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CHINA HAS HELD a three-minute reflection to honour those who have died in the coronavirus outbreak.
Activity in all major cities in the country, which has recorded more than 80,000 cases and 3,000 deaths from Covid-19, stopped at 10am local time with commemorations particularly poignant in Wuhan.
The industrial city was where the virus was first detected in December and placed under complete lockdown on January 23 as authorities attempted to halt the spread.
Wuhan has been lauded as a “heroic city” by the nation’s communist leadership for the sacrifices made by its 11 million citizens.
People have gradually been allowed to travel in and out of Wuhan under strict conditions and the quarantine on the city is to be formally lifted on Wednesday.
On Saturday, China reported one new confirmed case in Wuhan and 18 among people arriving from abroad, along with four new deaths, all in Wuhan.
China’s figures, 81,639 cases and 3,326 deaths, are generally considered to be understated because of a lack of testing and a reluctance to report the scale of the original outbreak.
China’s slow, cautious emergence from the global pandemic comes as the US is struggling to deal with the outbreak that has taken more than 1,860 lives in New York City alone.
Italy, Spain and France are also seeing rising numbers of cases and deaths, although strict social distancing measures such as those adopted by China appear to be having an effect.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, ordered that national flags be flown at half-mast around the country and at Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, and the suspension of all public recreational activities.
The horns of cars, trains and ships joined in what the official Xinhua News Agency called a “wail in grief” for three minutes.
China has held such moments of silence in past, often to mark Second World War-era atrocities by Japan, but rarely on a national scale.
The commemoration also comes two days before the traditional Qingming festival, when Chinese visit the graves of their ancestors.
Officials have banned such observances this year to avoid large gatherings that might contribute to a feared second wave of infections.
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They should Pause and reflect for a very long time after this Pandemic
@John O Donoghue: nope the rest of the world should and reflect on how we have created this economy and now super power by supporting this labour market .
And to think the first port of call for the Irish government with an order of Ppe was to China is almost unbelievable, but once you factor in Harris and varadker it’s not so unbelievable.
@Dannys Dentures: well no actually. They ordered Australias stock of ppe via a property company in Feb and kept extent of this issue stumb. They continue to spoof about figures. I’m no ffg fanboy so you should take a global view of this instead of a potshot at the local rulers.
@Chewey Bacca: if you’re want your saying is true it’s simply further demonstrates my point.
And it’s not a pot shot Harris , varadker etc have a legacy of mistakes .
How anyone has any faith in Harris to manage this situation with his track history is deluded .
Patrick Holohan and his team are managing this crisis and don’t be so naive to think otherwise.
@Dannys Dentures: HSE spent circa €223m on PPE from China…any idea what the quote was to get it from European source??…..€2.1B!!! It was a no brainer!!
@Simon Connolly: incentives Irish businesses which are on shut down while the government subsidies the wages of that company to tool up and make the equivalent here and spend the €200m + here
O’Neils sportswear being one example , many other stories of companies having 3d printers making face masks .
We have the infrastructure and many many people being paid to sit at home.
Thanks China, maybe next think twice before you cook up that cat/dog/rat/pagolian.
@Tim O’Brien: you forgot the bat!
@Verandah: I left that out on purpose, I like a bat Kung Po myself every now and again.
@Tim O’Brien: prefer Natalie’s music myself.
@Tim O’Brien: you mean before they release it from their biomedical factories
@Patricia O’Reilly:
Zzzzz…..and Saddam had WMDs that could hit London in 20 minutes.
@Tim O’Brien: Fun fact: they like to cook the animals alive and kicking…for flavour!
Wonder what the true figure was? Imagine being denied by your own government because it will make them look bad. Poor souls. Not the only country playing with fugures on this subject by a long shot but there is lieing and then there is chineese state lieing…different level.
@Declan: what is the point to hide the real figures which they already ceased all the activities over there?
