#wuhan outbreak

[canthandlethishit]

its been 5 years?????

Last year… on this day…

[miniwritesworld]

Coronavirus: Rumours, Definition, Origin, Symptoms, Treatments, And Prevention

Coronavirus, or medically known as Covid-19 or novel coronavirus, is spreading across the globe and people have their own ideas about its development, causes, safety, and care. Before we start this exploration, let’s see what are the highlights that you will be discovering here today. Rumours About OriginWhat Is Coronavirus?Origin Of Covid-19How Does It Work?Incubation Period And…

[thejewishlink]

Former EcoHealth VP: COVID-19 Leaked From Wuhan Bioweapons Lab

Former EcoHealth VP: COVID-19 Leaked From Wuhan Bioweapons Lab

A scientist who formerly worked at a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases-funded U.S. non-governmental organization says he believes the COVID-19 pandemic leaked out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Newsmax reports. Andrew Huff, the former vice president at EcoHealth Alliance and an infectious disease epidemiologist in his own right, said, according to the Washington Times,…

[transmutationisms]

Hello, dropping by to ask if you have any reading recomendation wrt the sinophobic history of linking flus to China? It's been on my mind given covid was dubbed as "the wuhan virus" or more broadly as a Chinese disease; but I also seem to recall that in the 2010s, outbreaks of aviary flu were also characterized as Chinese outbreaks. It interests me given the current strains of aviary flu ripping through USA poultry and cattle...

Thank u in advance

yes, as a good starting point i would recommend the following bibliographic essay by Robert Peckham and Mei Li: "Epidemic Histories in East Asia." this is open-access and intended to give a reader some footing in the secondary literature, with a particular focus on China; the footnotes and bibliography here will give you a lot more sources to look at, and the essay is mostly just a reading guide for those. Peckham & Li cover the 20th century flu pandemics and the imagining of (southern) China as a global epicenter of influenza, as well as the longer history of sinophobic colonial concerns about leprosy, smallpox, cholera, and plague, and the general narrative of contagious disease as inevitably moving east -> west and south -> north.

the special issue of IsisCB that Peckham & Li's article comes from is also entirely free and open-access, and has several other articles that touch on disease narratology and the western/global northern conception of pandemics as a foreign danger emerging from the global south/east. additionally, in the last few decades there has been a wave of scholarship on similar narratives specifically concerning the plague; if that's interesting to you I would recommend Monica Green's work and Nükhet Varlık's (including but not limited to her essay in the above special issue). most epidemic and pandemic diseases have similar colonial and imperial narratives attached to them so there's lots to poke around in here (eg, French medical views of cholera as a climate-linked disease originating from India; but we would be here all day if I tried to be exhaustive).

wrt flu and China specifically: Robert Peckham has also written more about this in the Journal of Global History 15.3 (DOI 10.1017/S1740022820000224). additionally there is this article by Lachlan Strahan on Australia and the 'Asian flu' epidemic of 1957 in Australian Historical Studies 26.103, though it's a bit dated now (DOI 10.1080/10314619408595959).

[covid-safer-hotties]

Aerodynamic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in two Wuhan hospitals - Published April 27, 2020

Never let them tell you "We didn't/don't know that Covid is airborne"

Abstract The ongoing outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly on a global scale. Although it is clear that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is transmitted through human respiratory droplets and direct contact, the potential for aerosol transmission is poorly understood1,2,3. Here we investigated the aerodynamic nature of SARS-CoV-2 by measuring viral RNA in aerosols in different areas of two Wuhan hospitals during the outbreak of COVID-19 in February and March 2020. The concentration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in aerosols that was detected in isolation wards and ventilated patient rooms was very low, but it was higher in the toilet areas used by the patients. Levels of airborne SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the most public areas was undetectable, except in two areas that were prone to crowding; this increase was possibly due to individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the crowd. We found that some medical staff areas initially had high concentrations of viral RNA with aerosol size distributions that showed peaks in the submicrometre and/or supermicrometre regions; however, these levels were reduced to undetectable levels after implementation of rigorous sanitization procedures. Although we have not established the infectivity of the virus detected in these hospital areas, we propose that SARS-CoV-2 may have the potential to be transmitted through aerosols. Our results indicate that room ventilation, open space, sanitization of protective apparel, and proper use and disinfection of toilet areas can effectively limit the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in aerosols. Future work should explore the infectivity of aerosolized virus.

[magnetothemagnificent]

The little spiritual OCD pixie in my brain: "If you talk about your anxieties, they'll summon the Evil Eye and come true"

2019: *I finally get to a point of opening up to my therapist and talk about my anxieties. Tell her about how I read about a novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan that I'm anxious will develop into a global pandemic*

Now: *I finally get to a point of opening to my new therapist and talk about my anxieties after years of being afraid to because of the 2019 incident. Tell her about my debilitating phobia of driving and how I'm afraid I'll get into an accident. Gradually work on exposure therapy to get to a point of being comfortable behind the wheel*

Today: *Feels confident enough to drive alone for the first time in years........crashes car into fence.*

The little spiritual OCD pixie: "told you so."

[argumate]

plum-soup said: I think there is a tendency in liberal media about the cold war to list out a bunch of obvious problems the Soviets had and then at the end be like “…and it’s because they’re a bunch of communist authoritarians!” When clearly that is not true or relevant to the situation in any believable way

plum-soup said: Like everything bad about the Soviets just got worse after they left lol. Can you IMAGINE Chernobyl happening under the Putin regime???? Like at least the soviet government marginally cared about the lives of its citizens lol

or more relevantly the Russia might have less state capacity now than it had then, and be less capable of conducting the cleanup.

but it's funny to flip from "everything wrong with Russia is because of communism" and end up with "everything wrong with communism is because it happened in Russia"! even though that may be more accurate; I mean the socialist policies adopted in other parts of the world worked out better, I'd say.

