Wuhan Coronavirus - are you prepared?

[Toshio Uemura]

7 hours ago, esaj said:

not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus."

There is satisfying evidence that this is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. And I believe that it isn’t BUT there is still the chance that this virus had been found earlier in a zoonotic context (by collecting bats 🦇 or sampling other wild animals) with the purpose to study corona viruses these animals carry and for the purpose of disease prevention. That is common practice not only in China.

And by doing so, there could have been a lab accident or even a pre-lab accident with the people who collect the specimens for researchers. Accidents like this are documented to have happened. I believe I referenced a publication of some Chinese researchers earlier in this string regarding different bio laboratories in close proximity to the Wuhan wet market. So nothing man made but still man caused. Guess we will never know! 😶

[Gasmantle]

11 minutes ago, Toshio Uemura said:

There is satisfying evidence that this is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. 

What is the satisfying evidence that this isn't a purposefully manipulated virus?

[RenaissanceMan]

14 minutes ago, Toshio Uemura said:

There is satisfying evidence that this is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. And I believe that it isn’t BUT there is still the chance that this virus had been found earlier in a zoonotic context (by collecting bats 🦇 or sampling other wild animals) with the purpose to study corona viruses these animals carry and for the purpose of disease prevention. That is common practice not only in China.

Vou've got any hard evidence or references on that? (Because, you are probably aware that nowadays even in an university lab it is technological perfectly feasible to synthesize any 30k base RNA strand eg. by ligating shorter fragments.)

[Toshio Uemura]

4 hours ago, jojo33 said:

@Toshio Uemura what do you think of this article from the French press which denounces that once the Olympic Games were postponed the level of contamination suddenly increased,
Are there panic scenes in hypermarkets right now?

Life here is still pretty “normal” All supermarkets are stocked as usual and in the cities it is as the Japanese photographer in your article describes it. There is some extra awareness within the population, but it’s life as usual. 
Few days ago I saw an elderly lady in the supermarket wearing her mask 😷 and after she had payed for her groceries and started packing them, she pulled down her mask, licked her fingers to help open the plastic bag she bought for the groceries and then put the mask on again. I couldn’t help smiling. That’s Japan!

Numbers are still low but slowly growing. Toilet paper 🧻 is available but still limited. There is plenty of food. We have started to order fresh food online to avoid the supermarkets and stay home. You order it today from Kobe, have it the next morning at your doorstep in Shiga. That’s Japan!

its still don’t test don’t tell! But no panic buying yet! Some people here talk about possible lockdowns in Osaka and Tokio. But nothing official so far. 

Kosuke, Japanese photographer living in Kyoto

"Here, for most people, I would say that the epidemic does not change anything . We use masks, we put gel but next to that we continue to queue in front of popular restaurants, we go to the bar, we pretends nothing is wrong. For example, there is a restaurant right next to my house and there are always so many people, it's quarantine "Japanese style" ... If you take the train or the subway in Tokyo, there are always so many people. There is some kind of invisible pressure. I'm afraid to cough in public. Here in Kyoto, the economy is totally dependent on tourism. There are a lot of small businesses, hotels, guesthouses, etc., who are in a very difficult situation. "

[Toshio Uemura]

13 minutes ago, RenaissanceMan said:

Vou've got any hard evidence or references on that? (Because, you are probably aware that nowadays even in an university lab it is technological perfectly feasible to synthesize any 30k base RNA strand eg. by ligating shorter fragments.)

This is all I can offer. Please judge for yourself, if this makes sense to you or not.

 

[Gasmantle]

54 minutes ago, Toshio Uemura said:

There is satisfying evidence that this is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. 

What actually is this satisfying evidence?

You've done a quick cut and paste response that hasn't answered the question.

[Toshio Uemura]

27 minutes ago, RenaissanceMan said:

Vou've got any hard evidence or references on that? (Because, you are probably aware that nowadays even in an university lab it is technological perfectly feasible to synthesize any 30k base RNA strand eg. by ligating shorter fragments.)

Sorry. My misunderstanding. I was just quoting a quote of @esaj and stating that I can believe that. For me it does not matter if it was man made or purely zoonotic. That’s for scientists and researchers to find out and prove. My point was, that it is as plausible or even more plausible to me that this outbreak was caused by a lab accident as it is plausible that it was caused by the bloody mess on a food marked. 

[Toshio Uemura]

7 minutes ago, Gasmantle said:

What actually is this satisfying evidence?

You've done a quick cut and paste response that hasn't answered the question.

