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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Coronavirus
- Thread starter Tigers of Old
- Start date
84 deaths this week in Bots getting worse .. 3 were ppl we know,one we only saw 2 weeks ago.. no vax to 2013 ? maybe
Hmm, not good, and Botswana has been going fairly well from memory before COVID.
I presume the South African strain coming in with migrant workers returning so the vaccines not so effective going by the latest data.
Hope Botswana can get out of this and recover.
Keep safe.
DS
Mission to China fails to find source of coronavirus (paywalled)
Zoe Smith, Tiffany Bakker, Maria Bervanakis, Nadia Salemme, Tamsin Rose and Nathan VassHerald Sun
February 10, 2021
Fury is growing as the World Health Organisation was accused of a “whitewash” as it found the coronavirus likely didn’t originate at the Wuhan wet market or come from a lab leak.
Both suggestions that the virus could have originally crossed to humans at the Huanan Seafood Market, or escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were thrown out in a lengthy joint press conference.
WHO’s findings appeared to largely back China’s protestations that the virus may have originated from outside of its borders and its repeated denials of a lab accident.
It is a move which will only fuel allegations of “China-centric” bias by WHO which have been fiercely lobbied by the US.
And despite offering further explanations, the WHO team admitted they have failed to identify the original source of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News he didn’t believe the WHO team was given the “access that they needed” to do a thorough investigation.
He said Chinese scientists and doctors may not have been able to speak freely with WHO investigators.
Mr Pompeo also claimed that there remained “significant evidence that [COVID-19] came from that laboratory”.
Asked whether his mind had been changed over the alleged lab origins of the virus, Mr Pompeo said, “Not a thing.”
“This is a complete whitewash,” added British MP Tobias Ellwood.
“Given the global economic devastation and death toll this pandemic has caused – never again should a country responsible for an outbreak be allowed to hinder an international investigation for a full 12 months.”
China’s government has long been accused of covering up the pandemic’s origins – and has been continuing to attempt to deflect blame.
WHO scientists appeared alongside their Chinese counterparts as they cast doubt on the Wuhan wet market as the original source and dismissed the lab leak as “extremely unlikely”.
Dr Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the WHO mission, said: “The laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population.
“Therefore is not in the hypotheses that we will suggest for future studies.”
Instead the team offered speculative explanations including a possible jump from animals to humans elsewhere, or even that it may have come across borders on frozen food.
WHO concluded the virus likely jumped to humans from an animal – but now the question is to where this occurred as doubt was cast over the wet market as the source of the original transmission.
TRANSMISSION FROM BATS ‘UNLIKELY’
The team also admitted the virus could have been circulating in other regions of China “several weeks” before it was identified after an outbreak at the wet market in Wuhan.Experts believe the disease — which has killed more than 2.3 million people worldwide — originated in bats and could have been transmitted to humans via another mammal.
Dr Embarek said identifying the animal pathway remains a “work in progress”, and the absence of bats in the Wuhan area dimmed the likelihood of direct transmission.
The team handed down their findings at a press conference in Wuhan, after a month of meetings and site visits in the Chinese city where the virus was first identified.
Dr Embarek said that while bats had a “natural reservoir” for coronavirus, it is unlikely that they were in Wuhan.
It was “most likely” to have come from an intermediary species, he said. He also backed up China’s position that there was no evidence of “large outbreaks” in Wuhan before December when the first official cases were recorded.
Animals such as rabbits, ferrets and bamboo rats could be the intermediary, another team member Marion Koopmans added, saying they might be an “entry point” for further investigations.
“Therefore we have tried to find what other animals were introduced that could have introduced the virus,” he said.
“The market was dealing primarily with frozen animal products and mainly seafood but there were also vendors selling products from domesticated wildlife and imported products.
“There is the potential to continue to follow this lead and animals that were supplied to the market in frozen and other semi-processed or raw form.”
The report followed a month of meetings and site visits in Wuhanm, with team members visiting key sites including the Huanan wet market and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Liang Wannian, head of the China side of the joint mission, said animal transmission remained the likely route, but “the reservoir hosts remain to be identified”.
Dr Embarek quashed the theory that a leak from a virology lab in Wuhan could have caused the pandemic.
“The laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely,” he said. It “is not in the hypotheses that we will suggest for future studies”.
The mission was a diplomatically knotty one — presaged by fears of a whitewash — with the US demanding a “robust” probe and China firing back with a warning not to “politicise” the investigation.
