China built a lab to study SARS and Ebola in Wuhan – and US biosafety experts warned in 2017 that a virus could ‘escape’ the facility that’s become key in fighting the outbreak
The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is the only lab in China designated for studying dangerous pathogens like SARS and Ebola
Ahead of its January 2018 opening, biosafety experts and scientists from the US expressed concerns that a virus could escape the lab
In 2004, a SARS virus ‘leaked’ from a lab in Beijing
Experts say the coronavirus that’s infected more than 800 people mutated in animals and became capable of infecting humans at the Wuhan seafood market
But a 2017 article warned of the unpredictability of lab animals that scientists at the Wuhan lab intended to inject with viruses
By Natalie Rahhal Acting Us Health Editor
Published: 17:08 EST, 23 January 2020 | Updated: 20:56 EST, 24 January 2020
Scientists warned in 2017 that a SARS-like virus could escape a lab set up that year in Wuhan, China, to study some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world.
Now, a SARS-like coronavirus has infected more than 800 there, spread to at least 10 other countries and killed 25 in Wuhan and nearby provinces.
China installed the first of a planned five to seven biolabs designed for maximum safety in Wuhan in 2017, for the purpose of studying the most high-risk pathogens, including the Ebola and the SARS viruses.
Tim Trevan, a Maryland biosafety consultant, told Nature that year, when the lab was on the cusp of opening, that he worried that China’s culture could make the institute unsafe because ‘structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-lab-studying-SARS-Ebola-Wuhan-outbreaks-center.html
The U.S. Scientist Who Predicted Coronavirus Could Kill 65 Million People–Three Months BEFORE the Outbreak in Wuhan, China
January 25, 2020 Cap Allon
U.S. health experts predicted a strain of the coronavirus could kill tens of millions of people in a warning three months BEFORE the deadly outbreak in Wuhan, China.
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security modeled a hypothetical pandemic on a computer as part of research last October — their simulation predicted the deaths of some 65 million people worldwide in just 18 months.
According to latest reports coming out of China, the highly contagious disease has so far killed 41 people and infected around 1,300 others — but experts believe China is hiding the true figures–predicting the true number of those infected to be in the many thousands.
Coronavirus: Wuhan has deadly pathogen lab linked to Chinese scientist under investigation
CHINA’S only secure laboratory for studying deadly diseases is located in Wuhan and was the destination of several trips made by a Chinese scientist who is under investigation by the Canadian government.
By Brian McGleenon
PUBLISHED: 22:47, Tue, Jan 28, 2020
The scientist who worked at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg made at least five trips to China between 2017-18, including one to train scientists and technicians at China’s newly certified Level 4 lab, which does research with the most deadly pathogens. Xiangguo Qiu, who was escorted out of the Winnipeg lab in July amid an investigation into what’s being described by Public Health Agency of Canada as a possible “policy breach”, was invited to go to the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences twice a year for two years, for up to two weeks each time. Several of Mrs Qiu’s co-workers say there have always been questions about her trips to China, and what information and technology she was sharing with researchers there.
One employee said: “It’s not right that she’s a Canadian government employee providing details of top-secret work and know-how to set up a high-containment lab for a foreign nation,”
According to documents obtained CBC News during a September 2017 trip she also met with collaborators in Beijing, the documents say, but their names have also been blacked out.
Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng and her students from China were removed on July 5 from Canada’s only Level 4 lab, one equipped to work with the most serious and deadly human and animal diseases, such as Ebola.
Security access for the couple and the Chinese students was revoked.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1234777/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-military-bio-warfare-virus-spread
AI Predicts Coronavirus Could Infect 2.5 Billion And Kill 53 Million. Doctors Say That’s Not Credible, And Here’s Why
John Koetsier
Contributor
Consumer Tech
Feb 5, 2020
John Koetsier is a journalist, analyst, author, and speaker.
An AI-powered simulation run by a technology executive says that Coronavirus could infect as many as 2.5 billion people within 45 days and kill as many as 52.9 million of them. Fortunately, however, conditions of infection and detection are changing, which in turn changes incredibly important factors that the AI isn’t aware of.
And that probably means we’re safer than we think.
Probably being the operative word.
Could the new coronavirus really kill 50 million people worldwide?
Health | Analysis 11 February 2020
By Michael Le Page and Debora MacKenzie
If the spread of the new coronavirus isn’t halted, it could infect 60 per cent of the world’s population and kill 1 in 100 of those infected – around 50 million people.
This is what Gabriel Leung, chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, told The Guardian newspaper on 11 February. Is he right? The short answer is that no one knows, because there are many things we still don’t know about the virus.
