Summary: Amidst the tsunami of misinformation about COVID-19, there are those working to provide us with clear and useful information. For those few who seek such information, here are two articles from Nature Medicine.
“In the fight against the new coronavirus outbreak,
we must also struggle with human bias.“
By Joana Gonçalves-Sá, Assoc. Professor at Nova Business School (bio).
Excerpt from Nature Medicine, March 2020.
For the past 10 years, I have been working with large datasets that might be relevant to public health and epidemiology, from Google searches and social-media sentiment to weather conditions. More recently, I started to study a different type of contagion: how cognitive biases can be exploited by online platforms to make us even more susceptible to ‘misinformation viruses’. The current outbreak enables us to bring them together.
There is a staggering amount of misinformation propagating online. During the first 4 weeks of January 2020, there were over 15 million Twitter posts on this topic and, to date, the most concerning conspiracy theory circulating online related to the factitious claim that the virus was engineered by the Chinese, with political or economic goals.
As is often the case with misinformation, ‘science’ is used to support conspiracy theories. What seems like scientific evidence is even used to support the idea that scientists cannot be trusted. In this particular situation, an article published online on the bioRxiv platform had reportedly found “uncanny” similarities between the new coronavirus and human immunodeficiency virus. The article has now been retracted, but the suggestion that the virus was indeed lab-created is harder to withdraw.
In parallel, a photo of a bottle of bleach has been widely shared. Its label states its effectiveness against several bacteria and viruses, including coronavirus. This was used as further evidence of the conspiracy: how did this bleach brand know that there would be an outbreak of a new virus called corona?
It is likely that people sharing this article online had never heard of the BLAST algorithm or P values before. They may not have understood that the bioRxiv article had not yet been vetted by the wider scientific community. They may not have known that ‘coronavirus’ is a thousand-year-old type of virus, rather than this novel strain (SARS-CoV-2), which causes a disease whose official name is now COVID-19 …The naming deliberately avoids using geographical location, to minimize stigmatization, or mention of the likely animal host. However, this is unlikely to reduce all false videos and posts blaming the Chinese and their eating habits for the outbreak.
Overall, it is possible that people sharing such misinformation overestimate their ability to understand very complex problems and might be experiencing a form of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which states that people are often more confident than they are knowledgeable. This may be exacerbated by a lack of trust in institutions, be they governments, the pharmaceutical industry, or the traditional media.
For decades, scientists, medical doctors, science communicators, and journalists have been trying to promote the democratization of knowledge, the participation of citizens, and a more critical society. Social networks could be expected to facilitate and even amplify these efforts. It now seems that we might have gotten more than we asked for: a society that is over-critical and over-informed but, unfortunately, not very knowledgeable. …
—————- See the full article. —————-
“The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.”
By Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes & Robert F. Garry,
Nature Medicine, in press, published 17 March.
This is correspondence, and so probably not peer-reviewed.
This is an excerpt. Footnotes and graphics are omitted. Images added.
Since the first reports of novel pneumonia (COVID-19) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, there has been considerable discussion on the origin of the causative virus, SARS-CoV-23 (also referred to as HCoV-19). …SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease, whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms6. Here we review what can be deduced about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 from comparative analysis of genomic data. We offer a perspective on the notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discuss scenarios by which they could have arisen. Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.
It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus. As noted above, the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution different from those previously predicted. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used. However, the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone. Instead, we propose two scenarios that can plausibly explain the origin of SARS-CoV-2 …
- natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer; and
- natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer. We also discuss whether selection during passage could have given rise to SARS-CoV-2.
1. Natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer.
As many early cases of COVID-19 were linked to the Huanan market in Wuhan, it is possible that an animal source was present at this location. Given the similarity of SARS-CoV-2 to bat SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses, it is likely that bats serve as reservoir hosts for its progenitor. Although RaTG13, sampled from a Rhinolophus affinis bat, is ~96% identical overall to SARS-CoV-2, its spike diverges in the RBD, which suggests that it may not bind efficiently to human ACE27.
Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) illegally imported into Guangdong province contain coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV-221. Although the RaTG13 bat virus remains the closest to SARS-CoV-2 across the genome, some pangolin coronaviruses exhibit strong similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in the RBD, including all six key RBD residues. This clearly shows that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein optimized for binding to human-like ACE2 is the result of natural selection.
