Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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No sh!t, Sherlock.

How rude.

Rude, but somehow appropriate.

Just to clarify: It was directed at the MIT researchers, not Darmok.

Pence reignites Leaked Chinese bioweapon debate
https://www.9news.com.au/world/united-s ... 8d63f9480e

I know. I wasn't being serious. I should have added an emoji.

She Is Polish.
She is allowed.

Magz was saying “no s**t, Sherlock” to the obvious notion that the subways of New York were a main place where COVID19 was spread.

No she was attacking a member and I have reported it to Alex Plank and the IGML.

Indira Gandhi Memorial Library?

Who else. Sorry to have to pull out the big guns.

Wait, the library is closed because of the virus. You got off lucky this time.

I know, I was terrified when kraftie used the subway

If it was, what was the trigger event? My guess is the riots in Hong Kong. You don't hear much about the riots anymore!

Here is an interesting article from The Atlantic. It was published on 29 January.

On the one hand, the crisis over the coronavirus, which originated some 550 miles north, in the Chinese city of Wuhan, appears almost perfectly scripted to further agitate and compound the grievances, from allegations of an inept government to meddling from Beijing, that have exploded in Hong Kong over the past eight months. On the other, methods of civil disobedience have sharpened over that period and the public’s acceptance of more radical protest tactics has grown. Organized labor, digital messaging channels with tens of thousands of users, and creatively designed posters—tools and tactics honed during the prodemocracy protests—are now being repurposed to push the government toward stronger action on public health. This latest instability also looks likely to foment broader anti-mainland sentiment, which has flared at times during the prodemocracy demonstrations, and perhaps even to unite the city’s polarized camps of anti-government protesters and supporters of the police and establishment against a common enemy: Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, and her administration.

The government, whose (unsuccessful) attempts to push through a bill that would have allowed extraditions to the mainland sparked the initial unrest, is widely unpopular and the source of continued anger. Polling from the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute shows that just over 63 percent of survey respondents say they distrust the government. Lam has dismal public support and few remaining political allies, with even pro-establishment figures now routinely bashing her leadership. Though only eight cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Hong Kong, public-health experts say that number is almost certain to rise, and there is little faith that the administration can effectively respond to the problem as it develops. Furthering the misgivings is a deep mistrust of Beijing’s handling of the outbreak. Speculation is rife over how political considerations between Lam and Beijing may have swayed Hong Kong’s response, which until recently had been limited and criticized by medical experts in the city.

The lack of trust in Beijing when it comes to honestly and transparently reporting on an internal crisis is not unfounded and is a particularly sensitive issue here. In 2003, SARS spread through Hong Kong’s densely stacked apartments and hospitals. More than 1,700 people were infected and nearly 300 died. People avoided dining out and attending group gatherings. Tourists stayed away from the city, causing an economic downturn and a spike in unemployment. The economy eventually rebounded, but the collective trauma from SARS lingers. “Every day, we saw news about how many people were infected, how many suspected cases, and how many people died. It was a very sad feeling … It was tragic,” Alex Lam Chi-yau, the head of a SARS survivors’ support group, told me. Few have forgotten, or forgiven, the initial attempts by Chinese officials to cover up the severity of the outbreak. These fears have been reinvigorated this week, following an admission by Wuhan’s mayor that he was prevented from disclosing more information about the virus by higher-ranking officials and a growing body of reporting detailing a response hampered by Chinese politics and bureaucracy.

Lam, who served as Hong Kong’s welfare secretary during the SARS outbreak, at that time showed flashes of empathy and skilled political maneuvering in her handling of the response. Those two traits have, however, been missing from her in recent months. While the government began providing information on the outbreak to the public on January 2 and took some precautionary measures, Lam herself was not in Hong Kong as the situation worsened. Rather, she flew to Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum, part of a charm offensive to rehabilitate the city’s image, as well as her own. Lam said the trip was to show the world that Hong Kong “is very much 'ON' and will remain a globally significant city." But as she dined with global elites and posed for photos with world leaders, anxiety and worry over the spread of the disease were growing at home. Medical experts at the University of Hong Kong, many of whom were involved with countering the SARS epidemic, raised alarm over the rapid spread of the virus and urged more precautions to be taken.

Lam seemed decidedly less worried, even as other governments, including that in nearby Macau, announced more stringent protective measures. Addressing concerns in an interview with Chinese state television last week, Lam—still in Davos, apparently unwilling to cut her trip short—said her administration had made responding to the medical situation a “top, top priority.” Finally, on Sunday evening, after returning from the Alps, Lam opened her press conference on a defensive note, rattling off the number of briefings and statements issued by the government. She then announced that she was raising the city’s response level to “emergency,” the highest in Hong Kong’s three-tiered system.

Schools, already out of session for the Lunar New Year, would be closed until February 17, and flights and high-speed trains from Wuhan to Hong Kong would be suspended indefinitely, Lam said. Amusement parks, including Disneyland, were shuttered. The Hong Kong Marathon was scrapped. An awkward moment unfolded when Lam was asked about the government’s attempts to overturn an earlier court decision that had ruled her ban on wearing masks unconstitutional, given that health professionals were now urging people to wear them in public.

