A section of the database was password-protected and not accessible. This may well have been to protect the materials so that scientists from WIV could be first in writing scientific papers about the viruses and sequences. But except for that private section, the database was accessible until Sept. 12, 2019, when it became unreachable from outside the institute, according to DRASTIC, which has studied the database usage records. Why then? Dr. Shi has said it was taken offline for security reasons. “We have nothing to hide,” she told the BBC.
In his final days in office, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had been harshly critical of China, issued a fact sheet and statement claiming: “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses.” If the U.S. government possesses information to corroborate that statement, it should release it, including declassifying any intelligence.
I’d have to think the Trump administration would have corroborated it if they could have. Could be true anyway of course.
I really dont know. Also its like at least 24 days of quarantine and then flying an umpteen tests before you can get into the country. You would have to be really desperate.
I know a lot of people who were trapped outside of China and really really wanted to get back in for work and family reasons, so maybe they would go through it
I don’t believe anything that comes out of China for obvious reasons but have come to conclude that they are efficient in this kind of thing in a manner that I don’t want Taiwan to be. From talking with friends, primarily in Beijing but also elsewhere, they have been ‘locked down’ on a semi-regular basis over the past year, generally for a day or so if a positive case is reported inside their community - all say they bring their computers, etc home each night because they assume they could be inside for a few days.
I posted most of this elsewhere though didn’t see this thread.
By most reports, China appears to have covid under control. I have friends in the country who are CCP members in good standing and friends who hate the gov’t and all say, basically, the same. Flare ups in random places. Neighborhoods get closed for a few days. Massive testing. Nearly everybody vaccinated.
Now, how did they do this?
However, nobody else has had this kind of success, even in places that have had higher vaccination rates using vaccines that are supposed to be more effective.
They locked down hard initially though most of this was domestic.
They have fairly strict border control but no more than a lot of other countries.
A huge percent of the population is vaccinated. However, other countries have similar rates.
Sinovac isn’t supposed to be that efficient. Sure, vaccinating 80% of your population with a vaccine that is 40% effective would prevent pressure on health care system but not erase the entire flu.
They are certainly lying about the numbers to some extent. They probably aren’t hiding deaths - they’ve done that for SARS and they’ve done that for covid but you usually see reports of what’s happening leaking out through sources like Epoch Times, etc.
If they are locking down hard when they have a flare-up and eradicating the virus, why don’t other countries do the same?
If they are simply not reporting positives but people aren’t dying…are they that much brighter than every other country on the planet who could do the same thing?
My current theory is that incentives are aligned to where if people die or get sick, they can cover it up but if the economy crashes, parts of Xi’s body come detached from other parts of his body. Compare that to a country like Taiwan where if things are locked down and the economy crashes, we were ‘following science’ whereas if they permit dining in restaurants and three people die in an old folks home, you won’t hear about anything else in the next election.
Reasonable but China controls its borders between it and it’s poorer neighbors fairly tightly.
I don’t know anybody in Yunnan but have heard from a friend in Beijing who loves her gov’t more than her family and a friend in Shanghai who is precisely the opposite and they both say, precisely, the same thing.