I think the covid outbreak in 2020 gave a neat example of the pluses and minuses of the authoritarian approach: the initial spread in Wuhan was worsened by information hiding and censorship of the outbreak, which (much like Chernobyl and the first SARS outbreak) couldn't be contained due to the global nature of the issue and foreign media, but then China ended up having more state capacity to deal with the problem than many richer countries like the US and UK, which repeatedly fumbled their response and their messaging, destroying the credibility of health institutions and suffering higher per capita death tolls.

[didanawisgi]

Master Post: The Yan Papers & Supporting Evidence of an Unrestricted Bioweapon

Yan Reports

Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route

SARS-CoV-2 Is an Unrestricted Bioweapon: A Truth Revealed through Uncovering a Large-Scale, Organized Scientific Fraud

The Wuhan Laboratory Origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the Validity of the Yan Reports Are Further Proved by the Failure of Two Uninvited "Peer Reviews"

Birger Sørensen, Angus Dalgleish & Andres Susrud

The Evidence which Suggests that This Is No Naturally Evolved Virus: A Reconstructed Historical Aetiology of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike

Steven C. Quay Bayesian Analysis

A Bayesian analysis concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 is not a natural zoonosis but instead is laboratory derived

Long history of China's CCP and Biowarfare: Analysis from Clare M. Lopez, Director of U.S. Geostrategic Security Issues for the Near East Center for Strategic Engagement (NEC-SE) 

The Role of Biological Warfare in China’s Drive for Global Hegemony (Part 1) & How a CCP Operation Ensnared the US Government (Part 2)

Mixed Messaging from U.S. Government on China’s Biological Weapons Program: The involvement of U.S. government entities with Chinese biological weapons scientists and entities is deeply concerning

“Better Late Than Never?”

China’s Biological Warfare Programme: An Integrative Study with Special Reference to Biological Weapons Capabilities by Dany Shoham

This study attempts to profile China’s biological warfare programme (BWP), with special reference to biological weapons (BW) capabilities that exist in facilities affiliated with the defence establishment and the military. For that purpose, a wide variety of facilities affiliated with the defence establishment and with the military are reviewed and profiled. The outcome of that analysis points at 12 facilities affiliated with the defence establishment, plus 30 facilities affiliated with the PLA, that are involved in research, development, production, testing or storage of BW. This huge alignment might be regarded as superfluous, ostensibly; yet, considering the various factors discussed in the present study, the overall derived picture of the Chinese BW-related alignment is not at all surprising. The chances that an outstanding state like China would ignore new avenues of BW designing and deployment are a priori slim, if any. China, in all likelihood, is and will persist as a paramount BW possessor.

‘Virus warfare’ in China military documents

Chinese military scientists discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronaviruses five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, outlining their ideas in a document that predicted a third world war would be fought with biological weapons.

The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian

The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian. In 2005, THE EPOCH TIMES acquired a secret speech given by Defense Minister Chi Haotian to high-level Communist Party Cadres sometime before his retirement in 2003. Details given in Chi’s speech coincide with previously unpublished defector testimony on Sino-Russian military plans.

A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence (2015)

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV underscores the threat of cross-species transmission events leading to outbreaks in humans. Here we examine the disease potential of a SARS-like virus, SHC014- CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations1. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.

The China-Led WHO Report on Coronavirus Is Deeply Suspect 

The China-Led WHO Report on Coronavirus Is Deeply Suspect by Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The WHO’s China-led international investigation into the origins of COVID-19 did not trace either the genomic derivation or the initial contraction of the virus that generated the pandemic. This could be because it did not look for an unnatural scenario or because a natural scenario did not in fact occur. China appears to have essentially dictated the proceedings of the investigation, the findings of which are deeply suspect.

Discovery of a novel merbecovirus DNA clone contaminating agricultural rice sequencing datasets from Wuhan, China

Discovery of a novel merbecovirus DNA clone contaminating agricultural rice sequencing datasets from Wuhan, China

An unreported CoV infectious clone in Wuhan

Csabai et al.

Unique SARS-CoV-2 variant found in public sequence data of Antarctic soil samples collected in 2018-2019

Host genomes for the unique SARS-CoV-2 variant leaked into Antarctic soil metagenomic sequencing data

Project DEFUSE: Defusing the Threat of Bat-borne Coronaviruses 

DEFUSE proposal

Nuclear translocation of spike mRNA and protein is a novel pathogenic feature of SARS-CoV-2

The spike (S) protein appears to be a major pathogenic factor that contributes to the unique pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2. Although the S protein is a surface transmembrane type 1 glycoprotein, it has been predicted to be translocated into the nucleus due to the novel nuclear localization signal (NLS) “PRRARSV”, which is absent from the S protein of other coronaviruses. Indeed, S proteins translocate into the nucleus in SARS-CoV-2-infected cells. To our surprise, S mRNAs also translocate into the nucleus. S mRNA colocalizes with S protein, aiding the nuclear translocation of S mRNA. While nuclear translocation of nucleoprotein (N) has been shown in many coronaviruses, the nuclear translocation of both S mRNA and S protein reveals a novel pathogenic feature of SARS-CoV-2.

SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro

Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line

Unnaturalness in the evolution process of the SARS-CoV-2 variants and the possibility of deliberate natural selection

Over the past three years, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has repeatedly experienced pandemics, generating various mutated variants ranging from Alpha to Omicron. In this study, we aimed to clarify the evolutionary processes leading to the formation of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants, focusing on Omicron variants with many amino acid mutations in the spike protein among SARS-CoV-2 isolates. To determine the order in which the mutations leading to the formation of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants, we compared the sequences of 129 Omicron BA.1-related isolates, 141 BA.1.1-related isolates, and 122 BA.2-related isolates, and tried to dissolve the evolutionary processes of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants, including the order of mutations leading to the formation of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants and the occurrence of homologous recombination. As a result, we concluded that the formations of a part of Omicron isolates BA.1, BA.1.1, and BA.2 were not the products of genome evolution as is commonly observed in nature, such as the accumulation of mutations and homologous recombinations. Furthermore, the study of 35 recombinant isolates of Omicron variants BA.1 and BA.2, confirmed that Omicron variants were already present in 2020. The analysis we have shown here is that the Omicron variants are formed by an entirely new mechanism that cannot be explained by previous biology, and knowing the way how the SARS-CoV-2 variants were formed prompts a reconsideration of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Further Supporting Evidence

Anomalies in BatCoV/RaTG13 sequencing and provenance

Time Shows That The ‘Paranoid’ People Were Correct About COVID

Molecular Biology Clues Portray SARS-CoV-2 as a Gain-of-Function Laboratory Manipulation of Bat CoV RaTG13

The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin: SARS-COV-2 chimeric structure and furin cleavage site might be the result of genetic manipulation

A look at China’s biowarfare ambitions

Mountains of circumstantial evidence point toward early circulation of SARS-CoV-2

Breaking: SARS-CoV-2 Spike found in bacteria samples taken from China, 2019

Unique SARS-CoV-2 genomes found in Antarctic samples raises questions about SARS-CoV-2 origin, lineages

The Galveston National Lab and Wuhan Institute of Virology

US University Concedes It May Have Broken Law in Contract With Wuhan Lab

Judicial Watch: New Documents Reveal COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Used by HHS were Conducted in China

JW v HHS Wuhan August 31 2021 00696

Flavinkins Archives

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH AND ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE DID NOT EFFECTIVELY MONITOR AWARDS AND SUBAWARDS, RESULTING IN MISSED OPPORTUNITIES TO OVERSEE RESEARCH AND OTHER DEFICIENCIES

U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) COVID-19 Common Operational Picture

SELLIN: Is China’s Military Making COVID-19 Variants?

Enhancing Protein Expression by Leveraging Codon Optimization

Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research

So, COVID-19 is a Bioweapon After All, The Times ExplainsSars-Cov-2 is a result of bioweapons research, and work of Ralph Baric and Peter Daszak

Journalistic Investigations

The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?

What really went on inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid erupted?New fresh evidence drawn from confidential reports reveals Chinese scientists spliced together deadly pathogens shortly before the pandemic, the Sunday Times Insight team report

New Emails Chronicle Lab-Leak Coverup in Real Time

Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci emailed about whether NIH funded Wuhan lab before secret call

Pentagon gave millions to EcoHealth Alliance for weapons research program

Leaked Chinese document reveals a sinister plan to ‘unleash’ coronaviruses

BREAKING: DOD CONTROLLED COVID ‘VACCINES’ FROM THE START UNDER NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM – LIED THE ENTIRE TIME – Were NEVER ‘Safe and Effective’

The role of the US DoD (and their co-investors) in "covid countermeasures" enterprise.

EVOLUTION OF A THEORY: Unredacted NIH Emails Show Efforts to Rule Out Lab Origin of Covid

The U.S. Keeps Offering China Its COVID Vaccines. China Keeps Saying No

Links between the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and China’s People’s Liberation Army

Broken Bioweapon: Lack of mRNA Integrity in Pfizer Batches: All Regulators Knew This When they "Pretend-Approved" the Shots

Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," a source said

How Did Deborah Birx Get the Job?

Do Governments Track the Injury and Kill Rates from Biowarfare Agents Deployed as mRNA/DNA "Vaccines"?

Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says

FBI Director Says Covid Pandemic Likely Caused by Chinese Lab Leak

Wuhan lab denied BSL4 access for SARS work without clear reasoning

Videos

Proof Government Lab Created COVID, Says Escaped Chinese Virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan – Ask Dr. Drew

Virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan Claims Coronavirus Lab 'Cover-Up' Made Her Flee China | Loose Women

The Dr. Jordan B Peterson Podcast, Viral: The Origin of Covid 19 | Matt Ridley | EP 310

Chinese Defector: China’s Weaponization of Covid-19

Was COVID-19 made inside a Chinese lab? | Under Investigation

One Billion COVID Jabs From The CCP? Dr. Naomi Wolf Breaks Down a Disconcerting Timeline

RTE Discussions #16: Examining DoD Involvement in the Pandemic (w/ Sasha Latypova)

Major Evidence China Is Making The Pfizer Vaccine Ingredients!

Naomi Wolf Bombshell: Has China Been Using COVID Vaccines To Decimate Western Democracies?!

LNP/mRNA Is "Natural Born Killer" Says Drug Inventor Dr. Richard Urso w/ Dr Kelly Victory – Ask Dr. Drew

COVID 'Good Material For Non-Traditional Bioweapon' To Ruin Economies: Chinese Virologist

Conversation with Dr. Jane Ruby: We cover the Government-Military-BioPharma Industrial Complex and get into the question Why?

