Is SARS-CoV2 Deadly Or Ain't It Deadly? Somebody Lying....,

endoftheamericandream |  COVID-19 is an extremely deadly virus, and nobody should be trying to downplay the severity of this outbreak.  By now, you have probably heard a lot of people try to convince you that COVID-19 is not that dangerous because the flu has killed far more people this winter.  And that is true.  But what they aren’t telling you is that the death rate from the flu is extremely low.  Tens of thousands of Americans die from the flu each year, but if this coronavirus spreads all over the planet the death toll will be in the tens of millions.  This coronavirus outbreak is likely only in the very early stages, and if it becomes as widespread as the flu, it will become a public health crisis unlike anything we have ever faced in modern times.

After taking a look at the numbers, hopefully you will understand what I am trying to say.

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization announced that the global death rate for COVID-19 is now 3.4 percent…

World health officials said Tuesday the case fatality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4% globally, higher than previous estimates of about 2%.
“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. In comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected, he said.

I have a feeling that number will continue to go up, but for the purposes of this article let’s assume that number if accurate.

As for the flu, the CDC says that there will be between 32 million and 45 million illnesses in the United States during this flu season, and somewhere between 18,000 and 46,000 deaths.

TeeRump Served Up A Double Order of Cheese Eating Kneegrows Advisors Today

Iran Says U.S. and Israel Waging Biological Warfare On a Massive Scale

jpost |  Iran’s Press TV, which represents the regime’s English-language propaganda, has been pushing antisemitic conspiracies about the coronavirus to distract from the mullah regime’s mishandling of the pandemic.

 

On Sunday, Iran’s Health Ministry reported 49 new coronavirus deaths, the highest single-day toll of those killed by COVID-19 in the country since mid-February. As of press time, Tehran has acknowledged 194 Iranians have died from the fast-spreading disease. But observers believe the true number may be far higher.
 

Over the last several days, Iran has pushed several reports claiming that “Zionists” were behind the coronavirus. Press TV also quoted the same website that was at the center of an antisemitic article from 2017 that claimed “America’s Jews are driving America’s wars.”
 

On March 5, Press TV claimed that “Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of coronavirus against Iran.” Although the report claimed to reference a foreign “academic,” it fits the pattern of Iran using foreign experts to give the regime’s own views a patina of authority. The agenda of Tehran has been three-fold since the coronavirus outbreak began to affect Iran in mid-February. Iran initially denied that there was a virus outbreak so that it could increase voter turnout for the February 21 election.
 

In late February, it turned out that some of Iran’s leading politicians and key insiders were infected because the virus had spread from the holy city of Qom to Tehran. To make up for the initial cover-up, the regime shifted its narrative to blaming US sanctions for its inability to control the virus. Already regime leaders were beginning to compare the virus to sanctions.
 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had first downplayed the virus, claiming that like sanctions, it looked worse than it was. Then on March 7, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif argued that the sanctions had “drained Iran’s resources needed in the fight against” the virus. He called it “medical terrorism.”

Most People Aren't Aware of the Risk of Systemic Healthcare Failure

I'm NOT The Only Cat Seriously Fixated On The Low-Hanging Cornucopia Of SARS-CoV2 Fruit

harvardtothebighouse |  Some of the dystopian carnage creeping across China may be due to the fact that much of China’s population may have already been exposed to coronavirus infection via SARS or other less notorious strains, which would allow the Wuhan Stain COVID-19 to use antibody-dependent enhancement to much more efficiently enter into cells, and then become much more virulent since this enhancement hijacks the body’s preexisting immune response to coronavirus infections and allows easier entry. However whether or not people have been exposed to a coronavirus infection before, once it’s been circulating in a population for long enough the Wuhan Strain may be able to reinfect its own past hosts and use this molecular hijacking on antibodies left from its own previous infection to become far more virulent, regardless of whether or not someone has been exposed to other coronaviruses before COVID-19. And early reporting from Chinese doctors indicates that re-infections of the Wuhan Strain are far more lethal than the first.

– Additionally, although another since-retracted pre-print noted several very short genomic sequences in COVID-19’s spike-protein gene that look far more similar to sequences found in HIV than to other coronaviruses – critics quickly pointed out that the shared homology didn’t reach statistical significance. However a closer look at the data reveals that there were a few small shared genomic segments that, despite being physically separated from each other along each strand of DNA, all worked together to code for the Wuhan Strain’s protein-spike’s crucial receptor binding site. Something that is highly unlikely to have happened by chance. And despite most of its protein-spike being shared with SARS, these substituted segments weren’t shared at all – nor were they found in any other coronavirus. One possible but likely reason for these HIV-like segments is that they were meant to be epitopes, or molecular flags meant to mark intruders for a vaccine to target. It is mathematically possible for this to happen in nature – but only in a ten-thousand bats chained to ten-thousand Petri dishes and given until infinity sense. Alternatively, it could also be produced by infecting a room full of ferrets with a bespoke coronavirus vaccine and sifting through the wreckage for your genomic needle.

– Critics have brushed off the Wuhan Strain’s shared homology with HIV as statistically insignificant, however clinical reporting indicates that the Wuhan Strain may be using this shared HIV homology to attack CD4 immune cells just like HIV does, as an unusually high percentage of patients are showing low white blood cell counts, especially the sickest ones. This pathogenicity may well be due to the unique HIV-live genomics of the Wuhan Strain, as one white-paper by LSU’s professor emeritus of Microbiology, Immunology, and Parasitology who’s also a Harvard-educated virologist with a PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics notes: “This is the first description of a possible immunosuppressive domain in coronaviruses… The three key [mutations] common to the known immunosuppressive domains are also in common with the sequence from [the spike-protein]. While coronaviruses are not known for general immunosuppression of the style shown by HIV-1, this does not rule out immunosuppression at the site of active infection in the lung, which would prolong and potentially worsen infection at that site.” And early research has indicated that this unique region may make COVID-19 up to 1,000 times more likely to bind to human cells than SARS.

