Masayoshi Son wanted to give his home country Japan 1 million tests, and suffered a huge backlash on Twitter from people who said too many tests would "overwhelm the health system".
The news feel under-informed to me. Much of the backlash against Son is carried-over from his other comment to send free masks to medical personnel. People are “wondering loudly” where on earth does he get so many masks when almost literally nobody in Japan can buy any. Doesn’t his move make the problem worse? The test tweet is under similar fire. How is he going to “provide” these tests? Japanese people are not getting tests not because they cannot afford them, but there is not enough medical resource to run the tests. He offering free tests does not move the needle much, but on the other hand may disrupt the already short-handed medical personnel.
Son has long been criticised in Japan of deception via selective facts. The reputation may or may not be justified (he might just not be good at expressing himself and never felt the need to clarify), but his recent tweets are very on-brand with a bold claim and little detail, and it’s understandable for the Japanese to express the same doubts based on his persumed track record.
Shouldn't there be hundreds of labs with these machines though?
Yes. Roche just got FDA approval on a SARS-COV-2 test that will take four (4) hours that works with two of their (whatever you call the machine) models. Per Roche there are around 110 of those machines in the United States. Bloomberg had estimated throughput numbers and also indicated that Roche has tests that work with some of their other, slower equipment (that I assume is in the US as well).
Mayo Clinic recently developed a 2 hour test.
The limits on testing are, from my POV, entirely political at this point.
How does Korea have 15 minute tests (from when a sample is collected) and we're excited about a 2 hour or 4 hour one? I'm not being flippant, I imagine that whatever korea is doing they've been open about it and we know how to do manufacture everything and perform those 15 minute tests, but I imagine there must be some reason that we aren't doing them.
They don't. The drive through stations send samples off to a lab that uses a 5–6 hour process. If memory serves, a Hong Kong company devised a 45 minute test otherwise in most places you're looking at hours not minutes.
You're right. I swear I saw some article that said that South Korean drive through would text results as fast as 15 minutes, but looking at a couple more reports just now all said 24 hours.
Every PI at a major research university who does something related to genetics should have one. There are probably some logistics challenges in getting them all into facilities with the right biosafety level and competent technicians to run them.
The most important factor isn't how quickly one can process the test (so long as it doesn't take an excessive amount of time) or how many, but rather how many false positives you get.
The CDC, in a press conference, explained that tests in places like South Korea are producing 3% to 4% false positives. Our tests are in the 1% to 2% range.
This difference in false positives can have massive consequences as infection spreads. Doubling your false positives could easily overwhelm the medical system. Which in turn, could increase fatality.
And then there's the secondary effects, which Italy is sadly experiencing, as the medical system overloads doctors are having to choose who they simply let die. There are reports of stroke patients going without much attention in Italy because of precisely this issue.
If hospitals can't take care of people because they are overloaded due to administering large numbers of tests with double the false positive outcomes, more people die.
When things truly matter there is no substitute for quality and performance. Quantity and speed are not always the most important factors.
Apparently, almost all of the world's saline bags were made in Puerto Rico, and a single hurricane disrupted this essential gear.
There have been longstanding concerns about strategic food - and even Oil supply, I don't see how the US or any nation can reasonably not have the domestic demand to meet an emergency.
China has been engaging in a form of systematic dumping on a variety of industries for quite a long time - most of us enjoyed the benefits of lower prices while local producers went out of business.
The nefariousness of their strategy is that it's often difficult to tell the difference between simple 'low-cost advantage' vs. actual dumping strategies, and who in the business world is going to argue against lower prices? Nobody.
The US military certainly wouldn't have 99% of their ammunition 'made in China', well, war is much more than bullets, moreover, there's much more to life than war ...
It's definitely time to have national regulations on a lot of such goods. A simple ban on the import of strategic goods would work really well - America is large enough that there'd be several domestic providers.
Americans would end up paying more for certain items, but does it really matter when the surpluses are so large? So it costs $4 per mask instead of $2? The price is not as important as availability. It would be a very natural and synergistic way to increase wages as well.
