There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.
There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.
I don’t say this often, but I think the Trudeau government deserves some praise for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic this week. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, in particular, has been impressive in setting the record straight and providing a calm and intelligent line of reasoning behind each government decision.
There are, however, some glaring exceptions to this statement. I’m talking about Health Minister Patty Hajdu and her despicable parroting of Chinese Communist Party propaganda during Thursday afternoon’s media briefing.
CTV’s Ian Brown asked the COVID-19 panel to respond to a Bloomberg news story about a classified U.S. intelligence report on China hiding the extent of the coronavirus outbreak by under-reporting the number of cases and deaths.
“China’s numbers are fake,” the report concludes.
“There’s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way,” Hajdu said sternly.
This was a remarkable moment. A top member of Trudeau’s inner circle was ardently defending a communist regime known for grave human rights abuses and lying on the world stage, while tacitly accusing our top ally and most important international partner of spreading false information.
To add insult to injury, when Brown tried to push back with facts, Hajdu lashed out at him, accusing the reporter of “feeding into conspiracy theories.”
Not only was this an autocratic response to a very reasonable question — making the minister look more like a Chinese official than an elected civil servant in a liberal democracy — but Hajdu’s comments are also highly ignorant and in contradiction to known facts.
There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.
In mid-February, China was widely criticized for not including individuals who tested positive for coronavirus but were not showing symptoms in official tallies. Last week, the Chinese government finally changed course to include asymptomatic cases — marking the eighth different definition of what constitutes a coronavirus infection in China’s official reporting since the outbreak began in late 2019.
On March 11, a Southampton University study found that had China acted just one, two or three weeks sooner, “cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86% and 95% respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”
Instead, China spent the early days arresting doctors and journalists who spoke out about the deadly virus, while adamantly denying human to human transmission.
While there is no free press in China, and the communist regime expelled American journalists on March 17, there have been some independent reports calling China’s numbers into suspicion.
On March 27, a Radio Free Asia report contested the official death toll in Wuhan — a large metropolitan area the size of New York City and ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
While China claims the death toll in Wuhan is around 2,500, Radio Free Asia reports that incinerators at the city’s seven funeral homes have been “working around the clock.” They report that families have been given government stipends to cover the cost of cremation in exchange for their silence — “hush money” to keep the truth from the world.
Radio Free Asia estimates the real death toll in Wuhan to be somewhere between 42,000 and 46,800.
China’s evolving narrative and criminal cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak is no doubt to blame for the world’s lack of preparation for this deadly pandemic.
When the world finally navigates through this public health pandemic and resulting economic crisis, the global community must come together to hold China to account for its reprehensible actions that led to untold death and destruction.
China deserves to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and ex-communicated from the global community. We should similarly judge minister Hajdu for her knee-jerk defence of the truly indefensible.
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It added that the workers live in on-site housing at Bylands Nurseries Ltd., and that 75 workers are involved — 63 migrant workers and 12 local workers — who are all self-isolating.
Interior Health said there were 14 positive tests for COVID-19, and that additional results are pending.
Interior Health said a medical health officer placed an order on Bylands Nurseries Ltd., on March 27, and that the workers are to remain in quarantine on the property until the medical health officer “provides alternate direction.”
“None of the workers were in roles that interact with customers and members of this group had very minimal contact in the community.”
Interior Health said the business is closed to customers, and that the workers live in accommodations that provide space for individuals to safely self-isolate.
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“Bylands Nurseries Ltd has been fully cooperative with IH through this process,” said Interior Health, adding the cases may be linked to a group of workers who arrived in Kelowna from outside of Canada on March 12.
Interior Health added that under orders from the medical health officer, Bylands Nurseries and Garden Centre has taken measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, including enhanced cleaning of all nursery, housing, sanitary and other facilities accessed by employees, along with denying visitors access to the site.
Interior Health added that the order only applies to Bylands Nurseries Ltd., and not the Bylands Garden Centre, which is a separate business. However, it said the owner of the garden centre has also elected to voluntarily close.
Coronavirus around the world: March 31, 2020
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry called them farm workers, stating they had been in Canada prior to recent regulations regarding temporary foreign workers.
