I started to compile the chronology of events that define the Corona Crisis that is gripping the entire world, not just the United States, when I discovered that Donald Trump already did the heavy lifting. As we used to say in the CIA analytical ranks–anything worth doing well is worth copying from someone else.
The Trump campaign I think anticipated that the compliant, Democrat subservient media would try to erase history and paint Trump as totally unprepared for the Corona pandemic. The campaign was correct. The media is frantically trying to blame Trump for every single death while pretending to be Helen Keller (you know, deaf, dumb and blind) when it comes to correctly assigning blame to the Chinese for launching a global plague.
Here is the full link. I think the most important dates are what took place in January. Recent reports claiming that the oxymoronically named, "intelligence community", warned Trump repeatedly in December and January are lies. The intelligence community did not finger the virus outbreak in China as top priority or concern. They noted it was going on but no one told President Trump that a pandemic was imminent or likely. Trump, as is his practice, actually relied on the medical experts and trusted their judgment up to a point. But by the end of January his own instincts kicked in and he felt more dramatic action towards China was called for.
When Trump brought up the issue of shutting down travel to and from China, he was swimming upstream against many of his National Security advisors. But, as is also typical of Trump, he trusted his instincts and over-rode their objections.
December 31: China reports the discovery of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization.
January 3: CDC Director Robert Redfield sent an email to the director of the Chinese CDC, George Gao, formally offering to send U.S. experts to China to investigate the coronavirus.
January 6: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a level I travel notice for Wuhan, China due to the spreading coronavirus.
January 21: The CDC activated its emergency operations center to provide ongoing support to the coronavirus response.
January 27: The White House Coronavirus Task Force started meeting to help monitor and contain the spread of the virus and provide updates to the President.
January 31: The Trump Administration:
- Declared the coronavirus a public health emergency.
- Announced Chinese travel restrictions.
- Suspended entry into the United States for foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the coronavirus.
January 31: The Department of Homeland Security took critical steps to funnel all flights from China into just 7 domestic U.S. airports.
Listening to the media and the Democrats complain that Trump "failed" to act soon enough is beyond bizarre. It is totally delusional. Fortunately, Sean Hannity fielded this slow pitch ground ball like a world class shortstop and produced a video timeline of the Democrats condemning Trump and encouraging junkets to China Town.
The Democrats and their stance on the Corona virus remind me of the Japanese who occupied Iwo Jima in February of 1945–they were doomed and had no place to go so they opted for suicide attacks. The crazy Democrat effort to reinvent history is predicated on the assumption that people do not have computers and access to videos. Good luck with that. The reality is that Donald Trump paid attention to the doctors and scientists. It was the science on the modeling that was wrong. It was the science that was wrong in failing to warn early on that the pandemic was coming like a nuclear tsunami.
One of the key reasons the scientists/docs failed to get it right early on was that they had no idea that China unleashed the plague on the world. Trump clearly has learned that lesson and no longer is willing to give China the benefit of the doubt.
Larry why do you think China “unleashed the plague on the world”? That makes it sound as if this was a deliberate act, for which there is no evidence.
Re. the dates. Wuhan reported a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown origin on the 31st of Dec., on the 7th of Jan. they reported it as a beta corona virus and released the full sequence on the 11th., showing that it was a newly emerged zoonotic strain.
From January 1, China acted as if the discovery of Ccoronavirus was a complete surprise to them. They had actually sequenced the virus on December 27 and knew it was a SARS like Coronavirus. They also discovered the first human to human transmission on 27 December but, crucially, didn’t admit that until about 20 January. In terms of a Pandemic the human to human transmission is the clincher. Without that it’s just another animal related disease. By 20 January President Xi had ensured the virus had spread worldwide.
Sr. Jackson, It is quite simple. Once the virus was spreading in Wuhan, the Chinese shutdown travel to their own major cities. That’s why you’ve seen very few infections there. However, the Chinese, fully aware of the contagion, allowed travelers to go to other parts of the world. Not my opinion, a cold, hard fact.
Chinese New Year celebrations last for 16 days. It’s a big deal.
People usually travel all over China to visit family & friends.
It was officially canceled this year. The exact date was January 25th.
Half of the news media is trying to pin all of the blame on Trump, the other half of the news media is trying to pin all of the blame on China.
I’m not sure I understand your last comment, Larry. Are you saying that the Chinese authorities shut down all domestic travel out of Wuhan but continued to allow the Wuhan international airport to operate?
If so I do not believe that is correct.
But if they shut down Wuhan to all movement but continued to allow internal movement everywhere else then there is nothing sinister about them also allowing international travel from everywhere else in China: both speak of a belief that they had contained the outbreak inside Wuhan.
Yeah Right, You are WRONG. The Chinese were on notice that they had a big problem as early as 3 January. They waited till the 23rd of January to shutdown. By then, the damage was done and the plague launched overseas.
The DIRECT flights from WUHAN to foreign destinations included:
Sydney Australia,
San Francisco, USA
NYC, USA (JFK)
Moscow,
London (Heathrow and Gatwick)
Rome
Istanbul
Dubai
Osaka
Tokyo
Mr Johnson – as you say – “Trump, as is his practice, actually relied on the medical experts and trusted their judgment up to a point.”
That’s where it went wrong, not only for the US but for most of the West with the exception of the Pacific Rim countries.
Consensus medical opinion – the opinion on which all the politicians based their actions – was in line with WHO advice that had formed the basis of most Western planning for such a pandemic. Unfortunately that consensus medical opinion was wrong.
Therefore most Western governments did not take the action in the very early stages that they might have done. More importantly, they were not geared up to take such action. That is why there is such a shortage of protective equipment for medical staff and why some governments still don’t have the administrative apparatus in place that is needed.
WHO advice has changed and consensus medical opinion in line with it. WHO guidelines on dealing with this pandemic are now –
“extremely proactive surveillance to immediately detect cases, very rapid diagnosis and immediate case isolation, rigorous tracking and quarantine of close contacts, and an exceptionally high degree of population understanding and acceptance of these measures”
There’s a lot of blame game going on but the fact is that had these measures plus travel restrictions been advised from the start the disease would have been contained and it is likely that lockdowns would not have been needed. It was not contained and the spread started to become explosive. In most Western countries lockdowns of varying degrees of strictness were imposed to halt that explosive spread.
The question is now how to come off lockdown. Trump has emphasised testing and tracing in order to suppress the further local outbreaks that will be inevitable. Again this is in line with consensus medical opinion. The disease is not evenly spread and will not be so perhaps further local lockdowns will be necessary.
Given where we are, and assuming cures or vaccines don’t arrive soon (unlikely, apparently) that is the best that can now be done.
I should say that my personal impression is that Merkel and Trump were the two Western leaders who stood out for tackling the crisis best once it was realised that it was a serious crisis and that it had been incorrectly dealt with at the start.
My further impression is that the necessity for imposing lockdown is going to cause Trump political problems with some of his own supporters. I hope not to such an extent that it imperils his chances at the forthcoming election.
Larry
I’m curious your opinion on US intelligence. Those agencies with hundreds of billions in annual expenditure.
In reading an interview with an official from Taiwan CDC on their very effective response with no lockdown and just single digit deaths, what struck me was that Taiwan intelligence noted unusual deaths in Wuhan early/mid December. They informed Taiwan CDC who sent medical personnel to draw samples. I’m as certain as anything that Taiwan intelligence would have informed their counterparts in the US intelligence community right then and there.
Yes, they shutdown all direct flights from Wuhan in December and restricted flights from other Chinese cities. Followed up with close monitoring of anyone who had been in China to determine if they showed any signs of symptoms.
Why do we spend so much on intelligence when it seems on things that matter like some Saudis learning to fly with no interest in takeoff and landing or Iraq WMD or even earlier that the communist utopia of the Soviet Union was in reality a basket case, they were out to lunch?
Larry
While the curtailment of flights from China that Trump despite the hysterical racist accusations the media and the Democrats carrying water for the CCP made, was a good decision now in hindsight, I have first hand knowledge that it didn’t filter down to immigration and customs officials at SFO. I know of a Chinese national who traveled through Bangkok and was not quarantined on arrival at SFO.
An early well enforced ban on travel to the US of those individuals who had been to China and Italy would have been the most effective response now in hindsight. Of course US citizens could have been repatriated and held in quarantine.
I agree that Xi and the CCP should be held to account and made to pay a price. No longer should the world trust the CCP. Every effort must be made to decouple our supply chains from China and significant covert measures should be taken to destroy the totalitarian CCP. They are not only an enemy of the US but also of any nation that believes in a free society.
