.
Now the questions are about Fauci and the Wuhan Lab pic.twitter.com/i9iiMuvAoj
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 7, 2021
Because it’s all over social media, here’s today’s just asking questions nontroversy, TL;DR edition: A once-respected science writer who fell down the Bell Curve rabbit hole just did a long (badly argued, IMO) ‘the Kung Flu Plague *could* have been a Chinese bioweapon lab leak, and so why isn’t Fauci pushing for an immediate investigation into how the ChiComs did this to us?’ post on Medium — which is a blog platform, not a news site. (While it’s not an impossible theory, it’s not the most plausible one, and also: This is not the time for that discussion.) A bunch of the Wingnut Wurlitzer’s bad-faith actors buzzed on his theory like flies on a fresh dungpile, so we can look forward to more of this ‘so why hasn’t Fauci been fired yet?’ bullsh*t until the next anti-science theory arises…
This is the cuckoo conspiracy theory Newsmax's Emerald Robinson is referencing in her very normal and regular question at the White House press briefing today. https://t.co/0FES4zSWcy pic.twitter.com/wtFGW3l6F6
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) May 7, 2021
What kind of a moron would fund research into something as silly as corona viruses? https://t.co/uxT1zsQU2x
— Alex Hazanov. (@alexhazanov) May 8, 2021
Is there a fine line between Covid is a hoax & the virus was spread by China on purpose? Because it seems the same group of people think it’s both. Pick a lane at least. #Wuhan
— Please, No Europa League ??⚖️ (@JakeSerafini) May 8, 2021
57.4% of all American adults have received at least one vaccine shot; 42.6% are now fully vaccinated.
83.3% of Americans age 65 or older have received at least one shot 70.6% are now fully vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/ECObN0fCLy
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) May 8, 2021
The US had +49,491 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 today, bringing the total to over 33.4 million. The 7-day moving average declined to below 45,000 new cases per day, its lowest level since October 4. pic.twitter.com/i4zKQi23dd
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) May 8, 2021
Airports are slowly getting more crowded as more Americans take airline flights. The Transportation Security Administration said that about 1.64 million people were screened at U.S. airports Thursday. That's the busiest day for TSA since March 2020. https://t.co/Wfq3nIY0Kj
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 7, 2021
======
"Incidence" is a measure of new infections.
Good news in 3 countries on the #COVID19 front:
Incidence and vaccine coverage
•US (13/100K) 1st dose 45%| 2nd 33%
•UK (2/100K) 1st dose 52%| 2nd 24%
•Israel (0.7/100K) 1st dose 58%| 2nd 54% pic.twitter.com/PIF1IbZEbF— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 8, 2021
China administered total of 308.23 mln doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of May 7 https://t.co/2H8gmCHIcX pic.twitter.com/OqTfUKCYr6
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 8, 2021
Countries wrestling with new coronavirus surges are trying to ensure they aren’t hit by an India-style disaster. More world cases have been reported in the past two weeks than in the entire first six months of the pandemic, the WHO director general said. https://t.co/8mZdXWCxOM
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 7, 2021
As India's coronavirus catastrophe worsens, new waves of infections are fast engulfing a growing number of nations across South and Southeast Asia — with some grappling with their worst outbreaks since the pandemic began https://t.co/V08TW4P6dy
— CNN (@CNN) May 8, 2021
As India reels under a devastating surge of coronavirus cases, it is increasingly clear that the situation is even worse than statistics indicate. https://t.co/2FHqjPAPIA
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 6, 2021
India's Tamil Nadu announces lockdown as national COVID fatalities at record high https://t.co/IdbaZYT83A pic.twitter.com/pgrSELtgFZ
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 8, 2021
Soon the #COVID19India
crisis will be a #Nepal crisis, a Dubai one, an Abu Dhabi mess and a London saga….https://t.co/Hcx7bjxx32— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 7, 2021
Philippines Covid surge throws country into disarray https://t.co/6zTvsvWCgw
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 8, 2021
Thailand reports 2,419 new coronavirus cases, 19 new deaths https://t.co/kkXlWJzfSC pic.twitter.com/OC3aSokauJ
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 8, 2021
More than 9,000 Australians are stuck in India, after the Australian government banned arrivals from the countryhttps://t.co/zuTKH65iDU pic.twitter.com/iAOBNnJvo0
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 7, 2021
Russia on Saturday confirmed 8,329 new coronavirus cases and 370 deathshttps://t.co/AwANB1KZ3R
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) May 8, 2021
Europe's vaccine campaign is accelerating. It expects to match the U.S. by July. https://t.co/oMJIUKUunk
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 7, 2021
Germany's confirmed coronavirus cases rise by 15,685 – RKI https://t.co/xw81udBFCY pic.twitter.com/UYIBvcSyue
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 8, 2021
German call to ban anti-lockdown protesters from using the Nazi yellow star that was forced on Jews https://t.co/6XcjTElPHo
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 7, 2021
"All 3 of the India variants – known as B16171, B16172 and B16173 – have been designated 'under investigation' by Public Health England.
