Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "Chinese officials dispute Wuhan origin of the coronavirus | DW News" video.

@macwilko But China has had internal inquiries and people that made poor decisions have been punished for it. China handling of this disease has been among the most effective in the world. If you account for the sheer amounts of unknowns involved at the beginning I would argue that they probably have managed it the best. China has been on the receiving end of immense criticism since the beginning when people in my country were criticizing and ridiculing them for overreacting as they built new hospitals and forced symptomatic people into hotel rooms and makeshift quarantine facilities. I think China at this point has rightfully determined that no matter how transparent they are, no matter how correct they were in their decision making, that they are going to be eviscerated on pretty much all western platforms. I don't think they see much point in transparency, because their image isn't based on actuality but rather on a preconception of culpability that mere facts won't shake. Many in China have taken the attitude, "Why play if I can't win?" Unfortunately it's kind of a self-fulfilling dilemma. The more unwarranted criticism China takes, the more China tells their critics where to shove it, and the more the critics amp up the criticism. There won't be transparency until both sides stop behaving like children.
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@macwilko Not good enough for whom? For you? for me? for all their critics? China doesn't trust us any more than you trust them. I don't know how people could get further divided. Nobody accepts any reality outside of their preconceptions these days. China's already reached out to the world. They've provided most of the world's PPE and ventilators. It's looking like most people in the world are going to be vaccinated with Chinese vaccines. China may very well be hiding something. I'm certainly not privy to their inner concerns. But whether they are or not, they're going to be blamed either way. I mean, look at the comments. China has handled this crisis better than almost every country on Earth. If you account for the fact that during much of their experience they were flying blind, you can discount the "almost". Nevertheless, the vast majority of commenters, as well as the interviewer in the clip, totally ignored that reality and instead piled on to the narrative of Chinese incompetence, for which there is very little evidence, especially outside of the local tier of governance. The truth doesn't matter to the minds of those watching. China understands this and because of that there is debate within the government on how best to move forward in that reality. There may be the transparency you demand (though I'm not holding my breath). But if there is, it will be because China wants it, not because you demand it.
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Everybody's mind is already made up. If the investigation says it started in China then those that want to blame China will be thrilled to get that affirmation while China's defenders will question the results. If it says it didn't start in China then those that want to blame China will claim that China messed with the investigation or bribed the WHO while the China defenders will run a pyrrhic victory lap. Nobody's mind is going to be changed by the results of this investigation. But it's still good to try to find out the origins for scientific rather than political reasons.
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@macwilko It makes sense to be transparent and open if two conditions are met. 1. You didn't do anything horribly egregious. 2. You think you'll get fair treatment. China knows that that second item is not happening. As for the first, I don't think there is much evidence of truly egregious error or activity, but there might be something I don't know about. There was some mishandling by the local officials in Wuhan who didn't want to shut down the economy during a festival that they had invested a lot of time and money in. But that's known and those officials were fired for their misprioritization just a few days after their festival occurred. Everything else seems to be consistent with what behavior could be expected considering what was known about the virus and when it was known. But of course, that's why there is an investigation.
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@macwilko I think you're right about that. I don't know if people will believe the truth. I'm not even sure I'll believe the truth. But that won't keep it from being true.
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@dotoroyuriha7411 Preach it. But I was answering a specific query on the likelihood of origin rather than the handling of the virus. I think the Chinese are owed a debt of gratitude for how seriously they did take it compared to some other unnamed countries. But that even further underscores the point. If it didn't originate in China then why was the first city that got hit hard in China. As incompetent as the rest of the world has been in dealing with it, shouldn't the entire world have been on fire concurrently or even prior to Wuhan if that were the case? Here in America our traditional minority communities are getting hit a lot harder than the white community. Some of this maybe socio-economic rather than biological, but at least here your point about racial resistance is not playing out. I don't know about your last point. It may be a good argument. It still doesn't answer the question though. Why Wuhan first?
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How can you tell when someone's not willing to check their stereotype? Besides, this guy is not an official.
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Whether it started in China or not, they are not guilty of anything.
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The WHO investigators should follow the evidence where it leads and everyone else should quit trying to apportion blame.
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They may have been. That may or may not be figured out by the investigative team.
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@crocolagerfelden6142 Scientific method requires repeatability. It's a method for experimentation. It's not practical for investigating events that can't be reproduced in a laboratory, and therefore, not very relevant to this discussion.
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@dotoroyuriha7411 I don't think it's obvious at all. COVID may have originated outside of China, but that begs the question, "Why was Wuhan hit so hard ahead of every other city in the world?" The military games hypothesis is one possible answer, but at this point it is not conclusive at all. It also doesn't explain why there was such a lag between the Wuhan outbreak and the next outbreak which I believe was in Korea.
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@dotoroyuriha7411 That may be the answer, which I admitted earlier in the thread. I'm still left wondering though, if American soldiers had the disease, then why weren't American cities suffering at the same time.
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@crocolagerfelden6142 I guess it comes down to what's meant by testing the hypothesis. I'm not sure a hypothesis can be adequately tested without reproduction. It's too easy to associate non-causal correlation without it. Although I'll admit that you could follow the step-by-step procedure laid out in the scientific method minus this key particular. This would be in the spirit of scientific method and might very well be the best approach.
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@dotoroyuriha7411 But we don't know that it wasn't the flu. COVID symptoms and flu symptoms are very similar. It didn't lock up the hospital beds that COVID did in Wuhan, or later in Europe and America. I'm not saying you are wrong, but at this point we don't know enough to say you're right.
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