JJackson,
Labs around the globe have been creating synthetic viruses like CoV2 for years. And no, its genome would not necessarily contain hallmarks of human manipulation: modern genetic engineering tools permit cutting and pasting genomic fragments without leaving a trace. It can be done quickly, too: it took a Texas BSL4 lab less than 2 months to create a synthetic clone of CoV2.
The major problem I have with you and your ilk proclamations is the deception. You know for a fact it may have been made in a lab. May doesn’t mean was. But ignore this fact. Also containment at labs happen unfortunately. Another fact your ilk ignores.
I’m open minded enough to believe it may be from Nature. Somebody has to convince me. Hasn’t happened yet.
ancestral bat strain RaTG13. So no bats near Wuhan. But this is the epicenter of the pandemic. China shuts down travel to all areas of China. Doesn’t fit your narrative.
ancestral bat strain RaTG13. Nobody in the world knew the lab of Shi Zhengli had this virus until January 2020. My belief is the virus was isolated and brought to the BSL-IV lab of Shi Zhengli located in Wuhan for Gain of Function research.
And was released to the world either by accident(most likely) or by design.
However, I am not a pathological narcissist. Of course, if I was I may not know it. But for proof. I use to believe in Peak Oil. I was a fool. Since I choose to believe some geologists over the economists. Ironic. Since I studied economics. I changed my mind 8 years ago. I was simply wrong. Shale revolution changed my belief in a nanosecond.
You mentioned that many if not all of the committee do not know how to read a Blast sequence. That is correct for me. But here is a promise.
I am basically a loser in life. Black sheep of the family. Criminal record several pages long. So many different jobs. That a resume from me is not an option anymore. So I now have my own online business and rate search results for Internet Search Companies. They only cared if I passed their test.
One of my previous detours in life was Medical School. I worked a year in a lab for a Dr. Scott Barnum at UAB Microbiology Department while taking my prerequisites. As a Post-Graduate. Scored top 5% on MCAT and applied to a private medical school and was accepted. Stayed 3 months and left. I knew my criminal record precluded a licence from the State. But I still hoped.
If you find the time I would very much enjoy reading your defense of the coronavirus as 100% natural.
I will learn to read Blast sequences or anything else and follow your argument. If you decide to write a post.
Should we play devil’s advocate for a moment?
There seems to be some evidence that suggests a strain of the virus had already spread to countries like Italy as far back as November.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076334/coronavirus-strange-pneumonia-seen-lombardy-november-leading
It’s possible that strain was less deadly and less infectious. What we are experiencing now may be the second wave.
That isn’t to say Larry is wrong, but there seems to be some major donut holes in explaining the origins of this virus.
Larry, 26,000 Chinese flew into Bangkok for the Chinese New Year, additionally 10s of thousands more flew in from other Chinese provinces. Bangkok is a significant international hub.
We need to stress to the members of ASEAN where this virus came from.
Quest Diagnostics, at least in California, now makes appointments online to have a COVID-19 antibody test – $129
This voluntary testings will add to the data bank numbers potentially of at least prior and perhaps totally asymptomatic exposures. This will help determine the whats, wheres, who and whens of this truly bizarre US Election Year “corona” shut down.
At least voluntary lab testing now will add to the vague incidence numbers in order to put a better handle on the potential fatality numbers, which unfortunately have now been tainted beyond any useful value due to overly generous COVID-19 co-morbidity reporting demands.
One of the 7 “COVID-19” deaths in our county was a older gentleman with severe pre-existing conditions who was already residing in our hospice facility – criteria approximately 6 months to live and recognition any further treatment is futile. Yet he was listed as one of our county’s “corona” fataliies.
@russianbot….bingo
Actually, I am still of the opinion I am correct, and note that your rebuttal does not actually address my original post.
After all, it was this: Any Chinese citizen NOT under lockdown was free to move around internally, just as any Chines citizen NOT under lockdown was free to fly overseas. The residents of Wuhan were not able to do either. All very consistent. All very logical.
As for your rebuttal, you are WRONG. On several counts.
The Chinese government informed the WHO on December 31, not January 3. They did that because this was a NEW virus, not because the virus was out of control (it wasn’t, even by Jan 5 there were only 44 cases and no deaths and no evidence of human-to-human transmission).
“The Chinese were on notice that they had a big problem”
On notice from whom, Larry?
On Jan 3 they had no evidence of human-to-human transmission (the “wet-market-bat-soup” hypothesis was not dismissed until Jan 20).
Note the date: the Chinese only began to suspect they had a “big problem” by mid-January, had their proof by January 20, then went to lockdown a mere three days later.
“The DIRECT flights from WUHAN to foreign destinations included:”
I’m going to ask again, because this is an important question: did those flights out of Wuhan continue *after* the city was put into lockdown? Yes? Or no?
The Chinese were “on notice” of a big problem on January 20, Wuhan was put into lockdown on January 23, which is a quick reaction in anyone’s book.
ANY movement – domestic or international – by the residents of Wuhan BEFORE January 23 is not evidence of any guilt by anyone.
We need to stress to the members of ASEAN where this virus came from.
Posted by: BillWade | 28 April 2020 at 11:11 PM
Meaning? To the extent I understand, China/CCP let them all come in to return with the idea they would then spread the virus?
Thus, China should have kept American family members of Chinese origin out to prevent spread in the US of A? And that they didn’t serves to prove the Chinagate Coup?
Ok, we have ongoing Russiagate, and I fully support that the Flynn case was somewhat dubious. But now we have a case almost as relevant as Russiagate that moved form Corona-Panicgate to Chinagate in about 3 weeks?
Deap – There’s an ignored factor behind this Corona lockdown. Had the President of the United States merely sat there saying “They were due to go anyway”, and had carried on saying that while the bodies were piling up in the morgues, we can forget about Russiagate scams and the whole TDS business. He’d have been automatically out on his ear next election and rightly so.
Of course it’s a lot more complicated than that and I’m not trying to second guess what was done in another and very different country; but take note of the UK experience. Because of the WHO advice I’ve mentioned above HMG did just sit there for far longer than it should have and look at the mess we’re in now –
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87592#disqus_thread
That’s from a man who really does know his stuff on infection control. I don’t of course, but I can read. My sincere belief is that you’re lucky Trump and his team adopted a different approach and went hell for leather to suppress the disease as soon as it became apparent that the initial WHO advice was wrong.
America’s Covid-19 death toll surpasses number of Vietnam War fatalities while its ex-battlefield foe reports no virus deaths to date
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s representative in Thailand, John MacArthu said “Our team up in Hanoi is working very, very closely with their Ministry of Health counterparts,”
“The communications I’ve had with my Vietnam team is that at this point in time, [they] don’t have any indication that those numbers are false,” MacArthur said, according to US National Public Radio
Why is Hanoi doing so well? Here is the chronology:
On January 16, the Heath Ministry alerted government officials on how to stem an expected virus outbreak.
On January 21, The ministry told hundreds of Vietnam’s hospitals and clinics to start preparing for cases.
On January 30 when the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the virus was a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.”A National Steering Committee on Epidemic Prevention was established.
Early in February, Hanoi began warning the public and created an informational website in the Internet-savvy country. Police issued fines for not wearing a mask in public, threatened imprisonment if a maskless person infected anyone, and banned gatherings of 20 or more people. Teams went door-to-door in neighborhoods suspected of having infections.Tens of thousands of people, including visitors and citizens arriving from abroad, were quarantined in guarded dormitory camps dotted throughout Vietnam. Soldiers left breakfast, lunch and dinner outside each room. By March, officials were also monitoring incoming international passengers, and banned all foreign entries after March 22, except for Vietnamese citizens returning home and other individuals, who all had to undergo a two-week quarantine
Hanoi’s success contrasted with Washington’s fumbling, hesitant and still conflicting approach to the pandemic
https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/why-vietnam-won-and-us-lost-their-covid-19-wars/
Thanks Larry,
Looks like the procommunist trolls have come out in force.
Bills Wade,
so citizens of communist China have no agency and would not circumvent a travel restriction imposed on foreign nationals to keep Americans safe by traveling to an intermediary location before traveling to the US. Looks like Trump should bar entry for all Chinese nationals until the state of emergency is over.
Harlan,
The Obama administration imposed a moratorium on gain of function research at US labs due to lab accidents at the CDC. Asia Times had a write up on the April 22 and back in 2014. It is why Dr. Fauci faces an investigation over the $3.7 million funding to the wuhan lab for that type of research.
fred
I am inundated with “procommunist trolls.” you do not see 10% of them.
Yeah Right.
By Jan 1 China knew it was a new SARS – like Coronavirus. What they told the WHO was that they didn’t know what it was. The WHO then tasked a Melbourne group with identifying its type which they discovered was a coronavirus. That information was then passed to a Dutch group in Rotterdam who were Coronavirus experts. They then identified it as “new”. The Chinese then came out on 7th January with this “discovery”. Another week deliberately lost.
