Coronavirus Thread VI: Are We Nearly There Yet? (READ OP)

[Tinhampton]

Poll changed by popular demand

[North Washington Republic]

I need to reup on my KN95 mask supply. I’ve been using these and they’re pretty damn good. The best part of wearing KN95 is that they offer about the same protection has N95 and you don’t have to double mask with these(CDC says so)

[Ethel mermania]

Poll changed by popular demand

Where is the Hasselhoff option?

[Kowani]

Hybrid coronaviruses from merged variants are confirmed to be spreading between people

[Nakena]

Hybrid coronaviruses from merged variants are confirmed to be spreading between people

Oh no, the plague of the hybrids!

[New Visayan Islands]

Data for PH as of March 19th, 1600 PHT/0400 EDT.

Detailed update. (Four more, and you'd get 7107 islands cases in one day!) Also:

• Three million Russian Coof Shots on the way.
• Moderna: Get on my level, comrade.
• So Grandma might not get the Chinese Coof Shot just yet? Okay...
• Repeat after me: ich bin kein Virus!

[The Free Joy State]

I ate in an indoor diner, first time in a year.

Now I am looking for some old people to hug

Hugging old people again is going to be my favorite part of finally being vaccinated completely. And hugging my friends.

I'm so looking forward to hugging people again. Giving awkward socially distanced waves (when rules permitted) is... not a substitute.

As an aside, I'm also looking forward to eating out again.

[Infected Mushroom]

I’m getting the BioNTech in early April. It comes in two installments.

How should I feel?

Honestly I’ve become somewhat desensitized to the threat of this virus because it’s just been going on for so long and out of hundreds of people and thousands of students at my place... I’ve not become aware of a single case of anyone infected (if it happened, we would shut down). Of course, we are required to take it all very seriously and and to enforce all the precautions but... hmmm...

Now we have the vaccines... the end is in sight within months right?

[CoraSpia]

Hugging old people again is going to be my favorite part of finally being vaccinated completely. And hugging my friends.

I'm so looking forward to hugging people again. Giving awkward socially distanced waves (when rules permitted) is... not a substitute.

As an aside, I'm also looking forward to eating out again.

When pubs and restaurants re-open my bank account is going to cry.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

it’s just been going on for so long and out of hundreds of people and thousands of students at my place... I’ve not become aware of a single case of anyone infected (if it happened, we would shut down).

"Nobody report being sick, or we'll have to shut down" is a grossly irresponsible lead.

I would prefer "Anyone testing positive is required to report it, along with details of when they were last on campus"

I suppose if infection was spreading through your place, tracing would have found that by now.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

I swear with figures like 22k dying in ten days on top of a whole fucking year of uncontrolled spread Bolsonaro's Brazil is desperately trying to get us all to 1918 pandemic levels.

[Kowani]

CDC says 3 feet is safe in schools under certain circumstances

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday is updating its physical distancing guidelines for children in schools from 6 feet to 3 feet.

The CDC has previously said schools should try to maintain at least 6 feet of distance between children, but in light of new data, the agency is now recommending most students maintain at least 3 feet of distance.
On Friday, the agency is releasing three new studies it says support distancing of 3 feet between students, so long as everyone is wearing a mask and other prevention measures are in place. Another study recently published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found there was no difference in Covid-19 rates between Massachusetts schools that mandated 3 feet of physical distance compared to 6 feet, as long as everyone wore masks.
[…]
As always, masks are key. At times when it's not possible to accommodate masks, like when eating, CDC says six feet of distance should be maintained.
The agency recommends keeping student and teachers in distinct groups, or cohorts, throughout the day and maintaining 6 feet of distance between those groups, when possible. In middle schools and high schools where community transmission is high, CDC advises students to stay 6 feet apart, if cohorting is not possible. CDC also recommends 6 feet of distance in common areas, like lobbies and auditoriums, and during activities like singing, shouting, band or sport practices. They say it's better to move those kinds of activities, where increased exhalation occurs, outdoors or to well-ventilated spaces. In classrooms, CDC says layout changes, like removing nonessential furniture and facing desks in the same direction, can help maximize distance between students. On school buses, the agency recommends seating students one child per row, skipping rows and opening windows to increase ventilation.
When it comes to adults, including teachers and staff, the agency says its better to stick to 6 feet of distance, both with other adults and with children.
"Several studies have found that transmission between staff is more common than transmission between students and staff, and among students, in schools," the agency notes.
CDC advises limiting interaction among teachers and staff during meetings and breaks.

Layers of protection
For schools returning to the classroom, it's important to implement layers of safety precautions, so if one fails, another will provide some protection, said Dr. Naomi Bardach, the lead for California Health and Human Services' school reopening plan.
She said the updated guidance will give schools more options.

[New Visayan Islands]

My home city made online preregistration available for Coof Shots. Looks like we're getting AstraZenica soon.

(News article a couple of months old, added for context.)

EDIT: So that's why my physician cousin had to settle for Sinovac...

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

CDC says 3 feet is safe in schools under certain circumstances

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday is updating its physical distancing guidelines for children in schools from 6 feet to 3 feet.

The CDC has previously said schools should try to maintain at least 6 feet of distance between children, but in light of new data, the agency is now recommending most students maintain at least 3 feet of distance.
On Friday, the agency is releasing three new studies it says support distancing of 3 feet between students, so long as everyone is wearing a mask and other prevention measures are in place.

I was worried before when you posted that Fauci was considering 3 feet under "some circumstances."

In schools makes it alright. I didn't know they were even trying for 6 feet.

Kids. Masks. 6 hours. I can't see that happening.

[Loeje]

CDC says 3 feet is safe in schools under certain circumstances

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday is updating its physical distancing guidelines for children in schools from 6 feet to 3 feet.

The CDC has previously said schools should try to maintain at least 6 feet of distance between children, but in light of new data, the agency is now recommending most students maintain at least 3 feet of distance.
On Friday, the agency is releasing three new studies it says support distancing of 3 feet between students, so long as everyone is wearing a mask and other prevention measures are in place. Another study recently published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found there was no difference in Covid-19 rates between Massachusetts schools that mandated 3 feet of physical distance compared to 6 feet, as long as everyone wore masks.
[…]
As always, masks are key. At times when it's not possible to accommodate masks, like when eating, CDC says six feet of distance should be maintained.
The agency recommends keeping student and teachers in distinct groups, or cohorts, throughout the day and maintaining 6 feet of distance between those groups, when possible. In middle schools and high schools where community transmission is high, CDC advises students to stay 6 feet apart, if cohorting is not possible. CDC also recommends 6 feet of distance in common areas, like lobbies and auditoriums, and during activities like singing, shouting, band or sport practices. They say it's better to move those kinds of activities, where increased exhalation occurs, outdoors or to well-ventilated spaces. In classrooms, CDC says layout changes, like removing nonessential furniture and facing desks in the same direction, can help maximize distance between students. On school buses, the agency recommends seating students one child per row, skipping rows and opening windows to increase ventilation.
When it comes to adults, including teachers and staff, the agency says its better to stick to 6 feet of distance, both with other adults and with children.
"Several studies have found that transmission between staff is more common than transmission between students and staff, and among students, in schools," the agency notes.
CDC advises limiting interaction among teachers and staff during meetings and breaks.

