BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[Larry]

7 hours ago, TryTheBeal! said:

 

Kinda shocked they’re still trotting out this trash, but I shouldn’t be.

 

One of the fundamental elements of Republicanism is "Never give up a position, no matter how obviously wrong, or just plain evil. As long as you never abandon it, then you were never wrong. It's just 'in dispute'."

[China]

Covid horror: Stray dogs eat corpses of coronavirus victims in India - 'Death of humanity'

 

HORRIFIC images of feral dogs eating charred human corpses on the banks of the river Bhagirathi in the Indian town of Uttarkashi have been circulating on social media.
 

The corpses are believed to be those of people who have recently died from Covid-19. India is in the grip of a second wave of the deadly virus, which is sweeping through the country and claiming thousands of lives each day. Hospitals have been overwhelmed with sick patients and crematoriums have struggled to keep up with the number of dead.

 

Authorities believe families of the deceased may have dumped the corpses in the river, after failing to secure an official cremation for their loved ones.

 

A local resident told the ANI news agency that he had been painting when he suddenly became aware of stray dogs gnawing and feeding on some half-burnt bodies washed up on the river bank.

 

He called the scenes that he had witnessed the "death of humanity" and demanded that local authorities do something about it.

 

What feral dogs may look like

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The Wuhan Lab Leak Hypothesis Is A Conspiracy Theory, Not Science

 

At the very end of 2019, a new disease began to emerge in humans: COVID-19. Originally described as a set of pneumonia-like symptoms with a hitherto unseen cause, a set of alarming facts soon came to light. A novel virus — now known to be SARS-CoV-2 — had begun infecting humans, with the first major outbreak stemming from a wet market in Wuhan: the largest city by far in the Chinese province of Hubei. The next pandemic, just as virologists and disease ecologists had been predicting for years, emerged from the continued encroachment of human civilization on territory previously inhabited solely by wild animals. Human-animal contact, responsible for pandemics ranging from SARS to MERS to Ebola to HIV, was almost certainly the culprit in bringing this novel coronavirus into the human population as well.

 

But this explanation for SARS-CoV-2, claiming that it had a zoonotic origin, has been disputed by some, despite the lack of any publicly available scientific evidence to the contrary. Instead, according to recent claims, the virus may not have originated and spread from the wild, but could have escaped, in a lab leak, from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. From the point of view of the virus’s genome, there’s no way to rule such a possibility out, so long as the virus was never characterized or reported in the lab before its escape. But is this lab leak hypothesis a legitimate scientific theory, on equal or even superior footing with the zoonotic origin theory? Or is it a conspiracy theory, without the scientific evidence to back up these wild assertions? Let’s take a comprehensive look to try and unpack everything that’s been going on.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[tshile]

On 6/2/2021 at 6:02 AM, Larry said:

One of the fundamental elements of Republicanism is "Never give up a position, no matter how obviously wrong, or just plain evil. As long as you never abandon it, then you were never wrong. It's just 'in dispute'."

You know, I won’t say it’s exclusively them, but you’re right… thinking back on it the vast majority of people I personally encounter that behave like this are on that side of things. 

[PeterMP]

I will point out that the piece is based on a real non-peer reviewed study.  Their populations are small and they're conclusion is based on hydroxychloroquine alone, but it with another drug.  So the headline is miss leading.

 

Their big thing is that it required high doses that are corrected for weight or BMI.

 

In the context of the rushing of the process, it wouldn't be shocking if things like this were missed.  Testing every drug (combination) at different doses is hard.

It is also possible this isn't meaningful (not a controlled study, small population, etc.)

 

[Larry]

56 minutes ago, tshile said:

You know, I won’t say it’s exclusively them, but you’re right… thinking back on it the vast majority of people I personally encounter that behave like this are on that side of things. 

 

Well, I'll list other examples.  

 

For example, I bet you can't get one Republican to admit that trickle down economics doesn't work.  In fact, I'd bet that every single one of them will insist Trickle Down has been proven successful.  And that it has been proven that massive tax cuts don't increase the deficit.  

 

And, really, this is the only reason I can think of, for why the GOP is literally working on all fronts to promote the spread of the virus.  