This could be done in concert with a few key allies on a product by product basis.
Let's not forget that retailers are making their parking lots available, Google has deployed 1,700 engineers to build a flowchart website, and the US is buying up oil reserves.
I think this epidemic is pretty much solved, don't you?
I tried googling some keywords to see if Google would show me that site straight away, but didn't get anything in my 30 seconds of attempts.
Is it because I'm in Europe?
Got to love the oil reserves idea to help Saudi Arabia in its price war against Russia. Ah fuck, that's why he declared national emergency: so he can get 40 billion dollars to bail out the Saudis.
That lady was so proud of her 6 node flow chart too. She was beaming when she took it out...
Nothing exists yet [1]. Verily (an Alphabet subsidiary but essentially "Google" for all intents and purposes) is working on a triage website with a limited focus on the Bay Area.
Ultimately it's going to be a slightly more complex variant of "Do you have a fever?" with a map showing nearby testing locations when someone clicks yes.
This is surprisingly useful and difficult to implement well. It’s more than just keeping accurate information up to date, but also ensuring it works for the blind and as many languages as possible etc. Further, the Bay Area is just the initial pilot, their goal is likely nationwide if not international.
Seems strange that anybody would feel the need, given how the US is one of the richest countries, trumpets it's own abilities endlessly, and has an official policy of "America first".
I.e., it's surely capable of making its own virus test kits and face masks, if it could be bothered.
> it's surely capable of making its own virus test kits and face masks, if it could be bothered.
American manufacturing industries are dying. We know how to make software but making hardware is slowly fading out. Most of our stuff comes from China. China knows how to make the world.
It's not much different from the Gates Foundation and similar ventures. When you're so rich money doesn't matter philanthropic works are expected.
It also doesn't help that the current administration has bungled the testing from day 1; in the past we would have ramped up testing when the disease was spreading in China. Whether it's lack of leadership, incompetence, or deliberate we don't know. But Dear Leader certainly won't take responsibility for it and isn't interested in solving the problem so lack of leadership is definitely a factor. My guess is at least some in the administration were dumb enough to believe it wouldn't spread in the US.
Yeah, honestly. Even as someone who can be cynical about things, I still think this is very much kind and appreciated. Meanwhile I know others who say it's political and means pretty much nothing... I just don't know how to reply.
It's clearly no more political than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation directing funds & other resources to assist China (and Asia broadly) the other direction, for which Xi personally thanked Bill [1]. China has an enormous amount of wealth and production capacity, anything they can help out with is a positive. As they bring their outbreak under control, they'll have dramatic spare capacity around test kits and medical supplies, that can benefit the rest of the world.
Of course it's more political than anything Bill and Melinda are doing. Jack Ma is a member of the CPC. The CPC is the sole organ of power in China. Currently they are going to great lengths to try to make everyone around the world forget that they are the ones who caused this pandemic in the first place. They've even stooped to allowing the conspiracy theory to spread that the true origin of the virus is overseas. It's shameful.
When the immediate crisis is over, the world needs to hold the CPC accountable. You don't get to set a fire and show up with a bucket three months later expecting to be declared a hero.
So, Jack Ma donating masks around the world can be a positive thing for the people affected by the virus right now, but it can also be a cynical political move at the same time.
One of the reasons the US developed its own test was that the test that China was using had a 48% false negative rate. These are probably the same tests.
Yes, CDC flubbed the test, probably because theirs was a 3 part test. They also ordered that other labs wait for the CDC test instead of making their own. However, any test used had to pass FDA muster at that time, and a test with a 48% false negative rate likely would not.
The CDC is probably not the most agile organization, but I'm hoping that they will scale.
Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis.
Indeed. On it's own, it looks like .. I'm not sure "willy-waving" translates into American well.
But once you realise they're sending them everywhere, it makes it look more like they've ramped production up to stupifying numbers (which is China's speciality afterall), and have realised their value in goodwill is far beyond their dollar value.