Asked by Global News what should be done to prevent outbreaks among temporary farm workers, Henry said this was an area of deep concern.
“We’ve had these discussions at the national level,” said Henry. “As you know, this is a national program. B.C. is one of the provinces that benefits from the temporary foreign worker program on an ongoing basis. And it’s a very critical part of supporting a number of different industries — farm industry, agricultural industries — across the province.
“But there are other provinces who have the same concerns. And many of the people come in from countries in South America or Latin America into B.C. and other provinces, so we have been talking about it nationally.”
Coronavirus outbreak: Freeland reiterates message of ‘critical week’ in COVID-19 fight
Henry continued, saying “certainly some people have come in several months ago and they are past the risk stage. And it’s becoming more challenging for foreign workers to get in because many of the flights from places that we would normally accept foreign farm workers are not able to leave at the moment.
“But we are in ongoing discussions with our counterparts across the country and with the federal government about the need for having effective quarantine for individuals who are coming in outside it from outside the country. And in my opinion, that needs to be in a facility that is able to effectively support and care for these people.”
Henry said the affected group has very good accommodations, where they’re able to isolate effectively, “but we know that’s not the case in all places where temporary farmworkers are housed, so that is very much a concern that we’re bringing up with our federal counterparts.”
The country has allegedly under-reported the total number of cases and deaths in connection with the virus.
Sam McGriskin Montreal, QC
1st April 2020 2 mins read
China has not revealed the extent to which the coronavirus outbreak has affected the country according to US intelligence. The country has allegedly under-reported the total number of cases and deaths in connection with the virus. Bloomberg News reported that three US officials said information on the subject was released to the White House in a classified report.
The officials did not want to be identified due to the secrecy of the report and did not provide further details on its contents. They did note however, that China intentionally provided incomplete reporting on the number of cases and the overall death toll. According to two of the officials, information in the report says China’s numbers are fake.
One official added that the White House received the report last week.
The outbreak started in Hubei, China in 2019 and data from Johns Hopkins University shows that China has reported around 82,000 cases of the disease and 3,300 deaths. The U.S. has reported 189,000 cases and over 4,000 deaths—the world’s largest publicly reported outbreak.
Skepticism of China’s numbers has grown both inside and outside of the country as several methodologies have been used to count cases. The country did not include asymptomatic people in its counts until only recently. Over 1,500 people without symptoms were added to China’s total on Tuesday.
In Hubei province, people began to doubt the reporting when thousands of urns were stacked outside funeral homes.
In a news conference on Tuesday, State Department immunologist Deborah Birx who is advising on the subject at the White house said, “The medical community made—interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected.”
“Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain.”
Iran, Indonesia, Russia and particularly North Korea are suspected of similar faulty reporting by Western officials. North Korea has not even reported one case of the disease. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have also been suspected of underreporting.
Michael Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, has accused China of not revealing the extent of the problem many times.
“This data set matters,” Pompeo said during a news conference on Tuesday. Development of Public health measures and medical therapies used for combating coronavirus “so that we can save lives depends on the ability to have confidence and information about what has actually transpired,” he added.
“I would urge every nation: Do your best to collect the data. Do your best to share that information.”
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Chris Selley of The National Post (March 31, 2020) exposes how many of Ottawa’s very deferential to China “experts” were woefully wrong with advice not to close the borders to people coming from the epicentre of the Coronavirus — Red China.
Chris Selley: Official nonsense on masks, travel bans is killing Ottawa’s COVID-19 credibility
When officials say ‘masks don’t work,’ regular people hear, ‘we have a dire shortage of masks for frontline healthcare workers so please give us your masks’
On Saturday, the federal government announced passengers with COVID-19 symptoms would be barred from domestic air and train travel, effective noon on Monday. “It will be important for operators of airlines and trains to ensure that people who are exhibiting symptoms do not board,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters.
Does that make sense? It’s a question Canadians seem to be asking more and more about this country’s coronavirus response. And for governments and public health officials, it’s a dangerous one. All too often, the answer is “no.”
