[OFF TOPIC] Coronavirus Pandemic

[heywoodu 15,135]

 

Focused look, balancing the bike, fat wheels (aka MTB wheels)...yeah, that's Sagan 2.0 right there.

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1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

 

Focused look, balancing the bike, fat wheels (aka MTB wheels)...yeah, that's Sagan 2.0 right there.

Nice new look.

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Exciting news from today.

 

https://www.businessinsider.my/us-investigating-chinese-lab-covid-19-theory-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

 

The US is investigating the theory that the COVID-19 virus was accidentally released from a Chinese lab

 

The US government is exploring the possibility that the novel coronavirus was accidentally released from a Chinese lab, sources told Yahoo News, Fox News, and CNN.

 

The COVID-19 outbreak started in the city of Wuhan, home to some of China’s top research laboratories. One of them – the Wuhan Institute of Virology – has done research on coronaviruses that originate in bats, as is thought to be the case with the novel virus.

 

The Chinese government denied that the lab was to blame early on, instead saying the outbreak started at a wet market in the city. But there were holes in that theory. The market didn’t sell bats, and the first patient – as well as multiple other early cases – didn’t have any connection to the market, as Yahoo News pointed out.

 

The alternative theory is not that the virus was created in a lab but rather that it was naturally occurring and was being studied in one. The sources who spoke out say the government is exploring the idea that a Wuhan lab accidentally released the virus into the public, perhaps through a worker who unknowingly became infected.

 

The Yahoo News reporter Jenna McLaughlin spoke with nine current and former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the investigations for her report.

 

She wrote that one of the things that raised suspicions in the US intelligence community was the fact that China was so quick to peg the virus’ source as the wet market. “I find it very funny that China very quickly blamed the market,” a retired intelligence official told Yahoo News.

 

Sources told Fox News that Chinese officials blamed the wet market to deflect attention from the laboratory and “100%” suppressed and changed data. “Samples were destroyed, contaminated areas scrubbed, some early reports erased, and academic articles stifled,” the report said.

 

The sources who spoke with CNN confirmed the initial reporting from Yahoo News and Fox News that the intelligence community was looking into the lab theory but said it was only one of multiple possibilities under consideration and was far from confirmed.

 

A previous story in The Washington Post appears to lend credibility to the lab theory. This week, The Post obtained US diplomatic cables from 2018 saying that lack of safety protocols at the Wuhan Institute of Virology could prompt an outbreak. Two diplomats who made multiple visits to the lab said they were concerned that sloppy safety standards for handling contagious viruses “represented a risk for a new SARS-like pandemic.” (Samples of SARS were twice leaked accidentally from Chinese labs, according to Genome Biology, an academic journal.)

 

In recent weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the US has grown to eclipse those of China. With that has come criticism for President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis.

 

Trump has responded by pinning the blame on China, continually calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and accusing the Chinese government of lying about the scope of the outbreak there.

 

Both Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have talked publicly about the lab theory in recent days.

 

At a press briefing on Wednesday, the president was asked about the recent reports and he said the US was “doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened.” He didn’t, however, discuss what he had been told in briefings about the possibility of the virus coming from a lab.

 

Following the press briefing, Pompeo went into more detail about the theory on Fox News.

 

“What we do know is we know that this virus originated in Wuhan, China,” Pompeo said. “We know there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. There is still lots to learn. The United States government is working diligently to figure it out.”

[Benolympique 2,398]

France  : 761 new deaths today . a total of 18,861 death. the French no longer respect containment, too many people on the street.

[Monzanator 4,499]

6 hours ago, Agger said:

 

Apparently they "just found out" that the death toll in Wuhan was 50 % higher.

 

That's a big win for Donald Trump's narrative

[Agger 1,662]

8 minutes ago, Monzanator said:

 

That's a big win for Donald Trump's narrative

 

It's not like Trump was the first to question numbers from China!

