Stephen Roney's Blog, page 244

The Case Against China

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Bojo Rumour

Rumour is that Boris Johnson was not given the hydrochloraquine fix. He refused on the grounds that it was not officially recommended, and he felt honour bound to follow the same recommendations his government was giving to the public.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

The Deadly Bats of Wuhan as I Remember Them

The official story of the origin of the COVID-19 virus is that it jumped interspecies from bats to humans at a Wuhan wet market.

As it happens, I have been to a Wuhan wet market. I have done my food shopping there.

I lived and taught in Wuhan back in the early 1990s.

Wet markets are common throughout China, as they are in the Philippines or Korea. Selling exotic species is not. They mostly sell relatively conventional items like fish and chicken. Some of them are live, and slaughtered on the spot. But the most exotic thing I saw at the Wuhan wet market back in 1992 was the turtles. “Foot fish,” they called them.

In Guangdong, people have exotic tastes. It is a common misunderstanding that this is true in China as a whole. The Wuhanites joke: “the people in Guangdong will eat anything with legs except a table, and anything with wings except an airplane.” They do not themselves eat exotics. Not bats, not cats, not pangolins. There are local delicacies we might find weird--sparrows in Shanghai, crickets, thousand-year-old eggs. But these are limited, and familiar. Horseshoe bats, brought in from 900 kilometres away? No. There is no chance such a thing could have become a local specialty. And unheard of in Wuhan when I was there.

On the other hand, we know for a published fact that a high-security virus lab in Wuhan, not far from the wet market, was experimenting with bat coronaviruses.

You do the math.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

A Journal of the Plague Year

Today was shopping day, delayed because the store is only open two times a week for seniors hour, and one of those times was superseded by the Good Friday holiday.

Everything seemed still in good order at the No-Frills. Unlike last time I went, there was no lineup. The shelves were full. They seemed to have an oversupply of paper towels, and they were on special. Some of the staff were not even wearing masks. Despite the floor markings, customers were not social distancing. As before, the staff were exceptionally kind and friendly. They are showing their best side: the heroism of ordinary people.

I wore a makeshift mask, made without sewing from a scarf and rubber bands, as demonstrated on YouTube by the US Surgeon General. It seemed to work well enough. I brought gloves too, but did not use them. I reasoned that I did not need both, since the issue was not touching my face with my hands. And the gloves are bulky and hard to handle food with.

I spent 40% more than in a typical week, but this is not surprising, and does not reflect higher prices. I was shopping for four more days than usual. I also picked up one or two extra items to belatedly celebrate Easter—I missed my chance to buy any special treats before the holiday. I had not planned ahead for the Good Friday closure.

Several YouTubers I follow for coronavirus news have grown disturbingly downbeat: Scott Adams, Bill Whittle, Tim Pool. Adams reports a doctor who says he has found no clinical value in hydroxychloroquine. Adams now reflects that even finding a vaccine is not going to solve this. Flu vaccines, after all, are usually only somewhat effective. We have “flattened the curve,” but now what? The virus is still out there. We cannot hide indoors forever. We have been congratulating ourselves because we have had fewer than 60,000 deaths, and the models had predicted a million.

But we have to end the lockdown, and all we have done, he says, is perhaps to spread that death toll over three years.

Bill Whittle simply admits to general lassitude and a sense of hopelessness.

Tim Pool is talking about the food supply chain breaking down. Three meat packing plants have closed in the US, because the workers have been falling sick. He thinks the social fabric is unravelling; society is close to collapse, and once it does, it will not be possible to just get back to work, even if the virus is defeated.

Other grim reports are that those who have recovered may not have immunity; that some are getting the virus a second time, or else it lurks in your system like herpes, and resurfaces; that even if you recover, it damages the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the brain.

Other weirdly apocalyptic things keep happening. Krakatoa has erupted. There are reports of 39 separate tornadoes in Georgia. Wildfires in Thailand. Locusts in Africa.

My current predictions of what may emerge when the fog of war lifts:

I think the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan; it did not begin in the Wuhan wet market.

I note that the Chinese government seems to have shut down the lab. The wet markets are reopening, Surely they would not do this if they really thought the wet markets were the problem.

China will now be an international pariah. Everybody is going to want to decouple. The Chinese government will not survive.

