March 19, 2020

"Both American and Chinese officials have raised questions about whether the virus was a manmade bioweapon, whilst Trump has dubbed it the 'China virus.'"

"'By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes,' said Kristian Andersen, PhD, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research and corresponding author on the paper.... The team analysed the molecular structure of the virus.... They suggested that it cannot be an artificial creation because its structure 'differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins.'"

From "Coronavirus is not a bioweapon created in a lab, scientists say" (The Herald).

Contemplate how much worse you would feel about all this if you found out that human beings had manufactured it as a weapon.

By the way, I don't like seeing coronavirus called the "China virus," but I think Trump is using that term to hit back after Chinese officials made accusations against the United States. I'd like to see both stop, and I'd like to see an end to naming diseases after particular places. Use scientific names, not place names or ethnicity names.

311 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 311 of 311
Wa St Blogger said...

The scientific names are SARS-CoV-23 or HCoV-19 and they're rarely used.

Rarely used because it is not easy to reference in normal conversation. No one can remember a cryptic code. The codes a re necessary for the healthcare community because they need the specificity of it. Us normal people need a word that is easy to remember. I always get the N1H1 backwards. I want to say H1N1. I have no problem remembering Swine Flu.

Maybe we should create a bug naming list like we do for Hurricanes. We can name the next one the Alice Flu, and then the Beto Flu, the Cynthia Flu, then Dontre Flu, Ekbal flu... Lazlo flu (hey they named one after you Laslo!)

If you don't like the idea of names of people, we could use household items: Adirondak Chair flu, Bedsheet flu, Chair, Ducktape, Ewer, etc.

Ken B said...

Why is “Corona” okay? Corona is Latin for crown, and by your standards is unfair to royalty. This is arguably even worse, since they are few enough royalty in the world for them to be individually hunted down by crazed people triggered by the name.

Worst Althouse post ever.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

And Trump emphatically downplayed the disease at the outset.

Yes, that was apparent when he banned travel from China back when you were still being called a racist xenophobe for that.

So now the defense of China is, "well all governments suppress important information concerning newly discovered, potentially lethal diseases so we should just give the Chinese government a pass."

No.

Ken B said...

What about, as noted above, hurricane names?
Or diseases named after people. Crohn's disease.

Ken B said...

Oh, suddenly moderation is on. Hardin vindicated.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

"Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”

Meade said...

Don't call it the "Linnaean system." You might hurt the feelings of Carl Linnaeus's descendants.

Lurker21 said...

"Wuhan virus" is a legitimate name for the illness. "China virus" is more a product of the politics: "You object to 'Wuhan virus'? You say the US Army created and spread the disease? Alright then we'll call it the 'China virus.'" The problem is that most viruses seem to be China viruses. If this is a singularly bad, death-dealing strain that produces panic on a wide scale, people will probably be calling it the "China virus" for a long time. If it's just another strain of the flu or one in a series of killer flues, "China virus" isn't specific enough.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

"When the individual feels, the community reels."

Bay Area Guy said...

The revenge of Ft. Detrick! -- since re-dubbed the National Institute of Health by President Nixon.

Known Unknown said...

"You massively disrupt your own country and kill your own people."

Ask Joe Stalin if he cares.

Ken B said...

Here, for Althouse to ignore, is a detailed rebuttal to the Chinese propaganda from the Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/

My opinion of Althouse has never been lower.

Narr said...

FTR & AIU the state of play now, I'm with Aunty Trump--not a deliberate release, just an all-too-human fuck-up. Succeeded by some all-too-commie lies and all-too-Chinese arrogance.

I love to quibble over onomastics, but I've been calling it the Chi-Com Flu every chance I get and see no reason to mollify the butthurt.

Narr
As to our need for their plastic and drugs, that is more than balanced by their need for our soybean and hogs

Ken B said...

"You massively disrupt your own country and kill your own people."

That's really an astonishing thing to say in defense of the Chinese communist party, which starved 30 million people in your lifetime.

Temujin said...

Why is the name even a topic of discussion? It is the Wuhan Virus. The novel corona virus. COVID-19. Call it what you like. It is such a non-topic asked by terminally stupid journalists who focus on the inane and miss entire large stories staring at them.

It's simply not important. It's the wrong path of questions.

tim in vermont said...

“Xi Fuckup Flu”

Sebastian said...

"Worst Althouse post ever."

True. She's often wrong, rarely silly. This is beyond silly.

Isolation getting to her?

Wuhan virus it is.

Koot Katmandu said...

Certainly we have more to talk about that the Damn name. Who gives a flying Schiff if PDT calls it the china virus? Are you all too woke to have any common sense? Like it not many virus have the point of first origin in the name. Move on to something that matters for crying out loud. Even what are you doing to past the time at home is better than this.

