China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says (bloomberg.com) 374
China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it's suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials. From a report: The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret and declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China's public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China's numbers are fake. The report was received by the White House last week, one of the officials said. The outbreak began in China's Hubei province in late 2019, but the country has publicly reported only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares to more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.
I trust the state no matter what (Score:3, Funny)
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The media has been reporting an accumulating "death" number, but it lags behind reality because it's "death reports" instead.
Re:I trust the state no matter what (Score:5, Interesting)
The media has been reporting an accumulating "death" number, but it lags behind reality because it's "death reports" instead.
That's clear and there are lots of discrepancies in lots of countries including China. Many of these come from e.g. changing the way things are counted, for example just a few days ago the NHS added people known to have died of Coronavirus but outside hospitals who weren't included before [bbc.co.uk].
Now in China I'd expect there to normally be lying on multiple levels. E.g. local officials would like to report good news at all times and hide when they mess up (which is what happened in November). E.g there's been plenty of mass scale, strategic lying about the number of Uyghurs locked away and what is done to them [bbc.co.uk] sanctioned from the top. However in this case the top has sent a clear message that people should be truthful so it might be different. We can't just assume that China is lying; we want some real evidence either way.
What's really interesting here is that it seems a majority of the people claiming China is lying are actually lying lots themselves. There are multiple weird claims that 21 million people died. This has actually been researched [republicworld.com] and is based on a misrepresentation of data which shows that 21 million phone subscriptions were cancelled (relatively small, but definitely not negligable in a country of over 1billion). This was originally in an Epoch Times article which is now deleted.
So we're left with a question of who to trust? People who are known to lie quite often or people who we can see are actually lying this time. I'd prefer the answer neither, but given no choice and little contrary evidence, I can believe the Chinese government more than the people pushing this rumour. Given their proposed cure to the pandemic [youtu.be], I'm fairly convinced about this.
Re:I trust the state no matter what (Score:5, Insightful)
So we're left with a question of who to trust? People who are known to lie quite often or people who we can see are actually lying this time. I'd prefer the answer neither, but given no choice and little contrary evidence, I can believe the Chinese government more than the people pushing this rumour. Given their proposed cure to the pandemic [youtu.be], I'm fairly convinced about this.
For me, the various rumors across the internet deserve skepticism. The Chinese government numbers also deserve skepticism, but at least they're somewhat easily to understand given the motivations of the government, which include controlling the disease in China and preserving public order, which in China means preserving the ability of the government to control any semblance of an uprising.
We already knew all of this previously. The news today is that US intelligence agencies have determined that China is underreporting its numbers. That is not the same as confirming internet rumors. My assumption is that the report contains much more detailed information detail and provenance that what is in the press leaks. People are right to also be skeptical of US intelligence, but that skepticism should be considered in light of the motivations for the US government. I don't think this is just throwing shade on China, because vague press leaks of a secret report are a very inefficient way of effecting propaganda.
We'll see if Trump believes his spy agencies this time.
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There was a time I thought the same - surely in the back rooms they have more evidence for the Iraq War than what they're telling the public.
And nope! They didn't!
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Or about Russian collusion? But yeah, it's true, I don't trust unnamed sources of mystery data either. This report doesn't seem to add much data to the question.
I think there are a lot of open questions. I think there are a few things that look suspicious about the data, too, but we may only ever figure this out 10 years from now in epidemiology papers that have had a long time to go over what happened and how that affects the data we have.
That said, it's interesting that HK and Taiwan, who don't trust C
Re:I trust MY state no matter what (FTFY) (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly agree with you. Also want to note that your comment seems to be standing up to the moderation, so I won't quote it against possible censor mods.
The aspect of this topic that interested me is how "our" liars now want to believe "our" intelligence services since they are reporting what "our" so-called leaders want to believe about Chinese mendacity (which has NEVER been in doubt). I can't decide if it's more like projection or the Dunning Kruger effect. They know how much they lie, so they assume everyone else lies just as much. Or maybe they sincerely think they are experts in recognizing when they are being lied to because they believe they themselves are such expert liars? (Yes, the "they" references could go every which way in those last two sentences.)