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/faulty-virus-tests-cloud-china-s-european-outreach-over-covid-19

 

Faulty Virus Tests Cloud China’s European Outreach Over Covid-19

 

As the coronavirus landed in Italy and began to sweep across the continent, European leaders turned to China for testing kits to quickly identify infection hot spots.

 

Some are already regretting it.

 

The 1.2 million Chinese antibody tests that the Slovak government bought from local middlemen for 15 million euros ($16 million) are inaccurate and unable to detect Covid-19 in its early stages, according to Prime Minister Igor Matovic, who only took office last month. “We have a ton and no use for them,” he said. They should “just be thrown straight into the Danube.”

 

Matovic may have an ax to grind as the testing kits were purchased by the previous government, of which he has been a fierce critic for many things, including its record on fighting corruption. Still, similar difficulties have cropped up from Madrid to Istanbul -- complicating countries’ efforts to get a handle on the virus and re-open their economies, which are headed for recessions that could eclipse the fallout from the 2008 financial meltdown.

The issues aren’t just a problem for Europe. They risk derailing China’s own efforts to fill the void left as President Donald Trump steers the U.S. away from its traditional leadership role in times of global crisis. Beijing hopes to win favor through mass deliveries of medical aid to European nations -- part of wider geopolitical ambitions in the region that go back years.

 

 

Regarding the virus-testing kits, China said Slovakia used them incorrectly, and cautioned against politicizing instances where equipment isn’t up to scratch -- issues it said it experienced when receiving help from abroad during the initial emergence of the virus months ago in Wuhan.

 

“Problems should be properly solved based on facts, not political interpretations,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. “In fact, when we first began fighting Covid-19 at home, some of the assistance China received was defective, but we chose to believe and respect the kind intentions of these countries.”

 

Whatever the intention, complaints in Spanish media increased as it transpired last week that 50,000 quick-testing kits from China were faulty and had to be returned. Deaths in Spain have begun to match those in nearby Italy -- currently the virus’s epicenter in Europe.

 

Temporary Morgue And Hospital As Spanish Virus Crisis Deepens

 

In fact, the sort of rapid coronavirus tests the countries bought are still unproven. If they can be shown to work, they offer the potential to vastly accelerate testing and get a better picture of how widely the disease has spread in society. But companies have only recently developed them and some experts warn governments to hold off on buying big supplies until it’s clearer which, if any, of the diagnostic tools work best.

 

Criticism of China from other countries has been muted, likely reflecting its growing economic and strategic heft. Under the banner of a trade and infrastructure initiative known as Belt and Road, Beijing has moved to increasingly knit the fortunes of other countries to itself. Indeed President Xi Jinping has described China’s mass deployment of medical assistance to countries including Italy, Greece and France as an effort to further a “Health Silk Road.”

 

In the Czech Republic, health-care authorities and some government members said the 300,000 quick tests purchased by the state only worked if patients had been infected for at least five days, while about a third were defective. President Milos Zeman, however, avoided mentioning the problems.

 

“I’d like to thank the Chinese People’s Republic for being the only country that helped us in supplying the material,” he said March 19. In doing so, he failed to acknowledge aid also being provided by the European Union.

 

In Turkey, which imported its first batch of “several thousand” kits in early March, officials determined an accuracy rate of less than 35%, according to a senior official with direct knowledge of the matter. Their use was immediately suspended and new tests sourced from a different Chinese supplier. They arrived last week and had an accuracy rate of about 90%, according to the Turkish official.

 

China is trumpeting a victory over the virus to mount a major diplomatic offensive with Western nations to varying degrees immobilized and distracted, according to Tim Huxley, executive director for Asia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Still, “their dissimulation over Covid numbers at home, the fact that much of the world continues to see China as the source of Covid, and tactical errors like providing shoddy test kits to some European countries means that their net diplomatic benefits may be limited,” he said.

