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I wanted to welcome Harry Chen PhD to #QOTO his account is @HarryChenPhD
He lives in China, and from what I can tell is currently living in Wuhan, the epicenter of the #coronavirus where he posts videos updating us all on the situation. He labels himself as a "renegade journalist".
He was recently banned from twitter because, well, China doesnt really like renegades or journalists. So we are proud to act as a platform to help him host his videos and get the word out on how things develop. Consider following him.
You can read a bit about how twitter oppressed his freedom of speech and what ultimately brought him to the fediverse at these two links:
https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-suspends-harry-chen-phd-cornavirus/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/f938j3/twitter_suspends_harry_chen_phd_known_for/
#Wuhan #CoronaVirus #FF #FollowFriday #China #Journalism #Journalist
Not even sure what that means. Its mostly just posts of videos by the look of it. Anything "anti-china" about it seems to mostly just be honesty around their practices (manipulation and dishonesty) to their citizens.
@elia @freemo would you say that china has been totally transparent with the international community?
To be clear, there is a lot of evidence to back up the claim that china is hiding evidence or in other words, covering something up...there is overwhelming evidence in fact.
In regards to the video itself, It's just a short video clip with a title...dont think too much, and, I am trying to learn this app, I was keeping things concise because if a bad twitter habit. Not trying to attack the noble and righteous government of china...we all owe them a thanks for saving the world.
For my part, I think China is one of the worst violators of human rights. They hide virtually **everything** from everyone they can get away with. They are not transparent in any way.
With that said I would not be surprised int he least if they are "hiding something" in fact they are certainly hiding many somethings.
My criticism is more that saying "they are hiding something" is so non-specific that it isnt really saying anything.. What is being hidden? Why do you think its hidden? What are the rumours or concerns? These are important questions, and to me would be useful to hear about, which is why I press you for details.
But I think just saying "they are hiding something" may work against you a bit because people need more than that to judge the situation.
Let me say that while China is a human rights violator this is nothing compared to the US Empire and what it did for decades and is currently doing to the rest of the world, in addition to their hypocrisy in presenting their selves as defenders of democracy.
Also it's worth noticing that during this virus crisis Italy didn't get any help from other European countries like Germany or France nor from USA. What Europe got from USA now are 30 000 soldiers which officially came for military exercises as if the coronavirus was not here.
On the other hand China sent us in Italy masks with encouraging messages (see image below, it says: "we are with you, come on Italy!").
Strongly disagree. No doubt USA is a human rights violater as with every major power, no arguments, but they dont even come CLOSE to china's violations. Come on are you really going to justify a country that 1) annexes countries and forces them to be part of china 2) forces people into reprogramming facilities against their will for things as simple as their choice of religion.
As for china giving more help to Italy than America, even if thats true, considering thye are the ones who started the Corona virus I would very much hope so! They should be doing a lot more than that.
By that I mean, it originated in a china, as a result of bush meat consumption that was unregulated. They did not use proper measures to contain or prevent the virus.
I did **not** mean that they intentionally engineered or released the virus or any sort of conspiracy nonsense.
It would have been very easy to stop. Most new viruses come from consuming bush meat (meat from wild animals). It is the top reason why bush meat is illegal in much of the world, for this very reason.
If they had either made bush meat ilegal, or at least regulated its consumption to ensure sick animals werent consumed, this could have been easily prevented.
In short the coronavirus is a direct result of their legal policy regarding meat.
The problem is not the virus per se, it's just a cold. Otherwise there would have been no problem: the seriously ill with other pathologies would have been hospitalized. There would have been no need for any restrictive measures and panic would not have been triggered.
The problem is that our health system suffered from neoliberist policies and is about to collapse for a simple cold.
This is the reality, when you know certain things this is just the simple rational conclusion.
@freemo @elia @post I think the root of the problem was that the central government of china tried to cover up the virus instead of dealing with it from the beginning...now, I am not going to cite hundreds of sources on this, just google it...there are many many accredited journalists that reported it
Yup thats exactly what I was saying from the get-go China's tendency to cover things up and lie is a huge part of how this started and was also a huge part of the SARS epidemic.
The origins of coronavirus seem to be a bit more complex because it seems like it originated from a rare contact of wild animals that rarely mix in natural conditions, but are frequently poached and sold on anti-sanitary markets for use in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
TCM is obviously pseudo-science and usage of protected animals is barbaric.
Now, on one hand it's strongly supported by China government, who lobbied at WHO to consider it part of medicine. On the other hand, it tried to modify TCM canon to exclude animal ingredients and officially banned poaching. On yet another hand, the "illegal" markets are flourishing which means they are being protected by officials.
There is no evidence that TCM even work...the communist party did however promote a medicine that was majority owned by high ranking party members...that medicine was sold out over night and was quackery and witchcraft. There was quote afterwards, "if the party told people dog shit was the cure the entire worlds supply of dog shit would be dug up over night".
