COVID CORNER
Unconvincing excuses for flouting lockdowns, plus China’s Covid cover-up
CZECH CURFEW CHEAT
Police in the Czech Republic caught a man violating Covid-19 restrictions as he attempted to flout the curfew by walking a stuffed toy dog on a leash. The 9pm curfew bans people from walking out of doors unless exercising a pet. A Czech news crew accompanying the police patrol in Ceske Budejovice were on hand to film officers apprehending the miscreant. He initially claimed to be out walking the dog, but after police determined the object at the end of his leash to be a stuffed toy dog, he changed his story and claimed it was an artistic practical joke. He was released with a warning. upi.com, 5 Nov 2020.
CORONA EXPLOSION
Nine coronavirus patients being treated at a hospital in southern Turkey were killed when an oxygen ventilator exploded. The blast caused a fire in the intensive care unit of Sanko University Hospital in Gaziantep. The victims were aged between 56 and 85. The hospital has mounted an investigation to establish the cause of the explosion. In November, a fire at a hospital in Romania killed 10 patients receiving treatment for Covid-19, when a medical appliance caught fire, igniting a nearby oxygen cylinder. In October, more than 150 patients at a temporary coronavirus hospital in the Russian region of Chelyabinsk had to be evacuated when an explosion in an “oxygen booth” caused a fire. BBC News, 20 Dec 2020.
IGNORANCE IS BLISS
Police officers visited a house in Basingstoke one weekend in January 2021 after numerous reports of a party there, breaching Covid-19 rules forbidding different households from mixing with each other. The hosts told police they were “unaware of the global pandemic, as they never watch the news.” Hampshire constabulary later tweeted about the incident, alongside the hashtag #ThereAreNoWords. vice.com, 18 Jan 2021.
RATTY’S DELIGHT
Britain’s rat population is thought to have risen by 30 million during the pandemic lockdowns, with closed hospitality industry workplaces being used as nesting and breeding sites. Rats can breed very quickly, having up to six litters a year with between six and 12 pups in a litter. The youngsters are themselves able to breed within a year. Rat experts estimate there are now 150 million of the rodents living in the UK – around 2.2 rats per person. The old adage that one is never more than 6ft (1.8m) away from a rat is now more likely to be correct than ever before.
Rats only require a small hole to enter a building, and with so many shops, restaurants and pubs empty, they have been able to find shelter and breed undisturbed. Furthermore, during the most severe lockdown measures where only takeaway food is available, there is still a large amount of food waste on Britain’s streets. Pest controllers say they have received around 25 per cent more calls during 2020. City centres have seen the greatest rodent population increase, with London leading the way at 20 million rats, followed by Birmingham with 2.4 million, Leeds with 1.7 million, and 1.3 million rats in Glasgow. D.Telegraph, 25 Nov 2020.
RASH PRECAUTION
Chinese flight attendants have been advised to wear nappies to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection. “It is recommended that cabin crew wear disposable nappies and avoid using the lavatories barring special circumstances.” , 22 Dec 2020.
CHINA ACCUSED OF COVID SECRECY
The US State Department has issued a document (‘Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’) accusing China’s ruling Communist Party of a “deadly obsession with secrecy and control” that is preventing a proper investigation into the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic. A World Health Organisation (WHO) enquiry team has been sent to Wuhan, but at present it is unclear whether China will allow the team to visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), thought by some to be the source of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes the Covid-19 illness).
The formerly prevailing hypothesis that the virus originated in a Wuhan ‘wet market’ is now being questioned, even among figures high up in the Chinese administration. Instead, some are positing that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally escaped the laboratory owing to insufficient security precautions. In July 2020, former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove suggested the virus had been man-made, but had been leaked by accident: “I subscribe to the theory... that it’s an engineered escapee from the Wuhan Institute [of Virology],” he argued. “I am not saying anything other than it was the result of an accident and that the virus is the consequence of gain-of-function experiments that were being conducted in Wuhan, which I don’t think are particularly sinister.” Earlier in 2020, British government ministers were given an intelligence briefing which “did not rule out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory”.
The US State Department is not suggesting the virus was intentionally engineered or deliberately released, and indeed are careful to state they have “not determined whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.” It is possible SARS-CoV-2 “emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, spreading in a pattern consistent with a natural epidemic,” but alternatively, the document says, “a laboratory accident could resemble a natural outbreak if the initial exposure included only a few individuals and was compounded by asymptomatic infection.” They point to several previous virus outbreaks in China and elsewhere that were the result of accidental infections in labs, including a 2004 SARS outbreak in Beijing that infected nine people, killing one.
The fact sheet says the US government has “reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses.” This, it argues, “raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was ‘zero infection’ among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.” WIV scientists were, the document states, working with RaTG13, a bat coronavirus 96.2 per cent genetically similar to SARSCoV-2 “under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure.” This research began in 2016 or earlier “with no indication of a stop prior to the Covid-19 outbreak”, using samples taken from a cave in Yunnan province in 2013 after several miners died of a SARSlike illness.
The State Department insists the WHO investigation team must be given access to the WIV’s records of its work on bat and other coronaviruses prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. In particular, they emphasise, the WHO “must have a full accounting of why the WIV altered and then removed online records of its work with RaTG13 and other viruses”.
The fact sheet also suggested that the WIV has been involved in military work, even though it is ostensibly a civilian institution, stating that the United States has “for many years” raised public concerns about China’s past biological weapons work, “which Beijing has neither documented nor demonstrably eliminated, despite its clear obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention”. The US (and others), it said, had assisted the WIV in its research, either by funding or via scientific collaboration, and now had a right to know whether any of its research funding had been diverted to secret Chinese military projects. The US has now determined that the WIV collaborated with the Chinese military on publications and secret projects, with classified research (including laboratory animal experiments) on behalf of the Chinese military going back to 2017 or earlier.
The lab’s flat denial of the possibility of a leak, together with China’s recent suggestions that the pandemic could have originated in another country, are, the State Department argues, part of the CCP’s approach to devoting “enormous resources to deceit and disinformation”. Thus, the scale of the initial Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan was covered up, with the release of vital information delayed, allowing the virus to spread. Doctors on the ground in Wuhan sharing first-hand information between each other about the new respiratory illness were silenced, and, notably, citizen journalist Zhang Zhan who reported on the initial outbreak was jailed in December for four years for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (see FT402:7). www.state.gov/ fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhaninstitute-of-virology, 15 Jan; sky. com, 17 Jan; Mail on Sunday, 17 Jan 2021.
MAGIC POTION FAIL
Sri Lanka’s health minister, who publicly endorsed sorcery and magic potions to help reduce the rising coronavirus infection rate on the island, has herself tested positive. Pavithra Wanniarachchi publicly drank and recommended a magic potion, later revealed to contain honey and nutmeg. It had been made by a sorcerer who claimed it would confer lifelong immunity. She also poured a pot of blessed water into a river last November after a self-described god-man told her this would end the pandemic. Sri Lanka’s government approved emergency use of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine hours after Ms Wanniarachchi tested positive. D.Telegraph, 23 Jan 2021.