I’m a believer in Hanlon’s Razor and doubt any malicious intent led to current circumstances. Bad decisions? Even that is hard to say. I mean, even if Fauci’s support of research at Wuhan indirectly led to a breach, was it the wrong decision? His intentions were good, I don’t think anyone doubts that, and he believed GoF research would protect us, that the risk was outweighed by the value of the information. I have no idea how to pass judgment on that. He may well be right, even in the face of recent events.

 

I’m a believer in Hanlon’s Razor and doubt any malicious intent led to current circumstances. Bad decisions? Even that is hard to say. I mean, even if Fauci’s support of research at Wuhan indirectly led to a breach, was it the wrong decision? His intentions were good, I don’t think anyone doubts that, and he believed GoF research would protect us, that the risk was outweighed by the value of the information. I have no idea how to pass judgment on that. He may well be right, even in the face of recent events.

These last few posts made me think of "Cat's Cradle"...

"Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?” Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."

 

I’m a believer in Hanlon’s Razor and doubt any malicious intent led to current circumstances. Bad decisions? Even that is hard to say. I mean, even if Fauci’s support of research at Wuhan indirectly led to a breach, was it the wrong decision? His intentions were good, I don’t think anyone doubts that, and he believed GoF research would protect us, that the risk was outweighed by the value of the information. I have no idea how to pass judgment on that. He may well be right, even in the face of recent events.

There is exactly zero credible evidence of a Coronavirus breach at the Wuhan institute or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control being the 'source' and plenty of past evidence for it “zoonotically” jumping in the wild or at locations with animals known to carry these types of virus to humans in China.

Simply put, the "lab leak theory" sells 'soap' and creates 'clicks'.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/07988f31-d511-4af4-8b78-03ecaf2d4df7

India: has the Covid pandemic started to burn itself out?

 

No one blames China or the US for research except in this case they appeared to have bungled things badly and in a predictable way, like kids playing with matches. An unusual virus pops up right next door to a lab that plays with mutating viruses, give me a break. Of course it came out of their lab. As humans we like to know what happened after an accident so we can blame people. Further we have the culprits investigating themselves, never a good idea. And, there's still the slight possibility the reds developed and released the virus intentionally. We can agree they willfully let the virus spread out of Wuhan, probably not for nefarious reasons, just stupidity, and saving face.

 

Captain Tom, 100 years died of corona:
https://www.fox13news.com/news/capt...ran-who-raised-millions-for-covid-relief-dies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Tom

Bertus

 

Is there any explanation as to why Tokyo is not being impacted by the pandemic nearly as bad as elsewhere? According to the Johns Hopkins map, Hennepin county where I live has had 1533 deaths and a population of about 1.2m. Tokyo has about 900 deaths with a population nearly 10m. Is there a genetic component to COVID-19 where Japanese are less susceptible? Perhaps Mpls has way more old sick people who are more at risk? Is it bio-cultural, i.e. Japanese are said to be less obese and therefore somewhat healthier?

Perhaps their lockdowns were more effective? Having spent a couple years in Japan, I know they were obsessively masking even before the pandemic, so that may be a factor.

Look at Taiwan. Nearly 24m people and just 8 deaths. Perhaps being near the equator? Equatorial India seems pretty hard hit, so that doesn't make sense either.

 

Is there any explanation as to why Tokyo is not being impacted by the pandemic nearly as bad as elsewhere? According to the Johns Hopkins map, Hennepin county where I live has had 1533 deaths and a population of about 1.2m. Tokyo has about 900 deaths with a population nearly 10m. Is there a genetic component to COVID-19 where Japanese are less susceptible? Perhaps Mpls has way more old sick people who are more at risk? Is it bio-cultural, i.e. Japanese are said to be less obese and therefore somewhat healthier?

Perhaps their lockdowns were more effective? Having spent a couple years in Japan, I know they were obsessively masking even before the pandemic, so that may be a factor.

Look at Taiwan. Nearly 24m people and just 8 deaths. Perhaps being near the equator? Equatorial India seems pretty hard hit, so that doesn't make sense either.

It will be hard to determine. I find this outbreak has been highjacked by politics and real opportunity for research is being lost.

