Bharat Rakshak

Arun.prabhu wrote:We don't know whether this virus will die. Normal flu does drop off as the weather gets warmer. The Spanish flu circumnavigated the world twice, I believe.

Gyan wrote:There were some What's up forwards, which say the nCV dies off in hot weather, so India is safe. As our weather will turn very hot in next 3 weeks.

Thread
Abhijit Majumder
@abhijitmajumder
This is beyond eerie. A 1981 thriller by Dean Koontz predicted the #Coronavirus nightmare, pinpointing it to supposedly biological weapons labs in China’s Wuhan!

Amber G. wrote:

Arun.prabhu wrote:We don't know whether this virus will die. Normal flu does drop off as the weather gets warmer. The Spanish flu circumnavigated the world twice, I believe.

FWIW Here are some comments about effect of warmer weather...

- On spreading: ==> Coronaviruses (in general) tend to be associated with winter because of how they're spread For one thing, in winter months, people may cluster together more indoors, increasing the number of folks at risk of becoming infection by someone who's contagious.

==> Also Viruses spread through respiratory droplets that are released when an infected person coughs or sneezes. And the droplets are more likely to spread when the air is cold and dry,..(When the air is humid and warm, [the droplets] fall to the ground more quickly, and it makes transmission harder)

Of course, every coronavirus need not follow exactly the same rules. For instance MERS) has not shown the capacity to spread easily from person to person. (Some animal-human viruses don't have that seasonality

But from what we know COVID-19 seems more akin to the seasonal cold. (33% of common colds are caused by coronaviruses) - specially from how quickly it seem to have spread in China - At least that is what virtually are experts in China are saying. .. Some are even predicting (even at this stage that end of April of so, we will have control - stabilization etc - at least some tappering..So as China and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere head into spring, the virus could begin to peter out or plateau.

But we have southern Hemisphere ..for example Australia.. and that is what happens with the flue each year! ..

So I think (and most experts will agree) that this is not going to die down.. In US and India it will diminish but again -- it is a new virus and we don't have a backlog data.

(I have not seen any serious "prediction".. we don't even have a single year data with this)

Most public health officials in US (and India) are planning for the possibility that the outbreak may drag on regardless of weather.

Better be cautious.

Arun.prabhu wrote:Singapore is by the sea and has nice warm weather with high absoluthe humidity. We hear of many infections passed on from one Singaporean to another daily. That would belie the Theory that warm weather would destroy the virus.

Amber G. wrote:
FWIW Here are some comments about effect of warmer weather...
<snip>

UlanBatori wrote:From quarantine to "rescue" into new quarantine. No comment.

This bijnej of cruise ships is getting highly dangerous.

"I don't understand why they have to be kept on a ship," said Peter Hotez, of the Baylor College of Medicine. "We're employing what I call 14th-century approaches and ethics to individuals with transmissible disease."
...
The abrupt change in US policy led some to believe that Washington lost faith in the effectiveness of the Japanese response. Earlier this week, it emerged that some 1,000 crew on board the ship had not been kept in quarantine, eating meals together with masks off and working side by side

We should be thankful China suppressed coronavirus information


I READ with growing unease David Pratt’s commentary on the coronavirus and the Chinese government’s efforts to “suppress” it (Attempt to hush up the coronavirus has backfired spectacularly, February 14). He uses the piece to compare COVID-19 with the other “disease” that stalks China, that of political autocracy.

I am no fan of the Chinese Government nor its desire to control the lives and information flows within Chinese society but I think Mr Pratt falls very short on understanding what has motivated the government in this particular episode. Take his comment, “officials from the Communist Party of China (CPC) tend to prioritise stability, even if it means suppressing important information that, quite clearly, the public and wider world in this instance were clamouring to know”. We should, in this instance, thank our lucky stars that they know their own people better than Mr Pratt does.