Neither the bat betacoronaviruses nor the pangolin betacoronaviruses sampled thus far have polybasic cleavage sites. Although no animal coronavirus has been identified that is sufficiently similar to have served as the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV-2, the diversity of coronaviruses in bats and other species is massively undersampled. Mutations, insertions and deletions can occur near the S1–S2 junction of coronaviruses, which shows that the polybasic cleavage site can arise by a natural evolutionary process. For a precursor virus to acquire both the polybasic cleavage site and mutations in the spike protein suitable for binding to human ACE2, an animal host would probably have to have a high population density (to allow natural selection to proceed efficiently) and an ACE2-encoding gene that is similar to the human ortholog.
2. Natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer.
It is possible that a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 jumped into humans, acquiring the genomic features described above through adaptation during undetected human-to-human transmission. Once acquired, these adaptations would enable the pandemic to take off and produce a sufficiently large cluster of cases to trigger the surveillance system that detected it.
All SARS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced so far have the genomic features described above and are thus derived from a common ancestor that had them too. The presence in pangolins of an RBD very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2 means that we can infer this was also probably in the virus that jumped to humans. This leaves the insertion of polybasic cleavage site to occur during human-to-human transmission.
Estimates of the timing of the most recent common ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 made with current sequence data point to emergence of the virus in late November 2019 to early December 201923, compatible with the earliest retrospectively confirmed cases. Hence, this scenario presumes a period of unrecognized transmission in humans between the initial zoonotic event and the acquisition of the polybasic cleavage site. Sufficient opportunity could have arisen if there had been many prior zoonotic events that produced short chains of human-to-human transmission over an extended period. This is essentially the situation for MERS-CoV, for which all human cases are the result of repeated jumps of the virus from dromedary camels, producing single infections or short transmission chains that eventually resolve, with no adaptation to sustained transmission.
Studies of banked human samples could provide information on whether such cryptic spread has occurred. Retrospective serological studies could also be informative, and a few such studies have been conducted showing low-level exposures to SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses in certain areas of China. Critically, however, these studies could not have distinguished whether exposures were due to prior infections with SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 or other SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses. Further serological studies should be conducted to determine the extent of prior human exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
3. Selection during passage.
Basic research involving passage of bat SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses in cell culture and/or animal models has been ongoing for many years in biosafety level 2 laboratories across the world, and there are documented instances of laboratory escapes of SARS-CoV28. We must therefore examine the possibility of an inadvertent laboratory release of SARS-CoV-2.
In theory, it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 acquired RBD mutations during adaptation to passage in cell culture, as has been observed in studies of SARS-CoV11. The finding of SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses from pangolins with nearly identical RBDs, however, provides a much stronger and more parsimonious explanation of how SARS-CoV-2 acquired these via recombination or mutation.
The acquisition of both the polybasic cleavage site and predicted O-linked glycans also argues against culture-based scenarios. New polybasic cleavage sites have been observed only after prolonged passage of low-pathogenicity avian influenza virus in vitro or in Vivo. …
Conclusions.
In the midst of the global COVID-19 public-health emergency, it is reasonable to wonder why the origins of the pandemic matter. Detailed understanding of how an animal virus jumped species boundaries to infect humans so productively will help in the prevention of future zoonotic events. For example, if SARS-CoV-2 pre-adapted in another animal species, then there is the risk of future re-emergence events. In contrast, if the adaptive process occurred in humans, then even if repeated zoonotic transfers occur, they are unlikely to take off without the same series of mutations. In addition, identifying the closest viral relatives of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in animals will greatly assist studies of viral function. Indeed, the availability of the RaTG13 bat sequence helped reveal key RBD mutations and the polybasic cleavage site.
The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.
More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another. …
—————- See the full article. —————-
See all the articles about COVID-19 at Nature Medicine.
Posts about effects of COVID-19
- Hidden news about the epidemic sweeping across America! – Fake news drives out good news.
- Lessons from the coronavirus about climate change.
- A devastating epidemic spreads across America – An epidemic of panic and ignorance.
- Soon we’ll see if the US can defend itself again COVID-19.
- COVID-19 will hit world economy hard. Here’s how.
- Seeing what went wrong can help us beat COVID-19.
- COVID-19 shows the new center of the world.
- Prepare now in case they close the stock market.
- The key to surviving the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s easy to follow the COVID-19 story
The World Health Organization provides daily information, from highly technical information to news for the general public. These are the best sources of information.