According to internal documents from PHE, the assessment of the ongoing risk to public health from B16172 is 'high'."https://t.co/L7SyU4k61v— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 8, 2021
======
#Pfizer has requested full @US_FDA approval for its #COVID19 vaccine.
– Change from emergency use allows sale of shots past pandemic
– Pfizer sees long-term demand as immunity wanes, variants risehttps://t.co/aEwdUI7iIf— MicrobesInfect (@MicrobesInfect) May 7, 2021
The virus is an airborne threat CDC has acknowledged. In updated guidance, the agency emphasized transmission occurs by inhaling fine respiratory droplets & aerosolized particles. And, via contact w/ sprayed droplets or touching one’s mouth, nose or eyes https://t.co/1rAgXDu71A
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 7, 2021
AstraZeneca weighs seeking full, not emergency, U.S. approval for COVID-19 shot – WSJ https://t.co/Kof3dUvsNY pic.twitter.com/YUPtdNRR3t
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 8, 2021
(CNBC) – Moderna said its Covid-19 vaccine is 96% effective in kids ages 12 to 17, according to early data released with the company’s first-quarter earnings Thursday.$MRNA @CNBC https://t.co/ghxzwjRW5R
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) May 6, 2021
The World Health Organization approved a COVID-19 vaccine from China's state-owned drugmaker Sinopharm for emergency use. The vaccine is the first developed by a non-Western country to win @WHO backing https://t.co/1U5CZI53dA pic.twitter.com/h3MRIvnT8n
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 8, 2021
======
NEW: Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings CEO says if @GovRonDeSantis won't let them require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for passengers, they'll take their cruise ships out of Florida. via @taydolven https://t.co/5fAvYMnzVc
— Mary Ellen Klas (@MaryEllenKlas) May 6, 2021
Tucker Carlson seems to have a million questions about the vaccines. I have 2 questions for Tucker. Have you been vaccinated? Why won’t you tell your audience?
— Jonathan Reiner (@JReinerMD) May 7, 2021
YY_Sima Qian
On 5/7 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There are currently 29 domestic confirmed & 7 domestic asymptomatic cases in Yunnan Province.
Imported Cases
On 5/7 China reported 7 new imported confirmed cases, 8 imported asymptomatic cases, 4 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 15 confirmed cases recovered, 11 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 2 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 288 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 300 active confirmed cases in the country (271 imported), 1 in critical/serious condition (imported), 313 asymptomatic cases (306 imported), 4 suspect cases (all imported). 5,769 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 5/7, 308.226M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 10.492M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 5/8, Hong Kong reported 5 new cases, all imported (4 from Indonesia & 1 from Spain).
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY stats:
212 new cases – 69% were people under 40, including 17 children under 10
4876 active cases
1249 COVID deaths since March 2020
2.8% test positivity
232 people in the hospital and 47 in the ICU
51.5% with at least one vaccination
42.2% totally vaccinated
lowtechcyclist
The claim that Covid-19 is a Chinese attack on the U.S. isn’t exactly new; it’s been circulating in right-wing media and MAGAt social media for at least a year now.
What we know, then, is that all these people are traitors. They’ve stood foursquare against any and all American efforts to defend against this supposed hostile attack from a foreign power. They’re a treasonous fifth column that’s actively aided this alleged Chinese attack on the United States.
YY_Sima Qian
Just got my 2nd dose of vaccine today, a SinoPharm vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Bio-Pharmaceutical Products (my 1st one was also SinoPharm, but developed by the Wuhan Institute of Bio-Pharmaceutical Products). Both are traditional inactivated whole virus vaccines.
I got the shot through the university my wife works at. I was supposed to get the 2nd shot in late Apr., 28 days after the 1st. However, the university hospital quickly ran out of shots during the 2nd round of vaccination, because many students, faculty and admin who had skipped the 1st round came in for their 1st shot in the 2nd round. I guess they were waiting to see if there was significant side effects. I had to wait for the 3rd round of vaccination for my 2nd shot. I think the Chinese National Health Commission declared that the interval between the 2 shots can be 4 – 8 weeks.
Some of my wife’s colleagues and friends still have not gotten vaccinated, citing lack of urgency, the lower efficacies of Chinese inactivated whole virus vaccines, worry about side effects, etc. Misguided in my opinion, but vaccination is not yet mandatory.
YY_Sima Qian
@lowtechcyclist: Cognitive dissonance is a long standing trait among the ever more extreme right wing.
Cermet
Finally, the US is approaching 60% of adults (18 and up) immunized. Hopefully, will exceed that soon – while not herd immunity, it will go a long way to really decreasing the virus’ spread. Also, important that both vaccines goes from emergency approval to full approval – then it is far easier to require vaccination by companies, schools, colleges and the military (and hopefully, all civil servants.) Finally, getting emergency approval for younger teens (and hopefully, all children) occurs sooner rather than later – then we might even reach close to herd immunity but certainly a huge drop off of infections. His could prevent a fall/winter mini-wave. Really good news for us. Now, we need to start helping more of the world in its efforts.
rikyrah
@YY_Sima Qian:
Just complete ignorance?
