What's the big deal. Wildlife trade at an unsanitary market or an accident at an unsafe lab. Both bad.

The damage was done by attempting to cover up the outbreak, no matter what its source was. That's what the criminal PRC leadership needs to be held accountable for.

nemo wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 11:12 am

What's the big deal. Wildlife trade at an unsanitary market or an accident at an unsafe lab. Both bad.

The damage was done by attempting to cover up the outbreak, no matter what its source was. That's what the criminal PRC leadership needs to be held accountable for.

A third possibility is an intentional release as a weapon.
I am not advancing this as a likely scenario- however the probability is not 0.
This possibility has many people concerned.

You would have to ask yourself what they hoped to / have achieved by doing this, and whether they really would have been prepared to sacrifice so many of their own population in order to achieve their aims?

It seems unlikely to me. I can't think of anything worthwhile that they have achieved since this all started, or that they will achieve going into the future.

Given the history of accidental outbreaks from Chinese labs in the past this is probably the same.
There's a lot of information that points to a death toll in China far, far in excess of the laughable numbers they are releasing as official figures.

As an example, there's the sudden loss of phone numbers. You life as a chinese citizen requires everything to be linked through your mobile number. You are tracked and your freedoms are controlled via your mobile. During the outbreak in China a huge number of the mobile phones went out of commission. Where did these users go? well I think we all know the answer to that one.

xandreu wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 12:26 pm You would have to ask yourself what they hoped to / have achieved by doing this, and whether they really would have been prepared to sacrifice so many of their own population in order to achieve their aims?

It seems unlikely to me. I can't think of anything worthwhile that they have achieved since this all started, or that they will achieve going into the future.

I’m on the fence regarding intentional or accidental release (aided by arrogance.)

But to respond to the questions (and rephrasing a bit), and with just a little of my own opinion.

Sacrificing some of the population as opposed to sacrificing the people?
Many of us harbour the romantic ideal of all for one and one for all. The state generally being for the benefit of all, individually, as well as as the population as a whole. It probably comes down to how you value individual lives. But some systems maintain the state for the collective people, not the individual person. I have little doubt that they could easily justify by committee large scale casualties for the good of the the state.

As for worthwhile.
Modern communications, mixed with freedom of movement make the world a small place. Until a year or so ago, I could travel to south east Asia for the same price that I paid to travel to Dallas in 1991. I could do this by booking the ticket a few days before, compared to visiting a travel agent well ahead of time.
That’s mostly ground to a halt for the vast majority of us. Many nations are somewhat more focused internally than they were before. But China is ahead, meanwhile, in recovery of some industry. Aviation in China seems to be building up. Slowly, but it’s improving whereas the rest of the world is far from displaying the same confidence.
I sense an increased boldness in the dialogue coming from Beijing.
As a test of resolve and response, it’s pretty telling. Within the EU, the individual responses of each member state make it pretty clear exactly how cohesive the ‘one Europe’ is. Everyone’s response is different, and largely incompatible. The incompatibility is as crippling as the precautions about the pandemic themselves. Contradiction and inconsistency is quite obvious for those of us still working as near to normal as conditions allow.

I work in an industry that is plagued with bureaucracy surrounding security. The security industry has become somewhat self sustaining. The perception of security based on the perceptions of risk. I see a lot of the same, now, with COVID precautions. The same heightened paranoia as a raised threat level in response to a terrorist act. But whereas the security threat level is dialled back after a short while, because it’s exhausting and damaging to try maintain the same level of stress indefinitely, the pandemic precautions have not really relaxed at all in a year. They’re destabilising.
Observers taking notes may easily identify all of the shortcomings. A lot of comments and discussion on this forum have hinted at economic, rather than traditional conflict.

timmydownawell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:08 am

IraHayes wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 3:55 pm Given the history of accidental outbreaks from Chinese labs in the past this is probably the same.
There's a lot of information that points to a death toll in China far, far in excess of the laughable numbers they are releasing as official figures.

As an example, there's the sudden loss of phone numbers. You life as a chinese citizen requires everything to be linked through your mobile number. You are tracked and your freedoms are controlled via your mobile. During the outbreak in China a huge number of the mobile phones went out of commission. Where did these users go? well I think we all know the answer to that one.

^citation needed

I can assist with the first assertion.

The safety arrangements at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Daszak was possibly unaware of, or perhaps he knew all too well, the long history of viruses escaping from even the best run laboratories. The smallpox virus escaped three times from labs in England in the 1960’s and 1970’s, causing 80 cases and 3 deaths. Dangerous viruses have leaked out of labs almost every year since. Coming to more recent times, the SARS1 virus has proved a true escape artist, leaking from laboratories in Singapore, Taiwan, and no less than four times from the Chinese National Institute of Virology in Beijing.

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-ori ... -at-wuhan/