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Showing posts with label Scientists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scientists. Show all posts

Thursday 22 July 2021

China says ‘no’ to US smears over COVID-19 as 20 million Chinese petition for Fort Detrick probe

 Update Online petition for Fort Detrick probe draws 20m signatures; China urges US to open UNC lab, disclose military games patients...

Online petition for Fort Detrick probe draws 20m signatures; China urges US ... The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday urged the US to take four steps on COVID-19 origins tracing if it wants .

 

 

 China says 'no' to US smears over COVID-19 as nearly 10 million from 5 million Chinese...

An open letter demanding that the World Health Organization (WHO) investigate Fort Detrick has garnered nearly 9.5 million signatures  ... 

China says 'no' to US smears over COVID-19; 'WHO's phase-II plan caters to US' lab leak theory'

China says 'no' to those in the US who have used the COVID-19 issue to smear China, as their practice revealed their disregard for common sense and arrogance towards science, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday, after the White House said the US was disappointed by China rejecting the World Health Organization's (WHO) latest COVID-19 origins study plan.

5 million Chinese sign open letter asking WHO to investigate Fort Detrick, a ‘collective will’ that can’t be ignored

Over 5 million Chinese netizens had signed an open letter as of Wednesday demanding the World Health Organization (WHO) investigate the US' Fort Detrick lab over COVID-19 origins. With the number still increasing, Chinese experts and officials consider it a vivid reflection of the collective will of the Chinese public, signaling the outrage toward some US officials who politicized the epidemic to shift the blame and who owe the world an explanation on US own flaws.

` A group of Chinese netizens drafted the open letter to ask the WHO to investigate the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and entrusted the Global Times with posting the letter on its WeChat and Weibo platforms on Saturday to solicit public response. It has gathered more than 5 million signatures as of the press time on Wednesday.

` Investigating Fort Detrick is the call of people all over the world, including the Chinese people and it is a question that the US must answer when it comes to COVID-19 origins and a problem it can never circumvent, Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

` In less than five days, about 5 million Chinese have signed the open letter, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at Wednesday's media briefing. The rising numbers are a representation of the anger of the Chinese people at the political manipulation by some in the US on COVID-19 origins, he noted.

` To prevent the next outbreak, laboratories studying dangerous viruses and even biological weapons should be put into the focus of the WHO, the letter said.

` The Fort Detrick lab, particularly, stores the most deadly and infectious viruses in the world, including Ebola, smallpox, SARS, MERS and the novel coronavirus. The leak of any of them would cause severe danger to the world, which also aroused the concerns and doubts about whether the SARS?CoV?2 virus that triggered the global pandemic is related to the lab, it said.

` The letter was issued as the WHO on Friday proposed a second phase of studies into the origins of the coronavirus in China, including "audits of laboratories and markets in Wuhan," calling for "transparency" from authorities, shortly after WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appeared to succumb to the US-led West's multiple layers of political pressure, calling on China to be transparent and open in further COVID-19 origins studies, according to observers.

` Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Wednesday that so many Chinese people signed the open letter, reflecting the true opinion of ordinary Chinese. "Over the past year, some US politicians have been slandering China on the question of COVID-19 origins, which triggered dissatisfaction among Chinese people. Such public opinion should not be ignored by the international community," Li said.

GT Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

` US owes the world answers

` In July 2019, the US CDC issued a "cease and desist order" to halt most research at Fort Detrick. Although this mysterious lab reported the reason for the closure as "ongoing infrastructure issues with wastewater decontamination," the explanation was not persuasive enough for many.

` During the same period, the US media reported that a respiratory illness outbreak at a Virginia assisted living facility caused some deaths, and the e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) cases also occurred in Wisconsin, Zhao said, laying out a number of cases that the US should further investigate and give out a clear explanation to the world.

` "How are these incidents related to one and another? When does the US intend to clarify those questions publicly?" Zhao asked. Thirty-two communist and workers' parties around the world signed a petition against the proliferation of biological weapons, asking closure of US military biological laboratories, a Ukraine-based media politnavigator.net reported on Monday.

` The biological weapons can be used by the US military against their opponents, which will lead to catastrophic consequences, according to the article.

` The laboratories created by the US were deployed in various countries including Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the article said.

` Yang Zhanqiu, a deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told the Global Times in a recent interview that the US needs to publish more data and documents related to large-scale of epidemiological investigations including their travel history, relationship with other cases from overseas, and virological analysis is needed to compare the similarity of the viral genome to determine the source of the epidemic in the US.

` "Some current studies show that the prevalent coronavirus in the US has the most inclusive genetic types, and almost all strain types are transmitted in the US so it would be very meaningful for conducting origins studies in the US," Yang said.

` Political maneuver

` The WHO-China joint study report issued on March 30, 2021, reached a clear conclusion and offered suggestions for the next phase of global study into the origins, which concluded that the Wuhan "lab leak" hypothesis is extremely unlikely, and that we should look for possible early cases of the outbreak more widely around the world and further understand the role of cold chains and frozen food.

` A Western scientist who is close to the WHO-China joint team told the Global Times that the reason the WHO chief looks set to change the approach to phase two is because of political pressure regarding the lab leak from a small number of member states, led by the US.

` Under such a highly politicized environment, the White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci got into a heated exchange on Tuesday with Senator Rand Paul, after the US official accused Fauci of lying to Congress.

` Paul believed that the National Institutes of Health funded a lab in Wuhan, USA Today reported on Tuesday. The lab has been at center of the conspiracy theory of the G.O.P.

` Fauci also told Paul last year that he was spreading misinformation about the virus, according to the media report.

` The public and the media are trying to get answers to questions the international community has been asking for a while. However, some people in the US have been keeping the public in the dark, according to Chinese officials and experts.

` "I hope the US can answer the following questions," Zhao said at the press conference on Wednesday, as some issues remain unclear.

` As the US National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program found evidence of COVID-19 infections in the US as early as December 2019, how does the US respond to that? There were 171 patients who had symptoms of COVID-19 in Florida earlier than reported cases without travel history to China, how does the US respond to that? The mayor of Belleville claimed that he had COVID-19 symptoms back in November 2019, two months earlier than the first-reported cases, how does the US respond to that? the Chinese official asked.

` "Also, according to some reports, the symptoms caused by the vaping lung disease in July 2019 were similar to COVID-19 infections, would the US clarify that? Why does the US keep silent when talking about investigations into Fort Detrick and other overseas biolabs? What is it trying to hide from us?" Zhao added.

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 Investigating Fort Detrick a question the US must answer: Chinese FM on 5m urging WHO to investigate lab

The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick 

Photo: AP

The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick Photo: AP

 

Investigating Fort Detrick is the call of people all over the world, including the Chinese people, and it is a question that the US must answer when it comes to COVID-19 origins, Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday after nearly 5 million Chinese signed an open letter demanding the World Health Organization (WHO) to investigate US' Fort Detrick lab.

` In less than five days, nearly 5 million Chinese have signed the open letter, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at Wednesday's media briefing. Zhao added that the rising numbers are a representation of anger of the Chinese people at the political manipulation by the US on COVID-19 origins.

` Zhao said the US should be transparent, take measures to thoroughly investigate the source of its own pandemic and the failure of its response to it. Those who failed should be held accountable, Fort Detrick and more than 200 American overseas biological labs must be investigated.

` A group of Chinese netizens drafted an open letter to ask the WHO to investigate the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. They entrusted the Global Times with posting the letter on its WeChat and Weibo platforms on Saturday to solicit public response.

` They said in the letter that to prevent the next epidemic, the WHO should pay special attention to labs that are conducting studies on dangerous viruses or even biochemical weapons. The open letter particularly noted the Fort Detrick lab, which stores the most deadly and infectious viruses in the world, including Ebola, smallpox, SARS, MERS and the novel coronavirus. The leak of any of them would cause severe danger to the world.

` The US has been hyping up the "sick researchers of Wuhan Institute of Virology" conspiracy since May, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal. The story cited US intelligence report claiming three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.

` In response, Zhao urged the US to present evidence.

` "Who are these 'three sick researchers,' what are their names, what diseases were they infected with? If their coronavirus tests were positive, please present the report," Zhao said.

` "I want to tell everyone that the US cannot present any evidence, because it's lying. It is stigmatizing and demonizing China using the COVID-19 origins issue," Zhao said.

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Wednesday 31 March 2021

WHO-China joint report on virus origins:Wuhan Lab-leak is "extremely unlikely", ‘more states should be probed’...

 

The headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland

Highlights from WHO-China joint report on coronavirus origins: -A lab leak was "extremely unlikely" -Huanan seafood market was NOT the original source of the outbreak -It’s important to investigate “potential early events” of COVID-19 cases in different countries


Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP
Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei

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If WHO scientists cannot find the answer in China regarding coronavirus origins, maybe it's time for scientists to dig somewhere else and test more hypotheses to solve the mystery, Chinese scientists from the WHO-China virus tracing team suggested, after a joint WHO-China report on tracing the origins of coronavirus was released on Tuesday, which still leaves the virus origins question unanswered.
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The report, generated after WHO experts visited Wuhan, the Chinese city first reporting a COVID-19 case, dismissed the "lab-leak" conspiracy theory, and recommended transmissions between animals and humans, and transmissions through frozen food, which is consistent with what WHO experts said in a February conference in Wuhan. It also suggested the 7th Military World Games, which was held in Wuhan in October 2019, two months before the first case in this city was reported, is worth digging into.
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Before official release on Tuesday, Western politicians and media once again cast the report, pre-leaked to media earlier, in doubt, questioning the investigation's transparency , impartiality and the involvement of Chinese government in the writing of the report. Chinese experts in this joint team refuted such baseless claims, saying the Chinese side has provided what it could, and it is willing to assist any further origins investigation in other places since it has mature technology on virus detecting and tracing.
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The report pointed to a possible path of transmission between animals and humans and transmission through frozen food. It also said that the lab-leak theory is "extremely unlikely", which is consistent with what Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish food safety scientist leading the WHO team, said in Wuhan in early February, when wrapping up the WHO visit.
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday night it appreciates the scientific, diligent and professional spirit of the WHO-China expert team and calls for further investigation in other countries and places to trace the virus origins as it is a global task after WHO released the joint report.
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Politicizing the tracing work will only seriously hamper global cooperation on virus tracing, undermine global anti-epidemic efforts and lead to more loss of life. This runs counter to the desire of the international community to unite and fight the epidemic, FM said in a statement released on Tuesday night.
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The WHO report also touched upon the hypothesis of the 7th Military World Games regarding virus origins, a possibility previously raised by a Chinese epidemiologist. The WHO report said that "no appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease requiring hospitalization were identified during a review of these events," but recommended a further joint review of the data on respiratory illness from on-site clinics during the games.
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"The hypothesis was raised by foreign experts during our communication," a Chinese expert from the joint team's animals and environment group told the Global Times. He said that large international events need to be considered as an option during origins tracing work of an epidemic.
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The Chinese expert, who asked for anonymity, said that they obtained records from the Wuhan government, which show many countries had transported food to Wuhan during the event, many via cold chain route. "But now we only have records, no samples, so it will be difficult for us to find the evidence," he admitted.
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The scientist also said it is highly probable that the virus was transmitted via cold chain, given the fact that cold chains triggered most of the later outbreaks in China after the one in Wuhan. "But at the early stage, all eyes were fixed on animals, so not enough samples were connected in the cold chain environment," said the expert, suggesting further research in this area.
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The WHO report further suggests that animals in livestock farms in Southeast Asia could be "linked to early human cases" and that further study on these farms is needed.
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The anonymous expert said that given the geographic adjacency and frequent exchanges between China and Southeast Asia countries, such a proposal is reasonable.
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"Yunnan borders Southeast Asia, and bats travel frequently, which gives rise to the possibility of passing the virus to other animals and between each other," he said, noting that a batch of pangolins, which tested positive for coronavirus, were smuggled from other countries.
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At a Friday conference, Feng Zijian, Deputy Director-General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China's CDC), who is also the expert of the WHO joint team, said that there is a virus highly similar to COVID-19 in bats and pangolins in terms of virus sequencing. However, it's proven not to be a direct ancestor, while more animal species, including minks and cats, are worthy of inquiry as likely potential natural hosts of the virus.
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According to the report, data suggests that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where large clusters of infections were found, was not the original source of the outbreak.
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"The place which saw the first outbreak does not necessarily make it the origins of the virus," another member of the joint expert team, who preferred anonymity, told the Global Times.
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The expert said there's nothing strange about the fact that a scientific conclusion about the virus has yet to be found. On the other hand, it implies the difficulty in tracing virus origins. "Virus origins tracing work of previous large-scale epidemics was conducted by scientists in different countries and regions," said the scientist, urging global virus tracing, especially since mounting evidence suggesting that there were positive coronavirus samples found in other countries before the Wuhan outbreak.
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He suggested further study of positive coronavirus samples found in human and environment before January 2020.
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China has done what it can do in helping find the origins of the virus. If the answer could not be found here, maybe it's time to find it in other places, and test more hypotheses, according to the expert from joint team's animals and environment group. China is willing to assist virus origins tracing work in other places, as it has already grasped such technologies and methodologies, the expert said.
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Doubt from West
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Western media and politicians could not wait to fire torrents of criticism toward the report, which was leaked to some media before its publication.
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Among the most vocal critics were US media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post, which questioned the report's impartiality as they hyped that WHO experts weren't given full access in Wuhan and the Chinese government exerted pressure on the UN body.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN last week that he had concerns about "the methodology and the process," including "the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped write it."
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Such accusation was slammed by Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.
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"The US kept showing its 'concerns' over the report. Is it attempting to exert pressure on WHO experts?" Zhao asked. "Please ask the experts which parts of the report the Chinese government helped them to write. Does China's facilitation on traceability research also behind-the-scenes manipulation?"
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"What they needed, we gave them, including files," said the expert, explaining certain documents were restricted because it involved patients' sensitive personal information.
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In an exclusive interview with the Global Times, Liang Wannian, team leader of the Chinese side of the WHO-China joint expert team, said that the Chinese side showed the WHO experts raw data one by one, such as the early case database and epidemiological survey forms of field use.
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Foreign experts, including Peter Daszak, a British-born zoologist, who is president of the NGO EcoHealth Alliance in New York City, and Peter Ben Embarek from the WHO team, have repeatedly denied accusation of limited access in Wuhan.
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Those Western countries only want WHO to pinpoint Wuhan as the origins of the virus, and better prove the virus was leaked from lab; if not, they just launched a smear campaign at China, said experts.

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Scientific spirit of US media outlets is dead: Global Times editorial  

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The US has been doing the worst job in the global pandemic fight. It not only has been jealous of and attacked China's excellent response to the pandemic, but it has also exerted pressure on WHO. Washington is rude. It has torn down all kinds of common sense about public health and humiliated science with politics. 
 
 

Attacks on WHO report dismissed

After a joint WHO-China report on tracing the origins of COVID-19 dismissed the possibility of the virus being leaked from ..

 

'Virus unlikely from the lab' | The Star

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Washington’s greatest enemy is the facts and the good consciences of scientists


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Thursday 22 October 2020

Trump Blames ‘Fauci And These Idiots’ For His Own Coronavirus Ineptitude



President Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at medical experts and complained about people being tired of hearing about COVID-19, as the confirmed death toll in the U.S. ticked closer to 220,000 and the spread of the disease continued to accelerate.

Trump made the comments on a call with campaign staffers, seeking to pass blame for the pandemic and seemingly lamenting his inability to shift the national conversation.

“People are tired of Covid,” Trump said. “People are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong.”

“Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb, but there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him,” Trump added. “This guy’s a disaster.”

The president was referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force. Trump has repeatedly sought to undermine and distort Fauci’s comments as the public health expert has called for the implementation of safety protocols throughout the pandemic.

“If there’s a reporter on [the call], you can have it just the way I said it, I couldn’t care less,” Trump said. 


Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adjusts his face mask as he ar
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adjusts his face mask as he ar Al Drago/Pool via AP Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adjusts his face mask as he arrives for a Senate hearing in June. He and other public health experts say masks help slow the spread of the coronavirus, but President Donald Trump has often mocked mask-wearing and has refused to back a national mask mandate.

The president returned to the theme in a series of tweets Monday afternoon, claiming Fauci “seems to get more airtime” than he does and contending that Fauci “said ‘no masks & let China in.’”

Early in the pandemic, Fauci didn’t recommend wearing masks out of concern there wouldn’t be enough for front-line workers, but he changed his tune once research showed simple homemade cloth masks worked.

Trump also criticized Fauci for wearing a Washington Nationals mask and having a “Bad arm!” — a reference to Fauci throwing the ceremonial first pitch for the team earlier this year. (Trump has never thrown a first pitch as president, despite several invitations. In July, Trump announced ― then said he had canceled ― plans to throw the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, only for a source to reveal that he’d never actually been invited.)

Roughly 30 minutes after Trump’s tweets, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) dismissed the president’s claims without mentioning him by name:

Dr. Fauci is one of our country’s most distinguished public servants. He has served 6 presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan. If more Americans paid attention to his advice, we’d have fewer cases of COVID-19, & it would be safer to go back to school & back to work & out to eat.
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See the latest COVID-19 information on Twitter


Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called out the president’s attacks as misplaced and counterproductive. He urged Trump to instead formulate a cohesive national strategy to confront the virus.

“Coronavirus infections are spiking across the country, but President Trump decided to attack Dr. Fauci again today ... instead of laying out a plan to beat this virus or heeding their advice about how we can save lives and get our economy moving again,” the Biden campaign said in a statement Monday afternoon.

“The American people have never backed down from a challenge,” the statement continued, “but they need a leader to show the way and all President Trump has done is cower and wallow in self-pity.”

Trump’s comments represent a doubling down on a new presidential pandemic strategy: Blame the experts.

On Sunday, Trump attempted to attack his opponent in the election by saying Biden would follow expert guidance if he were elected.

“He’ll listen to the scientists,” Trump warned at a campaign rally in Nevada. “If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression, instead of, we’re like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers.”

Broadly speaking, it is true that Trump has ignored established science. Evidence suggests, however, that his inaction has inflamed the pandemic and its economic repercussions, not made the situation better.

The president has steadfastly refused to endorse a national mask mandate, going so far as to block a draft order last month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that would mandate that masks be worn on public transportation.

Scientists and medical experts consider masks to be an effective way to prevent transmission of the coronavirus and safely reopen the economy.