Restore America’s Commercial Sea Power: Christopher R. O’Dea, National Review, Apr. 2, 2020
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Fauci: No Scientific Evidence the Coronavirus Was Made in a Chinese Lab
Nsikan Akpan and Victoria Jaggard
National Geographic, May 4, 2020Anthony “Tony” Fauci has become the scientific face of America’s COVID-19 response, and he says the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China.
Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shot down the discussion that has been raging among politicians and pundits, calling it “a circular argument” in a conversation Monday with National Geographic. “If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” Fauci says. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn’t entertain an alternate theory—that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.
Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, listens as President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Thursday, April 9, 2020, in Washington.
Fauci is most concerned that the United States will be put to the test this fall and winter by a second wave of COVID-19 if the country does not blunt the infection rate by the summer. “Shame on us if we don’t have enough tests by the time this so-called return might occur in the fall and winter,” he says, advising that the U.S. needs to make sure we not only have an adequate supply of tests available before a second wave hits, but also a system for getting those tests to the people who most need them.
“I don’t think there’s a chance that this virus is just going to disappear,” he says. “It’s going to be around, and if given the opportunity, it will resurge.” As such, Fauci says the U.S. should also focus this summer on properly reinforcing the nation’s health care system, ensuring the availability of hospital beds, ventilators, and personal protective equipment for health care workers.
He also stressed the importance of continuing to social distance everywhere until the case counts start to fall in cities and states. The U.S. witnessed about 20,000 to 30,000 new cases every day in the month of April, suggesting the country is stuck in its peak.
Still, he remains optimistic that a vaccine will be ready within an historically short time frame, citing one promising candidate that he thinks may move into advanced clinical trials by the early summer. Fauci has said that he thinks a final vaccine could be available for general use as early as January, which would break records for the speed at which previous vaccines were developed.
One reason for his confidence is the “impressive” results being seen now in animals tested with a vaccine candidate made by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna Therapeutics, which brought it into human trials in a record 42 days. The candidate is what is known as an mRNA vaccine—a drug that uses snippets of a virus’s genetic material—rather than the dead or weakened virus itself—to build the proteins that trigger the body’s protective immune response.
To date, no type of mRNA vaccine has been licensed for use in humans, but Fauci believes there is great promise for this technology targeting the coronavirus, based in part on his experience developing treatments for HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and ‘90s. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Leaked Western Intel Dossier Reveals How China Deceived the World About Coronavirus
Nick Givas, Samuel Chamberlain
Fox News, May 2, 2020
A research dossier compiled by the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance states that China intentionally hid or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak, leading to the loss of tens of thousands of lives around the world
The 15-page document from the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, was obtained by Australia’s Saturday Telegraph newspaper and states that China’s secrecy amounted to an “assault on international transparency.”
TIMELINE OF CHINA’S POSSIBLE CORONAVIRUS COVER-UP
The dossier touches on themes that have been discussed in media reports about the outbreak of the virus, including an initial denial by China that the virus could be transmitted between humans, the silencing or “disappearing” of doctors who tried to speak up, the destruction of evidence in laboratories and refusal to provide live samples to international scientists working on a vaccine.
Specifically, the file notes that China began censoring news of the virus on search engines and social media beginning Dec. 31, deleting terms including “SARS variation,” “Wuhan Seafood market” and “Wuhan Unknown Pneumonia.”
Three days later, on Jan. 3, China’s National Health Commission ordered virus samples to be either moved to designated testing facilities or destroyed, while simultaneously issuing a “no-publication order” related to the disease.
The Saturday Telegraph report includes a timeline of Chinese obfuscation. On Jan. 5, for example, Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission stopped releasing daily updates on the number of new cases and would not resume them for 13 days. On Jan. 10, Wang Guanga, a respiratory specialist at Peking University First Hospital who had been investigating the outbreak, said it was “under control” and largely a “mild condition.” (Wang himself would disclose 12 days later that he had been infected with the virus.)
Two days later, on Jan. 12, a Shanghai professor’s lab was closed down after it shared data on the virus’ genetic sequence with the outside world. On Jan. 24, Chinese officials stopped the Wuhan Institute of Virology from sharing virus samples with a lab at the University of Texas.
Perhaps most damningly, the dossier states that Chinese authorities denied that the virus could be spread between humans until Jan. 20, “despite evidence of human-human transmission from early December.”
The file is similarly unsparing about the World Health Organization (WHO), stating that it toed the Chinese line about human-to-human transmission despite the fact that “officials in Taiwan raised concerns as early as December 31, as did experts in Hong Kong on January 4.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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With Angry Words around the World, China Uses COVID-19 Pandemic to Take on Superpower Mantle
Nathan Vanderklipp
Globe and Mail, Apr. 30, 2020
Weeks of battles between China and Western countries has brought intemperate language, pointed metaphors, at least one quotation from Mao Zedong – and a clearer glimpse into the ways Beijing is using a worldwide pandemic to bolster its efforts to assert a new place of global importance.
