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Pompeo Backtracks About Wuhan Lab: The Latest In The Controversial Coronavirus Origin Theory

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/05/06/pompeo-backtracks-about-wuhan-lab-the-latest-in-the-controversial-coronavirus-origin-theory/#4d26a2ad2f72

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemed to walk back an explosive allegation Wednesday, that “enormous evidence” linked the coronavirus outbreak to a laboratory in Wuhan, China, now saying “we don’t have certainty”—the latest turn of a controversial theory that started at the very beginning of COVID-19 outbreak:

Report says cellphone data suggests October shutdown at Wuhan lab, but experts are skeptical

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-says-cellphone-data-suggests-october-shutdown-wuhan-lab-experts-n1202716

 A private analysis of cellphone location data purports to show that a high-security Wuhan laboratory studying coronaviruses shut down in October, three sources briefed on the matter told NBC News. U.S. spy agencies are reviewing the document, but intelligence analysts examined and couldn't confirm a similar theory previously, two senior officials say.

The report — obtained by the London-based NBC News Verification Unit — says there was no cellphone activity in a high-security portion of the Wuhan Institute of Virology from Oct. 7 through Oct. 24, 2019, and that there may have been a "hazardous event" sometime between Oct. 6 and Oct. 11.

It offers no direct evidence of a shutdown, or any proof for the theory that the virus emerged accidentally from the lab.

How deadly pathogens have escaped the lab — over and over again

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly-pathogens-escape-lab-smallpox-bird-flu

Research into dangerous viruses and bacteria is important, but for the deadliest pathogens, it’s not clear the benefits are worth the risks.

 

Virus Researchers Cast Doubt On Theory Of Coronavirus Lab Accident

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident

Virus researchers say there is virtually no chance that the new coronavirus was released as result of a laboratory accident in China or anywhere else.

The assessment, made by more than half-a-dozen scientists familiar with lab accidents and how research on coronaviruses is conducted, casts doubt on recent claims that a mistake may have unleashed the coronavirus on the world.

The Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Doesn't Add Up. It's Also a Self-Defeating Diversion.

https://thewire.in/world/the-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-doesnt-add-up-its-also-a-self-defeating-diversion

The standard narrative has  been that the virus originated in an animal and seafood market some 30 kms away from the  Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) where the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is housed. Speaking to Fox News on April 15, Pompeo remarked that the wet market and the WIV were a “handful of miles away,” and that the US was “working diligently to figure it out.”

Subsequently, right-wing American publications and some tabloids began to run stories claiming that the outbreak originated in the lab. More extreme ones like the Washington Times even claimed in late January that the coronavirus may have originated in a lab linked to China’a biowarfare programme.

 

A detailed  analysis in NPR has suggested that “there is virtually no chance that the new coronavirus was released as a result of a laboratory accident.” After consulting 10 leading scientists who do the work of collecting samples of viruses from animals and understand how lab accidents happen, the NPR concluded that “an accidental release would have required a remarkable series of coincidences and deviations from well established experimental protocols.”

“The Discussion Is Basically Over”: Why Scientists Believe the Wuhan-Lab Coronavirus Origin Theory Is Highly Unlikely

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/why-scientists-believe-the-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-origin-theory-is-highly-unlikely

Over the past couple of weeks, the theory that SARS-CoV-2 might have accidentally leaked from a lab inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology has become a heavily touted casus belli in President Trump’s new cold war with China, as administration officials build their case to blame the whole catastrophe on Xi Jinping’s Communist Party. The lab theory was pushed hard by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, even as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that in all likelihood, the virus did not originate in a lab. American allies, meanwhile, appear to be freaked out by the rumor-mongering. “We can’t repeat the mistakes of the past. The WMDs fiasco was not that long ago,” a former senior Australian security official told the Sydney Morning Herald.

 

The lab-accident scenario seems the stuff of Hollywood thrillers—and perfect as propaganda, which operates on principles similar to those of thrillers—but there are a few facts that give it a surface plausibility. The Wuhan lab happens to conduct bat-coronavirus research, and it also happens to be located not that far from the seafood market where an early cluster of cases first emerged in late 2019. But, appealing and useful as it is in certain kinds of narratives, the lab theory leaves many virology and epidemiology types highly skeptical. To get a sense of scientists’ reservations, I spoke with Kristian Andersen, a professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research. He was the lead author on a March 17 paper, published in the journal Nature Medicine, that is seen as the definitive research supporting a natural virus origin. “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible,” Andersen’s team, which compared the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, concluded.

Pork Chops vs. People: Battling Coronavirus in an Iowa Meat Plant

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/business/economy/coronavirus-tyson-plant-iowa.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

After President Trump’s executive order, meat plants are reopening. Can they do so without endangering their low-wage workers and their communities?

