Railroad wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 10:23 am You have contradicted yourself 100%.

Have I?

I think there’s a difference between blaming individuals who have brazenly broken rules that were put in place to prevent the spread of a known virus, and blaming an entire country because an unknown virus happened to pop up there first.

If it turns out that the Chinese government withheld information from the world that could have prevented this whole catastrophe, then they absolutely should be held accountable.

Do you think the American government would be willing to apologize to China and the world if it turned out that this virus originated at a factory farm in the Midwest?

lagrange wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 10:02 am Actually maybe we should do exactly that. Think about it. Potential terrorists are screened at borders and in many cases refused entry visas to a lot of countries based on background and nationality, yet all the terrorist acts of the 20th and 21st centuries have not caused even a small percentage of the deaths caused by pandemics originating in China. So if a plague carrier is not held personally responsible then who is?

If someone, for example, knowingly uses a falsified negative test certificate in order to board an airplane, then I agree that we should treat them somewhat the same as we would treat a terrorist.

im standing in dont judge a nations by what of their 4 citizens did or individuals, but i belive this is a matter of personality

lagrange wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 8:47 am

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:56 am #101, you have more people per square inch than anybody else on the planet and you have more epidemics.

eg. Our sailing ships that "discovered the New World" were packed tighter than John West's best
- that's why we were so successful in spreading a dozen different poxes all over the globe.

I can see you might think that about China, but of course you would be wrong. In terms of population density China ranks 59th on the list of countries (2017 data). If people per square inch was a factor in epidemics, it would more likely start in Singapore or Bangladesh. I am not saying I know the answers, but we need to be asking the right questions.

I take your point, that ^^ statement may not be precisely correct.

But if you look at the whole bundle...
A huge pop - the risks of disease grow exponentially with greater pop numbers, not mathematically (as a general principal)
Still very densely populated.
Full agriculture, particularly intensive animal systems, jammed in with all these people.
Still very underdeveloped. That is changing rapidly but obviously everything will not be stainless steel, sterile conditions and fully sanitised just yet.

That is what i meant. The whole huge bulk jammed in. A textbook incubator.
Europe never had that. Nobody did, not to that extent.
Plus China has always been highly organised with trade and busy people criss-crossing the country, and the world, constantly.
- not exactly the same pandemic factors as just sitting on a buffalos bum in Bangladesh.

Admittedly my other point, about our ships spreading the pox, was not really applicable to all this - it was just a reminder that the Chinese do not have the copyright on spreading the pox. The west has bad form there too.

Anyway, i don't really get what you are trying to say with the OP. What was the reason for posting it?
The plague's origin is no news to anybody. The origin of the Spanish flu is not agreed upon by anybody.

lol, Or are you just saying Chinese are poxy?
(at least i can understand that even if i don't think it is particularly productive. imo only)

There have been hundreds of pandemics over the past thousands of years occurring at intervals ranging from 10 years to 30 years. Its an interesting question of why a disproportionate number appear to originate in China? Why not in India which is not too different to China? Or Africa (OK - ebola) ? One could say that China is not noted for cleanliness but neither is India or Africa. There is no real answer to the question - its just the way it is.

There is an interesting historical summary in Jared Diamond's book "Guns, Germs, and Steel". In this he talks about nomadic people who do not get pandemics or indeed disease of any kind despite their close proximity to animals. he shows that pandemics started when people adopted a settled lifestyle and that pandemics are an inevitable result of that lifestyle.

The current pandemic is pretty bog standard as pandemics go. It comes, kills of the old and sick, then fades away. The unusual feature of this pandemic is its lack of effect on children - almost unknown among pandemics. Of course the other new aspect is the hysteria. Governments in the past recognized there was little they could do to stem pandemics other than maintain calm and ensuring there was no panic. Most pandemics ran their course with minimal impact on society. Then as now the overwhelming majority of deaths were the old and sick. Unfortunately this time governments and media have decided that the active spread of fear and panic is desirable and has been successful. The cost in treasure and destruction of people's lives in creating this panic has been enormous but has enabled governments to pretend that they are controlling the pandemic when the evidence is clear that they are not.