Close all International Airports to passenger travel, now
SARS-2 is spreading human to human efficiently in Singapore and Japan. It is probably spreading efficiently in other countries as well. We just don’t know about it because insufficient testing is occurring. So far, governments have been reacting rather being proactive. Disaster looms if we don’t get ahead of the virus. And that means draconian travel restrictions. The only way to stop or at least slow down this virus is to halt all international passenger travel, now. For those who say this won’t work, let me ask you to do a Gedanken experiment: If travel from China to other countries had been halted in December 2019, how many cases would there be outside of China now? Answer: 0. Travel restrictions work. But they must be applied completely and in time.
Vaccine candidates
There have been recent reports of several vaccines for SARS-2. These reports are inaccurate. What has been created or will be created are vaccine candidates. We will not know whether these vaccine candidates will actually function as effective vaccines until they have been tested first in appropriate animal models and then in humans. Many vaccine candidates, especially for new pathogens, fail. Giving people false hope is dangerous and irresponsible. That said, an effective vaccine would be the best possible measure for dealing with the SARS-2 pandemic. So development and testing should go forward on as many fronts as possible. But hold the hype, please.
Senator Cotton and the “debunkers”
I have watched with dismay at the numerous attacks Senator Cotton has received at merely suggesting the idea that the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan that researches deadly viruses should be considered as one of several possible sources for SARS-2. This is an entirely reasonable suggestion given the following:
1. China has an aggressive biological weapons program.
2. These biological weapons are most likely being developed in the Wuhan BSL-4 facility.
3. The SARS-2 pandemic started in Wuhan.
4. Chinese labs have a history of leaks of dangerous viruses.
5. Xi Jinping has repeatedly lied about the risks posed by SARS-2.
6. Xi Jinping will not permit American scientists to investigate the origins of the virus.
Do the “debunkers” disagree with any of the points above? If so, please present your evidence.
There have been several preprints arguing for and against the presence of “unusual” sequences in SARS-2. The “debunkers” say that if there is no obvious artificiality to the viral sequence, then any reference to the Wuhan BSL-4 laboratory is a “conspiracy theory”. This is nonsense and they know it. With existing technology, it is possible to construct a virus with any sequence you wish, including one that looks completely natural. Yes, one could even put in mutations in the wobble position to make the virus look as if it had naturally evolved, if one wanted to get fancy. Further, the “debunkers” seemingly ignore the possibility that a virus, that may not necessarily have been engineered, could have been leaked, accidentally or deliberately, from the Wuhan BSL-4 facility. Analyzing sequence tells us nothing about this possibility.
I think a good discussion about the SARS-2 virus sequences is healthy and appropriate. But let’s not smear people with whom you disagree. And you should consider that picking Xi Jinping’s narrative over that of a US Senator who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee may not be the best bet. I notice that all of the attacks on Senator Cotton have been by news organizations which have various conflicts of interest. Have any other US Senators on the Intelligence Committee come to Xi Jinping’s defense? I haven’t noticed any.
References:
China and Viruses: The Case of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu. Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham
January 29, 2020. The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
Weaponizing Biotech: How China’s Military Is Preparing for a ‘New Domain of Warfare’. Elsa Kania. August 14, 2019. Defense One.
Chinese general with bioweapons background takes leading role in coronavirus fight. Bill Gertz. February 16, 2020. Washington Times.
Monotreme's Blog 
I don’t have any decisions to make. The oldest brother has control of everything. Mom and dads house he sold and the proceeds went to care for dad. There is only a little left and my brother thinks medicare will take it in regards to my moms care 2 years before. I trust my brother to do everything to the letter of the law tho he seems to not feel emotions.There have been some unsavory family members that have done things but I’m just moving on from it all. One thing I learned and am thankful for is that everything I learned at FW and PFI was not to sweat the small stuff (its all small stuff) and to value those I love.
KimT – Heddie is right about taking care of yourself. My mom and dad died almost exactly a year apart 20 years ago,, and it was the hardest time of my life. I was an only child, and in spite of being in my late 40s when they died, it took a huge toll on me. I made too many bad decisions even a couple of years later, including selling the home where I grew up and moving hours away – something I will regret until the day I die. I can certainly second Heddie’s advice about signing contracts! People can be traumatized without even realizing it. Having to face the situation we’re all in at such a time is insult added to injury.