(or, yes, propaganda - there's not a lot of real difference between PR, propaganda and goodwill. Ultimately, doing something good because the optics benefit you, is still doing something good.)
I’m sure it helps that doing something good also makes them look good and shifts public perception of China from oppressive to we just helped save the world from an epidemic.
There’s no way the leadership has thought out all the angles.
I have no doubt his intention really is to save lives, but a secondary motive is surely also PR. Perhaps the Chinese state had some role in this, as well. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I could see a possible benign conspiracy like them using Jack as a proxy to distribute these.
If they did it officially, it could be trusted less and the motive would seem more blatant. And Jack of course has enough money to do this himself, but such a big international move might require the approval of the government.
Is it? If the American government were doing this, I would think the exact same thing. And America has in fact done similar things many times in the past.
Of course it's PR. It's always PR, probably regardless of what superpower's government is involved. The only difference here is that the Chinese government has more control over and knowledge of what private citizens are doing, so it can be difficult to disentangle private and governmental action.
It definitely shifts the message somewhat from "look, the Americans need our help" to "we're prosperous enough to be a world leader", which depending on your perspective may be preferable
I've noticed China is promoting the medical response teams they've sent to those countries on WeChat. I don't want to be so cynical that I reduce Chinese goodwill to a propaganda move, but it definitely is good PR.
If somebody helps me out of the potentially deadly hole, I do not give a flying feck about the motives. And that somebody can have all the good PR s/he wants from me as a token of appreciation.
The CPC are the ones who dug the deadly hole in the first place. It's great that one of their billionaire members has some money to spare to help people out, but let's not forget they are directly responsible for this pandemic.
Yeah right, they had willfully concocted the virus and diligently sprayed it all around on their streets.
It is very convenient blaming your adversaries/competitors for your own f..ups. We could've easily shut the borders at first sign and be protected and safe. Have somebody to blame for that hole?
It can be a political move and be sent to many other countries as well. That makes it more subtle. Jack Ma is really just a CCP puppet, this is a blatant political move. The US doesn’t even need test kits right now!
Because thats what matters to you? Were europeans sending aid to China a power move? It’s acceptable to send aid to each other, no matter who you appear to represent.
The EU sending aid is definitely a political flex. It is still a good gesture, but sending aid is a sign that a country is in a 'superior' position.
Jack Ma doing this is also a political move. I'm sure that part of the motivation is just to help, but it seems clear to me that this is also intended to show that China is in a position to help the US, and the optics of that are that the countries are on equal footing. Remember, China as a country does have a bit of a complex about their status, which is completely understandable considering the rapid changes they have been through. This aid shows that, rather than being a 2nd-class citizen, the country is in a position to help America with something.
That being said, this is a great thing, these are much needed supplies for which there isn't a large domestic manufacturing capacity (as it was offshore). However charitable acts can also have additional political motivations, and that does seem to be a factor here.
> The EU sending aid is definitely a political flex. It is still a good gesture, but sending aid is a sign that a country is in a 'superior' position.
When countries from around the world sent urban SAR specialists to Christchurch following the earthquake, was that a signal that, say, Taiwan, thinks they're superior?
When we send our victim identification specialists or rural firefighter volunteers to countries that need them, is that flexing? Or is it just, I dunno, countries helping each other?
In the case of COVID 19 testing and preparation China today is undoubtedly in a much superior position.
You can even ignore how badly the US government has bungled it. The simple reason is that China is the second largest economy in the world and has had more time to deal with and tackle the virus.
The problem is that the US federal government has so thoroughly messed up the situation that this looks really bad. If the US government hadn’t done such a bad job of testing this donation may have maybe added 50% or doubled the number of available tests and it would simply look like a generous donation, rather than also shining light on the embarrassing US response.
America has the yugest complex around; with Biden as the frontrunner we now have two old men running for the president, both trying to Make America Great Again, only slightly disagreeing on the methods and period of time we have to go back to recover our greatest Great-ness.
