Replacing the tags

From the Babylon Bee:
BEIJING—In a PR disaster for the Communist government of China, President Xi Jinping suddenly realized he forgot to take off the "Made in China" tags from all copies of the coronavirus his government shipped all over the world.

"Oh, shoot, I knew I forgot something," the totalitarian Communist president muttered as his scientists examined COVID-19 viruses under microscopes and realized every copy of the virus had the telltale tag attached. "All this time I've been trying to blame America for this thing and the evidence was right there."

"How embarrassing!" Luckily for the Communists, the American media immediately began calling anyone who pointed out the tags' existence a racist, buying the CCP some time to deal with the PR fiasco.

The CCP has issued a recall on the virus, asking everyone with copies of the novel Wuhan coronavirus to ship them back to mainland China so the tags can be replaced with new ones reading "Made by Evil Pig-Dog President Trump."

Release the records!

Steven Mosher writes in part in American Greatness,

...Without question, China for years has been doing research at its Wuhan biolabs that could be used to create coronaviruses harmful to humans. The researchers have left a clear paper trail.

In a 2008 article in the Journal of Virology, WIV researchers described how they were genetically engineering SARS-like viruses from horseshoe bats to enable them to use angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) to gain entry into human cells.

In other words, more than 10 years ago the Wuhan biolab was already creating entirely new and deadly viruses by inserting that part of the dangerous SARS virus that allows it to infect people into a second bat coronavirus, which was then able to attack human cells just like the Wuhan Flu virus does.

Then there is a 2013 article in Nature by some of the same WIV researchers entitled, “Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor.”

They conclude that “Chinese horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV, and that intermediate hosts may not be necessary for direct human infection by some bat SARS-like coronaviruses.”

...Now if either genetically engineered or naturally occurring coronaviruses capable of infecting people escaped from the Wuhan biolab, this could be the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

...Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and I are being hammered in mainstream media outlets for even suggesting that the Wuhan virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab. They have tried to “fact check” our concern to death by mischaracterizing it and by citing so-called experts.

A left-wing site called Health Feedback falsely accused me of suggesting that the virus was definitely a genetically engineered bioweapon. A Forbes columnist claimed that both Cotton and I had said it “was manufactured in a lab.” The Daily Mail wrote “Sen. Tom Cotton and American social Scientist Steven Mosher push this theory that the virus was manufactured.”

On and on it goes.

What Cotton and I actually said was that it may have escaped, in one way or another, from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

...To determine the actual origin of the pandemic we need only one thing. China must immediately release all of the coronavirus research records of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.

Once we have these records from China, it will be easy to do a comprehensive sequencing comparison of the Wuhan Flu virus, SARS-CoV-2, with all of the coronaviruses isolated, sequenced, and studied at these biolabs.

...In particular, we would want to take a very close look at how the Wuhan virus compares to all the human-ACE2-binding coronaviruses that these biolabs have created or collected. This is the feature that allows SARS-CoV-2 to invade the lungs, where it causes the pneumonia that is characteristic of COVID-19 illness.

If we find no matches in the research records, this will prove China’s innocence, at least in terms of the origin of the epidemic.

If there is a match, we will know not only that it escaped from the lab, but we will also learn from the research records whether it was in some way engineered.

Now, if the Beijing regime has nothing to hide, then it should be happy to authorize the release of the records that will clear its name. So should the Wuhan Institute of Virology, whose director recently said in an emotional interview that she swears on her very life that her Institute did not release the virus.

Fine. Then release the research records to prove it.

Because of the importance of finding out the truth, I believe that President Trump should both personally and publicly request Chinese President Xi Jinping to authorize the release of the research records.

If President Xi refuses, that should be taken as an admission of guilt on China’s part.

Then we will have one more reason to continue calling this “made in China” pandemic the Wuhan Flu. Or, if you prefer, the China virus.

Read more here.

Dusting off the Katrina playbook

In PJ Media, Ed Driscoll helps us remember how the Democrats used the Katrina hurricane to regain Congress and the presidency. Also, it might help us to re-watch the Manchurian Candidate to show us how we now have a Manchurian Media. Read more here.

Do the numbers justify the response?

Yesterday, in Ace of Spades Weird Dave wrote this and much more.

It's obviously a serious situation, but serious enough to justify throwing our economy into a blender (and then increasing our national debt by 10% in one stroke because “the economy is in a blender!” ) in a nation that murders 2500 babies a day in service of a woman's constitutional right to fuck her brains out as much as she wants without any chance of consequences? I'm having a real hard time seeing how the numbers justify the response, Jack, a real hard time, and it's starting to piss me off. I doubt I'm the only one.

Oh, and one other thing that I asked the other day and haven't really seen an answer to: Where are all the homeless deaths? If Wuhan Flu is as deadly as they say, why isn't it ravaging a population that, generally speaking, is less healthy, lives in less sanitary conditions, and has higher rates of drug addiction and mental health issues?

“The majority of viral infections come from prolonged exposures in confined spaces with other infected individuals.”

