includes respect for other commenters. If you can't do that,
that's understandable and fine, but then please self-isolate until you can.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
ausjke
from your username I wonder are you on the Chinese side as well? I understand
HN needs to do business with China, which it tried a while ago and failed.

If github can be used as a discussion platform it will be nice, as so far CCP
dares not to close github.com, as it will impact its software industry badly.

~~~
dang
I'm on the side of this community, whose values are expressed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Among other things, that includes no nationalistic attacks. Or personal
attacks.

~~~
knolax
> from your username I wonder are you on the Chinese side as well?

Are you not going to address the racist dog-whistle? You work in San Francisco
where many of your fellow Americans actually do have last names like Dang.
Maybe you should consider the harm this type of rhetoric does to them when you
ignore it.

~~~
tptacek
His name is Dan G.

~~~
knolax
I'm aware, I'm saying there are others who don't have the convenience of
saying "actually I'm white" when they get accused of being fifth columnists
simply on the basis of their names. Because of that, maybe the mods should
actually call out this type rhetoric instead of ignoring it like dang has.

~~~
dang
The idea of saying "I'm not Chinese" as if it were a sort of defense is
repulsive. If someone assumes that about me as part of attacking or slurring
Chinese people, I am honored. The fact that the post was downvoted, flagged,
and stupid is signal enough that the comment was unacceptable.

Users who are concerned about HN moderation practices around racial (including
anti-Chinese) attacks on HN, and personal attacks on HN, won't have a hard
time finding examples. Needless to say, this has nothing specifically to do
with China or Chinese people. It would be the same for any national or ethnic
background.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20chin&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20slur&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20personal%20attack&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
jmkd
Paywall-free [http://archive.md/xOKiu](http://archive.md/xOKiu)

~~~
holyavengerone
Dead link :(

~~~
exikyut
It works for me. How's it failing on your end?

~~~
kgc
DNS resolution error. Seems blocked at DNS level.

~~~
doomjunky
[https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-
blocked/](https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/)

------
Leary
Here's the real article:

[https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-
signs-...](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-of-the-
coronavirus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-in-china)

~~~
dang
Normally we'd at least consider swapping the URL, but given how awfully this
thread went, that would be too much loss of context.

------
lighttower
The narrative in China right now is finding ways of externalizing the problem.
One narrative either pushed intentionally or by fake news sources are blaming
American soldiers that were in Wuhan for a military fitness competition. While
it sounds crazy it's widely believed. The source works for government in
Guangzhou.

~~~
throwaway5752
Obviously there is no room for a constructive discussion on this. Edited to
remove my post.

~~~
whatshisface
I'm not sure about "Chinese Virus" but including Wuhan, the place of origin,
in the systematic name is standard practice for naming viral strains.

~~~
ceejayoz
The WHO named it COVID-19 specifically to change that fact, as it leads to
things like Asian-Americans being beat up despite having nothing to do with
the virus.

~~~
2a0c40
COVID-19 is the disease. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus.

~~~
ceejayoz
COVID-19 is the term media, the CDC, etc. are using to discuss it. Being
pedantic about it doesn't impress anyone.

For example,
[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html)
says "Coronavirus (COVID-19)". So does
[https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
coronavirus-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
coronavirus-2019).

The point: WHO has moved away from geolocated names.
[https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-
deadl...](https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-deadly-
disease-is-covid-19/)

------
auiya
Is it possible the researchers handling this virus at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology simply screwed up and the release was accidental? That seems like the
most plausible explanation to me, and especially given the institute's
proximity to the seafood market on which the Chinese officials blamed the
outbreak. I think it's pretty plain to see the story we've all been fed about
the seafood market was a deflection attempt. The Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS) in Wuhan has been working with bats and the various viruses they carry
for many years... well before the BSL4 lab opened even.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030870#](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030870#)

~~~
paulmd
The suppression of researchers who sounded the alarm and forcing all the
hospitals to return their samples certainly makes sense if you consider it as
a "guilty reaction", after something they weren't supposed to be doing got
loose. Or the government considers it embarrassing that the handlers were
incompetent and this got loose.

It could also just be the reaction of a government who is trying to downplay
the virus and retain control of the narrative, however.

Sequencing shows it's 96% similar to a wild strain of coronaviruses that has
been previously studied in bats though, which argues against it being
_engineered_.

~~~
auiya
Yeah I agree, it's likely not an engineered virus at all. It was likely
incompetence on the part of the handlers, and a subsequent cover up to try and
reduce/deflect culpability.

