All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (2 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[brandon]

Again, it is helpful to appreciate how the term "Wuhan virus" came to be a naughty term. Our media routinely used that term

Show me a single video of any mainstream media not named Fox News ever using the term “Wuhan virus“ and I’ll eat my hat.

Wuhan Coronavirus was definitely used at the beginning. The media didn’t stop using it when Trump started using it. They stopped using it when there was an official name.

And yes, there’s a difference.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

So I’ll reiterate what I said yesterday because I still haven’t heard an answer:

What is the purpose of insisting upon calling it the Chinese virus or the Wuhan flu as opposed to its more scientific names? What benefit is there? Because the downside is contributing to a notable uptick in Asian-American hate crimes and harassment.

Because calling it the Chinese(implying the people that live there) virus cultivates fear within people and instead of seeing it as a virus they begin to associate it with East Asian people (which is evident with the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans), which simply helps signal boost a negative outlook on Asian Americans and foster xenophobia and bigotry.

And just because something was done before, doesnt make it right then, or now:

In June 1899, the steamer Nippon Maru arrived at Honolulu carrying one passenger who had died during the trans-Pacific voyage. The Hawaii Board of Health immediately quarantined the ship for a week as a precaution against the bubonic plague, which was then ravaging much of Asia. The freighter departed for San Francisco without further fatalities, but rats and fleas aboard the ship managed to break the quarantine. In December, plague took a first victim in Honolulu’s crowded Chinatown.​

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The epidemic that reached Honolulu had originated in China in the 1870s, spreading slowly until it reached the commercial cities of Guangzhou and then Hong Kong in 1899. Steamships may not have been as fast as modern jetliners, but they still linked Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas into a global economy — and a global disease network. Honolulu, booming as a Pacific entrepôt, was especially determined to fend off what many saw as an Asiatic threat.​

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Racism was even more blatant at the turn of the 20th century. Noting that white people in Asia were less likely to contract plague than were locals, so-called experts attributed the difference to inherent racial superiority and proper European habits rather than economic advantage and colonial privilege. Historian James Mohr, author of the 2004 book Plague and Fire: Battling Black Death and the 1900 Burning of Honolulu’s Chinatown, described how one Honolulu resident spoke for many when she optimistically wrote that “plague seldom attacks clean white people.” ​

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The Board of Health also attempted to sanitize with fire, burning buildings where plague victims had died. On January 20, 1900, a controlled burn roared out of control, consuming a fifth of Honolulu’s buildings and the homes of 5,000 people. White residents who had come to gawk at the fire also gathered with baseball bats and pick handles, to ensure that the fire victims ended up in tightly controlled refugee camps.​

Lessons for the coronavirus from the 1899 Honolulu plague

Public health officials all over the United States—indeed globally—are trying to decide how to deal with the world’s coronavirus pandemic. They know the

blog.oup.com

The ‘Chinese Flu’ Is Part of a Long History of Racializing Disease

During a plague outbreak in 1899, officials in Honolulu quarantined and burned the city’s Chinatown. Some Covid-19 talk today echoes their rhetoric.

www.citylab.com

And to the notion that it is simply a way to label a virus from its location, that is also largely a myth:

But the Spanish flu didn’t get that name (real name: H1N1!) because it started in Spain. It actually started in Kansas. It became commonly known as the Spanish flu because in the middle of World War I, in which Spain remained neutral, Spain was one of the only Western nations willing to report frankly on the pandemic.​

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Or take the Ebola virus, which, despite being named for a river in Africa, actually got that name because the scientists who discovered it wanted to avoid stigmatizing the village where the disease first appeared. ​

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One team member suggested naming it after the village, known as Yambuku, but the other scientists pushed back. As Bahar Gholipour wrote for Live Science in 2014:​

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But naming the virus Yambuku would run the risk of stigmatizing the village, said another scientist, Dr. Joel Breman, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This had happened before, for example, in the case of Lassa virus, which emerged in the town of Lassa in Nigeria in 1969.​

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Trump’s new fixation on using a racist name for the coronavirus is dangerous

The president is stoking xenophobia with his rhetoric about the coronavirus.

www.vox.com

And since then, we have looked even more critically at the dangers of naming diseases in loaded ways. It is something the World Health Organization specifically addressed 5 years ago and cited those very diseases as examples of the harm generated by tying viruses to people, places, and identities:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_HSE_FOS_15.1_eng.pdf?sequence=1

So I ask again, what is it we are defending with this labeling? What is it that is being achieved positively that overrides ALL the negative issues stemming from charging the name of a disease in this loaded way? What is it that is so important to convey by casually naming the virus after the people that inhabit the diseases origin?