Layers of protection
For schools returning to the classroom, it's important to implement layers of safety precautions, so if one fails, another will provide some protection, said Dr. Naomi Bardach, the lead for California Health and Human Services' school reopening plan.
She said the updated guidance will give schools more options.

Hopefully that means that it will be safe to go back to school in person soon.

[Glorious Hong Kong]

viewtopic.php?p=38461769#p38461769

Reply to Picairn from previous iteration because I can't quote from locked threads:

I don't believe that the Malaysian government has been pressured into buying Sinovac. They have been stocking up on Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sputnik V as well, so I can infer that Malaysia just wants to procure as many vaccine doses as possible. In fact they ordered Pfizer the most (32 million doses), so does this mean that the US pressured Malaysia into buying? https://my.asiatatler.com/life/vaccines ... -sputnik-v

I don't believe Malaysian politicians are actually extremely selfish, corrupt, and do not have the Rakyat's interests in mind. Yeah no, Malaysian politicians have caved to Chinese pressure and inducements in the past and they will continue to do so in the future. Our former PM Najib Razak very nearly committed this country to China's predatory Belt-and-Road initiative that would've placed us in suffocating debt and total economic enslavement to the CCP for years to come. Sinovac is a continuation of that policy. Think of it as free promotional material advertising the supposed benefits of smoking. Sinovac is the nicotine to get us economically addicted, and Belt-and-Road is the actual product. China's playing a very clever game of carrot-and-stick, the kind of game the West used to play a century ago. Third World governments are particularly susceptible to both Chinese and Western cajoling in this regard and have always been.

We, the Rakyat, are not allowed to choose between Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sputnik V, or CanSino. If we register to be vaccinated, we are expected to take what we are given. Failure to show up for an appointment is a criminal offense. So it's either sign up for the lottery and hope for the best, or don't get vaccinated at all. And if uptake is too low, the government hasn't ruled out mandatory vaccinations. My body, my choice. (And yes, I'm also staunchly liberal and pro-choice in the abortion sense.)

(I'm not saying Sinovac itself is dangerous or addictive, although lingering questions regarding its purported efficacy remain unanswered and a certain percentage of us are destined to be the CCP's guinea pigs. As a returnee from Hong Kong and as an ethnic overseas Chinese, I consider this extremely offensive.)

You know why Tedros and the WHO praised China's response early on? It was to coax China into releasing the data, including the virus's genetic code. A smartly diplomatic approach, even if it cost them temporary US pullout.

Is that why they completely ignored Taiwan's Dec. 31, 2019 warnings altogether because Taiwan "doesn't even exist" on the world map?

Taiwan Says It Tried to Warn the World About Coronavirus. Here’s What It Really Knew and When

When they heard about patients falling sick with a mysterious pneumonia in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Dec. 31, Taiwan’s health officials fired off an email to the World Health Organization asking for more information.

This four-sentence inquiry has since become fodder for the political brawl between China and the U.S. and threatens to bruise the reputation of the U.N.’s health agency as it leads the fight against an unprecedented global pandemic.

Taiwanese and U.S. officials have seized on the email to argue the WHO ignored an early warning that the coronavirus could likely be transmitted between people. In the weeks following the Dec. 31 note, the WHO echoed Chinese officials that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”— even as cases began cropping up that raised suspicion of contagion.

In an interview with TIME, Dr. Lo Yi-chun, the deputy director-general of Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), says the WHO should have acted on Taiwan’s query by conducting its own investigation. Instead, he says the WHO “provided a false sense of security to the world.”

The WHO has defended its handling of the outbreak and says it relies on member countries like China to accurately report their findings. It also notes that Taiwan’s email did not explicitly mention human-to-human transmission, and that the self-governing island was not the first nor the only one to contact the organization about the disease.

Yet the scrutiny has intensified. President Donald Trump — facing criticism over his own government’s response — has cited Taiwan’s email as evidence of the WHO allegedly helping China coverup the severity of the outbreak, and suspended U.S. contributions to the health agency in April. Both Beijing and the WHO deny any concealment.

On Tuesday, Trump threatened to make the funding freeze permanent in a letter sent to the WHO leader as nations gathered virtually for the WHO’s annual decision-making meeting. Referencing “repeated missteps” in the WHO’s steering of the pandemic response — including choosing “not to share” Taiwan’s communication — Trump said he could no longer commit American taxpayers’ dollars to the agency unless it undertakes “major substantive improvements in the next 30 days.”

With Taiwan in the spotlight, TIME spoke with health officials, politicians and analysts to unpack what the island of 23 million knew in the critical early days of the pandemic when it initiated a quick response that helped it keep its infection rate among the lowest in the world.
The email

At 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 31, Dr. Lo at Taiwan’s CDC woke to an alert on his phone.

His colleagues in the media monitoring unit had detected social media posts about a pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan. The original posts in China were quickly removed, but screenshots had been reposted on PTT, a popular online forum in Taiwan. Some commenters feared a resurgence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which had killed 774 people in 2002 and 2003, mostly in Asia.

Lo, an infectious disease expert, looked at the images of laboratory reports and doctors’ messages and suspected something else, something new. “But whether the source was reliable or … indicated the correct pathogen [couldn’t] be proved just from reading that,” he says. So he instructed his colleague to get in touch with counterparts in Beijing and the WHO through the International Health Regulations mechanism, a WHO framework of exchange between countries, to ask for more information.

Around 1:30 p.m. that afternoon, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission announced 27 cases of pneumonia related to a seafood market. It said their investigations found “no clear human-to-human transmission.” It would be another three weeks before a top Chinese government-appointed expert would confirm on state TV that the disease could spread between people, followed two days later by a WHO statement that said data “suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan.”

But Taiwan didn’t wait to step up precautions. On Dec. 31, the island began instituting health screenings for all flights arriving from Wuhan. “We were not able to get satisfactory answers either from the WHO or from the Chinese CDC, and we got nervous and we started doing our preparation,” Foreign Minister Joseph Wu tells TIME.
A matter of interpretation

It took time, but that email Lo instructed his colleagues to send to the WHO eventually kicked up a geopolitical storm. In March, Taiwan’s Vice President Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist-turned-politician, told the Financial Times the WHO had failed to relay the island’s early warning that the disease could be transmitted between people. The U.S. State Department took up the claim and said by not passing this vital information on to member states the WHO “chose politics over public health.”

Taiwan doesn’t have a seat at the WHO due to objections from Beijing, which claims sovereignty over the island. This exclusion, Taiwan says, is dangerous for public health. The WHO, which is governed by its member states and so does not have authority over membership, says it has been sharing information related to the pandemic with Taiwan. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has homed in on the status of its ally as it attacks the relationship between the WHO and China.

With the row escalating, and after WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused Taiwan of backing a racist campaign against him, the island’s CDC publicly released its Dec. 31 email.

Written in English, the text mentions reports of “at least seven atypical pneumonia cases” and notes that patients were being “isolated for treatment.” Taiwan’s foreign ministry tells TIME in an emailed statement that this precaution was the smoking gun, “strongly suggesting that there was a possibility of human-to-human transmission,” since it would not have been necessary if the disease was not infectious. Public health officials could have discerned from this wording an implied warning about contagion, according to statements from Taiwan’s foreign ministry and CDC.

