Coronavirus: what Canadians need to know
Declaration of Global Emergency Over Coronavirus Will Have 'Little Impact' Locally: TO's Top Doctor (and vid)
https://www.cp24.com/news/declaration-of-global-emergency-over-coronavir...
"Toronto's top doctor says that the risk posed to the city by a novel coronavirus outbreak remains low, despite a decision by the WHO to declare a global emergency. The UN health agency announced earlier on Thursday that it would make the declaration amid concerns that the virus could 'spread to countries with weaker health systems which are ill-prepared to deal with it.'
In a statement issued following that announcement, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, Dr Eileen de Villa said that the decision has 'little impact' on the work that is being done locally by public health officials. 'At this time the situation in Toronto has not changed and the risk to our community remains low. I will let you know directly, if this changes,' she said..."
WHO Chief Dr Tedros on China's Efforts to Combat Coronavirus (and vid)
https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1222884567230468096
"I will praise China again and again because its actions actually helped in reducing the spread of coronavirus to other countries. The commitment of the political leadership, starting from the president...the level of his knowledge is very amazing...China is doing its best and we call on all member states to give that kind of attention..."
The first shoe to drop outside China is likely to be the export-and China-dependent Eurozone. And, as we have warned on several occasions, many European banks will be unable to withstand a recession (see also Q-Review 3/2019 and Q-Review 4/2019).
When the European banking crisis, driven by the ensuing recession, resumes it will “go-global” fast as Europe holds the biggest concentration of globally systemically important banks, or G-SIBs.
It is also unlikely that hyper-valued U.S. stock markets will be able to endure the impact of a global recession. This is even more the case if the Fed tapers its term repo-operations in February, as planned.
Global recession, a European banking crisis and a crash in the U.S. capital markets will produce a global economic collapse which will almost certainly overwhelm any attempts—massive and coordinated as they may be—to turn the tide by over-stretched central banks and over-indebted governments.
This is, why the coronavirus outbreak should be treated for what it is: a potential harbinger of human and economic calamity.....GnS Economics
It is unfortunately true that shocks and dislocations ensuing from this pandemic could well initiate some rather ugly cascading collapses in a global economic system already showing great stress and dangerous disfunctionality...
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Hubei Province: 4,903 cases / 162 dead / 90 recovered
China (ouside Hubei province): 3,221 cases / 9 dead / 50 recovered
Hubei Province: 5,806 cases / 204 dead / 116 recovered
China (ouside Hubei province): 3, 852 cases / 9 dead / 63 recovered
Hubei Province: 5,806 cases / 204 dead / 116 recovered
China (ouside Hubei province): 3, 852 cases / 9 dead / 63 recovered
Very difficult to know how true these numbers are. Any who are ill or who died that were not tested are not included. This is a fact you cannot dispute. You have to rely on an assumption that everyone who has or had it have been tested. You can either believe that everyone who could have it has been tested or believe that testing has not reached everyone and therefore the numbers are higher by whatever number you want to estimate of those who were not tested.
For the untested -- it is just listed as another death -- flu death, old age death or whatever you call it.
Of course I am assuming that all health authorities everywhere in the world are telling the truth and of course we have no way of knowing that. We may want to beleive them and most may be doing their best but certainty is not there.
I think there are enough reports of people not being tested, and understanding about the limits of any healthcare system in the world to do it even if they want to, that there has to be a asterisk after the number.
The WHO refers to confirmed cases and they do not pretend that confirmed cases represents actual cases.
Certainly there are experts raising doubt about the numbers using modeling:
I don't think we can just dismiss all of this as some cases of conspiracy theories or racism. There is a significant confict of interest in all authorities anywhere and significant concern about presumptions.
That said, this is still significant numbers in confirmed cases.
Woman in her 20s Confirmed As 3rd Case of Coronavirus in Ontario (and vid)
https://globalnews.ca/news/6489956/3rd-case-coronavirus-confirmed-ontario/
"...Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr David Williams said the woman originally tested negative for the virus, however, after additional testing, he said she was found to be positive by the National Microbiology Lab. The woman's recovery was quick and she was fully recovered within two to three days. On Friday, a man in his 50s, who was the first confirmed case in Canada, was released by Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto..."
I also think there is a widespread concern that the health systems are not prepared and faced with severe budget restrictions that they leave little confidence. Hallway care, long wait times on good days leave little confidence that bad days can be handled. All countries use other regions to provide surge capacity locally. This works except where you ahve more national health emergencies.
Then the discussion needs to be centred around fixing the health care systems, not this "OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE FROM CORNOAVIRUS" panic that has needlessly entered our media. I had been looking for numbers of other infectious diseases that kill people in greater numbers, and I want to thank kropotikin for finding and posting them here. Here in Manitoba, there was concern that the cuts to health care in Winnipeg would leave the system strained under a flu epidemic. Eventually, coronavirus is going to fizzle out. Once that happens, the media will move on to something else, and we will forget about the important conversations to have regarding the problems with health care systems that have been listed in this thread.
So to recap: infectious disease continues to ravage the developing world, nothing is said. A virus emerges in a comparitavely well-off part of the world a global death toll that still is nowhere near one thousand people and the media wants us to panic? Sorry, things are a little backwards. I'm not biting on that one.
...Until he realized something disturbing.
Oh my god. Indian scientists have just found HIV (AIDS) virus-like insertions in the 2019-nCov virus that are not found in any other coronavirus. They hint at the possibility that this Chinese virus was designed ["not fortuitous']. Scary if true. https://t.co/h6xPX1gYvj pic.twitter.com/kCpd1I00uE
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) January 31, 2020
"Scary"... but relax, it's just another ridiculous "conspiracy."
