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Comment by DiogenesKynikos | Hacker News Reader

> What would the world economy look like if China had reported their real numbers, and these real numbers had triggered a safety threshold and banned/heavily restricted travel from China for the 2 months December and January?

In late January 2020, China:

* Announced there was human-to-human transmission.

* Completely sealed off Hubei province (population: 60 million).

* Implemented lockdowns in cities throughout China.

Yet most countries did next to nothing for a month or more. It wasn't until hospitals in Lombardy, Italy started filling up that people in Europe and the US started to take the virus seriously. So my prediction: better information from China (which the Chinese government itself did not necessarily have anyways) and more dire warnings from the WHO would have had no effect. Following WHO recommendations would already have been a massive improvement over what European countries and the US did.

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> In late January 2020, China: Announced there was human-to-human transmission.

China announced it way too late.

https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-health-ap-top-news...

> Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,” and said its work and commitment to transparency were “very impressive, and beyond words.”

> But behind the scenes, it was a much different story, one of significant delays by China and considerable frustration among WHO officials over not getting the information they needed to fight the spread of the deadly virus, The Associated Press has found.

To actually praise China for announcing human-to-human in late Januray 2020, while blaming most countries for doing next to nothing, is extremely ugly to me. I won't attack that (common) viewpoint, as it riles me up too much.

> China announced it way too late.

After China announced there was human-to-human transmission, European countries did almost nothing for another month. The US took even longer to take any serious actions. Do you really think things would have been different if China had announced human-to-human transmission 5-10 days earlier?

> After China announced there was human-to-human transmission, European countries did almost nothing for another month.

No, they started procuring masks and other PPE, but found that China had already conquered that market, before their announcement.

They could have told the US and European countries that the possibility of a modified virus lab-leak cannot be ruled out. Instead they started destroying samples, muzzle scientists, and had all their embassies push that WIV was a conspiracy theory, before any scientific investigation had even looked at it.

> The US took even longer to take any serious actions.

Yes. Was terrible to see. Can't even muster the mood to defend that.

> Do you really think things would have been different if China had announced human-to-human transmission 5-10 days earlier?

Yes. And a major moral difference. 5-50 days of valuable time. 5-50 more WHO meetings where Tedros says the window to act is getting smaller before Achilles will overtake the Tortoise.

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