~~~
souprock
Those are not opposites. An engineered virus can escape via incompetence. A
non-engineered virus can be intentionally released.

We can't prove that the virus was or was not engineered unless somebody finds
a copyright message in the RNA. We do however know that the Wuhan lab had
engineered similar viruses, slightly modifying bat coronaviruses so that they
would be much more active against human cell lines.

------
dathinab
One think which should not be forgotten when interpreting this article is,
that while Chine is often displayed as this large united country. The
different regions in China still have quite a bit of independent governance,
all below the central governance but not always acting in the best wiches of
it. So you should not conclude "china tried to hide it" but a "sub-goverment
in china tried to hide it even _even from china central government". Maybe
even mainly from china central government.

But what makes me worried is how china tends to always shift blame of their
mess-ups on western countries and tends to display them (especial the USA) as
that "evil" states which constantly wants to harm them. This, weather
intentionally or accidentally, is setting the ground work for a far reaching
economical and military escalation: I.e. for a war with strong racist
tendencies. This can long term be far more dangerous then the SARS-Cov-2 virus
or climate change as it could me a fully escalated third world war.

EDIT: Be aware that some other comments imply that the context is quite
different then show in the article and china might have acted very
responsible.

------
yibg
It’s concerning how polarized any thread about China becomes. Normally
rational calm people expressing extreme views (eg punishing innocent family
members as deterrent). I wasn’t old enough at the time but I imagine this is
what thing felt like during the Cold War.

Why must we always have a foreign enemy? Be it soviets, muslims, mexicans or
now China.

~~~
ailideex
> Why must we always have a foreign enemy? Be it soviets, muslims, mexicans or
> now China.

I don't know? Why must "we"? Can't China just get it's shit in order? Is it
too much to ask for?

~~~
kjaftaedi
This isn't a China problem.

Nearly all government leaders' first reaction is try to downplay disasters..
after all they are politicians, not science experts.

Did you not watch Chernobyl? It's literally the same plot.

Even in this particular case, the Chinese govt. wasn't the only one trying to
downplay this. The US government did the exact same thing even after China had
already come to its senses.

~~~
ailideex
> Nearly all government leaders' first reaction is try to downplay disasters..
> after all they are politicians, not science experts.

There is a difference between the capacity of US and EU to suppress
information and the capacity of authoritarian Chinese State to do this. The
media in US and EU does not take direction from the Government.

> The US government did the exact same thing even after China had already come
> to its senses.

Did the US govt allow wet markets with live wild animals to operate in China
for the political gain of Xi Jinping and China? Did the US govt downplaying
this change the reporting of the media? Did the US order samples destroyed and
ordered laboratories to not release information? No?

Stop running cover for Xi Jinping.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for abusing HN with flamewar comments.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and
give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
logfromblammo
Given the properties of the virus--droplet aerosol borne, long incubation
period, asymptomatic contagion, high infection rate, many asymptomatic
carriers--I don't think there is any reasonable (or unreasonable) government
policy that would have kept it from becoming a global pandemic.

Better containment would have given countries some extra time to bring any
mothballed reserve healthcare capacity to ready status, but I think this was
essentially unpreventable. Absent any evidence of actual intent to spread a
virulent disease worldwide, other countries don't really have any grounds to
be angry at China, just for having 1/5 of all possible first-infected people,
and getting the unlucky draw this time.

This one likely came from one bat contacting one human in Wuhan. The next one
could come from Chennai, or Kinshasa, or Lagos, or London, or Dubai, or
Chicago--any place that has humans living in it. Unfortunately, scapegoat
culture exists worldwide. Bad news historically has had an abysmal track
record with respect to retaliation against messengers, whistle-blowers, and
bystanders. As long as someone can get punished for a disaster happening on
their watch, the containable screw-ups will continue to be covered up. If the
cover-up fails, the person organizing it probably would have been punished
anyway.

Did someone in China attempt a cover-up? Maybe. Is that all of China's fault,
as a nation? Only insofar as China's government, like many other governments
with worldwide political influence, has a secrecy culture within it that
punishes uncontrolled release of information that is damaging, or even just
embarrassing, to the state.

Let's throw this revelation onto the pile for the post-mortem analysis, after
the pandemic threat has lessened, to learn a lesson from it. That will likely
take the form of a UN resolution, that will probably be vetoed. None of the
major powers will want to reduce their ability to crack down on leakers and
whistle-blowers. There is no solution I can formulate now that is compatible
with large nationalistic governments existing on this planet.