– Even more troubling, a peer-reviewed study noted that one particular part of the Wuhan Strain’s spike-protein genome also wasn’t found in any of its relatives, “and may provide a gain-of-function to [COVID-19] for efficient spreading in the human population.”  And according to that paper, this particular type of furin cleavage site makes similar viruses both more pathogenic and more neurotoxic.

– Evidence for the Wuhan Strain’s neurotoxicity arrived in late February, in a published paper which notes that “the most characteristic symptom of COVID‐19 patients is respiratory distress, and most of the patients admitted to the intensive care could not breathe spontaneously.” Combined with the observation that “some COVID‐19 patients also showed neurologic signs such as headache, nausea and vomiting,” this paper asserts that since SARS was found heavily concentrated in the brainstems of its autopsied victims, COVID-19 is also probably crossing the blood-brain barrier and killing its victims not just via pneumonia, but also by causing neurological respiratory failure.

– And it should be noted that SARS – much ballyhooed as a close relative to the Wuhan Strain – didn’t notable effect white blood cell counts.  Additionally, clinical treatment guides published online in late January by established Chinese medical sources note the progressive reduction of white blood cells, as well as the importance of monitoring this decline. And reporting from Thailand indicates that adding a cocktail of two different anti-HIV drugs to the typical flu treatment regime seemed to effectively knock back the Wuhan Strain. Additionally, one of the only autopsies performed outside of China to date found that the deceased had a severely depleted white blood cell count. These lowered counts may come from this shared similarity with HIV, or it could also be the result of antibody-dependent enhancement as well, since this phenomenon primarily targets white blood cells for its hijackings and may help explain why consecutive infections are so lethal.

– In a highly concerning turn, scientists have noted that the Wuhan Strain can have a “striking” short term rate of mutation which doesn’t indicate an artificial origin but captures the unique threat posed by this coronavirus regardless of its providence, since a faster mutation rates makes it more likely this virus can dodge testing and neutralize vaccines. Something there is already early evidence for. Further concerning are reports out of China that even patients who appear cured still harbor COVID-19 in their system, and although the full implications of this are not yet known – none of them are good.

– One of the worst possible scenarios for COVID-19’s mutation rate would be if it falls into the Goldilocks range that would allow it to form mutant viral swarms: too many mutations will cause a virus to eventually implode, not enough allows host immune systems to catch-up, but if things are just right mutant swarms can form and spread across host populations, burrowing into host nervous systems and causing permanent neurological damage. Mutant swarms form when a virus produces mutationally-damaged copies of itself inside a host, some of which aren’t infectious but find their way into the nervous system where they burrow in causing damage, and others that combine with complimentary broken copies inside host cells to produce working infectious copies of the virus. So a host can not only become crippled with neurological issues, but also still be producing infectious copies of the virus. And it seems as if COVID-19 has many characteristics that indicate the potential to form mutant swarms: the “striking” mutation rate mentioned above and the fact a second widespread mutated strain seems to have already emerged in Washington State with many other isolated strains reported elsewhere, crossing between species is another factor and a dog in Hong Kong appears to have tested positive, the fact that the Wuhan Strain can infect not only the respiratory tract but feces as well – multi-organ involvement is an important contributor to viral swarms, and finally the markedly viral load rate of COVID-19 compared to SARS – SARS produced a viral load several times lower which decreased over time, while COVID-19 produces a “very high” viral load that appears to increase over time and can peak several orders of magnitude higher than SARS was measured to reach. And alarming evidence that this phenomenon is occurring emerged from a Chinese pre-print which noted that over one-third of the roughly 200 patients studied has some neurological symptoms, with nearly half of the most severe patients exhibiting neurological issues.

– Another exceptional trait of the Wuhan Strain COVID-19 is that not only does it form its own clade, it’s calculated to have diverged from SARS and its other sister coronaviruses some 260 years ago. And yet in all that time, while it every other branch of the coronavirus tree was busy branching-off into countless variants, if it emerged naturally, COVID-19 somehow spent a quarter of a millennium as the lone known example of its clade, somehow not mutating into related lineages in all that time. Another simpler explanation is that this apparent hereditary distance and genetic uniqueness is the just the result of being altered in a lab. And although two distinct strains of COVID-19 have been identified, there’s no reason to believe this mutational differentiation happened before contact with humans in December of 2019. Additionally, when neutral sites, the specific points in the genome which most reliably show evolutionary change, were examined: COVID-19 looks even more evolutionarily distant from any of its possible relatives.

– Also giving credence to the idea that the Wuhan Strain was bio-engineered is the existence of a patent application registered to a scientist from Wuhan that looks to modulate a coronavirus’ spike-protein genes – the precise region altered by Zhengli Shi at UNC to make a hyper-virulent strain of coronavirus, and whose alteration and adaptation would explain the Wuhan Strain’s unusual behavior as discussed above.

SARS-CoV2: Justification For The Ultimate "Stop and Frisk"?

banditoblog |  For those eternal optimists (and state trolls) who choose to believe that the PTB are not currently making their move with bio-weapons, take a look at the interview in this video, which was recorded in 2014:

If you’re too busy to watch it all (10 or so minutes), go to 7:45 and listen to the 2014 prediction of exactly what is happening today.

Russia: Handling Bidnis and Holding Coronavirus Down

Meduza |  The number of COVID-19 cases detected per day outside of China has long surpassed the recorded infection rate within Chinese borders. Nonetheless, since 2020 began, Russia has reported only four confirmed cases of the disease. Only one of those cases was found in Moscow, the second-largest city in Europe after Istanbul. Meanwhile, in Italy, France, and Germany, there are currently 3,089, 337, and 444 confirmed cases, respectively. This is despite the fact that the number of passengers who have traveled to those countries from China by air is comparable to the number traveling to Russia. While it’s impossible to say with certainty how this disparity arose, it is possible to offer a few potential explanations. Whether you believe them is up to you.

