OT: Net Tightens Around China's Covert Bio-Weapons Lab

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 10:41:35 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 4:26:36 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 12:18:47 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 8:24:21 AM UTC-7, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 10:14:06 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 5:34:36 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 2:27:03 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 2:15:19 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 12:49:42 AM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 1:46:00 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre....@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, April 30, 2020 at 6:46:44 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:

snip

They're constantly going into these dangerous areas of SW China where both people and animals are infected with spillover all the time.. It's plausible that one of these idiots become infected, was asymptomatic, and traveled to the Wuhan virology lab, spreading it to some locals.

Only to a lunatic conspiracy theory nutcase.

The stupidity of these people exceeds even your own. Like it was a really big deal to quarantine people from areas experiencing COVID-19 infection, but the idiots never thought to do the same for people arriving from an area with undocumented and unknowable infections and humongous reservoirs of PPPs ,(pandemic potential pathogens).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/health/virus-hunters-bat-cave-coronavirus-hnk-intl/index.html

Did you actually read the article.

"After analyzing blood samples of people living near two bat caves in Jinning County, Yunnan province in 2015, Daszak's team found that 3% had antibodies for viruses normally only found in bats -- meaning they had already been exposed to them.
"They might have unknowingly contracted these pathogens and recovered or only had a few body cells infected," he says.""

If only 3% of the locals had antibodies to the bat virus, the virus was clearly rotten at human-to-human transmission, and not going to start any pandemics.

What's this "the" bat virus stuff. They were talking about "a" bat virus, and clearly not COVID-19. COVID-19 and viruses like it don't need bats to survive.

And can't survive in bat populations.

Huh? It not only survives but thrives, mutates and diviserifies like mad in bat populations. Was just reading about a bat virus that jumped into horses and then humans in Australia, something called Hendra. China is not unique in having this problem.


The fact that the locals had antibodies to whatever bat virus it was isn't evidence that they'd ever got infected by it.

The corona virus family is huge with 10s of thousands of strains. And antibody testing will give a positive result for all of them, making it impossible to identify the strain. Those people were in all probability infected with a more innocuous strain of the virus, given how ubiquitous it is in that region.


They merely had to have been exposed to it. I got hay fever as a kind - I'd been exposed to enough wattle pollen to develop antibodies to it, and when there was enough wattle pollen in the air my sinuses got irritated and I had a thoroughly inconvenient allergic reaction, but I was never infected.

As usual you've got excited by a misleadingly phased alarmist beat-up.

Here's more information about the bat situation in subtropical China. Since 2004 the Wuhan group have discovered dozens of strains of corona, present in bats, that infect human lung tissue, no intermediate host necessary.

So the new theory of the pandemic scenario is someone brought an infection from someplace like Yunnan to Wuhan, but the symptoms were mild, so not much attention was paid to it. This first epidemic may have simmered for months until finally, sometime in December 2020, the virus mutated into one with very severe symptoms, and events took off from there.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/

Footnote: "Jane Qiu is an award-winning science writer based in Beijing."

Yep- saw that.


Some of it might be true, but sugar-coated.

It does sound a bit too innocent. And the coincidence of the outbreak occurring in the same city as the virology institute is difficult to dismiss..

Whereas the coincidence of half the early infections being associated with the Wuhan wet market is extremely easy to dismiss.

There has been no such finding about the early infections coming from the wet market. In fact, it has been publicized that Patient Zero had no association whatsoever with the wet market. The whole wet market thing was a rumor started by the virology lab.

> Not because it's not a stronger association, but because it doesn't have the political content that lunatic conspiracy theory nutcases need to feed their bizarre fantasies.

The epidemic was started by an infected worker at the virology institute, probably that female intern who went missing. The place was famous for disregarding even standard infection prevention measures because they believed the bat viruses to be harmless to humans. Like you, they fantasized they knew all there was to know about corona viruses. The infected worker was asymptomatic long enough to infect quite a few locals, and when he/she did exhibit symptoms they were mild enough to ignore with absolutely no action taken.. It was only after a bunch of people starting keeling over about a month later that the authorities started to take notice.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney



snip

 

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 10:54:30 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 4:40:03 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 12:41:28 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Sun, 03 May 2020 08:24:15 -0700, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred wrote:

snip

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Not just the Chinese. MERS is a corona virus, which jumped from bats to camels, and from camels to humans in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe but they could not find a bat reservoir in Saudi Arabia harboring that virus. The closest they could find was a colony in South Africa slightly less unrelated. If you had half a brain, that should tell you they just didn't look hard enough in China.

There are plenty of other zoonoses, drawn for a wide variety of types of virus, and they show up all over the place. Hendra virus showed up in Australia and is a henipavirus, a kind of myxo virus.

"Henipavirus is a genus of RNA viruses in the family Paramyxoviridae, order Mononegavirales containing five established species."

China has 20% of the world population, and don't seem to be over-represented in the statistics.

Bulloney. The 14th century bubonic plague originated in China. I know all the other peripheral information about its origins, so don't bother repeating a bunch of misinformation to let China off the hook.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 11:40:03 AM UTC-7, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Oh, you've bought into the Trump blame-China theory? It'd be more
credible if he hadn't just defunded WHO on his other pet theory, and defunded
a US/China investigation into the relevant science.

China did withhold their knowledge of the high transmissiblity of the virus.. They advised WHO against advocating an international travel ban when they put a domestic travel ban in place. They refused international observers access to any information that would reveal how this thing had very real pandemic potential. Trump didn't go far enough soon enough.

