Because China

[Panzermann]

Leviticus seems more appealing every day

​

 

Why? Kosher food rules?

 

 

 

But I think the main reaosn for this outbreak of a new corona strain is, that so many chinese live crowded together. Makes for a great petri dish for virusses to mutate and then spread quickly. Especially this time of year, because many chinese working away from home travel home for chinese new year parties. Carrying the new viruses with them. The annual flu waves also often come from east asia afaik.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

There was a feature on CNN, where its speculated this spread from eating something inadvisable from the local market. CNN went around local market and there were kinds of strange wild animals being sold for consumption, including something that looked like a Possum. Think your local Tesco's crossed with the endangered species list and you pretty much have it.

 

Well, sooner or later they will learn a lesson. Maybe.

Chinese version of impossible burger, improbable meat.

 

Yeah, kinda.

At the 1.13 mark. Prepare your stomach for a shock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEARtTBHXEw

Edited January 24, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[JasonJ]

 

Leviticus seems more appealing every day

​

 

Why? Kosher food rules?

 

 

 

But I think the main reaosn for this outbreak of a new corona strain is, that so many chinese live crowded together. Makes for a great petri dish for virusses to mutate and then spread quickly. Especially this time of year, because many chinese working away from home travel home for chinese new year parties. Carrying the new viruses with them. The annual flu waves also often come from east asia afaik.

Yeah, even if it doesn't look appitizing, they probably didn't expect a virus problem from it. Tough lesson learned for them and sucks for them that much of the country has to lock up movement during their biggest family gathering holiday.

[DougRichards]

 

 

Leviticus seems more appealing every day
​

 
Why? Kosher food rules? 
 
 
 
But I think the main reaosn for this outbreak of a new corona strain is, that so many chinese live crowded together. Makes for a great petri dish for virusses to mutate and then spread quickly. Especially this time of year, because many chinese working away from home travel home for chinese new year parties. Carrying the new viruses with them. The annual flu waves also often come from east asia afaik.

Yeah, even if it doesn't look appitizing, they probably didn't expect a virus problem from it. Tough lesson learned for them and sucks for them that much of the country has to lock up movement during their biggest family gathering holiday.

 

There are just somethings that should not be eaten.  Leviticus and, while I dread to say anything positive in this direction, Halal food seems to be safest.  Meanwhile a folk remedy of eating tiger or bat or something else to cure whatever deserves condemnation. 

 

At least food should be tested and certified by scientific methods as being either healthy to eat, or not too harmful (mind you sugar and sodas would not pass this test), and prepared in hygienic ways.

 

But I doubt the Chinese Communist Party would apply itself against poor food beliefs as it has against certain religions. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

We should start a rumour it was started by people eating Rhino horn or elephant Tusk. You could turn the Chinese people off folk remedy crap in an awful hurry.

 

Apparently when the bird flu did the round back about 15 years ago, the Hong Kong economy was in tatters. The Communist party might not want to address the problem, but if they dont, its sure to address them.

[JasonJ]

 

 

 

Leviticus seems more appealing every day

​

Why? Kosher food rules?

 

 

 

But I think the main reaosn for this outbreak of a new corona strain is, that so many chinese live crowded together. Makes for a great petri dish for virusses to mutate and then spread quickly. Especially this time of year, because many chinese working away from home travel home for chinese new year parties. Carrying the new viruses with them. The annual flu waves also often come from east asia afaik.

Yeah, even if it doesn't look appitizing, they probably didn't expect a virus problem from it. Tough lesson learned for them and sucks for them that much of the country has to lock up movement during their biggest family gathering holiday.

 

There are just somethings that should not be eaten. Leviticus and, while I dread to say anything positive in this direction, Halal food seems to be safest. Meanwhile a folk remedy of eating tiger or bat or something else to cure whatever deserves condemnation.

 

At least food should be tested and certified by scientific methods as being either healthy to eat, or not too harmful (mind you sugar and sodas would not pass this test), and prepared in hygienic ways.

 

But I doubt the Chinese Communist Party would apply itself against poor food beliefs as it has against certain religions.

 

Well yeah, true.

