China testing blunders stemmed from secret deals with firms

The Associated Press ^ | December 3, 2020 | By DAKE KANG

[Oldeconomybuyer]

WUHAN, China - In the early days in Wuhan, the first city first struck by the virus, getting a COVID test was so difficult that residents compared it to winning the lottery.

Throughout the Chinese city in January, thousands of people waited in hours-long lines for hospitals, sometimes next to corpses lying in hallways. But most couldn’t get the test they needed to be admitted as patients.

The widespread test shortages and problems at a time when the virus could have been slowed were caused largely by secrecy and cronyism at China’s top disease control agency, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The flawed testing system prevented scientists and officials from seeing how fast the virus was spreading — another way China fumbled its early response to the virus. Earlier AP reporting showed how top Chinese leaders delayed warning the public and withheld information from the World Health Organization, supplying the most comprehensive picture yet of China’s initial missteps. Taken together, these mistakes in January facilitated the virus’ spread through Wuhan and across the world undetected, in a pandemic that has now sickened more than 64 million people and killed almost 1.5 million.

China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention gave test kit designs and distribution rights exclusively to three then-obscure Shanghai companies with which officials had personal ties, the reporting found.

These measures contributed to not a single new case being reported by Chinese authorities between Jan. 5 and 17, even though retrospective infection data shows that hundreds were infected. The apparent lull in cases meant officials were slow to take early actions such as warning the public, barring large gatherings and curbing travel.

With few and faulty kits, only one in 19 infected people in Wuhan was tested and found positive as of Jan. 31.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[View from the Cheap Seats]

Testing blunders. They see the asteroid approaching their world.

[Jeepers43]

"sometimes next to corpses lying in hallways"

Kinda like the alleged Wuhan victims collapsing in malls, subways, streets, and elsewhere.

Which happened nowhere else in the world.

It sure didn't happen in my metropolis of 18 million residents.

Good thing the world had those "smuggled" propaganda vids from China to scare us out of our wits, go into panic, lock down schools businesses and economies, and generally to discard all semblance of Western political tradition.

Excellent work by our "liberal" free press to investigate and report on the China propaganda effort!

[Western Phil]

Surprised to see this from AP. All of their other articles they have put out in the last four years or so, have blamed all the world’s problems on the evil orange man.

[Uncle Miltie]

Some animals are more equal than others.