Koot Katmandu said...

"Worst Althouse post ever."

I agree. We have dumb reporters asking this every damn day and now Althouse. Worrying about trivial woke BS.

Lnelson said...

Which reporter will bring up the all important virus name in today's press conference?

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

I linked a paper above that was published in 2015 and described creating a new SARS like virus and infecting mice with it, I forgot to include the participants in the study.

Here’s one:

Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Xing-Yi Ge & Zhengli-Li Shi


Political correctness will kill us.

This from the Department of Justice, you can google text for a link:

The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China.

Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was arrested this morning and charged by criminal complaint with one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement. Lieber will appear this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.

Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with one count each of visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy. Ye is currently in China.

Zaosong Zheng, 30, a Chinese national, was arrested on Dec. 10, 2019, at Boston’s Logan International Airport and charged by criminal complaint with attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China. On Jan. 21, 2020, Zheng was indicted on one count of smuggling goods from the United States and one count of making false, fictitious or fraudulent statements. He has been detained since Dec. 30, 2019.


It’s the Chicom Virus. I agree that we. should let China off the hook, but not the CCP.

mockturtle said...

Yes, I think 'Wuhan virus' is the best choice. The epicenter and most probably the origin of this virus.

mockturtle said...

And it's not a flu.

tim in vermont said...

"Oh, Aunty Trump, I saw what you posted. And I think that's absolutely astonishing.”

One would think...

Lnelson said...

I miss the March Madness that should start today.
We need to take the March Madness bracket game that Obama excelled in, and replace team names with inane reporter press conference questions.

mockturtle said...

Boyle's Law--who wants to be known for gas?

ColoradoDude said...

May I respectfully disagree with Althouse when she said: “Use scientific names, not place names or ethnicity names.”

Two reasons:
#1. Naming major infections for the place they first showed up goes back over 100 years. It’s a quick and easy style of naming.
#2. The notion that gibberish (COVID-19) is scientific misses an important point,. It, standing alone, conveys no meaning at all to one who sees that for the first time. Whereas, by contrast, calling it the Chinese virus or the Wuhan virus at least lets people know it’s a kind of disease.

I adore Althouse’s thoughtful posts on word meanings, their usage etc. They make me work to speak and write more simply and clearly. I’m sorry she shifted ground on this one.

buster said...

Call it the globalism virus.

I Callahan said...

I was told by Charlie Martin at Insty yesterday that I’m an idiot for picking on Chinese culture regarding wet markets, because “we have them here.” That guy is a certifiable loon.

Ken B said...

Let's use a GUID, globally unique identifier . Here is one a7b340ca-26c2-4328-a9d4-37f685c9da53

Narr said...

OK OK OK it's not a g.d. flu!

ChiCom Virus. ChiCom Virus. ChiCom Virus.

Narr
ChiCom Virus!

Ken B said...

Pool players stigmatize entires states. Think Minnesota Fats.

Curious George said...

"By the way, I don't like seeing coronavirus called the "China virus..."

Let me guess, the "Opera Virus?"

Quaestor said...

Novel virus = unique, DNA sequence not seen before

Coronavirus is a member of the Realm Riboviria, i.e. no DNA.

narayanan said...

Blogger Ann Althouse said...
I say scientific names should be used, not geographic or ethnic.
____________________======================
so let us start with Neandert(h)al man aka Scientific name: Homo neanderthalensis

geography preserves history of human gaining knowledge

William said...

Maybe they can name diseases after various Mother Goose characters. Be less frightening for the kids.....The Dems don't have any trouble blaming Republicans for lack of ventilators, but they are surprisingly tactful about blaming the Chicoms for their massive screw ups with this disease....I don't think Chinese people have anything to do with the disease. The Taiwanese and people of Hong Kong, so far as I know, have handled the virus responsibly and honorably. But the fact remains that the Chicoms behaved badly and should be blamed for screwing this up.

Quaestor said...

Put me down as "this virus was definitely man-made/manufactured. Nature doesn't just "pop" like that without outside interference. What you wish for does not make it scientific.

There is insufficient evidence to conclude that the Wuhan Coronavirus is anything but another zoonotic virus of the sort that has emerged from China numerous times in the past, thanks to Chinese agricultural practices (ducks and pigs living in the same enclosure, for example) and the Chinese fascination with eating exotic animals for their supposed "health-giving" (i.e. aphrodisiac) properties.

Megaera said...

Would it be meaningful to note that the head of the Wuhan Level 4 Biolab worked for 20 years in the US, most recently in NC researching bat coronaviruses, before she was called back to China to head up that program in the Wuhan Lab? In the very early days of the outbreak, before the media got quite so pissy about what to report, she was actually quoted in a highly defensive way, assuring the world that this couldn't possibly have originated in her lab. Haven't seen anything about her since. Hmm.

