That trope again. First, that's spilled milk, even it were true, and thus is a pointless discussion. Second, local Chinese authorities screwed up. That was followed by one of the quickest, strictest and most effective reactions. As for the international response, that could be based on cases in Korea and Japan, for example. Europe reacted quick enough in Spring, after Italy waited a couple of days to long. Which is now followed by a real screw up in Germany. So no, China didn't hide anything once central government took over. And no, even if they had that would not be an acceptable excuse for screwing up ones response.
It's not a "trope". Several papers ended up getting censored, and local samples getting destroyed. I was around and combing through the news stream at that time. Project Evidence was the group of people collating the circumstantial evidence around it, and I've seen a notable dearth of material that doesn't smell of some level of having been contrivance to put the field of virology squarely outside the crosshairs of the public's ire, or having been motivated by plausible geopolitical motivations or face saving measures.
If you look at the locality of happenstance, the lab escape is more than worth looking into. Just because search engines are bombing anything with regard to it to the bottom of search results, and press farms are working hard at propagating the zoonotic origin without touching on any of the impracticalities inherent to making that full set of connections feasible does not mean the information is not out there to be found.
I think you’re just engaging in conspiracies here.
It’s possible that China’s central CDC ordered the local samples to be destroyed, because the local facility was not authorized or equipped, to handle infectious diseases properly.
Think of it this way. Do you want junior high school kids, handling contaminated biowaste, where the probability or risk of infection is very high.
And this was at the very beginning, when the science behind this virus and disease was not fully known.
It’s safer to throw the samples into a fire furnace, than to risk transporting it or storing it, where its leakage could further infect more people.
There's truth in this, but you need to ask, why did local officials screw up? And it's probably related to the way mistakes are treated by central government. So, even if central government was not responsible for the individual actions early in the pandemic, they set the framework for how they interact with local governments, and thus still bear responsibility.
You want examples outside of China of more serious screw ups, once the real seriousness was known?
Ok, then. Bavaria had beer festivals in February and March, Austria kept Ischgl open and infected most of Europe. Other regions let the German carnival running. Leipzig had Champions League match. All in Feb and March. Just from top of my head.
At least local Chinese authorities still had the benefit of doubt. And did we already forget how fast they built hospitals and how many people the tested?
Yup, all screw ups. In my opinion, the scientific community should be held to a higher standard on this, but sure, you can judge them alongside the local beer festival I guess.
Setting aside the idea of intentional coverup, China is still the most likely area origin.
Normalized working/eating close to all animals, wet markets, pollution, lack of food care (incl refridgeration), unclean water, and more all make for a hotbed of potential disease.