WHO and their con artist executive director should be defunded permanently.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/trump-cuts-research-bat-human-virus-china-213076

China and Russia both have semiofficial crackpot theories, too.

This looks like a real-world episode straight from the
"Can't blind 'em with science, baffle 'em with bullshit" channel.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:13:12 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 10:41:35 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 4:26:36 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 12:18:47 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 8:24:21 AM UTC-7, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 10:14:06 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 5:34:36 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 2:27:03 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 2:15:19 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 12:49:42 AM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 1:46:00 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, April 30, 2020 at 6:46:44 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:

snip

They're constantly going into these dangerous areas of SW China where both people and animals are infected with spillover all the time. It's plausible that one of these idiots become infected, was asymptomatic, and traveled to the Wuhan virology lab, spreading it to some locals.

Only to a lunatic conspiracy theory nutcase.

The stupidity of these people exceeds even your own. Like it was a really big deal to quarantine people from areas experiencing COVID-19 infection, but the idiots never thought to do the same for people arriving from an area with undocumented and unknowable infections and humongous reservoirs of PPPs ,(pandemic potential pathogens).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/health/virus-hunters-bat-cave-coronavirus-hnk-intl/index.html

Did you actually read the article.

"After analyzing blood samples of people living near two bat caves in Jinning County, Yunnan province in 2015, Daszak's team found that 3% had antibodies for viruses normally only found in bats -- meaning they had already been exposed to them.
"They might have unknowingly contracted these pathogens and recovered or only had a few body cells infected," he says.""

If only 3% of the locals had antibodies to the bat virus, the virus was clearly rotten at human-to-human transmission, and not going to start any pandemics.

What's this "the" bat virus stuff. They were talking about "a" bat virus, and clearly not COVID-19. COVID-19 and viruses like it don't need bats to survive.

And can't survive in bat populations.

Huh? It not only survives but thrives, mutates and diviserifies like mad in bat populations. Was just reading about a bat virus that jumped into horses and then humans in Australia, something called Hendra. China is not unique in having this problem.


The fact that the locals had antibodies to whatever bat virus it was isn't evidence that they'd ever got infected by it.

The corona virus family is huge with 10s of thousands of strains. And antibody testing will give a positive result for all of them, making it impossible to identify the strain. Those people were in all probability infected with a more innocuous strain of the virus, given how ubiquitous it is in that region.

They merely had to have been exposed to it. I got hay fever as a kind - I'd been exposed to enough wattle pollen to develop antibodies to it, and when there was enough wattle pollen in the air my sinuses got irritated and I had a thoroughly inconvenient allergic reaction, but I was never infected.

As usual you've got excited by a misleadingly phased alarmist beat-up.

Here's more information about the bat situation in subtropical China. Since 2004 the Wuhan group have discovered dozens of strains of corona, present in bats, that infect human lung tissue, no intermediate host necessary.

So the new theory of the pandemic scenario is someone brought an infection from someplace like Yunnan to Wuhan, but the symptoms were mild, so not much attention was paid to it. This first epidemic may have simmered for months until finally, sometime in December 2020, the virus mutated into one with very severe symptoms, and events took off from there.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/

Footnote: "Jane Qiu is an award-winning science writer based in Beijing."

Yep- saw that.

Some of it might be true, but sugar-coated.

It does sound a bit too innocent. And the coincidence of the outbreak occurring in the same city as the virology institute is difficult to dismiss.

Whereas the coincidence of half the early infections being associated with the Wuhan wet market is extremely easy to dismiss.

There has been no such finding about the early infections coming from the wet market. In fact, it has been publicized that Patient Zero had no association whatsoever with the wet market.

The claim about patient zero is correct, but so was the observation about roughly half the early Covid-19 infections being associated with wet market.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/how-did-the-coronavirus-start-where-did-it-come-from-how-did-it-spread-humans-was-it-really-bats-pangolins-wuhan-animal-market

"Analysis of the first 41 Covid-19 patients in medical journal the Lancet found that 27 of them had direct exposure to the Wuhan market. But the same analysis found that the first known case of the illness did not."

You may not like it, but you didn't bother to link to any information that contradicted it.

> The whole wet market thing was a rumor started by the virology lab.

But one that made it into the hospital records and the Lancet article.

Not because it's not a stronger association, but because it doesn't have the political content that lunatic conspiracy theory nutcases need to feed their bizarre fantasies.

The epidemic was started by an infected worker at the virology institute, probably that female intern who went missing.

This may be a hypothesis that you find attractive, but there's absolutely no evidence to support it, and the fact that 27 out of the first 41 Covid-19 cases had associations with the Wuhan wet market is difficult to square with idea that the very first infected person came from the virology institute.

> The place was famous for disregarding even standard infection prevention measures because they believed the bat viruses to be harmless to humans.

This is nuts. If you are looking at particular viruses, the last thing you want is a random virus sneaking in and making nonsense of your results. People looking at other peoples labs always find stuff to complain about - it's evidence that they've had their eyes open - but boosting that to a claim of total incompetence is pure spin.

> Like you, they fantasized they knew all there was to know about corona viruses.

Why would they have been bothering to study them if they thought that?