Health experts contacted by TIME were divided, with some noting that “atypical pneumonia is assumed to be communicable,” while others say isolating patients with a potentially novel pathogen is a sensible precaution.
A man holds a Taiwan flag as passengers disembark from the Diamond Princess cruise ship due to fears of COVID-19 in Yokohama, Japan on Feb. 21, 2020.
A man holds a Taiwan flag as passengers disembark from the Diamond Princess cruise ship due to fears of COVID-19 in Yokohama, Japan on Feb. 21, 2020.
Philip Fong—AFP/Getty Images

For its part, the WHO denies ignoring a warning from Taiwan. Spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic says the WHO received Taiwan’s email only after Wuhan’s announcement about the outbreak. The inquiry, he adds, made no mention of human-to-human transmission, but was nevertheless forwarded to experts collating information on the outbreak.

According to Tedros, Taiwan was also not the first to flag what was happening in Wuhan. “Many other countries were already asking for clarification,” he said.

WHO spokesperson Paul Garwood tells TIME that on Dec. 31, “a health authority from a regional bloc of countries” and another country also flagged the outbreak and requested information, though they did not warn about human-to-human transmission. Garwood says he could not publicly reveal who they were because such communications are confidential.

Keep up to date on the growing threat to global health by signing up for our daily coronavirus newsletter.
‘Photocopying machine’

As the full extent of the outbreak came into focus, a growing chorus of government officials, health experts, editorial boards and academics began scrutinizing the WHO, and accused it of being too deferential to Beijing.

In Japan, deputy prime minister Taro Aso noted in March that people are referring to the organization as the “Chinese Health Organization” due to what he described as its links to Beijing. In Washington, seven Republican Senators are calling for an investigation into the WHO’s handling of the crisis and whether China manipulated the organization. Over 1 million people signed a petition calling for Tedros to resign.

That the information put out by the WHO “coincides exactly” with the Chinese government’s position “does raise very serious questions as to whether the WHO has been exceptionally focused on accommodating the wishes of a particular member state, namely China,” says Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London.

Leading health academics have suggested that the WHO created a false sense of reassurance by continuing to commend Beijing’s “transparency,” despite the reports of possible undercounting, and of Wuhan officials’ punishing doctors who had warned about the virus. During the SARS crisis, the WHO had publicly criticized Beijing for trying to conceal the outbreak.

A WHO spokesperson said the responsibility for reporting truthful information rests on member states. “WHO expects all its member states to report data in a timely and accurate manner,” says Jasarevic. The agency aims to “keep open lines of communication” in the midst of a crisis, he says. “Publicly calling out mistakes does not help.”
WHO Pledges Evaluation Into Agency's Response to the Coronavirus Outbreak

A member of the WHO’s own emergency committee, John Mackenzie, said that international action would have been different if not for Beijing’s “reprehensible” response to the coronavirus and underreporting of cases early on. Others laid the blame on the WHO, insisting it could have been less credulous of the information coming out of China and sounded alarms about contagion earlier.

“It would have made a hell of a difference,” says François Godement, senior adviser for Asia at the Institut Montaigne, a nonprofit group in Paris. “In many countries there was complacency about the contagiousness of the virus,” he says, adding that in France, medical authorities maintained for weeks that there was no proven risk of human-to-human spread in part because the WHO had reiterated China’s claims that there wasn’t.

Even Taiwan, which is generally wary of information provided by Beijing, was still “fifty percent trusting,” says Lo at Taiwan’s CDC. “Because it was released not only by China, but also adopted by WHO, we believed there must have been some verification that was done.” Instead, he says, the WHO was acting as China’s “photocopying machine.”

Asked about the allegation, WHO spokesperson Jasarevic says, “We use and analyze data provided by countries.”

Godement says that China’s influence has grown across the whole U.N. system because of the second-biggest economy’s rising mandatory contributions, its role on budgetary committees and because U.N. institutions have “great expectations that China will contribute more.”

Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary-General, says, “The United Nations is made up of sovereign member states. For the U.N. to function, it’s important all member states participate actively in its work.”

The WHO has repeatedly responded to criticism that it is too deferential to China and too slow to flag the possibility of the virus’ contagion. “With any new virus, especially a respiratory pathogen, the first and most obvious question we ask is whether human-to-human transmission is occurring. That’s epidemiology 101,” says Gabriella Stern, the WHO’s director of communications.

Stern pointed to guidance issued by the WHO on Jan. 10 and 11, which indicated more information was needed about the virus’ mode of transmission and offered interim guidance based on knowledge of other coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS.

On Jan. 14, a WHO epidemiologist warned about the possibility of “limited” human-to-human transmission as cases popped up with no connection to the seafood market where the virus was thought to have originated. But later the same day, the organization appeared to backtrack, and said there was “no clear evidence” of such transmission.

Those familiar with the inner workings of the WHO say the health body has to weigh information from all manner of sources, including government data, WHO field offices, academic institutions, NGOs and the media. “It is hardly true that WHO simply repeats information that the Chinese government, or any government, reports to the organization,” says Kelley Lee, a professor of global health governance at Simon Fraser University who co-established the WHO Collaborating Center on Global Change and Health.

“In global epidemic intelligence surveillance, nothing is taken at face value. At the same time, it is true that the nature and quality of information about outbreaks regarding different countries still varies substantially for a range of reasons,” she says, including hesitancy of governments to share information and information not yet known.
The trip that changed everything

For Taiwan, precedent fueled its skepticism. The island suffered badly during the SARS outbreak that Chinese authorities had initially tried to coverup. So when another unknown pneumonia emerged, health officials jumped into action.

Less than 100 miles from mainland China, Taiwan was was expected to have one of the highest virus caseloads. Yet the island, which is about the size of Maryland with the population of Australia, has recorded just 440 cases and kept deaths in the single digits.

Two Taiwanese clinicians, along with experts from Hong Kong and Macau, were on one of the first fact-finding teams to visit Wuhan. The Jan. 13-15 trip coincided with a Communist Party conclave, during which Wuhan officials announced no new cases each day. This lack of reported infections and the closure of the seafood market where the virus was thought to have emerged prompted many to believe the outbreak would soon be over. But the visitors stumbled onto information that burst such optimism.

Dr Chuang Yin-ching, commander of Taiwan’s Communicable Disease Control Medical Network, and one of the experts on the trip, tells TIME he suspected the officials were “trying to hide something” because when repeatedly asked about transmissibility the answer was always unclear.

Finally, he says an official admitted there were two family clusters among the confirmed cases, one involving a husband and his physically disabled wife. “The possibility of his wife [going] to the seafood market is zero so we can pretty much be sure that the husband transmitted it to his wife,” says Chuang. That knowledge was a game-changer.

The day the experts returned, Wuhan put out a statement acknowledging “limited human-to-human transmission” was possible, but said no community outbreak had occurred.

The Taiwanese CDC, via the government press division, said that it shared a “brief summary” of the mission with “like-minded countries,” but declined to reveal which ones. When asked if the U.S. was informed, a Taiwanese spokesperson would not specify, saying, “It would not be convenient to provide such information” to TIME. A U.S. State Department official declined to comment on the details of private conversations.
A blessing in disguise

Soon after the fact-finding team returned, Taiwan activated its Central Epidemic Command Center to coordinate an outbreak response. That was three days before Wuhan was locked down. Apprehensive about the information coming out of China, Taiwan remained hyper-vigilant, Lo says.