“What about buses?” many asked on social media of Saturday’s announcement. Buses are provincial jurisdiction, the feds noted. “What about ferries?” asked the Canadian Ferry Association. Good question. Ferries are Transport Canada’s business. No answer yet. Mind you, transport operators don’t yet have any guidance on how exactly they’re supposed to “ensure” symptomatic people don’t travel. It doesn’t make much sense.
Furthermore, we have been told over and over again that any measures carriers might implement — temperature sensors, for example — simply don’t work. “The positive predictive value of screening is essentially zero,” the authors of a widely cited 2005 study reported, based on Canadian airports’ experience with thermal scanners during the 2003 SARS outbreak.
One of the authors of that study was Theresa Tam, who is now Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer. She’s the one doling out all the science that Trudeau insists underpins every single decision he and his ministers make: “Our focus every step of the way is doing what (is) necessary at every moment based on the recommendations of experts, based on science and doing what we can to keep Canadians safe,” the prime minister said Monday.
It’s more than a bit awkward — but not as awkward as federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu’s immortal March 13th dismissal of travel restrictions: “Canadians think we can stop this at the border, but what we see is a global pandemic, meaning that border measures actually are highly ineffective and in some cases can create harm.” Five days later, the border slammed shut.
We are to believe all of the positions above were supported by the same scientific experts. That doesn’t make sense. Clearly the experts supported the more lenient measures, and then politics intervened.
Clearly the experts supported the more lenient measures, and then politics intervened
Appearing before the Health Committee on January 29, Tam strongly dismissed the notion even of having all travellers from COVID-19 hot zones self-isolate for 14 days. She warned against “stigmatizing” communities. She very nearly suggested we couldn’t implement travel restrictions even if we wanted to. “Right now… (the World Health Organization) does not recommend travel bans,” she warned the committee. “We are a signatory to the International Health Regulations and we’ll be called to account if we do anything different.”
The WHO still recommends against travel restrictions, even to and from especially affected countries. No one seems to be “calling us to account.”
It could well be that by the time Canadians started calling for travel restrictions, it was already too late to implement useful ones. That’s what research generally concludes. But research also acknowledges the political inevitability of travel crackdowns. They just make too much sense to too many people. Federal ministers and public health officials recklessly undermined themselves by so forcefully rejecting measures that made so much sense to so many people Health Minister Patty Hajdu. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
“Security theatre can be dangerous — but the absence of security theatre can be dangerous too,” Martha Pillinger, an associate at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, wrote in Foreign Policy last month. “Apparent inaction (or insufficient action) erodes trust in public health authorities, which undermines response efforts.”
Indeed, Tam is asking a lot of Canadians to set aside a lot of common sense right now. There is ample evidence that face masks — even homemade ones — can provide significant protection to the uninfected. But Tam warns only of the potential pitfalls: Masks can provide “a false sense of security,” lead to more face-touching or make us forget to wash our hands. “Putting a mask on an asymptomatic person is not beneficial,” she said at her Monday press conference.
That makes sense to a lot of medical professionals. A lot of regular people, however, are pretty sure they know how to wash their hands and not touch their faces. When officials say “masks don’t work,” a lot of regular people hear “we have an inexcusable shortage of masks for frontline healthcare workers so please give us your masks.” When officials say “you don’t need to be tested,” they are likely to hear “we have inexcusably few tests available and not enough lab capacity to process the ones we have.”
Officials recklessly undermined themselves by so forcefully rejecting measures that made so much sense to so many people
On Sunday, Tam sternly advised Canadians against retreating to any “rural properties” they might own. “These places have less capacity to manage COVID-19,” she told reporters in Ottawa. That makes sense, as do concerns about straining off-season supply chains. But let’s say you’ve been extremely careful. You’re symptom free. You pack up a week’s worth of groceries, drive 90 minutes or two hours non-stop to your cottage, camp, farm or chalet, and don’t interact with a single other human being. How dangerous, how irresponsible could that really be? If the cottage is good enough for Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and the kids, who beetled off to Harrington Lake on Sunday, some people might conclude it’s good enough for them.
Public health officials want to prevent people from asking such questions, from making excuses for themselves, in hopes the maximum number of people will take the maximum precautions. They need smart people to forsake relatively low-risk things in order to counterbalance all the dumb people who do high-risk things no matter what they’re told. None of the measures will ever make perfect sense in every single situation. They are calls to collective sacrifice for the greater good. But they can’t keep changing on the fly, with no explanation other than “the experts got more worried overnight,” and remain credible.