@Declan: almost catching it to Agent Orange in the White House who tried to keep dead people on a cruise ship so they could not be counted as deaths in USA
@Anthony Doyle: up to
@Declan: and then there’s lying.
as it was pointed out on a news channel the Chinese Government are being hypocritical. They are claiming that the Doctor that first alerted the World to this virus is a “Hero of the Communist Revolution”. This is the same Party that arrested and threatened this same Doctor for doing the very thing that they are now cheering his memory for.
@Mick.:
This is the same China that will never again suffer military defeats at the hands of democratic Britain for the right to push morphine on her people
@Micheál: Which has exactly what to do with my point?
@Mick.:
You’re having a pop at China my good man without giving them credit for freeing themselves from western imperialism.
I’ll warrant you are a sneaking regarder of Mother England
@Mick.: are they still communism state or just in name I thought they abandoned it after Mao died in 1976 for capitalism with just a one part state!
@Micheál: Correction, I am having a “Pop” as you put it at the Hypocrisy of the Chinese Communist Party. Should we pretend that they didn’t arrest and threatened this brave Doctor because he wanted to warn the world about this virus at a time when the Communist Party of China were trying to hide it?
Should we applaud them for trying to hide the truth about this virus spreading like wildfire through one of their cities?
@Micheál: you’re talking some shitе! What has freeing themselves from Western imperialism got to do with hiding the true extent of their infected and dead? What you’re basically saying is that Chinese lives are expendable, and only worth something when freeing themselves from the bad old West. You do know you can criticize all forms of imperialism and criticize Chinese Communist Party actions at the same time. It’s not a binary world we live in, you know.
@Micheál: is that same logic that used in Tibet when it was invaded by China!
@Mick.:
If only you were as excitable about the vicious crimes of British and US imperialism I would then countenance comment from you
@Micheál: Again what had this got to do with the Hypocrisy of the Chinese Communist Party other than an attempt at Whataboutry?
@Micheál: Michael, https://youtu.be/FzmXlrG_dzk
@Micheál: what happened to the Tibetan people and to Tibet itself!
@Micheál: Michael, please disengage on this article, there will be other articles https://youtu.be/FzmXlrG_dzk
@Micheál: do you think Irish people on the island of Ireland will ever forget what happened to its families /friends. that died when this virus eventually comes to a end. And total death total is added up.. And the traumatizing of our irish nation by a mystery virus that originally came from china that we we don’t know full story about! …Irish /British /American /world /people will be United in grief when this nightmare ends!
@Micheál: Thanks, Michael https://youtu.be/mpkaTYpWGQc
@Mick.:
Actually his treatment was trivial compared to a whole succession of whistleblowers in America – from doctors in Seattle to the Captain of the ship in Guam to workers and front-line medical staff in New York.
@Mick.:
Hypocrisy is spouting about some initial (and short lived) hesitant reaction by some officials in Wuhan – while obviously implying (despite you denials) that this meant the CPP is somehow more culpable than other Governments.
What you, using the jaded cliche, call “whataboutry” is actually simply providing context to a claim you based on “some news channel”.
@Micheál: The totalitarian communist/socialist goverment is allowed the export of Fentanyl and the majority of the snide Z tablets sold on the streets of the West.
@Pat Coyne:
You mean kinda like Europe and America forcing China to accept opium at gunpoint?
Except the Chinese, at most, only make it available – they don’t use their military to force Western states to buy it.
Read a book sometime….
@brendan fitzsimons: Again what is that got to do with my original point other than Whataboutry?
@Micheál: Why do you defend this evil, evil country? They’d roll a tank over you if you got in their way.
@Bobby wilson: China is still communist. There’s more than one way of being communist so ignore silly leftist bickering. Basically all the major sectors of the economy are state owned and controlled. Construction, banking, telecoms, natural resources and so on. You can easily look up a list of biggest companies in China and see they are state owned. The profits are then invested into improving the country. They now have half the poverty rate of the USA, about the same as Europe, down from about 80%. People say China isn’t communist for the same reason they were saying USSR wasn’t by the end – because the people were clearly living well. Educated, well fed and no homelessness or unemployment.
A deadly virus develops in China due to stupidity(at best).
