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 John Prins wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Read an interesting article that claimed some of the Coronavirus hype is actually thinly veiled racism against Asians and Chinese in particular.

I will see if I can dig it up and link it here.

On January 21, over 7,000 articles were published worldwide claiming talking about the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia is racist.

That's not journalism, that's a public relations campaign. And it's a bad idea not to discuss a potential pandemic.

The CCP loves to use crybully tactics. Try being non-Han Chinese inside China if you want to see racism.

I have and it sucked just worse than the non-anesthetized dental surgery I had to have while I was there. 95% Han ethnostate that thinks everyone else is a moron, the level of corruption was staggering.

So all that talk about racism was just about bat soup, and not an attempt to distract from what was really going on?

 techsoldaten wrote:

I have and it sucked just worse than the non-anesthetized dental surgery I had to have while I was there. 95% Han ethnostate that thinks everyone else is a moron, the level of corruption was staggering.

So all that talk about racism was just about bat soup, and not an attempt to distract from what was really going on?

It can be both. People can be racist towards Chinese and the CCP can cry about racism as a distraction from their failure to contain the coronavirus. But their complaints of racism are completely shameless.

Here I thought having a huge number of humans with compromised respiratory health concentrated in a small area was cause enough for an epidemic.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Here I thought having a huge number of humans with compromised respiratory health concentrated in a small area was cause enough for an epidemic.

That is true, but China is particularly good at breeding new infections, because it has the above alongside still having a large, dense population living in close proximity to chickens and pigs. It is an environment that fosters zoonosis. Most of the more dangerous human pathogens are zoonotic, like TB and smallpox. 'Flu is another good example, and China has often been the epicentre for new 'flu strains causing epidemics.

 Haighus wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Here I thought having a huge number of humans with compromised respiratory health concentrated in a small area was cause enough for an epidemic.

That is true, but China is particularly good at breeding new infections, because it has the above alongside still having a large, dense population living in close proximity to chickens and pigs. It is an environment that fosters zoonosis. Most of the more dangerous human pathogens are zoonotic, like TB and smallpox. 'Flu is another good example, and China has often been the epicentre for new 'flu strains causing epidemics.

The chicken and pigs thing is especially relevant because the chickens and pigs are in close proximity to each other. Virus mutates in chickens and jumps to pigs (harmless to humans at this point), then mutates in the pigs to jump to humans. Bird flu -> Swine flu -> Human flu. Separate the chicken and pig raising and it basically shuts it down, barring the very rare possibility of Bird flu -> Human flu mutation.

The zoonosis danger is an aspect of Chinese agriculture, rather than their human genetics.

In fact, in the UK there is increased racism against all oriental people regardless of their culture identity or citizenship. For example, racism against British born Chinese, against Japanese people.

All that said, racism against "foreigners" of any type has been increasing for several years, but we had better not get into that line of discussion, because it would be political.

Race hate claims in the UK should always be looked at with caution, as what is determined to be racial hatred is obfuscated by many factors including who is being targeted, who is making the comments and what form of offence taken and with skewed entry levels of magnitude.
This imbalance is now inherent, doctrinal and reinforced by a generation of brainwashing.

I went into central London a fortnight ago for my annual health assessment. In a London supermarket I saw Chinese people with face masks, only they were wearing them and lots of people around them took notice. This was before any known cases in the UK. Some ignorant people might be triggered by this in some way; fear does this. I would not presume as to which demographic might be triggered, but society does.

Those dust masks are less than useless too.. They aren't going to stop virusus getting in.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Those dust masks are less than useless too.. They aren't going to stop virusus getting in.

HEPA filters needed?

Or just a false sense of security inspired by fear. I saw locals with those same masks on an internal flight in Angola because they were afraid of Corona.

Chinatown here has always had a fair few mask wearers even before the virus, probably folk who came from China were the pollution means even a rubbish mask does help and once you've got the habit it's just going to be like putting on a coat before you go out

Japanese and South Koreans also have a common habit of wearing a mask against flu and colds.

