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5 hours ago, Flashermac said:

In addition, none of the Chinese state media revealed the exact date when Wang was diagnosed. The fact he was infected could be a strong evidence of human-to-human transmission, and the Chinese medical authorities were not forthcoming in confirming human-to-human transmission at all.

It's a bugger this internet thing, information gets out, true and false, so when all the people start dying::

1/. China might cut down on the trade in exotic species (the market where this outbreak is supposed to have started)

2/. Xi might be screaming "Fake News!"

 

 

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Chinese Social Media Depicts Chaos in Virus-Hit Wuhan

As Chinese authorities scramble to keep residents calm amid the fast-spreading coronavirus, many from Wuhan, the epicenter of the viral pneumonia, have taken to the internet to express their panic in the quarantined city.

Wuhan residents, including some health workers, took to Chinese social media, such as Weibo and WeChat, to relay their exasperation and fears for the future in a city that has entered into a partial lockdown. Some have gone out of their way to bypass China’s internet firewall and access blocked sites so that their voices can be heard to the outside world.

In one video, what appear to be covered bodies are seen on the ground in a hospital between two rows of patients seated along a hallway, as fully covered medical staff continue to hustle about. The woman who took the video said some of the alleged bodies may have been there all morning. In another video posted online, a patient is seen falling to the ground while waiting in line for treatment, apparently fainting. Many of these videos are being repeatedly deleted and reuploaded.

The virus has infected nearly 1,300 people and claimed 41 lives to date, including one health worker.

“The infections are way more terrifying than what you see on the television,” a woman, who says she works at a hospital, said in a WeChat voice message to her niece.

She was sobbing uncontrollably and had to pause multiple times to catch her breath.

“After a day of work, we are on the verge of a mental breakdown,” she said, telling others to take proper protective measures and “never trust the government.” She said she and around a dozen doctors saw more than 100 patients that day, but they “had no supplies at all.”

“It’s so hard to bear when they come pleading for help while we really couldn’t do anything,” she said.

Another video circulating on the internet showed a nurse in the backroom screaming in tears, while two others patted her head and shoulder to comfort her. She said she “couldn’t take it anymore.”

Medical staff have shared similar frustrations online, and as many as eight hospitals in Wuhan on Thursday began asking the public for help because its medical supplies are running increasingly low.They were accepting donations of goggles, N95 masks, surgical masks, medical caps, gloves, hazmat suits, and surgical gowns, according to The Paper, a state-funded media.

A staff member working at Wuhan Union Hospital with the last name Cheng told The Paper that the amount of protective gear at the hospital would only last another three or five days.

Zhi, another employee at Wuhan Union Hospital, similarly said the hospital has been depleting its stock and has failed to reorder supplies in time ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday, where high volumes of orders in the country are expected to slow deliveries.

Chinese officials have mobilized military medical personnel to help Wuhan doctors and Wuhan authorities have issued plans to build another hospital in six days, which could potentially house another 1,000 patients.

“The number of cases are piling up by the day,” Zhi said.

The daughter of an Wuhan patient, who used the alias Li Xue, said her dad went to several hospitals for treatment, but was turned away because his case was not serious enough, according to Lifeweek, a Chinese language magazine.

Li said her parents got in line around 9:20 p.m. on Tuesday and that by 10:00 p.m., 100 people were standing in line behind them. She said they were home five hours later with five days worth of medicine, adding that the doctor told her father to come back if he had breathing difficulties and that there wasn’t a hospital bed for him there.

“They are treating patients as footballs to be kicked around,” a Wuhan resident said, requesting anonymity.

Wuhan is one of 18 Chinese cities that have shut down transportation. But some 300,000 people left the city hours before the lockdown took effect, according to a now-deleted post on Wuhan Railway’s Weibo account.

The panic also permeated through other facets of life. In some parts of Wuhan, patients waited for hours in line at hospitals, people stood in long queues to buy masks, shelves in convenience stores and pharmacies were emptied, and people got into fights to get their share of fresh vegetables.

http://www.efreenews.com/a/chinese-social-media-depicts-chaos-in-virus-hit-wuhan?fbclid=IwAR3ZWyLJFHPB8O8kXzF5yOMMHMdTSZ1RHAgZsIYiNowl6VfYdHsNYJ2LG0I

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China does its best to control its own media. When you discuss fake new, China is the mother of it all. All other major countries have fairly transparent financial data. Except China. They tell you what it is, they is no supporting data as in other countries that can be 3rd party verified. So, when they tell you positive economic news, its always going to be less than that. When you tell negative economic new its always worse than that. Chinese economic data is compiled by other countries by inference and doing as much forensic financial investigating as possible .

