O/T:- China

[Notsohumblepie]

Bit of an over reaction or what?
After all most of the killer diseases that have ravaged the third world countries on the planet since the middle ages eminated from the west in fact most started here!! Now we want to extract revenge on someone else for this current flu bug
Secondly, if and it is an enormous if we tried to relocate all industrial factory production back to the west and away from China it would take billions and billions of investment, money the west hasnt got and the would require milions people for the labour force which we havent got and finally those labourers would have to want to work for pennies otherwise we will all have to pay 5,10,20 times more for these finished products currently manufactured in china where workers earn approximately 5% our average wage.
Lets just get on with solving this global problem together instead of starting the blame game

The plague that caused the Black Death originated in China in the early to mid-1300s, and spread along trade routes westward to the Mediterranean, and northern Africa. It reached southern England in 1348 and northern Britain and Scandinavia by 1350. Has China moved slightly to the west since then ?

[irishpete]

So its all China’s fault - perhaps we should declare war on them !

Jeez where you been the last few months ???

[upthemaggies]

It could have been brought into China from anywhere. It is a fact, not a conspiracy theory, that there were people from all over the world congregated in that city for a period of weeks shortly before the first cases came to light. I don't think it would be right to blame China or anybody unless it turned out that it was planted/cooked up in a lab. China has its' enemies so who knows, but we've already seen some poor Chinese-British lad beaten up in the streets over here directly because of this association. Not helpful going down that route.

[irishpete]

Bit of an over reaction or what?
After all most of the killer diseases that have ravaged the third world countries on the planet since the middle ages eminated from the west in fact most started here!! Now we want to extract revenge on someone else for this current flu bug
Secondly, if and it is an enormous if we tried to relocate all industrial factory production back to the west and away from China it would take billions and billions of investment, money the west hasnt got and the would require milions people for the labour force which we havent got and finally those labourers would have to want to work for pennies otherwise we will all have to pay 5,10,20 times more for these finished products currently manufactured in china where workers earn approximately 5% our average wage.
Lets just get on with solving this global problem together instead of starting the blame game

Not an over reaction at all. They have fcuked he World over. Maybe we should give them a pat on the back?

[Kelton]

Not an over reaction at all. They have fcuked he World over. Maybe we should give them a pat on the back?

Er no!
We just need to show maturity and leadership on a world stage, avoid the blame game and work with the rest of the world to fight this disease. After all we did that after the second world war and forgave the culprits and worked with them to repair the damage

[irishpete]

It could have been brought into China from anywhere. It is a fact, not a conspiracy theory, that there were people from all over the world congregated in that city for a period of weeks shortly before the first cases came to light. I don't think it would be right to blame China or anybody unless it turned out that it was planted/cooked up in a lab. China has its' enemies so who knows, but we've already seen some poor Chinese-British lad beaten up in the streets over here directly because of this association. Not helpful going down that route.

Don't think it was brought into China. Have you been there & how hard it is to get through at Airports? Believe you me its hard, even living there & wanting to move around

[irishpete]

Er no!
We just need to show maturity and leadership on a world stage, avoid the blame game and work with the rest of the world to fight this disease. After all we did that after the second world war and forgave the culprits and worked with them to repair the damage

You tell that to ones that have lost loved ones out of the blue. Even with underlying issues most weren't about to die

[tarquinbeech]

Bird flu, SARS and now this one. All starting in China, makes you think.

Uncontrolled wild meat markets have always existed in rural China, but became literal life-savers during Mao's great communist experiment where 20 to 40 million people starved to death....dogs, cats, snakes and rats became common food items, even humans (though the latter was rarely documented)

The Chinese ruling elite has at various times tried to ban these markets (difficult when most are controlled by criminal gangs), heavily regulate them and actively support them as a part of a growing and vibrant economy.
The problem is that most of these animals never meet in the wild, and new and exotic viruses are growing, spreading, cross-breeding and jumping between animals and now crossing into humans....it's a disaster waiting to happen and will probably continue to happen every few years or so....they will find a cure for covid19 hopefully this year, but a new virus is waiting.....as I've said elsewhere, this is nature's way of hitting back at arrogant humans.

[irishpete]

Covid 19 is here to stay in some form or another according to the Experts.

[hissingdwarf]

I've got no problem with China as a people or nation and I don't buy the conspiracy theories around the start of Coronavirus.

Unfortunately, the first reaction of a Government like China's is to hide or deny a problem, as they did when the "whistleblower" doctor raised the alarm. It's an instinctive reaction of what is still a fairly secretive state which guards its reputation closely, but in this case if they had confronted and been open about the problem earlier, rather than going into temporary denial, it might have been better contained, though that's by no means certain.

On the flipside, once they did admit they had a problem, China was able to act with the kind of authority Western Governments can only dream of, not just in terms of building infrastructure urgently, but also (I assume, because I didn't see it) controlling the messaging through the media far more tightly than is possible in western countries, and being sure that their people would follow the instructions they were given. I'm not saying that's a good thing under normal circumstances, because it isn't, but in an emergency situation it doesn't necessarily help to have too many voices issuing or contradicting advice or fermenting panic.

This! By the very nature of the beast, they we're deceptively quiet at the beginning, but by god, they certainly went full steam when it went public. Measures that have totally decimated the outbreak and stopped the virus in its tracks. Building hospitals in a week? Probably first to a vaccine? Central government saying as it is without having to mention the sodding economy in every other sentence?

As said above, a response that Western governments and their citizens can only dream of!