SHOCKING REVELATION - DOCTOR EXPOSES COVID BIOWEAPONS PROGRAM & REVEALS VACCINE WILL KILL MILLIONS

COVID Lab Leak Evidence: Escaped Chinese Virologist Dr. Li-meng Yan & Brian O'Shea

Dr. David Martin: Pandemic Was "Biological Weapon of Genocide" w/ Dr. Kelly Victory – Ask Dr. Drew

Illegal Biolab in CA: Escaped Virologist Warns Of CCP Spy Links w/ Dr. Li-meng Yan – Ask Dr. Drew

Books

What Really Happened In Wuhan: A Virus Like No Other, Countless Infections, Millions of Deaths by Sharri Markson (2022)

Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America by Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui (2015)

Podcasts

The Voice of Dr. Yan

Neither Accidental nor Occasional, the History of CCP’s Bioweapon Program Dr. Li-Meng Yan & Clare M. Lopez

No Amnesty Should Be Given Until Investigation of COVID-19 Origin

Pfizer’s Plan of Directed Evolution vs. COVID-19 Predictor in China – Does the Nightmare Become True?

Chinese Spy Balloon is another CCP’s Unrestricted Tactic Against America

CCP promoted novel fabricated data on nature origin of COVID-19

China’s new methodology warfare; Understanding the cognitive war

[bigbadowlet]

Very interesting to see a someone reblog a Palestinian fundraiser and a “China is a beacon of socialism” post back to back. There is no doubt in my mind that China is unfairly demonized in American media and I am willing to accept that there are good aspects to the country. But ya’ll know the Government arrested journalists for covering the COVID outbreak right?

In fact they routinely imprison journalists for going against the party line.

Not to mention the erosion of Hong Kong’s right to self-governance and democracy.

“Oh but at least they don’t perpetuate genocide like the US” Wrong

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932

The Chinese Government has perpetuated human rights abuses at least on par with the USA in last 20 years but some people just love to jerk them off because they slapped a Socialist sticker on it. Both the Chinese and US governments exist to oppress their populations and keep them subservient to the corporations that exploit their lives. Neither are your friend.

[mariacallous]

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

In Beijing and other megacities in China, hospitals are overflowing with children suffering pneumonia or similar severe ailments. However, the Chinese government claims that no new pathogen has been found and that the surge in chest infections is due simply to the usual winter coughs and colds, aggravated by the lifting of stringent COVID-19 restrictions in December 2022. The World Health Organization (WHO) has dutifully repeated this reassurance, as if it learned nothing from Beijing’s disastrous cover-up of the COVID-19 outbreak.

There is an element of truth in Beijing’s assertion, but it is only part of the story. The general acceptance that China is not covering up a novel pathogen this time appears reassuring. In fact, however, China could be incubating an even greater threat: the cultivation of antibiotic-resistant strains of a common, and potentially deadly, bacteria.

Fears of another novel respiratory pathogen emerging from China are understandable after the SARS and COVID-19 pandemics, both of which Beijing covered up. Concerns are amplified by Beijing’s ongoing obstruction of any independent investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19—whether it accidentally leaked from the Wuhan lab performing dangerous gain-of-function research or derived from the illegal trade in racoon dogs and other wildlife at the now-infamous Wuhan wet-market.

Four years ago, during the early weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, Beijing failed to report the new virus and then denied airborne spread. At pains to maintain their fiction, Chinese authorities punished doctors who raised concerns and prohibited doctors from speaking even to Chinese colleagues, let alone international counterparts. Chinese medical statistics remain deeply unreliable; the country still claims that total COVID-19 deaths sit at just over 120,000, whereas independent estimates suggest the number may have been over 2 million in just the initial outbreak alone. Now, Chinese doctors are once again being silenced and not communicating with their counterparts abroad, which suggests another potentially dangerous cover-up may be underway.

We don’t know exactly what is happening, but we can offer some informed guesses.

The microbe causing the surge in hospitalization of children is Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes M. pneumoniae pneumonia, or MPP. First discovered in 1938, the microbe was believed for decades to be a virus because of its lack of a cell membrane and tiny size, although in fact it is an atypical bacterium. These unusual characteristics makes it invulnerable to most antibiotics (which typically work by destroying the cell membrane). The few attempts to make a vaccine in the 1970s failed, and low mortality has provided little incentive for renewed efforts. Although MPP surges are seen every few years around the world, the combination of low mortality and difficult diagnostics has meant there is no routine surveillance.

Although MPP is the most common cause of community-acquired pneumonia in school children and teenagers, pediatricians such as myself refer to it as “walking pneumonia” because symptoms are relatively mild. Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), influenza, adenoviruses, and rhinoviruses (also known as the common cold) all cause severe inflammation of the lungs and are far more common causes of emergency-room visits, hospitalization, and death in infants and young children. Why should MPP be acting differently now?

One contributing factor to the severity of this outbreak may be “immunity debt.” Around the globe, COVID-19 lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical measures meant that children were less exposed to the usual range of pathogens, including MPP, for several years. Many countries have since seen rebound surges in RSV. Several experts agree with Beijing’s explanation that the combination of winter’s arrival, the end of COVID-19 restrictions, and a lack of prior immunity in children are likely behind the surging infections. Some even speculate that that substantial lockdown may have particularly compromised young children’s immunity, because exposure to germs in infancy is essential for immune systems to develop.

