Covid-19 Survival Guide Coronavirus BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

Covid-19 Survival Guide CoronaVirus BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

“Why this Outbreak will Make the Government Stronger and You Weaker!”

ISBN: 9781513661438

WARNING! This book is based on the author’s personal experiences, ideas and opinions about health and medical treatments. The author is not a healthcare provider. The statements made about products and services have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition or disease. Please consult with your own physician or healthcare specialist regarding the suggestions and recommendations made in this book. Neither the author or publisher, will be liable for damages arising out of or in connection with the use of this book.

Here’s What’s Inside:

This is the beginning of the Covid-19 Survival Guide and Coronavirus Biological Weapons Book…4

Forget everything you’ve heard about the Coronavirus timeline…6

OK, let me throw a bunch of conspiracy theories at you…11

Coronavirus Background…22

Update on the Coronavirus…25

Protective gear for medical workers remains inadequate…33

Protect yourself during these times of the Coronavirus outbreak…42

Signs you might have the Coronavirus if you have few symptoms…57

China conspiracy theories…60

Let’s look at some more conspiracy theories…70

Biological Weapons of Mass Destruction…72

Why do politicians keep breathing life into the theory that the Coronavirus is a bioweapon…76

Human error in high-biocontainment labs: a likely pandemic threat…81

Testing of bioweapons by the US Government on its citizens…89

Unethical human experimentation in the United States…90

Covid-19 – Opening a whole New World of Government Surveillance…92

Coronavirus: Timeline of Events so far…98

Let’s Begin

April 4, 2020

My best to those who are now suffering from this pandemic, as well as those facing hardships from being out of work. I have many friends who work in restaurants in this area and I understand what they are going through now. My heart goes out to them as well as others that have been hard hit.

Matter of fact this book had its beginning at the First Watch here in Hampton, VA. For the last three years I have spent at least several days each week enjoying the great breakfasts there as I worked on creating and writing some of my now thirty-three books. (Non-fiction books on Aliens, UFOs, Government Projects, Mind Control, and more.)

Gil, Lauren and my Daughter Kristine at First Watch On every Thursday at First Watch there is what we call an Alien Breakfast Group where I am joined by a couple of like-minded associates and we discuss the latest information on aliens, UFOs and anti-gravity propulsion systems and more. These meetings often have an influence on my books.

There is some kind of creative influence there at First Watch. Lauren, not only an amazing server, but also my muse as she has offered creative advice for some of my books. She was even my co-author and the inspiration for my book “Past Lives in Today’s World.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1513639218 Now Back to This Book:

Just recently, sipping a lot of coffee at First Watch, this book started taking form. I even mentioned to Lauren then that: “Over the last couple of days here, I wrote a book in my head.”

Please understand that I have avoided getting involved with anything to do with the Coronavirus and all the publicity it has created. With the whole World suffering, the last thing I wanted to do was appear to

3 be profiting from it or distracting from the severity of it by suggesting something that was different than the official government explanations.

But writing books is what I do and with some contacts in the government and military, my intuitive nature and deep research, I have been able to reveal secrets about what is really going on in many areas that effects our lives now and in the future. And now with what has been going on with the Coronavirus, I can no longer remain silent, and maybe I can help some people and even clarify what is going on. Do Not Proceed Without Your N-95 face Mask…

This is the beginning of the Covid-19 Survival Guide and Coronavirus Biological Weapons Book

While this book may have an ominous sound to it, it’s always been my job to give you the straight facts and information that those in charge like to keep hidden from us, and I don’t like to sugar-coat anything. This may sometimes upset folks I know and deal with regularly, and I know it definitely upsets many of those folks in certain government agencies. But they will just have to learn to live with that, because I’m going to be around here for a while.

(Some of them have even commented that they’ve learned some things from my books, yes, they read my books too!)

This Coronavirus epidemic has sure messed things up for so many folks around the World. In my life over the years, it seems that almost everything I was hit with, and that seemed to make a complete disaster out of my life at the time, actually seemed to make my life better later on when the dust settled.

In my previous book, Secret Space Projects, I had mentioned about some of the feelings and insights I had about the whole planet and some of us ahead of others on an individual basis being the middle of a tremendous change. Not as a punishment or tribulation as has been predicated by some in the past but being disrupted and pulled up from their current lifestyles, everyday habits and deep ruts to move up to a higher dimensional level (4th dimension). To be on a purer, more powerful dimensional level.

This move to a higher dimensional level is a subject that also has had an effect on a friend of mine. Larry has been experiencing some rather disturbing experiences for a long time now. From little things that go missing and sometimes never return, to those which disturb his sleep and keep him in constant turmoil.

Larry, being a physic and one who channels what he refers to as an alien (A spirit guide named Randolph from a previous lifetime here on Earth), and from whom he recently inquired about these disturbing experiences going on in his life and was told that they were to get him used to handling unusual occurrences that will be coming up soon and to get him ready for some major changes.

My, daughter Kristine, who is also a powerful psychic, almost welcomes things that go wrong or break. She feels that before your life can move up a notch, it will get rid of or signify those things that will no longer be useful to you as you get ready for changes and improvements in your life.

We’ll we are sure experiencing something major that has caught the attention of the whole World! With so many people suffering today it may seem downright cruel to even suggest looking for something positive to come out of this catastrophe, and some folks are just worried about where their next roll of toilet paper is going to come from, but have you noticed something? Yes, there is something in the air besides the deadly virus, people are starting to become more human! People are more caring and helpful to each other! Well, not everyone, but enough to start making a difference! To begin with…

The Coronavirus has swept through the world like a tidal wave. Spreading from Wuhan, China, the disease has struck every continent on Earth, except Antarctica. While we’re all trying to survive this thing, we can’t help but wonder where the hell it came from to begin with… really.

According to the official narrative, the virus likely originated from bats — as the DNA of COVID-19 is a 96% match to a coronavirus found in them. But this hasn’t stopped many from speculating that the disease is a biological weapon.

ABC News even reported that the “conspiracy theories” about the virus being a product of a laboratory are false. Contrary to this, one professor is bringing light to some very disturbing information.

Francis Boyle, a professor of international law, believes the virus is an engineered biological weapon that escaped from a laboratory. He is also an expert on the subject. In fact, he is the man who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was signed into law by then-President, George H.W. Bush.

“Maybe now we should start being careful about what Frances Boyle we take seriously on TV and start questioning everything!”

To further complicate matters, Professor Charles Lieber from Harvard University has recently been charged with lying to federal authorities about his connections with the Chinese government. Lieber, a nano-scientist, has received over $15 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department. He also received over $1.5 million from the Chinese government for a lab and for research in Wuhan University. It doesn’t take a wild use of the imagination to see how this could be a problem — or how it could be potentially linked to Boyle’s findings.

If professor Boyle is correct, China has a lot to answer for. It also means we need to be more vigilant than ever before. In a world where biological weapons are leaking from labs and creating pandemics, every precaution needs to be taken to ensure our families remain safe. You’ll be hearing more about Charles Lieber a little later in this book…

Forget everything you’ve heard about the Coronavirus timeline!

Most likely the first time we heard anything about the Coronavirus was with the outbreak in Wuhan, China in December 2019, right? It was non-existent before then, right?

Keep reading if you dare, what I have to share with you may blow your mind!

The article that reveals possible cause of the Coronavirus Spread: Below is an article written by Thomas Gaulkin on May 23, 2019 for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Did you catch that date?):

______Hey, let’s fight global pandemics by maybe starting one… Say WHAT?

By Thomas Gaulkin, May 23, 2019

Feed a cold, starve a fever … mutate the flu?

A couple of labs in Wisconsin and The Netherlands have been given the green light to do controversial work with a deadly strain of avian flu that kills two thirds of the people it infects.

The scientific community and US government declared a moratorium on the experiments in 2014. Why? Because the virus has generally been confined to birds, and these labs are trying to make it transmissible to mammals. On purpose.

The researchers say making new strains of the H5N1 flu virus in a secure lab can help them see what might happen naturally in the real world. Sounds logical, but many scientists oppose it because the facts show most biosafety labs aren’t really secure at all, and experts say the risks of a mutated virus escaping outweigh whatever public health benefit comes from creating them.

But now the US government is funding these same labs again to artificially enhance potentially pandemic pathogens. Say WHAT?

______And now onto the book that predicated the Coronavirus outbreak in 2020…

‘Wuhan-400 bioweapon’ “It was around then that a Chinese scientist named Li Chen defected to the United States, carrying a diskette record of China’s most important and dangerous new biological weapon in a decade. They call the stuff ‘Wuhan-400’ because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan, and it was the four-hundredth viable strain of man-made microorganisms created at that research center.”

--The Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz published in 1981 Fast-forward to December 2019 in Wuhan China

A local hero, Dr. Li

On the 30th of Dec, a Chinese ophthalmologist, Dr Li Wenliang warned his fellow medics of SARS-like infections in Wuhan but was told by police to stop spreading rumors. He was forced to acknowledge he made false statements on the dangerous situation and unfortunately, he later succumbed to the disease and died a hero. His death sparked anger in many Chinese who demanded to know why he was silenced. Was he actually silenced by the Coronavirus (which seems obvious) or by the police? (More on the story of Dr. Li below.)

The Eyes of Darkness One of the top 1000 Amazon best sellers in conspiracy thrillers is the novel “The Eyes of Darkness” published in 1981 by Dean Koontz. An excerpt from the chapter 39 of the book is shown on bottom of page 6. For those of you who have been following the Coronavirus COVID-19, reading this paragraph in the novel will probably raise your hair or send shivers down your spine. How did the author come up

7 with the name Li Chen, a Chinese scientist who appeared to be a traitor with important information on a bioweapon?

Li Chen is a fictional character in the novel but in the current Coronavirus outbreak, Dr Li Wenliang was a whistleblower with important information on the danger of SARS-like infections. Dr Li Wenliang is an ophthalmologist and for those who do not know, this means he specialized in treating disorders and diseases in the eyes.

What is the title of the novel again? Right, ‘The Eyes of Darkness’. Coincidence? How about the coincidence that a bioweapon is called Wuhan-400 when there have been speculations on the possibility of a bioweapon conspiracy? How did Dean Koontz get the idea that Wuhan-400 be the name of the bioweapon, which strangely matched the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan? Is this a coincidence?

The most common Chinese surname in mainland China is Li (~7.9% of all names in one estimate). Obviously, Li Chen is not the same name as Li Wenliang. If the Coronavirus outbreak is a planned bioterrorism, how could one predict that a doctor with the surname, Li, will become a whistleblower? This could be anyone.

Indeed, it seems rather strange that a bioweapon would carry the name Wuhan and simultaneously has a person named Li in a novel that matched reality in some ways almost 39 years later. Wait, 39 years after the novel was published, we have a Coronavirus outbreak? The Wuhan-400 is mentioned in chapter 39 of the novel!

Coronavirus kills Chinese whistleblower doctor

A Chinese doctor who tried to issue the first warning about the deadly Coronavirus outbreak has died, the hospital treating him has said.

Li Wenliang contracted the virus while working at Wuhan Central Hospital. He had sent out a warning to fellow medics on December 30, but police told him to stop "making false comments".

There had been contradictory reports about his death.

On December 30 he sent a message to fellow doctors in a chat group warning them to wear protective clothing to avoid infection. Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter he was accused of "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order".

He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for "spreading rumors" Local authorities later apologized to Dr Li.

In his Weibo (China's equivalent of Twitter) post he describes how on January 10 he started coughing, the next day he had a fever and two days later he was in the hospital. He was diagnosed with the Coronavirus on January 30.

A wave of anger and grief flooded Chinese social media site Weibo when news of Dr Li's death broke. The top two trending hashtags on the website were "Wuhan government owes Dr Li Wenliang an apology" and "We want freedom of speech".

Both hashtags were quickly censored. When Weibo was searched the next morning, hundreds of thousands of comments had already been wiped.

Many have now taken to posting under the hashtag "Can you manage, do you understand?" - a reference to the letter Dr Li was told to sign where he was accused of disturbing "social order".

Only a handful of critical comments now remain - many of which do not directly name him - but are an indication of the mounting anger and distrust towards the Chinese government.

"Do not forget how you feel now. Do not forget this anger. We must not let this happen again," said one comment on Weibo.

"The truth will always be treated as a rumor. How long are you going to lie? Are you still lying? What else do you have to hide?" another said.

Why was there confusion over his death?

Global Times (Chinese media) said he had been given a treatment known as ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation) which keeps a person's heart pumping and keeps their blood oxygenated without it going through their lungs.

Journalists and doctors at the scene, who did not want their names used, told the BBC and other media that government officials had intervened. Official media outlets had been told to change their reports to say the doctor was still being treated. The media outlets then later reported the new time of Dr Li's death.

Did Koontz actually foresee the Wuhan outbreak 39 years later?

There’s been no comment from Dean Koontz on why he wrote that and what was his source of inspiration. In Dean’s creative writing process, could he have tapped into psychic ability to foretell the future? The information that was ‘downloaded’ by him may not be very clear today because the events he saw were almost 39 years in the future.

Good writers sometimes describe they have a ‘flow’ when they write, and some have even described that what they penned down eventually became reality. There are also those who use psychedelics to enter an altered consciousness state to open up their minds to receive visions. Could this be chalked up to psychic ability or quantum entanglement?

Just Released

While we are talking about being psychic and timelines, I found this information that was just released, to be rather interesting. Maybe I’m starting to see conspiracies everywhere. But did Dr. Fauci just reveal he had inside advance knowledge of this current Coronavirus pandemic? Not a hunch or eventually, but more like it was going to happen and when. Why did I just get a flashback of being informed that right before 9/11 our gold reserves had been moved out of the basement vaults of the Twin Towers and that Mayor Giuliani had given his staff in the Twin Towers the day off?

Dr. Fauci warned in 2017 of ‘surprise outbreak’

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease specialist, warned in early 2017 that a “surprise outbreak” would occur during the Trump administration, and he said that more needed to be done to prepare for a pandemic.

“There is no question that there will be a challenge to the coming administration in the arena of infectious diseases,” he said in a speech titled “Pandemic Preparedness in the Next Administration” at Georgetown University Medical Center. He delivered it just days before Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017.

Fauci, who has overseen the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, warned that looming health challenges would involve both chronic diseases ― ones already ongoing ― as well as “a surprise outbreak.”

“No matter what, history has told us definitively that [outbreaks] will happen,” he said. “It is a perpetual challenge. It is not going to go away. The thing we’re extraordinarily confident about is that we are going to see this in the next few years.”

Fauci ticked off a list of measures needed to prepare for such a crisis, including creating and strengthening global health surveillance systems, as well as public health and health care infrastructure; practicing transparency and honest communication with the public; coordinating and collaborating on both basic and clinical research, and developing universal platform technologies to better facilitate the development of vaccines.

“The mistake that so many people have made … is a failure to look beyond our own borders in the issue of the globality of health issues, not only things that are there that will come here but surprises that we’ll have,” he said in his prescient remarks.

Despite Fauci’s early warnings and calls for action, a report on Sunday analyzing the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic found that federal agencies waited until the middle of last month to order vital medical supplies and equipment to fight the coronavirus, despite warnings about its pandemic potential being made in January. As the virus has spread across the country, reports persist of mass shortages of supplies in hospitals and medical centers.

Is Everything Connected?

Before you dismiss the idea of being influenced through some type of psychic ability, at least do some research on this topic. According to Russell Targ (A physicist who used to work for the CIA) it is possible for us to quiet our minds and describe the experience of something that happens at a distant place or in the future. This has been talked about by the Buddhists for thousands of years.

Prefer a more scientific explanation? How about quantum entanglement that says any two particles in spacetime are actually connected and have effects on each other even though they are far apart?

If Dean indeed had a vision of the future at the time he wrote the novel, then this could explain the coincidence of someone named Li, the city Wuhan, a bioweapon, the eyes and the number 39.

I, personally am no stranger to psychic experiences and some of my books show the influence of them and some of the folks close to me possess these skills such as:

My daughter Kristine Carlson, a powerful psychic: https://www.psychicmediumreadingsbykristine.com/

Lauren Alvis, co-author of our book: Past Lives in Today’s World. Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1513639218

Larry Toth, an amazing psychic, medical intuitive and alien channeler and a great help to me with these books, now numbering 33.

Okay, let me throw a bunch of Conspiracy Theories at You…

Hold onto your hat! No, we are not going to blame it on aliens, although I know many of you will be disappointed to hear that!

Origin of the New Coronavirus

“When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” -- Zhao Lijian, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

If you do not believe there is any conspiracy behind the latest Coronavirus pandemic, read no further. Maybe you also belong to one of those groups who believes that the official narrative of the tragic September 11 attacks was linked to the Islamic terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden.

Please note that it is not my intention to push my personal opinions on my readers, but to bring out all information on controversial subjects (no matter how well hidden they may have been) so you can make up your own mind.

Credible alternate conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 exist but are not mainstream but if you wish to awaken yourself to some shocking ideas, consider watching Loose Change.

(Loose Change asserts that the usual account of the Pentagon attack, World Trade Center collapse and United 93 phone calls and crash is implausible and instead suggests the 9/11 attacks were a false flag operation. Although you may want to take into consideration that The film's main claims have been debunked by journalists, independent researchers, and prominent members of the scientific and engineering community.) But there are still a lot of unanswered questions and things that don’t add up.

The only reason to mention 9/11 here is to point out the fact that it may be wise to question official narratives as we explore the origin of the New Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, which WHO has finally declared as a pandemic.

It is a conspiracy according to China

As the Chinese are still reeling behind the economic crisis inflicted by the Coronavirus, Zhao Lijian, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pushed forward the idea that it was the US Army that brought the virus to Wuhan.

He accused the US Armed Forces for spreading COVID-19 when some of their military members went to Wuhan for the Military World Games in mid-October 2019. Since the possibility of the virus circulating in China in mid-October cannot be discounted, Zhao’s claim seems possible. He posted this aggressive speculation on Twitter, which is shown on the bottom of page 11.

He demanded an answer to the question of: “Whether the Coronavirus has been circulating and infected millions of people and caused deaths but were disguised as a flu. China just happened to be the world hero when they identified the COVID-19 after something had gone seriously bad in Wuhan”.

If this claim is proven untrue, then it should be remembered in history as one of the cleverest tricks to shift blame to an adversary while crediting your own country. Or perhaps this is just all part of a misdirection strategy?

Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues to block an untold number of stories and facts.

A stealth Game

However, there is probably some validity by Zhao Lijian in claiming the Coronavirus could have been spreading stealthily such as in Italy, where one report suggests the virus was circulating in mid-January, and which was completely out of sight of the officials.

Questions for the Chinese

In fact, even the Chinese official story blaming the seafood market leaves room for doubt because only 27 of the 41 Coronavirus cases in the first group, which was published in Lancet had link to the now infamous seafood market.

The Americans should consider asking the Chinese officials, “Who is your real patient zero? Is Wuhan seafood market really the ground zero?

Why did you need to build new hospitals so quickly when your official statistics showed so few cases that should be well within the capability of Wuhan’s facilities? Were the crematoriums in Wuhan running 24/7 during the outbreak and how many people have died?

Why is it that the only biosafety level 4 laboratory in China happens to be in Wuhan and in the epicenter of the outbreak is in Wuhan? What is the connection between Dr. Charles Lieber’s secret laboratory and the Wuhan University of Technology?”

Which bat species carries a Coronavirus strain closest to COVID-19?

As early as 6 Feb 2020, Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, both researchers in Wuhan, wrote a short unpublished preprint to ResearchGate on the possible origins of the Coronavirus. They cited a paper led

Bat Soup (Sorry about that I know its gross, but somebody had to show it) by Zheng-Li Shi in Nature Medicine on the probable bat origin. However, they wrote, “According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city (Wuhan), and no bat was traded in the market.”

Let’s discuss this bat origin in detail. It should be treated as a hypothesis now rather than claiming bat is the reservoir for the current pandemic. This means there is evidence to suggest for bat origin but counter evidence, if found, will reject this claim.

The evidence to suggest for bats as the reservoir is based on comparing the genome of COVID-19 (then named 2019-nCoV) against known Coronaviruses. The genome can be thought of as a collection of all ‘genetic material’ and the more similar the genomes are, the more related the individuals who carry them.

Zheng-Li Shi and colleagues found bat (Rhinolophus affinis) Coronavirus strain named RaTG13 that originated from the Yunnan province had an overall 96.2% genome identity to COVID-19.

Bats as the source of bad Coronaviruses

So far, the bat species that carries a Coronavirus strain closest to the COVID-19 is still 3.8% different at the genome level. This translates to a whooping more than a thousand of nucleotide differences given that COVID-19 genome is about 30 kb. It is known that even a single nucleotide difference can sometimes have profound biological impact. Even if the reservoir for COVID-19 is in bats, they are not likely to jump directly into humans and an intermediate host is required. This is where pangolin enters into the picture.

Basically, the story is wildlife trading to serve the needs of some rich Chinese consumers is what gave rise to virus transmission from one host to another. In this case it is a jump from bats to pangolin, and then from pangolin to humans. Wait a minute! We have heard of something like this before.

Yes, the mysterious reservoir of Coronaviruses in bats that jumped into civet cats and then to humans Pangolin (In case you were wondering what they look like. Cute, eh? Now to give rise to SARS in 2003. This is what everyone’s going to want a pet Pangolin) WHO said on the origin of SARS-CoV, “SARS-CoV is thought to be an animal virus from an as-yet-uncertain animal reservoir, perhaps bats, that spread to other animals (civet cats) and first infected humans”.

The recent MERS-CoV that was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 also has an uncertain origin. According to WHO, “… it is believed that it may have originated in bats and was transmitted to camels sometime in the distant past.”

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) From the World Health Organization Cause

SARS Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) – virus identified in 2003. SARS-CoV is thought to be an animal virus from an as-yet-uncertain animal reservoir, perhaps bats, that spread to other animals (civet cats) and first infected humans in the Guangdong province of southern China in 2002. Transmission

An epidemic of SARS affected 26 countries and resulted in more than 8000 cases in 2003. Since then, a small number of cases have occurred as a result of laboratory accidents or, possibly, through animal-to- human transmission (Guangdong, China).

Transmission of SARS-CoV is primarily from person to person. It appears to have occurred mainly during the second week of illness, which corresponds to the peak of virus excretion in respiratory secretions and stool, and when cases with severe disease start to deteriorate clinically. Most cases of human-to- human transmission occurred in the health care setting, in the absence of adequate infection control precautions. Implementation of appropriate infection control practices brought the global outbreak to an end. Nature of the disease

Symptoms are influenza-like and include fever, malaise, myalgia, headache, diarrhoea, and shivering (rigors). No individual symptom or cluster of symptoms has proved to be specific for a diagnosis of SARS. Although fever is the most frequently reported symptom, it is sometimes absent on initial measurement, especially in elderly and immunosuppressed patients.

Cough (initially dry), shortness of breath, and diarrhea are present in the first and/or second week of illness. Severe cases often evolve rapidly, progressing to respiratory distress and requiring intensive care.

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An accidental leak of dangerous chimeric Coronavirus

Bats normally live in caves and trees. How did they magically appear in the Wuhan market? Right, the bats transferred the virus to pangolin, which presumably was traded in Wuhan. Now, here is the surprise or a strange coincidence. Just a short distance away from the Wuhan seafood market is the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC) where viruses from bats including Rhinolophus affinis have been studied.

According to Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, an expert who collected the samples had once described, “… he was once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection, so he quarantined himself for 14 days.”

The WHCDC is adjacent to the Union Hospital. It is plausible that trash contaminated with bats carried the Coronavirus infection to hospital patients, which then led to the outbreak. The virus could also have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology just 12 km away, where researchers are known to have generated chimeric virus using the SARS-CoV reverse genetic system, knowing very well of its potential danger to humans. Epstein-Harvard connection

Botao Xiao is a Harvard educated scientist who has written about accidental laboratory release. There is another startling Harvard connection, which involves the now dead Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide according to an official report, but he could have been murdered. The notorious financier and sex offender, Epstein, had funded George Church and Martin Nowak, who are both high profile professors at Harvard. Jeffrey Epstein 2013

In one of the meetings between the financier and the two scientists, Epstein expressed his interest in “… the science of life’s origins and mathematically modeling the evolution of viruses, cancer cells, and life itself.” Epstein contributed $6.5 million to the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics to fund Nowak to study virus dynamics among many other things.

George Church is a well-known geneticist and has been involved in synthetic biology, a field concerned with the creation of new life forms by engineering them using technologies such as DNA synthesis.

The genetic material to produce Coronavirus can now be synthesized, which means many different versions of viruses can be tested for their effects. In one of his latest researches, he used a machine guided design to systematically optimize adeno-associated virus capsids, which potentially enhances transformative gene therapies. Why did a Chinese university hire Charles Lieber to do battery research?

Another colleague of Church and Nowak, Charles Lieber who studies nanotechnology has a more direct link with Wuhan…

Among the ongoing mysteries surrounding January’s arrest of Harvard University nano-scientist Charles Lieber is the precise nature of the research program Lieber was conducting in his cooperation with Chinese researchers.

Lieber was arrested on January 28 on charges of making false statements to U.S. law enforcement officials and federal funding agencies about a collaboration he forged with researchers in China. He was released two days later on a $1 million bond.

An affidavit outlining the charges against Lieber notes that in January 2013, he signed an agreement between Harvard and Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China. According to the affidavit, “The stated purpose of the agreement, which had a five-year effective term, was to ‘carry out advanced research and development of nanowire-based lithium ion batteries with high performance for electric vehicles.’”

Officials at WUT have not responded to requests for comment on their agreement with Lieber. But it outlines just the kind of high-tech work that U.S. prosecutors involved in efforts to investigate Chinese attempts to acquire advanced technology from U.S.-based researchers say they are concerned about. They allege that the Chinese government has used such collaborations to improperly take advantage of the federally funded research enterprise and gain an edge in economic and military advances.

In Lieber’s case, however, the battery angle poses a puzzle. That’s because a search of the titles of Lieber’s more than 400 papers and more than 75 U.S. and Chinese patents reveals no mentions of “battery,” “batteries,” “vehicle,” or “vehicles.” (According to Lieber’s CV, through 2019 he has co- authored 412 research papers and has 65 awarded and pending U.S. patents. The website of the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration indicates that Lieber has been awarded 11 Chinese patents.)

In fact, one U.S. nano-scientist and former student of Lieber’s says: “I have never seen Charlie working on batteries or nanowire batteries.” (The scientist asked that their name not be used because of the sensitivity surrounding Lieber’s case.)

Lieber joined Harvard in 1991. Early on he pioneered a variety of techniques for growing nanowires from the bottom up in a chemical flask. Researchers have long been able to etch large chunks of semiconductors, metals, and other materials to make wire-like structures. But this top-down approach typically requires the use of expensive clean room facilities, the sorts used by computer chipmakers.

Lieber’s strategy opened the door to making pristine nanostructures with simple and inexpensive chemical techniques. He went on to show that he could use these nanowires to serve as transistors, complex logic circuits, data storage devices, and even sensors.

More recently, Lieber’s Harvard lab has shifted gears to integrate nanowires with biology. In 2017, for example, he reported creating soft, flexible 3D nanowire mesh that could be injected into the brains or retina of animals, unfurl and wrap around neurons, and eavesdrop on the electrical communication between cells.

Other research groups have adopted Lieber’s nanowire growth methods to fabricate nanomaterials useful in making batteries. But that’s never been the focus of Lieber’s research. Which begs the question of why his supposed collaboration in Wuhan was focused on a line of research outside of his specialty.

Affidavit against Lieber

In the affidavit by FBI special agent, Robert Plumb, against Lieber, there was something fishy going on between the professor and Wuhan Institute of Technology (WUT). He was supposed to carry out advanced nanowire-based lithium ion batteries for high performing vehicles with WUT and was awarded $1.5 million to do the work.

However, Lieber has no track record in batteries and in recent years his research was more focused on using nanotechnology to probe the brain toward the future of brain-machine interfaces. Below is a selected list of Lieber’s publications with connection to the brain or central nervous system.

1. Nanowire probes could drive high-resolution brain-machine interfaces, 2019

2. Single-cell profiles of retinal ganglion cells differing in resilience to injury reveal neuroprotective genes, 2019

3. Precision electronic medicine in the brain, 2019

4. Nano-enabled direct contact interfacing of syringe-injectable mesh electronics, 2019

5. Scalable ultrasmall three-dimensional nanowire transistor probes for intracellular recording, 2019

Lieber’s work was featured in a Science Daily’s article on the future of mind control.

Strangely, Charles Lieber’s Google Scholar page has also malfunctioned and pointed to someone else’s publications.

The brain connection

What was the “brain hacker” doing in Wuhan where he established a secret laboratory? Could this be a cover up for something far more serious? Does this have something to do with Wuhan-400 bioweapon from the novel, ‘The Eyes of Darkness’? Read below an excerpt of the novel. Note the "virus", “battery” and “brain” in one sentence.

Or maybe the work of a psychic or writer under psychedelic influence to reveal a sinister brain-machine interfaces experimentation alongside a pandemic to bring it to everyone’s attention. Did you know, Danny, a young boy and main character of the ‘Eyes of Darkness’, has psychic power? Now you know.

“The Chinese tested it on God knows how many political prisoners. They were never able to find an antibody or an antibiotic that was effective against it. The virus migrates to the brain stem, and there it begins secreting a toxin that literally eats away brain tissue like battery acid dissolving cheesecloth.”

-- Dean Koontz ‘The Eyes of Darkness’

Coronavirus conspiracies - You live in interesting times

The 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy whether you believe in the official story or not. Whether it was al- Qaeda who planned the attacks or an insider job in the US, or whatever, the only explanation of the 9/11 tragedy was a conspiracy.

