Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak discussion

[rederob]

It was more than likely true they suspected just after mid December. These were just the doctors willing to come forward.
They had protocols in place to deal with this after SARS the local officials hid the information right up to the point it could no longer be hidden.
Doctors had sent samples to labs.

Look at the infection rate in countries that had prepared somewhat. Then look at the density of wuhan and how many interactions there would have been. There is no way covid was tame during this time. And where were the figures?

From Jan 1st there should have been definitive action.

WHO complacency when it should be anything but in those early days cost lives. So it's only natural they should be out under the blowtorch.

I wouldn't speculate if there weren't so many suspect steps in the story. Or if I ignored the CCPs prior history. You have to remember that they released a propaganda pamphlet saying italy or US was the cause. We also have information scrubbing going along with a misinformation campaign.
Hardly the actions of someone with nothing to hide.

Absolutely devoid of evidence you insist on spreading what you prefer to believe.
At no point have you shown you know what you are talking about.

On 1 January the WHO took action to confirm what was being advised to them rather than assume it had to be true. Once they were satisfied, they sent out their advisories in keeping with protocols. Using the USA as an example, by 3 January direct communication with Chinese health authorities commenced. US health authorities have never said the Chinese lied to them or withheld information. The US secretary for Health was interviewed at length by the BBC and made it clear that cooperation was occurring and ongoing.

I won't be responding to you again as you continue to make debunked claims and seem oblivious to reality.

 

[bellenuit]

I suppose one test of how countries could or should have responded, lied, obfuscated, made up stories, played politics with the WHO, blamed everyone else, said ....it will just go away about the virus is to tally the infection rate / deaths.

Lets randomly chose China and the US how do they stake up.

The incompetence of the Trump administration has zero to do with how China initially covered up the virus and subsequently condemned restriction of travel to/from China while maintain an extreme lockdown on intra-China travel.

Do not let China get off the hook with this. I equally abhor Trumps reaction and everything about him, but this is a China issue.

 

[moXJO]

Absolutely devoid of evidence you insist on spreading what you prefer to believe.
At no point have you shown you know what you are talking about.

On 1 January the WHO took action to confirm what was being advised to them rather than assume it had to be true. Once they were satisfied, they sent out their advisories in keeping with protocols. Using the USA as an example, by 3 January direct communication with Chinese health authorities commenced. US health authorities have never said the Chinese lied to them or withheld information. The US secretary for Health was interviewed at length by the BBC and made it clear that cooperation was occurring and ongoing.

I won't be responding to you again as you continue to make debunked claims and seem oblivious to reality.

It's who job to investigate. Not eat CCP figures.
You didn't debunk anything. You sprouted a CCP timeline.
US were not allowed to get boots on the ground till late in the development. Taiwan were blocked from accessing where they need to go for data. Want to tell me the date WHO actually put boots on the ground.

A health data researcher says China's coronavirus numbers have been vastly under-reported, perhaps by a factor of 10.

At the moment, the country where the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged has reported a confirmed 82,809 cases of infection and 3333 deaths from COVID-19, the disease it causes.

But Giresh Kanji of the University of Auckland told The AM Show on Thursday the true figures are more likely to be 300,000 infections and between 30,000 and 60,000 deaths - estimates he calls conservative.

"I have checked my figures with professors at Auckland University, and the modeling, based on other nations with this virus - and they've confirmed the modeling."

Related news

The first case is believed to be a 55-year-old man in Hubei province who was seen by doctors on November 17. Over the next month, one or two cases were seen a day, until the infection rate picked up in late December.

The local cluster of seemingly incurable pneumonia cases was reported to Chinese health bosses on December 27, when there were about 180 confirmed cases, and the World Health Organization was informed on December 31.

Dr Kanji says the official figures carried by popular trackers such as those run by Johns Hopkins University and Worldometer use China's official figures, which only begin on January 22, when there were 555 confirmed cases.

He modelled the spread of the disease based on a patient zero on December 1 - two weeks after the first case was detected.

"In my modelling, the minimum number of cases in China has to be 300,000 people," with a minimum 30,000 dead, he said.

"Lockdown didn't occur in China until January 23, so it's been going on for a few months all on its own."

Disputed mortality rate
And the mortality rate - estimated somewhere between 1 and 5 percent by most health agencies to date - is likely a lot higher, Dr Kanji said - especially when compared with the flu.