Roger Kimball writes in part in American Greatness,

...the biggest threat to mankind that the world has ever seen: the COVID-19 virus, also known as the Chinese flu, which to date has killed—are you ready—276 people in the United States, almost all of them over 80, almost all with serious co-morbidities.

Two-hundred-and-seventy-six people! And yes, that frightening number will rise. It will be 400, 500 before you know it. Maybe when all is said and done, we’ll see 1,000-1,200 identified who have died from complications that can be traced to this respiratory illness.

Meanwhile, somewhere between 22,000 and more than 50,000 people have died from the seasonal flu in the United States this year. Why is there no panic about that?

The Wuhan virus is a bad bug. But far more lethal than the “pandemic”—it sounds so much scarier to say “pandemic” than “epidemic,” even if the term is not justified—far more lethal, I say, are two other “P” words: panic and passivity.

Perhaps the single best overview of what I like to call Wuhanomania is a long post by Aaron Ginn called “Evidence over hysteria—COVID-19.”

...The panic, the hysteria, the mob mentality that has swept over the country is an amazing and disheartening thing to witness. Unfettered exhibitions of insanity are always disquieting. But even more alarming is the twofold dialectic operating in tandem with the panic. I mean the sheep-like passivity of the public, on the one hand, and the eager exercise, at every level, of state power on the other.

...Then why is your kid’s baseball practice canceled? Well, might you ask. Ginn quotes Dr. Paul Auwaerter, the clinical director for the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “If you have a COVID-19 patient in your household, your risk of developing the infection is about 10% . . . . If you were casually exposed to the virus in the workplace (e.g., you were not locked up in the conference room for six hours with someone who was infected [like a hospital]), your chance of infection is about 0.5%.”

How do you spell “negligible”?

...Here are some things that don’t work and militate against the Hippocratic oath, which applies in politics as much as in medicine:

Shuttering the local economy. This irritates and depresses people and shoves a drainage pump into local businesses, bankrupting them by the scores and hundreds. The evidence, Ginn points out, is “overwhelming” that airborne or “aerosol” transmission is “not a threat.” In more and more places, you can’t go out to eat, you can’t go to the gym but “We don’t have significant examples of spreading through restaurants or gyms.”

Hoarding. It’s silly. It’s counterproductive. It “demonstrates an irrational hysteria (stocking up on useless masks, trying to corner the market in toilet paper). But the hysteria, the fear, is ultimately being driven by governmental action, by fear of “what the government will do next.”

Read more here.

"we must not simply gloss over the truths this crisis has revealed."

In the Federalist, Ben Weingarten writes in part,

1. Communist China Is a Global Menace

This pandemic should represent the most tangible sign yet for all of America that we must decouple from communist China in every strategically significant sector. We cannot put our survival in the hands of a hostile adversary.

2. Coronavirus Starkly Illustrates Globalism’s Downsides

This pandemic spread as a result of human-to-human transmission beginning in a far-flung province in central China. As it metastasized, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations-based agency on which governments around the world rely, parroted the Chinese Communist Party’s chosen narratives, including that the Wuhan virus could not be passed from one human to another, and that it was “racist” to refer to the virus by its place of origin.

The chief praiser of China’s response, and propagator of its favored messages, was WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He won that position with Chinese backing and collaborated with China as Ethiopia’s health minister.

As the pandemic spread to the United States and criticism of the CCP grew, China again threatened to leverage its dominant position in the production of essential medical supplies to cut off Americans from vital equipment. It signaled that either we tow the CCP line or people will die.

3. We Must Establish Principles for Dealing with Crises
As a society, we must create some agreed-upon principles for dealing with a pandemic or analogous crisis. One of the most astounding aspects of the response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has been the willingness of our leaders to call for societal shutdown based on shoddy data and flawed source models. Those leaders have definitively damaged our economy, stretched the limits of constitutional governmental power, and threatened to inflame and endanger civil society by forcing people to comply with draconian lockdowns while releasing criminals into the streets and ceasing policing — all on the basis of hypotheticals.

4. The GOP Needs a Real Response for Democrats’ Games

5. We Need to Get Our Fiscal House in Order

It is paramount that the American people get healthy and that our country gets back to the business of business. But we must not simply gloss over the truths this crisis has revealed. Recognizing them and incorporating them into future policies will ensure the long-term vitality of our country.

Read more here.

"You could be spreading the coronavirus without realizing you have it!"

Graham Lawton reports in part in NewScientist,

You could be spreading the coronavirus without realizing you’ve got it

...For most people who do fall ill, symptoms are usually mild and develop slowly, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While many have heard that a cough, fever, shortness of breath and fatigue can be signs of covid-19, the condition’s symptoms can also include a runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, headache, muscle pain, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting.

...We know that coughs and sneezes spread the virus, so how is it possible for asymptomatic people to spread the infection?

People with mild or no symptoms can have a very high viral load in their upper respiratory tracts, meaning they can shed the virus through spitting, touching their mouths or noses and then a surface, or possibly talking. Even people who don’t feel ill occasionally cough or sneeze.