In China, MPP infections began in early summer and accelerated. By mid-October, the National Health Commission had taken the unusual step of adding MPP to its surveillance system. That was just after Golden Week, the biggest tourism week in China.

Infection by two diseases at the same time can make things worse. The usual candidates for coinfection in children—RSV and flu—have not previously caused comparable surges in pneumonia. One difference this time is COVID-19. It is possible that the combination of COVID-19 and MPP is particularly dangerous. Although adults are less susceptible to MPP due to years of exposure, adults hospitalized for COVID-19 who were simultaneously or recently coinfected by MPP had a significantly higher mortality rate, according to a 2020 study.

Infants and toddlers are immunologically naive to MPP, and unlike COVID-19, RSV, and influenza, there is no vaccine against MPP. It seems implausible that no child (or adult) has died from MPP, yet China has not released any data on mortality, or on extrapulmonary complications such as meningitis.

Most disturbing, and a fact being downplayed by Beijing, is that M. pneumoniae in China has mutated to a strain resistant to macrolides, the only class of antibiotics that are safe for children less than eight years of age. Beyond discouraging parents to start ad hoc treatment with azithromycin, the most common macrolide and the usual first-line antibiotic for MPP, Beijing has barely mentioned this fact. Even more worrying is that WHO has assessed the risk of the current outbreak as low on the basis that MPP is readily treated with antibiotics. Broader azithromycin resistance in MPP is common across the world, and China’s resistant strain rates in particular are exceptionally high. Beijing’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported macrolide resistance rates for MPP in the Beijing population between 90 and 98.4 percent from 2009 to 2012. This means there is no treatment for MPP in children under age eight.

Fears over a novel pathogen are already abating. After all, MPP is rarely lethal. But antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is. Responsible for 1.3 million deaths a year, AMR kills more people than COVID-19. No country is immune to this growing threat. Since China, where antibiotics are regularly available over the counter, leads the world in AMR, it is inconceivable that this issue hasn’t yet come up, particularly during WHO’s World AMR Awareness week, from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24.

Any infectious disease physician would want to know: Did WHO asked China the obvious question—what is the level of azithromycin resistance of M. pneumonia in the current outbreak—and include the answer in its risk assessment? Or did it ask about resistance to doxycycline and quinolones, antibiotics that can be used to treat MPP in adults? Even if WHO did ask, China isn’t telling, and WHO isn’t talking.

China’s silence isn’t surprising. Its antibiotic consumption per person is ten times that of the United States, and policies for AMR stewardship are predominantly cosmetic. While surveillance is China’s strong point, reporting is not.

Despite Spring Festival, the Chinese celebration of the Lunar New Year and another peak travel period, approaching in February 2024, WHO hasn’t advised any travel restrictions. It should have learned the danger of accepting Beijing’s statements at face value. Four years ago, Beijing’s delay enabled more than 200 million people to travel from and through Wuhan for Spring Festival. That helped COVID-19 go global. Since China’s AMR rates are already so high, importing AMR from other countries isn’t a major concern for China. Export is the issue, and China’s track record in protecting other countries is abysmal.

Rather than repeating the self-serving whitewashing coming from Beijing, WHO should be publicly pressing China about the threat of mutant microbes. Halting AMR is essential. Before antisepsis and antibiotics, surgery was a treatment of last resort. Without antibiotics, we lose 150 years of clinical and surgical advances. Within ten years, we are at risk of few antibiotics being effective. It may not be the novel virus that people were expecting, but the next pandemic is already here.

[gulfportofficial]

Jeez, sometimes I remember I was literally in China for the outbreak of COVID. It broke when I was in Istanbul for my holiday, and I was supposed to fly home to Chengdu through Wuhan. The first I knew about it was the hotel I'd booked to stay overnight at in Wuhan texting to say that they were sorry but they would have to cancel my booking due to the pneumonia in the city. Then my flight was canceled and rescheduled. I scrabbled around to find lodging before I could fly home to to Chengdu (it was very much home at the time.) Then they had to send me overseas again because of my visa - if you are not a Chinese national, you must leave and re-enter to renew your visa, so my work would send us to Thailand or Hong Kong for the 3 days it took - and when I re-entered it had truly begun. Lockdown started immediately. The national holidays were extended by the government and a lot of laws were immediately put in place about employers having to pay employees even if it was not legal to come to work. This was the end of January, 2020.

In February, I wrote to my American now wife, "It cannot make landfall there." It was that poetic I think, something like that. "You don't have the infrastructure."

Two months later I was giving tips to Americans in facebook groups about how to survive quarantine, from my apartment in Chengdu, using a VPN of course. Deliveries were not allowed into our apartment complexes in Chengdu, and we were not allowed out without specific permission, and the only way we could get food was delivery, but you were supposed to speak to the apartment manager and my Mandarin was just not good enough. So I would just wrap up my whole face over the mask, take the elevator down and plead with the gate man in the Mandarin I did have. It was certainly a time to be alive.

[mightyflamethrower]

he post-Joe McCarthy era and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater once prompted liberal political scientist Richard Hofstadter to chronicle a supposedly long-standing right-wing “paranoid style” of conspiracy-fed extremism.

But far more common, especially in the 21st century, has been a left-wing, hysterical style of inventing scandals and manipulating perceived tensions for political advantage.

Or, in the immortal words of Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

The 2008 economic emergency crested on September 7, with the near collapse of the home mortgage industry.

Obama took office on January 20, 2009, more than four months after the meltdown. In that interim, the officials had finally restored financial confidence and plotted a course of economic recovery.

