Coronavirus: How dangerous a threat?

[Unchained]

Home can be a greater source of infection for the simple reason people don't take the same protections as they do in a workplace - At some stage in the future there will be more detailed breakdown of known sources of infection - Finally, if you believe that masks are always used appropriately and to the best advantage, then you are trusting.

This is an important outlook. Contact tracing is finding consistent correlation between between small gatherings and virus spread. The use of misuse of masks should be considered as an important factor. I have been off work since @2pm last Wednesday and will return to the office this Wednesday morning and work a full day Thursday and celebrate New year's until January 5th..
So in our family 's very intentional plans for isolation a few things have really surprised me..All Home Depot,Ross, Kohls, Costco,and Wal Mart parking lots have been filled to capacity the week before Christmas.the Panda Express near me in San Diego has a constant long line from open to close. I am not sure if they sprinkle cocaine on the chicken,chicken sandwiches at Popeyes but there is a real traffic jam getting in there.I dropped our Christmas gifts off at 2 households and had pre determined not to go inside..almost went off without a hitch but my sister in law hugged me during our outdoor gift hand off. As a young man,handshakes were done at a logical anatomical distance, in today's culture, often you get pulled in for a version of a hug. In Mexico not all men hug, but 100% of women hug and often kiss friends and family at every greeting,often multiple times.
Covid is modifying behavior for sure,but old habits are goingto be hard if not impossible to break..
I really really fear what things will look like in 10-20 after the holidays

 

[jmdirt]

Home can be a greater source of infection for the simple reason people don't take the same protections as they do in a workplace - Catching COVID from surfaces is completely overblown - Look at the criteria followed by contact tracers which is15 minutes of close contact. At some stage in the future there will be more detailed breakdown of known sources of infection - Finally, if you believe that masks are always used appropriately and to the best advantage, then you are trusting.

-I don't think that masks are always used appropriately, plus we have plenty of anti-maskers. But , as I have typed too many times, mask use reduces viral load.
-If my work didn't require masks, I would refuse to work on location because I know that some people wouldn't wear a mask if they weren't required.
-I'm confused, you stated "The fact is COVID is spread more readily in indoor environments either by droplets on surfaces or in select cases by airborne transmission ..", but now you say surface transmission is overblown.
-Home is only a great source for people not being smart.

 

[Unchained]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mmJAcERLGAE


This has been for more than @8 months, Trump unable to not go off the rails about anything Covid.. He has had numerous press conference sessions saying that doctors,nurses and staff are stealing PPE, hoarding it, or lying about shortages. He early on had press exchanges were he stated that the virus was a conspiracy to make him look bad, to upend his political career..asked if Italy or Spain,Russia were somehow in on it,as they all saw mass death and infection, he never answered..
This is the tone of the federal government response to the virus, an ugly mix of anger and denial with few if any detailed answers

 

[jmdirt]

Home can be a greater source of infection for the simple reason people don't take the same protections as they do in a workplace - Catching COVID from surfaces is completely overblown - Look at the criteria followed by contact tracers which is15 minutes of close contact. At some stage in the future there will be more detailed breakdown of known sources of infection - Finally, if you believe that masks are always used appropriately and to the best advantage, then you are trusting.

Something else that occurred to me: you started out by saying that people aren't taking precautions at work and other public places that's why they are spreading C19 at home, which certainly could happen. But in this response you say that they are taking precautions at work, but not at home. You seem to be changing the discussion each time that you post.

I'll agree with part of your moving/changing point that people who don't wear masks in public places, go out to eat/drink, have guests in their home, etc., should take more precautions at home (like wearing masks) (but they likely won't). But for those who always wear a mask in public places, don't go out to eat/drink, don't have guests in their home, etc., likely don't need to take precautions in their home (granted, they aren't 100% safe).

I still don't agree with your long-held assertion that improper mask use is somehow an argument against proper mask use.

 

[Cookster15]

I notice discussion about the non wearing of masks at home.

Where I live we still have restaurants open. Restrictions are limited to maximum number of customers within a confined space. Social distancing regulations. I notice that people enter the restaurants wearing masks but of course to eat we must remove the mask. Likewise, when at home everyone must remove the mask to eat. That's everyone on the planet, unless you are on an IV drip.