You know so little about viruses that you tried to tell us that the scheme to use a virus with a modified geneome to get human cells to produce a protein fragment that looked enough like the receptor (ACE2) binding domain of the SARS-Cov-2 Spike glycoprotein to promote the production of an antibody against it wasn't going to work because the antibodies produced (against corona viruses)
would block the virus doing the work. Despite the fact that you explicitly mentioned that this was a DNA virus (when the corona virus is an RNA virus) you managed to miss the fact that virus doing the work wasn't going to be a corona virus.

You are in no position to complain that other people don't know enough to comment when they clearly know enough to highlight your ignorance.

> The infected worker was asymptomatic long enough to infect quite a few locals, and when he/she did exhibit symptoms they were mild enough to ignore with absolutely no action taken. It was only after a bunch of people starting keeling over about a month later that the authorities started to take notice.

But why would 27 out of the first 41 cases be associated with the wet market if she was the first infectee?

This is nonsense, and a while back you would have been able to recognise this, but you have recently posted quite a lot of other implausible nonsense..
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:58:29 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 11:40:03 AM UTC-7, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Oh, you've bought into the Trump blame-China theory? It'd be more
credible if he hadn't just defunded WHO on his other pet theory, and defunded
a US/China investigation into the relevant science.

China did withhold their knowledge of the high transmissiblity of the virus.

When? And for how long? The trouble with new infectious diseases is that it takes a while to work out what's going on and how infectious the new disease actually is. Fred and Trump have 100% hindsight, and know exactly what the Chinese authorities should have done, but it ws less obvious at the time..

They advised WHO against advocating an international travel ban when they put a domestic travel ban in place. They refused international observers access to any information that would reveal how this thing had very real pandemic potential. Trump didn't go far enough soon enough.

WHO and their con artist executive director should be defunded permanently.

In Fred's ever-so-expert opinion.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/trump-cuts-research-bat-human-virus-china-213076

China and Russia both have semiofficial crackpot theories, too.

This looks like a real-world episode straight from the
"Can't blind 'em with science, baffle 'em with bullshit" channel.

And Fred does seem to be permanently tuned in to that channel.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:32:25 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 10:54:30 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 4:40:03 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 12:41:28 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Sun, 03 May 2020 08:24:15 -0700, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred wrote:

snip

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Not just the Chinese. MERS is a corona virus, which jumped from bats to camels, and from camels to humans in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe but they could not find a bat reservoir in Saudi Arabia harboring that virus. The closest they could find was a colony in South Africa slightly less unrelated. If you had half a brain, that should tell you they just didn't look hard enough in China.

If you had half a brain, you would realise that the path from bat to camel probably wasn't all that direct. South Africa is a long way from Saudi Arabia, but China is even further.

There are plenty of other zoonoses, drawn for a wide variety of types of virus, and they show up all over the place. Hendra virus showed up in Australia and is a henipavirus, a kind of myxo virus.

"Henipavirus is a genus of RNA viruses in the family Paramyxoviridae, order Mononegavirales containing five established species."

China has 20% of the world population, and don't seem to be over-represented in the statistics.

Bulloney. The 14th century bubonic plague originated in China. I know all the other peripheral information about its origins, so don't bother repeating a bunch of misinformation to let China off the hook.

Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection (Yersinia pestis).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yersinia_pestis

"DNA evidence published in 2015 indicates Y. pestis infected humans 5,000 years ago in Bronze Age Eurasia, but genetic changes that made it highly virulent did not occur until about 4,000 years ago. The highly virulent version capable of transmission by fleas through rodents, humans, and other mammals was found in two individuals associated with the Srubnaya culture from the Samara region in Russia from around 3,800 years ago and an Iron Age individual from Kapan, Armenia from around 2,900 years ago."

China is probably off the hook on that one. As usual, you don't know enough about what you are taking about.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 10:27:27 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:32:25 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 10:54:30 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 4:40:03 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 12:41:28 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Sun, 03 May 2020 08:24:15 -0700, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred wrote:

snip

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Not just the Chinese. MERS is a corona virus, which jumped from bats to camels, and from camels to humans in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe but they could not find a bat reservoir in Saudi Arabia harboring that virus. The closest they could find was a colony in South Africa slightly less unrelated. If you had half a brain, that should tell you they just didn't look hard enough in China.

If you had half a brain, you would realise that the path from bat to camel probably wasn't all that direct. South Africa is a long way from Saudi Arabia, but China is even further.

The South Africa bat population finding was the result of a global search for the origin of MERS. It doesn't have anything to do with conjecture.

So far, you're the main one consistently demonstrating lack of any detectable amount of brainpower.

There are plenty of other zoonoses, drawn for a wide variety of types of virus, and they show up all over the place. Hendra virus showed up in Australia and is a henipavirus, a kind of myxo virus.

"Henipavirus is a genus of RNA viruses in the family Paramyxoviridae, order Mononegavirales containing five established species."

China has 20% of the world population, and don't seem to be over-represented in the statistics.

Bulloney. The 14th century bubonic plague originated in China. I know all the other peripheral information about its origins, so don't bother repeating a bunch of misinformation to let China off the hook.

Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection (Yersinia pestis).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yersinia_pestis

"DNA evidence published in 2015 indicates Y. pestis infected humans 5,000 years ago in Bronze Age Eurasia, but genetic changes that made it highly virulent did not occur until about 4,000 years ago. The highly virulent version capable of transmission by fleas through rodents, humans, and other mammals was found in two individuals associated with the Srubnaya culture from the Samara region in Russia from around 3,800 years ago and an Iron Age individual from Kapan, Armenia from around 2,900 years ago."