Hypothesis 1: Russia closed its borders fast enough that almost nobody infected with the virus could get in

The Russian government first increased its control over individuals arriving in the country from China on January 23, 2020, but it did not limit any means of transport until January 31. On that day, Russian officials closed off direct trains from Moscow to Beijing and closed its ground border with China to foot traffic and automobiles.

By then, 9,923 cases of COVID-19 had already been registered worldwide, both in China and in Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Even in Finland, which has a very small interchange of transit passengers with China and a large one with Russia, had registered cases. All this means that at least in theory, the new coronavirus had every opportunity to enter Russia before transportation to and from China was limited. In fact, it did just that: The first two infections recorded in Russia were detected on January 31 in two Chinese citizens traveling as tourists.

SARS-CoV2: A Biological Referendum On Competing Political Cultures and Economies

WaPo | On Friday, the Iranian government finally began to acknowledge what the world already knows: the covid-19 virus has hit that country extremely hard and it’s likely to get much worse.

In a televised news conference, the spokesman for Iran’s coronavirus task force announced that 4,700 cases of the virus have now been confirmed, including more than 1,200 in the previous 24 hours. The official death count stands at 124.

The ways in which key leaders’ responses differ from those of ordinary citizens tell you everything you need to know about the deepening gulf between the Iranian people and their government and how it might contribute to the spread of the disease.

The sudden sense of alarm contrasts starkly with how Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and other officials initially downplayed the threat.

In the early stages of the virus story, officials in Tehran were worried about turnout in the Feb. 11 parliamentary elections. They feared that low voter turnout — which, as anticipated, was aggravated by the Iranian military’s shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger jet in January — would further undermine the notion of public support for the system. Authorities prioritized their political concerns over the risk of the virus spreading.

Now, though, the news that an increasing number of ministers and lawmakers have tested positive for the virus — two of whom have already died from it — has shattered what was left, if anything, of the government’s credibility.

“Today, the country is engaged in a biological battle,” Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said. “We will prevail in the fight against this virus, which might be the product of an American biological [attack], which first spread in China and then to the rest of the world.”

Did SARS-CoV2 Already Do Neuroinvasive Brain Salad Surgery On Joe Biden?

caitlinjohnstone |  It’s very bizarre and dissonant how there are currently two separate and non-overlapping lines of criticism going on against the campaign of establishment-anointed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. There are the perfectly accurate criticisms regarding the right-wing, militaristic policy positions of the politician Joe Biden used to be, and then there are the equally accurate criticisms of Biden’s handlers and Democratic Party leadership for wheeling out the dementia-addled husk of a man he currently is to run for the world’s most powerful elected office.

These two debates do not interweave, because they are not relevant to one another. It doesn’t matter what political positions a dementia victim once had; what matters is taking care of him and keeping him away from hazards, like sharp objects and nuclear launch codes. It’s impossible to know what actual political convictions still remain held within a mind that can no longer lucidly string thoughts together anyway.

I hate doing this. I hate repeatedly writing about the obvious and undeniable fact that an old man is exhibiting obvious and undeniable symptoms of incipient dementia. It isn’t fun, and it doesn’t feel good. But the alternative is laying down and allowing the Democratic party and its allied media to gaslight people into believing it’s not a thing, as they are doing currently.

Have Han Elites Set the Stage for Collapse?

charleshughsmith |  Threats, propaganda and the Orwellian dissolution of social trust cannot stop a withdrawal from the status quo.

Longtime readers know I've had an active interest in what differentiates empires/nations that survive crises and those that collapse. There is a lively academic literature on this topic, and it boils down to three general views:

1. Collapse is typically triggered by an external crisis that overwhelms the empire's ability to handle it. Absent the external shock, the empire could have continued on for decades or even centuries.

2. Crises that could have been handled in the "Spring" of rapid expansion are fatal in "Winter" when the costs of maintaining complex systems exceeds the empire's resources.

3. Civilization is cyclical and as population and consumption outstrip resources, the empire becomes increasingly vulnerable to external shocks.

External shocks include prolonged severe drought, pandemics and invasion. In many cases, the empire is beset by all three: some change in weather that reduces grain harvests, a pandemic introduced by trade or military adventure and/or invasion by forces from far-off lands with novel diseases and/or military technologies and tactics.

More controversial are claims that political structures become sclerotic and top-heavy after long periods of success, and these bloated, brittle hierarchies lose the flexibility and boldness needed to deal with multiple novel challenges hitting at the same time.

We lack internal-political records for most empires that have collapsed, but those records that have survived for the Western and Eastern Roman Empires suggest that eras of stability breed political sclerosis which manifests as a bloated, parasitic bureaucracy or as ruthless competition between elites that were once united in the expansive "Spring" phase.

By the "Winter" phase, the elite hierarchy is willing to sacrifice the unity needed to survive for its own short-term advantage.

All of this applies directly to China, which is experiencing not just a public health crisis (Covid-19 pandemic) but a host of overlapping crises triggered by the epidemic.

The external shock of the coronavirus has revealed the fragilities and weaknesses of China's social, political and financial orders. These include:

1. Healthcare system crisis. The system is a patchwork that leaves non-government workers largely on their own. One doctor in Wuhan reported that a pregnant woman in his care died when the family ran out of cash for her care. (The central government announced it would cover all costs shortly after the patient died.)

The for-profit nature of much of the healthcare system is not widely understood outside China. If you want high-quality care without long waits, you must have cash.

Additionally many of the "doctors" are trained only in traditional Chinese medicine, so there is a shortage of trained personnel and facilities.

2. Food system crisis. It's not just Swine Fever that's straining the system; shortages are widespread and rising costs have been crimping working-class household budgets for the past few years.

Israel's SARS-CoV2 Response Also Worth Microscopic Scrutiny

i24News |  More than 100,000 Israelis have been ordered into self-quarantine so far

Israeli health officials have confirmed that 17 people have been diagnosed with the deadly coronavirus. 

