Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Razgovory]

If it is true there would be major repercussions across the world.

[Jacob]

Anyway if it was a lab leak I mean is that any better than China allowing these disease spawning wet markets? In both instances it was Chinese errors that cause the pandemic from starting...though maybe not spreading.

"Disease spawning wet markets" is just racist.

A wet market is a market that sells fresh produce, meat, and other goods that aren't dry goods. There's nothing particularly Chinese about them (other than the term) nor disease spawning (anymore than your local grocery store with a produce section is).

Now markets that trade in live wildlife is a vector for spreading diseases, for sure.

[Admiral Yi]

Anyway if it was a lab leak I mean is that any better than China allowing these disease spawning wet markets? In both instances it was Chinese errors that cause the pandemic from starting...though maybe not spreading.

A disease spreading wet market is much better from a Chinese point of view, because that way there's no coverup conspiracy.

[Admiral Yi]

Actually Jake, that's different from my understanding of wet market.  Everything I've read says it's a market where live animals are sold for butchering.  So very different from a produce section. 

[crazy canuck]

Actually Jake, that's different from my understanding of wet market.  Everything I've read says it's a market where live animals are sold for butchering.  So very different from a produce section.

You might considering reading a bit wider.

Here is a good start

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/coronavirus-linked-to-chinese-wet-markets

If you don't subscribe, one of the points the article makes is that wet markets and wildlife markets are often conflated.  Everything you have read seems to have made that error.

[Barrister]

Anyway if it was a lab leak I mean is that any better than China allowing these disease spawning wet markets? In both instances it was Chinese errors that cause the pandemic from starting...though maybe not spreading.

"Disease spawning wet markets" is just racist.

May I suggest that while "disease spawning wet markets" may be incorrect, it is not racist?

[Valmy]

"Disease spawning wet markets" is just racist.

A wet market is a market that sells fresh produce, meat, and other goods that aren't dry goods. There's nothing particularly Chinese about them (other than the term) nor disease spawning (anymore than your local grocery store with a produce section is).

Now markets that trade in live wildlife is a vector for spreading diseases, for sure.

Ok I was under the impression that was why so many diseases have come from China lately, not sure how criticizing the policies of the Chinese government is racist unless policies about selling goods are part of DNA or something.

[Tonitrus]

If it is true there would be major repercussions across the world.

Indeed.  There might even be targeted sanctions against some Chinese officials.

[Valmy]

If you don't subscribe, one of the points the article makes is that wet markets and wildlife markets are often conflated.  Everything you have read seems to have made that error.

Ok then wildlife markets or whatever was originally the theory behind all these new viruses we keep seeing.

Anyway if it was a lab leak I mean is that any better than China allowing these disease spawning wet markets? In both instances it was Chinese errors that cause the pandemic from starting...though maybe not spreading.

A disease spreading wet market is much better from a Chinese point of view, because that way there's no coverup conspiracy.

I guess. I mean either way it was a mistake on China's part.

[Sheilbh]

That sounds a lot like sometimes to me.

I'd reverse it slightly - that sometimes (maybe often?) high status opinion is wrong. I get why it was policed - and I backed it during the pandemic and still do around vaccines - but it can be wrong. And to nick a Cummings line a lot of people - especially with a media platform and a sense of responsibility - are more comfortable reading the room than pointing out the smoke.

I don't know about this case. But I think of the very serious and credentialed messages around border closures, why lockdowns wouldn't work (and lockdown fatigue), masks, East Asian security theatre etc. All of those were wrong - I think a lot were actually grounded in sort of soft racist assumptions about "Western" v "Asian" societies.

[Valmy]

I think a lot were actually grounded in sort of soft racist assumptions about "Western" v "Asian" societies.

What sort of assumptions? I mean this is our first pandemic since the 1960s I think. It makes sense we would fuck it all up just from a lack of first hand experience, so it was always going to be based on possible false assumptions, whether racist or not.

I hope people pay close attention to the results of what our policies were because it seems likely we might get another at some point in the near future.

[Sheilbh]

What sort of assumptions? I mean this is our first pandemic since the 1960s I think. It makes sense we would fuck it all up just from a lack of first hand experience, so it was always going to be based on possible false assumptions, whether racist or not.

I hope people pay close attention to the results of what our policies were because it seems likely we might get another at some point in the near future.

I get that - but that's not what I mean. I think we will probably do better in the next pandemic if it hits in the next couple of decades because we all have a muscle memory of it.

I mean the sort of stuff I said - and I was guilty of this. But I think a lot of the stuff around masks and around freedom-loving Western populations being incapable of lockdown was basically a sort of writing off as what was happening in China and Korea and Japan as based on some inherent cultural difference - a "Confucian/conformist approach to pandemic response". It was nonsense.

[Legbiter]

What sort of assumptions? I mean this is our first pandemic since the 1960s I think. It makes sense we would fuck it all up just from a lack of first hand experience, so it was always going to be based on possible false assumptions, whether racist or not.

I hope people pay close attention to the results of what our policies were because it seems likely we might get another at some point in the near future.

Yeah. My paternal great grandfather was a funeral director/coffin maker here in Reykjavík in 1918 when the Spanish Flu came. His pandemic really only lasted 6 weeks but every day was pure, concentrated hell while it lasted. On the other hand, business was really good.

Reading the digital versions of the local national papers from back then is kinda cool. They had the exact same debates as we about masks, social distancing and control measures. The expert in charge declared it preposterous to even try to keep influenza out, no country could do so in the long run, the landowning gentry running the local sýslur/counties outside of Reykjavík promptly declared him a criminally negligent, overeducated moron and imposed control measures banning travel between counties for example. Which worked splendidly, the Spanish Flu was contained within South Iceland.

[Jacob]

Ok I was under the impression that was why so many diseases have come from China lately, not sure how criticizing the policies of the Chinese government is racist unless policies about selling goods are part of DNA or something.

Not saying you're racist. Nor is crititizing the Chinese government. But the formulation "disease spreading wetmarkets" is.

But incorrectly linking allegations of "disease spreading" (which has a long and storied use in racism as I'm sure you agree) with an everyday place in a foreign culture IMO is.

[Jacob]

Anyway if it was a lab leak I mean is that any better than China allowing these disease spawning wet markets? In both instances it was Chinese errors that cause the pandemic from starting...though maybe not spreading.

A disease spreading wet market is much better from a Chinese point of view, because that way there's no coverup conspiracy.

I don't think this got reported much in the West because it was just a little blip, but back in the early days (IIRC it was when it was beginning to show up in the West, but wasn't taken particularly serious yet, while China was clamping down hard) there was a minor outbreak/ cluster in Beijing after they'd said the city was virus free. Embarassing, right.

So the official story was that it spread via salmon at a fish market, and therefore the Beijing authorities banned the sale of salmon for however long.

The hillarious part (beside the fact that Covid-19 is not going to spread to humans via fish) was the number of merchants in that market suddenly saying "oh we're not actually selling salmon, we're selling trout (or other species often sold as salmon when it's not)."

But yeah, Chinese authorities have form when it comes to blaming markets for spreading Covid.