There is little evidence they help much outside a clinical context in which many other protective factors are in play.

Anyone who lives in central London, or anywhere else with a large number of Far Eastern tourists or first generation immigrants, will be totally used to seeing people wearing face masks.

On a slight tangent, I often see groups of Far Eastern tourists stood in groups next to tour busses in Oxford, face masks pulled down around their chins so they can smoke...

Face masks are a regular occurance. Mainly tourists. In Birmingham I have been told that this has recently been because of the reported issues with air quality.

Also, Friends in Brighton now have their kids home from school in quarantine. A week before half term.

Masks are worn to prevent breathing the pollution. You see it everywhere, if it looks foggy in the morning, that’s the pollution. It’s awful.

Masks will help prevent you catching flu or cold but only in conjunction with regular hand washing. The hand washing itself does most of the work.

One filthy habit chinese people should pack in is public spitting. It’s revolting and known to spread disease. What’s the point in wearing a mask and then repeatedly gobbing on the floor? Flu is spread by infected liquid usually being coughed out, so deliberately spitting in public places should be banned. Don’t want to walk in it or breathe it in from the air. Yet you see it repeatedly every time you go out, pavements are dotted with spit. And that’s no exaggeration.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Japanese and South Koreans also have a common habit of wearing a mask against flu and colds.

There is little evidence they help much outside a clinical context in which many other protective factors are in play.

It's probably as much psychological as anything. "Please keep away, I might be infectious..."

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Masks are worn to prevent breathing the pollution. You see it everywhere, if it looks foggy in the morning, that’s the pollution. It’s awful.

Masks will help prevent you catching flu or cold but only in conjunction with regular hand washing. The hand washing itself does most of the work.

One filthy habit chinese people should pack in is public spitting. It’s revolting and known to spread disease. What’s the point in wearing a mask and then repeatedly gobbing on the floor? Flu is spread by infected liquid usually being coughed out, so deliberately spitting in public places should be banned. Don’t want to walk in it or breathe it in from the air. Yet you see it repeatedly every time you go out, pavements are dotted with spit. And that’s no exaggeration.

I had no idea it was that common in Asia.

I do remember seeing some videos about the hygienic revolution in western society and that was one of the things that was a forefront concern at the time. In conjunction with hand washing and other basic hygienic practices, spitting in particular was called out and banned in many places.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Masks are worn to prevent breathing the pollution. You see it everywhere, if it looks foggy in the morning, that’s the pollution. It’s awful.

Masks will help prevent you catching flu or cold but only in conjunction with regular hand washing. The hand washing itself does most of the work.

One filthy habit chinese people should pack in is public spitting. It’s revolting and known to spread disease. What’s the point in wearing a mask and then repeatedly gobbing on the floor? Flu is spread by infected liquid usually being coughed out, so deliberately spitting in public places should be banned. Don’t want to walk in it or breathe it in from the air. Yet you see it repeatedly every time you go out, pavements are dotted with spit. And that’s no exaggeration.

Yeah that is grim, wherever you see it. although I must admit that I do like to rid myself of mucus when I have a cold, but at least try to get it down a drain or something.

You don't see spitting in Japan.

In fact, people don't even blow their noses in public. They go to a lavatory to do it. Instead you get these appalling honkings in public.

It sounds disgusting but actually it's more hygenic than blowing out infected mucus.

That's what I used to tell my mother back in the day when I'd be trying to suck snot back up my nose!

The Coronavirus will be yet another insignificant fart in a glass of water, that the media gets to milk for clicks and views.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Those dust masks are less than useless too.. They aren't going to stop virusus getting in.

