Coronavirus

Vaccinated, recovered or dead. You chose

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59378548

Remember the tier system? Expecting staff to enforce mask wearing is a recipe for disaster. I just don't see how wearing a mask is going to infringe on your 'freedoms' that much anyway. It should be government led from the top down to give a mandate to businesses to insist upon wearing a mask.

However, if you expect leadership from this government, just watch the Johnson CBI speech today and despair.

Article in the Spectator this week (I got a sub as they offered 3 months of their magazine for £8, with a free £20 Amazon voucher... Don't judge me! I only looked at this one because I'm cancelling it!), about the origins of COVID. That article says that it's been proven the virus originated in bats. They've now got evidence that contractors took those infected bats to Wuhan (and no where else). They also have evidence that people wanted to splice the virus in just the way COVID-19 has been shown to differ from the natural virus. However, their request for funding was turned down by the US who thought it too risky. However Wuhan gets most of its funding from China, so it's possible /likely they turned to China for funds.

So, the outbreak started at the same place as the world's largest research programme on bat borne coronaviruses, where scientists had gone to two places where SARS cov 2 like viruses live and they brought them back to Wuhan and no where else. And there's email evidence that people wanted to modify that virus at Wuhan in the way the natural virus has been seen to differ from the natural version (it's this splice that makes COVID so dangerous).

Tldr Wuhan almost certainly did it.

Yeah, you're probably right. I just went to see if I could corroborate anything and I can't. Seems their sources are not as water tight as their article suggests.

Did I say I was cancelling?

That's awful. Most of the people in ICU are now young and unvaccinated. I don't know why they aren't shouting this from the rooftops. They are more likely to survive than the elderly, but it's nuts. 

Regarding the Spectator article, I haven't read it, my Dad was talking about it. There is a concerted effort by the US far right to blame it on China. I don't think people realise how many "undiscovered" bacteria and viruses there are out there. It's just nature. Larger organisms take long to evolve because we live long. Bacteria/viruses divide on a much quicker time scale (like minutes as opposed to years), so evolve on a very rapid time frame. 

There is nothing in the sequence to suggest it was "man-made". A lab leak of an isolated virus is possible, but all the conspiracy stuff is just nonsense.

The wet market/animal transmission is most likely as it happens all the time. Every year we can trace the new flu strains coming out of Asia (mainly China) and moving through the world, as the jump from birds/pigs into humans. Banning wet animal markets would be a really good idea, I'm sure China said they would after swine flu.

(should maybe say I used to be a virologist, have lots of virologist mates, and none of them have any time for this.)

Thanks dam, that was my instinct after reading a bit last year. Nice to see it's backed up by people who know what they're talking about!

Yeah, I read 1 magazine mostly through, the second one I read the chess solution to see if I got that right and the rest are still in their plastic wrappers. I'm writing a quiz and they've a facts piece that I thought I would swipe some ideas from. When I wrote my "thanks but no thanks email", I gave them quite a few pointers as to how they could improve.

And just to show lab leaks are possible, and don't have to be an evil Communist plot...

www.newscientist.com/article/dn12615-faulty-pipe-blamed-for-uk-foot-and-mouth-outbreak/

What’s this return from travel testing con all about then, just been to pick up my privately bought from government approved vendor LFT to do my 2 day test - it’s the same fucking test as the ones you get from the NHS for free but you aren’t allowed to use those. 20 quid into some government donor’s pocket, I had to go in public to pick it up potentially spreading the virus when I’ve got a drawer full of the exact same Flowflex kits right here

It’s worth shopping around a bit, the service I used to enter the UK only cost me a fiver to deliver the test in advance to my mum’s house. Not that you need the test, just the booking reference number.

Surely the test provider gets paid whether it is you yourself or from public money?

You do get the certificate with these ones (which is now pointless anyway) to make you feel like you didn't just throw your money away.

"Miracle in Japan"

Really interesting insight into how, despite being so populous and having a very aging population, Japan is down to just 70 cases a day / 2 deaths. 70 cases...

There's a few reasons but one of the main ones seems to be that the Delta variant mutated and basically killed itself off by getting it's amino acids in the wrong order.

Also they have a higher Vax rate than the UK and better at masking up but those things alone can't explain how rapidly their case rates fell. More research is on the way but it's pretty fascinating and could give a glimmer of hope (or at least it does to me).

Dr Campbell explains all

youtu.be/E1GF0H9V_1g

Although it won't let you actually book until 5 months after your second jab.