|
10-MAY-2020 :: #COVID19 and the Spillover Moment Africa |
''They fancied themselves free'' wrote Camus, ―''and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences'' ―In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions We are trending in the 80,000-100,000 #COVID cases a day now. We have crossed 4,000,000 cases. The Winners are easy to see @balajis https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1257159480816488448?s=20 Developed World ex US has bent the Curve The European Trend is down now May 6 In Europe, the number of daily cases is decreasing... @RemiGMI https://twitter.com/RemiGMI/status/1258021362762948609?s=20 We are witnessing a Spill Over into EM and Frontier Geographies ―Brazil is the global epicenter of the coronavirus. In Brazil we have a toxic mix of a „‟Voodoo‟‟ President @jairbolsonaro and a runaway #COVID19 Brazilians aren‘t infected by anything, even when they fall into a sewer “It‟s tragic surrealism ... I can‟t stop thinking about Gabriel García Márquez when I think about the situation Manaus is facing.” Guardian Bolsonaro rides jet ski while Brazil's COVID-19 death toll tops 10,000 EFE https://j.mp/35O1o0o The South American country with a population of 210 million reached 10,627 deaths after 730 fatalities were recorded overnight, while cases stood at 155,939. Viruses are in essence non linear exponential and multiplicative and COVID19 has „‟escape velocity‟‟ in Brazil. Brazil Real touched a Record Low of 5.884 May 7th Brazil is a real time Laboratory experiment and the African @jairbolsonaro is of course @MagufuliJP According to the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Tanzania has conducted just 652 tests (as of 7 May). This compares to over 26,000 tests conducted in Kenya and nearly 45,000 in Uganda. BRICS ex China is accelerating – covid 19 tracker list. @ vivekmoffical https://twitter.com/vivekmoffical/status/1259318696784396288?s=20 #COVID19 Stephen B. Streater @video4me https://twitter.com/video4me Hot countries up. >10%: Mayotte93 >5%: Russia5 Brazil8 Mexico18 Pakistan21 Qatar28 Dominican Republic43 South Africa44 Egypt45 Kuwait49 Bahrain58 Ghana59 Nigeria60 Afghanistan61 Azerbaijan69 Bolivia72 Senegal82 Somalia92 DRC94 Guatemala97 now: >10%: Ghana59, Honduras80, Sudan89 >5%: Russia5, Brazil8, Peru13, India14, Mexico19, Pakistan22, Chile23, Qatar28, Bangladesh36, Colombia41, South Africa44, Egypt45, Kuwait49, Kazakhstan56, Bahrain58, Nigeria60, Afghanistan62, Bolivia73 Coronavirus: @WHO warns of 190,000 deaths in Africa @TheAfricaReport WHO warns that the coronavirus pandemic could 'smoulder' in Africa for several years Should the various lockdowns currently being eased in many African countries fail to ̳bend the curve‘, between 29m – 44m Africans risk being infected, with deaths potentially reaching 190,000. The WHO believe that transmissions will likely be slower — because of Africa‘s age pyramid, and social and environmental factors — the pandemic risks lasting for far longer. ―While COVID-19 likely won‘t spread as exponentially in Africa as it has elsewhere in the world, it likely will smoulder in transmission hotspots,‖ said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa. “COVID-19 could become a fixture in our lives for the next several years unless a proactive approach is taken by many governments in the region. We need to test, trace, isolate and treat.” Over 56,000 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent - with more than 19,100 associated recoveries & 2,100 deaths. https://twitter.com/WHOAFRO/status/1259109368416649221?s=20 The worrying development is Transmission Hotspots Kano in Nigeria for example • Western Cape growing at an alarming rate @sugan250388 https://twitter.com/sugan250388/status/1259178779727015942 Someone with close knowledge of the medical profession said it was almost impossible to secure a hospital bed in several cities. The Aga Khan hospital in Dar es Salaam had a well-equipped ward for 80 coronavirus patients, but several were dying each night, he said. The Question for SSA is whether these Transmission Hot Spots expand and conflate? America lost so many jobs in April that we could barely fit the numbers in this chart of historic downturns (and that includes all of the Great Recession) https://twitter.com/businessinsider/status/1259141875115667463?s=20 Unemployment Rate versus Stocks https://twitter.com/TaviCosta/status/1258807948102389772?s=20 Last week for a moment The FED FUNDS rates went negative for June 2021 which is a remarkable and never seen before thing. We are in the realms of Behavourial Economics. I had a clinically “mild” case for 8+ weeks. There was nothing mild about it. @ ElissaBeth https://twitter.com/ElissaBeth/status/1259301645776805890?s=20 For example Tourism – I believe it is stopped out through Q4 2021 Business Travel is Toast. Tourism dependency globally (top 25 most dependent). @Trinhnomics DEUTSCHE: Our global forecast "has turned decidedly gloomier .. [M]uch of the world has struggled mightily with the virus and the economic fallout. .. we now see global GDP falling 10% in Q2 and remaining well below pre-virus levels through most of next year. What‘s certain is that the whole global economy has been hit by an insidious, literally invisible circuit breaker. #COVID19 https://bit.ly/2WD1tl0 The US Stock Market has rebounded mightily but this is a Venezuela or a Zimbabwe Trade, as it were H/T @Adammancini4 Its all about the Print Shop [Scott Burke] Some Folks dived into BITCOIN which topped $10,000.00 on Friday Take Your Pick Paul Tudor Jones “The best profit-maximizing strategy is to own the fastest horse,” Jones, the founder and chief executive officer of Tudor Investment Corp., said in a market outlook note he entitled „The Great Monetary Inflation.