I think the charge that the experts reversed themselves on face masks is unfair. They are saying the same thing they have said all along. The issue has changed. Face masks do little to protect the average person from the virus; they should be saved for the health workers. Any form of makeshift face mask is useful, on the other hand, to prevent you from touching your face with infected hands, and to protect others from you if you happen to have it and cough, or, in the memorably awkward phrase of Justin Trudeau, “talk moistly.” This has been consistent from the beginning.

Nobody was misled; nobody was put in danger. Anyone can make a suitable mask from a scarf or handkerchief.

Some are complaining that the lockdowns were an overreaction, or a power grab by governments. I think shutting everything down was the right thing to do, given that we did not have enough test kits or medical supplies. Not to mention, enough information on what we were dealing with. Even if there is no available treatment, even if a vaccine will not end the threat, we needed to buy time until we had reliable test kits in large quantities. With them, we can keep the virus at bay by testing everyone regularly, and only quarantining those who have it. We seem to be very close to that point now.

But I also suspect the hydroxychloroquine combination works. It is eerie that we are not hearing of how often it is being used, whether it was used on celebrities like Boris Johnson, and so forth. If it was not effective, we would have heard more by now. We are not hearing more because it works, but governments need to get more of it.

President Duterte of the Philippines has more or less said so on national TV, my wife reports. He says there will be an effective treatment by May, but that the Philippines will not have it—the rich countries will get it first.

My wife’s situation in the Philippines has meantime gotten more difficult. They have banned motorcycles. These are the only vehicles available for the run from our house to the supermarket; it’s a long walk. Especially carrying groceries.

As for the report from one doctor that hydroxychloroquine/zinc/azithromycin does not work, this is not really news. He was using it on the most serious patients, as a treatment of last resort. I think we already knew that it was not effective at this late stage. It must be given early on, at first reported symptoms, to block the spread of the virus. This is how it works; not against pneumonia. Of course, with a limited supply, doctors are not likely to pass it out that freely. Once they can, hospital admissions may drop quickly.

I think the virus is sensitive to temperature and humidity. Not 100%; but to some degree. As is typical of viruses. The spread should naturally subside as summer arrives. I look at the world map, the relative lack of cases in the tropics, and how low the rate has remained in Australia and New Zealand, and I think this has to be the explanation. Everybody has cases, but in these countries, they tend to be people arriving from elsewhere. That means we should get some respite in the Northern Hemisphere soon.

Put this together, and I expect things to start opening up again, in North America and Europe, some time in May. There may be a second wave next October; but we will be prepared.

I think that once we are past this virus lockdown, economic recovery will be swift. Scott Adams likes to say that economics, and markets, are pure psychology. There will be a mood of exuberance just as there was after VE Day in 1945. People will be in the mood to celebrate by spending what money they have.

I think that whether or not it mostly ends by November, this crisis will be remembered to Trump’s credit; he will win reelection. There is still room for him to make a misstep; but the natural instinct is to rally around the leader in a crisis. It helps, too, that his opposition is in disarray, with a candidate who seems to have dementia.

When the fog clears, and partly in reaction to this period of confinement, there will now be a strong inclination to leave cities for more wide open spaces. Now that we have gotten more acclimatized to telecommuting, it will become more practical to do so.

Big city real estate prices may crater; a little loss in value may snowball, since many were in the market for investment purposes.

But they may not; I’m not prepared to make this a definite prediction. If things look shakier in China, there may be a lot of people in China who will want to scoop up real estate in North America to escape feared coming chaos there. While Chinese as a whole may be poorer, China is a big country; there may still be enough cash, and enough demand, to sustain that market.

Higher education should face the same pressures. Everyone now has experience with teaching and learning online. This has broken the biggest barrier to its spread: Luddite profs who did not want to have to learn new skills. For overwhelming economic reasons, more education now should stay online. Less prestigious colleges in the US may start going bust. At the same time, a lot of colleges are already financially floated by Chinese rich kids coming over for the cultural experience, and to qualify for Canadian or American residency. The attraction of this may grow if things seem shakier in China.

Putting it all together, I remain optimistic. I say an effective treatment and an end to the lockdown by June, followed by a sustained surge in the markets.

Let’s see if I am right.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Do Animals Go to Heaven?

This is a longstanding conversation in the Catholic Church. A lot of people say no.

The conventional thinking is that although animals have souls, their souls cease to exist at death. While “higher” animals are conscious and clearly feel emotions, this logic goes, they lack a moral sense. Therefore they cannot merit salvation. But this idea of the animal soul is from Aristotle, not the Bible.

