The atmosphere is an effective filter for blocking solar UVB and UVC [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Subtypes[/URL]
Around 264nm UVC is most effective for damaging DNA and RNA. Don't want to give the patient lung cancer as a result of the treatment.
The short wavlength end of UVA somewhat overlaps the long wavelength end of the germicidal effectiveness, and DNA, RNA, and typical protein absorptance spectra.
Analytical spectroscopy for proteins is sometimes done at 280nm, or longer wavelength.
[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_germicidal_irradiation#/media/File:Germicidal_Effectiveness_for_LP_&_MP_mercury_lamp.png[/URL]
[URL]https://jascoinc.com/applications/protein-quantitation-spectrophotometer/[/URL]
The lower germicidal effectiveness of longer UV wavelength in the range 275-310nm is offset by the much higher brightness of available LEDs at 300+nm vs 280nm and shorter.
[URL]https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/34624/InTech-Uv_light_effects_on_proteins_from_photochemistry_to_nanomedicine.pdf[/URL]
The history of Ultraviolet Germicidal irradiation for air disinfection [URL]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2789813/[/URL]
I've been interested in UV optics for years, after having spent an extended period researching and applying UV light sources for a microscopy enhancement project, and having been involved somewhat in a UV telescope.
(Shortening the wavelength improves the microscope diffraction limit although it reduces the depth of field considerably.)
(Good UV-VIS-IR lab spectrophotometers typically use deuterium gas lamps for broad spectrum UV sources and switch to another source for visible and near IR.)

[QUOTE]I've been interested in UV optics for years, after having spent an extended period researching and applying UV light sources for a microscopy enhancement project, and having been involved somewhat in a UV telescope.
([U]Shortening the wavelength[/U] improves the microscope diffraction limit although it [U]reduces the depth of field considerably[/U].)[/QUOTE]
Fascinating! Thanks for that outline. I resonate with depth of field as a photographer, even though visible light is probably focused differently.

[QUOTE]The [U]politicians[/U] don't like it.[/QUOTE]
Many years back on a far more politically oriented site, I coined (I like to think) the term 'prostiticians'. It seemed a more accurate terminology for the role most of them play.

[QUOTE=kladner;544033]even though visible light is probably focused differently.[/QUOTE]Is it? I would have thought that lenses would be used in rather a lot of the UV. We used to use quartz optics at the relatively long wavelengths but I have no experience down towards 100nm ("vacuum UV"), which includes the astronomically important Lyman lines.

Time for me to start to find out.

[QUOTE=kladner;544033]Fascinating! Thanks for that outline. I resonate with depth of field as a photographer, even though visible light is probably focused differently.[/QUOTE]Now imagine that the illumination and imaging optical axes are inclined 30 degrees from the surface to be imaged, and much of the optics are in ultra high vacuum (no fingerprints allowed on anything). Some commonly used optical materials are very limiting in the UV [URL]https://wp.optics.arizona.edu/optomech/wp-content/uploads/sites/53/2016/10/tie-35_transmittance_us.pdf[/URL] One of the candidate lens materials is synthetic fused silica glass. [URL="https://www.thorlabs.com/images/TabImages/Fused%20Silica%20Data%20Sheet.pdf"]https://www.thorlabs.com/images/TabImages/Fused%20Silica%20Data%20Sheet.pdf[/URL]
Also sapphire crystal, which is tough to fabricate, because of its hardness. Its high refractive index is useful for some things, but its birefringence [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birefringence[/URL] means optical figure must be correctly oriented relative to crystal axis, to minimize split images. [URL]https://www.guildoptics.com/sapphire-properties/sapphire-properties/[/URL] Calcium fluorite was not allowed due to the issues fluorine could create in the vacuum system. Diameters ranged from 3 to 16mm as I recall. QA of such custom optics is challenging.
Eventually in air as wavelength declines the absorptance of oxygen and other air constituents becomes an issue. Nitrogen fill or evacuation are possibilities for extending to lower wavelength. Lab spectrophotometers reach 190nm without nitrogen fill. [URL]http://irina.eas.gatech.edu/EAS8803_SPRING2012/Lec7.pdf[/URL]
Chromatic aberration is often an issue in optics design. Using an LED light source for limited bandwidth controls that issue. Cameras for imaging are a whole other issue; fused-silica-windowed or windowless sensors. [URL]https://www.vision-systems.com/non-factory/life-sciences/article/16736672/uv-imaging-opens-new-applications[/URL] Going from incandescent illumination to UV LED allowed ~halving resolvable feature linear size given the allowable project budget. UV absorption of some object material & wavelength combinations is so high, that different LED wavelengths are used.

Maybe some mandatory rotation off the front lines is in order for medical staff. [url]https://nypost.com/2020/04/27/manhattan-er-doc-lorna-breen-commits-suicide-shaken-by-coronavirus[/url]

[QUOTE=kladner;544027]
I guess a few younger people (along with other age groups) having sudden fatal heart attacks and massive debilitating strokes is[/QUOTE]probably to some extent only a matter of timing, and to some extent out of our control. There's no reasonable prospect of driving the virus extinct. Confined to quarters and fearful is no way to live an entire adult life.

That is a feast of information to work through. Thanks for the links and explanations.

[QUOTE=xilman;544039]Is it? I would have thought that lenses would be used in rather a lot of the UV. We used to use quartz optics at the relatively long wavelengths but I have no experience down towards 100nm ("vacuum UV"), which includes the astronomically important Lyman lines.[/QUOTE]
It has been years since I ran the test for NO[SUb]3[/SUb][SUP]-[/SUP] but we used (if memory serves) 220nm and 245nm. The lenses were quartz florite, (again if memory serves.)

Found in the comments of [URL]https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/368862:[/URL]
The web page with animation video of the UVA in trachea [URL]https://aytubio.com/healight/[/URL]
The cure that time forgot [URL]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122858/[/URL]

A Manhattan project [URL]https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-group-of-scientists-and-billionaires-pushing-trump-on-a-covid-19-plan-11587998993[/URL]
Described at [URL]https://www.foxnews.com/science/coronavirus-battle-scientists-have-teamed-up-with-billionaires-for-covid-19-manhattan-project-report[/URL] which is not behind a paywall.

[url]https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/covid-19-deaths-in-u-s-likely-much-higher-than-reported-in-early-weeks-of-pandemic-new-analysis-finds.html[/url]

[QUOTE]COVID-19 deaths in US likely much higher than reported in early weeks of pandemic, new analysis finds[/QUOTE]



[url]https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c[/url]

[QUOTE]Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;544033]Fascinating! Thanks for that outline. I resonate with depth of field as a photographer, even though visible light is probably focused differently.[/QUOTE]There are a couple of considerations.

One is "dispersion," or variation of index of refraction with wavelength. Dispersion is what turns white light into a rainbow of colors as it passes through a prism.

Another is, ordinary glass absorbs UV. If you want glass that allows it through, it's got to be special glass. (Of course, there are any number of specialized cameral lenses.)

"Windows" that allow UV to pass through are sometimes made of quartz.

Strike while the irony's hot...
 

[url=https://nypost.com/2020/04/28/leader-of-north-carolina-anti-lockdown-protest-gets-covid-19/]Organizer of North Carolina group protesting quarantine rules sidelined with coronavirus[/url][quote]An organizer of a North Carolina group calling on the state to ease its coronavirus restrictions was unable to attend two rallies because she tested positive for the disease, a report said.

Audrey Whitlock, who administers the Facebook page of ReOpen NC, was under quarantine for two weeks ending Sunday after testing positive for coronavirus, [url=https://www.wfae.org/post/reopen-nc-organizer-had-covid-19-says-she-didnt-attend-rallies#stream/0]according to news station WFAE[/url].[/quote]:missingteeth: :missingteeth: :missingteeth: :missingteeth: :missingteeth:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;544166]Another is, ordinary glass absorbs UV. If you want glass that allows it through, it's got to be special glass. (Of course, there are any number of specialized camera lenses.)

"Windows" that allow UV to pass through are sometimes made of quartz.[/QUOTE]Not only the bulk lens material, but the coatings may be an issue. Antireflection coatings are commonly designed to pass 400-700nm or 350 - 750 or so. Some consumer lenses have some UVA transmission, and UV blocking filters are offered as accessories.
In a color camera, the filters overlaid on the sensing elements may leak UV into the longer wavelength elements as well as the shortest. A well filtered visible light color camera will detect UVA as dark, or as purple and display it as such on a monitor. Others will give a variety of faux color renderings.

The wife of the man killed by fish tank cleaner containing chloroquine phosphate is now presumably the subject of a homicide investigation. [URL]https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/police-investigating-death-of-arizona-man-from-chloroquine-phosphate/[/URL]

I just took a peek at the current figures.

The number of identified cases now exceeds a mega-pi.

[QUOTE=kriesel;544173]The wife of the man killed by fish tank cleaner containing chloroquine phosphate is now presumably the subject of a homicide investigation. [URL]https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/police-investigating-death-of-arizona-man-from-chloroquine-phosphate/[/URL][/QUOTE]
The story has the following appended:
[quote]UPDATE, April 29, 11:17 A.M.: After publication, a spokesman for the Mesa City Police Department told the Free Beacon that it is "normal protocol" for the homicide department to investigate "all death cases (other than obvious natural causes)" and that the death "has not been ruled a homicide at this time."[/quote]

[QUOTE=kriesel;544172]Not only the bulk lens material, but the coatings may be an issue. Antireflection coatings are commonly designed to pass 400-700nm or 350 - 750 or so. Some consumer lenses have some UVA transmission, and UV blocking filters are offered as accessories.[/QUOTE]Film would pick up UV and cause some distortion. So it has been quite common for photographers to put a UV filter on the front of their lenses. Also, the filter is a cheap and replaceable method of protecting the lens itself from impacts and scratches.

