Coronavirus thread

[Que]

Damn, just reading this thread has become a bigger health hazard than Corona....

[SimonNZ]

I did read the whole whataboutism. What I wont't trouble to is respond.

Btw, the 1957 pandemic was called the "Asian flu" and the 1968 one was the "Hong Kong flu".

Weak.

And that those two were given those names was THE POINT of that article on the "othering", of disease. A point you still missed though I posted it twice.

[Madiel]

By this token, a car, a battery or indeed anything "made in China" can be called Chinese only if it stays within China or is owned by a Chinese living abroad. As soon as a Frenchman living in Toulouse buys the car, it ceases to be Chinese because it neither belongs to China anymore nor is it geographically located in China.

Diseases are not like goods that you seek to buy.

This stuff matters, Andrei. In the West there are people who still think that AIDS is a "gay disease" just because of who happened to be the person who brought the disease to the West, and possibly the same thing will happen with monkeypox. In both cases Africans would find that idea laughable. It's designed to attribute the disease to the other.

[Florestan]

Diseases are not like goods that you seek to buy.

This stuff matters, Andrei. In the West there are people who still think that AIDS is a "gay disease" just because of who happened to be the person who brought the disease to the West, and possibly the same thing will happen with monkeypox. In both cases Africans would find that idea laughable. It's designed to attribute the disease to the other.

How could stating the scientifically established fact that Covid-19 originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China be an insult to the Chinese people, or imply that they are to be blamed collectively for it? I really don't understand.  Btw, is the term monkeypox an insult to monkeys?

[Madiel]

How could stating the scientifically established fact that Covid-19 originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China be an insult to the Chinese people, or imply that they are to be blamed collectively for it? I really don't understand.  Btw, is the term monkeypox an insult to monkeys?

We were not talking about the established fact that human transmission started in Wuhan (the virus originated in bats, not Chinese people). We were talking about calling it Chinese virus, taking ONE particular fact about the virus and turning it into the defining characteristic.

And please don't equate insulting human beings with insulting animals.

[Todd]

How could stating the scientifically established fact that Covid-19 originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China be an insult to the Chinese people, or imply that they are to be blamed collectively for it?

It cannot.  Concerns about such matters are entirely unfounded and unjustified.

[SimonNZ]

I really don't understand. 

I don't believe you.

[Karl Henning]

How could stating the scientifically established fact that Covid-19 originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China be an insult to the Chinese people, or imply that they are to be blamed collectively for it? I really don't understand.

It is not. And for the N^th time that is not the res. It's a matter of (related to) name-calling.

[Spotted Horses]

A name should be specific and descriptive. The virus was initially named SARS-CoV-2, indicating it was a variant of the previously identified SARS virus. The disease named coronavirus disease 2019, contracted to Covid-19. These meet the criteria.

Obviously you can call it whatever you want, but the Chinese virus seems particularly dumb, since the virus almost certainly evolved naturally in bats, which don't have any nationality (a similar virus, MERS-Cov was transferred from bats to humans in the middle east). There are been a number of viral diseases which were first observed in China. "The Chinese virus" is neither specific nor descriptive. Calling it the Wuhan virus would be more reasonable, because that name would be specific and to some extent descriptive. When Trump started calling it "The Chinese virus" it was a transparent attempt to deflect blame for his incompetent and incoherent response to the pandemic.

(Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to list to the Austrian Symphony. What? You don't know what I'm talking about. Beethoven's fifth symphony was premiered in Vienna, so obviously it is the Austrian Symphony. Don't be a pedant.)

[Florestan]

Calling it the Wuhan virus would be more reasonable, because that name would be specific and to some extent descriptive.

Agreed.

[Todd]

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to list to the Austrian Symphony. What? You don't know what I'm talking about.

This would make me think you would listen to a recording by the Austrian Symphony Orchestra, unless you specify another orchestra.

[Florestan]

Not quite random events though - in fact, reportedly (this from an interview with virologist Angela Rasmussen on PBS Newshour this evening) the original SARS virus (a.k.a. SARS-CoV-1) originated in Chinese wet markets, and the Chinese outlawed them in response. Yet the markets persisted, despite a law that was either not enforced at all, or inadequately enforced.

She made these statements in the course of countering the argument that the Chinese would like to blame the wet markets because it would be more embarrassing to them if the virus came from their lab. In fact, Rasmussen argued, the wet market origin theory points to a complete failure of Chinese public health policy, which should be at least as embarrassing.

This. The ordinary people of Wuhan, or of China at large, bear no responsibility for the pandemic. On the other hand, the Wuhan authorities and the central Chinese authorities are hugely responsible for it.

[SimonNZ]

The Omicron variant will in future be referred to by you as "the South Africa virus", right?

Yes, I am going to belabor this.

[Madiel]

The Omicron variant will in future be referred to by you as "the South Africa virus", right?

It would possibly be better if you didn't belabor it at this point, but I would note that The Conversation podcast had a very interesting episode discussing with the people in South Africa who discovered Omicron, and the implications of the sort of reaction that they got.