- There is their daily situation report, with detailed numbers.
- The Director-General of WHO gives frequent briefings, which are quite insightful.
- Their daily press briefings have more information. An audio goes up quickly afterwards. A transcript is posted the next day.
Also, see the wealth of information at the CDC website, especially their situation reports.
For More Information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a powerful and disturbing story about “Birth of a Man of Steel …for the Soviet Union.”
Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also, see these posts about epidemics…
- See the ugly cost of the next big flu pandemic. We can do more to prepare.
- Stratfor: The superbugs are coming. We have time to prepare.
- Posts debunking the hysteria about the 2009 swine flu in America.
- Posts debunking the hysteria about the 2015 ebola epidemic in America.
- Important: A vaccine against the fears that make us weak.
He predicted 9/11 and COVID-19
In his 1994 novel Debt of Honor
“Therefore containment is the only option,” General Pickett went on.
“How do you contain a whole country?” said Cliff Rutledge, Assistant Secretary of State for Policy.
“That’s the problem we face,” President Ryan said. “The only way to contain the epidemic is to shut down all places of assembly – theaters, shopping malls, sports stadia, business offices, everything – and interstate travel. To the best of our information, at least 30 states are so far untouched by this disease. We would do well to keep it that way. We can accomplish that by preventing all interstate travel until such time as we have a handle on the severity of the disease we are facing, and then we can come up with less severe countermeasures.”
“Mr Presdient, that’s unconstitutional,” Pat Martin (representing DoJ) sid at once. Travel is a constitutionally protect right. … {But} Mr. President, I do not see that we have much of a choice here. …The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” …
“Thank you” Ryan said, checking his watch. “I am calling the issue on the table.”
Defense, Treasury, Justice, and Commerce voted aye. All the rest voted no. Ryan looked at them for a long few seconds. “The ayes have it,” the President said coldly. …This has absolute nad unconditional priority over any other matter.”
Unique perspective from a westerner in Wuhan when this all started.
Randolorian,
What did you learn from this video?
Nothing that I didn’t already learn from this blog. Still, it’s good to see it coming from more than one place.
Thanks for posting these. Preprint servers like bioRxiv and medRxiv are like chainsaws or welding torches: incredibly powerful in the right hands but dangerous for the untrained or unwary.
Scorpio,
That’s an important and oft-ignored point, as we learned from the climate change debate. The career competition is brutal in the sciences, and some will ride crisis attention to fame. They’re people, just like the rest of us.
Thank you Larry. You’ve become a daily “must read”. I appreciate your expertise, and the research and effort you put into this blog.
Jim,
These posts about the epidemic are more of a public service. The public wants exciting material, however fanciful. So that’s what they get.
You said what I wanted to say.
My local supermarket now has police stationed there.
Sven,
That is probably a bad sign. Social cohesion should not be breaking so soon, except in Italy.
May I ask where you are?
In VA it is bad outside the areas benefitting from the bureaucratic bloat from our overlords in DC.
The ethnic area I moved to for the low rent has had a police car permanently stationed outside the Wal Mart even when there was a 3% unemployment rate. Now they have regular patrols around the grocery stores.
I take public transport. Half the people on my bus have been laid off or on “break” from work in the past week.
People have to eat and the moderating effecgs of churches are not there currently. My City has not even had a single known infection.
Is the Cure worse than the disease?
Dan,
That’s interesting news. In California, shoplifting is at epidemic levels. Loots under $900 are misdemeanors, too trivial for the police to even bother with.
The situation in Iowa is bad and getting worse.
Severe social stress from this crisis might make this worse. Perhaps much worse.
“Is the Cure worse than the disease?”
Given the small numbers of tests run outside the major infected areas, nobody knows the infection rates in the rest of the nation. In the absence of that info, drastic measures are being taken in case COVID-19 already widespread. In my little city in eastern Iowa, there are four cases in the county and one in the city. So it has clearly spread pretty widely.
There is a clear quantitative account of the progress of the epidemic in the UK here, with decent graphs:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
It also allows you to look up locations in some detail, using county or borough names, and you can see by doing that the various hot spots. London, Devon, Glasgow for instance. And some relatively lightly affected areas.
The country is moving in the last couple of days to complete lockdown.
{remainder of this 900 word comment removed by editor.)