‟ “If I am forced to forecast, my bet is it will be Bitcoin.” Jones, who said his Tudor BVI fund may hold as much as a low single-digit percentage of its assets in Bitcoin futures, becomes one of the first big hedge fund managers to embrace what until now has largely been snubbed by the financial mainstream. .@Nouriel Roubini https://twitter.com/Nouriel/status/1259290961336827904 Bitcoin crashes by 15% in 7 minutes on NO news: a rigged, totally manipulated, whales- controlled market where most transactions (90%) volumes are false as exchanges pretend to have liquidity they don't have. Massive pump & dump, spoofing, front running, wash trading! Total Scam! Crude Oil rebounded Will it last? Of course it won’t. But where will it stall? The drop in worldwide oil consumption in April has been put as high as 35 million barrels a day https://j.mp/3feQGUN Population Density the whole of Africa @undertheraedar Africa will go Juche Juche (Korean: 주체/主體, lit. 'subject'; Korean pronunciation: [tɕutɕhe]; usually left untranslated or translated as "self-reliance") is the official ideology of North Korea described by the government as "Kim Il-sung's original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought". The IMF has put some money to work but It is a Band Aid biggest African recipients of the #IMF's emergency #coronavirus funding Amid the #COVID19 shock, lower commodity prices and regional dependence on tourism & #remittances will push current accounts in most Sub-Saharan African countries to deficit in 2020. @IIF https://twitter.com/IIF/status/1258052709510496256?s=20 The Outliers are rolling over ZAMBIA On the brink of sovereign default @Africa_Conf https://j.mp/2Lj65Wc The government is getting no help from the IMF because it won't stop borrowing unsustainably and covertly After stopping payments on several commercial loans this year, Zambia is set to default on its US$3 billion Eurobonds, now trading at 'distressed debt' levels, with yields over 50%, Africa Confidential has learned. Ratings Agencies are throwing in the Towel. Another devaluation looms as Naira depreciates at forwards market, now N570 to $1 @nairametrics Nigeria‟s 5 years onshore Non-Deliverable forward contract posted its biggest drop by plunging 27% from N413.36 to close at N569.69 a price differential of N156. The 1-year Non-Deliverable forward contract was down 5% from N394.29 to close at N421.22 a price differential of N26.93. Regime Implosion risk in SSA is trending higher.
Home Thoughts
|
read more |
|
Flying during a pandemic turned out to be more stressful—and surreal—than I’d planned for. @TheAtlantic Africa |
The scenes played out like a postapocalyptic movie: Paranoid travelers roamed the empty terminals in masks, eyeing one another warily as they misted themselves with disinfectant. Dystopian public-service announcements echoed through the airport—“This is a message from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...” Even the smallest, most routine tasks—such as dealing with the touch-screen ticketing kiosk—felt infused with danger. My first flight was so empty that the pilot warned we would experience “a very rapid acceleration for takeoff.” The plane leapt into the sky and my stomach dropped. I spent much of the flight using my baggie of Lysol wipes to scrub and re-scrub every surface within reach.
|
read more |
|
The Hot Zone Africa |
The Hot Zone captures the terrifying true story of an Ebola outbreak that made its way from the jungles of Africa to a research lab just outside of Washington, D.C. In the excerpt below, author Richard Preston describes the symptoms of this deadly virus as they appeared in one of its first known human victims. The headache begins, typically, on the seventh day after exposure to the agent. On the seventh day after his New Year’s visit to Kitum cave-January 8, 1980-Monet felt a throbbing pain behind his eyeballs. He decided to stay home from work and went to bed in his bungalow. The headache grew worse. His eyeballs ached, and then his temples began to ache, the pain seeming to circle around inside his head. It would not go away with aspirin, and then he got a severe backache. His housekeeper, Johnnie, was still on her Christmas vacation, and he had recently hired a temporary housekeeper. She tried to take care of him, but she really didn’t know what to do. Then, on the third day after his headache started, he became nauseated, spiked a fever, and began to vomit. His vomiting grew intense and turned into dry heaves. At the same time, he became strangely passive. His face lost all appearance of life and set itself into an expressionless mask, with the eyeballs fixed, paralytic, and staring. The eyelids were slightly droopy, which gave him a peculiar appearance, as if his eyes were popping out of his head and half closed at the same time. The eyeballs themselves seemed almost frozen in their sockets, and they turned bright red. The skin of his face turned yellowish, with a brilliant starlike red speckles. He began to look like a zombie. His appearance frightened the temporary housekeeper. She didn’t understand the transformation in this man. His personality changed. He became sullen, resentful, angry, and his memory seemed to be blown away. He was not delirious. He could answer questions, although he didn’t seem to know exactly where he was. When Monet failed to show up for work, his colleagues began to wonder about him, and eventually they went to his bungalow to see if he was all right. The black-and-white crow sat on the roof and watched them as they went inside. They looked at Monet and decided that he needed to get to a hospital. Since he was very unwell and no longer able to drive a car, one of his co-workers drove him to a private hospital in the city of Kisumu, on the shore of Lake Victoria. The doctors at the hospital examined Monet, and could not come up with any explanation for what had happened to his eyes or his face or his mind. Thinking that he might have some kind of bacterial infection, they gave him injections of antibiotics, but the antibiotics had no