[M T]

The culprit here is the Communist Party of China, which to avoid institutional and national  embarrassment, deliberately understated the seriousness of the virus and its human-to-human transmission potential.

GR, how do you know these things?  Are you a psychic that can read minds?  Do you have internal documents of the CCP?  If you somehow have some inside track to the real actions and real purposes behind world leaders, the US intelligence agencies could use you.   But, they'll probably require either evidence or reasoning behind such opinions.

Also, I implore you to quit repeating false statements such as those underlined here:

I'm going to reply to my own post, with a cut-and-paste from another Commentary article. From the text:

Not this time. The first Chinese victims of 2019’s novel coronavirus began showing symptoms in the Wuhan region as early as November. It was already December 30 by the time a doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital blew the whistle in a chat-room on a new coronavirus. Only the day after word leaked out in this way did the Chinese government inform the local WHO office.

As far as I am aware, the first symptoms known to this day are December 1, and that patient didn't seek help until Dec. 8.  If you have DOCUMENTED evidence (not rumors), please document it. China properly was looking for earlier cases. Looking for earlier cases doesn't indicate that earlier cases were found.

As for this reputed whistleblower, he was one of 8 people that got their hand slapped for initially saying (falsely) that it was SARS ("There are 7 confirmed cases of SARS at Huanan Seafood Market.").  Does a whistleblower write this: "Don't circulate the information outside of this group, tell your family and loved ones to take caution."?   No, that sounds like a person very reasonably warning his group of associates.  Canonizing him as a "whistleblower" is a political play.  However, he, with too many other healthcare workers, was indeed a martyr. (In yet another post, you state that he was arrested. He was not. He was summoned, interrogated, and admonished.)

Claiming somehow that this was how word "leaked out" is throwing a misleading slant to what was going on.  On that Dec. 30, a notice was circulated to report all related cases (presumably to know how many patients were related).   A total of 27 cases were found.  The National Health Commission was called in.  The next day, WHO was notified.  On Jan 4 & 8, the heads of the China CDC and US CDC talked about the outbreak.

On that same Dec. 30, information about the disease was in "the official People's Daily newspaper" per a Reuter report dated Dec. 30.

Dr. Ian Lipkin indicated he first found out about the outbreak on Dec. 15.  He indicated that on that same Dec. 30, he was asking for sequencing to be done.  He visited China, and spoke to both leading scientists and government leaders, up to the premier, from Jan. 29 - Feb. 4.

---

Since you and others seem to believe that WHO wasn't notified early enough.....

Suppose the US had an outbreak of unknown pneumonia in the past year, how long would it take the CDC to officially notify WHO?  Unfortunately, I looked but have not found any mention that the CDC ever notified the WHO.  (I can't find it at the WHO main site.  Where I hoped to find it at the PAHO site is currently broken.)

The first case was in March 2019.  From a September report:
 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a rising number of cases of mysterious pneumonias linked to vaping on Friday. Now, the agency reports 450 people from 33 states and one U.S. jurisdiction have been affected.  Three deaths have been confirmed, authorities said, and another is being investigated.

 

CDC's first publication on this outbreak was Sep 6.  (WHO is certainly concerned about the health effects of smoking and lead poisoning, so I imagine they would consider this issue a topic of concern.)

[M T]

The culprit here is the Communist Party of China, which to avoid institutional and national  embarrassment, deliberately understated the seriousness of the virus and its human-to-human transmission potential.

GR, how do you know these things?  Are you a psychic that can read minds?  Do you have internal documents of the CCP?  If you somehow have some inside track to the real actions and real purposes behind world leaders, the US intelligence agencies could use you.   But, they'll probably require either evidence or reasoning behind such opinions.

Also, I implore you to quit repeating false statements such as those underlined here:

I'm going to reply to my own post, with a cut-and-paste from another Commentary article. From the text:

Not this time. The first Chinese victims of 2019’s novel coronavirus began showing symptoms in the Wuhan region as early as November. It was already December 30 by the time a doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital blew the whistle in a chat-room on a new coronavirus. Only the day after word leaked out in this way did the Chinese government inform the local WHO office.

As far as I am aware, the first symptoms known to this day are December 1, and that patient didn't seek help until Dec. 8.  If you have DOCUMENTED evidence (not rumors), please document it. China properly was looking for earlier cases. Looking for earlier cases doesn't indicate that earlier cases were found.

As for this reputed whistleblower, he was one of 8 people that got their hand slapped for initially saying (falsely) that it was SARS ("There are 7 confirmed cases of SARS at Huanan Seafood Market.").  Does a whistleblower write this: "Don't circulate the information outside of this group, tell your family and loved ones to take caution."?   No, that sounds like a person very reasonably warning his group of associates.  Canonizing him as a "whistleblower" is a political play.  However, he, with too many other healthcare workers, was indeed a martyr. (In yet another post, you state that he was arrested. He was not. He was summoned, interrogated, and admonished.)

Claiming somehow that this was how word "leaked out" is throwing a misleading slant to what was going on.  On that Dec. 30, a notice was circulated to report all related cases (presumably to know how many patients were related).   A total of 27 cases were found.  The National Health Commission was called in.  The next day, WHO was notified.  On Jan 4 & 8, the heads of the China CDC and US CDC talked about the outbreak.

On that same Dec. 30, information about the disease was in "the official People's Daily newspaper" per a Reuter report dated Dec. 30.

Dr. Ian Lipkin indicated he first found out about the outbreak on Dec. 15.  He indicated that on that same Dec. 30, he was asking for sequencing to be done.  He visited China, and spoke to both leading scientists and government leaders, up to the premier, from Jan. 29 - Feb. 4.

---

Since you and others seem to believe that WHO wasn't notified early enough.....

Suppose the US had an outbreak of unknown pneumonia in the past year, how long would it take the CDC to officially notify WHO?  Unfortunately, I looked but have not found any mention that the CDC ever notified the WHO.  (I can't find it at the WHO main site.  Where I hoped to find it at the PAHO site is currently broken.)

The first case was in March 2019.  From a September report:
 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a rising number of cases of mysterious pneumonias linked to vaping on Friday. Now, the agency reports 450 people from 33 states and one U.S. jurisdiction have been affected.  Three deaths have been confirmed, authorities said, and another is being investigated.

 

CDC's first publication on this outbreak was Sep 6.  (WHO is certainly concerned about the health effects of smoking and lead poisoning, so I imagine they would consider this issue a topic of concern.)