Amerika

EpidemicWatch™

• Phylogenetic network analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes

  In a phylogenetic network analysis of 160 complete human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) genomes, we find three central variants distinguished by amino acid changes, which we have named A, B, and C, with A being the ancestral type according to the bat outgroup coronavirus. The A and C types are found in significant proportions outside East Asia, that is, in Europeans and Americans. In contrast, the B type is the most common type in East Asia, and its ancestral genome appears not to have spread outside East Asia without first mutating into derived B types, pointing to founder effects or immunological or environmental resistance against this type outside Asia.

  Amplifying this analysis reveals the origins of the virus in Wuhan, China:

  The researchers concluded that variant A was the root of the outbreak as it was most closely related to the virus found in bats and pangolins. Type B was derived from A, separated by two mutations, while type C was the “daughter” of variant B.

  “The Wuhan B-type virus could be immunologically or environmentally adapted to a large section of the East Asian population,” Forster said.

  “It may need to mutate to overcome resistance outside East Asia. We seem to see a slower mutation rate in East Asia than elsewhere, in this initial phase.”

  This shows how the original virus grew outward from Wuhan:

  Forster and colleagues found that the closest type of COVID-19 to the one discovered in bats – type ‘A’, the “original human virus genome” – was present in Wuhan, but surprisingly was not the city’s predominant virus type.

  Mutated versions of ‘A’ were seen in Americans reported to have lived in Wuhan, and a large number of A-type viruses were found in patients from the US and Australia.

  Wuhan’s major virus type, ‘B’, was prevalent in patients from across East Asia. However, the variant didn’t travel much beyond the region without further mutations – implying a “founder event” in Wuhan, or “resistance” against this type of COVID-19 outside East Asia, say researchers.

  The ‘C’ variant is the major European type, found in early patients from France, Italy, Sweden and England. It is absent from the study’s Chinese mainland sample, but seen in Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

• US government gave $3.7million to Wuhan lab accused of sparking coronavirus outbreak with experiments on bats

  The Wuhan Institute of Virology undertook coronavirus experiments on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan, funded by a $3.7m (£3m) grant from the US government.

  Research [was] published in November 2017 in a paper entitled: “Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus.”

  The government reportedly no longer rules out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.

• Clock and TMRCA based on 27 genomes

  We are starting to see more structure in the tree and overall the genetic data is highly suggestive of a single-point introduction into the human population followed by sustained human-to-human transmission. This introduction was likely via either a single infected animal or a small cluster of recently infected animals directly into either a single human individual or a small cluster of human individuals. All subsequent cases are the result of human-to-human transmission with no further evidence of zoonotic transmissions.

• Researchers working on decoy molecule to fool COVID-19

  “The idea is to make a purified receptor most spikes of the virus will bind to instead of to the actual receptors attached to sensitive cells.”

  “Once the virus is ‘coated’ with the fake receptor, it should be eliminated like any other particle—dust, bacteria, non-pathogenic viruses—through the phlegm.”

• Coronavirus could attack immune system like HIV by targeting protective cells, warn scientists

  T lymphocytes, also known as T cells, play a central role in identifying and eliminating alien invaders in the body.

  They do this by capturing a cell infected by a virus, bore a hole in its membrane and inject toxic chemicals into the cell. These chemicals then kill both the virus and infected cell and tear them to pieces.

  To the surprise of the scientists, the T cell became a prey to the coronavirus in their experiment. They found a unique structure in the virus’s spike protein that appeared to have triggered the fusion of a viral envelope and cell membrane when they came into contact.

  We have been calling it coHIVid-19 for a reason. The Left have been wishing for airborne Ebola for some time, which could explain their hysterical reaction to this epidemic.

• Nature magazine apologises for reports linking Covid-19 with China

  In an article published on Tuesday, the publication said that the World Health Organisation’s announcement on February 11 that the official name for the pneumonia-like virus would be Covid-19 had been an implicit reminder to “those who had erroneously been associating the virus with Wuhan and with China in their news coverage – including Nature”.

  “That we did so was an error on our part, for which we take responsibility and apologise,” it said.

  Reminder: the political censorship is heavy in the West, since our Leftists seem to be owned by China and in turn, own the media.

PanicWatch™

• Make-or-Break Moment in Virus Fight Could Happen This Week

  Morgan Stanley economists predict that emerging markets, excluding China, will shrink 4.1% in the current quarter, a deeper dive than the 3.1% of the first quarter of 2009 when the world was last in crisis, though shallower than what’s expected in richer economies. They also estimated in an April 3 report that the peak rate of growth during the recovery for those economies will be 6% in the second quarter of 2021 versus 7.7% in the same period of 2010.

  The problem is even more acute in the poorest nations, where many denizens can’t easily practice the social distancing and regular hand washing that has become de-rigueur in rich countries.

• Coronavirus: Ethnic minorities ‘are a third’ of patients

  Only 14% of people in England and Wales are from ethnic minority backgrounds, according to the 2011 census.

