China and the WHO...

[Aseahawkfan]

So what do you all think?

Did the WHO downplay this because China put pressure on them or because China fed them bad numbers? Do you believe China's numbers are accurate? China is still around 83000 cases and 3300 deaths for a country four times the size of America and in a city with an estimated 11 million people. Were they really able to contain it in this tight area?

I know for myself the China numbers influenced my early opinion of the Novel Coronvirus. China seemed to keep it very controlled and limit their deaths. Was it their draconian measures of welding people in their houses and keeping people in their houses on threat of severe punishment that did it or did the Communist government exercise control over information to maintain their economic growth and status in the world thinking they had contained it? How much can we trust China's numbers? Did the WHO and most nations including the United States trust China's numbers?

How dangerous is it to world security and health to have such a large, influential, and economically integrated country with so little transparency like China? Should their level of information control be tolerated by the rest of the world doing business with them?

I can't blame China for a virus as viruses are naturally occurring mutations that have started all over the world including America. I do think information transparency should be greatly improved because of this. I do not think the world should tolerate a nation controlling information like China for medical information relating to a virus capable of causing a global pandemic. It's absolutely without a doubt important to have a network unimpeded by government to release information concerning the movement of viruses and similar diseases. No nation should be able to rewrite history or protect their nation's status when it puts people at risk.

How do we we pressure China to be more open without cutting them off? They are far too important to the global supply chain to cut them off, but at the same time without information transparency who is to say that something like this does not happen again with bad information slowing the world's reactions to a global pandemic.

[RiverDog]

Of course, China is under reporting their cases. Russia, Iran, and other closed societies are likely doing the same, so I agree with the OP that the WHO, China, and many others acted irresponsibly during this crisis and that corrections are needed.

However, I think that it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Although I agree with the OP that the WHO, China, and many others acted irresponsibly during this crisis and that corrections are needed, we need to put our house in order before we go about lecturing other countries and organizations regarding their failures during the crisis. Our own CDC has been extremely negligent, our Administration has ignored or dismissed warning flags, governors have hesitated to implement social distancing guidelines, our patchwork of 50 states has made it difficult to come up with a single coordinated strategy, and we're having difficulty tracking a critical statistic in what you would think would be relatively easy: Our total deaths.

Mark Hayward, an expert on mortality statistics who is a member of a CDC advisory council on vital statistics, said: "The biggest challenge in obtaining an accurate tally of COVID-19 deaths is to [be able to] implement widespread testing. Locales that lack testing and where populations are rural, reside in nursing homes, or people live alone are likely to be major contributors to the undercount; note that these are not mutually exclusive categories."



https://www.newsweek.com/us-coronavirus ... er-1498352

[Aseahawkfan]

You think we should focus on our situation before we put any pressure on China?

[RiverDog]

You think we should focus on our situation before we put any pressure on China?

No, of course not. I was thinking more of Trump's rampage against the WHO. It seems pretty hypocritical for him to threaten to withdraw funding and call for resignations when there were huge mistakes made within our own government and his own administration.

My hope is that the effect this crisis is having on the world economy demonstrates to all countries that it is in their best interests to cooperate when the issue is a communicable disease.

Again, these are actions that are needed once the virus has run its course and we do a proper investigation.

[Aseahawkfan]

No, of course not. I was thinking more of Trump's rampage against the WHO. It seems pretty hypocritical for him to threaten to withdraw funding and call for resignations when there were huge mistakes made within our own government and his own administration.

My hope is that the effect this crisis is having on the world economy demonstrates to all countries that it is in their best interests to cooperate when the issue is a communicable disease.

Again, these are actions that are needed once the virus has run its course and we do a proper investigation.

Definitely everyone needs work.

I just wonder how dangerous it is for us to interact with nations with the level of government imposed disinformation as China, when it could lead to outcomes like this. Right now everyone wants access to those 1.4 billion consumers in a growing economy without it seems considering the implications that empowering a government that runs like China with enormous economic power they can use to influence organizations like the WHO or flout international cooperation to ensure a favorable view of China.

Have you watched many Chinese movies as an example? I watched a few Chinese movies that literally made it seem like Japan was driven out of China and defeated during WW 2 for no reason. Like the United States was completely uninvolved and did not in any way participate in defeating Japan. Apparently this is done because the Chinese film control agency makes sure to rewrite history to make the United States appear as less than China and completely erase our involved in their nation.