This also includes tragedies, etc. What ever China admits to with regards to the disease, its worse. How much worse? No one truly knows but we can infer. If they are admitting to closing down an area the size and population they admit to then by its VERY bad. 

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It's not so long ago that the PRC had "domestic passports". A friend taught there in the early 1990s, and he said everyone had to have permission just to visit a neighbouring province, and getting permission was very hard. Also, there were special department stores for the Communist Party members, where they could buy items not available to the ordinary proles. He was one of the very few foreign instructors at a university, and he knew that spies had been planted in all of his classes. He dared not say anything the CP didn't approve of. I image it's about the same in N Korea.

p.s. I am totally puzzled by the presence of the U.S. Peace Corps in the PRC. WTF? The Peace Corps was intended to help third world countries, not a world power house like the PRC.  :doah:

 

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Expert: China's animal trade to bring more outbreaks

SHANGHAI: The animal-borne Sars virus 17 years ago was supposed to be a wakeup call about consuming wildlife as food, but scientists say China's latest epidemic indicates that the practice remains widespread and a growing risk to human health.

Like Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which was traced to bats and civets, the virus that has killed dozens in China and infected almost 2,000 people is believed to have originated in animals trafficked for food.

Final findings are yet to be announced, but Chinese health officials believe it came from wildlife sold illegally at a meat market in the central city of Wuhan that offered everything from rats to wolf puppies and giant salamanders.

The so-called "bushmeat" trade, plus broader human encroachment on wild habitats, is bringing us into ever-closer contact with animal viruses that can spread rapidly in our uber-connected world, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a global NGO focused on infectious disease prevention.

The Global Virome Project, a worldwide effort to increase preparedness for pandemics, which Mr Daszak is a part of, estimates there are 1.7 million undiscovered viruses in wildlife, nearly half of which could be harmful to humans.

Mr Daszak said the project's research indicates we can expect around five new animal-borne pathogens to infect humanity each year.

"The new normal is that pandemics are going to happen more frequently," he said.

"We are making contact with animals that carry these viruses more, and more, and more."

Viruses are a natural part of the environment, and not all are the stuff of sci-fi horror.

But the recent track record of animal-hosted viruses that "jump" to humans is sobering.

Like Sars, which killed hundreds in China and Hong Kong in 2002-03, Ebola also was traced to bats, while HIV has roots in African primates.

Today, more than 60% of new emerging human infectious diseases reach us via animals, scientists say.

Even familiar menu items like poultry and cattle — whose pathogens we have largely adapted to over millennia — occasionally throw a curveball, like bird flu or mad-cow disease.

"For the sake of these wild species' future, and for human health, we need to reduce consumption of these wild animals," said Diana Bell, a wildlife disease and conservation biologist at University of East Anglia who has studied Sars, Ebola and other pathogens.

"But, 17 years on [from Sars], apparently that hasn't happened."

Wild-meat consumption itself is not necessarily dangerous — most viruses die once their host is killed.

But pathogens can jump to humans during the capture, transportation, or slaughter of animals, especially if sanitation is poor or protective equipment not used.

On Thursday, the southern province of Guangdong, a centre of rare-species consumption, said it was immediately halting trade in wild animals.

Similar promises were made following Sars, yet conservationists say the trade continues, aided by loophole-riddled Chinese laws regarding many species, and episodic or just plain lax enforcement.

Chinese authorities have addressed the problem partly by encouraging a farmed-animal industry.

This has included for endangered species like tigers, whose parts are prized in China and other Asian countries as aphrodisiacs or for other uses.

But that comes with its own downside, by providing a channel for more sought-after wild-caught beasts to be laundered as "farmed," Ms Bell said.

She adds that wildlife traders also have become more savvy, avoiding market scrutiny by selling directly to restaurants.

'Difficult to stop'

Environmental groups say Chinese demand, fuelled by rising consumer buying power, is the biggest driver of the global bushmeat trade today.

Some rare species have been prized in China as delicacies or for unproved health benefits since ancient times.

Traditionally, a host gains "face" by serving guests or business partners expensive, hard-to-acquire wild fare.

Yang Zhanqiu, a pathogen biologist at Wuhan University, said modern demand also is bolstered by widespread distrust of a Chinese food industry tarnished by years of repeated safety scandals.

"People will think: wild is natural, natural is safe," Mr Yang said.

"Everyone wants to eat better, so there is a market for wild animals."

Mr Daszak said "it's very difficult to stop an activity with 5,000 years of cultural significance."