I'm reserving judgment on the accuracy of the Chinese statistics about Covid-19. I used to believe (and I wrote it out loud, too) that the Chinese were hiding a lot of bad news, but now I'm waffling. I don't think they can permanently conceal large numbers of Covid-19 deaths because too many people inside China would personally know the victims and eventually those reports of vanished people would get out, along with the hard evidence. Right now I'm inclined to believe that Xi recognized he needed to know the truth about SARS-CoV-2 and he demanded the full truth from everyone in his government.
However I'm still skeptical about how quickly Xi figured out the severity of the problem. I'm sure he was suspicious about how bad it was before he told the rest of the world. Yes, they were only suspicions at the time, but if he had shared them, then at least the countries that had listened and reacted might have responded more effectively and quickly. Especially the quickly part.
Actually, as regards the quick and rather extreme response, I think it tells us a lot. In particular, I think the Chinese have carefully planned for this sort of disaster. But not just for bio-accidents like Covid-19. I think the Chinese have complete plans about how to respond to bio-weapons. (Actually, I'm not yet ready to eliminate the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was a diabolical bio-weapon. But then we'd have to try and figure out whose...)
Meanwhile, Trump's total lack of planning continues to show. It's a cross being looking for opportunities in crisis, malevolence, and random mendacity. Even allowing for Trump being Trump, I was rather surprised by today's fresh attack on ObamaCare. This is NOT a good time to be attacking any aspect of the healthcare system, but my initial theory is that one of the puppeteers saw this as another opportunity to gut the ACA in the Covid-19 crisis... "Just when people are most concerned about their medical coverage, let's block medical insurance for as many people as possible!" Or is it possible the medical insurance company lobbyists are really that stupid? Or that the medical insurance companies are in such dire straits because of Covid-19? I certainly wouldn't be surprised to hear the medical insurance companies are begging for federal help, but I haven't yet read anything on that topic (which leads to the theory they are keeping their heads down for now).
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Actually, as regards the quick and rather extreme response, I think it tells us a lot. In particular, I think the Chinese have carefully planned for this sort of disaster.[...][
Of course. So did Korea. After all the had had SARS and the avian flu in the region, so preparing for something similar made obvious sense.
Even Western countries did so to some degree (see e.g. the 2012 plan on a pandemic by a SARS variant by German RKI - very similar to what is happening now, though they assumed a higher death rate back then), but the difference seems mostly that is was taken less seriously in the West and not considered a priority at top level.
Misdirection by Whitehouse Blame shifters. (Score:3, Insightful)
No amount of fudging of the chinese numbers would have made any difference to the Whitehouse's need for planning and action. This is merely Fox news style blame shifting.
How did Bloomberg get the report if it was classified? Why are all the quotes from Administration officials who evidently know this was leaked on purpose to blame shift.
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The difference between Communism and Socialism is that in Communism the Citizens for the Government. In Socialism, the Government works for the Citizens.
Communism has self-interest in elevating the government to be all-knowing and all-powerful as the people will need strong leadership because they work for it.
Successful Socialism which may on paper seem similar has a strong democracy behind it, and the Government is working for the benefit of the People. This means they are better off telling people bad ne
Re:I trust the state no matter what (Score:5, Insightful)
Old Joke:
Capitalism is exploitation of man by man.
Communism is the exact opposite of it.
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Which proves that it's actually people that suck.
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Successful Socialism
has never happened. It always breaks back down to capitalism (the Nordic model - strong capitalist economies with Government spending heavily focused on a social safety net) or Communism/outright dictatorships (USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela). "Socialism" is a fleeting moment as a country moves to one of these other results - it is not a stable result at all.
Re: I trust the state no matter what (Score:2, Insightful)
You not liking socialist success doesn't make previously purely socialist countries like the nordics less succesful. And the historical evidence clearly shows that moves toward capitalism have only invited corruption and accelerated loss of resources.
It may not be the best choice anymore, but given a democracy, it is what people invariably choose, since it is well understood.
The lack of socialism is a clear indicator of a lack of democracy, since the masses would invariably choose to level the playing field
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Then after that you being asserting, with no evidence given, that Bernie Sanders doesn't really want what he says he wants. Oh no, what he really wants is full "socialism" (i.e communism) even when he talks about how the Scandinavian model is what he wants.