[Nobu]

Apparently when the bird flu did the round back about 15 years ago, the Hong Kong economy was in tatters. The Communist party might not want to address the problem, but if they dont, its sure to address them.

It will be interesting to see whether the economic effects this time will be as severe. Likely, yes, which will probably lead to an even greater emphasis on public health and disease control there.

[DougRichards]

It appears that a death or thousand is much less important than upsetting the applecart of 'social cohesion' to the party. We are indeed living in the days of 1984, especially when 'The Party' in one country can threaten the health of thousands in other countries by concealing the truth of their own state's harmful restrictions on the reporting of health problems whilst not stopping those problems from happening by what the rest of the world would consider to be proper, scientific and reasonable food hygiene regulations.

 

Them again, how many Chinese are there? Why would the party worry about a few deaths or so? In fact this epidemic may do the west a favour in highlighting that free travel between China and the rest of the world is inherently dangerous.

Edited January 25, 2020 by DougRichards

[BansheeOne]

Coronavirus Spreads to Four Continents With China Cases Surging

By Mark Schoifet and Blake Schmidt

24. Januar 2020, 23:21 MEZ Updated on 25. Januar 2020, 07:56 MEZ

Chinese authorities deployed military doctors and locked down more cities to curb the spread of the new coronavirus as reports emerged of hospitals at the center of the outbreak struggling to cope with growing numbers of sick people.

 

New cases were reported in the U.S., Europe, Australia and Malaysia, with the virus now on four continents. In China, the National Health Commission said Saturday there are 1,287 confirmed cases, including 444 new ones, and that 41 people have died. It reported 237 severe cases.

 

The People’s Liberation Army sent 450 medical personnel, including those who’ve had experience in fighting viral pandemics, to Wuhan to help out at local hospitals, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Health centers in Wuhan are struggling to treat hundreds of sick people, with many turned away from hospitals crammed with patients lying in packed corridors, the South China Morning Post reported.

 

The dramatic rise in the death count in China signals the virus isn’t yet under control despite aggressive steps by authorities there to limit movement for millions of people who live in cities near the center of the outbreak. The restrictions come during the Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest celebration during which billions of trips are typically taken for vacation and visiting of family.

 

While movement from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, and nearby areas has been limited, thousands of people left the region for other points before the bans took effect. In the U.S., two cases have been confirmed in people who returned from China. Europe’s first cases were identified in France, while Australia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Nepal reported infections.

 

Scientists around the globe have been working to understand the virus better, how contagious it is and where it comes from. First detected in Wuhan last month, it has sparked fears that the disease could rival SARS, the pandemic that claimed almost 800 lives 17 years ago.

 

An official statement gave grounds for optimism, noting that two of five victims in Thailand are better now and that one case has been cured in Japan.

 

While global experts have mostly praised efforts to contain the virus, Chinese citizens are increasingly critical and anxious as the travel restrictions grow to encompass more than 50 million people. Jiang Chaoliang, the Communist Party secretary of Hubei province, said Friday that China should investigate when people who had been in Wuhan are involved in cases outside the province.

 

Global Cases

 

Australia‘s first confirmed case was the infection of a Wuhan man in his 50s who flew into Melbourne on Jan. 19. The government warned its citizens not to travel to Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province.

The cases in Malaysia were a woman and her two grandchildren -- Chinese nationals from Wuhan -- who had traveled there from Singapore. They are related to a 66-year-old man and and his son who had tested positive for the virus in Singapore. The city-state’s authorities tipped Malaysia off that the family had entered the country, and the three have been isolated and are in stable conditions with cough symptoms, Malaysia’s health minister said.

 

[...]

 

France’s Health Ministry confirmed three cases of the coronavirus late Friday, the first reported infections in Europe. The first case is in Bordeaux, and the other two are in Paris -- all three of the infected persons had been in China.

 

In the U.S., two cases have been reported and health authorities are monitoring more than 60 people for potential infection. U.S. lawmakers said health authorities are expected to confirm a third case, following a closed-door briefing between lawmakers in Washington and federal health officials.

 

“We are expecting more cases in the U.S. and we are likely going to see some cases among close contacts of travelers and human-to-human transmission,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

 

Three people in New York state are being investigated for possible infection, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office. A fourth person has been investigated and tested negative.