"The death rates in Italy are 42 percent of closed cases. In Spain it's 25 percent of closed cases. The flu kills around half a percent of people. This is not your regular flu. It's way more infectious and it's way more virulent."

Giresh Kanji. Photo credit: The AM Show
Dr Kanji worked his mortality rate out by dividing the number of deaths by the total dead and recovered - for example, in the US there have been 14,463 deaths and 22,187 recoveries, giving a mortality rate of about 40 percent.

But the actual mortality rate for COVID-19 remains unknown, as it's unclear how many people have actually been infected. Only cases confirmed with testing are being reported by national officials, but the virus is able to spread asymptomatically, and in many places people showing symptoms are struggling to get tests done. This would push the actual mortality rate downwards.

There have been reports of people in China forming massive queues for urns and huge demand for crematoriums, far in excess of the Chinese government's official COVID-19 death toll.

Underreporting led to underreaction
China's underreporting of the virus' spread is why many countries - particularly in the West - failed to take the actions necessary to stop it from spreading, Dr Kanji says.

"I believe one of the reasons why Thailand, Vietnam and other countries... have basically locked down their borders almost completely... their proximity has, I think, helped them know what's gone on in China, whereas the Western world have been distant and only really informed by information coming out of China. There has been something amiss."

Vietnam has only recorded 251 cases to date, and no deaths.

There's a lot of models out there that ain't massaged figures. Want to call them into question?
Or are models not kosher enough for you?

 

[moXJO]

I won't be responding to you again as you continue to make debunked claims and seem oblivious to reality.

Following the same script...
It's almost a carbon copy from last time. All you argument fall apart based on the fact the figures are dubious.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.sars21apr21-story.html

BEIJING - In a rare admission of serious mistakes, the Chinese government fired the minister of health and the mayor of Beijing yesterday for their early mishandling of the respiratory disease known as SARS, canceled a national weeklong holiday and reported almost 10 times as many SARS cases in Beijing, with hundreds more likely to come.

After weeks of claims to the contrary, health officials acknowledged a full-fledged outbreak in the capital, with 346 confirmed cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome and 18 deaths, with 400 more suspected cases under evaluation.

Those figures rank Beijing as the city with the third-largest number of SARS cases in the world, after Hong Kong and Guangzhou in southern China.

China now acknowledges 79 deaths and 1,814 confirmed cases overall, nearly half the worldwide total, and those figures are expected to rise in the coming weeks as cities and provinces are pressured to provide accurate information.

The Health Ministry was "not well-prepared" for the outbreak and "didn't give clear instructions or effective guidance," Vice Minister of Health Gao Qiang said in unusually candid admissions at a nationally televised news conference. "The Chinese government answers to the broad masses of the people, and we will try all means to reverse and improve upon the weaknesses and faulty aspects of our work."

Shortly after Gao's remarks, the official New China News Agency announced that Health Minister Zhang Wenkang, who had declared SARS "under control" in China, and Beijing Mayor Meng Xuenong, whose government failed to give a candid accounting of SARS, had been stripped of their Communist Party posts.

The cancellation of the weeklong May Day holiday, also announced by Gao yesterday, indicated how seriously the government is now taking SARS, which has a mortality rate of about 4 percent.

Tens of millions of Chinese normally travel during the holiday, packing trains and airplanes as families go on vacation and migrant workers and students return home.

The announcements mark the apparent culmination of a slow awakening by senior officials to the threat the SARS outbreak poses for public health, the economy and the government's reputation abroad.

The government's mishandling of SARS has become its worst international embarrassment since the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Foreign health experts have assailed China for responding too slowly to the outbreak and misleading the public about its spread.

State-run national television did not report on SARS until this month, three months after officials in southern China's Guangdong province realized that they were facing a dangerous new infectious disease.

Zhang, the health minister, then talked about symptoms and prevention techniques but understated the disease's impact in China.

Until last week, reports in the state-run news media had often focused on reassuring people that SARS was not a serious problem - an indication to many Chinese that, in fact, it must be the opposite.

Last week, the official news media prominently reported directives from President Hu Jintao and the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee on better handling and reporting of SARS cases.

"I think maybe before the last week, their first priority was to make up something to improve their public relations image," said Wu Guoguang, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who was ejected from the Communist Party for criticizing the Tiananmen crackdown. "Now they have to deal with the real crisis, not only the PR crisis."

Critics assert that if China had battled SARS more aggressively in Guangdong province in late January and early February, the disease would not have spread so quickly to Hong Kong, the rest of China and around the globe.