....again, why aren´t there millions in the streets protesting these biolabs...just coincidence of course that the Wuhan lab is in Wuhan......was this a Canadian GMO insertion?....of course all this will soon be wiped out by our Orwellian protectors of the truth
...Until he realized something disturbing.
Oh my god. Indian scientists have just found HIV (AIDS) virus-like insertions in the 2019-nCov virus that are not found in any other coronavirus. They hint at the possibility that this Chinese virus was designed ["not fortuitous']. Scary if true. https://t.co/h6xPX1gYvj pic.twitter.com/kCpd1I00uE
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) January 31, 2020
"Scary"... but relax, it's just another ridiculous "conspiracy."
....again, why aren´t there millions in the streets protesting these biolabs...just coincidence of course that the Wuhan lab is in Wuhan......was this a Canadian GMO insertion?....of course all this will soon be wiped out by our Orwellian protectors of the truth
Please check the foundation before you build a skyscraper
So one big theory Canadians might want to consider is this:
China is a country with a lot of experience in pandemics. It is also a country that has a great deal of power at the centre. It has considerable resources.
Consider this: The Sars is a close relative. Mers is another. Consider what happens when an outbreak happens in a poor country without these resources or unified response. Think Middle East, parts of Africa, South America. Only a question of time. While China has a bigger land mass, more population of humans and animals it is still a question of time before this happens where no adequate response is possible.
Hubei Province: 5,806 cases / 204 dead / 116 recovered
China (ouside Hubei province): 3, 852 cases / 9 dead / 63 recovered
Worldometer stats over 12,000 just a couple days look at the graph
And how many people get the flu every year. This BS is media driven probably by a mask manufacturer
And how many people get the flu every year. This BS is media driven probably by a mask manufacturer
Sorry but this comment is just. plain. stupid. do you think the WHO is owned by a mask manufacturer?
Too many people on this site are posting before they put their brains into operation.
"It has a higher case-fatality ratio and a higher reproduction number than influenza – meaning it could spread more widely."
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/coronavirus-flu-healthcare-symptoms/
The reason the flu is considered more of a problem here is that the coronovirus has not been part of an outbreak here. Put the two diseases side by side in the same numbers and this is much worse.
That is not to say the Flu is not bad -- it kills many each year. A disease like this if it was not contained would do worse.
At this point our health professionals including nurses, doctors and other employees on the front line do have much higher risk than the general population. If transmission spreads to here like it is in China then it would be far deadlier than the flu. AND it is increasing in spread doubling every few days.
Give your head a shake.
Here in Canada we get to hope that things get done elsewhere before it gets here in numbers but don't think this is some conspiracy or not a big deal.
By the way here is an article with a graphic comparing: see the graphic with the red square. going up is the death rate going to the right is the transmission rate The square is the unknown area and this could be anywhere inside that. As you see season flue is lower and to the left. This could be a;,pst as deadly as the Spnish flu, Sars and Polio although not as bad and more easlity transmitted than the common cold. Most estimates have fatality below3% - Spanish flu and SARs at 10. The transmission rate is between 1.5 and 3.5 3,5 is above SARs - close to polio. 1.5 is level with swine flu below the common cold and above seasonal flu.
The reason we can say it is less of a concern than the flu is only that it is not here in numbers -- so far.
On top of this it mutates quickly as you may have heard.
Add to this concerns about it spreading without symptoms something not known with SARs and you have something of grave concern.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html
"For instance, even though influenza has a case fatality rate below one per 1,000, roughly 200,000 people end up hospitalized with the virus each year in the United States, and about 35,000 people die."
On top of all this there are likely people readding this site who work in health care. What you said is deeply disturbing. People have to take care and have to show some concern for families and households of people working in healthcare.
Disclosure: Soemone in my house works at a downtown clinic. They are definitely concerned at that clinic and I do not think they are wasting their time either.
'Virus Control Beyond Standards': China Warns Countries Against Spreading Havoc As More Borders Shut & Flights Canceled Worldwide
"Beijing has lashed out at countries fanning fears of the novel coronavirus - which so far claimed 259 lives - insisting that its response against the deadly disease goes far beyond standards accepted worldwide. 'Beijing does not agree with the approach adopted by invididual countries to create tensions or even panic,' the minister pointed out, reminding that the WHO 'did not approve of travel or trade restrictions on China..."
A Deadly Virus is Spreading From State to State and Has Infected 19 Million Americans So Far. It's Influenza
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/30/health/flu-deadly-virus-15-million-in...
"There's another virus that has infected 19 million Americans across this country and has killed at least 10,000 people this season alone. It's not a new pandemic - it's influenza..."
Figures for Canada show approximately 20,000 cases, 2,000 hospitalistions and 85 deaths. Yet international airlines have yet to stop flying here. In US there have been about 140,000 hospitalized and perhaps 8k deaths. In 2017 there were 60,000 flu deaths with an estimated 45 million infected. Where was the 'Global Health Emergency'?
Canada Won't Follow US and Declare National Emergency Over Coronavirus
https://twitter.com/DrJacobsRad/status/1223650405671997441
"Health Minister Patty Hajdu said Health Canada maintains there is no evidence that the virus can be transmitted by people who are asymptomatic.' Hajdu is incorrect. The risk of transmission from an asymptomatic infected individual is low, but not zero."
"The number of recovered people has officially surpassed the deaths."
I think we are at a point where the state should be treating it as an emergency in terms of preparations but that this should not become a public declaration until it is clear there are enough cases to warrant any public concern. I think the PM's photo op in a Chinese Canadian setting was also a good move as we need to reduce panic and not enflame racism.
I do not know what is happening behind the scenes but outwardly it looks like the government response has been sensible so far.