There has to be prior immunity in asian populations as they have had recent outbreaks within last decades. I do not buy the mask argument for "disappearance of flu" for example as Japan had a severe outbreak of flu several years ago (i posted about it earlier) despite their customs and culture. Many statements made about what is going on do not add up.

 

The West should envy Japan’s COVID-19 response | The Japan Times

This too strongly suggests that an exceptionally low death rate despite a high proportion of elderly must be due to genetic factors, health factors (e.g. little obesity) or pre-existing immunity.

Despite the title of the article the conclusion is that East Asians developed resistance through ancient encounters with coronavirus infections.

 

The West should envy Japan’s COVID-19 response | The Japan Times

This too strongly suggests that an exceptionally low death rate despite a high proportion of elderly must be due to genetic factors, health factors (e.g. little obesity) or pre-existing immunity.

Despite the title of the article the conclusion is that East Asians developed resistance through ancient encounters with coronavirus infections.

This is what I think. It would have been boosted by recent SARS encounters that were largely limited to Asia and had limited spread elsewhere

 

Is there any explanation as to why Tokyo is not being impacted by the pandemic nearly as bad as elsewhere?

The Japanese eat a lot of fish and have less vitamin D deficiency than other populations. I'm not sure that can account for all of it, but it's significant.

 

The Japanese eat a lot of fish and have less vitamin D deficiency than other populations. I'm not sure that can account for all of it, but it's significant.

The Japanese also have one of the cleanest cultures in the world. They wash their hands more often than most other peoples, for instance.

 

No one blames China or the US for research except in this case they appeared to have bungled things badly and in a predictable way, like kids playing with matches. An unusual virus pops up right next door to a lab that plays with mutating viruses, give me a break. Of course it came out of their lab. As humans we like to know what happened after an accident so we can blame people. Further we have the culprits investigating themselves, never a good idea. And, there's still the slight possibility the reds developed and released the virus intentionally. We can agree they willfully let the virus spread out of Wuhan, probably not for nefarious reasons, just stupidity, and saving face.

The virus didn't pop up from nothing next to the level 4 lab, virus that had been circulating in the population (for months most believe) created a cluster near the lab so they investigated.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...gests-coronavirus-originated-outside-of-wuhan

Forster's research also indicates that COVID-19 may have been circulating among humans and animals before the reported first case in China on Dec. 1. The mutation rate he used indicates that there is a 95% chance that the original successful spread of the virus may have commenced as far back as Sept. 13, 2019.

https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-wet-market.html

The first case of SARS-CoV-2 didn't emerge from a Wuhan wet market, according to experts at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).


Instead, the live animal market may have been the site of a superspreader event, where one person spread the virus to many other people, one US-based expert told Live Science.

Since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, reports have suggested that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) jumped from animals to humans in Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Now, experts at the WIV have said publicly that the theory was wrong, and that the virus must have originated elsewhere, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

 

Instead, the live animal market may have been the site of a superspreader event,

Those articles are from way back in May and contain a lot of "maybe's" and "probably's". You don't really expect the Chinese to be honest about any of this do you? And if the US bankrolled the bungled research, don't expect transparency from our government either.

The Japanese eat a lot of fish and have less vitamin D deficiency than other populations.

Perhaps, although the only data I found was a world map on WIkipedia (Vitamin D article) and it suggests D levels in Japan are about the same as the US. Although Taiwan and Sweden are about the highest.

The Japanese also have one of the cleanest cultures in the world.

Having spent a lot of time there I agree although it's not a whole lot different than the US. It's also very crowded, can't imagine social distancing in the crowded subway cars and stations. Been to Taiwan plenty too and "clean" isn't how I'd characterize it.

 

Well, sad news. My daughter's kindergarten teacher passed away today. The first person I personally know, who died of covid. She was hospitalized dec 8.

 

Those articles are from way back in May and contain a lot of "maybe's" and "probably's". You don't really expect the Chinese to be honest about any of this do you? And if the US bankrolled the bungled research, don't expect transparency from our government either.

