This is a separate thread that is China (centric) news related and not US or European based. The focus is on what China is doing both in Mainland China, and other countries, militarily, economic as well as any actions they are taking that is news worthy in relation to the virus out break.
China has become the schoolyard bully and is not going to come through this as unscathed as they think they will.
I have to say, I’m very happy that the ways of the CCP have come to light as well as the number of countries suing them for damages.
Australia has the most to lose in this, have to say I am pretty impressed by their resolve. They are an extremely important ally and we need to do all we can to support them.
I completely agree…
This is not related to Covid-19 but is just another nail in their coffin.
Now China is mocking the US. Part of their propaganda war, they decided to produce a short animation mocking the US
This is a pretty interesting read.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/five-eyes-dossier-chinese-coronavirus-coverup-u-s-findings
The Daily Telegraph article
There is new evidence to show that China locked down all domestic traffic internally by end January 2020 but pushed to open foreign travel till end March. Data from Tom Tom traffic index, a traffic location site that covers 416 cities across 57 countries show that as a result of this strategy, China, intentionally or otherwise, was able to lockdown its cities unknown to the world. While this reduced the spread of the Corona virus within China, China’s aggressive foreign travel policy lead to a virus explosion worldwide. Here is the chronological events of what happened with the requisite traffic data from 10 major cities globally and the statements from Chinese leaders that will help readers reach their own conclusions.
Beijing & Shanghai were isolated by Jan, domestic flights curtailed
The COVID- 19 virus first surfaced in Wuhan in the last week of December. On 31 December 2019 Chinese health officials first reported to WHO that 41 patients in Wuhan had contracted a mysterious pneumonia that was not responding to conventional treatment. As most patients were from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market it was closed on the 1st of January. On the 7th of January Chinese scientists identified the virus as a novel Coronavirus later termed as the COVID-19 virus. On the 11th of January the virus claimed its first life in Wuhan city. On 13th January Thailand reported the first case of Coronavirus outside China. On 20th of January Zong Nanshan the scientist named by China to lead the battle against the virus stated ” Now we can say that it is certain that it is a human to human transmission phenomenon”.
On January 22 at a meeting to decide the measures to be taken, WHO was not able warn the world of the severity of COVID-19 apparently because of resistance from Beijing. (WHO referred to it as “divergent views”) On January 23 Wuhan city was placed under quarantine and two days later the entire Hubei province was locked down. The Chinese state machinery was harnessed to enforce an unprecedented quarantine on 50 million people across 15 cities. In the last week of January domestic flights from Hubei to other parts of China was stopped and restrictions on traffic movement in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai were initiated. This was the time of the Chinese New Year when offices and schools are normally closed and it is also the prime tourism season for the Chinese. On the 31st January Italy fearing a major outbreak of Coronavirus from hundreds of tourists arriving from China closed all flights to and from China.
China’s traffic density below 10% in Feb, but criticises global traffic curbs
China’s vice-minister of foreign affairs Qin Gang met Italy’s ambassador to China Luca Ferrari in Beijing following the flight ban. “Italy’s decision to stop flights without contacting China in advance caused great inconvenience to citizens of both countries. Many Chinese are still stranded in Italy,” the foreign ministry said on its website the following day. The U.S. issued a travel advisory against China travel on the 2nd of February but did not ban all services. While Chinese authorities limited domestic flights from Wuhan to other Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to contain the outbreak in January, it urged international carriers to maintain their flying schedules. The Civil Aviation Administration of China stated “In order to meet the needs of passengers in and out of the country and the international transport of supplies during this special period … airlines [are required to] … continue transport to nations that have not imposed travel restrictions.”
China’s assertion that all was well for international travel was supported by the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the opening of the agency’s Executive Board meet on the 3rd February. He said ” There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. We call on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent. WHO stands ready to provide advice to any country that is considering which measures to take,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying criticised the US advisories saying “The U.S. government hasn’t provided any substantial assistance to us, but it was the first to evacuate personnel from its consulate in Wuhan, the first to suggest partial withdrawal of its embassy staff, and the first to impose a comprehensive travel ban on Chinese travellers”
While China continued to protest against international travel bans it successfully quarantined Wuhan and other affected cities. The total domestic lockdown of Hubei province and the flight ban imposed inside China had immediate effect. As per data from Tom Tom traffic index Wuhan had a traffic density of 60% in January while Shanghai and Beijing had nearly 80% density. After the total lockdown the average traffic density fell to below 10% in Wuhan and Shanghai during February and below 5% in Beijing. While implementing a total domestic lockdown in February, China kept assuring the world that the situation was not serious and fully under control.