Hubei Province: 9, 074 cases / 294 dead (3.24%) / 215 recovered
China (ouside Hubei province): 5, 307 cases / 10 dead (0.19%) / 108 recovered
Keiser Report: The Germ Guy (E1496 - and vid)
@13:00 pandemics and the market.
China claimed—for almost two months—that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market. That is not the case. @TheLancet published a study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the seafood market, including Patient Zero.....
the evidence is strengthening...so the question must be asked, the investigation begun on all these bio warfare labs, everywhere...when will the next leak occur?
Another question! Re the recoveries, considerable numbers, why? Higher resistance? Natural remedies?
This is crucial as the call will be made, for mandatory vaccinations ....for a virus?
Sharp Fall on Wall Street As Coronavirus Hits Global Markets
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/01/econ-f01.html
"...Financial analysts are warning that the virus has created a more uncertain environment than the US-China trade war and its impact could be bigger than the SARS virus in 2002-2003. The prospect of a major fall and the potential for a financial crisis appear to have come a step closer with the turbulence that has ripped through financial markets this week."
For so long now, I have been warning on the vulnerability of the global financial system and its repercussions for the economic system.........which fundamentally was taken over and managed through the central private banking system and via the Nation State and Corporate credit .....drastically accelerating debt at the State and corporate levels, managing to keep interest rates low.
The global free trading system has placed China in the key role of engine of the industrial production system, for which everyone has come to depend, to maintain the survivability of our personal finances....so the collapse and isolation of China, if prolonged for any time, will have 2 major effects..to shut the door on our access to cheap goods, putting our economics in jeapordy, and secondly to collapse a totally fragile China financial system, leading to contagion globally.....
I have long been awaiting the catalyst for the global breakdown...if China cannot recover quickly enough? This will be it! And a new politics must be born to deal with it!
Escobar: China's Response Has Been Breathtaking
https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/01/article/is-china-at-its-most-vulnerabl...
"...President Xi Jinping formally told WHO head Tedron Ghebreyesus at their meeting in Beijing earlier this week, that the coronavirus epidemic 'is a devil and we cannot allow the devil to hide. Ghebreyesus for his part could not but praise Beijing for its extremely swift, coordinated response strategy - which includes fast identification of the genome sequence. Chinese scientists have already handed over to Russian counterparts the virus genome, with snap tests able to identify it in a human body within two hours. A Russia-China vaccine is under development.
Coronavirus catches China at an extremely sensitive juncture - after the (failed) Hybrid War tactics displayed in Hong Kong; an American pro-Taiwan offensive; the trade war far from solved by a mere 'phase 1' deal while more sanctions are being plotted against Huawei; and even the assassination of Maj Gen Qasem Soleimani, which ultimately is about targeting the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Southwest Asia (Iran-Iraq-Syria).
The Big Picture spells out Total Information War and non-stop weaponization of the China 'threat' - now even metastasized with racist overtones, as a - bio-threat. So how vulnerable is China? A post that went viral all over the mainland this past Sunday states: 'We in Wuhan have truly entered the stage of people's war against the new viral pneumonia..."
Novel Coronavirus Defies Conspiracy Theories as Data Shows its Coming Decline
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/coronaupdate.html
"There are first signs that the novel Coronavirus (nCorV19) epidemic will come to an end within a month or so. An analysis from the Chinese media house Caixin provides the newest numbers...There are some 12,000 recognized infected persons in total. More than 99.9% of all nCorV19 cases are in China. The growth per day is still strong but not exponential. With people now traveling less from, to and within China, the epidemic will likely stay contained. The novel Coronavirus is NOT a bioweapon. No military will develop a weapon that kills only 2% of those affected by it..."
Thailand Sees Apparent Success Treating Virus With Drug Cocktail
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/02/02/617735/Chinese-woman-coronavir...
"...The lab result of positive on the coronavirus turned negative in 48 hours. From being exhausted before, she could sit up in bed 12 hours later,' Dr Kriengsak Attipornwasich said. The doctors combined the anti-flu drug Oseltamir with Lopinavir and Ritonavir, anti-virals used to treat HIV, Kriengsak said, adding that the ministry was awaiting research results to prove the findings. So far, eight patients in Thailand have recovered and returned home, while 11 remain in hospital. Messages of support saying 'Our Hearts To Wuhan' in English, Chinese and Thai were plastered on a Bangkok mall popular with tourists..."
This apparently successful Thai formulation is similar to a promising concoction of drugs recommended by Russian medical scientists last week. See #99.
Novel Coronavirus Defies Conspiracy Theories as Data Shows its Coming Decline
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/coronaupdate.html
"There are first signs that the novel Coronavirus (nCorV19) epidemic will come to an end within a month or so. An analysis from the Chinese media house Caixin provides the newest numbers...There are some 12,000 recognized infected persons in total. More than 99.9% of all nCorV19 cases are in China. The growth per day is still strong but not exponential. With people now traveling less from, to and within China, the epidemic will likely stay contained. The novel Coronavirus is NOT a bioweapon. No military will develop a weapon that kills only 2% of those affected by it..."
This is optimistic. It does not look to me like this is slowing down near enough to imagine it ending any time soon.
Canada is Offering Medical Assistance to China As it Combats Coronavirus Spread: MP (and vid)
https://globalnews.ca/news/6490699/canada-coronavirus-education-china/
"The Canadian government is offering aid to China to help it deal with the outbreak of a new coronavirus, believed to have originated in the city of Wuhan..."
..there is a lot of good info in this interview and i'm posting just some of it. i recommend that folks watch it if they can.
