Wuhan virus 2020

[Jimbuna]

A further 1,325 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported on any day since the pandemic began.

It means there have been just short of 80,000 deaths by that measure - as another 68,053 new cases were recorded.

Public Health England (PHE) said the number of deaths would "continue to rise until we stop the spread".

It comes as a third Covid vaccine received emergency approval for use in the UK.

The government has pre-ordered 17 million doses of the jab, made by US firm Moderna.

It joins the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs in being approved, with close to 1.5 million people now vaccinated in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55594107

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

UK approves Moderna jab - its third Covid vaccine.

The vaccine is 94% effective in preventing disease, and the UK has ordered 17m doses in total.

The jab will be available in spring - the UK has already vaccinated 1.5m people using Pfizer and Oxford jabs.

The UK reports a record daily number of cases and deaths - 68,053 and 1,325 respectively.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan declares "major incident" as hospital pressure grows.

WHO chief says there is a "clear problem" with poorer countries getting vaccines.

The US has seen daily deaths pass 4,000 for the first time as the epidemic worsens.

The European Commission chief defends the EU's vaccination strategy after buying 300m more doses.

Sweden passes a law allowing tougher Covid restrictions.

In Australia, Brisbane will enter a three-day lockdown after a case of the UK-detected variant was found.

[Jimbuna]

Germany reports its highest 24-hour death toll so far – 1,188. There were 31,849 new infections, the Robert Koch Institute reports, but the actual figures may be higher still because of fewer tests done over Christmas.
Tighter lockdown measures are being enforced in different German areas: in Hamburg now, a household can only meet one person from another household – previously the limit was five people from two other households.

EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen says the EU has agreed to buy an extra 300 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, doubling the amount of that vaccine available to EU citizens. The EU also approved the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday.

Sweden has long clung to its pre-pandemic freedoms, but now MPs have passed a law to enable the closure of, or limited access to, shops, gyms, cinemas, museums and campsites. It will also ban private gatherings and restrict access to beaches and parks, if necessary. Covid has killed just over 9,000 in Sweden’s 10 million population - a relatively high death toll.

France will keep all leisure and sports facilities closed until at least the end of January, PM Jean Castex says. With the English Covid variant spreading, the border is closed to most travellers from the UK.

[Jimbuna]

[Onkel Neal]

Just finished Rage by Bob Woodward. He ain't no right wing conspiracy nut and he makes some serious points about China taking steps to ensure the virus was spread outside their borders so they would not be the only country to take an economic hit.

[Skybird]

Really? Care to give some detail? I mean if true it would be a huge mass murder, a capital crime against all humanity - and a reason to strike them by means of war. It would mean WWIII.

I found only this and have no intention to buy that book:

https://georgetoparis.medium.com/the...a-f5d3359c5af2

[Skybird]

Germans are the half-wits of the EU.

https://translate.google.com/transla..._12850169.html

First, the EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen messed up the purchase of enough vaccine. Now we are also expected to see the debacle as evidence of particularly refined negotiation.

Hilarious. But most Germans believe just every nonsense if it is hailing their beloved EU.

[Jimbuna]

Scientists advising the government say lockdown measures in England need to be stricter.

It comes as the government launches a new advertising campaign to try to boost compliance.

"Your compliance is now more vital than ever," PM Boris Johnson says amid record UK cases, deaths and admissions to hospital.

Government sources say there is likely to be more focus from police on enforcing rather than explaining rules.

The UK reported on Friday a record daily number of cases and deaths - 68,053 and 1,325 respectively.

England, much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to be under strict national measures.

The World Health Organization accuses rich countries of buying up supplies of Covid vaccines at the expense of everyone else.

[Jimbuna]

“The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have today received Covid-19 vaccinations," a Buckingham Palace spokesperson confirmed.

Latest Scottish government figures show a total of 1,596 people are in hospital with recently confirmed Covid, up from 1,530 patients recorded on Friday. A further 93 people who had tested positive for the virus have died in the past 24 hours.

India will begin vaccinating its citizens next week. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country aims to vaccinate 300 million people by July.

Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron caught the virus over Christmas, her office confirmed today, following reports in French media. She only showed light symptoms and tested negative six days later. Mr Macron tested positive on 17 December and went into isolation away from his wife.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdulaziz has received his first dose of the vaccine, state media confirmed.

Residents in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang have been told to remain at home for the next week following a rise in cases there. Authorities in the city have confirmed more than 350 cases.

[Jimbuna]

Europe's slow start: How many people have had the Covid vaccine?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55575756

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Really? Care to give some detail? I mean if true it would be a huge mass murder, a capital crime against all humanity - and a reason to strike them by means of war. It would mean WWIII.

I found only this and have no intention to buy that book:

https://georgetoparis.medium.com/the...a-f5d3359c5af2

I didn't buy the book, got it from the local library

Really good book. I dug through it this morning and found the section where the National Security Advisor describes China's "wolf warrior" diplomacy and how China shut off travel within their country but did nothing to prevent travel to Europe.

[Onkel Neal]

Here's a section where administration was trying to get more info out of China and get some CDC/WHO people in to determine the scope and how China stalled; the National Security Advisor and his deputy warned Trump that the virus would be his biggest threat on Jan 28.

[Mr Quatro]

What bad thing happened in 1820?
-----------------------
“1720 — Plague; 1820 — Cholera outbreak; 1920 — Spanish flu; 2020 — Chinese coronavirus. Apr 10, 2020

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200...very-100-years

“1720 — Plague; 1820 — Cholera outbreak; 1920 — Spanish flu; 2020 — Chinese coronavirus. What’s happening? There is a theory that every 100 years, a pandemic happens. At first glance, nothing seems strange, but the accuracy with which these events take place is scary.”