US military prepping for coronavirus pandemic
Patricia Kime
February 12
U.S. Northern Command is executing plans to prepare for a potential pandemic of the novel coronavirus, now called COVID19, according to Navy and Marine Corps service-wide messages issued this week.
An executive order issued by the Joint Staff and approved by Defense Secretary Mark Esper this month directed Northern Command and geographic combatant commanders to initiate pandemic plans, which include ordering commanders to prepare for widespread outbreaks and confining service members with a history of travel to China.
The Navy and Marine Corps messages, issued Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, reference an executive order directing U.S. Northern Command to implement the Department of Defense Global Campaign plan for Pandemic Influenza and Infectious Diseases 3551-13.
The document serves as the Pentagon’s blueprint for planning and preparing for widespread dispersion of influenza and previously unknown diseases.
U.S. Northern Command said Wednesday it was directed the Joint Staff Feb. 1 to commence “prudent planning” in their assigned role synchronizing the department’s plans for pandemic flu and disease.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/02/13/us-military-prepping-for-coronavirus-pandemic/
Sudden Militarization Of Wuhan’s P4 Lab Raises New Questions About The Origin Of The Deadly Covid-19 Virus
by Tyler Durden
Thu, 02/13/2020 – 09:11
The reported militarization of Wuhan’s P4 Lab has raised new questions about the origin of the Covid-19 virus and the apparent cover-up that has occurred since it was first made public.
Following the removal of the most senior health officials in Wuhan yesterday, Chinese State Media has just reported that Chen Wei, China’s chief biochemical weapon defense expert, is now to be stationed in Wuhan to lead the efforts to overcome the deadly, pneumonia-like pathogen.
According to the PLA Daily report, Chen Wei holds the rank of major general, and along with reports that Chinese troops have started to “assist”, it strongly suggests that the PLA has taken control of the situation.
As Epoch Times reports, before this latest report, Chen’s military rank and specialization was not widely known. She was first interviewed on Jan. 30 by the state-run China Science Daily. In a second interview the next day, she predicted that the outbreak in Wuhan would let up over the next few days, but could worsen again soon…
“We need to prepare for the worst-case scenario, find the best solutions, and be ready to fight the longest battle,” she said.
Amid constant propaganda from CCP officials, and widespread censorship, many – including US Senator Tom Cotton – have wondered if the virus was bio-engineered, and was ‘leaked’ from the lab (which just happens to be located at the epicenter ofg the virus).
The militarization, and bringing in of China’s foremost bio-weapons expert raises the question once again of whether the Wuhan Strain of coronavirus (Covid-19) is the result of naturally emergent mutations against the possibility that it may be a bio-engineered strain meant for defensive immunotherapy protocols that was released into the public, most likely by accident since China’s rate of occupational accidents is about ten-times higher than America’s, and some twenty-times more than Europe’s – the only other regions with high-level virology labs.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/sudden-militarization-wuhans-p4-lab-raises-new-questions-about-origin-deadly-covid-19
Did coronavirus originate in Chinese government laboratory? Scientists believe killer disease may have begun in research facility 300 yards from Wuhan wet fish market
Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology concludes that ‘the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan’
It points to research on bats and respiratory diseases carried by the animals at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and the Wuhan Institute of Virology
WCDC is just 300 yards from the seafood market and is adjacent to the hospital
By Ross Ibbetson For Mailonline
Published: 08:22 EST, 16 February 2020
Chinese scientists believe the deadly coronavirus may have started life in a research facility just 300 yards from the Wuhan fish market.
A new bombshell paper from the Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology says that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC) could have spawned the contagion in Hubei province.
‘The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,’ penned by scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao claims the WHCDC kept disease-ridden animals in laboratories, including 605 bats.
It also mentions that bats – which are linked to coronavirus – once attacked a researcher and ‘blood of bat was on his skin.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8009669/Did-coronavirus-originate-Chinese-government-laboratory.html
Hubei Doctors Warn Of Even-Deadlier Coronavirus Reinfection Causing Sudden Heart Attacks
by Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/16/2020 – 09:20
Doctors working on the front lines of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak have told the Taiwan Times that it’s possible to become reinfected by the virus, leading to death from sudden heart failure in some cases.
“It’s highly possible to get infected a second time. A few people recovered from the first time by their own immune system, but the meds they use are damaging their heart tissue, and when they get it the second time, the antibody doesn’t help but makes it worse, and they die a sudden death from heart failure,” reads a message forwarded to Taiwan News from a relative of one of the doctors living in the United Kingdom.
The source also said the virus has “outsmarted all of us,” as it can hide symptoms for up to 24 days. This assertion has been made independently elsewhere, with Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan (鍾南山) saying the average incubation period is three days, but it can take as little as one day and up to 24 days to develop symptoms.