effect on his illness. The doctors thought he should go to Nairobi Hospital, which is the best private hospital in East Africa. The telephone system hardly worked, and it did not seem worth the effort to call any doctors to tell them that he was coming. He could still walk, and he seemed able to travel by himself. He had money; he understood he had to get to Nairobi. They put him in a taxi to the airport, and he boarded a Kenya Airways flight. A hot virus from the rain forest lives within a twenty-four hour plane flight from every city on earth. All of the earth’s cities are connected by a web of airline routes. The web is a network. Once a virus hits the net, it can shoot anywhere in a day: Paris, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, wherever planes fly. Charles Monet and the life form inside him had entered the net. The plane was a Fokker Friendship with propellers, a commuter aircraft that seats thirty-five people. It started its engines and took off over Lake Victoria, blue and sparkling, dotted with the dugout canoes of fishermen. The Friendship turned and banked eastward, climbing over green hills quilted with tea plantations and small farms. The commuter flights that drone across Africa are often jammed with people, and this flight was probably full. The plane climbed over belts of forest and clusters of round huts and villages with tin roofs. The land suddenly dropped away, going down in shelves and ravines, and changed in color from green to brown. The plane was crossing the Eastern rift valley. The passengers looked out the windows at the place where the human species was born. They say specks of huts clustered inside circles of thornbush, with cattle trails radiating from the huts. The propellers moaned, and the friendship passed through cloud streets, lines of puffy rift clouds, and began to bounce and sway. Monet became airsick. The seats are narrow and jammed together on these commuter airplanes, and you notice everything that is happening inside the cabin. The cabin is tightly closed, and the air recirculates. If there are any smells in the air, you perceive them. You would not have been able to ignore the man who was getting sick. He hunches over in his seat. There is something wrong with him, but you can’t tell exactly what is happening. He is holding an airsickness bag over his mouth. He coughs a deep cough and regurgitates something into the bag. The bag swells up. Perhaps he glances around, and then you see that his lips are smeared with something slippery and red, mixed with black specks, as if he has been chewing coffee grounds. His eyes are the color of rubies, and his face is an expressionless mass of bruises. The red spots, which a few days before had started out as star-like speckles, have expanded and merged into huge, spontaneous purple shadows: his whole head is turning black-and-blue. The muscles of his face droop. The connective tissue in his face is dissolving, and his face appears to hang from the underlying bone, as if the face is detaching itself from the skull. He opens his mouth and gasps into the bag, and the vomiting goes on endlessly. It will not stop, and he keeps bringing up liquid, long after his stomach should have been empty. The airsickness bag fills up to the brim with a substance know as the vomito negro, or the black vomit. The black vomit is not really black; it is a speckled liquid of two colors, black and red, a stew of tarry granules mixed with fresh red arterial blood. It is hemorrhage, and it smells like a slaughterhouse. The black vomit is loaded with virus. It is highly infective, lethally hot, a liquid that would scare the daylights out of a military biohazard specialist. The smell of the vomito negro fills the passenger cabin. The airsickness bag is brimming with black vomit, so Monet closes the bag and rolls up the top. The bag is bulging and softening threatening to leak, and he hands it to a flight attendant. When a hot virus multiplies in a host, it can saturate the body with virus particles, from the brain to the skin. The military experts then say that the virus has undergone "extreme amplification." This is not something like the common cold. By the time an extreme amplification peaks out, an eyedropper of the victim’s blood may contain a hundred million particles. In other words, the host is possessed by a life form that is attempting to convert the host into itself. The transformation is not entirely successful, however, and the end result is a great deal of liquefying flesh mixed with virus, a kind of biological accident. Extreme amplification has occurred in Monet, and the sign of it is the black vomit. He appears to be holding himself rigid, as if any movement would rupture something inside him. His blood is clotting up and his bloodstream is throwing clots, and the clots are lodging everywhere. His liver, kidneys, lungs, hands, feet, and head are becoming jammed with blood clots. In effect, he is having a stroke through the whole body. Clots are accumulating in his intestinal muscles, cutting off the blood supply to his intestines. The intestinal muscles are beginning to die, and the intestines are starting to go slack. He doesn’t seem to be fully aware of pain any longer because the blood clots lodged in his brain are cutting off blood flow. His personality is being wiped away by brain damage. This is called depersonalization, in which the liveliness and details of character seem to vanish. He is becoming an automaton. Tiny spots in his brain are liquefying. The higher functions of consciousness are winking out first, leaving the deeper parts of the brain stem (the primitive rat brain, the lizard brain) still alive and functioning. It could be said that the who of Charles Monet has already died while the what of Charles Monet continues to live. The vomiting attack appears to have broken some blood vessels in his nose and he gets a nosebleed. The blood comes