No archaeology necessary, the plague is endemic to that whole region of the world in the present. Dunno what kind of simpleton would need wiki to tell them that.

> China is probably off the hook on that one. As usual, you don't know enough about what you are taking about.

No they're not. At about the time of the 14th century plague a massive earthquake struck China killing what is believed to be millions. The Chinese did not dispose of the bodies well and they became rat food. Soon thereafter the plague emerged in China, Mongolia, and points west- obviously ending up in Crimea before jumping into Europe via shipping.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 11:40:03 AM UTC-7, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Oh, you've bought into the Trump blame-China theory? It'd be more
credible if he hadn't just defunded WHO on his other pet theory, and defunded
a US/China investigation into the relevant science.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/trump-cuts-research-bat-human-virus-china-213076

China and Russia both have semiofficial crackpot theories, too.

This looks like a real-world episode straight from the
"Can't blind 'em with science, baffle 'em with bullshit" channel.

You've mixed a few things up. As Fred first noted, the U.S. was funding
gain-of-function research at China's Wuhan lab, research aimed at
creating more-infectious viruses. Given the current situation, the
Trump administration just cut that funding. You think that's
unreasonable? Or should we continue to fund them to produce even
more infectious bugs?

As far as WHO and China's culpability,

<quote>
World Health Organization (WHO)
✔
@WHO

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have
found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳."

22.2K
7:18 AM - Jan 14, 2020
</quote>
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

That is, on Jan. 14th, China, via WHO, told the world there was no
evidence of SARS-CoV2 human transmission. They knew it wasn't true.

Meanwhile, China was cornering the market on essential pandemic supplies.
"The [DHS] report also says China held off informing the World Health
Organization that the coronavirus “was a contagion” for much of January
so it could order medical supplies from abroad — and that its imports
of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply."
https://apnews.com/bf685dcf52125be54e030834ab7062a8

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[whit3rd]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 10:53:12 AM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

... the U.S. was funding
gain-of-function research at China's Wuhan lab, research aimed at
creating more-infectious viruses. Given the current situation, the
Trump administration just cut that funding. You think that's
unreasonable?

Yes, because they were in the middle of a productive effort to understand
the nature of those viruses. If there's a reason to stop, I don't see it.

Or should we continue to fund them to produce even
more infectious bugs?

That's begging the question; there's no 'produce' element in
the study, nor in any other activity we know of.

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have
found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳."

OK, the Chinese investigation was preliminary, and they hadn't
figured out a fully safe protocol for handling patients, and they said so.

That is, on Jan. 14th, China, via WHO, told the world there was no
evidence of SARS-CoV2 human transmission. They knew it wasn't true.

Translation error, on your part; there was no such claim. It's easy
to make those errors, it just takes a bit of spin (but no fault on the
part of the speaker).

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men,
I will find something in them which will hang him." ---Cardinal Richelieu

 

On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 10:33:24 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:58:29 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 11:40:03 AM UTC-7, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Oh, you've bought into the Trump blame-China theory? It'd be more
credible if he hadn't just defunded WHO on his other pet theory, and defunded
a US/China investigation into the relevant science.

China did withhold their knowledge of the high transmissiblity of the virus.

When? And for how long? The trouble with new infectious diseases is that it takes a while to work out what's going on and how infectious the new disease actually is. Fred and Trump have 100% hindsight, and know exactly what the Chinese authorities should have done, but it ws less obvious at the time.

If the numbers grow like crazy with time, you know enough about its infectiousness.

They advised WHO against advocating an international travel ban when they put a domestic travel ban in place. They refused international observers access to any information that would reveal how this thing had very real pandemic potential. Trump didn't go far enough soon enough.

WHO and their con artist executive director should be defunded permanently.

In Fred's ever-so-expert opinion.

First of all, he's not an MD, he's a microbiologist, who never practiced as such from what I can see, with some shady educational credentials from UK.

Then his biographical achievements are all in terms of politico-statistical outcomes of policy, on which I call total bullshit.

The individual in this story went a little further in that regard:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/health/candidate-who-director-general-ethiopia-cholera-outbreaks.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/trump-cuts-research-bat-human-virus-china-213076

China and Russia both have semiofficial crackpot theories, too.

This looks like a real-world episode straight from the
"Can't blind 'em with science, baffle 'em with bullshit" channel.

And Fred does seem to be permanently tuned in to that channel.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:41:00 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 10:53:12 AM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

... the U.S. was funding
gain-of-function research at China's Wuhan lab, research aimed at
creating more-infectious viruses. Given the current situation, the
Trump administration just cut that funding. You think that's
unreasonable?

Yes, because they were in the middle of a productive effort to understand
the nature of those viruses. If there's a reason to stop, I don't see it.

It's controversial. The Obama administration, for example, saw fit
to discontinue the funding, the opponents of super-virus creation
prevailing. But Dr. Fauci's pro-super-virus camp regained the upper
hand and funding was reinstated under the Trump administration, citing
the potential benefits.

Now it seems likely China's lab had an accident with catastrophic
consequences.

Or should we continue to fund them to produce even
more infectious bugs?

That's begging the question; there's no 'produce' element in
the study, nor in any other activity we know of.

We were subsidizing the Wuhan lab to perform Gain of Function
research -- selectively 'breeding' viruses for enhanced transmission.
That's public information.

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have
found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳."

OK, the Chinese investigation was preliminary, and they hadn't
figured out a fully safe protocol for handling patients, and they said so..