Laurie Garrett on How Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic
We speak to Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer.
quote:
Even a program that is specifically aiming at protecting you and me, citizens inside the country, by beefing up the hospital capacities and training of local healthcare workers and public health leaders is running out of money and will be officially shut down in May, unless something happens. And Congress has refused to even look at it. McConnell has never allowed it to even come up for a vote. So, we’re in a situation now where we’re flying on fumes, with people in charge who have never really been in the middle of epidemics, haven’t listened to those who really understand how to stop an epidemic.
And then, on top of it all, Pompeo, the secretary of state, seems to be — to have carte blanche to do whatever he wants. He’s not consulting other agencies before acting. And so he has basically banned, not only a travel ban on people coming from China to the United States, but he’s conflated our immigration policy with a travel issue, so that if you’re a Chinese citizen now, you can’t come to the United States. Most Americans don’t realize they’ve essentially used this epidemic to stop all travel and movement. And one of the outcomes of that, which is just incredibly nuts, is that almost all of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the formulation of medicines in America — frankly, for the whole world — come from China. And so, we will soon run out of drugs for everything. Has nothing to do with the epidemic. We’re going to run out of diabetes drugs and heart disease drugs and cancer drugs and all of that, many of which were already in short supply, because the ingredients our pharmaceutical industry uses all come from China.
AMY GOODMAN: And what’s going to happen to all of those drugs being made in China?
LAURIE GARRETT: Who knows? There’s no answer. There’s no solution. And now the tension between the United States and China has gotten so high that the Foreign Ministry issued statements today declaring that America is responsible for a global xenophobic attack against China, in no uncertain terms. It’s very clear that inside China it’s already beginning to play as “America is our enemy. America is making it worse for us.”
quote:
AMY GOODMAN: Apparently, as part of the restrictions now in the U.S., some flights are being rerouted to specific airports where passengers receive advanced health screenings.
LAURIE GARRETT: Yes. You know, this is a playbook that follows what happened in 2009 with the H1N1 swine flu when it went global. Everybody goes to shutting down their airports, as if that matters, as if that works. You know, one of the things that’s really a problem with this virus, that wasn’t with SARS, even though they’re very, very close genetically — it’s a crucial biological difference —
AMY GOODMAN: The SARS virus from? What year was that?
LAURIE GARRETT: 2003. And I was in the middle of that epidemic in China throughout, so I know what I’m speaking of. And in that particular epidemic, we were fortunate that people were really only contagious when they had a high fever. And so, this thing you see all over China now of these fever guns pointing at people’s heads to see do you have a fever, and, if you do, sending you off to quarantine, has become the method used all over the world. So now we set up these fever portals that you walk through at airports. And —
AMY GOODMAN: That detect your temperature?
LAURIE GARRETT: Detect your temperature. And all over the world now people have erected them in their airports. But the problem is, we now know this virus can spread before you have any symptoms at all. And so the person carrying the virus might not have a fever. So we’re setting up a whole false sense of defense.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go back, Laurie. Explain what is happening in China right now. In fact, explain what the coronavirus is and then what we are seeing. What? Over 360 deaths, 17,000 people, overwhelmingly it’s China that’s being hit the hardest.....
The novel Coronavirus is NOT a bioweapon.....
...not sure who alleged this...but what is clear is that this virus is not wild, contains a sequence, generally introduced into a virus via laboratory technique!
It is an engineered virus, and may or may not be an intentional bioweapon......
what seems to be suspicious is that in fact it may be an attempt to mass produce an anti SARS type vaccine. For profit!
I recall reading a story re such an anti SARS vaccine that was so dangerous to animal life, that its funding was cancelled.
That is a precedent....and though it may be just a possible allegation, what seems to be clear is that the virus in engineered!
If this is true, then this will not be the last viral infection, if it in fact is contained (everyone with immuno resistant deficiencies may be at risk...and who does not have such deficiencies? in the west what with their electronic pollution, drug dependencies, not to mention the stresses of financial insecurity not to mention homelessness?
Unless of course these tamperings with fundamental pillars of life, the virus, are stopped!
Comparison with February 1:
Hubei Province: 13,522 (9, 074) cases / 414 (294) dead/ 3.06% mortality rate (3.24%) / 397 (215) recovered
China (ouside Hubei province): 6,970 (5, 307) cases / 11 (10) dead / 0.16% mortality rate (0.19%)/ 321 (108) recovered
The novel Coronavirus is NOT a bioweapon.....
...not sure who alleged this...but what is clear is that this virus is not wild, contains a sequence, generally introduced into a virus via laboratory technique!
It is an engineered virus, and may or may not be an intentional bioweapon......what seems to be suspicious is that in fact it may be an attempt to mass produce an anti SARS type vaccine. For profit!
I recall reading a story re such an anti SARS vaccine that was so dangerous to animal life, that its funding was cancelled.
That is a precedent....and though it may be just a possible allegation, what seems to be clear is that the virus in engineered!
If this is true, then this will not be the last viral infection, if it in fact is contained (everyone with immuno resistant deficiencies may be at risk...and who does not have such deficiencies? in the west what with their electronic pollution, drug dependencies, not to mention the stresses of financial insecurity not to mention homelessness?
Unless of course these tamperings with fundamental pillars of life, the virus, are stopped!
What are you doing?
There is no credible evidence for any of this.
The trouble with some of the wild theories that are going around is that they support increased levels of racism or victim blaming (at a collective national level). Certainly, any authorities ought to be held to account but this is not something that benefits from speculation and can come after the emergency is over and the issues are more defined.
It is natural for people to want to speculate about potential spread and impacts and that is something that does make a difference in how you receive this news but this is different than theories about blame for origin, especially those suggesting some nefarious leak, intentional or careless. This risks fueling negative reactions to countries and people. We should refrain from unsupported theories that blame specific countries or groups of people without very strong evidence.
