WCEV

The COVID-19 pandemic lays bare another virus, WCEV, which has persisted for years, ebb and flow largely depending on who resides in the WH and events of the day.  Its full name is the Western Chinese Exceptionalism Virus.

Completely opposite to the well-publicized American exceptionalism, the previously unspoken but deeply ingrained Chinese exceptionalism means that whatever China does, it must be bad.  It infects mostly the Western countries, politicians, and media, hence the new name WCEV. 

There are myriad manifestations of WCEV.  When COVID-19 was first recognized, the WCEV-afflicted ignored the numerous public Chinese news and instead focused on the case of Dr Li Wenliang as an example of Chinese not telling the truth.  Even though Dr Li posted his private WeChat messages three days after the first official COVID-19 reporting, and the same day he was given a warning by Wuhan police, WHO was officially notified (unofficially 4 days earlier), and before, during, and after, there was a continuous stream of information in the Chinese media about the disease (my 3/16/20 blog).  Dr Li was never suspended, fired, or arrested, contrast to Western reporting and the health workers and even a captain actually being fired in the US (4/3/20 blog).  When things happened in the US, the news always took great pain to explain why they were fired.  When it comes to Dr Li, the Western media got the story wrong in every aspect, yet ran it wild because it fit a preset narrative.

Continuing the same narrative, much has been talked about the China’s supposed 6 days delay in the warning of human-to-human transmission during mid Jan (4/15/20 blog).  Of course the Western media don’t want to tell you that the Chinese were dealing with and still learning about a new disease, and a test was still being developed, without which diagnosis was unreliable or nearly impossible.  Because excusing the Chinese is politically incorrect.  Even though many countries wasted weeks or months later, with anything needed to know already known, those 6 days is the only time that matters.  A sensible person will ask: Can any other country vouch it will do any better under the same circumstance, or did any country ever do any better in the history of diseases?  Even the American CDC admitted the difficulty in detecting COVID-19 because of the preponderance of seasonal flu illness in the US (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6918e2.htm?s_cid=mm6918e2_w), 1-2 months after Wuhan discovery or retrospectively.  This CDC report is a good read.  But no matter, WCEV holds China to be exceptional. 

Then there are these Chinese infection and death figures (my 4/1/20 and 4/2/20 blogs).  Since late Feb when COVID-19 went global, and a few countries have posted higher numbers by March, it becomes obligatory and indeed the journalistic duty to question the Chinese figures even when the news is about something else completely.  Never mind that every country tests and counts in similar ways.  In the end, all countries will have to adjust their numbers by a factor of N, which will be likely similar across the board.  But with any data, China must automatically be hiding sth, but for the West, it is just honest mistakes or all kinds of reasons.  Is there a country which can NOW promise 100% accuracy of its figures?  Is there a country who never revised and will never revise its figures?   If no, why is China singled out, or China any exceptional, or why must China be held at the standard of a saint?  If it is because China is communist, why don't you do any better when you are not?  And then there is this laughable idea that because Chinese numbers are so low people all around the world thought COVID-19 was no big deal.  Never mind on Feb 20 China had about 80K infections, 10 times of the SARS total, and 100 times more than any other country including Japan minus the ship.  One has to wonder if 10 or 100 times is not enough, how many is enough?  Is this just a bottomless pit for arguments' sake?  Furthermore, how do you hide already identified patients or deaths?  It is OK to assume some may fall through the cracks or get lost in the paperwork, but how many you think they are, and does it happen only in China?  WCEV will make one believe.

Of course the Wuhan virus lab conspiracy theory, which was jump-started right away in early Jan 2020.  The Western media give the theory a seal of approval simply because somebody higher up is advocating for it.  There was no evidence then, and there is no evidence now, but a truther never dies (4/30/20 blog).  Why would the lab do that?  Because China is evil!  If suspicion and the close proximity to a disease outbreak is enough, plenty of American and other labs and universities could be implicated in previous pandemics like AIDS, too.  BTW, no country has ever been held responsible for any pandemic in modern history, but for everything else there is MasterCard or WCEV.