“That helped us to safeguard our people from being affected by the first wave of [the] epidemic … otherwise we could have become Italy, or we could have become South Korea during that time,” he says.

Ironically, Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHO may have been a blessing in disguise, according to Lo.

From 2009 until 2016 Taiwan was allowed to attend World Health Assembly meetings as an observer under the name “Chinese Taipei.” But the status ended shortly after President Tsai Ing-wen came to office promoting more distant relations with China, and as Beijing took an increasingly assertive stance on the world stage.
A pro-Taiwan protester holds a flag outside of the United Nations offices on the opening day of the World Health Organization's annual meeting in Geneva on May 22, 2017.
A pro-Taiwan protester holds a flag outside of the United Nations offices on the opening day of the World Health Organization's annual meeting in Geneva on May 22, 2017.
Fabrice Coffrini—AFP/Getty Images

The WHO says it is continuing to facilitate interactions between its experts and Taiwan despite the island’s non-member status. These include having Taiwanese health experts participate in two WHO COVID-19 networks set up in January and holding phone briefings between the WHO and health authorities in Taipei.

Still, Lo says, by not having full membership status Taiwan “kept thinking, well, we must have missed important information. That actually gave us that urgency and anxiety that we should be protecting ourselves much better by searching all the necessary social media … and not just rely on WHO’s goodwill or other countries’ goodwill to share information with us,” he adds.

Taiwan has been tirelessly trying to drum up international support amid the global pandemic, including pressing its longstanding campaign to be allowed back into the WHO. In March, Trump signed the TAIPEI Act requiring Washington to advocate Taiwan’s inclusion in international bodies like the WHO, a move poised to further destabilize U.S.-China relations.

The Trump Administration had also advocated for Taiwan’s inclusion as WHO member states convened this week for the first World Health Assembly since the coronavirus pandemic. Just before the meeting began Monday, Taiwan agreed to have its bid for participation deliberated later, citing the need for the event to focus on combatting the outbreak.

“We still need WHO,” says Lo. “And we need WHO to be stronger.”

China's initial response to the coronavirus pandemic has been a complete and total failure and the WHO failed to hold top Chinese officials to account for their crimes of negligence, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. The Trump Administration was absolutely right to pull out of the WHO, UNESCO, UNRWA, and all of these other long-discredited international institutions in protest. The suspiciously political actions of the WHO top brass undermine the good work of its scientists and nurses, who represent what, to invoke a Trumpian term, the swamp of expertise and professionalism.

Ultimately, unproven guesses of a person's motive is irrelevant. Judging by the actions of the WHO trying to mitigate the impacts of geographic naming of diseases, I can say that they are doing baby steps. First the guidelines, and now this. That's good.

Guess who the WHO's top official from 2006-2017 was.

She was HK's former Director of Health overseeing the disgraceful 2003 SARS response. She is now a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The WHO was helmed by an official who has been openly loyal and a card-carrying member of the CCP. While the science being carried out at the grassroots level is absolutely sound, geopolitics, particularly Chinese political interference, has been mixed in for the past 15 years resulting in poor decision-making by top decision-makers at the very top, particularly Tedros himself, who continue to pretend they are "just scientists". Maybe they are scientists, but they are also human, and humans are susceptible to persuasion from certain bad actors. Compare Tedros's effusive praise of the Chinese regime's "successful" containment strategy to his completely unprovoked and unfounded slander of Taiwanese people as racists while conveniently ignoring the same anti-black racism occurring in Mainland China just days later.

Do not confuse scientific guidelines with geopolitics that pretends not to be.

Just because we can't completely and utterly eradicate a bane of human existence doesn't mean that we shouldn't minimize the negative effects to the smallest proportion possible. Might as well legalize murder since we'll never truly eradicate it, right?

Are you seriously comparing a geographic term to murder? Really? So saying the word mankind is encouraging violence against women now?

The term CCP is inherently political, not geographic, and thus doesn't give off a racially charged vibe unlike "China virus" in of itself, I think. I'll eye the person if I ever hear that in public, but I'll mostly shrug it off. Still, anyone that repeats it needlessly and endlessly in discussions like some kind of prayer, I can conclude that he is most likely a conspiracy theorist.

Is it inherently political though? Guess which country the CCP is based in and guess what ethnicity most of its officials are? I can easily imagine some racist prick sucker-punching me in the face while yelling "CCP virus" or something. You know, a dogwhistle to obscure the fact they're being racist. There's also a huge difference between Chinese virus, which can easily be confused as an ethnic rather than a geographic term, and China virus, China being a country and not a person or an ethnicity. While the term China virus can certainly be used in a racist manner, it is not an inherently racist term and there is a certain degree of nuance to be had. Even the NS site mods understand this. I'm not trying to encourage or discourage people from using the term China virus. I'm asking you to be aware of the double standards and avoid playing right into the CCP's hands.

SJWs have attempted to get the OK hand gesture, boogaloo, and Pepe the Frog banned from social media in recent years even though their original usages have never been racist. Certain players have advocated something similar with the term China virus on this very site and I had no choice but to push back and make my case as strongly as possible. It's not just China virus that's come under attack, but Wuhan virus or Wuhan coronavirus itself, a term that was widely used by MSM and not originally considered racist in any way. This abrupt shift in mindset by the establishment, which happens to coincide with the CCP's propaganda efforts to label any discussion about the pandemic that casts China in a bad light as racist, is perplexing, to say the least. It strikes me of cultural capitulation to the CCP and it's something that only ever seems to happen in the West. This constant self-flagellation could spell the end of democracy around the world.

If I were to lose my job as a direct result of the economic fallout from the pandemic, or my parents, my Chinese parents, were to die of the disease, I would place all of the blame on the CCP and yell out loud, "FUCKING CHINA VIRUS" because that's where the virus originated and that's where the government of that country fucked things up big time at the very beginning. Constantly reminding the whole world China is to blame can only be a good thing. I would probably also be muttering stuff about communists and leftists that would be considered trolling here because communism gave us the CCP and the USSR in the first place. I would also blame the deeply racist, Malaysian Muslim-led government and politicians for putting themselves first and their people last.

As for CCP virus, the term is not inherently conspiratorial. I've used it in the past to highlight China's failure to avert the coronavirus pandemic. This is, and has always been, about negligence and saving face, not engineering bioweapons to exterminate white people. Nevertheless, when we're dealing with a regime that is not known for being honest and transparent with the public and the international community, the burden of proof tends to shift toward the accused. What does the CCP have to hide from not reporting the actual number of deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus? How does one explain the discrepancy between the number of coffins in a given area and the stated number of deaths from coronavirus? In such cases, barring an impartial, independent investigation, circumstantial evidence alone is sufficient to prove guilt.

I remember back in 2019 when a rich, well-to-do, extremely entitled pro-CCP user dismissed the idea that the violence in Yuen Long perpetrated by white-shirted thugs against commuters and protesters returning home from a night out was orchestrated by the CCP was just a "conspiracy theory" along the same lines as 9/11 Truther/fake moon landings BS.

Speaking of circumstantial evidence, the lab accident theory, concerning an accident, not a conspiracy, cannot be definitively ruled out.

In 2018, Diplomats Warned of Risky Coronavirus Experiments in a Wuhan Lab. No One Listened.

