HK had experienced SARS, and the magnitude of the epidemic, in terms of number of infected globally, has already exceeded that of SARS. Together with government's inaction (HK government is refusing to close down its border where 60s country or so are now blocking entry from China).
HK's medical system is overwhelmed by mainland patients. The nurses and doctors are orchestrrating a strike to urge government closing down its border before the epidemic go out of control. Last strike from medical professionals were 30 years ago to fight for better wage. This time for public good
P.S. for those who are clearly disagreeing with me here, I would love to hear what you have to say, rather than just having my text become slightly grey.
http://who.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/c88...
The Johns Hopkins map can be made more similar by switching to the terrain map layer with the icon in the upper right hand corner of the map widget.
This is what I've come up with from scraping the JHU aggregation:
For anyone who hasn't visited, years after SARS they still had (or still have? It's been a few years) signs in public places detailing how often the escalator railings and lift buttons are wiped down with disinfectant (every hour usually). They take that stuff seriously.
Chinese people in China are not afraid of the cops. If you see how Chinese people interact with cops, I bet you would be surprised.
I regularly see people yelling and screaming at them, and the Chinese cops will still try to diffuse the situation.
Perhaps they're not afraid of the cops on a daily basis, but they are afraid of the CCP.
>That’s like saying Americans are in fear of being water boarded by the authorities.
Guess where you can shit talk about the head of state and not end up in a re-education camp?
The vast majority of people aren't brutalized and shot by the police. If it does happen, it goes through a trial and the court systems.
The vast majority of people talking out against the Chinese government will be jailed or re-educated in China...that's the difference.
The claim was that people in China live in a state of fear, and I refuted it. Let's not conflate things.
That wasn't the claim, so you refuted a strawman. The claim was that China governs through fear, not that Chinese live in fear. When people disappear and are "re-educated" against their will for speaking out about the government, as an official policy of your government, you are governing through fear. Refute that.
And so what I'm saying is that you fail to understand that it's people do not, as a majority, have that view of their government. You are applying an outsider's horror of their actions in your thinking and assuming it's people are 1) fully aware of it and 2) would look on it poorly when in fact they tend to view such things as the government's protection of them from harmful influences. They have a fundamentally different view of free speech, they do not view it as a an unqualified right, they view it through a lens of "speech that harms social harmony is wrong."
You simply do not understand the extent to which China's propaganda to it's people actually works. As a result the people are not afraid. They feel protects. Because it works, there's also a high degree of self censorship. Not because they fear the consequences, but because they actually believe they are acting in their society's best interests. I have actually had someone say to me, "Even if I thought the government did something wrong, I would not talk too much about it because it would be harmful to social harmony."
China gave them the blue pill, and they took it, often not knowing the red one exists. There is no need to live in fear when you have been convinced the awful things your government does are in your best interest.
I am not just guessing on this matter. I have, first hand, had conversations on the topic with Chinese nationals. And it's infuriating, because it's much like the conversation you and I are having now: It seems obvious to us that they should be afraid, that they should look on their government with skepticism, cynicism, and fear. But they do not.* The propaganda works. The dissidents are an extremely, vanishingly small group and yes, I'm sure they live in fear. But you cannot extrapolate from that to the billion+ people who have little direct knowledge of such things, for whom such things are vague abstractions, and wouldn't care much if they knew a bit more because the propaganda works. They see someone jailed, and they think "He/she must have done something wrong." *The propaganda works."
You are bringing an outsider's view to this, and I'm telling you, it's not how the Chinese people feel, for the most part. I understand how that's confusing. One person was kind enough to indulge me in two hours of conversation on the topic, and it took that and shorter conversations with a number of people to realize that, Yes, the Chinese people have swallowed the blue pill offered by their government. Not that they're particularly unique in that respect, but, well, there it is. They do not live in fear in the way you think.
You're going to have to source that because I have a friend who lives in China and he was telling me from the start that China was surprisingly open about all of it.
It's also important to realize that the Chinese government isn't quite so monolithic and in lockstep with itself as you might think. It's entirely possible that in one smaller region the local government was being open, while the wider message was the "nothing to see." That's speculation though, just mentioning it as a way they could have been both open on one level and misleading on another.
Because, what is the alternative? To blow the whistle? Surely most would be too afraid to do that, so naturally the safest bet is to play the "everything is fine" game.
It's more of a cultural reaction that many went to the shop to gather food, detergent, face masks and more for the next month(s) so the shops have run out of things (plus many businesses and transports have closed). The panic wasn't driven by government decision but by people acting individually in concert.
It's hard to tell if the same would happen in the US or Europe if and when the first few people will get infected by the virus.
Compare this to Taiwan, where things are more or less running smoothly.
> if and when the first few people will get infected by the virus.
...that already happened
Noting the Chinese population doesn't believe their government and estimates the numbers of infected to be at least 10 times whatever is reported.
Also noting, Hong Kong was already in civil war right before the epidemic, remember it was being annexed by China. That's regular protests, transports/tubes/airports periodically closed and shops unable to resupply, so not everything is attributable to the virus.
I've been in countries at civil war (or coming out of a civil war). Hong Kong is not (yet) in a state of civil war. There's widespread civil unrest, which is often a precursor to civil war, but it's not there yet, by a long shot.
Also, Hong Kong was annexed by China back in 1997. Understandably, Hong Kong is chafing under some of the laws China is imposing, and requirements for extradition to the mainland, but the annexation was done several decades ago.
Come on.
Couple that with a huge population and something weird will happen most days.
The ones who don't succeed in rehab get kicked out and the result is that addicts for various things (including alcohol, meth and opioids) wind up migrating the Florida and then getting stuck there.
So OP's friends leaving HK doesn't bear that much of an indication value anyway.