Chinese diplomats, senior Communist Party officials and state media have lashed out at Australia, France, the Netherlands and the United States, in a sustained assault that has underscored an important change to how Chinese leadership sees its place in the world. As one striking example, Chinese diplomats demanded that at least one country publicly rededicate itself to the “one-China principle” – under which Beijing asserts ownership over Taiwan – if it wanted the smooth procurement of masks and other protective equipment from China, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The country refused the Chinese demand. The Globe and Mail granted the person anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
No longer is Beijing acting like an emergent country. It is asserting itself as a rival superpower, and making demands befitting the role it has assumed. “Any notion that China was a rising power has been superseded by the fact that they have risen,” said Jane Golley, director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University.
But it’s an ascension undergirded by anger at perceived historical humiliations against China over the past century. “They firmly believe the time is right for China to take revenge, and America and the West is in decline,” said Feng Chongyi, a scholar at Australia’s University of Technology Sydney who studies contemporary Chinese history. And so, “whoever offends China will be punished.”
The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic from China to the rest of the world – and the ensuing recriminations – have intensified that conflict. So, too, has Beijing’s confidence that it has more capably handled the outbreak than Western democracies, despite accusations of an initial cover-up. It’s a confidence that has turned strident in recent weeks. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Restore America’s Commercial Sea Power
Christopher R. O’Dea
National Review, Apr. 2, 2020
While many in the U.S. and the West shelter in place hoping that warmer spring weather will slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, China is planning its own Spring Offensive.
China sees an opportunity to exploit the fear and carnage of the outbreak to strengthen its hold over global supply chains — and the medical-equipment and pharmaceuticals sector is the next industry in China’s sights.
It’s a bold move, but a deeper look reveals the fundamental weakness in China’s dominant position in global logistics and points to two strategic opportunities for the U.S. The first is to bring supply chains for vital medical, pharmaceutical, and technology products and rare-earth minerals back home to the United States. The second is to cripple the Chinese commercial maritime network that has allowed the Chinese Communist Party to sit atop a global supply system like a puppet master pulling the strings of commerce from Wuhan to Westchester.
China’s game plan is to pit large companies and financial investors against Western populations. Leading Chinese business schools and the creator of China’s top state-owned cement company believe that large U.S. companies and investors can be persuaded to increase foreign investment for the production of pharmaceutical and medical supplies in China. The calculus is that China will be more successful at keeping companies in China by appealing to the financial motives of those that are already invested there than it would be by opposing anti-globalization political constituencies that want companies to move manufacturing out of China.
It’s the latest application of the predatory economic and financial strategy that China has long used to gain dominance over almost every industry it has targeted, to coerce developing nations into accepting Chinese loans in exchange for giving mineral rights to China, and to pressure developed countries such as Italy and Greece to turn their historic harbors into ports for China’s global maritime empire. But China’s pharma gambit may be too little, too late. The political tide China is hoping to sidestep by appealing to the financial motives of U.S.-based multinationals is turning against the country now that American consumers, their homes brimming with Chinese-produced electronics, realize the full cost of moving so many critical domestic manufacturing jobs to Communist territory. Americans now understand the urgency of moving production of vital goods back to the United States. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:
Five Eyes Intelligence Indicates Novel Coronavirus Likely Did Not Originate In Chinese Lab: Alex Marquardt, Kylie Atwood and Zachary Cohen, CTV News, May 5, 2020 — Intelligence shared among Five Eyes nations indicates it is “highly unlikely” that the coronavirus outbreak was spread as a result of an accident in a laboratory but rather originated in a Chinese market, according to two Western officials who cited an intelligence assessment that appears to contradict claims by U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Inside Wuhan’s Virus Lab: Roland Oliphant, Nicola Smith, and Henry Samuel, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, May 2, 2020 — A state-of-the art facility purpose-built to handle research into the world’s most deadly pathogens, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), played a crucial role in identifying the virus now known as COVID-19.
Will Canada’s See-No-Evil China Policy End?: Raymond de Souza, National Post, May 2, 2020 — The Chinese communist regime has demonstrated in recent months that, at the very least, it is not a reliable partner on matters of life and death. Its lies, coverup and inaction have been, in fact, a danger to global health and well-being. That is not in dispute from any reasonable quarter in relation to the pandemic.
China is Exploiting the Coronavirus Chaos to Advance its Agenda: Claudia Rosett, The Dallas Morning News, May 3, 2020 — China’s dictator, President Xi Jinping, aspires to transform his country into the world’s supreme power, a goal he calls “the China Dream.”
WATCH: The CCP Method: Chinese Communist Party’s Global Agenda: Epoch Times, Apr. 27, 2020 — LEARN WHY the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie to protect its regime, and how it has been attempting to deceive, infiltrate, and dominate the world.
Conrad Black: Canada Needs a Much Better CBC: Conrad Black, National Post, May 1, 2020 — Canada has surely outgrown the present CBC. [Black criticizes what he claims are the CBC’s unwarranted attacks on The Epoch Times.]
