Can Information from China Be Trusted?

January 31, 2020

Can Information from China Be Trusted?

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has reached 9,776, with 213 deaths, according to the interactive map provided by Johns Hopkins CSSE (Center for Systems Science and Engineering).

But is it plausible that China has locked down 17 cities because of 213 deaths?

A Jan 28 directive issued by China’s Ministry of Public Security ordered all police departments throughout the country to make “wartime preparations.” The police are to help “control the disease” by enforcing quarantine orders and helping to speed the distribution of medical supplies, while at the same time “maintaining social stability” by “severely” punishing any public or online reporting about the spread of the epidemic.

A Twitter post read: “The [Wuhan] city government and Hubei Provincial Civil Affairs Ministry have dispatched vehicles, staff, and protective gear to each funeral house [in Wuhan].” The post went on to offer “free cremation for the corpses of coronavirus victims” who died on January 26 or later. The reason the city was deploying these new resources, it said, was “To improve the capacity of transporting and dealing with corpses.”

The post obviously didn’t please the censors, writes Steven Mosher. An hour later the above sentences were deleted from the text.

Crematorium workers in the city of Wuhan claim that bodies are being sent from hospitals without being added to the official record.

The first wave of cases must have occurred in December or earlier because by Jan 2, 41 cases admitted to hospital in Wuhan had a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of 2010-nCoV. But Wuhan was not placed under quarantine until 5 million people had left to celebrate the New Year, carrying the virus all across China.

Before the 1918 influenza epidemic, a solo, horse-and-buggy physician in Kansas, Dr. Loring Miner, made the correct diagnosis of an unusually lethal outbreak of influenza and did all he could to sound the alarm. The U.S. Public Health Service ignored him, writes John M. Barry in his 2004 book, The Great Influenza: the Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. Might social media have stopped that epidemic in its tracks?

China’s Great Firewall is the most sophisticated internet censorship operation in the world. Google’s secret Project Nightingale to facilitate the Chinese dictatorship’s censorship has apparently been stymied for now. However, U.S. providers of online services have yielded to pressure from Rep. Adam Schiff to suppress material he deems inappropriate for the public access. At the moment, this is restricted to information on vaccine adverse reactions. The suppression of free speech and public access to government-disfavored views is the subject of a lawsuit by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

The 2019-nCoV may be unstoppable in China by now. Protecting the rest of the world requires vigilance and free communication.

For further information, with links to information on protecting yourself and your family, see Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, September 2019.

Please respond to janeorientmd@gmail.com or (520) 323-3110. I would be happy to discuss these issues with you.

Jane M. Orient, M.D., Tucson, AZ

President, Physicians for Civil Defense

URGENT UPDATE, PRAY FOR THE PEOPLE OF CHINA, TEAM JESUS!

U.S. tells Americans not to travel to China as death toll rises to 213
The U.S. government told Americans not to travel to China and said those currently visiting or living in the Asian country should try to leave.

Read in Bloomberg: https://apple.news/A1BZFO5hUSuW1yp5CMLc3Ew

U.S. ADVISES NO CHINA TRAVEL; VIRUS TOLL AT 200

America needs to cut off all trade with China! We need to bite the bullet and do it! It is not good to partner with such evil! Dealing with a government that kills people? We are praying for all the people in China!

Save the Persecuted Christians: New Rules for Religious Groups Begin This Weekend in China

‘Harsh’ Rules That Go into Effect Feb. 1 Will Require ‘All Religious Personnel to Support and Implement Total Submission to CCP’

WASHINGTON—A new set of “harsh” rules announced in late 2019 in China will go into effect on Feb. 1, and advocates like Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC) say the measures will even further limit and endanger Chinese Christians and people of other faiths.

The rules will require “all religious personnel to support and implement total submission to the Chinese Communist Party,” reports The Christian Post. They complete the “Regulations on religious affairs” revised two years ago and implemented on Feb. 1, 2018. Six chapters and 41 articles make up the new measures and deal with “the organization, functions, offices, supervision, projects and economic administration of communities and groups at both a national and local level.”

“Christians in China are already under extreme persecution,” said Dede Laugesen, STPC executive director. “While very little religious freedom was afforded in China, now every aspect of life for religious groups or communities, including how they gather and operate, will be under the thumb of the government. To add insult to injury, religious leaders will even be required to support and implement submission to the CCP.”

Added Dr. Bob Fu, leader of ChinaAid, a partner of Save the Persecuted Christians, “The new rule codifies the CCP’s ideological and leadership supremacy over all religious affairs in China. From now on, the Chinese Communist Party becomes the head of church, temples, mosques and other religious institutions.
The CCP will dominate every sphere of religion, from religious doctrines, leadership selection, financial management and foreign exchanges. There will be little autonomy and independence left for any religious organizations in China. No independent religious institutions such as house churches will be legally allowed or tolerated for existence unless it’s coerced to join the CCP’s established ‘patriotic religious organizations.’”

Persecution watchdogs warn that the latest measures will be used by the Communist government as a “legal tool to further tighten space for religious groups,” as International Christians Concern told The Christian Post. A Chinese Catholic priest also told Asia News the new provisions are another example of the Chinese Communist Party’s continued crackdown on religion, stating, “In practice, your religion no longer matters, if you are Buddhist, or Taoist, or Muslim or Christian: the only religion allowed is faith in the Chinese Communist Party.”

China has put in place, and is exporting to other countries of persecution, advanced population surveillance techniques. The country has also received criticism for enacting a social score system that further encroaches on the right of Chinese to worship freely.

The mission of Save the Persecuted Christians is to save lives and save souls by disseminating actionable information about the magnitude of the persecution taking place globally and by mobilizing concerned Americans for the purpose of disincentivizing further attacks on those who follow Jesus.

One way is through STPC’s “The People of the Cross” exhibit, which features images, facts and quotes about the persecution of Christians in multiple countries. The banner highlighting China reports that Christians in China are tracked and powerless to stop the destruction of their churches. The banner quotes Gordon G. Chang, commentator, essayist and author of “The Coming Collapse of China.”

“The Communist Party’s totalitarian ‘social credit’ system—made possible by artificial intelligence, camera surveillance, data mining and other tools—will also be used to repress Christians and others outside China,” Chang says.

The banner continues: “The Communist Party represses its citizens, imprisons human rights lawyers and pastors, demolishes churches, and has engaged in large-scale forced abortions and organ harvesting. China forbids religious education, collects DNA and biometric data from religious believers, and tortures and kills prisoners of conscience, including many Christians.”

Additional banners in “The People of the Cross” exhibit feature countries such as Turkey, North Korea, Nigeria and India. A majority of the countries highlighted in the banners are high on Open Doors’ 2020 World Watch List, on which China moved up four spots to No. 23.

With so much of the world’s Christian population being imprisoned and/or harassed for their beliefs, such as Christians in China, the need has never been greater for the sort of grassroots campaign STPC’s SaveUs Movement is working to foster. Its efforts are modeled after a miraculously successful one that helped free another population suffering from heavy persecution—Soviet Jews—by penalizing those in the Kremlin responsible for such repression. Through this movement, Save the Persecuted Christians endeavors to provide American policymakers with the popular support they need to effect real change worldwide and alleviate systemically the suffering being experienced by so many of those following Christ.