Dealing With COVID-19 Requires Radical Transparency In Research Results; China Is Going In The Opposite Direction
from the dangerous-games dept
History has shown that important, innovative breakthroughs come from transparency, collaboration, and information sharing. Dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic is going to require that — but tragically it appears that China is going in the opposite direction. The government there is now requiring “extra vetting” by the government before research regarding COVID-19 can be published. Indeed, some preliminary research has already been removed from the internet:
Under the new policy, all academic papers on Covid-19 will be subject to extra vetting before being submitted for publication. Studies on the origin of the virus will receive extra scrutiny and must be approved by central government officials, according to the now-deleted posts.
A medical expert in Hong Kong who collaborated with mainland researchers to publish a clinical analysis of Covid-19 cases in an international medical journal said his work did not undergo such vetting in February.
As the report notes, this all appears to be an effort to “control the narrative” especially regarding what now appears to be many early missteps by the Chinese government in dealing with the pandemic. I can completely understand why the government doesn’t want those mistakes to get too much scrutiny, but at some point you have to ask what’s more important: saving lives and preventing these kinds of errors in the future… or making sure you don’t look as bad as you probably should. It’s tragic that multiple world leaders today seem a lot more focused on the latter, rather than the former.
Comments on “Dealing With COVID-19 Requires Radical Transparency In Research Results; China Is Going In The Opposite Direction”
Mmmyeah, that’s not suspicious at all.
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The biggest problem is the optics of it. It may be that the Chinese authorities have nothing really to hide (apart from being idiots about the early cases), and there’s nothing untoward or strange about the origin of the virus, but acting like this just makes people more suspicious. It could be that it’s another Streisand case.
Or the conspiracy theorists could be right after all, and the virus did originate in a CIA laboratory, and was sent to Wuhan to wreck the Chinese economy…. because … reasons….
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"Or the conspiracy theorists could be right after all, and the virus did originate in a CIA laboratory, and was sent to Wuhan to wreck the Chinese economy…. because … reasons…."
That’s dubious. Consider how China normally works. I think it’s a case similar to an anecdote from the watergate scandal where the senate hearings had one of the witnesses, upon being asked why so much effort was spent to cover up the transcripts, respond with "Actually, no one suggested there shouldn’t be a coverup".
China does china. In China information of any kind will always be evaluated before release lest it be discovered that the released information contains state secrets – or references to winnie the pooh.
'There's millions of peasants, only a few nobility...'
I can completely understand why the government doesn’t want those mistakes to get too much scrutiny, but at some point you have to ask what’s more important: saving lives and preventing these kinds of errors in the future… or making sure you don’t look as bad as you probably should. It’s tragic that multiple world leaders today seem a lot more focused on the latter, rather than the former.
Well of course, it’s not like the ones making those decisions are at any real risk themselves, worst case scenario they get sick as well and have the best medical care possible as heads of state. Letting the world see evidence that they care more about protecting their image than the lives of those under them on the other hand, no medical care will fix that, so much better to bury that under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist.
Of course where it goes from sociopathic to just plain stupid is that by trying to bury early details all they’ve really done is hand ammo to those that would accuse them of screwing up, as by going above and beyond in gagging anyone who might expose their mishandling they make it pretty clear that even they know they botched things. It’s a rare instance where someone tries to hide evidence that makes them look good after all.
Re: 'There's millions of peasants, only a few nobility...'
Doesn’t work when the censorship IS evidence that they care more about protecting their image than anything else.
Re: 'There's millions of peasants, only a few nobility...'
"…y trying to bury early details all they’ve really done is hand ammo to those that would accuse them of screwing up…"
Which isn’t, in practice, relevant. Their own citizenry doesn’t have the guns to use said ammo and what other governments and foreigners think isn’t that important.
We’ve seen this before, in the good old USSR.
Barely masked antitrumpetry
That’s a thinly veiled attack on Trump. And that at the same time printers are doing overtime for including Trump’s name on the stimulus cheques granted by Congress, as a personal "I am really sorry I messed up royally the job you all pay me for" note.
Re: If the shoe fits...
