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Any of this sound familar?
I see some pretty scary parallels to the current US administration in Zhou's actions.
A crucial turning point in the pandemic came on Jan. 20, after China’s central government sent the country’s most famous epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, to Wuhan to investigate the new coronavirus racing through that city of 11 million people. Dr. Zhong delivered a startling message on national television: Local officials had covered up the seriousness of the outbreak, the contagion spread quickly between people, doctors were dying and everyone should avoid the city.
Dr. Zhong, an eccentric 83-year-old who led the fight against the SARS outbreak of 2002 and 2003, was one of few people in China with enough standing to effectively call Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, a rising official in the Communist Party, a liar.
Mr. Zhou, eager to see no disruption in his plans for a local party congress from Jan. 11 to 17 and a potluck dinner for 40,000 families on Jan. 18, appears to have had his police and local health officials close the seafood market, threaten doctors and assure the public that there was little or no transmission.
Mr Trump* eager to see no disruption in his plans for campaign rallies and the economy that he felt his reelection was dependent on, appears to have ignored public health officials, threatened whistleblowers and assured the public that there was little or no transmission.
Less than three days after Dr. Zhong’s warning was broadcast, China locked down the city, preventing anyone from entering or leaving and imposing strict rules on movement within it — conditions it would later extend far behind Wuhan, encompassing tens of millions of people.
That was January 20th
On Jan. 22, two days after Chinese officials first publicized the serious threat posed by the new virus ravaging the city of Wuhan, the chief of the World Health Organization held the first of what would be months of almost daily media briefings, sounding the alarm, telling the world to take the outbreak seriously.
Meanwhile back in the USA,
Trump consistently downplayed the threat until it became apparent that people were dying and it would not soon, as he claimed "BE DOWN TO ZERO"
March 17, 2020: Pandemic
Trump:I’ve always known this is a real, this is a pandemic,” Trump said. “I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.
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