The government's reputation abroad has suffered in recent days amid published reports that two Beijing hospitals, at the direction of the city government, put SARS patients in hotel rooms and took others for rides around the city in ambulances to conceal the true numbers from visiting World Health Organization doctors.

Gao said yesterday that it is difficult to come up with an accurate count of cases in Beijing because patients are being treated at more than 70 hospitals under the supervision of various authorities.

But the public did not wait for official numbers before taking action. Tourism and business trips to Beijing are down sharply; in the university district in northwest Beijing, some students have bought train tickets for home to escape the illness while others have confined themselves to their dorm rooms.

Economic impact

What might have troubled the central government the most is the economic impact of SARS. China's social stability depends in large part on a fast-growing economy that continues to create jobs for laid-off state employees and migrant workers. China cannot afford to lose any of the billions of dollars pumped into its economy each year by foreign businesses and investors.

"They're trying to convince foreigners" that they're dealing with SARS effectively, "because foreigners have money," said Wu. "When you have no foreign investors, foreign businessmen and foreign capital, they will have trouble."

Now, a Chinese government that had consistently played down the disease and sought to avoid panicking the public has declared that it will opt for almost the exact opposite approach.

"We have an old saying in Chinese: 'Preparation makes perfect, and lack of preparation will create a very serious disaster,'" Gao said yesterday. "What we would like to see is that by overstating the scale of this disaster, and responding to that, [this] will lead us to a better outcome."

'Resolute measures'

The most drastic example of the new approach is the cancellation of the weeklong May Day holiday. The action will be interpreted here as an official declaration that it is unsafe to travel in China, but Gao said the government wanted only to discourage "nationwide movement" of large numbers of people.

"People's lives and people's health have to be put above everything else," Gao said.

Health officials said they were concerned about SARS-infected people in China's cities spreading the illness to the countryside, where hospitals would be far less able to cope.

"Once the disaster spreads to these areas, then the consequences will be especially grim," Gao said.

He said the government is adopting "resolute measures" to combat the spread of the virus: screening and potential isolation of passengers on trains and planes; full and immediate reporting of new cases; giving migrant workers the same level of care as city residents; subsidies for those unable to afford medical bills; and warning hospitals not to turn away patients.

"They are not allowed under any circumstances to reject the patients," Gao said after acknowledging that he had heard that some hospitals have declined to admit SARS patients. "All such acts of rejecting patients will be punished once they are spotted."

It is far from certain, though, that such measures can be implemented on a wide scale. The Chinese bureaucracy historically has lacked the regulatory muscle to force compliance by cash-strapped local governments and hospitals, especially far from Beijing.

Gao said the central government is committed to containing SARS and that the financial cost would not be an obstacle.

"We will spend as much as it takes to cope with this disease," he said.

Lingering disbelief

Analysts say China is still understating the severity of the problem, a legacy of decades of covering up or playing down bad news. At least one province that has yet to report any SARS cases, coastal Shandong province southeast of Beijing, is believed to have some.

WHO doctors in Beijing are to travel today to Shanghai, a city of 16 million, where few believe the official count of two cases. The Health Ministry is also sending teams of officials to other provinces with reported cases to assess the true numbers and determine how the health system is coping.

Besides Beijing and Shanghai, nine jurisdictions have reported cases of SARS: Guangdong, with 1,304; Shanxi, 108; Inner Mongolia, 25; Guangxi, 12; Hunan, six; Sichuan, five; Fujian, three; Henan, two; Ningxia, one. But the real figures are believed to be higher.

"Any statistics from those officials' mouths is problematic," said Wu. "The strategy is, 'Cover up something and tell the partial truth.' You can say that when they tell the partial truth, that's progress."

You tell me who is "oblivious to reality".

 

[IFocus]

The incompetence of the Trump administration has zero to do with how China initially covered up the virus and subsequently condemned restriction of travel to/from China while maintain an extreme lockdown on intra-China travel.

Do not let China get off the hook with this. I equally abhor Trumps reaction and everything about him, but this is a China issue.

I don't believe much that the CCP says and much less what Trump says but to me the argument is pointless until real investigations and knowledge is gained about the virus and that will take time.

Too many have a finger in the current stories doing the rounds with unlimited agenders.
WHO at the moment are saying they don't know the origins of the Virus.

On a different note a number that came up yesterday really shocked me 2,000 care homes in the UK have had outbreaks of the Virus and are not counting the deaths.