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
Is Tuckums vaccinated?.???
rikyrah
@Cermet:
Hopefully we will get the news that 12-15 year olds can get vaccinated.
I have decided to pay for Peanut to go to Summer Camp.
I am hoping that between now and June 28th, they will open up vaccinations for her age group. If they do, she will go. If not, I will get the 50℅ refund.
rikyrah
I don’t blame Australia one bit
Everyone getting off a flight from India should be quarantined for 21 days.
Period.
rikyrah
The cruise lines have been floating Petri Dishes.
No phucking way that I would step foot on one unless vaccination proof was required
Joe Falco
@lowtechcyclist:
Right?! If one wanted to, they could flip this insane theory back on them and demand to know what TFG knew, when did he know it and why did he, his administration and all elected Republicans allow for this foreign attack on American soil to happen. I don’t actually want to give this obvious and irresponsibly dangerous trolling any oxygen to breathe and spread but my God, these Confederate dunces will be the end of us.
TS (the original)
@rikyrah:
Everyone getting off ANY flight into Australia goes into minimum 14 days quarantine.
There is much debate as to Australia banning it’s own citizens from coming home. How would you feel if the US decided you couldn’t return to your own country.
Also interesting to note that people from the UK, USA were never banned from entering Australia despite their incredibly high infection rates last year. Read into that as you will, but many of the citizens in India are originally from that country – or descendants of Indian nationals.
As an Australian I am aghast at what the PM has done – as are many others in the country.
Mary G
Orange County had only 30 new cases from more than 11,000 tests today, after 38 yesterday. Only 20 people hospitalized in the ICU. We haven’t seen these numbers since March 2020. Disneyland has been very hard nosed about patrons wearing masks and selling them embellished with all the characters, plus all kinds of Mickey ears.
rikyrah
@TS (the original):
In the beginning of the pandemic, there were stories of Australians being caught outside the country as they shut down. I read those stories here.
I believe everyone coming from India should be placed in a 21 day quarantine. Brazil too. And, I don’t just mean Australia. Should have always been happening here too.
TS (the original)
Some more on the Australia/India issue
The shambolic handling of repatriating Australian citizens from India reveals the government’s priorities
gkoutnik
@YY_Sima Qian:
Cognitive anything seems difficult for them.
rikyrah
@Cermet:
Colleges, 4 year and community college, should require vaccination proof
TS (the original)
@rikyrah:
I have no problem with quarantine. Australia has been quarantining ALL arrivals in quarantine hotels/hostels since early 2020. It obviously works well. Since May 2020 we have had only one major outbreak in one state only.
I have a MAJOR problem with a country refusing entry to its own citizens – AND – threatening them with fines if they dare to come home.
rikyrah
Has it been FrontPaged ?
That study that said US COVID deaths are probably
900,000??
rikyrah
@TS (the original):
Ok, I see your point. If everyone is quarantined, then those citizens can get quarantined too.
Mary G
LA Times:
It’s a drop in the bucket, but going up is good.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Anne Laurie @ Top:
I honestly can’t see any reason at all to even entertain the theory that Covid-19 escaped from a lab.
It can’t be ruled out? It can’t be ruled out that aliens from Betelgeuse teleported it here in an Easter basket either. But neither are fucking likely.
SARS-CoV-1 evolved naturally in bats (most likely) and spread from there in the early 2000’s – just as hundreds, nay thousands, of viruses of have evolved naturally and crossed the species barrier throughout history and pre-history. Just as MERS, Bird Flu, and Ebola did. And there is absolutely no reason to entertain the idea that SARS-CoV-2 (aka the virus that causes Covid-19) had any genesis more novel than the thousands of viruses that have plagued mankind since the first hominid caught a cold from a chimp 4 million years ago, give or take.
The only reason we’re discussing this is because Republicans want a conspiracy theory to blame for the spread of Covid in the US, instead of the obvious reason that Trump avoided every action he could have taken to prevent that spread because he thought it would kill more Democrats than Republicans.
Katherine Eban @ Vanity Fair:
In other words: It’s projection. China didn’t wage germ warfare on the US – Republicans did, through malign inaction.
LiminalOwl (formerly The Fat White Duchess)
What the Tuck? (The Duke wonders whether he’s having a nervous breakdown. I think he’s just throwing anything he can at the wall.)
https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/1390315513784553475?s=21
TS (the original)
@rikyrah:
Exactly, sorry if I wasn’t clear.
Non-citizens (other than the rich and famous – or politicians) cannot enter Australia at the minute – and all citizens have to get permission to leave – again much easier for the rich/famous/political people. It has been hard for many people but most agreed with this. There has also been a limit on the number of people allowed in each week (so as to be able to provide for quarantine) and it has taken a long time for some folks to get home, but even that was mainly accepted.
The line was crossed when the PM decided citizens from one area could not come home at all. The ban is supposed to be lifted on May 15 – probably saving face by announcing a date not far away.
LiminalOwl (formerly The Fat White Duchess)
Meanwhile, the Globe argues that continuing to wear a mask outdoors is “anti-science.” I guess it’s time to cancel my subscription again.