After seeing a risky lab, they wrote a cable warning to Washington. But it was ignored.

On January 15, in its last days, President Donald Trump’s State Department put out a statement with serious claims about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. The statement said the U.S. intelligence community had evidence that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory were sick with Covid-like symptoms in autumn 2019—implying the Chinese government had hidden crucial information about the outbreak for months—and that the WIV lab, despite “presenting itself as a civilian institution,” was conducting secret research projects with the Chinese military. The State Department alleged a Chinese government cover-up and asserted that “Beijing continues today to withhold vital information that scientists need to protect the world from this deadly virus, and the next one.”

The exact origin of the new coronavirus remains a mystery to this day, but the search for answers is not just about assigning blame. Unless the source is located, the true path of the virus can’t be traced, and scientists can’t properly study the best ways to prevent future outbreaks.

The original Chinese government story, that the pandemic spread from a seafood market in Wuhan, was the first and therefore most widely accepted theory. But cracks in that theory slowly emerged throughout the late winter and spring of 2020. The first known case of Covid-19 in Wuhan, it was revealed in February, had no connection to the market. The Chinese government closed the market in January and sanitized it before proper samples could be taken. It wouldn’t be until May that the Chinese Centers for Disease Control disavowed the market theory, admitting it had no idea how the outbreak began, but by then it had become the story of record, in China and internationally.

In the spring of 2020, inside the U.S. government, some officials began to see and collect evidence of a different, perhaps more troubling theory—that the outbreak had a connection to one of the laboratories in Wuhan, among them the WIV, a world leading center of research on bat coronaviruses.

To some inside the government, the name of the laboratory was familiar. Its research on bat viruses had already drawn the attention of U.S. diplomats and officials at the Beijing Embassy in late 2017, prompting them to alert Washington that the lab’s own scientists had reported “a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory.”

But their cables to Washington were ignored.

When I published the warnings from these cables in April 2020, they added fuel to a debate that had already gone from a scientific and forensic question to a hot-button political issue, as the previously internal U.S. government debate over the lab’s possible connection spilled into public view. The next day, Trump said he was “investigating,” and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Beijing to “come clean” about the origin of the outbreak. Two weeks later, Pompeo said there was “enormous evidence” pointing to the lab, but he didn’t provide any of said evidence. As Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping's relationship unraveled and administration officials openly blamed the Wuhan lab, the U.S.-China relationship only went further downhill.

As the pandemic set in worldwide, the origin story was largely set aside in the public coverage of the crisis. But the internal government debate continued, now over whether the United States should release more information about what it knew about the lab and its possible connection to the outbreak. The January 15 statement was cleared by the intelligence community, but the underlying data was still held secret. Likely changing no minds, it was meant as a signal—showing that circumstantial evidence did exist, and that the theory deserved further investigation.

Now, the new Joe Biden team is walking a tightrope, calling on Beijing to release more data, while declining to endorse or dispute the Trump administration’s controversial claims. The origin story remains entangled both in domestic politics and U.S.-China relations. Last month, National security adviser Jake Sullivan issued a statement expressing “deep concerns” about a forthcoming report from a team assembled by the World Health Organization that toured Wuhan—even visiting the lab—but was denied crucial data by the Chinese authorities.

But more than four years ago, long before this question blew up into an international point of tension between China and the United States, the story started with a simple warning.

***

In late 2017, top health and science officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing attended a conference in the Chinese capital. There, they saw a presentation on a new study put out by a group of Chinese scientists, including several from the Wuhan lab, in conjunction with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Since the 2002 outbreak of SARS—the deadly disease caused by a coronavirus transmitted by bats in China—scientists around the world had been looking for ways to predict and limit future outbreaks of similar diseases. To aid the effort, the NIH had funded a number of projects that involved the WIV scientists, including much of the Wuhan lab’s work with bat coronaviruses. The new study was entitled “Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS-Related Coronaviruses Provides New Insights into the Origin of SARS Coronavirus.”

These researchers, the American officials learned, had found a population of bats from caves in Yunnan province that gave them insight into how SARS coronaviruses originated and spread. The researchers boasted that they may have found the cave where the original SARS coronavirus originated. But all the U.S. diplomats cared about was that these scientists had discovered three new viruses that had a unique characteristic: they contained a "spike protein” that was particularly good at grabbing on to a specific receptor in human lung cells known as an ACE2 receptor. That means the viruses were potentially very dangerous for humans—and that these viruses were now in a lab with which they, the U.S. diplomats, were largely unfamiliar.

Knowing the significance of the Wuhan virologists’ discovery, and knowing that the WIV’s top-level biosafety laboratory (BSL-4) was relatively new, the U.S. Embassy health and science officials in Beijing decided to go to Wuhan and check it out. In total, the embassy sent three teams of experts in late 2017 and early 2018 to meet with the WIV scientists, among them Shi Zhengli, often referred to as the “bat woman” because of her extensive experience studying coronaviruses found in bats.

When they sat down with the scientists at the WIV, the American diplomats were shocked by what they heard. The Chinese researchers told them they didn’t have enough properly trained technicians to safely operate their BSL-4 lab. The Wuhan scientists were asking for more support to get the lab up to top standards.

The diplomats wrote two cables to Washington reporting on their visits to the Wuhan lab. More should be done to help the lab meet top safety standards, they said, and they urged Washington to get on it. They also warned that the WIV researchers had found new bat coronaviruses could easily infect human cells, and which used the same cellular route that had been used by the original SARS coronavirus.

Taken together, those two points—a particularly dangerous groups of viruses being studied in a lab with real safety problems—were intended as a warning about a potential public-health crisis, one of the cable writers told me. They kept the cables unclassified because they wanted more people back home to be able to read and share them, according to the cable writer. But there was no response from State Department headquarters and they were never made public. And as U.S.-China tensions rose over the course of 2018, American diplomats lost access to labs such as the one at the WIV.

“The cable was a warning shot,” one U.S. official said. “They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.” The world would be paying attention soon enough—but by then, it would be too late.

The cables were not leaked to me by any Trump administration political official, as many in the media wrongly assumed. In fact, Secretary of State Pompeo was angry when he found out about the leak. He needed to keep up the veneer of good relations with China, and these revelations would make that job more difficult. Trump and President Xi had agreed during their March 26 phone call to halt the war of words that had erupted when a Chinese diplomat alleged on Twitter that the outbreak might have been caused by the U.S. Army. That had prompted Trump to start calling it the “China virus,” deliberately blaming Beijing in a racist way. Xi had warned Trump in that call that China’s level of cooperation on releasing critical equipment in America’s darkest moment would be jeopardized by continued accusations.

After receiving the cables from a source, I called around to get reactions from other American officials I trusted. What I found was that, just months into the pandemic, a large swath of the government already believed the virus had escaped from the WIV lab, rather than having leaped from an animal to a human at the Wuhan seafood market or some other random natural setting, as the Chinese government had claimed.

Any theory of the pandemic’s origins had to account for the fact that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus—or, by its official name, SARS-CoV-2—first appeared in Wuhan, on the doorstep of the lab that possessed one of the world’s largest collections of bat coronaviruses and that possessed the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2, a virus known as RaTG13 that Shi identified in her lab.