Wuhan is a city of 11 million people, it is the ninth biggest city in China. When I visited it in the early 1990s its population was around 7.5 million. That is a growth rate of 47% over the last 20 years (and I can assure you, the official total will be well under-reported for very specific local reasons). China’s population, over the same period, has grown by 18%. What does that tell us about Wuhan? There has been massive inward migration as the city has grown to be one of the largest industrial centres in China.

Wuhan is therefore a city with a recent migrant population well in excess of two million, probably closer to five to 10 million if migrant workers were properly reported. By suppressing information about the nature of the virus, the authorities bought time to lock down the city before those “clamouring for information” could do unimaginable damage. Had Dr Li Wenliang’s dire warnings been trumpeted far and wide at the time he first expressed them, the stampede of residents out of Wuhan – especially in the run-up to Chinese New Year, when people travel to their home villages and towns anyway – would have been truly catastrophic for China as a whole and the rest of the world. Those that could have would have jumped on the first plane out to anywhere in an effort to escape the worst, while undoubtedly spreading it far and wide.

...


Had the vile CPC allowed the free information flow so beloved of Mr Pratt, the coronavirus would be rife in every corner of the globe by now. By locking down Wuhan and forcing its inhabitants to stay put – in one of the most polluted places in China, a major factor in the death toll there – China has internalised the problem and, touch wood, saved the rest of us.

Think on that, Mr Pratt. Would western democracies have taken the pain in the same way?

Jim Walker
Hong Kong

Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology concludes that 'the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan

• It points to research on bats and respiratory diseases carried by the animals at  the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and the Wuhan Institute of Virology
• WCDC is just 300 yards from the seafood market and is adjacent to the hospital

Published: 13:22 GMT, 16 February 2020 | Updated: 16:00 GMT, 16 February 2020

Chinese scientists believe the deadly coronavirus may have started life in a research facility just 300 yards from the Wuhan fish market.A new bombshell paper from the Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology says that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC) could have spawned the contagion in Hubei province.

'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,' penned by scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao claims the WHCDC kept disease-ridden animals in laboratories, including 605 bats. 

It also mentions that bats - which are linked to coronavirus - once attacked a researcher and 'blood of bat was on his skin.'

The report says: 'Genome sequences from patients were 96% or 89% identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in Rhinolophus affinis (intermediate horseshoe bat).'

It describes how the only native bats are found around 600 miles away from the Wuhan seafood market and that the probability of bats flying from Yunnan and Zhejiang provinces was minimal.

In addition there is little to suggest the local populace eat the bats as evidenced by testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors.

Instead the authors point to research being carried out withing a few hundred yards at the WHCDC.

One of the researchers at the WHCDC described quarantining himself for two weeks after a bat's blood got on his skin, according to the report. That same man also quarantined himself after a bat urinated on him.



And he also mentions discovering a live tick from a bat - parasites known for their ability to pass infections through a host animal's blood.

'The WHCDC was also adjacent to the Union Hospital (Figure 1, bottom) where the first group of doctors were infected during this epidemic.' The report says.

'It is plausible that the virus leaked around and some of them contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in future study.'

And as well as the WHCDC, the report suggests that the Wuhan Institute of Virology could also have leaked the virus, as has previously been reported by MailOnline.

'This laboratory reported that the Chinese horseshoe bats were natural reservoirs for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) which caused the 2002-3 pandemic,' the report says.

'The principle investigator participated in a project which generated a chimeric virus using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, and reported the potential for human emergence 10. A direct speculation was that SARS-CoV or its derivative might leak from the laboratory.'

The report concludes that 'the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.'

It comes as the outbreak has infected more than 69,000 people globally, with 1,665 deaths in China - most of these in the central province of Hubei.

Amber G. wrote:

Arun.prabhu wrote:Singapore is by the sea and has nice warm weather with high absoluthe humidity. We hear of many infections passed on from one Singaporean to another daily. That would belie the Theory that warm weather would destroy the virus.

Arunji - to point out the obvious, this is NOT binary bit yes/no type case. Weather is *just* one of *many* factors..and all it means is statistically it spreads slower in summer.. if all other things are equal. (Many points - for example indoors - in buildings where most people gather, and offices are - with central air the conditions do not differ that much in winter or summer.
Timing of Flu epidemics depends on *many* factors - not just weather alone.

