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Comment by ngcc_hk | Hacker News Reader

Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China ... Wuhan. The US one seems argued different. I am not sure I trust the Wuhan one.

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I got no skin in US or PRC but I'd like to point out that US screwed up their handling on Covid.19 while China, having the largest outbreak, seems to manage to keep things under control.

You can argue the technique, but you can't argue the result.

Seeing your nickname has "_hk" (hong kong?) I would imagine there's some sentiment against PRC? Let's remove that sentiment for now since virus does not select people based on race nor political ideology.

China's messed up handling and initial cover-up is why anyone else had an opportunity to mess up their national response in the first place... Remember the doctor who was silenced by the police? They could have stopped it if they didn't have such strong state culture against realizing facts contradictory to their plans.

Really, the virus does select people for political ideology. Governments with denialist streaks tend to get selected.

(Don't think that the US got it right either, I just don't want China's huge initial mistake to be forgotten in light of their recent draconian efforts.)

Seeing how other countries are handling it now, with one month of advanced notice, I no longer believe China’s initial response was so bad.

So many countries are still dismissing it as “just the flu.”

Unless they quarantined Wuhan back in early December, I doubt they could have stopped it.

What other countries have police sending nastygrams to doctors, telling them to hush up?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527480

I've got quite a few fellow Iranians that debunked the health minister Covid.19 infection as political drama to show that "hey, I'm the health minister and I got covid.19, it's not bad" while they covered up the initial infection numbers that was denied by local lawmakers at Qom.

These are not apple to apple "handling the situation" but the goal is the same: downplay, restore order, lie if necessary.

You know that China is most likely lying about their infection numbers. They have to "save face" and all that. I don't know which is worse, not testing, or actively lying.

I think their infection number is still the highest among all countries so at this point: it doesn't matter. They're still the most affected.

Why would you trust it less than the American one?

Is it not obvious? For all its various faults, the US government isn't known for endless constant censorship of the press and social media for anything it doesn't like. There's no US equivalent to the Great Firewall.

China will censor "Winnie the Pooh" because it must tame any criticism of its Dear Leader, meanwhile you can compare Trump to any number of fictional or real characters and nothing will happen.

US capitalists are constantly involved in censoring and shaping of the press. There is no need for a Great Firewall since all enterprises are privately owned and voluntarily censor as much as is needed [1]

China does not even censor "Winnie the Pooh", feel free to look it up on Baidu. If you have believed this obvious lie, what else have you believed? Consider that perhaps the dominant group in your country have an incentive to lie to you about a threat to their profits.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unKNNiYQFp4

> US capitalists are constantly involved in censoring and shaping of the press. There is no need for a Great Firewall since all enterprises are privately owned and voluntarily censor as much as is needed [1]

Ah yes, the many popular social media platforms that censor all criticism and mockery of Trump, such as:

> China does not even censor "Winnie the Pooh"

Uh huh: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...

You can mock Trump, but Assange is being tortured for publishing information the US & UK states censored.

Talk to a Chinese citizen some time. You'll find that mockery is allowed, but uncommon. Some peoples like the leaders they chose.

[flagged]

>You will be jailed... in the Western world for questioning holocaust evidence

The context defining claims related to the US and China, not Germany. You will not be jailed in the US for questioning the Holocaust.

> harassed, ridiculed

Ok, but still not relevant to the conversation

> Killed

I hesitate to go further off topic, but do you have a citation for this claim?

You will be ridiculed by your peers, not the government, because the reality of the holocaust is very well documented, and deniers are suspected of motivated reasoning. But jailed or killed? I highly doubt that. They aren't comparable in the slightest.

The 1st Amendment protects your right to say anything you want. But it also protects my right to call you an idiot for saying it.

Please don't do this here.

Personally I would want as many sources as possible, but I think it's safe to say that the Chinese authoroties, in the beginning at least, have not been the bastion of truth.

Then again, nor have the US been entirely open about the situation. But that's more the ramblings of an old senile man.

There is almost _NO_ countries are honest regarding the situation.

Iran => not open

US => Messed up

China initially messed up

Even countries in S.E. Asia tried to cover up the issue/numbers of infected people.

South Korea seem quite open about the mess, even Italy.. Do you have maybe some references to the others the same way there was evidence of China's ?

Indonesia, for the longest time, boasted (yes, they, the govt, the health minister, literally boasted) to have zero Covid.19. The moment the country found out that they have 2 Covid.19, they acted as-if the current administration was "ready" and threw an elaborate press conference detailing the steps to track down the infected patients only to be ousted by the patients themselves.

This is the news about how the Indonesian government "was ready to track" and ensure "proper steps" were taken:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/02/first-coronavi...

This is the rebuttal from the infected patient themselves (This source is from the #1 newspaper in the country):

https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2020/03/05/09025741/sejumla...

Essentially they're saying that "no, the govt didn't track down coronavirus, we went to the hospital and check ourselves as soon as we heard about our dance partner who was positive".

You need to talk to the locals regarding these news to learn the nuances/truth. We can't rely on NYTimes, BBC, or any international medias.

I can understand why Government "tries" to act as if they're ready because they don't want the citizens to be panicking and creating further chaos. They (the govt) have no choice but to lie.

Take a look at Los Angeles Costco news recently.

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