 

Obviously, the virus does not give them either votes nor money.  

 

Well, I suppose it's theoretically possible that Russia is paying them a bounty on every dead American.  But it's not the theory that I'd bet on.  Just observing that it would actually fit their observed behavior.

 

But no, at least to me, the most believable explanation for why they are so blatantly pro-virus, is because they'd rather use the power of their office to intentionally increase deaths, than walk back a bad decision that a Republican made, a year ago.  

 

I try very hard not to just jump to conclusions like that.  But I don't see another one that fits their actions.  

 

[China]

Anti-COVID-19 drones to find the feverish at South Korean beaches

 

Authorities in South Korea’s east coast city of Gangneung are expanding the missions of drones they initially began deploying over the area’s beaches in 2020. Now, in addition to verifying respect of social distancing measures, the craft will also take temperature readings of sunbathers for fever. Those drones are being equipped with thermal cameras, and will track visitors believed to be feverish until they can be identified and re-tested at ground level.

 

That’s a step beyond the most common uses of drones in the pandemic thus far. Those have included delivery of PPE and other protective material, and in some cases flights of vaccines to remote areas. Some cities and countries, meantime, have used drones to monitor violation of lockdown orders and social distancing requirements.

 

Like most nations, South Korea has experienced a renewed spike in COVID-19 cases this winter and has moved to reverse that curve through vaccine distribution. Progress toward that has been halting but sufficient for the government to announce the reopening of beaches in early July. 

 

Over 26 million people flocked to the country’s beaches during the pandemic’s temporary wane last summer. South Korean officials say they found zero instances of COVID-19 infections linked to those sunny, sandy outings. That’s hardly surprising.

 

Visitors were tested and underwent temperature scans before entering beaches. Once past those checks, they were closely monitored by drones and ground observers. Mask wearing was obligatory, and infringement of social distancing quickly called out. Fences were erected to control movement in and out of authorized beach areas, which were closed at dusk. Those rules are just as tight – if not tighter – this time around.

 

Use of drones to monitor temperatures (and narc out restriction violators) are reinforcing 2020 measures being repeated this year. Following initial screening, all visitors will get bar coded ID bracelets containing temperature sensors that turn from green to red at fever levels. Cameras on hovering drones can also pick up those tell-tale color changes. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PeterMP]

Picking up from the other thread, Vanity Fair has a long story on the history of the investigation of where Covid came from:

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Larry said:

Just pointing out, again, that it's believable that China responded to the outbreak by covering up and blaming somebody else, because that's what politicians do. Especially politicians who have propaganda machines in the toolbox. 

And yeah, I find "lab accident" to be a believable scenario, too. 
 

And, I'm not really concerned if that's what happened. If that's where it came from, it's really not going to affect my opinions of things, well, at all. 

 

 

(I copied this out of the other thread to redirect the conversation here.)

 

But they didn't initially try to blame somebody else.  The initial story was that it came from the wet market, which didn't make the Chinese (as a country or culture) look particularly good.  It appears that they only tried to shift blame AFTER that explanation fell apart.

 

(the VanityFair piece makes the point that the idea that the virus started in Wuhan, but not at the wet market, in Nov. has issues.  Wuhan is huge city.  It isn't like some of our state capitals that also have universities.  It isn't Madison or Columbus.  It is more likely Philly.  And the bat viruses that are studied at the Wuhan institute aren't from near Wuhan.  What is more plausible, that somebody in Philly had a run in with some random animal like a bat at time of year where those types of animals are starting to hibernate and dormmate for the winter and got a virus that's similar to a virus from in bats from New Mexico (I didn't check the relative distances so I might be off some in terms the distance, but it could be in either way).  Or given that people at UPENN study very similar viruses, that somehow it leaked from the lab at UPENN.  Especially if in the past somebody had raised concerns about the safety of that lab at UPENN?)

 

It is very hard to know because sometimes people lie for very odd reasons and sometimes lies don't make any sense.  It is also hard to distinguish between what is a lie and just an unknown or confusion.  But it almost looks like the Chinese were okay to be the "start" of the virus when it was thought it started at the Wuhan wet market.  It only became an issue after people rejected that idea and started looking for other explanations (which led some to the lab).