The question is which one of the conspiracy theories will you believe. On what basis will you believe a theory? For a start, I think an open mind is needed when evaluating evidences supporting a particular theory in order to give some merits to all presented theories, no matter how trustworthy or ridiculous it may sound at first.

The world is now struggling to contain a new Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak and many conspiracy theories abound.

The Chinese authority alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) to flu-like cases in late December 2019 and later, on the first day of 2020, a seafood market in Wuhan was claimed as the ground zero of the suspected outbreak.

The novel Coronavirus was subsequently isolated and had its genome sequenced and the findings were published by Prof Lu and colleagues in the journal Lancet on Jan 24, 2020. Genetic analysis, or to be more specific, a phylogenetic tree of the novel Coronavirus genomes and other viral genomes in the genus Betacoronavirus, revealed that we are dealing with a new Coronavirus that is closest to bat Coronavirus (Bat-SL-CoV).

Bat origin of Coronavirus

This finding that 2019-nCoV is most closely related to bat Coronavirus gave support to those claiming it was the Chinese who like to eat exotic animals such as bats that spread the virus.

It may seem strange to the rest of the World that Chinese people from Wuhan are consuming bats (known to carry rabies) but just exactly how many of them include this flying mammal as part of their diet is not known.

The chances of getting infected from eating bats such as in the form of soup is low as the temperature used to cook it should be high enough to prevent infection.

Sure, one can argue the virus can survive being cooked but their ability to infect should have been much reduced, and our bodies should be able to produce enough antibodies to fight it. Most likely the chances of getting infected from handling bats, such as those catching them for sale, are much higher?

The worst place at the worst time - Wuhan City

Two weeks before the Chinese New Year on January 25, the first Coronavirus death was reported in China.

This did not stop celebrations in Wuhan, including a mass banquet on January 18, which had more than 100,000 people, attending. Clearly the virus has been spreading in the Chinese population in Wuhan in the period leading to the Lunar New Year and close contacts between people during this festival promoted viral transmission.

To make matters worse, Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, has the largest transportation hub in central China and also one of the largest intermediate ports along the famous Yangtze River.

While Wuhan is the epicenter of the outbreak, it requires little effort to imagine the virus being transmitted beyond this city long before it was quarantined. Indeed, the mayor of Wuhan has reported that about five million people had already travelled out of the city just prior to the lockdown.

Uncontrolled outbreak

As early as February 11th, the total number of confirmed cases exceeded 40,000 and the total deaths had just crossed a thousand people, which surpassed the 2003 SARS outbreak.

One of the conspiracies that is now widely circulated is the Chinese central government knew about this disease but had not acted promptly, which has led to a high number of infections and deaths beyond the official statistics given to WHO.

Similarly, back in the 2003 SARS outbreaks, Chinese officials were also accused for being not forthcoming with information on that disease, which had led to 774 deaths worldwide.

There have been cases of people such as Dr. Christopher Martenson who warned that the true number of cases in the current Coronavirus outbreak may be much higher than the official statistics, but he was discredited including having his wiki page deleted.

Dead human bodies are piling up

On the same day Wuhan was under lockdown, the Chinese government started an ambitious plan to build a 1000-bed hospital named Huoshenshan Hospital (note: Huoshenshan literally means fire god mountain).

On that day, the total confirmed cases according to the official statistics were only 845. Why did the government build such an elaborate facility and finish it in 10 days when they ha the Wuhan Union Hospital, which has 5000 beds?

Moreover, there are probably more existing buildings that could be retrofitted to treat infected people. Would this not be faster than building a big hospital? Has the capacity of the hospital been overwhelmed by less than a thousand cases?

A local named Fang Bin had accidentally videoed a hospital in Wuhan that seemed overwhelmed and counted 8 dead bodies on a funeral home’s car outside the hospital even though he was only there for a few minutes. His videos went viral and threaten the Chinese regime and he went into hiding.

Strange coincidence on ground zero and the Wuhan Institute of Virology

The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is a highly prestigious research institute administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is only about 30 minutes by car to the Hunan Seafood Market, the epicenter of the outbreak.

The institute is well equipped with a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory, which is the only one available in China. The highest level of protection and safety measures against pathogen escape in BSL-4 comes at an expensive price due to the nature of the facility needed and the expert knowledge required to operate it.

It seems like a rather strange coincidence that the only BSL-4 laboratory in China is so near the ground zero of the Coronavirus outbreak, which has no cure, has led to speculation that the source of the virus was a bioweapon.

Prof Lu and colleagues who sequenced the Coronavirus genome discussed the origin of the virus and wrote in a paper to Lancet, “… recombination is probably not the reason for emergence of this virus,”.

Could this be support for the case of it being a bioweapon?

Although the authors were careful to follow the sentence with “although this inference might change if more closely related animal viruses are identified”.

Is Coronavirus an Engineered Bioweapon?

The hypothesis that the origin of the Coronavirus is a bioweapon and traces of scientific evidence that may be linked to it have been compiled by The Epoch Times, which is a group associated with the Falun Gong.

(Falun Gong is a modern qigong discipline combining slow-moving exercises and meditation with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. It was founded by Li Hongzhi).

This group has a history of struggles with the Chinese government and at least one of the scientific papers cited on their website was withdrawn. The paper refers to 4 insertions in the spike glycoprotein, which the authors thought was uncanny, and many have interpreted this to mean unnatural man-made editing of the viral genome. Although there are now claims that the outbreak is likely to have been natural. Was there pressure to walk this back?

Coronavirus Background

Coronaviruses (CoV) are not something that just popped up overnight. They are a family of RNA viruses typically causing mild respiratory disease in humans. However, the 2003 emergence of the severe acute respiratory disease Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) demonstrated that CoVs are also capable of causing outbreaks of severe infections in humans. A second severe CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), emerged in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. Now on to what has a hold on us in Today’s World…

According to the CDC, they are now responding to an outbreak of respiratory disease caused by a novel (new) Coronavirus that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, and which has now been detected in 32 locations internationally, including cases in the United States. The virus has been named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “Coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”). Red Cross Hospital Wuhan City

The emergence of human Coronaviruses, including MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, is thought to be driven by the spillover of bat-adapted CoVs into an intermediate host. For SARS-CoV, this intermediate host is believed to be palm civets, while camels play that role for MERS-CoV. The existence and identity of an intermediate host for the 2019-nCoV has yet to be determined. Direct transmission of CoVs from bats to people is also theoretically possible.

Epidemiology and Clinical Characteristics

There are 7 Coronaviruses known to infect humans. Of those, only MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV are routinely capable of causing severe disease. The rest are responsible for mild respiratory illnesses like the common cold but can cause severe infections in immunocompromised individuals. The clinical severity of the 2019-nCoV is unknown at this time, although fatal cases are occurring.

SARS-CoV

The only recognized SARS-CoV outbreak began in China in 2002 and spread internationally, most notably to Toronto, Canada. From November 2002 to July 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 8,437 SARS cases and 813 deaths. Like other Coronaviruses, SARS-CoV is transmitted from person to person through respiratory droplets and close contact.

The incubation period is 4 days (range 1 to 13 days). The main symptoms of SARS are fever, headache, and discomfort. The case fatality risk is approximately 10%.

MERS-CoV

MERS-CoV was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. To date, there have been more than 2,400 cases, mostly in the Middle East. Individual cases and small clusters continue to be reported in that region. Travel-related MERS cases have also been reported in South Korea, where it caused a significant hospital-based outbreak in 2015, and in the United States, where 2 very mild cases were diagnosed. MERS-CoV is transmitted from person to person via respiratory droplets and close contact.

The incubation period is 5 days (range 2 to 15 days). The main symptoms of MERS are fever, chills, generalized myalgia, cough, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The case fatality risk is approximately 35%.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Laboratory diagnosis of Coronavirus infections relies on nucleic acid–based testing early in the clinical course and serology later on. It is possible to isolate SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and other Coronaviruses from respiratory secretions, blood, urine, and fecal samples for diagnostic testing. Clinically, Coronavirus infections can be diagnosed with respiratory viral panels that are widely commercially available.

Care for Coronavirus patients is supportive in nature and may include supplemental oxygen, fluid administration, and, for critically ill patients, being managed in intensive care units and receiving rescue therapies such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Infection Control Measures

Hospitals have amplified both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV control of outbreaks, stringent infection control is critical to preventing transmission to healthcare workers and other patients. Droplet precautions (eg, surgical or procedure mask, gown, and gloves) are indicated during the treatment of all Coronavirus patients, and such protocols for droplet-spread respiratory viruses are part of hospital infection control practices.

Additional respiratory precautions may also be appropriate during aerosol-generating procedures. Healthcare providers should consult the latest CDC or WHO guidance when managing a patient with a suspected SARS, MERS, or novel Coronavirus infection.

Medical Countermeasures

Currently, there are no licensed vaccines or therapeutic agents (ie, antivirals and monoclonal antibodies) indicated for Coronavirus prevention or treatment. However, researchers are working to develop medical countermeasures. Several vaccine candidates for both SARS and MERS Coronaviruses are in early clinical trials. Remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral, has recently been evaluated in an animal model and may be effective in treating MERS and other Coronavirus infections.

Update on the Coronavirus

The virus is now found on every continent, save frozen Antarctica, and the number of new infections reported around the globe is soaring, even as transmission in China appears to be slowing down dramatically. There is no treatment or vaccine for the virus, which scientists think originated in bats and may have hopped into an intermediary host animal before infecting people.

Treatment for the novel Coronavirus is a lot like the flu. Patients are advised to rest up and drink plenty of fluids. In severe cases, people who are having trouble breathing may need oxygen support. So far, older people are more susceptible than youngsters under 15, and most of the fatal cases have been among the elderly and patients with preexisting health conditions.

There is no vaccine for the Coronavirus yet

People can spread the Coronavirus to each other by having close contact (usually virus particles get passed around within 6 feet of an infected person), but there's no good evidence that cats and dogs can get infected or give the virus to their owners.

"We get new viruses all the time," Dr. Robert Amler, the dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practice at New York Medical College who was previously chief medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently mentioned at a Coronavirus conference. "There's so much commerce and exchange between people that it is fully expected that some of these cases will spread."

Some people have raised concerns that they might be able to contract the Coronavirus from imported goods packed by people in other countries. But public-health experts point out that the virus can live for only a few hours on hard surfaces, and the only way it's being spread among people is through close contact.

For example, the first case of human-to-human transmission in the US was between a husband and wife living together. Other cases have also been spread between patients and doctors in Chinese hospitals. (A doctor in Wuhan hospital died, and the incidence of spreading between patients and doctors is on the increase around the World.

The Coronavirus particles are very heavy and usually fall to the ground right around a sick person, but there are also lighter particles than can remain lingering in the air, becoming airborne. Epidemiologists studying the novel Coronavirus have found that a single infected person tends to spread the illness to one to three other people, much like the seasonal flu.

So far, children have proved rather resilient to this virus. Much like SARS, there are few COVID-19 deaths in people under 15. A mother with the novel Coronavirus reportedly gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby, and the average age of Coronavirus patients, in one recent Lancet study, was about 55 years old.

A case of COVID-19 usually starts out with a fever and dry cough. 80% of diagnoses are mild, and most people who've gotten sick in China are recovering from it well. However, the virus appears to be more deadly than the seasonal flu.

COVID-19 has about a 2.3% death rate, according to numbers gathered from the Chinese Center for Disease Control. For comparison, the death rate from seasonal flu is typically about 0.1%.

But not everyone shares the risks associated with the disease equally. The new Coronavirus tends to be most dangerous for medically vulnerable groups like smokers and the elderly. Children appear to be some of the least at-risk individuals: no COVID-19 deaths in people under 10 years old have been reported.

It’s important to use soap and was "the frictional movement of your hands that actually gets the bacteria off of your hands." Hand sanitizer is helpful in a pinch, but nothing beats a good 20-second rub with soap and water followed by a dry-off with a paper towel.

Paper, surgical-type masks that you see in operating rooms ... these are designed to prevent your own coughing and excretions from getting into other people, They are really not to protect the wearer; they're designed to protect the people all around you."

Could rushing off to the hospital to get tested be counterproductive? Unless there is a good reason to be tested, such as recommended by a medical professional, it appears that you may be increasing your risk of coming down with the Coronavirus rather than preventing it. There are no medicines they can give you for it although you may need to be treated with a respirator to keep your lungs clear. And that’s in the later stage of the Coronavirus.

I would think that the best treatment is to stay home away from crowds and do everything you can to boost your immune system. As shown in the photo above, inline to be tested, being packed into a crowd of people is very risky. Consider that the rest of the people standing in line with you may already have symptoms and/or at high risk of not being able to fight it off.

Also consider that the medical professionals are at high risk for being infected by the patients they are seeing and don’t count on those masks to protect you! Why put yourself at risk just to find out if you are infected, just act like you do have it and stay away from others and keep yourself healthy while avoiding risky activities such as smoking. You need your lungs to be strong. 6-foot Rule - Trump backs away as official says she had fever

President Donald Trump practices some instant social distancing as White House Coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx mentions she had a fever over the weekend.

OK, what the hell is she doing there? Is everyone in our government crazy? How many times a day does President Trump appear on TV to make an announcement about the Coronoviris and then some other official has to correct him on his facts?

Maybe we need to lecture these people in our government about this Coronavirus thing? First of all, stay out of groups. Why does Trump have to be surrounded by everyone in his cabinet when he speaks? Can’t he just stand up there alone to keep it from spreading? And that 6ft rule? Have you noticed all the reporters bunched together in that room and closeup to the President and the other officials? Why are they telling us what to do but they can’t follow it? Are we be led by a bunch of leaders short on commonsense?

Coronavirus global cases, 28 March 2020

Cases Deaths

USA 104,688 1,707

Italy 86,498 9,134

China 81,996 3,299

Spain 72,248 5,690

Germany 53,340 399

Iran 35,408 2,517

France 32,964 1,995

UK 14,549 759

Switzerland 13,259 241

South Korea 9,478 144

Belgium 9,134 353

Netherlands 8,603 546

Austria 7,712 68

Turkey 5,698 92

Canada 4,760 56

Portugal 4,268 76

Norway 3,807 20

Australia 3,640 460

Brazil 3,477 93

Israel 3,460 12

Sweden 3,069 105

Czech Republic 2,422 9

Malaysia 2,320 27

Ireland 2,121 22

Denmark 2,046 52

Ecuador 1,627 41

Chile 1,610 5

Luxembourg 1,605 15

Japan 1,525 52

Romania 1,452 29

Poland 1,436 16

Pakistan 1,408 11

Russia 1,264 4

Thailand 1,245 6

South Africa 1,170 1

Cases Deaths

Finland 1,165 7

Indonesia 1,155 102

Saudi Arabia 1,104 3

Philippines 1,075 68

Greece 966 28

India 933 20

Iceland 890 2

Panama 786 14

Singapore 732 2

Mexico 717 12

Diamond Princess cruise ship 712 10

Argentina 690 17

Slovenia 684 9

Estonia 645 1

Croatia 635 4

Peru 635 11

Dominican Republic 581 20

Qatar 562

Colombia 539 6

Egypt 536 30

Serbia 528 1

Iraq 506 42

Bahrain 473 4

New Zealand 451

Lebanon 412 8

Algeria 409 26

United Arab Emirates 405 2

Lithuania 382 5

Armenia 372 1

Morocco 358 23

Hungary 343 11

Bulgaria 313 5

Ukraine 311 8

Latvia 305

Taiwan 283 2

Uruguay 274

Slovakia 269

Cases Deaths

Andorra 267 3

Costa Rica 263 2

Bosnia and Herzegovina 257 4

Kuwait 235

Jordan 235 1

Tunisia 227 7

San Marino 223 21

North Macedonia 219 3

Kazakhstan 204 1

Moldova 199 2

Albania 186 8

Burkina Faso 180 9

Vietnam 169

Azerbaijan 165 3

Cyprus 162 5

Oman 152

Malta 149

Réunion 145

Faroe Islands 144

Ghana 137 4

Senegal 130

Brunei 120 1

Venezuela 113 2

Sri Lanka 110

Afghanistan 110 4

Uzbekistan 104 2

Ivory Coast 101

Cambodia 99

Palestinian Territories 97 1

Honduras 95 1

Mauritius 94 2

Belarus 94

Martinique 93 1

Cameroon 91 2

Kosovo 88 1

Georgia 85

Montenegro 82 1

Cases Deaths

Nigeria 81 1

Cuba 80 2

Puerto Rico 79 3

Bolivia 74

Guadeloupe 73 1

Trinidad and Tobago 66 2

Kyrgyzstan 58

DR Congo 58 6

Liechtenstein 56

Paraguay 56 3

Gibraltar 55

Rwanda 54

Jersey 52 1

Guam 51 1

Mayotte 50

Bangladesh 48 5

Monaco 42

Guernsey 36

Aruba 33

Isle of Man 32

Guatemala 32 1

Kenya 31 1

French Polynesia 30

Jamaica 30 1

French Guiana 28

Barbados 26

Madagascar 26

Togo 25 1

Uganda 23

Zambia 22

United States Virgin Islands 19

El Salvador 19

Bermuda 17

Ethiopia 16

Maldives 16

New Caledonia 15

Tanzania 13

Cases Deaths

Mongolia 12

Djibouti 12

Equatorial Guinea 12

Saint Martin 11

Mali 11

Dominica 11

Niger 10 1

Greenland 10

Bahamas 10

Eswatini 9

Curaçao 8 1

Cayman Islands 8 1

Haiti 8

Suriname 8

Myanmar 8

Namibia 8

Guinea 8

Gabon 7 1

Zimbabwe 7 1

Mozambique 7

Antigua and Barbuda 7

Seychelles 7

Grenada 7

Eritrea 6

Laos 6

Benin 6

Nepal 5

Fiji 5

Saint Barthelemy 5

Syria 5

Mauritania 5

Guyana 5 1

Montserrat 5

Sudan 5 1

Cape Verde 5 1

Congo 4

Angola 4

Cases Deaths

Vatican 4

Nicaragua 4 1

Central African Republic 3

Somalia 3

Bhutan 3

Liberia 3

Sint Maarten 3

Chad 3

Saint Lucia 3

Gambia 3 1

Turks and Caicos Islands 2

Belize 2

Anguilla 2

MS Zaandam cruise ship 2

British Virgin Islands 2

Saint Kitts and Nevis 2

Guinea-Bissau 2

Libya 1

St Vincent and the Grenadines 1

Papua New Guinea 1

Timor-Leste 1

Protective Gear for Medical Workers Remains Inadequate

The quality of personal protective gear for U.S. medical workers battling the Coronavirus crisis remains inadequate, the head of the nation's largest organization of emergency room doctors said recently, suggesting it is roughly comparable to that of nations like Italy and others that have seen surging infection rates.

The warning from Dr. William Jaquis, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, or ACEP, comes after some leaders, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have indicated that the supply of masks, gloves and goggles is adequate in the near term.

Jaquis said in an interview that the claim is true only because hospitals have so sharply lowered their standards in coping with the crisis.

Doctors, nurses and other medical staff have been forced repeatedly to reuse masks, goggles and gloves, Jaquis said, while wearing standard surgical gowns instead of Tyvek hazmat suits that would better repel fluids and germs.

Jaquis, who praised Cuomo for doing a "great job," nevertheless warned that U.S. standards are more on par with those of countries like Italy, which has seen a huge spike in infections, as opposed to South Korea, where doctors are outfitted in more sophisticated protective gear and testing rates of the population are far higher.

"When Cuomo says, 'We have enough,' he is saying we are no longer completely without," Jaquis said.

Cuomo said at his briefing that there might have been some "distribution" issues over the past few days, but he contended that there is no shortage at the moment.

NBC News reported that DuPont is expediting delivery of the Tyvek suits, which are assembled primarily in Asia. Yet it's unclear whether the production level will meet hospital demand, underscoring Nurses at Mount Sinai West Hospital in New York are being forced to the need for "a longer-term, wear trash bags due to the lack of protective gear there. sustainable approach," Jaquis said.

ACEP, which represents more than 38,000 emergency physicians, medical residents and medical students nationwide, has been calling for policy changes, including galvanizing U.S. industry through the 1950 Defense Production Act.

The nation's leading medical professionals, including the American Medical Association and ACEP, are calling on President Donald Trump to fully implement the Defense Production Act. That would allow him

34 to compel U.S. manufacturers to produce enough gear and ventilators to meet hospitals' demand and to prioritize outbreak hot spots so states would not compete with one another on the open market for scarce resources.

The list of drastic measures doctors and nurses are taking to protect themselves, according to ACEP, includes bleaching and reusing masks meant for one-time use, while front desk workers sew ribbons on them after the elastic straps have worn off.

Others are wearing rain gear or masks typically used by construction workers, and some have inquired about scuba masks. Doctors are also looking into microwaving gear or using ultraviolet light to sterilize it, as well as do-it-yourself mask construction.

Meanwhile, photos of nurses forced to wear garbage bags while tending patients have flooded social media, drawing outrage.

Resources the Trump administration is drawing on in the national stockpile, including protective gear and ventilators, will eventually dwindle, Jaquis said.

"The best solution is more production and a distribution system that meets the needs of people putting themselves at risk across the country," he said.

WHO launches global megatrial of the four most promising Coronavirus treatments

• A drug combo already used against HIV • A malaria treatment first tested during World War II • A new antiviral whose promise against Ebola fizzled last year.

Could any of these drugs hold the key to saving COVID-19 patients from serious harm or death? The World Health Organization (WHO) announced a large global trial, called SOLIDARITY, to find out whether any of these can treat infections with the new Coronavirus for the dangerous respiratory disease.

It’s an unprecedented effort—an all-out, coordinated push to collect robust scientific data rapidly during a pandemic. The study, which could include many thousands of patients in dozens of countries, has been designed to be as simple as possible so that even hospitals overwhelmed by an onslaught of COVID-19 patients can participate.

With about 15% of COVID-19 patients suffering from severe disease and hospitals being overwhelmed, treatments are desperately needed. So rather than coming up with compounds from scratch that may take years to develop and test, researchers and public health agencies are looking to repurpose drugs already approved for other diseases and known to be largely safe.

They’re also looking at unapproved drugs that have performed well in animal studies with the other two deadly Coronaviruses, which cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

Drugs that slow or kill the novel Coronavirus, called severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), could save the lives of severely ill patients, but might also be given prophylactically to protect health care workers and others at high risk of infection. Treatments may also reduce the time patients spend in intensive care units, freeing critical hospital beds.

Scientists have suggested dozens of existing compounds for testing, but WHO is focusing on what it says are the four most promising therapies: an experimental antiviral compound called remdesivir; the malaria medications chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine; a combination of two HIV drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir; and that same combination plus interferon-beta, an immune system messenger that can help cripple viruses. Some data on their use in COVID-19 patients have already emerged—the HIV combo failed in a small study in China—but WHO believes a large trial with a greater variety of patients is warranted.

Enrolling subjects in SOLIDARITY will be easy. When a person with a confirmed case of COVID-19 is deemed eligible, the physician can enter the patient’s data into a WHO website, including any underlying condition that could change the course of the disease, such as diabetes or HIV infection. The participant has to sign an informed consent form that is scanned and sent to WHO electronically. After the physician states which drugs are available at his or her hospital, the website will randomize the patient to one of the drugs available or to the local standard care for COVID-19.

“After that, no more measurements or documentation are required,” says Ana Maria Henao Restrepo, a medical officer at WHO’s Emergencies Program. Physicians will record the day the patient left the hospital or died, the duration of the hospital stay, and whether the patient required oxygen or ventilation, she says. “That’s all.”

The design is not double-blind, the gold standard in medical research, so there could be placebo effects from patients knowing they received a candidate drug. But WHO says it had to balance scientific rigor against speed. The idea for SOLIDARITY came up weeks ago, Henao Restrepo says, and the agency hopes to have supporting documentation and data management centers set up soon.

The list of drugs to test was first put together for WHO by a panel of scientists who have been assessing the evidence for candidate therapies since January, Heneo-Restrepo says. The group of selected drugs that had the highest likelihood of working, had the most safety data from previous use, and are likely to be available in supplies sufficient to treat substantial numbers of patients if the trial shows they work. Here are the treatments that SOLIDARITY will test:

Remdesivir The new Coronavirus is giving this compound a second chance. Originally developed by Gilead Sciences to combat Ebola and related viruses, remdesivir shuts down viral replication by inhibiting a key viral enzyme, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.

Researchers tested remdesivir last year during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with three other treatments. It did not show any effect. (Two others did.) But the enzyme it targets is similar in other viruses, and in 2017 researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, showed in test tube and animal studies that the drug can inhibit the Coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS.

The first COVID-19 patient diagnosed in the United States—a young man in Snohomish county in Washington—was given remdesivir when his condition worsened; he improved the next day, according to a case report in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). A California patient who received remdesivir—and who doctors thought might not survive—recovered as well.

Such evidence from individual cases doesn’t prove a drug is safe and effective. Still, from the drugs in the SOLIDARITY trial, “remdesivir has the best potential to be used in clinics” says Jiang Shibo of Fudan University, in Shanghai who has long worked on Coronavirus therapeutics. Jiang particularly likes that high doses of the drug can likely be given without causing toxicities.

However, it may be much more potent if given early in an infection, like most other drugs, says Stanley Perlman, a Coronavirus researcher at the University of Iowa. “What you really want to do is give a drug like that to people who walk in with mild symptoms,” he says. “And you can’t do that because it’s an [intravenous] drug, it’s expensive and 85 out of 100 people don’t need it.”

Lines of attack

Experimental treatment strategies being tested by a large WHO study and other clinical trials attempt to interfere with different steps (numbered) in the Coronavirus replication cycle.

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

At a press conference, President Donald Trump called chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine a “game changer.” “I feel good about it,” Trump said. His remarks have led to a rush in demand for the decades- old antimalarials.

The WHO scientific panel designing SOLIDARITY had originally decided to leave the duo out of the trial, but had a change of heart at a meeting in Geneva on 13 March, because the drugs “received significant attention” in many countries.

The available data are thin. The drugs work by decreasing the acidity in endosomes, compartments inside cells that they use to ingest outside material and that some viruses can coopt to enter a cell. But the main entryway for SARS-CoV-2 is a different one, using its so-called spike protein to attach to a receptor on the surface of human cells. Studies in cell culture have suggested chloroquines have some activity against SARS-CoV-2, but the doses needed are usually high—and could cause serious toxicities.

Encouraging cell study results with chloroquines against two other viral diseases, dengue and chikungunya, didn’t pan out in people in randomized clinical trials. And nonhuman primates infected with chikungunya did worse when given chloroquine. “Researchers have tried this drug on virus after virus, and it never works out in humans. The dose needed is just too high,” says Susanne Herold, an expert on pulmonary infections at the University of Giessen.

Results from COVID-19 patients are murky. Chinese researchers who report treating more than 100 patients with chloroquine touted its benefits in a letter in BioScience, but the data underlying the claim have not been published. All in all, more than 20 COVID-19 studies in China used chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, WHO notes, but their results have been hard to come by.

“WHO is engaging with Chinese colleagues at the mission in Geneva and have received assurances of improved collaboration; however, no data has been shared regarding the chloroquine studies.”

Researchers in France have published a study in which they treated 20 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine. They concluded that the drug significantly reduced viral load in nasal swabs. But it was not a randomized controlled trial and it didn’t report clinical outcomes such as deaths. In guidance published on Friday, the U.S. Society of Critical Care Medicine said, “there is insufficient evidence to issue a recommendation on the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine in critically ill adults with COVID-19.”

Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, might do more harm than good. The drug has a variety of side effects and can in rare cases harm the heart. Because people with heart conditions are at higher risk of severe COVID-19, that is a concern, says David Smith, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Diego. “This is a warning signal, but we still need to do the trial,” he says. What’s more, a rush to use the drug for COVID-19 might make it harder for the people who need it to treat their rheumatoid arthritis or malaria.

Ritonavir/lopinavir

This combination drug, sold under the brand name Kaletra, was approved in the United States in 2000 to treat HIV infections. Abbott Laboratories developed lopinavir specifically to inhibit the protease of HIV, an important enzyme that cleaves a long protein chain into peptides during the assembly of new viruses. Because lopinavir is quickly broken down in the human body by our own proteases, it is given with low levels of ritonavir, another protease inhibitor, that lets lopinavir persist longer.

The combination can inhibit the protease of other viruses as well, specifically Coronaviruses. It has shown efficacy in marmosets infected with the MERS virus, and has also been tested in SARS and MERS patients, though results from those trials are ambiguous.

The first trial with COVD-19 was not encouraging, however. Doctors in Wuhan, China, gave 199 patients two pills of lopinavir/ritonavir twice a day plus standard care, or standard care alone. There was no significant difference between the groups, they reported in NEJM on 15 March.

But the authors caution that patients were very ill—more than one-fifth of them died—and so the treatment may have been given too late to help. Although the drug is generally safe it may interact with drugs usually given to severely ill patients, and doctors have warned it could cause significant liver damage.

Ritonavir/lopinavir and interferon-beta

SOLIDARITY will also have an arm that combines the two antivirals with interferon-beta, a molecule involved in regulating inflammation in the body that has also shown an effect in marmosets infected with MERS. A combination of the three drugs is now being tested in MERS patients in Saudi Arabia in the first randomized controlled trial for that disease.

But the use of interferon-beta on patients with severe COVID-19 might be risky, Herold says. “If it is given late in the disease it could easily lead to worse tissue damage instead of helping patients,” she cautions.

Thousands of patients

The design of the SOLIDARITY trial can change at any time. A global data safety monitoring board will look at interim results at regular intervals and decide whether any member of the quartet has a clear effect, or whether one can be dropped because it clearly does not. Several other drugs, including the influenza drug favipiravir, produced by Japan’s Toyama Chemical, may be added to the trial.