Sam,
Trump cures cancer as zero deaths reported since Wuhan flu appears in US! Communism wins, just like when Jane Fonda cheered them on. Your glowing report of Vietnam, source of infections disabling USS Roosevelt strike group, leaves out those tidbits of info, two of which are actually true.
China isolated Wuhan on Jan 23 while still allowing outbound international flights … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_lockdown_in_Hubei
That is when WHO announced that Coronavirus was contagious, with 5,000 estimated cases (almost all in China), and rated the risk of a global outbreak high. Granted they didn’t formally declare a global health emergency but this should have been clear enough.
Apparently our vaunted Intelligence Agencies need to have such things tied in a ribbon.
Is allowing outbound flights sinister? I don’t know, maybe some Americans or Australians want to be able to escape and serve out their isolation at home rather than in China. Perhaps the Chinese figured that restricting incoming travel is the responsibility of the host country and not theirs. After all, they did publicize their lockdown.
New York been an epicenter of the virus for months, I don’t recall New York banning outbound flights. Perhaps Tom Cotton should sue NYC for $2T.
Christian, our intelligence agencies saw this coming (and tried to warn the administration) in January- it was Trump and his (mostly) incompetent minions that fumbled the ball. Predictably, the cowardly Trump continues to refuse to accept responsibility for his failure to protect the United States from invasion (by virus). And frankly, this would be a more egregious failure if it the virus was deliberately or accidentally released from a Chinese lab (which it wasn’t). While the US spends more on intelligence and national defense than any other dozen countries collectively, that money was essentially wasted by an administration that protected the US down to the standards of Venezuela rather than up to the standards of South Korea.
Christian J Chuba,
You addressed the question that came to my mind. The majority of the world’s travel bans and restrictions only apply to incoming flights. Most countries put no restrictions on their citizens traveling elsewhere. That’s exactly what we did. As the coronavirus was spreading throughout the country, Americans were free to fly elsewhere as they pleased. Was this a case of the Trump administration “weaponizing” the virus and deliberately spreading it throughout the world? Of course not. I guarantee there would have been plenty of Democrats and probably plenty of Republicans as well who would have screamed bloody murder if Trump tried to restrict Americans’ ability to travel internationally. Look what happened when he suggested quarantining NYC. I thought that was one of Trump’s better ideas. Even if Trump did everything right, he would still be catching holy hell from a large segment of the population.
Who was advising Trump to minimize the threat of the virus and not to impose travel restrictions? Looks like his pencil-necked prick of a son in law was chief among them. Too bad he still listens to that twerp. The HHS and the IC were sounding alarms early on. The WHO had reservations about the effect widespread travel restrictions would have on the world economy for some reason, but they’re not in the administration. If only Trump did hire only the best people.
I’m aware some ppl will be prejudiced out of hand to both the
voice of europe & epoch times, the sites carrying this documentary;
nonetheless I think it’s worth watching especially by the commie
trolls as it may aid in their reeducation:) so perhaps they’ll up their game a bit. I think it’s worth a watch.
voiceofeurope.com/2020/04/watch-chilly-documentary-traces-the-origin-of-the-chinese-covid-10-virus/
Factor in SEA, Central America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Pacific Islands have been aggressively selling some form of anti-malaria drugs OTC for decades. Did this make a difference in Vietnam?
“When Trump brought up the issue of shutting down travel to and from China, he was swimming upstream against many of his National Security advisors. But, as is also typical of Trump, he trusted his instincts and over-rode their objections. ”
Why didnt he stop all travel? This was a major mistake. Every country with success either stopped all travel or quarantined everyone returning from a foreign country. I am sure he made some people happy just keeping the Chinese from coning here, but if his goal was to stop viral spread then he would have stopped Americans from traveling back and forth, or required self quarantine on return.
China released the genome on January 12 (14?). In 4 days S Korea had viable tests, designed to make sure that they would have plenty of reagents. Many other countries also had tests quickly. It took us many weeks to get any tests. On March 9th he said anyone who wants a test can have one. A lie. Up until 10-14 days ago I couldn’t even reliably get a test for any of my docs or nurses who were exposed to Covid. (Couldn’t get tests on many patients, which lead to people having unnecessary exposures.) We just sent them home, told them to not touch their kids and take their temperature. (This goes over well with the people who had infants.) We didnt, still dont, have enough to do effective surveillance. I live this every day (Or and ICU) and talk with my counterparts in ED, ID, hospitalists etc. I guess the usual rejoinder here is that the CDC, FDA or some other alphabet agency failed, but that goes back to leadership. Testing is a priority and when we didnt have a viable test in 7-10 days heads should have rolled.
Sidney Caesar
From what I hear they did not try really hard to warn Trump. It was in the PDB but was there among a lot of other things and Trump does not respect institutions. He is the center of the universe. His IC heads would have had to come to him as a group and so far as I know, they did not.
Showing a list of half measures the Trump Administration took which, so far, has allowed over 60,000 American deaths, really isn’t proof of anything. We could come up with a longer list of everything the captain and crew on the Titanic did the day before the Titanic struck that iceberg. Those actions are meaningless because they were not effective in preventing the known possible danger in the future from becoming immediate, deadly, and killing many people needlessly.
South Korea and the US both discovered a covid-19 infected person inside their country the exact same day. South Korea took the measures necessary to stop an outbreak while the US government failed to recognize the danger and take effective action. Today, April 29, 2020, the same day the US had 60,000 deaths, South Korea has 246.
You know what’s really wrong with this country? Our true currency is lies and bullshit. Sixty thousand American are now dead. Our government has done a horrible job of preventing Covid from killing tens of thousands of people. But we can’t be honest with ourselves and admit it. Instead, we traffic in lies and bullshit.
The reason the USSR collapsed is that no one told the truth anymore. People would lie and say that problems didn’t exist. Of course, because these problems didn’t exist, they would never be fixed. So when they got worse, more lies were issues to cover up the worsening problems. The whole system collapsed as a result.
The US is in that stage now. Nothing gets fixed because the problems are said not to exist. Obama did a horrible job responding to the Great Recession. Half the county cannot admit that simple truth. Trump did a horrible job responding to Covid-19. The other half of the country can’t admit that. If we can’t even recognize incompetence when it’s right in front of our faces, there is no hope.
LA Sox Fan
what were the “half measures?”
LA Sox Fan,
I think your death count is off. The US averages 7,000+ deaths a day from all causes. The numbers being bandied about by the increasingly desperate propagandists only include those listed as death with this virus present in the deceased, which is an intentionally deceptive figure. On a bright note the states without democratic governors will be holding the scheduled election in November, feel free to vote, or not.
Steve,
seems the supply chain people in the hospital system you imply you work for can’t order testing equipment, or face masks. I wonder how the hospitals ever performed any services with that quality of work. Can’t wait to see the survival numbers once the “not soon enough” PR blitz blows out.
Christian,
“I don’t know, maybe some Americans or Australians want to be able to escape….”
Americans were not and are not prevented from returning, which has been well publicized repeatedly.
“Perhaps the Chinese figured that restricting incoming travel is the responsibility of the host country and not theirs. ”
The communis government of China is quite happy to engage in defacto germ warfare. The democratic governor of NY was completely opposed to a quarantine of NYC, right along with the incompetency commy mayor and the party leadership.
“Perhaps Tom Cotton should sue NYC for $2T”
He should ensure their extortionist bailout request in the next bail out bill gets denied. Then he should propose a decade long ban on travel from China for any reason and cancellation of all visas currently held by non-diplomats from that country. Then investigate all federal funding to all health care systems, companies, NGO and universities that dealt with the Wuhan virus lab and follow that up with an audit of other federal grants or other funding to see where all the rest of the money went.
Our Governor here in Florida is starting phase one on Monday, it’s not much but it’s something, the Miami area is not included yet as so many NY’ers fled to there, wish they would have stayed home.
Fred, I don’t get you. The Chinese that visit SE Asian countries during Chinese New Years are not the most sophisticated types. They are for the most part bumpkins that travel in groups, they stay at Chinese owned hotels, eat at Chinese owned restaurants, and don’t spend a lot of money. They just can’t go to the airport in Bangkok or Saigon and board a flight to the USA, a visa is needed to visit here. What we in the USA need to do is impress upon the ASEAN countries just how destructive the Chinese can be, one only has to look to Sihanoukville to see what an absolute mess the Chinese can make in short order. We now have a real opportunity to decrease Chinese influence in the region, we should take total advantage of it.
walrus: “By Jan 1 China knew it was a new SARS – like Coronavirus. What they told the WHO was that they didn’t know what it was”
I have gone back and read again that article that you posted to TonyL on another thread
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-of-the-coronavirus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-in-china
and I am perfectly willing to accept that on December 31 the Chinese informed the WHO of “of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause)”
According to that link lab test results were “reported to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission as early as Jan 1” i.e. those results were unknown to the Beijing authorities at the time they informed the WHO.