On Monday, Trudeau declined even to say he regretted not moving quicker on measures he now insists are essential.
Does that make sense? No, that doesn’t make sense.
A “wet market” in Wuhan, China, is catching the blame as the probable source of the current coronavirus outbreak that’s sweeping the globe.
Patients who came down with disease at the end of December all had connections to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan China. The complex of stalls selling live fish, meat and wild animals is known in the region as a “wet market.” Researchers believe the new virus probably mutated from a coronavirus common in animals and jumped over to humans in the Wuhan bazaar.
I visited the Tai Po wet market in Hong Kong, and it’s quite obvious why the term “wet” is used. Live fish in open tubs splash water all over the floor. The countertops of the stalls are red with blood as fish are gutted and filleted right in front of the customers’ eyes. Live turtles and crustaceans climb over each other in boxes. Melting ice adds to the slush on the floor. There’s lots of water, blood, fish scales and chicken guts. Things are wet.
At the Tai Po market, a woman who runs a shellfish stall — she only wants to give her name as Mrs. Wong — says people blame wet markets for spreading disease. But she says that’s not fair. Like just about everyone else in the market. Wong is wearing a surgical face mask because of the coronavirus outbreak. She’s heard about the links between the wet market in Wuhan, China, and the coronavirus but doesn’t think something like that would happen in Hong Kong.
“It’s much cleaner in the Hong Kong markets. It’s so different from what’s happening in mainland China,” she says. “When I go to mainland China and I’m trying to eat something, I’m concerned about what’s in the food.”
Meanwhile, this kind of market is not just an Asian phenomenon. There are similar markets all over the world — places where fish, poultry and other animals are slaughtered and butchered right on the premises.
But researchers of zoonotic diseases — diseases that jump from animals to humans – pinpoint the wet markets in mainland China as particularly problematic for several reasons. First, these markets often have many different kinds of animals – some wild, some domesticated but not necessarily native to that part of Asia. The stress of captivity in these chaotic markets weakens the animals’ immune systems and creates an environment where viruses from different species can mingle, swap bits of their genetic code and spread from one species to another, according to biologist Kevin Olival, vice president for research at the EcoHealth Alliance. When that happens, occasionally a new strain of an animal virus gets a foothold in humans and an outbreak like this current coronavirus erupts.
The Tai Po market in Hong Kong does have some live animals besides the seafood but the selection is rather boring compared to the exotic assortment of snakes, mammals and birds on offer in some markets in mainland China. They’re known to sell animals such as Himalayan palm civets, raccoon dogs, wild boars and cobras.
The only live birds in Tai Po are chickens, which are kept behind the butchered pork section of the market.
Chan Shu Chung has been selling chicken here for more than 10 years. He says business is really good right now because the price of pork — his main competition — is through the roof. Pork is in short supply due to trade tensions between China and the U.S. and a recent bout of swine flu.
So people are buying more chicken. Customers can select a live bird from Chung’s cages. Chung pulls them out by their feet, holds them upside down to show off their plump breasts. If the customer is happy with the bird, Chung puts a plastic tag with a number on the chicken’s foot. He gives the customer a matching tag, sort of like a coat check. Fifteen minutes later the shopper can come back and pick up the chicken meat.
Chung says he and his colleagues do their best to keep the area clean. They wash down the stalls regularly and disinfect the countertops to stop germs from spreading.
Chung, however, is one of the few people in the market who is not wearing a face mask. Face masks have become so common in Hong Kong since the coronavirus outbreak started that pharmacies across the city are sold out of them.
Chung says he isn’t afraid of this new coronavirus. He always gets his annual flu shot so he believes he’s protected against this new disease, even though scientists say the flu shot will not protect people against this new coronavirus.
Chung adds confidently that he’s even immune to SARS — for which there also is no commercially available vaccine.
But he does keep his chicken stalls incredibly clean, which public health officials say is one important step in stopping the spread of diseases. So maybe he’s on to something.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China as Hunan.