How much can you trust a nation that will literally force everyone to comply with their view on threat of death or punishment? And do you want to empower that type of nation into an economic superpower? It seems at times we're empowering our own demise.

[RiverDog]

I just wonder how dangerous it is for us to interact with nations with the level of government imposed disinformation as China, when it could lead to outcomes like this. Right now everyone wants access to those 1.4 billion consumers in a growing economy without it seems considering the implications that empowering a government that runs like China with enormous economic power they can use to influence organizations like the WHO or flout international cooperation to ensure a favorable view of China.

Have you watched many Chinese movies as an example? I watched a few Chinese movies that literally made it seem like Japan was driven out of China and defeated during WW 2 for no reason. Like the United States was completely uninvolved and did not in any way participate in defeating Japan. Apparently this is done because the Chinese film control agency makes sure to rewrite history to make the United States appear as less than China and completely erase our involved in their nation.

How much can you trust a nation that will literally force everyone to comply with their view on threat of death or punishment? And do you want to empower that type of nation into an economic superpower? It seems at times we're empowering our own demise.

It's pretty hard to ignore the most populous country and 2nd largest economy on the planet. IMO it's more dangerous for us to ignore them than to engage them.

As far as the Chinese and their revisionist history, they aren't the only ones. Most Japanese, although they can tell you all about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, won't mention Pearl Harbor and are unaware of the Rape of Nanking and the Baatan Death March. I've seen where 40% of German high schoolers don't know about the Holocaust. And it's not limited to foreign nations. Native Americans in this country will tell you all about the atrocities committed by whites in the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee, but they don't often mention how barbaric their tribal wars were and how they would capture women and children from rival tribes and induce them into a life of slavery.

With all the emphasis on teaching kids about technology and computers, history is taking a back seat in the curriculum. It's one of my biggest pet peeves.

[Aseahawkfan]

It's pretty hard to ignore the most populous country and 2nd largest economy on the planet. IMO it's more dangerous for us to ignore them than to engage them.

As far as the Chinese and their revisionist history, they aren't the only ones. Most Japanese, although they can tell you all about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, won't mention Pearl Harbor and are unaware of the Rape of Nanking and the Baatan Death March. I've seen where 40% of German high schoolers don't know about the Holocaust. And it's not limited to foreign nations. Native Americans in this country will tell you all about the atrocities committed by whites in the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee, but they don't often mention how barbaric their tribal wars were and how they would capture women and children from rival tribes and induce them into a life of slavery.

With all the emphasis on teaching kids about technology and computers, history is taking a back seat in the curriculum. It's one of my biggest pet peeves.

Do you have proof German high schoolers don't know about The Holocaust? As far as I know the Germans are very, very careful about teaching younger generations about Nazis and making sure it doesn't happen again. It is even against the law in Germany to promote Nazis or push their propaganda. Germany seems very, very aware of their dark past and has taken measures to ensure it does not happen again.

Japan may not acknowledge their dark past, I don't think they are actively getting rid of people that bring it up. Nor do they demand the United States not acknowledge it. I know they are in a dispute with China over The Rape of Nanking because China is trying to leverage it for economic power and possibly suing Japan.

Native tribes were never unified, so not sure why they would universally acknowledge anything. It's a simplification of history to make it seem like the Native Americans had a unified land or were unified in any way. They were a bunch of different tribal peoples spread across a very large land. Some historically did engage in slavery, some did not. It would be impossible for them to acknowledge more than their individual tribe's history.

China is actively attempting to forcibly rewrite history, including forcing their artists, politicians, teachers, and the like to rewrite history to a version that celebrates China at the expense of honesty. They even muscle other nations to do the same with money and economic power like making claims on the South China Sea by building islands they will militarily claim or forcing movie directors to not acknowledge America's defeat of Japan. I think it is a very different situation when your society doesn't acknowledge something that they don't like such as many Americans trying to justify slavery compared to the government forcibly removing any mention of things from historical texts or society in general to literally create a false view of history that they censure and rewrite under threat of violence or imprisonment. Very, very different from the nations and situations you mention which are omissions with information available if you should seek to find it.

China is trying to destroy any attempt at truth except the one their government decides is real. If you oppose them, they will kill or punish you. Should we empower that type of nation? It really doesn't seem smart to me.

