If the virus in China has ebbed, why do they need 40,000 Urns in Wuhan alone?

Jonathan Walkerin said:

They are actually going to have a demographic problem of not having enough kids to support their aging population and economy which is why they have scrapped the one child policy.

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Adding to that problem is that too many people wanted their one child to be a boy so now there is a huge surfeit of bachelors.

DamianWarS said:

China is lying, it is a part of how eastern philosophy works as you always do what you can to appear the best other wise you are shamed. They are driven by honor not facts so they will always save face.

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Say, isn't that exactly how Donald John operates? Except for the honor part.

Ophiolite said:

Do you imagine that all other causes of death in the city were miraculously suspended while Corona did its work? In a city of 11,000,000 people how many do you think would die in an average month?

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Well I did a very cursoury search. In New York about 6000 people die a month. Their population is 8.6mil.
I don't think 40,000 deaths in a month in a city of 11 million is a reasonable deduction without any kind of Major event affecting death rates

To be honest I'm kind of surprised by the number of people who trust China to accurately report this stuff. I gotta ask; why do you?

rambot said:

Well I did a very cursoury search. In New York about 6000 people die a month. Their population is 8.6mil.
I don't think 40,000 deaths in a month in a city of 11 million is a reasonable deduction without any kind of Major event affecting death rates

To be honest I'm kind of surprised by the number of people who trust China to accurately report this stuff. I gotta ask; why do you?

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Interesting check. Thank you for carrying it out.

To be honest I'm kind of surprised by the number of people who think a sceptical question somehow indicates support for or against a particular viewpoint. Worryingly, it suggests those people may be uni-directional sceptics, only asking probing questions of viewpoints, or data that conflict with their beliefs. I prefer to ask questions of all data and all viewpoints. You should try it some time. For example:

• There is no confirmation that 40,000 urns have been ordered. That number is an extrapolation from a figure of around 3,500 (IIRC).
• There is no indication that any orders are intended only to last one month.
• You have ignored the fact that Wuhan was shut down for close to three months. You think there might be a back-log?
• You have failed to consider that, with the focus on virus victims, the death rate among other seriously ill individuals is likely to have risen.

hislegacy said:

oh for the days of Barack Hussein to return, the eloquent speech, the charming personality, while behind the scenes damaging the tax payer and business.

I remember how Barack Hussein handles the swine flu when it effected 60,000,000 Americans leaving 12,500 dead.

I remember how eloquently Barack Hussein address the American public, giving daily updates and how terribly the msm treated his every word and some refused to broadcast the daily updates.

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The 2009 swine flu epidemic took a year to kill what what we will have lost in 2 months so far. It had a .02% fatality rate, lower than that of the regular flu.

A national emergency was declared within a month of the first cases, and well before the first death.

Almost immediately test kits were ready and available. They were widely available the day after the first death.

Obama did not lie and say there would be zero cases soon

Obama did not lie about a vaccine being around the corner

Obama did not lie about test kits being available (because they actually were)

Obama did not mislead people about a medication being a cure leading to the death of an American

Obama not punish governors that did not "kiss the ring" and leave people to die for his own ego.


Not only are the responses night and day in difference, the diseases are too. COVID is much, much deadlier. We have >50% more confirmed deaths 3 months in than the 2009 pandemic had at its end, with 1/10th the confirmed cases.

It's pretty obvious that China has not been transparent. They certainly weren't in the beginning. Perhaps they were afterwards. But now they're making the claim that they've stopped the epidemic except for a few imported cases. Suppose it turns out that's not true. Would they admit it? I don't see any reason why it would be different from the start: they wouldn't admit it until there's no alternative.

DaisyDay said:

Say, isn't that exactly how Donald John operates? Except for the honor part.

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If you leave the honor part out for eastern cultures you've missed the point. Eastern cultures are more honor driven where western are more fact driven.

Washington cutting down a tree and not lying to his father about it is a perfect example of how Americans value fact and truth above all else. In that account young Washington is praised for telling the truth but in an Eastern culture he would be reprimanded for bringing shame on his family and it would have been better to lie than to bring shame upon the household.

Love it or hate it, it's how the US works and it's how China works. We can do well to understand it's limits to know how to react to China for example using honor/shame language rather than fact/"tell it how it is" language. Because the Chinese don't "tell it how it is" since it is too often too crude.

DamianWarS said:

Love it or hate it, it's how the US works and it's how China works. We can do well to understand it's limits to know how to react to China for example using honor/shame language rather than fact/"tell it how it is" language. Because the Chinese don't "tell it how it is" since it is too often too crude.