from both nostrils, a shining, clotless, arterial liquid that drips over his teeth and chin. This blood keeps running, because the clotting factors have been used up. A flight attendant gives him some paper towels, which he uses to stop up his nose, but the blood still won’t coagulate, and the towels soak through. When a man is ill in an airline seat next to you, you may not want to embarrass him by calling attention to the problem. You say to yourself that this man will be all right. Maybe he doesn’t travel well in airplanes. He is airsick, the poor man, and people do get nosebleeds in airplanes, the air is so dry and thin. . . and you ask him, weakly, if there is anything you can do to help. He does not answer, or he mumbles words you can’t understand, so you try to ignore it, but the flight seems to go on forever. Perhaps the flight attendants offer to help him. But victims of this type of hot virus have changes in behavior that can render them incapable of responding to an offer of help. They become hostile, and don’t want to be touched. They don’t want to speak.. They answer questions with grunts or monosyllables. They can’t seem to find words. They can tell you their name, but they can’t tell you the day of the week or explain what has happened to them. Excerpted from The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Copyright 2002 by Richard Preston. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Political Reflections
|
read more |
|
US and UK intelligence agencies 'examining report on mobile phone data at Wuhan laboratory' @Telegraph Law & Politics |
US and British intelligence agencies are reportedly examining mobile phone data suggesting there could have been an emergency shutdown in October at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to a report, obtained by NBC News, there was no mobile phone activity in a high-security part of the Chinese laboratory complex from Oct 7 to Oct 24. Previously, there had been consistent use of mobile phones. The report, carried out by private experts, suggested there may have been a "hazardous event," specifically at the institute's National Biosafety Laboratory, between Oct 6 and Oct 11. Analysis of mobile phone data from the area surrounding the institute also suggested roadblocks were in place between Oct 14 and Oct 19. Experts urged caution over the report, suggesting it may be based on only limited commercially available mobile phone data, and that there could be other reasons for varying levels of phone usage. However, the document could be what Donald Trump was referring to when the president recently said he had seen evidence giving him a "high degree of confidence" the pandemic began accidentally at the Wuhan laboratory. The prevailing theory is that the virus originated in bats and crossed over to humans at a market in Wuhan. But US intelligence agencies continue to investigate the Wuhan laboratory and Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, has said there is a "significant amount of evidence". It was unclear which private organisation carried out the leaked analysis of the mobile phone location data. But the 24-page report suggested it "supports the release of Covid-19 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology" and that the pandemic began earlier than previously thought. The first confirmed case so far in China was on Nov 17. The document was obtained by NBC News in London. In addition to intelligence agencies it has been seen by the US Senate intelligence committee. Several days ago Marco Rubio, the Republican senator who sits on the committee, wrote on Twitter: "Would be interesting if someone analyzed commercial telemetry data at & near Wuhan lab from Oct-Dec 2019. "If it shows dramatic drop off in activity compared to previous 18 months it would be a strong indication of an incident at lab & of when it happened." China has denied that the virus escaped from the Wuhan laboratory. US officials said they had previously looked at other reports, also based on publicly available mobile phone data, suggesting a shutdown at the Wuhan laboratory. They went on to examine their own data, including satellite images, and could not establish that there had been a temporary closure at the Wuhan lab, deciding that the suggestion was "inconclusive".
|
read more |
|
德情報局揭秘:習近平親自要求譚德塞壓下疫情訊息 Law & Politics |
中央社〕國際追究武漢肺炎疫情責任的聲浪不斷,德國情報單位指出,中國國家主席習近平親自要求世衛秘書長譚德塞淡化疫情的嚴重性,中國的隱匿造成全球至少損失一個月的時間抗疫。 (Central News Agency) There has been a continuing wave of international accountability for Wuhan ’s pneumonia epidemic. The German intelligence unit pointed out that Chinese President Xi Jinping personally requested WHO Secretary-General Tan Desai to downplay the severity of the epidemic. China ’s concealment has caused the world to lose at least one month to fight the epidemic. 最新一期「明鏡周刊」(Der Spiegel)報導,根據德國聯邦情報局(BND)情資,中國國家主席習近平1月21日與世界衛生組織(WHO)秘書長譚德塞(Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus)通話時,要求世衛不要發布病毒人傳人的訊息和延後全球大流行的警告。 In the latest issue of Der Spiegel, according to the German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND), Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Secretary General of the World Health Organization (WHO), on January 21 At that time, the World Health Organization was asked not to publish messages from virus-to-human and to postpone a global pandemic warning. 結果世衛沈默多天,直到1月底才宣布2019冠狀病毒疾病(COVID-19)是「國際關注的公共衛生緊急事件」。 As a result, the WHO was silent for many days, and it was not until the end of January that the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a "public health emergency of international concern." The report pointed out that Western countries generally believe that if it is not for China to conceal the information, the epidemic will be much easier to control. The German Federal Intelligence Agency concluded that due to the Beijing blockade, the world has lost 4 to 6 weeks of time to fight the virus.