Morzer
As I understand it, COVID-19 followed a fairly normal path for such viruses and jumped from an animal population to human beings. I don’t see any reason to believe the lab leak theory, which was originally put forward by conspiracy theorists who wanted to give Trump an excuse for going after China to deflect from his own massive and criminal incompetence.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 4,519 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 436,944 cases. He also reports 25 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 1,657 deaths — 0.38% of the cumulative reported total, 0.41% of resolved cases.
There are currently 36,564 active and contagious cases; 398 are in ICU, 210 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 2,719 patients recovered and were discharged, for a cumulative total of 398,723 patients recovered – 91.25% of the cumulative reported total.
16 new clusters were reported today: Jalan Lima Puluh Satu, and Jalan Padang Golf in Selangor; Jalan Stadium 2 in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor; Pasar Borong KL 3 in Kuala Lumpur; Kampung Kebun Sayur, Jalan Mawar 20, and Jalan Desaru in Johor; Lorong Kubor and Becah Palas in Kelantan; Dah Putih in Kedah; Rantau Siantan in Pahang; Keramat in Sabah; Jalan Era in Negeri Sembilan; Jalan Limbungan Jaya in Melaka; Jelalong in Sarawak; and Jalan Batu Maung in Penang.
Becah Palas, Dah Putih, Rantau Siantan, Keramat, Lorong Kubor, and Jelalong are community clusters. Jalan Batu Maung is an education cluster at a Ministry of Education school. Jalan Mawar 20 is a religious cluster. The rest are workplace clusters.
4,514 new cases today are local infections. There is no detailed breakdown of state numbers in today’s media statement. But Selangor tops the list with 1,722 cases, followed by Kuala Lumpur with 553 local cases; Sarawak with 478 local cases; Kelantan with 373 cases; Penang with 363 cases; Johor with 288 cases; Kedah with 183 cases; Perak with 108 cases; Melaka with 100 cases; Pahang with 99 cases; Negeri Sembilan with 98 cases; Terengganu with 71 cases; Sabah with 63 cases; Putrajaya with 12 cases; Labuan with two cases; and Perlis with one case.
Five new cases today are imported: four in Kuala Lumpur, and one in Sarawak.
The deaths reported today are a 70-year-old man in Sarawak with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, gout, and chronic kidney disease; a 71-year-old man in Sarawak with diabetes and hypertension; an 80-year-old woman in Penang with diabetes and hypertension; an 88-year-old man in Perak with diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia; a 66-year-old man in Kuala Lumpur with diabetes; a 64-year-old man in Kelantan with diabetes; a 70-year-old man in Selangor with diabetes and hypertension; a 75-year-old woman in Kedah with diabetes and hypertension; a 70-year-old man in Kuala Lumpur with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and heart disease; a 58-year-old man in Sarawak with diabetes, hypertension, and gout; an 86-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur with hypertension and dyslipidaemia; a 71-year-old man in Johor with asthma and melanoma; a 74-year-old man in Selangor with chronic kidney disease; a 72-year-old man in Johor with diabetes and hypertension; a 51-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur, DOA with no co-morbidities listed; an 81-year-old man in Kuala Lumpur with no co-morbidities listed; a 66-year-old man in Kelantan with diabetes, hypertension, and brain cancer; a 66-year-old woman in Kedah with hypertension; a 65-year-old man in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and chronic kidney disease; a 54-year-old woman in Selangor, DOA with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, asthma, thyroid disease, and heart disease;a 61-year-old woman in Johor with hypertension, asthma, and chronic kidney disease; a 55-year-old man in Johor with diabetes and hypertension; an 87-year-old woman in Sarawak with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and chronic kidney disease; a 60-year-old man in Sarawak, DOA with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and stroke; and a 79-year-old non-Malaysian man in Sabah, DOA with no co-morbidities listed.
Buckeye
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s not just admitted righties: one of the Twitter links notes that Ryan Grim is also pushing that bs.
Grim’s The Intercept’s DC Bureau Chief, a misogynist and someone who couldn’t be bothered to actually fact check Tara Reade before publishing her accusations against Biden.
Though a case can be made that he’s not really a lefty at all, just a MAGA Type who wants M4A.
mrmoshpotato
So lemme see if I understand the latest from the COVID crackpot crowd – “This hoax virus is a bioweapon!”
Does that about sum up the latest crackpottery?
Cermet
Well, when they say you can’t cure stupid, they forgot deadly illnesses. Covid killed a significant number of stupid curing us of their presence via their refusing to believe it and not following simple safety measures. If only the *Rump had died of his stupidity we’d be so much better off.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Republicans push this Covid-19 origin story because they think it somehow excuses trump’s lazy, incompetent response. But what if Covid-19 did emanate from that Wuhan lab, and was then negligently or intentionally allowed to spread by Chinese officials? Would that absolve trump of his miserable performance? It seems to me it would only compound trump’s culpability.
When U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall judged the performance of General Robert Short, whose Hawaii command was caught with it’s pants down December 7, 1941, Marshall did not say, “Well, those Japanese should never have attacked Pearl Harbor in the first place. And they should have at least warned us!” Instead, Marshall flew two generals out to Hawaii to can Short’s lazy ass.