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I've come to think that this may actually be how Trump works. If taken literally, he lies all the time. But I'm not convinced that he intends to give us facts. When he says something is the biggest, or that cases will go to zero almost immediately, these are about his feelings, not actual assertions of fact.

I'm not convinced that the US population is as fact-based as you might hope. I believe his approach resonates with lots of Americans.

Many of us want policy based on fact. That approach isn't going to lead to it. But many Americans are fine with a system that fails a lot, as long as it supports their feelings.

Ophiolite said:

Interesting check. Thank you for carrying it out.

To be honest I'm kind of surprised by the number of people who think a sceptical question somehow indicates support for or against a particular viewpoint. Worryingly, it suggests those people may be uni-directional sceptics, only asking probing questions of viewpoints, or data that conflict with their beliefs. I prefer to ask questions of all data and all viewpoints. You should try it some time. For example:

• There is no confirmation that 40,000 urns have been ordered. That number is an extrapolation from a figure of around 3,500 (IIRC).
• There is no indication that any orders are intended only to last one month.
• You have ignored the fact that Wuhan was shut down for close to three months. You think there might be a back-log?
• You have failed to consider that, with the focus on virus victims, the death rate among other seriously ill individuals is likely to have risen.

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Fair enough. I appreciate the feedback.

However, my tendency, as terrible as it may be, is to use past behaviours as indicative of future behaviours. China has a deep and rich history of such behaviours but one need only look as far back as a couple months ago with what was happenning in China to get a sense of it. So yes, China has lost my trust and I tend to view their actions with skepticism. Can I be wrong? Absolutely!

I don't offer these comments as informed and fact based opinions mostly because I just don' think one can do that with information provided by the Chinese government..

I only have opinions based on behaviours.

That said, the Chinese government has reported that only a TOTAL of 2535 people have died of COVID in Wuhan. And if it is difficult to get information to confirm or deny this from secondary metrics through which the govt. does not have DIRECT control, then I feel I am ahead of the curve in distrusting those numbers, as wrong as I may be.

It's also interesting that testing kits produced in China and then donated to Spain were showing false negatives. Perhaps that is happenning in China too.

hislegacy said:

I remember how Barack Hussein handles the swine flu when it effected 60,000,000 Americans leaving 12,500 dead.

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Rookie numbers! Under Donald John’s leadership, we should blow right past that record in no time.

hedrick said:

I've come to think that this may actually be how Trump works. If taken literally, he lies all the time. But I'm not convinced that he intends to give us facts. When he says something is the biggest, or that cases will go to zero almost immediately, these are about his feelings, not actual assertions of fact.

I'm not convinced that the US population is as fact-based as you might hope. I believe his approach resonates with lots of Americans.

Many of us want policy based on fact. That approach isn't going to lead to it. But many Americans are fine with a system that fails a lot, as long as it supports their feelings.

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We are all a mixed bag. For example when asked "how are you" the correct answer is always "fine" even if it's not true because the question really is not about how a personal is and it's role is akin to a greeting and is very superficial. If someone really cared they would have to ask again with something like "how are you really feeling" and if there is the right sort of intimacy the person might be honest but even then the question still isn't about how they are it is more about that showing they care.

We all have riddles in our cultures and they are far more meaningful then we typically give them credit and sometime are very complicated, even everyday things like asking how you are. But our actions as westerners are not usually navigated by a honor/shame system. We are more likely to about independence and ambition but values of tradition and family are going to be mixed in there too. It all shapes who we are, one is better than the other but you do need to understand it to play by its rules.

China has them all too, it's not that they are more complicated but they are more group and honor driven and everything has a different lense to it. There is a system to it and we can't expect American values to be appreciated the same way. Trump calling them out will immediately invoke a reply denying it, not because it's true but because it's a honor move. It would have been better to leave it unsaid as calling it out forces China to deny it where they would have implicitly accepted fault.

Trump doesn't know how to be careful with his words so he's never going to be able to dialog with the Chinese but he is no better as all he is doing is trying to preserve the power of America by a change of direction and putting the focus on China. It's in poor taste imho because politics are not needed now, he should save it until the crisis is over.

DamianWarS said:

If you leave the honor part out for eastern cultures you've missed the point. Eastern cultures are more honor driven where western are more fact driven.

Washington cutting down a tree and not lying to his father about it is a perfect example of how Americans value fact and truth above all else. In that account young Washington is praised for telling the truth but in an Eastern culture he would be reprimanded for bringing shame on his family and it would have been better to lie than to bring shame upon the household.

Love it or hate it, it's how the US works and it's how China works. We can do well to understand it's limits to know how to react to China for example using honor/shame language rather than fact/"tell it how it is" language. Because the Chinese don't "tell it how it is" since it is too often too crude.