If a mask has been invented that you can wear whilst putting food in your mouth I'd be interested to know about? In every country or region on the planet that has had some success containing Covid-19 people had to remove masks to eat. And virtually all these success stories didn't mandate the wearing of masks at home.

So in the real world wearing masks at home is preferable but certainly not mandatory to control transmission. Basically unnecessary.

 

[Merckx index]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52473523

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1119412/covid-19-transmission-rate-us-by-state/

The R0, reproduction number (average number of people an infected person transmits the virus to), for the U.S. as a whole is actually currently estimated as below 1.0, which means that the spread of the virus is being reduced. That may come as a surprise, given that daily cases are so high, but they hit a plateau a couple of weeks ago, and have slightly declined since.

In the absence of any preventive measures, the R0 for the virus is thought to be 2-3, so any value below that should be taken as evidence that people are, in fact, doing something right. Since infectiousness is thought to last about a week after becoming infected, one can make a very rough estimate of the R0 by comparing the weekly increase in daily case rate. That is, newly infected people have about a week to infect others, so every weekly increase indicates how many people they are infecting before they are no longer capable of doing so.

Here are some numbers to consider:

First wave (ratio of seven day moving daily average of cases on date listed, compared to a week earlier):
3/26 5.65
4/2 2.22
4/9 1.37
4/16 0.92
4/23 0.99
4/30 1.00
5/7 0.96
5/14 0.85
5/21 0.84

The very large increase in cases from March 19-26 can be attributed to delays in reporting. The pandemic was just taking off in the U.S. at that time, particularly in NYC, where most of the cases were. The following week saw an increase of a little over two, which probably reflected some social distancing, but still indicated a largely unrestrained spread. By the week after that, the increase had dropped dramatically, and by the week after that, the R0 value had dropped to about one, including no further spread. The R0 then dropped well below 1, indicating that spread was decreasing. Large numbers of people began changing their behavior literally overnight.

Had we continued with the practices that led to this decrease, we might have brought the virus under control. At the least, if the public been shown numbers expressed in this way, and heavily praised for what they had already accomplished, maybe it would have encouraged many more to continue these practices. But the public, rightly or wrongly, thought the lockdowns were supposed to end at a specific time, not at a specific number, and May saw some states begin opening up. As a result, the R0 value started to rise again, and ultimately led to a second wave, beginning in June:

Second Wave
6/11 1.04
6/18 0.97
6/25 1.16
7/2 1.45
7/9 1.33
7/16 1.16
7/23 1.22
7/30 1.01

Notice that even at the peak of this surge, the R0 value was considerably lower than it had been at the peak of the first wave, though the surge also lasted longer. I'd say that the lower peak R0 reflected that people were still practicing social restrictions to some extent, while the longer period of elevated R0 was due to people tired of making the efforts. Again, though, the R0 value eventually dropped below 1, into the 0.85-0.90 range. But again, it eventually rose , this time around the middle of September, when weather in much of the country started getting colder:

Third Wave
9/17 1.09
9/24 1.02
10/1 1.04
10/8 1.09
10/15 1.16
10/22 1.16
10/29 1.23
11/5 1.25
11/12 1.39
11/19 1.25
11/26 1.02 (1.09)
12/3 1.01 (1.08)
12/10 1.25 (1.08)
12/17 1.05
12/24 0.93

The trends seen in the second wave continued in the third wave: the peak R0 value was less, while the period of elevated R0 values was longer. The big jump on Dec. 10 reflects the post-Thanksgiving surge, a combination of all the holiday travel, and under-reporting during the holidays (also reflected in the big drop at the end of November). The numbers in () are corrections for the under-reporting.

The rough value of 0.93 I have calculated as of Dec.24 is in line with other estimates. It remains to be seen whether we will stay below 1, but I think at the least daily cases will not increase (excepting, perhaps, a post-Christmas surge). Almost 20 million people have now tested positive, which probably indicates 100 million or more people have been infected. While that is nowhere near herd immunity, that should slow the spread a little. If the R0, given certain social restrictions, were 1.5, and one third of the population has been infected, and presumably no longer either becomes infected (with what appear to be fairly rare exceptions), nor transmits the virus, then the R0 would drop to 1.