K1000 years forever!
:petrw1:

UN World Food Programme hunger pandemic projection related to Covid19 countermeasures [URL]https://www.wfp.org/[/URL]
Possible early vaccine. [url]https://covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk/about[/url]

[url=https://apnews.com/923e7fe01b35888ff5562ca577a26aa4]Drug proves effective against virus as economic damage rises[/url][quote]Scientists on Wednesday announced the first effective treatment against the coronavirus — an experimental drug that can speed the recovery of COVID-19 patients — in a major medical advance that came as the economic gloom caused by the scourge deepened in the U.S. and Europe.

The U.S. government said it is working to make the antiviral medication remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible.

"What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious-disease expert. "This will be the standard of care."[/quote]

DEFINITELY geopolitical...
 

[url=https://apnews.com/c9499f7b8ab2ae7097c8588f1ccdddea]Trump harshly blames China for pandemic; a lab 'mistake'?[/url][quote]WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday speculated that China could have unleashed the coronavirus on the world due to some kind of horrible "mistake," and his intelligence agencies said they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

Trump even suggested the release could have been intentional.
<snip>
The U.S. was providing funding to the Wuhan lab for its research on coronaviruses, Michael Morell, former acting director and deputy director of the CIA, said Thursday.

He said State Department cables indicate that there have been concerns in past years among U.S. officials about the safety protocols at that lab. If the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, it not only reflects negatively on China but also on the United States for providing research funding to a lab that has safety concerns, Morell said during an online forum hosted by the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason University.

"So if it did escape, we're all in this together," Morell said. "This is not a gotcha for China. This is a gotcha for both of us."[/quote]

UK year over year March death mildly increased; US is DOWN 15% per this source

[url]https://www.grassfire.com/what_total_u_s_deaths_down_10_in_march_from_prior_years_further_raising_question_of_covid_impact[/url]

[QUOTE=kriesel;544338]UK year over year March death mildly increased; US is DOWN 15% per this source[/QUOTE]I grabbed all the data that they had and plotted it. The red is this season, the bold blue line is the mean. I don't think there is anything to it. Just pick limited data and make sure there is a higher than average year in it. (And I am guessing that the drop is principally road deaths. But there is that spike afterward.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;544332][URL="https://apnews.com/c9499f7b8ab2ae7097c8588f1ccdddea"]Trump harshly blames China for pandemic; a lab 'mistake'?[/URL][/QUOTE]
Anything for a distraction. "We're doing Great! We're testing more than the rest of the solar system combined! No! I never said that!" begins to wear thin. Then it's time to fall back on:
[CENTER][SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow]SORRY. YELLOW DOES NOT STAND OUT[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=5][COLOR=Red][I][B][FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B][FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B][FONT=Comic Sans MS]¡[/FONT][/B][/I]¡¡[/FONT][/B][/I]¡¡THE YELLOW PERIL!!!!![/FONT][/B][/I][/COLOR][/SIZE][/CENTER]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;544332][url=https://apnews.com/c9499f7b8ab2ae7097c8588f1ccdddea]Trump harshly blames China for pandemic; a lab 'mistake'?[/url][/QUOTE]

Deflection-from-own-incompetence to be sure, but from what I've read, the lab-accident possibility should not be discounted. An NC reader offers [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/04/200pm-water-cooler-4-16-2020.html#comment-3342685]this nugget[/url]:
[quote]The only actual evidentiary trail I’ve seen sourcing the Wuhan virus is this one. By an American long-term resident of Beijing, it documents a virology lab post-doc officially disappeared after contracting symptoms following an accident involving bat poo.
The US has given this lab $2.7 million in recent years (so it’s not just a doomsday lab), and criticized its containment practices in 2015. This story should sprout legs.

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU[/url][/quote]
But if true, the lab in question was receiving some funding from the U.S. - if you didn't like their containment practices, you should've cut funding. (OTOH, there is the "if we cut off funding, the research will continue, possibly with worse safeguards" aspect.)

[QUOTE=ewmayer;544392]Deflection-from-own-incompetence to be sure, but from what I've read, the lab-accident possibility should not be discounted. An NC reader offers [URL="https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/04/200pm-water-cooler-4-16-2020.html#comment-3342685"]this nugget[/URL]:

But if true, the lab in question was receiving some funding from the U.S. - if you didn't like their containment practices, you should've cut funding. (OTOH, there is the "if we cut off funding, the research will continue, possibly with worse safeguards" aspect.)[/QUOTE]
[url]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-admin-wuhan-lab-grant/[/url]
While it isn't unusual to see international cooperation in the field of virology, this claim stretches the truth.

[QUOTE=kladner;544403][url]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-admin-wuhan-lab-grant/[/url]
While it isn't unusual to see international cooperation in the field of virology, this claim stretches the truth.[/QUOTE]

Oh, please, why bring Snopes and their inane partisan-colored "fact checking" into this? I said "the lab in question was receiving some funding from the US", and didn't mention any specific administration. Now your Snopes link, busily defending the "Obama legacy" from besmirchment:

"not all of that $3.7 million went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and not all of the funding took place under the Obama administration. Approximately $700,000 of the $3.7 million total was approved under Donald Trump."

None of which contradicts what I wrote, nor contributes anything meaningful to the discussion. In fact, Trump directed the NIH to terminate said grant, but that is meeting push-back as possibly illegal:

[url]https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/nih-s-axing-bat-coronavirus-grant-horrible-precedent-and-might-break-rules-critics-say[/url]

Note that Anthony Fauci also [url=https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741]backed the research in question[/url]:
[quote]just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.

Many scientists have criticized gain of function research, which involves manipulating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for infecting humans, because it creates a risk of starting a pandemic from accidental release.

SARS-CoV-2 , the virus now causing a global pandemic, is believed to have originated in bats. U.S. intelligence, after originally asserting that the coronavirus had occurred naturally, conceded last month that the pandemic may have originated in a leak from the Wuhan lab. (At this point most scientists say it's possible—but not likely—that the pandemic virus was engineered or manipulated.)

Dr. Fauci did not respond to Newsweek's requests for comment. NIH responded with a statement that said in part: "Most emerging human viruses come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to public health and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic.... scientific research indicates that there is no evidence that suggests the virus was created in a laboratory."

The NIH research consisted of two parts. The first part began in 2014 and involved surveillance of bat coronaviruses, and had a budget of $3.7 million. The program funded Shi Zheng-Li, a virologist at the Wuhan lab, and other researchers to investigate and catalogue bat coronaviruses in the wild. This part of the project was completed in 2019.

A second phase of the project, beginning that year, included additional surveillance work but also gain-of-function research for the purpose of understanding how bat coronaviruses could mutate to attack humans. The project was run by EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit research group, under the direction of President Peter Daszak, an expert on disease ecology. NIH canceled the project just this past Friday, April 24th, Politico reported. Daszak did not immediately respond to Newsweek requests for comment.

The project proposal states: "We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential."

In layman's terms, "spillover potential" refers to the ability of a virus to jump from animals to humans, which requires that the virus be able to attach to receptors in the cells of humans. SARS-CoV-2, for instance, is adept at binding to the ACE2 receptor in human lungs and other organs.

According to Richard Ebright, an infectious disease expert at Rutgers University, the project description refers to experiments that would enhance the ability of bat coronavirus to infect human cells and laboratory animals using techniques of genetic engineering. In the wake of the pandemic, that is a noteworthy detail.[/quote]
In that context, the NIH's "there is no evidence that suggests the virus was created in a laboratory" is highly disingenuous - so maybe it wasn't created in a lab from scratch, but the specific genetic enhancements that allowed it to jump into humans were in fact engineered in a lab? That is precisely what "gain of function" refers to, and note that, say, bringing together previously-separate viral strains in a lab animal in order to produce new viral hybrids would make such hybrids indistinguishable from "natural" ones. Yes, extraordinary claims require a high standard of evidence, but the blanket denials don't cut it here, given the lab in question was [a] near the epicenter of the outbreak and [b] was carrying out precisely the kind of research which produces "enhanced hybrids" such as the one that sparked the pandemic.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;541558]All this biased-or-not bickering is pointless - I keep saying, try to stick to data-driven and link-supported argumentation as much as possible.

Any further pure-bickering posts are gonna get memory-holed - links and representative-sample quotes, that's what we want.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;544407]Oh, please, why bring Snopes and their inane partisan-colored "fact checking" into this?[/QUOTE]So are your ready to take your own medicine?

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;544408]So are your ready to take your own medicine?[/QUOTE]

When you can point out a post of mine that satisfies the "pure bickering" characterization, i.e. that does not contain significant on-topic substance, sure.

I have to say that you seem to be in attack mode. The piece detailed the money, and the breakdown. That seems like pertinent information, which could be otherwise verified if you dispute the numbers.
[URL]https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=us+doctor+wuhan+lab&atb=v167-1&ia=news[/URL]
was the search. I was looking for evidence of something I remembered of a US doctor discussing interactions with the lab and sounding supervisory regarding containment.

The bit on the funding was side-catch, but current as the Cheeto bleats about it and points fingers.