|
read more |
|
Wuhan Denialism Dismissing the possibility that COVID-19 escaped from a lab in China as ‘a conspiracy theory’ is bad science @KhaledATalaat Law & Politics |
The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has infected at least 3 million people worldwide and 1 million people in the United States alone. The debate surrounding the origin and source of the virus has heated up with many accusing the opposite side of rejecting scientific evidence. It is more important now than ever to understand the difference between scientific skepticism and a conspiracy theory. The term conspiracy theory is often used to suggest that an explanation is an implausible hypothesis or is anti-scientific. Yet the existence of bad actors or a cover-up in a hypothesis isn’t enough to constitute a conspiracy theory. Take the Iranian nuclear program as an example. Is it a conspiracy theory to consider that the Iranian pursuit of nuclear energy or uranium enrichment is motivated by nuclear weapon capability ambitions? It’s a fact that there are bad actors in the world—and that individuals and states alike often lie about their actions and aims in order to advance what they understand to be their own self-interest. Take India’s so-called peaceful nuclear explosion in 1974 as an example. India took advantage of the Atoms for Peace program and used the information provided by the United States and Canada as well as the CIRUS research reactor to develop its nuclear weapons program. Even more interestingly, they declared that their nuclear weapons were intended for civil applications such as large-scale excavation and not intended for military use. It is a fact that India now possesses a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. It’s no secret to anyone—and therefore not a conspiracy theory—that communism and other forms of totalitarian rule are built on a culture of secrecy. Communism necessitates a strong central government, and for a central government to maintain strong control over a country, it’s necessary for them to control information flow into, within, and out of the country. This involves both direct and indirect censorship of the media and internet—and often, more importantly, tight administrative controls that govern the transfer of information within the country. A good example from recent history is the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of the Soviet Union. Delays in reporting the initial nuclear explosion caused many fatalities that could have been avoided had the Soviets acted and evacuated early, which in turn motivated a Soviet attempt to cover up the true extent of the disaster to maintain a strong government image. Cover-ups don’t generally involve evil conspirators who try to hide some important truth with the primary aim of injuring large numbers of people. They often follow naturally from the structure and functioning of a state—or they can be rational if arguably selfish means of pursuing what a group of people understands to be matters of national self-interest, like ensuring adequate supplies of medicine and protective gear for one’s own citizens. Therefore, it’s not a conspiracy theory to consider the possibility of a cover-up relating to the origin and the source of COVID-19 in Wuhan, Hubei, China. In fact, there is good evidence of Chinese cover-ups from the beginning of the pandemic. There are certain elements that are usually present in conspiracy theories that are not present in a sound scientific hypothesis. Conspiracy theories often involve lack of physical connections. A good example of this is the 5G conspiracy theory in its different forms. Basic elementary school science education is enough to refute such a “theory,” which it is painful to even call a theory. A conspiracy theory may also be a bad and malicious hypothesis that is promoted despite available, reliable data directly proving that it can’t be true. One example of this is the false claim that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered to selectively infect non-Asians. Simple inspection of infection demographics in the United States refutes this hypothesis. While there are some differences in human ACE2 receptors among different races, the differences are not strong enough to provide immunity to a particular race or group especially as coronaviruses rapidly adapt and evolve into new strains. It is important to clarify, however, that not every false hypothesis is a conspiracy theory. For instance, some researchers pointed out the presence of HIV-like segments in the SARS-CoV-2 genome and claimed, based on an incomplete investigation, that it is evidence of intentional manipulation. The presence of HIV-like segments is an observation that is clearly explained by natural acquisition of those segments in a manner similar to that in related naturally occurring bat coronaviruses such as ZC45 and ZXC21, which contain similar segments. Conversely, there are elements that are present in a sound scientific hypothesis that are not present in a conspiracy theory. One such element is justification. Scientists can’t investigate every idea or hypothesis. Justifying a hypothesis is one of the most tedious steps in research. This process involves gathering evidence, demonstrating that the hypothesis is plausible, and clearly explaining the need for the work in the context of the ongoing scientific conversation. Assessing the plausibility of a particular hypothesis is important to justify investigating it. This, however, must be done in context of the effect in question. A stronger effect would justify investigating even less plausible hypotheses. On the other hand, justifying the need for the work can be as simple as explaining gaps in the knowledge or finding discrepancies and loopholes in published work that are significant enough to affect the conclusions. The hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 leaked out of a laboratory is, by scientific standards, a sound and a well-justified hypothesis. Media sources that claim to refute the lab source hypothesis often refer to the public comments of zoologist Peter Daszak, the flawed correspondence of Andersen et al., or the emotional Lancet letter in which some scientists basically expressed their support and compassion with their Chinese peers. While there are some virus hunters like Peter Daszak who assert zoonotic transfer and discount the possibility of a lab leak, there are also leading microbiologists like professor Richard Ebright who assert that a lab or lab-related accident is a possible cause of the outbreak. Notably, virus ecologists like Peter Daszak and Jonna Mazet have an inherent conflict of interest as they are involved in similar bat and wildlife sampling activity—and, in Daszak and Mazet’s case, in research with the Wuhan labs. As an example of such activity, Daszak and collaborators sampled 12,333 bats for viruses in a big wildlife surveillance project. A lab-related accident in China involving similar research would likely affect the funding for their work as it would demonstrate the risks involved. As it happens, the NIH recently cut the funding to Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance after realizing the risks involved in that research. Daszak’s relentless and heavily amplified public assertions that the outbreak must have originated due to a zoonotic jump, and his denial of the possibility of a lab accident involving a natural virus, even long before the