 

The virus is believed to have emerged last month in a seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan, spreading from infected animals to humans. It has an incubation period of about two weeks before infected people start to show symptoms, which resemble a cold or flu, the CDC said.

 

The CDC said it’s working to get tests for the virus out to states so they can more quickly identify cases. Currently, samples have to be sent to the CDC for analysis.

 

“This situation is rapidly evolving. Information is coming in hour by hour, day by day,” Messonnier said.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-24/coronavirus-deaths-surge-in-china-while-europe-finds-first-cases

 

China virus outbreak revives calls to stop wildlife trade

 

BEIJING (AP) — The outbreak of a new virus linked to a wildlife market in central China is prompting renewed calls for enforcement of laws against the trade in and consumption of exotic species.

 

It’s also raising questions about how it could happen again after the lessons learned from the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which was traced to consumption of wild animals in the southern city of Guangzhou.

 

Demand for wild animals in Asia, especially China, is hastening the extinction of many species, on top of posing a perennial health threat that authorities have failed to fully address despite growing risks of a global pandemic.

 

In response to the crisis that has been centered in the big industrial city of Wuhan, China’s Agriculture Ministry issued an order earlier this week ordering tightened controls on trade in wildlife.

 

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, meanwhile, appealed for an end to wildlife markets everywhere, not just in China.

 

Zoonotic diseases, or those contracted by humans that originated in other species, account for a large share of human infectious illnesses. Not all of them come from the wildlife trade: rabies is endemic across many species and one of the biggest causes of death in the developing world. But mixing species of wild animals increases the risk of diseases mutating and growing more virulent as they spread in unregulated markets, experts say.

 

The emergence of such diseases is a “numbers game,” said Christian Walzer, executive director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s health program.

 

“If these markets persist, and human consumption of illegal and unregulated wildlife persists, then the public will continue to face heightened risks from emerging new viruses, potentially more lethal and the source of future pandemic spread,” he said. “These are perfect laboratories for creating opportunities for these viruses to emerge.”

 

The order issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, dated Jan. 21, banned all shipments of wild animals out of Wuhan. It also called for stepped up inspections and for raising public awareness about the risks of eating them.

 

Researchers have not yet announced a definitive source for this latest outbreak, which like many other viruses can infect multiple species.

 

[...]

 

https://apnews.com/d59f43a911996a729cdf8636f5aa4ce4

Edited January 25, 2020 by BansheeOne

[DougRichards]

 

Coronavirus Spreads to Four Continents With China Cases Surging

By Mark Schoifet and Blake Schmidt

24. Januar 2020, 23:21 MEZ Updated on 25. Januar 2020, 07:56 MEZ

Chinese authorities deployed military doctors and locked down more cities to curb the spread of the new coronavirus as reports emerged of hospitals at the center of the outbreak struggling to cope with growing numbers of sick people.

 

New cases were reported in the U.S., Europe, Australia and Malaysia, with the virus now on four continents. In China, the National Health Commission said Saturday there are 1,287 confirmed cases, including 444 new ones, and that 41 people have died. It reported 237 severe cases.

 

The People’s Liberation Army sent 450 medical personnel, including those who’ve had experience in fighting viral pandemics, to Wuhan to help out at local hospitals, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Health centers in Wuhan are struggling to treat hundreds of sick people, with many turned away from hospitals crammed with patients lying in packed corridors, the South China Morning Post reported.

 

The dramatic rise in the death count in China signals the virus isn’t yet under control despite aggressive steps by authorities there to limit movement for millions of people who live in cities near the center of the outbreak. The restrictions come during the Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest celebration during which billions of trips are typically taken for vacation and visiting of family.

 

While movement from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, and nearby areas has been limited, thousands of people left the region for other points before the bans took effect. In the U.S., two cases have been confirmed in people who returned from China. Europe’s first cases were identified in France, while Australia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Nepal reported infections.

 

Scientists around the globe have been working to understand the virus better, how contagious it is and where it comes from. First detected in Wuhan last month, it has sparked fears that the disease could rival SARS, the pandemic that claimed almost 800 lives 17 years ago.