~~~
loyukfai
>This one likely came from one bat contacting one human in Wuhan.

AFAIK, most researchers believe that there is an intermediate between the
virus-carrying bat and patient zero.

Also, this is not the first time the wild animal market is suspected being the
place the crossover happened. This one sounds strikingly similar to the 2003
SARS.

>Did someone in China attempt a cover-up? Maybe. Is that all of China's fault,
as a nation? Only insofar as China's government, like many other governments
with worldwide political influence, has a secrecy culture within it that
punishes uncontrolled release of information that is damaging, or even just
embarrassing, to the state.

In western societies, there is the concept of free press, which may alleviate
this issue.

Cheers.

~~~
logfromblammo
Freedom of the press prevents punishment for open publication of facts, but it
does nothing to protect the sources for those journalists. For all the lip
service given to whistle-blower protections, the whistle-blowers get punished
anyway. Every time. It is _always_ career-suicide.

~~~
loyukfai
Sad but true.

Individually, sacrifices or delayed justice are common.

As a community and society, let's hope they pay off in the long run.

Cheers.

------
alloai
I just searched the version in Chinese. This is the google translated version
:

"“” When the severity of the virus is unknown, many companies have been
commissioned by different hospitals to perform sequencing. After the National
Centers for Disease Control received the report, they ordered all units
without safety qualifications to destroy all virus samples. Less than two
weeks later, the full virus sequencing results were made available to the
world. "“”

I found that it's deplorable that so many white politicians and media
practitioners lack professionalism and wisdom that caused so much severe
spread around the world. Look at South Korean, it should be served as manual
for pandemic crisis resolutions.

~~~
robocat
> Look at South Korea

No: look at Taiwan. They started acting _immediately_ on the 29th of December
and escalated very early January.

Did Taiwan have information that other countries did not? Or why did they act
so quickly when other countries did not?

~~~
sfj
They got burned by SARS

------
Out_of_Characte
I'm apalled by moderators banning people in this thread for "nationalistic
attacks" I get the rules and values on HN but if China's inability to stop
this virus is literally the worst thing to happen to this world since the
SPANISH INFLUENCA then why can't I just call it like it is? criticising my own
governement is done on a daily basis but is it now off limits to say that the
CCP is the worst governing body I have seen in a country to date?

I hope the CCP gets what it deserves.

~~~
muyuu
The only thing that the Spanish did with the influenza was to study it first,
because countries involved in the conflict wouldn't reveal they were hit by an
epidemic.

------
wwarner
I'd be much more interested in what credible Chinese sources know about the
disease and its epidemiology. Much of the reporting on the Chinese response
has been overtly xenophobic and added to the confusion at just the moment we
needed more clarity.

~~~
ng12
It's hard to feel bad for a country that jails doctors for telling their
colleagues about a new viral contagion.

~~~
billfruit
He was neither arrested nor jailed. Speaks the amount of misinformation going
around.

------
billfruit
China reported the disease to WHO on 31 Dec 2019. The article is short on
first hand information and long on speculation. I think articles like this are
only going to add to confusion and misinformation.

~~~
muyuu
Extremely late. Already discovered by Chinese doctors in November, and they
were silenced by the government.

~~~
billfruit
It was isolated first on Dec 27th or thereabouts. Later retroactive
investigation determined that some cases in late November was infact the same
virus.

~~~
muyuu
That is assuming that the information in this article is incorrect. Could have
been identified earlier and the information censored.

The implication is that there was enough time for this to be the case. There
are 1.5 months between the time estimations for patient zero and the
publishing to WHO.

Their attitude afterwards is consistent with an intent to control the
narrative and opacity, beyond public health interest.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-
china-51364382](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51364382)

~~~
billfruit
Willful or malicious suppression is only a theory as of now, with hardly any
indication to back it up. This kind of insinuations stemming from a vacuous
sense of moral superiority isn't helping us tide over this crisis.

That one perceives something to be apparently consistent with any particular
world view does not make that worldview the correct one.

I doubt anyone can talk with moral certitude in such matter, when the
discussion has devolved into unreasonable degree of polarization and
hostility.

All I can say is that, this isn't the time for another cold war.