Rocketeer said...

I'd like to see both stop, and I'd like to see an end to naming diseases after particular places. Use scientific names, not place names or ethnicity names.

I think I'm going to call such tendency to prissiness/squeamishness about perfectly logical naming conventions the "Madison Virus".

D.D. Driver said...

"It is a public health failure on an enormous scale by China, which not only refused to contain the outbreak but took measures to obscure the epidemic while at the same time buying up masks and respirators, knowing they would be in demand once word got out about Wuhan."

Set it down for a while. The Chinese acted like humans. Just like Trump about a few short weeks. I am the only one who remembers Trump saying virus was overblown and a media hoax? If the Chinese are guilty then let's so the fuck is Trump. Because if this is how we assign culpability then Trump will likely have many bloody lungs on his hands. I believe all of this is absolute bullshit pushed by people with a political agenda. To paraphrase there are absolute morons on "both sides."

As to hoarding supplies: have you been to the toilet paper aisle? The Chinese are hardly unique because they did the same thing we do except they did it first.

Everyone. The Chinese. The Italians. Donald Trump. Our federal and state officials. Everyone is learning on the fly and trying to do their best. Only history will be able to tell us if they are on the right track.

elkh1 said...

Was SARS named after its origin which was southern China? No. Because we didn't know about SARS until it hit Hong Kong. In the early days Wuhan virus was named SARS-2. ChiCom objected because of SARS reminded us of how bad they botched the SARS response. Hence, we called it Wuhan virus because it's from Wuhan. WHO called it nCov... something that nobody could say, so we called it Wuhan virus. Then WHO called it COVID-19. But we are used to call it the Wuhan virus.

ChiCom refused to search for the origin of the virus so they can make ridiculous charges against the US. They also claim Japan and Korea spread the virus globally, they call the virus the Japanese virus, and the Korean virus.

We should call it the ChiCom Virus.

tim in vermont said...

Quaestor, what is your reading of this from Nature?

Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. - A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence - Nature Magazine

tim in vermont said...

"I am the only one who remembers Trump saying virus was overblown and a media hoax? “

You remember hearing that lie on MSNBC, Most likely. Why don’t you quote us Trump’s actual words in context? You won’t because you can’t.

Birkel said...

One wonders at the successes of the Chinese Communist Party's successful propaganda campaign.

That Harvard professor was paid by the CCP.
It made the papers.
Who else is paid by the CCP?
Surely not these people.

tim in vermont said...

Trump is announcing the Quinine thing right now. Cutting red tape at the FDA.

n.n said...

So, what they are suggesting is that it could have an anthropogenic source.

A GPS or cardinal coordinate, date, and strain stamp, would suffice to trace the antigens' evolution. Whether it's one label or another, there needs to be a one-to-one relationship for characterize, diagnose, and treat the infection and disease. COVID-19 is an ambiguous label that obfuscates the antigens' progress for the sake of political congruence.

Megaera said...

Re vents, regardless of whatever abstract number of machines you have "available" you have the absolute constraint of how many respiratory techs (vent techs) you have available to actually run them. Like a lot of medical therapies, a vent wrongly set and operated can kill you or damage your respiratory system permanently, and resp techs are not exactly thick on the ground. It's a 2 year certificate, and a highly technical area that doesn't lend itself to just handing off skills and training in emergency circumstances. Also, should add that ALL the stuff that runs from patient to vent to O2 sources is a unitary onetimeuseonly equipment set that often has short expiration dates (for good reason) and must be changed out regularly. These sets, like the vents themselves, tend to be sourced primarily in China, due to their predatory pricing.

I used to run vent patients on emergency transports: we were one of the few local services that did. It was fraught, and not an experience I welcomed. THought about going for an RT certificate, but in the end couldn't justify it, Just remember, with vents, like ECMO, tbe machines themselves are a very small part of the equation.

Nichevo said...



Again, this virus didn't originate in China due to bad luck or some accident of geography. It happened because of a specific Chinese cultural practice - the sale and butchery of exotic mammals at wet markets. That is also where SARS came from.


In addition to this and other bad acts of the communist Chinese government, many names above, consider that they insisted, against expert advice:

-on opening a BSL-4 biolab, geared to handling of the world's worst diseases, more likely for biowarfare purposes

-in a major metropolitan area; imagine Plum Island moved to Rockefeller Plaza

-which their incompetence and corruption practically guaranteed would fail at containment

-stealing critical biological information and samples to stock the bio-larder

-messing with them, whether for mud-pie research a la the CRISPR babies, or for democide (it's even conceivable that they ONLY wanted to kill (some of) their own people, to thin the herd) purposes

-screwing up (kindest supposition) and leaking the Flu Manchu into the wild

-lying, hiding, suppressing, cornering the market on medical supplies, encouraging people to "hug a Chinese" and bullying nations trying to protect themselves

And now we should defer to their sensibilities? I'd rather call it the Ching Chong Wing Wong Nig Nog Yellow Fever!