 

An official statement gave grounds for optimism, noting that two of five victims in Thailand are better now and that one case has been cured in Japan.

 

While global experts have mostly praised efforts to contain the virus, Chinese citizens are increasingly critical and anxious as the travel restrictions grow to encompass more than 50 million people. Jiang Chaoliang, the Communist Party secretary of Hubei province, said Friday that China should investigate when people who had been in Wuhan are involved in cases outside the province.

 

Global Cases

 

Australia‘s first confirmed case was the infection of a Wuhan man in his 50s who flew into Melbourne on Jan. 19. The government warned its citizens not to travel to Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province.

The cases in Malaysia were a woman and her two grandchildren -- Chinese nationals from Wuhan -- who had traveled there from Singapore. They are related to a 66-year-old man and and his son who had tested positive for the virus in Singapore. The city-state’s authorities tipped Malaysia off that the family had entered the country, and the three have been isolated and are in stable conditions with cough symptoms, Malaysia’s health minister said.

 

[...]

 

France’s Health Ministry confirmed three cases of the coronavirus late Friday, the first reported infections in Europe. The first case is in Bordeaux, and the other two are in Paris -- all three of the infected persons had been in China.

 

In the U.S., two cases have been reported and health authorities are monitoring more than 60 people for potential infection. U.S. lawmakers said health authorities are expected to confirm a third case, following a closed-door briefing between lawmakers in Washington and federal health officials.

 

“We are expecting more cases in the U.S. and we are likely going to see some cases among close contacts of travelers and human-to-human transmission,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

 

Three people in New York state are being investigated for possible infection, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office. A fourth person has been investigated and tested negative.

 

The virus is believed to have emerged last month in a seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan, spreading from infected animals to humans. It has an incubation period of about two weeks before infected people start to show symptoms, which resemble a cold or flu, the CDC said.

 

The CDC said it’s working to get tests for the virus out to states so they can more quickly identify cases. Currently, samples have to be sent to the CDC for analysis.

“This situation is rapidly evolving. Information is coming in hour by hour, day by day,” Messonnier said.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-24/coronavirus-deaths-surge-in-china-while-europe-finds-first-cases

 

China virus outbreak revives calls to stop wildlife trade

 

BEIJING (AP) — The outbreak of a new virus linked to a wildlife market in central China is prompting renewed calls for enforcement of laws against the trade in and consumption of exotic species.

 

It’s also raising questions about how it could happen again after the lessons learned from the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which was traced to consumption of wild animals in the southern city of Guangzhou.

 

Demand for wild animals in Asia, especially China, is hastening the extinction of many species, on top of posing a perennial health threat that authorities have failed to fully address despite growing risks of a global pandemic.

 

In response to the crisis that has been centered in the big industrial city of Wuhan, China’s Agriculture Ministry issued an order earlier this week ordering tightened controls on trade in wildlife.

 

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, meanwhile, appealed for an end to wildlife markets everywhere, not just in China.

 

Zoonotic diseases, or those contracted by humans that originated in other species, account for a large share of human infectious illnesses. Not all of them come from the wildlife trade: rabies is endemic across many species and one of the biggest causes of death in the developing world. But mixing species of wild animals increases the risk of diseases mutating and growing more virulent as they spread in unregulated markets, experts say.

 

The emergence of such diseases is a “numbers game,” said Christian Walzer, executive director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s health program.

 

“If these markets persist, and human consumption of illegal and unregulated wildlife persists, then the public will continue to face heightened risks from emerging new viruses, potentially more lethal and the source of future pandemic spread,” he said. “These are perfect laboratories for creating opportunities for these viruses to emerge.”

 

The order issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, dated Jan. 21, banned all shipments of wild animals out of Wuhan. It also called for stepped up inspections and for raising public awareness about the risks of eating them.

 

Researchers have not yet announced a definitive source for this latest outbreak, which like many other viruses can infect multiple species.

 

[...]

 

https://apnews.com/d59f43a911996a729cdf8636f5aa4ce4

 

Quarantine China. Simple. No one in no one out.

 

Doomsday comes to mind,

 

The Party wanted it, let them have it.