SARS-CoV-2 genome was published, would appear to be motivated by the apparent conflict of interest that he has denied. Daszak’s denial of his conflict of interest raised concerns of many scientists and experts, with many explicitly describing that denial as a bold lie. Daszak has presented no direct evidence that the outbreak started as a result of a zoonotic jump outside of a laboratory. In case the outbreak is a result of a natural zoonotic jump, that would underscore the importance of Daszak’s risky wildlife sampling and “early outbreak warning” work and increase their research funding. It is important to consider conflicts of interest when assessing anyone’s claims. Daszak’s main argument is that the majority of viruses evolve in nature and some may be transmitted to humans through natural animal contact that is frequent in Southeast Asia. This argument, however, is meaningless unless we are trying to blindly throw bets without looking at any other factors. Daszak’s argument would be a very poor and mathematically flawed reason to call off investigations on the origin and source of the virus. Facts at the population level don’t make SARS-CoV-2 in particular any likelier to be natural in its origin or transmission source. To illustrate this with a simple mathematical example, suppose that we know from established statistics that an overwhelming 80% of the people in a particular small town are doctors. You enter a fish market in that town and see someone selling fish. Is it reasonable to say that there is an 80% probability that he is also a doctor? While there is a very small chance now that this person is also a doctor, we would need to look at the probability that someone in the town is both a doctor and a fishmonger if we wish to throw bets. If we wish to find out for certain, we could follow him, and research his background, and see if he is a doctor. Data and statistics are useful at the population level but not at the individual level, as that information could be obtained by direct measurement. At the individual level, population statistics translate into a probability if we blindly pick a random individual. If the individual isn’t really random, i.e., if we know some other information about them, the statistics we have on the population as a whole break down and become meaningless. Given that the 96.2% sequence match of bat RaTG13 and human SARS-CoV-2 is not enough to rule out even a chimeric origin, Andersen et al. analyzed the mutations in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 and compared features of its spike protein with that of bat RaTG13, pangolin coronavirus, human SARS-CoV, and two bat SARS-like coronaviruses. They highlighted two notable features in SARS-CoV-2, particularly the optimized binding of the spike protein of SARS CoV-2 to human ACE2 receptor and the existence of a functional polybasic site at the two subunits of the spike of nonobvious function that’s likely a result of natural mutations. Their analysis of the mutations showed that the so called RaTG13 couldn’t have been the backbone of SARS-CoV-2 had it been chimeric, with many unverified assumptions. However, after their brief and informative scientific endeavor, the authors then presented flawed arguments on the nature and source of the virus and conclusions that only reflect their beliefs and opinion. The approach they used to reach their conclusions is not sound for verification purposes, as it relies fundamentally on faith and trust. While trust is usual and healthy in academia, it’s not suitable for verification of lab accidents involving large-scale damage or potential WMD/dual use activity backed by a state. First, Andersen et al. don’t conduct independent sequencing of bat RaTG13 samples which were sampled in 2013 but only sequenced and uploaded to GenBank in 2020. Therefore, Andersen’s analysis is just an extension of the published work of Zhou et al. from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is one alleged source of a possible leak of the virus. Second, they assume that published information from a lab where a source is suspected is complete, and they don’t verify that bat RaTG13 is, indeed, the closest relative of human SARS-CoV-2 encountered by or known to the two labs where the origin or source is suspected. The conclusions of Andersen et al. on the nature of the virus almost all hinge on the assumption that they know all backbone viruses studied at the Wuhan lab, which reflects circular reasoning, given their sources and assumptions. The closest known virus to human SARS-CoV-2 and bat RaTG13 is bat BtCoV/4991—but only a partial sequence for the RdRp gene of BtCoV/4991 was uploaded to GenBank in 2016. It’s unclear if BtCoV/4991 is RaTG13 itself or a closer progenitor of SARS-CoV-2, because only a partial sequence was uploaded and BtCoV/4991 wasn’t referenced by Zhou et al. It’s unclear why it would be renamed. Third, as professor Richard Ebright had pointed out, the authors dismiss the possibility that bat RaTG13 is a proximate progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 based on unverified assumptions on the evolutionary rates and about the possibility of passage in cell culture or animal models. While Andersen et al. do briefly acknowledge the possibility of passage in cell culture, they go on to assumptively conclude that the virus is natural in both origin and source when in fact a closely related bat coronavirus could have adapted to human cells in cell culture experiments. Fourth, Andersen argued that discrepancies between the computational analysis work of one study they cited and experimental results is “strong evidence” of the absence of any purposeful manipulation of the virus. This argument should be dismissed as a reductionist fallacy, as it underestimates degrees of freedom and available types of computational analyses. Other scientists using molecular dynamics simulations showed that SARS-CoV-2 had a much higher binding affinity to human ACE2 receptors than SARS-CoV, with predictions in agreement with experiments. The fact that Andersen’s discussion is flawed doesn’t say anything about the nature or the source of the virus. It, however, shows that their work can’t be considered conclusive and justifies further study on the origin and source of the virus. There are many other reasons that justify investigating the Wuhan labs, and possibly even other labs in China that work with the same viruses. In particular, (a) the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in a highly populated city in central China like Wuhan and close to the Wuhan CDC; (b) the existence of two labs in Wuhan that extensively sample bats and study coronaviruses; (c) the relatively close relationship between the SARS-CoV-2 virus and bat RaTG13 or BtCoV/4991 that the researchers obtained from bats in a cave that is 1,200 miles away from Wuhan, which suggests that SARS-CoV-2 progenitors came from the same Yunnan caves; (d) the widespread use of cell culture experiments in infectious disease transmission experiments that can allow closely related viruses to adapt to human receptors; (e) the use of chimeric coronaviruses in civil research with different backbones—the lack of knowledge of the pre-outbreak collections of the Wuhan labs justifies international inspections, and the diversity of bat ACE2 receptors can also obscure the origin of the virus as the spike proteins of natural bat coronaviruses are very diverse; (f) evidence of lax security and