Spending someone else’s money does not an apology make, that requires an admission of wrongdoing and acceptance of responsibility for said wrongdoing, and I’m pretty sure Trump is utterly incapable of either.
Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
Oh yeah, I heard about that. I also heard that they had to delay mailing out the cheques by several days to add Trump’s name to them. Eh, making millions suffer a while longer is perfectly fine if it gives you a few hundred billions dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded pre-election advertising, I guess.
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"Eh, making millions suffer a while longer is perfectly fine if it gives you a few hundred billions dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded pre-election advertising, I guess"
Not to mention going on a multi-day rant about WHO and how they’re beholden to China so his fix for that is to… defund them and force them to get more funding from China, in the middle of a pandemic at a time where its origin is utterly irrelevant (but WHO involvement is not)?
Re: Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
Oh yeah, I heard about that. I also heard that they had to delay mailing out the cheques by several days to add Trump’s name to them. Eh, making millions suffer a while longer is perfectly fine if it gives you a few hundred billions dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded pre-election advertising, I guess
… what. Please tell me that’s a parody or a joke, as while that would be entirely within character for him that would not prevent it from being absolutely disgusting, taking advantage of a pandemic and taxpayer money to con gullible fools into thinking that he was the reason they were getting money.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-stimulus-checks-signature-coronavirus-latest-a9468291.html
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I hit enter a bit too quickly..
The above suggests it’s somewhat disputed, other sources suggest he demanded it and didn’t leave time to actually do the work on a timely basis;
https://globalnews.ca/news/6819713/coronavirus-trump-name-stimulus-cheques/
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Of course it’s true… I swear, as pathetic as Trump is the sad thing is that there exist people stupid enough to fall for his lies and tricks, and sadder yet the fact that that number is higher than one.
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Ha! No such luck.
(PaulT, thanks for posting the link.)
I have to admit, even after three and a half years of this sociopathic toddler in charge, this one surprised me. Not only is it cruel, narcissistic, and manipulative, it’s also literally buying the votes, and not even with your own money. The guy is some kind of genius, that’s for sure.
Re: Re: Re:2 Barely masked antitrumpetry
The problem is that through all the things he’s been doing he’s pinned everything on the economy, happily taking credit for every positive event he’s not been involved in since the beginning and constantly crowing about the stock market.
Well, after impeachment he had nothing else to fall back on so doubled down, gambling on the idea that the US would ride out the pandemic and then he could claim strong leadership on keeping the stock market going. Except, of course, the stock market tanked, most people aren’t rich enough to care about the stock market directly, but they sure as hell care about them being turfed out on to unemployment by their millions with no healthcare.
So, this is another gamble – he pushes behind the scenes for action to make this all be over as quickly as possible, and as the economy becomes a big thing for the next election he blames China for everything that went wrong and reminds people who wrote the cheques. Unfortunately, this is an even worse gamble than the first one.
I’ve concerned about the number of people dumb enough to fall for that though, and nobody backing him seems to have a clue about what they’re actually going to do to combat it (see: Kellyanne Conway’s ass-scraping stupid quote about the disease and WHO yesterday: ""This is COVID-19, not COVID-1 folks, and so you would think the people in charge of the World Health Organization, facts, and figures, would be on top of that," the White House advisor said.")
Re: Re: Re:3 Barely masked antitrumpetry
"he’s pinned everything on the economy, happily taking credit for every positive event he’s not been involved in"
. In his mind
Re: Re: Re:4 Barely masked antitrumpetry
…and the minds of those who listen to him, of which there are still way too many, and who will look at this disaster and go "I’ll vote him back in for a second term".
Re: Re: Re:5 Barely masked antitrumpetry
Yes, I heard them referred to as useful idiots.
I doubt Moscow Mitch actually believes the shit like donny does, which makes him even worse – sorta.
Re: Re: Re:3 Barely masked antitrumpetry
FTFY.
Does… does she think that this is 19th in the line of COVIDs…?
How did the people in this administration survive to this day without confusing a 20th floor window with a door?
Re: Re: Re:4 Barely masked antitrumpetry
"Does… does she think that this is 19th in the line of COVIDs…?"