 

[Beach Friends]

Show me a single video of any mainstream media not named Fox News ever using the term “Wuhan virus“ and I’ll eat my hat.

Wuhan Coronavirus was definitely used at the beginning. The media didn’t stop using it when Trump started using it. They stopped using it when there was an official name.

And yes, there’s a difference.

To me, the "Wuhan virus" and the "Wuhan coronavirus" is a distinction without a difference, at least in the context of discussing whether there is something nefarious about using the origin of the virus to identify it, which was definitely done repeatedly and presumably without any ill intent:


As a side note, I misread your post initially- I thought you said you would eat a "bat," which is how we got in this mess in the first place.

 

[brandon]

To me, the "Wuhan virus" and the "Wuhan coronavirus" is a distinction without a difference, at least in the context of discussing whether there is something nefarious about using the origin of the virus to identify it, which was definitely done repeatedly and presumably without any ill intent:


As a side note, I misread your post initially- I thought you said you would eat a "bat," which is how we got in this mess in the first place.

Nuance matters.

Unfortunately, the side benefit of dog-whistles like “Wuhan Virus” is the inherent plausible deniability, which you use to great effect.

And this virus was not transmitted by eating a bat. That’s another racist dog whistle.

Yes, I said the “R” word. Don’t cancel my right to free speech.

 

[Humperdoo]

Nuance matters.

Unfortunately, the side benefit of dog-whistles like “Wuhan Virus” is the inherent plausible deniability, which you use to great effect.

And this virus was not transmitted by eating a bat. That’s another racist dog whistle.

Yes, I said the “R” word. Don’t cancel my right to free speech.

He wouldn’t. He’s not on the ‘side’ that likes to silence free speech.

 

[Humperdoo]

One of my team members is Asian American. She told me she is getting glared at in the stores to the point it is making her uncomfortable. Thank goodness that’s all so far, but what BF insists on doing (and more importantly, political and media members, not actually him, he’s just parroting) is causing American citizens to be targeted. We just don’t need more hate in this country.

Absolutely agree on that last statement. We’ve got plenty or bigoted hate.

 

[Saintamaniac]

BF is many things. Stupid is not one of them.

Hence the use of the adverb "willful". I was giving the benefit of the doubt but it was laid out pretty thoroughly by others so as to remove any doubt.

 

[not2rich]

The "Wuhan Virus" schtick is not primarily about racism, but rather about focusing on a good scapegoat to distract from the Trump reality TV clown show of incompetence. As proof for my assertion, I offer the last few pages of this thread. Trump wins if people are talking about anything but his incompetence. And blaming China (the government, the country) is going to be effective simply because that's where it originated and their government downplayed it. Yes, our government somehow trusted them and downplayed it too, but that government is COMMUNIST and Trump banned travel from China.

That messaging works with BF and the right. And y'all saying it's racist plays into their mindset that the left is always crying racism, when all they're supposedly doing is pointing out that China has a large amount of responsibility. They call it the "Wuhan Virus" or "Chinese Virus" because they're trying to jerk your chain to prove their concept of the "woke" left correct. Stop taking the bait.

It's not primarily about racism. The fact it also appeals to racist sentiments in some segment of the GOP is merely a bonus.

 

[brandon]

The "Wuhan Virus" schtick is not primarily about racism, but rather about focusing on a good scapegoat to distract from the Trump reality TV clown show of incompetence. As proof for my assertion, I offer the last few pages of this thread. Trump wins if people are talking about anything but his incompetence. And blaming China (the government, the country) is going to be effective simply because that's where it originated and their government downplayed it. Yes, our government somehow trusted them and downplayed it too, but that government is COMMUNIST and Trump banned travel from China.

That messaging works with BF and the right. And y'all saying it's racist plays into their mindset that the left is always crying racism, when all they're supposedly doing is pointing out that China has a large amount of responsibility. They call it the "Wuhan Virus" or "Chinese Virus" because they're trying to jerk your chain to prove their concept of the "woke" left correct. Stop taking the bait.

It's not primarily about racism. The fact it also appeals to racist sentiments in some segment of the GOP is merely a bonus.

So it’s racist, but only tangentially, so don’t say that it’s racist?

If they want to think they scored some points with the home team because I called their racism racist, well they can just have it.