But recent surveys strongly indicate that China's younger generation — swayed partly by animal-rights campaigns involving popular Chinese celebrities — are much less inclined to tuck into bat, rat, or salamander, he added.

"I think that in 50 years this will be a thing of the past," Mr Daszak said.

"The problem is that we live in such an interconnected world today that any pandemic like this can spread globally in three weeks.

"The new normal is that pandemics are going to happen more frequently," he said.

"We are making contact with animals that carry these viruses more, and more, and more."

Viruses are a natural part of the environment, and not all are the stuff of sci-fi horror.

But the recent track record of animal-hosted viruses that "jump" to humans is sobering.

Like Sars, which killed hundreds in China and Hong Kong in 2002-03, Ebola also was traced to bats, while HIV has roots in African primates.

Today, more than 60% of new emerging human infectious diseases reach us via animals, scientists say.

Even familiar menu items like poultry and cattle — whose pathogens we have largely adapted to over millennia — occasionally throw a curveball, like bird flu or mad-cow disease.

"For the sake of these wild species' future, and for human health, we need to reduce consumption of these wild animals," said Diana Bell, a wildlife disease and conservation biologist at University of East Anglia who has studied Sars, Ebola and other pathogens.

"But, 17 years on [from Sars], apparently that hasn't happened."

Wild-meat consumption itself is not necessarily dangerous — most viruses die once their host is killed.

But pathogens can jump to humans during the capture, transportation, or slaughter of animals, especially if sanitation is poor or protective equipment not used.

On Thursday, the southern province of Guangdong, a centre of rare-species consumption, said it was immediately halting trade in wild animals.

Similar promises were made following Sars, yet conservationists say the trade continues, aided by loophole-riddled Chinese laws regarding many species, and episodic or just plain lax enforcement.

Chinese authorities have addressed the problem partly by encouraging a farmed-animal industry.

This has included for endangered species like tigers, whose parts are prized in China and other Asian countries as aphrodisiacs or for other uses.

But that comes with its own downside, by providing a channel for more sought-after wild-caught beasts to be laundered as "farmed," Ms Bell said.

She adds that wildlife traders also have become more savvy, avoiding market scrutiny by selling directly to restaurants.

'Difficult to stop'

Environmental groups say Chinese demand, fuelled by rising consumer buying power, is the biggest driver of the global bushmeat trade today.

Some rare species have been prized in China as delicacies or for unproved health benefits since ancient times.

Traditionally, a host gains "face" by serving guests or business partners expensive, hard-to-acquire wild fare.

Yang Zhanqiu, a pathogen biologist at Wuhan University, said modern demand also is bolstered by widespread distrust of a Chinese food industry tarnished by years of repeated safety scandals.

"People will think: wild is natural, natural is safe," Mr Yang said.

"Everyone wants to eat better, so there is a market for wild animals."

Mr Daszak said "it's very difficult to stop an activity with 5,000 years of cultural significance."

But recent surveys strongly indicate that China's younger generation — swayed partly by animal-rights campaigns involving popular Chinese celebrities — are much less inclined to tuck into bat, rat, or salamander, he added.

"I think that in 50 years this will be a thing of the past," Mr Daszak said.

"The problem is that we live in such an interconnected world today that any pandemic like this can spread globally in three weeks.

 

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1844024/expert-chinas-animal-trade-to-bring-more-outbreaks?fbclid=IwAR0fMCelbjwjtAVWhYn-EGAX8UheZ5cW0mrpXlrmzfwAksHVWQvEx-X9tK4#cxrecs_s

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15 hours ago, Flashermac said:

he knew that spies had been planted in all of his classes. He dared not say anything the CP didn't approve of. I image it's about the same in N Korea.

I've been to meetings in Laos where "representatives" of the Govt sat at the back and took notes. As it happened, at one meeting the presenter slapped the Govt for not doing enough for tourism and the whole room, me included stiffened and went silent. (no not the Soi Cowboy stiffening)

 

15 hours ago, Flashermac said:

p.s. I am totally puzzled by the presence of the U.S. Peace Corps in the PRC. WTF? The Peace Corps was intended to help third world countries, not a world power house like the PRC.  :doah:

I don't know, but the world power house thing, might be the shop front, the back might be the same old stinking sewer.

 

7 hours ago, Flashermac said:

But recent surveys strongly indicate that China's younger generation — swayed partly by animal-rights campaigns involving popular Chinese celebrities — are much less inclined to tuck into bat, rat, or salamander,

Following on from my previous comment, they might not have much of a choice, if the economy goes belly up, can't eat bitcoin.

 

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