It's All China's Fault

I would hate for everyone to forget who started all of this:

China strongly denies it makes germ weapons, and Canadian officials say the shipment was part of its efforts to support public-health research worldwide. Sharing of such samples internationally is relatively standard practice.

But some experts are raising questions about the March transfer, which appears to be at the centre of a shadowy RCMP investigation and dismissal of a top scientist at the Winnipeg-based NML.

“I would say this Canadian ‘contribution’ might likely be counterproductive,” said Dany Shoham, a biological and chemical warfare expert at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. “I think the Chinese activities … are highly suspicious, in terms of exploring (at least) those viruses as BW agents. “ ...

Last month, an acclaimed NML scientist — Xiangguo Qiu — was reportedly escorted out of the lab along with her husband, another biologist, and members of her research team. The agency said it was investigating an “administrative issue,” and had referred a possible policy breach to the RCMP. Little more has been said about the affair.

China has been a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention since 1984, and has repeatedly insisted it is abiding by the treaty that bans developing bio-weapons.

But suspicions have persisted, with the U.S. State Department and other agencies stating publicly as recently as 2009 that they believe China has offensive biological agents.

Though no details have appeared in the open literature, China is “commonly considered to have an active biological warfare program,” says the Federation of American Scientists. An official with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defence charged last month China is the world leader in toxin “threats.”

In a 2015 academic paper, Shoham – of Bar-Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies – asserts that more than 40 Chinese facilities are involved in bio-weapon production.

China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences actually developed an Ebola drug – called JK-05 — but little has been divulged about it or the defence facility’s possession of the virus, prompting speculation its Ebola cells are part of China’s bio-warfare arsenal, Shoham told the National Post.

Ebola is classified as a “category A” bioterrorism agent by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meaning it could be easily transmitted from person to person, would result in high death rates and “might cause panic.” The CDC lists Nipah as a category C substance, a deadly emerging pathogen that could be engineered for mass dissemination.

Nipah, which was first seen in Malaysia in 1998, has caused a series of outbreaks across east and south Asia, with death rates mostly over 50 per cent, and as high as 100 per cent, according to World Health Organization figures. It can cause encephalitis, an often-fatal brain swelling, and has no known treatment or vaccine.

The Johns Hopkins exercise — called Clade X — involved a version of Nipah modified to be more easily passed between people. America’s Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefence prefaced its 2015 report with a scenario involving the intentional release of Nipah by aerosol spray.

China’s extensive and controversial use of CRISPR gene-editing and related technology makes it conceivable the country could bio-engineer germs like Nipah to make them even more dangerous, Giordano said.

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A 55-year-old individual from Hubei province in China may have been the first person to have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus spreading across the globe. That case dates back to Nov. 17, 2019, according to the South Morning China Post.

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China could have prevented 95 per cent of coronavirus infections if its measures to contain the outbreak had begun three weeks earlier, research from the University of Southampton suggests. However, China only took vigorous action in late January – weeks after police silenced a doctor for trying to raise the alarm.

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From the beginning China has been less than forthcoming about this virus and resisted sharing critical data and access to WHO and CDC specialists.  And have we forgotten Dr. Li Wenliang, the 33-year-old ophthalmologist based in Wuhan, the epicenter of the contagion, who tried to tell the world that China was hiding something malevolent, only to be silenced and imprisoned by Chinese authorities for allegedly fabricating lies about the disease's deadly potential?  He would later die of the disease he tried to warn us about and the Chinese tried to keep under wraps …

Initially, a live animal market in Wuhan, where exotic animals are sold for food, was blamed as the source of the virus.  It may yet be proven to be the epicenter of the outbreak, but it was not the source of the virus.  That honor goes to the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, housed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a scant 20 miles away from Wuhan's live animal market.  It was set up in the wake of previous leaks of the SARS virus from Chinese labs and to do research on the world's most dangerous viruses.

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Arrivals from China were up 3.3% in January, partly due to the peak in travel that preceded the Chinese New Year on January 25, 2020.

Travel restrictions between Canada and China were introduced in late January in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

(Sidebar: ahem - not so.)

Here’s another today. Sigh..,, pic.twitter.com/lhxmzOlB44

— Thor (@Thorblackcreek) March 23, 2020

 

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Despite the Chinese government’s assurances that they have stopped the spread of COVID-19 within their borders, there are signs that new quarantine centres have popped up in the Wuhan region. 

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When asking for assistance from the community, a sick Wuhan resident was told, “China has a large population; there’ll be no difference without you!”

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A Chinese newspaper headline from last year makes theconnection, “Italy aims to develop closer trade ties with China through Belt and Road.” Business ties between Italy and China provided not just a road, but a superhighway for the Coronavirus to travel from Wuhan to Milan. How’s that globalism working out?