I think this is illogical on its face. Physical things die. We have no evidence that spiritual things can ever die, and that would include animal souls. Think about it. All things we have experienced live on in memory. Memory is their spiritual form, and unlike their physical form, it endures. All memories are in principle eternal. (There is a distinction here between what is in the storehouse memory, and what we are able to retrieve to consciousness; these are two different things).

You might say, but our memories disappear when we die. But that is purely tautological: it is assuming that a soul can die. If a soul is spirit, our evidence is that it cannot.

A second point is that animals can clearly suffer. Would God, a loving God, permit this without some final consolation? The fact that animals cannot sin, and therefore cannot merit heaven, through acts of morality, is not relevant: all suffering is redemptive. This is true for humans; why would it not be true for animals?

And the argument that animals cannot merit heaven through their moral acts seems irrelevant, since none of us can merit heaven through our moral acts.

What about the Bible?

The Bible describes heaven in detail in the Apocalypse (aka Revelations, the last book), and while it does not mention animals, it does talk about all nature being redeemed, even all physical things being redeemed, and it does mention fruit trees. Why would there be plants, yet no animals? So it stands to reason there are animals in heaven.

You might object that Apocalypse describes the end of time. Animals may rise when a new heaven and a new earth appear, but not until then.

This seems like a dubious distinction. In eternity, is there really still a distinction between present and future? Alternately, if the animals simply sleep for a few thousand years, as do our physical bodies, before entering heaven, does this make much difference in terms of eternity?

As further Biblical evidence, there were animals in Eden: God apparently made them to enjoy paradise. They lost this original paradise because of man’s sin.

It follows that, if man is now redeemed, they are as well.

A separate argument is that, if a man dies and goes to heaven, and he has loved an animal, he would be happier if that animal were there as well. Aside from any merits of the animal—and the animal cannot have sinned and therefore merited punishment—the happiness of the man would require that animal to be in heaven.

Next bit of evidence: people in so-called “near death experiences” usually see departed relatives coming to meet them.

But at least some see departed pets.

To cap it off, Pope Francis has actually recently weighed in. In Laudato Si, he writes:

"Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all."

Animals, therefore, must go to heaven. It may be that, to them, the experience is not the same as it is to us. To us, the essence is the eternal presence. They may not be aware of this. But it will at least for them be an infinitely happy place, full of runs in open fields, like Eden before the Fall.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

The Wet Market as Wetware: Trump Derangement Syndrome

If the coronavirus was sent by God to wake people up, it has failed to wake one group. It seems to have had no noticeable effect on those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I see left-pinioned people repeatedly berating and blaming Trump for the virus. What could be more irrational? The virus is everywhere, and did not begin in the US.

Possibly their point is that he should have acted more decisively sooner? They love to repeat the false charge that Trump called the virus a “hoax.”

Yet this too makes no sense. He acted more decisively and sooner than most other leaders: faster than the Netherlands, or Sweden; sooner and stronger than Johnson in the UK or Trudeau in Canada. He acted more decisively than the WHO. Yet even though most of the derangers I hear from are Canadian, they always complain about Trump, never Trudeau.

It is all a puzzlement. What is it about Trump that makes these people insane?

I think the key is in the substance of their chief complaints. Narcissists habitually say the opposite of the truth, and these people are acting like narcissists.

Their chief complaint seems to be that Trump lies.

Their real problem is that he tells the truth.

Trump speaks more straightforwardly than other politicians, says what he thinks. He also regularly keeps promises.

They call him a bully.

Their real problem is that he will not be bullied.

The press, the “deep state,” and the “experts” cannot cow him.

Combine these traits, and he is fantastically dangerous to anyone who knows they are up to no good.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all!

Does anyone else still remember Easter Seals?

Every Easter, we would buy them in sheets, and put them on our letters. It was a big part of the season.

The money we spent on the stamps was used to help “crippled children.”

The charity marches on, but somehow Easter Seals are not the central part of the season they once were.

I think it is because we beat polio. Crippled children used to be much more common than they are. The March of Dimes, specifically for polio, is also no longer the big annual event it was.

Just as we beat tuberculosis—the Canadian Lung Association’s “Christmas Seals” used to be almost as big.

