" So why did it not prevent spreading to Italy, a foreign country with a border, who even saw it coming 2 months in advance?"
Italy didn't ban travel early enough and their medical system couldn't keep up with the amount of people that ended up sick. The result is way more deaths and infections.
"If Italy (or the US) evidently could not prevent it despite freedom of speech and being a much higher barrier for spreading than internal China, then why do you still claim that freedom of speech could have prevented the spread in China?"
You need to actually do something when you are warned.
Italy didn't, the US did. Keeping things closed/no freedom of speech will only hurt everyone in the long run.
"Your image of China is a caricature, not reality."
Have you lived in China for long periods of time? Do you know anyone born in China? It's both for me. Most people don't truly know how evil the Chinese government is.
"Like I said in my other post: the claim that they "covered it up for months" is nonsense."
There was an outbreak, but it was covered up for many weeks. Doctors that came out were silenced by the government. Anyone talking about it on Chat platforms like Wechat were also censored.
"The US has had 2 months to prepare for COVID-19, and what happened in the US even though you had freedom of speech? Cover-ups, or -- a more charitable interpretation -- incompetence in information sharing."
Well. through January we were going through the shampeachment, which I think many people seem to forget about. This was keeping the government busy, when they should have been thinking about ways to combat the virus.
Trump banned flights to China early on. The mainstream press called him a racist after doing this. This is probably the single best thing that prevented large amounts of people from getting infected.
"Free speech is an important value. But don't pretend like it's some kind of panacea. You will do the ideal of freedom of speech much more justice by recognizing its limitations, because only then can you truly leverage its benefits while mitigating its weaknesses. Anything else is like driving with your eyes closed and thinking "I'll be fine"."
If Chinese citizens had the freedom of speech, we would have known about the virus much earlier and we might have actually been able to prevent the spread to countries like Italy.
I'm not sure why you are defending an authoritarian government that clearly prevented the world from knowing about a pandemic that has already killed thousands of people.
My guess is that you are one of the many people paid by the Chinese government to shill for them and spread propaganda.
The Chinese government caused many virus-related deaths around the world. They covered it up for months and silenced any medical professionals that attempted to warn the rest of the world.
The press has also recently tried to float the conspiracy theory that the US government planted the virus in Wuhan back in October.
Chinese government officials should be put on trial for mass murder. I'm glad he's expelling the Chinese press. They are basically just arms of the government and most likely there to exfiltrate information.
" But it's hard to ignore the fact that in this country, when poor people make mistakes [or, in this case are the victims of circumstance], they typically eat those mistakes. Medical bankruptcies, unable to cover a $500 emergency, etc"
This may be the case. But would you rather have thousands of people without jobs in the airline industry and the many other jobs that will be lost as a result of the bankrupt airlines?
Bailing out these industries out is in essence allowing many people to keep their job.
I've been working from home for a decade. I've worked at many companies and been part of the hiring process for remote developers.
Most people just don't have the discipline to work remotely. I think productivity will be reduced overall and it might prevent remote working in the future.
Did he imply or are you implying now because you don't like Trump?
Kind of like when he made a speech about illegal immigrants and the press implied that he was talking about all immigrants?
"Also, people were pedantic with Obama all the time. Tan suit, anyone?"
Obama was adored by the mainstream press and anyone that said a single negative thing about him was attacked and deemed a racist. Fast and Furious anyone? How about when he used the IRS to illegally target conservative groups?
60 million people were infected with H1N1 during his presidency and 13,000 people died in the US. Most people don't even remember this.
If you can't admit when Trump does something right, I sure as hell won't believe you when you tell me Trump is doing something wrong.
This might work. But how many people will die in the process? There are many cases of young people, with seemingly no prior health issues, dying after getting severe issues as a result of the virus.
On top of that, you can't guarantee that young people will only get it. With no travel restrictions, it can easily spread to the elderly.
"We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time"
yes, yes they are. They are building it for the Valley with the plan to expand nation wide.
Please stop with the politics. Trump can get something right.
Nobody was this pedantic with Obama. The difference is that Obama just wouldn't tell us what he was doing..and the press would ignore all of the terrible things going on behind the scenes.