EDIT:

I believe that this article refers to the doctor I was remembering, though [U]the details are not quite what I thought.[/U]
[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/could-covid-19-be-manmade-what-we-know-about-origins-trump-chinese-lab-coronavirus[/URL]
[QUOTE][CENTER]Where did Covid-19 come from? What we know about its origins
[LEFT].................................................
[/LEFT]
[/CENTER]
[LEFT]In a statement to the Guardian, James Le Duc, the head of the Galveston National Laboratory in the US, the biggest active biocontainment facility on a US academic campus, also poured cold water on the suggestion.

“There is convincing evidence that the new virus was not the result of intentional genetic engineering and that it almost certainly originated from nature, given its high similarity to other known bat-associated coronaviruses,” he said.
What about an accidental escape of a wild sample because of poor lab safety practices?

The accidental release of a wild sample has been the focus of most attention, although the “evidence” offered is at best highly circumstantial.

The Washington Post has reported concerns in 2018 over security and management weakness from US embassy officials who visited the WIV several times, although the paper also conceded there was no conclusive proof the lab was the source of the outbreak.

Le Duc, however, paints a different picture of the WIV. “I have visited and toured the new BSL4 laboratory in Wuhan, prior to it starting operations in 2017- … It is of comparable quality and safety measures as any currently in operation in the US or Europe.”

He also described encounters with Shi Zhengli, the Chinese virologist at the WIV who has led research into bat coronaviruses, and discovered the link between bats and the Sars virus that caused disease worldwide in 2003, describing her as “fully engaged, very open and transparent about her work, and eager to collaborate”.

Maureen Miller, an epidemiologist who worked with Shi as part of a US-funded viral research programme, echoed Le Duc’s assessment. She said she believed the lab escape theory was an “absolute conspiracy theory” and referred to Shi as “brilliant”.[/LEFT]
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;544339]I grabbed all the data that they had and plotted it. The red is this season, the bold blue line is the mean. I don't think there is anything to it. Just pick limited data and make sure there is a higher than average year in it. (And I am guessing that the drop is principally road deaths. But there is that spike afterward.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for checking into that.
[URL]https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest[/URL] seems to confirm your results and indicates a bump of +20,800 deaths (+15%) for the US to date; +12400 for NYC alone, or ~60% of the nation's computed excess death rate. Probably a lot of the NYC bump relates to mayor DeBlasio's encouragement early on of New Yorkers to continue to go out to eat etc.
People are terrible at understanding risks, especially in the beginning of a disaster. It's built in. [URL]https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/wrong-about-risk-blame-your-brain/[/URL] (The full Psychology Today article seems to no longer be available.) The first stage of responding to loss is denial.

[QUOTE=kladner;544434]I have to say that you seem to be in attack mode. The piece detailed the money, and the breakdown. That seems like pertinent information, which could be otherwise verified if you dispute the numbers.[/QUOTE]

You posted only the Snopes link and its conclusory "While it isn't unusual to see international cooperation in the field of virology, this claim stretches the truth", implying that something in the post of mine to which you were replying was nonfactual or exaggerated - i.e. the "attack mode" started with you. If you wanted to highlight the actual history or the research in question, you should've posted snips about that instead. Excuse me for assuming that the selected snips you excerpted from the Snopes entry were the ones which you wished to highlight. /sarc

Also, the various officials described as "having poured cold water" etc. on the idea of an accidental lab release are unconvincing - the saying "never believe anything until it is officially denied comes to mind. Let's take Mr. LeDuc:
[i]
“There is convincing evidence that the new virus was not the result of intentional genetic engineering and that it almost certainly originated from nature, given its high similarity to other known bat-associated coronaviruses,” he said.
[/i]
So if gather several different kinds of wild-animal hosts of various strains of Coronavirus in a lab setting, with the intent of cross-infecting some test animals with 2 or more of the distinct strains in order to create genetic viral hybrids - which is precisely the aim of the "gain of function" research covered by the grant monies in question and being performed at the Wuhan lab - the resulting hybrids "originated from nature" - the researchers simply did an accelerated, targeted form of what happens in nature. The phrase "intentional genetic engineering" is a deflection because that can mean many things - in this case, an engineered meet-up of wild viral substrains. As it happens, there is a recent paper in the prestigious journal [i]PLoS Biology[/i] featuring an example of what appears to have been such an accident. That paper also describes the kinds of clues which can be used to fingerprint such viral hybrids - in this case, the original strains which were hybridized were natural, but the hybrid appears to show a anomalous "freeze" in the expected subsequent mutation-drven drift of its genome:

[url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200428142357.htm]Virus genomes help to explain why a major livestock disease has re-emerged in Europe[/url] -- ScienceDaily
[quote][i]Livestock diseases like bluetongue virus (BTV) can have devastating economic and health consequences, but their origins can be difficult to establish. New research published in the open access journal PLOS Biology this week shows that the recent re-emergence of BTV in France could have been caused by human activities, based on the virus' unusual genetic makeup.
[/i]
Bluetongue virus, a pathogen that infects sheep and cattle, has caused billions of euros of damage to the European farming industry over the last two decades. In the new study, led by researchers at the University of Glasgow (UK) with a consortium of European collaborators, the authors compared genomes of the virus before and after it re-emerged in France in 2015. BTV first arrived in Europe in 2006 from unknown sources. It was controlled through mass vaccination by 2010, and no cases were reported until it re-emerged in 2015. The authors' genome analyses revealed that during both the 2006 and 2015 outbreaks, BTV accumulated novel mutations in a manner expected for a rapidly evolving virus. During the period in between the two outbreaks, however, the researchers noted a curious lack of mutations, indicating that the virus was likely not circulating during this period. The genetic similarity between the original and re-emergent viruses suggests that the 2015 outbreak was caused by infectious material that somehow arose from the first outbreak.

Virus persistence over multiple years in the absence of genetic changes would upset our understanding of virus biology. A more plausible scenario, the authors argue, is that the virus resurfaced after being stored in frozen samples. And since artificial insemination and embryo transfer are widely used in the livestock industry, they say, this transmission mechanism should be evaluated by future work.

Prof. Massimo Palmarini, one of the senior authors of the study says: "In order to survive, to be transmitted and to find new hosts, viruses need to replicate. New mutations are an inevitable consequence of this, so viruses can't remain 'frozen in time'. While there is still lots for us to learn about virus biology, the most plausible explanation for our findings is that exposure to infectious material, stored from the earlier outbreak, caused the most recent emergence of this virus in Europe."[/quote]
Now, with the Covid-19 pandemic virus, the natural mutation rate appears rather lower than for Bluetongue virus, so the same kind of genomic-mutation-rate analysis may not be possible for the short timeframe in question. But it is a useful example by way of establishing that there is a precedent.

[QUOTE=kriesel;544468]
[URL]https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest[/URL] seems to confirm your results...[/QUOTE]

I used to like that page but its data on cases and fatalities stats is from April, 28. Before, all stats had been updated on a daily basis.

[QUOTE=Till;544475]I used to like that page but its data on cases and fatalities stats is from April, 28. Before, all stats had been updated on a daily basis.[/QUOTE]They're doing a 7-day rolling average for smoothing variations in daily reporting.The rolling average unavoidably responds more slowly. In daily reporting, because a lot of outpatient clinics operate Monday through Friday, the weekends had markedly lower rates of case identification.

The distinction of natural versus man-made fell nearly two centuries ago. "Friedrich Wöhler's discovery, in 1828, that urea can be produced from inorganic starting materials, was an important conceptual milestone in chemistry. It showed, for the first time, that a substance, previously known only as a byproduct of life, could be synthesized in the laboratory, without biological starting materials, thereby contradicting the widely held doctrine vitalism, which stated that only living things could produce the chemicals of life." [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea[/URL]

A molecule of urea is the same whether it is produced by our metabolism or in a chemistry lab or chemical factory, and a urea molecule from one source can not be differentiated from one from the other source.
Molecules can be built from other molecules. RNAs and DNAs are molecules. Proteins are molecules. Viruses are assemblies of molecules. Covid19 is a single strand RNA virus, fairly elementary compared to multistrand genetic material, and 30k bases, not very large at all. [URL]https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/expert-explainer-what-to-know-about-coronavirus-mutations.html[/URL] (Humans are 3 billion base pairs per somatic cell). Each base or base-pair represents only 2 bits of information, so the RNA of a COVID19 virus is 7500 bytes in chemically encoded form. And perfect synthesis is not needed; some mutations (errors) leave it functional. It's my understanding there have been dozens or hundreds of mutations identified in Covid19 virus samples already. That's what they use to try to trace national epidemics back through their routes of transmission from one nation to another. It's easy for a single strand RNA virus to mutate, since there's no redundancy as there is in dual-strand DNA, so no "backup" from which to perform error correction.

At some point (if the human race does not already) we will collectively know how to create (synthesize) everything required for a simple functioning virus, beginning with inorganic precursors. And how to cause it to assemble those molecules into a viral capsule. Being able to genetically engineer a virus to attack such things as glioblastomas is a possible justification for creating new ones.
We already have the means via a sort of cut and paste technique to use live tissue to put a little of this virus and a little of that together and mass produce them. There was a published paper in Nature in 2015 involving the Wuhan lab that stated successfully combining a bat coronavirus with some SARS genetic material to infect the HeLa human cell line had been achieved. BSL labs around the world are notorious for occasional leakage.

[URL]https://www.rt.com/news/486425-covid-19-mutations-deadlier-strains/[/URL] "Chinese scientists have found that Europe and America’s East Coast have been infected by some of the most aggressive Covid-19 strains, as they discovered dozens of virus mutations. These destroy a host’s cells faster than others.