 

Rambam and accepting everything is really good

פירוש המשנה לרמב"ם מסכת ברכות פרק ט משנה ג

[ג] אמרו על הרעה מעין על הטובה ועל הטובה מעין על הרעה, ר"ל שאם באה עליו צרה אף על פי שתכליתה טוב מברך דיין האמת, וזהו מעין על הרעה. וכן אם באה עליו טובה אף על פי שתכליתה רע מברך הטוב והמטיב, וזהו מעין על הטובה. ודוגמת הבבא הראשונה, כגון שעבר שטפון על שדהו הרי זו רעה, אף על פי שתכליתה טובה שתרוה אדמתו, ואולי אף יביא אותו השטפון לאדמתו תועליות. ודוגמת הבבא השניה, כגון שמצא ממון וראהו אחר כשלקחו, הרי זו טובה. אף על פי שתכליתה רעה שאותו אדם שראהו ילשין עליו אצל המלך, ויענהו המלך וידרוש ממנו יותר ממה שמצא. וטעם דין זה שדברים המצוים הן שאין במציאותן ספק, ולכן מברך על מה שהוא עכשיו ולא יביט לסוף לפי שאותו הסוף אפשרי, ודיו לאפשרי היותו אפשרי. ופירוש לשעבר, החולף. לפי שאין מתפללים לה' על מה שכבר נעשה, אלא מתפללים לה' ומבקשים ממנו דברים האפשריים להבא. 

 פירוש המשנה לרמב"ם מסכת ברכות פרק ט משנה ה
[ה] אמרו כשם שהוא מברך על הטובה, ר"ל שיקבלם בשמחה ויכבוש רגשותיו ויישב דעתו כשמברך ברוך דיין האמת, עד שייראה כמו בזמן שהוא מברך הטוב והמטיב, וכמו שאומרים חכמים ברוב עניניהם כל מה דעביד משמיא לטב, וזה דבר מושכל אצל הנבונים אף על פי שלא הזהירה עליו תורה, לפי שהרבה דברים נחשבין לרע בתחלתם וסופם מביאים טובה גדולה, והרבה דברים נחשבים בראשיתם טוב ויהיה בסופם רע מאד ולכן אין ראוי לנבון להצטער בבוא צרה גדולה וגזירה הרת סכנה, לפי שאינו יודע התכלית. וגם אל יתפתה וישמח שמחה רבה כשתגיעהו טובה לפי מחשבתו, לפי שאינו יודע התכלית, וכן אסרו עליהם השלום להרבות בשמחה ושחוק זולתי אם היתה אותה השמחה בדבר נעלה כלומר עשיית הטוב ודרישתו. אבל האזהרה מהדאבון והצער הרי הוא מפורסם מאד בספרי הנביאים עד שאין צורך לדבר עליו. וכל זה אם לא היה אותו אדם שרוי בטוב מראשיתו ועד אחריתו ויחשוב החושב שהוא מאושר מאד, ואותו האושר המדומה יהיה הסבה למנוע ממנו האושר האמתי ויהיה הוא הסבה לטרדו מחיי העולם הבא, ועל כגון זה אמר יש דרך ישר לפני איש ואחריתה דרכי מות. ולכן יכון האדם מחשבתו ויבקש מהאל שיהיה כל מה שיקרהו בעולם הזה מטובותיו ורעותיו סבה להשגת האושר האמתי. ואמרו ביצר טוב וביצר רע, ר"ל שישים בלבו אהבת האל והאמונה בו אפילו בעת המרי והכעס והרוגז, שכל זה הוא יצר רע, כאמרם בכל דרכיך דעהו אפילו בדבר עבירה. ופירוש מדה, דרך, כלומר באיזה מצב שתהיה שבחהו והודהו.

Gainesville has become hot spot for coronavirus cases in Georgia, a state just starting to reopen

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/06/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html

 Although the new coronavirus has been spreading through the United States for months, and there are cities seeing a flattening of the curve, some areas of the country have recently begun to find an uptick of cases.

Some of these hot spots are in states that have just begun allowing businesses to reopen.

In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp said the state will open a temporary medical pod in cities such as Gainesville, about an hour northeast of Atlanta.

Gainesville is "being stressed pretty hard ... at the moment," Kemp said Tuesday. The governor mentioned last week that while some areas of the state have seen reduced cases, Gainesville has an increase and area hospitals have had more hospitalizations.

The high number of daily hospitalizations for Covid-19 has continued this week

Overcrowding at Israel's bus stations amid limited seating virus rule

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r1wjKfrc8

Health orders that demand for busses to carry half the passengers they normally accommodate, resulted in major overcrowding at bus stations as people rushed to get to work after more restrictions had been lifted

 

WHO denies report that China asked org to cover-up coronavirus severity

https://www.jpost.com/international/who-denies-report-that-china-asked-org-to-cover-up-coronavirus-severity-627504

The WHO noted that China confirmed human-to-human transmision on Janurary 20, a day before the purported conversation between Jingping and Ghebreyesus

 

As virus draws closer to him, Trump turns to 2020 and stokes fears about voter fraud

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/10/politics/coronavirus-white-house-trump-2020-voter-fraud/index.html

Throughout the afternoon on Saturday, in an effort to raise concerns among his supporters, he tweeted baseless suspicions about potential voter fraud in both mail-in ballots and in-person voting in a California special congressional election on Tuesday. His focus on vote-counting came two days after he met with political advisers to refine their strategy for mounting aggressive legal challenges to Democratic efforts to shift to vote-by-mail ballots this fall.