You have to ask @esaj not me. It is his quote. I just commented that I believe it. Some believe in God or Allah, I believe in @esaj 🤣 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Toshio Uemura

[Gasmantle]

1 minute ago, Toshio Uemura said:

Sorry. My misunderstanding. I was just quoting a quote of @esaj and stating that I can believe that. For me it does not matter if it was man made or purely zoonotic. That’s for scientists and researchers to find out and prove. My point was, that it is as plausible or even more plausible to me that this outbreak was caused by a lab accident as it is plausible that it was caused by the bloody mess on a food marked. 

You seem to offer a lot of advice but when questioned it always happens to be a misunderstanding.

To be honest I think most of what you say is little more than cut and paste from dubious sources .

Are you an expert in epidimiology? 

[Toshio Uemura]

3 minutes ago, Gasmantle said:

always

”Always” is another of those toxic words, that poisons your mind and thoughts. You should remove it from your vocabulary for mental hygiene instead of coughing it around. Please proof that it ”always happens” as you claim. ❤️ 

[Gasmantle]

1 minute ago, Toshio Uemura said:

”Always” is another of those toxic words, that poisons your mind and thoughts. You should remove it from your vocabulary for mental hygiene instead of coughing it around. Please proof that it ”always happens” as you claim. ❤️ 

You understand the point being made.

 

[Toshio Uemura]

2 minutes ago, Gasmantle said:

You understand the point being made.

 

What point?

[RenaissanceMan]

46 minutes ago, Toshio Uemura said:

This is all I can offer. Please judge for yourself, if this makes sense to you or not.

 

 

First of all, from what I am looking at this does not seem to be a peer reviewed article, ie. there has not been an independent, scientific evaluation on the validity of its contents. Which means it is by no means verified and so far it is just the authors telling a story.

Second, there is no original data in this draft, eg. "Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients were almost identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus." - What were the samples? What was the sequence similarity? They have not measured, they do not know.

Thirdly: "It was critical to study where the pathogen came from and how it passed onto human. An article published on The Lancet reported that 27 of 41 infected patients were found to have contact with the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 meters from the seafood market. We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory. Our proposal provided an alternative origin of the coronavirus in addition to natural recombination and intermediate host."

All the authors say is that there are two microbiological laboratories in the vicinity of Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan (might be true) and they then speculate that somehow the SARS-CoV-2 might have escaped from one of those, just because the labs are located nearby. There is no shred of evidence offered for when and how, it is mere speculation about the possibility of a leak without any scientific proof, or in nowadays terminology, fake news.

As I said before, even in China, - no - particularly China in 2020, and even more so in and around a class 4 bio hazard lab you are being so closely monitored that any suspicious or out of the ordinary behavior would be immediately followed on by the authorities.

Did @esaj really advocate this draft?

 

[Toshio Uemura]

28 minutes ago, Gasmantle said:

Are you an expert in epidimiology? 

Kind of. I specialize in the kind of viruses you see below:

[Toshio Uemura]

3 minutes ago, RenaissanceMan said:

, fake news.

Fake news is a stark statement, if used against someone who expresses their opinion. It is often used by people nowadays to suppress opinions, options and free thoughts they either don’t dare or are too lazy to contemplate. It all has to follow one narrative these days, or otherwise it is fake news or conspiracy theory or whatever.
We learned at school that in a phase of brain storming, every thought (no matter how crude and ridiculous) is welcome. Making judgements in the early phase of wrapping our mind around all this is counterproductive and deprives people who cherish free and creative thinking 🤔 of options. And I believe we are still all or should be in a phase of brain storming. There is just to little yet to make informed judgments but already enough to push the individual agenda!

[RenaissanceMan]

2 minutes ago, Toshio Uemura said:

Fake news is a stark statement, if used against someone who expresses their opinion. It is often used by people nowadays to suppress opinions, options and free thoughts they either don’t dare or are too lazy to contemplate. It all has to follow one narrative these days, or otherwise it is fake news or conspiracy theory or whatever.
We learned at school that in a phase of brain storming, every thought (no matter how crude and ridiculous) is welcome. Making judgements in the early phase of wrapping our mind around all this is counterproductive and deprives people who cherish free and creative thinking 🤔 of options. And I believe we are still all or should be in a phase of brain storming. There is just to little yet to make informed judgments but already enough to push the individual agenda!

Well, the authors suggest everybody to believe in that SARS-CoV-2 escaped out of one of these labs, without any evidence that it really happened; even worse they pretend to present a scientific fact where it is not, that's the essence of fake news, sorry.

[Gasmantle]

I kinda keep an open mind on whether this pandemic is man made with an ulterior motive, my guess though is that governments across the globe know far more than they tell the masses.