 

[Unchained]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nqNxSRcIQPY

 

[yaco]

Something else that occurred to me: you started out by saying that people aren't taking precautions at work and other public places that's why they are spreading C19 at home, which certainly could happen. But in this response you say that they are taking precautions at work, but not at home. You seem to be changing the discussion each time that you post.

I'll agree with part of your moving/changing point that people who don't wear masks in public places, go out to eat/drink, have guests in their home, etc., should take more precautions at home (like wearing masks) (but they likely won't). But for those who always wear a mask in public places, don't go out to eat/drink, don't have guests in their home, etc., likely don't need to take precautions in their home (granted, they aren't 100% safe).

I still don't agree with your long-held assertion that improper mask use is somehow an argument against proper mask use.

I never stated or argued that improper mask use = no to mask use - All I've stated is politicians and especially the media highlight non-mask use in public, especially in outside environments ( whether mask use is mandated or not ) but miss the subtleties ( probably because it is not sexy ) that mask use needs to be followed in nearly every aspect of day life - Then the media throws up their hands as to why mask use is not the magic bullet.

 

[yaco]

I notice discussion about the non wearing of masks at home.

Where I live we still have restaurants open. Restrictions are limited to maximum number of customers within a confined space. Social distancing regulations. I notice that people enter the restaurants wearing masks but of course to eat we must remove the mask. Likewise, when at home everyone must remove the mask to eat. That's everyone on the planet, unless you are on an IV drip.

If a mask has been invented that you can wear whilst putting food in your mouth I'd be interested to know about? In every country or region on the planet that has had some success containing Covid-19 people had to remove masks to eat. And virtually all these success stories didn't mandate the wearing of masks at home.

So in the real world wearing masks at home is preferable but certainly not mandatory to control transmission. Basically unnecessary.

Actuslly when I attend a restaurant the mask stays on when I am not in the eating phase as per the regulations in restaurants - Of course not everyone follows this edict - So in effect you spend 60 minutes in a restaurant = 30 minutes with mask on and 30 minutes maskless - You dont need to have an edict to wear a mask in home type environments if you have guests.

 

[jmdirt]

I never stated or argued that improper mask use = no to mask use - All I've stated is politicians and especially the media highlight non-mask use in public, especially in outside environments ( whether mask use is mandated or not ) but miss the subtleties ( probably because it is not sexy ) that mask use needs to be followed in nearly every aspect of day life - Then the media throws up their hands as to why mask use is not the magic bullet.

See, you changed what I said to make your flip-flop argument.

 

[movingtarget]

Russia admits to world's third-worst Covid-19 death toll

More than 186,000 Russians have died due to coronavirus, three times more than previously reported

www.theguardian.com

 

[yaco]

See, you changed what I said to make your flip-flop argument.

There is no flip-flop argument - Have stated all along that masks are not a 'magic bullet' for COVID19 and they are not often enough used in the correct environment.

 

[Merckx index]

Russia admits to world's third-worst Covid-19 death toll

More than 186,000 Russians have died due to coronavirus, three times more than previously reported

www.theguardian.com

If the new numbers are correct, Russia now has the second highest mortality rate in the world, trailing only Belgium.

Li wasn’t a virologist or even an epidemiologist, but an ophthalmologist, meaning it was outside his field of expertise, and he also incorrectly claimed that the new virus was SARS (from 2003), meaning he was spreading false information.

You don't have to be an epidemiologist to warn people about a possible pandemic. Neither was Zhang, whom you hail as the person who actually notified authorities.

Do you have a link that Li claimed the virus was the first SARS? It has been widely reported that he said it was SARS-like, which of course is correct. Not that making a mistake like that should be considered something that has to be confessed to and forced to retract.

A whistleblower is someone who tries to alert the public about wrongdoing on the part of individuals or an organization; Li didn’t consider himself to be one, and didn’t want his December 31 posting in a private WeChat group to be shared with anyone else.