The first reporting of virus testing to the central govt was on Jan 6 (Professor Zhang Yongzhen of Fudan University in Shanghai) and was then relayed to the public on Jan 9.
So it would appear that on Jan 1 the central authorities in Beijing told the WHO they did not know what the cause was because….. they did not know what the cause was. (The Wuhan authorities did, but they didn’t report it to the National Health Commission).
But my point remains: despite what Larry claims the Chinese authorities where NOT “on notice that they had a big problem as early as 3 January”. They had a cluster of 44 patients, showing pneumonia systems that they could not explain. That’s all the Beijing authorities knew.
Even by Jan 9 all the central authorities knew was that this was a new virus.
They were still dealing with cases numbering in the dozens. They were still unsure if this was animal-to-human or human-to-human. And they certainly did not suspect that asymptomatic human-to-human transmission was happening – that came much, much.
As far as they knew they were on top of it. It wasn’t until Jan 20 that they realized they weren’t, and they ordered the shutdown three days later.
Christian J Chuba / TTG yes, thank you both for expressing this much better than I have.
When Wuhan was put into lockdown Chinese outside of that lockdown zone were allowed to travel overseas. That is a fact.
I am willing to point a finger of blame at the Chinese government if they had continued to allow international flights out of WUHAN after it had been placed into lockdown.
Doing THAT would have been damning, even sinister.
But I do not believe that to be the case.
Everyone inside Wuhan was in lockdown.
Everyone outside Wuhan was not.
It really is as simple as that, and reading anything more into that is unwarranted.
LA Sox Fan,
You are believing in fairy tales.
One of the major reasons that we have 60K deaths is that the count is false. Dies of cancer in hospice, but tested positive? Covid death. ODs on illicit drugs, body is tested and is positive for covid? Another covid death. Died in February with flu-like symptoms and never tested? Chalk it up to covid. There’s a lot of that happening now. It is a fact.
Policy-wise, a significant number of real covid deaths on the east coast are because democrat leadership failed to protect the elderly in nursing homes; actually, worse, they killed them, de facto, deliberately, by placing seniors that had tested positive in the homes with everyone else. Home after home has been hit hard this way. Putting infected people into homes was/is policy. That it was done is fact.
NYC airports continued to receive flights from foreign countries long after the virus was a known problem (I think they still do). Airplanes and airports are perfect places for viruses to spread. Who’s idea was it to keep those flights coming in?
NYC subways remained open the entire time everyone else was locked down. Those filthy things are virtual petri dishes for a contagious virus. Masks will not protect anyone from the virus. The virus can go through the typical jerry rigged mask. The virus can live up to 3 days on surfaces. It is on the hands that fiddle with the mask. The infected masks, hands and items purchased at stores go into the home and infect everyone in it.
None of that is on Trump. As long as the virus was here, the above insured that it would infect 25% of the population. What didn’t have to happen was the increased deaths of the elderly.
What kind of malicious idiot places infected people in nursing homes?
Deap: “Did this make a difference in Vietnam?”
I don’t believe so. I was in Vietnam in the 2nd week of Match and there was no discussion about anti-malaria drugs either in the media or amongst the people I spoke to.
The Vietnamese govt were keeping the population very well informed about what was happening. I received at least one SMS a day reminding me to follow the health guidelines.
Vietnam stayed on top of this using very old-school tactics: Minimize gatherings. Wear a face mask. Wash your hands. Temperature checks at all govt buildings. Wash your hands. Very comprehensive back-tracking (including the media) for any positives. Wash your hands.
There were zero cases of Vietnamese-to-Vietnamese transmission while I was there: every case was the result of contact with a tourist. As far as I know that is still true.
Vietnam stayed on top of covid-19 by simply not allowing it to get established in the country.
Steve,
How is testing a priority? What does that get you? Something like 20% to 25% of the population has contracted the virus. Overwhelmingly, they are fine. The virus won’t hurt children and barely is a problem for healthy adults. It should have been a no-brainer to quarantine nursing homes and the elderly staying in their own homes and for the medical community (not including some recent third world immigrant nurses aid) to provide safe services to them. But people like you couldn’t conceive of doing that. In NYC they discharge infected people back into nursing homes.
Then your physician comrades made it worse by closing your practices. People with all kinds of chronic and developing conditions can’t see a doctor. They are dying for lack of care.
I’ve been in the data this week and I am appalled at how lame brained and destructive the medical community has been. Even though elective surgeries have been stopped along with basic doctor visits, the physician community is still going to manage to kill 300,000 this year, like it does every year, via medical malpractice and medical errors.
Walrus
Where are you getting the info re. WHO and Melbourne? I had not come across this. I do not understand how the group in Melbourne could say what the virus was unless they had been provided with a sequence or had live virus. At this point there was no virus outside of China if they had a sequence it must have been provided by scientist in China and as they have the worlds top experts on SARS like Corona viruses and the WHO would have no problem identifying a new beta Corona virus (hell I could have done that for them it would take me 30mins). It does not make a lot of sense.
Harlan
As you seem genuinely interested in learning and as you worked in a microbiology lab try reading http://virological.org/t/tackling-rumors-of-a-suspicious-origin-of-ncov2019/384
You are wrong to think I deny lab escapes I have been banging that drum for years. The anthrax attack in the US was due to a screened worker at a BSL3 lab who had some kind of a breakdown and stole and posted of the anthrax.
This link is to a post of mine at the end of January which explains some of the genetics and includes plots of RaTG13 against SARS-CoV-2 across the whole genome.
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/jjackson-s-workshop/826486-covid-ncov-preliminary-thoughts-jjackson-personal-opinion
The second link looks at RaTG13 and other sequences and has many links to more details.
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/824873-discussion-2019-ncov-genetics
Fred
The gain of function moratorium was due to Fouchier and Kawaoka’s ferret experiment with H7N9 influenza.
EO
What were the old WHO guidelines? I have been following their output and they have been banging the ‘Test, contact trace and isolate’ drum for as long as I can remember.
JJackson,
That’s a nice official way of saying the ban on doing those in the US was by the Obama administration because of repeated lab containment failures. Apparently NIH under Fauci found a way to circumvent that restriction in US by using a Chinese lab. Similar curcumventions of prohibited behavior happened before, Iran-Contral comes to mind. It happens in business all the time, it’s called fraud and usually just involves embezzeling money and not creating a global pandemic that kills thousands.
PARTISAN HYPOCRITES, get over it and get f-ing real and stop with the gaslighting — I’m so sick of hearing and reading that the POTUS has been negligent, incompetent and has blood on his hands, when PARTISANS irrationally CONTINUE TO PUSH BACK on policies and/or treatments that can be of help, simply because they’re mentioned or endorsed by Trump. His administration has been damned good if not 100% perfect (which would be impossible in handling something of this nature) when it comes to COVID-19.
OFF TOPIC: Larry, we could use an update on the Honey Badger’s tremendous progress on the Flynn case. Yowza, heads should roll but I won’t hold my breath. Still, I’m guessing there’s at least a chance the general may be able to become financially whole again in civil proceedings. And I suppose, in lieu of incarceration, maybe it would be a sweeter justice if the malefactors were dragged through court and rendered bankrupt.
BillWade,
“The Chinese that visit SE Asian countries during Chinese New Years are not the most sophisticated types. ”
Thanks for the cultural anthopology lesson. Remind me again what “Asymptomatic Transmission”. Never mind, here you go:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2009758
I wonder if that happens in a crowded airport by people leaving Wuhan province and only traveling regionally. In additon to others flying to Italy, or elsewhere, and then flying to the US or asymptomaticly transmitting it to those who do. As to your other point, good luck getting the folks in Asia to listen to a retiree in Florida bemoan overdevelopment due to out of towners with money.
Yeah, Right,
“I was in Vietnam in the 2nd week of Match”
Looks like you got in just in time to avoid the ban. Imagine that. Did they accept your health declaration or was it diplomatic travel?
http://news.chinhphu.vn/Home/Health-declaration-MANDATORY-for-all-incoming-travelers/20203/39072.vgp
Nice info in their on the escalation of the virus in Vietnam, including numbers affected, which don’t happen to match yours. Of course “Vietnamese-to-Vietnamese transmission” won’t happen if you blame it all on the foreigners.
http://news.chinhphu.vn/Home/Govt-chief-warns-of-risk-of-COVID19-spread-to-communities-due-to-influx-of-travelers/20203/39310.vgp
More.
http://news.chinhphu.vn/Home/VN-HALTS-entry-to-all-foreigners-due-to-COVID19/20203/39326.vgp
I thought you got banned, though not for being a communist propagandist. Thanks for the police state advice. The pro-communist left here in the US agrees with you on media tracking – though they are especially concerned about those expressing ideas about liberty, freedom, and such things they don’t have so much of in Vietnam, though they still have some of in Sydney. Enjoy it while it lasts.
