Worrying on many levels - M16 say today that China covered up the coronovirus ?

I wasn't just talking about the virus, I was talking about about the conduct of a one party state having the luxury of running their country as they see fit without being accountable to anyone. In democracies government always have one eye on the electorate. so have to be mindful of decisions, inevitably at times putting them at a disadvantage. .

Good posts Jabberwok ??

Sorry, Jabberwok but I don't quite get the relevance of your 'point' to the demonisation of China as the source of covid19.

So which is worse MaizieD?

That a virus somehow escaped from a facility which could possibly be creating such viruses so that they may research into antidotes in case such viruses evolved?
Or that a virus evolved and mutated that had originated from the peacrispce of eating wild and endangered animals?

Questioning other regimes is not being racist.
Nor is querying culinary practices of other countries which may result in something disastrous like this.

We have had our own crises here such as BSE which has been rightly criticised by other countries which took long term actions resulting from that.

Practices
I have no idea why that changed into peacrispce
It looked fine until I hit post.

Criticising the Chinese regime or the practice of some Chinese people for eating certain meats or treatment of animals isn't racist in itself (although a tad hypocritical).

However, bundling together a whole load of bigoted stereotypes of all things relating to China and Chinese people is racist. Unfortunately, that is what is happening, not necessarily on GN (although it's crept in even on GN) but in insults being thrown at people running Chinese restaurants or even looking vaguely east Asian - and it is happening and is fuelled by this kind of thread - the third/fourth on GN about the same issue?

I think some people on this thread have spent their lockdown time watching too many sci-fi films or scouring conspiracy sites.

It was the lizards!! Haven't you all worked that one out?

China have come out of lockdown too soon. According to worldometers China have had 1,290 deaths in the past 24 hours. They were having deaths in single figures. This is a very frightening jump.

growstuff ?

What will be needed once this crises is past is for the WHO
, the UN being backed up by the world governments is to look thoroughly at both the wet markets and animal husbandry.

Wet markets exist throughout the world and are vital to the poor.

Instinctively we think they should be banned, but if we do that then the poor who are so dependent on them will starve or certainly go hungry.

So it isn’t that simply and is a world wide problem. It needs urgent examination by scientists and environmentalists that come up with a solution that safeguards the world population, whilst ensuring the poor are protected.

With regard to animal husbandry, this is an ongoing and major issue.
Various scandals such as BSE have popped up over the years (indeed even now British human blood is refused throughout the world) and the scientists and environmentalists need to be constantly vigilant over the way we produce meat.

Saying China deliberately spread the virus is rubbish, however like many countries their hygiene practices encourage the spread of any disease. The difference is that the population travel much more than other countries, within the country and internationally. With hindsight travel to and from China or any other country should have been stopped immediately, that is one action that I hope is taken in future.

Did anyone really think, at any point that China was/is/will be honest about Covid, or anything else for that matter?

I doubt they deliberately spread it. As we know only too well they are not stupid and know such things tend to turn on their creators. We have seen Chinese indifference to human welfare, why should they be expected to show more concern about animal welfare?

What I hope will come out of this crisis is a greater realisation of the threat China poses to the rest of the world and a realisation that our obsession with the market economy has made us over reliant on China for manufactured goods and technology and that we need to become more self sufficient, in food, in manufactured goods and more controlled in what technology we sell overseas and what technology we buy.

The desperate shortage of PPE is a direct result on our over reliance on importing it cheaply from other countries, like China, where in a crisis like this we are in competition with every other country in the world for it and the complete lack of any manufacturing capacity in this country that can rapidly increase production or can quickly change from manufacturing clothing, uniforms or other similar goods in quantity.

I do not believe that China Deliberately spread this virus throughout the world. However, I do believe that the Chinese government carried out a huge cover operation for as much as two months prior to acknowledging the existence of the epidemic in the Wuhan province.

The figures for the numbers of those that contracted the disease and died also cannot be correct when now placed against those of other countries who now have widespread experience of Covid-19 epidemic.

I also very strongly believe that western countries must now completely reassess their commercial relationship and reliance on Chinese manufactured products.

It is now time for real change whatever the problems that may be involved in that.

I have hopes that we can make things for ourselves again. So much of what we use comes from China, even tourist souvenirs,if you look carefully. I am not sure we can gain back some control.

To be fair to china ( sarcastic emoji) they have upped the death toll in wuhan by 1,000 + ?

As I have said on another thread, I do not think there is a single country that is producing credible and reliable figures on the spread of Covid in their country.

I do not mean that there is any deliberate deception, China apart, but the methods of collection are so diverse and the reliability of them in the frenetic atmosphere of the crisis must be suspect.

It is certainly clear in the UK that death counts includes people who did not have Covid and excludes others that did, that there are varying time lags between deaths and reporting them and a complete lack of statistics of the prevalence of the isease in the community.

The statistics show the rise and trajectory of the disease in a country, but no more and to even try to do any country comparisons is like comparing apples with wing nuts.

It stands to reason that if other viruses have mutated from animal -> animal, animal -> human and then human -> human, a research laboratory would be investigating how these mutations occur and looking for possible antidotes. It is not beyond reasonable doubt that an accident could have occurred. Or, of course, that a virus could have mutated and been transmitted through the wet markets.
We may never know for sure precisely how this occurred and when.

We will never know the number of cases worldwide either, even in those countries which claim they are testing everyone as some people may never report mild symptoms or be asymptomatic.

I for one thought it was strange when China reopened the wet markets immediately after lockdown.

Anyone would think their government knew the virus didn’t originate from them ....

The death rate in China has gone up again.

We have a long hard way to go.

There are alternative view points growstuff even though you seem to find it amusing.

It's got nothing to do with wet markets or research labs!

It's 5g

(If we're really going to play the futile speculation game)

@growstuff

Thanks for your post at 03.49 this morning

“Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.”

― Ray Dalio

Precisely, Ug

Let's drop it, shall we?