What is your evidence that Li did not consider himself a whistleblower? That he said that when he was forced to confess? It's true he meant his alert to be only for a small circle of friends, but so what? That ought to have made his actions even less threatening to the authorities. Do you really, seriously believe he was called in and forced to sign a confession just because he wasn't qualified to tell his friends that a deadly virus was circulating? Do you really believe that Li told his friends something that was so far from the actual truth that it was a danger to Chinese society? What was that? What threat did he represent?

Neither were Li and his colleagues “arrested,” as the MSM falsely claimed, although some did later issue retractions. {/QUOTE]

Galileo wasn't arrested for a very long time, either, though he did issue some retractions.

More importantly, the MSM completely ignored the fact that the “whistle” had already been blown by Dr. Zhang Jixian, who reported the novel coronavirus to health authorities on December 27, a whole 4 days earlier than Li's WeChat post,

Bringing up Zhang doesn't do your case any good. You do realize, don't you, that she concluded that the disease was infectious, and probably transmissible among people? To the extent that she wanted masks worn where she worked? Yet the Chinese government would not acknowledge this for another several weeks.

And can't you see how self-contradictory this has become? On the one hand, you claim that Zhang was a whistleblower, who beat Li to the punch. OTOH, you claim that China was justified in forcing Li to retract. Why? If Zhang had already spilled the beans, what could Li have said that could possibly be a problem?

The answer, of course, is that the authorities were worried that if the general public appreciated the situation, there might be. a panic. It had nothing at all to do with misinformation, or not being qualified to speak out.

The "journalist" in question had no journalist credentials and was just trying to get her hour of fame by breaking the strict quarantine law forbidding entry in and out of Wuhan since it was in lockdown

Do you have to be a professional journalist to publish pictures of events, of life in an area that the world critically wants to know about?

Do you have evidence that she broke the quarantine law by leaving Wuhan after she went there? How would that even be possible, given the tight control the government placed that city under? And if she did, do you have evidence that long jail terms are the standard response to breaking quarantine? Can you provide other examples of Chinese who were jailed for several years because they were caught trying to leave Wuhan?

She was cited for--here we go again--false information, but what false information? What evidence of that do you have? What was there in her reports that was false? She was also cited for "picking a quarrel". Whatever that means, it doesn't sound like breaking a quarantine.

You break the law, you get sentenced, pure and simple,

You break the law, you get force fed and tortured, pure and simple.

since where's the media sympathy for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange?

Get a grip. In the first place, nothing Li did or was alleged to have done compares in the remotest way to what Manning and Assange did. If it had, Li would have not been called in to retract. He would have been summarily executed, and you damn well know it.

In the second place, you aren't very familiar with Western media if you think both of them haven't received a lot of support from journalists and others.

If you want an example that really highlights the stark contrast between the West and China, though, how about David Icke? The misinformation he is spreading is many orders of magnitude beyond anything any Chinese dissident has ever been accused of. But he's allowed to spout his garbage, though his posts on social media have been blocked. He and some others, such as the authors of Plandemic, have created an enormous amount of damage with their conspiracy theories about the coronavirus (or in their view, lack of), but have not been subject to any legal action, AFAIK.

But it's the responsibility of these other countries to restrict travel and close their own borders. If you're another country and you don't want Chinese people to travel to your country, you don't have to allow them.

It's the responsibility of countries to restrict travel based on their knowledge of the situation in other countries. If some country doesn't make that knowledge freely available, all bets are off. A lot of people opposed Trump's actions, when he finally put imposed a ban, precisely because there wasn't enough evidence to judge how necessary it was.

 

[hrotha]

I wouldn't compare Russia's excess deaths to other countries' officially confirmed COVID-19 deaths. Those two figures are pretty evenly matched in places like Belgium, not so much in many other countries. In Spain there have been ~50,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and ~70,000 excess deaths.

 

[yaco]

It will be interesting to see how countries promote people to take the vaccine, while at the same time keep international borders closed - To encourage enough people to receive the vaccine in their countries it has to be tied to approximate dates for re-opening international borders. I suspect a number of countries will keep their borders closed longer than necessary even with a widespread vaccine rollout.