The ability of the novel coronavirus to mutate has been previously vastly underestimated, a team from China’s Zhejiang University, led by Professor Li Lanjuan, says in a new study. The group found as many as 33 virus mutations in just 11 coronavirus patients they examined in the city of Hangzhou."

Is is safe ..... to re-open?
 

Ask Dustin Hoffman:

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avNraWT8CSI"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avNraWT8CSI[/URL]

If my understanding is correct, the "escaped research virus" idea is plausible enough that it shouldn't simply be dismissed out of hand, but there is no actual evidence that this is how COVID-19 came into the world.

One possible (in theory) means to check the idea would be for the virology lab to publish the genetic sequencing of the viruses it actually produced. In practice, of course, verifying the results might be difficult.

Still -- if the lab published the genetic info, at it did [i]not[/i] resemble COVID-19, that might calm a lot of jittery nerves.

OTOH, if there is no actual evidence that this is what actually happened, for the President of the United States to basically state as fact that it did, and further to suggest that it was [i]intentional[/i], is IMO irresponsible. It is also likely foreign to the purpose of learning the truth, which (also IMO) suits the President just fine.

From just after the excerpt above is this discussion of different viral strains and where they first appeared.
[QUOTE]While the experts who spoke to the Guardian made clear that [U]understanding of the origins of the virus remained provisional[/U], they added that the current state of knowledge of the initial spread also created problems for the lab escape theory.
When Peter Forster, a geneticist at Cambridge, compared sequences of the virus genome collected early in the Chines outbreak – and later globally – he identified three dominant strains.

Early in the outbreak, two strains appear to have been in circulation at roughly at the same time – strain A and strain B – with a C variant later developing from strain B.

But in a surprise finding, the version with the closest genetic similarity to bat coronavirus was not the one most prevalent early on in the central Chinese city of Wuhan but instead associated with a scattering of early cases in the southern Guangdong province.
Between 24 December 2019 and 17 January 2020, Forster explains, just three out of 23 cases in Wuhan were type A, while the rest were type B. In patients in Guangdong province, however, five out of nine were found to have type A of the virus.

“The very small numbers notwithstanding,” said Forster, “the early genome frequencies until 17 January do not favour Wuhan as an origin over other parts of China, for example five of nine Guangdong/Shenzhen patients who had A types.”
In other words, it still remains far from certain that Wuhan was even necessarily where the virus first emerged.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;544493]if the lab published the genetic info, at it did [I]not[/I] resemble COVID-19, that might calm a lot of jittery nerves.[/QUOTE]
The sequence for the active infection was published months ago. [URL]https://www.asianscientist.com/2020/02/topnews/china-coronavirus-covid-19-study/[/URL]
January 10 [URL]https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/24/dna-sleuths-read-coronavirus-genome-tracing-origins-and-mutations/[/URL]
[URL]https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2020/01/13/novel-coronavirus/[/URL]
[URL]https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/01/china-releases-genetic-data-new-coronavirus-now-deadly[/URL]
[URL]https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200304/Two-genome-sequences-of-coronavirus-(COVID-19)-show-possible-internal-transmission.aspx[/URL]
This one says January 5, just days after Chinese doctors were being told by Wuhan police to stop spreading false rumors to their colleagues of a new pathogen. [URL]https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3052966/chinese-laboratory-first-shared-coronavirus-genome-world-ordered[/URL]
Later in January, it was being sequenced in various countries around the world to determine mutation rate [URL]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200131114748.htm[/URL]

For an article displaying actual gene sequence portions, of a version of Covid19, see [URL]https://mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=541780&postcount=505[/URL]

"In 2015, an international team including two scientists from the Institute published successful research on whether [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHC014-CoV"]a bat coronavirus[/URL] could be made to infect [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa"]HeLa[/URL]. The team engineered a [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(virus)"]hybrid virus[/URL], combining a bat coronavirus with a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and mimic human disease. The hybrid virus was able to infect human cells." [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#Coronavirus_research[/URL]
[URL]https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985[/URL]
According to some reports I've seen, the chinese have not made the lab-created virus genetic sequence available for comparison. If anything, information about the lab activity is being suppressed.

Past lab leakage occurred with SARS. [URL]https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1255805/coronavirus-wuhan-biosafety-lab-china-monkeys-sars-disease-virus-spt[/URL]

[quote=kriesel;544509]The sequence for the active infection was published months ago.[/quote]Yes, I know.

What is being alleged here is that the COVID-19 virus is the result of research at a virology lab. So, what I suggested is that the genomes of [i]viruses produced by that lab's research[/i] be sequenced for comparison. If those viruses are [i]not[/i] similar to the COVID-19 virus, the "escaped research virus" theory goes down in flames.
[quote]According to some reports I've seen, the chinese have not made the lab-created virus genetic sequence available for comparison. If anything, information about the lab activity is being suppressed.[/quote]Source(s)?

All this hot air and hand wringing to pin this on the Chinese reminds me of the quandary of the dog that chases cars and finally catches one. What does he do with it?

Suppose it is proven that the virus accidentally escaped one of their labs. Then what?
Aside from their losing face and verbal condemnations and UN resolutions,
economic sanctions?
These would probably backfire.
Some military action?
Only in your worst nightmares.

What?

[QUOTE=tServo;544529]All this hot air and hand wringing to pin this on the Chinese reminds me of the quandary of the dog that chases cars and finally catches one. What does he do with it?[/QUOTE]
POTUS may be trying to do that, but I hoped by highlighting the partial US funding for the lab in question, people would appreciate the bitter irony inherent in the possibility that the pandemic resulted from an accidental release of a lab-created enhanced-human-infectivity virus hybrid, which was joint China/US research.

[QUOTE]Suppose it is proven that the virus accidentally escaped one of their labs. Then what?
Aside from their losing face and verbal condemnations and UN resolutions,
economic sanctions?
These would probably backfire.
Some military action?
Only in your worst nightmares.

What?[/QUOTE]
I would hope that such a scenario would result in a worldwide re-evaluation of the risks of such lab research, hopefully culminating in some kind of binding worldwide treaty analogous to those governing chemical & biological weapons, that any such research by a signatory to said treaty occur only under the most stringent of safety protocols, and would be subject to regular compliance checks by independent inspections teams.

[url=https://theconversation.com/we-found-and-tested-47-old-drugs-that-might-treat-the-coronavirus-results-show-promising-leads-and-a-whole-new-way-to-fight-covid-19-136789]We Found and Tested 47 Old Drugs That Might Treat the Coronavirus: Results Show Promising Leads and a Whole New Way to Fight COVID-19[/url] | The Conversation

The work in question just appeared in form of a paper in [i]Nature[/i], i.e. has survived a much higher standard of scutiny than Gilead Pharma's "science by press release" for its drug Remdesvir. Anthony Fauci's hyping of the the latter drug as "the standard of care" is both patently false - no single person decides such a thing, it's the medical field as a whole, based on lots and lots of data from actual patient treatments and outcomes - and wildly premature, to put it kindly.

There are some interesting candidates based on interactions. Haloperidol, aka Haldol, could provide a double benefit for authoritarian types. "Here. Take this. It will fight coronavirus [U]and[/U] help you to stop worrying about things unnecessarily." It can also reduce you to a shuffling shadow of a person.
EDIT: It is one of the drugs used institutionally as a "chemical straitjacket."

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;544516]Yes, I know.

What is being alleged here is that the COVID-19 virus is the result of research at a virology lab. So, what I suggested is that the genomes of [I]viruses produced by that lab's research[/I] be sequenced for comparison. If those viruses are [I]not[/I] similar to the COVID-19 virus, the "escaped research virus" theory goes down in flames.
Source(s)?[/QUOTE]Define similar. 80%? 95%? 99? 99.99? (It's only ~30k bases, so 99.998% or higher permits zero mutations. Back in March it was already known there were 8 strains and 11 mutation sites; approx 99.96% self-similar. [URL]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/27/scientists-track-coronavirus-strains-mutation/5080571002/[/URL])

"Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis." [URL]https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985[/URL]

"Mice share more than 95% of our DNA — and this means that we’re both affected by disease in surprisingly similar ways."
[URL]https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/2017/january/what-is-a-mouse-model[/URL]
[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_organism#Selected_model_organisms[/URL]

Majority of US spy agencies believe the coronavirus escaped from Wuhan lab “Sources say not all 17 intelligence agencies agree that the lab was the source of the virus because there is not yet a definitive ‘smoking gun.’ But confidence is high among 70-75% of the agencies.” [URL]https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/majority-of-us-spy-agencies-believe-coronavirus-escaped-from-wuhan-lab[/URL]
"There is well-documented evidence that China tried to cover up the spread of the coronavirus, muzzle whistleblowers, intimidate doctors, mislead the WHO, and block outside health experts. At least one study indicated that if the Chinese government had acted more quickly, the coronavirus’s global spread would have been greatly reduced." (same link above; several supporting links embedded in that section of the text.)