Or we could call it Pearl Harbor II: Chinese Biowarfare Boogaloo

Wuhan Virus is perfectly cromulent and respectable.

FullMoon said...



NBC LIES: Claims Trump Called Virus a ‘Hoax,’ Took a Death ...

mockturtle said...

Trump is announcing the Quinine thing right now. Cutting red tape at the FDA.

Yes but I do wish he would spend less time bloviating and patting himself on the back and let his team do more of the talking.

Nichevo said...

Blogger I Callahan said...
I was told by Charlie Martin at Insty yesterday that I’m an idiot for picking on Chinese culture regarding wet markets, because “we have them here.” That guy is a certifiable loon.


I've been pressing there on what is a wet market.

Does it mean "live meat animal trade?" We have slaughterhouses in Queens.

Does it mean what they call in the African context the "bushmeat trade," i.e. eating creepy unusual/exotic/inappropriate/charismatic/endangered species for indifferent reasons (e.g. as Viagra substitutes like rhino horn, or because they're so poor they have to eat monkeys because they have no cows)? I'm agin it, but chacun a son gout.

Does it refer to the utter lack of hygiene in these fantastically promiscuous, filthy environments?

I think the big deal is the latter. If you MUST eat e.g. bats, raise and sell them hygienically at a clean, safe, healthy bat store, or in the bat aisle of your well-run bushmeat store.

What they really need is a Shoprite or Kroger's or Wegman's or Fairway Market type concept, to take over the food supply there. Refrigeration would be a good start. An FDA would be a good start. Rule of law would be a good start.

tim in vermont said...

I like how Freder dismisses published numbers and makes up his own in order to defend single payer. If you have to lie...

"you have the absolute constraint of how many respiratory techs (vent techs) you have available to actually run them.”

I argue with your word “absolute.” We could train people, military medics, medical students, nursing students... If it is a crisis, it’s a crisis.

Nichevo said...

There is insufficient evidence




Every time I hear that phrase, I think, "Nixon should have burned the tapes." There is insufficient evidence that there is insufficient evidence. All we know is that we don't have the evidence.

tim in vermont said...

"Yes but I do wish he would spend less time bloviating and patting himself on the back “

That was a lot to take. He might be getting actually tired.

Quaestor said...

I think I'm going to call such tendency to prissiness/squeamishness about perfectly logical naming conventions the "Madison Virus".

I suggest amending this to Madison Syndrome since the tendency isn't an illness in the usual sense of the word (psychiatric, perhaps) and it falls into a general category along with the Stockholm Syndrome, the tendency of guilt-ridden liberals to sympathize with their abusers.

Quaestor, what is your reading of this from Nature?

I just finished reading the paper, which I found very interesting, but as I said before the evidence is insufficient at this time. I note that the essential thrust of the authors' research replicates at least one process zoonotic pathogens undergo in nature.

Generally speaking, non-virologists should refrain from broadly interpreting research papers in the field.

Bruce Hayden said...

Why was Taiwan partially spared? I think that the fact that it is one of the few places in the world that mainland Chinese are not supposed to go has some part of that. They probably didn’t have a whole lot of ChiComs running around the place all the time probably helped. Plus, they are an island, which greatly reduced the number of ChiComs who could just wander in. Sure, the virus ultimately snuck in, but by then, they were apparently ready.

Of course, that is another reason to prefer “Wuhan” over “Chinese” because Taiwan is also Chinese.

tim in vermont said...

I used to go fishing with a respiratory tech. We all laughed because he liked to smoke on the boat, and carried a revolver for dealing with recalcitrant billfish. It kind of convinced me that it wasn’t rocket science.

Nichevo said...


Set it down for a while. The Chinese acted like humans.


Jesus, Driver, how much are they paying you?!

tim in vermont said...

"Generally speaking, non-virologists should refrain from broadly interpreting research papers in the field.”

So what do you think that “chimeric” means?

Quaestor said...

There is insufficient evidence that there is insufficient evidence.

The ratio F/T approaches infinity.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

The Chinese acted like humans.

So apparently that is the official Chinese lobby talking point going forward. Sure the Chinese government acted in a completely reckless manner what with the suppressing information and destroying samples. But that's totally excusable because their just humans and hey look, Trump!