The WHO experts spent a month in China including two weeks in quarantine. Liang said studies showed the virus could be “carried long-distance on cold chain products”, appearing to nudge towards the theory the virus was imported — an idea that has abounded in China in recent months.
Dr Embarek said “the virus can persist and survive in conditions that are found in these cold and frozen environments”.
“But we don’t really understand if the virus can then transmit to humans and under which conditions this could happen,” he said.
Beijing is desperate to defang criticism of its handling of the chaotic early stages of the outbreak.
It has tried to refocus attention on its handling and recovery while floating the theory that the virus emerged abroad and was brought into China possibly via frozen foods.
Dr Koopmans said the next steps could include searching for “earlier circulation” of the virus.
Reporters were largely kept at arms’ length from the experts during their closely-monitored visit, but snippets of their findings crept out via Twitter and interviews.
Questions have been asked about the relevance of some of their activities to their stated aim of finding the virus source — including a visit to a propaganda exhibition celebrating China’s recovery from the pandemic.
The group spent just an hour at the seafood market where many of the first reported clusters of infections emerged over a year ago.
They also appeared to spend several days inside their hotel, receiving visits from various Chinese officials without venturing out into the city.
Research was carried out at the Wuhan virology institute where they spent nearly four hours. They met with Chinese scientists there including Shi Zhengli, one of China’s leading experts on bat coronaviruses and a deputy director of the Wuhan lab.
Scientists at the laboratory conduct research on some of the world’s most dangerous diseases, including strains of bat coronaviruses similar to COVID-19.
Former US president Donald Trump frequently repeated a controversial theory that a lab leak may have been the source of the pandemic.
There is no evidence of a leak from the lab, Pompeo can keep repeating that hypothesis but repeating does not make it true. In fact, Pompeo is making it harder to find the real source by muddying the debate. I'm sure China are happy with this as it means they just have to keep batting away a conspiracy theory which has no evidence.
The fact that it is unlikely it transmitted directly via bats in Wuhan does indicate it came to Wuhan another way, but you would have to think the most likely place where the virus jumped to humans is within China.
The WHO is a creature of the UN which is made up of states. It has to tread carefully in any country, the more powerful the country the more careful it has to be. It would be nice if the WHO could access anywhere and anything in their investigations, but, that would not be the case in any country which wants to block enquiries and has the power to do so. China might be worse than most countries but free access would be very unlikely in many countries. The fact of the WHO enquiry not being able to access all the evidence which may exist is more a reflection of the powerlessness of the WHO in the face of any powerful country than anything else.
It's not as if the world has ever been given free access to apportion blame in the past. Look at the Spanish Flu, it was called the Spanish Flu because the Spanish King contracted the virus and they didn't hide it. The rest of Europe was covering it up as they were still finishing their war. It did not start in Spain, of that we can be sure. There is a theory it came from the USA although the evidence for that is dodgy, the reality is we don't know.
DS
The fact that it is unlikely it transmitted directly via bats in Wuhan does indicate it came to Wuhan another way, but you would have to think the most likely place where the virus jumped to humans is within China.
The WHO is a creature of the UN which is made up of states. It has to tread carefully in any country, the more powerful the country the more careful it has to be. It would be nice if the WHO could access anywhere and anything in their investigations, but, that would not be the case in any country which wants to block enquiries and has the power to do so. China might be worse than most countries but free access would be very unlikely in many countries. The fact of the WHO enquiry not being able to access all the evidence which may exist is more a reflection of the powerlessness of the WHO in the face of any powerful country than anything else.
It's not as if the world has ever been given free access to apportion blame in the past. Look at the Spanish Flu, it was called the Spanish Flu because the Spanish King contracted the virus and they didn't hide it. The rest of Europe was covering it up as they were still finishing their war. It did not start in Spain, of that we can be sure. There is a theory it came from the USA although the evidence for that is dodgy, the reality is we don't know.
DS
Most states have had problems with hotel quarantine, the whole policy was flawed from the start, remote quarantine facilities are needed Australia wide.
Agree on remote quarantine facilities; I've been advocating that for ages.
The VIC quarantine reset started well but there are obvious gaps that need fixing now. Unfortunately we have had more quarantine issues in VIC than other states. These latest outbreaks are frustrating but hopefully our contact tracing is "best practice" and we can keep on top it and shut it down like we did with the Black Rock cluster.