Hope this helps.

Amber G. wrote:^^^ The laughable part of the above "story".. look at that "map"
In the map the distance between "Wuhan Seafood Market" and "Wuhan center for Disease Control and Prevention" is given as " 277.73 m (911.06 ft)" ( showing up to an accuracy of .01 m = 1 cm)

Do these idiots (writers and editors) even know, distance measured up to .01 m is about the thickness of a finger - much larger than the space occupied by the "labels" on the map..
(How does one measure distances between two such spots with precision of a cm?? )
(Also these Einsteins don't seem to know even multiplication - 277.73 m is about 911.19 ft - NOT 911.06 ft - even if they could located those buildings up to a centimeter..

(Of course, No wonder, the whole story is absurd .. no sane person is going to believe that)(

Are Daily Mail readers so dumb or it is a parody article?..

Seriously - IMO - what one can easily see it as a fake news should not be shared again and again here in BRF.

Amber G. wrote:^^^ The laughable part of the above "story".. look at that "map"
In the map the distance between "Wuhan Seafood Market" and "Wuhan center for Disease Control and Prevention" is given as " 277.73 m (911.06 ft)" ( showing up to an accuracy of .01 m = 1 cm)

How does one measure distances between two such spots with precision of a cm??

(Of course, No wonder, the whole story is absurd .. no sane person is going to believe that)(

Are Daily Mail readers so dumb or it is a parody article?..

Seriously - IMO - what one can easily see it as a fake news should not be shared again and again here in BRF.

Scientists Believe Coronavirus May Have Started Life in Research Facility Near Wuhan
Published February 16th, 2020 - 01:22 GMT

Coronavirus: Researchers pinpoint facility near Wuhan seafood market as possible ground zero
17 Feb, 2020 10:11am

Researchers pinpoint facility near Wuhan seafood market as possible ground zero

Researchers say a facility where a worker was covered in bat blood and urine may be ground zero for the coronavirus outbreak.
Rohan Smith@ro_smith
news.com.auFebruary 17, 202012:06pm

Clearly, they (DailyMail.co.uk) have used Google Maps to measure distance, I too tried Gmaps to measure the distance to see if they have made any mistake (see the screenshot below). 277.73 m is pretty accurate

Arun.prabhu wrote:The map is from the research paper. The authors are chinese.

Amber G. wrote:^^^ The laughable part of the above "story".. look at that "map"
In the map the distance between "Wuhan Seafood Market" and "Wuhan center for Disease Control and Prevention" is given as " 277.73 m (911.06 ft)" ( showing up to an accuracy of .01 m = 1 cm)

Do these idiots (writers and editors) even know, distance measured up to .01 m is about the thickness of a finger - much larger than the space occupied by the "labels" on the map..
(.

Chinese research lab denies links to first coronavirus patient

• Speculation that a woman supposedly at the institute is ‘patient zero’ is false, laboratory says
• Authorities maintain that the most likely source was a market in Wuhan

Jun Mai
Published: 9:00pm, 16 Feb, 2020 | South China Morning Post

A Chinese virus research institute located at the epicentre of a coronavirus outbreak has denied links to the first patient diagnosed with the disease, amid speculation about the source of the virus.
In a statement on Sunday, the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied that one of its employees was the outbreak’s “patient zero”.

“Recently there has been fake information about Huang Yanling, a graduate from our institute, claiming that she was patient zero in the novel coronavirus,” the institute said.
It said it had verified that the claim was not true.

It said Huang was a graduate student at the institute until 2015, when she left the province and had not returned since. Huang was in good health and had not been diagnosed with disease, it added.

The disease, now known as Covid-19, has sickened some 60,000 people around the world and killed more than 1,500, most of them in Hubei province in central China.

So far, the first patient with the illness has not been publicly identified.