JJackson I suspect walrus’ info is from here:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/wuhan-coronavirus-created-in-australian-lab-outside-of-china/11906390
Note that this involved cloning the virus, not “identifying its type”.
Australia did not have its first case of covid-19 until January 25, and the Peter Doherty Institute were culturing it by January 29 at the latest, which is a very noteworthy achievement indeed.
But that can’t be claimed as “identifying its type” since the Chinese had already released online the entire DNA sequence by January 12
Eric Newhill “Dies of cancer in hospice, but tested positive? Covid death.”
Untrue. AFAIK every country follows the WHO recommendation for categorizing Covid-19 deaths.
It is this: A COVID-19 death is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to COVID disease (e.g., trauma). There should be no period of complete recovery between the illness and death.
Your example: “Dies of cancer in hospice, but tested positive?”
Cancer is not a “clinically compatible illness”, and most definitely is an “alternative cause of death”.
Honestly, Eric, it is not OK to simply make stuff up.
Interesting article by Vijay Prashad discussing the length of time it took WHO to announce a pandemic
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/04/29/why-did-the-world-health-organization-wait-until-march-to-declare-a-global-pandemic/
The part that is especially relevant to this thread related to air traffic. This part in particular:
“The North American and European states, in particular, insisted that the declaration of a PHEIC or global pandemic only be made after it was clear that air travel and trade would not be unduly interrupted. This restriction, essentially the core foundations of globalization, has constrained the WHO since 2005.”
Make of it what you will, but that is food for thought, and the article as a whole seems credible to me.
Mr Jackson –
I’ve taken current best practice as that laid out here –
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
But it’s the history we’re looking at here and on that I’d welcome correction if I’ve set it out wrong in my initial comment to Mr Johnson above.
Here’s the story from way back, summarised by Dr North. Dr North is the infection control expert referred to above who has been looking into the background to HMG’s planning for this crisis. My bracketed insert –
“However, I am tending to the view that the first mistake (in the UK handling of this pandemic) in a fatal cascade started with the promulgation by the World Health Organisation of the 2005 International Health Regulations.
“It was these which, for the first time, specifically listed pandemic influenza and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) as potential “events of international public health concern”. This formal status required member nations to “develop, strengthen and maintain… the capacity to detect, assess, notify and report” these diseases, and then to the develop “the capacity to respond promptly and effectively to [the] public health risks”.
“This led to the rash of the preparedness plans produced by members, including the UK, then under the Blair government, supposedly based on WHO guidelines. Where it all went wrong, in my view, is that members were allowed to produce influenza plans and use them as the template for dealing with SARS which, as it now transpires, demands a very different approach.
“To that extent, we might have the right plan – for influenza – but it is being used to fight the wrong disease. Covid-19 is not influenza – it is a SARS. And as we record 47,806 cases and 4,934 dead, that represents the true failure, and why we are now having to embark on costly lockdowns.”
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87569
The “were allowed” indicates a failure on the part of WHO. But this not –
“At the heart of the government’s current difficulties is this core error, repeated not once but many times. It was missed by a succession of experts, the civil servants and politicians, none of whom thought to refer back to the original WHO regulations which categorised SARS separately from influenza.”
http://www.eureferendum.com/results.aspx?keyword=World%20Health%20Organisation
The disaster not helped in the European case by this –
“There were plenty of other mistakes, not least the EU’s European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reporting on 14 February (by which time the UK had reported nine cases) that, “the risk associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection for the EU/EEA and UK population is currently low”.”
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87569
So the reaction was generally slow and in any case the plans were for the wrong sort of pandemic. It’s a point repeated here –
” .. my main findings are that many of the problems encountered by the government stem from its failure to prepare for a SARS epidemic, instead relying on a pandemic influenza plan which, in the event, has proved dangerously inappropriate for dealing with the Covid-19 outbreaks.”
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87593#disqus_thread
That, as accurately as I can summarise it, is the planning history for the UK. In the case of the US, am I right in harking back to Dr Fauci’s earlier comments and seeing in those earlier comments the same “dangerously inappropriate” approach to this pandemic?
The German case is perhaps different. It looks as if they are prepared to make do with mitigation but are doing that so thoroughly that they could in fact be going for suppression. Either way they’re showing the rest of us in Europe up and even if their efforts in the end aren’t effective they’ll have had a damn good try.
Where I think WHO itself went incontestably wrong is in the point picked up by TTG above. Travel bans, or rigorous quarantining of travellers from areas where the infection is present. Also possible that WHO was not fast enough in alerting the West that this disease had some especially dangerous transmission features.
All that is a layman’s summary based on what I’ve read from various experts so far: planning for this disease was a shambles in the UK and in some other Western countries. That planning background accounts for the initial uncertain handling of the crisis in many countries.
As far as is possible to determine at this early stage, does that summary hold good in the light of your closer knowledge?
Intelligence agencies are only as good as the people they report to…if no one is listening or reading or paying attention…stuff happens. Given our current situation, I’m not sure it matters when or who or how the virus started because no one was home when the information was shared. And, yes, the impeachment was going on at the same time but that is an excuse not a reason.
Sidney Caesar: How does the following report fit into your historical revisionist anti-Trump agenda, when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in full public view tore up President Trump’s State of the Union speech declaring his entire address to the Nation to be a “manifesto of untruths”.
From Daily Wire: “On February 4, President Trump delivered his State of the Union Address, during which he addressed the threat to America from the coronavirus, asserting, “Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.”
I am not an intelligence expert; I am a mere ex-public school teacher. All I can do is base my opinion on my understanding of human nature, an understanding based on a career of more than several decades of dealing with all forms of human behavior.
Here is my feeling, based on that experience:
I do remember all the arguments that sided with China claiming that the spread to the U.S. was not deliberate. But I do not remember arguments explaining their efforts to stop the spread to the U.S. That does not mean they deliberately spread the virus to the U.S. It does mean they didn’t seem to care enough to try harder to stop the spread.
In addition, I remember their rushing to Italy as it was one of the first countries to be greatly overwhelmed by the spread of the virus. They rushed in with all sorts of help for Italy immediately as a show for their “great and sincere remorse for their “mistake. (though it also seemed to be an effort to show that the mean Americans were blaming them for a mistake they had no control over.
I remember a young girl who used to fall constantly while attempting to do some maneuvers on the rink. She always claimed afterwards that she meant to fall, that her falling was not a mistake.
So, was the spread to the U.S. a simple mistake on China’s part? Or was the spread to our country a mistake that they meant to make, as that little girl always claimed her mistakes were deliberately made? Or was it a mistake that they simply weren’t that contrite about since we had the audacity to cut off travel from China?
Who cares what answer you decide is correct. China was incompetent and was experimenting with things they should have been far more careful about but doing so without any sort of concern for mere individual humans, as every communist dictatorship does not care for its Useful idiots?
Fred,laughing here, you really like splitting hairs don’t you? so, laughing again I’ll get even: it’s anthropology.
No, it won’t be me “getting the folks in Asia to listen to a retiree in Florida bemoan overdevelopment due to out of towners with money.” It will be President Trump when he makes the CCP pay the price, other countries will follow suit.
All
I favor the idea of seizing their assets in the US as we did with the Iranians. Tesla, McDonalds, etc. would be exposed in China but a lot of that is owned by local franchises and Musk could absorb the loss all by himself.
Col.,
Sounds like a great idea.
Who is English Outsider? He or she deserves a regular column.
R. Zarate
Not a bad idea. EO, are you interested in being a guest author? The deal is that you write when you please about what you please unless I think it does not deserve to be on SST.
“Looks like you got in just in time to avoid the ban. Imagine that.”
I was a long-planned vacation, Fred. Saigon, Hanoi, Da Nang, but none of the more interesting tourist places as they were all shut before we got to them.
“Did they accept your health declaration or was it diplomatic travel?”
They accepted out health declaration, took our temperature, and let us through.
“Of course “Vietnamese-to-Vietnamese transmission” won’t happen if you blame it all on the foreigners.”
I got into the habit while we were there of reading this enewspaper ever morning:
https://baodanang.vn/english/
Every case was discussed. Every “track back” was explained, sometimes in quite amusing detail; the shop where an interaction took plan would be named, which can’t be good for business.
There did not appear to be any attempt to deceive or obfuscate, and one news report is my all-time-favourite: Corona Music Video Goes Viral!