To get robust results from the study, several thousands of patients will likely have to be recruited, Henao Restrepo says. Argentina, Iran, South Africa, and several other non-European countries have already signed up. WHO is also hoping to do a prevention trial to test drugs that might protect health care workers from infection, using the same basic protocol, Henao Restrepo says.

Coronavirus cases have dropped sharply in South Korea. What’s the secret to its success?

Europe is now the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Case counts and deaths are soaring in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, and many countries have imposed lockdowns and closed borders. Meanwhile, the United States, hampered by a fiasco with delayed and faulty test kits, is just guessing at its COVID-19 burden, though experts believe it is on the same trajectory as countries in Europe.

Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on February 29th. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control.

“South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice,” says Kim Woo- Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University. South Korea’s success may hold lessons for other countries—and also a warning: Even after driving case numbers down, the country is braced for a resurgence.

Behind its success so far has been the most expansive and well-organized testing program in the world, combined with extensive efforts to isolate infected people and trace and quarantine their contacts. South Korea has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitants—more than any other country except tiny Bahrain, according to the Worldometer website. The United States has so far carried out 74 tests per 1 million inhabitants, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

South Korea’s experience shows that “diagnostic capacity at scale is key to epidemic control,” says Raina MacIntyre, an emerging infectious disease scholar at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. “Contact tracing is also very influential in epidemic control, as is case isolation,” she says.

Yet whether the success will hold is unclear. New case numbers are declining largely because the herculean effort to investigate a massive cluster of more than 5000 cases—60% of the nation’s total— linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive, messianic megachurch, is winding down. But because of that effort, “We have not looked hard in other parts of Korea,” says Oh Myoung-Don, an infectious disease specialist at Seoul National University.

New clusters are now appearing. Since last week, authorities have reported many new infections, including 129 linked to a Seoul call center. “This could be the initiation of community spread,” through Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province, Kim says. The region is home to 23 million people.

Lessons from MERS

South Korea learned the importance of preparedness the hard way. In 2015, a South Korean businessman came down with Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) after returning from a visit to three Middle Eastern countries. He was treated at three South Korean health facilities before he was diagnosed with MERS and isolated. By then, he had set off a chain of transmission that infected 186 and killed 36, including many patients hospitalized for other ailments, visitors, and hospital staff. Tracing, testing, and quarantining nearly 17,000 people quashed the outbreak after 2 months. The specter of a runaway epidemic alarmed the nation and dented the economy.

“That experience showed that laboratory testing is essential to control an emerging infectious disease,” Kim says. In addition, “The MERS experience certainly helped us to improve hospital infection prevention and control.” So far, there are no reports of infections of COVID-19 among South Korean health care workers, he says.

Legislation enacted since then gave the government authority to collect mobile phone, credit card, and other data from those who test positive to reconstruct their recent whereabouts. That information, stripped of personal identifiers, is shared on social media apps that allow others to determine whether they may have crossed paths with an infected person.

After the novel Coronavirus emerged in China, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) raced to develop its tests and cooperated with diagnostic manufacturers to develop commercial test kits. The first test was approved on 7 February, when the country had just a few cases, and distributed to regional health centers. Just 11 days later, a 61-year-old woman, known as “Case 31,” tested positive. She had attended 9 and 16 February services at the Shincheonji megachurch in Daegu, about 240 kilometers southeast of Seoul, already feeling slightly ill. Upward of 500 attendees sit shoulder to shoulder on the floor of the church during 2-hour services, according to local news reports.

The country identified more than 2900 new cases just in the next 12 days, the vast majority Shincheonji members. On 29 February alone, KCDC reported more than 900 new cases, bringing the cumulative total to 3150 and making the outbreak the largest by far outside mainland China. The surge initially overwhelmed testing capabilities and KCDC’s 130 disease detectives couldn’t keep up, Kim says. Contact tracing efforts were concentrated on the Shincheonji cluster, in which 80% of those reporting respiratory symptoms proved positive, compared with only 10% in other clusters.

High-risk patients with underlying illnesses get priority for hospitalization, says Chun Byung-Chul, an epidemiologist at Korea University. Those with moderate symptoms are sent to repurposed corporate training facilities and spaces provided by public institutions, where they get basic medical support and observation. Those who recover and test negative twice are released.

Close contacts and those with minimal symptoms whose family members are free of chronic diseases and who can measure their own temperatures are ordered to self-quarantine for 2 weeks. A local monitoring team calls twice daily to make sure the quarantined stay put and to ask about symptoms. Quarantine violators face up to 3 million won ($2500) fines. If a recent bill becomes law, the fine will go up to 10 million won and as much as a year in jail.

In spite of the efforts, the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region ran out of space for the seriously ill. Four people isolated at home, waiting for hospital beds, were rushed to emergency rooms when their conditions deteriorated, only to die there, according to local media. Still, the numbers of new cases have dropped the past 2 weeks, aided by voluntary social distancing, both in the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region and nationwide. The government advised people to wear masks, wash their hands, avoid crowds and meetings, work remotely, and to join online religious services instead of going to churches.

Those with fevers or respiratory illnesses are urged to stay home and watch their symptoms for 3 to 4 days. “People were shocked by the Shincheonji cluster,” Chun says, which boosted compliance. Less than 1 month after Case 31 emerged, “The cluster is coming under control,” Oh says. Yet new clusters are emerging, and for 20% of confirmed cases, it’s unclear how they became infected, suggesting there is still undetected community spread. “As long as this uncertainty remains, we cannot say that the outbreak has peaked,” Chun says.

More data needed

The government hopes to control new clusters in the same way it confronted the one in Shincheonji. The national testing capacity has reached a staggering 15,000 tests per day. There are 43 drive-through testing stations nationwide, a concept now copied in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the first week of March, the Ministry of the Interior also rolled out a smartphone app that can track the quarantined and collect data on symptoms.

Chun says scientists are eager to see more epidemiological data. “We are literally stamping our feet,” Chun says. KCDC releases the basic counts of patients, their age and gender, and how many are linked to clusters. “That is not enough,” Chun says. He and others would like to study detailed individual patient data, which would enable epidemiologists to model the outbreak and determine the number of new infections triggered by each case, also known as the basic reproductive number or R0; the time from infection to the onset of symptoms; and whether early diagnosis improved patients’ outcomes. (South Korea has had 75 deaths so far, an unusually low mortality rate, although the fact that Shincheonji church members are mostly young may have contributed.) Chun says a group of epidemiologists and scientists has proposed partnering with KCDC to gather and share such information, “and we are waiting for their response.” Doctors are also planning to share details of the clinical features of COVID-19 cases in the country in forthcoming publications. “We hope our experience will help other countries control this COVID-19 outbreak.”

Protect Yourself During These Times of the Coronavirus Outbreak

The most common ways the Coronavirus is transmitted

Since the COVID-19 outbreak began, health experts have emphasized how important it is to wash your hands, disinfect surfaces and cough into your arm or sleeve. But it’s hard to avoid all methods of transmission, so much so that the vast majority of Americans are taking lockdown, quarantine or social distancing measures.

That said, most of us will have to leave the house at some point during this outbreak ― to go to the pharmacy, the grocery store or the doctor, for example. So where, then, can you pick up the virus?

According to new research published in The New England Journal of Medicine, scientists were able to show that aerosolized (that is, airborne) particles could spread the novel Coronavirus. This means there’s possible airborne transmission of the illness, at least in certain settings.

Does “respiratory droplet” sound a lot like "aerosolized particle?" If you’ve heard both terms tossed around, here’s the difference and a breakdown of what mode of transmission is the most contagious.

PARTICLE VS. DROPLET: WHICH IS MORE INFECTIOUS?

Aerosolized particles are not the same as respiratory droplets. They are much smaller, basically microscopic, said S. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital. (Fog is a good example of an aerosolized particle.)

Such particles linger in the air. “They can travel long distances and can be easily breathed into the lungs,” Long said. “Respiratory droplets tend to be about 20 times bigger, and travel around six feet or less before dropping to the ground.”

You will probably only encounter aerosolized particles in certain conditions, and there’s likely a very low risk of infection via aerosols for the average person. But, as the study shows, they are “concerning” because they can stay suspended in the air for several hours, said Jennifer Hanrahan, an associate professor of medicine and chief of infectious diseases at the University of Toledo.

These particles are a major reason medical workers are at high risk. Hanrahan said, “aerosolizing procedures,” like intubation, can cause these particles to spread.

According to Kirsten Hokeness ― professor and chair of the department of science and technology at Bryant University and an expert in immunology, virology, microbiology and human health and disease ― other procedures that can produce aerosols are oxygen therapy, scoping procedures and CPR.

When fluids containing the virus, like saliva, blood or mucus, are disturbed during a procedure, they can “remain suspended in the air by hanging on to moisture droplets, dust” or other particles.

Once in the air, the particles can be dispersed by way of air currents from ventilation or fans, which help them move beyond their immediate space, Hokeness said.

“In addition to air circulation, human activities such as walking and door opening can also further facilitate [particle] travel,” she said.

Respiratory droplets, on the other hand, are much larger, and they land quickly after being dispelled from an infected person.

“The difference is that, in respiratory transmission, the virus is kind of enclosed in a droplet,” Hokeness said. “They are produced when you cough, or you sneeze and the droplets carry the particles. They are limited in range. In order for someone to pick those up, they would have to be in close proximity, three to four feet, which is why we say six feet as a distancing measure.”

Which Modes Of Transmission Should We Be Most Concerned About?

Is airborne transmission the most likely method of getting COVID-19? No. If that were the case, we’d be seeing much higher numbers of infected people, Hanrahan said. Measles, for instance, has airborne transmission. For every one person to get measles, they typically infect approximately 15 other people on average. COVID-19 appears to spread to roughly two to 2.5 people for every one person who is infected.

Plus, while the NEJM study showed COVID-19 can exist as an aerosol, a report from two hospitals in Wuhan, China, did not detect such particles in 35 air samples — a hopeful sign that this method of contracting the virus would be rare.

The most common mode of transmission is still theorized to be through coming in contact with respiratory droplets, Long said. The transmission of respiratory droplets can occur when they are “either coughed into the hands or onto a high-touch surface, and then transferred by the hand to the nose or mouth” of the recipient.

“We are still learning about COVID-19, but Coronaviruses can live a few days on hard surfaces, and do well on skin,” Long said. “They do less well on porous surfaces like cardboard or fabric.”

The study in The New England Journal of Medicine examined how long the Coronavirus lived in various contexts. As an aerosol gas, suspended in air, the virus could hang around for up to three hours. Respiratory droplets, as mentioned, tend to land quickly on surfaces.

“On plastic and stainless steel, the virus was viable for up to three days,” Hokeness said. “These seemed to be the longest [for] surfaces.” The virus seemed to disintegrate a little faster on stainless steel than on plastic (think of doorknobs, handles and kitchen surfaces).

The researchers found that the virus sticks around for much less time on copper ― about four hours.

“On cardboard, some virus was found for 24 hours,” Hokeness said. “Some people get concerned about delivery, but the likelihood of transmission is low.” Like Long, she noted that porous surfaces “don’t tend to lend themselves well to letting viruses live very long,” and suggested paper is also probably less likely to host the virus.

Hokeness said this is “really preliminary” evidence on how the virus can be spread, and “sometimes when you do studies in a lab, translation into the world” is not always perfect.

But these discussions are important, she said ― particularly when we’re trying to keep health care workers and the public safe. “We are learning everything in real time,” she noted.

How To Stay Safe And Healthy

It’s critical to remember that you can contract this virus just about anywhere; there are lots of places and means by which you can pick it up. This is why officials are asking everyone to stay home. “You have to think of every surface as being potentially contaminated,” Hanrahan said.

Whether a given surface is infected “depends on who walked by and coughed or sneezed,” which isn’t something you can know. And if someone did cough or sneeze, they may not even know they’re passing around the virus: Research has shown that “stealth transmission” among people who aren’t exhibiting obvious symptoms is a common source of spread.

Officials can’t emphasize enough the importance of staying home and practicing good hygiene.

“Get nonperishable goods, so that you don’t have to go out as often,” Hanrahan said. “When SARS was going on, we knew that people who washed their hands immediately upon arriving home were less likely to become sick than those who did not report doing that.”

Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. Time yourself, because you might be surprised at how long 20 seconds is, Hanrahan said.

Those photos of packed beaches in Clearwater, Florida, or crowds piling up on Bourbon Street in New Orleans? Irresponsible. By no means should you be in a crowd right now. It puts your own health and the public health at risk, Hanrahan said. “As an infectious disease doctor, I’ve seen a lot of scary things, and this is really scary,” she said. “It is not like the flu. It is much worse than the flu.”

Can Wearing Masks Stop The Spread Of Viruses?

Using them to prevent infection is popular in many countries around the world, most notably China during the current Coronavirus outbreak where they are also worn to protect against high pollution levels.

But some Virologists are skeptical about their effectiveness against airborne viruses. Although there is some evidence to suggest the masks can help prevent hand-to-mouth transmissions.

Surgical masks were first introduced into hospitals in the late 18th Century but they did not make the transition into public use until the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918 that went on to kill over 50 million people.

Dr. David Carrington, of St George's, University of London, claims that "Routine surgical masks for the public are not an effective protection against viruses or bacteria carried in the air which was how most viruses are transmitted, because they are too loose, have no air filter and leave the eyes exposed. But they could help lower the risk of contracting a virus through the splash from a sneeze or a cough and provide some protection against hand-to-mouth transmissions.”

But I think the best advice would be to use face masks whenever possible because they do save lives, just don’t expect 100% protection in all circumstances and don’t think the mask will allow you to let your guard down!

Drug And Food Manufacturers

Whenever there is some type of disaster like this, we place our lives in the hands of the doctors and the drug companies that supply them with their “cures.”

Maybe more of us need to be responsible for our own health and discover what is best suited for our own needs and recovery, whether the source is a pharmaceutical or a natural herb or other substance that has been treating and healing different native populations of our world for thousands of years before pharmaceuticals entered our lives.

For instance, from many areas in South America and in particular the Amazon. Many healing substances are abundant in areas of the African continent. India is treasure trove of natural substances that are used by their population as seasonings on a daily basis and claim they prevent many illnesses that are abundant in other countries.

The drug companies have us trained to run to the doctor and ask them for their latest concoction that will make us feel better even though their own commercials tell us about the harm that will befall us if we trust them and beg our doctor for a prescription. Many of the side effects being worse than what it is being taken to cure.

Why would someone choose a drug to cure a skin problem with a drug that has possible side effects of death? Instead getting rid of the skin problem, just maybe we should discover what is causing it. It may be your body warning you of a serious problem which will just keep getting worse if not taken care of. It may be a gut problem coming from something we eat that we are allergic to or something that a food manufacturer has turned into a harmful or even deadly substance.

Originally the foods that were found here on this earth were created to keep us strong and healthy but now many of them have to be avoided if we want to be healthy and survive.

The government will soon be all over me for implying that you can be healed without a pharmaceutical, or even suggesting that your illness is really not caused by your body running low on a certain drug. And that it will never heal without the use of a doctor’s prescription pad or scalpel.

How many pharmaceuticals are made from chemicals that came from an oil refinery? And most of them chemically clash with the physical composition of our bodies and work by making disruptive changes to the way our bodies are made to work. This is most likely why there are so many serious side effects.

As an example, Aspirin was originally derived from the bark of several varieties of willow tree which has been used for centuries as a pain reliever. The active ingredient in the medicine made from willow bark is called salicin. Some people use willow bark as an alternative to aspirin, particularly those that experience chronic headaches or back pain.

Yet, while aspirin has been one of the most popular pharmaceutical agents of the past one hundred years, it is actually a synthetic derivative of the natural substance salicylic acid—the associated healing properties of which have been known for millennia!

I’m not sure if there are any side effects from using willow park, but I’ve heard that aspirin is one of the deadliest drugs you can take, and if it was brought out today instead of a hundred years ago, it wouldn’t be approved by the FDA!

I know that the FDA Militia is ready to break down my door, so I’m not going to list all the side effects of Aspirin. Let me just give you this info and leave it at that:

“As simple and innocuous as an aspirin tablet seems, its actions in the human body are complex, and its effects can bring both significant benefit and harm,” said Dr. David Cutler, a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.

Although aspirin can prevent clotting and, therefore, prevent strokes and heart attacks, it can also result in dangerous bleeding and other side effects, Cutler adds. In addition to bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract, daily aspirin therapy can increase the risk of a bleeding stroke. It can also cause a severe allergic reaction in some people.

Once again, I must explain that I’m not a medical professional and these are just my “uninformed” ideas, so don’t follow these suggestions or avoid following the advice of your doctor because of something I’ve written here. And no one should give up any medication or medical treatment without something to replace it. Sometimes you need doctors and drugs, but some folks have found natural treatments that work for them, allowing them to avoid more harsh treatments.

I’ve known people who have rushed to surgeons for their back pains when they might have corrected or improved their problem with a few visits to a Chiropractor. Gil’s crazy health beliefs:

While sometimes you may need the help of a doctor, especially in an emergency, broken bones and stuff like that, consider that there may be adverse effects from the treatment and drugs. Drugs have side effects and doctors can make mistakes even when doing everything right. Although medical treatments can sometimes save lives, they often interfere with the natural healing processes.

Death by Doctor is up there high on the list. (Medical errors affect one in 10 patients worldwide. One extrapolation suggests that 180,000 people die each year partly as a result of iatrogenic injury. A study released in 2016 found medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer. -Wikipedia)

But when you have a problem with your health don’t hesitate to see a doctor or a holistic doctor and don’t delay a trip to the hospital or a call to 911 when there is a problem. It’s just that sometimes we can take care of our bodies and avoid repeating the same mistakes over again.

Example #1: This experience of mine may seem trivial and rather silly…

Several years ago, I had an infected hangnail (Don’t laugh, it was painful) and there was swelling under my thumbnail. I was soaking it in hot water and Epsom salts and figured this would soon clear it up. Someone I knew who had spent years working in an ER found out about it and insisted that I immediately go to the ER before I got blood poisoning. And here’s what happened: First, three different people looked at my insurance information and still got my account number wrong so that after I survived my trip to the ER it took several months to get this resolved with the billing department so they could collect from my insurance company.

Then I was taken from the waiting area to some kind of fast track waiting room. This room was enclosed and It was stuffed full of patients in different stages of death and dying. This guy next to me would occasionally awaken from his death stage (I think he had the plague) and would cough all over me. I finally was seen by the doctor who started spraying my thumb with some kind of cancer-causing aerosol spray. This doctor’s scalpel skills were nowhere close to my own. After mutilating my thumb and still failing to drain it, she gave up and sent me home. I went back to soaking my thumb and a couple of hours later it was healed.

Example #2:

A few years ago, I went to my doctor for a physical. First, he said I had slightly elevated blood pressure. I tried to explain to him about the “White Coat Syndrome” and that I got nervous around doctors, but he wasn’t convinced. Next, he said I needed to lose some weight (I really didn’t need to pay someone to tell me that.) As I was leaving, he handed me a copy of a diet plan created by Registered Dietician. Among other unhealthy things on the list was white bread! I wanted to go back and explain to him that it was carbs and especially ones like this without any nutritional value and full of poisons that was causing most of today’s weight problems. Okay, one more example...

Example #3:

Buzz a friend and business associate was having eye problems a number of years ago. After a trip to the optometrist, who said he had pre-Macular Degeneration and to make another appointment so he could keep an eye on it. I was telling Buzz about some studies that high doses of antioxidants were showing promise for reversing it, which didn’t interest him, his Optometrist was going to fix it for him. Now, after a number of trips to follow the progress of his Macular Degeneration, he was told that he now had Macular Degeneration. Thinking that they could treat him and cure him, he was surprised to be shown the door and being told there was nothing that could be done for it and he didn’t need to come back. There’s a point to what I just put you through, please read on…

Your best defense against Coronavirus

“99% of those who died from virus had other illnesses Italy says” -- Bloomberg.com

We’ve been hearing about distancing yourself from other people, washing your hands and getting tested for the Coronavirus. While I can’t disagree with these, I do have a couple of questions.

And the testing for the virus? Am I missing something here? What good does it do? If you test positive, I don’t believe there’s anything they can do, there’s no drug that will help. In the beginning there were people rushing to the hospitals to be tested and exposing themselves to others who just might be infected as well as hospitable workers who are starting to become infected and possibly spreading it to other medical personnel as well as the patients.

I get the idea that you get tested so if you show positive you can self-quarantine yourself, but most of us should be doing that already.

If you are one of those that are infected and are at risk of dying, then you need to be put on a ventilator. But why wait until that happens? It looks to me like the best way to protect yourself is to avoid others and build up your immune system, it’s a strong immune system that will fight the virus, not some drug.

One way is to stop smoking or any other risky habit and make sure you are getting proper nutrition. Eating healthy is not easy in today’s world. A lot of our food is poisoned with pesticides and chemicals as well as high amounts of sugars. While sugars are bad for your immune system, today most of our foods contain artificial sweeteners instead of real sugars. And don’t run to the artificially sweetened sugar free products, they will kill you even faster.

This is not a recommendation, nor is an attempt to sway you from conventional medical treatment, but I use probiotics to keep my immune system up. Since this virus hits your respiratory system, I try to protect mine just like I do when I’m hit with a seasonal allergy, right now I’m suffering from the effects of tree pollen. So, as well as probiotics, I try to keep plenty of vitamin C in my system, I take colloidal silver which they claim has a certain amount of antiviral and antibacterial abilities. Plus, cans of oxygen booster which are sold to boost energy and to help with sports, help me to breath better when my chest gets tight.

As I mentioned earlier, proper nutrition is one of the best things you can do for your health and longevity and might even enable you to stay away from the doctors for a longer time span.

Once again this is not a recommendation, but a personal example of what works for me. For breakfast I often have eggs with wild-sourced smoked salmon. This morning I had a bowl of Paleo Krunch Granola. No chemicals or additives. Just Almonds, Shredded Coconut, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Coconut Oil, Honey. Compare that to your box of Fruit Loops or similar cereals that have that “Heart Healthy” seal on them and explain to me why they shouldn’t be charged with fraud for that claim!

Your Immune System

70% of your immune system is your digestive tract. And the #1 priority of your immune system is defense. Its job is to identify and protect your body from getting sick by fighting off “foreign invaders”, which actually enter your body constantly.

There is a battle raging inside of your body between the cells of your immune system -- and viruses (like the cold, flu and Coronavirus), allergens, toxic substances and other foreign invaders (like pathogenic bacteria, parasites and fungi). The stronger and more supported your immune system is, the better able you are to remain healthy and protected. (Some folks, such as I, support their immune system with a probiotic supplement among other things.)

There are many things in life today that can harm immunity and make people more prone to getting sick, such as:

• Improper hygiene (like not washing hands enough) • Unhealthy diet, such as excess sugar and processed foods • Excess alcohol • Excess stress • Insufficient sleep • Environmental toxins (in the air, water, on food, etc.) • Poor gut health • Sitting too much/not exercising enough

And studies have shown that probiotics help prevent episodes of upper-respiratory tract infections. So important for what we are facing today.

So why don’t we don’t we read anything in the papers or see anything on TV about building immunity— to all diseases, from coronavirus to TB. In fact, the Washington Post has admonished its readers that you can’t build immunity to the coronavirus. This is nonsense. Like any virus, coronavirus is no match for someone with a strong immune system.

If it was true that you couldn’t build immunity to the Coronavirus, why are they trying to create a vaccine for the Coronavirus? And since the Coronavirus is constantly mutating, is there any way to create a vaccine that would be up to date on the Coronavirus as it keeps mutating?

OK, I’m not a scientist or a medical professional, but in my opinion, our own immunity system is the only thing flexible enough to protect us. Yes, I know these words are going to make some people crazy, could it be that they don’t want us to realize how powerful our immune systems really are and we might start building up our bodies’ defenses instead of using so many pharmaceuticals, some of which suppress our immune systems? And what if we got to the point where we wouldn’t need their vaccines? What would that do to our economy? Besides I’ve heard that vaccines make viruses come back stronger.

Something has been troubling me… Bill Gates (the Microsoft genius) has been very vocal about believing in the necessity of reducing the population of our planet so it can survive. And Mr. Gates doesn’t hesitate to work towards what he strongly believes in. But he recently has invested billions in vaccines. Is that because he believes vaccines will save lives or that they will reduce the population?

Coronavirus symptoms start slow, and worsen quickly

As the new Coronavirus spreads, doctors are seeing a pattern emerge in the way people are responding to the disease. People at first will experience mild symptoms like a light cough or headache. After a week, those symptoms can escalate to needing a trip to the emergency room.

One ICU doctor said that COVID-19 patients "were doing okay, but at the five- to seven-day mark they got worse and then developed respiratory arrest in its true form." As the novel Coronavirus spreads, doctors are seeing a pattern in the way their patients are responding to the disease.

People who get sick tend to first suffer minor ailments, like headaches, light coughs, and a slight fever for around a week. But it's usually only at the end of the second week that they will either start improving, or suddenly decline, and for those who do get worse, it can quickly escalate to a trip to the emergency room.

For those who end up in the intensive care unit (ICU), there is a similar kind of delay in the way patients display symptoms and relapse after receiving treatments.

It's a quick onset, she said, "that can be very abrupt."

Many people who get the Coronavirus feel fine for a week, then 'crash'

Critical care physician Dr. Joshua Denson claims that, based on the 15-20 patients with Coronavirus he has treated, he would describe the first phase of illness as "a slow burn."

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Christopher Ohl also said that he's seen patients saying they think they're getting better, and "then within 20 to 24 hours, they've got fevers, severe fatigue, worsening cough and shortness of breath. Then they get hospitalized."

The CDC warns there is plenty of evidence, both published by researchers and anecdotal, that many patients see a "clinical deterioration during the second week of illness." A study published in The Lancet in January found more than half of patients developed shortness of breath after already being ill for a week.

"It's known as the second-week crash," Donald G. McNeil Jr, a science and health reporter for The New York Times, said. "And some people crash even after they thought they were starting to get better."

Patients in hospital seem to get better before they get worse

A respiratory therapist said that his "patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen, and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut down and can't breathe at all."

This sudden decline is most likely to happen for the most at-risk patients; the elderly and those with preexisting health conditions. Age not the only risk for severe Coronavirus disease

Older people remain most at risk of dying as the new Coronavirus spreads, but they’re far from the only ones vulnerable. It’s still a mystery why men seem to be faring worse than women.

And as cases skyrocket in the U.S. and Europe, it’s becoming clearer that how healthy you were before the pandemic began plays a key role in how you fare regardless of how old you are.

Most of those who get COVID-19 have mild or moderate symptoms. But that doesn't mean “all." While it will be months before scientists have enough data to say for sure who is most at risk and why, preliminary numbers from early cases around the world are starting to offer hints.

Not just the old who get sick

Senior citizens undoubtedly are the hardest hit by COVID-19. In China, 80% of deaths were among people in their 60s or older, and that general trend is playing out elsewhere.

The graying of the population means some countries face particular risk. Italy has the world’s second oldest population after Japan. While death rates fluctuate wildly early in an outbreak, Italy has reported more than 80% of deaths so far were among those 70 or older.

But, “the idea that this is purely a disease that causes death in older people we need to be very, very careful with,” Dr. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, warned.

As much as 10% to 15% of people under 50 have moderate to severe infection, he said.

Even if they survive, the middle-aged can spend weeks in the hospital. In France, more than half of the first 300 people admitted to intensive care units were under 60.

“Young people are not invincible,” WHO's Maria Van Kerkhove added, saying more information is needed about the disease in all age groups.

Italy reported that a quarter of its cases so far were among people ages 19 to 50. In Spain, a third are under age 44. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s first snapshot of cases found 29% were ages 20 to 44.

Then there’s the puzzle of children, who have made up a small fraction of the world’s case counts to date. But while most appear only mildly ill, in the journal Pediatrics researchers traced 2,100 infected children in China and noted one death, a 14-year-old, and that nearly 6% were seriously ill.

Another question is what role kids have in spreading the virus: “There is an urgent need for further investigation of the role children have in the chain of transmission,” researchers at Canada’s Dalhousie University wrote in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The riskiest health conditions

Put aside age: Underlying health plays a big role. In China, 40% of people who required critical care had other chronic health problems. And there, deaths were highest among people who had heart disease, diabetes or chronic lung diseases before they got COVID-19.

Preexisting health problems also can increase risk of infection, such as people who have weak immune systems including from cancer treatment.

Other countries now are seeing how pre-pandemic health plays a role, and more such threats are likely to be discovered. Italy reported that of the first nine people younger than 40 who died of COVID-19, seven were confirmed to have “grave pathologies” such as heart disease.

The more health problems, the worse they fare. Italy also reports about half of people who died with COVID-19 had three or more underlying conditions, while just 2% of deaths were in people with no preexisting ailments.

Heart disease is a very broad term, but so far it looks like those most at risk have significant cardiovascular diseases such as congestive heart failure or severely stiffened and clogged arteries, said Dr. Trish Perl, infectious disease chief at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Any sort of infection tends to make diabetes harder to control, but it’s not clear why diabetics appear to be at particular risk with COVID-19.

Risks in the less healthy may have something to do with how they hold up if their immune systems overreact to the virus. Patients who die often seemed to have been improving after a week or so only to suddenly deteriorate — experiencing organ-damaging inflammation.

As for preexisting lung problems, “this is really happening in people who have less lung capacity,” Perl said, because of diseases such as COPD -- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease -- or cystic fibrosis.