“All other possible places of the virus’ origin have been proven to be highly unlikely,” than 2 Wuhan labs [URL]https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/28/wuhan-laboratory-most-likely-coronavirus-source-us/[/URL]
The market was excluded early on as the origin, since many early patients had no link to it [URL]https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally[/URL]

US Secretary of State & former CIA chief Mike Pompeo [URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/world/coronavirus-news.html#link-6a5b6857[/URL]
Wuhan Lab as Coronaviurs Source Gains Traction [URL]https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/05/01/wuhan-lab-as-coronavirus-source-gains-traction/#488cd0366743[/URL] "“When you look at their actual behavior with regards to that lab, it looks like a cover up to me”

Let's look at it from the perspective of actions indicating motive that indicates the probability of concealed facts. China stomped down hard on its own doctors early on, with accusations of "spreading false rumors" and threats of arrest, December 31 and Jan 2.
Actively sought to suppress information [URL]https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1229421174142140416[/URL]
Jan 5 or so they genetically sequence a new pathogen.
They shut down travel from Wuhan to other parts of China. They do not shut down travel from Wuhan to the rest of the world.
(sources already previously posted.)
The lab had previous virus leakage, with the previous SARS in 2004. (sources already previously posted.) It had happened before.
Or was it the Beijing lab [URL]https://www.the-scientist.com/news-analysis/sars-escaped-beijing-lab-twice-50137[/URL] (or Singapore or Taiwan or France or ...)
China could release the RNA sequence they obtained from their lab-created viruses. Apparently they haven't, and choose not to. (I searched at considerable length and could not find evidence of such an information release. If the information had been released, it would have been referenced in multiple places.) If it did not match, it would be an effective defense. Why aren't they doing so? Perhaps because the RNA matches too well for their purposes. They could securely transmit the data, or samples for independent sequencing, or both. They could let experts from other countries in to the Wuhan lab to do forensics and let the evidence exonerate them if it does. Instead they expelled foreign reporters and other personnel. [URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html[/URL]
“We saw the fact that those who were trying to report on this, medical professionals inside of China, were silenced. They shut down reporting — all the kind of things that authoritarian regimes do, the way Communist parties operate,” Mr. Pompeo said.

“This is a classic Communist disinformation effort.”
If they had nothing to hide, why work so hard to hide it? If the facts are in their favor, why work so hard to hide them?
"China’s initial response to the crisis was less than impressive. The Wuhan government was secretive and self-serving" [URL]https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-the-real-sick-man-of-asia-11580773677[/URL]

Massive post, read it all anyway [URL]https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748[/URL]

What are the odds of these 3 coincidences a b and c? [URL]https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/coronavirus-globally.html[/URL]

Why dig into where the source was from? Well, suppose there were errors or deliberate shortcuts made at the Wuhan lab or elsewhere that resulted in the pandemic. It would be good to identify who was responsible, so that they can be properly trained and incentivized to not do that again ever. If it was a systems failure, identifying how and why and doing something about it is literally vital. If they can not identify a person responsible, due to inadequate records, then the responsibility is probably on the management. Or perhaps China will put them between a brick wall and a firing squad to make sure those individuals do not embarrass Xi again. If they haven't already. The pandemic would probably already be the largest body count from negligent homicide ever.

This whole concept of brewing up new pathogens in the lab is a bit like playing Russian roulette, only with the lives of millions you've never met also on the line. You can break even if containment works well enough, or lose big if it does not. The supposed justification that there will be net benefit to society as a whole is yet to be proven. This stuff is much worse than messing with chemical weapons. Chemicals weaken as they dissipate further from the release point whether accidental or otherwise. Biological agents have increasingly greater impact as they spread.

[size=4][color=red][b]MODERATOR NOTE: This thread is for discussion of COVID-related topics. Political rants are apt to be moved to the Soapbox.[/b][/color][/size]
[quote=kriesel;544552]Define similar. 80%? 95%? 99? 99.99?[/quote](stares in disbelief at massive argle-bargle)

Uh, my point was essentially the one you reiterate later in the post:[quote=kriesel;544552] If it did not match, it would be an effective defense.[/quote]

And by "Source(s)?" I merely meant the sources for the [i]reports[/i] you said you'd read, alleging that the Chinese were concealing the genetic profiles of their lab-created viruses. I'm afraid it's kind of hard to pick those out from your post.

[QUOTE=kriesel;544552]Massive post, read it all anyway [URL]https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748[/URL][/QUOTE]

Ken, your above-linked post illustrates the problem of "shotgun linking", i.e. massive rambling posts with huge numbers of links (16, no less), and a free mixing of the scientific with the political/tendentious. The above article was open in my browser since I first saw it linked over the weekend on Naked Capitalism, just finished the long wade-through an hour ago. Well, it's of "if you read just on article this week on the purported origins of the 2019 novel coronavirus, this should be it" quality, but "massive post, read it all anyway" is completely nondescriptive-as-to-content and more likely to send would-be-readers scurrying for the exits. Here is what I had prepared about it before doing a last-second check as to whether it was of the links in your laundry list - note the "it helps to include the title along with the url" and "hey, before asking us to read a 'tl:dr'-candidate article, how about to some qords about what's in it?".

----------------------

For those interested in a really deep dive as to kinds of molecular-genetic clues which are most useful in determining whether a novel RNA virus such as SARS-CoV-2 (the one causing the Covid-19 disease) is more likely of natural or lab-made origin, here you go. It took me a good chunk of the weekend to work through this one. Lots of details re. the molecular genetics, recent (last 20-30 years) research in the field and key advances therein, the typical competitive scientific culture which makes such work very fraught with danger, and a detailed debunking of an alleged "not lab made" debunking in [i]Nature[/i], of all places. Worth the effort IMO, but not for the faint of heart:

[url=https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748]Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research[/url] | Yuri Deigin, [i]Medium[/i]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;544606]For those interested in a really deep dive as to kinds of molecular-genetic clues which are most useful in determining whether a novel RNA virus such as SARS-CoV-2 (the one causing the Covid-19 disease) is more likely of natural or lab-made origin, here you go. It took me a good chunk of the weekend to work through this one. Lots of details re. the molecular genetics, recent (last 20-30 years) research in the field and key advances therein, the typical competitive scientific culture which makes such work very fraught with danger, and a detailed debunking of an alleged "not lab made" debunking in [i]Nature[/i], of all places. Worth the effort IMO, but not for the faint of heart:

[url=https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748]Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research[/url] | Yuri Deigin, [i]Medium[/i][/QUOTE]


Let me try to write a summary:


There is no evidence CoV2 was lab made or a lab accident only strange coincidences.

On the other hand there is no strong evidence for the natural origin either. In that case they are missing a intermediate host between bat+pangolin and humans and they are missing an intermediate ancestor virus.

Strange coincidences:
SARS-CoV-2 share 96% of its genomes with a bat virus "RaTG13" which was found in bats in 2013 by the Wuhan lab, but for some reason it was not fully sequenced back then. No one outside the lab knew about it until January 2020 when they suddenly sequenced it fully, and informed that it matched 96% to CoV2.

Another virus "MP789" taken from Pangolins in 2019 "only" share 90% of its genome with CoV2 but at the RBM (Receptor Binding Motif) the exact spot it attaches to human cells, it matches almost 100% with CoV2, better than the bat virus "RaTG13".
So in theory someone could have taken the RBM section from pangolin virus and inserted in the bat virus. They link several papers from the last 15-20 years where they did similar studies to test combinations, and with todays technology even grad students could do this.

SARS-CoV-2 has 4 extra amino acid "inserted" which add an extra "furin cleavage site", which increase its pathogenicity and replication ability and allows it to infect nerve cells.
This is different from other Corona viruses both close and more distant relatives, so it is unlikely to have evolved on its own from them. But they have tried inserting these "furin cleavage sites" manually in viruses in several studies in the last 20 years.


He finishes by saying:

[QUOTE]Moreover, even if CoV2 was indeed an unfortunate lab leak, the scientists themselves are not to blame, as they were working within the established international laws and guidelines on such research. Now, those who might be trying to cover up that leak, that’s a different story.

I hope this post is not used to prematurely assign blame or propagate one-sided theories. What I do hope it highlights is the scale of dangerous gain-of-function research that has been and is going on in virology. The Covid-19 pandemic really exposed its huge risks in the face of few benefits: GOF research hasn’t protected us from this outbreak, hasn’t provided us with any effective treatments or vaccines in time to save hundreds of thousands of lives lost to CoV2, [B]and if there is even a 0.1% chance GOF research caused the whole thing, that chance is too high.[/B][/QUOTE]

I read most of it, but your summary pulls it together far more than I had done on my own. It seems that it ends with a call for a risk-benefit analysis of some types of viral research.
Thanks very much!

Followup to [url=https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=543600&postcount=717]this post[/url]...

[url=https://apnews.com/68ff635c752d056a3f6242fa555b163b]Whistleblower: US failed to prepare, sought quick virus fix[/url][quote]<snip>
Dr. Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, alleges he was reassigned to a lesser role because he resisted political pressure to allow widespread use of [url=https://apnews.com/21249a99b29d7b2c8648acb1f01a9812]hydroxychloroquine[/url], a malaria drug pushed by President Donald Trump. He said the Trump administration wanted to "flood" hot spots in New York and New Jersey with the drug.
<snip>
Top officials also pressured him to steer contracts to a client of a lobbyist, he reported.

"Time after time I was pressured to ignore or dismiss expert scientific recommendations and instead to award lucrative contracts based on political connections," Bright said in the call with reporters. "In other words, I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have in government."[/quote]

There's a nifty data visualization tool for Covid19 allowing county by county comparison, etc. for countries USA Belgium UK France, seen among the many links at [url]https://research.wisc.edu/uw-madison-research-community-responds-to-covid-19/[/url]

"American Family Insurance Data Science Institute Interim Director Brian Yandell has been developing a tool at [URL="https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/"]brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic[/URL]. This project was initiated when he could not find certain trend visualization, realizing he could develop it quickly in Rstudio and host it on ShinyApps.io. One new contribution is exponentially weighted estimates of prediction lines for real cases along with estimated doubling times."