Ho-Fung Hung, an international-relations professor at Johns Hopkins University, told me that with swift and decisive measures, the government could yet win back public support, but that early on its response looked to be “slow and behind the curve.” Officials seemed to be “dominated by political consideration, such that they [did] not do anything until the Chinese government officially admitted the scale of the problem,” he said. “Discussion about the virus already circulated in the media for a few weeks in Hong Kong, and the government has been aloof and denying there is any problem.”

By yesterday, public pressure appeared to be having the desired effect. A new union, the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, one of dozens that have popped up as a result of the demonstrations, blasted the government as incompetent and uncaring. If officials did not impose stricter border controls, representatives said at an afternoon press conference, they would escalate their actions and would not rule out a strike. The group said it refused to be “silenced and watch the innocent Hong Kong citizens becoming infected.” The Civil Human Rights Front, the group that organized the largest protests of the past year, circulated a petition with prodemocracy lawmakers urging officials to close the border with mainland China, saying the government had “absolutely failed” to implement sufficient safeguards. Medical faculty at the City University of Hong Kong called for immigration restrictions and so did the city’s largest pro-Beijing party, which met with Lam yesterday.

At her own press conference yesterday afternoon, Lam, her eyes peeking over a light-green surgical mask, announced measures to drastically reduce cross-border travel with the mainland. She stopped short of fully closing the border, but high-speed-rail and ferry services connecting Hong Kong to the rest of China would be suspended and the number of flights to mainland China would be halved, with personal travel permits to the city for mainland residents no longer being issued. Lam also reversed course on a plan to waive fees for nonlocals with coronavirus being treated at public hospitals (the measure had led to criticism that Lam was allowing mainlanders to freeload off of Hong Kong) and said the government would scrap the plan for a quarantine center in Fanling, where the firebombing of the building had taken place. Lam admitted that “the situation is evolving and changing very rapidly,” but insisted that decisions were being made based solely on health grounds and not as a result of any political pressure. “If you asked me a week ago,” she said, “I perhaps would not have that determination to put in place some of the measures that we have put in place yesterday and today.”

Source: Hong Kong’s Perfect Crisis

You don't hear much about the riots in Hong Kong anymore! It is almost like they dipped into the SARS playbook.

Krafti would most likely not get very sick.

Source: Iran parliament: Coronavirus deaths nearly double reported figures

The 46-page report by Iran’s parliament research center, published online, carries the weight of being written by nonpartisan experts within the country. Already, hard-liners have seized on Rouhani’s handling of the pandemic to criticize him and his administration, which is held in poor regard after his 2015 nuclear deal with world powers collapsed due to President Donald Trump’s move that unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the accord.

The explosive charge was merely a footnote on page 6 in what appeared to be an otherwise routine report.

It said Health Ministry death toll figures counted only those who died in hospitals and had gotten positive test results for the virus. That disregarded all coronavirus victims who died in their homes. The report also said that aggressive testing, something experts have seized upon as necessary in the pandemic, has not been done in Iran — meaning other cases likely have been missed. It suggested the true death toll in Iran is probably 80% higher than figures now given, or nearly double.

As far as the positive cases are involved, and given the undertesting, the number of people infected is probably “eight to 10 times” higher than the reported figures, the report said.

If correct, the report’s worst-case figures would put Iran’s death toll potential as high over 8,500, with some 760,000 total cases. That would catapult Iran to the country with the highest number of infections in the world.

READING THE TEA LEAVES

Senior officials in North Korea paid tribute to the remote kingdom's founder Kim Il Sung Wednesday, but the apparent absence of current dictator Kim Jong Un raised questions about whether coronavirus played a part.

The Hermit Kingdom's most important holiday is April 15, the birthday of the country's first dictator, known as the “Day of the Sun.” It's a day that normally includes an immense military parade and synchronized public performances, sometimes involving tens of thousands.

But on Thursday, the Korean Central News Agency said only that a group of senior government, party and military officials paid tribute at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun for Kim Il Sung's 108th birthday.

There was no mention in North Korean state media if current ruler Kim Jong Un visited the mausoleum where the bodies of his grandfather and father, Kim Jong-il, are located. State media only said that floral baskets were "laid at the statues of the great leaders and mosaics picturing their smiling images."

According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, Kim hasn't skipped visiting the mausoleum during the holiday since inheriting power in 2011. State media typically reports on visits to the site the same day or following morning.

Some North Korean observers theorized that Kim may have skipped the visit over concerns about COVID-19. The Hermit Kingdom has repeatedly said there hasn’t been a single case on its soil, but has implemented social distancing measures.

In late March, the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported that more than 100 North Korean soldiers who were stationed at the border with China died from the virus. The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo also claimed that Kim was spending "considerable time" away from the capital of Pyongyang due to the virus.

SOURCE: North Korea's Kim Jong Un missing at 'Day of the Sun' honors as nation insists no coronavirus cases

So it seems that if the Chinese had developed a vaccine to immunized against COVID-19, they didn't share it with the Iranians or the North Koreans. And not many of its own people. Tightly controlled by the Chinese Military!