Henrik,
That was over 900 words. Longer than most posts here. I edited most of it out. Start a website if you want to post essays. Comments here should be at most 200 or 300 words long. Longer ones are bombs that kill threads.
If you want to tell people about conditions in other nations, post the links that you use to get that information – with a sentence or two summary.
https://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/la-france-mise-sur-l-immunite-de-groupe-pour-arreter-le-coronavirus-20200313
Reading between the lines the French are said to be basing their strategy on herd immunity.
Henrik,
Your use of Google to find the rare article supporting your beliefs is sad.
What a reporter discovers by “reading between the lines” interests me not at all. Instead, I suggest that you read Macron’s speech. He used the phrase “we are at war” six times. The drastic measures France is taking are like those of other nations. Stronger than those of the US. Much stronger than those of Britain.
Which is what other news media report.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/france-paris-emmanuel-macron-coronavirus-covid19/608200/
https://www.euractiv.com/section/coronavirus/news/france-to-close-schools-to-curb-coronavirus-spread/
https://www.thelocal.fr/20200312/macron-says-schools-to-close-in-new-coronavirus-measures
https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-on-coronavirus-were-at-war/
Sorry, to be clear, that is not me reading between the lines, that is the story, they say they are reading between the lines.
Here is a dissenting view on the Nature article. I am agnostic on the question of whether this thing was engineered, but I think the people who claim it was make a fair case. I would not dismiss it out of hand.
https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/01/31/logistical-and-technical-analysis-of-the-origins-of-the-wuhan-coronavirus-2019-ncov/
The Man,
Life is short. Why are you reading such stuff? An analysis by “HarvardToTheBigHouse”? A Youtube by a Professor of Neurobiology?
The first is absurd. As for the second, why do you take it seriously? Is the Nature Medicine paper about neurobiology? Is this like television, where people like the Professor on Gilligan’s Island are experts on everything sciency?
As we saw with climate change, human nature rules. People use crises to go for their 15 minutes of fame.
Actually, I’ve mostly been reading “Whispers In The Tall Grass” by Nick Brokhausen. Be that as it may, a Professor of Neurobiology ain’t exactly an ignorant peasant with mud on his boots, and ignoring the author’s central point, that Nature magazine censors at the behest of the Chinese government doesn’t exactly make me take it less seriously.
I beseech thee, Larry, think it possible you may be mistaken.
The Man,
“Be that as it may, a Professor of Neurobiology ain’t exactly an ignorant peasant with mud on his boots”
So there are two categories, ignorant peasants and experts? Please, that’s silly.
My points are as follows –
(1) neither is a relevant expert (one is anonymous – which makes your faith in him absurd),
(2) neither YouTube nor HarvardToTheBigHouse are science journals, and
(3) neither you nor I have any ability to evaluate their criticisms.
Therefore you are wasting your time and my time with just stuff when there is more authoritative information available about COVID-19 than both of us could read in a year.
“I beseech thee, Larry, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
OK, can you give a rational explanation why those above points are wrong?
Larry,
I think it is relevant, even if tenuous at best given the sources.
You’ve made several comparisons between our failures and China’s successes in dealing with this virus.
The article above states its false to blame China for this mess, yet the evidence shows its been known for years these wet markets were potential sources for a novel outbreaks and China did nothing.
They then tried to cover it up for almost 3 weeks and peer reviewed research shows that could have been the difference between a local contagion and this global pandemic.
Its hard to get people to look inward and reflect on our failures when you ignore or minimize where this whole thing started.
No real evidence to show a bioweapon, but negligence is clear.
We need to both accept CCP negligence and our total lack of preparedness and contributory negligence.
Dave,
(1) “I think it is relevant, even if tenuous at best given the sources.”
Why is it not just noise? Why do you pay attention to such stuff?
(2) “yet the evidence shows its been known for years these wet markets were potential sources for a novel outbreaks and China did nothing.”
Quite so. China should do something. Just as America should do something about our problems. Perhaps the world would be better if people focused more on things they can fix and less on criticism of others. For example, America (with the aid of our allies) have overturned governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya (attempting to do so to Iran) – turning them into horror shows. We don’t help. We don’t apologize.
(3) “They then tried to cover it up for almost 3 weeks”
If only their leaders were as smart as all those people in West who could certainly discern those things so quickly in a poor nation of 1.4 billion people! Yea! We’re Number One! That’s why we’ve handled the epidemic so well….