No matter. The Obama administration never stopped hyping the financial meltdown as if it had just occurred. That way, it rammed through Obamacare, massive deficit spending, and the vast expansion of the federal government. All that stymied economic growth and recovery for years.

In 2016, Donald Trump was declared Hitler-like and an existential threat to democracy.

Amid this derangement syndrome, any means necessary to stop him were justified: the Russian collusion hoax, impeachment over a phone call, or the Hunter laptop disinformation farce.

Eventually, the left sought to normalize the once unthinkable: removing the leading presidential candidate from state ballots and indicting him in state and local courts.

Nothing was off limits—not forging a federal court document, calling for a military coup, rioting on Inauguration Day, or radically changing the way Americans voted in presidential elections.

In October 2017, allegations surfaced about serial sexual predation by liberal cinema icon Harvey Weinstein.

The #MeToo furor immediately followed.

At first, accusers properly outed dozens of mostly liberal celebrities, actors, authors, and CEOs for their prior and mostly covered-up sexual harassment and often assault.

But soon, the once legitimate movement had morphed into general hysteria. Thousands of men (and women) were persecuted for alleged offenses, often sexual banter or rude repartee, committed decades prior.

#MeToo jumped the shark with the left-wing effort to take down conservative Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Would-be accusers surfaced from his high school days, 35 years earlier, but without any supporting evidence or witnesses for their wild, lurid charges.

#MeToo hysteria ended when too many liberal grandees were endangered. Most dramatically, former Joe Biden senatorial aide Tara Reade came forward during the 2020 campaign cycle with charges that front-runner Joe Biden had once sexually assaulted her—and was trashed by the liberal media.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States during the winter of 2020 prompted an even greater hysteria.

Without scientific evidence, federal health czars Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins were able to convince the Trump administration to shut down the economy in the country’s first national quarantine.

Suddenly, it became a thought crime to question the wisdom of six-foot social distancing, of mandatory mask wearing, of the Wuhan virology lab’s origin of the COVID virus, or of off-label use of prescription drugs.

Left-wing politicians and celebrities, from Hillary Clinton and Gavin Newsom to Jane Fonda, all blurted out the political advantages that the lockdowns offered—from recalibrating capitalism and health care to ensuring the 2020 defeat of Donald Trump.

The COVID hysteria magically ended when Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Suddenly, the lies about the bat or pangolin origins of the virus faded. The damage from the quarantines could no longer be repressed. And herd immunity gradually mitigated the epidemic.

The lockdown caused untold economic chaos, suicides, and health crises.

One result was the 120 days of looting, arson, death, destruction, and violence spawned by Antifa and Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd while in police custody in May 2020.

Suddenly, a hysterical lie took hold: American police were waging war against black males.

The details around Floyd’s sudden death—he was in the act of committing a felony, resisting arrest, suffering from coronary artery disease and the after-effects of COVID, and being high on dangerous drugs—were off limits.

The riot toll reached $2 billion in property damage, over 35 deaths, and 1,500 injured law enforcement officers. A federal courthouse, a police precinct, and a historic church were torched.

Police forces were defunded. Emboldened left-wing prosecutors nullified existing laws.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion commissars spread throughout American higher education as meritocracy came under assault.

Racial essentialism triumphed. Racially segregated dorms, campus spaces, and graduations were normalized.

Everything from destroying the southern border to dropping SAT requirements for college admission followed.

Sometimes real, sometimes hyped crises lead to these contrived left-wing hysterias—like the January 6 violent “armed insurrection” or the “fascist” “ultra-MAGA” threat.

Otherwise, the progressive movement cannot enact its unpopular agendas. So it must scare the people silly and gin up chaos to destroy its perceived enemies—any crisis it can.

[eternalistic]

See full article at archive.is “Ben Hu, a scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who had done  extensive laboratory research on how coronaviruses infect humans, was identified in U.S. intelligence reports as one of the researchers who became ill in November 2019 with symptoms that American officials said were consistent with either Covid-19 or a seasonal illness. None of the researchers died.” “The Federal Bureau of Investigation has assessed with moderate confidence that a lab leak was the most likely origin of the virus and the Energy Department came to a similar conclusion with low confidence. Four other U.S. intelligence agencies assess with low confidence that the virus arose naturally, while the Central Intelligence Agency has been agnostic.“ “The U.S. intelligence community is planning to declassify more information regarding its search for Covid’s origins as soon as this week, under a law that Congress passed and President Biden signed in March. It couldn’t be determined if the declassified intelligence would include the names of the researchers, and representatives for the director of national intelligence declined to comment.” “Hu is noteworthy, current and former officials say, because of his central role in coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Further, some of the projects he worked on were funded by U.S. government grants, according to documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act by the White Coat Waste Project, a nonprofit that opposes taxpayer funded research on animals.“ “The Government Accountability Office noted in a report last week that some of the research at the Wuhan Institute was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Institutes of Health. Between 2014 and 2019, about $1.4 million was disbursed for work at the institute by both agencies before such grants were suspended.”

[covid-safer-hotties]

In the U.S. Response to Avian Influenza, Echoes of Covid-19 - Published Sept 2, 2024

By Joshua Cohen

It’s been about five months since the Texas Department of State Health Services announced that a worker on a dairy farm had tested positive for avian influenza A (H5N1) virus after being exposed to apparently infected cattle. Since then, the U.S. public health response has been slow and disjointed, bringing back memories of how the federal government responded during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite having a pandemic playbook in early 2020, the U.S. appeared flat-footed in its response to Covid-19, including inadequate testing and unavailable personal protective equipment. And throughout the pandemic, mixed messaging on masks and later vaccines set back public health efforts.