That's why when Cuba is struck with a hurricane, they reject American aid [1], despite being a relatively poor country who could obviously benefit from it.
There is no "appear". China's capitalist leaders are in the pocket of the CCP, whether they want to be or not.
I'm not saying it's unacceptable, I'm saying that China and the U.S. are direct rivals in a way that China and Europe are not, and that it will appear a certain way to the world, and that the way it appears will be advantageous to the CCP.
No one needs to paint a picture of our institutions struggling to the world... we've been doing a fine job of that ourselves. Had a U.S. company made the same gesture to another country, our media would be covering it as humanitarian aid or building goodwill. The fact is that we currently have an inadequate supply of masks and test kits so I think an appropriate response would be 'thank you' regardless of any potentially less than altruistic motives.
Sure, but there's no way one of their billionaires would be allowed to take an action like this without discussing it with the CCP first. For all we know it was their idea.
I'm not saying it's evil or that we shouldn't accept it, I'm just observing the optics and the fact that there's no way the CCP didn't consider it from this perspective beforehand, regardless of any other motives.
For whatever reason, the US lacks the ability and/or the capability of responding effectively to this crisis.
The assistance is valuable and should be respected and appreciated accordingly.
And if people in the US feel uncomfortable about what this assistance implies about the US -- well, there will be time to consider why that is so and what can be done about it at a future date.
Be that as it may, we should accept, and thank him for it. This is not the time for dick measuring contests, and our institutions that were supposed to deal with this (CDC/FDA) have objectively failed.
The right of free transit have been denied in every country with enough infections, why would you particularly demonize China for it? You are in quarantine, you cannot leave, period.
The drones seem if anything quite a lot less privacy-intruding than other possible measures, assuming they're just wandering around looking for people without masks. It would be embarrassing to be on the receiving end but with no real lasting effect or privacy loss, which is ultimately a pretty ideal result on a societal level.
US ability to make and distribute medicine and medical supplies is falling apart and it’s a direct result of consolidation of supply chain and factories that make it. 4 power buyers buys control over 90% of generic drug for US. And probably similar percent for medical equipments.
Good news is that now all eyes are on the medical supply chains, and introduction of the medical supply drug act bill, we should see some supply chain move back to US.
Painting? That's the reality, The US response is a disaster that will likely surpass Italy. We have done close to nothing. Maybe he's trying to help because we are too fucking incompetent to test on our own. The question is, will the US take the help or be the too proud asshole it's always been and ignore it like they did with the WHO test?
It's concerted effort by Chinese establishment to whitewash their handling of the whole thing. They even want to pretend that the virus didn't even originate in China!
You should see what some of my Chinese relatives/friends are forwarding in WeChat-
1. CIA created the virus and released the virus in China as a test.
2. (In Chinese there's no word for 'flu', only 'cold', or 'transmissible cold'.) The 'cold' virus originated in US last year and killed more than 10k Americans before US sent special force to Wuhan to infect us Chinese! Even the head of CDC admitted it (see article).
3. A 5 member US special force went to Wuhan in November. They returned to US and all died in suspicious circumstances.
4. Now all the western countries are sending infected agents into China to blow the epidemic again.
You might notice a common theme that US is the enemy, and they are the originator of all bad things that happened to China. This is not a coincidence.
Look I know this is dumb and all. Other Chinese relatives/friends (usually oversea) are trying to combat all these fake news. But 2 things-
1. WeChat is heavily patrolled and monitored by the PRC censors. If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour (or seconds. It's very enlightening to see the sensitive terms get filtered in real time.)
In fact, in the last week or so, I've been getting more conspiracy forwards. The spread of rumors on this topic on WeChat is speeding up.
2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.
> If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour
Reddit tries to stop conspiracy theories with quarantines and bans. But they're rapidly spreading anyway.
> 2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.
It really is symmetric: Tom Cotton, Senator from Arkansas, has been on Fox saying exactly this.