Just as, over the years, we beat leprosy, smallpox, cholera, typhus, AIDS… all mass killers. Not to mention a dozen once inevitable childhood diseases.

Just as we will beat COVID-19.

It could happen any day.

Then we will all rise from our homes again.

Resurrection is coming.

Pass it on.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

The Right Wing Virus

The left-wing drive for censorship and deplatforming is in effect an admission that, if anyone gets to hear the right wing’s arguments, they will be convinced by them.

But even more telling is how the left has taken to declaring people, like Joe Rogan or Lindsay Shepherd, “right wing” simply for talking or listening to someone who is, or was previously declared, right wing. This is a plain admission that you cannot hear the right wing’s arguments without agreeing with them.
'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

All in the Family

An illustration for The Classic of Filial Piety.


Family values are a scam.

Here’s my evolving take on it. We are all brothers and sisters, and we all have one king, one teacher, one father: God. To elevate any human in this way is idolatry: “name no man father but our father who is in heaven,” and so forth.

“Filial piety” is not a virtue; it is an instinct. Evolution has given us this instinct. When we are small, our entire existence depends on our parents, and we will be inclined to take them as the measure of all things.

Since this is the natural instinct, we get no moral points for it. In general, morality comes from suppressing instinct. So too here; we need to resist the natural idolatry of parent, teacher, or king. We must, that is, for it is the same thing, avoid idolizing family, or nationality, or race. We must judge all men not on their relationship to us, but on their own morality.

What, after all, if your parent, or teacher, or king, is depraved? Is it moral to obey Hitler if you are a German in Nazi Germany?

Surely it is not moral to follow an immoral order simply because it is given by your government, your society, your parents. The Nuremberg Trials assumed as much.

Let’s take it down now to the level of the family. Necessarily, on average, parents will be average in terms of their morality. Some will be better than average, and some, the same proportion as in the general population, will be very bad people. The children will necessarily know; you cannot conceal that much within a family.

Where is the morality in supporting and aiding an immoral parent in their immorality? Or in obeying them in general?

So where is the morality of “filial piety”? One supports a good parent in the same way one does a good person otherwise encountered.



I ran this by friend Darius. Friend Darius has some ties to the Unification Church (the “Moonies”), a group that especially stresses family values. He responded, in part:

I don't buy any idea that it's immoral to support sinful parents. God didn't tell us to honor father and mother unless they are wrong; more, parents even through their shortcomings tend strongly to loathe that their children copy a bad aspect of their character. They will rarely give their children an order to do something immoral unless they be ignorant of what that means. Even a bad father will hope his son turns out better than he was. Of course, at the extreme there will be exceptions.

To which I respond:

You are referring to the fourth/fifth commandment. But it is important to know what the word translated here as “honour” means. It does not mean “obey.” Greek “tima,” used here in the Septuagint, means “repay” (a debt). The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, an influential 19th century Jewish catechism, defines the original Hebrew sense:

What constitutes “honour?” One must provide them with food and drink and clothing. One should bring them home and take them out, and provide them with all their needs cheerfully.

The point is that you are obliged to look after your parents in their old age, just as they looked after you when you were very young. It was a social security system, as is confirmed by the second part of the commandment: “that your days may be long in the land.”

So it has nothing to do with obedience or assuming that they are wiser or better morally than anyone else. That is the idolatry. 


You write:

“parents even through their shortcomings tend strongly to loathe that their children copy a bad aspect of their character.”

This, I fear, is exactly wrong. This is true only if all parents are good people—an obviously false assumption.

All of us have flaws, and good people sin; we all sin. Even St. Peter sinned. Good people will regret this, and indeed not want their children to sin.

Bad people sin too, the difference is that they do not repent. There are goats as well as sheep. Bad people will want their children to sin as they did, and will tempt and encourage them to sin. This is human nature: it justifies their own behaviour. A lecher will want his children to be lecherous; a drunkard will want his son to drink with him. It is surely this sort of parent Jesus was speaking of when he said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”



Darius:

If I thought the NT told me it is wrong to call my father "father" and my teacher "teacher" or, if I were subject in a monarchy, to call the king, "king," then I'd question my interpretation. I think backtracking a few verses to the beginning of Matthew 23 will give an idea of what Jesus meant. I don't take everything in the Bible literally word for word.

Also, the "very bad people" to whom you refer, the sociopaths, tend less to be parents than ordinary folk. Many of them are in prison, any children they might have had likely to be with the other spouse or, often, in foster care with a potentially far more loving family.

