China’s response — and whether it dragged its feet — is now at the centre of a geopolitical blame game over the virus, which has infected 38m people, killed more than 1m and devastated economies https://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/TsdXB2TLCI
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China’s response — and whether it dragged its feet — is now at the centre of a geopolitical blame game over the virus, which has infected 38m people, killed more than 1m and devastated economies https://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/TsdXB2TLCI
By late December, Geo Fei had read rumours online about the ‘unknown pneumonia’. He confronted officials in his village 120km from Wuhan about why they were ‘totally unprepared’. They were waiting for instructions from higher up. ‘It was shocking’ http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/GOJ9Fiqytw
Three weeks before Beijing publicly acknowledged the outbreak, doctors inside Wuhan Central Hospital already knew they had a problem: a viral pneumonia-like disease was spreading. But they were discouraged from reporting it http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/jdkTbITg9o
Within days, hospital staff were falling sick, a tell-tale sign of human transmission. The death of one doctor, 33-year-old Li Wenliang, hailed as a whistleblower for alerting his colleagues to the outbreak, provoked a firestorm of public anger http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/U4aoHyEOhy
China’s opaque system of governance may have been partly to blame for its sluggish response. A public health adviser to the State Council described the role of local governments as ‘to keep the Communist party in power, not to promote transparency’ http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/STZVO8FN3h
So why didn’t Wuhan-like outbreaks erupt all over China? The answer: strict lockdowns. With nearly the entire population forced into lockdown in January and February, ‘diagnoses weren’t made . . . the virus just burnt itself out’ http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/8SIFIf3uq6
But Wuhan residents want answers for the government’s handling of the outbreak. One is Zhong Hanneng, who lost his son Peng Yi, a 39-year-old primary school teacher, to Covid-19. The family held a large dinner on January 20. Weeks later, Peng Yi was dead http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/eWW0cE2H8u
China’s reluctance to leap into action was understandable, said Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases specialist who worked in west African Ebola hotspots. It was a dynamic that would play out across the world over the following months http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/KjOI8wB8a9
Chinese officials have traced the first confirmed Covid-19 case to December 1. But ‘patient zero’ may never be found — most who contract the virus have mild symptoms and may not know they were infected. Read the first part of our six-month investigation: http://on.ft.com/3lZzPI9 pic.twitter.com/v6BHaBI8bW
I think we should be focussing on the absolutely crippling, entirely predictable incompetence of the UK government’s handling right now, rather than finger pointing and trying to shift the blame to the Chinese.
They're both to blame. Boris and the gang for all their mistakes, and China for not telling the world as soon as it could have, and messing the world up completely.
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