Some one (maybe Boris) should be taken around the back and shot I couldn't imagine that happening here our state and federal governments so far have done an outstanding job.

Talking of causing deaths how many will die in developing counties thanks to Trump pulling funding.

 

[Smurf1976]

I don't believe much that the CCP says and much less what Trump says

Communists versus a narcissist.

I'd have more faith in what a used car salesman tells me really. At least they won't argue about undeniable stuff like the make and model.

 

[basilio]

I don't believe much that the CCP says and much less what Trump says but to me the argument is pointless until real investigations and knowledge is gained about the virus and that will take time.

Talking of causing deaths how many will die in developing counties thanks to Trump pulling funding.

At some stage everyone has to have a look at what happened, how this virus came about, how it spread and most importantly what could have/should have been done at the early stages to minimise its effect.

Actually I would be confident that my bolded comment is already well understood in medical and government circles. The last outbreaks have created plans and structures that are supposed to be wheeled out to maximise the capacity to treat people and to prevent further infection. The problem has always been convincing politicians to treat the issue seriously and take action promptly.

Right now the world is playing catch up on dealing with the epidemic. This heated debate about blaming the Chinese for starting it, is just a smokescreen by Donald Trump to divert attention from his disastrous practices at dealing with a known epidemic from mid late January onwards.

 

[moXJO]

Right now the world is playing catch up on dealing with the epidemic. This heated debate about blaming the Chinese for starting it, is just a smokescreen by Donald Trump to divert attention from his disastrous practices at dealing with a known epidemic from mid late January onwards.

This is perhaps the dumbest comment yet.

 

[basilio]

[QUOTE="moXJO, post: 1068021, member: 4631"]This is perhaps the dumbest comment yet.[/QUOTE]

Nope moXjo. Your response beats it by the length of the straight.

 

[bellenuit]

At some stage everyone has to have a look at what happened, how this virus came about, how it spread ...

You think that is likely when "everyone" is not given a look at what happened, only a controlled group of Chinese scientists whose investigation results are subject to CCP approval.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/chine...sorship-notices-for-new-coronavirus-research/

At least two Chinese universities published and then deleted notices on new censorship rules that could squelch research into the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report.

The new rules for research of COVID-19 are heightening criticism of China’s government, whose alleged under-count of cases is blamed for hindering global preparation. The research policies were first reported Saturday by The Guardian, which said a tipster alerted the newspaper to cached versions.

An April 5 notice posted by the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) said a university academic committee would review research into the origin of the virus “with an emphasis on checking the accuracy of the thesis, as well as whether it is suitable for publication” before turning it over to the authorities to review.

“When the checks have been completed, the school should report to the Ministry of Science and Technology, and it should only be published after it has [also] been checked by MOST,” the notice said.

An April 9 notice posted by Fudan University in Shanghai said that, according to the central government’s State Council, “Papers related to virus tracing should be managed strictly.” The memo outlined similar review steps.

......

The Guardian reported that it received, but could not validate, a third document from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University that also said research into the origins of the virus had to be sent to Beijing for approval before publication.

.......

“They are seeking to transform it from a massive disaster to one where the government did everything right and gave the rest of the world time to prepare,” Kevin Carrico, a senior research fellow of Chinese studies at Monash University, told The Guardian.

 

[satanoperca]

[QUOTE="moXJO, post: 1068021, member: 4631"]This is perhaps the dumbest comment yet.

Nope moXjo. Your response beats it by the length of the straight.[/QUOTE]

Trying to say out of forums, as I think everyone has gone a little crazy.

But your response Basilio is the dumbest yet.

The Don f--ked up HOWEVER

The CCP f---ked up even more.

Which is the lesser of 2 evils, neither one.

 

[bellenuit]

China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

Move is likely to be part of attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...on-coronavirus-research-deleted-pages-suggest

 

[moXJO]

Trump will get voted out. Wake me when the same applies in China.

 

[wayneL]

Waiting for the day party hacks STFU.

How bad does s*** have to get before this happens

 

[hja]

China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

Move is likely to be part of attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...on-coronavirus-research-deleted-pages-suggest

Yeah well China's ministry also went to the trouble of taking down the cached version of the research. Good luck clicking on it. All you'll get is "error 404... kjc.cug.edu.cn ... - that's all we know"

 

[Knobby22]

Yeah well China's ministry also went to the trouble of taking down the cached version of the research. Good luck clicking on it. All you'll get is "error 404... kjc.cug.edu.cn ... - that's all we know"

If they have s break through they will have kicked a propaganda goal.
To the nations under their influence in Asia and Africa it will act as a way to show they are the strength.