That is, on Jan. 14th, China, via WHO, told the world there was no
evidence of SARS-CoV2 human transmission. They knew it wasn't true.

Translation error, on your part; there was no such claim. It's easy
to make those errors, it just takes a bit of spin (but no fault on the
part of the speaker).

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men,
I will find something in them which will hang him." ---Cardinal Richelieu

So in your mind, that Chinese statement via WHO of Jan. 14th,

'We're not sure if thing can spread,' meant 'Watch out world, this
thing is deadly and spreading in Wuhan like a wildfire!' ?


Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 5:06:58 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 10:33:24 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:58:29 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 11:40:03 AM UTC-7, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Oh, you've bought into the Trump blame-China theory? It'd be more
credible if he hadn't just defunded WHO on his other pet theory, and defunded
a US/China investigation into the relevant science.

China did withhold their knowledge of the high transmissiblity of the virus.

When? And for how long? The trouble with new infectious diseases is that it takes a while to work out what's going on and how infectious the new disease actually is. Fred and Trump have 100% hindsight, and know exactly what the Chinese authorities should have done, but it ws less obvious at the time.

If the numbers grow like crazy with time, you know enough about its infectiousness.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/

show the numbers growing from the 22nd January 2020. They grew rapidly after that point, probably more because they had a test for Covid-19 at that point, but until you have a test you don't really know what you are dealing with.

As I mentioned, Fred has 100% hindsight, so he now knows what should have happened early in January 2020, bu tit wouldn't have been quite as obvious at the time.

They advised WHO against advocating an international travel ban when they put a domestic travel ban in place. They refused international observers access to any information that would reveal how this thing had very real pandemic potential. Trump didn't go far enough soon enough.

WHO and their con artist executive director should be defunded permanently.

In Fred's ever-so-expert opinion.

First of all, he's not an MD, he's a microbiologist, who never practiced as such from what I can see, with some shady educational credentials from UK.

If you are talking about the current director of WHO his academic credentials look perfectly respectable. The Universities of Nottingham (1881) and London (1836) may be red-brick, but they've been around for quite a while.

> Then his biographical achievements are all in terms of politico-statistical outcomes of policy, on which I call total bullshit.

https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Tedros+Adhanom+Ghebreyesus&btnG
The Lancet clearly didn't.

The individual in this story went a little further in that regard:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/health/candidate-who-director-general-ethiopia-cholera-outbreaks.html

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 7:47:31 AM UTC+10, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:41:00 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 10:53:12 AM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 3:15:25 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

... the U.S. was funding
gain-of-function research at China's Wuhan lab, research aimed at
creating more-infectious viruses. Given the current situation, the
Trump administration just cut that funding. You think that's
unreasonable?

Yes, because they were in the middle of a productive effort to understand
the nature of those viruses. If there's a reason to stop, I don't see it.

It's controversial. The Obama administration, for example, saw fit
to discontinue the funding, the opponents of super-virus creation
prevailing. But Dr. Fauci's pro-super-virus camp regained the upper
hand and funding was reinstated under the Trump administration, citing
the potential benefits.

Now it seems likely China's lab had an accident with catastrophic
consequences.

It seems that Trump want's to claim this.

There's absolutely no evidence to connect Covid-19 to the virology lab, and the whole idea that the virus might have got out of there is a china-bashing conspiracy theory.

The Lancet article listed 27 of the first 41 Covid-19 cases as associated with the Wuhan wet market, which is real evidence for a rather different source.

Or should we continue to fund them to produce even
more infectious bugs?

That's begging the question; there's no 'produce' element in
the study, nor in any other activity we know of.

We were subsidizing the Wuhan lab to perform Gain of Function
research -- selectively 'breeding' viruses for enhanced transmission.
That's public information.

But you can't post a link to it.

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have
found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳."

OK, the Chinese investigation was preliminary, and they hadn't
figured out a fully safe protocol for handling patients, and they said so.

That is, on Jan. 14th, China, via WHO, told the world there was no
evidence of SARS-CoV2 human transmission. They knew it wasn't true.

How? The Covid-19 data for China starts on the 22nd January 2020. The first recognsied Covid-19 was admitted to hospital on the 1st December 2019, but it took six weeks before the new infection was recognised for what it was - the doctors treating the patients decided that it was odd early on, but it took a while before they could get anybody to take them seriously, and at least some of them got reprimanded for rocking the boat before it did get taken seriously..

Translation error, on your part; there was no such claim. It's easy
to make those errors, it just takes a bit of spin (but no fault on the
part of the speaker).

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men,
I will find something in them which will hang him." ---Cardinal Richelieu

So in your mind, that Chinese statement via WHO of Jan. 14th,

'We're not sure if thing can spread,' meant 'Watch out world, this
thing is deadly and spreading in Wuhan like a wildfire!' ?

It probably meant that they weren't sure - at that point.

Being prematurely alarmnist isn't a way of getting popular.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 12:29:18 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 10:27:27 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:32:25 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 10:54:30 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 4:40:03 AM UTC+10, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 12:41:28 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Sun, 03 May 2020 08:24:15 -0700, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred wrote:

snip

The Chinese have been seeding the entire globe with corona virus for at least two decades.

Not just the Chinese. MERS is a corona virus, which jumped from bats to camels, and from camels to humans in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe but they could not find a bat reservoir in Saudi Arabia harboring that virus. The closest they could find was a colony in South Africa slightly less unrelated. If you had half a brain, that should tell you they just didn't look hard enough in China.