The severity and danger is severly underplayed and covered up by local and international figures in China.The Chinese death toll is inaccurate and underestimated at least 5 fold.
The virus spreads and decimated European and world society. Not alone are many thousands of people dying but out social and sociatal structures have been irreparably damaged. The lives we once knew will never be the same again?
The Chinese are now making a fortune by selling overpriced sub standard medical equipment the world over and it has to be picked up by the purchaser?.
Am I missing anything in this narrative and is it naive to think that at a minimum China should be apologising profusely for what has occurred.
@Raymond Dennehy: when this virus is eventually control by western states. China will have serious questions to answer to the world on what happened in its state!
@Raymond Dennehy: you’re missing one thing alright. It wasn’t stupidity that caused this. It was recklessness. 17 years ago, a virus known as SARS-CoV-1 – commonly known simply as SARS – developed out of wildlife farming and wet markets. The Chinese government banned these as a result, but a few years later repealed the ban. Several months ago, from the exact same conditions, SARS-CoV-2 arrived on the scene to cause the COVID-19 crisis. Again, the Chinese government closed down the wildlife farming and wet markets. Now, they’rve already started to reopen them.
@Raymond Dennehy: the medical supplies they are selling pale in comparison to the economic cost China has suffered. Maths does not add up for that theory I think.
@Bobby wilson: seriously do you really think in the bottom of you heart that they give a shit about the rest of the world they don’t even care about their own people , the only way to punish them is too stop buying there products
What’s up with the PR campaign in relation to China….It’s a regressive totalitarian police state and should be labelled as such at every given opportunity.
@Derek Durkin: They are so profoundly worse than people think they are. They also have so much power now, controlling supply of materials, labour and food products.
The second wave of this virus is going to devastate us and the Chinese will goose step into the west.
@Derek Durkin: have you been to China?
Any chance they would cop on!? They have caused a world pandemic!! And not a penny out towards it only dodgy PPE for Irish medical professionals!!!
@Bart O Brien:
Yeah, we should refuse to take that ‘cos we ourselves are so well prepared we don’t need it!
RIP
When all this is over. The world must make China stand up and tell the truth, though they are incapable of that. They must hold them responsible for not closing their borders completely, for after containing their own virus to then charge the rest of the world exorbitant prices for faulty goods. The world must now come together and stop being so reliant on their cheap tat. It will be a changed world at a terrible cost to life.. we must never let it happen again, we must NEVER TRUST them again.
@Patricia O’Reilly:
“When all this is over. The world must make China stand up and tell the truth”
Lmfao!
As we’d say at school when threatened by a bully with reprisals: “You and whose army?”
The way things are shaping up the EU and US will need a Chinese Marshall Plan to recover from the catastrophe our dysfunctional neoliberal “democractic” systems have caused!
@Patricia O’Reilly: it’s like a joke, when China was lockdown, whole western countries are saying this is just a flu, all football matches going on, horse racing was going on, the. Government even was thinking Patrick’s day parade to go ahead, due to the slow reactions, the virus spread like wildfire, some smart people jumped out blaming China was hiding the figures?
@brendan fitzsimons: ah the socialist so you think China was right…. bless
@meh:
Bless you too….I’m not a socialist bit it’s pretty clear China managed this better than the EU/US, despite the latter having two months notice.
@Godknows: couldn’t agree you more . But sadly ,that is people are . So ridiculous
@brendan fitzsimons: easy to do in a police state, would of never work in us or eu with the freedoms we do have , people would have revolted and made it all a lot worse I think
Am I the only one who thinks this is all a bit late,a bit hollow and a bit two faced?
Am I the only one who wonders why there are no reports of any of the top echelon in China contracting this plague.?
This plague was no accident. Wake up people.
@Gerry Caden: agreed
RIP to all the Chinese people who died.
Other than a lot of conspiracy theories, I haven’t seen any credible evidence to suggest their figures are any different to those reported.
We all saw their extreme military lock-down and ability to build two hospitals in a week, but haven’t seen the same efforts in any subsequent infected countries.