Other countries banned travel from southern Africa when there was no basis for thinking that Omicron was actually confined to there (and subsequently it was proved that it wasn't confined), it was just that the South African scientists were the ones paying enough attention to some results to investigate further. Some of them got death threats from South Africans who were upset at them for reporting the existence of Omicron, because of the travel bans that resulted.

It's a very thought-provoking discussion about the massive problems with shooting the messenger. Having serious disincentives for reporting results is not good for science.

The way people think about these things is completely bizarre. We had the whole thing of blaming Asian people in the early stages of the pandemic, with some people having zero ability to think that people of Chinese appearance might not have been anywhere near China and it was perfectly possible for non-Asian people to have been in China.

But what struck me even more as the pandemic developed was the number of times I witnessed people hugging and cuddling their friends, including saying how they hadn't seen them for a long time. These same people showed signs of avoiding strangers, but some part of their brain seemed to implicitly believe that the virus could recognise faces and would hold off it saw that it was your friend you were too close to. I mean, a couple of times I wanted to go up these embraces and point out that neither of them had a damn clue where the other had been.

Geographical location starts off being relevant, but in a global pandemic it becomes utterly nuts to keep referring to what is now one of the least important things about the virus and giving it primacy.

[Madiel]

As for the obsession with wet markets, it's basically another case of racist othering of what you might call a farmers' market or just "market" in other parts of the world. It's simply a linguistic difference where markets are known as 'wet' or 'dry', not 'farmers' or 'super': https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-17/what-are-wet-markets-in-china/12159920

[greg]

The idea that our Chinese friends would find such usage offensive only if they're "dumb" is signally dull-witted.

Why? Break down your reasoning of this.
They aren't responsible for the virus at all, why should they be offended?

As I said, a virus from America called the "America virus" would not offend me at all. It shouldn't. So why don't I get to apply the same standard to them?

If I play by the game of these fictional guests at getting offended at anything:
1) they will be appear insufferable and make me feel like I always have to be formal and non-offensive, which is the opposite you want to do if trying to make friends. Since their offensive is outside the scope of rationality, it will feel like anything I say can be warped to be offensive, so I will just feel like resigning and saying nothing and just leaving.
2) they open up the possibility that now they know they can make me do things that are illogical to respect their illogical feelings, which opens the door to manipulation in case they turned out to be malevolent


You can call that dumb all you want. But there's good reason many people would be turned off at someone being offended by something totally illogical.


edit: also, would you really get offended at a Chinese person mentioning that America had slavery? I doubt it.
If their logic is, anything that is negative about my country, you can't say, then why not adopt that logic yourself? It's toxic nationalism, but why not?
If you play by their rules but don't apply it both ways, then you are putting yourself in a submissive position. Rules for you, not for them. You really wanna do that? Or do you want to be friends with them?

Calling it the Wuhan virus would be more reasonable, because that name would be specific and to some extent descriptive.

Very true.

As for the obsession with wet markets, it's basically another case of racist othering of what you might call a farmers' market or just "market" in other parts of the world.

Racist, why? How? Why not use a different word to distinguish between a market that sells exotic meat vs. a market which doesn't?
If you aren't Chinese, then I don't see how you get to call it racist. The best way to determine this would be to have to take a general poll to see what they think.

Yes. How much do you bet neither greg nor Andrei troubles to read it?

It doesn't appear to have anything to do with my points...

[drogulus]

Agreed.

     That's not good enough because it doesn't strongly indict lying Commie bastards. It makes the outbreak a natural disaster bungled by local auth0rities that could have happened anywhere before lying Commie bastards covered it up. No, we need stronger stuff. I know!! Let's put a lying Commie virology lab funded by US liberals in there! Now that'll do the trick.

[Madiel]

Why not use a different word to distinguish between a market that sells exotic meat vs. a market which doesn't?

Are you asking why Chinese languages have not bothered to make a distinction to suit you on the other side of the world, or why a lot of English-language media has been too lazy to say "a market selling exotic meat" instead of latching onto a phrase that sounds exotic?

I look forward to an Italian asking you why you use the word "blue" for two different colours.

EDIT: Mind you, you don't even have to leave the English language to find examples of things where one group makes a distinction and another group doesn't. "Cilantro" is unknown here. It's coriander. Conversely, you use the words "squash" and "peppers" in ways that seem completely indiscriminate. Why not use a different word to distinguish all those "squash"?

[drogulus]

     How does Biden get the Rona twice in a few days when I can't seem to get it in more than 2 years? Not only that, but That One Over There watching SNL hasn't got it either and she worked with a bunch of people who all got it. It's beyond everything and everything else, too.

[Karl Henning]

     How does Biden get the Rona twice in a few days when I can't seem to get it in more than 2 years? Not only that, but That One Over There watching SNL hasn't got it either and she worked with a bunch of people who all got it. It's beyond everything and everything else, too.

Good for you for giving it a miss.