Asleep at the wheel.
The Lucky Country wakes up to the cost of globalization. There are only 3,000 Covid cases here, we have barely begun, yet we’re already running out of protective gear. The lives of our doctors and nurses are at risk because bureaucrats were too slow to see the obvious, blindly unaware of foreign allegiances, and they kept using the old Influenza plan when this wasn’t influenza.
The media, led by the bloated ABC, reinforced all the incompetence, more worried that we might made bad jokes about shaking hands in hospital.
Meanwhile, below, China now has excess masks which it is donating to Belt and Road Slaves in Europe and to nations where it wants access to 5G network deals. Our masks, used as levers for China to gain power.
50 shades of incompetance
Chinese-backed company’s mission to send Australian medical supplies to China, by Kate McClymont.
According to a company newsletter, the Greenland Group sourced 3 million protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of protective gloves from “Australia, Canada, Turkey and other countries.”
This is the free market at work — to some extent, those supplies were more needed in Wuhan in January than in Sydney, but it left us wide open. If journalists had asked better questions of our politicians, we might end up with better politicians:
The Greenland group, which is majority owned by the Shanghai government, has sold more than a billion dollars worth of residential apartments in Sydney and Melbourne since its arrival in 2013.
A whistleblower from the company has told the Herald it was a worldwide Greenland effort — and the Sydney office was no different, sourcing bulk supplies of surgical masks, thermometers, antibacterial wipes, hand sanitisers, gloves and Panadol for shipping.
“Basically all employees, the majority of whom are Chinese, were asked to source whatever medical supplies they could,” one company insider told the Herald.
Kate McClymont, The Sydney Morning Herald
A second Chinese property company based in Sydney flew more than 80 tonnes of medical supplies on a corporate jet to Wuhan in late February, at the time coronavirus was devastating the regional city.
“The chartered plane with 90 tons (82 tonnes) of medical supplies, including 100,000 most needed protective coveralls and 900,000 pairs of medical gloves, has successfully departed from Sydney and arrived in Wuhan on 24 Feb,” Risland Australia posted on its LinkedIn page.
Australia is already running out of masks:
As the surge of coronavirus infections increases, healthcare workers are becoming desperate. “The shortage of personal protective equipment in NSW hospitals is scandalous,” one healthcare worker told the Herald. “Doctors and nurses on the front line feel inadequately protected, exposed and vulnerable.”
In one major Sydney hospital “junior doctors are being told there are only 30 N95 masks available for all operating theatres”. The healthcare worker said this was forcing people to source masks from the “black market,” the quality of which is dubious.
Greenland Group sourced 3 million protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of protective gloves from several countries including Australia.
Only two months too late:
The Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton is working on a plan to crack down on hoarders who are profiteering out of COVID-19 as well as giving authorities more powers to be able to seize items at the border including medical supplies.
After covering up the severity of coronavirus and ruthlessly buying our personal protection equipment, China is now using that equipment to further its own power and wealth. Some of those purchases were not because Chinese docs needed the gear, but because China knew we would:
How China is Exploiting the Coronavirus to Weaken Democracies, by Peter Rough.
Beijing has reinforced this propaganda campaign by sending medical supplies to Europe. It is hard to believe that a country that interns more than 1 million of its own citizens is capable of altruism. Indeed, every Chinese action betrays a Machiavellian motivation behind a humanitarian guise.
Take, for example, the decision by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to donate 800,000 masks to the Netherlands. Why would the conglomerate, known for its closeness to the Chinese government, display such benevolence toward a country which, at the time, had hardly any coronavirus cases? Surely it could not be because the Netherlands’ auction of fifth-generation (5G) mobile licenses is slated for June, and because the Dutch still have to decide whether to exclude Huawei from its 5G networks over espionage concerns.
Or consider Italy, where China has sent doctors and donated ventilators that have been in short supply. Does China’s newfound interest in Italy’s well-being stem from genuine concern, or from that of Rome’s status as one of Europe’s biggest supporters of the Belt and Road Initiative?
Hands up who thinks China has our best interests at heart.
Save our doctors and nurses, sell the ABC and use the money to buy masks and gloves.
h/t Dave B, Peter C, Bill in Oz!