Sure, there is maximum responsibility on China's shoulders. Heck, if as a result of this pandemic, they end up banning their wet markets and illegal wildlife trade for good, it will be a major positive for the world. That is the noise that needs to made around the world. The cover-up is just the symptom, the disease is the massive wild animal illegal trade and farming that is fueled by Chinese demand. That **** has got to STOP.
As soon as Beijing got involved in the Wuhan case, the cover-up administrators got canned and they clamped down hard on not just Wuhan city but the whole province of Hubei. Like it or not, their system has proved much more effective in management of population-scale problems than ours. From mobilization of a massive number of health professionals, to building new hospitals, to total shutdown of the effected areas, they basically showed the world what needed to be done. We all saw the youtube videos and news footage of the Hubei and Wuhan lockdown - medical staff in full bunny suit and outdoor areas being sprayed down. This was early February. That should have sent alarm bells ringing all over our administration given that we know that for cultural reasons we cannot lock down in that way. Instead we were caught with our pants down with slapstick-style actions.
We got a CDC that apparently cannot even cook up a test given ample time to prepare even when there was a WHO test that was being successfully used around the world. We got a president that initially downplayed the whole thing for a whole month and when **** finally hit the fan says he takes no responsibility and wants to shift all responsibility to China. I don't know if this guy is doing comedy or if he even means anything that comes out of his mouth - I just can't take him seriously.
China is responsible but ultimately they have got it under control. As have Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea. Now is not the time to be antagonizing the people that can help us both figure it out as well as have the immediate capacity to produce the basic supplies like masks, suits, medical devices, and medicines we are going to desperately need.
To me everything just reeks of American arrogance and complacency, we think that bad things in the world just couldn't happen here. We have got to lose the Hollywood image of our institutions where everyone is so awesome and the government has everything under control, our people are smarter and will figure everything out, the doctors will save me no matter what happens. God forbid, if there is every any bioterror or bio-warfare in the world, China has demonstrated that they can handle it and we have demonstrated that we will not. To be better prepared in the future, we have to let go of the notion that we are the best and realize that we are in the same **** as everybody else.
