They also covered up how the virus happened to appear in Wuhan in the first place.
if 1 person turns up sick on the 18th of december.. and one doctor treats them.. is this worthy of calling it a pandemic and alerting the world.. no
if a dozen people in the next 3 weeks come into hospital with similar symptoms.. and its found out to be from a single isolated location like a wet market.. is this enough to declare pandemic.. no
because at this point they did not have the rna test results to know for sure if this was seasonal flu or a new varient.
results came back on january 7th and by january 9th the world knew.. this to me is sensible timeline and practical assurance they done the things corectly rather then shouting wolf at every hospital admittance.
..
what was bad. was most countries then took 2 months to do anything
from january to march UK/US continued to try bringing US/UK people from china to the US/UK.. thus bringing it over to the US/UK
what should have been done was the US/UK the people in china money to stay in a hotel and ensure their foreign medical care/travel insurance would pay out if they needed to be treated in china..
that would have been the real smart thing to do. to truly curb the spread.
the fact that it was not until march until UK/US started expanding hospital bed capacity. was a flaw too.
china was doing it at the end of january. so why were other countries not doing the same
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as for the numbers. NO country has accurate numbers
people coughing and have temperatures while staying home are not being tested.
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in china they actually got their act together and traced back everyone that was in contact with known corona recipients and isolated them and done daily welfare checks on them beyond the standard self isolation stuff
they provided those direct contact people with daily food and stuff so that there was absolute no need to leave their homes.
again above and beyond the self isolation protocols of other countries..
but yes a few slipped out the net and there are other cases not strictly monitored and tested.
but compared to other countries.. well i dont see a problem with china methods compared to other countries.
if UK/US didnt import the virus in with their 'repatriation' flights. less would be sick
if UK/US started manufacturing more supplies and ventilators and retaining staff that usually are not ICU specialised into a standard that can handle the more intense stuff. and got more beds in february.
then the lockdown would be even more effective then it is now.
yes the lockdown is doing some good. but not as much as it could if hospital capacity was at it optimum intime
. this whole self isolate and then try to get manufacturing done while simultaneously saying to workers its ok to take a couple months off work you wont lose your job, just contradicts any good policy.
the first stage of 'delay the spread' should have been not repatriating vacationers. but instead fund them to extend their vacation IN CHINA.
then expand hospital capacity in jan/february(not 2 months later in march/april)
.. then repatriate the vacationers. and actually monitor them by knowing everyone they come into contact with..
..
but everything i said.. is all in hindsight.
yea i admit it in hindsight we can all sound like we know better. but atleast we can use this as a learning experience to form a policy/plan should it occur again. and not just be racially profiling/finger pointing