  However, the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre found that 34% of more than 3,000 critically ill coronavirus patients identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic.

  Their analysis includes some stunning insanity about diversity in the ailing UK:

  Just under a third of Bangladeshi households are classified overcrowded, as are 15% of black African households, according to government statistics.

  Only 2% of white British households are classified as overcrowded.

  As a whole, 40% of people living in London are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

• Walmart CEO says we’re in the ‘hair colour’ phase of panic buying

  After stocking up on food and consumable products, shoppers turned to puzzles, games and other timeless forms of entertainment as well as education, he said.

• African nations, US decry racism against blacks in China

  Some Africans in the commercial hub have reported being evicted or discriminated against amid coronavirus fears. And a U.S. Embassy security alert on Saturday said that “police ordered bars and restaurants not to serve clients who appear to be of African origin,” and local officials have launched mandatory testing and self-quarantine for “anyone with ‘African contacts.’”

• The Challenge of Flattening the Online Hate Curve

  A new study released last week by L1ght, which was founded in 2018 and incorporated as AntiToxin Technologies, showed a 900% increase month-over-month from last December in hate speech directed towards Chinese people. China’s population became an easy target because the outbreak began there, and the fact that US President Donald Trump chose to name the disease “the Chinese virus.”

• The WHO v coronavirus: why it can’t handle the pandemic

  For all the responsibility vested in the WHO, it has little power. Unlike international bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the WHO, which is a specialised body of the UN, has no ability to bind or sanction its members. Its annual operating budget, about $2bn in 2019, is smaller than that of many university hospitals, and split among a dizzying array of public health and research projects.

• Japan sets aside ¥243.5 billion to help firms shift production out of China

  China is Japan’s biggest trading partner under normal circumstances, but Chinese imports sank by nearly half in February as the contagion shuttered its all-important factories, starving Japanese manufacturers of parts.

  That has renewed talk of reducing Japan’s reliance on China as a manufacturing base. The government’s panel on future investment last month discussed the idea of shifting manufacturing of high-added-value products back to Japan, and for production of other goods to be spread across Southeast Asia.

• Refuse to treat patients if you’ve got inadequate PPE, nurses told

  It came as a survey of surgeons in England found a third (33%) did not believe they had an adequate supply of PPE.

  The poll of nearly 2,000 surgeons and trainees also found more than half (57%) said there had been shortages in the past 30 days.

  When unions, taxes, and regulations raise the cost of labor, you make nothing at home, which means that it comes from abroad and is subject to political, economic, and transportation limitations.

• No return to ‘normality’ until coronavirus vaccine is available, Trudeau says

  Health officials still aren’t sure where Canada is on the epidemic curve and won’t know when the virus has peaked until after that’s happened, Tam said.

  Vaccines are part of the Modern Magic® which makes our society seem to be immune to the ravages of nature: industrial agriculture, antibiotics, internal combustion engines, running water, gas heat, electric lights, interchangeable parts, and assembly line manufacturing. Simultaneously these are failing to address our next-level challenges these days.

• Donald Trump announces visa sanctions on countries refusing to repatriate their citizens

  President Donald Trump on Friday announced a new visa sanction norm, providing for visa denial to citizens of countries which either deny or dilly-dally in repatriating their citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus

  The concern these medical experts had been raising in late January and early February turned to alarm by the third week in February. That was when they effectively concluded that the United States had already lost the fight to contain the virus, and that it needed to switch to mitigation. One critical element in that shift was the realization that many people in the country were likely already infected and capable of spreading the virus, but not showing any symptoms.

• 20,000: US death toll overtakes Italy’s as Midwest braces

  About half the deaths in the U.S. are in the New York metropolitan area, where hospitalizations are nevertheless slowing and other indicators suggest lockdowns and social distancing are “flattening the curve” of infections and staving off the doomsday scenarios of just a week or two ago.

  Hits Europe first, peaks in Europe first, then fades; now it hits New York, then the midwest.

• Surgeon general under fire for telling African Americans not to smoke, drink or take drugs

  Adams told Americans of color that they need to ‘step up’ to stop the spread of coronavirus, and said ‘social ills’ are likely a contributing factor when looking at the dire statistics that the outbreak has killed twice as many black and Latino people than white Americans.

  Now members of the black community are calling out the Surgeon General for ‘pandering’ to them with his use of slang and also for his ‘offensive’ instruction that those specific communities to stop drinking and smoking during this pandemic.

• Germany slams abuse of French visitors over coronavirus

  “Corona knows no nationality,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Saturday, responding to reports that French nationals were “insulted or confronted” on German soil, allegedly over fears that they were spreading the new virus.

  The Wuhan Flu called out all of our modern illusions. When risk is afoot, no one is equal and everyone exists as a means to an end of the survival of a civilization, and that does not mean a political construct but an extended family. Now borders are alive. Globalism is dead. We want our PPE and food produced down the highway, not across the world. we want only people from our country in our country. we want to know who has been where. society based on individual desire has died.