~~~
muyuu
It's a theory both ways. You are choosing to believe they are wrong in that
assumption.

------
ceedan
China's monthly infectious disease report numbers had 1.71m cases of
infectious disease in December 2019, compared to only like ~700k in December
2018. Interestingly the number of deaths from infectious disease declined in
December 2019 vs 2018...

~~~
ajross
Cite for that? While the PRC trying to suppress evidence of an outbreak is
totally plausible, a 1M undercount of COVID-19 cases _in one month_ just
doesn't match the data on the ground. Something like that would have run
rampant across asia by now. Where are they hiding all the bodies?

Sorry, but this sounds like a mixed up fact, or a conspiracy rumor.

~~~
ceedan
Dec 2017 - 700k -
[http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136933793.htm](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136933793.htm)

Dec 2018 - 712k -
[http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/27/c_137778435.htm](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/27/c_137778435.htm)

Dec 2019 - 1.71m -
[http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/01/c_138748020.htm](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/01/c_138748020.htm)

------
genzoman
There needs to be a great deal of introspection in the coming months. About
what cultural practices are allowed to continue, and which are not. We need to
have solutions for people that rely on dangerous ways of securing food an
alternate method that's safer for everyone. We need to look closely at
resource utilization and ask ourselves if we need to spend X amount of
space/water for Y product, just because previously we have done so. We need to
consume less, travel less, be more responsible.

------
jacksnipe
Does anybody seriously believe that the US would have done a better job
controlling the outbreak? Just look at how we did handle it when it made it
over here!

------
exdsq
Meta: I have to say some of these comments aren’t deserving of a ban... Mods
should relook at this thread when the smoke clears and reassess. It’s a heated
topic.

~~~
aww_dang
I've found that it is basically impossible to have a conversation about China
here.

~~~
exdsq
Have you named your account after the moderator who was banning everyone or
just a coincidence? The account is old enough that it can't be from yesterdays
ban-fest like I first thought :P

But yeah, I agree. It's an issue with having an international site and so much
fake news/worry - people are heared and take things way too personally to have
a decent discussion. Although if you think it's bad here, don't check out
r/china_flu!

~~~
aww_dang
Let's just say that this isn't my first rodeo. r/Sino is another one. Anyways
I'm glad to know not everyone has gone fully hysterical.

Back to your original point, I think we should be capable of handling
disagreements as adults. Banishment of mentioning things that offend others,
idk where that ends.

------
inscionent
Where is the proof? The Times claims reporting by Caixin Global. I see no
stories by Caixin that confirm this.

~~~
ebg13
Do you mean this one? [https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-
early-s...](https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-signs-
of-a-sars-like-virus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-101521745.html)

~~~
inscionent
Thanks. Heaven forbid the times from cross linking to references.

------
11thEarlOfMar
If all nations sequence the genes from their Corona virus patients, and the
mapping points all cases back to China[0], China can do the same internally
(if they haven't yet) and trace all the way back to patient 0.

Will that happen?

[0] [https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-
os/biomedical/devices/ge...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-
os/biomedical/devices/genetic-sequencing-and-online-software-tools-track-
caronaviruss-path)

~~~
qtplatypus
Is there any benefit to tracing back to patient 0? I though that was just a
movie thing.

------
gentleman11
Lousy privacy policy on that site. Is there a better link?

~~~
neonate
[https://archive.md/xOKiu](https://archive.md/xOKiu)

------
bookofjoe
[https://archive.md/xOKiu](https://archive.md/xOKiu)

------
infinity0
To be fair, western authorities had an even longer amount of time before the
virus spread to their countries, and are doing about as well or slightly worse
than the Chinese authorities did even given this initial suppression.

~~~
gvjddbnvdrbv
We are doing far worse.

~~~
spookthesunset
In what way? You do realize that taking dramatic measures “just to be safe”
has severe consequences of its own right? Our supply chain will break down.
People will kill them selves from this lockdown. Addicts will relapse. People
will fall into depression. Nothing good.

It is a very tight space to thread the needle—- overreact and do massive
damage to our economy and physical and mental health. Too little and we
overwhelm our medical system and more people die from the virus needlessly.

It is very delicate balance. Add in 27/7 media of all forms plus intense
political pressure to “do something!!!! “ and here we are.

I don’t envy anybody in my regional government having to make this call.

Ps: people downvoting this and other comments like it make my point. It is
currently not okay to question our current actions. There is massive social
and political pressure to move toward heavy handed measures... we should be
allowed to be critical or question things. Groupthink is not a good thing.

