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elbows said:
How does that work? A major feature of accidental lab releases is that they are often not noticed until the broad health implications for the population start to show up in dramatic ways (in this case viral pneumonia and death in quantities that alerted local hospitals). And there is expected to be a big lag between these things, which means by the time the authorities notice, infection is widespread. And this sort of scenario is more likely in a disease with high transmissibility and with a very wide range of outcomes including plenty of mild or asymptomatic cases. All it takes is for someone who works at the lab to get infected and not realise, and they can easily spread it to the community in which they live.
Click to expand...

The Russian authorities managed to suppress news of two lab-related anthrax outbreaks, Sverdlosk in 1979 and Kirov in 1953.

On the one hand, the Chinese authorities today are certainly as willing and perhaps almost as able as the old Russian communist party to suppress internal news unfavourable to their interests.

On the other hand, anthrax doesn't spread person-to-person like Covid-19 does, so an anthrax release would be much easier to contain.
 
Doodler said:
For the sake of brevity I suggest:

C19 from a grotty food market: likely.
C19 from a medical/scientific research lab: possible.
C19 as escaped bioweapon: bollocks.
Click to expand...
FWIW US Joint Chiefs Chairman on the possibility it originated in a Chinese biolab: "At this point it’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we do not know for sure."
 
Grim reading:
The “wet” markets, which are found not only in China but also in some other East Asian countries, have a number of features that makes them especially conducive to spawning infectious zoonotic diseases. Live animals are housed in extremely cramped conditions until they are slaughtered in the market for those who have purchased them. In these conditions, infections are easily transmitted from one animal to another. Because new animals are regularly being brought to market, a disease can be spread through a chain of infection from one animal to others that arrive in the market much later. The proximity to humans, coupled with the flood of blood, excrement and other bodily fluids and parts, all facilitate the infection of humans. Once transmission from human to human occurs, an epidemic is the expected outcome, unless the problem is quickly contained. Global air travel can convert epidemic to pandemic within weeks or months — exactly as it did with the coronavirus.

It is these very conditions that facilitate the emergence of new infectious diseases and that also inflict horrific harms on animals — being kept in confined conditions and then butchered. Simply put, the coronavirus pandemic is a result of our gross maltreatment of animals.
Click to expand...
www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Our Cruel Treatment of Animals Led to the Coronavirus (Published 2020)

The conditions that lead to the emergence of new infectious diseases are the same ones that inflict horrific harms on animals.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
2hats said:
FWIW US Joint Chiefs Chairman on the possibility it originated in a Chinese biolab: "At this point it’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we do not know for sure."
Click to expand...

It seems obvious that's how the different likelihoods should be stacked. It could be a lab escape, but there are medical and bioscience labs in many countries. Zoonotic infectious outbreaks are strongly related to eating habits/food production - this New York Times article politely warns about outdated perceptions before confirming that eating anything that moves has its down side.
 
My German housemate was just telling me that in Germany everyone who thinks they might have COVID-19 is getting tested. An ambulance comes to your house, you're tested on the doorstep, and one to three days later you get the results. I'll be honest, it seems like a good system. It seems like the sort of thing you might do if you wanted to prevent the spread of a deadly virus.
 
Brainaddict said:
My German housemate was just telling me that in Germany everyone who thinks they might have COVID-19 is getting tested. An ambulance comes to your house, you're tested on the doorstep, and one to three days later you get the results. I'll be honest, it seems like a good system. It seems like the sort of thing you might do if you wanted to prevent the spread of a deadly virus.
Click to expand...
It also means their ever-decreasing numbers for 'new cases' are a meaningful reflection of the wider reality, unlike ours.

That sounds like a fantastic system, and better than I've heard of elsewhere. In South Korea, for example, anyone can be tested, but it costs around 100 quid. You get the money back if you test positive.
 
Just found this detailed comparison of Germany and UK approaches. Germany is carrying out 500,000 tests a week. There are other differences too, like not being led by a narcissist, but I just think it's amazing that Germany has stuck to test and trace from the beginning and it's talked about in the UK as though it would be impossible.

www.buzzfeed.com

The Coronavirus Hit Germany And The UK Just Days Apart But The Countries Have Responded Differently. Here’s How.

From a first case to thousands of deaths: A timeline of how Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel’s governments handled COVID-19.
www.buzzfeed.com www.buzzfeed.com
 
And the Germans are allowed to go to garden centres and we aren't, pretty sure this must be part of the explanation too.
 
I mean, its got subversive activist running right through it.

eg:

The Board noted that this relief should help mitigate disruptions to the supply chains of essential commodities for consumption in the developed world such as coffee and chocolate. Prevention of supply chain disruption is essential for timely delivery of medical supplies including scarce Personal Protection Equipment and medicines critical for developed countries as they fight the pandemic.
Click to expand...

Given the huge drop in commodity prices as a result of the crisis, countries that are economically dependent on fossil fuel revenues are experiencing the worst consequences as their economies crumble. For years, the Fund and other international financial institutions have advocated for extraction-based development regimes and policies that provide mechanisms for developing governments to turn their subsoil wealth into cash with the help of Western oil companies. The Fund acknowledged this history, noting that in developing countries around the world, the myth of fossil fuel-reliant “wealth” generation has become all too apparent.
Click to expand...
 
elbows said:
Doesnt look genuine to me.
Click to expand...
You might expect it would be on their homepage but International Monetary Fund - Homepage it isn't although there is a mention of IMF Executive Board Approves Immediate Debt Relief for 25 Countries

The countries that will receive debt service relief today are: Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, D.R., The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Togo, and Yemen.
Click to expand...
 
Doodler said:
For the sake of brevity I suggest:

C19 from a grotty food market: likely.
C19 from a medical/scientific research lab: possible.
C19 as escaped bioweapon: bollocks.
Click to expand...

Bats as food source have been around for (quite literally) millions of years. Quite sure that in hard times and famine, bats would have yielded a nourishing soup for the starved and the starving. Surely any harmful zoonotic co-relations would have been thoroughly identified, condemned and outlawed by now..

Seems mean, nasty and simplistic to blame the bats at this late stage

((( Bats )))
 
circleline said:
Bats as food source have been around for (quite literally) millions of years. Quite sure that in hard times and famine, bats would have yielded a nourishing soup for the starved and the starving. Surely any harmful zoonotic co-relations would have been thoroughly identified, condemned and outlawed by now..

Seems mean, nasty and simplistic to blame the bats at this late stage

((( Bats )))
Click to expand...

He said "grotty food market" not "bats". If bats are involved it could have been as simple as one of them flying over the open air market, crapping on something and thus transmitting the virus that way.
 
Supine said:
Finally some peer reviewed research into covid spread. For on first read it looks like the amount of spread when pre symptomatic makes contact tracing very difficult. Lots to take in though.

www.nature.com

Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19 - Nature Medicine

Presymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to account for a substantial proportion of COVID-19 cases.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
Click to expand...
I will try to read it later, not got my thinking head on yet :)
 
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