Important Considerations Re The Novel Coronavirus
Look, I'm very sympathetic to the concerns of all those being hurt by this pandemic. I'll just repeat: I'm totally convinced that no one is working harder to find a way to safely "reopen" America than is President Trump. It's extremely complicated and we're fortunate to have a leader like Trump in charge. The thing is, "reopening" isn't just a matter of reopening the 50 states--it involves Reopening to the World as well. Even if we work quickly to delink from China to the greatest degree possible, reopening to other parts of the world could open America up to new sources of infection--because this really is a pandemic.
With that in mind I'm going to paste in some tweets from Adam Housley , whom I consider to be a credible commenter. He may be right, he may be wrong, but his track record suggests that he is doing his best to provide accurate information. That's not to say that I can be held to agree with everything he says, but he provides a useful reference point for discussion and coming to grips with the issues we're facing.
As everyone here knows, I originally came at this whole pandemic issue from the standpoint of whether it was a human engineered virus in some way. Whether as a potential bioweapon or an accidental release of a virus altered for arguably legitimate (a controversial issue) research purposes. I've seen nothing to alter my views in that regard, and that's something we really need to keep in mind--because it greatly complicates matters.
I was pointed in this direction by emailer Todd (h/t), so I'll start with a quote he sent me:
They've already detected two or three traits that have never been observed naturally. Viruses that jump the barrier are never perfectly formed to human receptors. They're generally not very successful at all against a healthy human immune system. Nor do they have a protein to hide from the human immune system for days to weeks while compromising cells AND blocking interferon release. *Could* be by chance, but I suspect there was some degree of tinkering that was going on and this thing escaped the inadequate Level 4 lab.
That should give a very strong idea of how badly China has potentially screwed the world. All those epidemiologists who concentrated on the danger of a new flu pandemic rather than a SARS pandemic--they knew all of the above, based on the experience with SARS and MERS. That's why they regarded the previous SARS releases from Chinese labs to be regional rather than pandemic threats, and remained focused on the flu threat. And then along came SARS-CoV-2, with its enhanced transmissibility, beyond anything anyone ever expected.
So now, Housley :
Ok...got more info. While nothing has been ruled out, it's making more sense with factual info obtained that this accidentally escaped. That doesn't make it any less bad because of the coverup and continued lies that cost the rest of the world thousands and thousands of lives.
NOW...there is massive info being obtained that China knew early how bad this was, knew it wasn't natural occurring and knew there would be massive problems. The Chinese government was more concerned about the cover and spread to other parts of China, than the rest of the world.
They wanted no part of a China shutdown, so they tried to contain and didn't care one bit about shutting down external travel. Thus trains in Wuhan were stopped, but flights to Europe after Chinese New Years and other parts of the world continued.
They have without a doubt made it very difficult for other countries to know the truth behind this and the truth about this virus. Doctors and whistleblowers and evidence has disappeared. The bio weapon suggestion, while not ruled out yet, has a few holes.
China absolutely strong armed the WHO and that's why the harsh words towards that organization. Both knew. Taiwan knew. The world listened and trusted China and the WHO over Taiwan due to politics.
And then he adds :
The other issue I'm told that is hampering decisions at the federal and state level about reopening ... is the fact they've been told the virus is believed to not be natural occurring ... which means nobody knows exactly what it's going to do.
Will it mutate? Why are some areas more prone to the spread, while others are less prone? It is very contagious and easily spread, but there's still many unknowns about that. These are the questions that are also part of the overall investigation into what China has done.
We'd all like more transparency, but for now I continue to trust Trump.