this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Today 4 years ago, Dr. Li Wenliang warned of a suspected SARS patient in a Wuhan WeChat group. Soon later, he was arrested for “making false comments on the Internet about unconfirmed SARS outbreak.” (harakahdaily.net)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org
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Dr. Wenliang's message went viral, becoming the earliest warning of what we now know today as Covid-19. He returned to work, but contracted Covid from a patient, and died on February 7, 2020.

Four years later, investigations about the virus’s origins aren't going forward, largely due to China’s reluctance to facilitate a comprehensive investigation by the WHO, the World Health Organization. Beijing hesitates to provide access to critical raw data which would not only help to identify the exact cause of the virus but would also facilitate the preparation for future pandemics.

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[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 36 points 10 months ago

I've told this tale 3 years running now:

I work at an international business school. I try to stay up to day on world news. There was a paragraph written about "infectious pneumonia" in Time magazine or The Economist the last week of 2019 (so the issue published the first week of 2020, I think).

Returning to work a week later I mentioned it in class, because that year I had about 6 students from different parts of China.

They said, "it's nothing, just a flu."

The next week, as numbers started to be published they said, "no, it's an exaggeration."

The week after they were the first students to start wearing masks.

Week 4, they told us they hadn't heard from their families in several days. This would have been February 2020.

I felt so horrible for those students that year. They were only 18 or 19 years old. Sent to France in January 2019 (they are required to come several months before classes start in order to learn French and pass some tests). They were locked down March 16th 2020 and forced to take lessons on Zoom. Unable to return home for the summer. Took another semester on Zoom, etc., etc.…

I think they finally managed to head home in the spring of 2021.

[–] HootinNHollerin 32 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

As I lay here on NYE with plans canceled because of covid and think back of the >$150,000 USD covid has cost me over these years from destroying my small business, I will never forgive or forget the PRCs role in this.

[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Funny you blame the foreign government for covering it up, and not your own government who literally said they wanted liberal areas to get sick.

[–] HootinNHollerin 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Funny you defend the PRC when there’s actually evidence of them suppressing knowledge of the outbreak, and disregard the lockdowns here and the vaccines. I worked on the mRNA technology with a lot of good scientists trying to help but people like you don’t care

[–] unwellsnail@sopuli.xyz 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't think they're defending PRC, just pointing out there are others also deserving of your anger. The US not only did terrible at responding to the ongoing pandemic, they convinced people they didn't but if so to just blame PRC for it. Sure, be mad that they covered it up, but also be mad that our government mishandled things terribly too.

[–] HootinNHollerin 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Reading comprehension has really gone down. I said PRCs role in this. And in comes the whatabouts

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 3 points 10 months ago

This place is swarming with idiots. I think it's an age thing. There are a lot of young people on Lemmy and they tend to be very wedded to viewing the world in strictly ideological terms with little nuance and no real appreciation for how complex the real world actually is. As a result, it's almost impossible to be critical of anything without being subjected to pointless and condescending whataboutism.

[–] PaddleMaster@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you’re this angry, then by all means, please leave.

In the less developed world Covid was dubbed “rich man’s sickness” because only people who were affected were those who had the means to travel. But those few rich brought it back, and made it everyone’s problem. Am I angry with those people? No.

Most governments were not handing this well. Your anger towards only one country’s government is misguided.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 3 points 10 months ago

So by your logic it's not OK to criticize the CCP unless one also lists off all the other governments that failed to rise to the occasion? WTF is wrong with you? You are trying way too hard. It's obvious that for whatever reason you can't abide criticism of the CCP.

If they were critical of the US government's response you and I know very well that you would never feel the need to comment about how the CCP also fucked up. You wouldn't because you're poisoned by an ideology that doesn't allow you to see the world from an objective solutions-based perspective. Everything is black and white with you, either in keeping with your cornball little ideology, or not, in which case it's evil.

It's bullshit and people are getting sick of you and people like you. Grow the fuck up.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 5 points 10 months ago

@deegeese

Funny you blame the foreign government for covering it up, and not your own government who literally said they wanted liberal areas to get sick.

You mean this?

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)

That's the takeaway here. Your travel plans ruined. Not the personal tragedies, lives lost, political destabilization.

[–] HootinNHollerin 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Geez you people are grumpy

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It was one comment and you got 15 upvotes with no down lol. For the record I think it sucks that you lost your business, that is a tragedy, but my first thought was that it did sound pretty callous, like ignoring the hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.

[–] explodicle@local106.com 3 points 10 months ago

I don't think you can down vote on Beehaw.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 8 points 10 months ago

Losing your business is a very personal tragedy

[–] Joker@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 months ago

Hey, everyone was impacted and it was all personal. It doesn’t have to be about who was impacted more or which experiences are more legitimate than others. $150k is a lot to lose. I’m in that boat myself and, in some ways, we haven’t recovered from that. The timing of it caused a lot of changes in our lives and spoiled long term plans that were important to us and our kids. It took a while to pick up the pieces and pivot. There’s always going to be that “what if” feeling so there’s a real sense of loss.

[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 7 points 10 months ago

I was in 12th grade and I remember my English teacher was weirdly prophetic about it. He told us that it would be the worst pandemic in decades, and this was before the US had its first case. Looking back, he was the only teacher I had who mentioned anything about it