New York Times reinforces @SecPompeo's message that Chinese Communist Party is to blame for pandemic. See the remarkable story that appeared this weekend. nytimes.com/2020/03/29/wor… #CCPVirus #coronavirus
1) This is a remarkable New York Times report. China had an epidemic warning system free of political control until Xi Jinping took over & centralized power: "After SARS, Chinese health officials built an infectious disease reporting system to evade political meddling." #CCPVirus
2) Local authorities in Wuhan stayed silent for fear of upsetting Xi Jinping, NYT says: "But when the coronavirus emerged, so did fears of upsetting Beijing." #CCPVirus
3) Whistleblowers circumvented CCP information controls. "The central health authorities first learned about the outbreak not from the reporting system but after unknown whistle-blowers leaked two internal documents online," according to the New York Times.
4) CCP's "triumphant narrative" obscures how it "squandered time" to stop pandemic: "This triumphant narrative obscures the early failures in reporting cases, squandered time that could have been used to slow infections in China before they exploded into a pandemic," NYT says.
5) Xi Jinping's centralized CCP forced the non-political rules not to be enforced. "According to the rules, this of course should have been reported," a retired Chinese health care official involved in establishing the direct reporting system, said in an interview, NYT reports.
6) CCP is directly to blame for most infections and deaths. "Aggressive action just a week earlier in mid-January could have cut the number of infections by two thirds, according to a recent study whose authors include an expert from Wuhan’s municipal Center for Disease Control."
7) CCP's delay caused pandemic to explode. "Another study found that if China had moved to control the outbreak three weeks earlier, it might have prevented 95 percent of the country’s cases," the NYT reports.
8) Xi Jinping has been trying to shift blame, NYT says: "China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has sought to move quickly past the early failings and shift attention to the country’s drive to end the outbreak." #CCPVirus
9) Local interviews and leaked documents "reveal the depth of the government’s failings: how a system built to protect medical expertise and infection reports from political tampering succumbed to tampering." #CCP
10) CCP in control of health issues, NYT says: "Fresh efforts to repair the system now could also falter under a political hierarchy that leaves experts — doctors, even public health officials — unwilling to take on local leaders."
11) .@SecPompeo would agree with this NYT statement about #CCP responsibility: "In China, politics often ends up overriding the very safeguards created to prevent interference in the flow of information."
12) From the NYT: "In theory, doctors could have reported such cases directly, but Chinese hospitals also answer to Communist Party bureaucracies." #CCPVirus
13) NYT: "Over time, hospitals often came to defer to local health authorities about reporting troublesome infections, apparently to avoid surprising and embarrassing local leaders. That deference may not have mattered much most of the time."