Marcus Kolga: By wrapping themselves in ethno-nationalist rhetoric, the Chinese Communist Party often claims that a critique of their actions is equivalent to a critique of their people—a tried and true tactic in the authoritarian playbook
In this Feb. 7, 2020, file photo, people wearing masks attend a vigil for Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, who was reprimanded for warning about the outbreak of the new coronavirus, in Hong Kong. China has taken the highly unusual move of exonerating the doctor who was reprimanded for warning about the coronavirus outbreak and later died of the disease. (Kin Cheung/AP File/CP)
Marcus Kolga is a digital communications strategist and expert on foreign disinformation. He is a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad.
When we criticize the actions of governments run by autocrats and dictators, like those in Russia and China, we must bear in mind that it is not the citizens who are responsible for their government’s abuse and negligence; they are in fact, the greatest victims of it.
For instance, the Chinese people bear no responsibility for their government’s illegitimate imprisonment of Canadians Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor and Hussein Celil. It is also the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) criminal negligence that directly contributed to the mass outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, and the ensuing pandemic we face today. In fact, I very much doubt the families of China’s COVID-19 victims are celebrating their government’s actions today.
When we criticize the actions of these governments, we must be very specific and accurate in directing our criticism towards those who are in power. In the case of China, it is the Communist Party that holds exclusive decision-making power, and in Russia, the Putin regime. In both cases, the people of these nations have no meaningful say in the decision-making process of their governments, and face arrest and imprisonment for criticizing them.
MORE: When will the Chinese government be held accountable for the spread of coronavirus?
By generalizing our disapproval and outrage towards the citizens of these regimes, we risk hurting and stigmatizing these communities, and that plays directly into the disinformation warfare tactics that such regimes are engaged in against the Western world, including accusations of “racism.”
Authoritarian regimes frequently label foreign criticism of their policies as “racist” as a way to delegitimize them and polarize debate. By wrapping themselves in ethno-nationalist rhetoric, these regimes often claim that a critique of their actions is equivalent to a critique of the people itself; this heightens the need to be precise with our language and aware of the propaganda efforts of authoritarian regimes. It’s a tried and true tactic in the authoritarian playbook.
China’s former ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, accused the Canadian government of “white supremacy” last year, when Canada demanded the release of its citizens who had been arbitrarily detained in China, in retaliation after Canada complied with a U.S. extradition request for Huawei CEO Meng Wanzhou.
MORE: China kidnapped two Canadians. What will it take to free them?
Last week, the E.U. published a report that warned Vladimir Putin is seeking to use the COVID-19 pandemic to destabilize Western nations and undermine our alliances. The report states that the Russian government’s cynical disinformation attack is designed to “aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries, specifically by undermining public trust in national health care systems, thus preventing an effective response to the outbreak.”
In the apparent absence of any evidence that would disprove the E.U. claim, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Pskov accused the E.U. of “Russophobia” in an effort to intimidate European policy-makers, critics and media into silence.
The same tactic has been used by the Russian government to discredit Canadian political leaders, like Chrystia Freeland, whose Ukrainian background has been cited as tainting her judgment. Putin critics, like myself, have also been labelled “Russophobic” for advocating for Canadian Magnitsky human rights legislation, a law that was lauded as the most pro-Russian measure that any Western government could take, according to assassinated Russian pro-democracy opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov.
Yet the concerns of Canadians who are worried about ethnic communities being stigmatized by the global pandemic must not be dismissed either. As the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin has pointed out, President Trump’s recent reference to COVID-19 being a “Chinese virus” is “simplistic but technically accurate,” and plays into the hands of Chinese Communist Party propagandists, who in turn use this to provoke anti-Trump and anti-Western sentiments.
Leading U.S.-based Chinese human rights activist Jianli Yang told me that he “may not like the term ‘Chinese virus’ that President Trump has been using in the past few days,” but he doesn’t believe “it is intended by him for any racist meaning.” He believes that Trump was using the term to counter the Chinese government’s attempts to “divert responsibility for its mishandling of the outbreak which has resulted in this global pandemic.”
Yang believes that “there should be and must be a moment when all, victimized individuals and countries, come together to hold the CCP regime accountable.”