• China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

  With the virus having infected more than a million people worldwide and caused heavy casualties particularly across Europe and the US, details about its origin and the first weeks of the pandemic – when there was a cover-up by local officials – may be considered particularly sensitive.

• Coronavirus Job Losses Threaten To Burst China’s $1 Trillion Consumer Debt Bubble

  A wave of delinquencies will test the resilience of Chinese lenders this year at a time when the economy is passing through its worst phase since the 1976 Cultural Revolution.

• Asparagus prices show how the coronavirus is nipping at the global food system

  US dairy farmers, hurt by the closure of restaurants and foreign export markets, are literally dumping whole milk onto the ground because they have more than they sell after losing 40% of their usual market. Giant meat companies are having to temporarily shutter their plants as workers have caught the virus. And produce pickers have voiced concerns that some of their employers aren’t taking the virus seriously enough, which would impact supply chains if enough farmworkers are stricken with the disease.

• The deadly mix of Covid-19, air pollution, and inequality, explained

  In Louisiana, for example, black people represent 32 percent of the population and 70 percent of the Covid-19 deaths. In Wisconsin — in what its Gov. Tony Evers has called “a crisis within a crisis” — black people account for six percent of the population, and half of the Covid-19 deaths. In Michigan, 12 percent of residents are black, but account for 32 percent of deaths. Latinx populations show similarly disproportionate rates: in New York City, Hispanic people represent 29 percent of the population, and 34 percent of the city’s deaths — the largest percentage by race.

• Taiwanese retaliate against WHO with #ThisAttackComeFromTaiwan hashtag

  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom claimed he had been assailed by racist attacks and death threats over the past three months. He said that some had called him a “negro” and further claimed, “Three months ago this attack came from Taiwan.”

  To poke fun at Tedros’ preposterous claims, Taiwanese, Japanese, and foreigners in Taiwan immediately started posting countless tweets with the hashtag #ThisAttackComeFromTaiwan.

• Coronavirus has exposed the myth of British exceptionalism

  When the prime minister was hospitalised, his overwrought friend and fan Toby Young confessed in the Spectator to “a kind of mystical belief in Britain’s greatness and her ability to occasionally bring forth remarkable individuals, who can serve her at critical junctures. I’ve always thought of Boris as one of those people – not just suspected it, but known it in my bones.”

  That works when England is English, but they let the bog potatoes in and now everything has gone to muck.

• Michigan stores are stopping the sale of “non-essential” items

  The order requires large stores to close areas dedicated to furniture, carpeting, plant nurseries, paint, and garden centers.

  “If you’re not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store,” Whitmer said.

• Meet the former NYT reporter who is challenging the coronavirus narrative

  “Aside from New York, nationally there’s been no health system crisis. In fact, to be truly correct there has been a health system crisis, but the crisis is that the hospitals are empty,” he said. “This is true in Florida where the lockdown was late, this is true in southern California where the lockdown was early, it’s true in Oklahoma where there is no statewide lockdown. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the lockdown and whether or not the epidemic has spread wide and fast.”

• Europe begins to consider easing coronavirus lockdowns

  Some European countries have announced plans to ease restrictions on social life, transport and cross-border travel put in place since mid-March to battle the spread of the novel coronavirus.

• China’s devious move under cover of virus

  A Vietnamese fishing boat has been rammed and sunk. Military aircraft have landed at its artificial-island fortresses. And large-scale naval exercises has let everyone know China’s navy is still pushing the boundaries, hard.

  That has international affairs analysts worried that even a short-term withdrawal of US and international from the East and South China Seas could give Beijing the opportunity it has been waiting for.

• Disbelief in big cities as air pollution falls

  It is a lockdown silver lining being repeated across the world, as toxic megacities such as Bangkok, Beijing, São Paulo and Bogotá, where varying coronavirus restrictions have been imposed, all reported an unprecedented decline in pollution.

• Biodiversity loss and wildlife trade are making pandemics like COVID-19 more likely, experts say

  Keesing, a researcher on emerging diseases and nature, explained that when biodiversity declines — particularly as a result of habitat loss — it doesn’t do so in a random way; certain kinds of species are more likely to disappear than others.

  “The ones that tend to thrive after biodiversity declines are the ones that are also most likely to give us new diseases,” Keesing said.

  These events typically move from mammals to humans. The novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, has been traced back to a wildlife market in Wuhan, China, the centre of the outbreak.

  Jane Goodall elaborates with a summary of the process:

  Because as we destroy, let’s say the forest, the different species of animals in the forest are forced into a proximity and therefore diseases are being passed from one animal to another, and that second animal is then most likely to infect humans as it is forced into closer contact with humans.

  It’s also the animals who are hunted for food, sold in markets in Africa or in the meat market for wild animals in Asia, especially China, and our intensive farms where we cruelly crowd together billions of animals around the world. These are the conditions that create an opportunity for the viruses to jump from animals across the species barrier to humans.

Tags: covid-19, linkpost