One average Joe, no. Thousands of them? Yes, that's harding. And a problem. China got a lot donations, they also were the first to donate to Italy. The mask situation was a mess.
The proble I have is, that now people accuse every institute or offical body of lying. Because they got, in people's minds, the mask thing wrong. Why can't we just accept that even experts can be wrong? Starting to accuse others of lying is the first step towards conspiracy theories, IMHO, as it only leaves black and white. And what is it that the WHO and co. have to be right 100% right from the start and everybody else is just asking questions?
If we take Australia's case of billions of masks (let's say 2 billion, conservatively), and assume that each average Joe bought let's say 20, the actions of the Chinese government are equal to *one hundred million average Joes", not thousands of them. For one country.
It's mighty noble to donate to Italy after they confiscated all the inland mask production and bought tons of masks from everywhere else. And then they also pressured European politicians to prasise the communist party when receiving said donations.
Not every institute, just the WHO and to some limited extent a few others. Stop setting up this straw man, because that's clearly not the case for me and I listed some organizations which I do trust - because they've proven that they're competent.
Experts can be wrong, sure they can. But if their literal job is to protect us from such pandemic situations and they fuck up, they deserve some criticism.
If they persist in not recommending masks when already most countries are recommending them, like the WHO did until 1-2 weeks ago, they are uselessly incompetent and should be ignored.
The proble I have is, that now people accuse every institute or offical body of lying. Because they got, in people's minds, the mask thing wrong. Why can't we just accept that even experts can be wrong? Starting to accuse others of lying is the first step towards conspiracy theories, IMHO, as it only leaves black and white. And what is it that the WHO and co. have to be right 100% right from the start and everybody else is just asking questions?