 

It is important where it came from in terms of how much are we funding the research and what safety protocols in place and how much should be be funding this research.  If it was an accidental release, I don't think we should "punish" the Chinese.  But either way I think we have to take a real long look at what is being done in terms of virus research, how much we're contributing, and what should we be doing in terms of safety.  I've never thought "gain of function" research made much sense.  I think this pandemic just demonstrates how little sense it makes.

Edited June 5, 2021 by PeterMP

[China]

A rise in adolescent hospitalization rates is a reminder that children can suffer from the virus too, expert says

 

A recent increase in Covid-19 hospitalizations among adolescents reinforces the importance of getting vaccinated and practicing prevention measures against the virus, according to a study released Friday.

 

The report looked at hospitalization data for 12-to-17-year-olds from a large coronavirus surveillance network and found 204 adolescents who were likely hospitalized primarily for Covid-19 between January 1 and March 31, 2021. Nearly a third were admitted to intensive care units and roughly 4.9% required invasive mechanical ventilation. There were no associated deaths.

The study was published in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

 

The findings are a reminder that even children can suffer from the virus, one expert said Friday.
 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[The Evil Genius]

 

[PeterMP]

On 6/5/2021 at 2:01 AM, The Evil Genius said:

 

 

 

1.  If you don't think reports of the WIV having lab safety issue and their workers getting sick in Nov. (which is in the time frame when the pandemic started) coupled with the inability to find a natural host have made it more credible that the it was (accidently) leaked from the lab, then I think you are delusional.  Maybe you don't think the evidence is that good (i.e. as I've stated before, sure the intelligence could be wrong), but not to mention them at all when discussing the current thoughts of where the virus came from seems misleading and a lie of omission, and certainly seems to shift the possibility of it being a lab release at some.

 

2.  They seem to conflate a lab release with it being engineered, which isn't at all necessary.

 

3.  We don't need to go out and identify new Corona viruses to do what we did with this pandemic.  They had previously identified a virus that is 96% identical to this virus.  Did having do so affect how we dealt with this pandemic as compared to if that virus hadn't been identified?  The answer to that question is no.

 

There also will be practical limits on the structure of the spike proteins to do its job (the best target for vaccines because it is on the surface of the virus).  Today, we could generate versions of the spike protein and screen it against its ability to do its job (which is to bind to a protein on the surface of host cells) based on human proteins in a viral (and human) free manner and determine the range of spike protein sequences that would be effective (for humans).  This is actually advantageous than sequencing things in nature.  Only by looking at things currently in nature to generate vaccines, you risk making your vaccine specific to something that is required for the animal host (bats) vs. something that could evolve in the future that would be more specific to humans.

 

(i.e. why would you try to make a vaccine for humans based on something that might have evolved very specifically to bats or some other animal when there are potential sequences to things that haven't evolved that would make it more likely to infect humans?  Even here, we've had to move quickly but the variants infect humans more effectively.  If it had been reasonable and time wasn't an issue, wouldn't it have made more sense to study the viral spike protein, identify mutations that would make it more infective to humans, and make the vaccine based on those variants?  Instead of having a vaccine against a less infective strain and hoping it works against the other strains.  I understand that time that prevented that.) 

 

And today a lot of that work can be done at an initial level computationally.

 

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c10833

 

4.  The idea that these bats and viruses only occur in China is wrong.  These bats occur through Asia and in countries that have interest much more likely to be aligned to the US.

 

(There's actually been claims by the Chinese that the pandemic started in India.

 

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/china-scientists-claim-virus-born-in-india-west-experts-refute/articleshow/79472030.cms?from=mdr

)

 

And that's only really one type of bat that carries one type of Coronoaviruses (MERs came from the Middle East).  If you really did want to sample a large set of these bat viruses, that actually mandates working in these other countries with the bats too and NOT focusing on China.  We now have a decent amount of sequence from China.  Continuing to work in China makes less sense if you really want to know what all is out there.

 

5.  It is surprising to me that this gets published without some sort of corresponding COI statement and information on how this got published (did these people contact the Post?  Did the Post contact them? Why? etc.)