Shi, in her March interview, said that when she was first told about the virus outbreak in her town, she thought the officials had gotten it wrong, because she would have guessed that such a virus would break out in southern China, where most of the bats live. “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China,” she said.

By April, U.S. officials at the NSC and the State Department had begun to compile circumstantial evidence that the WIV lab, rather than the seafood market, was actually the source of the virus. The former explanation for the outbreak was entirely plausible, they felt, whereas the latter would be an extreme coincidence. But the officials couldn’t say that out loud because there wasn’t firm proof either way. And if the U.S. government accused China of lying about the outbreak without firm evidence, Beijing would surely escalate tensions even more, which meant that Americans might not get the medical supplies that were desperately needed to combat the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton seemed not to have been concerned about any of those considerations. On February 16, he had offered a totally unfounded theory of his own, claiming on Fox News that the virus might have come from China’s biowarfare program—suggesting, in other words, that it had been engineered deliberately to kill humans. This wasn’t supported by any known research: To this day, scientists largely agree that the virus was not “engineered” to be deadly; SARS-CoV-2 showed no evidence of direct genetic manipulation. Furthermore, the WIV lab had published some of its research about bat coronaviruses that can infect humans—not exactly the level of secrecy you would expect for a clandestine weapons program.

As Cotton’s speculation vaulted the origin story into the news in an incendiary new way, he undermined the ongoing effort in other parts of the U.S. government to pinpoint the exact origins and nature of the coronavirus pandemic. From then on, journalists and politicians alike would conflate the false idea of the coronavirus being a Chinese bioweapon with the plausible idea that the virus had accidentally been released from the WIV lab, making it a far more politically loaded question to pursue.

***

After I published a Washington Post column on the Wuhan cables on April 14, Pompeo publicly called on Beijing to “come clean” about the origin of the outbreak and weeks later declared there was “enormous evidence” to that effect beyond the Wuhan cables themselves. But he refused to produce any other proof.

At the same time, some members of the intelligence community leaked to my colleagues that they had discovered “no firm evidence” that the outbreak originated in the lab. That was true in a sense. Deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger had asked the intelligence community to look for evidence of all possible scenarios for the outbreak, including the market or a lab accident, but they hadn’t found any firm links to either. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There was a gap in the intelligence. And the intelligence community didn’t know either way.

Large parts of the scientific community also decried my report, pointing to the fact that natural spillovers have been the cause of other viral outbreaks, and that they were the culprit more often than accidents. But many of the scientists who spoke out to defend the lab were Shi’s research partners and funders, like the head of the global public health nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak; their research was tied to hers, and if the Wuhan lab were implicated in the pandemic, they would have to answer a lot of tough questions.

Likewise, the American scientists who knew and worked with Shi could not say for sure her lab was unconnected to the outbreak, because there’s no way they could know exactly what the WIV lab was doing outside their cooperative projects. Beijing threatened Australia and the EU for even suggesting an independent investigation into the origins of the virus.

In May, Chinese CDC officials declared on Chinese state media that they had ruled out the possibility that the seafood market was the origin of the virus, completely abandoning the original official story. As for the “bat woman” herself, Shi didn’t think the lab accident theory was so crazy. In her March interview, she described frantically searching her own lab’s records after learning of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. “Could they have come from our lab?” she recalled asking herself.

Shi said she was relieved when she didn’t find the new coronavirus in her files. “That really took a load off my mind,” she said. “I had not slept a wink in days.” Of course, if she had found the virus, she likely would not have been able to admit it, given that the Chinese government was going around the world insisting the lab had not been involved in the outbreak.

***

A key argument of those Chinese and American scientists disputing the lab accident theory is that Chinese researchers had performed their work out in the open and had disclosed the coronavirus research they were performing. This argument was used to attack anyone who didn’t believe the Chinese scientists’ firm denials their labs could possibly have been responsible for the outbreak.

But one senior administration official told me that many officials in various parts of the U.S. government, especially the NSC and the State Department, came to believe that these researchers had not been as forthcoming as had been claimed.

What they were worried about was something called “gain-of-function” research, in which the virulence or transmissibility of dangerous pathogens is deliberately increased. The purpose is to help scientists predict how viruses might evolve in ways that hurt humans before it happens in nature. But by bypassing pathogens’ natural evolutionary cycles, these experiments create risks of a human-made outbreak if a lab accident were to occur. For this reason, the Obama administration issued a moratorium on gain-of-function experiments in October 2014.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions. But the official told me the U.S. government had evidence that Chinese labs were performing gain-of-function research on a much larger scale than was publicly disclosed, meaning they were taking more risks in more labs than anyone outside China was aware of. This insight, in turn, fed into the lab-accident hypothesis in a new and troubling way.

A little-noticed study was released in early July 2020 by a group of Chinese researchers in Beijing, including several affiliated with the Academy of Military Medical Science. These scientists said they had created a new model for studying SARS-CoV-2 by creating mice with human-like lung characteristics by using the CRISPR gene-editing technology to give the mice lung cells with the human ACE2 receptor — the cell receptor that allowed coronaviruses to so easily infect human lungs.

After consultations with experts, some U.S. officials came to believe this Beijing lab was likely conducting coronavirus experiments on mice fitted with ACE2 receptors well before the coronavirus outbreak—research they hadn’t disclosed and continued not to admit to. In its January 15 statement, the State Department alleged that although the Wuhan Institute of Virology disclosed some of its participation in gain-of-function research, it has not disclosed its work on RaTG13 and “has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.” That, by itself, did not help to explain how SARS-CoV-2 originated. But it was clear that officials believed there was a lot of risky coronavirus research going on in Chinese labs that the rest of the world was simply not aware of.

“This was just a peek under a curtain of an entire galaxy of activity, including labs and military labs in Beijing and Wuhan playing around with coronaviruses in ACE2 mice in unsafe labs,” the senior administration official said. “It suggests we are getting a peek at a body of activity that isn’t understood in the West or even has precedent here.”

This pattern of deception and obfuscation, combined with the new revelations about how Chinese labs were handling dangerous coronaviruses in ways their Western counterparts didn’t know about, led some U.S. officials to become increasingly convinced that Chinese authorities were manipulating scientific information to fit their narrative. But there was so little transparency, it was impossible for the U.S. government to prove, one way or the other. “If there was a smoking gun, the CCP [Communist Party of China] buried it along with anyone who would dare speak up about it,” one U.S. official told me. “We’ll probably never be able to prove it one way or the other, which was Beijing’s goal all along.”

Back in 2017, the U.S. diplomats who had visited the lab in Wuhan had foreseen these very events, but nobody had listened and nothing had been done. “We were trying to warn that that lab was a serious danger,” one of the cable writers who had visited the lab told me. “I have to admit, I thought it would be maybe a SARS-like outbreak again. If I knew it would turn out to be the greatest pandemic in human history, I would have made a bigger stink about it.”

China lied. People died. CCP virus is absolutely the correct term to use.

It is actually not surprising to me to see fellow Asians ready to commit racism against each other out of blind hatred, ever since I learned what the Japanese could do to Chinese and Korean civilians, what the South Koreans can do to their Northern breathren, what the Chinese can do to the Vietnamese, etc. Regardless, it ain't right. I enthusiastically support renaming efforts to avoid stigmatization against innocents.