Seriously d
Re: I trust the state no matter what (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, some random guy in Denmark. And of course, the Danish Prime Minister. He doesn't know ANYTHING about the Nordic Model or the economic model of Denmark. Bernie knows all!
Bernie wants companies to give ownership [berniesanders.com], and an outsized amount of board seat - to workers. He wants to nationalize entire industries [newrepublic.com] and has for decades [cnn.com].
Bernie wants to get rid of billionaires [cnn.com], full stop.
Bernie wants to eliminate private insurance altogether [washingtonexaminer.com], flat out. In his own words
Bernie talks about wanting the Nordic model, because he knows it will sell. His actual positions are anathema to the Nordic model, as strong private ownership of companies, allowing people to get - and keep - wealth, and private insurance are all rampant and well expected in those nations. Exactly as Bernie says he does NOT want.
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You keep pointing towards things that are perfectly normal over here in Europe as if it was completely unthinkable that trade union
Re:I trust the state no matter what (Score:4, Insightful)
Successful Socialism
has never happened. It always breaks back down to capitalism (the Nordic model - strong capitalist economies with Government spending heavily focused on a social safety net) or Communism/outright dictatorships (USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela). "Socialism" is a fleeting moment as a country moves to one of these other results - it is not a stable result at all.
..and the utopia of pure completely unregulated capitalism with zero government hasn't been successfully implemented either. It always degenerated into dictatorship or monarchy by him who could afford the most and best mercenaries. You can just as easily argue that the socialism in the Nordic countries is successful because of it borrowed ideas capitalist element as you can argue that the capitalism in these countries is as successful as it is because it borrows ideas from socialism. The reason for that duality being that the Scandinavians managed to create a hybrid that works better than both of the models it is based on.
Re:I trust the state no matter what (Score:4, Insightful)
"market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions."
How would market systems replace the court system?
Just how could the court become a market? They would have to sell "justice".
The person with the larger payment would win the case.
How would market systems replace police?
I see two ways that would "work".
1. The police monetize their duties, providing police services to those who pay well, ensuring that those without power or wealth do not enjoy those services, probably being actively abused by them.
2. The "police" become little more than mercenaries propping up war lords. In time.
See above, but probably worse.
How could market systems regulate behaviour ( legislation )?
( even to just the extent of making sure that "your right to swing your arm ends at my nose" )
You even say it in your message:
"...always ended up at war as resources consolidated in the hands of a few ruling oligarchic families until constant warfare left one faction standing out as the most powerful at which time these societies ended up either as monarchies or dictatorship..."
It is my opinion that we are seeing that now with legislation like "Citizens United".
We keep taking steps toward this struggle.
That non-monarchic tribal societies can make small government work does not mean that it will scale.
It might work in those societies where you have deeper relationships throughout your constituency.
I would suggest that much of government still happens there, but is informal, buried in the relationships.
It seems clear to me that it does not work in larger societies than that.
I think the founding fathers had an inkling of this, and that that is why we have a federalized system and not a monolithic one.
Re:I trust the state no matter what (Score:5, Insightful)
Denmark says otherwise.
You can have a strong capitalism for economic growth, and you can use the power and money created from the economic growth to support strong social programs.
Denmark as some of the strong private property laws in the world.
Your post is born from idiocy and ignorance.
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One government is using another government to make excuses for their own unpreparedness.
Film at 11.
Of course, this would have held much more water if we didn't have the examples of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan who were prepared and are handling the crisis much better than those making noises and excuses.
China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah? So is Trump. And he is slowing down delivery of supplies while he waits for a higher bid at the brokers' auctions.
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What & how?
By limiting testing and only testing hundreds of people a day through all of Feb and most of March?
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And you know this because Trump told you so?
Do you believe everything Trump tells you? Let's find out. Tell us the last time Trump said something and you didn't believe it.
The sun rises in the East.
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Right. Keep listening and believing everything on CNN, from NYT, Joe Biden, Joy Behar, and Jimmy Kimmel. Pot meet Kettle.
