43: NEW WORLD SUPER FLU!!! Chinese Corona Virus Update #3

Do you like my cameraman? Hey everybody. Hello. Hello. Here we are from beautiful Langkawi Island in Malaysia just hanging out by our pool. We would love to give you an update on the latest that we know about the coronavirus. Yeah thanks so much for all of your feedback and we're glad that the videos that we're posting are helpful to you and to family and friends and many of you have written in that you have friends that live overseas or near China and so the information was really helpful so we're glad that that's happening and certainly want to give you as accurate a picture as we can from what we're hearing from people on the ground there. Wow I feel like this may be the first time I'm not gonna speak for you but the first time I've ever been relevant in my life. You? You're always relevant. Oh thank you. Ever since I married you sweetie. We are just humbled by the fact that wow you all shot us way over that 200 subscriber mark and now we're on our way to 300. We ask that if you like this video and want to see more like it please hit the subscribe button the like button and share like you guys have been doing and it's made all the difference in helping spread this information. So last time we spoke to you we actually said that we were going to get some video from friends on the ground in China but when we talked to friends all over China they were really hesitant to and resistant to actually putting their name or their face or their voice to anything that might be about China or criticizing what the Chinese government is doing for fear of repercussion. If you've been following the news you know that several times the Chinese government has arrested just regular netizens who posted on the internet and even reporters who were reporting about the outbreak of the virus. So you could understand and we really do understand what our friends are saying in terms of not being not wanting to have their name or their face or their voice put out there. So yeah I was really surprised by that weren't you I was thinking because I mean they are our friends and they they're outspoken on these issues but you know even contacting them on WeChat we know that that that's the platform it's like the whatsapp of China. Everything's monitored. It's all monitored. Be careful. So I just thought that was relevant and that and by the way please make sure you stay tuned to the end of this video where this is a serious situation but in the midst of seriousness it's nice to lighten it up a little bit and there are some really funny things that are going around out there. Memes and some cute little comedy videos. We hope they're comedy videos. Yeah. People really believe that the coronavirus comes from the Corona beer. We're not really sure if that's a joke or if it's serious and as you know just yesterday the WHO has now said that this is a global the outbreak is a global emergency. World Health Organization. Yeah the World Health Organization has declared it. Not the band. They're not back. Roger and the boys. Definitely not the band. Okay. The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus to be a global emergency and interestingly enough friends in China posted on their WeChat moments that the WHO actually said it was not to be a global crisis. A media outlet in Africa actually posted that the WHO voted that it was not and claimed that that the coronavirus was not a global emergency and that was not true. So it's interesting that there are false reports that are happening in China. No surprise I guess anywhere there are going to be false reports. Yeah with journalism there are going to be mistakes and then we have to look at some of it's intentional but and it's hard to tell the difference between the two. We do have some friends from China who have sent some things in writing to us and gave their opinion about some some issues that are being faced in China and we thought we'd share some of that with you. Oh let's hear them. Oh god this breeze is wonderful isn't it? Tropical breeze. You want to start? You're doing a great job sweetie. There are some new sites that each day are updating the numbers of people who have been infected and those who have passed away and those who have been what they call cured. Not recovering but actually cured and the friends on the ground our Chinese friends do believe that the numbers can be trusted. They said that if the numbers are slow they're lagging in accuracy it's because the Chinese government has said that they have to confirm any time a person a patient has been diagnosed with the coronavirus they actually have to do a second test and confirm at a national lab to ensure that they don't have any wrongly judged cases. Now the question we have about that is in the interim if they die or something happens to them are they counted as part of the numbers? We don't know. Yeah. And that's something that obviously we're not finding out. Today we just learned and obviously anything we share with you now. It's kind of all we've got to go on. Yeah addition news from the news reports from other provinces also tell the story of patients. The more information about the patients like gender, age, background and more or less their travel history in the last couple of weeks. This way anyone who traveled the same time or the same mode of transport can monitor their health carefully because we know that the incubation of the virus can be up to two weeks and people who are asymptomatic can still be spreading the virus. So they have been posting in Chinese the where the people were in in what part of the city, where they traveled, what time they traveled, what train number they were in and giving that information out to ensure that that anyone who may have been in the same places carefully monitoring their own health. And then also the government one of the I guess the benefits of the Chinese government and the communist government is that people listen to what they say for the most part. Although some yeah they've got a way of communicating with them it's like they get the message out and everybody gets it and everyone follows it. The Chinese government has a way of communicating effectively where people actually the people listen and one of the things they're they're asking people to do and they're relying on the people to do it is a to self-contain. So do not go out of your house if you don't need to. Don't gather in family gatherings. Don't go to public places. They've shut down all of the tourist locations, the Disney World, the city, the Great Wall, the parks are all shut down. So they're trying to avoid anyone from unnecessary contact which has I think yeah transportation has shut down for the most part and if you do go out you must wear a mask. They're forcing everyone who is out in public to have a mask on and most people are complying with that anyway because if you don't the repercussions could be quite serious. So that's really really interesting that it