Your other points are absolutely correct. But imma still call racism what it is every time I see it. If it’s not racist, then I won’t call it that.

There’s a difference between calling racist things racist and calling non-racist things racist.

 

[Beach Friends]

Nuance matters.

Unfortunately, the side benefit of dog-whistles like “Wuhan Virus” is the inherent plausible deniability, which you use to great effect.

And this virus was not transmitted by eating a bat. That’s another racist dog whistle.

Yes, I said the “R” word. Don’t cancel my right to free speech.

Well, the official story is that it was caused by bats in the wet market. Are you suggesting that they were selling them as pets?

Of course, the truth is that the virus may have "escaped" the Wuhan lab, where they were studying the coronavirus - that came from a bat.

Why is it racist to say that the virus came from a bat which the Chinese people eat? I personally think it's disgusting, but plenty of people think that eating crawfish is disgusting and I do that.

 

[not2rich]

So it’s racist, but only tangentially, so don’t say that it’s racist?

If they want to think they scored some points with the home team because I called their racism racist, well they can just have it.

Your other points are absolutely correct. But imma still call racism what it is every time I see it. If it’s not racist, then I won’t call it that.

There’s a difference between calling racist things racist and calling non-racist things racist.

I get where you're coming from, and I feel it too. But do you think the reason they use racist terms is because they want you to call them racist, just so they can get their panties in a bunch about whether "Wuhan Virus" is appropriate while conveniently avoiding defending Trump's pandemic response on a more substantive basis?

They want to play on the "don't call me a racist" field because it's easier for them, logically and emotionally. They would rather talk about that than testing, aid for the states, or the economy, because it's harder to defend their Trump worship on those subjects.

 

[Humperdoo]

I get where you're coming from, and I feel it too. But do you think the reason they use racist terms is because they want you to call them racist, just so they can get their panties in a bunch about whether "Wuhan Virus" is appropriate while conveniently avoiding defending Trump's pandemic response on a more substantive basis?

They want to play on the "don't call me a racist" field because it's easier for them, logically and emotionally. They would rather talk about that than testing, aid for the states, or the economy, because it's harder to defend their Trump worship on those subjects.

Do you truly feel that we all worship Trump?

 

[Lapaz]

There's a growing sentiment to open up, while protecting the vulnerable, in an attempt to develop herd immunity, since some evidence is coming out that the death rate may be lower than the expected 3%. I've heard the Diamond Princess used as an example of the lower death rate, since 100% of the people were tested, and supposedly it proves that the death rate is 0.2 to 1.2%, but I don't know how they cam to that conclusion. 13 people from the Diamond Princess have died out of 712 infected people, with 54 cases still unresolved. That's about 2%, and if 8 of those 54 die, then that will be right at the predicted 3%. While they skew older, they also probably are healthier old people.

If we were to open to get herd immunity, I don't know how we can protect the vulnerable, which isn't just the old, since people with asthma, diabetes and heart disease are among the vulnerable, and when you add in people over 65, that's going to account for half of the country. I suppose all vulnerable people can wear N95 masks whenever they're around everyone else, but I think this is impractical, because it may take the rest of the year to develop the herd immunity, and we would need 100 million masks, and frequent replacements. In the meantime, this half of the country would be isolated from the rest of the country. I don't like that approach. It would be better stick with the plan to vastly increase testing and contact tracing, and then isolate people as needed to prevent the spread until we hopefully almost stop the spread to buy time to develop the vaccine.

 

[Beach Friends]

Nuance matters.

Unfortunately, the side benefit of dog-whistles like “Wuhan Virus” is the inherent plausible deniability, which you use to great effect.

And this virus was not transmitted by eating a bat. That’s another racist dog whistle.

Yes, I said the “R” word. Don’t cancel my right to free speech.

Obviously I disagree, and I think that being too quick to see issues through that worldview leads down some strange paths. For example, here is an opinion piece written by Dr. Emily Cousens of Oxford University wherein she states she is actually worried that Oxford will win the race to develop a vaccine because:

I Teach At Oxford, But I Don’t Want It To Win The Coronavirus Vaccine Race

The story will be clear: China, once again, has unleashed a threat to civilisation. But the best brains of the UK have saved the world.

We’ll forget the lessons that the pandemic has taught us so far: that the UK and the US are in fact not exceptions at the global stage. That we are not only vulnerable but can also afford to learn lessons from countries, regardless of whether we have a special relationship with them – such as South Korea. That being white, male and Oxford-educated may not be the only criteria for effective leadership (the countries whose responses have been most widely praised, Germany and New Zealand among others, are all led by women).