Also, that’s false. I suggest looking at the timeline. This is the fastest response to an epidemic in history, by far.
8 December 2019 – First case detected, although doctors did not know what it was.
30 December – An “urgent notice on the treatment of pneumonia of unknown cause” was issued by the Medical Administration and Medical Administration of Wuhan Municipal Health Committee. Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan tighten their inbound screening.
2 January – Based on data provided by China, the WHO activated its incident management system at all three levels: national, regional, and headquarters.
5 January – Researchers in China rule out seasonal flu, SARS, MERS, and bird flu as the cause. The number of suspected cases reached 59 with seven in a critical condition. All were quarantined and 163 contacts commenced monitoring. As yet, there were no reported cases of human-to-human transmission or presentations in healthcare workers.
9 January – Chinese investigators isolated a novel coronavirus from an infected patient. The first death reported in China, a 61-year-old man with severe preexisting health problems.
10 January – Four groups of Chinese researchers post genetic sequences of the virus.
14 January – First reported case in China of probable human-to-human transmission of the virus.
15 January – Second death: a 69-year-old man in China.
Perhaps if we spent more time making America better, and less time critiquing others, we would be in better shape.
(4) “No real evidence to show a bioweapon, but negligence is clear.”
Got to love the now-usual American superconfidence – judging everyone, powered by hindsight. If we are so smart, why has our response been so poor? Who will historians saw was guilty of the greater negligence?
“Perhapsthe world would be better if people focused more on things they can fix and less on criticism of others. For example, America (with the aid of our allies) have overturned governments in…..turning them into horror shows. We don’t help. We don’t apologize.”
We certainly should focus on what we can do, and yes we have a lot to answer for. Does that mean we turn a blind eye to what China does? Are we not allowed to question them because our hands are unclean?
“will historians saw was guilty of the greater negligence?”
Honestly thats not my concern, though as much as you seem to want to blame us for everything wrong in the world, this time the debacle didn’t originate with the US govt. You’ve gone from trying to inspire us to do better, to restore the republic, to doing post after post of how we aren’t worth a damn. You think a freaking totalitarian dictatorship that has 2 million locked up in concentration camps is somehow the new leader of the world because they contained a virus they themselves allowed to get out of control in the first place. At what point does self-critique become self-loathing?
And in your timeline you forgot these key events:
Jan. 1: Wuhan Public Security Bureau brings in for questioning eight doctors who had posted information about the illness on WeChat. An official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission orders labs, which had already determined that the novel virus was similar to SARS, to stop testing samples and to DESTROY existing samples.
Jan. 2: Chinese researchers map the new coronavirus’ complete genetic information. This information is not made public until Jan. 9.
Jan. 7: Xi Jinping becomes involved in the response.
Jan. 11–17: Important prescheduled CCP meeting held in Wuhan. During that time, the Wuhan Health Commission insists there are no new cases.
Jan. 14: WHO announces Chinese authorities have seen “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.
Jan. 18: The Wuhan Health Commission announces four new cases. Annual Wuhan Lunar New Year banquet. Tens of thousands of people gathered for a potluck. All good though, truly an example for the world.
I’ll finish by saying we may be in decline and again we’ve been I’ll prepared for the virus, but goddam why do you think the CCP has it all figured out, why are they the future? How can a person who loves liberty as you do admire such a monstrous system?
Dave,
(1) “though as much as you seem to want to blame us for everything wrong in the world”
You lost it at that point, and began to make stuff up and attribute it to me. Sad, but not worth replying to.
(2) You’ve not cited sources. Much of that is impressive hindsight. Much of it is nonsense, probably because you appear to know little about epidemics. Such as this…
“Jan. 14: WHO announces Chinese authorities have seen “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.”
The first case was announced the next day. Like much of what you cite, it’s unclear why you find it so nefarious. This isn’t a TV show, where everything is simple and obvious. In the real world, things take time.
(3) You provide no standard of comparison. If you compare this with past epidemics of the past – such H1N1 influenza virus (aka swine flu), you will see that China moved unusually fast with COVID-19. Faster then the US did in April 2009 (see the CDC’s timeline). This is what they call “progress.”
Per the CDC.
“From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus. Additionally, CDC estimated that 151,700-575,400 people worldwide died from (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection during the first year the virus circulated.”