If you had half a brain, you would realise that the path from bat to camel probably wasn't all that direct. South Africa is a long way from Saudi Arabia, but China is even further.

The South Africa bat population finding was the result of a global search for the origin of MERS. It doesn't have anything to do with conjecture.

The conjecture you seem to be peddling is that the ancestral virus population had to have direct contact with camels for the virus to make the leap. The zoonose stories are full of intermediate species, and while it does simplify life enormously if you ignore them, it isn't a realistic choice.

> So far, you're the main one consistently demonstrating lack of any detectable amount of brainpower.

I do point out form time to time where your own brainpower has fallen short, and you do seem to lack the brain power to notice this.

The substance of you claim is that I lack the brain power to agree with you - which would take a brain that worked just as badly as yours seems to.

There are plenty of other zoonoses, drawn for a wide variety of types of virus, and they show up all over the place. Hendra virus showed up in Australia and is a henipavirus, a kind of myxo virus.

"Henipavirus is a genus of RNA viruses in the family Paramyxoviridae, order Mononegavirales containing five established species."

China has 20% of the world population, and don't seem to be over-represented in the statistics.

Bulloney. The 14th century bubonic plague originated in China. I know all the other peripheral information about its origins, so don't bother repeating a bunch of misinformation to let China off the hook.

Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection (Yersinia pestis).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yersinia_pestis

"DNA evidence published in 2015 indicates Y. pestis infected humans 5,000 years ago in Bronze Age Eurasia, but genetic changes that made it highly virulent did not occur until about 4,000 years ago. The highly virulent version capable of transmission by fleas through rodents, humans, and other mammals was found in two individuals associated with the Srubnaya culture from the Samara region in Russia from around 3,800 years ago and an Iron Age individual from Kapan, Armenia from around 2,900 years ago."

No archaeology necessary, the plague is endemic to that whole region of the world in the present. Dunno what kind of simpleton would need wiki to tell them that.

Wikipedia is useful for serving up well-known facts to simpletons like you, and making it clear what you should have known when you spouted your nonsense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rats,_Lice_and_History

was published in 1935, and I read my parents copy as a kid (which is to say before 1960).

China is probably off the hook on that one. As usual, you don't know enough about what you are taking about.

No they're not. At about the time of the 14th century plague a massive earthquake struck China killing what is believed to be millions. The Chinese did not dispose of the bodies well and they became rat food. Soon thereafter the plague emerged in China, Mongolia, and points west- obviously ending up in Crimea before jumping into Europe via shipping.

But the plague of Justinian - 541–542 AD, with recurrences until 750 AD - seems to have come from Central Asia via the Huns - rather than from China, and the same reservoir could have delivered the plague to China in the 14th century before came west along the trade routes.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[whit3rd]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 2:47:31 PM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:41:00 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

[ about Trump cutting funding for a virus research project]

... they were in the middle of a productive effort to understand
the nature of those viruses. If there's a reason to stop, I don't see it.

It's controversial. The Obama administration, for example, saw fit
to discontinue the funding,...

Yeah, but really, anyone with a shovel in that ground is likely to hit
something more interesting RIGHT NOW when it might be the
seed of an important advance. We don't want any delays.

Now it seems likely China's lab had an accident with catastrophic
consequences.

Or should we continue to fund them to produce even
more infectious bugs?

That's begging the question; there's no 'produce' element in
the study, nor in any other activity we know of.

We were subsidizing the Wuhan lab to perform Gain of Function
research -- selectively 'breeding' viruses for enhanced transmission.
That's public information.

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have
found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳."

OK, the Chinese investigation was preliminary, and they hadn't
figured out a fully safe protocol for handling patients, and they said so.

That is, on Jan. 14th, China, via WHO, told the world there was no
evidence of SARS-CoV2 human transmission. They knew it wasn't true.

Translation error, on your part; there was no such claim. It's easy
to make those errors, it just takes a bit of spin (but no fault on the
part of the speaker).

So in your mind, that Chinese statement via WHO of Jan. 14th,

'We're not sure if thing can spread,' meant 'Watch out world, this
thing is deadly and spreading in Wuhan like a wildfire!'

No, I'd find far less meaning than that in the bland statement.

The disease was popping up in the population, and in the doctors, despite
normal precautions. Was it in the water? Were there insect carriers? Contamination
of foodstuffs, road dust, laundry products? We still don't know if
pets (cats, dogs, etc.) are important.

They hadn't been able to track enough infected persons to OTHER infected
persons to draw any conclusions about contact.

Despite the label 'preliminary investigation' you draw a CONCLUSION
from such a statement? Bad tactic, even if the conspiracy theorists like it.

 

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 10:42:42 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 2:47:31 PM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:41:00 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have
found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳."

OK, the Chinese investigation was preliminary, and they hadn't
figured out a fully safe protocol for handling patients, and they said so.

That is, on Jan. 14th, China, via WHO, told the world there was no
evidence of SARS-CoV2 human transmission. They knew it wasn't true.

Translation error, on your part; there was no such claim. It's easy
to make those errors, it just takes a bit of spin (but no fault on the
part of the speaker).


So in your mind, that Chinese statement via WHO of Jan. 14th,

'We're not sure if thing can spread,' meant 'Watch out world, this
thing is deadly and spreading in Wuhan like a wildfire!'

No, I'd find far less meaning than that in the bland statement.