The man being treated for the virus is reportedly from the northern town of Tiberias and was admitted to the hospital Thursday afternoon. 

More than 100,000 Israelis have been ordered into self-quarantine since the outbreak was first reported in early February. 

Meanwhile, Israel has temporarily barred visitors traveling from a growing list of countries including France,  Switzerland, Spain, Germany and Austria.

Jerusalem had previously announced bans on Asian nations such as China, South Korea, Thailand, Japan and Vietnam when spread of the novel coronavirus first began to make headlines in early February.

Rich Folks and SARS-CoV2: Should Be Particularly Instructive To See How This Situation Evolves...,

whiteplains |  Dear White Plains Residents,

We continue to work with State, County and White Plains Hospital officials, community organizations, and others to ensure an effective and coordinated response to the coronavirus outbreak.

According to the Westchester County Department of Health there are now up to 18 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Westchester County. As has been widely reported, there are three confirmed cases associated with a private school in White Plains, Westchester Torah Academy. The three students who tested positive are the children of the man who is a friend of and spent time with the original patient. Westchester Torah Academy has been closed until March 16 and the NY State Department of Health has required all students, faculty, and staff to isolate themselves at home through that date. The re-opening of the school is conditional on whether any new positive COVID-19 cases are identified.

My staff and I met with White Plains Hospital officials and representatives from Empress Ambulance Service on Wednesday morning to discuss their monitoring, preparation, and response efforts. Everything from hospital staff education about the virus to patient transport protocols to information sharing to availability of supplies is being worked on.

White Plains Hospital has established a Coronavirus hotline. The hotline number is (914) 681-2900. It is available 24 hours/day. This hotline will be updated by the Hospital regularly with information about the virus. It also gives callers the option of connecting with a White Plains Hospital representative if they are concerned that they are exhibiting symptoms or might have been exposed to the virus. We thank the Hospital for establishing this hotline for our community.

We continue to urge everyone to take the common sense approach to this virus outlined by the Westchester County Department of Health and other trusted sources, such as the CDC. Residents should also be advised that Westchester County is taking steps to ensure that all Bee-Line buses are sanitized daily.

This has been a rapidly evolving public health issue and there is no doubt that it will remain so for the foreseeable future. The guidance and common sense protocols offered by our public health officials is our best protection. We will continue to keep residents updated as developments occur and continue to pass on information from State and County public health officials as we receive it.
Thank you, Mayor Tom Roach

What Institutional Composites Are Protecting Prince Andrew From L'Affaire Epstein Consequences?

strategic-culture |  The royal family in the UK is having its very foundations shaken by both the controversial departure of Prince Harry and Meghan and now startling new revelations which compromise Prince Andrew even further, since his “car crash” interview with BBC, over his alleged relationship with a sex-trafficked child prostitute working for Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew had always denied any link whatsoever with the then named Virginia Roberts who was in just 17 when the main allegation – that Epstein flew her to London in March 2001 for her to have sex with the British royal – was brought against him. Central to that allegation was a photo taken by Ghislaine Maxwell in her London home on the same night in question which Andrew claims is fake.

Roberts claims that she was forced into the act by Epstein and Maxwell and has gone on the record to talk about the intimate details of the incident, but her case have been light on witnesses or those who can corroborate her allegations. Until now.

Her shocking claims are that Maxwell and Epstein were running a high class sex trafficking organisation which targeted powerful, influential individuals, which some might speculate was part of a Mossad run ‘honey trap’ – a blackmail ring which made Epstein hugely powerful and in a position to ask from the same targets favours, or for highly valuable information which could support its agenda.

In just a few days in mid February, Prince Andrew already feeble case which he was clinging on to – that he had no link whatsoever with Roberts – was shattered though, which in itself raises a number of questions over who is protecting the British royal. And at what price?

First off came the accusation by a palace security guard in London who has challenged Andrew’s claim to be in another part of the country (far from the capital) on the night of the alleged sexual incident. According to the security officer, Andrew returned to Buckingham Palace in the early hours and shouted at the top of his voice at the palace gates for them to be opened.

But far more damning is the testimony of a telecoms man who was employed by Epstein on his private Caribbean island who a British tabloid interviewed days later, who identifies both Prince Andrew and Roberts being intimate with one another and how she appeared to be like a child “hiding behind an adult” sometime around 2001 or thereafter.

There is nothing quite so powerful in a legal case which Roberts (now Giuffre) is preparing than eye witnesses who can stand in the witness box. And the emergence of Steve Scully will be seen as a massive blow to Andrew’s claims now. The FBI too will find it hard to ignore Scully’s allegations.

Or will it?

Conspiracy Theorizing Is A Privilege Exclusive to Those Inside The Institutional Class

rutherford |  Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expands its powers.

The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be—civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”—as long as it allows the government to justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.

Now we find ourselves on the brink of a possible coronavirus contagion.

I’ll leave the media and the medical community to speculate about the impact the coronavirus will have on the nation’s health, but how will the government’s War on the Coronavirus impact our freedoms?

For a hint of what’s in store, you can look to China—our role model for all things dystopian—where the contagion started.....

....We’re not quite there yet. But that moment of reckoning is getting closer by the minute.

In the meantime, we’ve got an epidemic to survive, so go ahead and wash your hands. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. And stock up on whatever you might need to survive this virus if it spreads to your community.

We are indeed at our most vulnerable right now, but as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s the American Surveillance State—not the coronavirus—that poses the greatest threat to our freedoms.

Seriously - Am I The Only Cat Fixated On This LOW HANGING SARS-CoV2 FRUIT?!?!?!

thescientist |  Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.

The results demonstrate the ability of the SHC014 surface protein to bind and infect human cells, validating concerns that this virus—or other coronaviruses found in bat species—may be capable of making the leap to people without first evolving in an intermediate host, Nature reported. They also reignite a debate about whether that information justifies the risk of such work, known as gain-of-function research. “If the [new] virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, told Nature.