I worked for a cardiologist for years and also spent years doing medical transcription. I’m big on self-treating common illnesses, but I’d not touch chloroquine with a 10 foot pole unless someone could make me believe the benefit outweighed the risk. My med cabinet is as well stocked as I can manage, but that drug isn’t in it. I wish I had more than one prednisone burst stored, but that’s one common drug that seems hard to obtain – and I’m not in the mood to walk into my doc’s office at this point.
Possible treatments announced!!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0
Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro
Chloroquine is a cheap, age-old treatment and prophylactic for malaria, with a long track record for safe use in humans for over 70 years. Readily available. Very hopeful article.
Could be why deaths from the Diamond Princess cruise ship hasn’t had the expected 3to4 week case fatality rate spike? Hoping this is the real deal
Remdesivir is very promising but is in short supply. Chloroquine can cause heart damage. There are videos on twitter showing people in China falling down, apparently dead. The cause has been claimed to be heart attacks after re-infection from SARS-2. Commenters have said that a medicine used to treat the first infection damages the heart and when they get infected the 2nd time, the virus is pushes the heart over the edge. So, I think the risks of using chloroquine as treatment for SARS-2 should receive further study.
KimT — condolences for your father. Take care of yourself — there is a real physical / mental reaction after the major stars in the family constellation pass, and feelings and thinking processes and perceptions can go seriously out of wack. Get out for walks, exercise, make a point of eating well, and be sure to call on trusted friends before you make big changes or sign any contracts. After my mom passed, my husband and I had a three month running debate on weather a chair we had delivered was black or deep coffee brown. We ordered deep coffee, but it was three months later and too late to return when we finally decided it was really black. Just an example of the disorientation we felt. Take care.
Monotreme — I do think it is a lab escape, but how or to what intent, really, I have no expertise in bioweapons or international strategy. Something to watch, we do need to be on guard. I looked up Cotton on Wikipedia, he has been very well educated, appears to be hard working and upright, and is following a conservative political career path. Probably someone that should be listened to. BUT he is a political person, so would look to see who his friends are. I’ll post again if I see anything really convincing one way or another on this topic.
Thank you for the condolences. We have been watching dad fade away, We had thought he had dementia but when mom died a little over two years ago, dad couldn’t keep it together. They were a love story come to life. A week before he died, he opened his eyes and said he loved me. I’ll take that as a gift as he never spoke after that.
I hope the warm weather gets here quick, I was just out side chasing my dang dog down in a robe and slippers, its 10 degrees outside.
Once it warms up the Sars-2 will just stop, or will it slowly simmer and start up again next November?
Since it’s spreading in subtropical areas, and has a virgin population everywhere it goes, I don’t think we’re going to see it slow down much at all.
No one knows for sure. But it would not surprise me if it decreased in the Northern Hemisphere when we get warmer temperatures. But, as Northstar points out, that won’t stop the virus in the Tropics or the Southern Hemisphere. We might get a respite while it rages in Australia. I think we could have a 2nd and much worse wave in Fall.
Welcome Northstar, DryHeat and other “old timers.”
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I’m going for accidental release from the wuhan lab for $500, I’m tired of politics and the division that is on all sides
. I buried my dad today and at the funeral I saw division and snarky behavior pretty much every where. Everyone just stop it.
I think the Genie is out of the bottle with the virus and in my humble opinion I think its been here silently spreading longer than December and we are going to be having a huge wake up call within a few weeks. I hope I am wrong.
The boarders will not be closed under any circumstances because to do so would be a death to the economy, neither dem nor repub is going to be the one to do it. (the virus will do that anyway) and closing the boarders would be considered racially insensitive, we must all suffer and die equally is the PC way to be.
Has anyone checked all the long term storage companies? In all the years, I have rarely seen them sold out, and specially sold out of the $1000 and above packages. People like me don’t buy those, its rich and or government that do.
I’m really sorry about your dad, KimT.
I am so, so sorry for your loss, Kim. I lost mine a little over a year ago, and no matter if they were old, or if it was time, it’s still a blow like no other. Condolences to your sorrows.