[Toshio Uemura]

8 minutes ago, RenaissanceMan said:

Well, the authors suggest everybody to believe in that SARS-CoV-2 escaped out of one of these labs, without any evidence that it really happened; even worse they pretend to present a scientific fact where it is not, that's the essence of fake news, sorry.

You may well be right. But as I already said: There is a time to gather and there is a time to judge! You are already judging based on the information you gathered and the way of thinking you acquired. And that is fine. However I am still gathering bits and bits of information, valuable or crap. I don’t care at that phase of gathering. And throwing around stereotypes (and for me “Fake news” is an American stereotype that we don’t use in Japan the way many Americans use it!) is counterproductive and thought limiting. So please keep this concept to yourself. There are people here who want to look at information unbiased and are intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions and judgment. Thank you!

[tenofnine]

Seems highly unlikely this is man made, but never say never. It actually is kind of scary to think how easily scientist could create an artificial virus or disease though.
 

Do you guys think that Big TP (Toilet Paper) is possibly responsible for COVID-19?  Maybe there is something sinister in all the new batches of toilet paper.....we are all distracted worrying about this virus while Big TP is making moves.

[Toshio Uemura]

12 minutes ago, tenofnine said:

Seems highly unlikely this is man made, but never say never. It actually is kind of scary to think how easily scientist could create an artificial virus or disease though.
 

Do you guys think that Big TP (Toilet Paper) is possibly responsible for COVID-19?  Maybe there is something sinister in all the new batches of toilet paper.....we are all distracted worrying about this virus while Big TP is making moves.

Not in Japan. We mainly use TOTO washlet (water jet cleaning with or without air dryer) even in most public toilets. So if there would be no TP, we could well do without it.

But now TP is available in any store again and the stupid people have clogged their small rabbit houses with a one year supply so that they have to sleep on it. 🤣 

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Toshio Uemura

[tenofnine]

5 minutes ago, Toshio Uemura said:

Not in Japan. We mainly use TOTO washlet (water jet cleaning with or without air dryer) even in most public toilets. So if there would be no TP, we could well do without it.

But now TP is available in any store again and the stupid people have clogged their small rabbit houses with a one year supply so that they have to sleep on it. 🤣 

Yep, and it's so smart (I've personally been to Nagoya and Tokyo). By far the most forward thinking thing I like about Japan is the prevalence of the washlet, even beyond the efficient rail transportation and cleanliness of your cities. I still don't understand why bidets or washlets aren't everywhere.

Edited March 28, 2020 by tenofnine

[Kens]

3 minutes ago, tenofnine said:

Yep, and it's so smart (I've personally been to Nagoya and Tokyo). By far the most forward thinking thing I like about Japan is the prevalence of the washlet, even beyond the efficient rail transportation and cleanliness of your cities. I still don't understand why bidets or washlets are everywhere.

Not only smart but I think it's the right way to do it. I guess people just don't like change.. They been wiping their entire live so wipe it is.. 

[Toshio Uemura]

2 minutes ago, tenofnine said:

Yep, and it's so smart (I've personally been to Nagoya and Tokyo). By far the most forward thinking thing I like about Japan is the prevalence of the washlet, even beyond the efficient rail transportation and cleanliness of your cities. I still don't understand why bidets or washlets aren't everywhere.

Thank you. And you are right. I am convinced that the filthy toilets that I encountered during my occasional trips to European and many other counties play their part in the spread of this new virus. Washlet toilets are not even expensive (at least in Japan) and it makes all the difference. 😝 

[Toshio Uemura]

2 minutes ago, Kens said:

Not only smart but I think it's the right way to do it. I guess people just don't like change.. They been wiping their entire live so wipe it is.. 

Take your hands after eating ice cream or chocolate. Is there a difference, whether you just wipe them with paper or wash them with water?
Here in Japan we believe there is. May be the people who don’t like change can try this little experiment. It’s quite self convincing.

[RenaissanceMan]

3 minutes ago, Gasmantle said:

I kinda keep an open mind on whether this pandemic is man made with an ulterior motive, my guess though is that governments across the globe know far more than they tell the masses.

I cannot come up with a sensible explanation for an intentional outbreak, except that some cynics might smell a chance to get rid of the problem of over-aging demographics, drained state pension funds and bankrupt health insurance systems. For such a Darwinian, inescapable purge of society (people and businesses) to work one could not have the epidemic stopped too early (UK and US were actively delaying the spread, just to name two of them). But all that seems too farfetched, like in a bad movie or Sci-Fi thriller. Although, I cannot think of anybody else benefiting more from this crisis on a larger, world wide scale.

On a different note, I noticed with alarm there are younger folks on youtube who advocate a world without old and sick people (eg. documented in: The Morons Of Coronavirus, E. Klein, at 5:15 and 6:15).