Also, the source said that false negative tests for the virus are fairly common. “It can fool the test kit – there were cases that they found, the CT scan shows both lungs are fully infected but the test came back negative four times. The fifth test came back positive.” -Taiwan Times
Notably, one of the ways coronaviruses cripple the immune system is via an HIV-like attachment to white blood cells, which triggers a ‘cytokine storm’ – a term popularized during the avian H5N1 influenza outbreak – in which an uncontrolled release of inflammatory ‘cytokines’ target various organs, often leading to failure and in many cases death.
The cytokine storm is best exemplified by severe lung infections, in which local inflammation spills over into the systemic circulation, producing systemic sepsis, as defined by persistent hypotension, hyper- or hypothermia, leukocytosis or leukopenia, and often thrombocytopenia.
In addition to lung infections, the cytokine storm is a consequence of severe infections in the gastrointestinal tract, urinary tract, central nervous system, skin, joint spaces, and other sites. (Tisoncik, et. al, Into the Eye of the Cytokine Storm)(2012)
According to the 2012 study, “Cytokine storms are associated with a wide variety of infectious and noninfectious diseases and have even been the unfortunate consequence of attempts at therapeutic intervention.”
How do coronaviruses enter the body?
With SARS (sudden acute respiratory syndrome), another coronavirus, researchers discovered that one of the ways the disease attaches itself is through an enzyme known as ACE2, a ‘functional receptor’ produced in several organs (oral and nasal mucosa, nasopharynx, lung, stomach, small intestine, colon, skin, lymph nodes, thymus, bone marrow, spleen, liver, kidney, and brain).
ACE2 is also “abundantly present in humans in the epithelia of the lung and small intestine, which might provide possible routes of entry for the SARS-CoV,” while it was also observed “in arterial and venous endothelial cells and arterial smooth muscle cells” – which would include the heart.
This has led some to speculate that Asians, who have higher concentrations of ACE2 (per the 1000 genome project) may be affected to a greater degree than those of European ancestry, who produce the least of it – and have largely been the asymptomatic ‘super spreaders’ such as Diamond Princess coronavirus victim Rebecca Frasure.
And so while more research on COVID-19 is urgently needed – we know that coronavirus can target ACE2 receptors, which are found in the cardiovascuar system. And we have seen evidence of both sudden collapses and neurological damage from footage pouring out of Wuhan, China.
If the virus can reinfect patients and cause cytokine storms and sudden death – possibly exacerbated by therapeutic intervention – treating the coronavirus which CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield says will become widespread throughout the United States ‘this year or next,’ it is vitally important to understand exactly how COVID-19 works, and how to treat it. That would require cooperation from China and a CDC team on the ground in the epicenter. For some unknown reason, however, China still refuses to grant US scientists access to ground zero.
If Coronavirus Is Killing Fewer People Than the Flu, Why Has Beijing Quarantined Millions?
Feb. 21, 2020 8:00 pm ET
China’s Leaders on the Hot Seat
Market Intelligence Report by TIS Group
Feb. 21: Over the past several days, we have detailed some, though not all, of the actions being taken by China’s government to control the coronavirus outbreak. I was told today that roughly 50,000 people die in China each year from the flu. If the coronavirus is just another flu-like virus and the current death toll really is about 2,000, not 50,000, why then has Beijing locked down 750 million people? Why has it quarantined the 11 million people in Wuhan? Why has it instituted wartime controls in an area near Wuhan and to some extent used the same controls in Beijing? Why did Beijing refuse help from the U.S. at the beginning of the outbreak? Why is Chinese cash being disinfected? Why is bleach being used to disinfect people in the cities? This doesn’t make sense if the coronavirus is just another form of the flu and the economic damage it is causing is going to be hopscotched over by central bank injections.
Perhaps the most unpriced risk of all in this saga is the political risk forming over the Chinese leadership. If the coronavirus isn’t a garden-variety flu but something more critical, then the failure to build a modern health-care system will be an internal and external problem for the party.
—Larry E. Jeddeloh
https://www.barrons.com/articles/if-coronavirus-is-killing-fewer-people-than-the-flu-why-has-beijing-quarantined-millions-51582333212
New data from China buttress fears about high coronavirus fatality rate, WHO expert says
By Helen Branswell @HelenBranswell
February 25, 2020
One of the hopes of people watching China’s coronavirus outbreak was that the alarming picture of its lethality is probably exaggerated because a lot of mild cases are likely being missed.
But on Tuesday, a World Health Organization expert suggested that does not appear to be the case. Bruce Aylward, who led an international mission to China to learn about the virus and China’s response, said the specialists did not see evidence that a large number of mild cases of the novel disease called Covid-19 are evading detection.