seems like the virus is being contained now or so they're saying the virus is being contained really in the cities outside of Wuhan and Hubei province because people are complying with not going out. So how about you're talking about some facts, a timeline as far as from when the virus was discovered and various things along the way that the government's attempted to do to suppress it. It's normal modus operandi for the government and how it's possibly these things have helped spread disease. You want to go over a few of those? I'll also place them up on the screen so people can see them. Sure. So there are many who say that the government actually actively covered up the outbreak of the virus and let me give you some dates and what happened on those dates. So on the 8th of December the first case was reported this is the 8th of December in 19 19 in 2019. Yeah. So after the first case was reported it took over three weeks on the 30th of December. Experts arrived in Wuhan and they started to research the outbreak at that point. On the 1st of January eight people were actually arrested because they were talking about the virus this was actually netizens not reporters but just local people and the first priority of the government was to crack down on the rumors and not control the virus but they allowed anyone who was talking about drinking fresh ginger or eating fresh garlic and things like that to reduce viruses they allowed those kinds of rumors or stories to get out there. Ancient Chinese secrets. But they anything that was actually legitimate and real they were shutting down. Because that would have added to the seriousness. They didn't want anyone to know about it. I think they were we think they were trying to hide it. And it's further complicated about the Chinese New Year and the fact that historically culturally this is such a big deal so the timing couldn't have been worse leading up to the New Year. Very much so. So that was the 1st of January the eight people were arrested and then on the 11th of January the first death actually was recorded from the virus. The 14th of January just three days later the media was arrested for communicating about the virus and the death that had occurred. So they wanted to report it and they were actually arrested. Four days later so this is seven days one week after the first reported death. Wuhan this is the city where this all began held a 100,000 person banquet and all the people at that banquet ate in the same dishes. This is just you know a couple of miles from the site where the virus broke out and two days only two days after 49 cases of the virus had been made public. So and this was encouraged this banquet was encouraged in the newspapers and by the local government. On the 18th of January the same day the officials in Wuhan said oh the disease is not dangerous you do not have to worry and did not make it obligatory for people to wear masks or to take precaution. On the 21st of January Chinese New Year celebrations began and performers actually started to fall ill from the virus but they kept performing and doing what they were paid to do. They were actually praised by the government for pushing through their performances with what they called courage. So interesting perspective and then the 22nd of January Wuhan people were then finally asked to wear a mask. It's almost two months after well up and a half after the first case was was reported and the 23rd they quarantined the city but that was after they gave 24 hours they gave a 24-hour warning to people that they could leave the city and as we told you four or five million people did actually leave the city prior to the quarantine. So you think all five million of those people went out and infected other potentially it's almost two months from the beginning until the quarantine to allow this thing to spread. Exactly. On the 27th of January the mayor of Wuhan actually resigned and stepped down because if you know Chinese culture someone has to take the fall for something going wrong and it's usually the lowest man on the totem pole that has a high enough position that they could make some decisions. So but interestingly the mayor of Wuhan turned around and blamed Beijing because they said the central government was fully aware of everything that was happening from the beginning and the only way to actually communicate anything was to get approval first from Beijing. So the central government had to give approval for every announcement that was made and when you think about that the time that lapsed or the change of the message to tamp down how serious it was easily could have happened and that's what he's claiming. So their hesitation actually exacerbated the situation? Either their hesitation or they changed the message to make it less serious. You know we don't know. Right. But that was the 27th where he stepped down and on the 29th people were still being arrested because they were talking about the virus and the serious use of the virus. The 30th false reports that the WHO, the World Health Organization, declared it not a global emergency started to spread in China like wildfire but the reality is on the 31st, that's today, the WHO did declare the virus a global emergency and from the news reports... Was that Pete Townsend or Roger Daltrey that gave the announcement? You're showing your age. Whoops. If you follow the news the United States government has actually put a travel ban on those going to China saying that any unnecessary travel and they've re-emphasized that and have increased the level of concern for people going to China and they actually have recommended that any foreigners in China should get out. We do know that the number of flights going in and out of China now has been, they have been greatly reduced since people are not going in and out and the travel has been reduced. I'm just glad we're not there right now. Yeah me too. Cheating winter. Yeah. Down in Langkawi, Malaysia. Man it's perfect weather down here isn't it? It is beautiful. The other thing that we learned is that trip.com which is a very common, a very common service that the Chinese use for, well and foreigners use for travel. We used it. They're providing refunds to anyone who has flights within China or in and out of China because they want, well I'm guessing the Chinese government is pressuring them because they don't want people to travel. So if you, if you get a full refund you're less apt to get on the plane. If you don't get a refund maybe you're more apt to travel and you don't do what the government says. They'll just flick that switch right? You won't show up on the internet anymore. So there are some laowai. Laowai? Is that how you say it? Yeah. There's some laowai in China that are asking some really good questions like if China did such a great job addressing the issue when it arose, when it arose why has the virus actually spread all over the world? And if you look at the data in Wuhan there are plenty of hospital beds for anyone