[QUOTE=kriesel;544695]There's a nifty data visualization tool for Covid19 allowing county by county comparison, etc. for countries USA Belgium UK France, seen among the many links at [url]https://research.wisc.edu/uw-madison-research-community-responds-to-covid-19/[/url][/QUOTE]All I see is a puff piece where they pat themselves on the back for doing stuff.

[QUOTE=retina;544696]All I see is a puff piece where they pat themselves on the back for doing stuff.[/QUOTE][URL="https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/"][SIZE=1]https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/[/SIZE][/URL]

[QUOTE=kriesel;544700][URL="https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/"][SIZE=1]https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/[/SIZE][/URL][/QUOTE]Okay, I tried again and now it has something there.

[size=1]Although it is another one of those JS controlled pages so nothing works for me. :no:[/size]

A local NBC affiliate station's web site poses a question: "How bad with the 2nd wave of Corona virus be?" It is a really long article which I did not try to read. We shall find out shortly as it might begin in earnest on May 11 when a lot of things begin to open up. My son works at a local factory. He is due to go back to work the same day. I fear for my granddaughter who is eight months old.

[url=https://www.rt.com/news/487849-coronavirus-mutating-contagious-strain/]A new strain has come: Meet Spike D614G, the new & improved coronavirus[/url] — RT World News
[quote]Fears that the coronavirus would mutate into a more dangerous strain appear to have been borne out, as research has identified that a new, more contagious strain of SARS-CoV-2 has become the dominant form worldwide.

The new strain, which has been dubbed ‘Spike D614G’ has been proliferating in Europe since at least mid-February, and spread to become the dominant form during the month of March. It is far more contagious than the original strain which emerged from Wuhan, for reasons as yet unknown.

Wherever it emerged it became dominant very quickly, and in some countries it became the only common strain within weeks. The paper notes that the rapid global spread of the coronavirus has provided it with “ample opportunity for natural selection to act upon rare but favorable mutations.’’ Furthermore, if the virus does not wane away as the weather warms in summer there will be nothing to stop it mutating into more and more strains.
[b]
Warning call
[/b]
The research, which was carried out by a joint American and British team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been released ahead of peer review as ‘an early warning’ to other researchers. As it stands, scientists studying the coronavirus around the world may be analysing the genetic sequence of the older strain, and therefore it is crucial that they collaborate with this team to get the latest information. “We cannot afford to be blindsided as we move vaccines and antibodies into clinical testing,” the lead author Dr Bette Korber, known for her work on HIV, said.

Because the paper has not yet been peer-reviewed, it has been published online on the server BioRxiv. However, the reputations of the scientists involved suggest that the findings are sound and must be taken with the utmost seriousness — the report is 33 pages long, and short on laughs. “This is hard news,’’ said Korber of the findings.

The scientists’ methodology involved running computer analysis of over 6,000 coronavirus DNA sequences collected from around the world. Although they remark that “observed diversity among pandemic SARS-CoV-2 sequences is low’’ there were no fewer than 14 different mutations in the Spike protein sequences, just one of which is the strain that has everybody worried.

This is the strain with the D614G mutation, which is probably causing the increased contagiousness. The mutation affects the ‘Spike proteins’ on the outside of the virus, which allow the virus to invade human cells. For this reason, these spikes have until now been the main target of those trying to design vaccines or antiviral drugs to combat the virus. There are currently at least 62 vaccines in development, and most of these are focused on the Spike proteins.[/quote]
The RT article does not link to the preprint in question, [url=https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1]here is that[/url].

[QUOTE=kriesel;544700][URL="https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/"][SIZE=1]https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/[/SIZE][/URL][/QUOTE]"All I see" said retina. Large font size was a joke on a possible vision problem. I considered as an alternative, asking if his eye doctor was due for a swim in the shark pool at the evil lair.

Would not consider such a joke directed at storm5510, who has already posted about his vision Given what he's described, I think his participation is impressive.

[QUOTE=kriesel;544811]"All I see" said retina. Large font size was a joke on a possible vision problem. I considered as an alternative, asking if his eye doctor was due for a swim in the shark pool at the evil lair.

Would not consider such a joke directed at storm5510, who has already posted about his vision Given what he's described, I think his participation is impressive.[/QUOTE]

Wow! This thread nearly descended into the fur-ball area. May cooler heads prevail.

Yes, I saw the brilliant red, and large, text a few pages back. It was hard to miss as I now keep my browser magnification set at 120%. My ever worsening visual impairment stems from looking at computer screens since early 1988 on a daily basis for many hours. I [U]do not want[/U] the state of my visual capabilities to become fodder for amusement. I would never consider perpetrating this upon anyone. This is a disability. To poke fun at anyone with any type of disability is in extremely poor taste.

Now, let us get back on topic...

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;544339]I grabbed all the data that they had and plotted it. The red is this season, the bold blue line is the mean. I don't think there is anything to it. Just pick limited data and make sure there is a higher than average year in it. (And I am guessing that the drop is principally road deaths. But there is that spike afterward.[/QUOTE]
I pulled the current data. Plotted the Std Dev for previous years. Took the difference for this year from the average of previous years and plotted it. I left off week 17 as it has incomplete data. Week 16 data is also incomplete (thus low).

[QUOTE=storm5510;544817]To poke fun at anyone with any type of disability is in extremely poor taste.[/QUOTE]Anyone wishing to poke fun at any of my disabilities is welcome to try.

My response will range from enthusiastic applause to vigorous and repeated attempts to retaliate as viciously as possible. You have been warned.

My browser is currently set for 133%. In my case, new glasses would probably make a difference. I was already well overdue for replacement when Covid-19 shut things down.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. :loco:

[QUOTE=xilman;544829]Anyone wishing to poke fun at any of my disabilities is welcome to try.[/QUOTE]

Does being a wanker qualify as a disability?

[QUOTE=ewmayer;544834]Does being a wanker qualify as a disability?[/QUOTE]
I don't know.

Please let us know your own view, given that you apparently have relevant experience.

[QUOTE=kriesel;544700][URL="https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/"][SIZE=1]https://brianyandell.shinyapps.io/pandemic/[/SIZE][/URL][/QUOTE]
Wow that is tiny print after unwilly's modification, near the lower limit of what I can resolve on this laptop with reading glasses.
It was I thought a useful original post, that is the only source I've found offering comparison of data trends over time down to the county level, so I shared, and attempted a positive tone in that original post. The link quoted above I tested before posting it in #828. Then the thread went downhill quickly.

If someone else has data aggregation or trend display sites to share, hopefully they will be more positively received.

[QUOTE=kladner;544833]My browser is currently set for 133%. In my case, new glasses would probably make a difference. I was already well overdue for replacement when Covid-19 shut things down.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. :loco:[/QUOTE]


Coulda, woulda, shoulda, is right. Walmart bought my last new pair when I was working for them. The lenses that is. I had to pay for the frames. That was in 2015. By 2017, I needed new lenses, but I didn't get them. Now, I have to eat the cost, which would be around $250 USD each. I just had to have [I]Rayban[/I]. I don't know what I was thinking? :redface:

We have good coverage through Dan's employer insurance. All the same it's a couple to several C-notes. His last pair was considerably less than the $500+ my years-old pair cost. Let this be a lesson, I guess. When you have benefits, use them.:picard:
EDIT: I forgot that I came here to disseminate some Evil Communist Propaganda. If this is deemed inappropriate here I will happily shuffle it off to some Soapbox destination. It amuses me in a ghastly sort of way.

This is a cartoon from China Xinhua News, presenting their take of the differing behaviors of the US and China in the beginnings of the pandemic

[url]https://twitter.com/XHNews/status/1255734356728922113[/url]

"Documents," not "Doctors."
 

[url=https://apnews.com/9c4d5284ba4769d3b98aa05232201f88]AP Exclusive: Docs show top WH officials buried CDC report[/url][quote]GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation's top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.
<snip>
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.
<snip>
The 17-page version later released by The AP and other news outlets was only part of the actual document submitted by the CDC, and targeted specific facilities like bars and restaurants. The AP obtained a copy Friday of the full document. That version is a more universal series of phased guidelines, "Steps for All Americans in Every Community," geared to advise communities as a whole on testing, contact tracing and other fundamental infection control measures.
<snip>
According to the documents, CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by Friday, May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.

On April 30 the CDC's documents were killed for good.
<snip>[/quote]

Don't confuse people with silly facts. :ouch1:

[QUOTE=ewmayer;544834]Does being a wanker qualify as a disability?[/QUOTE]

It seems at least one of my fellow mods thought I was being serious in my above reply to Paul's request-for-insults ... was it not obvious that I meant it in jest? Perhaps my personal you-better-add-a-bunch-of-emoticons-to-this-one-to-avoid-misunderstandings judgment differs from most folks'.

So here, to clear things up for the kindergartners - I meant to say:

Does being a wanker qualify as a disability? :wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile:
;);););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););)
:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P
:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):
Har dee har, &c.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;544980]It seems at least one of my fellow mods thought I was being serious in my above reply to Paul's request-for-insults ... was it not obvious that I meant it in jest? Perhaps my personal you-better-add-a-bunch-of-emoticons-to-this-one-to-avoid-misunderstandings judgment differs from most folks'.

So here, to clear things up for the kindergartners - I meant to say:

Does being a wanker qualify as a disability? :wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile::smile:
;);););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););););)
:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P
:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):
Har dee har, &c.[/QUOTE]You still haven't responded to my request for your view in light of your relevant personal experience.