Here in Canada, we can be fairly certain that our governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, at all three levels of government, have been shaped by our sensitivity to potential accusations of racism by Chinese government propaganda. Why else did Canada refrain from limiting travel from Hubei and China, only to close off virtually all foreign travel mere weeks later?
Canada is not alone in facing such foul accusations.
In Sweden, a former, long-serving Swedish MP, Gunnar Hökmark, wrote in a recent opinion piece that “China’s leaders should apologize to the world for epidemics coming from China because of the dictatorship’s failure to address food safety, animal standards, and because its repression of truth and the freedom of its own citizens.” China’s ambassador to Sweden Gui Congyou condemned the statement and accused Hökmark of “stigmatizing” China. China’s ambassador also went on to criticize Hökmark, his colleague Patrik Oksanen and their think tank, the Stockholm Free World Forum, for being part of an “anti-China political machine” and for “attacking, slandering and stigmatizing China.”
Canadians and our government must take great care to avoid generalizations that risk stigmatizing Canadians of Chinese heritage, or any other community, whose governments engage in similar repressive behaviour, including the Russian and Iranian regimes. However, we must also be alert to regime propagandists who seek to dismiss and silence legitimate criticism of their actions when they smear critics with false accusations of “racism.”
As Jianli Yang underlined for me, “the Chinese Communist regime is not justified in accusing anyone of racism, who criticize its early-stage covering up of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the latest information (disinformation) war against other countries.”
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POLITICALLY CORRECT TRUDEAU’S RESPONSE TO THE WUHAN VIRUS — ILLEGALS CONTINUE TO STREAM ACROSS THE BORDER AT ROXHAM ROAD & CHINESE CONTINUE TO POUR IN FROM ASIA
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JUST LIKE SARS, CORONA VIRUS OUTBREAK DUE TO FILTHY FOOD MARKETS & HABITS IN CHINA
The Chinese food market at the centre of the deadly Sars-like virus outbreak has claimed they sold live koalas, snakes, rats and wolf pups to locals to eat.
The Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan in China is under investigation with officials believing the coronavirus originated from a wild animal that was sold at the venue.
So far the highly-contagious virus has killed 17 people and infected hundreds around Asia.
According to the South China Morning Post, the market’s advertising board had live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines and koalas.
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Plagues from the east are nothing new. The Black Death and other epidemics arrived in Europe from China during the 1300’s, killing a large percentage of its population. Much of this pestilence came from rats that stowed away on merchant ships coming from the east.
At the end of World War I, another pandemic, wrongly called the Spanish flu, killed an estimated 18 to 50 million people in Europe and North America.
Seventeen years after the SARS virus killed some 800 people in China and Canada and terrified the entire world, a new plague threatens the West: the Wuhan Coronavirus.
Officially named 2019-nCoV, the new virus has so far infected over 800 people in China. This latest plague erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, population 11 million, which is located on the Yangtze River and is an important hub for national communications.
Like SARS, the Wuhan virus is believed to have come from a live animal market that specializes in exotic animals from the Himalayas or China’s remote mountain regions. Serving exotic animals at dinner parties is a big status symbol in China. Sometimes they are even served while still alive. Dog meat is a favorite in northern China.
SARS was believed to have come from civet cats. As a result, thousands of these felines were brutally killed. But it was later determined the virus originated from bats, then spread to other captive animals. Bat soup is another Chinese delicacy.
Keeping large numbers of captive animals crammed together in cages with poor ventilation and no cleaning is an ideal vector for viral diseases. Each year, China consumes 730 million pigs. Fifty percent of China’s factory farmed pigs have so far contracted lethal swine flu. Rising living standards have boosted demand for pork.
I have seen how China raises and transports pigs. It’s a nightmare of brutality and inhuman behavior. No wonder so many of these intelligent sensitive animals fall ill and die. Swine fever could be payback for China’s terrible cruelty to pigs.
And it’s not just China. Pigs in North America are treated almost as badly. A lady where I live was actually jailed and prosecuted for having given water to a truckload of thirsty, starving, terrified pigs on the way to the slaughterhouse.
In North America, animals destined for slaughter are packed together and then dosed with heavy antibiotics to combat communicable diseases from over-crowding and mistreatment. These same antibiotics then enter our food chain, causing us ever growing viral resistance.