The disease was popping up in the population, and in the doctors,

But that doesn't make sense. Isn't a disease being transmitted from
patient to doctor -- with essentially nothing in common -- the very
definition of human-to-human transmission?

despite
normal precautions. Was it in the water? Were there insect carriers? Contamination
of foodstuffs, road dust, laundry products?

That's not accurate. On Jan. 7th, Chinese state television announced it
was a novel coronavirus. (see quote, below) They knew it was a virus.

We still don't know if
pets (cats, dogs, etc.) are important.

They hadn't been able to track enough infected persons to OTHER infected
persons to draw any conclusions about contact.

Despite the label 'preliminary investigation' you draw a CONCLUSION
from such a statement? Bad tactic, even if the conspiracy theorists like it.

I've not concluded anything, you're concluding that without evidence.

You've concluded the Chinese were being forthright and you're taking
their statements at face value. I'm simply stating the obvious and
keeping an open mind.

I offer four quotes from Channel News Asia for your consideration--

9-Jan-2020
"As of Jan 7, 2020, the laboratory detected a new type of coronavirus,"
China Central Television (CCTV) said in a report. "The new coronavirus
that caused this epidemic situation is different from previously
discovered human coronaviruses, and further understanding of the
virus requires more scientific research."
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/china-pneumonia-outbreak-may-be-linked-to-new-type-of-virus--who-12245550

"Epidemic." Wiki says "An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to
a large number of people in a given population within a short period
of time."

"It said that according to Chinese authorities, the virus behind the Wuhan
cases can cause severe illness in some patients and does not appear to
pass easily from person to person." --ibid

Since the Wuhan Flu passes extremely easily from person to person, on
what basis did the Chinese make their statement? (China had reported
59 cases as of Jan. 5th.)

"In 2003, Chinese officials covered up a SARS outbreak for weeks before
a growing death toll and rumors forced the government to reveal the
epidemic. The disease spread rapidly to other cities and countries
in 2003. More than 8,000 people were infected and 775 died." -ibid


Currently, the Chinese also refused entry to a U.S. CDC team, and punished
eight doctors for trying to raise the alarm internally. Those actions,
to me, suggest China did not want doctors spreading the alarm, and did
not want foreigners to have first-hand access to information about their
epidemic.


5-Jan-2020
"Wuhan police on Wednesday [1-Jan-2020] said they had punished eight
people for 'publishing or forwarding false information on the
internet without verification.'

The health commission said that seven of the 59 patients are seriously
ill but that none have died. All are being treated in quarantine."
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/china-rules-out-sars-in-mystery-viral-pneumonia-outbreak-12235422

I understand that to mean that as of January 1st, at least eight
Chinese doctors knew they had an epidemic brewing, were silenced,
had already been punished for discussing it, and Chinese official
television had already broadcast their punishment.

This means the doctors' SARS outbreak discussion must have taken
place prior to Jan. 1, 2020, that the authorities knew of the
discussion, and had punished the doctors for discussing it, all
prior to 1-Jan-2020.

"By December 15, the total number of infections stood at 27 – the first
double-digit daily rise was reported on December 17 – and by December
20, the total number of confirmed cases had reached 60.

On December 27, Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubei Provincial Hospital
of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, told China’s health
authorities that the disease was caused by a new coronavirus. By that
date, more than 180 people had been infected, though doctors might
not have been aware of all of them at the time."

"[Doctors] were also ordered not to disclose any information about the
new disease to the public."
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[whit3rd]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 9:22:09 PM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 10:42:42 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

The disease was popping up in the population, and in the doctors,

But that doesn't make sense. Isn't a disease being transmitted from
patient to doctor -- with essentially nothing in common -- the very
definition of human-to-human transmission?

No, not if it is simultaneously NOT transmitted to other close
associates. Remember, in the early days there were no genome-based
tests available, and mild or asymptomatic cases weren't recognized.

Contamination-of-surfaces is or is not a human-to-human transmission?
You don't have to be in the presence of the infected.

were also ordered not to disclose any information about the
new disease to the public."

Yeah, that's one of the more disgusting aspects of a society without free speech...
but the party would probably believe that it isn't a deception, just a precaution.
I was similarly dismayed when early US conferences on the disease were... kept secret.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 2:22:09 PM UTC+10, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 10:42:42 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 2:47:31 PM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:41:00 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:


"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have
found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳."

OK, the Chinese investigation was preliminary, and they hadn't
figured out a fully safe protocol for handling patients, and they said so.

That is, on Jan. 14th, China, via WHO, told the world there was no
evidence of SARS-CoV2 human transmission. They knew it wasn't true.

How?

Translation error, on your part; there was no such claim. It's easy
to make those errors, it just takes a bit of spin (but no fault on the
part of the speaker).

So in your mind, that Chinese statement via WHO of Jan. 14th,

'We're not sure if thing can spread,' meant 'Watch out world, this
thing is deadly and spreading in Wuhan like a wildfire!'

No, I'd find far less meaning than that in the bland statement.

The disease was popping up in the population, and in the doctors,

But that doesn't make sense. Isn't a disease being transmitted from
patient to doctor -- with essentially nothing in common -- the very
definition of human-to-human transmission?

What makes you think that any of the doctors had caught it at that point?

despite normal precautions. Was it in the water? Were there insect carriers? Contamination of foodstuffs, road dust, laundry products?

That's not accurate. On Jan. 7th, Chinese state television announced it
was a novel coronavirus. (see quote, below) They knew it was a virus.

We still don't know if pets (cats, dogs, etc.) are important.