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That's true, and using the same logic, not all of the ventilators in the USA are in use right now so why is Trump trying to get GM to make more?
Re:China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak (Score:5, Informative)
Mueller found nothing
This is false. Read the report. What Mueller found was extensive evidence of Russian manipulation of the election, extensive Trump campaign contacts with Russia and overt Trump and Trump campaign support of Russian manipulation. Mueller found that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate that the Trump campaign actually coordinated any of this with Russia, per the unusually high standard he chose to apply (per the standard the Federal Elections Commission normally applies, the Trump campaign was guilty of coordination -- look up the FEC's definition, look up the facts reported in the Mueller report and compare them).
What Mueller also found was at least 10 clear cases of obstruction of justice. Mueller laid out the legal requirements for obstruction and detailed precisely how Trump's actions met those requirements. But, because DoJ policy bars indictment of a sitting president, Mueller was forced to refuse to issue any conclusion on the question of obstruction. His logic in this was spelled out in the report as well. If he reached a conclusion that there was sufficient evidence and announced this conclusion he would be putting Trump in a situation where the DoJ had formally claimed that Trump had committed crimes, but in which Trump could not go to court to defend himself because the DoJ would not indict him. Mueller views that as inappropriate, and so simply refused to state any conclusion at all, instead -- as he put it -- merely documenting all of the details for the record.
You should seriously stop and think for a moment about just how weird that is: A special investigator who investigated but then refused to issue a conclusion. And it's clearly not because Robert Mueller is incompetent. There was a very specific reason why he didn't issue a conclusion, it's because Trump was clearly guilty but Mueller was barred from saying so.
Impeachment failed
This is false. Trump was impeached. He was not removed from office because a bunch of GOP senators flatly violated their sworn oaths to administer justice neutrally. A trial without witnesses and without giving the prosecution the ability to subpoena necessary documentation isn't an example of neutral justice in any way.
now the BS is flying about to pin this all on Trump when he actually started taking action before any of his critics did
That claim rings very hollow given Trump's long and extremely well-documented attempts to deny and minimize the risks of the pandemic. And it's stupid anyway... the question isn't what others were saying, because this is the job of the president. The whole reason we have a president is to enable quick, decisive action when there's no time for the Congressional debating society to argue about it. If you want to make the argument that Trump actually acted appropriately, you need to talk about whether he was taking the action that his healthcare advisers were recommending.
Of course, what you'll notice if you look into that record was that Trump was actively silencing people from the CDC and related organizations. They were trying to go directly to the public because the president wasn't listening to them. That pissed Trump off so he ordered them not to speak in public. Then he ordered the military not to take any action to protect soldiers if it might appear to contradict his "there's no problem here" stance. He did eventually allow Fauci to speak, but only because Fauci was very careful to avoid anything that could be interpreted as criticism of Trump, as much as he possibly could, given the flat falsehoods Trump has been spouting, as usual.
And then there's Trump's refusal to use the Defense Production Act, claiming he was taking some principled stand against big government, even though his own administration has used the DPA over and over again previously, in situations that mattered a lot less. Trump has used for border protection, fo
Past tense? (Score:4, Insightful)
"China Concealed" - why is it worded this way when it's plain they continue to conceal.
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Indeed, China's numbers are generally false. That is one of the numerous (sorry) problems of that kind of authoritarian society -- even those in charge who asked for the numbers cannot trust the numbers they get.
However, while we know that China's numbers are fake, we also know that they are not currently suffering from the kind of outbreak seen in Italy or the US. The Wuhan outbreak showed that China is unable to completely hide what happens in overloaded hospitals. Maybe they will again in the future, but
How do you know that? (Score:2)
we also know that they are not currently suffering from the kind of outbreak seen in Italy or the US.
We do?
From reports I've seen from people in China, they are denying the situation is under control at all, and it may be much worse there still than anything in the U.S., or maybe even Italy (quite a wide spread between the two as Italy has 10x more deaths per million people than the U.S. does).
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we also know that they are not currently suffering from the kind of outbreak seen in Italy or the US.
We do?