[RiverDog]

Do you have proof German high schoolers don't know about The Holocaust?

No "proof", but here's the article I was referring to:

A recent study by the Körber Institute has revealed that fewer than half of the 14 to 16-year-old German students surveyed realized that the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau facility was in fact a Nazi death camp. In fact, just 47% of respondents confirmed that they had heard of the camp.

Thirty percent of students over 17 also claimed not to know what the function of Hitler’s most notorious concentration camp was even though more recognised the name. While this is not reflected across all age ranges in German society this is still seen as a worrying trend by educators.

Sven Tetzlaff, Körber Institute Head of Educational Research said of the report that he was “worried to see that ever fewer German states offer history as a separate subject during middle school.” It made the argument for Tetzlaff that this, “is one of the reasons why such a shockingly large number of school kids don’t know about the Auschwitz concentration camp.”

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/news/auschwitz-2.html

Japan may not acknowledge their dark past, I don't think they are actively getting rid of people that bring it up. Nor do they demand the United States not acknowledge it. I know they are in a dispute with China over The Rape of Nanking because China is trying to leverage it for economic power and possibly suing Japan.

Perhaps. I'm not saying that revisionist history in the western world is on par with that in controlled societies like China and Russia, only that it does exist to a much higher degree than many people are willing to acknowledge.

Native tribes were never unified, so not sure why they would universally acknowledge anything. It's a simplification of history to make it seem like the Native Americans had a unified land or were unified in any way. They were a bunch of different tribal peoples spread across a very large land. Some historically did engage in slavery, some did not. It would be impossible for them to acknowledge more than their individual tribe's history.

I'm talking about current day native American activists. Many if not most decry the atrocities committed by white Europeans against native people, which there undoubtedly was. But seldom do they mention that the very same atrocities were committed by native Americans against other groups, including other tribes. To hear them tell the story you'd think that all native Americans were as pure as the wind driven snow. The 19th century was a very ugly period of world history that infected the entire human race, not just white Europeans.

You want to talk about why older white males w/o a college degree not only gravitate towards but literally worship a racist, ethically and morally bankrupt person like Donald Trump, a billionaire Manhattanite playboy you would think they have very little in common with? You can start by examining how for the past 40-50 years, liberals, by their failure to even mention atrocities committed by other racial and ethnic groups, have been painting Americans of European ancestry to resemble the Devil himself. As illogical as it seems, they internalize any attack on Trump as an attack on them, which is one of the reasons why HRC failed as her entire campaign was based on nothing but attacks on DJT.

China is actively attempting to forcibly rewrite history, including forcing their artists, politicians, teachers, and the like to rewrite history to a version that celebrates China at the expense of honesty. China is trying to destroy any attempt at truth except the one their government decides is real. If you oppose them, they will kill or punish you. Should we empower that type of nation? It really doesn't seem smart to me.

Agreed. But disengaging from them isn't going to stop them from attempting to re-write history.

[I-5]

I think I made that point several times in other threads here....the WHO and China are too cozy. Taiwan not only banned flights from Wuhan almost a month before the WHO suggested it, they also established that COVID-19 can be transmitted between humans, and again WHO was a month late. Why are they so slow, and so quick to praise China now? Does anyone actually believe China's adjusted numbers now even though it went up 50%?

I don't necessarily agree with completely defunding WHO, but I do think it's worth asking them to investigate their missteps and their relationship with China. They were still advocating for no masks much the last time I checked on their site 2 weeks ago.

[RiverDog]

I think I made that point several times in other threads here....the WHO and China are too cozy. Taiwan not only banned flights from Wuhan almost a month before the WHO suggested it, they also established that COVID-19 can be transmitted between humans, and again WHO was a month late. Why are they so slow, and so quick to praise China now? Does anyone actually believe China's adjusted numbers now even though it went up 50%?

I don't necessarily agree with completely defunding WHO, but I do think it's worth asking them to investigate their missteps and their relationship with China. They were still advocating for no masks much the last time I checked on their site 2 weeks ago.

Plus their social distancing recommendation is just one meter, or roughly half of what everyone else has recommended. The WHO is screwed up, no bout a doubt it.

