And the Rest of It

Everyone knows about the lab in Wuhan. What will everyone do about it?:

But a new report suggesting U.S. diplomats voiced serious concern about safety at the lab in 2018 has added circumstantial backing to a plausible, if unproven, theory — that the virus had natural origins but leaked accidentally from that Wuhan Institute of Virology lab.

(Sidebar: characterising sound concerns as "conspiracy theories" is a great way to destroy your credibility and ultimately validates the beliefs people have about the popular press' partiality towards China.)






Also:

China may have secretly set off low-level underground nuclear test explosions despite claiming to observe an international pact banning such blasts, the U.S. State Department said in a report on Wednesday that could fuel U.S.-Chinese tensions.

The finding, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, may worsen ties already strained by U.S. charges that the global COVID-19 pandemic resulted from Beijing’s mishandling of a 2019 outbreak of the coronavirus in the city of Wuhan.

And:

Some experts suggest the problem of Chinese soft-power interference is much more pronounced in Australia and New Zealand than here. Do you agree?

I think it’s more of a problem in Canada.

Yes, Australia’s economic dependence is higher — in terms of trade — but when I look, as I have been doing, at the subtle but intense influence of China on Canadian institutions — parliaments, provincial governments, local governments, universities, the intellectual community, the policy community — it makes me deadly worried.

I’ve met some very well-informed Canadians who aren’t sure Canada will be able to extricate itself from this situation.

 (Merci)




You don't say:

Criminology researchers Alex Luscombe and Alexander McClelland are mapping the police enforcement of the pandemic across Canada. Their project, “Policing the Pandemic,” collects data from media articles, police press releases, and social media posts.

Between April 4-13, their research indicates there were at least 735 violations of public health and emergency law offences, most of which took place in Quebec (324), Nova Scotia (228) and Ontario (161).

Luscombe, a PhD student in the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto, said ticketing people disproportionately hurts those who don’t have room to comfortably self-isolate or who haven’t been properly educated about the spread of COVID-19.

He said he is not aware of any criminological research that indicates ticketing is an effective way to deter bad behaviour.

“You only have to look at speeding as one example where ticketing is used as the main form of social control by police,” he said in a recent interview, “but we don’t necessarily see an end to speeding, do we?”

But why were they allowed in the first place?:

Cabinet yesterday put in force new “urgent” regulations allowing border agents to send illegal immigrants back to the U.S. The number of illegal border crossings had increased eighteen percent in months prior to the pandemic: “We are comfortable with this.”