From reports I've seen from people in China, they are denying the situation is under control at all, and it may be much worse there still than anything in the U.S., or maybe even Italy (quite a wide spread between the two as Italy has 10x more deaths per million people than the U.S. does).
Please share those reports with us why don't you? ... Not that it really matters. The US, population 326 million, will by some time next week overtake the EU, population 512 million, in the absolute number of infections because the EU-27 have been on lock down for the last few weeks while the US was still not acting. So, even if the Chinese are lying through their teeth about the number of infected the US is still not looking very good even when compared to another densely populated region (that isn't China
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"China Concealed" - why is it worded this way when it's plain they continue to conceal.
Weird! I totally agree with you on this one Super Ken Doll.
It was the US who "concealed" the extent of infections by purposely not testing. China lied. There is a difference! Not significant, but there is a difference!
Also, that China lied in no way absolves Trump of how badly he has handled this. Many, many people will die needlessly because of Trump's narcissism. What China does has no bearing on that, but guys like you want to talk about China every time Trump's performance on this comes up. So now, eve
Reminder - Everyone else was worse (Score:2)
in no way absolves Trump of how badly he has handled this.
The alternative are the Democrats who were telling people to go out and party at the end of February, after Trump had shut down air travel from China...
Trump has not been perfect of course, but the U.S. locked down about as fast as was imaginable, at a timeframe ahead of when any other president would have acted. That was what really mattered was the sudden stop of large events, and telling people to stay at home as much as possible. That mattered
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The alternative are the Democrats who were telling people to go out and party at the end of February
Citation please.
after Trump had shut down air travel from China...
Which was closing the barn door after the horses were gone. He then turned around and said it was like the flu (didn't know that people died from the flu, even though his fucking grandfather died from the Spanish flu).
Trump has not been perfect of course
Haha! I bet that took a lot of courage for you to write. Did you feel ill admitting he acted less than perfectly?
Let's see what he has said:
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
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I have no dog in this fight, but here are your citations [slashdot.org] (provided by another poster up thread).
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Trump has not been perfect of course,
Wash your mouth out with soap and say three Hail Marys.
We won't have that kind of talk in here.
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"but the U.S. locked down about as fast as was imaginable, "
You are a delusional twat.
", at a timeframe ahead of when any other president would have acted"
history says other wise, twat.
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in no way absolves Trump of how badly he has handled this.
The alternative are the Democrats who were telling people to go out and party at the end of February, after Trump had shut down air travel from China...
Trump has not been perfect of course, but the U.S. locked down about as fast as was imaginable, at a timeframe ahead of when any other president would have acted. That was what really mattered was the sudden stop of large events, and telling people to stay at home as much as possible. That mattered way more than testing, at the time. No country yet has comprehensive testing, with even the best countries having tested well under 5% of the population.
Please provide citations or it didn't happen.
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Because they are talking about past numbers, hence past tense.
English mother fucker, do you speak it.
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Is china paying you?
I bet he's just another individual like myself who has noticed they keep bringing up China as a distraction to the fucked up response of the US government.
The US has/had:
To bring up China's record on this surely should invite scrutiny of the US's response, as it has been the worst of any country in the worl
I am shocked (Score:2)
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this is my shocked face: :-O
I think it should have been posted from the blindingly-obvious department.
Re:I am shocked (Score:4, Informative)
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"Trump shut down travel from China just a few days later."
LOL. no. He:
"temporarily barred entry by foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days, with exceptions for the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents"
https://apnews.com/0dc271ad7f7... [apnews.com]
So no, he didn't "shut down" travel.
And this was after airline started slowing travel.
so ... (Score:2)
so three random officials leak a bold claim they aren't ready to back up?
"US intelligence community". is that some extension of slashdot? yawn ...
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yeah, but back then they had a freaking decorated national hero showing off made up satellite images and full color powerpoints!
This is news? (Score:3, Informative)
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Past behavior predicts future conduct.
Ok, but.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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This may be true that China concealed (and continues to conceal) the extent of the outbreak. But, I do not believe ANYTHING that comes from the current White House administration. It was only until the last couple of days that Trump actually acknowledged that anything was amiss. If he has done that, then things are FAR worse than they say.