That does seem to be the implication. The official White House Counselor in the middle of the worst pandemic for the last 100 years is defending the WHO being defunded in the middle of their work, while revealing that she doesn’t understand the name of the disease that’s killing thousands of Americans and leaving 22 million so far unemployed. And Trump’s fans will lap it up…
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"The guy is some kind of genius, that’s for sure."
It’s not genius, it’s sociopathy. We’re all capable of thinking up horrible, shitty, selfish things to do, we just know not to do them because the negative effects on others outweigh the positive effects on us. Trump literally doesn’t think that way. He only thinks about his gain, nothing else. Even things he does for others are only because he benefits too.
I’m not even saying this just to insult him, it’s a verifiable fact based on decades of behavior, and it’s why it’s so dangerous for him to be in a position of such great (but not absolute) power.
Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
"That’s a thinly veiled attack on Trump"
He deserves worse.
"And that at the same time printers are doing overtime for including Trump’s name on the stimulus cheques granted by Congress, as a personal "I am really sorry I messed up royally the job you all pay me for" note."
I’m sure they’d prefer the money by direct deposit on time in their bank account rather than the delays that’s causing, followed by competent management of the crisis. Instead, he seems to be holding ego-massaging press conferences where he whines about it all being someone else’s fault.
Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
Reading your comment I have trouble telling if you are pro or anti trump. The post is structured like you are complaining about the anti-trump bias of the site, but every time I read it it only looks like you are complaining about how the attack being is thinly veiled, when trump doesn’t deserve such subtle criticism.
He was accused of "placing more importance on making sure you don’t look as bad as you probably should", so you point out that the stimulus checks have trumps name on them and
1) "The printers are working overtime", as other comments point out this is might have been because this was a last minute change to the checks
2) The checks were "granted by congress", who is not Donald Trump, so he is trying to take credit for the work of others
3) Trump effectively saying "I am really sorry I messed up royally the job you all pay me for"
If you thought that the site should be more willing to call out Trump for his many mistakes, you should have explicitly mentioned it in your post.
Re: Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
This is a technology forum. Trump himself is simply irrelevant to most technology issues. Various political appointees (whether of Trump or predecessors) do impact technological freedom.
Re: Re: Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
The subject of the article is diplomacy with China on the subject of COVID-19, which is very much Trump related in a direct way right now. Also, the person he was replying to brought him up to begin with.
Re: Re: Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
You must be new here? Subjects covered are far broader than just "tech".
Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
…when has Trump ever apologized or admitted to messing up?
Re: Barely masked antitrumpetry
So, you’re saying that Trump is a narcissistic maniac who puts his own personal image above anything else, regardless of how many lives need to be killed or ruined in the process?
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Censorship–theirs and ours
"this all appears to be an effort to "control the narrative" especially regarding what now appears to be many early missteps by the Chinese government in dealing with the pandemic."
This DOES appears to be an effort to control the narrative, but a closer look is merited:
China believes (and distinguished researchers support its assumption) that Covid-19 originated in the USA.
The US refuses to reveal its index case and has held all discussions of Covid-19 in a secure room and labeled them Top Secret. Why permit Chinese researchers to unwittingly disclose information that might aid a declared enemy that has used bioweapons on China in the past?
China suspects that Covid-19 may have been a US bioweapon and the US committed an act of war. So wartime censorship is justified.
Otherwise, Chinese researchers and clinicians have published more about the virus than the rest of the world combined and I suspect that they will continue doing so.
Re: Censorship–theirs and ours
"China believes (and distinguished researchers support its assumption) that Covid-19 originated in the USA."
Not really. Oh, that China supports the view that COVID-19 is a US bioweapon isn’t in doubt. The consensus of the scientific community, however, is that covid-19 originated from China and nowhere else.
"The US refuses to reveal its index case and has held all discussions of Covid-19 in a secure room and labeled them Top Secret."
Because Trump gets egg on his face every time it gets mentioned perhaps? The US outbreak started LONG after China’s. So unless you’re saying the US illuminati used their hypothetical time machine to reverse cause and effect that says nothing except that it means the US government is busy covering up how badly Donald done goofed in his initial responses.