who is sick so why do they have to actually build new hospitals and why are they stressing to build new hospitals? And there's no possible way that they can build a new hospital in one week but they have had longer than one week to actually be creating these new hospitals because they've known about this since the 8th of December so possibly these new hospitals were in formation because of the advance notice of the potential for And then the other question is why are villages and cities blocking roads? Even I heard today from friends in Qingdao that roads leading out and into Qingdao are all blocked as well. You can't get out. So why are all these roads being blocked and why are people not allowed into certain villages and being held in quarantine and why is everyone being temperature checked as they walk in and out of their apartment buildings if this is all under control and the government did all they should to have kept the virus at bay? We don't know. It's interesting there have been a lot of reported cases in the media of conflict because of the virus and I'm sure people's anxiety is very high as they travel or they meet other Chinese or Chinese meeting other Chinese even. We met some women in duty free yesterday and they were not very interested in talking to us about their experience of being outside of China and not being able to go back. They're from Sichuan. They were interested in buying a lot of baijiu though. They did buy a lot of baijiu. Oh my gosh that's a very very strong distilled spirit that's very traditional in Chinese culture. And perhaps could kill the coronavirus very easily. Yeah you need to drink that with But another case that was in the news was a flight out of Nagoya, Japan. It was a China Southern Airlines flight that had about 70 passengers who refused to get on the flight when they learned that some of the passengers riding on that plane were actually from Wuhan and those from Shanghai said we will not get on the plane and it was a standoff I heard for about five hours until the ambassador from I don't know if it was from Tokyo or from from that from Nagoya or the ambassador the consulate general I don't know who but the ambassador they said had to come and negotiate and eventually the flight did take off. It was five hours late but it did eventually get to Shanghai. I wonder how long it's going to take for that Wuhan stigma to to fade away. I think that's going to be around for quite a while. I think so too. I think Wuhan is going to be a city that most people avoid for for the long term. Yeah we don't have a lot of rental property there. Yeah no stock in Wuhan. So one of the one of the things that we've been asked is to purchase before we come back is to purchase masks and hand cleaning materials like alcohol rubs and wipes and alcohol sanitizers hand sanitizers hand sani right yeah we've been told please bring that back and please bring masks back because there just are no masks in China that can be found and the ones that are found are very expensive so there's actually a doctor we saw on the internet who provided a an alternative to a mask and that is using women's bras and so I'll show you some of that in a second but yeah using a bra as a temporary mask it works and if that helps that's great. Necessity is the mother of invention. So there are a number of friends of ours that are still on the ground in Qingdao and we asked them kind of what's happening. We miss you guys. Some of them have sent photos from their apartments down to one of the main roads called Hong Kong Road which is always packed with cars traffic and there are no cars on the road. They said some of the grocery stores are open some said the shelves are packed some said the shelves are empty they said vegetables are in high demand and have increased in price but you can get some things. Everyone said that the only only fever that's found in Qingdao at the moment is cabin fever because they're bored as all get out. They're you know being stuck inside your home and not really having the freedom to move about. It has to be so boring. It's like being under house arrest I would think. I want to talk about laowai and yellow fever. You need to take that out. Okay. You can count on that. So the government has continued to to say to avoid going out in public places. One of our friends just rode a train back to Qingdao and sent a picture of the train and the entire car was empty. So people are heeding the call of what the government has asked and the cooperation that they've asked for. So the last piece of news that we have is that our school like the other schools in Shandong province have delayed their opening to the 17th of February now is the new date. We're really hoping that that's the case. Yeah. But at any point in time that can be delayed again. I think everyone's in a wait-and-see pattern at the moment and watching to see how quickly cases are increasing because there's no sense in anyone returning to China if this is going to spiral out of control. So if any of y'all are from Malaysia or Southeast Asia and have extra rooms in your house and don't mind some visitors go ahead and put your comments down below addresses and everything only on the sunny side of the island please we don't want to go to the east where it's raining and we'll see you soon right babe exactly and we don't eat too much just just a lot yeah that's right we just nibble a lot like hungry bunnies right exactly like hungry bunnies kind of like the monkeys so uh so if uh if you are someone who doesn't want to see some of the memes that have been developed around the world we totally understand and now's the time to shut the video but if you're interested in seeing some of the memes and the creativity that um that has been uh just manifested because of well yeah i mean you just kind of lighten it up a little bit there can be some joking around in the midst of seriousness i think that's the way a lot of people help get through with it yeah yeah it's to laugh a little bit humor is just a gift and it's not meant to be misplaced or to harm anybody yeah so if you're interested in seeing those they'll start now but otherwise we thank you for watching this video and thanks again for subscribing and liking it and sharing it with your friends thanks for supporting the blown away channel we are blown away by your support and your continued subscriptions and your shares your comments please keep that up it means it really means a lot to us uh we love doing these things for you and uh we'll keep it up all right keep you posted yeah thank you what are you doing get back now what do you mean get back stop what are you pouring your beers down the sink why are you pouring my beers down you're off your head jen it's got stop pouring my beers down the sink it's got nothing to do with bottles of the problems here again because you see the contagion creeping and the virus is indeed spreading and the memory of stars planted in my brain still remains we stand and fight the virus