WHO declares global pandemic belatedly in March, nations unprepared
China kept on the facade of hiding the severity of the virus attack till mid March. On the 11th of March WHO belatedly declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. By that time the number of cases globally had grown thirteen fold. As per WHO website more than 118,000 cases had been reported in 114 countries, and 4,291 people had lost their lives when the global pandemic was declared. That is when the rest of the world started preparing for a suitable response to the pandemic, nearly two months after China.
It was only after a telephonic conversation with US President Donald Trump on March 27th that Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to curb international flights from China. China’s Civil Aviation Administration stated after the discussion “that 90% of international flights would be temporarily suspended. The number of incoming passengers would be cut to 5,000 a day, from 25,000. China has also ordered local airlines to maintain only one route per country, once a week, as of 29th March”. By the end of March COVID-19 had become a full blown global crisis with nearly 10,000 deaths in Italy, Spain and the US and over 5000 in Iran and the UK which was much more than those dead in China.
As per data from Tom Tom traffic index the traffic density in Wuhan remained low at around 10% of the normal traffic in March while the major business centres like Beijing and Shanghai which had less than a few thousand cases of COVID-19 and half a dozen deaths showed partial recovery of traffic to around 40%. The rest of the world oblivious of the need for total lockdown took time to react. The traffic remained high at over 60% in major cities like Rome, Milan, Madrid, Paris, London, New York, New Delhi and Mumbai during March.
Australia calls for investigation, China and WHO must be made accountable
The Tom Tom traffic data index shows that in all other global cities like Rome, Milan, Madrid, Paris, London, New York, New Delhi and Mumbai the traffic density dropped to 10% only in the month of April when most nations went under lockdown. This was a clear two months after China went in for a domestic lock down and allowed the virus to proliferate to international destinations through human contact. The traffic density in Beijing and Shanghai rose to over 60% in April showing that the Chinese cities and its economy was back to normal functioning.
While China limited its losses to below 5000 by end April 2020, the US had lost 60,000 lives, Italy, Spain, France and UK above 20,000 each and the world saw over 200,000 deaths that was nearly doubling every fortnight. So though the virus had originated from China which initially infected citizens from 27 nations, because of China’s diabolic international travel policy it spread rapidly to a totally unprepared Europe, mainly Italy and Spain and thereafter to the rest of the world becoming a global pandemic. So weather the virus was produced in the Wuhan Virology Institute as an exercise of bio-terrorism or simply arrived unintentionally due to bat and pangolin infected blood from its exotic animal markets in Wuhan, China is answerable for the way it allowed the virus to spread.
Australia has called for an international investigation into the spread of COVID-19 and all nations of the world including India must back the move. Also it has been suggested that the leadership and the action of WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus needs to be probed. All nations including India need to support such an investigation for it is better to be safe than sorry.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, claimed on Sunday there is “enormous evidence” the coronavirus outbreak originated in a Chinese laboratory – but did not provide any of the alleged evidence.
Pompeo’s claims, made in an interview with ABC’s This Week, represented an escalation in rhetoric. He had previously said the US was looking into the possibility the virus came from a lab in Wuhan, China.
On Sunday, Pompeo said: “There is enormous evidence that that’s where this began,” later adding: “I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.”
At one point, the secretary of state appeared confused over whether he was claiming the Sars-CoV-2 virus (which causes the Covid-19 disease) was deliberately engineered or escaped as the result of a lab accident.
“Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point,” he said.
But when he was reminded that US intelligence had issued a formal statement noting the opposite – that the scientific consensus was that the virus was not manmade or genetically modified – Pompeo replied: “That’s right. I agree with that.”