I have been shown videos of various Chinese cooking and eating practices with live food. I do not know how many of the videos are fake, although I suspect many are -- some I would bet are not authentic. I do not know how many are exclusively Chinese. I do know that there are differences from country to country culturally in terms of what is acceptable to eat and that practices such as the eating of live meat are a minority and this does not exist exclusively in China. I urge caution in becoming sucked into this. I am sure more will be known and we will hear responses from governments including China's on how to reduce risk. As I mentionned above viruses also jump animal human barriers due to living arrangements and poverty that have nothing to do with cultural practices.
I think people should be particularly concerned that outbreaks such as this could occur in places without strong national governments with the resources to manage them. A related virus MERS came from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has a smaller population and greater proportions of medical resources and control than many nearby countries. You can imagine what would happen if an outbreak occured in poor, overcrowded, places with less government authority and financial resources. While there may be fewer international travellers, the loss of lives could be much greater in some of these countries both in numbers and proportion of a national population.
I think we should be very careful on both extremes of assumptions that this is ending (based on perhaps wishful thinking by authorities) or that this is bigger and more long term. Fair enough to speculate here but these speculations should stop short of allegations of certainty without evidence. I think htis place does have a habit of airing wild theories -- in part to avoid mainstream media. We should not accept alternate information sources with lower standards than we apply to what the mainstream media, particularly sources stories, are carrying. there is an important requirement to be cautious with mainstream media's biases but this does not mean we should assume that it is wrong and that some other source that may have a political bias to our liking is necessarily correct. Healthy skepticism ought not to be set aside regardless of the source.
In an explosive interview Dr. Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Act has given a detailed statement admitting that the 2019 Wuhan Coronavirus is an offensive Biological Warfare Weapon and that the World Health Organization (WHO) already knows about it.
Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
In an exclusive interview given to Geopolitics and Empire, Dr. Boyle discusses the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China and the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory (BSL-4) from which he believes the infectious disease escaped.
He believes the virus is potentially lethal and an offensive biological warfare weapon or dual-use biowarfare weapons agent genetically modified with gain of function properties, which is why the Chinese government originally tried to cover it up and is now taking drastic measures to contain it.
The Wuhan BSL-4 lab is also a specially designated World Health Organization (WHO) research lab and Dr. Boyle contends that the WHO knows full well what is occurring.
Dr. Boyle also touches upon GreatGameIndia‘s exclusive report Coronavirus Bioweapon – where we reported in detail how Chinese Biowarfare agents working at the Canadian lab in Winnipeg were involved in the smuggling of Coronavirus to Wuhan’s lab from where it is believed to have been leaked.....
...there´s lots of credible evidence from scientists analysing the corona virus strain!
Dr. Francis Boyle´s credentials are impeccable, claiming the corona virus was stolen from the bioweapons lab in Winnipeg! And genetically engineered, for which the evidence is damning what with the genetic sequence introduced, being a common bioengineering sequence....wake up Winnipeg!
In an explosive interview Dr. Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Act has given a detailed statement admitting that the 2019 Wuhan Coronavirus is an offensive Biological Warfare Weapon and that the World Health Organization (WHO) already knows about it.
Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
In an exclusive interview given to Geopolitics and Empire, Dr. Boyle discusses the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China and the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory (BSL-4) from which he believes the infectious disease escaped.
He believes the virus is potentially lethal and an offensive biological warfare weapon or dual-use biowarfare weapons agent genetically modified with gain of function properties, which is why the Chinese government originally tried to cover it up and is now taking drastic measures to contain it.
The Wuhan BSL-4 lab is also a specially designated World Health Organization (WHO) research lab and Dr. Boyle contends that the WHO knows full well what is occurring.
Dr. Boyle also touches upon GreatGameIndia‘s exclusive report Coronavirus Bioweapon – where we reported in detail how Chinese Biowarfare agents working at the Canadian lab in Winnipeg were involved in the smuggling of Coronavirus to Wuhan’s lab from where it is believed to have been leaked.....
...there´s lots of credible evidence from scientists analysing the corona virus strain!
Dr. Francis Boyle´s credentials are impeccable, claiming the corona virus was stolen from the bioweapons lab in Winnipeg! And genetically engineered, for which the evidence is damning what with the genetic sequence introduced, being a common bioengineering sequence....wake up Winnipeg!
This article has no credibility and is just another conspiracy theory. It is being sent around by a ProTrump conspiracy site trying to whip up hate towards Chinese.
The rumors and lies about the Wuhan Institute of Virology dovetail with a popular meme about how the institute’s logo is similar to that of the Umbrella Corporation, the shady agency responsible for making the virus that starts the zombie apocalypse in the Resident Evil video game franchise. The logo that inspired the meme isn’t actually from Wuhan Institute of Virology, but actually belongs to Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech Limited, located in Shanghai, 500 miles away.
...
The site regularly amplifies conspiracy theories from anonymous message board 4chan and writes frequently about the deep state, doomsday prep, bitcoin speculation, and New Age pseudoscience.
...
“One reason why this institute would be doing immune research would be to prevent what we are seeing right now with the novel coronavirus outbreak,” Brown said. “They have studied other coronaviruses at that site including SARS, where they discovered that it originated in bats.”
Brown also said that the entire idea of the coronavirus working as a bioweapon is pretty silly. “The fatality rate [of the coronavirus] is 200/10,000, which is currently lower compared to many other viruses including SARS, so if it was meant as a bioweapon, it is not a good one,” Brown said. “So let's debunk the bioweapon idea that we are seeing in the news.”
This article can also be found here: https://idrw.org/dr-francis-boyle-creator-of-bioweapons-act-says-coronavirus-is-biological-warfare-weapon/
Here is a review of it
"Great Game India claims that the current coronavirus outbreak can be traced to Chinese agents who infiltrated a Canadian lab to steal virus samples. But there’s no evidence for that.
