Reporting on the spread of coronavirus in China appears grossly in error. The reporting fails the commonsense check. Think about the reaction of the Chinese government. They quarantined the city of Wuhan, population about 11 million. Do you do that for the flu alone?
Proportional response
Then they quarantined Hubei province, population about 50 million. Do you do that for the flu alone? The entire country is involved, or at least threatened. Xi Jinping has become personally involved in response. They have put a majority of their nearly 1.4 billion people under house arrest. Do you do that for the flu alone?
The Chinese authorities are reporting today, for the second day in a row, there were fewer than 2,000 new cases of the virus. Do you believe that? The number has not fallen below that threshold since Jan. 30. Public health officials make this report while warning against excessive optimism. Has political pressure ever cause health officials to spin or shade their reporting?
China’s population is estimated at about 1.439 billion. They are reporting less than 2,000 deaths per day from the flu. That means their death rate is 0.0001%. That is about one person in every 10,000. Now ask yourself, would you be disrupting world trade and throwing your own economy into the deep freeze for the flu alone? Probably not.
What has the cruise ship in Japan shown us?
We know hundreds of passengers are leaving a cruise ship in Japan after the end of a quarantine. More than 540 people aboard the ship are known to have tested positive for the virus. The ship docked in Japan with about 3,700 passengers. This means about 14.5% of the passengers got the coronavirus.
As China works to contain the epidemic it is sidelining groups the Communist Party considers rivals. China has demonstrated to the world it can and will shut down entire cities. China has also shown a glaring weakness that imperils lives and threatens efforts to contain the outbreak. It is unable to work with its own people.
Muzzling the press
China said today that it is revoking the credentials of three Wall Street Journal reporters. This comes after Chinese officials objected to a headline in the newspaper’s opinion pages. The objectionable headline is: “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.”
All the signs and symptoms say gross over reaction… unless perhaps there is a biological weapons facility in Wuhan… unless containment may have been lost. But that’s pure conjecture… But the reporting just does not add up…
Even aside from the Corona virus China has a sick society. It is afflicted with repression virus. They refuse to grok that the cure for repression virus is inoculation with respect for life, liberty and property rights. The current public health issue is going to be a test not only of the government’s control but also of the people’s thirst for a better standard of living and greater individual freedom and autonomy. Reporting of the spread of coronavirus in China appears grossly in error to the point of straining common sense conclusions.