Oh, and there is no need to decouple from the Chinese economy and you should totally keep sourcing your medical supplies from manufacturers based in China. Would you like to buy some 5G telecommunications equipment while you're at it?

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"...why does the media always use the word "novel" to describe the Corona virus?"

The media have been using different names for this virus, changing several times over the past two months -- Wuhan, Coronavirus, Covid-19, novel coronavirus (did I miss any?). They like to give the impression that they're up to date, hip to the jive, and that we rubes need them or we'll fall behind. It was also a convenient way to catch people being racist by calling it Wuhan a moment after they stopped calling it Wuhan. I'm looking at you, Gu, the most ignorant and racist among us.

Anonymous said...

Guys, the coronavirus bioweapon thing is so last week. Conspiracy theorizing never stands still.

Broke: Covid-19 is a bioweapon that went rogue on its creators.

Woke: We're all gonna die because Trump fired all the scientists in government and replaced them with fundamentalist Christianists who don't believe in the germ theory of disease.

Bespoke: This is all a panic engineered by the Fed in a desperate attempt to prevent the catastrophic deflation of the asset bubble they've been manically juicing since the last crash.

tim in vermont said...

A lot of what Trump is doing is shunting aside the trial lawyers who had such a large hand in writing Obamacare to make sure it didn’t step on their expensively clad in Oxfords toes.

Megaera said...

Few more comments about Italy: some commenters above have noted the official figure that there are 300,000 ethnic Chinese, mostly from Wuhan, living in Northern Italy -- factor in the information that in the last 20 years the Chinese have acquired most of the major businesses in Northern Italy (fashion house suppliers, luxury goods, cheap mass market goods, heavy industry and everything in between}, and that they dispensed with Italian workers and immediately brought in their own people to staff these jobs, not to mention the underground sweatshop factories they operate as well, and the undocumented CHinese complement of the North Italian population is probably more likely to be about 700,000. An amusing finding from New Yorker article describing all this was that over a 20-year period only 3 ethnic Chinese died in Italy (that is, had actual death certificates on file) -- all the rest, one assumes, were quietly disposed of (don't ask how) without official intervention and their documents recycld to bring in more illegal Chinese immigrants. Want to know why Northern Italy has such catastrophic exposure to the Wuhan virus? Look to all those Chinese residents -- not to mention the hordes of wealthy CHinese tourists visiting FLorence etc. in the fall and winter.

Also, random fact: Italy just last year became a full partner in China's Belt and Road initiative, selling out their port city of Trieste, a number of strategic bridges and roads, and some airports, in return for which China will bring in even more Chinese workers and doubtless keep upping the vig, as they do everywhere the BRI operates. You would think Italians would be able to see this tactic for what it is, but apparently not. Heigh-ho.

tim in vermont said...

Since he didn’t answer it. “Chimeric” means laboratory made.

Quaestor is right that it can not be 100% proven that a natural mutation did not turn up by complete coincidence 11 miles from the lab that was working on these things and made chimeric versions of bat viruses.

Quaestor said...

So what do you think that “chimeric” means?

The allusion is to the class of Greek fabulous creatures that have characteristics of very different animals. such as the griphon —
the wings and head of an eagle with the torso and limbs of a lion. In this context, it refers to RMA sequences from separate strains of related viruses appearing in a new strain. This happens quite frequently in nature. Sometimes viral sequences are incorporated into the genome of the host cell, which is one of the engines of evolution. Viruses also sometimes incorporate sequences from their hosts, which is one way they evolve and adapt. Genetic sequences can pass from one viral strain to another through a host intermediary, and frequently do.

Chimeric is not a synonym for manufactured.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Please read the paper more closely. The SARS chimera discussed in the paper affects mice, not humans. The conclusion of the research is that SARS-related Coronavirus found in bat populations can mutate via an intermediate host into a form infectious to humans.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

not to mention the hordes of wealthy CHinese tourists visiting FLorence etc. in the fall and winter.

This I can attest to. I have been in Florence and Venice in the Fall and Winter on numerous occasions and there are always loads of Chinese tourists.

tim in vermont said...

"Chimeric is not a synonym for manufactured.”

I think that maybe you should try your google machine with respect to viruses and the term.

"The SARS chimera discussed in the paper affects mice, not humans.”

Even granting that one can be certain that that is true, how could you possibly know that that is the only one? Obviously they are messing around with these things, and I certainly didn’t do an exhaustive search on Google Scholar. That was the first hit from Duck Duck Go. How would you know that they would even publish research if it were bioweapons related?

But we can agree to disagree, so here is my position: I find it implausible, but not impossible, that such a virus would appear by happenstance within a tiny radius of a laboratory known to be experimenting with such viruses.

Bruce Hayden said...