But I still view the contrast between the failures of the WHO and those of our government's CDC a little like arguing about who has the ugliest step sister. I see where the CDC back in January violated their own protocols, causing a critical delay in the roll out of the test kits, the same ones that they insisted on using rather than the ones Europe offered to provide us with:

A contamination of the first round of COVID-19 testing kits made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slowed the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, The Washington Post and CNN confirmed Saturday.

“CDC made its test in one of its laboratories, rather than in its manufacturing facilities,” an FDA spokesperson said. “CDC did not manufacture its test consistent with its own protocol.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavi ... d25d6d87b5

[Aseahawkfan]

Plus their social distancing recommendation is just one meter, or roughly half of what everyone else has recommended. The WHO is screwed up, no bout a doubt it.

But I still view the contrast between the failures of the WHO and those of our government's CDC a little like arguing about who has the ugliest step sister. I see where the CDC back in January violated their own protocols, causing a critical delay in the roll out of the test kits, the same ones that they insisted on using rather than the ones Europe offered to provide us with:

A contamination of the first round of COVID-19 testing kits made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slowed the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, The Washington Post and CNN confirmed Saturday.

“CDC made its test in one of its laboratories, rather than in its manufacturing facilities,” an FDA spokesperson said. “CDC did not manufacture its test consistent with its own protocol.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavi ... d25d6d87b5

I don't trust the Huffpost. Hopefully you have a better source than that like the original source they got the info from. Reading The Huff Post is like watching Rush Limbaugh for the left.

[RiverDog]

[I don't trust the Huffpost. Hopefully you have a better source than that like the original source they got the info from. Reading The Huff Post is like watching Rush Limbaugh for the left.

Oh, come off it, don't be so naïve! The issue has been widely reported by multiple news agencies. The frigg'in FDA has concluded that the CDC violated their own protocols. Yesterday, a former officer at the CDC was quoted BY NAME and said that "The error was “devastating to the country” and “really a terrible black mark on the CDC,” James Le Duc, a former CDC officer..

Even the Vice President has acknowledged it:

Pence says faulty CDC coronavirus test kits were fixed in early February

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/19/pence-s ... ruary.html

And just in case you're still thinking that all I do is quote liberal rags, here's an excerpt from an article from the Wall Street Journal:

While the virus was quietly spreading within the U.S., the CDC had told state and local officials its “testing capacity is more than adequate to meet current testing demands,” according to a Feb. 26 agency email viewed by The Wall Street Journal, part of a cache of agency communications reviewed by the Journal that sheds light on the early response. The agency’s data show it tested fewer than 100 patients that day.

When the CDC first dispersed test kits in early February, it shipped them to a network of state and local government labs and restricted testing to people with virus symptoms who had recently traveled to China, where the virus first emerged, or had been exposed to a known case. Federal officials hoped the virus could be contained—even as they disputed alarms from those on the front lines that the CDC’s guidelines weren’t keeping up with the outbreak’s spread, emails between the U.S. agency and local officials show. The government left other laboratories on the sidelines for crucial weeks.

CDC officials botched an initial test kit developed in an agency lab, retracting many tests. They resisted calls from state officials and medical providers to broaden testing, and health officials failed to coordinate with outside companies to ensure needed test-kit supplies, such as nasal swabs and chemical reagents, would be available, according to suppliers and health officials.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-washin ... 1584552147

Read the WSJ article. It will open your eyes. The CDC has blood on its hands.

[Aseahawkfan]

Oh, come off it, don't be so naïve! The issue has been widely reported by multiple news agencies. The frigg'in FDA has concluded that the CDC violated their own protocols. Yesterday, a former officer at the CDC was quoted BY NAME and said that "The error was “devastating to the country” and “really a terrible black mark on the CDC,” James Le Duc, a former CDC officer..

Even the Vice President has acknowledged it:

Pence says faulty CDC coronavirus test kits were fixed in early February

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/19/pence-s ... ruary.html

And just in case you're still thinking that all I do is quote liberal rags, here's an excerpt from an article from the Wall Street Journal:

While the virus was quietly spreading within the U.S., the CDC had told state and local officials its “testing capacity is more than adequate to meet current testing demands,” according to a Feb. 26 agency email viewed by The Wall Street Journal, part of a cache of agency communications reviewed by the Journal that sheds light on the early response. The agency’s data show it tested fewer than 100 patients that day.