~~~
jfkebwjsbx
So now it is groupthink? Curious. I was being downvoted to hell a month ago
when I was telling people we should enable measures.

You can definitely do things like:

    
    
      • stop all tourist and non-essential travel, giving airlines the option to freeze their accounts
      • enable work from home for all public employees
      • force private companies to do so too for jobs that can be
      • close all educational institutions and let them give lessons remotely if they want
      • ban non-work related gatherings
      • ramp up production of masks and other basic stuff
      • ban people from buying too much of 1 given item per day
    

for even 1 year if necessary, without destroying the economy.

That alone would have flattened the curve so much it is not even funny.

~~~
spookthesunset
You cannot do half those things for a year without radically changing our
economy.

Just as an example, saying “no tourist travel” itself would destroy a ton of
regions who depend on tourism.

It is easy to armchair quarterback how you’d deal with something like this.
Especially when you can wave away “trivialities“ like “ban all non work
related gatherings for a year”. LOL. Good luck with that.

Your cure is worse than the virus my friend.

~~~
jfkebwjsbx
Of course the economy would suffer a lot, but comparing it to having a
pandemic with a million deaths and breaking the already stretched health
system... it is a win.

------
boplicity
Remember Li Wenliang. We warned his fellow doctors about the situation, in
December. The police punished him for this.

He later died of the disease.

We are all suffering because an authoritarian government suppressed the good
intentions of its citizens.

The Chinese Government is squarely to blame for this situation. Could it have
been prevented if they had acted responsibly? I don't know – but there is a
strong chance that the answer is yes. We'll never know, however, because that
is not the path they took.

~~~
vesinisa
OTOH the same authoritarian government quarantined a city the size of New York
and built field hospitals for thousands of people on very short notice when
the situation truly got out of hand.

~~~
madengr
Killed 20 million too in the great revolution.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. Also, would you
please stop posting unsubstantive comments generally? We unbanned you awhile
ago because your comments had improved, but they've backslidden.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
qbaqbaqba
Clickbait title?

------
spectramax
Liberal societies around the world are afraid of making strong statements and
criticism of the way China handled this outbreak. The CCP is separate from the
Chinese people and it has created an aura of defiance, callous behavior and
intolerance for truth that collides with their image. When someone says "Fuck
the CCP", it should not be met with liberal racist card - this is not racism,
but criticism of the goverment and IMO the CCP needs to be criticized,
dismantled and revolted against by the Chinese themselves. This is starting to
happen but on a very small scale after the Coronavirus mishandling. It is very
much productive to play the "blame game" because ultimately, we want the
Chinese government to shutdown these wet markets, allow free speech of their
citizens.

~~~
dathinab
Uhm, the CCP in how it acts wrt. indoctrination is acting quite racistic them
self (doesn't matter that that might be by accident). So criticizing or even
denouncing it can't really be called acting racistic.

Well except if it's _obvious that you act that way because of racistic ideas
instead of criticism_ . Which might very well be the case for some people.

So if given out of context the sentence might be racistic or might not be
racistic. Also depending on your culture it might be just a sign of strong
annoyance and just that. Or a very strong insult.

Because of this, it's not really appropriate to say it either way as it seen
as a insult in more cultures then ones at which it's just seen as a expression
of annoyance/dislike.

There are many other, better and more appropriate ways to criticize them. Like
pointing out that they act racistic themself, like it did above.

Also the initial bad response mainly comes from problems with local governance
not the CCP. While the CCP controls the local goverment tightly it's also an
open secet that the local government often actes in their interest first and
only then in the interest of the whole country, especially if they believe
they can get away with it. In the end the country is just to big with to many
people to be efficiently governed. Maybe in the future with the help of more
technology but not now. Through they are trying their best.

Also lets be honest. Just consider how it would have went if that virus would
have sourced in the USA. I mean after having a example which is both bad
(initial response) and good (follow up response) the response in the USA (or
the EU) is still sup-par. I would not have been surprised that if it would
have been sourced in the USA then it would have spread even faster around the
world including china.

(Also as far as I have heard China did ban part of the food trading,
additionally I have heard pretty racist thinks about how chines people where
at fault because they eat everything etc. But the truth is they mostly eat
pork. And the virus most likely was _not_ transmitted through food, through
maybe still alive food, but then again still alive _normal_ food)

------
MaupitiBlue
There needs to be a discussion about how China is going to compensate the
world for covid19. Given the thousands of lives lost and billions of lives
disrupted, it seems unfair and unwise to let the source of the loss escape
shouldering the cost.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for using HN for flamewar and ignoring our requests
to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules
in the future.

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archivist1
Drop the China bashing. If we're going to criticize any government on this
issue, we need to criticize all of them.

Was there really any government without guilt or incompetence in their
handling of this?

Really nobody who in any way delayed taking steps, nobody who in any way sat
on information, nobody who in any way instructed a certain type of scale of
coverage in an attempt to minimize panic?

Let those without sin cast the first stone.

But actually, I think the "blame game" is bullshit.

Everyone should just be like, "Holy crap, this virus doesn't care about what
passport you have, we all need to just work together on this."

Good to see people contesting the blame narrative here, but better if we
didn't promote this news at all. This is a highly technical site, surely
there's a chance to share articles about studies, algorithms, ways data
scientists/programmers/bioinformaticians can get involved, pool resources,
donate cloud time, etc.