Every chinese hospital prescribes western meds coupled with chinese meds, most people just throw away the herbal stuff. Their insurance company's cover the cost of the TCM otherwise the industry would buckle...and industry that's heavily invested in by high ranking party members...good luck getting testing done on those "medicines"...
Now as for the meds that come from animals, they are mostly boner medicine...google it, I'm not joking
I'm sorry, I would have to see proof. Besides, the outbreak happened in Wuhan, hence the name "Wuhan pneumonia". You might be surprised to learn that this virus is a mutation of the original, that mutation happened in Wuhan which only further solidifies the name "Wuhan pneumonia". We aren't going to start deconstructing the name of every virus or only the virus' that the Communist party of China is campaigning to have changed ?
Also, I am well aware of the wet markets and the practices at said markets. I had been shopping at a similar one for more than 20 years.
No solid proof, but ver strong evidence the virus originated in pangolin trade. Aside from the fact that the first cases were known to occur from customers that bought from a store that sells pangolin meat what evidence we have in analyzing the virus itself suggests it is mutated from a virus commonly present in the pangolin population.
Please see the linked Nature article in my comment, based on the following original publication from South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou https://scau.edu.cn/2020/0207/c1300a219015/page.htm
@kravietz @freemo @elia @post I'm sorry, I would need to see a publication from a non bias source. That university can't report findings that are not in line with the state agenda...I'm not alone in opinion either, no reputable academic would honour a citation from a chinese university on a politically sensitive matter.
@HarryChenPhD @kravietz @freemo @elia
Please untag me from this particular argument cause I think it's really too early to have sensible discussions on the subject due to the partial and contradictory data we currently have.
Well, living in 80's communist Poland and visiting Russia a lot I can understand *that* argument :) On the other hand, if this TCM industry is dominated by party people, why would a state university undermine their business by publishing such news if it wasn't legitimate research?
Shadow economy doesn't like publicity. Any publications about the link between TCM and Covid-19 is damaging for TCM simply because it increases pressure on the Chinese government to enforce its own regulations, ban on poaching etc.
BTW from the presentation I just posted - this explains the whole connection with pangolins and bats
TTTAGC... are RNA bases. The table shows tiny differences between RNA of various viral strains.
@kravietz @freemo @elia tiny differences at that level are huge...I'm going to stand with popular science on this and say the origin is still unknown and the virus seems to have come from animals however, there are also some suspicious elements to the virus that warrant investigations...which is what China, for some reason, is trying to avoid.
You are welcome to that opinion, but it isnt popular science. The "popular science" or rather, the most accepted theory at the moment, is that the virus comes from a pangolin.
This has been confirmed several ways 1) the source of the virus came from a market selling pangolins, this was known prior to any genetic sequencing and 2) genetic sequencing shows it is closely related to the virus present in pangolin populations/
@elia @freemo @post really? You think they handled it well since the beginning? They were caught trying to cover it up...Dr. Li told some friends who told the world and that doctor was arrested and interrogated for days, he later died...so he cabt testify to that...so you can imagine my amazement to hear you think they handled it really well since the beginning. If I might ask, what was it that stood out from the december outbreaks that made you believe that the communist party of china acted so well...because they didnt officially act for 30 days...so during that 30 day period, what was it that stood out to you?🧐
I didn't say so. But Italy and in future USA are risking a total collapse and we don't even have monetary sovereignty to save people.
This is not China's fault, our system was extremely fragile because of the same neoliberist ideology that is making exploitaion of workers in China a reality.
I think this goes back to what I said, everything centers around his hate for the US and "neo-liberals".. i think he is so hyperfocused on that he probably brings all world-issues back to the USA.. It seems to be a pattern I see since talking to him.
I think the Chinese authorities did well in silencing rumors and later imposing the Wuhan quarantine. Here in Italy the goverment's measures were leaked the day before they were enacted, allowing people to escape all over Italy, away from Lombardy, the pandemic's epicenter.
China may have acted 30 days late, but Italy later and all other countries even later. So I think they acted comparatively pretty quickly and efficiently. They also acknowledged the errors made, so there is room for improvement and it's a much better signal then "the coronavirus is a democrat's new hoax".
Regarding Dr. Li, his story is very sad, but from what I know, the Chinese authorities completely discharged him from any accusations days before his death. He surely did his best given the circumstances.
Of course *if* the virus potential damage was better assessed, they could have acted much sooner and avoid terrible mistakes, but unfortunately humans do not understand the exponential function.
No, they are way better than Western countries when it comes to these crisis.
I don't like the Chinese being so militarized and that they don't care of liberal democracy and other rights but when these crisis happen they show the advantage of their social organization. China will certainly recover from this crisis. It is the western world with its neoliberist ideology and its stupid budgetary constraints that is likely to collapse.
