Originally Posted by
lomiller
... As I said above, there is good evidence that local officials dragged their feet for several weeks in reporting the outbreak to the central government. ...
Why drag their feet at all?
You can refuse to look at the role Chinese culture plays when it comes to scientific research reliability, but it doesn't change the fact it does. I believe that's called
ethnocentrism: a tendency to view other ethnic or cultural groups from the perspective of one's own.
I saw it firsthand with SARS.
CNN April 2003: China hid SARS patients - report
Quote:
Beijing authorities have gone to staggering lengths to hide SARS patients from visiting World Health Organization (WHO) inspectors, according to TIME magazine.
At one of the most reputable of the city's hospitals, 31 patients suffering the potentially lethal disease were driven around in ambulances for the duration of the WHO visit, said TIME.
And at a military hospital, 40 SARS patients were said to have been moved to a hotel for the duration of the WHO tour, in an apparent attempt to deceive inspectors about the true extent of the outbreak.
This was well after SARS was spreading in multiple countries and there was no reason by Western cultural standards to hide cases. We even knew about the Guangdong outbreak by that time so hiding cases in Beijing was bizarre from a Western POV.
The Chinese thought it made them look bad in the eyes of the world, or maybe it was in the eyes of their own population. Or maybe it was just the Beijing authorities trying to hide it from the central government. There certainly wasn't any other advantage from hiding these cases from the WHO investigators. It was to serious detriment because they spread SARS further.
Quote:
The disease first emerged in China's Guangdong Province last November, but health authorities there failed to notify their counterparts internationally until about four months later, according to Dr David Heymann, WHO director of communicable diseases.
But by that time physicians in Guangdong were notifying their international colleagues. I knew about it.
I posted the links upthread. Before the international spread of SARS from the Hong Kong elevator, we heard about a pneumonia of unknown cause that was killing healthcare workers in a Guangdong hospital. That was akin to hearing about ebola killing healthcare workers. An infection spreading to and killing healthcare workers is a rare and alarming event.
My point is,
healthcare workers dying from a rapidly spreading pneumonia of unknown origin was no minor thing and initially local authorities tried to cover it up. Why would anyone do that? Was it going to affect tourism dollars? No. Did it mean some new construction project might be halted? No. Did it make sense to the infectious disease experts and researchers in most of the rest of the world? No.
It only makes sense if you understand the Chinese culture of 'saving face'. And lest you think that's an ancient thing, look at the ophthalmologist who was told by authorities to shut up when he tried to raise the alarm about another pneumonia of unknown etiology that was all too frequently fatal.
Originally Posted by
lomiller
How you get from here to “Covid escaped from a lab” I have no idea.
I can imagine you don't see how the lab could be the source when you build a straw man like this to argue with.
First, I said I don't know. I am just not ready to rule out the lab.
Second, the point about considering the Wuhan lab people and the WHO may not be reliable is where the 'face saving' comes in. It's why those reports are
not absolutely reliable. Reliable? Possibly maybe even probably, but not irrefutable.