Gvg
@TS (the original): It does seem like bigotry mainly, as well as not well thought out. Announcements always have to be explained, so not being prepared for questions means the government didn’t question itself before making this policy, which means they were all so racists that they couldn’t see their own prejudices.
However I have a slight defense in that the news coming out of India is IMO panic enducing. Governments that try to protect their citizens must be really scared.
The US should be arranging quarantines but may think that since our own infections are still so high, that’s it would be pointless or hypocritical.
Platonicspoof
If you lie down with
dogsanti-maskers, you get up withfleasCOVID.(Security action half minute into video)
ETA three free articles Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal.
Betty
@Lacuna Synecdoche: I have heard an epidemiologist explain that they can see human intervention in the gene sequencing and would be able to identify this if it had happened. He seemed so definite about it. So maybe he was wrong?
Matt McIrvin
Just saw a whole thread of people on Twitter high-fiving each other over some dope saying “If you think an UN-VACCINATED person can be a danger to a VACCINATED person, you don’t really believe in the vaccine, do you?”
All-or-nothing thinking will do us in.
WaterGirl
@LiminalOwl (formerly The Fat White Duchess): WordPress flagged this as spam, but I freed it. I deleted your second attempt, which also landed in spam.
WaterGirl
@LiminalOwl (formerly The Fat White Duchess): Tucker is just pissed because he saw that as poaching – the “stupid, weak and malleable” audience he refers to is supposed to be his!
Other MJS
@rikyrah: Performative / strategic ignorance.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: The Biden admin did that; boss had to travel to taiwan because of a death in the family, 14 quarantine in Taiwan and then another 14 days in the US when he returned.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: Yesterday I asked my daughter if she had any feeling for how likely her friends were to get vaccinated, if/when it gets approved for them (approval for ages 12-15 could be as early as Monday or Tuesday, if current buzz is correct).
I didn’t expect an answer, but she immediately said “All of them are going to get it–they all want it.” Of course, there’s the additional question of whether their parents will approve.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Also a conspiracy theory to explain why East Asians have a lower death rate that other ethnic groups in the US. “It’s not East Asians followed the guidelines because of their experience with SARS, on no, wake up sheelple, They are all in on it.”, type of bullshit.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty: To me, the only remotely plausible version of the lab-escape theory (still unlikely, but at least not impossible) is that it’s a natural bat virus that was being studied in the lab, and infected somebody there.
Everything I’ve heard suggests that the COVID-19 virus’s operation was beyond human design ability as it existed prior to knowledge of COVID-19.
Cermet
@Matt McIrvin: My comment in no way applies to the terribly unfortunate children of stupid parents that refuse a critical vaccine to protect said children from the known dangers of covid. Yes, lung damage has been seen in young teens and its possible, even children. But in this case, the stupid is the parent(s).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If the CCP is strong arming medical groups like the CDC to suppress the evidence it’s a bioweapon; then why aren’t countries that are rivals of the CCP like India, Vietnam and Taiwan screaming about it? India alone has a serious medical community and every reason to blame the CCP for it’s mess right about now.
Fair Economist
The British data on the Indian variants is certainly concerning. Increasing in frequency even in a majority-vaccinated population *and* causing hospitalization (albeit not severe) in fully vaccinated people. I’m confident proper vaccination will keep the death rate well down but this raises the possibility of “perpetual severe flu season” I’ve long been concerned will be the long term outcome. Hopefully this will turn out to be not as bad as the original data suggested, as has happened with B117.
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Absolutely agree; I looked at the origination issue at the start and you literally could not imagine a coronavirus that looked *less* like a lab variant than SARS2. Not one single bit matching any known virus; changes requiring decades of evolution from known viruses; and a new protein of unknown function and no close homology.
That said, given the motivations of those pushing the lab variant nonsense, the best counterstrike would be to point out that if so Trump and the Republicans are active enemies of the US, seeking to allow a foreign bioweapon to spread unimpaired in the US. Seriously, if that were true, Trump (who was informed about the severity and origins quite early) should hang, and I mean that literally.
Sloane Ranger
Friday in the UK we had 2490 new cases. This is a decrease of 7.1% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by home nation,
England – 2142 (down 52)
Northern Ireland – 65 (down 37)
Scotland – 236 (down 47)
Wales – 47 (up 13).
Deaths – There were 15 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is a reduction of 38.6% in the rolling 7-day average. New deaths by nation, England – 13, 1 each for Nothern Ireland and Scotland and none in Wales.
Testing – 1,067,566 tests were conducted on Thursday, 6 May. This is a decrease of 10.2% in the rolling 7-day average. The PCR testing capacity estimated by labs on this date was 650,553.
Hospitalisations – On Wednesday, 5 May there were 1231 people in hospital. On Thursday, 6th 163 people were on ventilators. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 15.8% on 3 May.
Vaccinations – As of 6 May, a total of 35,069,641 people had had 1 shot of a vaccine and 16,764,720 had received both. In percentage terms this means that 66.6% of the adult population have had 1 shot and 31.8% were fully vaccinated.