In October 2013, the US government put a stop to all federal funding for gain-of-function studies, with particular concern rising about influenza, SARS, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). “NIH [National Institutes of Health] has funded such studies because they help define the fundamental nature of human-pathogen interactions, enable the assessment of the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents, and inform public health and preparedness efforts,” NIH Director Francis Collins said in a statement at the time. “These studies, however, also entail biosafety and biosecurity risks, which need to be understood better.”

Baric’s study on the SHC014-chimeric coronavirus began before the moratorium was announced, and the NIH allowed it to proceed during a review process, which eventually led to the conclusion that the work did not fall under the new restrictions, Baric told Nature. But some researchers, like Wain-Hobson, disagree with that decision.

The debate comes down to how informative the results are. “The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk,” Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and biodefence expert at Rutgers University, told Nature.

But Baric and others argued the study’s importance. “[The results] move this virus from a candidate emerging pathogen to a clear and present danger,” Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, which samples viruses from animals and people in emerging-diseases hotspots across the globe, told Nature.

The United States Owes China An Apology, and The World Owes China a Gratitude

xinhua |  Not only that, the U.S. government also announced that restricting the entry of Chinese and foreigners who have visited China into the U.S. is actually an indirect declaration of a travel ban on China, which isolates other countries in the world from China, and has a great economic impact on China. of.

　　These practices in the United States are very unkind. They can be described as falling into the ground and killing people while they are ill. Now China's new crown pneumonia epidemic has been controlled. Except for Wuhan, new confirmed cases have been added in single digits. But it's getting worse.

　　If China retaliates against the United States at this time, in addition to announcing a travel ban on the United States, it will also announce strategic control over medical products and ban exports to the United States. Then the United States will be caught in the ocean of new crown viruses.

　　According to the US CDC officials, most masks in the United States are made in China and imported from China. If China bans the export of masks to the United States, the United States will fall into the mask shortage, and the most basic measures to prevent the new crown virus are Can't do it.

　　Also according to the US CDC officials, most of the drugs in the United States are imported, and some drugs are imported from Europe. However, Europe also places the production base of these drugs in China, so more than 90% of the US imported drugs are Related to China. The implication is that at this time, as long as China announces that its drugs are as domestic as possible and banned exports, the United States will fall into the hell of the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

　　However, there is a great love in the world. The Chinese people and the Chinese government have never done so. They have not insulted the United States, nor have they banned the export of masks and medicines to the United States. As China ’s new crown pneumonia epidemic is gradually controlled, China ’s ability to export masks and medicines Will be greatly enhanced, and the United States is one of the demand side. US government officials, such as Secretary of Commerce Rose, US Secretary of State Pompeo, and US White House Economic Adviser Navarro, have publicly gloated over China's new crown pneumonia epidemic, saying that the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in China is good for the United States and will help companies return to the United States. It also called on companies around the world to consider the risks of China's supply chain. Even the infamous "Wall Street Journal" published an infamous article "China is a real patient in Asia", and the "New York Times" in the United States also published a document condemning the closure of Wuhan in China as a violation of human rights. The American culture of falling rocks is really shameless. Today, Feng Shui is taking turns, and the United States has become a victim of the new crown pneumonia epidemic. At this time, China has not fallen into rocks and has not condemned the United States. At this time, the United States should be more mistakes for the past. Apologize to China for your actions.

　　During this time, a voice deliberately speculated that China owes the world an apology, which is very ridiculous. In order to fight the new crown pneumonia epidemic, China has made huge sacrifices, paid huge economic costs, and cut off the new crown virus. The route of transmission. No country has made such a great sacrifice and effort in this new crown pneumonia epidemic.

　　Moreover, according to the research of Academician Zhong Nanshan, although the new crown pneumonia epidemic broke out in China, the source may not necessarily be in China. Many studies have also pointed out that the origin of the new crown virus may come from other countries. Many confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in the United States, Italy, Iran and other countries without a history of Asian contact have demonstrated this, so China has no reason to apologize.

　　Now we should rightfully say that the United States owes China an apology, and the world owes China a gratitude. Without China ’s huge sacrifice and dedication, it would not be possible to win a precious time window for the world to fight against the new crown pneumonia epidemic. The hard-to-find new crown pneumonia epidemic has been blocked for a long time, it is really shocking, crying ghosts!

Who Or What Started It: The Everlasting Gobstopper Account of SARS-CoV2 Outbreak

AHTribune |  The Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, is cutting a broad and deep swath though epidemiological history with uncertain impact on the viability of many families, communities, institutions, economies, and even countries starting with the most heavily populated nation on earth. Many fates are hanging in the balance, not the least of which is that of the communist government that has ruled China since the Maoist Revolution brought it to power in 1949.

The new strain of Coronavirus has added novel genetic features to the same family of pathogens that brought the world the SARS crisis in 2002-3 and, a decade later, the less lethal MERS outbreak. This Novel Coronavirus strain, COVID-19, is showing itself to be much more contagious and lethal than was SARS and MERS.

Some have anticipated that, if not dramatically countered, the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic could be headed in the direction of the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918. This prediction flows from the assessment of, for instance, Prof. Gabriel Leung, Chair of Public Health Medicine at Hong King University. Looking at the very fast rate of COVID-19’s spread from human to human through the air, Dr. Leung challenged any residual sense of complacency. He anticipated a possible 60 per cent infection rate of the world’s entire population with deaths numbering in the many tens of millions.

The so-called Spanish flu has set the bar for how severe and widespread a contagious plague can become. The pandemic of 1918 took more lives in one year than all deaths due to World War II. The Spanish flu of 1918 engendered more mortality in one year than the four peak years of the notorious Black Death Bubonic Plague that decimated Europe in the middle years of the fourteenth century. The worldwide pandemic of 1918 infected over a quarter of all people on earth. About 65 million people died from the illness.