Fox also has other people on saying it was a joint North Korean and Chinese bioweapon, made solely to attack America, but released initially in China as a decoy. Fox is the most watched cable news channel in America.
Why does every criticism of China have to have a corollary accompanying US criticism? Can we not just talk about one issue at a time instead of muddling up the waters?
In an ideal world, everyone criticizes things they know the most about and can do the most about, which is whatever is happening in their own country. When this is inverted, there is usually some ulterior psychological need and the criticism ends up not being anything genuine or actionable but a pissing contest. Anything goes in a pissing contest. Why are you surprised?
You can't just declare everything that any low-ranking Chinese bureaucrat does to be an "effort by Chinese establishment". This is nationalistic flame-bait.
For context, there's a growing number of Chinese diplomats from younger generation who want China to reciprocate the rhetoric of the current US administration. Expect a lot more ridiculous clap backs like this, especially on Twitter where Chinese diplomats have been cultivating a following since HK. This is probably a direct response to folks in US administration using Wuhan/Chinese Virus. Chinese international messaging has been predicable and fairly mellow, western MSM likes to blow it out of proportion, but looks like they're about to fully embrace post-truth twitter drama.
You do realize that the MSM and current US administration are completely at odds right? Just by using that term, MSM, would get most people flagged as a Trump supporter. The US drama is mostly internal and has little to do with China.
You do realize that's all marketing bullshit, right?
They're so at odds they agreed to give the Pentagon $100B more this year than last, in addition to loosening accounting rules so they can hide even more of their shenanigans from the taxpayer. They're so at odds that Gitmo is still open, we're still fighting in a dozen nations, we're undermining the democratic governments of several more, and they just gave the next appointed coup leader a unanimous standing ovation at the state of the union ("it's not good!") speech. They're so at odds that to contest an election with a loud-mouthed incoherent corrupt old person with shady Ukraine connections, they've chosen... a loud-mouthed incoherent corrupt old person with shady Ukraine connections.
They're so at odds that when the government decided they needed to destroy a journalist for doing journalism, for revealing to the USA voter and tax payer the evil shit done with their votes and taxes, not a single journalist anyone had ever heard of spoke up in his defense. Oh yeah, that MSM is speaking "truth to power" now. Good grief.
I really don’t think you understand how government works: the media is run by private industry and doesn’t have power to give the pentagon anything. They also don’t run Gitmo, they don’t fight wars, etc...
Yes, the American media isn’t perfect, but deriding it as “fake news” while CCTV a somehow put on a pedestal just seems really wrong. The fact is that it is at least independent of the government and doesn’t have to act in the interest in the ruling executive (and in fact, depending on who is president, there will always be plenty of media that isn’t friendly to their agenda).
The first thing authoritarians do when they gain power is to try and delegitimize the free press so they can get rid of it. That is exactly wha it is going on now, and whenever someone uses the term MSM, that is what I know their agenda is.
By they, I meant official Chinese diplomatic messaging - elements have started to post bellicose and post-truthy rhetoric in tit-for-tat response to current official US messaging. China is letting loose their own Pompeos and hawkish voices, mostly for domestic Chinese audiences as well. See how western MSM has manufactured anti Chinese consent over the last few years - understand that China hasn't let anti-US sentiments devolve that far via domestic censorship controls. Well signs indicate that's about to stop. It's looking like China is positioning itself to go full Trump which is dangerous as hell.
Jack Ma cannot be trusted. He swings high and low, doesn't know where the ball is. He once hit a Alibaba home run and thinks he is a hotshot. It's hard to trust Jack Ma with undertones of the CCP propaganda in this humanitarian aid.
Edit: I am not defending the United States. Just look at what our president said this afternoon. Couldn't even string a cohesive sentence together. If Jack Ma is genuine and wants to help - who knows? To me it feels like a huge power move as the OP said - it feels "correct" to me. This news is trending big time on Twitter.
National security threat is US military not owning aircraft carrier worth of medical supplies while at the same time owning multiple actual aircraft carriers.