“I thought you got banned, though not for being a communist propagandist. Thanks for the police state advice.”
*sigh*
You may want to sit down for this, because I suspect it will come as a shock: there will be times when people do not agree with you because your facts are wrong. Nothing more. No less.
Nothing ideological.
Nothing personal.
Nothing to do with opinion or employment.
They’ll simply think your facts are wrong, and shouldn’t be allowed to stand without challenge.
Weird, heh?
Yeah right,
I’m afraid you are wrong, again. Do you think that just because the CDC published somewhat vague guidelines that everyone is going to follow the spirit of the guidelines (whatever that might be)? Especially with so much possible funding for “hard hit” cities and hospitals and opportunity for advancement of political goals floating around?
My career for the past 20 years – pathetic as it may be – involves analyzing healthcare insurance data; currently associated with 10s of millions of people. We have DB2 and Oracle warehouses full of all kinds of data and we have powerful analytical tools to go into those warehouses. We create clinical and demographic profiles of members (patients), profiles of practice patterns of providers (doctors, hospitals), study cost drivers, treatment efficacy, etc, etc, etc.
On claims forms there are data like place of service (where it happened), diagnoses, provider IDs, procedures, drug codes and so on and so forth. With data we can see that people were discharged to nursing homes with a covid diagnosis. We can see what their chronic conditions are. We see their age and medical history. We can see who died based on a few data elements, but especially discharge codes denoting the patient died.
I am telling you that people are being admitted to hospitals having a heart attack, testing positive for covid, dying shortly thereafter and the death being attributed to covid. I see patterns of elderly people being diagnosed with covid and then being discharged to nursing homes/skilled nursing facilities. I know which facilities and where they are. I can see that people with serious conditions are unable to visit their doctor.
We also have case management outreach wherein nurses talk to members – and complaint lines that are inundated with complaints about not being to see a doctor.
Can you imagine a 12 year old with “stomach pain” being told to just rest and stay warm, drink water and use a mild laxative and her mother desperately saying that it’s not just constipation and that she needs to go to a doctor, but the doctor isn’t seeing patients? Can you imagine it turning out that the girl is actually experiencing appendicitis and is at risk for death? Can you imagine how many people are going through similar potentially life threatening situations? Do you think that number might equal or exceed the number allegedly killed by the virus? What do you think an emergency room looks like right now (hint; it’s not that way because of covid, but because the doctors have closed their practices during the panic/shutdown of society and the ER is the only place where there is a chance of receiving medical help).
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
JJackson,
My information came from a private briefing at a private institution which I reported to SST on 6th March. I didn’t take notes. To paraphrase what I was told , part of a University here includes a sentinel Lab associated with the WHO. They specialize in detecting “new” types of virus if that makes sense rather than specializing on particular virus groups like most. I don’t know the technical details but WHO called them 2 January and they identified the virus as a member of the coronavirus family. That information went to a group in holland, rotterdam I think, that specializes in corona virii. They identified it as a new unseen before, type.
This all happened between 2 – 5 January.. I may be in error by a day or two but that is the gist of it. My post on 6 March contains all I knew at the time and was written same day as the briefing.
Fred – Firstly an apology I wrote H7N9 and it should read H5N1.
That is not what happened you are making stuff up to fit your narrative. It was nothing to do with lab escapes. In the unlikely event you actually want to know what happened the following is a brief overview and a much more detailed account can be found at the link. Fouchier was working in the Netherlands and Kawaoka in the US and their experiment had some funding from the NIH which allowed the NSABB (a US gov. body tasked with looking at dual use biology research) to get involved. The results of their work were to be published in Nature but the NSABB tried to force them to edit out the sequence data from their paper because they thought it could be useful to someone trying to make a weaponised flu. A long battle ensued splitting the virological, and wider scientific community, and was basically about the US government trying to censor scientific publications. The result was a temporary holding of the paper while the community agreed to a broader review of what should, and should not, be published. While this was going on there was a moratorium on all gain of function research which had any US government funding. In the end the NSABB decided to lift the moratorium and the paper was published in full. I was against the censorship as the sequence data was not dangerous but was potentially very useful in looking at the changes in wild bird sequences to predict the likelihood of a flu pandemic much like the COVID problem we are dealing with now. (My reasoning is in post #139)
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/118157-man-made-h5n1-super-version
EO
The problem of the pandemic plans goes back to 2005 at which time H5N1 avian flu was causing sporadic outbreaks in humans and was killing about half of them. The 1918 H1N1 had a CFR of about 2% and this seemed to have one nearer 50% which caused everyone to sit up and take notice. Every country was busily creating pandemic preparedness plans including the UK. The UK plan at the time did not even begin to address a 50% CFR pandemic but worked on 3 scenarios the most severe of which was based on 1918. As no flu pandemic ensued, although H5N1 is still circulating and has now been joined by H7N9 (also ~50% CFR) and many other variants, it got stuck in a draw and largely ignored. The fact that it was based on flu is in fact a good thing because SARS-2 is also a respiratory pathogen with very similar transmission dynamics, droplets & fomites, so the planning would be applicable to both. The plan was however flawed for two main reasons 1] It made no attempt to plan for a severe pandemic, despite H5N1 being the reason for its creation. 2] Although flu was, and still is, the greatest danger for a pandemic it did not account for a new disease with a different transmission method (food/water borne or contact like norovirus). As with everything else the biggest problem is our inability to stick with it, the danger does not change and we are in greater danger from a high path flu pandemic today than were in 2005 but human attention span is very short term relative to the evolutionary time scale of even the most rapidly mutating RNA virus.
Re The IHR(2005). This was badly needed update of the 1969 IHR and one of its major features was a change from an enumerated threats list to a flow chart in Annex 2 (linked to from post #1 below) which could cope with any kind of zoonotic pathogen. I had major problems with the IHR(2005) but these related to limited powers given to the WHO by the nation states which hobbled the Director Generals ability to act.
The link is to a post of mine written just after the IHRs publication (post #1) and further down the page (post #12) you will find a simplified version of relevant sections of the IHR I wrote for the West African Ebola outbreak when they again became a factor.
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/jjackson-s-workshop/32603-on-the-role-of-who-ihr-2005-reveres-posts
English Outsider, interesting link here that may be relevant to some of the things you discussed, and more generally in this thread:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK368395/
Some quotes:
“Because of the critical consequences of delayed or non-reporting, WHO CHEPR should create a mechanism to hold accountable countries that try to suppress or delay reporting. Countries that share information quickly should be lauded and supported”
That might explain the effusive praise from the WHO for China’s efforts. Not so much “captive” as it is “following protocol”.
“Similarly, the CHEPR should create protocols to dissuade member states and the private sector from implementing unnecessary restrictions on trade and travel.”
Obviously of relevance here to the accusation that China was irresponsible for letting infected individuals fly around the globe.
“To prevent travel bans, relevant stakeholders, such as the International Air Transport Association and the World Trade Organization, should be engaged prior to the next outbreak.”
This might well be one of the reasons that the WHO took into account before declaring a pandemic.
These are all recommendations, as far as I can tell, and I have no idea if they were formally adopted. But they do indicate the Western “mindset” as late as 2016, and are an eerie predictor of what actually went down Jan – Feb 2020
Jjackson,
My initial source was the MSM, I am not surprised if their reports at the time or now are in error or “made up” to fit a narrative. It is beside the point as the Chinese lab leak and their government’s response is the root causation of the deaths and economic destruction. There are also official records.
Obama Whitehouse records from 2014.
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/10/17/doing-diligence-assess-risks-and-benefits-life-sciences-gain-function-research
https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2018/01/nih-lifts-ban-on-dangerous-pathogen-research/
You had problems with the WHO because the nation states only grant limited powers to it? Thank God for that. The UN is not a global government, nor is the WHO particularly trustworthy related to its executive leadership’s conduct at this time.
walrus
What do you think? Is “yeah, right” a Chinese agent of influence?
Eric Newhill: “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
And you have just spent 6 paragraphs making evidence-free claims.
“I am telling you that people are being admitted to hospitals having a heart attack, testing positive for covid, dying shortly thereafter and the death being attributed to covid.”
Look, Eric, you are making a claim that you can not substantiate.
I have spelt out the WHO guidelines. I have pointed out that every country on Earth has adopted those guidelines. And I am quite correct to point out that the question you posed:
“Dies of cancer in hospice, but tested positive? Covid death.”
is incorrect.
Feel free to point out that some people fill in the forms incorrectly. I’m sure they do, for any number of reasons.
But don’t pretend that this anything other than that.
JJackson: ” I had major problems with the IHR(2005) but these related to limited powers given to the WHO by the nation states which hobbled the Director Generals ability to act.”