Asthma also is on the worry list. No one really knows about the risk from very mild asthma, although even routine respiratory infections often leave patients using their inhalers more often and they’ll need monitoring with COVID-19, she said. What about a prior bout of pneumonia? Unless it was severe enough to put you on a ventilator, that alone shouldn’t have caused any significant lingering damage, she said.

The gender mystery

Perhaps the gender imbalance shouldn’t be a surprise: During previous outbreaks of SARS and MERS -- cousins to COVID-19 -- scientists noticed men seemed more susceptible than women.

This time around, slightly more than half the COVID-19 deaths in China were among men. Other parts of Asia saw similar numbers. Then Europe, too, spotted what Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus coordinator, labeled a concerning trend.

In Italy, where men so far make up 58% of infections, male deaths are outpacing female deaths and the increased risk starts at age 50, according to a report from Italy’s COVID-19 surveillance group.

The U.S. CDC hasn’t yet released details. But one report about the first nearly 200 British patients admitted to critical care found about two-thirds were male.

One suspect: Globally, men are more likely to have smoked more heavily and for longer periods than women. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control is urging research into smoking’s connection to COVID-19.

Hormones may play a role, too. In 2017, University of Iowa researchers infected mice with SARS and, just like had happened in people, males were more likely to die. Estrogen seemed protective — when their ovaries were removed, deaths among female mice jumped, the team reported in the Journal of Immunology.

This is what Coronavirus does to your body

The virus can enter the body through eyes, nose or mouth and when the virus penetrates the epithelial cells of the respiratory tract, it will use these cells to make copies of itself. The copies can in turn infect new cells. For the majority of people, the symptoms are mild but for some, the infection may result in a complete failure of the lungs.

The timeline of COVID-19 symptoms from the beginning of the infection:

• 5 days: The incubation time The incubation time varies from five days to two weeks. In the beginning, patients will have a cough and fever, experience fatigue, muscle pain, and headache. Most often the symptoms are mild even for those who have caught mild pneumonia.

• 12-19 days: Symptoms worsen The incubation time varies from five days to two weeks. In the beginning, patients will have a cough and fever, experience fatigue, muscle pain, and headache. Most often the symptoms are mild even for those who have caught mild pneumonia.

• 13-14 days: Possible ARDS The most serious consequence of pneumonia is acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) that may have begun on average eight to nine days from the beginning of the symptoms

• 19 days: Possible death

On average 1% to 5% will die approximately two weeks after the start of the symptoms. The disease outcome is conditional to age, income, access to healthcare, access to respirators, pre-existing conditions, and probably smoking status.

A ventilator - The critical resource that is in short supply

A shortage of the breathing machines could mean the difference between life and death for the sickest Coronavirus patients.

The Coronavirus is straining the global health care system, and one piece of lifesaving medical equipment is in particularly scarce supply: mechanical ventilators.

A ventilator helps patients who cannot properly breathe on their own by pumping air into their lungs through a tube that has been inserted into their windpipes. Because COVID-19, the disease caused by the Coronavirus, affects the respiratory system, the number of hospitalized patients in need of breathing assistance has exploded since this pandemic began.

"This is a disease that people are dying of because of respiratory illness. They're not dying because their heart fails. They're not dying of shock, they’re dying because they just can’t get oxygen to their bloodstream, and that makes other organs fail, as well.” -- Dr. Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer at the American Lung Association

The vast majority of those infected by the Coronavirus do not need hospitalization, with a report last month finding that 80 percent of people who got the Coronavirus in China had mild symptoms that could be treated at home. Of the 20 percent who required hospitalization, 13.8 percent had severe disease, including respiratory problems, and 6.1 percent had critical illness, including respiratory failure. What is a ventilator and who needs one?

Ventilators are hospital bedside machines that assist with two critical functions: getting enough oxygen into the bloodstream and clearing out carbon dioxide, which can build up when the patient is too weak or sick to move air in and out of the lungs. The decision to hook a patient up to one is made when it is clear that the lungs have become too inflamed or injured to do those functions on their own and when steps that are less invasive, like an oxygen mask placed over a person's nose and mouth, fail to deliver what the patient needs.

Those who receive ventilators are typically the sickest patients in the hospital, and the decision to put them on ventilators is often the last resort to save their lives. Patients do not always recover, and there is a possibility that they acquire a case of pneumonia that they did not have before being put on the ventilator, Their lung injuries can also be exacerbated if ventilators are not on exactly the right setting.

With illnesses like the Coronavirus, which is spread through respiratory droplets, there are risks associated with ventilators for health care providers, too.

There are things in the hospital that generate aerosols which are very, very fine droplet particles that can still carry the virus, can linger in the air for much longer than the droplet, and poses a much higher risk.

Post intensive-care syndrome: Why some COVID-19 patients may face problems even after recovery

While most patients who become infected with the Coronavirus appear to have mild symptoms, or no symptoms at all, it's becoming clear that those with the most severe complications must spend a significant amount of time in the ICU.

"We have people on ventilators for 20 to 30 days," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a recent news conference.

It's a similar situation at the Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans, which has become another hot spot in the Coronavirus outbreak. Doctors there say COVID-19 patients rarely get better within two or three days, instead remaining on mechanical oxygen for one to two weeks.

Critical care doctors know that the longer patients remain in the ICU, the more likely they are to suffer long-term physical, cognitive and the emotional effects of being sedated.

In fact, those effects have a name: "post-intensive care syndrome." Some physicians call it post-ICU delirium.

"The longer somebody is in the ICU, the more they're at risk," Dr. Amy Stewart Bellinghausen, a pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine fellow at the University of California, San Diego, said. She estimates that up to two-thirds of ventilated patients may be affected.

The longer somebody is in the ICU, the more they're at risk

Patients may be physically weak and experience a type of post-traumatic stress. The exact cause of post- intensive care syndrome is unclear. It could be the result of patients not getting enough oxygen or blood to the brain. Or, it could be sedative medications — critical for what physicians must do in acute care, but with potentially long-lasting ramifications.

"I had one patient who came to our ICU recovery clinic, who told me that he was kind of at half conscious state the whole time," Bellinghausen said, "He thought the nurses were hooking up poisonous snakes to his arms."

Of course, the nurses were simply putting IVs in, but the patient experienced it as trauma. When patients recover to the point of being discharged, cognitive difficulties may follow.

"Often when patients come out of the ICU, they really struggle to think as clearly as they did before," Bellinghausen said. "Sometimes it's as simple as not being able to figure out how to find the shared drive at work anymore, or what's on the schedule for the next day."

Bellinghausen works with post-ICU patients at UCSD on their cognitive rehabilitation, which is a bit like physical therapy for the brain.

Beyond the potential for cognitive problems, there's early evidence that some patients may continue to struggle getting enough air into their lungs.

According to the South China Morning Post, doctors at Hong Kong's Hospital Authority have noted some COVID-19 patients experience drops of 20 to 30 percent in lung function. Other studies have hinted that COVID-19 infection could lead to heart injury, which is damage that can occur when blood flow to the heart is reduced. "This virus will forever impact this world and If nothing else comes out of it but people getting closer to each other this world is going to be that much better!"

Signs you might have the Coronavirus even if you have few symptoms

Minor symptoms of COVID-19 include loss of smell and taste, stomach aches, body aches, and nausea.

The COVID-19 virus may progress through the body differently depending on the strength of a person's immune system, which may explain why there's such a wide variety and severity of symptoms.

Symptoms not associated with COVID-19 include pain in a specific limb and skin lesions, or boils.

Coronavirus infections produce a variety of common symptoms, including a dry cough, fever, and, especially in moderate to severe cases, shortness of breath. But doctors who have treated COVID-19 patients have seen a slew of other symptoms that haven't typically been associated with other Coronavirus infections.

"Additional symptoms people experience include loss of smell and taste, stomach aches, body aches, and nausea," said Dr. Edo Paz, the vice president of medical at the telemedicine company K Health.

Gastrointestinal problems, including nausea, diarrhea, and even vomiting, are somewhat prevalent in COVID-19 patients. Dr. David Hirschwerk, an infectious-disease specialist at Northwell Health, New York's largest healthcare provider, said that from what he'd seen "10% of patients have gastrointestinal symptoms."

What physicians don't understand, however, is why there appears to be such a broad range of symptoms — and outcomes — of COVID-19. "The medical community doesn't know yet why the Coronavirus affects people differently, and some more intensely than others," Paz said.

But Dr. Rishi Desai, the chief medical officer at Osmosis, believes the symptoms and outcomes may directly correlate to the way the Coronavirus moves through each infected person's body.

"Each person has a unique immune system, and as a result, some people will react very aggressively to COVID-19, and others won't," Desai said. "Symptoms generally correspond to where the virus is located in the body."

How the COVID-19 virus moves through the human body

Desai said the virus first hit the nose and back of the throat, causing common-cold-like symptoms, including congestion, runny nose, and sore throat. That's also when patients will lose their senses of smell and taste.

Next, Desai said, the virus moves to the lungs, possibly causing shortness of breath, coughing, and chest pain. It could then move to the bloodstream, where fever, nights sweats, malaise, and fatigue could result.

"That means that some folks may only get symptoms localized to one region whereas others may get a mixture of symptoms across all of the regions," Desai said. Just as concerning, many COVID-19 symptoms can be associated with other ailments, making the illness harder to pin down.

Symptoms not associated with COVID-19

According to Desai, there are some symptoms that so far haven't been tied to COVID-19.

"COVID-19 doesn't cause focal symptoms affecting the limbs (e.g. left leg pain), doesn't cause focal skin lesions or rashes (e.g., a boil), and doesn't cause chronic symptoms meaning ones that last for months and months," Desai said.

Unfortunately, no one can predict how Coronavirus will affect them. And that makes prevention all the more important. But experts don't have a silver bullet to guarantee protection. At this point, people just need to practice good hygiene and social distancing.

"Wash your hands frequently using soap and water," Paz said. "And don't touch your face if possible!"

Muscle aches, extreme fatigue: Coronavirus symptoms go beyond fever and cough

Those are the three symptoms prominently listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website under coronavirus symptoms. But as case counts continue to rise in the United States and across the world, it's clear that COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, causes a much wider range of symptoms. The more detailed descriptions of the illness that are emerging show how doctors and researchers are still learning about the disease, which was first reported just three months ago, in real time. COVID-19 can begin in similar ways among patients, regardless of a person's age or health status. Very often, extreme fatigue hits first One of the first major reports on coronavirus symptoms was published by the World Health Organization in February, following their mission to China. That report, based on nearly 56,000 cases there, found the most common symptoms were fever (88 percent) and dry cough (68 percent). Nearly 40 percent of those patients experienced fatigue. Shortness of breath, stomach issues and weakness were less common.

Since that report, other symptoms related to COVID-19 have emerged. Many patients who've either tested positive for the Coronavirus or have been told by their physicians to assume they have it, also develop a headache and sore throat. Others become sick to their stomach with nausea or diarrhea.

Some patients say they have no interest in eating. Many report they're losing their senses of taste and smell, the British Rhinological Society said recently.

Just this week, a small study published in JAMA Ophthalmology added another potential COVID-19 warning sign: pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis. A third of the 38 patients in the report had the inflammatory eye condition.

But it's also becoming clearer that some infected people spreading the virus don't have any symptoms at all.

Contagious before symptoms Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, told NPR this week that as many as a quarter of patients are asymptomatic. And a report published by the CDC Wednesday found evidence that infected people can spread the virus before they develop symptoms, although it seems to be rare.

The phenomenon is called "presymptomatic transmission," which is also a known way that the flu spreads.

The CDC report was based on 243 Coronavirus cases in Singapore. Researchers there carefully traced all of individuals that patients had been in contact with before becoming ill.

They ultimately determined 6.4 percent of transmissions in the study were from presymptomatic patients.

China Conspiracy Theories

Is there a Wuhan – Hong Kong connection?

Does anything seem out of place to you? I just seem to look beyond any official or especially government explanations to disasters like this. It’s just my nature.

So, when the news out of Wuhan China started to hit, my first thought was what was the reason for something like this, who would benefit? And then how could it be blamed on something, or someone else?

Right away my thoughts went to Hong Kong, with its 7.4 million people and probably one of the worst nightmares China has had to face recently with its many days of rioting and no solution in sight, in spite of efforts by Hong Kong police to clamp down on it. This isn’t like Tibet, with an isolated population largely unconnected to the rest of the World, where they could just send in the Chinese military. If they tried that with Hong Kong, with its international population, there would be condemnation and possible interference from the rest of the World.

The solution was simple, a biological weapon! Actually, a very clever idea. The problem was that their weapons at the top-level lab in Wuhan were way too powerful for this task. So, they had to produce a low-level version of their more deadly bioweapons.

After all, they probably didn’t want to kill anyone, they just wanted to make everyone in the streets sick and keep them indoors. This way it may have had the desired effect of quickly ending the riots in Hong Kong. It worked didn’t it? Note the they then made it illegal to wear the masks to protests.

So here is the scenario as I see it: The Chinese wanted to see how effective or under-effective this new strain of Coronavirus was, so they tested it out at a nearby well populated open market.

Another version of this is that after infecting Hong Kong with this deadly virus, they then leaked some of the virus at the open market so that they could blame it on the some of the animals being sold for food, such as bats. Or they could claim it was an accidental leak from the Wuhan Lab. Or there could be some other explanation I haven’t discovered yet.

Did it work? Well, the rioting in Hong Kong ended quickly and I never heard anything about Hong Kong being the target. All the publicity was directed at the original outbreak in Wuhan! And I assume it hit Hong Kong hard, early photos showed everyone there wearing face masks and that people weren’t allowed to be outdoors without one.

If I’m mistaken about these theories, then my humble apologies to the Chinese Government.

Wuhan China – Where it all began

For example, it was speculated that the Coronavirus outbreak that begin in China in 2019 could have been an unintentional consequence of alleged bioweapon research in Wuhan. We will now look into the validity of such claims, the current Coronavirus situation, China’s current alleged biowarfare capabilities, and the future of biowarfare.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) In the weeks following the spread of the novel Coronavirus, conflicting news reports, misinformed research, and conspiracy theorists all led to allegations that China was once again building bioweapons

(Did they even stop? I think not!) and that this recent disease outbreak was the result of an accidental release of a new biologically engineered pathogen.

At the center of the controversy was the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). WIV is one of 20 separate biomedical research institutes in CAS, but it is the only institute specializing in virology, viral pathology, and virus technology. It contains five research centers, including the Center for Emerging Infectious Disease, Chinese Virus Resources and Bioinformatics Center, Center of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and the Department of Analytical Biochemistry and Biotechnology. Recently, it also became China’s first, and only, biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory. BSL-4 labs operate under the strictest levels of biological safety as the lab work done inside these labs often deal with dangerous and exotic microbes like Ebola, Marburg, and as some people originally speculated, the Coronavirus.

It was in mid-January 2020 that the virus was first linked to bioweapons research at the WIV. It started as a minor rumor before turning into a full-blown conspiracy theory. It was not until The Washington Post published the main dissent titled, not so subtly, “Experts debunk fringe theory linking China’s Coronavirus to weapons research” that people began to look farther.

The Washington Post cites multiple US experts who use both logic and analysis to debunk the rumors. First, the WIV is not suited to bioweapons research. Any bioweapons research would likely need to remain covert, as bioweapons are outlawed by the Biological Weapons Convention. In contrast, the WIV is well-known, open, and linked with other labs around the world, including the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas. That sort of publicity and reputation could make it hard for the lab to operate secretly. (Although, the best way to hide something is often out in the open where it is not suspected.) Second, experts in virology, including Richard Ebright, a chemical biology professor, and Tim Trevan, a biological safety expert, have indicated that there is no evidence that the virus was created. Ebright says, “Based on the virus genome and properties there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.

A couple weeks later, The Financial Times reported a similar notion. The article quoted Trevor Bradford, a virus expert and global lead Coronavirus investigator, who said, “The evidence we have is that the mutations [in the virus] are completely consistent with natural evolution. ”It is a fact of life that viruses evolve, they get stronger, find ways of beating current vaccines, and sometimes transform into something entirely new. An example is the flu. Each year, researchers and medical professionals find new strands of the flu that make treating it an exercise in futility. It is theorized that the Coronavirus went through a similar type of evolution as the flu does each year, making it a dangerous pathogen in its own right but not a biologically engineered one.

(Wait a minute, did I just understand them to imply that the use of vaccines causes the flu virus to return even stronger making it almost impossible to wipe out?)

The Current Crisis

Two to three people are infected from every new case of Coronavirus, meaning that the number of cases reported each day is growing exponentially. Countries around the world are setting up quarantines, implementing travel restrictions, and experiencing financial losses. A cruise ship was even refused port at multiple countries, due to COVID-19 diagnoses on board. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned.

Back at the end of January, WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed concern at what the virus could do to a country with a limited health infrastructure, while simultaneously praising China for its quick and efficient containment. Overall, WHO declared a “public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of novel Coronavirus.” It has been months since patient zero was diagnosed, and yet the outbreak shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.

The Coronavirus outbreak may have been an unfortunate consequence of natural evolution, but its impact is still being felt around the world. Just imagine if the outbreak was intentional, engineered to be just a little more fatal, or released in multiple areas at the same time. But is a biological weapon attack like that probable or even possible? If it is, how much worse could this outbreak have been?

These questions are not new, and the answers are not surprising. People have been finding ways to manipulate natural diseases for their benefit since the fourteenth century BCE. The first attempts at biological warfare were rudimentary at best, often utilizing the cadavers of the infected to attempt to infect others. The Hittites used infected cattle, the Swedes used infected plague victims, the British used contaminated blankets, and the Japanese used flea bombs. No matter what the method or disease, nations throughout history have been fascinated by the destructive power of diseases, and China is no exception. China has shown interest in biological weapons, biodefense, and even genetic weapons—a new subfield of biological weapons

The case for an accidental leak in Wuhan, China

Biolab in China

I don’t believe there could have been an accidental leak, just like that, from the lab in Wuhan, for several reasons, but the following may prove me wrong on this.

The Chinese Global Times published a conspiracy theory to reverse suspicions that the laboratory located near Wuhan, might have either accidentally or deliberately released the virus as a tailored bioweapon. China’s foreign ministry suggested Coronavirus was brought to Wuhan by the U.S. military. Iran also claimed that the Coronavirus that hit their country hard was created in the U.S.

But soon after the discovery of the Coronavirus in Wuhan, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive entitled “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel Coronavirus.”

Sounds to me that China is conceding that there may be a problem keeping dangerous pathogens in test tubes, doesn’t it? And since there is only one lab in China that handles advanced viruses like the novel Coronavirus and it is located in Wuhan the epicenter of the epidemic, this sounds like a confession of guilt to me.

What’s more, the People’s Liberation Army’s top expert in biological warfare, Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak.

According to the PLA Daily, Chen has been researching Coronaviruses since the SARS outbreak of 2003, as well as Ebola and anthrax.

Add to this China’s history of similar incidents such as the deadly SARS virus that has escaped — twice — from the Beijing lab where it was being used in experiments.

And then there is this little-known fact: Some Chinese researchers are believed to sell laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them.

Yes, instead of properly disposing of infected animals by cremation, as the law requires, they sell them on the side. One Beijing researcher, now in jail, made the equivalent of a million dollars selling monkeys and rats on the live animal market, whence they likely wound up in someone’s stomach.

Also fueling suspicions about SARS-CoV-2’s origins is the series of excuses offered by the Chinese authorities as people began to be sickened and die.

They first blamed a seafood market not far from the Institute of Virology, even though the first documented cases of COVID-19 (the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2) involved people who had never set foot there. Then they pointed to snakes, bats and even a scaly anteater called a pangolin as the source of the virus.

Snakes don’t carry Coronaviruses, and bats aren’t sold at a seafood market. Neither are pangolins, for that matter, an endangered species valued for its scales as much as for meat.

The evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The virus may have been carried out of the lab by an infected worker or crossed over into humans who unknowingly consumed a lab animal.

China may have unleashed a plague on its own people. Although their reports now coming out of China suggesting that new cases have dropped off to zero. (But keep in mind that China isn’t always truthful.)

Now we will follow the Trail Leading Back to the Wuhan Labs…

The Chinese claim that there’s no proof the coronavirus accidentally escaped from a laboratory, but can we take the Chinese government’s denials at face value? In this book we’ve reported on a number of Chinese government cover-ups so far regarding the outbreak.

So, let’s dig a little deeper… I realize that many would be wary of the notion that the origin of the coronavirus could be discovered by some documentary filmmaker who used to live in China. Matthew Tye, who creates YouTube videos, contends he has identified the source of the coronavirus — and a great deal of the information that he presents, obtained from public records posted on the Internet, checks out. So let’s take a look.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China indeed posted a job opening on November 18, 2019, “asking for scientists to come research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats.”

The Google translation of the job posting is: “Taking bats as the research object, I will answer the molecular mechanism that can coexist with Ebola and SARS-associated coronavirus for a long time without disease, and its relationship with flight and longevity. Virology, immunology, cell biology, and multiple omics are used to compare the differences between humans and other mammals.” (“Omics” is a term for a subfield within biology, such as genomics or glycomics.)

On December 24, 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology posted a second job posting. The translation of that posting includes the declaration, “long-term research on the pathogenic biology of bats carrying

64 important viruses has confirmed the origin of bats of major new human and livestock infectious diseases such as SARS and SADS, and a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.”

Tye contends that that posting meant, “we’ve discovered a new and terrible virus, and would like to recruit people to come deal with it.” He also contends that “news didn’t come out about coronavirus until ages after that.” Doctors in Wuhan knew that they were dealing with a cluster of pneumonia cases as December progressed, but it is accurate to say that a very limited number of people knew about this particular strain of coronavirus and its severity at the time of that job posting. By December 31, about three weeks after doctors first noticed the cases, the Chinese government notified the World Health Organization and the first media reports about a “mystery pneumonia” that appeared outside China.

Scientific American verifies much of the information Tye mentions about Shi Zhengli, the Chinese virologist nicknamed “Bat Woman” for her work with that species.

Shi — a virologist who is often called China’s “bat woman” by her colleagues because of her virus- hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 years — walked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan. “I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong,” she says. “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical areas of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of Coronaviruses jumping to humans from animals — particularly bats, a known reservoir for many viruses. If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, “could they have come from our lab?”

By January 7th the Wuhan team determined that the new virus had indeed caused the disease those patients suffered — a conclusion based on results from polymerase chain reaction analysis, full genome sequencing, antibody tests of blood samples and the virus’s ability to infect human lung cells in a petri dish. The genomic sequence of the virus — now officially called SARS-CoV-2 because it is related to the SARS pathogen — was 96 percent identical to that of a Coronavirus the researchers had identified in horseshoe bats in Yunnan, they reported in a paper published February 3rd in Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2012-7

“It’s crystal clear that bats, once again, are the natural reservoir,” says Daszak, who was not involved in the study.

Some scientists aren’t convinced that the virus jumped straight from bats to human beings, but there are a few problems with the theory that some other animal was an intermediate transmitter of COVID- 19 from bats to humans:

Analyses of the SARS-CoV-2 genome indicate a single spillover event, meaning the virus jumped only once from an animal to a person, which makes it likely that the virus was circulating among people before December. Unless more information about the animals at the Wuhan market is released, the transmission chain may never be clear. There are, however, numerous possibilities. A bat hunter or a wildlife trafficker might have brought the virus to the market. Pangolins happen to carry a Coronavirus, which they might have picked up from bats years ago, and which is, in one crucial part of its genome, virtually identical to SARS-CoV-2. But no one has yet found evidence that pangolins were at the Wuhan market, or even that venders there trafficked pangolins.

On February 4 — one week before the World Health Organization decided to officially name this virus “COVID-19” — the journal “Cell Research” posted a notice written by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology about the virus, concluding, “our findings reveal that remdesivir and chloroquine are highly effective in the control of 2019-nCoV infection in vitro. Since these compounds have been used in human patients with a safety track record and shown to be effective against various ailments, we suggest that they should be assessed in human patients suffering from the novel Coronavirus disease.” One of the authors of that notice was the “bat woman,” Shi Zhengli.

In his YouTube video, Tye focuses his attention on a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology named Huang Yanling: “Most people believe her to be patient zero, and most people believe she is dead.”

There was enough discussion of rumors about Huang Yanling online in China to spur an official denial. On February 16, the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied that patient zero was one of their employees, and interestingly named her specifically: “Recently there has been fake information about Huang Yanling, a graduate from our institute, claiming that she was patient zero in the novel coronavirus.” Press accounts quote the institute as saying, “Huang was a graduate student at the institute until 2015, when she left the province and had not returned since. Huang was in good health and had not been diagnosed with disease, it added.” None of her publicly available research papers are dated after 2015.

The web page for the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Lab of Diagnostic Microbiology does indeed still have “Huang Yanling” listed as a 2012 graduate student, and her picture and biography appear to have been recently removed — as have those of two other graduate students from 2013, Wang Mengyue and Wei Cuihua.

Her name still has a hyperlink, but the linked page is blank. The pages for Wang Mengyue and Wei Cuihua are blank as well.

(For what it is worth, the South China Morning Post — a newspaper seen as being generally pro- Beijing — reported on March 13 that “according to the government data seen by the Post, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19 on November 17.”)

On February 17, Zhen Shuji, a Hong Kong correspondent from the French public-radio service Radio France Internationale, reported: “when a reporter from the Beijing News of the Mainland asked the institute for rumors about patient zero, the institute first denied that there was a researcher Huang Yanling, but after learning that the name of the person on the Internet did exist, acknowledged that the person had worked at the firm but has now left the office and is unaccounted for.”

Tye says, “everyone on the Chinese internet is searching for Huang Yanling but most believe that her body was quickly cremated and the people working at the crematorium were perhaps infected as they were not given any information about the virus.” (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that handling the body of someone who has died of Coronavirus is safe — including embalming and cremation — as long as the standard safety protocols for handing a decedent are used. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether those safety protocols were sufficiently used in China before the outbreak’s scope was known.)

As Tye observes, a public appearance by Huang Yanling would dispel a lot of the public rumors and is the sort of thing the Chinese government would quickly arrange in normal circumstances — presuming that Huang Yanling was still alive. Several officials at the Wuhan Institute of Virology issued public statements that Huang was in good health and that no one at the institute has been infected with COVID-19. In any case, the mystery around Huang Yanling may be moot, but it does point to the lab covering up something about her.

China Global Television Network, a state-owned television broadcaster, illuminated another rumor while attempting to dispel it in a February 23 report entitled “Rumors Stop With the Wise”:

On February 17, a Weibo user who claimed herself to be Chen Quanjiao, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reported to the public that the Director of the Institute was responsible for leaking the novel coronavirus. The Weibo post threw a bomb in the cyberspace and the public was shocked. Soon Chen herself stepped out and declared that she had never released any report information and expressed great indignation at such identity fraud on Weibo. It has been confirmed that that particular Weibo account had been shut down several times due to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19.

That Radio France Internationale report on February 17 also mentioned the next key part of the Tye’s YouTube video. “Xiaobo Tao, a scholar from South China University of Technology, recently published a report that researchers at Wuhan Virus Laboratory were splashed with bat blood and urine, and then quarantined for 14 days.” HK01, another Hong Kong-based news site, reported the same claim.

This doctor’s name is spelled in English as both “Xiaobo Tao” and “Botao Xiao.” From 2011 to 2013, Botao Xiao was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and his biography is still on the web site of the South China University of Technology.

At some point in February, Botao Xiao posted a research paper onto ResearchGate.net, “The Possible Origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus.” He is listed as one author, along with Lei Xiao from Tian You Hospital, which is affiliated with the Wuhan University of Science and Technology. The paper was removed a short time after it was posted.

The first conclusion of Botao Xiao’s paper is that the bats suspected of carrying the virus are extremely unlikely to be found naturally in the city, and despite the stories of “bat soup,” they conclude that bats were not sold at the market and were unlikely to be deliberately ingested.

The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from the seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees. But the seafood market is in a densely populated district of Wuhan, a metropolitan [area] of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the bats to fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization could not confirm if bats were present at the market. Botao Xiao’s paper theorizes that the coronavirus originated from bats being used for research at either one of two research laboratories in Wuhan.

We screened the area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus. Within ~ 280 meters from the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease

Control & Prevention. WHCDC hosted animals in laboratories for research purpose, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification. In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang province. The expert in Collection was noted in the Author Contributions (JHT). Moreover, he was broadcasted for collecting viruses on nation-wide newspapers and websites in 2017 and 2019. He described that he was once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection, so he quarantined himself for 14 days. In another accident, he quarantined himself again because bats peed on him.

Surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing. The tissue samples and contaminated trashes were source of pathogens. They were only 280 meters from the seafood market. The WHCDC was also adjacent to the Union Hospital where the first group of doctors were infected during this epidemic. It is plausible that the virus leaked around and some of them contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in future study.

The second laboratory was 12 kilometers from the seafood market and belonged to Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences . . .

In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV Coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer Coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.

The bat researcher that Xiao’s report refers to is virologist Tian Junhua, who works at the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control. In 2004, the World Health Organization determined that an outbreak of the SARS virus had been caused by two separate leaks at the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing. The Chinese government said that the leaks were a result of “negligence” and the responsible officials had been punished.

Virologists have been vehemently skeptical of the theory that COVID-19 was engineered or deliberately constructed in a laboratory; the director of the National Institutes of Health has written that recent genomic research “debunks such claims by providing scientific evidence that this novel coronavirus arose naturally.” And none of the above is definitive proof that COVID-19 originated from a bat at either the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention or the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Definitive proof would require much broader access to information about what happened in those facilities in the time period before the epidemic in the city.

