{"id":167311,"date":"2021-01-30T02:32:48","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T23:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/in-the-same-breath-reveals-chinas-propaganda-filled-covid-19-response\/"},"modified":"2021-01-30T02:32:48","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T23:32:48","slug":"in-the-same-breath-reveals-chinas-propaganda-filled-covid-19-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-the-same-breath-reveals-chinas-propaganda-filled-covid-19-response\/","title":{"rendered":"#’In the Same Breath’ reveals China’s propaganda-filled COVID-19 response"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#’In the Same Breath’ reveals China’s propaganda-filled COVID-19 response<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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An enraging new documentary about China\u2019s botched early response to the coronavirus pandemic opened the Sundance Film Festival Thursday, skewering the country\u2019s communist government for its ongoing lies and distortion and insisting that their official death toll is underreported by as much as tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

Called \u201cIn the Same Breath,\u201d<\/a> the HBO<\/a> film begins hours after a massive New Year\u2019s Eve celebration in Wuhan, China, a city of 11 million and the one-time epicenter of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The next day, a slew of robotic news<\/a> anchors recited a government script<\/a>, meant to minimize the impending disaster. \u201cEight people were punished for spreading rumors about an unknown pneumonia,\u201d they said Jan. 1, 2020. \u201cA reminder from the police: Obey laws and regulations for online activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last warning was aimed at whistleblowers \u2014 heroic doctors reprimanded for drawing public awareness to the deadly new virus at the end of December 2019. They were the first to be silenced by officials concerned about China\u2019s rocky reputation in the western media<\/a>. But the misinformation campaign endured, and communist pride opened the door to a global calamity that has killed more than 2 million.<\/p>\n

New Jersey filmmaker Nanfu Wang was visiting Wuhan with her family in early January for the New Year festivities when she became curious about the growing sense of dread in the city. She hired several cameramen to drop by hospitals to document everything they saw, which was a challenge as all requests had to be approved by the government. Health-care workers were instructed to reveal no damaging information.<\/p>\n

\n
\"New
New Jersey filmmaker Nanfu Wang directed \u201cIn the Same Breath.\u201d<\/figcaption>
Sundance Film Festival<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cCan I go into the room to interview people?\u201d asked one man. \u201cOf course,\u201d replied a doctor. \u201cPlease do not ask about the patients\u2019 condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once inside, the cameramen found that the inflicted were less concerned about their mysterious illness than the reprisals of their authoritarian leaders. \u201cI\u2019m afraid to talk,\u201d said one. \u201cWe do not have freedom of speech.\u201d Others would only speak openly once the camera was turned off. But Wang\u2019s interest was piqued by footage of a man who claimed he was stricken, along with his son, by the virus in December \u2014 a month before China acknowledged its existence.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 was already pummeling hospitals, and no one in power would admit it. A December CCTV feed from a private clinic near the Huanan Seafood Market, where the coronavirus is believed to have originated, shows a deluge of patients coming in complaining of fever, cough, chills and shortness of breath. At the same time, the National People\u2019s Congress \u2014 a pep rally for Communist Party members \u2014 was being held in town. The government dithered until after the event was over to finally own up to SARS-CoV-2. Even then, they downplayed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new coronavirus is not highly contagious,\u201d said Li Gang, director of the Wuhan Center for Disease Prevention and Control in late January. \u201cThe risk of transmission remains low.\u201d The risk was so low that Wuhan began a hard lockdown four days later.<\/p>\n

The bustling city turned apocalyptic. Wang captured devastating footage of the elderly being turned away at filled-to-capacity hospitals, and paramedics walking blocks because the city erected barriers in the street to prevent car travel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t keep her in his ambulance forever,\u201d one says of a patient outside a hospital with no more room. Meanwhile, the Chinese government \u2014 no longer able to deny the coronavirus\u2019 existence \u2014 turned to slobbering propaganda enabled by its state-run media.<\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=W_G1DcbbkQ0<\/a><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Journalists were told in a videotaped directive, \u201cthe Communist Party needs to fully control the media, public relations and ideology . . . We need to use our pens and cameras as weapons to tell the world about China\u2019s victory over the outbreak, China\u2019s strength and China\u2019s power. We should control the outlet of information to spread positive energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

They produced uplifting TV specials about health-care workers portrayed as heroes, but ignored much uglier realities. Newscasters were forced to report countless feel-good stories of pregnant women giving birth while suffering from COVID-19, paired with clips of newborn babies.<\/p>\n

Those who spoke out or tried to get to the bottom of things were punished, so the documentarians had to be sneaky. One managed to interview an anonymous funeral home worker, who said his phone is monitored and then disputed the official Wuhan death toll of 3,300.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Our estimate is that at our funeral home alone, we cremated 10,000 to 20,000 bodies.\u2019<\/p>\n

Funeral home worker<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cOnly a fool will believe that number,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that hard to figure out the number of bodies we took in and cremated. I would make at least 10 trips each day to collect bodies and each trip I would take in 10 bodies. This is just from me, one person with one van. Our estimate is that at our funeral home alone, we cremated 10,000 to 20,000 bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another man concurred, saying a cemetery worker spilled the beans to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn March 28, the day of my dad\u2019s funeral, a gravedigger accidentally blurted out the truth to me. He said, \u2018There are only about a hundred of us working at the cemetery. How can we handle 20,000 to 30,000 new tombs?\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

Still, the nation was lauded by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general<\/a> of the World Health Organization, who said, \u201cI will praise China again and again.\u201d And around Wuhan, victory celebrations were held showcasing beaming health-care workers who\u2019d relocated to the city to help out. Music blared, and red flags were enthusiastically waved.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisasters become propaganda tools instead of inspiring change,\u201d said Wang in the documentary. \u201cIt was another triumph for the Communist Party.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#’In the Same Breath’ reveals China’s propaganda-filled COVID-19 response” An enraging new documentary about China\u2019s botched early response to the coronavirus pandemic opened the Sundance Film Festival Thursday, skewering the country\u2019s communist government for its ongoing lies and distortion and insisting that their official death toll is underreported by as much as tens of thousands….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/01\/in-the-same-breath-wuhan-sundance-01.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[91277,4973,1545,65799,29333],"class_list":["post-167311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-1-29-21","tag-china","tag-coronavirus","tag-documentaries","tag-sundance-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}