The story focuses on the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. In 2013, researchers there were investigating a new cluster of coronavirus infections that appeared to have originated in Saudi Arabia.
Great Game India implies that disease is the same one that’s currently affecting China. But the lab was examining the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus. (There are seven kinds of coronaviruses that can infect humans.)"
****
Just look at the wording.
"Dr. Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Act has given a detailed statement admitting that the 2019 Wuhan Coronavirus is an offensive Biological Warfare Weapon "
Uhuh.
What professor can "admit" what someone else is doing? And what media outlet does not understand the difference between "suggest" "think" "accuse" and admit? You admit something that you know and did not what you think someoen else knows and does.
But dig deeper into the story and you can see that this is founded on some unproven sinophobia based on unproven allegations:
"One of the scientists mentioned in the Great Game India story, Xiangguo Qiu, is under investigation for a possible "policy breach" after she was invited to the Wuhan lab twice a year for two years. Qiu, her husband and her students from China were removed from the lab in July 2019."
"There are questions about what information Qiu shared with Chinese officials while visiting Wuhan, and the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory has sent viruses to China in the past for research. But there is no evidence to support the claim that Qiu stole coronavirus samples and gave them to the Wuhan lab to create biological weapons."
Allegations have appeared that this Wuhan lab is a bioweapons lab but they are unproven:
The assertion that the origin of the coronavirus outbreak is a Chinese lab near Wuhan also lacks evidence.
The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is a maximum-security biolab that deals with some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens, such as Ebola and the SARS coronavirus. Some experts have linked the lab to China’s biological warfare program. The country denies having such a program, but the State Department has raised concerns about China’s potential noncompliance with the Biological Weapons Convention, which bans the production of such weapons.
...
A Chinese scientist who worked in a Canadian lab studying coronaviruses is under investigation for trips she took to Wuhan. But there’s no evidence she gave China coronavirus samples to develop a biological weapon. Plus, the lab worked on MERS, not the Wuhan coronavirus. The Wuhan lab mentioned in the story does deal with dangerous pathogens like coronaviruses, but there is no evidence that it is the source of the latest outbreak.
The story lacks evidence for its headline, so we rate it False
So conspiracy theories may be fun but they are unhelpful and in this case contributing to a national suspicion of Chinese people that is unfounded.
Please stop posting this stuff without including the fact that it has been widely debunked.
BTW right wing Indian sources are not exactly without bias when it comes to China. Read India-Chinese 20th century history.
Lastly let us really speculate on why the Chinese would study a virus. If you need help just google SARS and MERS and look at what is happening in China and maybe consider that they might want to prevent such a thing.
This article is sourced and founded on racism.
Yes. We should question what all governments are doing and saying including China but this unfounded hate articles about China and Chinese have no business on this site. And do a little research and you can see that this is exactly what it is.
Let us not make Babble a 4chan of the left with posting of this right wing garbage.
And let us not engage in hate towards scientists who just happen to be Chinese without any evidence -- okay?????
The article I posted was based on an interview with Dr. Francis Boyle.....a right wing conspiracy theorist...bs!!
While I do not profess to know the exact nature of the release of the virus, nor its intended purpose, the fact is that it was engineered based on an analysis of its genetic sequence. Whether Boyle is right or not, for someone of such high prestige to state this, must be considered with the highest alarm....whatever you may wish to infer re the site where this was posted, there can be no questioning the integrity of this man!
"The number of recovered people has officially surpassed the deaths."
Looks like recoveries are about to double the number of deaths within a couple of days:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
..from the #131 post
quote:
LAURIE GARRETT: You know, this is really hard, Amy, because China is doing things that really no other nation on Earth could do. It’s a combination of an authoritarian government and, you know, tremendous infrastructure. They built a thousand-bed hospital in Wuhan in eight days. It’s admitting patients today. I witnessed them building hospitals in the provincial areas in six days, seven days. And I’m not talking about a slapdash little shed. It’s a real, sophisticated, you know, negative air pressure hospital. But the measures they’re having to resort to are so extreme. You know, basically, 100 million people in the nation right at this moment are in some form of shutdown or lockdown. They have to move hundreds of billions of pounds of food all over the country in mass convoys to the locked-down population. I mean, Wuhan is 11 million people. And Beijing is essentially under a de facto quarantine.
quote:
AMY GOODMAN: So, how does the flu and the toll it’s taking, let’s say just in the United States, and then around the world, compare?
LAURIE GARRETT: Well, certainly the numbers of people who every year get the flu dwarfs anything — any epidemic. So, you could use that, and people always do, as a red herring to say, “So why are we so worried about this other epidemic? it’s trivial compared to the flu, blah, blah, blah.”
Well, there’s two big things to think about with flu right now. One is, yeah, why do we keep having this high death rate from flu? I mean, that’s an indication that the American people are not listening to public health. They’re not getting vaccinated. They’re not taking precautions, and they sort of have a lackadaisical attitude towards it until they get really sick. So, that shows the level of the struggle for the public health system.
But also, you don’t want to get the flu right now and have it be mistaken for coronavirus. And since both have respiratory symptoms and high fever, that would be a problem. So this is all the more reason you should get vaccinated and reduce your chances of getting the flu and being misdiagnosed or having your real coronavirus missed because they thought it was the flu.
quote:
AMY GOODMAN: So, where do you see this going? How do you see this playing out? And maybe base it on what you saw. What happened with SARS?