But this report is by US intelligence agencies and not from the White House. We'll see if Trump believes his own intelligence agencies this time.
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I guess that's why President Trump shut down air travel in late January
He did? Pretty sure you can still get on a plane right now.
Re:Ok, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd look outside first.
Re:Ok, but.... (Score:4, Informative)
Are you really so deranged you won't believe anything Trump says? Is your derangement so deep even if he says the sky is blue you'll denounce it? Smarten the fuck up.
Non American here.
Not much to choose between Trump and Xi as far as truthfulness goes.
Re:Ok, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know that? Are you trusting the US mainstream media's reporting on Trump - or others that echo them? Or do you have your own intelligence agency?
Yes - it's called Twitter. Or are you suggesting that the lying sack of shit that posts there is not actually Donald Trump?
It's kind of hard to pull the "oh, you listen to biased sources" routine when the person is actually going on an uncensored public record multiple times per day. No one can paint Trump worse than his own statements do.
Re:Ok, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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MAGAs falling apart as they realize their emperor has no clothes.
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Since he has posted, literally, thousands of lies, if he says the sky is blue, then something bad has happened and he's trying to get us to not look.
Then we do look up and see that it's turned red.
Then we point that out to you Trumpanzees
and you scream fake news back at us, Even while looking at the sky.
Your emperor has no cloths, and you need to come to terms with that.
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Are you really so deranged you won't believe anything Trump says? Is your derangement so deep even if he says the sky is blue you'll denounce it? Smarten the fuck up.
For Trump's pronouncements about the virus situation, it isn't a matter of believing him or not believing him. It's a matter of remembering what he actually said. He said one thing and then said the opposite. In prior political epochs, he might be labeled as a flip-flopper. But many of his supporters simply forget the inconvenient things that he previously said.
Re:Ok, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you really so deranged you won't believe anything Trump says?
It's not that I don't believe anything he says, it's just that I don't have a way of discerning the truth of what he says. He could be lying, he could be telling the truth, but unless you know beforehand then you have no way of knowing.
The man lies so much you have to assume anything he says could be a lie, and treat it as such.
This has been obvious... (Score:2)
This was obvious to anyone with a functioning brain. Even if the fact that the numbers unnaturally paused at 80k and hardly moved afterward for a month and a half wasn't enough of a clue, random journalists counting cremation urns and unnaturally high phone deactivations have provided some circumstantial evidence. Our "intelligence" community should have figured this out weeks ago, we have to have hundreds of spies over there.
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yes, but lets not forget that China can lock everything down. Literal stop trucks, test the driver, and if positive take them to a hospital while leaving the truck by the side of the road.
So one would expect a dramatic drop off once that is in full force.
Try doing that in the US.
Again, yes China is lying, but it's not as cut and dry as 'everything they say is the opposite of whats happening.'
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Our "intelligence" community should have figured this out weeks ago, we have to have hundreds of spies over there.
You mean had.
R.I.P
China wasn't satisified unleashing a deadly virus (Score:5, Insightful)
Multiple pieces of evidence (Score:5, Informative)
There are multiple pieces of evidence for this.
So yeah, no surprise whatsoever that China is lying about its numbers.
Re:Multiple pieces of evidence (Score:4, Informative)
The fact that US numbers cap out about 20K a day
This is a fact you just made up.
US daily numbers 3/15-3/31:
737
983
1,748
2,848
4,530
5,594
4,824
9,359
10,168
11,122
13,355
17,224
18,691
19,452
18,882
21,384
24,686
The number bobbled a couple of times right around 20k, then blew right past it.
Confirmation of Tencent leak? (Score:5, Interesting)
About 2 months ago Tencent shortly published some numbers which were roughly 10x what the government was reporting
https://www.medicinenet.com/sc... [medicinenet.com]
Wouldn't it be nice to get direct info from China? (Score:2, Informative)
Whoops. Trump fired this person in July 2019: https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
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It is Trumps fault.
The US know's CCP lies, and that why we had people there to verify and get us actual info.
Trump got rid of him.
SO in what way is that not Trumps fault?
All you snowflakes cucks do the same thing: You change what was said and then scream about it.