“FTR & AIU the state of play now, I'm with Aunty Trump--not a deliberate release, just an all-too-human fuck-up. Succeeded by some all-too-commie lies and all-too-Chinese arrogance.”

Talking to my kids new fiancé last night, I asked them what they are supposed to do with animal test subjects after their use in a BSL-4 lab was over. The obvious answer, after a possible autopsy, is incineration. My thoughts are that some enterprising worker at the Wuhan virology lab more likely sold them in the nearby wet market instead. There is supposedly some history of that already, and, I think that more likely than that containment was somehow breached, and someone walked out of the lab either infected, or just carrying the virus on them. But if that is the case, they likely, it seems, then stopped by the wet market to pick up dinner. If neither of these theories is correct, then why did the Chinese government (temporarily - because they always reopen eventually) shut down the wet market so quickly?

I think that there is a high likelihood that the virus came out, one way or another, from their BSL-4 Wuhan Virology Lab, and then found its way, in short order into the nearby wet market. I also don’t think that the release was intentional. Either of the above theories is plausible. I prefer the selling of used lab animals theory simply because it is simpler. A friend, whose PhD was paid for by our govt when he was working as a researcher at Ft Detrick, said that he didn’t think that it was a bio weapon, by its structure, but when confronted with the surplus lab animal theory, replied that it sounded very Chinese, who are, as a people, more entrepreneurial than most. I think that this is what happens when an entrepreneurial people live under a communist system - they engage in rampant cheating for financial benefit. (Note that wet markets themselves apparently tend to be illegal, more often than not, and only legalized when their size makes them difficult to shut down). Of course, the other problem is that East Asians in general, and apparently Chinese in general, love their exotic foods, esp for their traditional health benefits. This has ramifications around the world, due to the number of endangered species that end up, in whole, or in part, in Chinese markets, like the Wuhan wet market. This is unpopular in much of the rest of the world, and is probably part of why ChiCom Central, on occasion, bans wet markets around the country, even if they weren’t the source of the latest pandemic, like this one appears to have been. The Wuhan market will very likely be back in operation once the government looks the other way again.

Final note here. East Asians tend to react badly to embarrassment. I think that this is at least partially why the ChiComs are so desperate to change the popular name of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to anything that reminds everyone about where it came from. And, yes, combined with the embarrassment, a lot of middle class Chinese are likely to lose their jobs as a result of the Chinese connection. In particular, a lot of the western economy is likely going to resource as much of their supply chain as the can, as a result. At least dual and triple source components. Diversify.

grackle said...

Use scientific names, not place names or ethnicity names.

Oh my. I am going to strongly disagree. My dear hostess, the truth is never wrong, no matter how destructive to your lefty illusions. I’ll continue to refer to it as what it is, the Wuhan virus. That doesn’t mean the Chinese people are bad people – it does mean that the Chinese government is comprised of cruel, murderous, uncaring thugs that made this thing that is now attacking the entire world.

We need to let the Chinese government have ownership. Which is not to say that other governments, including ours, aren’t probably also screwing around with bio-weapons in some secret laboratories. All we can hope is that they are very, very careful and that this hard lesson is instructive to our leaders.

But if and when such a thing might occur the American people have a remedy: It’s called impeachment. This time for something real instead of the fucking Russiagate hoax.

If it had originated in Texas I would be calling it the Texas virus. Be real, Althouse. Look truth in the face and call it what it is.

Btw, the more I see Mike Pence the more I like him.

Quaestor said...

Aunty Trump writes: I find it implausible, but not impossible, that such a virus would appear by happenstance within a tiny radius of a laboratory known to be experimenting with such viruses.

That's your opinion as a virologist, eh?

Bruce Hayden said...

“That Harvard professor was paid by the CCP.
It made the papers.
Who else is paid by the CCP?”

I can’t remember his name, but earlier the loaders voice saying that this wasn’t a bioengineered virus was a guy from Harvard, who appeared to be half Chinese, running a Chinese funded research group at Harvard. Initially, the Chinese connection wasn’t clear, until you dug in a little more, and saw that he had a Chinese middle name (that was most often missing when his name was listed).

Quaestor said...

That doesn’t mean the Chinese people are bad people –

In terms of creating circumstances that encourage the emergence of zoonotic pathogens Chinese traditional culture leaves much to be desired. The African taste for "bush meat" hasn't done the world any favors, either.

tim in vermont said...

"hat's your opinion as a virologist, eh?”

No, it’s my opinion as somebody with a grasp of probabilities and a working bullshit detector. I don’t think that virology boffins get their own universe with its own laws of probability that operate independently of our own.

hombre said...

While we debate this nonsense all is going as the ChiCom Party (CCP) has planned and with relatively few Chinese casualties.

