Coronavirus Conversations

About the reddit post (25 January 2020). Video Source: Youtube.

A 14-year-old student in Macau, China has begun posting videos about her daily life during the lunar New Year's holiday and she remains at home due to the coronavirus store and business closures. The new vlogger announced her channel on Reddit: "I just wanted to make this video to show that I'm not fake." Oh, the irony, when today the WHO and major news outlets announced a desire to stifle social media conversations and to eradicate all sources of coronavirus disinformation, except of course, themselves.

You can see the human benefit of international social media discussion here. The girl states that Chinese people who eat exotic animals like pangolins do so because it is illegal and expensive. She states that in China, wildlife consumption is a statement of personal influence and wealth. As for the atmosphere in her city, "You can actually feel the fear. ... People are really panicking. ... At least in Macau we are still pretty safe." They store food, water, and masks and stay inside their apartments and houses. She holds live Q and A chats and she and her young social media counterparts compare notes from around the world to try to understand the epidemic. She thinks that the new Chinese generation will be better than her predecessors.

She has heard a lot of conspiracy theories from the Internet, including the rumour that the virus did not come from a wildlife market but was engineered in a Wuhan bioweapons lab. "I hope that's not true, because if that is true, I don't know what to do." She's not alone in that regard.

Why chinese people like to eat wild animals (27 January 2020). Video Source: Youtube.

See all my posts on Epidemics here and here.