News reports from the ground zero area of the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic demonstrate that the effects of the viral infection cut far and wide. Every facet of Chinese society is being challenged to the limit by a fast-spreading plague disseminating germs of destruction disrupting many biological, political, economic, and knowledge systems simultaneously.

Questions about how to interpret the epidemic and how to explain to the public what is known or not known are quickly coming into focus. Who should be believed? Who is credible and who is not credible as the epidemic unfolds. What should be the role of social media and of whistle blowers in the process of deciding how to respond? What happens when genuine whistle blowers like Dr. Li are too quickly dismissed and reprimanded by ruling authorities as “conspiracy theorists”?

An essential task that must be faced in this initial phase of this crisis is to develop an accurate explanation of where contagion came from and how the first victims of the Novel Coronavirus came to be infected. The need for some degree of certainty about the origins of the virus and its subsequent genesis is absolutely essential to the development of sound and appropriate responses. It would be highly irresponsible to rush ahead with the development of an overall strategy for dealing with the plague without making an honest attempt to get at the truth of how the contagion first came into existence.

The importance of getting to the factual roots of what happened to put humanity on this epidemiological trajectory should be especially clear after the debacle of September 11, 2001. Without any sustained investigation of the 9/11 crimes, Americans were rushed into cycles of seemingly perpetual warfare abroad, police state and surveillance state interventions at home. This cycle of fast responses began within a month of 9/11 with a full-fledge military invasion of Afghanistan, an invasion that continues yet.

When two US Senators, Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle, sought to slow the rush of the US executive into emergency measures and war, they and the US Congress they served were hit hard by a military grade bioweapon, anthrax. The violent tactic of the saboteurs proved effective in easing aside close scrutiny that might have slowed down the fast approval by the end of October of Congress’s massive Patriot Act. 

Since then a seemingly endless cycle of military invasions has been pushed forward in the Middle East and Eurasia. The emergency measure powers claimed by the executive branch of the US government extended to widespread illegal torture, domestic spying, media censorship and a meteoric rise in extrajudicial murders especially by drones. This list is far from complete.

All of these crimes against humanity were justified on the basis of an unproven official explanation of 9/11.  Subsequent scholarly investigations have demonstrated unequivocally for the attentive that officialdom’s explanations of what transpired on the fateful day in September were wrong, severely wrong. The initial interpretations are strongly at variance with the evidentiary record available on the public record.

We must not allow ourselves to be hoodwinked in the same manner once again. The stakes are too large, maybe even larger than was the case in 2001. The misinterpreted and misrepresented events of 9/11 were exploited in conformity with the “Shock Doctrine,” a strategy for instituting litanies of invasive state actions that the public would not otherwise have accepted.

The conscientious portion of humanity, many of whose members have done independent homework of their own on the events of 9/11, will well understand the importance of identifying the actual originating source of the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic.

Beijing Hospital Confirms SARS-CoV2 Attacks Central Nervous System

cntechpost |  Beijing Ditan Hospital affiliated to the Capital Medical University said on March 4 that the first patient with novel coronavirus pneumonia complicated with encephalitis was discharged from the hospital on February 25.

Liu Jingyuan, director of the ICU at the Hospital, presided over the treatment of the patient. He reminded that patients with conscious disturbances must consider the possibility that the virus may attack the central nervous system.

At present, patients with new type of coronavirus pneumonia can be combined with multiple organ damages such as severe respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), myocardial damage, abnormal coagulation function, kidney damage, liver damage, etc. However, no central nervous system involvement has been reported. The case report is the first in the world.

Previous studies on SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) have also shown that the coronaviruses that cause these two diseases also cause cases of central nervous system damage.

 According to the introduction of Beijing Ditan Hospital, two suspected cases of new-type coronavirus pneumonia have been treated since January 12 this year (confirmed on January 20). As of 7:00 on March 4, the hospital has accumulatively received 150 patients with new-type coronavirus pneumonia, of which 150 The above patient is the only patient with new type of coronavirus pneumonia and encephalitis.

The 56-year-old patient was admitted to the hospital on January 24 with new coronavirus pneumonia, critical illness, and respiratory failure. After admission, he was given a combination of interferon nebulization, antiviral treatment, prevention of bacterial infection, and TCM syndrome differentiation. No improvement, high fever, fatigue, and dyspnea gradually increased.

America Exceptionally Vulnerable to SARS-CoV 2

theweek |  All over the world, governments are scrambling to defend their citizenry from COVID-19, the disease caused by the outbreak of novel coronavirus. So far it seems levels of success have varied; countries like Italy and Iran have struggled so far, while Vietnam and Taiwan have seemingly put forth an efficient and effective response.

The United States, where a major outbreak is clearly developing, however, is in a class by itself. America's atrociously inadequate welfare state makes it by far the most vulnerable rich country to a viral pandemic, and the vicious, right-wing ideology of the Republican Party has wrecked the government's ability to manage crises of any kind.

The national health care system is of course the most important tool for any country trying to fight off an epidemic — all citizens need to be able to get tested, receive treatment, or be quarantined if necessary. If and when a vaccine is developed, the system needs to distribute it to everyone as fast as possible. That means handing it out for free in locations across the country, and perhaps making it mandatory if uptake is insufficient.

The American health care system fails at every one of these tasks. Nearly 30 million Americans are uninsured, and a further 44 million are underinsured — meaning they will likely hesitate to go to the doctor if they start developing COVID-19 symptoms. This problem is seriously exacerbated by the rampant predatory profiteering that infects every corner of the health care system. Indeed, responsible citizens who have gone in for tests have already started getting slammed with multi-thousand dollar bills. A father and daughter who were evacuated from China and then forcibly quarantined for several days (luckily they were not infected) went home to find $3,918 in bills.

If you are working-class person with a $10,000 deductible (not at all uncommon), going to the doctor simply because you have flu-like symptoms (which is how most cases of COVID-19 are experienced) could very easily send you into bankruptcy. If infected, millions of Americans are likely going to take their chances — and keep spreading the virus.