I think not so much remote quarantine as quarantine on the edge of the city where there is still the ability to transport people to hospital if needed.
For a less vitriolic view of the WHO attempts to investigate the sources of this virus, the ABC reported the following:
More info on tracing viruses is also useful.
There is more in that article here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...cing-animal-origins-bats-sars-hendra/13081684
This is actual investigation of the possible sources, looking for evidence.
Clearly China is obfuscating and trying to avoid any scrutiny, they don't want the blame and they are powerful enough to be able to deflect scrutiny and they will make a pretty good fist of avoiding any blame.
Of course, the deflecting is only helped by conspiracy theories which muddy the waters.
What we need is for the rest of the world to support the WHO to try and find the cause of the outbreak so that maximum pressure can be put on China to open the way for an investigation of causes. This is unlikely as China is powerful enough to split countries' resolve in standing up to them.
DS
For a less vitriolic view of the WHO attempts to investigate the sources of this virus, the ABC reported the following:
Article is here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02...vid-19-team-mission-results-covid-19/13137984
More info on tracing viruses is also useful.
There is more in that article here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...cing-animal-origins-bats-sars-hendra/13081684
This is actual investigation of the possible sources, looking for evidence.
Clearly China is obfuscating and trying to avoid any scrutiny, they don't want the blame and they are powerful enough to be able to deflect scrutiny and they will make a pretty good fist of avoiding any blame.
Of course, the deflecting is only helped by conspiracy theories which muddy the waters.
What we need is for the rest of the world to support the WHO to try and find the cause of the outbreak so that maximum pressure can be put on China to open the way for an investigation of causes. This is unlikely as China is powerful enough to split countries' resolve in standing up to them.
DS
The Holiday Inn cluster(*smile*) is now up to 8 cases. Another worker and another returned traveller who had already left quarantine have tested positive.
World's best hotel quarantine practice looking anything but on a daily basis. South Australia has closed the border to people who have been in metropolitan Melbourne and surrounds.
This could get ugly again. I truly hope not. Contact tracing is the key as it appears there will be more positive cases out of this Hotel California.
World's best hotel quarantine practice looking anything but on a daily basis. South Australia has closed the border to people who have been in metropolitan Melbourne and surrounds.
This could get ugly again. I truly hope not. Contact tracing is the key as it appears there will be more positive cases out of this Hotel California.
Why can't the army set up a MASH type of hospital there, the new modern airconditioned tents would be suitable
I'm sure Astra Zeneca arent too concerned considering they've already been paid.Another day, another Victorian HQ worker infected. Exposure sites listed below.
Also a NSW returned traveler tests positive after the 14 day quarantine period is over. With warninsg issued in southern Sydney to Wollongong.Health.vic
At the Department of Health, we’re focused on supporting Victorians to be as healthy as they can by delivering a world-class health system that focuses on improving patient outcomes and experiences.www.dhhs.vic.gov.au
In other news the 57 million AstraZeneca made vaccines we have purchased reportedly offers limited protection against the SA variant. Great.
I'd still say we are still world beating. Meanwhile the UK has just promoted their "world beating" quarantine programme, that has tests on days 4 and day 8 of 14 day quarantine, despite the fact that thats now 3 people from hotel quarantine who had a negative test by I think day 14 and then tested positive on day 16.
Boris Johnson yet again leading the blind it seems.
Hear ! Hear Chimpley ! Concise, accurate and informative (somewhat). Unusual for you.
What's with the 'R' ? Are you Robin now from Batman & Robin ? Makes sense. Second string.
Serious question. WTF haven't our health workers been vacinated already? What's taking so long?
Why don't they use cabins in caravan parks near large cities for quarantine? No need to build anything, you can easily cordon off the area where the returned travellers are, you could do it in batches of caravan parks and just circulate the ones you use, a boon for local suppliers, a boon for the caravan parks, people get to sit outside and have air circulating, less chance the virus will circulate when people are in separate cabins as opposed to nearby rooms.
Our hotel quarantine probably is world's best . . . but when you consider what is happening overseas that is saying very very little.
There are better alternatives.
DS
Our hotel quarantine probably is world's best . . . but when you consider what is happening overseas that is saying very very little.
There are better alternatives.
DS
Has the Pfizer vaccine arrived on Aus yet? Maybe they're waiting for a vaccine that works.