No one said China lying is Trumps fault, they said he got rid of the person who allowed the US to see through those lies.
"n January but China told the WHO to back off and lie for them,"
I see right wing propganda is doing its job.
Because none of th
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The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017
The biggest cuts were to positions filled by Chinese employees on the U.S. payroll, down to around 10 from 40 over the same period
The CDC told Reuters the three Americans currently on staff in China are a country director, an influenza expert and an information technology expert. A temporary deputy director arrived recently, and that job will be filled permanently, the agency said in a statement.
So it wasn't "a person", there were dozens there, there are still 14 people there, and most of those let go were Chinese nationals supporting the office. There is stil an influenza expert on staff in China. But don't let the facts from your own reference get in the way of a good ol' Trump bashing!
Nobody is reporting truthfully (Score:3)
But it seems nobody bothered to send the memo to Italy and Spain...
So is the US (Score:3, Informative)
Hospitals are threatening to fire anyone who talks about it, and pushing out new NDAs.
Media outlets are getting pressure from the government.
Re:So is the US (Score:5, Informative)
Media outlets are getting pressure from the government.
ROFL! The mainstream media knuckling to pressure from the government.
Would that be the same government headed by Trump and the same media that flames him 24/7?
(Slaps floor and wheezes trying to get enough air.)
I've Been Saying This for Weeks. (Score:2)
China has a population of 1.4 billion. So if everyone in China got infected, that would mean 14 million people would be dead.
The US has a population of 300 million. If everyone in the US got infected, that would mean 3 million people would be dead.
And now the US is allegedly the #1 in the world for COVID-19 infections?
Of course China is hiding their real numbers. Especially being the origin and epicenter of t
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Who gives a f***? (Score:2)
Bottom line China got their outbreak under control while here in the US with full benefit of hindsight there is no end in sight. Over a dozen temporary hospitals in Wuhan have been decommissioned and tens of thousands of imported medical workers have gone back home. Whatever the extent of conspiracy to cook the numbers in the end China got its shit together and there is no denying that. The U.S not so much.
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There is a difference between knowing and strongly suspecting. China has had a long and clear history of lying in situations like this. So WHO is really going to trust them now. Not that people trust American 3 letter agencies all that much either, but what they are proposing is highly plausible.
Re: Water is Wet (Score:4, Informative)
Because WHO is funded partially by China and a lot of their top brass are Chinese government officials.
The WHO refused to answer questions on Taiwan's COVID response and when pressed shut down the meeting because they didn't want to admit Taiwan has an independent government.
The WHO believes all reports from China even though RadioFreeAsia recently reported a more accurate number based on local reporters which was an order of magnitude off for Wuhan alone. They estimate at least 20x more cases and deaths than reported which WHO summarily ignored.
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I'm Shocked!
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Because WHO is funded partially by China .....
It's shit like this that really makes me not trust this story. To quote
(from here [kff.org])
this is because the WHO is an international body funded by all countries. When you say something like "is funded partially by China" this it looks to me that you are just a shit spreader. Say something
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"partially funded" is probably the wrong way to describe it. But China does have an active effort in subverting international bodies to their interests and agenda. They do anything for votes in international institutions to have their yes-men in positions of power like WHO chief Tedros. 15 UN specialized agencies 4 of which are lead by China. No other country leads more than one.
It's more accurate to call it the Chinese Health Organization than the World Health Organization.
Can't talk about Taiwan and their
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"The WHO believes all reports from China "
nope. Not at all.
Read there release and how they are worded.
"RadioFreeAsia"
no a good source.
No doubt, China lied. But you kind of need to pay attention to foreign affairs and politics to understand what the WHO was doing.
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Because it's literally what he is doing.
He lies, all the time. That is demonstrable.
He is favoring who he gives aid to.
Demand people kiss his ass.
Your cult has blinded you to reality. Wake the fuck up.
Re: Water is Wet and Trump is LYING (Score:3, Informative)
Well said, though the "sack of shit" might feel insulted by the comparison.
I think a lot of hatred of Trump is based on loving the truth. I definitely feel that's where much or most of the emotional part of my reaction to Trump comes from. It's not just that he's destroying the nation, but that Trump is always lying about every aspect of the havoc he is wreaking.