As H5N1 circulates, it seems that lessons from Covid-19 remain unlearned. It appears that missteps are being made regarding testing, surveillance, transparency, and failure of communication and coordination throughout the health care system, the same kinds of things that hurt the response to Covid-19.

“The World Health Organization,” according to NPR, “considers the virus a public health concern because of its potential to cause a pandemic.” What may be concerning is that the genetic sequence of the Spanish flu that killed between 50 and 100 million people from 1918 to 1919 was later found to be an H1N1 virus that originated in birds and then somehow adapted to humans. And based on confirmed cases, the case fatality rate could be as high as 50 percent, as over the past two decades roughly half of about 900 people around the globe known to have contracted bird flu died from it. (There are two caveats, however: Due to limited testing, there were likely more cases that were undetected which would lower the mortality rate. And in the last two years, the global case fatality rate seems to have decreased.)

As of Aug. 30, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 196 dairy cow herds in 14 U.S. states have confirmed cases of avian influenza.

There have been 14 reported cases in humans since 2022, all of whom were exposed to cattle or poultry, and reports suggest that there may be even more sick farm workers who haven’t been tested. There’s no evidence the virus has started to spread among people, but that could change as the situation evolves. The possibility of spillover is always of concern to experts. One of two main competing theories of coronavirus origins and how it evolved into a human-to-human transmissible infection is zoonotic transfer from mammals sold at a wet market in Wuhan, China, to humans.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declared at a press conference in June that his department “is trying to corner the virus,” while releasing a report that human activity is a conduit to bird flu being transmitted between animals when workers, cows, vehicles and equipment move between farms.

But experts have voiced sharp criticism of the U.S. government’s response, especially around the lack of comprehensive surveillance efforts to ascertain the extent of the outbreak. When interviewed by KFF Health News, Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health said, “We’re flying blind.” Without sufficient testing, it’s impossible to know how many animals and humans have been infected or whether the virus has begun to spread between people.

As could have been learned from the Covid-19 experience, integral to conventional approaches to curbing transmission of infectious diseases is a comprehensive set of track, isolate, and contact trace policies. These have not been systematically implemented.

"Without a collective effort across all states, there’s nothing to stop avian flu from spreading around the country."

Michigan stands out as a state with a robust policy to track human and animal infections and investigate which activities pose the most risk. First, the state’s chief medical executive told STAT, Michigan tested more individuals this spring than any other state. And then the Department of Health and Human Services in Michigan launched a pioneering effort to detect asymptomatic (silent) bird flu infections among farmworkers. Furthermore, a press release from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development notes that under state rules dairy and commercial poultry producers must implement biosecurity practices, which include establishing cleaning and disinfection protocols at access points for individuals and vehicles.

Investigators believe the virus may have begun to spread in Michigan when workers operating multiple dairy and poultry operations came in close contact with infected cows and moved from one farm to another.

In April, the USDA issued a federal order requiring testing before lactating dairy cattle can be moved across state lines. Michigan, along with nearly two dozen other states, has also issued its own restrictions. But without a collective effort across all states, there’s nothing to stop avian flu from spreading around the country.

Furthermore, how effective can containment be when the USDA’s order only requires testing for bird flu in lactating cows prior to interstate movement, and no other types of animals?

One of the challenges in managing any major outbreak is the question of who’s in charge to coordinate across departments, such as Health and Human Services, Agriculture, and Commerce. For the purpose of inter-department coordination, the Biden administration launched an Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy in 2023.

Among federal agencies, the CDC (housed within the Department of Health and Human Services) appears to be the most actively involved in coordinating state efforts. It has provided assistance for a seroprevalence study in Michigan, to assess whether asymptomatic infections are present in people, for example.

But despite these efforts, there’s lack of clarity around who has jurisdictional authority over what and where. Rick Bright, a virologist and immunologist and former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, explained to CNN why he thinks that a more transparent and comprehensive approach to testing and genetic sequencing is needed. He’s concerned that viral adaptations can occur if there are enough opportunities through uncontrolled spread.

The CDC does now have a roadmap, which it announced for preventing and understanding human infection with bird flu and a plan to develop countermeasures. The roadmap’s main objectives include infection prevention by deploying PPE; examination of primary modes of transmission and estimates of incubation periods, duration of infection and severity; monitoring of genetic changes in the virus; and evaluating vaccines and antivirals. CDC Director Mandy Cohen said lessons from Covid-19 have been learned and that CDC is building upon them, for instance, through its wastewater surveillance efforts.

The CDC’s ability to implement these lofty goals may be hampered, however, by seemingly limited resources. The federal government has pledged only modest new funds this year of approximately $200 million to help track and contain H5N1. Separately, the government is allocating $176 million in Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine against H5N1.

And conspicuously absent are concrete plans, such as how to deploy the stockpile of 10 million doses of avian flu vaccines the federal government currently has as well as the inventory of the antiviral Tamiflu (oseltamivir). By contrast, Finland is now offering vaccines to farmworkers.

"The CDC’s ability to implement these lofty goals may be hampered, however, by seemingly limited resources."

Aside from inadequate funding and preparation, there’s a problem of overcoming public distrust. A survey published in Health Affairs suggests that about 42 percent of American adult respondents in early 2022 said they had confidence in the CDC to provide quality health information during the Covid-19 pandemic, while about a third said they trusted state and local health departments. This may partly explain why the CDC is now having trouble getting farmers to cooperate with even rudimentary tracking and mitigation efforts regarding H5N1.

