According to the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), things became apparent in early January when China claimed “the virus jumped from an animal reservoir to a human and wasn’t being transmitted from human-to-human.”
“Well, it became very clear pretty quickly that that was not the case, that the virus was being transmitted from human-to-human. But not only that, but the nightmare that we have is that not only is it transmitted human-to-human, it does it very efficiently,” he explained. “And when the numbers started coming in as to what the morbidity and the mortality was, it was during that period in early to mid-January that it became clear to me that this was not just another SARS. It wasn’t another MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. This was different.”
He also said he didn’t think that would have changed the spread of the disease, but now we’ll never know…
How much higher is the death rate from the Wuhan coronavirus than China’s official death rate? The Washington Post says maybe 16 times higher. “Using photos posted online, social media sleuths have estimated that Wuhan funeral homes had returned 3,500 urns a day since March 23. That would imply a death toll in Wuhan of about 42,000 — or 16 times the official number. Another widely shared calculation, based on Wuhan’s 84 furnaces running nonstop and each cremation taking an hour, put the death toll at 46,800.”
Remember how relentlessly the mainstream media scoffed at the idea the virus might have gotten loose from the Wuhan virology lab? Very sober people are beginning to rethink that:
It is understandable that many would be wary of the notion that the origin of the coronavirus could be discovered by some documentary filmmaker who used to live in China. Matthew Tye, who creates YouTube videos, contends he has identified the source of the coronavirus — and a great deal of the information that he presents, obtained from public records posted on the Internet, checks out.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China indeed posted a job opening on November 18, 2019, “asking for scientists to come research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats.”
The Google translation of the job posting is: “Taking bats as the research object, I will answer the molecular mechanism that can coexist with Ebola and SARS- associated coronavirus for a long time without disease, and its relationship with flight and longevity. Virology, immunology, cell biology, and multiple omics are used to compare the differences between humans and other mammals.” (“Omics” is a term for a subfield within biology, such as genomics or glycomics.)
On December 24, 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology posted a second job posting. The translation of that posting includes the declaration, “long-term research on the pathogenic biology of bats carrying important viruses has confirmed the origin of bats of major new human and livestock infectious diseases such as SARS and SADS, and a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.”
Tye contends that that posting meant, “we’ve discovered a new and terrible virus, and would like to recruit people to come deal with it.” He also contends that “news didn’t come out about coronavirus until ages after that.” Doctors in Wuhan knew that they were dealing with a cluster of pneumonia cases as December progressed, but it is accurate to say that a very limited number of people knew about this particular strain of coronavirus and its severity at the time of that job posting. By December 31, about three weeks after doctors first noticed the cases, the Chinese government notified the World Health Organization and the first media reports about a “mystery pneumonia” appeared outside China.
Plus more discussion about “bat woman” Shi Zhengli and missing institute researcher Huang Yanling. “Most people believe her to be patient zero, and most people believe she is dead.”
Chinese state media is flooding Facebook and Instagram with undisclosed political adverts whitewashing its role in the coronavirus pandemic and pinning blame on Donald Trump.
Three official news outlets – Xinhua, China Central Television and the Global Times – have targeted users across the world with promoted stories in English, Chinese and Arabic.
The ads, seen millions of times, extolled China’s efforts against Covid-19, downplayed its domestic outbreak, depicted Mr Trump as misguided and racist, and suggested that the virus might have originated in the US.
Yet all of them initially ran without a political disclaimer, allowing them to hide information about who they were targeting and sometimes letting them sidestep Facebook’s strict rules on political advertising….
How are people supposed to tell Chinese propaganda from the usual background noise of Trump Derangement Syndrome?
China is waging a propaganda war against the coronavirus on several fronts.
In well-documented efforts, China has sought to deflect attention from its early suppression of information about COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and to claim that, among all nations, China has halted the scourge.
But China’s communist government also is pushing an alternative explanation of the origins of the new coronavirus—namely that it didn’t start in Wuhan after all, but was a creation of a military biochemical lab in the United States and brought to China by an American team that competed in the Military World Games in Wuhan last October.
Although that conspiracy theory was quickly noted and dismissed in much of the West, it is continuing and broadening all over social media in China–a country that strictly monitors what appears on online platforms, regularly scrubbing what the authorities call “rumors.”
China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials.
The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and they declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson thinks that Chinese coronavirus cases may be 40 times higher than stated.
China is waging a propaganda war against the coronavirus on several fronts. In addition to its well-documented efforts to deflect attention from its early suppression of information about the disease and to claim that it has among all nations now halted the scourge, it is also pushing an alternative explanation of its origins—namely that it didn’t start in Wuhan after all, but was a creation of a military biochemical lab in the United States and was brought to China by an American team that competed in the Military World Games in Wuhan last October.
While that conspiracy theory was quickly noted and dismissed in much of the West, it is continuing and broadening all over social media in China – a country that strictly monitors what appears on its online platforms, regularly scrubbing it of what the authorities call “rumors.” But a lot of it, put on platforms that are banned in China, seems aimed outward, part of a concerted effort to convince the world that China, once the villain of the coronavirus story, is actually its hero, and that the real villain is America.
The Chinese Communist Party, led by Chairman Xi Jinping, has a membership of 90 million out of a country of 1.4 billion. Not all may be doctrinaire Marxists or Maoists, but they form a ruling elite for a regime that has managed to bring wealth and prestige to a once-poor people. They have overseen the building of a modern industrial base, and the creation of a first-world military complete with an advanced nuclear arsenal. Their intelligence services are larger and more sophisticated than those of any other nation on earth.