Click to expand...

Your example seems to focus on the lying part, rather than the ‘shouldn’t have committed the offense in the first place’ part. We should be very clear that they don’t just think it’s fine to do wrong and then lie about it, they just don’t see doing something wrong and going ‘yeah I did it, my bad!’ as particularly praiseworthy.

China is different now of course, because of the whole authoritarian communist state thing. Anyone who remembers Tianenman Square isn’t going to be giving China the benefit of the doubt when it comes to things like this.

rambot said:

Fair enough. I appreciate the feedback.

However, my tendency, as terrible as it may be, is to use past behaviours as indicative of future behaviours. China has a deep and rich history of such behaviours but one need only look as far back as a couple months ago with what was happenning in China to get a sense of it. So yes, China has lost my trust and I tend to view their actions with skepticism. Can I be wrong? Absolutely!

I don't offer these comments as informed and fact based opinions mostly because I just don' think one can do that with information provided by the Chinese government..

I only have opinions based on behaviours.

That said, the Chinese government has reported that only a TOTAL of 2535 people have died of COVID in Wuhan. And if it is difficult to get information to confirm or deny this from secondary metrics through which the govt. does not have DIRECT control, then I feel I am ahead of the curve in distrusting those numbers, as wrong as I may be.

It's also interesting that testing kits produced in China and then donated to Spain were showing false negatives. Perhaps that is happenning in China too.

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My view on China is that it is a very successful dictatorship as dictatorships go. Unfortunately, dictatorships don't usually go, not for a long time - and then often to be replaced by another dictatorship. i.e. I am not an apologist for the Chinese government. (I just think our grandchildren should learn Mandarin so they don't wind up as third class citizens in a Chinese dominated world.)

Secondly, any meaningful analysis of the global epidemic will have to wait the compilation of mountains of data once the epidemic is at an end. Consequently I am accepting current data, from any source, only for what they are. Generally, that means they are reported numbers. The reports are influenced by collection methodology, filtering, timing, definitions, resources, biases, etc. The reliability of the numbers is determined to the extent that those modifiers are known.

Thirdly this thread began with an OP that was, blatantly in my view, based on the premise that the Chinese were lying about their death rates. Not on the possibility that their numbers were inaccurate, not on the possibility that they were lying, but on the certainty that they were. That certainty was derived from a political bias, not scientific scepticism. My question was a gentle poke at such agenda driven thinking.

hislegacy said:

Time will tell, what will you say of it doesn’t?

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Thank you to the doctors, nurses and public health officials as well as the governors of the 50 states and everyone that’s done their part to mitigate the severity of the crisis. At this time, it’s not looking too good though.

Do you have the ability to say he handled it better than Barack Hussein?

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He’s already failed miserably compared to Obama. Every time he’s spoken since the outset of the crisis he has shown how much better off we’d be with literally anyone other than him at the helm. Any good progress made during this time will be in spite of the president’s efforts, not because of him.

GoldenBoy89 said:

Thank you to the doctors, nurses and public health officials as well as the governors of the 50 states and everyone that’s done their part to mitigate the severity of the crisis. At this time, it’s not looking too good though.


He’s already failed miserably compared to Obama. Every time he’s spoken since the outset of the crisis he has shown how much better off we’d be with literally anyone other than him at the helm. Any good progress made during this time will be in spite of the president’s efforts, not because of him.

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It is so bad, some outlets won't even air the press conferences, for fear more people will die from Trump's misleading comments.

Vylo said:

It is so bad, some outlets won't even air the press conferences, for fear more people will die from Trump's misleading comments.

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I’ve stopped listening to him altogether. I find nothing useful in his self aggrandizing press briefings and instead it makes me more upset about the situation we’re all in. I didn’t think there was any lower he could go in my esteem but somehow, Trump found a way.

GoldenBoy89 said:

I’ve stopped listening to him altogether. I find nothing useful in his self aggrandizing press briefings and instead it makes me more upset about the situation we’re all in. I didn’t think there’s was any lower he could go in my esteem but somehow, Trump found a way.

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Credit where credit is due, he is absolutely excellent at being a terrible human being. The best terrible example of humanity, ask anyone, the sheer commitment to being awful is the best ever.

hislegacy said:

oh for the days of Barack Hussein to return, the eloquent speech, the charming personality, while behind the scenes damaging the tax payer and business.

I remember how Barack Hussein handles the swine flu when it effected 60,000,000 Americans leaving 12,500 dead.

I remember how eloquently Barack Hussein address the American public, giving daily updates and how terribly the msm treated his every word and some refused to broadcast the daily updates.

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Maybe so, but the more important question in situations like this is what about Obama?