They hadn't been able to track enough infected persons to OTHER infected
persons to draw any conclusions about contact.

Despite the label 'preliminary investigation' you draw a CONCLUSION
from such a statement? Bad tactic, even if the conspiracy theorists like it.

I've not concluded anything, you're concluding that without evidence.

Pull the other leg.

You've concluded the Chinese were being forthright and you're taking
their statements at face value. I'm simply stating the obvious and
keeping an open mind.

You are stating what's obvious to you - and that makes it perfectly that your mind is only open to the proposition that "They knew it wasn't true", when you don't seem to have worked how they might have known that truly was human-to-human transmission.

I offer four quotes from Channel News Asia for your consideration--

9-Jan-2020
"As of Jan 7, 2020, the laboratory detected a new type of coronavirus,"
China Central Television (CCTV) said in a report. "The new coronavirus
that caused this epidemic situation is different from previously
discovered human coronaviruses, and further understanding of the
virus requires more scientific research."
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/china-pneumonia-outbreak-may-be-linked-to-new-type-of-virus--who-12245550

"Epidemic." Wiki says "An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to
a large number of people in a given population within a short period
of time."

"It said that according to Chinese authorities, the virus behind the Wuhan
cases can cause severe illness in some patients and does not appear to
pass easily from person to person." --ibid

Since the Wuhan Flu passes extremely easily from person to person, on
what basis did the Chinese make their statement? (China had reported
59 cases as of Jan. 5th.)

They hadn't seen enough cases - or done enough contact tracing - to have a clear idea of how the disease was being spread.

"In 2003, Chinese officials covered up a SARS outbreak for weeks before
a growing death toll and rumors forced the government to reveal the
epidemic. The disease spread rapidly to other cities and countries
in 2003. More than 8,000 people were infected and 775 died." -ibid

Some people, including the Chinese, learned a lot from the SARS outbreak. It was lot less contagious than Covid-19. It only caused a total of 8093 cases (but killed 774 of the people it did infect

Currently, the Chinese also refused entry to a U.S. CDC team, and punished
eight doctors for trying to raise the alarm internally.

The doctors weren't happy with the speed of the official reaction, and tried to hurry it up. That doesn't go down well in a bureaucracy. Trying spin it as if it were part of a cover-up about the existence of an epidemic is exactly what we expect you to be doing.

> Those actions, to me, suggest China did not want doctors spreading the alarm, and did not want foreigners to have first-hand access to information about their epidemic.

Of course they do. You are in the business of making the Chinese look as bad a possible, and you are decidedly unscrupulous in the way you go about it..

5-Jan-2020
"Wuhan police on Wednesday [1-Jan-2020] said they had punished eight
people for 'publishing or forwarding false information on the
internet without verification.'

Nothing can be true until the official sources say it is. That's bureaucracy 101.

The health commission said that seven of the 59 patients are seriously
ill but that none have died. All are being treated in quarantine."
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/china-rules-out-sars-in-mystery-viral-pneumonia-outbreak-12235422

I understand that to mean that as of January 1st, at least eight
Chinese doctors knew they had an epidemic brewing, were silenced,
had already been punished for discussing it, and Chinese official
television had already broadcast their punishment.

What the doctors knew was that they had some forty cases of a new and unfamiliar disease. It might have been the first sign of an epidemic, but they had no way of knowing that for sure.

SARS did spread as an epidemic, but it's victims weren't infectious until they were obviously sick, and early detection and isolation stopped it turning into a pandemic. It only caused a total of 8093 cases (but killed 774 of the people it did infect.

This means the doctors' SARS outbreak discussion must have taken
place prior to Jan. 1, 2020, that the authorities knew of the
discussion, and had punished the doctors for discussing it, all
prior to 1-Jan-2020.

"By December 15, the total number of infections stood at 27 – the first
double-digit daily rise was reported on December 17 – and by December
20, the total number of confirmed cases had reached 60.

On December 27, Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubei Provincial Hospital
of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, told China’s health
authorities that the disease was caused by a new coronavirus. By that
date, more than 180 people had been infected, though doctors might
not have been aware of all of them at the time."

"[Doctors] were also ordered not to disclose any information about the
new disease to the public."
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

It's still bureaucracy 101, rather than any kind of cover-up.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

were also ordered not to disclose any information about the
new disease to the public."
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

It's still bureaucracy 101, rather than any kind of cover-up.

Bureaucracy does not include kidnappings, arrests, disappearances of decentors. Of course, communism is the exception.

Are you a card carrying member of the communism party?

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 1:12:21 AM UTC+10, edward...@gmail.com wrote:

were also ordered not to disclose any information about the
new disease to the public."
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

It's still bureaucracy 101, rather than any kind of cover-up.

Bureaucracy does not include kidnappings, arrests, disappearances of dissentors. Of course, communism is the exception.

Saudi Arabia murdered a journalist they didn't like when he came into their embassy in Turkey, chopped him up and took the bits of his body away in bin bags.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399

Communism is a perfectly typical bureaucracy.

“If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.” Mikhail Bakunin in 1871, when commenting on Karl Marx's endorsement of the "leading role of the party".

> Are you a card carrying member of the communism party?

Obviously not. But interpreting the natural behaviour of powerful bureaucrats as it were some kind of deep laid plan to hide the existence of the epidemic which - if it existed - had been dismantled within a fortnight, makes you a card-carrying member of the international confederation of nit-wits which is a rather less formal organisation, if more pervasive.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney