Covid-19 in China

[amberjack1234]

How are they going to disinfect the fruit, vegetables and meat? Seems like more of a show than anything. I guess anything is better than nothing.

Edited June 19, 2020 by amberjack1234 (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

https://www.facebook.com/1570821646570023/posts/2671810683137775/

Beijing’s COVID Cluster ‘Contained,’ But Search for Source Continues

A leading CDC expert believes the local outbreak’s peak was nearly a week ago, though many of the infected didn’t show symptoms initially

 

Quote

“What we know almost for sure is that the virus was spreading long before it was first identified in Beijing,” Gao said. He added that environmental samples taken from outside the Xinfadi market had tested positive for the virus, too.

 

“Finding the first person to become infected from this local cluster would be the key to figuring out where the virus came from — but this is very difficult,” Gao said.

 

Although all Beijing schools have been suspended amid the recent outbreak, the gaokao — China’s college entrance exam — and zhongkao — the high school entrance exam — will likely go ahead as planned, Beijing’s education bureau said Wednesday.

 

Experts within China and abroad have noted that the virus responsible for the Beijing outbreak has a similar genome to the coronavirus found in many European countries including Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal.

 

“The current evidence suggests that the virus comes from Europe,” Gao Feng, an infectious disease expert affiliated with Jilin University in Northeast China and Duke University in the U.S., told Sixth Tone. “But we don’t know if these three samples represent the major types that are circulating in Beijing, so we can’t draw any definitive conclusions yet.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

The SCMP

 

Coronavirus: Beijing outbreak prompts checks on food imports

 

• Customs authorities test thousands of products but all samples so far come back negative
• Virus found at the Xinfadi food market is much older than the one circulating in Europe, Chinese researchers say

Song Yueqian, a quarantine official at the General Administration of Customs, said on Friday that the agency had launched a nationwide drive to inspect all cold-stored fresh products imported from “high-risk countries”.

 

He said authorities had so far tested more than 15,600 samples of imported food, include packaging, and all had come back negative for the virus.

 

 

[eseum]

I thought about starting a new thread titled "Moronic Interview Statements" for this post but went ahead and put it here. I didn't know that Mr. Moore was a comedian in addition to being an economist. Hopefully he has something else to fall back on because he isn't very good at being a comedian or an economist. From the Hill:

Trump ally Stephen Moore thinks the president will ask China to pay reparations over COVID-19

Economist Stephen Moore said Sunday that it's likely President Trump will ask China to pay reparations to the United States over the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. “There is hostility right now between these two countries,” Moore, an ally of Trump, said on John Catsimatidis’s Sunday radio show. “I do believe that the Trump Administration will require the Chinese at some point to pay some kind of reparation payments to the United States for not alerting us to the danger of the coronavirus and doing severe damage to our economy.”

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/503761-trump-ally-stephen-moore-thinks-president-will-ask-china-to-pay

[Randy W]

During the spring peak seasons of years past, Guangzhou’s thousands of workshops would sew together millions of items and ship them all over China and beyond. Now, a 5,000-piece order, once considered small, is a big catch. Prices are down 40%.

from the Sixth Tone, about returning to work in Guangzhou

Those good times will never come back.

- Jiang Jiashun, factory owner

A worker sits on a workbench in a thread workshop (above). A clothing iron on an ironing board in Jiang Jiashun’s garment factory (bottom left). Clothing samples hang inside Jiang Jiashun’s garment factory (bottom right). Wu Huiyuan/Sixth Tone

 

Threading the Needle: Keeping a Factory Afloat Amid the Pandemic

After China’s lockdowns lifted, one garment maker discovered orders to be elusive.

 

Quote

For now, Jiang is holding on, but only by a thread. During the spring peak seasons of years past, Guangzhou’s thousands of workshops would sew together millions of items and ship them all over China and beyond. Now, a 5,000-piece order, once considered small, is a big catch. Prices are down 40%.