The issue isn't "test kits". Its labs to run the tests. It seems like the CDC and state governments are addressing that. Not really sure what this is trying to solve.
Pretty sure in a couple of weeks US will need masks and other equipment. China very likely is the biggest producer of masks and as the number of new cases drops to near zero they have the extra capacity to donate to the rest of world.
There is no way the current administration is going to accept them and make the US look "weak" or "dire". Without exaggeration it's an easy guess they will sit in a warehouse unused no matter how urgent the need.
It wasn’t a language barrier issue though. And his English isn’t clumsy. It's that the actual content of what he said was ridiculous. It reminded me of the kind of BS Adam Neumann would say.
He didn't believe AI could be smarter than the smartest human (IIRC).
It's a different point of view.
You can disagree. But calling him an idiot makes you an asshole, tbh.
The interview was cringey as fuck because of his English skill. He couldn't deliver a joke properly like the joke about Alibaba Intelligence. Musk also didn't handle the joke well (not his fault.. he isn't a professional MC).
Jack Ma knows very well what is AI and all such things. You can look at Alibaba Group's hiring frenzy for AI talents as a signal.
In the end, Jack wants to be an approachable power figure to common (Chinese) people. He shows up in Alibaba's annual corp party wearing weird dresses and sing in front of 100k+ live audience. People call him the "Daddy Ma" in reference to his influence on their buying activities online.
He behaves in this fashion, which the so-called philosophy (or Daoism/Zen-like thinking) trumps the hard reasoning. That gives him an aura of an elevated figure above scientists, engineers, and alike.
The point is, powerful people listen to each other because of the power they wield. Must has to listen to Jack, because Jack can influence the Chinese government in a much more effective way than himself. If it was an actual AI expert on that stage, Must probably wont show much interests in that discussion anyway...
And what if the mask itself is already tainted with the virus? Wouldn't you want to verify that it's actually free of the virus in the first place? It is coming from China.
OMG this is so racist. The vast majority of surgical masks sold in USA in last several decades were made in China. If they were shitting on them we would have noticed. The majority of items sold in USA stores are manufactured in China. They're not intentionally infecting them before selling them to us. Chinese manufacturers sensibly shut down in the most heavily affected areas, in contrast to those in USA. The people dumb enough to look this gift horse in the mouth are all toilet paper hoarders.
Mask tainted with virus? Cmmon man, that is a tremendous stretch of likelihood. And would lead to action.
Original poster was talking about masks not meeting some specification. And I'm pretty sure most of your stuff has been coming from China for a long time.
I really am mindblown by both your, and original poster's negativity on this. The guy is almost certainly trying to help. So thanks. And I say this as someone who disapproves very strongly of the CCP.
Why not spend a little time learning how long the virus can survive on any mask before making nonsense comment like this? It deserved a stronger rebuke than "cmmon man" since it's wasting everyone's time.
So if you notice, you literally defended someone's "cmmon man" argument as NOT a waste of everyone's time. How about you think about this, for a second, hmm?
Studies as of now suggest that the virus can last for 3 days on a surface. So if you ship fly them over here from China, say a half a day flight, you have a good 2.5 days to potentially accidentally infect people.
No, at this point you get a "relax, Nancy". No step in the process of manufacturing surgical masks involves anyone breathing on a mask; they have machines. Masks are never shipped by air; they're too bulky. Even items that are shipped by air take several days on the ground to be shipped from factories and to end users. Your innate fear of Chinese people has sent you off the deep end.
It's not a refutation of logic though because you didn't provide any. It's simply scoffing at your ridiculous level of suspicion. You aren't being pragmatic. There is a different term for what you are being.
I've said it repeatedly, but I'll say it again. Here's the logic for you to refute.
1. Mask / test kit made in China.
2. Presumably, it came in contact with the hands of the people making it, in China.
3. If any of those people making the masks and test kits were infected, then there's a chance that the virus itself will be actually sitting on the masks and test kits themselves.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/masayoshi-son-breaks-twitter...
No good deed goes unpunished, i guess.