#CoronavirusPandemic #SelfHelp
Honesty is a key to Vietnam's coronavirus success

Vietnam has a long border with #China spanning more than 1400 km and a large population of over 95 million, yet it has only recorded some 320 cases of coronavirus and zero deaths, according to the official figures as of mid-May. The last local cases were reported more than a month ago, suggesting Vietnam is now free of community transmission.

While #Vietnam is an authoritarian, one-party state where the freedom of speech and information is limited, most healthcare experts and diplomats believe the official statistics is trustworthy. Funeral homes interviewed by Reuters has also seen no surge in deaths.

Contrary to the alleged cover-up in China in the early days of the epidemic, Vietnamese authorities proactively disseminated information via various platforms at the very beginning. These include regular text messages to all phone users and a creative song called "Ghen Cô Vy" to promote personal hygiene, which has gone viral in Vietnam and beyond. Their transparent response during this crisis has helped unify the public and eventually spared Vietnamese a high death toll.

Honesty in the handling of this epidemic is all the more important to regain public trust in light of the public criticism of the Vietnamese government in recent years. The authorities have been blamed in 2016 for covering up the marine disaster caused by chemical spill. They have also faced protests due to public concerns over China's influence in the special economic zones.

The Chinese authorities, on the other hand, have not learnt from the SARS outbreak of 2003. They have chosen to put politics above human lives by cracking down on whistleblowers in December and January. Critics suggest that serious measures to contain the virus had been delayed by a few weeks because of that.

Sources:
BBC, 15 May
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52628283

ABC, 13 May
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-13/coronavirus-vietnam-no-deaths-success-in-south-east-asia/12237314

The Guardian, 1 May
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/01/testing-vietnam-contained-coronavirus

Reuters, 29 Apr
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vietnam-fight-insi/after-aggressive-mass-testing-vietnam-says-it-contains-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN22B34H

Foreign Policy, 15 Apr
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/coronavirus-vietnam-communist-party-hanoi/

Song "Ghen Cô Vy", official English version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGoodWEtV8c

#Coronavirus

#EditorialColumn #Sept26 #MassSurveillance
Does Health Have a Price? Consequences of China's Paternalism

From the recent Universal Testing Scheme to the impending plan for Heath Code, the Hong Kong Government has been assisting the Chinese Central Government to impose mass surveillance and collect private data of the Hong Kong population in the name of pandemic controls.

For almost one year, the coronavirus pandemic, spreading from Wuhan, China to countries around the world, has revealed China's network of influence. Hong Kong is certainly not the only place where China exports, while naturalizing, its paternalistic control.

Can you see how China jails the Uyghurs in Concentration Camps?

Can you see the surveillance cameras owned by the CCP-controlled HIKvision around the world?

Can you see the backdoors that China-owned Huawei, WeChat and Tiktok open?

Can you see that the made-in-China facemasks you pay to wear came from forced labour at the Concentration camps and sweatshop factories?

Now you can see the penetration of China's sharp power in the 21st century.

If you found it disturbing that your internet activities might be overseen by the PRISM program and your messages seen by Facebook, the black mirror is brought to you by TikTok, WeChat and mass surveillance methods that track your health, contacts, whereabouts and activities.

Welcome to a made-in-China 2020: with surveillance technology, anti-pandemic control and monitoring system.

Welcome to utopia.

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Reference:
New York Times, Wearing a Mask? It May Come From China’s Controversial Labor Program, 19 July 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000007226041/china-coronavirus-masks-uighur-labor-ppe.html

Further Reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/opinion/tiktok-china-strategy.html

#FaceMasks #LabourCamp #CoronavirusPandemic #Uyghurs #ChinesePaternalism #Health

#CoronavirusPandemic
Chinese Express "Joy" Over Trump's Covid-19 Infection in TV Interviews

US President Trump announced on Twitter on Oct 2, 2020 that he has been infected with COVID19.

A Taiwan TV channel compiled a video with footages obtained from US and Australia channels where Chinese, when interviewed, expressed "joy" to Trump's latest condition.

Watch the video:
https://www.facebook.com/news.ebc/videos/774038203166799

Source: EBC News, Taiwan #Oct2

#Trump #China #COVID19

#FakeNews #Disinformation
China Tampers With #WHO Video, Removes a Crucial "If", and Falsely Claims Vaccine Success

China's state-run CCTV News posted a video on Sept 24, 2020 to their Chinese-language Facebook page, claiming that WHO had stated that China's COVID-19 vaccine had "proved to be successful" in current clinical trials.

The video was reposted by a number of pro-Beijing Facebook pages, with captions such as "WHO Top Scientist: New Chinese COVID Vaccine Proven to be Effective", "China is Great 👍 For the Good of the World".

However, Factcheck Lab compared the video disseminated by China with the actual proceedings of WHO's press conference, and found that CCTV had cut the statement out of context, carefully removing a paronwith a crucial "if". Moreover, stock footage is played over the resulting audio clip, carefully concealing the distortion of facts upon the edits made by the China-owned news organization.

In the CCTV video [1], the quote from WHO Chief Scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, was modified to apparently claim that China had already created a successful vaccine:

"... very active vaccine development programme and several of their vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of clinical trial so this is also of interest to us so we're following those very closely. Some of their candidates actually proved to be successful in the clinical trials that are going on"

The full quote of Dr. Swaminathan is preserved in the conference transcripts [2] and video [3] of the Sept 21 press conference. The parts edited out by CCTV makes it sound that the above italicized quote was not meant to be an assertive statement on its own:

"We've been engaged in discussions with China for the last several months because, as you know, they also have a very active vaccine development programme and several of their vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of clinical trial so this is also of interest to us so we're following those very closely. <b>We've had very constructive and open discussions with them and they have always been reiterating their commitment to global access if some of their candidates actually prove to be successful in the clinical trials that are going on."

Taken in its entirety, it is clear that Dr Swaminathan's statement was only acknowledging China's promise to share any vaccines that they might develop.

In other words, the edited CCTV video, as well as the reposts made by pro-Beijing pages, had deliberately modified the scientist's statement to make false claims of China's success, and is clearly an intentional attempt to mislead the public.

NOTES:
[1] CCTV News video:
https://www.facebook.com/761870613900500/posts/3972027886218074

[2] Transcript of WHO COVID-19 Virtual Press Conference, 21 September 2020:

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcripts/joint-covid-19-virtual-press-conference---21-september.pdf#page=16

[3] Video of press conference, beginning at Dr. Swaminathan's statement (0:42:44):

https://youtu.be/ia8DElK7SE4?t=2564

Source: FactCheck Lab, Hong Kong #30Sept2020 https://www.factchecklab.org/20200930/

#WuhanPneumonia #CoronavirusPandemic #Covid19Vaccine
#CCPLies #CCTV

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[Editor's Note:

As the WHO represents the world's concerted effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, such misleading reports only serves to undermine the organization's credibility and international cooperation. It is all the more despicable that it would come from a state-run media such as China's CCTV; such falsehood is an affront to any journalist's commitment to the pursuit of the truth, and ought to be widely condemned.]

The false video was first reported by Factcheck Lab on Sept 30, 2020.

Their original report in Chinese is attached as follows:

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