{"id":183807,"date":"2021-04-26T12:37:24","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T11:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=183807"},"modified":"2021-04-26T12:37:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T11:37:24","slug":"did-china-stage-the-videos-of-people-collapsing-in-wuhan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/04\/did-china-stage-the-videos-of-people-collapsing-in-wuhan\/","title":{"rendered":"Did China Stage the Videos of People Collapsing in Wuhan?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div id=\"v-kTmFeTL9-1\" class=\"video-player\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/videopress.com\/embed\/kTmFeTL9?hd=1&amp;loop=0&amp;autoPlay=0&amp;permalink=1\" width=\"736\" height=\"414\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u201cCoronavirus has people keeling over in streets\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Uf4-Vzf1CyM\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TomoNews US, February 3, 2020<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"v-kTmFeTL9-1\" class=\"video-player\"><em>26 Apr 2021 &#8211; <\/em>Already in mid-March 2020, at a time when many people were still buying toilet paper, SPR argued that the coronavirus situation <a href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/corona-media-propaganda\/\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appeared to show aspects<\/a> of a possibly real pandemic, a mass psychosis, and a psychological (i.e. propaganda) operation (the \u201cthree P\u2019s\u201d).<\/div>\n<p>Recently, some people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revolver.news\/2021\/02\/how-phony-coronavirus-fear-videos-were-used-as-psychological-weapons-to-bring-america-to-her-knees\/\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wondered if<\/a> the notorious videos of \u201cpeople collapsing in Wuhan\u201d (see above), which emerged in late January 2020, had in fact been staged by the Chinese government to frighten the West into lockdowns and self-destruction. After all, it is argued, such events weren\u2019t seen anywhere else later on during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, on January 31, 2020, the British newspaper The Guardian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jan\/31\/a-man-lies-dead-in-the-street-the-image-that-captures-the-wuhan-coronavirus-crisis\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">titled<\/a>: \u201cA man lies dead in the street: the image that captures the Wuhan coronavirus crisis\u201d. A week before, the British Express <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/news\/world\/1232814\/Coronavirus-horror-China-virus-Wuhan-zombies-epidemic-video\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">titled<\/a>: \u201cCoronavirus horror: Social media footage shows infected Wuhan residents \u2018act like zombies&#8217;\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>But an analysis of these videos and their context shows the following:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Contrary to claims that there were \u201cdozens\u201d or even \u201chundreds\u201d of such videos, there were only about ten such videos, which were shown in various places and in various combinations.<\/li>\n<li>Most of these videos really had nothing to do with covid. Rather, these videos showed drunk people, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/8509320385\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">homeless people<\/a> (even in other Chinese cities), road accidents, unspecified medical emergencies, and even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=F83iuaZ3Rxg\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">training exercises<\/a> run by Chinese authorities.<\/li>\n<li>Because of the simultaneous virus outbreak, first responders in Wuhan often already wore protective equipment (the famous white bio-hazard suits). Thus, to bystanders and to people uploading and sharing the videos, it may have looked like actual \u201csudden coronavirus deaths.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>In many cases, video titles, captions, or comments did suggest or claim the videos showed \u201csudden coronavirus deaths\u201d, but in no case was this confirmed or claimed by Chinese authorities. In fact, several of these videos were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/fact-check\/people-collapsing-coronavirus\/\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">quickly debunked<\/a> by Western \u201cfact checkers\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>It looks like most of these videos were shared internationally not by people close to the Chinese regime, but by people and groups <em>opposed<\/em> to the Chinese regime (e.g. by \u2018Voice of Hong Kong\u2019 and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Badiucao\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u2018Badiucao\u2019<\/a>), who wanted to show that the Chinese regime had lost control.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If any of these videos really showed someone collapsing due to the coronavirus, it may have been due to a <strong>sudden cardiac arrest<\/strong> caused by viral myocarditis (heart muscle inflammation), or a major heart attack, stroke, or embolism. Such cases <em>have been observed<\/em> even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/national\/ny-university-florida-basketball-covid-heart-johnson-20201223-5wb4cc4s75ftbcfgduhc6oznea-story.html\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in the US<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.focus.de\/gesundheit\/coronavirus\/politik-104-tage_id_12808752.html\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the first English-language mention of the alleged \u201cChinese whistleblower doctor\u201d <strong>Li Wenliang<\/strong> (who later died or disappeared) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KoenSwinkels\/status\/1243249369970851841\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">came from \u201cChina Change\u201d<\/a>, a US-based organization funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government funded entity that <a href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/organizations-funded-by-the-ned\/\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sponsors opposition groups<\/a> in adversary countries.<\/p>\n<p>This again might indicate that Western players either tried to leverage the situation in China, or tried to \u201cframe\u201d China (the real <a href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/on-the-origin-of-sars-coronavirus-2\/\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">origin of the virus<\/a> remaining unknown to this day). In contrast, the Chinese government itself primarily tried to <em>downplay<\/em> the situation, and continues to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, while antibody data showed that by April 2020, coronavirus prevalence outside of Wuhan city and Hubei province <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lanwpc\/article\/PIIS2666-6065(21)00003-1\/fulltext\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was near zero<\/a> (despite high domestic travel flows in January 2020), China has experienced repeated local virus outbreaks and continues to impose<a href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/lockdowns-in-china-2021\/\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> extreme lockdown and quarantine<\/a> measures.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In conclusion<\/strong>, there is currently no evidence that the \u201ccollapsing people\u201d videos of January 2020 were a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sun_Tzu\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cSun Tzu style\u201d<\/a> Chinese psyop. Instead, they may have been part of the \u201cmass psychosis\u201d at the time, leveraged by click baiters and hoaxers and Western media, or they may have been part of a Western psyop against China, the West population, or both.<\/p>\n<p>The above \u201ccollapsing people\u201d video compilation, for instance, was published by Taiwanese <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Next_Animation_Studio\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TomoNews US<\/a>, an anti-China news platform known for publishing \u201chumorous and simple CGI-animated coverage of recent news stories\u201d produced by Taiwanese Next Animation Studio.<\/p>\n<h4>See also<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/on-the-origin-of-sars-coronavirus-2\/\" >On the origin of Sars-CoV-2<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/covid-19-mortality-overview\/\" >Covid Mortality: A Global Overview<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/corona-media-propaganda\/\" >On Corona, the Media, and Propaganda<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>__________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/swiss-policy-research-logo-300.png\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-161314\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/swiss-policy-research-logo-300-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/swiss-policy-research-logo-300-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/swiss-policy-research-logo-300.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Swiss Policy Research<em>, founded in 2016, is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit research group investigating geopolitical propaganda in Swiss and international media. SPR is composed of independent academics that<\/em><em> for personal and professional reasons prefer to protect their identities,<\/em><em> and receives no external funding; t<\/em><em>here are no financial sponsors or backers. <\/em><em>Our articles have been published or shared by numerous independent media outlets and journalists, among them <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/swprs.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/01\/assange-tweet.png\" >Julian Assange<\/a>, and have been translated into more than two dozen languages.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/swprs.org\/did-china-stage-the-videos-of-people-collapsing-in-wuhan\/\" >Go to Original &#8211; swprs.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>26 Apr 2021 &#8211; Already in mid-March 2020, at a time when many people were still buying toilet paper, SPR argued that the coronavirus situation appeared to show aspects of a possibly real pandemic, a mass psychosis, and a psychological (i.e. propaganda) operation (the \u201cthree P\u2019s\u201d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":183809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2124],"tags":[244,1829,1868,1113,1864],"class_list":["post-183807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-debates-on-covid-vaccines","tag-china","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-hoax","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}