Sorry for your loss, KimT.
I agree about the political divisions. Never been worse, imo.
This really should not be a partisan issue. The real divide is between on the people who think Globalism, lead by China, or decentralisation is better the policy. There are people on both sides of this issue in both parties.
Also agree about that TPTB are weighing economic costs vs. human lives. Not sure human lives will win this calculation. I think they may be counting on warmer weather to save the day. It might. But then again, it might not. We’ll see.
I used to joke (sort of) about helicopters leaving NYC as a sign that the situation was serious. Maybe we will see that.
I agree with trying to avoid partisan comments as much as possible. We all want what we feel is best for the country, I’m sure. No government is going to be “ready” for this if it goes south in a hurry, but there will be valid criticisms that can and should be made, and concerns expressed. (Flying infected and non-infected home together from the cruise ship against vehement CDC advice, for example. Or how pandemic awareness can be broached with the public. Or if the pandemic command and control group that connected relevant government branches should be reconstituted in a big f’n hurry.)
Anyway, I’ll keep an eye out for what appears to be Big Brass flying in and out of the local Air National Guard base. It’s all-forces so they like to meet here. Not always easy to track, but if it’s really buzzing, it’s a reliable indicator that _something_ is up.
As far as I go, I’d say I’m very pro-democracy, and anti-authoritarian. And very humanitarian. I shed tears daily over the human suffering unfolding in front of us. Who could not be moved by the video of an elderly Chinese couple holding hands across their hospital beds, staring into each other’s eyes as they lay dying of SARS-2? And I’m also dismayed by how the disease has put a damper on Hong Kong protests when they were making such headway. Disease never waits for the perfect time, when we’re ready and organized and united. Oh, that it would.
There’s yet another unreal situation brewing if I read a recent entry in Crof’s H5N1 Blog (linked from Avian Flu Diary) correctly. In Seoul, S. Korea, alone, some 30K Chinese university students are returning from their winter break. Most of them board and house off campuses and only half enough dorm rooms are available for precautionary quarantines even if the students would conform to such restrictions.
I understand where Claudia is coming from.
I admit, I, Random Internet Person, had my suspicions about the origins of COVID19, and the circumstantial information you cite only supports what I suspected. But I don’t have any influence on public or policy. On the other hand, Senator Cotton, public figure, can influence both – and THIS administration is notorious for uniting people against the “other.” I mean, the internment camps already exist! So when HE makes what is an unsubstantiated allegation, it’s easy to suspect it’s just to gin up public opinion against minority groups, and that could prove deadly. What other purpose does it serve? To get the public up in arms against China? There’s already a backlash against people of Asian heritage, and I don’t like where else this is going. If he has evidence of a bioweapon from the intelligence he receives, it’s a matter of national security, not for John and Jane Public to get all het over, because what are we going to do?
I don’t think I want to know the answer.
And btw, {waving} Hi! Monotreme! It’s Northstar from back in the day. Glad I was able to find you & you’re still active. Good to see some familiar names, too! {Waves again} Been lurking a couple weeks, but had trouble posting until yesterday. Think I’ve got it figured out now.
Claudia,
I realize we live in very polarized times, politically. But I think it is important to separate out individual issues and support politicians with honest positions on the issues that are important to us. That does not mean we necessarily support those politicians on other issues.
Heddie,
China, Russia, North Korea and likely Iran are unusual in that they all have or recently had offensive biological weapons programs. Other countries, including the US, have defensive programs.
Let’s put aside the issue of whether SARS-2 was engineered in some way and simply consider whether or not it is reasonable to hypothesize that SARS-2 may have come from the lab in Wuhan. Some facts:
SARS-1 escaped from Chinese labs, twice. Reference.
The BSL-4 lab in Wuhan was working on SARS-like viruses before SARS-2 emerged, in Wuhan.
Xi Jinping lied about the danger of SARS-2 on multiple occasions.
Xi Jinping won’t allow US researchers into Wuhan to investigate the origin of SARS-2.
Xi Jinping has had anyone who warned about SARS-2 silenced. These people have either been arrested or they are dead.