The world has luxury handbags and clothes with labels from Gucci and Prada, but Italy has Chinese workers manufacturing those items, and now a deadly virus.

Italy has a tight Chinese connection, and not the Bruce Lee movie variety of the same name. From the South China Morning Post, “The Chinese began migrating to Italy about 30 years ago but numbers have swelled in the past decade, bringing the total population to about 300,000.” A travel website shows 9 inexpensive flight options between China and Italy.

A Chinese couple from Wuhan took advantage of these travel opportunities in mid-January, visiting Verona, Parma and Rome before becoming febrile and quarantined in hospital, testing positive for the virus. How many Italians did this couple encounter in restaurants and shops?

The Wuhan virus was well known at the time yet Italy was unconcerned, with travel and commerce proceeding as usual with China. An Italian virologist observed, “The Italian government lagged at first. It was lazy in the beginning... too much politics in Italy."

A few weeks later, rather than social distancing, Italian officials recommended social intimacy. The woke Florence mayor encouraged Italians to “hug a Chinese”. How did that work out? How many Italians died of Coronavirus due to political correctness?

Mid-January brought the annual Wuhan Lunar New Year banquet. How many Chinese nationals living in Italy traveled home to Wuhan to visit friends and family, bringing the virus back to Italy when they returned?

Italy is also an old country, at least in terms of percentage of the population older than age 65. Italy ranks number two in the world behind Japan, with 22.4 percent of their citizens age 65 or older, the high risk population for Coronavirus deaths.

While Italy now leads the world in Coronavirus deaths, passing the country of origin China a few days ago, “99% of those who died from virus had other illnesses” according to Bloomberg. In other words, if it wasn’t Wuhan Coronavirus this month, it might have been pneumonia or heart failure next month.

I wouldn't want to suggest that China did not have any help in being the world's @$$hole.

That would be misleading:

For decades now, the media has played an outsize role in furthering an elite consensus that Communist China was harmless, so long as it supplied America with cheap goods. Columnists have long spread the myth that a country where the vast majority of the population is so impoverished they do things like save their excrement to use as fertilizer for fear of starving, is somehow besting the U.S. at challenges such as infrastructure and addressing global warming.

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In the time in-between the warning from Taiwan and the statement from WHO everything was fine, China destroyed samples of the virus, shut down labs, arrested doctors and welded shut buildings where victims of the disease lived.  ...

Adding insult to injury, WHO Director General continues to parrot Chinese Communist Party talking points about the ongoing crisis. 

(Sidebar: this director-general.) 

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.@KatieNicholson frontline Cdn MDs suggest starting in-house. Much of #COVIDCanada falsehoods have been reported directly by @CochraneCBC @RosieBarton. Even after being informed of facts, they continue to misreport: putting lives of frontline Cdn MDs & Nurses and our pts at risk. https://t.co/5fJgm4m2nr

— Kulvinder Kaur MD (@dockaurG) March 23, 2020

If you have a complaint to make, make it to the CBC ombudsman. But do not continue to make allegations here.

— Rosemary Barton (@RosieBarton) March 23, 2020

Yes, Rosie, about that:

This is what happens after the Ombudsman receives your complaint:

1. The Ombudsman reads the complaint or comment and determines whether it warrants a response from CBC management. (All complaints are shared with CBC management.)
2. If the complaint warrants a response from CBC management, the Ombudsman forwards it to the appropriate news manager or program executive, who is responsible for handling the initial response to the complaint, in consultation with the journalist or programmer.
3. News and Current Affairs programmers have 20 business days to respond to a complaint. The Ombudsman may also intervene when the programmers faiI to respond to a complaint within a reasonable time.
4. If you are not satisfied with management’s response, you have three months to ask the Ombudsman to review your case.
5. Further to the request for review, the Ombudsman informs the program heads and/or journalist(s) in question. The Ombudsman asks to meet or speak with news management and staff to gather facts and understand the journalistic approach. The Ombudsman may cite the comments of CBC employees, unless it is agreed that discussions are confidential.
6. The Ombudsman examines the merits of the case. S/he may conduct an in-depth investigation, contact sources and consult experts or any other person who may help him/her issue an opinion on whether the complaint is justified.
7. The Ombudsman determines whether the disputed journalistic content or conduct adheres to our Journalistic Standards and Practices.
8. The Ombudsman issues an opinion as to whether the complaint is justified. The Ombudsman may also make recommendations. S/he has the power to recommend only. S/he has no decision-making authority over programming, personnel management or editorial choices.

A lengthy process that goes in your favour and ultimately doesn't punish you doesn't sound too severe for your complete codswallop, does it, Fatty Barton?




In conclusion, it's all China's fault.