This is dangerously vague and/or ignorant. A "facemask" or "dust mask" is a generic term. A surgical mask does little to nothing to protect against the current coronavirus, but it can help reduce the spread of it by proving a physical barrier for mucus etc. It also helps reduce the spread of other non-viral droplets etc. An N95 mask, also referred to as a medical respirator, will provide protection against the coronavirus as long as it is used properly and proper hygiene is used. (Wash your hands, don't touch your face etc) A lot of "dust masks" in industry are rated to be used as a medical respirator and may even have a higher rating like the n99 masks. There are also P95 masks which are effective against oil based pollutants. The key is to look for something with a N95, N99, or P95 rating.

Spouting off assumptions and a lack of precision in language could literally get someone killed. Take this seriously.

Hooo BOY! This thread! Wowaweewa. You guys.

So, as someone who has lived, and is living in East Asia, for over 3 years, let's have a juicy PoserMcBogus look at some of the stuff coming up in this here lil ol' Coronavirus Thread.

What's up with Asian people wearing masks? I don't do that...
You're right. Most people in the west don't wear masks, unless doing forensics, surgery, dental work, or something involving hazardous substances. The reason people in Asia wear masks is multifarious. Some have been brought up already - pollution, for example. Some regions get particularly bad air contamination, between factories and transport. If you go about not protecting yourself adequately, you at best get a nasty headache, irritated sinuses, and exciting exotic flavors in your mouth, like metal, that hang around for more than is fun.
Additionally, parts of this end of the Eurasian Supercontinent can be extremely arid over vaaaaast swathes of land. A lot of this will be natural, but even people without allergies will have respiratory issues if the dust clouds produced by this weather aren't adequately safeguarded against.
I also know more than a few people who use masks as a way of not standing out. Be it social shyness, not wanting to be bothered.
However, as has been pointed out, people also do this pretty often on account of sickness, or fear of sickness. Due to work culture out here, some people either aren't comfortable with taking time off for something like a cold, or even the flu, because they don't want to either use up their paid leave, or burden others with their absence, or because workplace culture can in some jobs, be brutally strict. There is a different attitude in the countries I have lived in to the west, but even then there is no uniform Asian way to respond to being sick at work. At my school in Korea, I've seen people come in to work literally green in the face, because they'd rather been seen to be pulling their weight than causing an issue for others. In instances like this, I was really fething glad that Tae-Hyun was wearing a face mask, because it might not be much, but whatever the hell he has looks like it's nearly killing him, and God knows I don't want it. A lot of employers in Korea have a "Well why the feth did you let yourself get sick?" attitude.
In Japan, where I am right now, though ymmv, people come into work ill out of a sense of obligation, and wanting to save face. But if someone is signed off work sick, it's usually regarded very sympathetically. I was signed off over summer with a particularly nasty bout of tonsillitis, and had colleagues I barely knew stop by my home to make sure I had enough food, and to check to see if I was alright. When Teachers that I work with have had sore throats, they'll often use masks as a signal to students that this is the case. Unlike kids where I'm from, even amongst more rambunctious classes, this is usually respected, as the person trying to teach you is doing so despite it causing them pain. Kids will sympathetically belt up and let the teacher get on, while other members of staff try to fill in the gaps wherever they can.
I can't speak to much for China, having only visited once, and only knowing a few Chinese nationals, but the attitude is broadly cohesive with this. Masks are usually a mix of protection and a way of preventing yourself from getting other people sick. They are used mostly in case of trivial stuff like colds, as the flu is regarded quite seriously out here, across the board.
Do wearing masks prevent disease? Man, I'm no doctor, but it's probably kinda better than nothing? Especially where some people are double-masking, and/or wearing swimming goggles, too. I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience at least in Korea, people don't really cover their mouths to cough or sneeze. As anyone with a little kid will tell you, having your mouth coughed in is pretty gross, but when it's a stranger's kid, who you know is sick... whole other level of yucky. I'd rather have the masks in that situation than not.