 

[8472]

If the new numbers are correct, Russia now has the second highest mortality rate in the world, trailing only Belgium.



You don't have to be an epidemiologist to warn people about a possible pandemic. Neither was Zhang, whom you hail as the person who actually notified authorities.

Do you have a link that Li claimed the virus was the first SARS? It has been widely reported that he said it was SARS-like, which of course is correct. Not that making a mistake like that should be considered something that has to be confessed to and forced to retract.



What is your evidence that Li did not consider himself a whistleblower? That he said that when he was forced to confess? It's true he meant his alert to be only for a small circle of friends, but so what? That ought to have made his actions even less threatening to the authorities. Do you really, seriously believe he was called in and forced to sign a confession just because he wasn't qualified to tell his friends that a deadly virus was circulating? Do you really believe that Li told his friends something that was so far from the actual truth that it was a danger to Chinese society? What was that? What threat did he represent?

I already posted the link earlier, see here: https://worldaffairs.blog/2020/02/0...ave-whistleblower-silenced-by-the-government/
It contains the specific screenshot of the WeChat post, where Li inaccurately claimed that the novel coronavirus was SARS, and that SARS had returned. NOT SARS-like. SARS. So your ENTIRE argument that Li did nothing wrong goes right out the window, since he was posting blatantly false information / spreading misinformation. Of course he was made to sign a document saying that he wouldn’t spread rumors (document image also in above link) , which he did not argue against: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soc...was-he-and-how-did-he-become-coronavirus-hero. Another fact you got wrong. Dr. Zhang is the Director of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care, and had worked as medical expert during the SARS outbreak in 2003, so understanding viruses that causes respiratory diseases like the coronavirus was well within her area of expertise, unlike Li who was only an eye doctor.

So basically Li was called into questioning, got a slap on the wrist for spreading false information, then returned to work the next day. Such injustice. In contrast, numerous doctors and nurses have gotten fired for simply speaking out against the lack of PPE, for highlighting hospital issues, for refusing to manipulate COVID data, and captain Brett Crozier for just speaking out about the rising numbers of coronavirus cases on his ship. Where's the justice for them? LOL at the double standards.

Nurse sues hospital for firing her after speaking out on poor conditions

A veteran Detroit nurse was fired for speaking out on staffing ratios and poor conditions at a hospital amid the coronavirus pandemic, a new lawsuit claims. In court papers filed Monday, Kenisa Bar…

nypost.com

Florida scientist said she was fired for 'refusing to manipulate' COVID-19 data

These Health Care Workers Spoke Out. Their Hospitals Fired Them.

Doctors and nurses say drawing attention to urgent needs and hospital conditions is the only way to force change and save lives. But it could cost them their jobs.

www.huffpost.com

Military Culture of Secrecy Exposed by Firing USS Roosevelt Commander

A video posted by a sailor says everything there is to say about the firing of Navy Capt. Brett Crozier about how things look to a sailor or soldier when they are out there doing their jobs, compared to the view from a desk in Washington, DC.

www.newsweek.com

 

[8472]

Do you have to be a professional journalist to publish pictures of events, of life in an area that the world critically wants to know about?

Do you have evidence that she broke the quarantine law by leaving Wuhan after she went there? How would that even be possible, given the tight control the government placed that city under? And if she did, do you have evidence that long jail terms are the standard response to breaking quarantine? Can you provide other examples of Chinese who were jailed for several years because they were caught trying to leave Wuhan?

She was cited for--here we go again--false information, but what false information? What evidence of that do you have? What was there in her reports that was false? She was also cited for "picking a quarrel". Whatever that means, it doesn't sound like breaking a quarantine.

This arrest of Zhang Zhan and subsequent MSM coverage actually provides great insight into those who control the corporate media and what they publish. Ever notice how the story published by all the MSM outlets are suspiciously similar, using the exact same sentences, almost as if someone had written the story and viewpoint for all MSM outlets to publish simultaneously? Ever heard of mighty Wurlitzer coined by CIA Frank Wisner regarding spreading propaganda via corporate media? Maybe you should read up on it, will definitely enlighten you. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1743770.The_Mighty_Wurlitzer

Let's see the BBC's version: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55463241
"Once there, she began documenting what she saw on the streets and hospitals in livestreams and essays, despite threats by authorities, and her reports were widely shared on social media. The rights group Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders said her reports also covered the detention of other independent journalists and the harassment of families of victims who were seeking accountability."