Platonicspoof
@Betty:
@Matt McIrvin:
I also vaguely remember a claim that there is a technical reason a lab version of COVID-19 would be different from a wildlife to human version, but can’t find it now. However, this Mar. 30, 2021 Sci Am article says the WHO team that went to China was told:
smith
The irony is that as of now, the cumulative death rate from covid is substantially higher in rural areas than urban areas (195.09 per 100k vs 171.67 per 100k). At least some of this differential is probably due to lack of hospital services in rural areas, which in turn is at least partially due to refusal of Medicaid expansion under ACA. So, own goals all around. (But try explaining all that to the Goobers.)
Uncle Cosmo
Don’t be so quick to pull the trigger. Whether “masking outdoors is ‘anti-science'”…depends:
Airborne droplets and aerosols (by definition) hang suspended in the air (IOW they don’t fall to the ground) and move about at the behest of air currents. What many overlook is that they can (and do) move, and disperse, in three dimensions.
The extent to which they move up and down inside depends on how high the ceiling is (and how the air is circulating). Other things being equal, standing on the floor of a hotel lobby atrium several stories tall is much less risky than standing at the checkout desk under a much lower ceiling.
Outdoors is like a room with a high ceiling. What determines how high is the environment. When the surface is colder than the ambient air, air near the surface is chilled, becomes heavier, and is mostly confined to within a few meters vertically as if in a room with a low-ceiling. (That situation is known as an inversion and is relatively rare.)
Most of the time the surface is warmer than the ambient air, especially during sunny days; it absorbs sunlight that passes unmolested through the air & turns it into heat. This heat warms the air, decreasing its density, which causes it to rise. Once it gives up enough heat it becomes denser than the surrounding air, whereupon it descends again. The result is vertical circulation in what’s known as a Hadley cell. The tops of all the Hadley cells in a region form the planetary boundary layer, which is effectively the “ceiling” of the outdoor “room”.
In optimal conditions – say a hot desert** in high summer at cloudless** midday – Hadley cells (and the PBL) can reach as high as 1 kilometer above the surface. In the least favorable case – say a cold desert** in deep winter on a cloudless** night – they can be as low as 10 meters.
(** NB: Clouds tend to reflect heat radiated from the ground, and can be significant, particularly after sundown – a cloudless sky allows heat accumulated during the day to be radiated into space and the surface to cool down faster. Dryness is important because water heats up more slowly than land and releases its heat more slowly as well.)
In a nutshell, that’s the science. So what does it mean for masking outdoors?
First question: Where’s the effective ceiling? If you’re seated under an awning or umbrella, you’re not effectively “outdoors.” (Unless the wind is blowing across the area fast enough – in which case you won’t be sitting there long as it’s scattering your napkins and placemats if not knocking over your drinks).
Next question: How close is the nearest potential source of virus-laden airborne droplets (VLADs – ;^D), and how fast are they propagating? If someone’s breathing close to your face, any VLADs don’t have time to disperse upwards before they’re, um, in or on your face. The more so if the source is shouting, or singing, or coughing, or sneezing…
(And of course all this applies equally to vaccinated folks as potential propagators of VLADs from, say, SARS-CoV-2 hanging out in your nasal cavity in mucus or epithelium where blood flow and the antibodies it carries have difficulty reaching. [One reason I have been pushing for far more extensive testing of the already vaccinated to establish if this is a hazard that needs addressing – say, with nasal sprays or other treatments that kill the virus.])
So do you need to mask up outdoors? Under the open sky, with robust vertical circulation, and other people no nearer than a few meters, probably no. Lacking those conditions, probably yes. And since you really can’t be sure of what conditions you might abruptly find yourself in, a responsible citizen would have an effective mask at hand and would be alert for situations under which s/he should don it.
Disclaimer: From 1991 into the next millennium I was largely employed under contract to the US Army in chemical and biological warfare defense. Much of that involved mathematical worst-case threat modeling – i.e., what the Bad Guys might do to Our Troops; most of the threats were most effectively delivered in the form of airborne particles; so an understanding of airborne transport and diffusion was central to the modeling. The above is drawn from what I remember of this work two decades later.
rikyrah
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
No. Our quarantine is based on an honor system. I mean, the government should have taken over hotels near every major airport in the country and out folks on international flights on busses to said hotels for a 14 day quarantine.
Red Cedar
I hadn’t read anything about the lab leak theory (I assumed it was paranoid Republican bullshit) until a friend recommended this article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/
It sounds scary—the whole idea of deliberately messing with viruses to make them more infectious to humans (“gain of function” research) sounds insane—but I know that I am not competent to judge whether any of the arguments are legit, and would love input from people who know better. Any jackals with enough medical knowledge to appropriately assess that article, please weigh in! Thanks very much.
smith
@Red Cedar: That’s one of the subjects of AL’s post up top. The article is being debunked by many knowledgeable commenters, and the author is not particularly credible as he has a history of advocating “scientific” (aka nonscientific) racism.
ziggy
@Red Cedar:
The “lab leak” theory is not completely ridiculous, even though it has become very uncomfortably politicized. For heaven’s sake–the lab studying coronaviruses such as this is in Wuhan! If there is any possibility that this happened, the world needs to know. I would ask that anyone read the entire article by Wade before passing judgement on this theory. Unfortunately, for a virologist to even entertain the theory is apparently “career suicide”, for reasons that become obvious if you think it through.