 

Edited January 25, 2020 by DougRichards

[Jeff]

Xi is having a rough time lately. Maybe the party leaders are starting to realize there was a reason they had limits on how long a leader could serve. Just because a person is good at centralizing power to himself doesn't mean he has a clue how to run a country. It's deja vu all over again.

[JasonJ]

May not be a good year for them but animal zodiac rats for the year.

 

Edited January 26, 2020 by JasonJ

[Panzermann]

Yes, I had to laugh as well, that the year of the Rat begins with a plague.

 

---

 

in other news:

there is a level 4 laboratory for the strongest pathogens in Wuhan: https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487

[Panzermann]

Xi is having a rough time lately. Maybe the party leaders are starting to realize there was a reason they had limits on how long a leader could serve. Just because a person is good at centralizing power to himself doesn't mean he has a clue how to run a country. It's deja vu all over again.

 

Yes, I never really understood, why the rest of the CCP went along with him drawing ever more power to himself. And considering how large the PRC is centralizing is the path to failure. It is just to big und diverse a country to rule from far away beijing down to each and every detail.

[BansheeOne]

Yes, I had to laugh as well, that the year of the Rat begins with a plague.

 

[DB]

Contagious before symptoms show. This is very, very bad.

 

I wonder what the mortality rate is.

[DougRichards]

Contagious before symptoms show. This is very, very bad.

 

I wonder what the mortality rate is.

From

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/china-warns-that-coronavirus-can-spread-before-symptoms-appear/news-story/28e0a884cb2825e9746e96261660e56f

 

 

The lead doctor treating two Paris hospital patients infected with conoravirus believes the virus looks less deadly than SARS.

“This illness is a lot less serious – and we don’t say this based on two patients but talking to our international colleagues – than, for example, SARS,” Dr Yazdan Yazdanpaneh told AP.

The mortality rate for the viral illness identified in China last month is thought to be less than 5 per cent, whereas it was double that for SARS, he said.

It is not clear how lethal the new coronavirus is or even whether it is as dangerous as the ordinary flu, which kills tens of thousands of people every year in the US alone.

Those killed by the virus have mostly been middle-aged or elderly people, sometimes suffering from other conditions that weaken their ability to fight back.

Investigators were closely observing whether the virus was mutating but thus far found “no obvious signs” that it was doing so, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, Gao Fu, told reporters.

[Jeff]

I'll wait for independent data rather than relying on the ChiComs for info on just how bad this is.

[Leo Niehorster]

Contagious before symptoms show. This is very, very bad.

 

I wonder what the mortality rate is.

Of 2000 infected, 56 have died.

[= 28%]

FAZ. See 8th paragraph, last sentence.

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/gesundheit/coronavirus-entwarnung-nach-verdachtsfall-in-berlin-16601620.html

[R011]

 

 

Contagious before symptoms show. This is very, very bad.

 

I wonder what the mortality rate is.

Of 2000 infected, 56 have died.

[= 28%]

FAZ. See 8th paragraph, last sentence.

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/gesundheit/coronavirus-entwarnung-nach-verdachtsfall-in-berlin-16601620.html

I think you missed a decimal point. 56 out of 2000 is 2.8%.

[DougRichards]

 

 

Contagious before symptoms show. This is very, very bad.

 

I wonder what the mortality rate is.

Of 2000 infected, 56 have died.

[= 28%]

FAZ. See 8th paragraph, last sentence.

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/gesundheit/coronavirus-entwarnung-nach-verdachtsfall-in-berlin-16601620.html

I think you missed a decimal point. 56 out of 2000 is 2.8%.

 

Compare that with the Spanish Flu, with a mortality rate between 10% and 20%.

[Mikel2]

People couldn't travel half way across the world in 14 hours back in 1919. Interesting times.

[JasonJ]

Now at least 80 dead now.

[DougRichards]

People couldn't travel half way across the world in 14 hours back in 1919. Interesting times.

It is also likely that many died from secondary bacterial infections.

 

Add to that the general overall lowered resistance due to the effects of the Great War.

[Mikel2]

IIRC they dug up the body of Mark Sykes (of Sykes Picot fame) in recent years trying to find an intact sample of the Spanish Flu strain. The body was not as well preserved as they had hoped.