Edited June 6, 2021 by PeterMP

[Larry]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

(There's actually been claims by the Chinese that the pandemic started in India.

 

Of course there have been.   

[The Evil Genius]

4 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

1.  If you don't think reports of the WIV having lab safety issue and their workers getting sick in Nov. (which is in the time frame when the pandemic started) coupled with the inability to find a natural host have made it more credible that the it was (accidently) leaked from the lab, then I think you are delusional.  Maybe you don't think the evidence is that good (i.e. as I've stated before, sure the intelligence could be wrong), but not to mention them at all when discussing the current thoughts of where the virus came from seems misleading and a lie of omission, and certainly seems to shift the possibility of it being a lab release at some.

 

I will say this again, I think it's dangerous to outwardly accuse China of manufacturing covid-19 and/or using it intentionally as a weapon (which you did not do but others here have supposed). 

 

I think further investigation is always warranted but repeated unwarranted allegations towards China in the media (social or traditional) doesn't help. 

[PeterMP]

12 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

I will say this again, I think it's dangerous to outwardly accuse China of manufacturing covid-19 and/or using it intentionally as a weapon (which you did not do but others here have supposed). 

 

I think further investigation is always warranted but repeated unwarranted allegations towards China in the media (social or traditional) doesn't help. 

 

I don't disagree with you, but publishing incomplete or misleading commentaries and editorials doesn't help the situation.  Nobody that's going to claim that Covid-19 was released as a weapon is going to reverse course because the WashPo published an opinion piece that is incomplete, especially when the motivations and process behind the publication isn't clear.

[China]

Many long-haul COVID-19 patients report improvement after vaccination, surprising experts

 

A growing number of COVID-19 “long-haulers,” those with lingering long-term symptoms linked to the virus, are reporting sudden improvement after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
 

Wendy French of northwest suburban Lake in the Hills used to run 10 miles a day several times a week before she caught COVID-19 in September, which left her fatigued and suffering from a var...

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

39 minutes ago, China said:

Many long-haul COVID-19 patients report improvement after vaccination, surprising experts

 

A growing number of COVID-19 “long-haulers,” those with lingering long-term symptoms linked to the virus, are reporting sudden improvement after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
 

Wendy French of northwest suburban Lake in the Hills used to run 10 miles a day several times a week before she caught COVID-19 in September, which left her fatigued and suffering from a var...

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Seems weird.  But a theory.  

 

Maybe the "long haul"ers bodies are making antibodies against Covid, but they aren't very effective ones.  Resulting in a lingering "immunity stalemate".  And the vaccine causes their body to make antibodies that are more effective.  

[China]

A top COVID-19 scientist is being hunted by a far-right sniper who has gone AWOL from the army

 

Belgium's leading expert on COVID-19 is in hiding after being placed on a hit list by a rogue military sniper with ties to the far right.

 

Jürgen Conings, a military instructor, went on the run almost three weeks ago after making threats to Professor Marc Van Ranst, a virologist who has advised the Belgian government on restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus and vaccines.

 

According to reports, Conings had drawn up a hit list of 10 targets, including Van Ranst.

 

Van Ranst told BBC News that he was living in a safe house with his wife and 12-year-old son with round-the-clock security.

 

"The threat was very real," Van Ranst said, describing the night he and his family were forced into hiding.

 

"The ex-soldier, heavily armed, was on my street for three hours, right in front of my house, waiting for me to arrive home from work."

 

Police say that after leaving his barracks, Conings headed straight for Van Ranst's home. But Van Ranst said he'd had arrived home early that evening and was already inside when Conings began monitoring the property.

 

The scientist is not the only person on Coning's hit list who has been provided with enhanced protection. Het Laatste Nieuws reports that a lawyer who worked on his divorce, his ex-wife, and senior military figures involved in disciplining him for his extremist beliefs are also being shielded.

 

Mosques and refugee centers in the Flemish province of Limburg are also reportedly under tighter security.

 

Belgian authorities had said that Conings was already on a terrorism watchlist because of his far-right allegiances before he went AWOL, reported Reuters.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

Dang.  And I thought the US had the trophy for most deranged Gun Nuts.  

