People in Almaty, Kazakhstan. BBC/Reuters.
Kazakhstan has denies reports from China that they have a new pneumonia causing virus that China claims is even more deadly than the Coronavirus. BBC. Kazakhstan, which just reinstituted a nation-wide lockdown, has had a major increase of cases of pneumonia but are saying that China's claims are not based in reality. China says that since the beginning of the year 1772 people have died of pneumonia with 628 in June alone, including some Chinese citizens. Medical workers and victims families in Kazakhstan believe that the pneumonia deaths are due to Covid-19, not due to some mystery virus. Testing in Kazakhstan has been unreliable and there is evidence that not everyone who dies has been tested.
My Comment:
What a weird story. I can't think of any reason why China would think that there is some kind of new virus in Kazakhstan when the obvious answer is that the extra pneumonia deaths are from Coronavirus cases that slipped through the cracks.
I don't know that much about Kazakhstan and their healthcare system but even here in America we have had problems with accurate testing and correctly attributing deaths to the virus. Though here I think they are overplaying the numbers, counting any deaths as Corona-related even if it's clear that the disease itself wasn't the cause, it's no stretch of the imagination to think that the Kazakh government could be doing the same thing the other way. Either that or they just don't have the testing to get actuate numbers.
It just seems very irresponsible for China to make this claim and I almost wonder if it wasn't in bad faith? I get that they would want to warn their citizens of the danger of being in Kazakhstan right now, but why lie about a new disease when there isn't any evidence that there is one in play? Are they trying to embarrass Kazakhstan? Are they trying to make themselves look better? Or are they just dumb? It just doesn't make much sense to me.
And I just don't trust anything that is coming out of China these days. They have lied to us about so much that you would be foolish to trust anything they say. I mean, they knew about the Coronavirus long before they warned the world and it's not a stretch that they would lie about other things. Hell, even the viral "Three Gorges Dam will collapse story", which I would have normally dismissed as fake news, sounds plausible just because China is so secretive and dishonest.
This does worry me though. What if China is actually right and there is a worse virus out there that the Kazakh government is covering up? If so than their warnings will be unheeded as nobody is going to trust what China has to say. I don't think that scenario is likely at all though, but it is an unpleasant thought.
I think the media is overhyping this though. I had seen this story throughout the day today and a lot more articles covered China's claims than they did Kazakhstan's denial, which I find more credible. Why is the media doing this? Bad news gets clicks. A story saying that there's a new virus out there that could be worse than Coronavirus is a lot more enticing than one that says that it's probably just unreported cases of Corona. It's why you are hearing all the stories about Black Plague in Mongolia, even though Black Plague has never really gone away and the chances of a major outbreak are extremely low.
Still, I am glad that the BBC and other outlets printed the Kazakh response and did some actual journalism by asking people who lived in the area what is happening. These people all say that it's just Coronavirus deaths, so I'm going to go with that. Part of journalism is that you are supposed to get both sides of the story and I am glad that there are still a few people out there that seem to understand that.
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