The Epoch Times, enemy of the CCP, requests that we call it “the CCP Virus.” Sounds good to me, but then I also like calling the mediaswine the “mediaswine.”

I keep coming back to: If the CCP had done this intentionally, what would they have done differently?

tim in vermont said...
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tim in vermont said...
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Bruce Hayden said...

One of the interesting things here is that SARS, as well as SARS-like Coronaviruses (such as SARS-CoV-2), are mostly bat viruses. Earlier in its life (When it was closer to SARS-CoC(-1)), SARS-CoV-2 was a bat virus. Somehow, over the last decade maybe, it strayed into pangolins (scaly ant eaters). How did that happen? An anteater would seem ill equipped to eat bats, and decently well protected by their scales from their predations. But as I read the mutation chart of SARS and SARS-like coronaviruses, the Pangolin variants are close to the Wuhan variants, but do not appear to be direct ancestors, which still appear to be from bats. Very close relatives. Very close. Coincidence? Or not? The problem, of course, is that there are gaps in the genetic trees, that may never be filled.

Bruce Hayden said...

“ I keep coming back to: If the CCP had done this intentionally, what would they have done differently?”

For one thing, they probably wouldn’t have made it to utilize ACE2 receptors as heavily, which Han Chinese apparently have more of in their lungs than most other non East Asians. My reading suggests that that that is one of the differences between SARS and the Wuhan Coronavirus, the former not being as dependent on ACE2 receptors.

Steven said...

So, for decades, when a disease is named after where black people are from -- Ebola virus (in Congo), Lassa fever (in Nigeria), West Nile virus (region in Uganda), or Zika virus (in Uganda) -- everybody's perfectly fine with it.

But if you name a new virus after a place that Chinese are from -- Wuhan coronavirus -- it's suddenly a problem to use geographic names?

If there's a racism problem in disease naming, it's not anti-Asian racism.

pokerone said...

Sorry, I don't have time to read all the comments so if someone has already posted a similar name for it I apologize. To me the disease will always be the G**damn Red Chinese virus.

Nichevo said...

SARS-CoV-2 was a bat virus. Somehow, over the last decade maybe, it strayed into pangolins (scaly ant eaters). How did that happen?


Eat enough corn wine and strange things happen...Pangolin ugly?

Jersey Fled said...

"I can't get too worked up about whether someone calls it a Chinese virus or not, but why does the media always use the word "novel" to describe the Corona virus?"

Novel virus = unique, DNA sequence not seen before"

Wouldn't that make every virus "novel"?

Ralph L said...

Once it hits the schools, they call it "classic novel virus."

tim in vermont said...

Central China TV
“Expert” : “The US pushed out the vaccine so quickly, that only means they have been working on it way before the pandemic.”
Host: “So we can conclude that the US had this virus in their possession long ago”

CCP nonstop smear campaign

jeremyabrams said...

I don't blame the countries where other place-named viruses originated. I do blame China for this one, and I want the place name to stick in this case, and for that reason. Not racist; just factual. And they deserve it for their actions, not race.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Ken B said...
Why is “Corona” okay? Corona is Latin for crown, and by your standards is unfair to royalty. "

It's even more unfair to a certain brewery.

I'm calling it the Wuhan virus or Kung Flu, just because the first is accurate and the second offends people in the Era of "That's Not Funny."

D.D. Driver said...

Novel virus simply means a virus that none of us have previous exposure to and that our immune systems have not encountered before.

Steven said...

Wouldn't that make every virus "novel"?

Yes, every newly-discovered virus is novel. This is a "novel coronavirus" because there were lots and lots of already-known coronaviruses (about 20% of common colds are caused by a coronavirus), and this was a new one.

By analogy, imagine that a new variety of chipmunk showed up and started killing people in the Memphis area in late 2019. The first scientists on the scene call them the "novel Sciuridae" to distinguish them from the two dozen previously-known types of chipmunk (genus Sciuridae), and the news media, reporting on what the scientists are saying, calls them the "novel Sciuridae", too. Since they're first being seen in the Memphis area, they also get called "Memphis Sciuridae", both by scientists and the media.

Then the chipmunks and their attacks spread everywhere. The scientists formally name the new species Sciuridae homicidus, and name the attacks "SCIMAK-19" (for Sciuridae Mammal Killings 2019).

And then, if you keep calling them the "Memphis Sciuridae", people explain that's improper, you should call them SCIMAK-19.

Jim at said...

If people are complaining about what some people are calling the virus, maybe it's not as serious as we've been told by those same people running around with their hair on fire.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Aunty Trump... good work here. On 3/10 I asked what the skinny on our fellow, Dr Lieber, in a post. You've tied it up with a bow on it. And God Forbid that someone might find out several killer viruses "escaped" China! What a stigma! Ask XI if he cares.