HYSTERIA!!! PANIC!!!
Like, yeah, kind of. In Europe, the disease is being spread by jet-set rich-os flying about the world for the most part. Out here, it could be carried by anyone. Even Kanazawa, where I live, a small, kinda boring city, gets a lot of tourist traffic. They come from all over, and have nearly all passed through MASSIVE international transport hubs. Literally anyone you see could be a carrier, and with the 2-week incubation time, it's impossible to know if you've already got it, and are spreading it about the place. It's kind of like a zombie LARPG. Only you could also die from a disease we still don't super understand, which is fun, in a kind of awful I-hope-no-one-I-love-gets-infected way.
Which brings me back to masks. Nearly every pharmacy (slightly annoyingly, always a favorite among Chinese tourists) has sold out of masks. A lot have started putting up signs in Chinese and English saying things along the lines of "masks sold out!". Those that haven't, such as my local, are rationing them to one pack per person (one pack has about 3, so 3 days worth for one person). Oddly, a really good place to grab them reliably are big-city Don Quiotes, though some of these places are rationing them too.
Which brings me to my next point...

RACISM
Damn. The R-bomb. This is my own opinion, but I think the outbreak has stoked racial tensions, and allowed other pre-existing prejudices to bubble into the open * glances at all the brazenly anti-Chinese sentiment in this thread with suspicion *. I went travelling to Sapporo recently, and there is usually a large number of Chinese and other East Asian tourists there. Wherever there were foreign tourists, locals would be putting on their masks. Someone starts speaking a language that isn't Japanese or English on public transport? On go the masks. In any kind of space that is shared with East Asian tourists? Masks. See someone in the street who looks a bit 'not-from-round-here'? Mask. How do I know? I was doing it, too. It's very easy to participate in a herd mentality and demonize and fear outsiders when you feel like there's a chance that you might be physically harmed by them. But all of these tourists have been cleared for entry, and subjected to newly-introduced, pretty stringent health checks. The populace with the disease in Japan is small, contained (mostly on that one cruise ship), and seemingly unspreading (for now, for obvious reasons) Doesn't stop people being shifty when they hear Chinese being spoken in public by an-almost-certainly-clean stranger.
I'm especially in this thread gonna call BS on a particular claim that Chinese people are too physically close with animals.
This is literally the oldest dogwhistle in the book. Gerald of Wales pulled it against the Irish in the middle ages.
Chinese cities are DENSE. Impossibly dense. Some parts of those cities, due mostly to the sheer mass of people, can become less than sanitary. Much of China is, or gets, tropical weather on the regular. Transport is fast, easy, and often, nowadays, quite affordable. China is geographically massive, and historically really, really really difficult to administrate effectively These are, unfortunately, ripe conditions for epidemics.
To get a notion of Chinese population numbers, look at ancient Chinese history. Wars in China could rack up body counts the West wouldn't reach until nearly the 20th Century. The middle kingdom is huge, and when things go wrong, they can go extremely wrong, extremely quickly, for literally millions.
That said, the entire time I visited China, along with the accounts of many of my friends, few of them, bar like, the ones who grew up in the literally backend of rural china have been in close proximity with livestock. Yes, there are live animals in some Chinese markets. There are also live animals in almost any market in East Asia, Korea and Japan included. This is a thing throughout a fair portion of the world. Yes, some animals are kept alive as long as possible, to stop meat spoiling in tropical conditions. Yes, there are certainly unscrupulous slaughterhouse owners who operate their businesses in less than hygienic conditions. This is unfortunate, and dangerous. But this in a reasonably rare proportion of the Chinese population, and to make out that most Chinese people don't mind living in close quarters with the pigpen is, at best, the kind of ignorance that racism thrives in.