"China suspects that Covid-19 may have been a US bioweapon and the US committed an act of war. So wartime censorship is justified."
China suspects nothing of the sort. It is convenient for the chinese government to have someone else be responsible so people stop asking about China’s initial coverup of the disease.
If China truly suspected covid was a bioweapon then we would now all be at the brink of a full nuclear exchange – as bioweapons are considered WMD’s on par with nukes. The release of a bioweapon, intentional or not, is not an "act of war". It’s an unwarranted use of WMD’s on a human population for which every nation with WMD’s has the public policy to respond in kind.
Since China isn’t unveiling launch sites and demanding close on-site investigation of US biolabs at the threat of starting and ending world war 3 it’s pretty obvious China knows damn well this is not a bioweapon.
"There is huge competition to develop a vaccine and the PRC, which is paying for the research, don’t want to help the US side to win the race."
That’s bullshit. A pandemic is not something you can target or fend off. The only race is about whether or not the vaccine gets invented before too many of your own people die.
Anyone assuming this is a money-making issue either knows nothing about how a pandemic works, or is a psychopath like Shkreli.
"Otherwise, Chinese researchers and clinicians have published more about the virus than the rest of the world combined and I suspect that they will continue doing so."
After trying their damndest to cover up the initial outbreak to the point of firing and sanctioning the doctor whose name they now see fit to hail into heroism. Yes, The chinese government lost all the face they had and now try desperately to put ir back on and pretend they never fscked up.
But I’m not really surprised to see the guy whose only other post was a long ramble denying the existence of uighur "re-education camps" and trying to convince people China is somehow better than the US at human rights is now out in force trying to turn an ordinary pandemic growing out of a wuhan wet market into a US "bioweapon" which would mean some US doomsday cult finally managed to develop and launch armageddon.
Seriously, learn the limits of propaganda. What didn’t work for the USSR certainly won’t work for the PRC either. You guys in the 50-cent brigade need to learn spin control better. Might i recommend a course in marketing so you learn just where the limits lie on how badly you can lie about the product you try to sell?
the LOVE of $
and yet we let them manufacture our meds…
we’re so smart!
Same with vaccines
Govt. wants to control the narrative with vaccines also.
Nothing new.
.
i said a while ago that China needs to be severely chastised by the rest of the Planet for it’s failings to inform of the Coronavirus dangers. it isn’t the first disease/virus to come out of China that has had devastating effects on the world’s population but something had#s to be done to ensure that this is the last! although i appreciate that the Chinese government want to keep total control of the population, it should definitely NOT be at the expense of everyone else, everywhere! to do what they did to try to hold on to the information rather than tell the world what was going on and to punish those who tried to help everyone else despite the government was absolutely shameful!
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Congratulations on your support for militant authoritarianism; your check from the PRC will be in the mail shortly.
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With Xi Jinping’s name printed on it too!
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To be fair I didn’t read that line as support for the idea, merely pointing out that that’s what they are aiming for, which would seem to be entirely accurate.
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Saying “I understand [x]” carries a far more neutral stance than does saying “I appreciate [x]”. To wit:
Now, which one of those sentences leaves you thinking someone approves of the idea expressed in those sentences?
Word choice matters.
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A fair point, though given the rest of their comment seems to be pretty scathing towards the chinese government I still don’t really read it as support, though I can certainly see where you’re coming from.
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"something had#s to be done to ensure that this is the last!"
!Something has to be done!
Sorry, but it will happen again, and again, and again … mother nature is a bitch my friend and she cares less about you than donald does.
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"…it isn’t the first disease/virus to come out of China that has had devastating effects on the world’s population but something had#s to be done to ensure that this is the last!"
Nothing will be done about that. Every influenza strain comes straight from the closed-ecology small farmsteads Chinas peasantry often uses. Small miracles, really. Eco-friendly as all hell, support a farmer’s family and relatives…and unfortunately encourages the development and rapid mutation of diseases such as influenza. Of which we have seen several rather fatal strains.