Fred: “Thank God for that. The UN is not a global government, nor is the WHO particularly trustworthy related to its executive leadership’s conduct at this time.”
There are serious cases of “having your cake and eating it too” in some of these threads.
Critics who will castigate the WHO for not acting soon enough, or forcefully enough.
Those same critics will then state – without a hint of irony – that It’s A Damn Good Thing that nation states have hobbled the WHO, and no mistake.
walrus, you can always ask me.
But for what it is worth, if Pat Lang answers your question with a “yes” then he is making an error in judgement.
Up to you if you want to believe it or not but, so sorry, I am the only person who is in a position to answer authoritatively, and the answer is “no”.
yeah right
I asked him the question, not the other way round.
yeah wrong,
Do you habitually call people liars, or is it only on the internet and not to their face?
Walrus, I went back and re-read your original article from Mar 6.
One thing struck me was this: “On or about 10th January the researchers in Australia and elsewhere concluded it was a new virus.”
I then went back to your post in another article where you pointed JJackson to this news report:
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-of-the-coronavirus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-in-china
There seems to be some very serious discrepancies between what you were briefed and what that newspaper was reporting.
In particular:
“As early as Dec 27, a Guangzhou-based genomics company had sequenced most of the virus from fluid samples from the lung of a 65-year old deliveryman”
“On Dec 27, the lab worked had sequenced most of the virus’ genome and had confirmed it was a coronavirus similar to the Sars virus, the article said.”
“Industry leader BGI received a sample from a Wuhan hospital on Dec 26. Sequencing was completed by Dec 29, and showed while it was not the virus that causes Sars, it was a previously unseen coronavirus that was about 80 per cent similar to it.”
Colonel, you can simply go back and see the history of my posts on this site. It goes back many years and it covers many topics, irrespective of how often you have disagreed with me – which is very often.
For me to be a Chinese agent of influence would require me to have a prescience that I would, indeed, love to possess.
But, alas….
“I asked him the question, not the other way round.”
Ah, so you did. My apologies to you both.
Yeah, right
You are a controlled agent with guidance.
There are a few comments suggesting the president was slow to respond to the pandemic and he failed to heed warnings from intelligence briefings. That Trump failed to take the virus seriously. These are sentiments broadly shared within the press.
The president has been sabotaged at every turn. Can we blame him for believing this was yet another hoax? That he was being baited to like a fascist by shutting down the country, hurtling the economy (his strong point) towards a recession? Can we blame him for distrusting the intelligence community, which took seriously claims he paid prostitutes to pee on a bed, and was responsible for spying on his campaign?
That isn’t to say the president isn’t completely excused for some of his less than competent moments (and let’s face it, considering some of his whoopers, I’m putting it very mildly), but the failures we are now seeing is the result of a broken political process, not the failings of one man alone.
There’s a valid question of whether or not China, a country intent on overtaking the US status as the world’s sole eminent power, may have deliberately set about sabotaging the US and West as a whole. We don’t see any other country in the world going to the same lengths as China to conceal their number of dead. This is a country run by billionaires who spout Marxist nonsense (and unlike the billionaires in the West, these ones don’t pretend they’re not Marxists). We can’t afford to put our worst suspicions past them, not when the US starts to air suspicions and China’s first response is to secretly test nukes.
Col. Lang,
Too polite and unquestioning of me to be genuine. I left a few loose ends that most Aussies would chew on and they weren’t picked up.
Colonel! Have now been fully reconnected to SST.
It’s a shameful story. For weeks I’ve been thinking Typepad had lost it. Comments there one day were gone the next. Some never appeared at all. I had devised an ingenious way of getting to the lost comments via “recent comments” but that only worked as long as those “recent comments” remained current.
This morning I was cursing away as I tried various ways of reconstructing the comment section, and an infant wandered past. “Try pressing those two little arrows” he said. I did.
Now I have full access to your magnificent blog again. But I didn’t quite like the pitying tone in which the infant uttered those words.
It is in fact a unique site and you are doing us all a great favour by running it. If I find I have anything relevant to contribute to it I most certainly will.
Posted by: English Outsider |
The following is the WHO official timeline as given by Dr. Tedros on 29th of April (I have edit it slightly to remove asides) the full video can be found here https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
“Today I would like to take a few moments to look back at
the period preceding that announcement to be clear about what WHO knew and what we did,
which could help the country to understand the three months.
On 31st December WHO’s epidemic intelligence system picked up a report about a cluster of
cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China. The following day, New Year’s
Day, WHO asked China for more information under the International Health Regulations and
activated our incident management support team to co-ordinate the response across
headquarters and our regional and country offices.
On 2nd January WHO informed the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network or
GOARN, which includes more than 260 institutions in more than 70 countries.
On 3rd January China provided information to WHO through a face-to-face meeting in
Beijing and through WHO’s event information system, established under the International
Health Regulations. On 4th January WHO reported the cluster of cases on Twitter. At that
stage no deaths were reported.
On 5th January WHO shared detailed technical information through its event information
system. This included advice to all member states and IHR contact points to take precautions
to reduce the risk of acute respiratory infections, providing guidance on the basis that there
could be human-to-human transmission.
On the same day WHO also issued its first public disease outbreak news, publishing technical
information for the scientific and public health communities as well as the world’s media. On
10th and 11th January WHO published a comprehensive package of guidance on how to
detect, test for and manage cases and protect health workers from potential human-to-human
transmission based on our previous experience with coronaviruses.
We also published a readiness checklist to help countries assess their capacities and gaps for
detection and response. Because Wuhan is a major domestic and international transport hub
WHO also advised that the risk of cases being reported from outside Wuhan was increased.
On 11th January China shared the genetic sequence of the virus for countries to use in
developing testing kits.
On the same day China reported the first death from the new coronavirus. On 13th January the
first case was reported outside China, in Thailand. That day, working with partners, WHO
published the first instructions for how to make PCR-based diagnostic test kits, enabling the
world to find cases. I would like to use this opportunity to thank Germany.
On 14th January WHO tweeted reports from China that preliminary investigations by Chinese
authorities had found no clear evidence that human-to-human transmission was occurring.
This is in line with our practice of reporting to the world information that countries report to
us. We post countries’ reports, as is.
However earlier the same day WHO held a press briefing at which we said that based on our
past experience with coronaviruses human-to-human transmission was likely. Our senior
experts participated in that press conference and that news was carried by mainstream media.
On 20th and 21st January WHO staff visited Wuhan and on 22nd reported that the evidence
suggested human-to-human transmission was occurring. On 22nd and 23rd January I convened
the Emergency Committee, consisting of 15 independent experts from around the world. At
the time 581 cases had been reported and only ten cases outside China. The emergency
Committee was divided in its opinion and did not advise that I declare a Public Health
Emergency of International Concern.
The Committee asked to reconvene in ten days or less to allow time for more information and
evidence to be collected and considered. On 27th January I travelled to Beijing with WHO’s
chief of emergencies, Dr Mike Ryan, and other senior WHO staff and met with President Xi
Jinping and other leaders to learn more about the response and offer WHO’s assistance.
We discussed the seriousness of the situation and agreed that an international team of
scientists should travel to China to look into the outbreak and the response, including experts
from China, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Nigeria, the Russian Federation,
Singapore and the United States of America.
On 30th January I reconvened the Emergency Committee and after receiving their advice –
because of the new information they gathered they had a consensus – I declared a global
Public Health Emergency, WHO’s highest level of alarm. At the time, as you may remember,
there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths outside China. To be specific, we had 82 cases
outside China and no deaths when we declared the highest level of global emergency.”
The WHO’s legal authority is wholly based on the IHR(2005) http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/246107/1/9789241580496-eng.pdf?ua=1
The link is to version 3, but my posts linked to above will have been on ver. 1 & 2 which were current when they were written. It is a legal document & 75 pages which is why I wrote a ‘Cliff notes’ summary of the most pertinent section here https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/jjackson-s-workshop/32603-on-the-role-of-who-ihr-2005-reveres-posts?p=630472#post630472
Fred
If you read my linked post you would see that the limited powers given to the WHO are why they cannot investigate what is going on in China, or any other country with a disease outbreak, except by the invitation of that country. They are not even allowed to share what they are told by a state under the IHR reporting terms with any other country if it is contained within that states boarders. All cooperation between states and the WHO is basically voluntary with the exception of those outbreaks that meet the IHR Annex 2 criteria.
Also you are still working under the unfounded assumption that SARS-2 if a lab escape. As Harlan points out it is not theoretically impossible but is however wrong but I do not know how to explain why to anyone who does not have years of experience looking at viral sequence mutations.
Walrus thanks
Firstly I think your post on the 6th was excellent for someone who, by their own admission, had no background in this area but I will now pick it apart in a little more detail to try and explain where I think the confusion may have occurred.