Amusingly enough, I don't blame Trump. I think he was brainwashed from birth to be the monster he is. If you've read Trump's biography, you know th
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It goes like this (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, in this case China's numbers really strain credulity.
China didn't recognize/admit what was happening because they hosted the origin this time. By the time they actually did react in a constructive way, they had a couple of months of relatively unconstrained growth to deal with. Given how such a timeframe has played out in countries that knew what it was from the moment it started, China's numbers are just impossible. No matter how much you assume their extreme lockdown measures were, even zero spread after lockdown would still leave that early period being suspicious.
That's not to say US response was perfect, but with forewarning its very difficult to do worse than being surprised by an epidemic.
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That's not to say US response was perfect
Compare the United States' response to any other country... even the "shithole" countries... haha it is even worse by far than the shithole countries. God damn... less than perfect and Americans are going to fucking die in large numbers.
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What I don't get is why everyone is expecting China's number to be so out of the ballpark high. America is high so China must be far worse.
America had Trump telling people it's a cold, just a flu. Not taking it seriously at all.
It also has the Democrats telling people to get out and spend, go about your daily lives. Come to Chinatown don't be racist.
And China has a massive lock down, literally welding people in their apartments in places (still providing them food ofc) and tracking everyone's movement, bl
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What I don't get is why everyone is expecting China's number to be so out of the ballpark high. America is high so China must be far worse.
Well, let's take some simple reasons, and hopefully they'll explain why even moderates like myself think China is full of it.
First, consider that China has between triple and quadruple the population. Even if what they were doing was twice as effective as what the US is doing, we'd expect the absolute numbers to be about double.
Second, consider that they had a head start in infections getting around before they knew what it was. You can argue that we ignored the warnings for a while, but China had far more
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Re:What Intelligence? (Score:5, Informative)
The kind of intelligence that fails to prevent the epidemic in the US? Shut the fuck up and stop blaming other countries!
The intelligence didn't fail to prevent the epidemic in the US. We knew about the outbreak at least by the end of December, and it's likely there is intelligence we haven't even heard on the matter.
On December 31st China told the WHO they were dealing with an outbreak of pneumonia, but it's not like anyone believed them. The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control began monitoring passengers arriving from the Wuhan province that day, and within a week were monitoring people who had traveled their since December 20th. That is the type of response which any country could have used to actually reduce incoming infections. It took the United States an entire month to take any action, and we only restricted non-US citizens making it simply a public relations gesture.
It almost certainly wasn't lack of good information from our intelligence agencies which caused the current magnitude of the crisis, it was lack of leadership. Truth is I doubt any US administration would have taken the necessary measures because of the level of individualism, focus on economic growth, and general distrust of government in this country. But we ended up handling it as bad as anyone could have possibly imagined, or at least anyone who had a glimmer of hope there was any competence in our executive branch. Over two months into this crisis we still had our highest officials telling us this was wasn't even as bad as the flu.
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You did not [know about the outbreak by the end of December] because a virus wasn't even identified until mid-January, and even that was bottled up by the Chinese government for a week or two. At the end of December there was at best completely unexplained elevated cases of pneumonia which people only discovered in February after looking back at otherwise completely uninteresting records of hospital visits from some random province in China.
You are rewriting history. Countries were aggressively reacting to the virus within a week of China's false pneumonia reporting; before China's official admission on Jan 7. The first US case was identified on Jan 20th.
We didn't have nearly the amount of information we have now, but enough to be worried and to take action. And that isn't hindsight. Other countries (like Taiwan) were taking these actions. To paraphrase Dr Fauci, all reactions to a new viral infection need to appear like over-reactions, becaus
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Does it really matter whether China had 80K infected or 160K infected?
Does it really matter whether they had 3000 deaths or 30K deaths?
it matters to the white house for "trumping" up their own narrative. they have much to hide themselves.
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Those of us that understand whats involved? yes, testing is that hard.
That was made even hard with the GOP trying to down play it until the made money, with the GOP trying to get private companies to do it instead of the government agency designed for it, and the WH giving preferred action to state that favor him.