The wet markets where hundreds of species spend extensive time in close proximity is similarly the current suspect origin of Sars-CoV-2.
The fact is if we want to reduce the risk of zoonosis mutation the only possible response is to wait until China has sufficiently upgraded it’s infrastructure to manage either removing the closed-ecology small farmsteads and wet markets – or regulating them according to modern medical safety guidelines.
Neither will be easy to do, because China is a fscking big country, extensive parts of which still rely on local smallhold agriculture to feed their population.
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Also, statistically, since China has 1/6 of the world population it’s literally a roll of the dice if any outbreak starts there or not. There are cultural reasons why things are more likely to start there instead of, say, India (where religions that restrict food sources are more common), but no matter what’s done if something causes a disease to outbreak there’s a 20% chance of it being in China, all other factors equal.
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"…but no matter what’s done if something causes a disease to outbreak there’s a 20% chance of it being in China, all other factors equal."
Well, yes, but the cultural classification and treatment of animals potentiates both the emergence of and dispersion of a new pathogen.
With every influenza strain to hit the globe coming straight out of China as a well-mapped result of their agricultural practices it’s no longer a "roll of the dice". That "20%" in this case becomes "99%" or higher.
Similar to the ebola outbreaks in recent years where that bioweapons-grade disease wouldn’t have made it very far without both the dietary habits and the mortuary rites of the local population.
Most of the absolute killers when it comes to viruses, are zoonoses which have made the leap. That leap isn’t easy and normally implausible unless you provide a perfect venue with holding the potential hosts in prolonged proximity. If we’re talking statistics that means China is many times more likely to originate a successful zoonosis capable of infecting humans than, for instance, most of europe or the US.
If or when China introduces safeguards visavi wet markets and smallhold farms that will reduce the sum total of epidemics to hit the world…and that’s when we’ll see the "20%" you’re referring to.
I concur that the OP wants the manifestly impossibilities when he calls for covid-19 to be "the last" epidemic to emerge from China, but there is hope that a more sensible health doctrine around animal handling will severely reduce the number of actual epidemics to emerge from that country.
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Yes, there’s certainly much to be done. I just want to dispel the myths that every disease outbreak originates in China (they don’t) and that it’s possible to get the risk of it occurring in China to zero. If you’re operating from these assumptions, you’re going to be disappointed about the results.
"and that’s when we’ll see the "20%" you’re referring to"
It’s possible that it will never get that low, and there will be things about culture, politics and geography that ensure China will always be a higher risk. My point is – it will never get lower than that, unless population distribution wildly changes.
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"I just want to dispel the myths that every disease outbreak originates in China (they don’t) and that it’s possible to get the risk of it occurring in China to zero. If you’re operating from these assumptions, you’re going to be disappointed about the results."
Not going to be easy to debunk that though. People want simple answers.
I think shooting for "It’s really a good idea to let epidemiology experts have a say in how to restrict the development and dispersion of new diseases, even if that may hinder your expression of cultural or religious ideals".
Ebola would never have hit Africa that hard if burial rites didn’t include a lot of close proximity and laying off hands on the deceased. A bat virus wouldn’t have much chance of leaping the species barrier unless you locked thousands of bats up right over a similar numbers of pangolins or fowl.
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"Not going to be easy to debunk that though. People want simple answers"
Which is why it’s important to keep responding to them with facts.
"Ebola would never have hit Africa that hard if burial rites didn’t include a lot of close proximity and laying off hands on the deceased. A bat virus wouldn’t have much chance of leaping the species barrier unless you locked thousands of bats up right over a similar numbers of pangolins or fowl."
…and eliminating those risks won’t reduce the risk to zero.
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"…and eliminating those risks won’t reduce the risk to zero."
Of course not. Seat belts and traffic laws won’t remove vehicle-related injuries to zero either.
Certain national responses to early epidemic outbreaks have been the equivalent of watching the trainwrecks piling up on a highway where no one knows any other traffic rule than "Drive faster than the idiots about to hit you!".
The difference in amount of deaths and injuries will not be small.
What is hte corp ideal..
Make it then Sell it at a HUGE profit.