Who are the "Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD)" that seemed to be source of much of this reporting? "Conveniently left out of the story is that this organization is headquartered in Washington, DC and funded by the US government’s regime-change arm. CHRD advocates full-time against the Chinese government, and has spent years campaigning on behalf of extreme right-wing opposition figures. CHRD has used its generous funding to provide grants to opposition activists inside China, bankrolling dozens upon dozens of projects in the country.

No, the UN did not report China has ‘massive internment camps’ for Uighur Muslims - The Grayzone

Media outlets falsely claimed the UN reported China is holding a million Uighurs in camps. The claim is based on unsourced allegations by an American commission member, US-funded outfits, and a shadowy government-funded opposition group. By Ben Norton and Ajit Singh Numerous major media outlets...

thegrayzone.com

Projects Supported with Approved Grants

The U.S. government funded CHRD even lists Zhang Zhan on its 'Rights defenders' page. https://www.nchrd.org/2020/09/zhang-zhan/ One wonders how much funding she has received.

"A former lawyer, Zhang Zhan, born in the 1980s, has long been active in speaking out about politics and the human rights situation in China. She has been repeatedly harassed and threatened by the authorities. In 2019, she spoke out on the Hong Kong protests by posting comments, writing articles and holding up placards to support the protesters. In September 2019, she was summoned by Shanghai police and was later criminally detained and arrested on suspicion of “picking quarrels” for her support for Hong Kong. Police released her on November 26, 2019.

Zhang Zhan had travelled to Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, in early February. She reported numerous stories including the detentions of other independent reporters and harassment of families of victims seeking accountability from the epicenter via her Wechat, Twitter, and YouTube accounts.
Pudong procuratorate indicted Zhang Zhan on September 15 and transfered her case to Pudong New District Court. The indictment accused Zhang Zhan of traveling to Wuhan on February 3, 2020 and that she “sent a large amount of false information” on WeChat, Twitter, and YouTube and “accepted interviews with overseas media Radio Free Asia and Epoch Times and maliciously stirred up the Wuhan epidemic situation.”


Said Epoch Times piece below: https://www.theepochtimes.com/dissi...ke-treatment-of-chinese-citizens_3287947.html
In the video Zhang Zhan is standing at a light traffic barrier that blocks access to a quarantined housing block. She is ranting in a weepy voice, protesting the quarantine procedures in place, at white clad guards and passerby. The Epoch Times translated the dialog:
Woman: Let me ask you,
Do you think the government can treat citizens like animals?
Lock them when the regime is willing to,
Send them out to work when they need these people to work.
Aren’t you treating them like you treat cattle and horses?
When animals need to graze you let them out
And take them back when they are done eating.
Is that for real?
And if they do not obey, whip them.
Is that how it should be?
Is it justified to treat civilians like this?
Man: What are you doing?
Woman: I want to express my protest against the government, persistent protest.

Shortly before the man asked Zhang Zhan what she was doing she had knocked over the quarantine traffic barrier. Holding rants against pandemic measures and knocking over quarantine barriers while providing videos for anti-Chinese outlets is presumably acceptable 'citizen journalism' from a US-funded former lawyer. Not so innocent now is she?

Zhang Zhan did her best to cause trouble, spread rumors and cause false outrage. Getting arrested based on this is an appropriate measure no matter which way you look at it. Especially considering over 100+ journalists have been arrested this year in the US alone.
https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/more-100-journalists-were-arrested-060435528.html
But the CIA's congregation of Washington based anti-Chinese 'human rights' organizations disagrees with those measures and is jealous about China's success. Thus the 'Mighty Wurlitzer' springs into action and the 'western' media dutifully follow its lead by lamenting about the fate of a US-funded 'citizen journalist' provocateur in China. Cry me a river.