LAURIE GARRETT:
What I observed was that China basically stopped it by doing a massive fever and quarantine program across the entire nation. So it was brought to a stop by a level of vigorous and robust action. But, you see, they’re doing the same thing now. And as I mentioned before, it’s all based on fever checks, and we now know this virus can spread from people who don’t have fevers. So, they’re building a policy that biologically is flawed, won’t work. So, when people ask me, “Where is this all going?” I say, “Look, this is much worse than SARS.” It is not as terrifically dangerous as a virulent flu epidemic. But it’s far more dangerous than anything we’ve seen on our horizon since the arrival of HIV.
quote:
LAURIE GARRETT: But one way of delaying a kind of declaration of a global health emergency is to insist that there has to be secondary transmission in another country, meaning human-to-human spread elsewhere, not just China. Well, we have human-to-human spread elsewhere. And one of the places where we have human-to-human spread is bracing to have the big quadrennial event, the Olympics, and that’s Japan. And Japan is really racing to control the spread inside Japan, make sure it doesn’t go beyond this handful of cases and imperil the Olympics. Meanwhile, we have human-to-human spread in two cases, two clusters, in the United States already. And we have human-to-human spread in Thailand, in a number of other overseas countries. So, then you ask, “Well, OK, you were waiting for human-to-human spread. Is that the magic? Well, maybe you’re waiting for deaths in other countries.” Well, we now have had the first non-China death, that in the Philippines.
Today the physicians and nurses of Hong Kong went on strike and have shut down all their services, because they’ve been through this so many times now. This is the third big epidemic coming their way from the mainland, where they pay a huge toll and where healthcare workers in particular have died in past outbreaks in Hong Kong. And they want Carrie Lam to shut down the entire border with Shenzhen and Guangzhou and seal Hong Kong off from mainland China. Well, politically, you couldn’t ask for a more volatile thing at a moment when they’ve been in protest demonstrations against Beijing now since last August.
And I think what we’re seeing now unfolding is nations are going to their flu pandemic threat playbook and executing whatever they had on their shelf. You know, “Let’s look up our — what was the plan we came up with in 1994 for this?” And so, it’s, you know, shut down your airport, close off the flights from country X, start screening everybody, build a quarantine center, pass laws against people from country X, pass laws against all their ethnic descendants within your country, blame them as if it is they, not the virus, that is the issue. And so, we see country after country all over the world has now started to ban travel to and from. They’re following the Americans. We did it first. And, in fact, we did it, Pompeo announced it, just hours after WHO declared a global health threat and specifically said there is no reason to cut travel, flights or trade. So the U.S. basically did this [flicks chin] to WHO and this [flicks chin] to China. But, you know, it doesn’t work. Nowhere in the world have we stopped an epidemic in our modern era of globalization and air travel by shutting down airports.
Oil Prices Plummet As Coronavirus Epidemic Drastically Curtails Chinese Demand
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/04/coro-f04.html
"...According to Amrita Sen, chief analyst at Energy Aspects, 'They are absolutely trying to put a floor under prices...people are fearing the worst. Gary Ross, chief executive of Black Gold Investors, told the Times that the cuts in Chinese oil purchases would lead to massive gluts in Europe and the United States, leading to a vicious cycle of selling pressure with no hope in sight.'
James Zimmerman, a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said, 'the outbreak is the biggest distraction of the week, and until the situation stabilizes and the lockdown is reversed, the global economy will face economic deceleration at an unprecedented level as travel continues to be canceled and large swathes of the Chinese economy remain offline..."
A Site Tied To Steve Bannon is Writing Fake News About Coronavirus
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/a-site-tied-to-steve...
"Founded by an exiled billionaire and critic of the Chinese government, GNews claimed without proof that China was prepared to admit the disease originated in its labs..."
Latest on Coronavirus Outbreak in China As of Feb 4:
https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1224850216731467778
"24,324 confirmed cases on Chinese mainland, another 18 in Hong Kong, 10 in Macao, and 11 in Taiwan. 490 deaths, 892 discharged from hospital."
"The number of recovered people has officially surpassed the deaths."
Looks like recoveries are about to double the number of deaths within a couple of days:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
How is this significant? Nobody ever suggested the final death rate would be more than 50%. Even 3% is extremely high.
The issue is the transmission (how many get it) multiplied by death rate. -- At the end.
The death rate may climb or level off as a percentage of the illness rate.
Assuming this ends then everyone will have died or recovered ....
The article I posted was based on an interview with Dr. Francis Boyle.....a right wing conspiracy theorist...bs!!
While I do not profess to know the exact nature of the release of the virus, nor its intended purpose, the fact is that it was engineered based on an analysis of its genetic sequence. Whether Boyle is right or not, for someone of such high prestige to state this, must be considered with the highest alarm....whatever you may wish to infer re the site where this was posted, there can be no questioning the integrity of this man!
First, I said that it was a right wing conspiracy site that was propagating it. The original writer is a 70 year old professor who cannot be admitting anything -- since he is theorising and does not represent any authority.
Don't bother thinking you can get away with a straw man here. I did not judge the original person's motives. He could believe what he is saying or not.
Second, no matter how many times you say "the fact is" -- this is a theory that is unproven and denied by experts.
Third, and let me be really clear: He. Is. Not. An. Expert. In. The. Science. He has a PhD in political science nothing in science or medical fields. True he may have had lunch with a doctor while at Harvard. He may even have stayed in a Holiday Inn last night.
"Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He received an AB (1971) in Political Science from the University of Chicago, then a JD degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, and AM and PhD degrees in Political Science from Harvard University. He practiced tax and international tax with Bingham, Dana & Gould."
I am not questioning the man's integrity - I really have no explanation why an expert in law who wrote a law about bioweapons would fart out a half baked idea about a scientific theory. Just like I have no idea why anyone here would think that a doctorate in law would give this man any credibility to speak about science of medicine such that his words would be taken as "fact" here over doctors and medical scientists the world over.
Moral of the story here -- before you post wild theories from a Dr. Whomever -- try to at least find out what the doctorate was in.