Over 15% (33) of 214 pregnant women tested when admitted for delivery in NYC tested positive for Covid19 virus in universal testing. Of those who initially tested positive, 88% (29) had no symptoms. And one that initially tested negative developed symptoms and a retest was positive. (New England Journal of Medicine) [URL]https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMc2009316?listPDF=true[/URL]

[url=https://apnews.com/66f68c43e6412314a06ab4a2d0e4779d]'Express burials' cast doubt on Nicaragua's virus figures[/url][quote]
By GABRIELA SELSER

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Roger Ordoñez was hospitalized with breathing problems last week.

When his son Enrique came to visit the next morning, the 69-year-old retiree was already being buried by government workers in protective white full-body suits in a cemetery on the outskirts of Chinandega, a city of 133,000 people in northwest Nicaragua.

The hospital warned the Ordoñez family to self-quarantine for two weeks but said their patriarch did not have the novel coronavirus, even though they were shown no test results.

President Daniel Ortega's government has stood out for its refusal to impose measures to halt the coronavirus for more than two months since the disease was first diagnosed in Nicaragua. Now, doctors and family members of apparent victims say, the government has gone from denying the disease's presence in the country to actively trying to conceal its spread.[/quote]

[url=https://apnews.com/c7ab1c6bc08ce4dec0bb080a6a5e87ac]Tesla's Musk defies lockdown order, restarts Calif. factory[/url][quote]FREMONT, Calif. (AP) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk is restarting the company's California factory in defiance of local government efforts to contain the coronavirus.

In a tweet Monday, Musk practically dared authorities to arrest him, writing that he would be on the assembly line and if anyone is taken into custody, it should be him.

State law allows a fine of up to $1,000 a day or up to 90 days in jail for operating in violation of health orders.
<snip>
The restart came two days after Tesla sued the county health department seeking to overturn its order, and Musk threatened to move Tesla's manufacturing operations and headquarters from the state.

Tesla contends in the lawsuit that Alameda County can't be more restrictive than orders from California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The lawsuit says the governor's coronavirus restrictions refer to federal guidelines classifying vehicle manufacturing as essential businesses that are allowed to continue operating.[/quote]

This Script Sends Junk Data to Ohio's Website for Snitching on Workers
 

[URL]https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/62884-this-script-sends-junk-data-to-ohios-website-for-snitching-on-workers[/URL]

[QUOTE]An anonymous hacker has released code that allowed anyone to automatically submit junk data to Ohio’s controversial COVID-19 Fraud website, which prompts employers to report workers who refuse to work during the deadly pandemic so they won’t receive unemployment benefits.

The script, which began circulating on social media earlier this week, automatically fills out a “fraud reporting” form on the state of Ohio’s [URL="https://secure.jfs.ohio.gov/covid-19-fraud/"]unemployment insurance website[/URL]. State officials created the form to encourage companies to snitch on workers who are refusing to work under unsafe conditions, drawing outrage from workers and labor rights advocates. The script’s creator says the goal is to overwhelm the site with a flood of fake submissions, making it harder to process claims and thus deny people their benefits.

“It’s easy enough to go to the page and fill it out, but that wouldn’t amount to [U]enough data to make these particular gears of the state grind to a halt[/U],” the anonymous hacker told Motherboard. “It needs to be so much data that their ability to investigate these ‘fraud’ cases is hampered.”
[/QUOTE]

The latest fashion in beach wear, will leave more tan lines
In English: [URL]https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/italian-designer-trikini-beachwear-matching-bikini-mask[/URL]
Italian: [URL]https://www.centropagina.it/ancona/coronavirus-mare-estate-trikini-impazza-moda-mascherine-abbinate-costume/[/URL]
[spoiler]and going topless will not mean what it previously did[/spoiler]

Given that international travel has been severely reduced, and everyone is scared to get close to strangers, and various other social and hygiene changes that have happened; what is the likelihood that the common cold will be eradicated?

It's still unclear to me where the reservoir for the common cold is, but it appears to be only in humans. If that is true then I don't see why it couldn't be made a thing of the past. COVID-19 might have given us the opportunity to say goodbye to the age-old "cold".

[QUOTE=retina;545217]Given that international travel has been severely reduced, and everyone is scared to get close to strangers, and various other social and hygiene changes that have happened; what is the likelihood that the common cold will be eradicated?[/QUOTE]

ZERO

"The common cold" is a trite phrase that covers many different virii. And there are too many strains of them to overcome.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;544820]I pulled the current data. Plotted the Std Dev for previous years. Took the difference for this year from the average of previous years and plotted it. I left off week 17 as it has incomplete data. Week 16 data is also incomplete (thus low).[/QUOTE]
I pulled the updated numbers and there have been noticeable updates from week 2 onward. I will try to remember to post an updated graph Friday.
[url]https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html[/url]

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;545235]"The common cold" is a trite phrase that covers many different virii. And there are too many strains of them to overcome.[/QUOTE]How do you know? Their R0 is always around 1.0 with the pre-covid-19 levels or human interaction. So now I would expect those R0 numbers to drop below 1. And thus the potential for eradication.

[QUOTE=retina;545217]Given that international travel has been severely reduced, and everyone is scared to get close to strangers, and various other social and hygiene changes that have happened; what is the likelihood that the common cold will be eradicated?[/QUOTE]
I would say the likelihood of [i]eradication[/i] is nil.

I note, however, that the measures taken to limit the spread of COVID-19, also seem to have reduced the spread of the seasonal flu.

[QUOTE=retina;545217]

It's still unclear to me where the reservoir for the common cold is, but it appears to be only in humans. If that is true then I don't see why it couldn't be made a thing of the past. COVID-19 might have given us the opportunity to say goodbye to the age-old "cold".[/QUOTE]

Not true. I wouldn't exactly claim that chinchillas are a "reservoir" but this clearly shows the virus can be present in other animals. The exact extent is probably unknown due to lack of research on this rarely lethal virus.

[URL="https://www.whimsysmenagerie.com/blog/2017/5/13/chinchillas-and-the-common-cold"]https://www.whimsysmenagerie.com/blog/2017/5/13/chinchillas-and-the-common-cold[/URL]

[QUOTE=retina;545217]COVID-19 might have given us the opportunity to say goodbye to the age-old "cold".[/QUOTE]

I don't think we would want that.

What if we were invaded by Martians?

[QUOTE=PhilF;545246]I don't think we would want that.

What if we were invaded by Martians?[/QUOTE]Keep some in a cryofreezer at the CDC, and sequence it so we could whip some up if needed; store the sequence on redundant backups.

I remember a sci-fi short story in which the cold was cured. People then discovered that lots of the things which the cold virus had kept them from smelling were really stinky. An urgent project was launched to overcome the immunity, give people colds, and remove awareness of the unwanted smells.

[QUOTE=kriesel;545248]Keep some in a cryofreezer at the CDC, and sequence it so we could whip some up if needed; store the sequence on redundant backups.[/QUOTE]

Good idea. Then we'd have some ready to go the next time we need a political pandemic. :smile:

[QUOTE=PhilF;545261]Good idea. Then we'd have some ready to go the next time we need a political pandemic. :smile:[/QUOTE]When the common cold becomes enough to send people into a panic, they'll get what they deserve, good and hard. Political pandemics may not even need an actual threat. (Remember the Salem witch trials..)
I was thinking of it being a pathogen that's not dangerous to us, but could be to something really alien
Another possibility is to use it as a vaccine by modifying it slightly to express some harmless fraction of a new problem virus.
Much worse than the common cold is being kept around. Smallpox for example. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_debate[/url]

Google spreadsheet of Covid19 prevalence testing studies maintained by a doctor. Most are not peer reviewed. Location, sample size, % positive, URLs, much more. [URL]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17Tf1Ln9VuE5ovpnhLRBJH-33L5KRaiB3NhvaiF3hWC0/edit#gid=0[/URL]

[QUOTE=kladner;545253]I remember a sci-fi short story in which the cold was cured. People then discovered that lots of the things which the cold virus had kept them from smelling were really stinky. An urgent project was launched to overcome the immunity, give people colds, and remove awareness of the unwanted smells.[/QUOTE]It's been reported anecdotally that pregnant women about to deliver may have much more acute sense of smell than usual. A level of perfume that would normally not register consciously can be experienced as quite overwhelming and unpleasant.
There's a theory that human smell used to be much more senstive, and was dialed back considerably to make the accumulating smells of a fixed domicile tolerable.
Sensitivity may be low, but not extremely. [URL]http://www.sirc.org/publik/smell_human.html[/URL]
Specificity appears to be pretty good. [URL]https://www.livescience.com/44240-human-nose-distinguishes-1-trillion-scents.html[/URL]

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;545235]"The common cold" is a trite phrase that covers many different virii. And there are too many strains of them to overcome.[/QUOTE]

Correct - IIRC roughly 1/3 of said viruses are - ta da! - of the Coronavirus family.

Also, said viruses co-evolved with human, i.e. were already infecting us when our global population was in the tens of thousands and consisted of small widely-scattered bands of hunter-gatherers. Thus I concur, chance of eradication = 0, but yes, social distancing should also work to reduce the annual number of infectees and average # of colds a person catches in a given timespan.

=====================

[url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/blitz-covid-19-our-rulers-have-got-us-wrong/]From the Blitz to COVID-19, Our Rulers Have Got Us Wrong[/url] | Peter McColl, openDemocracy
[quote][i]They didn’t want to let people shelter in the Underground, for fear they’d never return to work. They don’t want to extend the lockdown because they think we want to work.[/i]

It’s the VE Day long weekend. There’s been lots of talk about ‘Blitz Spirit’ and the UK government is sending signals that the lockdown might be coming to an end. There’s an interesting lesson from this about the assumptions we make about human behaviour.

