What a difference a month makes.

Boris Johnson, March 3rd:

"I congratulate the Chinese authorities on the speed with which they posted the news of an outbreak that has had serious international implications".

Boris Johnson, one month later, having realized how much his government has cocked up in its response to the virus, and not wanting to be blamed for lots of deaths:

"Blame China for everything!".

Western governments, that downplayed the seriousness of Coronavirus for months, now blame China for covering it up when it first broke out - before recognizing and responding to it, and gaining praise from the World Health Organization.

Seems to me that Chinese authorities do deserve scrutiny for their initial response, but the hypocrisy here is obscene.

Whatever happened in China initially, many western governments ignored advice and warnings, from Chinese scientists and the W.H.O., for months. They effectively covered it up, when they should have begun preparing. And this will lead to many more deaths. So their only options now are to either accept culpability - never going to happen - or to lay the blame elsewhere.

UK Government blames China for their own failures

This is disgusting racism from the government to distract from...

- screwing up their initial response to the virus.
- decades of NHS dismantling and underfunding.

The World Health Organisation has praised China - they "rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile & aggressive disease containment effort in history".

But as we have learnt, our exceptionalist government could not give two shits about what the World Health Organisation has to say.

Did China really cover up the Coronavirus outbreak?

Here's what the World Health Organization has to say:

"The [W.H.O's Emergency] Committee welcomed the leadership and political commitment of the very highest levels of Chinese government, their commitment to transparency, and the efforts made to investigate and contain the current outbreak. China quickly identified the virus and shared its sequence, so that other countries could diagnose it quickly and protect themselves, which has resulted in the rapid development of diagnostic tools."

-The committee called for "support and appreciation for China, its people, and the actions China has taken on the frontlines of this outbreak, with transparency...."

Boris Johnson has Coronavirus

“I'm shaking hands continuously. I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few Coronavirus patients, and I shook hands with everybody, you'll be pleased to know”.

- Boris Johnson, a few weeks ago.

This man and his government initially totally ignored warnings and advice from the World Health Organization, from The Lancet, from China, etc, and instead downplayed the virus, putting us all at risk.

They opted for a strategy of 'taking it on the chin' - a completely nonsensical, incredibly irresponsible, and extremely anti-human, 'herd immunity' strategy.

This delay in responding appropriately to the crisis will result in many more deaths.

And the NHS - already under-resourced following decades of privatization and austerity imposed by Boris Johnson's ilk - will be far more overstretched than would otherwise have been the case.

Tory socialism? Not so fast.

Important thread by Jason Hickel.

The Tories are being praised for implementing supposedly socialistic measures during the Coronavirus crisis. Hickel points out that this is not really the case.

Coronavirus: will we learn that collectivism is essential to address all the other crises we face?

The climate crisis.
The housing crisis.
The poverty crisis.
The endless militarism crisis.
The homelessness crisis.
The mental health crisis.
Etc.

I hope that the Coronavirus crisis, and the understanding that it can only be fought collectively, is teaching us that it will take collectivism, solidarity, and significant central management of the economy in the interests of people+planet, for us to remedy all the other crises we face.

The Coronavirus is revealing that we're all socialistic at heart - just see the love and respect for NHS workers. We're just manipulated by a billionaire-owned media machine into thinking it isn't feasible.

Global South unable to fight the Coronavirus thanks to western imperialism

Now would be a good time to drop debt, end imperialist sanctions, and end the mass thievery of exploited, impoverished countries in the global south - that subsequently have inadequate/non-existant healthcare systems - so that they can have a chance at avoiding total Coronavirus hell!