Now here is an actual Researcher -- not some political scientist who happened to be part of writing a law:
http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/02/WS5e36b2b7a31012821727432e.html
A scientist from the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has debunked a recent conspiracy which claimed the novel coronavirus was manufactured and escaped from the institute’s most advanced biocontainment facility.
Shi Zhengli, a researcher from the institute, said on her social media on Sunday the virus was the result of "nature punishing the uncivilized habits and customs of humans", and she is willing to "bet my life that [the outbreak] has nothing to do with the lab."
Shi was the leading scientist who made the discovery the novel coronavirus can enter cells through ACE2 receptors and may have originated from bats.
Her comments came after Indian scientists recently published a non-peer reviewed paper suggesting scientists had artificially inserted genes from the HIV virus into the coronavirus, thus making it susceptible to anti-HIV treatments.
The paper was immediately panned by experts around the world and retracted from biology journal server bioRxiv on Sunday.
In a Twitter post commenting on the paper, David Liu, a chemistry professor from Harvard University, said: "The mere claim that such short inserts support nCoV origins ‘unlikely to be fortuitous in nature’ is already highly suspect."
"This is a classic case of searching for lost keys only under a lamppost," he said. "A fearful world does not need to fuel conspiracy theories with bad analyses."
However, the Indian article was widely cited by conspiracy media outlets as proof Chinese scientists had engineered the virus and it escaped from the institute’s biosafety level-IV laboratory, a facility with the highest biohazard precaution standards designed to contain and study the world’s most dangerous pathogens, including Ebola, small pox, Lassa fever and Marburg virus.
The conspiracy began in late January when British tabloid the Daily Mail and US conservative newspaper the Washington Times published articles claiming the recent outbreak could be the accidental result of secret biological weapons research in China.
Though the articles did not provide any evidence, the conspiracy quickly went viral on social media, prompting media outlets from the BBC to Foreign Policy to debunk the fringe theory.
On Jan 28, the Chinese embassy to Italy said in a statement the conspiracy is baseless and false reporting. "China will continue to maintain an open, transparent and highly responsible attitude when publishing information regarding the outbreak," it said.
"While strengthening outbreak prevention and control, China will continue to deepen international cooperation and tackle the disease together with the international community, and jointly maintain the safety and health of the region and the world."
Let me correct myself. Yes, I do question the integrity of the man. Upon reflection, I question the integrity of any man with a PhD in social sciences using the word Dr. before his name and speaking publicly about science and medicine and having it published without clarifying that he holds no scientific degree. So there you go. I am questionning his integrity. Deal with it.
Oh let's call him: "Francis Boyle, Ph.D." and stop referring to him as Dr. Okay? Any editor of a respectable journal would have referred to him as such on an article such as this -- but then they would not have printed the ravings of an aging political scientist who just so happens to want to question the entire global medical research community and suggest they are all stupid or liars or whatever he is trying to do.
Based on this I would even question him in his own field now. Professionals of integrity don't do this garbage.
ETA -- this goes for women as well -- although I have not seen any women pull this shit.
I have worked with many researchers. Medical researchers -- most will tell you -- even if they have a PhD in science that they prefer the PhD to a Dr. lest anyone think they are an MD (they like Doctor in speech, but when in writing on a program or article if it is on the science they want the specific degrees they hold).
It takes a supremely arrogant social science PhD usually to allow people to think he is an MD while spouting off on medical science.
Genetic modifications of corona virus leave a fingerprint, analysed in this specific type of corona virus now exploding in scale.
To suggest that this is a lie, is totally irresponsible, if not lunacy.
WHO has just declared that there is no effective remedy for this virus, and they should well know as they were monitoring the Wuhan biolab.
If humanity escapes from this threat, it is essential that this network of biolabs, engineering the genetic material of virus be destroyed!
Again I repeat, to the people of Winnipeg, that this biolab #4 within their limits is a threat to their survival!
A publication of the constant leaks of gentically engineered material must be publicized to demonstrate the reality of this threat!
But the biggest hit to the narrative and China's officially reported epidemic numbers came overnight, when a slip up in China's TenCent may have revealed the true extent of the coronavirus epidemic on the mainland. And it is nothing short than terrifying.
As the Taiwan Times reports in a report first spotted by user @TheHKGroup, over the weekend, Tencent "seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the actual number of infections and deaths, which were astronomically higher than official figures", and were far closer to the catastrophic epidemic projections made by Jonathan Read.
According to the report, late on Saturday evening, Tencent, on its webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker", showed confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China as standing at 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure.
And while the number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official number that day of 300, most ominously, the death toll listed was 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that day.
Tencent screengrab as of late Feb 1, showing far higher infections.
Moments later, Tencent updated the numbers to reflect the government's "official" numbers that day.
Screengrab showing higher numbers (left), chart showing "official" numbers (right). (Internet image)
This was not the first time Tencent has done this: as Taiwan Times notes, Chinese netizens have noticed that Tencent has on at least three occasions posted extremely high numbers, only to quickly lower them to government-approved statistics.......
...I have been criticized re my alleged information....perhaps this report from zerohedge is false...but people have the right to know the possibilities....before Canada moves to censure all such ¨unofficial¨ information...and so take responsible preventitive action.
World Health Organization (WHO) : Daily Press Briefing (and vid)
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1225074122905939970
"Live daily press briefing on the 2019 nCoV outbreak with Dr Tedros...'As of 6:00 AM, Geneva time, this morning. There are 24,363 confirmed cases in China and 490 deaths. In the last 24 hours we had the most cases in a single day, since the outbreak started. Outside China, there are 191 cases in 24 countries and one death in the Phillipines. So far 99% of the cases are in China..."