knowledge that lab accidents aren’t improbable; (g) evidence that not all sampled viruses are sequenced and published—the full BtCoV/4991 sequence hasn’t been published and remains a mystery despite ~99% similarity of the known portion to SARS-CoV-2, while that of RaTG13 was sampled in 2013 and published in 2020. (The large similarity of the small partial sequence of BtCoV/4991 [published in 2016] with SARS-CoV2 is evidently what motivated the WIV to release the sequence of RaTG13 which matches the known portion of BtCoV/4991. It has not been independently verified that the sequence uploaded for bat RaTG13 is accurate); (h) the available data doesn’t suggest that closely related SARS-CoV-2-like bat relatives are common among bats in China but unique to bats from a particular Yunnan area; (i) the available data doesn’t support the wet market hypothesis which prompted some lab accident deniers to propose the alternative farm source hypothesis. The farm hypothesis is highly improbable as the bats that carry SARS-CoV-2-like coronaviruses are 1,200 miles away from Wuhan. It would have been a more probable cause had the outbreak started in the Yunnan province. Further, there is no circumstantial evidence to support the farm hypothesis or even suggest it; it’s pure speculation. A notable fact is that most bat species near Wuhan hibernate in December as pointed out by Lu et al. If the farm hypothesis was true, multiple spillovers in different cities would have taken place which is not suggested by the data, unless transmission within the intermediate species is improbable which would have made it much less likely for the outbreak to start in Wuhan from the first place. Before the farm hypothesis, there was the pangolin hypothesis which was rejected by experts because pangolins are critically endangered in many areas and it’s improbable that they acted as an intermediary, at least outside a lab. The genome sequences of human SARS-CoV-2 in just nine early patients exhibited 1%-2% difference among the subjects. Samples of bat RaTG13, 96.2% similar to SARS-CoV-2, should be obtained, sequenced, and studied in cell culture as part of scientific verification efforts. Scientific skepticism is not the same as propagating conspiracy theories. It’s important to acknowledge that it was Chinese scientists who first brought up the possibility of an accidental leak in a short letter. As has been pointed out by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, the available circumstantial evidence indeed suggests a lab leak, with the simplest scenario being the leak of a bat coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-2 from cell culture or animal model experiments after adapting to human/humanlike receptors. Investigators must carefully consider conflicts of interest of researchers, especially those who relentlessly promote Chinese government types of propaganda to protect personal interests that they don’t clearly acknowledge and their collaborations inside China. Researchers should also not be credulous and should follow systematic step-by-step approaches to avoid falling into traps of circular reasoning and repeating propaganda messaging that is controlled and spread by centralized governments. In closing, it’s important to emphasize that science needs more evidence-based, objective research with technical rather than broad conclusions. Speculations are good for forming hypotheses but should never be presented as conclusions. The Andersen-type speculative conclusions are of questionable scientific value and make no useful contribution to available knowledge about the coronavirus pandemic. Emotions such as peer sympathy, anger, fear, personal self-interest, and partisan political attachments should all be put aside when investigating matters with broad consequences for global security and human health. While speculative conclusions of any kind may turn out to be true, science doesn't give credit to speculations. Scientists shouldn't play dice in their analysis and discussion.
|
read more |
|
I googled “where did SARS come from”. I was shocked by the top results. “Today we still do not know where the SARS virus came from and how it disappeared.” Law & Politics |
So - if we take the hypothesis of SARS-CoV-2 being a lab escape as being true, there are two scenarios: SARS was actually a natural zoonotic crossover event, or they astroturfed the science to cover up a lab escape of a virus being researched. And the same playbook is being used. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the first attempts were to pin it on Bat > Pangolin > Human. But the pangolin vector has since been ruled out. In the case of SARS-CoV, they tried to pin it on Bat > Civet Cat > Human. “Many people believe that the virus might come from wild animal market, and its hosts might include civets, cats, snakes, wild boars, muntjac, rabbits, pheasants, and bats. However, no specific source has been identified.”
|
read more |
|
Coronavirus: @WHO warns of 190,000 deaths in Africa @TheAfricaReport @NickNorbrook Africa |
World health body also warns that the coronavirus pandemic could 'smoulder' in Africa for several years Should the various lockdowns currently being eased in many African countries fail to ‘bend the curve’, between 29m – 44m Africans risk being infected, with deaths potentially reaching 190,000. The WHO believe that transmissions will likely be slower — because of Africa’s age pyramid, and social and environmental factors — the pandemic risks lasting for far longer. “While COVID-19 likely won’t spread as exponentially in Africa as it has elsewhere in the world, it likely will smoulder in transmission hotspots,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa. “COVID-19 could become a fixture in our lives for the next several years unless a proactive approach is taken by many governments in the region. We need to test, trace, isolate and treat.” African healthcare systems would likely be overwhelmed by such a wave, say the WHO: an estimated 3.6 million–5.5 million COVID-19 hospitalisations, of which 82 000–167 000 would be severe cases requiring oxygen, with 52 000–107 000 would be critical cases requiring breathing support
|
read more |
|
Tanzania’s gamble: Anatomy of a totally novel coronavirus response #COVID19 @africaarguments Africa |
Chapter One of Tanzania’s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic came to an end in late April. The second half of that month had seen the number of confirmed cases rise to 480, up sharply from the 32 in mid-month. As I wrote at the time, the chance for early containment looked like it had already passed us by. President John Magufuli had opted not to listen to the global scientific advice. Instead, he had put his trust – and the lives of millions – in the hands of God. And in some odd (and potentially dangerous) “scientific” thinking of his own. And in the belief, shared by some experts, that locking down cities such as Dar es Salaam might do more harm than good. That was Chapter One. Chapter Two is now being written. And it is being written in the dark. Are cases really much higher or…lower? We no longer have any reliable estimates of the number of cases or deaths from COVID-19. According to the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Tanzania has conducted just 652 tests (as of 7 May). This compares to over 26,000 tests conducted in Kenya and nearly 45,000 in Uganda. Tanzania’s number is so low it almost defies belief. Have