Those articles have a lot more logical information that fits with the known genetic evidence than a strange conspiracy theory.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...have-emerged-wuhan-says-leading-virus-hunter/

One of the world’s leading experts on emerging diseases, who helped discover the origins of the deadly 2003 Sars outbreak, believes Covid-19 could have emerged from Southeast Asia or southern China, and not the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the respiratory disease was first discovered last year.

With more than 1.2 million dead and few signs of the global pandemic slowing down, dedicated virus hunters like Professor Wang Linfa, a renowned biologist in Singapore, are urgently sleuthing in laboratories across Asia to find the source of Covid-19 and ensure it never wreaks such havoc again.
...
The true origins of the deadly virus could lie in the trading of wildlife, much of it illegal, he suggested. “The Chinese import a lot of animals from a very wide geographic range.”

Professor Wang’s hypothesis may not be welcomed by those who wish to lay the blame for the virus solely at the feet of China, pointing to Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market where the first cases emerged, or to conspiracy theories that the deadly pathogen was leaked from Wuhan’s Institute of Virology.

But the theory is rooted in his deep scientific knowledge of the subject. His earlier work was instrumental in tracing the 2003 Sars epidemic to horseshoe bats in a cave in Yunnan, southwest China.

Rather than taking the blame for their bungled response to the spread of the virus the Communist Chinese government started a misinformation campaign designed to trick US citizens into believing the US bears some responsibility for the origination of this mess. If you want to be on the side of Communist Chinese then so be it, I prefer the truth. To distract from missteps in that country and ours by spreading fringe theories is a long hollowed tradition.

 

Having spent a lot of time there I agree although it's not a whole lot different than the US. It's also very crowded, can't imagine social distancing in the crowded subway cars and stations. Been to Taiwan plenty too and "clean" isn't how I'd characterize it.

I also forgot... the Japanese don't usually shake hands when greeting each other... So maybe the key is not social distancing but rather minimal personal contact.

 

Is there any explanation as to why Tokyo is not being impacted by the pandemic nearly as bad as elsewhere? According to the Johns Hopkins map, Hennepin county where I live has had 1533 deaths and a population of about 1.2m. Tokyo has about 900 deaths with a population nearly 10m. Is there a genetic component to COVID-19 where Japanese are less susceptible? Perhaps Mpls has way more old sick people who are more at risk? Is it bio-cultural, i.e. Japanese are said to be less obese and therefore somewhat healthier?

Perhaps their lockdowns were more effective? Having spent a couple years in Japan, I know they were obsessively masking even before the pandemic, so that may be a factor.

Look at Taiwan. Nearly 24m people and just 8 deaths. Perhaps being near the equator? Equatorial India seems pretty hard hit, so that doesn't make sense either.

I think it's culture.

On Japan, very orderly culture, more collective where America is more individualistic. Japanese are more likely to do what is asked for the good of their society. I'm not expressing any opinion one way of thinking or another, just stating my observation, and their behavior seems to be of benefit in at least this matter. And they've already been taking previous viruses seriously, already educated about masks and stopping the spread before it happened.

On Taiwan/China. Firstly their numbers aren't to be trusted but for the sake of argument assuming their number are accurate, still culture, and more importantly government. In America the police can't weld your door shut to stop you spreading a virus. Their government is all-powerful, requiring no consent of the governed, and this enables them to do things that ours can't. Like control the spread of a virus. And conduct experiments with genetically modified superhuman clones, control the value if its currency, have a monopoly on goods & services, control wages and access to Healthcare and on and on and on. (Now I'm expressing an opinion)

EDIT: Maybe I should add "Conduct viral experiments on its people (and ours)" - too much?

 

There is more and more evidence that vaccinating healthy people is not a good choice in the long run. Neither does it make sense from biology perspective. It only makes sense if you look at how much it improves profits for the manufacturers. Older (weak immune system) and thise who are compromised is a different scenario.

@justtring,
Sorry not waided through all these posts, but can you post links to the evidence you referee to please.. Would be an interesting read

 

At what point will people start to notice that hospitilization numbers are not increasing?

@justtrying Apologies again I am skimming all the posts,

Can you post a link to the reference source re hospital number you quote .