Dave,
You raise one other issue, which I’ll deal with separately. You appear to have strong opinions about the Chinese govt. Nobody cares. Nobody in China, any more than Americans care what they think of us. Nobody in the US cares. Perhaps judgments will be made in the hereafter, but you won’t be consulted there either.
What does matter is what I discussed: what we can learn from them so that we can be better. They screwed up the beginning, something commonplace in both wars and epidemics. But they recovered fast, and produced amazing results. There is much we can learn from them. If we had, we would be in better shape today – and not watching the US economy slide into a depression. Slow and stupid are two sins that nature’s god always punishes.
You don’t appear very well-informed about what is happening. I suggest that you read these posts, for a start.
“Perhaps judgments will be made in the hereafter, but you won’t be consulted there either.”
That applies to nearly every opinion I have outside of my profession and my family, since I am not an elected official or some otherwise influential person.
I don’t understand the point of even stating something so obvious, especially given you welcome ideas and contributions from average people. Do people consult you? Does anyone who makes decisions even care what you think about the state of this country?
That doesn’t stop you does it? Because our ideas matter even if we don’t hold power, and how we involve ourselves in the communities around us define the sort of country that we have.
This has been your message since I’ve been following this site from 2008 onward.
So yeah, I have strong opinions about the Chinese government and I will exercise those opinions with my voice, my wallet, at the ballot box and when I run for office myself.
And I have never been against learning from China, although South Korea, Taiwan and others have done just as a remarkable job at handling the virus without welding people shut in their homes or arresting doctors.
“You lost it at that point, and began to make stuff up and attribute it to me. Sad, but not worth replying to.”
I apologize for what may have been a hasty and unfair response. I understand that you want to hold this country up to a high standard because you care for it, but sometimes the way you present things implies you have given up and are ready to judge us all very harshly.
As for my lack of knowledge on the subject, I have been following this since early January. My sources for my comments were as follows:
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.page
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-it-all-started-chinas-early-coronavirus-missteps-11583508932
“Like much of what you cite, it’s unclear why you find it so nefarious.”
I think its more a feature of a top-down, hierarchical and extremely bureaucratic system rather than nefarious intent. The officials in Wuhan initial tried to cover it up not because they were evil, but likely because like all bureaucrats they wanted to make their higher ups think everything was going great. I’ve seen this nonsense in the military first hand.
I don’t see what you see in their response that is worth copying given that they were able to respond massively to their initial blunder because of the sheer brutality of their system.
South Korea’s methodology of massive testing and quick isolation seems to have been a model for us to follow given the greater similarities between our two systems:
“https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/china-s-aggressive-measures-have-slowed-coronavirus-they-may-not-work-other-countries”
““To me, as somebody who has spent a lot of time in China, it comes across as incredibly naïve—and if not naïve, then willfully blind to some of the approaches being taken,” Phelan says. Singapore and Hong Kong may be better examples to follow, Konyndyk says: “There has been a similar degree of rigor and discipline but applied in a much less draconian manner.”
Dave,
“I think its more a feature of a top-down, hierarchical and extremely bureaucratic system rather than nefarious intent.”
That’s totally false, and shows what’s wrong with your entire reply. I suggest reading the CDC timeline for the swine flu. Data emerges slowly in the early stages of an epidemic. WHO reported at each step what was known.
No matter what you believe, China has responded faster and better than any nation before – and than the West. Your accusations are largely baseless, and will look absurd if at the end of this the West has taken more damage (both casualties and economic) than has China. This seems likely at this point, although it is still early days.
“South Korea’s methodology of massive testing and quick isolation seems to have been a model for us to follow given the greater similarities between our two systems:”
That’s false, an example of why I say you are ill-informed. The US did not have the tests to do so. We still don’t have the tests to do so. Hence our response had to be – and still has to be – using non-pharmaceutical methods like those China used. Hence the massive closings of all public activity as the primary tool – but, like all our measures, too late to stop the initial spread.
WHO has been advising nations about this since late January. Too bad the US didn’t listen.
Dave,
I looked at that WSJ article. Wow. Truly ignorant. I’ll give one quote, with actual info.
“A slow response to early evidence meant China’s …”
That’s a description of these two dates:
That’s 11 days! The WSJ also ignored the escalation of steps during those 11 days. BTW, they did not “quarantine” Wuhan. It was a cordon sanitaire, a very different and far more drastic step. This basic error shows the ignorance and lack of expert advice by the WSJ’s journalists.
Compare that with the response in Washington State.
