> There is no indication that there's a lab in that location, much less that they work on bats.

What do you expect, the bat sign at the front door?

> The WHCDC is primarily a community health organization, and some tiny satellite office is not where they're doing research, if they even do any significant research in their own labs.

Listen to yourself, Mr. Science. This claim is speculation. You do not know how the WHCDC works, you couldn't even find their facility on map, you couldn't figure out that they are doing research on bats, that they have a major bat researcher on their staff, who co-authored papers along with Shi Zhengli.

Note that I never claimed they were doing research at that facility, because I don't know. I was merely correcting your claims that they authors of that "document" got the location wrong and that there is no bat research at the WHCDC.

> You're promoting a conspiracy theory that has zero evidence (someone online claiming they have bats in a building that doesn't even appear to be a lab is not evidence), I think for political reasons that you've made quite clear - your views on China.

Why are you conflating my views on China and my views on the government and ruling party?

> About your use of the phrase "CCP," I say you're using it for shock value because I don't think you're actually specifically talking about the CCP.

What's the "shock value" in that?

> You're talking about the actions of government officials, policemen, etc. What is added by alluding to the political party?

All government in Mainland China is subordinate to the CCP and its political philosophy. A common CCP strategy is to defer responsibility for mistakes down the chain of command. That's how the local officials in Wuhan got purged, while the higher-ups got away scot-free. It would be ridiculous for me to blame the policemen, which are at the very bottom of the chain of command, for what they have been ordered to do.

This is in stark contrast to the US, where the political parties do not actually rule the entire legislature, executive and judiciary parts of the government. Yet you have no problem blaming the situation in the US on Trump and its administration, even though they have far less power.

> I think it would have been nearly impossible to contain, even with the most aggressive early response.

It was effectively contained in Hong-Kong and Taiwan, both of which are China, but neither of which are ruled by the CCP. I guess we'll never know.

> The US and Mexico were unable to contain H1N1 in 2009, which is a less transmissible disease than CoVID-19.

Sure, but it only was discovered after it had already spread for a while in both countries, whereas the CCP had a golden opportunity to inform the community and quell the spread early. Instead, it chose to destroy evidence and silence whistle blowers.

> There was community spread in California in mid-January, and there is now a paper claiming the existence of a case in France in late December, before the virus was even discovered.

If that's true, fair enough, the cat was already out of the box.

> I am sure that the government in Wuhan resisted taking measures that could have slowed the spread of the virus early on, because they worried about the effects those measures would have on the economy.

They didn't just "resist taking measures", they arrested people for "spreading the rumor" that there was another SARS-like outbreak even though they knew there was an outbreak. If the government didn't suppress information, people could've taken measures for themselves.

> In Wuhan, there was about a week of downplaying, before the central government stepped in and forced extreme measures on the city, which turned out to be highly effective.

You don't know that they were effective, none of the numbers published are independently verifiable and they are statistically suspicious. Also, you can issue curfews without forcing people into internment camps - that probably made the situation worse, not better.

> You're criticizing those measures ("Draconian"), while also severely mischaracterizing them

How exactly?

> Months in, most of the US still hasn't suppressed the outbreak properly, and now the President and much of the political establishment is suggesting that maybe it's better to let people die than to harm the economy.

While I agree that a re-opening seems premature, the decision is up to the states, which are affected quite differently. As for "letting people die", that's always a tradeoff. It's not just the economy, it's our lives. We could prevent tens of thousands of Influenza deaths a year by socially isolating 100% of the time. We could prevent car accidents by banning cars. We could prevent heart disease and obesity and cancer by banning unhealthy food or smoking. The tradeoff is personal freedom.

> In the end, I think one would have to be blind, or blinded by political ideology, to deny that China handled the outbreak better than the US did.

The handling of the initial outbreak was unforgivable and the measures taken in Wuhan were human rights violations. In that sense, no they didn't handle it better, even if their questionable numbers are accurate.

On the more benign side, due to rapid technology adoption and due to a lack of civil rights, China can more effectively trace infection and immunity. You can't go anywhere without a smartphone and a green checkmark. However, even those measures would not work in the US, Donald Trump can't just force everyone to use a smartphone app.