Another Scott
@ziggy: Is there some reason why you are bringing this up every day? We discussed it on 5/6, 5/7, and today.
Wade is not credible.
The story is being pushed by RWNJs.
There has been discussion in the scientific literature for months that there is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is lab-made. If you are really interested, it’s easy to find.
Again: Beware of popular reporting on science that goes beyond what actual scientists say.
Cheers,
Scott.
Robert Sneddon
@ziggy: Why not ask everyone to first read the dozen or so published reports by actual epidemiologists who have studied the genome of this virus is great detail that the original SARS-COV-2 coronavirus is NOT lab-made first? But that wouldn’t feed into your conspiracy theory of “career suicide”, would it?
Playing whack-a-mole with folks like you gets tedious but since I’m staying home right now it keeps me amused.
Bill Arnold
Re the new CDC guidelines on SARS-CoV-2 transmission:
Scientific Brief: SARS-CoV-2 Transmission (CDC, Updated May 7, 2021)
Changing dangerously flawed public health dogma is like pulling teeth with these guys. That statement is better, but still does not mention masks to block/filter exhalations.
No, they do not, if they are captured by a mask, or redirected by a face covering to flow in some other direction, e.g. downward. In particular, if people are facing each other in extended interaction, as they fucking often do, then masks are blocking/redirecting/filtering plumes flowing forward towards the other person.
This sort of entrenched 100YO public health dogma[1] has killed 10s, perhaps 100s of thousands of Americans. And the WHO has been and is worse with its recommendations. (And CDC recommendations are examined and sometimes adopted around the world.)
E.g. in many crowded living situations, including many of the world’s cities, espescially lower-income cities, distancing is not an option. Masks are. Strong mask discipline is easy (if propaganda-addled gullibles aren’t fighting it). Good masks(/respirators) are cheap (compared with public health costs of the alternatives) and should have been/should be distributed. (Also, the paper ones can be reused. If the fit is tight and no significant air leakage is felt on the sides and inhalation bows the mask in a bit (and it has no obvious holes), it’s doing its job. Maybe not as well as a fresh mask, but dramatically better than a bandana.)
[1] This is not a new thing. Me, April 3 2020, re masks: “Fucking public health authorities in some countries (like the US) had to wait for studies like this to start shifting their dogma. Dogma kills, dogma in a deadly pandemic kills massively.” There were others at the time, too, some attempting to get high profile traction. Several states (Like NY State) instituted mandatory face coverings indoors in public places guidelines before the anti-mask propagandists got their venomous fangs into the minds of the gullibles.
Ken
I have to conclude that either
sab
@Bill Arnold: When surgical masks were in short supply and we were afraid of running out, we used to reuse them. The thinking then was that Covid lasted about 72 hours on surfaces, so we had little hooks and we hung a week’s worth of masks up, and then reused them with a week’s wait in between uses.
Also, we double masked. The outside cloth mask went into the laundry after every use. The surgical masks were reused.
Did that have a chance of working?
ziggy
@Another Scott: I brought it up ONE time yesterday, if you didn’t notice, Anne Laurie included it in her roundup this morning–I didn’t bring it up. I would really like to have a discussion on the merits of what he actually posits in the article (i.e. the furin cleavage site could have evolved in this species, via this route, according to this virologist), rather than a personal attack on him, or just outright dismissal as a RWNJ talking point. But I gather that is a bit much to ask.
I would also like to clarify that the virus does not necessarily have to be”man made” as in constructed in a lab to have a lab leak of a dangerous virus. (read the article)
Major Major Major Major
Er, the ‘lab leak’ hypothesis is legit. There is currently no conclusive evidence for either a “somebody scratched by a bat” zoonotic leap or a gain-of-function-researched lab leak (which is very different from a “chinese bioweapon”, for fuck’s sake). My money is on careless sample gathering, personally. But given that we know the Wuhan lab was engaged in GOF research for bat coronaviruses, and there’s still no signs of intermediate viruses, I mean come on, you can’t just point and sputter at that as a hypothesis. It is/was only a matter of time before something like this happens. China is not exactly a credible source on this (remember how they spent months insisting the virus came from an American lab), and that’s where the WHO is getting all their information, and the WHO wouldn’t even rule it out.
I have no way of evaluating some of the stuff in that Medium post, like the furin cleavage site, but it’s all pretty incidental if the topic of discussion is whether we should dismiss it as
The lab leak theory doesn’t even require it to be engineered. It’s right there in the name: a leak from a lab.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: The problem, of course, is that there’s no evidence that it leaked from the lab.
One can speculate about all kinds of things, and people did a year or more ago. And looked into it. And found nothing there.