It is a remarkable coincidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was researching Ebola and SARS- associated coronaviruses in bats before the pandemic outbreak, and that in the month when Wuhan doctors were treating the first patients of COVID-19, the institute announced in a hiring notice that “a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.” And the fact that the Chinese government spent six weeks insisting that COVID-19 could not be spread from person to person means that its denials about Wuhan laboratories cannot be accepted without independent verification.

Our dependency on China

Considering the history of inferior products and substitution of inferior and poisonous ingredients that have been found in food and drug products coming out of China, we need to be more cautious. Even considering how highly polluted the air and water is in many areas of China, should give us reason for concern.

So, when the news broke about the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, and many of us started wearing face masks and other protective items, how many of us realized that a large percentage of these were made in China? And even our pharmaceuticals or the ingredients in them were made in China? It also seemed ironic to consider that our flu vaccine was made in China. And now with the billions of dollars promised for the development and production of a vaccine for the current Coronavirus, how much of that will be going to China to reward them for the release of the Coronavirus? And what if the new Coronavirus vaccine was contaminated with Coronavirus?

The federal US-China Economic and Safety Review Commission warned this summer about the dangers of American reliance on China for life-saving drugs. If the US were attacked with anthrax, China would be a major source for ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic needed to treat victims. “What if China were the anthrax attacker?” Gibson asked.

The commission also cautioned about “serious deficiencies in health and safety standards” in Chinese drug factories. Beware of putting anything made in China in your mouth.

The Food and Drug Administration claims pharmaceutical ingredients from China are safe. Don’t believe it. The agency has a long history of failing to oversee foreign drug sources, according to scathing reports from the federal Government Accountability Office.

The GAO found that the FDA inspects Chinese drug manufacturing plants infrequently, at best, and some may never get inspected. In the United States, pharmaceutical plants are inspected every two years. During the last 13 months, the FDA has had to announce more than 50 recalls of blood pressure medications because the active ingredient valsartan contained jet-fuel contaminants estimated to cause cancer in one out of every 8,000 pill takers. Who supplies it? China.

The FDA’s Janet Woodcock advised that it’s less risky to take the contaminated pills than to stop taking blood pressure medication altogether. Yikes. Patients shouldn’t have to face that choice. I thought the FDA was supposed to protect us from that. If that plant was making Vitamin C, they would have shut them down!

In 2008, a contaminated blood thinner from China, heparin, killed 81 American patients. Heparin is made from the mucous membranes of pig intestines. In China, slaughtered pigs are often cooked in unregulated family workspaces to begin the process.

The FDA initially concluded that the contaminated heparin came from a Chinese factory using unclean storage tanks and risky raw materials. But later the agency changed its view, and suspected intentional contamination. Chinese authorities, meanwhile, responded only with denials and more denials. The reason the FDA had little chance to uncover the contamination before Americans started dying: It had not inspected the plant. Even now, it has only 29 staff dedicated to inspecting more than 3,000 foreign manufacturing facilities.

Let’s look at some more Conspiracy Theories

The Spanish Flu of 1918

A CDC staff microbiologist examines reconstructed 1918 Pandemic Influenza Virus at a Biosafety Level 3-enhanced lab. Was it really necessary to bring this virus back to the face of this Earth? Was that a prudent step to take? After all it killed 50 million people! Maybe we can turn it into a bioweapon so it will kill all of us this time!

Below, in the next section, I cover the beginnings of bioweapon testing by the US on its own people. Most likely there are many more instances that that have been well hidden. I have a hunch that there have been many flues over the years that were man made.

What about the “Spanish Flu” that was claimed to have originated in Spain, scientists are still unsure of its source. France, China and Britain have all been suggested as the potential birthplace of the virus. But the first known case was reported at a military base in Kansas on March 11, 1918. Why does it seem strange that a world-wide flu pandemic started in Kansas at ft Riley?

Could there have been some early experimenting with using a flu as a weapon? In Manhattan, right outside Ft Riley there is today a level 4 bioweapon facility.

SARS Conspiracy Theory

Sometimes conspiracy theories are just that, wild theories. And then there are some theories, often ones that the government and scientists hysterically rally against, that have something real behind it. So I guess the answer is to look at both sides of the claims, use your own judgement and don’t automatically assume it is gospel because it comes from the government or an establishment organization who is making money from the way it is now and the truth, if it were known, might cut off their funds or land them in jail!

I like how sometimes a different opinion gets labelled “conspiracy theory” to automatically cast a negative image on it.

The SARS conspiracy theory began to emerge during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China in the spring of 2003, when Sergei Kolesnikov, a Russian scientist and a member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, first publicized his claim that the SARS Coronavirus is a synthesis of measles and mumps. According to Kolesnikov, this combination cannot be formed in the natural world and thus the SARS virus must have been produced under laboratory conditions. Another Russian scientist, Nikolai Filatov, head of Moscow's epidemiological services, had earlier commented that the SARS virus was probably man-made.

However, independent labs concluded these claims to be premature since the SARS virus is a Coronavirus, whereas measles and mumps are paramyxoviruses. The primary differences between a Coronavirus and a paramyxovirus are in their structures and method of infection, thus making it implausible for a Coronavirus to have been created from two paramyxoviruses.

The widespread reporting of claims by Kolesnokov and Filatov caused controversy in many Chinese internet discussion boards and chat rooms. Many Chinese believed that the SARS virus could be a biological weapon manufactured by the United States, which perceived China as a potential threat.

The failure to find the source of the SARS virus further convinced these people and many more that SARS was artificially synthesized and spread by some individuals and even governments. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the SARS virus crossed over to humans from Asian palm civets ("civet cats"), a type of animal that is often killed and eaten in Guangdong, where SARS was first discovered.

Supporters of the conspiracy theory suggest that SARS caused the most serious harm in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, regions where most Chinese reside, while the United States, Europe and Japan were not affected as much. However, the highest mortality from SARS outside of China occurred in Canada where 43 died.

Conspiracists further point out that SARS has an average mortality rate of around 10% around the world, but no one died in the United States from SARS, despite the fact that there were 8 confirmed cases out of 27 probable cases (10% of 8 people is less than 1 person). Regarding reasons why SARS patients in the United States experienced a relatively mild illness, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has explained that anybody with fever and a respiratory symptom who had traveled to an affected area was included as a SARS patient in the U.S., even though many of these were found to have had other respiratory illnesses.

In October 2003, Tong Zeng, a Chinese lawyer and a volunteer in a 1998 Chinese-American medical cooperation program, published a book that again speculated that SARS could be a biological weapon developed by the United States against China. In the book, Tong disclosed that in the 1990s, many American research groups collected thousands of blood and DNA samples and specimens of mainland Chinese (including 5,000 DNA samples from twins) through numerous joint research projects carried out in China.

These samples were then sent back to the United States for further research and could be used in developing biological weapons targeting Chinese. These samples came from 22 provinces in China, all of which were hit by SARS in 2003. Only provinces like Yunnan, Guizhou, Hainan, Tibet, and Xinjiang were left out, and all these provinces suffered less severely during the SARS outbreak. The author suspects that Japan is also involved, as many Japanese factories in Guangdong in the 1990s made it compulsory for all workers to have blood tests in the factory annually, rather than asking workers to go to local hospitals for blood tests and a proper physical examination. However, Tong Zeng admits that these are only speculations, and he does not have any concrete proof from the study of the virus's genetic sequence.

Biological Weapons of Mass Destruction

When people think about weapons of mass dest ruction (WMD), they tend to think of things that go “boom.” The bigger the weapon, the bigger the boom, and the worse the impact. Past generations were taught to prepare for nuclear war. Now, nearly 70 years later, we are starting to realize that not all weapons need a big boom to be effective.

Every day, millions of people are affected by a weapon that has the potential to do far more damage than a nuclear bomb, a weapon we cannot see, a weapon we call germs.

Biological weapons, also called germ weapons, are any number of disease- producing agents, such as bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, fungi, toxins, or other biological agents, that may be utilized as weapons against humans, animals, or plants. Throughout history, pathogens have proven to be the most destructive weapon of all. Nearly 300 million people died from smallpox in the twentieth century alone, and that

72 was (most likely) from a natural outbreak. The destructive power of an intentional attack could reach and possibly surpass that of smallpox.

However, such a weapon’s potential for destruction acts as its own deterrent to use. Biological weapons are unique in that an attempt to infect an enemy could lead to a pandemic of one’s own troops and people. Diseases have no discrimination techniques, so a small intentional release could have large unintentional side effects. Or worse, a small unintentional release could have large unintentional consequences.

Countries that Have biological weapons

As of Dec 30, 2015 sixteen countries plus Taiwan have had or are currently suspected of having biological weapons programs: Canada, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Libya, North Korea, Russia, South Africa, Syria, the United Kingdom and the United States. Dec 30, 2015

China’s Biological History

In 1952 and 1984, the People’s Republic of China signed the Geneva Protocol and Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). During World War II, China was the victim of countless biological attacks by Japan, leading to Beijing’s future efforts to develop a stronger biodefense infrastructure and a biotechnology industry with substantial dual-use capabilities that can be used for both biodefense and bioweapons. Because of China’s experience with biological attacks, Beijing maintains that it does not have an offensive biological program, but its dual-use infrastructure is plenty big enough to accommodate a shift in that public policy. Despite these declarations, many have suspected that China has maintained a biological weapons program since before the signing of the BTWC.

A 2005 US Department of State compliance report noted that “China maintains some elements of an offensive [biological weapon] capability in violation of its BTWC obligations. Despite China’s declarations to the contrary, indications suggest that China maintained an offensive [biological weapon] program before acceding to the Convention in 1984.” Since signing the BTWC, China has been a stringent supporter of the treaty, desiring to improve both the verification mechanism of the treaty as well as strengthen export controls to prevent the proliferation of biological materials.

However, according to a US intelligence official, China was the biggest export violator of all, as it had sold dual-use equipment and vaccines with both civilian medical applications and biological weapons applications. These exports likely turned into the beginnings of the Iranian biological weapons program. Then in 2006, China updated its export control list to restrict 14 additional biological agents from being exported from the mainland. Despite these actions, it is still believed that China has helped Iran and other Middle Eastern nations build their biological weapons programs.

(Is there a coincidence here? Right after the Wuhan outbreak, Iran suffered a large outbreak of Coronavirus.)

Reports from the United States in 2010, 2012, and 2014 all state essentially the same thing, that China likely possesses a biological weapons program, but the extent of that program remains unknown to the

73 public. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, it is clear that “China possesses the required technology and resources to mass-produce traditional [biological weapon] agents as well as expertise in aerobiology.” Today, it is likely that China’s current dual-use infrastructure acts as the basis for its offensive biological capability.

The 2005 US Department of State report also identifies two facilities that have links to an offensive biological weapons program: the Chinese Ministry of Defense’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology (IME) in Beijing, and the Lanzhou Institute of Biological Produces (LIBP). China responds that the former is a biodefense-focused facility and the latter is a vaccine production facility. In addition to these two central laboratories, it is estimated that there are at least 50 other laboratories and hospitals being used as biological weapons research facilities.

China’s dual-use infrastructure also gives outsiders an idea of the composition of its offensive program. In 2007, China created a 20-year plan to study natural and human-made epidemics to create protective equipment for biodefense. It was part of China’s very public biodefense efforts. China is also known for its advancements in dispersal and delivery systems. A journal article titled, “China’s Biological Warfare Program: An Integrative Study with Special Reference to Biological Weapons Capabilities” reports that:

It is fairly clear that certain RF have fully mastered the aerobiological technologies needed for effective dispersal of BWA, both pathogens and toxins, and probably infected insects as well. The quality, extensiveness, and characteristics of aerobiological works—including the component of nano- aerobiology—conducted by the related facilities, unambiguously lead to that postulation. They are also able, in all likelihood, to construct the functional conjunction combining dispersal devices, various warheads and delivery systems—including surface-to-surface missiles—in terms of operational biological weaponry.

This report makes it clear that China has an advanced capability for deploying and dispersing aerosolized biological weapons. This sort of advanced capability is especially worrying because aerosolized diseases are the most contagious type of disease and have the potential to infect the largest number of people.

However, an advanced biological weapons program is not enough to classify as a threat; there also needs to be a real intent to use those weapons. When it comes to China’s intention, it is possible that China would not choose to use biological weapons in any capacity because of the suffering the country saw due to Japan’s use of Shigella and plague against the nation. During the 1991 BTWC Review Conference, the Chinese delegation stated, “Of bacteriological weapons, China has always advocated the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of biological weapons and pursues a policy of not developing, producing, or stockpiling this type of weapon.”

More recently, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated in 2011 that China continues to support the “complete prohibition and thorough destruction of all kinds of weapons of mass destruction, including biological weapons.” At the same time, China was not involved in the BTWC negotiations and, before signing the treaty, ensured the inclusion of a clause that meant the treaty was only binding if all other countries in the treaty were also following the guidelines, essentially giving the state an out to not only pursue biological weapons but to use them if necessary. This action indicates that the Chinese wish to leave the possibility of using biological weapons open as a policy option, which in turns means a certain amount of willingness to utilize the weapons if the need arose. Overall, China may have the capability,

74 but Beijing may not have the will to put its own people at risk, which is what makes the new subfield of genetic weapons both fascinating and frightening.

Genetic Weapons: China, CRISPR, and Gene Editing In November 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen China announced that he used the gene-editing technique CRISPR-Cas9 to create genetically modified human babies. Using embryos created from their parents’ eggs and sperm, He performed what he calls gene surgery to modify their genetics to better protect them from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) because the babies’ father is HIV positive. More specifically, He “deleted a region of a receptor on the surface of white blood cells known as CCR5 using CRISPR-Cas9.” In his statement, he claims to have used this same technique to edit seven embryos, but this was the first to result in a successful pregnancy and birth. Previously, CRISPR-Cas9 had never been used in altering the genome of embryos.

CRISPR-Cas9 is “a unique technology that enables geneticist and medical researchers to edit parts of the genome by removing, adding, or altering sections of DNA sequence.” The CRISPR acronym refers to “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” that are repetitions of the base sequences of DNA, while Cas-9 refers to a specific protein that can act like scissors to cut parts of DNA, allowing it to be rearranged. Laboratories all around the world are researching the possibility of using CRISPR-Cas9 to cure diseases and prevent other diseases in offspring, for example HIV. China investigated He’s claims and found them to be accurate. In 2019, the Chinese government investigated He for ethics violations and possible law violations. He has since been fined 3 million yuan (430,000 USD) and will spend the next three years in jail. His breakthrough, if truly successful, would be monumental for the scientific community, but it could also mean the start of a new threat era.

Gene Editing: The New WMD US officials now see CRISPR gene editing as a serious threat to national security. James Clapper, a former US Director of National Intelligence, added gene editing to a list of threats posed by WMD and proliferation back in 2016. The invention of CRISPR has made gene editing far easier to successfully use. Clapper says, “Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual- use technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications.”

The threat from gene-editing techniques, like CRISPR, comes from their dual-use attributes and the possibility that they could be used for something other than normal scientific developments. There is concern that CRISPR could be used to make genetically engineered killer mosquitos, plagues that target and wipeout specific crops, and possibly even viruses that can snip people’s DNA.

Another possibility is using CRISPR to alter diseases in a way that they only target certain genes. For example, it might be possible to use CRISPR to design diseases to seek people out with certain genetics, like those with Down syndrome or autism. Going a step even further, it might be possible to use CRISPR to alter diseases to target entire races by focusing the disease on a certain genetic trait. In this way, China could, hypothetically, build a disease that targets the Japanese and release it, without worrying

75 about it infecting China’s own people. This may sound like a science-fiction movie plot, but it is no longer inconceivable. Not only can genes be edited, but China is already successfully doing it. Conclusion It is important to recognize the threat caused by germs and begin thinking about how to protect ourselves from pandemics in the future. Although Some experts are still leaning towards the possibility that the virus in the Wuhan outbreak was engineered, the world was lucky that it was not indicative of a biologically engineered disease, but that luck may run out in the future. China is leading the world in biological research and gene editing, but it is not the only country considering these options. Biological weapons are not a thing of science fiction, and China’s alleged program is only the beginning.

Why do Politicians keep Breathing Life into the Theory that the Coronavirus is a Bioweapon?

Some groups are claiming that Coronavirus is not a bioweapon nor an accidental leak from a Wuhan lab. Now they are also saying that it can’t be a called a Chinese virus because it might offend the Chinese although it is difficult to claim that it didn’t start in Wuhan. But not for some Chinese who claim that it was started in Wuhan by the US Army. And Iran claims that it was spread in their country by the US.

Confused? It’s time to take a closer look at what has divided and angered people, many in high positions…

You’ve probably heard the rumor: The new Coronavirus is a bioweapon. Some malicious country— perhaps the United States, maybe China, depending on who’s talking or tweeting—purposefully unleashed the virus that causes Covid-19 on the world.

You might have also heard that the idea was widely dismissed by disease and defense experts. A good bioweapon, some note, wouldn’t spread as easily and indiscriminately as the new Coronavirus does. But for political opportunists and conspiracy theorists, the rising number of Covid-19 infections, the growing ranks of the dead, and the mass disruptions to the daily rhythms of life have created a fertile conspiratorial ground.

The Covid-19 bioweapon conspiracy theory has not only failed to be debunked; it even seems to be getting a second wind, and prominent politicians from countries around the world are embracing it. “For a while, it seemed the pushback on this was effective,” biodefense researcher Filippa Lentzos said. “But in recent days, the narrative seems to be coming back with a vengeance.”

Current and former government officials, including former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao, and US Senator. Tom Cotton of Arkansas have recently given credence to some version of the theory.

US Senator Tom Cotton In the United States, Cotton isn’t fully letting up on his idea that the virus was a Chinese military creation. In a Fox News interview in February, he appeared to suggest just that, before walking back the idea, sort of. (In a series of tweets, he said the bioweapon theory was just one of several hypotheses.)

Bioweapon or not, Cotton still believes someone is responsible for the pandemic, someone Chinese. In a statement Thursday announcing that he’d be temporarily closing his Senate office, he called the virus the “Wuhan Coronavirus” five times, vowing, “We will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world.” In a later clarifying tweet, he said that, yes, he meant China.

law professor Francis Boyle A March 12 article in Britain’s Express tabloid added fuel to fire, reporting that University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle, who helped draft the legislation that implemented the Biological Weapons Convention in the United States, had identified a “smoking gun” that showed the Coronavirus was a bioweapon leaked from a Chinese research lab near Wuhan, the city where the outbreak originated. Boyle reportedly based his theory on a paper on ScienceDirect that noted a “gain-of-function” in the virus that makes it better than other Coronaviruses at spreading among humans. Although the research paper Boyle cited does not speculate on what caused the gain-of-function in the virus.

Manish Tewari That didn’t stop Manish Tewari, a prominent Indian parliamentarian and spokesperson for the Indian National Congress, the country’s leading opposition party, from re-tweeting the Express article to his more than 380,000 followers, adding his own highly charged twist: the disease outbreak is a terrorist act.

“Coronavirus is a bioweapon that went rogue or that was made to go rogue. It is an act of terror,” Tewari tweeted on March 12. “International investigation conducted either under auspices of ICJ or ICC is necessary to unearth the truth & bring focus back on eradicating Biological Weapons.”

Shi Zhengli South China Morning Post reported that one of the Institute's lead researchers, Shi Zhengli, was the particular focus of personal attacks in Chinese social media who alleged her work on bat-based viruses as the source of the virus, leading Shi to post: "I swear with my life, the virus has nothing to do with the lab", quoting her as saying: "The novel 2019 Coronavirus is nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits. Dr. Shi Zhengli, has acquired the nickname “Batwoman,” for hunting down the Coronavirus and proving that bats are natural reservoirs for SARS-like coronaviruses.

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu The Case of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu - BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,429, January 29, 2020:

In July 2019, suspected of espionage for China, a group of Chinese virologists was forcibly evicted from the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, where they had been running parts of the Special Pathogen Program of Canada’s public health agency. One of the procedures conducted by the team was the infection of monkeys with the most lethal viruses found on Earth. Four months prior to the Chinese team’s eviction, a shipment containing two exceptionally virulent viruses—Ebola and Nipah—was sent from the NML to China. When the shipment was traced, it was held to be improper and a “possible policy breach.”

The scope of the 2019 incident involving the discovery of a possibly serious security breach at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg is much broader than the group of Chinese virologists who were summarily evicted from the lab. The main culprit behind the breach seems to have been Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, head of the Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapies section of the Special Pathogens Program

Inevitably, Qiu’s work included a variety of Ebola wild strains—among them the most virulent, which has an 80% lethality rate—and relied heavily on experimental infection of monkeys, including via the airways. Qiu maintains a close bond with China and students at four facilities believed to be involved in Chinese biological weapons development. Including Wuhan Institute of Virology. Qiu made at least five trips over the academic year 2017-18 alone to the Wuhan National Biosafety which was certified for BSL4 in January 2017.

When the shipment from Canada was uncovered, security access was revoked for Qiu, her husband, and the Chinese students. IT specialists entered Qiu’s office after hours to gain access to her computer, and her regular trips to China were halted. Suspicions of espionage was given as the reason behind the expulsions from the lab but no suggestion was given that Coronavirus was taken from the Canadian lab or that it is the result of bioweapons defense research in China.

Wang Yanyi Other Chinese social media posts focused on the credentials of the director general of the institute, Wang Yanyi. A widely shared post allegedly written by Rao Yi, a leading Chinese biologist, said Wang had a weak academic background and ascended to her current post through nepotism. On February 17, one post accused Wang of flouting the biosafety rules and selling laboratory animals to wet markets for profit.

(Wet markets are found the world over, typically open-air sites selling fresh meat, seafood, and produce. The meats often are butchered and trimmed on-site. Markets in China have come in for justifiable condemnation because of the way they’ve evolved, co-mingling traditional livestock with a wide variety of wild animals, including exotic and endangered species. Many are quite unsanitary, with blood, entrails, excrement, and other waste creating the conditions for disease that migrates from animals to people through virus, bacteria, and other forms of transmission. Such “zoonotic diseases” that have emerged from China and other regions of the world include Ebola, HIV, bird flu, swine flu, and SARS.)

Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention Another study, conducted by the South China University of Technology, concluded that the Coronavirus “probably” originated in the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which is just 280 meters away from the Hunan Seafood Market. The study mentioned that bats linked to Coronavirus once attacked a researcher, who had to be self-quarantined because “blood of a bat shot on his skin.” The paper was later removed from ResearchGate, a commercial social-networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers. Thus far, no scientists have confirmed or refuted the paper’s findings.

Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute Many of these accusations may be groundless, but nobody can deny that lab safety is a major concern in China. A safety breach at a Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab is believed to have caused four suspected SARS cases, including one death, in Beijing in 2004. A similar accident caused 65 lab workers of Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute to be infected with brucellosis in December 2019. In January 2020, a renowned Chinese scientist, Li Ning, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for selling experimental animals to local markets.

Major General Chen Wei The government’s actions have lent credibility to the thesis that the Coronavirus accidentally escaped a laboratory. In February, China appointed Major General Chen Wei, China’s top biowarfare expert, as head of the BSL-4 laboratory at Wuhan Institute of Virology. Because of Chen’s background, the appointment fueled suspicions about the virus’s possible connection to the BSL-4 lab. Then, on February 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted the need to incorporate shengwu anquan (which in Chinese could mean either “biosecurity” or “biosafety”) into its national security regime.

biosecurity and biosafety In the literature of biological warfare, the difference between biosecurity and biosafety is important: the former is about the protection of humans and the environment from the intentional release of pathogens and biohazards, while the latter is about safety from their unintentional release. Xi’s remarks were immediately followed by a Ministry of Science and Technology instruction on strengthening biosafety management in labs handling the novel Coronavirus, suggesting that Xi had biosafety in mind when issuing the directive. But the Chinese leader could as easily have been referring to animal agriculture, where biosecurity is broadly defined as everything done to keep disease away from animals and the people that may interact with them. Indeed, just last week, China’s legislature announced a permanent ban on wildlife trade and consumption in the country, apparently to minimize the chances of diseases passing to humans from animals.

An impediment to collaboration There are those who believe there isn’t enough evidence to prove that this outbreak was anything other than natural occurring and we should first work with the Chinese to find a solution. Following is an example of this line of thought:

The virus is now rapidly spreading worldwide, with social, political, and economic consequences wherever it goes. Identifying its origin would help experts and governments to hone the best countermeasures to stem its spread and prevent such outbreaks in the future.

So far, neither the theory that the virus was developed as a biological weapon nor the notion that it escaped a laboratory by accident seems as plausible as the hypothesis that the virus jumped to humans from animals at the wet market. But the conspiracy theories have poisoned the atmosphere for U.S.- Chinese collaboration in addressing the outbreak, which might otherwise have presented an opportunity to reset the soured relationship.

In order to dispel misperceptions and minimalize the damage to future relations, the two countries should consider expanding their military-to-military exchanges, such that they might visit each other’s sites for conducting government-sponsored biodefense work. And the United States should explore channels for helping China improve its laboratory biosafety. The beginning of either measure is dialogue.

Richard Ebright "There's absolutely nothing in the genome sequence of this virus that indicates the virus was engineered," said Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University. "The possibility this was a deliberately released bioweapon can be firmly excluded."

Vipin Narang Associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vipin Narang told The Washington Post it was "a skip in logic to say it's a bioweapon" or claim China "developed and intentionally deployed, or even unintentionally deployed" the virus. "I don't think it's particularly helpful, and it's borderline irresponsible to — and it's without evidence, so at this point it's a conspiracy theory — peddle it," he told the newspaper. "The rumor is circulating but there is no evidence to date that this is true," the expert said. "Hopefully the WHO team will get the samples from the original cases and we will be able to figure this out. Until then, I put it in the conspiracy theory bucket."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

But given the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ongoing dishonesty, we have to examine the hypothesis and demand the evidence. Suspicion over the origins of the Coronavirus comes as China continues to search for a cure and faces accusations that it had suppressed information about the virus. When the SARS Coronavirus broke out in China in the early 2000s, the government initially covered it up. "Where did it start? We don't know. But the burden of proof is on the Chinese government.”

Human Error in High-Biocontainment Labs: A Likely Pandemic Threat

Oops! A French Lab Lost 2,000 Vials of the SARS Virus!

But don’t worry, that was back in 2014 and we all are still alive.

Yes, the French somehow misplaced more than 2,000 vials containing fragments of the SARS virus. I wonder how big a pile that would make?

You remember SARS right? This was that deadly virus that killed 800 people during a global epidemic in 2003.

SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, was considered a global outbreak until it was contained in 2003. The last known human SARS infections were reported in China in 2004, and those happened to be acquired by researchers studying it in a lab. We are assured that the misplaced fragments of the virus are not themselves dangerous. I’m not convinced, and why are children around the World allowed to play with these things? Dangerous or not, the issue is that the Pasteur Institute's standards might be much too lax to be studying SARS. What if someone stole them hoping to use them for some nefarious purpose? What if the lab misplaced vials containing the complete virus and no one knew? What if someone just threw them in the dumpster?

As for what happened to the missing vials, the lab has left that up to the authorities. France's National Security Agency of Medicines and Health Products is investigating the mix-up. Vanderbilt University's Dr. William Schaffner speculates that the vials could have been "accidentally incinerated and destroyed." But "the worst-case scenario is that we will never know what happened to them." So, I guess we should not even worry about it? Maybe the CDC will just send them some more to play with? My guess is that they are now listed on eBay!

Biosafety Level 3 Lab (BSL3) and Biosafety Level 4 Lab (BSL4)

Incidents causing potential exposures to pathogens occur frequently in the high security laboratories. Lab incidents that lead to undetected or unreported laboratory-acquired infections can lead to the release of a disease into the community outside the lab; lab workers with such infections will leave work carrying the pathogen with them. If the agent involved were a potential pandemic pathogen, such a community release could lead to a worldwide pandemic with many fatalities.

Lab Created mammalian-airborne-transmissible Virus

Of greatest concern is a release of a lab-created, mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, such as the airborne-transmissible H5N1 viruses created in the laboratories of Ron Fouchier in the Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka In Madison Wisconsin.

Such releases are fairly likely over time, as there are at least 14 labs (mostly in Asia) now carrying out this research. Whatever release probability the world is gambling with, it is clearly far too high a risk to human lives. Mammal-transmissible bird flu research poses a real danger of a worldwide pandemic that could kill human beings on a vast scale.

Human error is the main cause of potential exposures of lab workers to pathogens. Statistical data from two sources show that human error was the cause of 67 percent and 79.3 percent of incidents leading to potential exposures in BSL3 labs. These percentages come from analysis of years of incident data from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) and from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (Details may be found in the Supplementary Material document.)

Release of Potentially Pandemic Pathogen into the community

Understanding human error is important to calculating the probability that a pathogen will be released from a lab into the surrounding community, the first step in calculating the likelihood of a pandemic. A key observation is that human error in the lab is mostly independent of pathogen type and biosafety level.

Analyzing the likelihood of release from laboratories researching less virulent or transmissible pathogens therefore can serve as a reasonable surrogate for how potential pandemic pathogens are handled. (We are forced to deal with surrogate data because, thank goodness, there are little data on the release of potentially pandemic agents.) Put another way, surrogate data allows us to determine with confidence the probability of release of a potentially pandemic pathogen into the community. In a 2015 publication, Fouchier describes the careful design of his BSL3+ laboratory in Rotterdam and its standard operating procedures, which he contends should increase biosafety and reduce human error. Most of Fouchier’s discussion, however, addresses mechanical systems in the laboratory.

High Percentage of Human Error

But the high percentage of human error reported here calls into question claims that state-of-the-art design of BSL3, BSL3+ (augmented BSL3), and BSL4 labs will prevent the release of dangerous pathogens. How much lab-worker training might reduce human error and undetected or unreported laboratory acquired infections remains an open question. Given the many ways by which human error can occur, it is doubtful that Fouchier’s human-error-prevention measures can eliminate release of airborne- transmissible avian flu into the community through undetected or unreported lab infections.