I consider Man and mankind to be old-fashioned and I've always preferred to use more gender-neutral terms such as the human race or humanity. I do not, however, regard Man and mankind as being sexist and demeaning in any way, shape, or form. I'm not going to bash people over the head for saying the word mankind and dictate language usage to them unlike a certain subset of radical feminists and leftists who have pretty much free rein to shape Western societies as they please with almost no pushback from the establishment whatsoever.

Languages have been evolving naturally for thousands of years. You cannot just force them to evolve in such a way as to end up creating a Frankenstein of the original, such as the increasingly complicated Newspeak, doublespeak, and "progressive" dogwhistles that've been in use among leftists for years now. You cannot just destroy the English language like that.

Wuhan coronavirus, like Japanese encephalitis, isn't inherently racist. Trump's use of China virus is clearly in response to China's use of the term USA virus, which many wouldn't consider remotely racist given the Trump Administration's failure to contain the coronavirus domestically. It is a geopolitical term, not a racist term. Again, would you ban the OK hand gesture simply because some obscure, white supremacist cult from a distant part of the world has been using it as a dogwhistle to carry out terror attacks? Would you attempt to get people canceled from social media and fired from their jobs because of it?

As for renaming efforts, I support such efforts only insofar they are done in good faith absent any ulterior geopolitical motive such as naively seeking to appease China or seeking to retain one's seat as head of the WHO with all the perks that being WHO DG has to offer, because such motivations exist even among scientists, and the WHO top brass deserves all the backlash that's coming their way.

You won't even see me in protests, because 1) I'm not from the US (surprise!), 2) I live in a communist country (Vietnam, I stated it once or twice, search my posts), and 3) I don't have the time and energy to humiliate myself by shouting and crying and ratio-ing people on Twitter or whatever. However, I do mind when the term keeps being shoehorned into discussions, at some point it becomes a nuisance and generate racist attacks by popularizing it.

So mankind, boogaloo, the OK hand gesture, and Pepe the Frog should be shouted down as racist bigots and anyone who uses such terms should be shunned from polite society, notwithstanding their original uses.

That you don't even live in the U.S. yet still manage to parrot SJW/CCP talking points is further evidence that wokism, while considerably less widespread in the East, is truly a global threat, far more so than white supremacy.

ctually, I don't live in the US. Regardless of my identity, "cultural imperialism" and "stop forcing your politics on us" are the go-to statements of every dictator ever to deflect from criticisms. National Sovereignty has been used to justify oppression and barbaric treatment of citizens.

China is engaging in cultural imperialism by attempting to recruit people like you to shout down and censor people like me. China has been playing the race card so well since the pandemic began I'm actually stunned and surprised at its ferocity.

I'm actually divided over whether American cultural imperialism is a good or bad thing. While I identify as a Western cultural supremacist, I do not consider every aspect of Western culture to be benign or beneficial. I draw my conclusions by comparing certain aspects of each culture and weighing them as a whole against one another. It helps that I've lived in and visited some of the relevant countries in question. I have ranked Japan and Europe near the very top, and China, the Middle East, and the broader Muslim world at rock bottom. Even Russia and Eastern Europe fare rather poorly. I'm a cultural relativist in that sense.

I'm opposed to attempts by a certain subset of privileged white so-called "liberals" to completely own and control the internet and any and all discourse that occurs on it. The internet was meant to be neutral, free, and open to all without let or hindrance. I don't see how calling for a free and open internet is "justifying oppression and barbaric treatment" of netizens. And I certainly don't see how these wokists can claim to represent Western values when their ideology is nothing more than a complete bastardization of what the West stands for. It's not just cultural imperialism we should be worried about, but also cultural cannibalism and revolution happening within their own host societies.

As a sidenote, it is quite ironic that you ultilize National Sovereignty to shut me out of the discussion, yet wants to destroy the CCP. Isn't that forcing your politics on the Chinese people?

The CCP is destroying Hong Kong. Hong Kong is my birthplace and my home growing up. It is where all of my childhood memories are situated. Therefore, the CCP's complete and total demise is now my top priority and my business. Prior to 2019, I wouldn't have cared nearly as much as I do now. (I used to be neutral with regards to China's crackdown in Xinjiang, for instance. I considered Uighur society to be a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists.) Any "cultural imperialism" that may occur in that sense is an absolutely necessary evil and a "necessary hypocrisy" as the late Niccolo Machiavelli would say. I believe the ends justify the means up to a point.

The same goes for Western, woke, cultural imperialism. Sometimes, it is necessary to fight fire with fire. Might makes right is the only language the enemies of freedom understand. Brute force is sometimes necessary to drive a point home when all attempts to respond with reason and dialogue have been exhausted. I learned this the hard way. It's a necessary survival mechanism that's often derided as "selfish" and "right-wing".

People can hold you accountable, yes, by keeping to debate with you over the usage of the term "China virus". Something tells me this won't be the last time this term is discussed.

See above.

Is saying "Covid-19" really that painful for you?

"We will not be slaves again."

I absolutely refuse to advance the CCP's agenda. I refuse to be part of a fifth column of collaborators and traitors to my passport country or to the increasingly endangered, U.S.-led liberal, democratic world order to which I'm fiercely loyal. As an overseas Chinese and former resident of Hong Kong, this is extremely offensive to me. If this makes me, ironically, a "traitor to the Chinese race", then I'm guilty as fucking charged. I'm patriotic to freedom and owe zero allegiance to the PRC.

I might consider adopting the term Covid-19 after the CCP collapses if only to spite and troll them, because China has been trolling Hong Kong and the whole world for years. Wuhan coronavirus or simply coronavirus are all that remain. This is the result of a subtle form of linguistic and cultural genocide that's being perpetrated by woke leftists and the CCP alike similar to how radical, Saudi-influenced Islamists have all but ensured that the Islamic greeting as-salaamu-alaykum has superseded the more traditional and secular greeting apa khabar in Malaysia.

I place China virus in the same category as cartoons of Mohammed. It could be similarly argued that cartoons of Mohammed and Qur'an desecration can and have been used by anti-Muslim racist bigots to advance a more sinister agenda. This is just an attempt to shut down freedom of expression by disingenuously lumping racists and bigots such as the NZ Christchurch mosque shooter together with non-racists and non-bigots such as Sam Harris. That racists use the term China virus doesn't make it inherently racist.

Explicitly racist usages of the term China virus should be called out, unequivocally denounced, and its users pilloried by polite society. Non-racist usages should be both socially and legally permitted, particularly outside the politically correct West that loves to appease the supposedly delicate feelings of supposedly oppressed women, blacks, and Muslims in America and Europe. The differences between the two should be made clear rather than simply imposing a blanket ban that only serves to further inflame both racial and political tensions alike, something the Left has been doing in recent years, a process that has slowly taken shape long before the emergence of Donald Trump in 2015-16.

Despite having made my case, even I myself hesitate to use the term China virus here, partly due to site rules and partly due to a desire to avoid offending woke cultural sensitivities and generating a massive amount of hatred and ill-will directed against myself as I experienced late last year. This is similar to how MSM, private companies, and individuals feel the need to appease Muslim religious sensitivities by censoring depictions of Mohammed and distancing themselves from attempts to burn copies of the Qur'an either out of a legitimate fear of reprisal or a misguided attempt to be "anti-racist" and "inclusive", or possibly both. I'm not proud of it. I consider such capitulation to terror and authoritarian bullying to be a form of weakness and cowardice, and of self-imposed slavery and submission to tyranny and oppression. I've stopped posting political commentary on Facebook for the same reason.