Is it unreasonable for Senator Cotton to ask that the mere possibility that SARS-2 leaked from the lab in Wuhan be considered when SARS-1 leaked from labs in China on multiple occasions? Or should we blindly take the word of a Communist dictator who put a million Uighurs in concentration camps, oppresses the people of Tibet and Hong Kong, orders the kidnapping of human rights activists (and their lawyers) and has anyone who speaks the truth about SARS-2 “disappeared”?
Imagine if the CDC had been working on an unusual and dangerous virus and a closely related strain started an epidemic in Atlanta with early cases occurring in a food court a few miles from the CDC. Imagine further that our President tried to hide the outbreak, lied about the danger to others and refused to allow investigators from other countries into Atlanta. Wouldn’t investigative journalists throughout the world smell a rat? Wouldn’t responsible world leaders demand an investigation?
It is strange to me that so many journalists, and a few scientists, fall all over themselves to support the narrative of an absolute dictator with no regard for human rights over a US Senator who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I cannot understand this.
My thinking is that that someone in a lab was doing gain of function research on viruses from Canada (enthusiasm of having a new toy) using a little CRISPR for this and that, and the virus got out of the lab into some of the animals held for testing or for cultivating viruses. Because of SARS and MERS, they probably have a huge program to work with all kinds of sources, from bats, mice, cats, snakes, ducks, fish, birds, and even pangolins.
Some of the animals, doubtless kept in poor, non-segregated conditions, and that were thought to be disease free were not needed, and were given away, or sold off for consumption and ended up in a wet market. My theory, anyway.
Not so hard to believe — I interviewed for a job at one of the Silicon bioscience companies years ago, and while there was offered a free flat of eggs to take home…. one of the employee perks there was getting to take home leftover eggs from the experiments they were doing for vaccine development. They assured me that they had been warehoused in great conditions in a building separate from where they did the experiments. Those eggs were incinerated, never let out of the labs. Same thing might well happen with rabbits (or whatever corona sources they used).
All the major powers have done bioweapons research — Japan, Russia, the US, China — Even the Hungarian Beautiful Youthful Skin scientists probably have a vault full of weaponized skin rashes somewhere. Remember the weaponized Anthrax that got loose in New York after 9/11? It was sourced in the U.S.
So, yeah, but I don’t think release was intentional in November. Hope the governments here will allocate some money and intentions toward reseach in this area. Wake up!
I totally agree about closing down international air travel, with the sad statement that I fear it is already too late. This is something that should have been done many weeks ago. At this point, I think it would be worth a try, but I’d hesitate to say I believe it would be sufficient to markedly slow the spread of the virus. I fear it is already far more widespread than we have been told.
When it comes to a vaccine, I too grow weary of the hype that says we’ll have a vaccine in days/weeks/months, when history teaches us that it will be at least a year, and possibly far longer, before there is a vaccine available. Things like this just aren’t done in a hurry, no matter how rapidly people work the problem.
As for Senator Cotton and the debunkers – my problem isn’t with the notion that this virus may have been released, albeit purposefully or accidentally, from a bio lab in Wuhan. The world persists in doing research with nasty little infectious diseases, and as long as it does so there will remain the risk of a release; however, my problem lies with who is saying these things rather than what is being said. I don’t view Senator Cotton as being one of the good guys, with his history both in the House and the Senate. He is against gay marriage, against the right of a woman to obtain an abortion, and, along with all other Republicans in the Senate, refused to consider allowing testimony or documents to be presented in the so-called trial of President Trump. So in my case, my problem lies with Senator Cotton, and not what he is saying in this case. Call me prejudiced, in this instance – but I see our Democracy being eroded on a daily basis and find it quite difficult to support anyone that I perceive as having a hand in the destruction of our form of government. I’d find these claims more credible were they more widely touted, but at the same time I can’t ignore the possibility that there may be some truth in them.
I am certainly not choosing to believe anything that is said by Xi or his draconian government. I don’t believe the numbers being put forth as cases or deaths. What I do believe is that it would be a horrible thing indeed to live in China these days. I think the multitude of videos showing empty streets in the cities in China speak volumes, as does the refusal of the Chinese government to allow US experts access to having eyes on the ground in Wuhan.