To cover rent and wages, Jiang calculates he’d need to earn at least 3,000 yuan ($420) a day to break even. “Look at my workshop now: There are only six people working, and they don’t have much to do,” he says, adding he employed about 40 people last year. “In the past, I didn’t have to be bitter about these things. We could make enough money to pay for a whole year in the first two months."

After Guangzhou’s garment industry was allowed to resume business on March 12, people scrambled back to the city’s “Hubei Villages” — areas where garment businesses owned by people from the province are particularly numerous. At the time, however, Jiang was still stuck in Wuhan, Hubei’s provincial capital, where the lockdown wouldn’t end for another month. As old clients called with orders, Jiang had no choice but to turn them down. “It felt like the meat fell out of my mouth just as I was about to bite down,” Jiang says, using an idiom. “But what could I do? I could only go back to my sofa and continue to watch those stupid TV shows.”

Edited June 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

 

China’s COVID-19 Vaccine Makers Are Going Abroad for Human Trials

With dwindling coronavirus cases at home, Chinese biomedical companies are cooperating with Brazil and the UAE for phase three clinical trials.

“We don’t really have an outbreak here to do a phase three trial,” Shen Yinzhong, an infectious disease expert at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, told Sixth Tone. “We need to do trials in areas where the risk of transmission is relatively high.”

As of Wednesday, the UAE has reported more than 45,000 total cases of COVID-19, and has been adding around 300 a day this week.

The CNBG-UAE alliance is the second of its kind. Another Chinese vaccine maker, Sinovac, announced a partnership with the Instituto Butantan, a Brazilian biomedical research center in São Paulo, on June 11. Sinovac plans to conduct clinical trials of its vaccine, CoronaVac, on some 9,000 volunteers in Brazil.

 

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

 

Locked In, Locked Out: The Foreign Students Stuck in Limbo

As COVID-19 spread across China, international students faced a tough choice: Flee the country, or hunker down on campus. Months later, they’re still living with the consequences of that decision.

 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely disruptive for students all over the world, but for the nearly 500,000 international scholars enrolled at Chinese universities, it’s been even tougher than most.

As the coronavirus spread across China in late January, foreign students faced a difficult decision: Leave the country, or hunker down on campus. Few imagined that nearly half a year later, they’d still be living with the consequences of that choice.

Large numbers of students that left China — including Pavlova — are still unable to return, as Chinese authorities maintain tight border controls in an attempt to prevent a second wave of infections. Many of those that stayed, meanwhile, have been cloistered in university campuses, allowed to leave for only a few hours at a time.

With Chinese universities now preparing for graduation season, the fates of many students are undecided. While some have managed to complete their degrees despite the crisis, others are scrambling to extend their studies, renew expiring visas, and secure fresh sources of funding.

 

 

 

 

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/1570821646570023/posts/2679591689026341/?substory_index=0

Quote

China is currently capable of offering 3.78 million nucleic acid tests for #COVID19 every day; and 95% of Chinese were covered by the country’s national basic health insurance programs in 2019. Here’s more of the week’s news in numbers:

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Another pandemic on the way ?

Chinese researchers have discovered that a type of swine influenza virus widely circulating among domestic pig populations may also infect and transmit between humans. Their work was published in the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday afternoon local time.

From the Sixth Tone on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/1570821646570023/posts/2681307612188082/

Swine Flu Could Be Humanity’s Next Pandemic, Study Warns

New research suggests that the influenza virus decimating China’s pig herds can be transmitted to — and perhaps even between — humans.

 

Quote

Chinese researchers have discovered that a type of swine influenza virus widely circulating among domestic pig populations may also infect and transmit between humans. Their work was published in the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday afternoon local time.

While swine flu viruses seldom spread to humans, the occasional leap has led to incidents such as the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, which may have infected up to one-fifth of the world’s population.

