Then they are only paying a small fraction of the mess they’ve created. What about the lives lost in Korea, and Italy, and Iran? Why should those countries suffer because China won’t practice basic hygiene and eats unsafe food?
Nobody with any power to censure China is able to point fingers, since these politicians and leaders have failed to protect their own people at least as much as China failed to contain the virus, and with less excuse. Also, practically speaking, there is just no mechanism to enforce any kind of sanction on China for this.
You’re missing my point. Why should the other countries have to keep acting to clean up China’s mess? Shouldn’t China be responsible for that?
Also, given that China concealed the full extent of the outbreak for as long as they could, I disagree that the rest of the world had a fair opportunity to deal with it.
We have had a fair opportunity to deal with it and prepare. We knew how contagious and dangerous it was. We could have screened all people coming into the United States internationally, and we could have started creating way more tests and have been testing people at a much greater degree and tracing people's connections to figure out who is at greater risk, and maybe even considered quarantining people as a precaution for a few days. The first case confirmed in the U.S. literally was in Wuhan and came back on January 15th. But we didn't do shit, and we still haven't really done shit, because we have been complacent and have been waiting to see what happens, like most other countries.
I get in concept what you're trying to argue for, but there's really nothing we can do to punish China for the corruption that allowed the wildlife markets to exist in the deplorable state they did that initially transferred the virus. And while they probably did try to cover it up for a bit, they also probably didn't know what they were dealing with at first. And they were also trying to squash it and implemented pretty draconian measures by our standards to put a stop to it.. they had many fewer cases than the U.S. currently does before implementing them.
I mean we could issue sanctions I guess.. but you would have to think about how that would affect our economy because we are so interconnected to them via trade. At this point I don't think our economy needs even more chaos and turmoil.
How? Keep them at the airport for two days while the test results were out? Temperature screening here proved ineffective.
Israel also expelled all tourists. We're dealing with very different legal systems and mindsets.
BTW, January 15 was around the time of impeachment, wasn't it. Ah yes, the articles were sent the day after. For many of the 53 days you mention, our collective attention was utterly consumed here by the trial. Everyone knew non-removal was a forgone conclusion, and that the trial was distracting. Now I wonder if it distracted from responding to covid-19.
They also covered it up until the whistleblower came along.
Don't Italy and Iran both practice a kiss greeting? A ka "la bise"?
Koreans have a rich history of sharing meals and eating from the same pot.
Could hardly call those practices hygenic. But the point is they've existed forever and probably aren't about to stop because of this.
Watch throwing stones in glass houses.
While unhygienic social practices are common around the world, and will cause further spreading of the disease, the mythology around food and more importantly the very unsanitary ways wild game is prepared and sold in China is what causes outbreaks of this kind.
I don't believe any sort of retribution towards China because of this is necessary, but they need to be pressured into banning these cultural customs and educating their people.