While Chinese researchers and officials say the coronavirus is probably linked to wild animal consumption – “mostly likely” bats, according to Wu Yuanbin, from the Ministry of Science and Technology – there have been claims that the virus is associated with a state lab in the city.

While there is no evidence to support the claims, new central government regulations covering state biotechnology laboratories have helped fan the speculation.

On Saturday, the ministry issued a directive calling for improved management of viruses by all biological labs, and for the facilities to ensure biological safety.

Chinese authorities have said the virus is believed to be from a seafood market in Wuhan, after a cluster of patients linked the market were identified in December.

But the first patient diagnosed by the virus never visited the market, according to a study
published January 24 in The Lancet medical journal.

In the paper, the researchers, seven of whom work at Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, said the first patient had no exposure to the market and there was also no epidemiological link between the first patient and the later cases.
The research was based on data from the first 41 patients with confirmed infections.

Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University in Washington, said it was possible that the virus “came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace”, according to Science magazine.

Frustrated and angry at the authorities’ response to the outbreak, some members of the public have been unwilling to accept the official line about the probable source. Much of the speculation has been focused on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the only laboratory to be graded Biological Security Level 4, the highest level of biosafety precautions, on the Chinese mainland. The laboratory was designed to treat infectious diseases such as Ebola.

The unverified theory of a biological leak from the institute so widely shared online that Shi Zhengli, a lead researcher at the institute on bat-related viruses, said on her social media account that she “guaranteed with her own life” that the outbreak was not related to the facility.

China did have an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, due to a leak from a laboratory in 2004, killing one person and infecting nine others, according to state media.

Chinese authorities said that the leak was a result of negligence and five senior officials at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention were punished.

This is really a bombshell. Naval University of Engineering in #Wuhan, one of the five comprehensive military universities of PLA (official info: https://t.co/Z05Fx1yo4k) issued a lockdown notice on Jan. 2, 18 days BEFORE the gov. admitted there was an epidemic, 21 days BEFORE.. pic.twitter.com/ZmiwDXQ7LE

— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) 3:17 AM · Feb 15, 2020

Amber G. wrote:

Arun.prabhu wrote:The map is from the research paper. The authors are chinese.

Which research paper? Can you post the link?

(Sorry - but hope you check it, and will find something like written by scholars from famous " IIT_MIT from Wuhan, Kerala" - or something equally impressive eg : " Renowned World Famous Chinese research scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao from WHCDC ... Any way post the link. thanks)

Arun.prabhu wrote:

That one has the link to the research paper. You need to share your email id and other details to download direct or you could follow the second link (zerohedge) and from there download the paper from scribd.

anmol wrote:

This is really a bombshell. Naval University of Engineering in #Wuhan, one of the five comprehensive military universities of PLA (official info: https://t.co/Z05Fx1yo4k) issued a lockdown notice on Jan. 2, 18 days BEFORE the gov. admitted there was an epidemic, 21 days BEFORE.. pic.twitter.com/ZmiwDXQ7LE

— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) 3:17 AM · Feb 15, 2020

Amber G. wrote:

Arun.prabhu wrote:

That one has the link to the research paper. You need to share your email id and other details to download direct or you could follow the second link (zerohedge) and from there download the paper from scribd.

.
Sorry i guess email and other details, I assume, are my bank account numbers.... I generally do not share for aeXiv type articles.

By the way if you click on the link *NOW* you get

Arun.prabhu wrote:Try zerohedge link. I thought this might happen and downloaded the file from scribd back when this initially came to light. I’ll see if I can share it here.

Amber G. wrote:.
Sorry i guess email and other details, I assume, are my bank account numbers.... I generally do not share for aeXiv type articles.

By the way if you click on the link *NOW* you get

Amber G. wrote:

Arun.prabhu wrote:Try zerohedge link. I thought this might happen and downloaded the file from scribd back when this initially came to light. I’ll see if I can share it here.

Okay - Last from me - Seriously Arun - I did look at it - that paper is a *joke* if you ask me -- zero credibility.

Amber G. wrote:^^^ From what I read - they will disinfect the currency. whatever that means.