 

[IFocus]

Waiting for the day party hacks STFU.

How bad does s*** have to get before this happens

Agree Republicans and Trump and their supporters have a lot to answer for.

 

[DB008]

China takes a page from Russia's disinformation playbook​

The Chinese Communist Party has spent the past week publicly pushing conspiracy theories intended to cast doubt on the origins of the coronavirus, and thus deflect criticism over China's early mishandling of the epidemic.

Why it matters: The strategy is a clear departure from Beijing's previous disinformation tactics and signals its increasingly aggressive approach to managing its image internationally.

What's happening: Verified Chinese government Twitter accounts, Chinese embassies and consulates, and some Chinese media outlets have promoted several different conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus.

• One theory, tweeted multiple times by Chinese foreign ministry deputy spokesperson Zhao Lijian and boosted by official Chinese state media, states that the virus may have come from a U.S. military lab.
• Another suggests the disease first appeared in Italy in November, before it appeared in Wuhan.
• Numerous pronouncements from a variety of Chinese government sources have stated more vaguely that the virus may not have come from Wuhan, the city in Hubei where the outbreak began.

Reality check: Virologists say the coronavirus shows no signs of being engineered in a lab, and epidemiologists agree that the first outbreak was in Wuhan.

• China's ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai has disavowed the conspiracy theory, calling it "crazy" in an interview with "Axios on HBO."

The big picture: Beijing is emulating Russia's disinformation playbook.

• "What we’ve seen over the past week and a half over COVD-19 in terms of Chinese party-state manipulation has been a real departure from what we have seen in the past," Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, tells Axios.

Rosenberger points to three main tactics that Beijing has applied in its coronavirus messaging campaign that clearly resemble Russian strategy:

• The propagation of "multiple conflicting theories."
• The amplification of "conspiracy websites," which Rosenberger said are third-party sites without funding transparency that promote the same theories the state aims to boost.
• The coordinated use of diplomatic and embassy Twitter accounts and state-backed media to help boost the theories.

Russian disinformation tactics typically aim to destabilize the information environment through spreading conspiracy theories, with the goal of creating chaos and discord in target societies. This strategy has been widely deployed in recent years to:

• Interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
• Disassociate Russia from its poisoning of former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal on British soil in 2018.
• Cast doubt on Russia's role in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014.

But Chinese Communist Party disinformation has previously followed methodology and goals distinctly different from Russia's.

• Chinese information operations typically aim to uphold a single immutable narrative that casts the Chinese Communist Party in a positive light.
• There is intense censorship inside China of information that makes the party look bad, as well as suppression of dissenting narratives outside China. The suppression is often done through coercion — increasingly, by threatening to deny market access to organizations if they say things the party doesn't like.
• The goal isn't to destabilize the information environment, but rather to make Beijing appear unassailably good.
• But unlike Russia, this strategy typically doesn't target foreign societies beyond their perceptions of China.

It isn't either/or. Beijing continues to employ the above strategy both at home and abroad as it strives to deflect blame for its early cover-up of the epidemic and to show itself a more reliable partner to countries than the United States.

• China has embarked on an international humanitarian relief campaign to provide medical supplies to dozens of countries fighting outbreaks of their own, accompanied by a major propaganda blitz.
• It's an "aggressive information campaign to portray China as the new partner of first resort," said Rosenberger, and " U.S. missteps" have created "fertile ground" for this message to take hold.

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-c...ook-c49b6f3b-2a9a-47c1-9065-240121c9ceb2.html

 

[dutchie]

Coronavirus: EU offers 'heartfelt apology' to Italy
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/wor...s-to-italy-for-coronavirus-response-1.4230672

Wonder when China will apologise to the world ???

Don't hold your breath.

 

[rederob]

China takes a page from Russia's disinformation playbook​

The Chinese Communist Party has spent the past week publicly pushing conspiracy theories intended to cast doubt on the origins of the coronavirus, and thus deflect criticism over China's early mishandling of the epidemic.

Why it matters: The strategy is a clear departure from Beijing's previous disinformation tactics and signals its increasingly aggressive approach to managing its image internationally.

What's happening: Verified Chinese government Twitter accounts, Chinese embassies and consulates, and some Chinese media outlets have promoted several different conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus.