When the CDC first dispersed test kits in early February, it shipped them to a network of state and local government labs and restricted testing to people with virus symptoms who had recently traveled to China, where the virus first emerged, or had been exposed to a known case. Federal officials hoped the virus could be contained—even as they disputed alarms from those on the front lines that the CDC’s guidelines weren’t keeping up with the outbreak’s spread, emails between the U.S. agency and local officials show. The government left other laboratories on the sidelines for crucial weeks.

CDC officials botched an initial test kit developed in an agency lab, retracting many tests. They resisted calls from state officials and medical providers to broaden testing, and health officials failed to coordinate with outside companies to ensure needed test-kit supplies, such as nasal swabs and chemical reagents, would be available, according to suppliers and health officials.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-washin ... 1584552147

Read the WSJ article. It will open your eyes. The CDC has blood on its hands.

Now I'm starting to see this narrative being pushed by the left. Another article with this exact information published by The New York Times and with an underlying agenda to not re-open the nation and push back against Trump's push to re-open by stating we do not have enough tests and set him up for the blame for any flare ups. Now I see where you got this and it's been loudly pushed now by the media. The narrative is the CDC made a mistake in the initial testing and the FDA held up outside labs testing. They are trying to blame each other and ultimately blame The Fed for the incompetence.

Now we'll see how long America can continue to be shutdown and what does more damage to the nation: deaths by the virus or economic damage that will lead to lost homes, assets, loan defaults, business bankruptcies, lost jobs, and a general level of economic destruction much like The Great Depression along with the usual socialist push that comes every time our economy collapses. I very much expect the left to use this economic destruction to heavily push socialist policies as they have done in every single economic down period in history. It was after The Great Depression that heavy socialist policies pushed by FDR gained their most traction, which didn't get rolled back for decades. If the economy collapses, we're in for a Bernie Sanders type of candidate for absolutely sure in the coming years.

That's a lot of liberal rags you quoted. CNBC is basically Fox News for the left and I would trust them about as much as cbob trusts Fox news. The WSJ is more neutral to right leaning. Their article shows mistakes, but not willful mistakes. So IMO no, the CDC does not have blood on their hands. No one does including China unless we can clearly show they hid the virus on purpose with the intent of profiting off of the virus spreading. I doubt they did that. I'm not in such sensationalistic BS statements.

I'll say it again: Once in a century pandemics are hard to plan for and respond to.I will also bring up one of the defenses you often use in other discussions: especially in a nation this size. Rolling out testing for fifty states with 330 million legal people and 20 million or so undocumented people is difficult at best.

Mistakes were going to be made as they were made around the world. This political blame game is about as useful to fixing this as me going out my house and shouting at the moon.

If you want to buy into this new "Blood on your hands" blame game various groups are doing whether the left blaming Trump, the CDC, or what not and the Right blaming China and the WHO, have at it.

I just want this studied heavily. I want our testing ramped up. I want a whole lot of learning from this for future improvement. As far as blaming someone for the death of people in a global pandemic that was beyond their control, I'm not about to join in that club.

I know mistakes were made and more will be made. How much of an effect they would have had on the outcome I cannot and will not say. Each country seems to having different levels of outbreaks even while taking different measures to slow the outbreak. I'll look at the information after all this done to see how we did and what we can improve. I'm not going to literally blame someone for the deaths of people from a virus unless I see them directly coughing on someone or something similar. We'll see at the end of it all how everyone did and what seemed to work and for what nation.

We're still somewhere between Germany and South Korea and Italy, which is where I expected us to be. We're not done yet, so we'll wait until the end to see where that final tally is. If we keep it under a 100000 or even 66000 I will count our containment efforts as highly successful. Now my worry is the economic damage and if we see a sudden flare up. I am hoping that the theory that far more of us have been infected is true and that we have much more immunity than we think.

Best hope that reopening the nation doesn't screw us their RD or you might live to see a major socialist push in America that makes Bernie Sanders look tame. The Great Depression was a period where even The American Communist Party gained a voice.

[I-5]

I'll say it again: Once in a century pandemics are hard to plan for and respond to.

Except for the (mostly Asian) countries that experienced SARS that went ahead and planned for this, and they were MUCH better prepared.

Imagine IF:

1. China had notified the WHO back in November when they knew of the first case

2. The US hadn't disbanded its pandemic response team in 2018

Think it wouldn't make any difference today?