Lessons from the history of how Covid-19 unfolded underscore the importance of not being complacent in the face of a potential future bird flu pandemic. It would seem imperative to take proactive measures such as systematic testing of animals and humans exposed to the virus, mitigate transmission risk in the dairy and poultry industries, and coordinate federal and state responses.

[meditating-dog-lover]

Why I think it came from a lab

Note: before you judge me for what I'm about to say, just know I am speaking from a scientific and biological standpoint. I'm a cell biologist who works in virology, and have a BSc in Anatomy and Cell Biology and MS in Neuroscience. I'm a scientist, not your 40 year old conservative MAGA uncle on Facebook. I absolutely hate how the pandemic was politicized as you should never introduce bipartisan nonsense to indisputable and factual matters like science and diseases.

So coronaviruses are nothing new. There have been previous coronavirus strains that infected the world. There is the one that caused SARS in 2002 and the other that caused MERS in 2012. And yes, bats do spread them. They are species capable of zoonotic infections (between species), including rats (spread the bubonic plague) and cattle. However, COVID-19 was a lot more devastating than the other 2 outbreaks. With all the modern knowledge and technology we have on disease prevention/control and vaccines/drugs, the fact that this outbreak was devastating to the point of causing a global pandemic is suspicious. There is no way something as cataclysmic came from nature given our current immunological and microbiological advancements in the 21st century. And judging how bats have spread coronaviruses in the past, it was never this catastrophic.

This leads me to think there was gain of function research involved using animal models in a lab (the Wuhan Institute of Virology). I do have a theory as to how they conducted their research, but it could be wrong. But gain of function research was definitely taking place. I believe they had animals in the lab that were positive for coronavirus (either bats or rats). They took nasal swabs and/or saliva samples from them to be able to harvest cells that had coronavirus RNA replicated in them. One strange thing about some viruses is that they do not possess any DNA. They contain RNA, which is the nucleotide chain that is generated from DNA during a process known as transcription. And most RNA sequences are converted to proteins via translation. Why some viruses lack DNA, however, I never really knew why.

Now in this day and age, we have the technology to modify the sequence of DNA/RNA. This process is known as gene editing. You would have to cut the sequence at specific nucleotide junctions, either insert or remove nucleotides, and then glue the sequence back together. One famous method of doing so is using the CRISPR technique. But there are many other ways to modify DNA/RNA sequences. These modifications do have an effect on the function of the virus. By editing the virus' RNA sequence, you can either cause the virus to weaken (loss-of-function) or to strengthen (gain-of-function). Some modifications lead to no changes in the viral strength and activity. Weakened viruses are used in traditional vaccines, so this is when RNA editing can be beneficial. However, I do believe gain-of-function gene editing was performed in the lab by using the coronavirus RNA sequences harvested from these animals that tested positive for the virus.

This is one theory as to how the gain-of-function research was conducted. There are many ways to do it, we can never be sure as to how it was exactly performed with these coronavirus samples in the lab.

Now how it spread from the lab to the rest of the world, I have no idea. Obviously, infections spread between people who interact with one another. How it expanded from a single lab to the whole world is a complex process to understand.

So this is my theory as a cell biologist regarding the origins of COVID-19. Yes it came from a lab. I fail to believe something this infectious and destructive came naturally from bats. We have the technology and immunological knowledge to aid in minimizing the spread of illness and creating effective drugs and vaccines. Looking at previous trends where bats have spread coronaviruses to other animals and humans, they did not result in global pandemics to this extent. So I think the virus was genetically modified to become more infectious. What was the reasoning behind this? What was the hypothesis they were trying to test? I don't know.

Here in the US, there are strict regulations as what type of research you can conduct in a lab. In theory, you can create almost anything in a lab, from drugs, to explosives, to deadly bioweapons. However, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. While that strictness is enforced here, it is not in other countries unfortunately.

I am devastated by the destruction the pandemic caused. From a single viral outbreak, to illness, disease, lockdowns, crashing economy, closing of small business, politicization of science and biology, anti-Asian hate, etc... Had we had the knowledge beforehand, this would have fared better for us.

[beardedmrbean]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted unanimously Friday to declassify U.S. intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19, a sweeping show of bipartisan support near the third anniversary of the start of the deadly pandemic.

The 419-0 vote was final approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

Debate was brief and to the point: Americans have questions about how the deadly virus started and what can be done to prevent future outbreaks.

“The American public deserves answers to every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

That includes, he said, “how this virus was created and, specifically, whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab-related event.”

The order to declassify focused on intelligence related to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, citing “potential links” between the research that was done there and the outbreak of COVID-19, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March 2020.

U.S. intelligence agencies are divided over whether a lab leak or a spillover from animals is the likely source of the deadly virus.

Experts say the true origin of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 1 million Americans, may not be known for many years — if ever.

“Transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy,” said Rep. Jim Himes, of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, during the debate. “Because without transparency the American people can’t make the sounds that they need to make responsibly as citizens of a democracy.”

Led by Republicans, the focus on the virus origins comes as the House launched a select committee with a hearing earlier in the week delving into theories about how the pandemic started.

It offers a rare moment of bipartisanship despite the often heated rhetoric about the origins of the coronavirus and the questions about the response to the virus by U.S. health officials, including former top health adviser Anthony Fauci.

The legislation from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was already approved by the Senate.

If signed into law, the measure would require within 90 days the declassification of “any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease."

That includes information about research and other activities at the lab and whether any researchers grew ill.