 

China said it’s working to rectify the problems. From Wednesday, exporters of coronavirus test kits, medical masks, protective clothing, ventilators and infrared thermometers must show they’re certified in China and promise their products also meet the quality standards of the importing nation or region, according to a Ministry of Commerce statement.

 

The customs administration will only allow these goods to be exported if they’re approved by China’s regulators, the ministry said. The agency pledged Monday to improve supervision and crackdown on fake and poor quality medical exports.

 

China isn’t the only country to see some of its virus assistance backfire in Europe.

 

President Vladimir Putin dispatched protective masks, ventilators, testing equipment and even doctors to Italy this month, with deliveries carrying stickers saying “From Russia with Love.” A few days later, however, Italy’s La Stampa newspaper cited senior political sources as saying that about four-fifths of supplies were “useless” for the country.

 

Many interpreted Russia’s actions as an opportunist bid to win friends in Italy as the EU’s own virus response foundered. Similar accusations have been leveled against China.

 

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei last week halted donations of face masks to countries including Italy, Ireland, Poland and the Netherlands following comments from EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell, who referred to a “global battle of narratives.”

 

“China is aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the U.S., it’s a responsible and reliable partner,” he wrote in a blog post. That, he said, meant a “politics of generosity” battle was unfolding.

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For those who loves to drink alcohol here is the catch. They may want to change their drinking habits after reading the article below.

 

https://www.the-sun.com/news/695037/drinking-alcohol-increase-coronavirus-who-warns/

 

VIRUS BOOZE RISK Drinking alcohol may increase chance of catching coronavirus, WHO warns

DRINKING alcohol may increase people's chances of catching the deadly coronavirus, WHO warns.

 

The World Health Organization's regional office in Europe recommended limiting alcohol consumption during the coronavirus pandemic as it can cause "health vulnerability, risk-taking behaviors, mental health issues and violence."

 

According to WHO's report, published Tuesday: “Alcohol compromises the body’s immune system and increases the risk of adverse health outcomes.

 

“Therefore, people should minimize their alcohol consumption at any time, and particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

 

The advisory warns people not to believe the myth that drinking can protect people from coronavirus - instead, it can make people more vulnerable to it.

 

WHO EURO's Programme Manager for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs, Carina Ferreira-Borges, explained alcohol is consumed in excessive quantities in the European Region and leaves "too many victims."

 

She added: "During the COVID-19 pandemic, we should really ask ourselves what risks we are taking in leaving people under lockdown in their homes with a substance that is harmful both in terms of their health and the effects of their behavior on others, including violence."

Worldwide, alcohol is responsible for approximately three million deaths - with a third of those deaths in the WHO European Region, according to the report.

 

WHO further warned: "Fear and misinformation have generated a dangerous myth that consuming high-strength alcohol can kill the COVID-19 virus.

 

"It does not. Consuming any alcohol poses health risks, but consuming high-strength ethyl alcohol (ethanol), particularly if it has been adulterated with methanol, can result in severe health consequences, including death."

 

The push to limit alcohol consumption comes as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States is now more than 674,640.

 

At least 34,522 people in America have died from the killer virus.

 

On Tuesday, Carina tweeted: "Stay sober so that you can remain vigilant, act quickly and make decisions with a clear head, for yourself and others in your family and community."

 

Carina also shared some helpful tips on how to follow through with WHO's advice.

 

Some tips include: Avoid alcohol altogether, do not use alcohol to deal with emotions and stress, never mix alcohol with medications, avoid alcohol as a social cue for smoking, and most importantly - reach out for help when necessary.

 

WHO has also warned the public that 5G mobile networks cannot spread the virus and taking a hot bath does not prevent people from catching coronavirus.

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So it is really high time to stop drinking alcoholic drinks during this time of pandemic.

 

 

So it is high time for us to stop drinking now for the sake of our health.

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After seeing the photo below perhaps those who love to drink should change their habit.