 

The Chinese team found that a major type of swine influenza, dubbed G4, is genetically similar to the 2009 virus, and laboratory results suggested it can bind to and invade human cells as effectively as the H1N1 virus. Moreover, ferrets that were infected with G4 spread the virus to healthy ferrets similarly to how humans spread influenza viruses among one another.

 

“G4 viruses have all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus,” the team wrote in their paper. They further warned that over time, the virus could become better adapted to human hosts and, consequently, become more contagious.

 

It’s still unclear how lethal the G4 virus might be to humans, partly because infections so far have been sporadic. However, the team discovered G4 has undergone genetic reshuffling that appears to have rendered current influenza vaccines ineffective against it.

 

“G4 will be a completely new virus to humans if it starts to spread more widely,” Jun Wang, an influenza expert at the University of Arizona, told Sixth Tone. “We would be just as vulnerable to G4 as we are now to the COVID-19 virus.”

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

. . . topic database may be hosed

 

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Please try again or come back later. 500 Error. Internal Server Error.

 

It seems to be a problem with the phone network. I'm on WiFi now with no problem.

[Randy W]

from the SCMP - access to public facilities such as a bus will often require a "real time" QR code.

 

China’s virus-tracking app shuts many out but digital divide can be bridged

• There needs to be a complementary system for people who have poor digital skills or no internet access, say experts
• Uneven tech distribution echoes gaps in age, wealth and education and, if not rectified, may lock many out of Chinese public life

“The secondary effects of the [health status] system do exclude those with poor access to technology,” said Jonathan D. Moreno, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

“This isolation in terms of lack of access to food and medication and inability to interact with family and friends because of travel restrictions can be as bad as the results of the disease itself.

 

“One would hate to think that the elderly and poor are simply being abandoned by government authorities. Some complementary system surely needs to be introduced for them,” he said.

 

China’s optical fibre and 4G covered 98 per cent of its 1.4 billion population and the country is ambitiously building a 5G nationwide network. There were 1.6 billion mobile phone subscribers on the mainland last year, with many people having more than one subscription, official data showed.

 

[Randy W]

The gaokao test site in Beijing gets ready for students. The test, which will start on July 7, has been delayed for one month due to the #COVID_19 pandemic.

from China Daily on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/191347651290/posts/10158620200521291/

Edited June 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Meanwhile, Trump has begun the process of withdrawing from the WHO (said to take one year)

 

from the Sixth Tone

 

WHO Researchers to Investigate Animal Origin of COVID-19 in China

• A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry has voiced support for the recently announced mission.

 

“Identifying the origin of emerging viral disease has proven complex in past epidemics in different countries,” the WHO said in a statement released Tuesday evening local time. “A well planned series of scientific researches will advance the understanding of animal reservoirs and the route of transmission to humans.”

Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, voiced support for the upcoming trip as well as other “scientific research by international scientists on the virus’ origin and transmission routes” during his regular press conference Tuesday.

Scientists with the WHO say they’ve been in touch with China about the trip since early May.

. . .

Previously, China had called a proposed probe into the origin of the new disease a “politically motivated move”. Authorities from Australia and the European Union had proposed such an investigation prior to an annual meeting of the WHO’s member states in May.

At that meeting, China and the other 193 WHO members attending voted in favor of an independent review into the global COVID-19 response, which did not appear to target China specifically.

 

 

[Randy W]

An interesting interview with a Hong Kong virologist on Fox News

Jul. 10, 2020 - 13:42 - Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist from Hong Kong, tells Fox News in an exclusive interview about the early research she says she conducted into COVID-19, and why she believes that research was withheld from the world.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170706702001#sp=show-clips


https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170706702001

Edited June 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook

Coronavirus Whistleblower: Exclusive Fox News Interview

https://www.facebook.com/1570821646570023/posts/2696507170668126/

 

Quote

At least two cities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are under lockdown after more than a dozen new #coronavirus infections were reported for the first time in almost five months.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)