Greg the class traitor said...

Why do we focus on China? Because the virus only became a worldwide pandemic because of the actions of the Chinese Communist government:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/03/report-china-destroyed-evidence-of-wuhan-coronavirus-in-december/

An article published by the Times of London indicates that Chinese authorities have been deleting the stories from the internet.

Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.

A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.


There's another study saying that if the Chinese Communist government hadn't carried out their coverup, 95% of the spread wouldn't have happened.

How many people have died, alone and unhelped, in Italy because their medical system was overwhelmed? So divide the total dead by 20, then take off a bunch more because they would have been saved if the Italians had been dealing with 1/20 the cases.

It's the Chinese flu. It's the Chinese Virus. They SHOULD be shamed, and attacked.

And so should any of their defenders and excusers

Greg the class traitor said...

D.D. Driver said...
"It is a public health failure on an enormous scale by China, which not only refused to contain the outbreak but took measures to obscure the epidemic while at the same time buying up masks and respirators, knowing they would be in demand once word got out about Wuhan."

Set it down for a while. The Chinese acted like humans.


So you consider it "normal human behavior" to cover up the existence of a wildly infectious disease, while making it possible for the disease to spread more widely?

That's a pretty dark view you have of humanity


Just like Trump about a few short weeks. I am the only one who remembers Trump saying virus was overblown and a media hoax?

No, there's lots of people spreading that lie, not just you.

Currently there's less than 12k cases known in the US. Which means that a few short weeks ago there were maybe 1,000 cases, out of 300,000,000 people.

Which meant panicking was, in fact, a bad idea, and Trump was right.

Now, where Trump was wrong was in not going over to the CDC and FDA, and personally ordering them to do the right things (see Dr Chu in Seattle), rather than the empire building things that they were doing.

But I can just imagine how people like you would have been freaking out of ver that.

If the Chinese are guilty then let's so the fuck is Trump.

The Chinese government destroyed data, ordered people not to spread honest warnings, and probably killed some people for raising valid alarms.

Please tell us exactly where it was that President Trump did any of that.

Mark said...

Maybe this was mentioned by someone else earlier, but calling it the Chinese Wuhan Virus wasn't an issue when CNN, MS-NBC, Washington Post and New York Times were using that term or variations on it.

So forgive me if I don't get all broken up about Trump's usage.

Mark said...

And -- the usual suspects haven't been all that concerned with anti-Asian bigotry when it comes to college admissions.

Jim at said...

Seen elsewhere:

Kung Pao Sicken

n.n said...

anti-Asian bigotry when it comes to college admissions

Diversity. Another wicked solution? Perhaps not, but denying individual dignity, indulging color judgments, is not only immoral (depending on your religion), but unproductive to reduce an individual life... person to a set of low information attributes.

Quaestor said...

...it’s my opinion as somebody with a grasp of probabilities and a working bullshit detector.

Behind every cockamamie conspiracy theory is somebody with a reliable bullshit detector.

tim in vermont said...

This from the guy who didn’t even read the title of the paper he claimed to have read.

"A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence"

veni vidi vici said...

What then would we call Lyme disease or Ebola?

They get the name of their place of origin; it's easier for non-scientists to understand what everyone's talking about that way, for better or worse.

When the next plague epidemic rises up from the homeless shanty tents of LA or SF, it will likewise be called for what it is and wherefrom. Making up a bunch of C3POR2D2 numbers is for people to keep track of test tubes, not for the layman.

Life is memetic that way, get used to it already.

Unknown said...

I liked "Pinko Plague"

Kung Flu seems the winner

Its the Chicom virus - The commies do what they do best, centralized suppression of truth.

Unknown said...

Althouse can fall on her verbal sword and save the Chicoms dignity

Althirus?

Althouse virus?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Congratulations are in order here, 306 comments without a mention of OZZY Osborne's bat biting!

Unknown said...

Can we all just agree

Words don't mean anything

Steven said...

Kung Pao Sicken

I prefer the version the Babylon Bee suggested, "Lung Pao Sicken". After all, it's a respiratory disease.

Quaestor said...

This from the guy who didn’t even read the title of the paper he claimed to have read.
"A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence"


My 11:34 comment:
Please read the paper more closely. The SARS chimera discussed in the paper affects mice, not humans. The conclusion of the research is that SARS-related Coronavirus found in bat populations can mutate via an intermediate host into a form infectious to humans.

Take another hit from that conspiracy theory crack pipe, Aunty. It does wonders for your creds.

DEEBEE said...

After you have come back from congratulating your wokeness, complain about “China grass” too. What China have to do with weed?

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