“The timeline of the discovery of Covid -19 was detailed. I can’t remember all the dates but more about that later. The alarm was raised by a Chinese doctor in Wuhan reporting via Promed (the infectious disease bulletin board) of some 50 “anomalous pneumonia” cases clustered in the Wuhan wet market (fish and edible animals) on or about December 31. The World Health Organisation (WHO) was notified the same day. It is understood that known causes (SARS, etc.) had been ruled out. The “index case” was reportedly identified on December 1.
Samples were obtained from China in the first few days of January by an Australian laboratory specializing in identification of new virii (note: this would have required the negotiation of a materials transfer agreement to protect future access to IP, etc.) Tests in China and perhaps elsewhere failed to identify the virus but the Australian lab had developed wide spectrum specialised tests and identified it as a Coronavirus. Further testing was done by a world expert on SARS and others WHO couldn’t identify it as an existing type. On or about 10th January the researchers in Australia and elsewhere concluded it was a new virus.”
I commented at the time.
“The first sequence (WH01) was created in China but up loaded to virologica by an Australian colleague who had an account there at their request, not that that matters.”
The bit in bold I think may not be quite correct. I was notified on the 11th of Jan by a German colleague that the first sequence had been up loaded as a FASTA file to the virological.org site and I downloaded a copy on the 12th. FASTA files are just text file list of about 30,000 ACG & Ts that make up the nucleotide sequence of the virus along with a short text header. I checked my FASTA today and the dates on it show 11 January 2020, 00:35:07 and 12 January 2020, 02:29:09 the download on the 12th will be UK time but the 11th time was probably Australian. The header information reads “>WH-Human_1|China|2019-Dec” and Eddie’s comment 10th January 2020
“edward_holmes
6
Jan 11
10th January 2020
This posting is communicated by Edward C. Holmes, University of Sydney on behalf of the consortium led by Professor Yong-Zhen Zhang, Fudan University, Shanghai
The Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center & School of Public Health, in collaboration with the Central Hospital of Wuhan, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control, and the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia is releasing a coronavirus genome from a case of a respiratory disease from the Wuhan outbreak. The sequence has also been deposited on GenBank (accession MN908947 20.2k) and will be released as soon as possible.
Update: This genome is now available on GenBank and an updated version has been posted 20.2k.
Disclaimer:
Please feel free to download, share, use, and analyze this data. We ask that you communicate with us if you wish to publish results that use these data in a journal. If you have any other questions –then please also contact us directly.
Professor Yong-Zhen Zhang,
Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center & School of Public Health,
Fudan University,
Shanghai, China.
email: zhangyongzhen@shphc.org.cn
The file I have is no longer there but the linked genbank file has an updated header which includes Eddie as a co author.
“AUTHORS Wu,F., Zhao,S., Yu,B., Chen,Y.M., Wang,W., Song,Z.G., Hu,Y.,
Tao,Z.W., Tian,J.H., Pei,Y.Y., Yuan,M.L., Zhang,Y.L., Dai,F.H.,
Liu,Y., Wang,Q.M., Zheng,J.J., Xu,L., Holmes,E.C. and Zhang,Y.Z.
”
The original notification of a problem was from the Wuhan site which was picked up by Promed, Flutrackers and the Taiwan CDC plus many others. I do not think Eddie, or anyone else, outside China physically had live virus until much later as moving dangerous pathogens across international borders without a ton of red tape is not possible (unless you smuggle it out in your socks). Eddie’s lab will have been working on the sequence data in that FASTA which when you BLAST it through the GISAID or Genbank databases brings up the closest existing matches which I, and they will have done. The closest match at that time came back as bat and pangolin sequences with about 90% homology, i.e. about 3000 of the 30,000 neucleotides were different to anything else in the sequence databases. This shows that is very different to SARS-1 (which is even further removed) but a new strain of beta corona virus whose primary genetic reservoir lies in bats.
The Straits Times article makes little sense and does not fit in with any timeline I have seen anywhere else and is probably just wrong.
One of our internal studies has been published. Confirms what I said above, despite yeah right’s criticism.
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/cigna-patients-deferring-care-for-acute-needs-like-appendicitis-heart-conditions
JJackson,
Thank you for your comprehensive timeline. I defer to you as I am not a scientist and didn’t take notes on 6 March. I hope you will continue to enlighten us here at SST.
Jjackson,
You can’t explain to anyone without years of virology research experience how leaks from labs just can’t happen. That’s rich sir. This deplorable with separate but equal rights salutes the noble ” we’re all in this together, comrades” expertise. Good luck, I suggest you start advising Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, she needs all the help she can get.
Eric it says nothing of the sort.
Colonel, ban me if you will, but blatant untruths from Eric should not be allowed to stand unchallenged.
JJackson (01 May 2020 at 08:15 AM),
I can’t say enough how I’d appreciate this post by JJackson. Like Walrus, I hope to continue reading JJackson posts here in this forum.
I think we should consider facts, not the Deep State’s propaganda. Perhaps it’s time to reread Colonel Lang’s “Drinking the Kool-Laid” article.
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/drinking-the-kool-aid.htm
For what it’s worth I second TonyL’s post.
I have more that a passing knowledge of research into respiratory illness, but JJackson’s posts on virus research are on an altogether different level.
yeah right,
You said my entire comment was unsubstantiated. Part of the comment was about about people with acute and chronic conditions becoming very ill or dying because the virus panic caused doctors to close their offices. In the original comment I mentioned a girl dying because her appendicitis was undiagnosed. The article spoke to exactly that issue – not the girl specifically, but that appendicitis is not being treated. If appendicitis is not diagnosed and treated, you die. So that substantiates part of what I said in the paragraphs of my comment – which you said were completely unsubstantiated
I also said that deaths due to other conditions are being attributed to covid if the deceased tested positive. That was also part of the study, but was not included in the publication. How do I know that? I’m not going to tell a socialist agent like you. Does B at MoA pay you? Or are you connected to his handlers?
Eric Newhill: “Confirms what I said above, despite yeah right’s criticism.”
Despite. Yeah. Right’s. Criticism.
The only point of criticism I made regarding your earlier post was your claim that…
Eric Newhill “Dies of cancer in hospice, but tested positive? Covid death.”
That’s what I criticized, nothing else, so if you want to rebut *my* criticism then you have to address *my* criticism.
The article that you referred to does nothing – absolutely nothing – to confirm the claim that I criticized.
Eric Newhill: “You said my entire comment was unsubstantiated.”
I said nothing of the sort.
You wrote a blatant untruth when you wrote “Confirms what I said above, despite yeah right’s criticism.” and I was being perfectly reasonable to complain to Pat Lang about it.
Honestly, Eric, it is not OK to just make stuff up. It is even worse to verbal someone.
Yeah Right,
Ok. Here’s a link that says what I’m saying about misattribution of cause of death and the incentives to do so.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/hospitals-getting-paid-more-label-cause-death-coronavirus/5709720
You impress me as someone who has little real life experience, but imagines him (her?)self to be very knowledgeable in all matters. Imagination is not a substitute for experience. Google is not the equivalent of knowledge.
Of course you’re probably not even seriously discussing because that is not your mission.
Eric Hewhill, I listened to that interview from beginning to end, and I note that the Senator is not actually backing up your claim.
Your example was: “Dies of cancer in hospice, but tested positive? Covid death.”
His was: Someone is hit by a truck and dies of a collapsed lung but blood-work tests positive for Covid-19.
Nowhere does he argue that the guideline would force him to write “Covid-19 death” as the cause of death, rather, he objects to noting anywhere in the death certificate that the patient tested positive “Covid-19”.
He wants to leave it off altogether.
Quite why is not something that he explains, even though the interviewer (who is excellent) gives him multiple opportunities to do so.
The CDC guidelines are here:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf
This is the money-shot:
“If COVID–19 played a role in the death, this condition should
be specified on the death certificate. In many cases, it is
likely that it will be the UCOD, as it can lead to various lifethreatening conditions, such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In these cases, COVID–19 should be reported on the lowest line used in Part I with the other conditions to which it gave rise listed on the lines above it.”
Now, back to the two examples:
Dies of Cancer?
Then the CDC guideline does NOT require “Covid-19” to be listed as the cause of death, precisely because Covid-19 did NOT “play a role” in that death.
Hit by a Truck?
ditto.
That’s what the CDC guidelines say, so that’s what it means.
Now, if you want to argue that massive fraud and rorting goes on in the USA Health System then go ahead, be my guest. I’m sure it does.
Or if you want to argue that there are health professionals in the USA who are less than professional then, again, be my guest. If you do then list Senator Scott Jensen among them.
But don’t blame the CDC, and don’t blame Covid-19 either.