Indeed, U.S. health care is not only by far the worst system among rich countries, it is much worse than that of many middle-income or poorer countries when it comes to confronting a fast-moving epidemic.

American Epidemic Control Won't Be Any Different Than American Criminal Justice

lpeblog |  It is now clear that we are entering a new phase of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The virus appears in new countries around the world each day. New cases are now regularly reported in the United States, and as testing is scaled up, that number will increase, probably substantially. It is clear now that the virus will spread in a sustained way in the community here. The estimated mortality rate derived from the data from China resembles that of the 1919 flu, which killed 50-100 million people around the world. As we are better able to track mild cases, we may find that it is substantially, even an order of magnitude, less deadly. Under every plausible scenario, however, this outbreak is likely to be extraordinarily disruptive. It will surprise no reader of this blog that the US is ill-prepared for this, and that the harms of this pandemic will not be equally visited on all. Yesterday, I worked with a group of more than 450 law and public health experts to put out a public letter addressed to federal, state, and local leaders, to identify essential aspects of an effective and fair response. It may be worth a read for those thinking about the political economy of pandemics. It illustrates some familiar LPE themes, and shows how features of our socio-legal context that drive injustice and inequality will undermine the COVID-19 response.

Slowing the spread of the disease, for example, will be extraordinarily hard without major surge of social support and a commitment to something like basic social solidarity. Measures like contact tracing and isolation and other forms of “social distancing” (closing schools and minimizing public events) are the main mitigation tools we have. But as the letter points out, whether they are effective depends on whether they are enacted fairly, and we put people in a position to cooperate. We cannot expect people to stay home, identify contacts, or seek recommended care and testing, if it throws them or their loved ones into harm’s way. Staying home may create an existential threat for millions of low-wage and gig-economy workers. If we send children home from schools and ask families to care for the mildly ill at home, how will the millions now juggling paid work and care work manage? Immigrants will be discouraged from seeking care and disclosing contacts if they fear immigration enforcement.

The letter calls for direct interventions to try to reduce the precarity in which so many workers, carers, and migrants today in the US live, so that everyone is in a position to cooperate with recommendations that will benefit us all. This includes direct payments or other compensation to individuals who are affected, sick pay, and immediate assurances that the COVID-19 response will not be linked to, or trigger, immigration enforcement. It notes that we need to consider the impact of policing on health, given how jails can drive epidemics. It sets out the legal requirements and risks of carceral measures like quarantine (building in part on earlier work I did with others on the disastrous Ebola quarantines), and makes clear that voluntary measures are more likely to earn cooperation and trust. The letter also demands that our leaders address the potentially catastrophic ways that our for-profit healthcare system intersects with what may be rapidly mounting need for testing and care.

Medical Industrial Complex Moved QUICK To Protect Its Interests

WSJ |  The Trump administration is considering using a national disaster program to pay hospitals and doctors for their care of uninsured people infected with the new coronavirus as concerns rise over costs of treating some of the 27 million Americans without health coverage, a person familiar with the conversations said.

In natural disasters such as hurricanes, hospitals and medical facilities can be reimbursed under a federal program that pays them about 110% of Medicare rates for treating patients such as those evacuated from hard-hit areas.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been in discussions about using that program to pay providers who treat uninsured patients with coronavirus, the person said.

Dr. Robert Kadlec, who is the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, said Tuesday at a congressional hearing that discussions are being held about using the National Disaster Medical System reimbursement program.

n 2018, 8.5% of people, or 27.5 million, didn’t have insurance at any point during the year. It was an increase from 2017, when 7.9% of the population, or 25.6 million, were uninsured, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Should the Rentier Class Pay the Costs to Control SARS-CoV2?

taxresearch |  I have already discussed the potential economic implications of coronavirus this morning. The purpose of this blog is to summarise the underlying economic logic of what I have said.

We will have an economic crisis in 2020 as a result of coronavirus. There can now be no doubt of that; the likelihood that this epidemic can now be contained seems to be very low indeed. The evidence from China is that the impact on productivity and the economy at large is enormous. Whether we can survive the impact of this epidemic without major economic consequences arising is largely dependent upon the effectiveness of the planning that the government undertakes now. What is apparent is that at present there are a few signs that this planning is taking place. We can hope for it in the forthcoming budget, but the signs are, so far, not good.

The key issue that the government has to decide upon is who will bear the economic consequences of what is to happen. I have already indicated in my first post on this issue that I think that the consequences of this epidemic will fall upon three clearly identifiable groups, which are individuals, businesses and government. However, when appraising who will bear the cost the criteria are slightly different.

It is unacceptable that individuals bear the cost of this crisis. There is simply too little economic resilience within the population as a whole for that to be the case. Far too many people have too few savings to survive major periods of economic inactivity without massive prejudice to their short-term and long-term well-being.

In addition, it is unacceptable that many businesses should fail through no fault of their own but that is what will happen unless the government steps in to prevent the major economic downturn that might happen this year. Cash flow issues will cripple many companies.

In that case it would seem that consequences of what might happen will fall, in the first instance, on the government.

Han Elite Demonstrated Efficacy of Its Pan-Optic Surveillance Suppressing SARS-CoV2

asiatimes |  China used locational and other data from hundreds of millions of smartphones to contain the spread of Covid-19, according to Chinese sources familiar with the program. 

In addition to draconian quarantine procedures, which kept more than 150 million Chinese in place at the February peak of the coronavirus epidemic, China used sophisticated computational methods on a scale never attempted in the West.

With more than 80,000 cases registered, China reported only 126 new cases yesterday, compared to 851 in South Korea and 835 in Iran, out of a total of 1,969 new cases worldwide. Chinese sources emphasize that the artificial intelligence initiative supplemented basic public health measures, which centered on quarantines and aggressive efforts to convince Chinese citizens to change their behavior.