On 21 January 2020, Washington State reported its first case. Since the govt response was almost nil – there was little testing, either clinical screening or by kits – it spread invisibly. The first state lab began tests approx Feb 28 – 38 days after the first infection.
By March 14, they had 642 confirmed cases – the same as when China blockaded Wuhan. Still, no large-scale measures were taken.
Small scale measures – such as a quarantine of the infected in Seattle on March 3, and special procedures for nursing homes on March 9. Wider measures were taken on March 11 and 12.
All this was much slower than in China – despite the vastly greater knowledge about the threat in Feb and March than China’s govt had in early January.
Let’s end this tale with cheers: Yea, We’re Number One. No Need To Learn! No matter what happens to America, it’s other people’s fault!
“That’s totally false, and shows what’s wrong with your entire reply. I suggest reading the CDC timeline for the swine flu. Data emerges slowly in the early stages of an epidemic. WHO reported at each step what was known.”
I have never criticized the WHO or even made mention of that. It is not “totally false” that authorities in Wuhan tried to cover up the outbreak at the initial stages.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/wuhan-doctors-say-colleagues-died-in-vain-amid-official-cover-up
They even had the potluck dinner for 40,000 families after knowing what was going on. The local authorities arrested doctors and censored reports.
It wasn’t until Beijing understood what was happening that they responded the way they did.
I don’t think copying a system where all leaders feel pressure to cover things up is a good way to save our country. You should know how our spectacular failures in Iraq and Afghanistan had much to do with that sort of approach. The difference is that China operates like that as an entire country.
However, let me say one last time:
We have been negligent, ill prepared and this should serve as another wake up call to the reforms we need to implement.
For example, when HHS declared a public health emergency, this meant states had to ask the FDA permission to test. Testing in Washington state was denied by the FDA because they wanted to control the process, this is why those doctors in Seattle disobeyed orders and tested anyway.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html
That is one simple change we could make to prevent bureaucratic red tape from slowing things down in the future. There are many others.
“That’s false, an example of why I say you are ill-informed. The US did not have the tests to do so. We still don’t have the tests to do so. Hence our response had to be – and still has to be – using non-pharmaceutical methods like those China used.”
I am not saying we didn’t have to shut everything down initially. We should have done it back in February and we wouldn’t be so far behind right now.
You just keep assuming I defend our response uncritically because of my comments on China.
Thankfully we are producing a lot more tests now and could hopefully transition to the South Korean model as things progress.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/america-is-finally-testing-for-coronavirus-in-significant-volumes/
Dave,
My last reply. Look at this thread about your mostly absurd criticisms of China. I have used such precise analysis of your statements to show that they are unfounded. Obviously, wasted effort.
You: And in your timeline you forgot these key events: “Jan. 14: WHO announces Chinese authorities have seen “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.”
Me: The first case was announced the next day. Like much of what you cite, it’s unclear why you find it so nefarious.
You: I think its more a feature of a top-down, hierarchical and extremely bureaucratic system rather than nefarious intent.
Me: That’s totally false, and shows what’s wrong with your entire reply. I suggest reading the CDC timeline for the swine flu. Data emerges slowly in the early stages of an epidemic.
You: It is not “totally false” that authorities in Wuhan tried to cover up the outbreak at the initial stages.
This is not in the least complex. The statement at the start that I am discussing does not show a cover-up. It takes time to detect each phase of an epidemic. That the Chinese reported the first case of person-to-person contact on Jan 14 is fine. China’s a poor nation, with a much lower-tech health care system. Their reporting of person-to-person transmission was good work. Doing so requires skilled contact tracing and good clinical work (when operating without tests). People don’t have labels on the foreheads saying “I have COVID-19, not the flu.”
Also, there was no “cover-up” here. China promptly reported it to WHO, reported it to the world the next day.
When do you think China should have reported it, and what is the basis of your belief?
As I have said, look at the CDC timeline for swine flu as a baseline for measuring China’s performance – rather than just making up your own standards, or reporting those of people who also know little.
China made mistakes. We’re making mistakes. But theirs were natural given their circumstances. Ours are much more difficult – or impossible – to justify. I feel sad that you don’t see this, but its probably an untreatable condition.
Your whole “analysis” of this is bogus, as is most of what you are writing. I’ve tried to explain it to you, using a large body of factual info. But it’s clearly a waste of time, since I see no evidence that it has had any affect.