At first I could not comprehend how any doctor would worry about where a vaccine is developed or what the skin color is of those who developed the vaccine. But, at the end of the article I saw that, "Dr. Emily Cousens researches vulnerability and gender at Oxford Brookes university and teaches on the women’s studies masters course at University of Oxford." One has to take out massive student loans and waste years at university in a discipline dominated by postmodern philosophy to be that foolish.

I Teach At Oxford, But I Don’t Want It To Win The Coronavirus Vaccine Race

The story will be clear: China, once again, has unleashed a threat to civilisation. But the best brains of the UK have saved the world, Dr Emily Cousens writes.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

 

[brandon]

Well, the official story is that it was caused by bats in the wet market. Are you suggesting that they were selling them as pets?

Of course, the truth is that the virus may have "escaped" the Wuhan lab, where they were studying the coronavirus - that came from a bat.

Why is it racist to say that the virus came from a bat which the Chinese people eat? I personally think it's disgusting, but plenty of people think that eating crawfish is disgusting and I do that.

Again, nuance matters.

There’s a difference between saying the virus originated in bats versus saying the virus came from eating bats.

Saying that the virus (probably) originated in bats is supported by evidence and carries no real weight other than being factual information

Saying that the virus comes from (presumably Chinese) people eating bats does two things:

1) It provides an opportunity to blame someone other than Trump for the situation in the US.

2) It “otherizes” people of Asian descent as people who aren’t like “normal” people who only eat crawfish. These people eat bats and dogs!

The most important part of all of this is that you are not like JoeOKC or DD. You fully understand what I’m telling you. I’d go so far as to say you agree with what I’m telling you. You know what you’re doing.

You’re not willfully ignorant. You’re maliciously so.

 

[Beach Friends]

Again, nuance matters.

There’s a difference between saying the virus originated in bats versus saying the virus came from eating bats.

Saying that the virus (probably) originated in bats is supported by evidence and carries no real weight other than being factual information

Saying that the virus comes from (presumably Chinese) people eating bats does two things:

1) It provides an opportunity to blame someone other than Trump for the situation in the US.

2) It “otherizes” people of Asian descent as people who aren’t like “normal” people who only eat crawfish. These people eat bats and dogs!

The most important part of all of this is that you are not like JoeOKC or DD. You fully understand what I’m telling you. I’d go so far as to say you agree with what I’m telling you. You know what you’re doing.

You’re not willfully ignorant. You’re maliciously so.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people are going to die from the virus itself. We are probably heading toward a global depression that will not only alter our lives forever but will also result in countless more deaths especially in developing countries.

I am sorry, but I don't think we can afford to be politically correct according to the rules of the hypersensitive.

We absolutely know that the wet markets in China provide the perfect opportunity for these viruses to jump between species and from animals to humans. We also know that bats are especially dangerous for a number of reasons, including that they are mammals and they live in colonies with thousands of them living on top of each other.

The issue is not race, as Asians from many other nations and from within China itself are critical of the practice of having these live, wild animals presented for sale in these markets. The CCP is well aware of the danger they are bringing to the world, but closing the wild animal markets would put a dent in their GDP. So, we all pay the price.

 

[FullMonte]

The "Wuhan Virus" schtick is not primarily about racism, but rather about focusing on a good scapegoat to distract from the Trump reality TV clown show of incompetence. As proof for my assertion, I offer the last few pages of this thread. Trump wins if people are talking about anything but his incompetence. And blaming China (the government, the country) is going to be effective simply because that's where it originated and their government downplayed it. Yes, our government somehow trusted them and downplayed it too, but that government is COMMUNIST and Trump banned travel from China.

that's literally what the document sent out by the GOP says to do. Focus on China, if someone questions Trump's actions, deflect to China.

 

[not2rich]

Do you truly feel that we all worship Trump?

Maybe it's more correctly phrased: "Worship of right wing dogma."

Some people claim they even dislike Trump, or some qualities of Trump, yet they're so indoctrinated by their media bubble that they're convinced that literally anyone on the "left" is worse than Trump.

"I'm not a Trump guy, but I can't vote for [insert any Democratic candidate here]."

And they'll use that logic to defend a buffoon who hasn't proven to be good at anything other than self-promotion and conning people. For no other reason than "well, the other side is SO much worse."

So other than the fact these people are better at rationalizing their choices, I'm not sure what separates them from unapologetic Trump supporters at the end of the day.