EDIT: One more thing: If Tedros is so impartial and professional, why did the WHO wait till March 2020 to declare a global public health emergency when it could've done so back in early-mid January at the latest? How many countries were set back as a result? Things could've turned out very differently if the WHO simply hadn't relied solely on China as a source of data.

[Ifreann]

The Chinese government does so much bad shit all the time, it boggles the mind that some people feel the need to ignore all of that and instead make up bullshit about them somehow being responsible for this pandemic.

[Forsher]

(Image)

how useful

Make everyone get B117 in the hope it's contagious enough to push out its more vaccine unfriendly relatives?

Hybrid coronaviruses from merged variants are confirmed to be spreading between people

Uh... forget I spoke.

[Kowani]

Idaho legislature shuts down for several week after covid outbreak

The Idaho Legislature voted Friday to shut down for several weeks due to an outbreak of COVID-19.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate made the move to recess until April 6 with significant unfinished business, including setting budgets and pushing through a huge income tax cut. At least six of the 70 House members tested positive for the illness in the last week, and there are fears a highly contagious variant of COVID-19 is in the Statehouse.

“The House has had several positive tests, so it is probably prudent that the House take a step back for a couple weeks until things calm down and it’s not hot around here for COVID,” House Majority Leader Mike Moyle said before the votes.

Five of those who tested positive are Republicans and one is Democrat. Another Republican lawmaker is self-isolating. The chamber has a super-majority of 58 Republicans, most of whom rarely or never wear masks. All the Democratic lawmakers typically wear masks.

The three lawmakers who tested positive this week, two Republicans and one Democrat, had all been participating in debates on the House floor.

The House, with the illness spreading, requested the Senate recess as well. Two senators contracted COVID-19 but have recovered and returned to the 35-member Senate.

The Senate honored the House request and voted to recess about an hour after the House, with Republican Senate President Pro-Tem Chuck Winder calling it “an unusual and kind of historic request that has been made of us."

Republican Sen. Majority Leader Kelly Anthon said senators could use the time to prepare for when the Senate convenes again. “We will use this time productively for the Idaho people so that when we come back together on April 6, we will be ready to work quickly," he said.

Republican House Speaker Scott Bedke said after the votes that the delay could be good because it could give the Legislature time to figure out how to spend the $2.2 billion the state is receiving in the latest round of federal coronavirus relief money.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate, who control both chambers, didn't impose a mask mandate this session.

“I think maybe when they come back, maybe it will be different," Bedke said. "But I have no regrets on the safety protocols here to this point.”

Lawmakers will be paid the per diem rates to cover their normal session-related living expenses during the recess, and secretaries and attachés will also be paid during the break. Bedke characterized it as essentially a long weekend that many will use to catch up on paperwork and other business. [...] Besides the eight lawmakers known to have contracted COVID-19, a handful of House and Senate staffers also are known to have contracted the virus this session.

During the recess, the lawmakers are expected to travel home to all parts of the state, potentially spreading the variant of the virus.

[The Black Forrest]

Mar-a-lago partially closed due to covid outbreak. Surprised? I guess the only people getting the vaccine is the ex-president and his family.


https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/19/politics ... index.html

[Andsed]

My parents just got their first Covid shot. They were never high risk but admittedly it is comforting to know.

[Kowani]

Paris and other regions within Franceto enter month-long coronavirus lockdown

Paris and other regions within France will enter a month-long lockdown starting Friday as coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the country spike, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced Thursday, according to Le Parisien.

Driving the news: The lockdown, the third for France's capital city since the start of the pandemic, will include the closure of nonessential businesses, a curfew and restrictions on outdoor trips. Castex also announced that the country would restart AstraZeneca vaccinations on Friday after the government suspended its use over reports of blood clots in recipients of that vaccine.

As of 16:30 local time, there are reportedly 400km of traffic as Parisians are fleeing the city ahead of tonight's lockdown restrictions and ban on inter-regional movement

you can see people understand the point of a lockdown

[Xmara]

Paris and other regions within Franceto enter month-long coronavirus lockdown

Paris and other regions within France will enter a month-long lockdown starting Friday as coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the country spike, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced Thursday, according to Le Parisien.

Driving the news: The lockdown, the third for France's capital city since the start of the pandemic, will include the closure of nonessential businesses, a curfew and restrictions on outdoor trips. Castex also announced that the country would restart AstraZeneca vaccinations on Friday after the government suspended its use over reports of blood clots in recipients of that vaccine.

As of 16:30 local time, there are reportedly 400km of traffic as Parisians are fleeing the city ahead of tonight's lockdown restrictions and ban on inter-regional movement

you can see people understand the point of a lockdown

Sounds like something straight from a dystopian movie. But then again, so has this entire pandemic.

[Tinhampton]

The astute and/or bored among us, Tinhampton's kinda sus you will remember the following post that I made in the previous thread on 29th December 2020:

If we're going to be using "excess deaths... linked to COVID-19" as the standard for determining how many people have died from coronavirus in Russia - and note in particular the bluntness of the BBC's headline on this particular matter, "Russian Covid deaths three times the official toll" - then what are we using to determine how many people have died from coronavirus elsewhere (and if not that, why not)?

I further quote from the BBC's December article:

Russia's deputy prime minister has revealed more than 80% of excess deaths this year are linked to Covid-19, which would mean its death toll is three times higher than previously reported.

Excess deaths are the difference between the total number of deaths registered and the average over the previous years for the same period.

Official figures say 55,827 people have died with Covid-19 in Russia... Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said mortality in the first 11 months of 2020 had been 13.8% higher than the previous year. Based on her announcement, that would mean that more than 186,057 deaths were linked directly or indirectly to coronavirus.

According to Rosstat, the Russian statistics agency, 229,700 more people had died this year from all causes. But Ms Golikova was adamant the Russian government had never hidden mortality data. "I would like to draw attention to the fact that over 81% of that rise in mortality which took place in that period can be attributed to Covid-19 and the effects of the virus," she said.

And now the BBC has put out a new article which contains the following passage, including a graph showing excess deaths in Russia in all of 2020 (not just up to November)...

Alexei [Raksha] worked at Rosstat for six years until he says he was forced to leave last summer for being too vocal about Covid. But he says Rosstat's numbers are critical to assessing the real cost of the pandemic and, like many experts, he uses excess mortality as the best indicator.



"If Russia stops at 500,000 excess deaths, that will be a good scenario," the now freelance demographer argues. He calculates that the current toll is pushing 450,000 - a giant leap from the 94,267 deaths published online on Friday by Russia's Covid headquarters. Even that lower number is rarely cited by officials, though.

So are we supposed to use "Government COVID HQ" figures, Rosstat's figures, "excess deaths... linked directly or indirectly to coronavirus," or all excess deaths to determine how many people have died of coronavirus in Russia? And - once again - what set of figures are we going to use in every other country?

[Shazbotdom]

Starting this coming Monday (22nd of March, 2012), Vaccinations will be expanded in the State of Louisiana to the point in which I will be able to get the Vaccination. Now, I just need to figure out when to schedule a time for my 1st Shot (or the 1 Dose shot) and where to go.