Get a grip. In the first place, nothing Li did or was alleged to have done compares in the remotest way to what Manning and Assange did. If it had, Li would have not been called in to retract. He would have been summarily executed, and you damn well know it.

In the second place, you aren't very familiar with Western media if you think both of them haven't received a lot of support from journalists and others.

If you want an example that really highlights the stark contrast between the West and China, though, how about David Icke? The misinformation he is spreading is many orders of magnitude beyond anything any Chinese dissident has ever been accused of. But he's allowed to spout his garbage, though his posts on social media have been blocked. He and some others, such as the authors of Plandemic, have created an enormous amount of damage with their conspiracy theories about the coronavirus (or in their view, lack of), but have not been subject to any legal action, AFAIK.

LOL! Over 100+ journalists have been arrested this year in the US. No questioning their right of free speech? No mass media outrage over their arrests? No one blaming the government for their unjust arrests? Double standard much?

More than 100 journalists were arrested or detained while on the job in the US this year - a more than 1,200% increase from the year before, new report says

The vast majority of the incidents occurred during protests, especially the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd in May.

news.yahoo.com

Please name the most incriminating thing Assange has done that deserves extradition and assuredly lifetime behind bars or worse. His only crime is investigative journalism, aka being an actual journalist instead of these MSM presstitutes that call themselves "journalists".

UN rapporteur on Assange: 'The US is trying to criminalize investigative journalism'

 

[Unchained]

It will be interesting to see how countries promote people to take the vaccine, while at the same time keep international borders closed - To encourage enough people to receive the vaccine in their countries it has to be tied to approximate dates for re-opening international borders. I suspect a number of countries will keep their borders closed longer than necessary even with a widespread vaccine rollout.

This is exactly on point..along the US- Mexico border merchants on both sides are being decimated..lots in San Diego say that the Christmas shopping season is 25% of yearly revenue. Mexico is nowhere close to the US in vaccine distribution..it would be crazy to immediately open up the border based on a disproportionate weight value given to commerce instead of health..Canada has given lots of indications Trudeau on down that they want to open the border slowly as to not import too much disease from the US

 

[Unchained]

Tens of thousands of US residents cross the border every day for work

More than 100,000 people cross the San Diego-Tijuana border every day to go to school, work, to see a doctor or to go shopping.

fox5sandiego.com

 

[Unchained]

The busiest land border crossing in the world is closed this weekend

The San Ysidro border crossing—which connects San Diego in California to Tijuana in Mexico—is shutting down for 57 hours.

qz.com

Article is old, but also includes numbers on the border expansion..three quarters of a billion dollars+

 

[djpbaltimore]

Everything this guy writes should be must read.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1343912631258804229

View: https://twitter.com/edyong209/status/1343912631258804229


Heads up, Nomad, the variant is in your neck of the woods. Not terribly surprising news, but noteworthy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1344034123850129408

View: https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1344034123850129408

 

[Keram]

I read there is half milion people vaccinated in Israel already. I read in slovak newspaper so I dont now if it is true. How they could have so many vaccines availaible? With this pace I expect in february they have to suppress virus greatly and deaths at the minimum with march april with normality. I am curious. Israel is now guinea pig.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Bahrain and Israel are leading the way with vaccinations at this point. Israel think they can have all their vulnerable vaccinated twice by the end of next month. They are also doing another lockdown to minimize the mortality in the meantime. They are considering 24-7 centers to speed it up to a target of 150k a day. That would be like 4 million a day in the USA.

 

[Merckx index]

So your ENTIRE argument that Li did nothing wrong goes right out the window, since he was posting blatantly false information / spreading misinformation.

Of course it doesn't. In the first place, at that time, the virus hadn't been sequenced, so no one knew that it wasn't SARS. I repeat: at the time Li was forced to recant, there was no way of knowing whether the virus was the original SARS. So there was no proof that his information was false, at the time that he was forced to recant it.

In the second place, when Li mentioned SARS, he was quoting the report of another doctor, who treated these patients. And he specifically added that the exact type of SARS had not yet been identified. So there was nothing in his posting that was false. He was forced to take back his statement of seven SARS cases, when that statement was factually true.

The "slap on the wrist" was in fact a threat of prosecution if he communicated to others anything about the virus and the disease.

CHRD has used its generous funding to provide grants to opposition activists inside China, bankrolling dozens upon dozens of projects in the country.

Come on. This goes on all the time, both countries. Ever heard of Congressman Eric Swalwell?

In September 2019, she was summoned by Shanghai police and was later criminally detained and arrested on suspicion of “picking quarrels” for her support for Hong Kong

Talk about repeating the same phrase, in story after story. I won't even get into China's policy on HK, since that gets into pure political discussion, which isn't allowed here.

The indictment accused Zhang Zhan of traveling to Wuhan on February 3, 2020 and that she “sent a large amount of false information” on WeChat, Twitter, and YouTube and “accepted interviews with overseas media Radio Free Asia and Epoch Times and maliciously stirred up the Wuhan epidemic situation.”

What false information? You still haven't provided any.

Zhang Zhan did her best to cause trouble, spread rumors and cause false outrage. Getting arrested based on this is an appropriate measure no matter which way you look at it.

Four years in jail for knocking over a barrier or something? Seriously?

Holding rants against pandemic measures and knocking over quarantine barriers while providing videos for anti-Chinese outlets is presumably acceptable 'citizen journalism' from a US-funded former lawyer. Not so innocent now is she?

I can't believe your ignorance of the U.S. It is absolutely jaw-dropping. Hello, protests like this happen ALL THE GD TIME in the U.S. People have gathered in front of governors's houses to protest the pandemic measures. They have held anti-lockdown rallies. Individuals have caused disturbances in stores by not wearing a mask (they are told to leave the store, but they aren't arrested). They have protested outside hospitals, claiming that the C19 cases aren't real. No one gets arrested for this stuff, unless there is actual violence.

Over 100+ journalists have been arrested this year in the US.

An increase of 12 times from the previous year. IOW, this is an extraordinarily different year, very different from what usually is the case. Why? Because of the BLM protests. Protests such as these would never even be allowed in China.

When journalists covered the protests, it was hard to distinguish them from people who might have been breaking the law. Most of these journalists were "detained", i.e., stopped and questioned. Very few, if any, were jailed, and none was jailed for any length of time remotely approaching four days, let alone four years. And of course there was outrage over it. Again, get a grip.

Please name the most incriminating thing Assange has done that deserves extradition and assuredly lifetime behind bars or worse. His only crime is investigative journalism, aka being an actual journalist instead of these MSM presstitutes that call themselves "journalists".
UN rapporteur on Assange: 'The US is trying to criminalize investigative journalism'

Again, you're going around in circles, contradicting yourself. See the picture in that link you posted? See all the people protesting in support of Assange? Think that would happen in China? Do you think any media in China would be allowed to post an article critical of the government like that? Do you think there are public forums like this one in China, where people constantly, day in, day out, criticize the government?

I myself am not advocating that Assange be prosecuted. But the documents he published have put many people at potential risk. Again, trying to compare this to what Li did is a total joke. Only someone who is blinded by China-love, who absolutely, positively to save himself cannot utter one single word critical of China--unlike I and most other posters on this thread, who constantly, day after day after day, criticize the U.S. government. The amount of anti-U.S. government criticism posted on this thread is at least fifty times the amount of criticism of China, but you can't handle any criticism of China whatsoever.

 

[Unchained]

I myself am advocating for Julian Assange to be prosecuted, and punished to the full extent of the United States law. If Wleekers played any part of an cyber intrusions of Covid data at any level,or tried to track vaccine data in any way,that would be very serious. Mr.Assange has been confirmed as a source of US troop data, of various kinds including classified positioning data,and names,home address, social security numbers and other data of US military members.
Any party found to have hacked anything to do with Covid 19 should be tried under wartime,enemy combatant directives.
I also find the publication of Border Patrol agents personal data deplorable, I hope that a justice system, US or other can try Julian for the crimes he is accused of,as well as the crimes he has publicly admitted.
current administration has not pursued almost anything cyber serious, serious security defects and bad actors could interrupt the supply chain with what looks like the greatest of ease..