Me:

I think it is faulty to assume that the New Testament cannot be saying anything radical, counterintuitive, or surprising. It is radical and shocking to say that God walked the Earth performing miracles, and that Jesus rose from the dead. In his day what Jesus said was shocking enough to have him put to death. Accordingly, the radical interpretation should be favoured. Had the message all along been just “go about your lives as seems most convenient and natural, as you always have done” there would have been no need for the incarnation, the passion, or the Bible.

This is not an issue of taking the Bible literally or not literally. Of course one should not take the Bible literally at all times; nobody ever did, until about the early 20th century. But the alternative is not reading it to say whatever you like. If and when a Bible passage is not meant literally, there must be clear textual warrant for this, and for what you assert it to mean. If, for example, a historical character or date is named, you are not reading a parable but history. If an animal starts talking, you are not reading history, but a fable.

When the meaning is not literal, it is also not arbitrary. Metaphors and parables are more precise in their significance than literal statements; you cannot make them just mean anything. What point are they meant to convey, and why is the point not being stated more plainly? This must be justified from the text.

The rest of the chapter in Matthew seems to me to confirm the literal reading of this passage. Yes, Jesus is saying you should not refer to anyone but God as father, and anyone but God as teacher.

Moreover, Jesus seems in the gospel to follow this rule himself. He refers to no one as teacher. The Pharisees were the professional teachers, and he does not speak of them with any great respect, does he? When his mother appears and asks him to do something, he answers, “woman, what have I to do with thee?”

When brought before Pilate, Jesus could probably have saved his life by making some simple act of obeisance to Caesar, saying, as the crowd did, “Caesar is my King.” He remained silent, although it exposed him to the capital charge of treason.

The meaning is clear. We just don’t want to read it as saying what it is saying. Because it goes against our instinct, which is to say, against what we want to do.

I grant that the important thing is to follow the command in spirit, not by the letter. It does no harm to call your biological father father, or your teacher professor. The harm is in thinking this means anything special, or that they are anything special because of this social position. They are just brothers playing a role.

“Also, the ‘very bad people’ to whom you refer, the sociopaths, tend less to be parents than ordinary folk. Many of them are in prison”

Psychologists say that this is a common misconception. Most bad people, that is, psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, and borderlines, to use the psychiatric terminology, are not in prison, but in responsible positions in society. In fact, psychopaths and such are especially likely to occupy high positions in government and management. They want power; they seek it ruthlessly; they are more likely to get it.

Only stupid psychopaths end up in prison. Along with lots of other people who are not psychopaths. We all sin; we all make mistakes. Some are even prisoners of conscience.

I do not have stats, but it also seems to me common sense that psychopaths and narcissists are more likely to have children, and more children, than the general population. Having a child gives you someone to control and own—control and own more totally than you can control another human being in almost any other social situation. It’s a no-brainer that anyone who is power-hungry, or who enjoys bullying and abusing others, is going to want children. Lots of children.

Besides, making children feels good, and a bad person may not care so much that a child results, or what might become of it.



Unificationism is often seen as a blending of Christian with Confucian ideals. Darius defended the Confucian system, which sees filial piety as paramount, and the government as equivalent to the parent.

He summarizes the Confucian virtue of “filial piety” as a refusal to rebel against authority.

“Of course, when authority is clearly wrong,” he adds, “then we are obliged to go our own way…”



I think that puts it too mildly, and a bit askew. As a general principle, we are obliged to respect whatever authority is present, for the sake of social order. “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” Prudence is a virtue.

However, if a government reveals itself as habitually immoral—if it, like an individual, succumbs to settled vice— “it is [our] right, it is [our] duty, to throw off such Government.” As some wise men once said. Not just a right to go our own way, but a duty to resist such government for the sake of our fellow citizens, our posterity, and mankind.

You may recognize where I am getting those quotes. It is a certain famous political document; but based on universal principles enunciated long before by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, established Christian principles. It is selfish to continue to support and obey an immoral government. It is almost always in one’s own best interests to do so: to grow wealthy, receive its patronage, and not get either imprisoned or hanged. It is the more selfless act to rebel; it might, if you are lucky, also benefit you, but the odds are against this. More likely, it is a sacrifice, for your neighbours, your descendants, or the others one’s government is oppressing.