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.

PS Claim is false

A claim on Facebook that a pandemic occurs exactly every 100 years cites four outbreaks that it says occurred in 1720, 1820, 1920 and 2020. But the first example was not a pandemic and the second and third started a couple of years before 1820 and 1920.

More importantly, the claim ignores many other pandemics over several centuries that did not occur in such a neat pattern.

We rate the statement False.

[Skybird]

Thank you, Neal.

Would you say, when considering the whole tone and context of that book, that the Chinese planned to abuse the pandemic as a tool for warfare with the intention to damage western economies, bringing them down by disruption, and intentionally accepted the hugh number of infections and deaths caused by this?

Because if they did, it would mean that we deal with a hostile enemy that already has killed tens of thousands of our Western citizens then, intentionally, in an effort to damage or destroy our national economies.

And if that is not an act of hot war, then I do not know.

That the EU, under strong German pressure, had nothing better to do then to sign a trade agreement with them, becasue the Germans once again think they cna chnage the world by good willingess liokie they thought they could regarding the Soviet Union, Russia, the Middle East and Palestine, is sickening and once again shows how terribly confused the German thinking is. I am a foreigner in my country of birth. There si a chnage that the deal wiull not pass EU parliament, but the chanc eis small, and a parliament rejeciton means not much anyway - hisotry proves again anbd again that the eU is not shy to breake its own laws if its leaders do not get within the rules what they demand to get.

What to do then with China? In past times, what they did, if it is like I asked, this would have been a reason to bomb the hell out of their place. And if our government reject to protect us from such foreign enemies and instead allow that scores of our people getting killed by this enemy - what remaining justification for an ongoing existence of these our govenrments and states still would remain? To me, the only legitimation for a state to exist is to protect borders and to guard the citizens of this state against attacks from the outside. If a state/government refuses to do that, instead cooperates with the attacker, it has stopped to have any right to exist.

Merkel is to give up the party chair in the CDU. Unfortunately the two most likely successors both want to continue her Merkelism, with the one, Laschet, explicitly saying so, the other, Spahn, implying it. Even with Merkel leaving power, Merkelism is set to not go away any time soon. After all she represents to potlical self-understandingv of the kind of GDR fat cats that she wasd ionfoleunced by durign her teenage socilaisation, she is not mucnb differfent in funcitonaol self-understanding than any communbist Chiense or GDR or Sovjet apparatchik. That si somehtign that most german have never understood. And she made several devastating political mistakes. Leaving nuclear energy. Deepening ties with China. Exposing Germany to ever greater financial burdens to save other coijtnries and save the Eurozone from collapsing. The opening of borders 2015, allowing undisckmrinatory mass migraiton into germany, not caring for the social tensions and wellfare ballast. And now her failed vaccination buying polkicy, when leaving it to the EU voluntarily. She is the worst political desdaster in Europe since 1933 and the twelkve dark years folliwing 33. I do not compare her to WWII, but she is the second worst right after that.

If Woodward is right, the four years of the Trump are even more devastating then the media usually reflect, because the reputation of the US has been very effectively raped by him. And Biden, different to what many Americans may think, is being met with sympathy over here, yes - but the past four years have been a huge warning for all of us in Europe. A Trump that happened so easily once, can happen again easily next time, in two years, in four years. Nobody here holds his breath for Biden being successful with his "healing the nation". I do not bet one penny on it, tbh. We wish him luck, but we do not invest much more into him (thats why for example the Germans continue with Nord Stream 2, although team Biden asked for a timeout to talk about it first - maybe they will talk, but the Germans will not stop during that talking).

Trump did so much damage on so many levels, and with so many implications. The destruction of trust and trustworthiness is FUBAR, to be honest.

Thats why Trump was supported by Russia, and probably by China as well. He accomplished the mission he was chosen for.

In principle I am for stopping all diplomatic relations with China, deleting all trade agreements, and then taking out all Chinese frighters and international flights outside their borders. Just stopping short of sending bombers across their borders - for obvious reasons of nuclear weapons being a factor. But China must be contained. Not, as the Germans think, "being worked with", for Sauron never will accept a second partner with whom to share power. German partnering has not acchieved anything n good in the past 40 years, only made them strong and powerful so that they now can and will do what they are doing. Europe shares plenty of responsibility in that, so does American business as well.

Always this capitalistic short-sightedness! The quick money. The fast profit sacked, no matter the longterm cost. So stupidstupidstupid. Thats is stupid investing. I have reached a point where I react angry to people who say that they mean it well (when dealing with China and cooperating in trade to get change by trade - what change has there been that is not to our disadvantage?) It seems meaning things well has become synonymous with acting stupid and self-destroying.


Edit:


Just in: a recent poll shows that just 17% of the Germans are for siding up with the US if America gets into a conflict with China of any kind. Strict desire for neutrality is the new paradigm iover here.

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschl...mit-China.html

I honestly wonder why America even wants to stay engaged over here. I would have not one bad word for the US if they pull out. The relevance of the base network in Germany for US globla operations, can be replaced with some time invested. Nobody pays with money these days, just with currency, and currency is created at will now, out of nothing. Money is no argument to stay in Europe, therefore.

And considering the military weakness of Europe and the notorious stubborness to imporve military power signficiantly, I wodner whether the Us might not be better off when leaving NATO and leave the Europeans to themselves. After all they are much more a burden than an asset.