~~~
marknutter
Ok, let's call it CPC bashing then, if that makes you feel better. What they
have done during this whole debacle is despicable, and their attempts to push
the conspiracy theory that the virus came from the US Military is just the
icing on the cake.

~~~
dang
Please stop with this flamewar now, and please stop posting flamebait and/or
unsubstantive comments generally. It's not what this site is for and we've had
to warn you already.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
marknutter
I will do my best adjust my tone in the future. Sorry about this.

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acoderhasnoname
How is this different from CDC banning Washington to do their own test??

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whatshisface
It is interesting to think about how such a counterproductive attitude could
develop. I imagine that the Party saw a problem, suppressed some people who
were impacted by it, and saw the problem go away (at least for them). The they
saw another problem, suppressed some people, and saw that problem go away too.
After doing this for several decades, their default reflex upon seeing a
problem was to suppress whoever was complaining about it. This strategy worked
for small problems that would stay about the same size over time, because they
could tell the sufferers to suck it up and at most a few people would become
discontent. Eventually the strategy became a habit, and the habit became an
integral cultural component of their way of governing.

Then, one day, they saw a problem, suppressed some people... and discovered
that the small problem would not stay small and suppressible after all.

~~~
kangnkodos
This is pure speculation without one spec of proof:

My guess is that the regional government covered up the problem. But once the
national disease authorities learned of the issue, they did the right thing
because of their experience with diseases over the last decade.

I can't see the whole article. It might have some information which supports
or refutes my guess.

\---

Edit. From the full article: "on January 3, the National Health Commission,
China’s top medical authority, issued its own gagging orders"

~~~
whatshisface
It is not really possible for outsiders to tell how orders are being moved
around within the party mechanism. China's message is that the regional
government is at fault, but that's what they always say when there is an
expression of discontent among their people. It is not "kosher" for the
central government to take the blame for anything, so you can never really
believe it when someone else takes the blame. Maybe the CIA knows, but anyone
who isn't tapping internal communications is not likely to get beyond
speculation.

In any case, a culture of honesty has to start at the top, and it is likely
that the local government "knew what not to report." There are many situations
where the claim that no official report was given to the central government
would be true, while at the same time the central government played a role in
the suppression. So as for speculation, I would say that there are many
possibilities where the central government had a role to play in the
suppression (even if it was played over years before), but only one
possibility where the local authority went off and did something totally out
of line.

Edit:

> _The laboratory findings were relayed to officials in Beijing at the Centre
> for Disease Control (CDC). The information should have alerted national
> health chiefs to a looming crisis, but on January 3, the National Health
> Commission, China’s top medical authority, issued its own gagging orders.
> Laboratories were told not to release any information and to hand over or
> destroy the samples._

Well, it looks like the local government didn't know what not to report after
all. (Thanks to makomk's comment for pointing this out.)

~~~
petre
A fish rots from the head down after all.

------
transfire
Is there evidence this strain of SARS was enginered in the lab, and it
accidentally escaped? That seems the only reason that makes sense for trying
to destroy evidence.