Chinese government algorithms can estimate the probability that a given neighborhood or even an individual has exposure to Covid-19 by matching the location of smartphones to known locations of infected individuals or groups. The authorities use this information to use limited medical resources more efficiently by, for example, directing tests for the virus to high-risk subjects identified by the artificial intelligence algorithm.

All smartphones with enabled GPS give telecom providers a precise record of the user’s itinerary. Smartphone users in the United States and Europe can access their own data, but privacy laws prevent the government from collecting this data. China has no such privacy constraints, and telecom providers have used locational data for years for advertising. 

A Chinese bank executive reports that his company purchases locational data from telecom providers. “If you have walked by an auto dealership three times in the last few weeks, we send you a text advertising an auto loan,” the executive said. “We wouldn’t be allowed to do that in the West.

If We're Lucky, the L-Type Is So Savage It'll Burn Itself Out (Kill Hosts/Limit Spread)

asiatimes |  Chinese research scientists have released a paper that says the novel coronavirus known as Covid 19 has mutated into two subtypes.

The latest findings of Chinese scientific researchers allegedly show that new coronavirus has recently generated 149 mutation points and has evolved into an L subtype and an S subtype (see map below).

The study found that the two subtypes showed significant differences in geographical distribution and population spread.

The S subtype is a relatively older version, while the L subtype is “more aggressive and more contagious”.

An in-depth understanding of different subtypes will help differentiate treatment and help prevention of a new strain of pneumonia, the scientists said.

‘Differ in transmission ability, severity’ 

The research comes from the paper “On the origin and continuing evolution of SARS-CoV” published on Tuesday March 3 by the National Science Review. It was sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Authors of the thesis are researcher Lu Jian, at the Bioinformatics Center at Peking University’s School of Life Sciences, and researcher Cui Jie at the Shanghai Pasteur Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The authors believe that, based on the evolution of the new coronavirus, there may be a large difference in the transmission ability and severity of disease of the L and S subtypes.

The paper said the difference between the two subtypes is at the 28144 position of the viral RNA genome.

SARS-CoV2 is Neuroinvasive (That Explains Re-infection and Severity)

wiley |  Following the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS‐CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS‐CoV), another highly pathogenic coronavirus named SARS‐CoV‐2 (previously known as 2019‐nCoV) emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and rapidly spreads around the world. This virus shares highly homological sequence with SARS‐CoV, and causes acute, highly lethal pneumonia (COVID‐19) with clinical symptoms similar to those reported for SARS‐CoV and MERS‐CoV. The most characteristic symptom of COVID‐19 patients is respiratory distress, and most of the patients admitted to the intensive care could not breathe spontaneously. Additionally, some COVID‐19 patients also showed neurologic signs such as headache, nausea and vomiting. Increasing evidence shows that coronavriruses are not always confined to the respiratory tract and that they may also invade the central nervous system inducing neurological diseases. The infection of SARS‐CoV has been reported in the brains from both patients and experimental animals, where the brainstem was heavily infected. Furthermore, some coronaviruses have been demonstrated able to spread via a synapse‐connected route to the medullary cardiorespiratory center from the mechano‐ and chemoreceptors in the lung and lower respiratory airways. In light of the high similarity between SARS‐CoV and SARS‐CoV2, it is quite likely that the potential invasion of SARS‐CoV2 is partially responsible for the acute respiratory failure of COVID‐19 patients. Awareness of this will have important guiding significance for the prevention and treatment of the SARS‐CoV‐2‐induced respiratory failure. 

Cancelled Games and Empty Stadiums Might Move Trumps Big Ass Off the Pot!

WSJ  |   The NCAA tournament. Major League Baseball opening day. The Masters golf tournament. The NFL draft, the NBA and NHL playoffs, the Boston Marathon and Olympic qualifiers all over the U.S.

The busiest time of the American sports calendar is coming—if the coronavirus doesn’t come first.

As the global economy braces for the potentially devastating effects of a novel coronavirus that is spreading around the world, few businesses are at greater risk of being impacted than sports. 

This is a multibillion-dollar industry built on live entertainment, easy travel and mass gatherings, and that makes it especially vulnerable if major cities begin to embrace social distancing, as they have in countries where the virus has already disrupted everyday life. The problem is that there is no work-from-home in sports. The NBA season can’t be played on Slack. 

Should games be canceled? Can they be delayed? Will they be played in empty arenas? These are the questions that leagues and governing bodies are scrambling to answer as they size up potentially the biggest disruption to the sports calendar since World War II, and they are constrained by uncertainty as they make contingency plans to keep up with this mysterious pathogen. Their behavior will be dictated by the virus’s. 

“It will give March Madness a new meaning,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. 

                                              

The Trump-Pence Protocol for SARS-CoV2 Pandemic Mismangement

ourfiniteworld |  The world economy may become very different, simply because of COVID-19. The new virus doesn’t even need to directly affect the rest of the world very much to create a problem. The United States, Europe, and the rest of the world are very much dependent on the continued operation of China. The world economy has effectively put way too many eggs in one basket, and this basket is not now functioning as expected.

If China is barely producing anything for world markets, the rest of the world will suddenly discover that long supply chains weren’t such a good idea. There will be a big scramble to try to fill in the missing pieces of supply chains, but many goods are likely to be less available. We may discover quickly how much we depend upon China for everything from shoes to automobiles to furniture to electronics. World carbon dioxide emissions are likely to fall dramatically because of China’s problems, but will the accompanying issues be ones that the world economy can tolerate?

The thing that is ironic is that it is possible that the West’s fear of the new coronavirus may be overblown–we really won’t know what the impact will be with respect to people of European or of African descent until we have had a better chance to examine how the virus affects different populations. The next few weeks and months are likely to be quite instructive. For example, how will the Americans and Australians who caught COVID-19 on the cruise ships fare? What will the health outcomes be of non-Asians being brought back from Wuhan to their native countries on special planes?