more tests been done but the results not released? Or is this the true figure, in which case is it the result of staggering incompetence or shocking indifference to the potential suffering of millions? For some years now, statistics and the media have been a highly charged political battleground in Tanzania. Controlling the narrative means silencing facts that contradict the official line. Someone suggests economic growth may not be as strong as the government claims? Charge them with sedition. Someone publishes data showing political leaders are not as popular as they once were? Strip them of their passport. The COVID-19 numbers are no different. The government is giving updates only every week or so, and sometimes the new data doesn’t even include basic figures such as the number of new cases and deaths. In such a vacuum, widespread reports of night-time burials and people dying with coronavirus-like symptoms take on more than anecdotal credibility. Many understandably question whether the true number of cases and deaths is substantially higher than the official figures. On the other hand, even President Magufuli seems to distrust the official numbers – though in the opposite direction. In a speech on 3 May, he accused unnamed imperialist foreign powers of sabotaging the national response by providing ineffective testing kits or buying off laboratory employees. He said he had sent “samples” from a pawpaw and goat for testing, with some producing positive results. Heads rolled at the national health laboratory. In the same speech, the president also suggested international media organisations – the BBC was not named, but the implication was clear – have been deliberately spreading scare stories to undermine Tanzania while ignoring the extent of the outbreak in their home countries. He called this “another form of warfare”. (Incidentally, he had previously wondered aloud whether masks and disinfectant sprays might have been deliberately contaminated with the coronavirus.) In short, nobody believes the official figures and nobody know how many cases we have. That ship has sailed. Local community transmission has been going on for weeks. We have no meaningful lockdown. And the process of testing, contact tracing and isolation can no longer cope. The true numbers could be anywhere between one thousand and one hundred thousand. Even within the Ministry of Health, in quiet corridors well away from both political bosses and media scrutiny, nobody really knows. Four pillars of Magufuli’s approach What else can we say about Chapter Two? Well, the president has continued to infuse the national response with his own personal style. His pronouncements are watched keenly by the nation and followed closely by public servants. And those statements appear to be informed more by his own personal worldview than any input from scientists. If the first strand of Magufuli’s approach is a tight control of information, the second is an emphasis on religious faith. Having previously argued the virus could not survive in the body of Jesus, the president again called for religious services to continue on 3 May. He concluded: “My fellow Tanzanians, stand firm. We have already won this war. God cannot abandon us, and our God loves us always.” The third element of the president’s approach is to put a premium on the avoidance of fear. “Fear is a very bad thing,” he said. “There might well already be people in this situation who have been killed by fear. Let us put an end to fear. Let us defeat fear.” This is the logic that saw him criticise international media and young people online for scaremongering. There is some truth in this perspective. Fear and stress bring genuine dangers. But the argument has limits. The point at which fear-avoidance means the government reports only on recoveries but not new cases or deaths, insists religious services should continue despite the risks of transmission, and asserts that God will protect us, it starts to look more like denial. And with potentially devastating consequences. The fourth strand of Magufuli’s approach is a determination to keep the country and its economy going. Schools and universities have closed, sporting events remain suspended, and people are being encouraged to main distance from others and wear masks when out in public. But the president has strongly resisted calls to introduce any tighter lockdown measures. Instead, he has emphasised the importance of working hard, keeping the economy going strong, and maintaining a healthy supply of food and other goods. This all adds up to something very different to the responses seen in other countries. Every context is different, of course, and the president has rightly warned against a copy-and-paste approach. But is Tanzania really so different? It is facing the same virus that has caused havoc and heartache elsewhere, and epidemiologists’ advice to Tanzania must surely be similar to that being offered in Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere. Turning bullets into water Only time will tell whether Magufuli’s gamble pays off. But we should be in no doubt that it is a huge gamble. The stakes are the lives and livelihoods of millions of Tanzanians. Two lessons from history illustrate this particularly keenly. The first is the 1918 Spanish Flu. This pandemic hit Tanganyika hard and came hot on the heels of the First World War, which itself had had a devastating impact. There are no exact figures – sound familiar? – but it is estimated that half the country of 4.2 million people was infected and over 5% (over 200,000 people) died. At the same time in Zanzibar, authorities introduced stringent quarantine measures that limited the impact considerably. The second may be even more relevant. In 1905, Kinjeketile Ngwale (also known as Bokero) persuaded his followers in southern parts of the country that a certain “medicine” – a mix of water, castor oil and millet seeds – would turn German bullets into water. Maybe he truly believed this. Maybe it was an attempt to inspire confidence and overcome fear. Either way, the gamble failed. The Maji-Maji Rebellion against German rule was a disaster. Once again, nobody knows the true death toll, but it is likely that tens thousands of soldiers were killed and as many as 250,000 civilians died of hunger. Kinjeketile was arrested and hanged in 1905, but the fighting continued. Later that year, Ngoni soldiers retreating from battle are reported to have thrown away their war medicine as they cried out “the maji is a lie!” Suggestions that Tanzania has found a new Kinjeketile spread online this week.
|
read more |
|
ZAMBIA On the brink of sovereign default @Africa_Conf Africa |
The government is getting no help from the IMF because it won't stop borrowing unsustainably and covertly After stopping payments on several commercial loans this year, Zambia is set to default on its US$3 billion Eurobonds, now trading at 'distressed debt' levels, with yields over 50%, Africa Confidential has learned.
|
read more |
|
14-OCT-2019 :: Ozymandias The Canary in the Coal Mine is Zambia. Africa |
“Investors have lost faith in government promises to get spending under control and the government has fallen out with the IMF as well,” he said. It seems to me that we are at a pivot moment and we can keep regurgitating the same old Mantras like a stuck record and if we do that this turns Ozymandias ''My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
|
read more |
|
|
|
|