Covid Dec 2022 ..mass china outbreak!?

[Mr Gus]

If the Chinese vaccine is less effective and, as looks highly likely, China has a new Covid epidemic, there is the worry that a new variant is ‘produced’ - one with features that make it evade current immunity and has greater pathogenicity.

Let’s hope we’re on the ball with this - there doesn’t seem to be any change in the openness of reporting from China, which is worrying.

I definitely heard it reported on BBC radio a few weeks ago that the Chinese vaccine wasn't as effective as ours, so any surge in infections would be worse than we would expect here.
A

The low efficacy has been known since day one of the rush to get the original vaccines out, its just many have forgotten till it bubbles to the surface again.& starts being in the news, a stupid cow from the eastern bloc (wife worked with) would not have uk vacc & waited till she went back home to put-itler land due to serious party line brain wash technique, ...clearly putting others at risk (care / nursing industry) for a sputnik shot.

Folk need to understand that the latest china based outbreak = funerals & cremations 24/7, (those prices have apparently doubled) refrigerator cadaver units in use, rampant infection, the footage was of trolleys packed, no space between to turn patients, tiny ventilators, ..either a half arsed effort or overwhelmed, ..either way, appalling for recovery chances.

watered down guardian piece
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... e-who-says

[openspaceman]

If the Chinese vaccine is less effective and, as looks highly likely, China has a new Covid epidemic, there is the worry that a new variant is ‘produced’ - one with features that make it evade current immunity and has greater pathogenicity.

Let’s hope we’re on the ball with this - there doesn’t seem to be any change in the openness of reporting from China, which is worrying.

Is there any reason to believe the original covid 19 was not "produced" rather than evolved?

[Stig]

Is there any reason to believe the original covid 19 was not "produced" rather than evolved?

We'll never know, the Chinese authorities made sure of that.

[dan_b]

Because if you do, that way lies the path of conspiracy theories. Don't even go there.

If the Chinese vaccine is less effective and, as looks highly likely, China has a new Covid epidemic, there is the worry that a new variant is ‘produced’ - one with features that make it evade current immunity and has greater pathogenicity.

Let’s hope we’re on the ball with this - there doesn’t seem to be any change in the openness of reporting from China, which is worrying.

Is there any reason to believe the original covid 19 was not "produced" rather than evolved?

[Bugtownboy]

Perhaps my use of ‘produced’ was wrong - evolved would have been more appropriate.

[Oldgreybeard]

Is there any reason to believe the original covid 19 was not "produced" rather than evolved?

Plenty of evidence of this type of coronavirus being very prominent in bat populations in China. Making custom viruses is very difficult. The bat coronaviruses being studied at the Wuhan Institute were very close to that which causes Covid-19, but so were coronaviruses found in wild animals at the Wuhan live market. Pinning down exactly where the virus jumped the species barrier is most probably impossible.

We know that many viruses do just this, Edward Jenner discovered that milk maids that had contracted cowpox (from direct contact with infected cows) had a high degree of immunity to smallpox, hence the discovery of vaccination. That's a perfect example of a virus crossing a species barrier effectively.

One variant of SARS (also a coronavirus) crossed the species barrier from camels to humans. Much the same is true for other common viruses, including other coronaviruses. We know that domestic pets can catch cold-like diseases caused by coronaviruses as well as rhinoviruses from humans, and vice versa. We know that influenza viruses cross the species barrier very easily, too. Worst case examples are probably the haemorrhagic viruses, like Marburg and Ebola, that very easily cross the species barrier from other primates to humans.

Given how extremely prevalent it is for viruses to cross species barriers all the time I think we need to just apply Occam's Razor here, and not go looking for an obscure, technically very difficult and extremely improbable cause when we have a mountain of evidence that natural evolutionary processes cause things like this to happen all the time.

[openspaceman]

Because if you do, that way lies the path of conspiracy theories. Don't even go there.

Just did

I live between two veterinary laboratories, one was the source of the last FMD outbreak in UK and I believe the other is where the last person to die of smallpox in this country, possibly the world, worked.

[Oldgreybeard]

Because if you do, that way lies the path of conspiracy theories. Don't even go there.

Just did

I live between two veterinary laboratories, one was the source of the last FMD outbreak in UK and I believe the other is where the last person to die of smallpox in this country, possibly the world, worked.

FWIW, my money is on a natural bat coronavirus, being studied at the Wuhan Institute, having jumped the species barrier there, perhaps to one of the staff (could be anyone from animal handlers and cleaning staff to technical lab staff) and that then led to the Wuhan outbreak. May well be that someone accidentally infected from the Wuhan institute was asymptomatic (around 20% plus of all coronavirus infections may be asymptomatic) and infected one or more people at the wet market.

Biosecurity when dealing with live animal studies is notoriously difficult to maintain. So much stuff needs to go in (staff of all kinds, food, water, the animals themselves, etc) and so much stuff needs to come out (staff of all kinds, animal waste products, dead carcasses,etc) that even the very best labs can make errors.

Veterinary labs (and the Wuhan Institute is a veterinary lab primarily) are notorious for biosecurity failings. In many countries (including the UK) veterinary science is extremely poorly funded when compared with human medical science. Run down and poorly maintained veterinary labs are commonplace in the UK, and I doubt that China is very different.

[Tinbum]

Meanwhile over here, the COVID-booster programme has also seen a rather low rate of uptake.

Get vaccinated people.

I decided, this time, not to take the booster. The reason being the last time it made my Long Covid so much worse. I ended up having a constant headache for about 2 months after it. Pain killers did nothing and in the end, I think, it was a daily Zinc tablet that sorted it. DR's are of little help as all my tests, other than the myocarditis, have come back clear.

Covid is not just a killer but it also ruins lives. Mine in Feb 2020 was very very mild but I'm not half paying for it now.

[Mr Gus]

I'm up for another despite the long adverse reaction from the first dose, not much of a problem from the second / third being the same "other vaccine" which the admin weren't meant to be giving 2 of (back then anyway) ..months of feeling utterly ****** sick, & it was hit & miss as to whether i'd get sensibly given the alternate jab ( govt covid phone line was polite but useless & merely there to log problems not proactively offer the obvious other, which was given in a room full of nurses anyway, lest you keel over.

We were all "kinda" guinea pigs mind.

Good luck china.