“So I know everybody’s been out there saying, ‘Whoa, this thing is spreading everywhere and we just can’t see it, tip of the iceberg.’ But the data that we do have don’t support that,” Aylward said during a briefing for journalists at WHO’s Geneva headquarters.
New data from China buttress fears about high coronavirus fatality rate, WHO expert says
Will the coronavirus kill the global economy?
By Laurence Kotlikoff, Opinion Contributor — 02/25/20 03:30 PM EST
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill
It’s the $85 trillion (global GDP) question: Will the coronavirus kill the global economy? What we know is incredibly scary. The disease is a prolific killer and a stealthy one at that. Over 2 percent of its victims die. For people in their 80s, the death rate is around 10 percent. The latest information suggests that the virus can incubate in one’s body for as long as a month before producing symptoms.
That’s ample time for an unsuspecting infected person to kiss you, sneeze on you, breathe on you, shake your hand, open the same door, use the same faucet, take the same cruise, touch the same toilet flusher, travel in the same train, bus or plane.
Were all of our planet’s nearly eight billion inhabitants to become infected, we’re talking roughly 160 million deaths — twice the number of military and civilian deaths in World War II. Could the virus spread that dramatically, infecting us all?
Well, consider how passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise liner fared. On February 1, just one passenger had clear signs of coronavirus. Thanks to their on-board, two-week quarantine, 691 passengers are now infected for an infection rate of one in five. If the virus can reach so many so quickly, what can it do over time?
Yes, the originally healthy passengers had no means to fully distance themselves from the sick passengers. But when each “healthy” person is potentially a disease carrier, none of us really has such a means. Economically, emotionally, practically and morally speaking, we can’t distance ourselves from each other for, say, two months and then re-start the world with whoever’s still standing.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/484500-will-the-coronavirus-kill-the-global-economy
A single coronavirus case exposes a bigger problem: The scope of undetected U.S. spread is unknown
By Helen Branswell @HelenBranswell
February 27, 2020
The discovery that a California woman was likely infected with the novel coronavirus by a previously unrecognized case in her community is proof of an enormous problem the country is facing at the moment, according to public health experts. It’s clear that the virus is spreading undetected in the United States — but how broadly it’s spreading is an utter mystery.
Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run.
The new case in California makes it clear the virus is spreading undetected in at least one area of one state. The woman is not believed to have traveled outside the country and had no contact with a known case. As her condition worsened — she is on a ventilator — health officials in California asked the CDC to test her for the virus. Because she had not been to China and had not been a contact of a known case, the agency said no.
Eventually, more than 10 days after she went into hospital, the CDC agreed she could be tested. Dozens of health workers who may have come into contact with her at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital, in Vacaville, Calif., are now being monitored.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was critical of the testing debacle in a press conference on Thursday. His state has only 200 kits to test for the new coronavirus, he said.
“Testing protocols have been a point of frustration for many of us,” Newsom said. He added that, based on conversations with the CDC, states have been informed new protocols are coming and they have been promised an “exponentially” increased capacity to test.
A single coronavirus case exposes a bigger problem: The scope of undetected U.S. spread is unknown
Washington Declares State Of Emergency After 1st US Coronavirus Death; New China Cases Jump: Live Updates
by Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/29/2020 – 20:19
Summary:
CDC says “no national spread of coronavirus in US”
S.Korea reports another 376 new cases
China reports 573 new cases.
US reports first death from Covid-19 (in Washington State)
Washington declares state of emergency
US Surgeon General says “stop buying masks”
Trump blasts media/Dems for ‘hoax’-gate
South Korea’s Shincheonji Church members found 1557 out of 1900 tested positive for virus
Germany boosts border controls
Italy tops 1000 cases (1,128, with 29 possible virus-linked deaths)
France bans large gatherings
Update (2030ET): And here comes the NHC with China’s numbers from Saturday. Mainland China reported 573 new coronavirus cases. Note the ~150 case increase from 427 on Friday. 51,856 are still under “medical observation” across China. In all, there have been 79,824 confirmed cases in mainland China, though most experts believe the true total could be much higher.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/fda-announces-plan-speed-coronavirus-testing-south-korea-reports-huge-jump-new-cases
COVID-19 Coronavirus Outbreak
Last updated: March 01, 2020, 01:20 GMT
Cases – Deaths – Countries – Death Rate – Incubation – Age – Symptoms – Opinions – News
Coronavirus Cases:
86,989
view by country
Deaths:
2,978
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Inside Wuhan: Medical team transfers coronavirus patients
Armchair Warrior 