BUT CHINESE GOVERNMENT BAD!
Yes. Politics is banned on this forum. But I think we can all agree this point.
But, shock! The same reason people in China put up with them, is the same reason people put up with Trump, put up with Obama, put up with [insert unpopular political figure not violently diposed of your choice here!]. Even moreso, most people in China remember when times were harder. The Government largely understands that people are more interested in good living conditions, and stability. There's some pretty substantial evidence to suggest that the Chinese learned from SARS, and are trying what they can. People responsible for blunders have been sacked. Things haven't been completely perfect, but anyone who has worked for military intelligence will tell you that the Chinese are not capable of some mega psy-op number distortion nonsense, especially with social media being what it is today. Do I trust the Chinese Government to tell the truth? No. Not at all. Do I trust them to be able to suppress it entirely? Also, again, absolutely no.

Appreciate a nice big well thought through post like this.

 DominayTrix wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Those dust masks are less than useless too.. They aren't going to stop virusus getting in.

This is dangerously vague and/or ignorant. A "facemask" or "dust mask" is a generic term. A surgical mask does little to nothing to protect against the current coronavirus, but it can help reduce the spread of it by proving a physical barrier for mucus etc. It also helps reduce the spread of other non-viral droplets etc. An N95 mask, also referred to as a medical respirator, will provide protection against the coronavirus as long as it is used properly and proper hygiene is used. (Wash your hands, don't touch your face etc) A lot of "dust masks" in industry are rated to be used as a medical respirator and may even have a higher rating like the n99 masks. There are also P95 masks which are effective against oil based pollutants. The key is to look for something with a N95, N99, or P95 rating.

Spouting off assumptions and a lack of precision in language could literally get someone killed. Take this seriously.

True, but the vast majority of masks that I see getting worn are definitely not N95+ masks. They're just cheapo dust masks you'd use if you're putting up drywall or something.

Orlanth wrote:Appreciate a nice big well thought through post like this.

Thanks. There's a lot of misinformation floating around. I'm certainly not the Dakka user closest to ground zero, but I figured I might be able to add some perspective. We just had our first Coronavirus death here. The guy was old, so unfortunately it's to be expected, but there's a very real sense of people and the government bracing for what could be a very nasty bout of disease. It's not really something to be speculated about in East Asia. It's happening to us.

Grey Templar wrote: True, but the vast majority of masks that I see getting worn are definitely not N95+ masks. They're just cheapo dust masks you'd use if you're putting up drywall or something.

And your point is, what, precisely? It's probably better than nothing, and even if it is only a psychological thing, worried people are unhealthy people. No one thinks a mask makes you immune, or is a magical cure. And out here, masks are in short supply.

You don't care for it? So what?

It's a small barrier, that isn't particularly significant, but honestly it's probably slightly better than brushing against someone on the bus or the subway who's just sneezed on their hands or onto their elbows or something, or being breathed all over by someone with the flu.

But there are clearly bigger issues at work here than debating the virtues of wearing, or not wearing a mask.

Came in today, alot of responsible people have been sacked in Wuhan supposedly, ( going after swiss news) aswell as beeing forced to change official counting of cases meaning more people then first assumed have been infected.


Hooo boi that will bring quite a bit of political fallout to the place for Xi not to mention if this further escalates that might actually be big enough for a lot of internal pressure to be released.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Came in today, alot of responsible people have been sacked in Wuhan supposedly, ( going after swiss news) aswell as beeing forced to change official counting of cases meaning more people then first assumed have been infected.

That isn't what happened.

The sudden surge in cases (~15,000) came from a switch in detection methods, from blood samples only (each of which takes days) to CAT scans (which will give false positives, but you'll get results in under an hour). The blood method would have caught up to those numbers eventually, but its better for a quarantine to have the possibly infected identified sooner.

A doctor in my home town has gone full-on nutso. He started doing his rounds for a few days in a complete hazmat suit (the enclosed air kind), was warning patients and staff of how the medical system would be overwhelmed, and was handing out pamphlets that were Alex Jones levels of conspiracy theory.

When questioned about his actions by the hospital higher ups he basically rage quit.

At the moment the signs are it's no worse than "ordinary" flu, and it's been pretty successfully contained everywhere except China.

We don't want a second flu going around, of course, but if it did become endemic, it's not the Black Death, is what I mean.