@Cynical: Exactly. And this rubbish about not informing the world about the issue until it was too late ? More nonsense.
@Cynical: haha yeah building hospitals in 2 weeks doesn’t give it away…. try build a house in 2weeks without being prepared and let us know how that goes
@meh: And the US military built a hospital in New York in 8 days ( though Trump is claiming 3.5 days). Suppose that’s not true either ?
@meh: Sorry but how does an unplanned house have any relation to a temporary hospital? As someone who spent most of their school days in prefabs, I really don’t find it hard to grasp…
@Tommy Roche:
..and in London they erected the “largest hospital in the world in just 2 weeks; opened over the internet by Prince Charles.
That , of course, is also fake news?
@Tommy Roche: source? Only thing I see is China building hospital in 8days
@Cynical: so you think those prefabs were put up in a few days? Taking in waste and providing water and electricity! You should have listened when in your prefab I think
@brendan fitzsimons: Wow, that’s impressive.
Saying ‘fake news’ feels like the modern equivalent of accusing someone of being a witch.
@Cynical:
“Saying ‘fake news’ feels like the modern equivalent of accusing someone of being a witch.”
Indeed. But I saw the “virtual” opening of HRH Prince of Wales NHS Nightingale Hospital on both Sky News and the BBC…..so it obviously isn’t fake news.
Unlike the stuff that the World Health Organisation and ALL of the geopolitical adverseries of the Pentagon put out….
@Cynical: You mustn’t be looking very hard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEQcvcyzQGE
@Cynical: just examine the figures on Worldometer and it’s obvious that the Chinese are lying through their teeth. There absolutely no way they’re even remotely accurate.
Shame on China for eating exotic animals not to mention wild dogs. Spreading this disease and no apology from their government.
Not forgive Chinese are careless spread to world heartbreaking for all families love one gone
This is how and when the Chinese alerted disease control centres around the world to the virus. 30th Dec, when they had 27 cases they sent the communication in the document below. The WHO say the Chinese contacted them 3 days previously, 27th Dec, to say they had 8 cases of viral pneumonia caused by a pathogen they had not seen before. They already knew that the wet market was the likely source. Conspiryloons will come to their own irrational conclusions with zero evidence, but facts are facts. https://promedmail.org/promed-post/?id=6864153
@Tommy Roche:
The looney tune being peddled in America (completely at odds with the WHO reporting) – and taken up by so many panicked tabloid types in the Anglosphere – is a measure of the desperation being caused seeing their economic house of cards collapse.
It was going to happen anyway…the virus just gave the process a nudge.
@Tommy Roche: 60 minutes give a much better critique that I can in a short post, please watch this 15 minute synopsis that completely disproves your assertions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEQcvcyzQGE
RIP
I think a figure of 3,336 deaths in China is a little suspect. Considering the density of the population. Very doubtful. The figures in Europe are truly shocking, when I see the pictures of refugee camps and the townships of SA it’s scary. They have no idea what’s coming when this virus hits those areas.
“I think a figure of 3,336 deaths in China is a little suspect.”
Yes.
But it is important to note that the same applies to everywhere else – and bar a few East Asian countries – even more suspect.
@brendan fitzsimons: so what’s yòur agenda? Your on this post jumping all over anyone who has an opinion of China, that doesnt match your own.
@Sam Greene:
I’m a fact-checker.
@brendan fitzsimons: then fact check Chinas reported numbers.. oh u cant.
Don’t forget the ones you forgot to
count….
These Stats are bat s#it crazy
Might be more appropriate for them to reflect, for a very long time, on the working conditions and general standards in their totalitarian state that gave the rest if the world Corona Virus.
I’m all for free trade but we should be seriously considering our trade relationship with china until such time as they are on a par with Europe in terms of labour rights, health & safety, hygiene etc
Can China government be held liable as they tried to hide the virus and they didn’t contain it
@Mickomacko:
No.
Not in the real world, just as nobody can hold the US liable for their endless wars and the death of millions because of their economic and military power.
RIP.
have your say