When the SARS epidemic erupted in South China 17 years ago, the Chinese communist party tried to hush up the crisis, allowing infected people to travel to North America and Europe.
This time, China did the right thing by jumping hard on the epidemic: shutting down all air, sea and land communications with the greater Wuhan region and 14 smaller cities – right in the middle of China’s huge new year celebrations when over 400 million people return to their homes. The epidemic could not have come at a worse time.
Some Wuhan residents have already flown to other parts of Asia and North America. Simply checking incoming air travellers for fever will not prevent the virus from spreading or identify passengers who have contracted and are developing the illness.
A better solution would be to quarantine all people arriving from Central China and even bar airlines coming from there until we better understand the new virus. We stop so-called ‘terrorists’ and Muslims from flying to our shores. Why not potentially infective people?
China must also be pressed to cease its dangerous, inhumane trade in exotic wild animals and urged to treat all animals with humanity and care. China is a major cause of species loss. Aside from a few brave animal rights groups, there is very little consciousness of our animal neighbors in China nor understanding that animals are sentient beings with emotions similar to those of humans. The Chinese are one of the most intelligent people on earth. Yet when it comes to animals, all they see is walking food.
As I’ve seen on my travels across China, it has made great strides in public sanitation and cleanliness as well as planting trees. Now, it’s time to stop abusing animals or the plagues will keep coming.
I don’t say this often, but I think the Trudeau government deserves some praise for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic this week. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, in particular, has been impressive in setting the record straight and providing a calm and intelligent line of reasoning behind each government decision.
There are, however, some glaring exceptions to this statement. I’m talking about Health Minister Patty Hajdu and her despicable parroting of Chinese Communist Party propaganda during Thursday afternoon’s media briefing.
CTV’s Ian Brown asked the COVID-19 panel to respond to a Bloomberg news story about a classified U.S. intelligence report on China hiding the extent of the coronavirus outbreak by under-reporting the number of cases and deaths.
“China’s numbers are fake,” the report concludes.
“There’s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way,” Hajdu said sternly.
This was a remarkable moment. A top member of Trudeau’s inner circle was ardently defending a communist regime known for grave human rights abuses and lying on the world stage, while tacitly accusing our top ally and most important international partner of spreading false information.
To add insult to injury, when Brown tried to push back with facts, Hajdu lashed out at him, accusing the reporter of “feeding into conspiracy theories.”
Not only was this an autocratic response to a very reasonable question — making the minister look more like a Chinese official than an elected civil servant in a liberal democracy — but Hajdu’s comments are also highly ignorant and in contradiction to known facts.
There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.
In mid-February, China was widely criticized for not including individuals who tested positive for coronavirus but were not showing symptoms in official tallies. Last week, the Chinese government finally changed course to include asymptomatic cases — marking the eighth different definition of what constitutes a coronavirus infection in China’s official reporting since the outbreak began in late 2019.
On March 11, a Southampton University study found that had China acted just one, two or three weeks sooner, “cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86% and 95% respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”
Instead, China spent the early days arresting doctors and journalists who spoke out about the deadly virus, while adamantly denying human to human transmission.
While there is no free press in China, and the communist regime expelled American journalists on March 17, there have been some independent reports calling China’s numbers into suspicion.
On March 27, a Radio Free Asia report contested the official death toll in Wuhan — a large metropolitan area the size of New York City and ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
While China claims the death toll in Wuhan is around 2,500, Radio Free Asia reports that incinerators at the city’s seven funeral homes have been “working around the clock.” They report that families have been given government stipends to cover the cost of cremation in exchange for their silence — “hush money” to keep the truth from the world.
Radio Free Asia estimates the real death toll in Wuhan to be somewhere between 42,000 and 46,800.
China’s evolving narrative and criminal cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak is no doubt to blame for the world’s lack of preparation for this deadly pandemic.
When the world finally navigates through this public health pandemic and resulting economic crisis, the global community must come together to hold China to account for its reprehensible actions that led to untold death and destruction.
China deserves to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and ex-communicated from the global community. We should similarly judge minister Hajdu for her knee-jerk defence of the truly indefensible.
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