Human-error incident data. In its 2016 study for the NIH, “Risk and Benefit Analysis of Gain of Function Research,” Gryphon Scientific looked to the transportation, chemical, and nuclear sectors to define types of human error and their probabilities. As Gryphon summarized in its findings, the three types of human error are skill-based (errors involving motor skills involving little thought), rule-based (errors in following instructions or set procedures accidentally or purposely), and knowledge-based (errors stemming from a lack of knowledge or a wrong judgment call based on lack of experience).

Gryphon claimed that “no comprehensive Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) study has yet been completed for a biological laboratory. This lack of data required finding suitable proxies for accidents in other fields.”

But mandatory incident reporting to FSAP and NIH actually does provide sufficient data to quantify human error in BSL3 biocontainment labs.

Federal Select Agent Program incident data: FSAP incident data were collected from summary reports to Congress for the years 2009 through 2015.

Three of the seven FSAP incident categories involve skill-based errors: 1) needle sticks and other through the skin exposures from sharp objects, 2) dropped containers or spills/splashes of liquids containing pathogens, and 3) bites or scratches from infected animals. Some skill errors, such as spills and needle sticks could be reduced with simple fixes (see below).

The rule-based and knowledge-based incident categories are: 4) pathogens manipulated outside of a biosafety cabinet or other equipment designed to protect exposures to infectious aerosols; 5) potential exposures resulting from non-adherence to safety procedures or deviations from lab standard operating procedures, and 6) failure or problem with personal protective equipment–a mix of skill, rule, or knowledge-based errors.

The 7th category is mechanical or equipment failure, or defective labware. Another category not mentioned in the FSAP reports is failure to properly inactivate pathogens before transferring them to a lower biosafety level lab for further research.

During the 2009-2015 time period, FSAP received a total of 749 incident reports from select-agent research facilities. Conservatively, 594 or 79.3 percent of those incidents involve human error.

National Institutes of Health incident data. Incident reports to the NIH Office of Science Policy cover the period from 2004 through 2017 and BSL3 and BSL4 facilities

There were no reported incidents from BSL4 facilities. Reporting to NIH is required only for incidents involving pathogens that contain recombinant DNA. While it is highly likely there have been incidents in BSL4 facilities, they may not have involved pathogens with recombinant DNA and so would not show up in the reports to NIH.

128 Incident Reports

The 128 incident reports provide extremely detailed descriptions. The reports are often several-dozen pages long so almost no questions remain about details.

Of the 128 incidents, 86 or 67.2 percent were due to human error. This percentage is in the same ballpark as the FSAP reports.

Some human errors are “one-off,” meaning they happened once and likely won’t happen again. One-off errors are difficult to anticipate, so it is unlikely that one can devise meaningful changes in standard operating procedures to prevent them. Here is one example of a one-off error, slightly modified from an incident report:

A researcher was exchanging two plastic 24-well plates in the tabletop Sorvall centrifuge. While closing the lid, it was caught on a centrifuge wrench which was accidentally placed into the path of the lid. The wrench jumped and knocked one of the removed 24-well plates onto the counter. The plate landed at approximately a 45-degree angle and lost approximately half its contents to the bench top.

For some errors, there are procedural changes that should reduce their frequency. For instance, needle sticks can occur from syringes with sharp metal needles when being used to transfer liquids from one small container to another. For injecting animals, sharp metal needles are needed; but for liquid transfers, blunt-plastic needles would suffice. Also, dropping items could sometimes be prevented using lab carts to transport items from place to place, rather than carrying them by hand.

Here are three comments from the Fouchier publication.

“Only authorized and experienced personnel that have received extensive training can access the facility.”

“All personnel have been instructed and trained how to act in case of incidents.”

“For animal handling, personnel always work in pairs to reduce the chance of human error.”

The first two bullets speak to standard training of lab workers who work with particularly dangerous pathogens. It is unclear whether the diligent training of lab workers he outlines would substantially reduce human error:

The entities reporting incidents to NIH mention similar diligent training; nonetheless, undetected or unreported laboratory acquired infections occur with high frequency in these laboratories. Furthermore, it is unclear whether other laboratories creating and researching airborne-transmissible diseases are so carefully designed and diligent in their training.

The two-person rule for animal handling is a good idea that is not typically mentioned in the detailed NIH incident reports. Animal bites and needle punctures brought about by unruly lab animals are not uncommon.

Releases from High Biosecure Level Labs

Release from high biocontainment through incomplete inactivation: Beyond the aforementioned undetected or unreported laboratory-acquired infections lies another route by which pathogens can be released from high biosecure level labs—incomplete inactivation.

Inactivation is designed to destroy the pathogenicity of an infectious agent, while retaining its other characteristics for research in which live pathogens are not needed. Since there are reliable inactivation procedures, failure to inactivate is a human error.

Pathogens are inactivated for research that can be performed in lower BSL2 biocontainment, where it is much easier to carry out. Research in BSL3 and BSL4 laboratories is difficult, both because of restricted movement in the personal protective equipment that must be worn and because of restrictions in operating procedures that aim to minimize potential exposure to pathogens.

While incomplete inactivation does not usually directly cause a release into the community, researchers in BSL2 labs are at a much higher risk of infection, and their street clothes, hair, and skin can become contaminated. But incomplete inactivation is a route to potential release into the community.

The FSAP does not routinely collect data on incomplete inactivation, and it seems no one else does either. Thus, enough data to calculate probabilities for this type of incident are not available. But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has weighed in on the issue. The GAO reports anecdotal evidence and some numbers on incomplete inactivation to support the contention that it is a serious issue. The office has identified 11 incidents, in addition to 10 incidents already identified by the FSAP. Notably, two of the incidents involved Ebola and Marburg viruses, which because of a lack of countermeasures (vaccines and antivirals) are researched at BSL4 facilities.

GAO Report on Inadvertent Release

Among other things, the GAO report called attention to a well-publicized incident in which a Defense Department laboratory “inadvertently sent live Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, to almost 200 laboratories worldwide over the course of 12 years. The laboratory believed that the samples had been inactivated.” The report describes yet another well-publicized incident in China in which “two researchers conducting virus research were exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) Coronavirus samples that were incompletely inactivated. The researchers subsequently transmitted SARS to others, leading to several infections and one death in 2004.”

The GAO identified three recent releases of Ebola and Marburg viruses from BSL4 to lower containment labs due to incomplete inactivation.

A fourth release in 2014 from the CDC labs occurred when “Scientists inadvertently switched samples designated for live Ebola virus studies with samples intended for studies with inactivated material. As a result, the samples with viable Ebola virus, instead of the samples with inactivated Ebola virus, were transferred out of a BSL-4 laboratory to a laboratory with a lower safety level for additional analysis. While no one contracted Ebola virus in this instance, the consequences could have been dire for the personnel involved as there are currently no approved treatments or vaccines for this virus.”

The CDC has issued a report on this mix-up, and the steps they have taken to avoid this particular error in the future.

All these incidents confirm the role of incomplete inactivation that would lead to an increased likelihood of release into the community from a BSL2 lab. These are all human errors, some involving BSL4 pathogens. Along with the observation that other human errors are the cause of more than two-thirds of potential exposures in BSL3 labs, it is clear that state-of-the-art laboratory design will not prevent release into the community.

The probability of release into the community. In an analysis circulated at the 2017 meeting for the Biological Weapons Convention, a conservative estimate shows that the probability is about 20 percent for a release of a mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus into the community from at least one of 10 labs over a 10-year period of developing and researching this type of pathogen. This percentage was calculated from FSAP data for the years 2004 through 2010.

Analysis of the FOIA NIH data gives a much higher release probability—that is, a factor five to 10 times higher, based on a smaller number of incident reports. While there is no obvious reason in the NIH data that would explain this high probability, exposures and latent (not-active) infections with M. tuberculosis was indicated in four incident reports. M. tuberculosis is not a select agent so incidents involving it would not necessarily be reported to the FSAP. Tuberculosis is highly contagious by the airborne route, so it might be easier to acquire a TB infection in the lab. Unfortunately, airborne TB infections might be a harbinger of what could occur in research on airborne-transmissible flu.

Facility-reported descriptions of the 11 relevant incidents are provided in the Supplementary Material (Appendix 2). Lab-acquired infections are often discovered some time after the incident occurred. Only for three were the causes confirmed to be human error. For the other eight, neither the infected lab workers nor facility officials knew how the infection occurred. While it is likely that human error was involved in many of these eight infections, their causes will never be known. Likelihood that mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza release could cause a deadly pandemic.

The avian flu virus H5N1 kills 60 percent of people who become infected from direct contact with infected birds. The mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza created in the Fouchier and Kawaoka labs should be able to infect humans through the air, and the viruses could be deadly.

15% Probability of Release into Community

A release into the community of such a pathogen could seed a pandemic with a probability of perhaps 15 percent. This estimate is from an average of two very different approaches. One approach involves purely mathematical branching theory, where Harvard researcher Marc Lipsitch and coworkers provide a graph in which, conservatively, the probability that a pandemic is seeded from a single release is about 20 percent. In the second approach, where infection progress through the community from person to person is simulated, Bruno Kessler Foundation researcher Stefano Merler and coworkers found that there is a probability from five percent to 15 percent that a single release could seed a pandemic. How deadly and how transmissible such viruses are in humans is not known.

Dealing realistically with human errors in lab research. Human error will continue to play a major role in laboratory incidents, and undetected or unreported laboratory acquired infections and incomplete inactivation incidents will continue to occur. No matter how well facilities are designed to prevent release into communities, human error will dodge design.

14 labs Creating Mammalian-Airborne-Transmissible Viruses

For an already identified 14 labs creating or researching mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza, the potential 16 percent probability of a laboratory release into the community over five years of research (a result found in a study now being prepared for publication) is already uncomfortably high. NIH incident reports indicate possibly much higher probabilities of a such a

86 release–thus, a greater likelihood of a pandemic. This does not take into the account a release from incomplete inactivation. Combining release probability with the not insignificant probability that an airborne-transmissible influenza virus could seed a pandemic; we have an alarming situation.

Those who support mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza experiments either believe the probability of community release is infinitesimal or the benefits in preventing a pandemic are great enough to justify the risk. For this research, it would take extraordinary benefits and significant risk reduction via extraordinary biosafety measures to correct such a massive overbalance of highly uncertain benefits to too-likely risks.

Whatever probability number we are gambling with, it is clearly far too high a risk to human lives. There are experimental approaches that do not involve live mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza which identify mutations involved in mammalian airborne transmission. These “safer experimental approaches are both more scientifically informative and more straightforward to translate into improved public health…” Asian bird flu virus research to develop live strains transmissible via aerosols among mammals (and perhaps some other potentially pandemic disease research as well), should for the present be restricted to special BSL4 laboratories or augmented BSL3 facilities where lab workers are not allowed to leave the facility until it is certain that they have not become infected.

This focus here is for only a very small subset of pathogen research. Most pathogen appears to be safe to proceed as usual.

A few of the things that have gone wrong at US Biolabs

Records show hundreds of incidents have occurred in labs across the country in recent years. Here are a few examples of how things can go wrong.

Respirator hoses fail in deadly flu experiments Equipment failures of air-purifying respirators potentially exposed workers to the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza during separate incidents in June and September 2014 at the USDA's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga.

In the September 2014 incident, an animal caretaker in a BSL-3 lab noticed decreased airflow to their respirator and discovered that a hose had separated from its coupling. The worker was put on an antiviral medication for 10 days.

In June 2014, another employee in a different BSL-3 lab experienced reduced airflow through a respirator while taking samples from ducks involved in an H5N1 avian influenza experiment. In that case, a tear was discovered in the breathing tube, records show. The employee was given an antiviral medication.

UNC has string of lost mice Between April 2013 and September 2014, eight individual mouse escapes were reported at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Due to the inbred nature of the mice, their behavior varies wildly, and the university claimed the large number of escapes was not a reflection of a failure to train personnel.

In that same 18-month period, university officials wrote that lab staff handled mice roughly 54,000 times, so the escape rate is about 0.001%.

Despite those considerations, officials with the NIH called the escapes "concerning." Several of the mice were infected with either SARS or the H1N1 flu virus.

Escapes occurred in a variety of scenarios, including mice jumping onto researchers and running under freezers, incident records show. Researchers often used broom handles to corral the wayward mice that had previously been infected with a variety of pathogens.

The same researcher was bitten through a glove by a mouse infected with B. burgdorferi just a week later. He had to go back for another health evaluation while still completing the round of antibiotics from the first incident.

Dozens of holes in BSL-4 'spacesuits' As a key protection against the world's most deadly pathogens, including the Ebola virus, scientists in the BSL-4 labs at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick in Maryland wear pressurized, full-body spacesuit-like gear and breathe purified air. Yet those suits ruptured or developed holes in at least 37 incidents during a 20-month period in 2013 and 2014, according to lab incident reports obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Some reports indicate defective suits; others say the suits were old or worn out. "Apparent repetitive use defect in 9-year old suit that split due to repeated bending/folding resulting in material failure," says a March 2013 report.

On a single day in May 2014, a scientist noticed that their leg got wet while showering out of the lab and the report cites defective equipment; another worker reported finding a hole in their visor while showering out. In July 2014, there were three incidents with holes or tears, two that specified they were in the feet of their suits.

Worker quarantined after needle stick In November 2013, a University of Wisconsin researcher in an ABSL-3 punctured skin with a needle loaded with H5N1 avian influenza. The researcher was quarantined for seven days in an empty home, according to incident reports. The researcher's family was moved to a hotel during the quarantine.

Testing of Bioweapons by the US Government on its Citizens:

It is normal for most countries to test a new strain of bioweapons on its own people. I guess it just easier that way. There are many instances of the U.S. testing deadly substances on its own people. After WW2 there were wide-spread tests of radiation on civilians in the U.S. just to see how dangerous it was!

It has been claimed that the US biological weapons program started during World War II. But the first real public test didn’t happen until 1949, when scientists put harmless bacteria in the air conditioning system at the Pentagon to see what a biological weapon might look like. (Sure, that was a good idea!)

A year later, the US Navy carried out Operation Sea-Spray. The coast of San Francisco in California was sprayed with two types of bacteria, Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcesens. These bacteria are supposed to be safe, but Bacillus globigii is now listed as a pathogen, causes food poisoning, and can hurt anyone with a weak immune system. As for Serratia marcesens, 11 people were admitted to hospital with serious bacterial infections after the San Francisco test. One of them, Edward Nevin, died three weeks later.

In 1951, tests were also carried out at the Norfolk Naval Supply Center in Virginia – a massive base that equips the US Navy. Fungal spores were dispersed to see how they would infect workers unpacking crates there. Most of the workers were African American and the scientists wanted to test a theory that they were more susceptible to fungal disease than Caucasians.

In 1997, the National Research Council revealed that the US also used chemicals to test the potential of biological weapons in the 1950s. Zinc cadmium sulfide was dispersed by plane and sprayed over a number of cities, including St Louis in Missouri and Minneapolis in Minnesota. These sites were chosen because they were similar to Soviet targets such as Moscow in terms of terrain, weather and population. The council concluded that no one was hurt and that the level of chemical used was not harmful, but in 2012, sociology professor Lisa Martino-Taylor claimed that there was a spike in cancer rates that could be connected back to the chemicals, which she alleges were radioactive.

As well as open air testing, the US military also has a record of weaponizing infected insects. In 1954, for example, scientists carried out Operation Big Itch. The test was designed to find out if fleas could be loaded into bombs (they could). The tests happened just a few years after the Soviets accused the US of dropping canisters full of insects infected with chorea and the plague in Korea and China during the Korean War. This is something the US military denies as a “disinformation campaign”.

There was a massive increase in testing in 1962 when then US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, authorized Project 112. The project expanded bioweapons testing and pumped new funds into research.

One of the more controversial tests took place in 1966 on the New York subway. Scientists filled light bulbs with Bacillus globigii bacteria and then smashed them open on the tracks. The bacteria travelled for miles around the subway system, being breathed in by thousands of civilians and covering their clothes.

In 2008, the US Government Accountability Office acknowledged that tens of thousands of civilians might have been exposed to biological agents thanks to Project 112 and other tests.

The same report noted that, since 2003, the US defense department has been trying to identify which civilians had been exposed during Project 112 to let them know. The military denies this exposure involved any harmful disease, but many of those who have been identified allege they now suffer from long-term medical conditions.

Unethical Human Experimentation in the United States

Unethical human experimentation in the United States describes numerous experiments performed on human test subjects in the United States that have been considered unethical, and were often performed illegally, without the knowledge, consent, or informed consent of the test subjects. Such tests have occurred throughout American history, but particularly in the 20th century.

The experiments include: the exposure of humans to many chemical and biological weapons (including infection with deadly or debilitating diseases), human radiation experiments, injection of toxic and radioactive chemicals, surgical experiments, interrogation and torture experiments, tests involving mind-altering substances, and a wide variety of others.

Many of these tests were performed on children, the sick, and mentally disabled individuals, often under the guise of "medical treatment". In many of the studies, a large portion of the subjects were poor, racial minorities, or prisoners.

Funding for many of the experiments was provided by the United States government, especially the United States military, the Central Intelligence Agency, or private corporations involved with military activities. The human research programs were usually highly secretive, and in many cases information about them was not released until many years after the studies had been performed.

The ethical, professional, and legal implications of this in the United States medical and scientific community were quite significant and led to many institutions and policies that attempted to ensure that future human subject research in the United States would be ethical and legal. Public outrage in the late 20th century over the discovery of government experiments on human subjects led to numerous congressional investigations and hearings, including the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission, both of 1975, and the 1994 Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, among others.

Experiments In 1941, at the University of Michigan, virologists Thomas Francis, Jonas Salk and other researchers deliberately infected patients at several Michigan mental institutions with the influenza virus by spraying the virus into their nasal passages. (I thought Salk just wanted to protect us from Polio?)

Throughout the 1840s, J. Marion Sims, who is often referred to as "the father of gynecology", performed surgical experiments on enslaved African women, without anesthesia. The women—one of whom was operated on 30 times—eventually died from infections resulting from the experiments. However, the period during which Sims operated on female slaves, between 1845 and 1849, was one during which the new practice of anesthesia was not universally accepted as safe and effective.

In order to test one of his theories about the causes of trismus (lockjaw) in infants, Sims performed experiments where he used a shoemaker's awl to move around the skull bones of the babies of enslaved women.

In 1874, Mary Rafferty, an Irish servant woman, came to Dr. Robert Bartholow of the Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati for treatment of her cancer. Seeing a research opportunity, he cut open her head, and inserted needle electrodes into her exposed brain matter. He described the experiment as follows:

When the needle entered the brain substance, she complained of acute pain in the neck. In order to develop more decided reactions, the strength of the current was increased ... her countenance exhibited great distress, and she began to cry. Very soon, the left hand was extended as if in the act of taking hold of some object in front of her; the arm presently was agitated with clonic spasm; her eyes became fixed, with pupils widely dilated; lips were blue, and she frothed at the mouth; her breathing became stertorous; she lost consciousness and was violently convulsed on the left side. The convulsion lasted five minutes and was succeeded by a coma. She returned to consciousness in twenty minutes from the beginning of the attack and complained of some weakness and vertigo.

— Dr. Bartholow's research report

In 1896, Dr. Arthur Wentworth performed spinal taps on 29 young children, without the knowledge or consent of their parents, at the Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts to discover whether doing so would be harmful.

Human Radiation Experiments Researchers in the United States have performed thousands of human radiation experiments to determine the effects of atomic radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body, generally on people who were poor, sick, or powerless. Most of these tests were performed, funded, or supervised by the United States military, Atomic Energy Commission, or various other U.S. federal government agencies.

The experiments included a wide array of studies, involving things like feeding radioactive food to mentally disabled children or conscientious objectors, inserting radium rods into the noses of schoolchildren, deliberately releasing radioactive chemicals over U.S. and Canadian cities, measuring the health effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests, injecting pregnant women and babies with radioactive chemicals, and irradiating the testicles of prison inmates, amongst other things.

Much information about these programs was classified and kept secret. In 1986 the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a report entitled American Nuclear Guinea.

Covid-19 Opening a whole New World of Government Surveillance

“COVID-19 could give governments invasive new data-collection powers that could last long after the pandemic!” --Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden said in a recent interview that increased surveillance amid the Coronavirus outbreak could lead to long-lasting erosion of civil liberties.

Specifically, he theorized that the states might demand access to people's health data — such as their heart rate — from wearables.

Countries have been rapidly ramping up their surveillance of citizens to study and curb the spread of the virus, ranging from mapping anonymized phone location data to highly invasive powers, like allowing the security services to track people's phones without a warrant.

Edward Snowden, the man who exposed the breadth of spying at the US's National Security Agency, has warned that an uptick in surveillance amid the Coronavirus crisis could lead to long-lasting effects on civil liberties.

During a video-conference interview for the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival, Snowden said that, theoretically, new powers introduced by states to combat the Coronavirus outbreak could remain in place after the crisis has subsided.

Fear of the virus and its spread could mean governments "send an order to every fitness tracker that can get something like pulse or heart rate" and demand access to that data, Snowden said.

"Five years later the Coronavirus is gone, this data's still available to them — they start looking for new things," Snowden said. "They already know what you're looking at on the internet, they already know where your phone is moving, now they know what your heart rate is. What happens when they start to intermix these and apply artificial intelligence to them?"

While no reports appear to have surfaced so far of states demanding access to health data from wearables like the Apple Watch, many countries are fast introducing new methods of surveillance to better understand and curb the spread of the Coronavirus.

Numerous European countries, including Italy, the UK, and Germany, have struck deals with telecoms companies to use anonymous aggregated data to create virtual heat maps of people's movements.

Israel granted its spy services emergency powers to hack citizens' phones without a warrant. South Korea has been sending text alerts to warn people when they may have been in contact with a Coronavirus patient, including personal details like age and gender. Singapore is using a smartphone app to monitor the spread of the Coronavirus by tracking people who may have been exposed.

In Poland, citizens under quarantine have to download a government app that mandates they respond to periodic requests for selfies. Taiwan has introduced an "electronic fence" system that alerts the police if quarantined patients move outside their homes.

The US is tracking people's movements with phone data, and its part of a massive increase in global surveillance

As Coronavirus sweeps across the globe, governments are stepping up surveillance of their citizens.

A new index from digital rights group Top10VPN documents which countries are introducing new measures to track people's phones.

Some countries are collecting anonymized data to study the movement of people more generally, while others are providing detailed information about individuals' movements.

Governments around the world are galvanizing every surveillance tool at their disposal to help stem the spread of the novel Coronavirus. Countries have been quick to use the one tool almost all of us carry with us — our smartphones.

A live index of ramped up security measures by Top10VPN details the countries which have already brought in measures to track the phones of coronavirus patients, ranging from anonymized aggregated data to monitor the movement of people more generally, to the tracking of individual suspected patients and their contacts, known as "contact tracing."

Samuel Woodhams, Top10VPN's Digital Rights Lead who compiled the index, warned that the world could slide into permanently increased surveillance.

"Without adequate tracking, there is a danger that these new, often highly invasive, measures will become the norm around the world," said Samuel Woodhams. "Although some may appear entirely legitimate, many pose a risk to citizens' right to privacy and freedom of expression.

"Given how quickly things are changing, documenting the new measures is the first step to challenging potential overreach, providing scrutiny and holding corporations and governments to account."

While some countries will cap their new emergency measures, others will retain the powers for future use. "There is a risk that many of these new capabilities will continue to be used following the outbreak," said Woodhams. "This is particularly significant as many of the new measures have avoided public and political scrutiny and do not include sunset clauses."

Here's a breakdown of which countries have started tracking phone data, with varying degrees of invasiveness:

The U.S. The US is reportedly gathering data from the ads industry to get an idea of where people are congregating

Sources told The Wall Street Journal that the federal, state, and local governments have begun to gather and study geolocation data to get a better idea of how people are moving about.

In one example, a source said the data had shown people were continuing to gather in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and this information had been handed over to local authorities. The eventual aim is to create a portal for government officials with data from up to 500 US cities.

The data is being gathered from the advertising industry, which often gains access to people's geolocation when they sign up to apps. Researcher Sam Woodhams says using the ad industry as a source poses a particular problem for privacy.

"Working closely with the ad tech industry to track citizens' whereabouts raises some significant concerns. The sector as a whole is renowned for its lack of transparency and many users will be unaware that these apps are tracking their movement to begin with. It is imperative that governments and all those involved in the collection of this sensitive data are transparent about how they operate and what measures are in place to ensure citizens' right to privacy is protected," Woodhams revealed.

The US' Coronavirus economic relief bill also included a $500 million for the CDC to build a "Surveillance and data collection system."

• The CDC will launch a new "surveillance and data collection system" to track the spread of Coronavirus in the US, per the Coronavirus relief bill signed into law Friday. • The agency would receive emergency funding as part of the bipartisan stimulus package. Of that, $500 million will go public health data surveillance and analytics infrastructure modernization. • Tracking the spread of the virus will be a balancing act for the agency, which will have to navigate privacy laws as it expands its surveillance.

South Korea South Korea gives out detailed information about patients' whereabouts

South Korea has gone a step further than other countries, tracking individuals' phones and creating a publicly available map to allow other citizens to check whether they may have crossed paths with any Coronavirus patients.

The tracking data that goes into the map isn't limited to mobile phone data, credit card records and even face-to-face interviews with patients are being used to build a retroactive map of where they've been.

Not only is the map there for citizens to check, but the South Korean government is using it to proactively send regional text messages warning people they may have come into contact with someone carrying the virus.

The location given can be extremely specific, the Washington Post reported a text went out that said an infected person had been at the "Magic Coin Karaoke in Jayang-dong at midnight on Feb. 20."

Some texts give out more personal information, however. A text reported by The Guardian read: "A woman in her 60s has just tested positive. Click on the link for the places she visited before she was hospitalized."

The director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jeong Eun-kyeong, acknowledged that the site infringes on civil liberties, saying: "It is true that public interests tend to be emphasized more than human rights of individuals when dealing with diseases that can infect others."

The map is already interfering with civil liberties, as a South Korean woman told the Washington Post that she had stopped attending a bar popular with lesbians for fear of being outed. "If I unknowingly contract the virus... that record will be released to the whole country," she said.

The system is also throwing up other unexpected challenges. The Guardian reported that one man claiming to be infected threatened various restaurants saying he would visit and hurt their customers unless they gave him money to stay away.

Israel passed new laws to spy on its citizens As part of a broad set of new surveillance measures approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 17, Israel's Security Agency will no longer have to obtain a court order to track individuals' phones. The new law also stipulates all data collected must be deleted after 30 days.

Netanyahu described the new security measures as "invasive" in an address to the nation.

"We'll deploy measures we've only previously deployed against terrorists. Some of these will be invasive and infringe on the privacy of those affected. We must adopt a new routine," said Netanyahu.

Singapore Singapore has an app which can trace people within 2 meters of infected patients

Singapore's Government Technology Agency and the Ministry of Health developed an app for contact tracing called TraceTogether which launched on March 20.

Per the Straits Times, the app is used: "to identify people who have been in close proximity — within 2m for at least 30 minutes — to Coronavirus patients using wireless Bluetooth technology."

Taiwan Taiwan can tell when quarantined people have left the house

Taiwan has activated what it calls an "electronic fence"

It tracks mobile phone data and alerts authorities when someone who is supposed to be quarantined at home is leaving the house.

"The goal is to stop people from running around and spreading the infection," said Jyan Hong-wei, head of Taiwan's Department of Cyber Security. Jyan added that local authorities and police should be able to respond to anyone who triggers an alert within 15 minutes.

Even having your phone turned off seems to be enough to warrant a police visit. An American student living in Taiwan wrote in a BBC article that he was visited by two police officers at 8:15 a.m. because his phone had run out of battery at 7:30 a.m. and the government had briefly lost track of him. The student was in quarantine at the time because he had arrived in Taiwan from Europe.

Austria is using anonymized data to map people's movements On March 17 Austria's biggest telecoms network operator Telekom Austria AG announced it was sharing anonymized location data with the government.

The technology being used was developed by a spin-off startup out of the University of Graz, and Telekom Austria said it is usually used to measure footfall in popular tourist sites.

Woodhams told Business Insider that while collecting aggregated data sets is less invasive than other measures, how that data could be used in future should still be cause for concern.

"Much of the data may remain at risk from re-identification, and it still provides governments with the ability to track the movement of large groups of its citizens," said Woodhams.

Poland Poland is making people send selfies to prove they're quarantining correctly

On March 20 the Polish government announced the release of a new app called "Home Quarantine." The point of the app is to make sure people who are supposed to be quarantining themselves for 14 days stay in place.

To use the app first you have to register a selfie, it then sends periodic requests for geo-located selfies. If the user fails to comply within 20 minutes, the police will be alerted.

"People in quarantine have a choice: either receive unexpected visits from the police, or download this app," a spokesman for Poland's Digital Ministry said.

The Polish government is automatically generating accounts for suspected quarantine patients, including people returning from abroad.

Belgium Belgium is using anonymized data from telcos

The Belgian government gave the go-ahead on March 11 to start using anonymized data from local telecom companies.

Germany Germany is modeling how people are moving around. Deutsche Telekom announced on March 18 it would be sharing data with the Robert Koch Institute (Germany's version of the CDC).

"With this we can model how people are moving around nationwide, on a state level, and even on a community level," a spokesperson for Deutsche Telekom told Die Welt.