Once symptoms develop, a person’s viral load declines steadily, and they become increasingly less infectious. However, people appear to keep shedding the virus for around two weeks after they recover from covid-19, both in their saliva and stools (medRxiv, doi.org/dqbs). This means that even once a person’s symptoms have cleared, it may still be possible to infect other people.

...Once symptoms develop, a person’s viral load declines steadily, and they become increasingly less infectious. However, people appear to keep shedding the virus for around two weeks after they recover from covid-19, both in their saliva and stools (medRxiv, doi.org/dqbs). This means that even once a person’s symptoms have cleared, it may still be possible to infect other people.

Airborne droplets are likely to be the main infection route, but contaminated surfaces could play a role too. Health advice typically says the virus can persist for about 2 hours on surfaces, says William Keevil at the University of Southampton, UK.

But a study published last week suggests that this is a serious underestimate, with viable virus surviving on cardboard for 14 hours and plastic and stainless steel for up to three days (New England Journal of Medicine, doi.org/ggn88w). It can also hang around in the air for at least 3 hours.

“Survival of coronaviruses for days on touch surfaces is a hygiene risk,” says Keevil. “It is difficult to avoid touching [contaminated objects or surfaces] such as door handles and push plates, bed and stair rails, public touch screens etc.”

There is also some evidence of transmission from faeces to the mouth, says Elizabeth Halloran at the University of Washington, which reinforces the importance of handwashing.

Keevil recommends regular, rigorous handwashing or using an alcohol hand gel, and avoiding touching the eyes, nose and mouth. “The latter being extremely difficult because humans are tactile and touch their faces many times an hour,” he says.

What all this makes clear is that advising only people with a cough or fever and their families to self-isolate won’t prevent the coronavirus from spreading, thanks to its fiendish ability to cause very mild symptoms in people, and to peak in infectiousness before people even realise they are sick.

Read more here.

Trump's plan to reopen the country by Easter (April 12) 'I think it's possible. Why isn't it? We've never closed the country before,'

Emily Goodin reports in the Daily Mail,

President Donald Trump on Tuesday argued that thousands die every year from the flu and the United States doesn't shut down the economy, adding he wants the guidelines he put in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus over by Easter.

'We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don't turn the country off,' President Trump told Fox News on Tuesday during a virtual town hall.

He said his goal would be to have a return to normal by Easter Sunday, which is April 12. That is 19 days away.

'I'd love to have it open by Easter. I would love to have it opened by Easter,' Trump said. 'I will tell you that right now. It's such an important day for other reasons, but I will make it an important day for this. I would love to have the country opened up, and they are just raring to go, by Easter.'

His policies recommended no social gatherings over 10 people, which has closed several houses of worship and sent religious services online. The guidelines also recommended not eating at restaurants but ordering take out, which would prevent Easter brunch reservations. But the president his timeline for a return is realistic.

'I think it's possible. Why isn't it? We've never closed the country before,' he said.

Read more here.

More to think about

What are the commenters in the Conservative Treehouse saying today?
Kathy says:
March 22, 2020 at 1:02 am
I watched Laura Ingraham on Thursday night and she was interviewing a renowned oncologist. They were talking about Chloroquine and Azithromax having good success in patients with Covid 19. Laura asked this physician about Dr Fauci saying this treatment was anecdotal and the physician said scientists had come up with many new cancer treatments and the treatments were being “buried” due to being called anecdotal at higher levels of management. The physician said he would come back on and talk to Laura about those cancer cures after this Covid thing was over. Could Ruth Baden Ginsburg be receiving cancer cures that the rest of us aren’t able to know about? Deep State is in WHO and CDC.

WOULD OR WILL we EVER know? That’s the problem. We have NO IDEA what goes on in this country? Did you ever think the FBI was so corrupt? NSA, State Dept, FISA courts and on and on? WHERE does all the $$$ go raised for cancer research? Could medical clinics stay open w/out the $millions/billions spent on TREATMENT, not cures?

jwmson says:
March 22, 2020 at 8:01 am
I don’t believe any longer any info coming out of this govt. Look at the many congress people that DUMPED their stocks in the $millions wks BEFORE this was announced. They received inside info. Think they don’t daily/weekly? We suffer yet they are enriched.

I’m confused about this virus. I read/hear what occurred in China (Which I don’t trust at all) and Italy, but Italy has many Chinese known to travel back & forth to Wuhan and that may be their downfall.

Again, I saw the Lenox Hill MD interview as well. He doesn’t appear political and straight-forward. His response was 100% cure w/in about 5 days with the drug combo outlined above. I have travelled to Africa for 20Y. I have taken that drug for 20Y. You cannot stay on that drug long-term but I would take for 1 month at a time. Wondering now if that drug did wonders for me that I didn’t realize? Never contracted malaria but never sick either….just wondering, if why.

Read more here.

"Why we are where we are"

In case you wonder why we are where we are... #WuhanCoronaVirus pic.twitter.com/o5NedNv3jy

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 21, 2020