Donald Trump made a similar unsupported claim on Thursday, saying he was privy to evidence of the pandemic began in a Chinese lab but was not permitted to share it.
On the same day, Pompeo told a radio interviewer: “We don’t know if it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We don’t know if it emanated from the wet market or yet some other place. We don’t know those answers.”
By Sunday afternoon, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the US had confirmed 1,134,507 coronavirus cases and more than 66,000 deaths. Worldwide, there had been nearly 3.5m cases confirmed and more than 245,000 people had died.
Beset by criticism of its response to the outbreak and management of the ensuing public health crisis, the Trump administration has sought to focus blame on China.
Most epidemiologists say that while it is possible the outbreak started in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where coronaviruses have been intensively studied, it is a far less likely scenario than the theory that it was transmitted naturally from bats through an intermediary animal, mutating along the way to become dangerous to humans.
On Tuesday, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, said “the weight of evidence” pointed to natural transmission but was not conclusive.
Beijing has rejected the suggestion the virus could have escaped from a laboratory. But Chinese authorities have not allowed foreign experts, including investigators from the World Health Organization, to take part in the investigation into the origins of the virus. Nor have they shared samples taken from wild animals at the Wuhan livestock market where they claim the outbreak began.
In 2018, US diplomats and scientists raised concerns in state department cables about safety standards and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Analysis of the first 41 Covid-19 patients in medical journal the Lancet found that 27 had direct exposure to the Wuhan market. The same analysis found that the first known case of the illness did not.
Pompeo has a patchy record on characterising US intelligence estimates.
He repeatedly claimed there was no direct evidence linking the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to the murder of journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, contradicting substantial US evidence implicating him.
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He also repeatedly claimed there was evidence of an “imminent threat” to US embassies posed by the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, who the US killed in a drone strike in Baghdad on 3 January.
A formal letter justifying the strike sent by the White House to Congress in February made no mention of an imminent threat.
WASHINGTON – U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak – and how contagious the disease is – to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.
Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that China was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.
The sharper rhetoric against China coincides with administration critics saying the government’s response to the virus was inadequate and slow. President Donald Trump’s political opponents have accused the president and his administration of lashing out at China, a geopolitical foe but critical U.S. trade partner, in an attempt to deflect criticism at home.
The analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by “denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data,” the analysis states.
The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus “was a contagion” for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad – and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.
Those conclusions are based on the 95% probability that China’s changes in imports and export behaviour were not within normal range, according to the report.
Trump has speculated that China could have unleashed the coronavirus due to some kind of horrible “mistake.” His intelligence agencies say they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.
Speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, “Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.”
Chinese raided a Christian Church and drag out a fellow church member.
I read somewhere that George Soros has some kind of virology laboratory in Wuhan and that the CV mutation originated there, and not from the CCP one. That would make sense to me, and there will be quite a few red faces around here if it does turn out to be true? Suckers!! lol
Let’s get ready to glass China!
White House Will Release ‘Conclusive’ Evidence Coronavirus Originated In Wuhan Lab, Trump Says
President Donald Trump suggested during Sunday night’s Fox News town hall that his administration will soon release “conclusive” evidence showing how the coronavirus originally leaked out of China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“I don’t think there is any question about it,” Trump responded when asked a question on whether China’s action allowed the pandemic to spread across the globe. He proceeded to tell host Bret Baier that the administration “will be giving a very strong report on what we think happened, and I think it will be very conclusive.”
The sentiment in labeling China as a “Pariah” state is gaining steam, and I am glad our politicians are getting on board in supporting that view. Not only is Tom Cotton right about changing policies in not allowing Chinese nationals connected to the communist party to come to the US Universities to study important subjects in the tech sciences sector, but the WHO organization should be a organization that is being bribe by Communist China, especially considering they hardly have paid anything into it to support its functions. If there are not fundamentals changes starting with Tedrose resigning, then the US should form another health Organization that will include countries like Taiwan. We should also be more assertive, aggressive in addressing the UN and its policies, so much so that we as Americans should be resigned to having the UN move to a different country and the US should cut all funding to it. At the very minimum we should use that as impetus to get them alarmed at those prospects by threatening to do so unless there is fundamental changes made to its governing body as well.