Italy Italy, which, as you know has been particularly hard-hit by the Coronavirus outbreak, has also signed a deal with telecoms operators to collect anonymized location data.

As of March18 Italy had charged 40,000 of its citizens with violating its lockdown laws, per The Guardian.

The UK The UK isn't tracking yet but is considering it

While nothing official has been announced yet, the UK is in talks with major telecoms providers including O2 and EE to provide large sets of anonymized data. Google has also indicated it is taking part in discussions.

Like other European democracies, the UK doesn't seem to be exploring the more invasive method of contact tracing. However, it is considering using aggregated data to track the wider pattern of people's movements.

Coronavirus: Timeline of Events so far

WORLD

Dec 31, 2019: Chinese authorities flag a series of Sars-like pneumonia cases in the city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, to the World Health Organization (WHO), which then makes the information public

Jan 1: A seafood market in Wuhan suspected to be at the center of the outbreak is closed.

Jan 9: WHO says the outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan is linked to a novel (new) coronavirus from the same broad family as Sars.

A 61-year-old man in Wuhan is the first to die from the virus, according to Chinese health authorities which announced it on Jan 11. He was reportedly a frequent customer at the seafood market where the virus is said to have arisen.

Jan 13: Thailand reports the first confirmed case of the virus outside China’s borders. The patient is a Chinese woman who had recently returned from a trip to Wuhan

Jan 15: Japan confirms its first imported case, a Chinese man in his 30s who had returned from Wuhan on Jan 6. He had been hospitalized on Jan 10 but recovered and was discharged on Jan 15.

Meanwhile, a 69-year-old man in Hubei dies. His is the second death to be linked to the virus, Chinese authorities report on Jan 16.

Jan 20: South Korea reports its first confirmed case, and China confirms human-to-human transmission as healthcare workers begin to get infected.

Jan 23: Chinese authorities commence a lockdown on Wuhan. All public transport services, including buses, railways, flights and ferries, are suspended. Major highways are also shut down.

Residents are barred from leaving without permission from the authorities, but about five million manage to leave the city before the lockdown began, according to Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang.

The number infected worldwide grows to over 600, with 17 deaths in China. WHO says it is still too early to declare a public health emergency of international concern.

Jan 25: Malaysia confirms its first three imported cases. They are the wife and grandsons of Singapore’s first case.

Jan 31: WHO declares a global health emergency as the virus spreads to at least 18 countries.

Feb 1: In China, the death toll stands at 259 with 12,024 confirmed cases. In Singapore, 18 confirmed cases have been reported.

Feb 2: Wenzhou, around 800km from Wuhan, becomes the second city in China to be locked down. The Philippines reports the first coronavirus death outside China – a man from Wuhan, the WHO says. With the virus expected to impact on economic growth, China says it will pump 1.2 trillion yuan (S$235.4 billion) into the economy.

Feb 3: Chinese stocks collapse, with Shanghai plunging more than seven per cent on the first day of trading since the holiday.

China accuses Washington of spreading “panic”, after it bans foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, a move followed by other countries and cruise lines.

After the single-biggest daily increase in deaths – 57 – the 361 fatalities from the new coronavirus passes the 349 mainland deaths from Sars crisis in 2002-2003. But with 17,200 confirmed infections, the mortality rate for the new coronavirus is far lower at around 2.1 per cent, compared with 9.6 per cent for Sars.

Feb 4: The number of confirmed deaths spikes to 425 in China, after authorities in Hubei province reported 64 new fatalities. Across China, there were 3,235 new confirmed infections, bringing the total number so far to 20,438.

Hong Kong reports its first death from the coronavirus, the second fatality outside mainland China. The 39-year-old man, who had an underlying illness, had taken the high-speed train from Hong Kong to Wuhan city in Hubei province on Jan 21, and from Changsha in Hunan province to Hong Kong on Jan 23, the Hospital Authority said.

Malaysian health authorities confirms the first citizen to be infected with the coronavirus. The 41-year- old man from Selangor state had travelled to Singapore for a meeting from Jan 16 to 23 with colleagues from China - including one from Wuhan.

A South Korean woman tests positive for the coronavirus after visiting Thailand, South Korean officials said on Tuesday (Feb 4), the first foreign tourist reported to have been infected after a visit to the southeast Asian nation.

A Belgian person, one of nine repatriated from Wuhan in China on Feb 2, tests positive for the coronavirus. The person is Belgium's first case of coronavirus.

Feb 5: The number of confirmed deaths in China rises to at least 490, after the authorities in Hubei province reports 65 new fatalities. The number of confirmed infections is 24,324.

At least 10 people on a cruise ship moored off the coast of Yokohama test positive for the new coronavirus, Japan’s Health Minister said. There are 3,711 people on the Diamond Princess liner, comprising 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew members from 56 countries and regions. A second cruise ship – the World Dream – is also quarantined off Hong Kong, with 3,600 passengers and crew members barred from leaving.

South Korea reports three new cases of coronavirus, including two South Korean men who attended a conference in Singapore where they both came into contact with a Malaysian man infected with the same virus. This brings the total number of coronavirus patients in South Korea to 19.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology says it has applied for a local patent on an experimental Gilead Sciences drug that they believe might fight the novel coronavirus. Doctors at the Wuhan Children Hospital say pregnant women infected with the new coronavirus may be able to pass it to their unborn children.

Chinese President Xi Jinping expresses confidence that the country had the capability to overcome the outbreak of a Sars-like virus.

The WHO calls for US$675 million (S$935 million) in donations for a plan to fight the coronavirus, mainly through investment in countries considered particularly "at risk".

Feb 6: Death toll in mainland China jumps by 73 to 563, its third consecutive record daily rise. China’s National Health Commission (NHC) says another 3,694 coronavirus cases were reported throughout the country, bringing the total to 28,018.

Feb 7: Dr Li Wenliang, a Chinese doctor, dies after contracting the coronavirus. He is hailed as a hero by many for his attempt to sound early alarms that a cluster of infections could spin out of control.

Feb 11: Death toll in China crosses the 1,000 mark to reach 1,016 while the number of infections grows to 42,638. Wuhan records the deaths of two foreigners - a US citizen and a Japanese citizen.

Feb 13: China’s ruling Community Party ousts Jiang Chaoliang, the party secretary of Hubei province, and Ma Guoqiang, the top official in Wuhan amid widespread public outrage over the handling of the outbreak. Officials also added more than 14,840 cases to the total number of infected in Hubei province. That set a daily record, coming after officials in Hubei seemed to be including infections diagnosed by using lung scans of symptomatic patients.

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The MS Westerdam cruise ship which spent two weeks at sea after being turned away by five countries over fears that someone aboard may have the coronavirus arrives in Cambodia with 455 passengers and 802 crew on board.

Feb 14: China's death toll rises to 1,380 but the number of new infections in hard-hit Hubei province falls after a change in case definitions caused a massive increase the previous day. The central province’s health commission reported 116 more deaths and 4,823 new cases, the majority involving “clinically diagnosed” patients. Around 64,000 people have now been infected in the country.

China also declared the death of six health workers, underscoring the risks doctors and nurses have taken amid shortages of masks and protective suits.

Japan vows to step up testing and containment efforts for the coronavirus after suffering its first death - a woman in her 80s living in Kanagawa prefecture - and the confirmation of new cases, including a doctor and taxi driver.

Egypt confirms its first coronavirus case and said the affected person is a foreigner who has been put into isolation at hospital. This is also Africa's first case of infection.

Feb 15: The death toll in mainland China reaches 1,523, with 2,641 new confirmed infections. The total accumulated number so far has reached 66,492.

France announces the first coronavirus death outside Asia in the case of an 80-year-old male Chinese tourist.

Another 67 people on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined off Japan’s coast test positive for the new coronavirus, bringing the number of people diagnosed on the vessel to 285, excluding a quarantine officer who also contracted the illness.

Malaysia says an 83-year-old American woman who had been a passenger on MS Westerdam, a cruise ship that docked in Cambodia after being shunned by other countries, has tested positive for the new coronavirus in Malaysia. She is the first passenger on the ship to test positive for the virus.

China’s State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease announces on its social media platform it has developed a new rapid testing kit for the coronavirus. Authorities in charge of the Guangdong-based laboratory claim the test results can be shown within 15 minutes after collecting a drop of blood.

Feb 16: The death toll in mainland China jumps to 1,665 on Sunday after 142 more people died, although the number of new cases - at 2,009 - is a drop for a third consecutive day. There are 1,843 fresh cases in hard-hit Hubei province. A total of 68,500 people has now been infected.

Another 70 people aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan test positive for the coronavirus, bringing the total to 355 cases.

The government of Hubei, the center of China’s coronavirus outbreak, says a ban will be imposed on vehicle traffic across the province to curb the spread of the virus.

Malaysia bars passengers who had travelled on the MS Westerdam luxury cruise ship to enter the country, after an American woman who flew into the country was diagnosed with the coronavirus. It

101 also cancels three other US-chartered flights that are supposed to bring more Westerdam passengers into Kuala Lumpur.

A taxi driver dies from the coronavirus in Taiwan, marking the first such death on the island and the fifth fatality outside mainland China. The deceased person was a 61-year-old man who had diabetes and hepatitis B. Taiwan has to date accumulated 20 confirmed cases.

Israel's Health Ministry instructs Israelis returning from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau to self-quarantine for two weeks, amid concerns over the spread of the disease.

Feb 17: China says the death toll from the coronavirus is now 1,770, while Hubei reports 1,933 new cases of infection, slightly higher than a day earlier. There is now a total of 70,548 confirmed cases in mainland China. A total of 10,844 patients has been discharged from hospital after recovering from the disease, says China.

The US evacuates 400 Americans from the Diamond Princess. An additional 99 people tests positive on Diamond Princess, taking the total number of positive cases on the cruise liner to 454.

Chinese state media says China may delay the meetings of the parliament, or National People’s Congress (NPC), and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), both due to begin early next month.

Japan cancels the emperor’s birthday celebrations next week as it moves to limit crowds to contain the spread of the coronavirus and says it will close the Tokyo Marathon to all but elite professional runners.

Israel bans all non-Israelis who were in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau in the previous 14 days.

Thailand says it is increasing screening of visitors from Singapore and Japan entering the country in response to the widening outbreak.

Feb 18: The death toll in mainland China rises to 1,868, up by 98 from the previous day. Across mainland China, there are 1,886 new confirmed infections, bringing the total so far to 72,436.

Dr Liu Zhiming, the head of a leading hospital in China’s central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak, dies of the disease.

Thailand’s Public Health Ministry advises Thais planning trips to Singapore and Japan to postpone their visits, citing the rising number of people infected by the coronavirus in the two countries.

Japan plans to start trials of HIV medications to treat coronavirus patients, as an additional 88 people test positive on Diamond Princess. The new cases came from a total of 681 fresh results, taking the total number of positive cases on the cruise liner to 542.

Russia says it will suspend entry of Chinese citizens to its territory starting from Feb 20.

Feb 19: Mainland China has 1,749 new confirmed cases, the lowest since Jan 29. This brings the total accumulated number of confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 74,185, while death toll reaches 2,004.

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Chinese health authorities says the coronavirus can be transmitted when someone is exposed to high concentrations of aerosol in a relatively closed environment for a long time.

Passengers on Diamond Princess begin disembarking after a controversial two-week quarantine that saw more than 621 people infected with the coronavirus as at Feb 19.

A 70-year-old man dies from the coronavirus in Hong Kong, the second death recorded by the territory. The Chinese territory's confirmed cases stand at 63.

South Korea reports 20 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus – increasing its total by nearly two-thirds – to 51. The new cases include a cluster of at least 16 centered on the southern city of Daegu.

Two people in Iran’s Qom test positive for coronavirus, marking the country’s first case of the disease. The two Iranians are declared dead later in the day, the first such deaths in the Middle East.

Feb 20: China reports a dramatic drop in new cases in Hubei, while scientists think the new virus may spread even more easily than previously believed. Hubei has 349 new confirmed cases, lowest since Jan 25, down from 1,693 a day earlier. Hubei's death toll rises by 108, down from 132 the previous day, bringing the total in China to over 2,118 deaths and 74,576 cases.

South Korea announces the first death in the country of a person infected with the coronavirus and dozens of new cases, bringing the total to 104. Of that national tally, many are from Daegu or nearby and have been traced to an infected person who attended a local church, a scenario that Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) described as a “super-spreading event”.

The Japanese government says two former passengers of the coronavirus-wracked Diamond Princess have died. The total number of infections diagnosed on board the Diamond Princess so far is now 634.

Iran confirms to AFP three new cases following the deaths of two elderly men, as Iraq bans travel to and from its neighbor.

Feb 21: Mainland China reports 889 new confirmed cases of infections. That brings the total accumulated number of confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 75,465. Its death toll reaches 2,236, up by 118 from the previous day.

A 29-year-old doctor in Wuhan, Dr Peng Yinhua, dies from the disease. He is one of the youngest known fatalities of the epidemic and the latest among medical workers. The respiratory and critical illness doctor had planned to get married during the Lunar New Year holiday but postponed his wedding to help treat coronavirus patients.

South Korea's confirmed cases rises to 204, with the city of Daegu accounting for most of the new cases. The country now has the second-highest national total outside China.

A Hong Kong police officer has been confirmed infected, the first officer to test positive in the Asian financial hub as dozens of other officers were quarantined over concerns of contagion. The 48-year-old officer had attended a banquet with 59 other police in the city’s western district on Feb 18.

More than 400 cases of the new coronavirus are detected in prisons in China's Hubei, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces, fuelling concerns about new clusters of the epidemic. Top officials deemed responsible for the outbreaks are fired.

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Iran confirms 13 more new coronavirus cases. Its total cases now stand at 18, with four of those people having died.

An Israeli woman who disembarked the virus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship near Tokyo tests positive upon return to her home country.

Six Italians test positive for the coronavirus in the northern Italian region of Lombardy in the first known cases of local transmission in Italy of the potentially deadly illness. A 78-year old Italian from the Veneto region becomes Italy's first fatality.

Lebanon confirms its first case in a 45-year-old Lebanese woman who had travelled from Qom in Iran.

Feb 22: China reports a decrease in the number of new deaths and new cases: 397 new cases, down from 889 cases a day earlier. The total accumulated number of confirmed cases in mainland China is 76,288 and its death toll is now 2,345. The NHC also revises its figures for Feb 19 and 20.

Wuhan requires patients who are discharged from hospital after recovering from the virus, now known as the Covid-19 virus, to go on a 14-day quarantine at designated places for medical observation. This follows news that some discharged patients have tested positive for the second time.

A super spreader and a secretive church - Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the south-eastern city of Daegu - are now at the center of the spread of the coronavirus in South Korea, with the tally of cases doubling to 433.

India issues a fresh travel advisory asking citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Singapore as part of attempts to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Feb 23: South Korea raises its virus alert level to the highest red as the number of coronavirus cases spikes to 604 and the death toll hits six, with a majority of cases linked to the Shincheonji church in Daegu.

China's death toll from the coronavirus epidemic rises to 2,442 after the government says 97 more people has died, all but one of them in the epicenter of Hubei province. The NHC also confirms another 648 new cases in China, higher than a day earlier.

Feb 24: Wall Street's three major averages plunge as investors run for safety after a surge in coronavirus cases outside China fanned worries about the global economic impact of a potential pandemic.

Kuwait, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Iraq and Oman confirm their first novel coronavirus cases.

South Korea reports 161 more coronavirus cases, taking the nationwide total to 763 and making it the world's largest total outside China. Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines say they are suspending flights to Daegu, the country's fourth-largest city with the largest number of coronavirus cases, for the time being.

Four Chinese provinces, Yunnan, Guangdong, Shanxi and Guizhou, lower their coronavirus emergency response measures.

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Wuhan announces some people who are deemed healthy will be allowed to leave the city, whose transport links have been severed since Jan 23. But the move is revoked on the same day.

Feb 25: China reports another 71 deaths from the novel coronavirus, the lowest daily number of fatalities in over two weeks, which raises the toll to 2,663.

Austria and Switzerland confirm their first cases.

South Korea says it aims to test more than 200,000 members of the Shincheonji church as President Moon Jae-in says the situation is "very grave". South Korea's tally of cases rises to 977.

Italy’s coronavirus infections spread south to Tuscany and Sicily, as the civil protection agency reports a surge in the number of infected people and Rome convenes emergency talks. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has blamed poor management in a hospital in the country’s north for the outbreak, which has caused seven deaths in Italy so far and infected the largest number of people in Europe.

Feb 26: China reports 52 new coronavirus deaths, the lowest figure in more than three weeks, bringing the death toll to 2,715. Five Chinese regions - north-western Chinese regions of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, the southwestern province of Sichuan, the north-eastern province of Jilin and the southern island of Hainan - downgrade their emergency response level after assessing that health risks from the coronavirus outbreak have receded.

South Korea reports 284 new cases of coronavirus, including a US soldier, pushing the total tally to 1,261.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells diplomats in Geneva the number of new cases reported outside China has exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time.

Greece, Algeria and Brazil report first cases, all imported from Italy.

A woman working as a tour bus guide in Japan tests positive for the coronavirus for a second time, the first person in the country to be reinjected.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms the first possible “community spread” of the coronavirus in the US.

Feb 27: China reports 29 more deaths, the lowest daily figure in almost a month, and the number of fresh infections rises slightly. The death toll now stands at 2,744 in mainland China.

South Korea reports its largest daily spike of 505 new coronavirus infections, outnumbering China for the first time as the government restricted exports of face masks amid a supply shortage. This brings South Korea’s total tally to 1,766.

Iran says its death toll has risen to 26, by far the highest number outside China, and the total number of infected people now stands at 245, including several senior officials.

Denmark, Netherlands and Estonia report their first coronavirus cases.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says Japan will close all public schools from March 2 to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

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Feb 28: Mainland China says it has 327 new confirmed cases of infections, down from 433 cases a day earlier.

That brings the total accumulated number of confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 78,824.

New Zealand, Mexico and Nigeria confirm their first cases.

French health minister says the number of confirmed cases in France has more than doubled in 24 hours, with the tally now at 38 from 18.

The World Health Organization raises its global risk assessment of the new coronavirus to its highest level after the epidemic spread to sub-Saharan Africa and caused financial markets to plunge.

SINGAPORE

Jan 2: The Ministry of Health (MOH) alerts doctors to look out for suspected patients with pneumonia who have recently returned from Wuhan and advises travelers to Wuhan to monitor their health.

Jan 3: Singapore begins temperature screenings at Changi Airport for all travelers arriving from Wuhan. an 4: MOH is notified of the first suspected case of the coronavirus, a three-year-old girl from China with pneumonia and a travel history to Wuhan. The girl tests negative for the virus the next day.

Jan 10-20: MOH is notified of another suspected case, a 26-year-old man from China. More suspected cases are reported on Jan 16, 17, 18 and 20 but all test negative.

Jan 22: A multi-ministry task force is set up to fight the infectious disease on all fronts.

Temperature screenings at Changi Airport are expanded to cover all inbound travelers arriving from mainland China, not just those from Wuhan.

The definition of suspect cases is also expanded to include those with pneumonia and a travel history to China, and those with acute respiratory infection who had been to any hospital in China, within 14 days of the onset of symptoms.

MOH issues a travel advisory stating that travelers should avoid non-essential travel to Wuhan.

Jan 23: Singapore confirms its first imported case, a 66-year-old man from Wuhan who arrived here from Guangzhou with his family on Jan 20. He is warded in an isolation room at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

Contact tracing is initiated, with close contacts to be quarantined.

The travel advisory is updated to state that Singaporeans should avoid travelling to Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province.

Temperature checks are also expanded to land and sea checkpoints, in addition to ongoing checks at the airport.

Budget carrier Scoot cancels its daily flight to Wuhan after Chinese authorities lock down the city

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Jan 24: Two more confirmed cases are reported, including a 53-year-old woman from Wuhan and a 37- year-old man, also from Wuhan, who is the son of the first confirmed case. The woman is warded at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, while the man is warded at SGH. Jan 26

A fourth confirmed case is reported: a 36-year-old man from Wuhan who arrived here with his family on Jan 22. He is warded in an isolation room at Sengkang General Hospital.

Jan 27: The multi-ministry task force announces new measures, including a mandatory 14-day leave of absence for staff in the education, healthcare and eldercare sectors, as well as students, if they have been to China in the previous two weeks. Some firms say they will follow suit.

Temperature screening is expanded to cover all incoming flights, with extra attention to passengers on flights from China.

Measures are also announced by the Ministry of Trade and Industry to help businesses affected by the outbreak.

Meanwhile, various sites are designated government quarantine facilities, including chalets and hostels at the National University of Singapore.

The fake news law is used against false claims about the coronavirus for the first time. The target is a user-made post on the HardwareZone forum claiming someone in Singapore had died from the virus.

The travel advisory now recommends deferring all travel to Hubei and all non-essential travel to mainland China.

Later, a fifth case is reported. A 56-year-old woman from Wuhan is warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

Jan 28: Two more cases are confirmed, bringing the total to seven. The new cases are both Chinese nationals from Wuhan.

MOH starts contacting some 2,000 recent travelers from Hubei who are in Singapore, about half of whom are on short-term visas. Those assessed to be at higher risk are quarantined.

Jan 29: New visitors who travelled to Hubei in the past two weeks and those with Chinese passports issued in Hubei are blocked from entering or transiting through Singapore.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) suspends the issuance of all forms of new visas, previously issued short-term and multiple-visit visas, as well as visa-free transit facilities, to those with Hubei passports.

Three more cases are confirmed, all of whom are Chinese nationals from Wuhan.

Passengers who had previously been stranded here after airlines cancelled flights to Wuhan are flown back on a specially designated Scoot flight.

Jan 30: The Government announces that it will distribute 5.2 million face masks to 1.3 million households by Feb 9, with each household getting a pack of four. Errant retailers who have been profiteering from the sale of masks will also be questioned.

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Ninety-two Singaporeans who were stuck in Wuhan after the lockdown are flown back to Singapore aboard a Scoot flight. They are quarantined for the next two weeks.

Another three cases are confirmed, bringing the total to 13. All cases to date are Chinese nationals from Wuhan.

Jan 31: WHO declares the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern.

The multi-ministry task force announces that all travelers who went to mainland China in the last 14 days will no longer be allowed to enter or transit in Singapore.

Immigration authorities suspend issuing new visas to Singapore, and transit passage through it, to those with China passports, with immediate effect. But Chinese passport holders who can show that they had not been to China recently may be allowed entry.

The first Singaporean is confirmed to be infected with the virus. She was one of the 92 Singaporeans flown back home on Jan 30.

Feb 1: Two more imported cases are confirmed.

DPM Heng Swee Keat says the Government will provide targeted support to sectors directly affected by the virus.

Feb 3: There were 524 people under quarantine in Singapore as of Feb 2 night, said National Development Minister Lawrence Wong in Parliament.

Landlords who evict tenants who are on home quarantine order or leave of absence, or based on nationality during the coronavirus situation could be barred from renting to foreign work pass holders in future, the Government said late Feb 3 evening.

Feb 4: Singapore recorded its first cases of local coronavirus transmission, with four women in the Republic infected who had not travelled to Wuhan.

Two work at Yong Thai Hang, a Chinese health products shop in Cavan Road in Lavender which caters to Chinese tour groups.

The third is a maid of one of the women, while the fourth is a tour guide who had taken groups to the same shop.

Another two confirmed cases were also announced on Tuesday. The two were among a group of 92 people flown back to Singapore from Wuhan on a Scoot flight last Thursday.

This brings the total number of confirmed cases in Singapore to 24.

The Government said that large gatherings and communal activities in schools, pre-schools and eldercare facilities would be suspended following news of local transmission in Singapore.

Feb 5: Four more cases of the coronavirus infection were confirmed, including the youngest patient confirmed so far in Singapore, a six-month-old baby who is the child of an infected couple. The total number of confirmed cases in Singapore stands at 28.

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Three of the new cases are linked to the cluster of local transmissions announced on Feb 4 - the baby, his father, and the husband of an infected tour guide. The fourth case is an imported one involving a Chinese tourist from Wuhan.

This means there are now seven cases in Singapore's first cluster of local transmissions.

The cluster is linked to a group of 20 tourists from Guangxi, China, that visited health products shop Yong Thai Hang in Lavender.

Feb 6: Two more Singaporeans were confirmed to be infected by the coronavirus, bringing the number of infected citizens here to 11. The total number of cases in Singapore is now 30.

One of the new cases did not travel to China recently and does not seem to be linked to previous cases.

The second new case went to a conference at the Grand Hyatt Singapore hotel last month, where three other attendees - two South Koreans and a Malaysian - tested positive for the virus after they left Singapore.

The condition of two previously confirmed cases has also worsened, said MOH. One patient is now in critical condition in the intensive care unit, and another requires additional oxygen support.

Feb 7: MOH confirmed three additional cases of the virus, all of whom do not appear to have links to previous cases or travel history to China.

As there are now a few of such local cases, MOH raised the Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (Dorscon) level to orange, just below the highest level of red.

The ministry also implemented temperature screening and closer controls of entry points into its hospitals and said it will introduce measures to care for patients with pneumonia separately from others.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that schools will suspend inter-school and external activities till the end of the March school holidays.

Supermarkets here saw a number of cases of panic buying as shoppers rushed to buy items such as rice, instant noodles and toilet paper.

Feb 8: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressed the nation in a video telecast, saying that Singapore is much better prepared to deal with the new virus because of its experience tackling the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) 17 years ago, and said the outbreak is a test of the country’s social cohesion and psychological resilience.

Political leaders and experts also came out in force to call for calm and urged people to be responsible, following a second day of panic buying of provisions at stores.

Meanwhile, supermarkets worked around the clock to restock their shelves.

Later that day, seven new cases of the virus were announced - five of which are linked to previously announced cases.

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Feb 9: A second evacuation flight brought back 174 Singaporeans and their family members from Wuhan in Hubei province, where they were trapped since the lockdown on Jan 23.

All the evacuees were quarantined upon arrival to be monitored for symptoms and reduce the risk of transmitting the virus.

Four more confirmed cases were discharged from hospital, bringing the total number of those discharged to six. But three more cases were confirmed, including a man who had fetched his grandchild from outside Pat’s Schoolhouse Kovan, and a Bangladeshi national.

Feb 10: One more patient was discharged from hospital while another two cases were confirmed, including a Certis Cisco officer who had served quarantine orders on two individuals prior to falling sick.

Feb 11: Singapore and Malaysia said they would set up a joint working group to strengthen cooperation in tackling the spread of the virus.

Two more cases were discharged and another two confirmed, bringing the total of those recovered and infected to nine and 47 respectively.

One of the new cases is a Bangladeshi worker who had worked at the same location as the previous infected Bangladeshi worker: A worksite at Seletar Aerospace Heights. This worksite becomes Singapore's third infection cluster.

Feb 12: The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) gave details on how people on leave of absence as a result of the virus could apply for daily $100 support.

About 300 DBS employees vacated their office at Marina Bay Financial Centre after a co-worker was confirmed to have been infected with the virus.

The infected DBS employee is one of three new cases announced. The other two cases are a pastor and staff member who went to work at Grace Assembly of God church.

This church would later become one of the largest infection clusters in Singapore.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong called on Singaporeans to show their support to healthcare workers and not shun them, and said one million masks would be distributed to general practitioners and specialists in private practice, who need them to protect themselves, their staff and patients.

Feb 13: A $77 million package to help taxi and private-hire drivers, co-funded by the Government, was announced.

MOM and its partners also announced that public healthcare institutions would help workers who had their leave cancelled get refunds or defray all costs.

Eight more cases of the virus were announced, bringing the total number of those infected here to 58.

The new cases have links to previous cases, including the Grace Assembly of God cluster, and the Seletar Aerospace Heights construction site.

Feb 14: MOH advised doctors to give five days of sick leave to patients with respiratory symptoms.

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It also reactivated its network of Public Health Preparedness Clinics, which will provide subsidised treatment, investigations and medication for patients with respiratory symptoms.

Nine more cases of infection were announced, including Singapore's first healthcare worker to be infected with the virus, a general anesthesiologist at a private hospital.

Feb 15: One more case was discharged, adding to a new total of 18 who have recovered from the virus. Five new cases were confirmed, all of whom have links to previous cases.

The Catholic church in Singapore suspended mass indefinitely from noon.

Feb 16: Another case was discharged, but three new cases were confirmed. These include a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) regular who worked at Tengah Air Base.

Prior to hospital admission, he had attended church service at Grace Assembly of God's Tanglin premises.

Feb 17: Mr Gan, together with Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu and Minister for Education Ong Ye Kun met Buddhist, Taoist, Sikh and Hindu religious leaders to give them guidance on precautionary measures that could be taken to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus.

A new, stricter stay-home notice was implemented to replace the current leave of absence scheme. Those under the notice cannot leave their homes at all for 14 days, with authorities warning that the Infectious Diseases Act can be used to prosecute anyone who flouts the rules.

Five more cases were discharged while two new cases were found, including a one-year-old baby boy who was evacuated from Wuhan on Feb 9.

Feb 18: Five cases were discharged, bringing the total number of those who have recovered to 29.

One of these cases is the one-year-old baby boy announced the day before, making him the fastest patient to recover from the virus so far.

Four new cases were announced, three of whom are linked to the Grace Assembly of God cluster, which now accounts for 21 infections - about a quarter - of infections here.

Feb 19: Three new cases of the disease were confirmed, including a 57-year-old woman who was first warded as a dengue patient at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH).

Five cases were discharged, bringing the total number of those who had recovered from the disease to 34.

Among them was Singapore's first confirmed case of the virus, a 66-year-old man from Wuhan.

Feb 20: The total number of cases rose to 85 after a 36-year-old Chinese national, who is a work pass holder here, was confirmed with the virus. Three more patients were discharged from hospital.