Even if a government is completely moral, it is in not really to your moral credit to obey it; to do so is simply in your interests. Otherwise they fine you or put you in prison.

This is all most easily illustrated at the level of government, because one can refer to historical parallels; but all logically applies to the family as well.



Darius:

“Confucian mores did, in the lack of the Judeo-Christian value system I fear we often take for granted, keep Far Eastern society together for 2,000 years or more.”

This is true, and speaks well of Confucianism as a tool; but says nothing about it as a moral system. If a system succeeded in keeping a bad government and society together for 2,000 years, that would make it immoral.

I think it speaks poorly of surviving Confucian traditions that the people of North Korea have not yet rebelled; that Mao, the greatest mass murderer in history, is still revered in China; that Japan, unlike Germany, has never really come to terms with its pre-war racism and war guilt.

I admire Confucius and Confucianism in general; but this reveals a fatal flaw.
'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Opening the Chinese Box

I tend to beat the drum for the hydroxychloroquine treatment. Perhaps this is one more example of denial: I want it to be true.

I think it is based in part on my assumption that this plague is sent by God—almost a necessary assumption for a monotheist. That means God has a plan, and it seems to me that a “miracle cure” would make sense in terms of such a divine plan.

But Scott Adams has suggested another bit of evidence that might be significant. Scott Adams is a really smart guy, always worth watching on YouTube. He says he got the idea from Tucker Carlson, another really smart guy, on Fox News.

Seeing the devastating outbreaks in new epicentres in Iran, Italy, Spain, New York, over the past months, Adams asks, why was there never a similar new epicentre in China on the scale of Wuhan, or these others? Why has the same pattern of spread not been seen within China as has been seen outside China? The virus hit Wuhan during the Chinese New Year, and people dispersed from Wuhan all over China. While there have been local outbreaks all over, there have been no new major centres of spread to rival Wuhan.

China has for some time even been sending out ridiculously low numbers for new cases and new deaths, numbers that suggest the virus is over. Today’s figures are 46 new cases, 3 new deaths, in all of China.

Most of us have simply scoffed at these figures—the Chinese government is lying, as we know they often do.

Yet, Adams suggests, if there really were continuing large numbers of hospital admissions and deaths, wouldn’t it leak out? We do hear rumours, but wouldn’t there be more solid evidence in this era of interconnectedness and social media?

Adams thinks the most plausible explanation is that the Chinese have, and have been aggressively deploying, a vaccine or cure.

If it is a vaccine, though, Adams speculates that it would also be hard to vaccinate large numbers of people without this becoming apparent to the outside world. Moreover, why would the Chinese keep this a secret? Aside from humanitarian concerns, if they did so, and it later leaked out, as it was bound to, it would be devastating to their international reputation that they did not share their knowledge.

If not a vaccine, by elimination, they have some treatment.

This would still probably mean the figures are cooked; people are still getting the virus. But it would mean that the treatment available is so effective that this is invisible to the outside world. They are perhaps just getting what looks like a bad cold, or the like. They are given the medicine, sent home for a few days. No spike in hospital beds, in ventilator use, surgical masks, or burials.

And also, quite possibly, a genuine reduction in the number of new cases. If some pill kills the virus in the body within a few days, that leaves far less chance for others to be infected. It also could mean that people are getting well as quickly as new people are getting sick, keeping down the number of active cases. As herd immunity increases, also slowing the virus.

Doesn’t the same objection apply here as to a vaccine? Isn’t China’s international reputation going to suffer if they are doing this secretly, and it comes out?

No: because they are not doing it secretly. They already told us they were doing this. We first learned about the possibilities of hydroxychloroquine from Chinese studies. In addition to this, China some time ago officially released internationally a report on what they found clinically worked and did not work. And they cited chloraquine in this study. They said they were using it, and it seemed to work.

They did so precisely to avoid the charge that they were holding anything back. Would they have bothered if they did not think they had valuable advice to give?

And this same logic also suggests that, if they have found a cure, it will be some substance mentioned in that public report.

And it must have been something already fairly readily available, like chloraquine, if China has already been able to deploy it widely.

China was better equipped to move quickly on such a cure than most, not just because they can skip testing and trials, not needing to fear any lawsuits or electoral repercussions, but also because they are a huge centre for drug manufacture.

The really good news is that the current Chinese figures for new deaths and new infections may actually be more or less real.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.