• One theory, tweeted multiple times by Chinese foreign ministry deputy spokesperson Zhao Lijian and boosted by official Chinese state media, states that the virus may have come from a U.S. military lab.
• Another suggests the disease first appeared in Italy in November, before it appeared in Wuhan.
• Numerous pronouncements from a variety of Chinese government sources have stated more vaguely that the virus may not have come from Wuhan, the city in Hubei where the outbreak began.

Reality check: Virologists say the coronavirus shows no signs of being engineered in a lab, and epidemiologists agree that the first outbreak was in Wuhan.

• China's ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai has disavowed the conspiracy theory, calling it "crazy" in an interview with "Axios on HBO."

The big picture: Beijing is emulating Russia's disinformation playbook.

• "What we’ve seen over the past week and a half over COVD-19 in terms of Chinese party-state manipulation has been a real departure from what we have seen in the past," Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, tells Axios.

Rosenberger points to three main tactics that Beijing has applied in its coronavirus messaging campaign that clearly resemble Russian strategy:

• The propagation of "multiple conflicting theories."
• The amplification of "conspiracy websites," which Rosenberger said are third-party sites without funding transparency that promote the same theories the state aims to boost.
• The coordinated use of diplomatic and embassy Twitter accounts and state-backed media to help boost the theories.

Russian disinformation tactics typically aim to destabilize the information environment through spreading conspiracy theories, with the goal of creating chaos and discord in target societies. This strategy has been widely deployed in recent years to:

• Interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
• Disassociate Russia from its poisoning of former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal on British soil in 2018.
• Cast doubt on Russia's role in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014.

But Chinese Communist Party disinformation has previously followed methodology and goals distinctly different from Russia's.

• Chinese information operations typically aim to uphold a single immutable narrative that casts the Chinese Communist Party in a positive light.
• There is intense censorship inside China of information that makes the party look bad, as well as suppression of dissenting narratives outside China. The suppression is often done through coercion — increasingly, by threatening to deny market access to organizations if they say things the party doesn't like.
• The goal isn't to destabilize the information environment, but rather to make Beijing appear unassailably good.
• But unlike Russia, this strategy typically doesn't target foreign societies beyond their perceptions of China.

It isn't either/or. Beijing continues to employ the above strategy both at home and abroad as it strives to deflect blame for its early cover-up of the epidemic and to show itself a more reliable partner to countries than the United States.

• China has embarked on an international humanitarian relief campaign to provide medical supplies to dozens of countries fighting outbreaks of their own, accompanied by a major propaganda blitz.
• It's an "aggressive information campaign to portray China as the new partner of first resort," said Rosenberger, and " U.S. missteps" have created "fertile ground" for this message to take hold.

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-c...ook-c49b6f3b-2a9a-47c1-9065-240121c9ceb2.html

If we swap China in the above for America and Trump it reads more credibly:

The American President has spent the past week publicly pushing conspiracy theories intended to cast doubt on the origins of the coronavirus, and thus deflect criticism over America's early mishandling of the epidemic.

Why it matters: The strategy is a clear departure from Trump’s previous disinformation tactics and signals its increasingly aggressive approach to managing his image internationally.

What's happening: Verified Trump Twitter accounts, American embassies and consulates, and some American media outlets have promoted several different conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus.

• One theory, tweeted multiple times by the American President and boosted by official American Presidential media, states that the virus may have come from a military lab.
• Another suggests the disease first appeared in Italy in November, before it appeared in Wuhan.
• Numerous pronouncements from a variety of American government sources have stated more vaguely that the virus may not have come from Wuhan, the city in Hubei where the outbreak began.

Reality check: Virologists say the coronavirus shows no signs of being engineered in a lab, and epidemiologists agree that the first outbreak was in Wuhan.

• America's ambassador to China, Cui Tiankai has disavowed the conspiracy theory, calling it "crazy" in an interview with "Axios on HBO."

The big picture: Trump is emulating Russia's disinformation playbook.

• "What we’ve seen over the past week and a half over COVD-19 in terms of Trump’s manipulation has been a real departure from what we have seen in the past," Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, tells Axios.

Rosenberger points to three main tactics that Trump has applied in its coronavirus messaging campaign that clearly resemble Russian strategy:

• The propagation of "multiple conflicting theories."
• The amplification of "conspiracy websites," which Rosenberger said are third-party sites without funding transparency that promote the same theories the state aims to boost.
• The coordinated use of diplomatic and embassy Twitter accounts and state-backed media to help boost the theories.