China has made many mistakes in this epidemic, and it has cost the world. Many, many lives are being lost right now, especially in Italy, and many more are going to be lost I fear here in the USA. Forgive me if I have made some errors as this is mostly off the top of my head, but I believe this to be for the large part correct. Here are the first three MAJOR mistakes they made.

1. Many years ago, the Chinese government exploited and opportunity to increase the supply of food to its people by allowing a small group of individuals, mostly in the inner, more rural areas of the country like Wuhan, to run what were know as "wet" markets. These markets were basically animal factories, with every type of animal known to man that could be used as a food source. They were small at first, with only local, more traditional farmers involved in the activity. But just like everything else in China, because of the demand of a huge population that was used to the practice of eating just about any type of animal or the like, these markets exploded in popularity. The problem with this is that the markets were very unsanitary, especially for the animals involved. In most cases open cages are stacked on top of each other, allowing the animals to defecate and urinate on the animals below. On top of that, the butchering was often done right at the market in very unsanitary, open-air conditions. It is believed that this is how the coronavirus evolved, due to the poor conditions in these wet markets, and the one in Wuhan in particular. Some have speculated that the transfer may have occurred from a pangolin to a bat, as the pangolin seems to be an especially good transmitter of the mutated virus. It was not until only a few months ago that the current virus acquired the ability to mutate to humans, and thus was born Covid-19.

2. The second HUGE mistake the CCP made was to suppress the information and alarm that the medical personnel in Wuhan were sounding in response to the "unknown" ailment that seemed to be taking hold in the early part of December of last year. More specifically, Dr. Li Wenliang, who was raising concern among his colleagues about the virus. You see, China knew about the possibility of what another outbreak like the SARS outbreak in 2003 would entail, especially one that was airborne and easily transmitted from human to human. They chose to arrest Dr. Li and threatened him to stay silent. Not only that, but it is also believed that officials destroyed vital information that would have helped to understand the virus sooner and limit it's spread, even in its own country. Dr. Li eventually died to the virus, still trying to save his patients and he is quickly becoming a national hero there and possibly across the world.

3. The third and possibly biggest mistake the Chinese communist party made was to suppress information about the spread and effects of the disease. Had the world seen the images like we are now seeing out of Italy in their hospital wards, it is likely that the response from the rest of the world, and more specifically Italy, Iran (maybe not) and even the USA, would have been much more concerned and appropriate. What is truly maddening is that they continue to suppress information and shift blame, all in an effort to "save face". If you have studied Chinese history you would know that Miàn Zi (面子) is a common theme among Asian cultures and especially within the CCP. I am not disparaging it, just explaining that it is a known cultural entity with the Chinese and most of Asia. In American politics, we would call it "spin".

The American and Chinese economies are so intertwined, that any unraveling of this will likely be devastating to both. The supply problems from the shutdown of the world's second-largest economy are only part of the problem. China has been called "the factory of the world". It has been their effort, especially over the past few years, to dominate this throughout the world, and both our citizens and corporations are lapping up the artificially deflated items and technology. China controls the exchange rate of its currency and does not allow it to fluctuate on the open market. It can basically set the price of any item it wants to target as an industry it wants to dominate, and due to it totalitarian control of the major institutions in its own country can flood the market with legitimately underpriced items until whole industries in other countries buckle due to price pressure and eventually fold. Then China has essentially a monopoly that it controls forever. This is what we are currently seeing with items like masks, ventilators, smocks, drugs and many other items currently used by our healthcare system. The US and other countries do not have the capacity to produce the items in the quantities needed because of the near-monopoly created by China.

And this is the most important part of what is currently going on with supply and what we can expect in the future. China made the decision to withhold masks, even those made by American companies, in favor of keeping them in China for use by its own medical system and populations. This is the only one I have heard about, but I am sure this is true with just about every other critical item that we currently need also. This is VERY dangerous for our country. If they have made the decision to do this with critical items that are going to cost lives if we do not have them, then they will ultimately make and do make every day the same decisions with other critical items that are important to the security and safety of the world outside China. On top of that, they literally STEAL our own technology and disregard the hard work of people outside of their own, and eventually use these same methods take over those industries and technologies like others. All with the blessings of many corrupt politicians and bureaucracies and some greedy corporations who look to make money off of an unbalanced, unfair system. THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR COUNTRY.

So my question to some would be: What are we to call the Spanish Flu now? Although the actual origins of this flu are largely in dispute because of censorship caused by the first world war, we still call it this with no remorse. How about the "German" measles? We have no problem calling it that just because it was discovered by German physicians a long time ago. One thing is certain, though. As described above, we know EXACTLY where the Chinese virus came from. It is not disparaging, it is not racist, and it is not in any way a reflection on the wonderful people of the Hubei province or the entire country for that matter. It is merely an admission of the geographical origin of the first cases of this deadly disease. Unfortunately, admission is something that the Chinese communist party, and even some in our country, are very bad at.

Just another step to rename to JFIF every time

Some people say the death rate means nothing. How is that so? If "millions" of people supposedly have the virus, wouldn't we be seeing much higher rates? I say watch this closely, this will give a better clue as to the actual severity here in the States. Ohio governor says 1 million infected in Ohio??? What a joke.

Sworn to secrecy?