During the London Blitz the Anderson Shelters provided by the government (a sheet of corrugated iron to be placed in a garden) and the brick street shelters proved inadequate. I have vivid memories from school of reading accounts of the York Street brick shelter in Belfast which was hit and many of those inside killed.

There was an obvious solution to this in London: the Underground was deep enough to allow people to shelter in the stations. And that is eventually what happened. But only after a major campaign by working class communities to be allowed to use the Underground. The patrician government of the day feared that people, once underground, would never come back up. They would abandon their jobs and live subterranean lives, with Sir John Anderson, after whom the shelters were named, complaining that it would be impossible for people to “maintain the productive capacity in a troglodyte existence deep underground”.

It turned out that the patricians were wrong. The working class wanted to stop fascism enough to keep working, and when the bombers passed, they returned to ground level.

Interestingly this assumption that normal people would prioritise safety over work and spending is exactly the opposite of the assumption about people’s behaviour ahead of the Covid-19 lockdown.

There has been much discussion of the role of ‘behavioural economics’ and nudge theory in delaying the lockdown. I’m not as much a sceptic as many are of nudge theory. It is a tool that can be used for good or ill. But the perceived impact of decisions on behaviour is what interests me.

Every day the Daily Telegraph makes ever more shrill demands that lockdown end and people’s lives be sacrificed. But it has emerged that the assumptions that delayed the lockdown were wrong: most people think their health is their wealth. Polling consistently shows that people want the lockdown to last longer.

In the 1940s the population were thought to prefer safety. In the 2020s the population were thought to prefer work. The patricians of the 1940s were wrong. The behavioural economists of the 2020s are wrong.

And that should make us all think very carefully before we base decisions on what we think people will do in any given circumstance. Right-wing newspapers project an unbreakable confidence that they know what people think. That confidence is often misplaced.[/quote]

[url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/05/foreign-affairs-runs-propaganda-from-swedish-employers-on-swedens-covid-19-fiasco-failing-to-disclose-sponsorship-and-misrepresenting-results.html]Foreign Affairs Runs Propaganda from Swedish Employers on Sweden's Covid-19 Fiasco, Failing to Disclose Sponsorship and Misrepresenting Results[/url] | naked capitalism
[quote][i]Foreign Affairs[/i] just [url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2020-05-12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-will-soon-be-worlds]published an article that attempts to depict the failed Swedish approach to Covid-19 as not just a success, but even the way of the future[/url]. I suppose if you regard failed state in the making like the US as a harbinger, you could view this description as accurate. But nations that aspire to better like South Korea, New Zealand, Germany, and the Czech Republic, would beg to differ. As reader juno mas put it earlier this week, “For a relatively rural, isolated nation, Sweden is a train wreck.”

Mind you, the problem isn’t that the view expressed in the Foreign Affairs piece, in the words of a prominent economist, is “unmitigated horseshit”. People are allowed to say stupid things if nothing else to give parties with a better grasp a punching bag.

It’s that Foreign Affairs failed to disclose that this piece, which touts keeping workplaces and shops open regardless of the cost in lives, was funded by Swedish employers,. Oh, and as we’ll point out soon, this “Who cares if more people die” posture hasn’t helped the Swedish economy much either, even though that’s the supposed justification for running unnecessary health risks. Yet Sweden getting the worst of all possible worlds is nevertheless spun as an accomplishment, and more incredibly, a model.

Specifically, the authors of this piece are all key figures at the Swedish think tank Ratio Institute. Lead wrier Nils Karlson is its president and CEO; Charlotta Stern is Deputy CEO, and Daniel B. Klein is an Associate Fellow. The article lack of a disclaimer that the authors’ opinion and does not reflect the view of Ratio. It is therefore on its face a piece that makes no bones about being official Ratio work product.

And what is Ratio? From Wikipedia:
[i]
The Ratio Institute is an independent Swedish research institute focusing on the conditions for enterprise, entrepreneurship and market economy and political change. The institute’s infrastructure is financed by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, but various research projects have financiers like the Wallenberg Foundation.
[/i]
And who is the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise? Again from Wikipedia:
[i]
The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise or Swedish Enterprise (Swedish: Svenskt Näringsliv) is a major employers’ organization for private sector and business sector companies in Sweden. It has 49 member associations representing 60,000 member companies with more than 1.6 million employees.
[/i]
Its budget is the equivalent of $100 million which is not shabby for a country with a population of 10 million. And in case you had any doubts, Jacob Wallenberg, whose family investment entity is far and away the biggest employer in Sweden, forcefully advocates for favoring the economy over public health. From the Financial Times at the end of March. As one Financial Times reader reacted:
[i]
A bit ugly to see a rich man talking his book when lives are at stake. The government can make welfare payments to the unemployed, it can’t raise the dead.
[/i]
Let’s turn to the controversy. Sweden has implemented only minimal Covid-19 public safety measures. Schools and restaurants are open but soccer season has been put off and university buildings are shuttered. Citizens are advised to stay home and avoid travel, but with virtually all businesses open, it’s hard to see how that works...[/quote]

And just a short over-Finland hop eastward from Sweden, the latest out of Russia, and not via a Western-Stink-Tank article as so much 'news' from there in the western MSM tends to be:

[url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/12/putin-withdraws-from-the-coronavirus-crisis-in-a-political-abdication-a70245]Putin Withdraws From the Coronavirus Crisis in a Political Abdication[/url] - The Moscow Times
[quote]Abdication tends to be an all-or-nothing matter. As in so much else, Vladimir Putin makes his own rules, and yesterday’s address was a menu for an a la carte abdication, relinquishing the terrible responsibility of handling the pandemic, but retaining all the perks of power.

In his presentation, Putin announced that the “national non-working period” — his preferred euphemism for a lockdown in which employers were still expected to pay their workers’ salaries — would end today “for the entire country and for all sectors of the economy.”
[b]
Over to you, guys
[/b]
Does that mean the end of the “quarantine”? On the very day that the country recorded a record increase in new cases, with the world’s second-fastest infection rate behind only the United States? At a time when it is clear the official death rate is seriously understated? And when, while 170,000 tests are administered a day, their accuracy is questionable?

Not quite; instead, he was simply saying that the federally-mandated lockdown was over, but that regional governors would still have the right to impose them in their own territories.

After all, while he conceded that “the fight with the epidemic isn’t ending” — arguably, it is still in its early stages given that there is no evidence that the situation is under control — he noted that “the epidemic and associated restrictions have had a strong impact on the economy and hurt millions of our citizens,” and so “it is in the interest of all of us for the economy to return to normal quickly.”

That is true enough, and the immediate lethal cost of coronavirus does have to be set against both the more subtle toll caused by lockdown and hardship, as well as the broader impact of economic slowdown...[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;545297][url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/blitz-covid-19-our-rulers-have-got-us-wrong/]From the Blitz to COVID-19, Our Rulers Have Got Us Wrong[/url] | Peter McColl, openDemocracy[/QUOTE]This reminds me: In 1918, [url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/philadelphia-threw-wwi-parade-gave-thousands-onlookers-flu-180970372/]Philadelphia's Fourth Liberty Loan Drive parade[/url] had unfortunate consequences.[quote]Within 72 hours of the parade, every bed in Philadelphia's 31 hospitals was filled. In the week ending October 5, some 2,600 people in Philadelphia had died from the flu or its complications. A week later, that number rose to more than 4,500. With many of the city's health professionals pressed into military service, Philadelphia was unprepared for this deluge of death.
<snip>
A political appointee, Krusen publicly denied that influenza was a threat, saying with assurance that the few military deaths were "old-fashioned influenza or grip." He promised a campaign against coughing, spitting and sneezing, well aware that two days before the scheduled parade, the nation's monthly draft call-up had been cancelled because army camps, including nearby Camp Dix in New Jersey and Camp Meade in Maryland, were overwhelmed by a conflagration of virulent influenza. Philadelphia's parade poured gasoline on the flames.
[/quote]

[QUOTE=kriesel;545248][QUOTE=PhilF;545246]I don't think we would want that.

What if we were invaded by Martians?[/QUOTE]Keep some in a cryofreezer at the CDC, and sequence it so we could whip some up if needed; store the sequence on redundant backups.[/QUOTE]Sure. And since we would have long lost our immunity to it we would also die. Thanks for nothing Mars, you killed us both.

But I think even if we can't manage to shake off all 48 (or however many there are) strains of the common cold, at least some of the less contagious ones could become a thing of the past. We shall see.

Rights and Responsibilities
 

This is a really clear statement of the interlocking nature of rights and responsibilities.

[YOUTUBE]suwos5pwiu0[/YOUTUBE]

inb4
 

[XKCD]2306[/XKCD]

[QUOTE=axn;545424][XKCD]2306[/XKCD][/QUOTE]
:lol:

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;545238]I pulled the updated numbers and there have been noticeable updates from week 2 onward. I will try to remember to post an updated graph Friday.
[url]https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html[/url][/QUOTE]
Here it is with updated figures. Week 18 and 19 are very incomplete (and thus note plotted). 16 and 17 will go up. I loaded all of the updated figures from this season (starting at week 40.) Only a single complete week this season has been below average (by about 0.0.3% of the value.)

You may now obtain energy dome face shields.
[url]https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/05/devo-energy-dome-face-shields/[/url]