WCEV is not invincible, as science, reasoning, and logic are its antidotes.  In this global pandemic, doctors/nurses and scientists understand the best, and they are also the ones who refute WCEV, along with Bill Gates (a scientist or engineer himself).  Medical workers know how hard it is to identify a new disease, and scientists know how long and how much it takes to identify and characterize a new pathogen.  Chinese have published the earliest and most detailed descriptions of COVID-19 since Jan 2020, and the findings have been repeated everywhere (4/28/20 blog).  The Chinese death rates are within the global range, and the curves from various countries, with very different numbers of cases, all have a similar up time and down time (4/5/20 blog).  The world changes so fast.  Many people probably have forgotten already that, just a mere three months ago, China was the only country on Earth fighting a mortal combat against a brand new disease, largely alone and essentially in the dark.  If China could beat back an insidious enemy the world saw for the first time, correctly report everything about COVID-19, yet skillfully hide whatever something, patients, or deaths, then China IS truly exceptional.  Had it been more successful finding a treatment (4/28/20 blog), China would have had been perfect.  

COVID-19 by no means brings out the worst of WCEV.  Ample of examples before.  Like the US accuses Huawei of security risks for years, but fails to provide any real evidence anywhere.  Whenever there was a technical problem, one can find similar issues, often much worse, with other companies, like CISCO, FB, Apple, MSFT, AMZN, GOOG, you name it, all in the news over the years.  But there is American exceptionalism, and there is WCEV. 

Another example is the Western news reports about people from Xinjiang “forced” to go to other places for work.  The underlying story is actually true, except the “forced” part.  A large migrant workforce has existed in China for 40 years, as people from one place or province move to a different one for jobs or more money.  Nothing unusual about it.  There has been a campaign in China to rid poverty by 2020.  So what happens is that somewhere else in Xinjiang or another province, which is richer, is tasked with helping a certain, poorer county in Xinjiang by providing jobs or training, and people from the latter will have a chance, and choice, to go there for work.  This happens all around China, and there is nothing special about Xinjiang.  But an entirely benevolent job project becomes a human right violation only because of WCEV.  Never mind the ridiculous “internment camps” and the fake concerns over COVID-19 there.

Whatever China says or does will never satisfy WCEV.  Hence it is curious why the West would even base their response to COVID-19 on the Chinese figures, a pure postmortem excuse play (4/2/20 blog).  If you didn’t believe it, whether 80K is high or low was completely irrelevant, right?  And it doesn’t matter whether you understood the Chinese figures or not, just wait until you are dealing with COVID-19 yourselves: are you undercounting the infections now, and are you undercounting the deaths now?  The only valid, scientific test is that one instigates the same measures in Wuhan but fails to control it like Wuhan, then he can say it is all fake.  Until then, China is not exceptional.  

Note: Evidence, science and math are indeed the biggest Chinese ally against WCEV.  These three papers smash the notion that China faked its COVID-19 figures: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.05695.pdf, https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=038100029123010004090072095008124085063074048044030088076020000023091092126065114119002123033063023055035075100021100101086122049087078093002004095098104096112000067042084063068126084105091088085019003031065009081005069122096094116096127120102065023031&EXT=pdf, and https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2284-y_reference.pdf,  The first two papers use math to test if Chinese data are abnormal.  The answer is a resounding no.  The second paper is more comprehensive, finding the Chinese data, published much earlier, are just like the Italian and American data.  The authors note: “To manipulate the Chinese data … would require someone to coordinate daily announcements across all provinces while accurately forecasting future infection rates. This is improbable”.   This is exactly what I posited on April 1, 2020 blog. 

Anyone not infected with WCEV would arrive at the same conclusion without math, but the third paper gives a new level of support.  It looks at how people traveled through Wuhan within China at the time, and finds that case reporting matched human movement.  It demonstrates China did a good job tracking Wuhan travelers, which contributed to its timely and effective COVID-19 containment and fits my analysis on April 1, 2020 as well.   

Subsequent data revision would not have affected their conclusions.  As I have mentioned countless times already, the authors are also clear that the documented figures are not the same as "actual" COVID-19 cases, for the same reasons universally applied to other countries.

One has to wonder what the Western Intelligences, politicians, media, and Dr Birx (April 2, 2020 blog) think about these studies.  Most of them probably don’t read or want to read these, but the biggest obstacle is that WCEV is like Lord Voldemort, hard to kill and will keep coming back again and again.

Note on May 7, 2020: Here is an accusation against Dr Fauci (https://reason.com/2020/05/07/she-said-anthony-fauci-sexually-assaulted-her-now-she-says-jacob-wohl-and-jack-burkman-paid-her-to-lie/?amp&__twitter_impression=true), so absurd that almost no media outlet took it up.  The same absurdity applies to a whole slew of China stories, except that the media report them faithfully since high ranking officials are saying it.  Never mind they are just like the Wohl and Burkman characters, only dressed up better as conspiracy officials and hoaxer governments.