At the heart of China’s communist ideology is a deep-seated resentment against the world. After the Century of Humiliation where China was exploited by the Western powers, Russia, and Japan, they are committed to never letting that happen again.
If one doubts the CCP’s resolve, one need look no further than the fact that they have killed, through famine and other means, almost 100 million of their own countrymen in a series of communist social and economic reforms they believed necessary to modernize their country. In other words, these are not a people to be taken lightly. The presidency of Donald Trump presents the greatest strategic threat to their desire to establish themselves as the world’s preeminent economic and military power.
Although it is not the position of our government that the CCP was behind the creation and weaponization of the Chinese virus, we need to at least entertain the notion that a nation that has, in the recent past, killed tens of millions of its own people would not think twice about killing thousands or even millions of other peoples from other countries if it meant putting them in a greater strategic position and helping them fulfill their objective of a communist world order.
Speaking of filthy: “Chinese markets again selling bats.” Ain’t that a kick in the head?
I’ve seen a lot of experts debunking the idea that the current coronavirus pandemic originated at the Wuhan virology lab. But here’s one expert that thinks it might well have. “Richard H. Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday that there is a real possibility that the virus entered the human population due to a laboratory accident.”
The 15-days Guidelines allowed the nation to prepare to get the equipment and resources needed in-place before a wave of hospitalizations would be required. The 15-days also provided time to garner information possible treatment options for those experiencing symptoms. These include lopinavir-ritonavir, interferon-1β, the RNA polymerase inhibitor remdesivir, chloroquine, a variety of traditional Chinese medicine products, and intravenous hyperimmune globulin from recovered patients.
Based on Task Force briefing discussions with Fauci and fellow member Dr. Deborah Birx, it appears that the team projects that the coronavirus will disappear during the summer, and return in the fall. They are working with the President and the rest of his team to expedite testing, find and produce vaccines, and identify effective treatments while keeping the mortality rate as low as can be achieved in this first wave of infections….
If the curve flattens to around 33,000 deaths, then that is approximately the same as a moderately bad flu year, and far short of the 100,000 the media was presenting this weekend.
President Donald Trump is working hard to reduce the number to as low as can be achieved, based on the advice of Fauci and other team members. They may have access to additional information that indicates the extension of guidelines to the end of April is warranted.
Fauci and his team continue to gather data, and adjustments will be made in the models as speculation is replaced by hard information and results. For now, it appears that Fauci and his team’s original roadmap for the pandemic was good.
More analysis of the numbers. “Germany and the United States have significantly better coronavirus death rates per capita than Italy, Spain, Iran and France. A lot better. This is why the media avoids per capita measurements for confirmed cases, but conveniently remembered when it wanted to fact-check Trump’s testing numbers.”
Scary story about a Washington state choir rehearsal of 60 people, none of whom exhibited any symptoms of illness. “Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Funny how all the leftist sorts are insisting you can’t call it the Chinese coronavirus or the Wuhan coronavirus. Almost as though they all received the same marching orders from…somewhere. But no, that would be silly. All the useful idiots can’t be on China’s payroll…
Last week’s unemployment numbers were horrible. This week’s are worse. “US jobless claims skyrocket to 6.6 million.” We knew this was coming. We just need to get to the other side of the “V”…
Know what other numbers are hugely up? NCIS firearms checks run. 3,740,688 checks were run in March, easily a new record.
“Italy Risks Losing Grip in South With Fear of Looting, Riots.”
As Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fights to hold Italian society together through a crippling nationwide lockdown, the depressed south is turning into a powder keg.
Police have been deployed on the streets of Sicily’s capital, Palermo, amid reports gangs are using social media to plot attacks on stores. A bankrupt ferry company halted service to the island, including vital supplies of food and medicines. As the state creaks under the strain of the coronavirus pandemic, officials worry the mafia may be preparing to step in.
Preventing unrest in the so-called Mezzogiorno, the underdeveloped southern region that’s long lagged behind the wealthy north, has become the government’s top priority, according to Italian officials who asked not to be named discussing the administration’s strategy.
With the European Union’s most dangerously indebted state already fighting the Germans over the terms of the financial aid it needs, the fallout may reach far beyond Rome if Conte fails.
Keep in mind that any postwar Italian government’s grip on power is tenuous in the best of times…(Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Panama is fighting the coronavirus by segregating shipping days by gender. What, are Panamanians so randy they can’t see a member of the opposite sex without wanting to get jiggy with them?
Does anyone not on the payroll of the Chinese Communist Party trust Beijing’s dictatorship with the power to pervasively monitor communications (spy locally as well as globally), interrupt, deny or corrupt digital services, and possibly take surreptitious control of digital devices, say, the air traffic control computers at Los Angeles International Airport?
Outrageous scenario? No, given Huawei’s baggage is a legitimate worry exacerbated by the regime’s criminal dishonesty (e.g., lying about COVID-19/Wuhan virus). For all practical purposes, Huawei is a Chinese Communist Party tool. In spy lingo, a cutout company can hide an espionage operation. Abundant evidence suggests Huawei serves as a cutout.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez encourages Amazon workers to strike, because Unions. “AOC is so devoted to the commie common good that she wants some of the only people in America who are guaranteed work to voluntarily give that work up for some union talking point.”
What the hell, Vermont? “State officials in Vermont are ordering large retailers that sell critical items such as food and prescription drugs to stop the in-person sale of nonessential products such as clothing and electronics.” An emergency doesn’t give you the excuse to be Shopping Basket Dictator.
Venezuelan patrol ship sinks after ramming cruise ship with reinforced hull. The only way this story could be any better is if the cruise ship was labeled “Donald Trump” and the Venezuelan patrol boat was labelled “The Media.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)