LiveScience from last year:
Nicholas Wade’s paper(s) are fearmongering whataboutism.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Robert Sneddon
@Major Major Major Major: It’s much more likely that it was transferred, like most zoonotic viruses, from the “wild” into the human population than that it was detected in the wild in bats or other creatures, isolated, collected, transferred into a laboratory for study in secret, cultured in large quantities and then released from there, accidentally or otherwise.
The source of most zoonitic diseases is wild creatures although domesticated populations can also be a source — farmed pigs in China are thought to be a major driver of annual flu seasons around the world and the Chinese have recently been culling pig herds due to outbreaks of swine flu. The Spanish flu of 1918 probably originated from domestic animals, maybe from Kansas in the US if some current theories are correct, no laboratories required.
The “escaped from a lab in Wuhan” storyline is intended to mission-creep towards “was deliberately released from a lab in Wuhan because the CCP hates Westerners and wants them all to get sick and stop buying their cheap products because they are evil Asians who aren’t like us white people”. Have fun magnifying that signal.
Major Major Major Major
@Robert Sneddon:
Lol ok. No talking to some people I suppose.
@Another Scott:
Your link doesn’t say this, and we should also maybe try to at least pretend we care about the recent WHO report that found this plausible.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/who-coronavirus-wuhan-lab-leak-theory/2021/03/30/30ecbd1e-915b-11eb-bb49-5cb2a95f4cec_story.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56581246
We are adults and we should be able to engage in inquiry without being accused of ulterior motives.
Robert Sneddon
@Major Major Major Major: Actually that WP story starts off with President Trump and assorted other right-wing racists suggesting a lab escape my be the “truth”. About three or four paragraphs down we get the head of the WHO quoted as saying:
which of course is translated into “The WHO think it’s really likely this was a lab escape” by a lot of people. About the only less likely hypothesis I can think of is Space Aliens. There are a not-zero number of people around who think it actually was Space Aliens, just saying. White Folks Jesus comes a close second.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: I pointed to the February 2020 WHO (40 page .pdf) report a day or so ago.
It wasn’t lab-made.
The 2021 WHO report (120 page .pdf):
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
VFX Lurker
I am not familiar with “ziggy” the commenter, but I just added “ziggy” to the pie filter. Life is good. ?
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: I mostly just don’t think the Chinese government is a fully trustworthy source of information here, a view shared by the WHO Director General as quoted in that WaPo article. We won’t know anything conclusively without finding an intermediate host, and given that we found one for SARS and MERS I’m reasonably confident we’ll find one here too if that was the vector. So far we have not. I agree with the Director General that
…and I am glad that he is “ready to deploy” these resources. There’s no reason to rule it out at this juncture especially when we’re dealing with a pretty cagey source in the Chinese government. It’s not like there’s a shortage of money to study this, and it’s not like adults aren’t capable of investigating it even-handedly.
@Robert Sneddon: I’m confused–do you agree with the Director General that this merits further study, or is he a right-wing racist crank like everybody else who feels that way?
Robert Sneddon
@Major Major Major Major: I’m confused–do you agree with the Director General that escape from a Wuhan lab is the least likely hypothesis i.e. so unlikely that Space Aliens did it is considered as an equally or even more likely scenario?
The WHO was under pressure from the previous American racist right-wing crank Administration who called this epidemic “the Wuhan flu” to find something, anything in Wuhan they could twist into a conspiracy. See the second and third grafs of the WP report you linked to. They looked, they couldn’t find anything which is not what the previous administration wanted to hear so they were pressured to go back and look again.
Now that cooler and wiser heads prevail in Washington I’d expect “it escaped/was deliberately released from a Chinese lab and it’s being covered up” to gradually disappear off the newspaper front pages and settle down into the fetid conspiracy swamps of the internet and top 10,000 blogs like this one.
Major Major Major Major
@Robert Sneddon:
Ah yes, that thing the Director General famously said, not to be confused with his actual statement,
But there’s just no reasoning with some people. Like the Director General, apparently.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: The report, written by the scientists, says “extremely unlikely”. The WaPo story says the Director General says “least likely hypothesis”. Those are not the same thing, not at all.
I’m inclined to take the international scientist team’s choice of words, myself.
Scientists are typically very careful in the language they use, especially in formal reports which generate extreme interest. Their reputations are on the line – they’re not going to throw their careers away by being sloppy. They don’t say “extremely unlikely” without cause.
The Director General has different constraints and a different audience.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
LiminalOwl
@WaterGirl: Thanks for both. If you can tell me why it was flagged, perhaps I can avoid the problem in the future?
billcinsd
@Major Major Major Major: But there’s just no reasoning with some people. Like the Director General, apparently.
or you apparently
Matt
So I’m missing a step: how do the “it was those DIRTY CHINAMEN!!!!!” crowd square that with their guy’s deliberately-awful response? Surely the REAL MERIKAN response to a foreign bioweapon attack would be to buckle down and protect The Homeland, not holding super-spreader events…
Another Scott
Dead thread, but in case anyone is still poking around…
In January, Nicholas Baker published a long piece in NYMag making similar “arguments” as Nicholas Wade does at TheBulletin. Unsurprisingly, experts aren’t impressed.
Thread.
Cheers,
Scott.