MOH also said that the 57-year-old woman who had been confirmed the day before was the first person here to be infected with both dengue and the coronavirus disease, called known as Covid-19.

Feb 21: Ten more patients infected with the virus were discharged, the highest number since Singapore reported its first case on Jan 23. But MOH clarified that this did not mean the fight against the virus was

111 over, as the chance remained that the virus could be reseeded into the country from elsewhere around the globe. One more person was confirmed with the virus, bringing the total to 86.

Feb 22: Three new patients were confirmed with the virus, raising the total to 89. Two more cases were discharged - a 28-year-old permanent resident who works at Chinese health products shop Yong Thai Hang, Singapore's first local infection cluster, and her six-month-old son.

Feb 23: MOH issued an advisory for travellers to avoid non-essential travel to Daegu and Cheongdo in South Korea, following a spike in the number of cases there. It added that the definition of suspected cases would be expanded to include people with pneumonia or severe respiratory infection with breathlessness, who had been to the two areas within 14 days before the onset of symptoms.

Two more patients were discharged from hospital here, bringing the total of those discharged to 51 - more than half of those infected here. No new cases were confirmed on this day.

Feb 24: Two more cases were discharged and one more confirmed. MOH said that seven people were in the intensive care unit, up from five previously.

Feb 25: Five more cases were discharged, and one new case - Case 91 - confirmed.

MOH said that Case 91 and her husband, Case 83, were the missing links between the Grace Assembly of God and the Life Church and Missions clusters. The pair were not sick during investigations, but through a world-first use of serological testing, it was discovered that they had been infected with the virus in late January.

MOH revealed that the pair had likely been infected by travellers from Wuhan, Cases 8 and 9, who had visited The Life Church and Missions on Jan 19. They had then passed the infection to Case 66 - the first patient in the Grace Assembly of God cluster - at a Chinese New Year Gathering in Mei Hwan Drive on Jan 25.

The multi-ministry task force also announced travel restrictions on new visitors from the areas of Daegu and Cheongdo in South Korea following a spike in cases there.

Feb 26: Three Chinese nationals were taken to task for breaching measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The first, a 45-year-old PR, had his PR status stripped and was barred from re-entering Singapore after breaching his stay-home notice requirements.

MOH announced that the other two Chinese nationals, a couple, were expected to be charged on Feb 28 under the Infectious Diseases Act for allegedly giving false information to MOH officials and obstructing contact tracing.

Four more cases were also announced to have been discharged, bringing the total of those recovered here to 62, while two more cases were confirmed.

Feb 27: Four more cases were discharged, making a total of 66 who had recovered from the disease.

However, three new cases were confirmed, including a 12-year-old Raffles Institution (RI) student and his 64-year-old family member.

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MOE said that classes at RI and the MOE Language Centre in Bishan, where the infected student attended lessons, would be suspended the next day.

Feb 28: Two new cases, both from e-learning solutions company Wizlearn Technologies, were announced. The company was declared a new cluster by MOH, making it Singapore's fifth after two previous church clusters were merged into one.

Three more patients were also discharged, bringing the total of those who had fully recovered from the virus to 69.

Feb 29: The number of cases in Singapore crossed 100 to hit 102, with four new cases confirmed which were all linked to the Wizlearn Technologies cluster. Three more patients were discharged.

March 1: Two more patients were discharged, and four new cases confirmed. This meant 74 had recovered, out of the 106 who had been infected to date.

March 2: Two new cases were confirmed, bringing the total number of those infected here to 108. One was linked to the Wizlearn Technologies cluster, which had 13 cases, and the other was linked to a family member of the Raffles Institution student who was confirmed to be infected earlier. Four more patients were also discharged.

March 3: Singapore expanded its travel restrictions to Iran, northern Italy and South Korea. The multi- ministry task force also said that all incoming visitors with symptoms at checkpoints here may be tested for the virus.

Despite the measures, Mr. Wong cautioned that Singaporeans should be mentally prepared for a spike in cases.

Two new cases were confirmed, bringing the total number of those infected here to 110.

March 4: Two new cases of infection were confirmed, bringing the total here to 112. One more patient was discharged.

March 5: Two more patients were discharged, but five new cases were confirmed.

One of these was an imported case - a French male work pass holder who had been in France, Portugal and Britain between Feb 8 and March 3.

The other four were part of a new cluster involving a private dinner function at Safra Jurong on Feb 15. The restaurant they ate at, Joy Garden, was subsequently closed and sanitised.

The new Safra Jurong cluster has eight people, including an RI boy who was previously confirmed to be infected.

March 6: A new SG Clean task force was set up to promote social responsibility and personal hygiene here, in an effort to combat the virus. Mr. Gan warned that it is "inevitable" that Singapore will see a death from the virus.

Later that night, MOH announced 13 new cases here - the biggest jump so far, bringing the total to 130 cases. Nine of the cases were linked to the cluster at Safra Jurong. Only one case was discharged.

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March 7: Eight cases were discharged, while eight more were confirmed. Of the eight new cases, four were from the Safra Jurong cluster. The dinner event that patients from the cluster attended turned out to be a Chinese New Year celebration by members of a Hokkien singing group.

It was further revealed that several of those infected in the cluster were involved in singing activities and classes conducted by the People's Association (PA) at various community clubs and residents' committees.

MOH announced that activities and classes at CCs and RCs that were attended by those infected in the cluster would be suspended for two weeks.

March 8: Twelve more cases were confirmed, nine of which were linked to the cluster at Safra Jurong, bringing the total of infected here to 150. This meant there was a total of 30 cases linked to the Safra Jurong cluster, making it the second-largest cluster behind the combined Grace Assembly of God / Life Church and Missions Singapore mega-cluster, which had 32 cases at the time.

March 9: MOH announced that as of March 7, foreigners who are short-term visit pass holders have had to pay for their Covid-19 treatment here. Testing fees remain free for foreigners and locals alike, and the Government continues to pay for the hospital bills for Singaporeans, permanent residents and long-term pass holders admitted to public hospitals for the virus, said MOH.

Ten more cases were confirmed, six of which were part of the Safra Jurong cluster. It became the largest cluster here with 36 cases, surpassing the 33 in the Grace Assembly of God / Life Church and Missions Singapore mega-cluster.

Three more cases were discharged, bringing the total of those recovered here to 93.

March 10: Health Minister Gan Kim Yong announced that all social activities for seniors organized by government agencies will be suspended for 14 days from March 11. This comes amid a growing number of infections linked to a Chinese New Year dinner at Safra Jurong - at the time Singapore's largest coronavirus cluster - attended by many senior citizens.

Care services for seniors such as nursing homes, inpatient and day hospices, senior care centre services and home-based care services, will continue to run but with additional precautions.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) also announced new measures for passengers and crew of private or corporate jets that will kick in at 11.59pm on March 12. Passengers and crew of these planes have to make health declarations before they fly into Singapore.

Should any passenger or crew member have a fever of 37.5 deg C and above, or have respiratory symptoms, the plane operator will be told to operate the flight as a medical evacuation flight, with the unwell person considered a patient.

Patients on such flights need to be tested negative for Covid-19 at the country they are departing from before they can fly to Singapore.

These patients will also need to have a hospital in Singapore to receive them, and a risk assessment of the patients must be provided to the hospital.

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As for private or corporate jets that do not get classified as medical evacuation flights, if any of their passengers and crew have fever or have other respiratory illnesses when they arrive here, and they are also not Singapore residents, they will not be allowed to enter Singapore.

CAAS did not say why it issued the new requirements, but it comes after MOH announced on March 9 that a 64-year-old Indonesian man, who landed in Singapore at Seletar Airport on Saturday, was confirmed to have the coronavirus. Seletar airport is often used for business jets and private jets.

MOH on March 10 announced six more cases of the coronavirus. This brings the total number of cases to 166, of which 93 have fully recovered and been discharged from hospital.

All the 1,631 passengers on board the Costa Fortuna cruise ship, which was rejected entry in Malaysia and Thailand but allowed to dock in Singapore, were cleared to disembark from Costa Fortuna cruise ship after 14 hours.

March 11: DPM Heng Swee Keat said that the Government is working on a second stimulus package as the global coronavirus situation has worsened since the Budget was presented in February.

Like the existing $4 billion package announced in the Budget on Feb 18, the additional stimulus will be aimed at helping workers keep their jobs, he said.

It will also help small and medium-sized enterprises make the best of the crisis, and support workers who are retrenched.

MOH announced the biggest number of imported cases Singapore has seen in a day. Of the 12 new cases, eight - including three Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) servicemen who were in France on duty - are imported.

The other imported cases involve people who travelled recently to France, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, the Philippines, Britain and the United States.

Another case announced on March 10 is also an RSAF serviceman who was in France. This means that at least four servicemen are now infected.

Among the new cases are also an emergency department nurse from Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, and her husband.

MOH also said that two clusters - Yong Thai Hang and Grand Hyatt - were no longer active clusters and have been closed.

The ministry also highlighted a sub-cluster of the Safra Jurong cluster, involving three patients linked to the Boulder+ Gym.

Three more patients were discharged, bringing the total number of patients who have recovered and discharged from hospital to 96.

March 12: In a second televised address to the nation after WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, PM Lee Hsien Loong said that the outbreak will continue for a year or longer.

He added that Singapore's disease outbreak response level would remain at orange and would not go to red, the highest level, with no plans to lock down the country like what some countries have done.

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PM Lee said that Singapore will have to tighten up travel restrictions further temporarily, though he said the country cannot completely shut itself off from the world.

Singapore is also freeing up intensive care unit and hospital beds and facilities, to create additional capacity to meet any surge in virus cases.

If there is a large spike in cases, Singapore is planning to hospitalize only the more serious cases, said PM Lee. Those with mild symptoms would be encouraged to see their family GP and rest at home.

Singapore will also implement more temporary social distancing measures, such as suspending school, staggering work hours, or compulsory telecommuting, if there is a surge in patient numbers.

Separately, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) said that all 70 mosques in Singapore will be closed for five days for cleaning from March 13 and no congregational prayers will be held on that day.

This is a preventive measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus following the infection of two Singaporeans who attended a mass religious gathering in Selangor, Malaysia.

Around 90 Singaporeans had attended the gathering in late February, and some of them are frequent congregants of some local mosques.

The Catholic Church also said that public mass for Catholics here will remain suspended in order to minimize the risk of coronavirus spread, a week after it said it would be resuming Masses starting March 14.

MOH announced nine new coronavirus cases in Singapore, including two Singaporean men who attended the mass religious gathering in Malaysia. Five of these are imported cases, and one is linked to a previous case. This brings the total number of confirmed coronavirus patients here to 187.

March 13: Many new measures to contain the import of Covid-19 cases as well as stem the spread in Singapore were announced by Health Minister Gan Kim Yong and National Development Minister Lawrence Wong, who chair the multi-ministry task force on tackling the virus.

The measures cover more border restrictions and social distancing measures including limiting the size of gatherings to 250 people.

Singaporeans who have made plans to travel during the upcoming March school holidays are advised to review their plans.

Singaporeans are also advised to be cautious when travelling to countries affected by the Covid-19 disease, especially those which have exported cases, said the ministry in a press statement. This includes neighboring countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as countries farther afield, like Britain.

From 11.59pm on March 15, all new visitors who had been to Italy, France, Spain and Germany within the last 14 days will not be allowed entry or transit.

Also from 11.59pm on March 15, Singaporeans and permanent residents who had been to Italy, France, Spain and Germany within the last 14 days will be issued a stay-home notice.

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Any visitor who shows signs of symptoms at the checkpoints will also have to serve a 14-day stay-home notice, even if they test negative for Covid-19. This is an extension of an earlier measure where such travellers must undergo a swab test at the checkpoint.

With immediate effect, Singapore will cease port calls for all cruise vessels.

All ticketed cultural, sports and entertainment events, with 250 participants or more, must be deferred or cancelled. For events that have already been committed to, organizers must demonstrate that satisfactory precautionary measures have been put in place before they can proceed.

For gatherings, organizers should reduce crowding and improve ventilation. For example, participants could be seated at least 1m apart from one another, and reduce contact such as by not shaking hands.

Employers should put in place measures to reduce close contact, such as implementing tele-commuting and videoconferencing, staggering work hours and allowing staff to commute at off-peak hours.

At public venues, measures to reduce close contact could include seats set at least a meter apart at dining venues, while entertainment venues and tourist attractions such as casinos, cinemas, theme parks, museums and galleries could limit the number of visitors at any one time and increase spacing among visitors.

MOH also announced 13 new Covid-19 cases, including nine that are imported. The imported cases include two Singaporeans who got the virus after attending a mass religious event in Malaysia. This brings the total number of cases here to 200.

One more patient was discharged, bringing the total number of people who have recovered to 97.

March 14: MOH announced 12 new Covid-19 cases, including nine that are imported. The imported cases include a 44-year-old man who attended a mass religious gathering in Malaysia. There are now five local cases linked to the event.

In total, there are now 212 confirmed coronavirus cases in Singapore. Eight more patients were also discharged from hospital, bringing the number who have fully recovered and discharged from hospital to 105.

March 15: MOH said that Singaporeans should defer all non-essential travel to reduce their risks of contracting the virus during the pandemic. This advisory will apply for 30 days and is subject to further review.

Border restrictions have also been tightened to include all Asean states, as the Republic moves to further reduce the growing risk of Covid-19 importation.

From 11.59pm on March 16, all travelers - including Singapore citizens, permanent residents, long-term pass holders, and short-term visitors - entering Singapore with recent travel history to Asean countries, Japan, Switzerland, or Britain within the last 14 days will be issued a 14-day stay-home notice.

But Singaporeans and Malaysians travelling into Singapore from Malaysia via sea or land will be exempted from the new border restrictions on Asian countries, due to the close proximity and high inter-dependency between the two neighbors. Separate arrangements for precautions are being worked out by a bilateral joint working group.

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Separately, MOE said that students on official overseas placements, including all internships and exchange programs, will be asked to return to Singapore as soon as possible.

MOH also announced 14 new Covid-19 cases, including nine that are imported. It is the highest number of new cases Singapore has reported in a single day. The total number of cases now stands at 226.

March 16: All mosques in Singapore will continue to be closed until March 26, in a move to curb the coronavirus from spreading any further in religious institutions in the country. The extension of the closure of all 70 mosques for at least another nine days was announced by Muis.

MOM, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Singapore National Employers Federation said that employees who insist on proceeding with non-essential, non-work-related travel outside Singapore may have to use their annual leave to serve out their quarantine, stay-home notice or company-imposed leave of absence periods.

If employees do not have enough annual leave, employers may require them to use advance leave or take no-pay leave, the tripartite partners said in their guidelines to employers in the wake of border restrictions announced by MOH on Sunday.

After Malaysia's March 16 night announcement of a nationwide lockdown from March 18 to 31, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing assured that Singapore is not facing any immediate risks of running out of food or other supplies brought in by retailers. This follows concerns from Singaporeans about the implications of Malaysia's move.

MOH announced 17 new coronavirus cases, the highest daily figure to date. Of these, 11 are imported. The total number of people confirmed infected is now 243.

Four more patients were discharged from hospital. This means 109 people have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospital.

March 17: MOM said that the Government is looking into providing financial support for companies that need to urgently house workers affected by Malaysia's announcement to implement a two-week movement control order.

It will also work with hotel and dormitory providers to provide lower cost rentals.

PM Lee Hsien Loong also said that the flow of goods and cargo between Singapore and Malaysia, including food supplies, will continue, in spite of Malaysia's impending lockdown.

PM Lee said he received this reassurance from Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin when they discussed the situation on March 17.

To help with rental costs for temporary accommodations for workers here affected by Malaysia's lockdown, the authorities are also rolling out a plan to give organizations $50 per worker per night for 14 nights.

MOH announced 23 new Covid-19 cases, including 17 that are imported. This is the highest number of new cases Singapore recorded in a day so far, bringing the total number of cases to 266.

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National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said that Singapore will not rule out a lockdown to tackle the growing threat of the coronavirus outbreak, but it is not an option currently on the cards. He co-chairs the multi-ministry task force set up to deal with the coronavirus situation.

Seven out of 17 of the imported cases were Singaporeans. Five of the Singaporeans had travelled to Europe, currently the epicenter of the virus, and had been to countries such as Germany, France and Italy.

Five more cases have been discharged, bringing the number of discharged and fully recovered cases to 114.

March 18: Singaporeans and residents returning to the country will all have to serve a 14-day isolation period, the Government announced.

People in the country should defer all travel overseas, instead of deferring only non-essential travel previously.

This comes as the number of new cases announced in Singapore jumped by an all-time high of 47. This brings the total number of cases to 313.

In line with recent trends, 33 of the new cases are imported and 30 of them involve Singapore residents returning from abroad.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said there are plans to convert normal wards into isolation wards, and quarantine facilities could be converted into care centers for Covid-19 patients with less severe symptoms if the number of cases here continue to rise. Non-Covid patients could also be transferred to private hospitals to free up capacity at public hospitals, he said.

The People's Association (PA) said the popular Geylang Serai Ramadan Bazaar it organizes will not be returning this year, in the light of the coronavirus situation and the need to practice social distancing in public venues.

NTUC said that a one-time payment of up to $300 will be given to about 108,000 workers who lose their jobs or suffer income losses due to the coronavirus outbreak.

March 19: MOE, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) said that schools and kindergartens will reopen on March 23 as planned, but with stricter measures to prevent the coronavirus being spread by those who had returned from trips abroad during the holidays.

Students and staff members of schools, pre-schools and student care centres will be given 14-day leave of absence if they returned from overseas on or after March 14. The date of their return to Singapore will be taken as Day Zero of the 14 days.

Students who will have to miss classes will be supported through home-based learning. Parents will have to take their own leave should they need to care for their children on leave of absence but the Government encouraged employers to provide flexible work arrangements.

MOH announced 32 new coronavirus patients, including 24 imported cases. All of the imported cases were returning residents and long-term pass holders, with the bulk having travelled to Europe -

119 currently the epicenter of the virus. Most patients who visited Europe were in Britain – 13 patients – while the others had visited countries like Switzerland and France.

The total number of infected patients here now stands at 345. Of these, 159 are imported cases and the remaining 186 cases are locally transmitted cases.

Seven more patients have been discharged from hospital, bringing the total number of patients who have fully recovered to 124.

March 20: Health Minister Gan Kim Yong announced that stricter safe distancing measures will be introduced to reduce the risk of further local transmission.

All events and gatherings with 250 or more participants are to be suspended until June 30, while the suspension of all social activities for seniors by government agencies will be extended for another two weeks until April 7.

Events with fewer than 250 people and operators of venues accessible to the public, such as restaurants and cinemas, are also required to implement measures to ensure separation of at least 1m between patrons.

The measures will apply across the board for all events, including religious and private gatherings.

Retailers and food and beverage outlets will also be required to keep patrons at least 1m apart. For instance, operators are encouraged to demarcate queues to ensure patrons keep their distance while dining outlets should ensure alternate seats are marked out.

Entertainment venues and attractions are similarly required to impose appropriate measures like installing floor markers at queuing areas and adopting chequerboard or alternate seating.

For employers, the authorities strongly advised them to allow employees to work from home, or implement staggered working hours where telecommuting is not possible.

Non-critical work events should be deferred and critical ones scaled down to no more than 250 participants at any one time.

The Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and MOH announced a contact-tracing smartphone app, called TraceTogether, has been launched to allow the local authorities to quickly track people who have been exposed to confirmed coronavirus cases.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said that Malaysians with Singapore work permits can continue to work in Singapore with health screening and accommodation arrangements made for them, while food and products will continue to be transported across the border smoothly. This comes after Malaysia put in a place a two-week nationwide movement control order that kicked in on March 18.

MOM urged companies to impose a leave of absence on employees who returned from overseas between March 14 and 20, before a mandatory stay-home requirement for all those entering Singapore kicks in.

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Employers who place their staff on this voluntary leave of absence will be able to claim daily support under a program by the MOM aimed at alleviating the companies' financial burden during the Covid-19 outbreak.

MOH announced 40 new Covid-19 cases, including 30 that are imported. Almost all of the imported cases were returning residents and long-term pass holders, and had a travel history to Europe, North America, South-east Asia and other parts of Asia, with the largest number coming from Britain. This brings the total number of cases here to 385.

Seven more cases have been discharged from hospital, bringing the total number of patients who have fully recovered to 131.

March 21: Health Minister Gan Kim Yong announced that two people died on March 21 morning from complications due to Covid-19.

The first patient in Singapore to die was Case 90, a 75-year-old Singaporean woman linked to the cluster at The Life Church and Missions Singapore. She had no recent travel history to China. She had a history of chronic heart disease and hypertension.

The second patient to die was Case 212, a 64-year-old Indonesian national who was admitted in critical condition to intensive care here after arriving in Singapore from Indonesia. Prior to his arrival, the patient had been hospitalized in Indonesia for pneumonia and had a history of heart disease.

MOH advised all doctors in public and private hospitals, as well as private specialist clinics, to immediately stop or defer accepting new foreign patients who do not reside in Singapore. They have also been instructed to encourage their current foreign patients to seek continued care in their home countries, according to an internal circular issued on March 19.

MOM said it revoked a total of 89 work passes as of March 21 for breaching entry approval and stay- home notice requirements. Out of this number, 73 were work-pass holders with travel history to countries affected by Covid-19 and who entered Singapore without obtaining entry approval from MOM.

MOM also advised all foreign domestic workers to spend their rest day at home during this period of the coronavirus outbreak. If they still go out on their rest day, they should practice social distancing, the ministry added.

MOH announced 47 new coronavirus cases. This was the same figure as the number of cases reported on March 18, the greatest number since the start of the outbreak. This brings the total number of infected patients here to 432.

The new cases include 39 imported ones with travel history to Australia, Europe, North America, Asean countries and other parts of Asia.

To date, 140 cases have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospital. Of the 290 confirmed cases still in hospital, 14 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

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March 22: All short-term visitors will no longer be allowed to enter or transit through Singapore from 11.59pm on March 23 in view of the heightened risks of importing coronavirus cases into the country, said MOH.

Work pass holders and their dependents will be allowed to return to Singapore only if they work in sectors that provide essential services such as healthcare and transport.

This will also kick in at 11.59pm on March 23.

MOH announced 23 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number in Singapore to 455. Of these cases, 18 were imported cases that had travelled to Europe, North America, South America and Asian. Almost all of these new imported cases are returning residents and long-term pass holders, with only one short-term visitor.

A total of 144 cases have fully recovered from the infection and been discharged from hospital.

March 23: ICA said all travelers arriving in Singapore - including Singapore citizens, permanent residents and long-term pass holders - must submit an online health declaration before proceeding with immigration clearance, from March 27, 9am. All travelers will have to do so via the SG Arrival Card electronic service.

ICA explained that this new entry requirement is an additional precautionary measure to mitigate the risk of importing Covid-19 into Singapore. It will be subject to further review according to the global Covid-19 situation.

MOH confirmed 54 new cases, bringing the total of those infected here to 509. Of the new cases, 48 were imported while the other six had no known links at the time. Eight more were discharged, making a total of 152 who had fully recovered.

March 24: The Government announced a slew of strict measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. These included the closure of all bars, cinemas and entertainment outlets from 11.59 pm on March 26 till April 30 and suspending all center-based tuition and enrichment classes, and religious services.

The authorities also warned that any Singapore resident or long-term pass holder leaving Singapore from March 27 would be charged unsubsidized rates should they be hospitalized in public hospitals for Covid-19 treatment, and would be unable to claim from MediShield Life or Integrated Shield Plans for these treatments at public and private hospitals.

Additionally, as part of the measures, malls, museums and restaurants would also be required to reduce crowd density to stay open. Gatherings outside of work and school would have to be limited to 10 people, and food and beverage outlets would need to limit the sizes of groups of diners to 10.

The suspension of all social activities for seniors by government agencies will also be extended again until April 30.

MOH announced 49 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total of those infected to 558. Of these, 17 were locally transmitted. Three more cases were discharged.

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March 25: All 360 PCF centers across the island, which have more than 40,000 children, would close till March 30, following the news that 14 employees at PCF Sparkletots Fengshan tested positive for the virus.

Meanwhile, in response to a number of nightlife operators planning to host "farewell" events on that night before being forced to shut, the Singapore Tourism Board and the police said officers would be carrying out enforcement actions to ensure safe distancing measures were complied with.

Separately, a PR who failed to declare his recent travel history to Indonesia had the validity of his re- entry permit shortened by ICA.

In Parliament, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong told Singaporeans to prepare for a continued rise in coronavirus cases, as some of the 200,000 overseas Singaporeans return home in the following weeks. Law Minister K. Shanmugam warned that the authorities would investigate and charge those who flout their stay-home notices.

MOH also confirmed 73 new coronavirus cases in Singapore, the largest single-day spike to date. The ministry also said that 65 patients who were clinically well but still tested positive for Covid-19 were transferred to isolation facilities. Another five patients were discharged, bringing the number of people who have recovered to 160.

March 26: DPM Heng Swee Keat announced that PM Lee Hsien Loong, Cabinet ministers, and other political office holders, including President Halimah Yacob, would take an additional two-month pay cut on top of the one-month pay cut announced the month before, in the light of the coronavirus situation.

Mr. Heng also unveiled in his Supplementary Budget that the Government would set aside a further $48.4 billion to support businesses, workers and families here. In all, the Republic had dedicated nearly $55 billion to fight the virus at this point. Madam Halimah gave her in-principle support to draw up to $17 billion from Singapore's past reserves to fund this.

Among other measures, it was announced that all adult Singaporeans would receive a cash payout of between $300 and $900, that about 10,000 new jobs would be created over the next year under the SGUnited Jobs Initiative, and that the one-off SkillsFuture Credit top-up of $500 could be used earlier for selected courses, to allow Singaporeans to use their downtime to develop new skills.

Mr. Heng also said that Singapore Airlines is expected to receive support from Temasek Holdings amid the outbreak.

MOH announced 52 more cases, bringing the total of those infected to 683, while another 12 were discharged. A total of 87 cases who were clinically well but still tested positive for the virus had been transferred to isolation facilities at this point.

March 27: MOH announced that 11 more coronavirus patients were discharged from hospital, bringing the number of those who had recovered to 183. The ministry also confirmed 49 new cases, including two cases who were part of a new cluster at SingPost Centre. Another case which had been announced earlier, Case 581, was also found to be linked to this cluster.

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SingPost said it had suspended all packet processing operations at SingPost Centre on March 26 and 27 for thorough cleaning and disinfection, as well as to facilitate contact tracing. It added that letter mail delivery had not been affected, but the delivery of packages might be slightly delayed as a result.

March 28: The Government announced that from 11.59pm on March 29, all long-term visit pass (LTVP) holders, including those who had been granted in-principle approval for an LTVP, and student pass holders would have to obtain approval from the Government before entering Singapore.

MOH also announced 70 new coronavirus cases, bringing the number of infected here to 802. Fifteen more patients were discharged, which means the total number of people here who recovered from the infection now stands at 198.

March 29: ICA announced that it had cancelled the passport of a 53-year-old Singaporean man for breaching his stay-home notice and travelling to Indonesia.

The same day, a 70-year-old Singaporean man, Mr Chung Ah Lay, who was Case 109, died from the virus. He had a history of hypertension and hyperlipidemia.

MOH also announced 42 new cases of infection, including three from a new cluster at The Wedding Brocade in Yishun. The ministry also said that 14 more patients were discharged.

March 30: MOH announced 35 new cases of infection, bringing the total number of those infected here to 879. These included seven cases from a new cluster at Wilby Residences, five from a new cluster at Hero’s bar, and four cases from a new S11 Dormitory cluster announced by MOH. The ministry said 16 more patients were discharged.

March 31: It was announced that Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) would be suspended at most locations from April 6, with most of the remaining spots seeing rates slashed.

The Ministry of Defense also said that the Singapore Armed Forces would defer non-essential in-camp training for at least a month to deal with the outbreak.

Later in the day, the multi-ministry task force said that employers must allow their staff to work from home as far as possible, or risk facing penalties.

MOH confirmed 47 new coronavirus cases, including Case 891, a 22-year-old Indian man who worked as a housekeeper at CGH.

April 1: The number of cases here hit 1,000 as 74 new cases were confirmed, including a 102-year-old patient. Known as Case 983, she was part of a new cluster of 11 at Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home.

Following this cluster's announcement, MOH and the Agency for Integrated Care said that all nursing homes in Singapore would be closed to visitors till April 30.

April 2: MOH announced that 21 coronavirus patients were discharged, the highest number of any day, bringing the total number of those recovered to 266.

The ministry also confirmed 49 new cases, including five cases in a new cluster at Mustafa Centre and two cases at a new cluster in a Maxwell MRT construction site. Three earlier confirmed cases were also linked to a new cluster at Keppel Shipyard.

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April 3: The authorities announced a series of tough "circuit breaker" measures aimed at keeping people at home. These included the closure of most workplaces from April 7, all schools shifting to home base learning from April 8 to May 4, the cancellation of mid-year exams, and "takeaways only" policies at hawker centers, coffeeshops, restaurants and other food and beverage outlets.

The Government also announced that reusable masks would be distributed to all Singapore residents here.

Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, MOH's Director of Medical Services, also assured the public that Singapore has been ramping up its healthcare capacity in anticipation of an increase in cases, and that the healthcare system could cope with the current number of infections.

MOH also announced 65 new cases of infection, bringing the total of those infected here to 1,114. Three new clusters were also announced - at nightclub Ce La Vi, the Singapore Cricket Club, and a construction site in the Raffles Place area.

The Republic also had its fifth death from the virus: Case 918, an 86-year-old patient from the Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home cluster.

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