 

And Dang, again.  Some people must be seriously ****ed up, when trying to save people's lives from a contagious disease is considered grounds for murdering someone. 

 

I mean, seriously, how did the Right Wing, either here or abroad, decide that part of their platform would be opposing all steps to slow the spread of a lethal disease?  Who the **** made that decision?  

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Larry

[China]

Major Chinese city battles Delta Covid variant first detected in India with lockdowns, mass testing

 

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong are carrying out mass testing and have locked down areas to try to control a flare up of coronavirus cases in Guangzhou.

 

The city has cited the Delta variant of the coronavirus, first detected in India, as a driver behind the uptick in cases it has reported since the latter part of May. The Delta strain is known to be highly transmissible.

 

Guangzhou, a city of over 15 million people and the provincial capital, has reported 96 of the over 100 cases in Guangdong province in this latest outbreak.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Televangelists say Satan gave them COVID-19 because Milo went ex-gay

 

A pundit on the far-right show TruNews said that their studio is experiencing an outbreak of coronavirus because of Satan, who is retaliating against them for promoting Milo Yiannopoulos because Milo once “belonged to the darkness” but has now left it by becoming “ex-gay.”

 

“We constantly battle demonic spirits and demonic attacks on ourselves and we as Christians must stay equipped,” host Lauren Witzke said yesterday. “And also we must stay prayerful as we walk into these times.”

 

TruNews is usually hosted by pastor Rick Wiles, who has been promoting COVID-19 conspiracy theories for the past year on his platform. He has blamed the pandemic on gay men, transgender children, Jewish people, and Chinese people, usually saying that the virus is a punishment from God.

 

He is also against the COVID-19 vaccines, claiming that they will actually kill 70% of the world’s population. The Christian conservative pastor said that massive death will be a “good thing” because “stupid people” will die.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Stupid people will die, just not the ones he thinks.

[China]

COVID-19: Vegans and pescatarians less likely to get severely ill from coronavirus, study suggests

 

Vegans and pescatarians may be less likely to get severely ill from coronavirus, according to a new study.

 

The research - which took place across six countries, including the UK - showed that those who had plant-based diets were 73% less likely to develop severe symptoms from COVID-19.

 

People who ate fish but not meat had a 59% lower probability of getting seriously ill.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Nerm]

On 6/4/2021 at 7:57 PM, PeterMP said:

 

It is important where it came from in terms of how much are we funding the research and what safety protocols in place and how much should be be funding this research.  If it was an accidental release, I don't think we should "punish" the Chinese.  But either way I think we have to take a real long look at what is being done in terms of virus research, how much we're contributing, and what should we be doing in terms of safety.  I've never thought "gain of function" research made much sense.  I think this pandemic just demonstrates how little sense it makes.

I agree that identifying if it developed in nature or in the lab is the key question that needs to be answered in order to know how to reduce threats from future pandemics.  The answer to that question is vital to guiding future policies.

 

If it developed in nature, that would lead to an increased support for research to address the pressing risks of viruses that evolved in nature, most likely including gain of function research.  On the other hand, if we assume it evolved in nature and are incorrect about that, that could result in us increasing future risk dramatically by doing a lot more of what just led to the death of millions of people.

 

Obviously, more needs to be done to address risks from nature (e.g. discourage exotic meat and pet industries) and to address lab safety procedures.  I do think that knowing the origin of the virus is important to decide what solutions to prioritize. 

 

 One of the articles I read recently was written by a bat researcher who noted that when they collected bats from caves, they were not allowed to wear gloves because the gloves may increase the risk of damaging the wings of bats.  He claimed that it was not concerning to him because the risk of getting a virus from a bat was very low.  I thought that was an interesting detail.  Seemed like a horrible idea to me, but the scientists in the field didn't seem to think it was something to worry about.

[tshile]

On 6/4/2021 at 5:40 PM, PeterMP said:

Picking up from the other thread, Vanity Fair has a long story on the history of the investigation of where Covid came from:

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

Um. 
 

this reads like Paul was the one pushing for the truth and faucci is a liar 

[FrFan]

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Edited June 9, 2021 by FrFan