[RiverDog]

Now I'm starting to see this narrative being pushed by the left. Another article with this exact information published by The New York Times and with an underlying agenda to not re-open the nation and push back against Trump's push to re-open by stating we do not have enough tests and set him up for the blame for any flare ups. Now I see where you got this and it's been loudly pushed now by the media. The narrative is the CDC made a mistake in the initial testing and the FDA held up outside labs testing. They are trying to blame each other and ultimately blame The Fed for the incompetence.

It has nothing to do with re-opening the nation. You made the statement regarding the incompetence in the WHO, of which I agreed but countered with the fact that our own CDC had botched the testing process in the critical early weeks when the virus first started to spread in this country.

Now we'll see how long America can continue to be shutdown and what does more damage to the nation: deaths by the virus or economic damage that will lead to lost homes, assets, loan defaults, business bankruptcies, lost jobs, and a general level of economic destruction much like The Great Depression along with the usual socialist push that comes every time our economy collapses. I very much expect the left to use this economic destruction to heavily push socialist policies as they have done in every single economic down period in history. It was after The Great Depression that heavy socialist policies pushed by FDR gained their most traction, which didn't get rolled back for decades. If the economy collapses, we're in for a Bernie Sanders type of candidate for absolutely sure in the coming years.

Waiting a couple extra weeks isn't going to cause the exponential damage to the economy that you're projecting. What would be worse is if we start up the economy prematurely, and the virus comes back again. Then we'd have to go through this whole thing again, with the potential of it being even worse than the first time around.

That's a lot of liberal rags you quoted. CNBC is basically Fox News for the left and I would trust them about as much as cbob trusts Fox news. The WSJ is more neutral to right leaning. Their article shows mistakes, but not willful mistakes. So IMO no, the CDC does not have blood on their hands. No one does including China unless we can clearly show they hid the virus on purpose with the intent of profiting off of the virus spreading. I doubt they did that. I'm not in such sensationalistic BS statements.

OK, fine. So you don't trust CNBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or even the Wall Street Journal. It's getting damn difficult to find a news source that you do trust even when they use quotes from spokesmen at the FDA and a named former official from the CDC, but I'll play your game. Here's one from Fox News regarding the testing fiasco at the CDC that even the Trump Administration has seen enough reason to start an investigation:

The Trump administration has reportedly ordered an investigation into a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab in Atlanta that was in charge of assembling coronavirus test kits after a scientist with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised concerns that the lab itself may be “contaminated,” possibly leading to faulty test kits, according to reports.

https://www.foxnews.com/health/cdc-lab- ... ted-report

IMO you're sticking your head in the sand just like you did when you were denying that a PPE shortage exists if you can't see that the CDC committed huge mistakes that led to weeks long delays in getting test results in the critical early days of the crisis, and even though they fixed the test, it contributed to a huge backlog of administered tests before results could be obtained. I can personally confirm this as it took my brother-in-law 10 days to get results from the test they gave him for COVID-19, and that was in early March.

Best hope that reopening the nation doesn't screw us their RD or you might live to see a major socialist push in America that makes Bernie Sanders look tame. The Great Depression was a period where even The American Communist Party gained a voice.

What might happen by re-opening the nation prematurely is that the virus starts spreading again, we end up with more restrictions come November, they go ahead with the election, the big city liberals stay home while the Trump supporters, who are dismissive of the entire crisis and live in largely unaffected rural areas, go to the polls and re-elect Donald Trump. That would be a worse nightmare than if Sanders were elected.

[RiverDog]

I'll say it again: Once in a century pandemics are hard to plan for and respond to.

Except for the (mostly Asian) countries that experienced SARS that went ahead and planned for this, and they were MUCH better prepared.

Imagine IF:

1. China had notified the WHO back in November when they knew of the first case

2. The US hadn't disbanded its pandemic response team in 2018

Think it wouldn't make any difference today?

That's just it. There were major mistakes made across the globe that inflamed this virus and made it much worse than it had to be. Whether or not they were willful or sinister is beside the point, at least at this stage of the game, and I'm comfortable waiting until the investigation during the post mortem is complete before rendering a final judgement regarding their motives. But to rationalize them by saying the pandemic was inevitable and not holding those that made mistakes accountable for their failings is inviting a repeat of a similar situation 10 years down the road.