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Coronavirus - the new strain IX

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Here's a great piece on school meals

“When I saw what they thought was adequate for a lunch box I was lost for words. It was minute – a tiny cheese wrap not much longer than an AA battery, a small tub of jelly just a quarter full, two segments of orange, two small sticks of cucumber and no drink." £2.20 for those who pay. The modern day gruel - profiteering at the expense of the poor at its worst...

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https://www.theguardian.com/educati...hildren-hungry-in-englands-school-meals-chaos

While I'm at it another great piece on hospital cleaning and outsourcing

https://www.theguardian.com/society...cleaners-coronavirus-pandemic-nhs-outsourcing
 
@triggers I disagree. From Reuters: “Spanish virologists may have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China,

So when people say Wuhan flu Or point the finger at China, it’s an assumption that it originated there but C19s origins are by no means set in stone — it’s been all around the world before breaking out due to bridging species, population density, mutation or reassortment to a more transmissible form... so these “Oh the Chinese” arguments aren’t even certain and is usually a front for xenophobia.

The 1918 H1N1 was the same, it’s been argued reasonably convincingly that it originated in Kansas and definitely not Spain.
 
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The safe country list looks more political than scientific
Australia probably should not be there yet, good luck getting there without transit in Singapore or Malaysia, which probably should be on the list
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53222356
New Zealand's on the list. However, the PM has said that while travellers are free to visit Europe, they should expect to pay for their two week quarantine on returning.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/420171/pm-warns-travellers-should-meet-cost-of-quarantine
 
@triggers I disagree. From Reuters: “Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China,

So when people say Wuhan flu Or point the finger at China, it’s an assumption that it originated there but C19s origins are by no means set in stone — it’s been all around the world before breaking out due to bridging species, population density, mutation or reassortment to a more transmissible form... so these “Oh the Chinese” arguments aren’t even certain and is usually a front for xenophobia.

The 1918 H1N1 was the same, it’s been argued reasonably convincingly that it originated in Kansas and definitely not Spain.

It wasn't called Spanish flu for that reason, but anyway...

I haven't time to explain to you where your logic could be flawed as it's pretty obvious, but playing the xenophobic card just because I don't condone the way a certain proportion of the Chinese population (backed up by its administration) treats animals for its food and so called medicine industries is exactly why it continues to do so and why viruses are so able to make the jump to humans (there are several that have originated in China even if you want to believe the current candidate did not). And yes we in the UK are not flawless in that regard before you trot out the next typical response to this type of comment, but if you like I can list out some of the common practices as regards animals in China and you can see if you feel so warm and fuzzy about it then.

In fact here are the contents of a post I made on the subject a few months or so ago:

While I'd like to agree with you that the rest of the world is just as bad (as China on animal rights) the fact is that there are two differentiators between China and most of the rest of the world.

1) The Chinese traditional 'medicine' industry - a nonsense hocus pocus, and not grounded in any form of science, practice that routinely involves cruelty to animals (e.g. bear bile farming - look it up as it's absolutely abhorrent) or hunting them to extinction from the large (e.g. tigers) to the small (e.g. pangolins).

2) The Chinese government's propensity to lie , lie and lie again to the West. After SARS all sorts of promises were made about meat markets, restaurants etc. and none of it happened. Coronavirus/Covid 19 is likely a direct consequence of that whether you think I am picking on them or not.

Let's look at a bit of history:

Asian Flu in 1956, SARS in 2002, H7N9 in 2012, Coronavirus in 2019 - all of these outbreaks originated in China (or in the case of Coronavirus it seems most likely if not proved as yet) not the other 80% of the population... just bad luck I guess.

Nope, concentrated population with intimate contact with lots of species of animals that are potential reservoirs and a lack of hygiene is the reason.

The Chinese indulge in lots of livestock farming with limited sanitation and farmers often bring their livestock to "wet markets" where they can come into contact with all sorts of exotic animals. The various birds, mammals, and reptiles host viruses that can jump species and rapidly mutate. Then factor in that many Chinese people insist that freshly slaughtered meat is tastier and more healthy than stored meat - the conditions at the resulting live markets create ample opportunity for humans to come in contact with these new mutations.

In addition if you want to look at their animal rights record outside of this then please do, here are some examples:
  • Dogs and cats are, amongst other things, boiled, stabbed, drowned, bludgeoned, strangled, poisoned, hanged, and electrocuted...experiencing unbearable pain as their legs are routinely broken while trussed up and hung in local markets for human consumption, or skinned alive and cast off like garbage, for the despicable fur trade.
  • Dogs (both owned and stray) are relentlessly hunted down by 'police authorised' roving mobs and savagely beaten to death by the hundreds of thousands, in the name of 'rabies' control.
  • Bears suffer a lifetime of excruciating pain as they are surgically mutilated and milked each day for their gall bile. Their paws taken as delicacies for the Chinese restaurant trade or ground into powdered 'medicines'. The use of bear parts supplying the traditional Chinese medicine trade and exotic meat market is the major reason why bear species are declining around the world. Endangered species of bears are fast becoming extinct.
  • Rhinos are butchered for their horns and are now highly endangered.
  • Sharks - over 70-100 million sharks per annum are 'finned' and their carcasses dumped into the sea, to accommodate Chinese' growing taste for shark fin soup.
  • Turtles - 20 million turtles are devoured in China per annum. Slaughtered alive & fully conscious, their heads are decapitated and crushed. Two thirds of the world's turtles are now threatened with extinction.
  • Elephants - elephant tusks are carved into ivory trinkets - their feet hacked off for stools and coffee table legs.
  • Seals - China's role in the single, largest mass butchery of marine mammals on Earth, the annual Canadian seal slaughter, happens in part, so that dried seal penises can be turned into aphrodisiacs to "theoretically" increase the libidos of elderly men engaging in sex (there is an even more sinister element to this, but let's not go there right now)
  • Zoo slaughter - live domestic pets, as well as cows and chickens, are fed to lions and tigers for the "entertainment" of visitors at Chinese zoos. Zoo officials encourage guests to buy domestic animals on the premises, and feed them to the carnivores through special vending flaps fitted onto tourist buses...allowing individuals to throw chickens and other live animals to the waiting predators.
  • Animals are used as "dried" ingredients in traditional Chinese 'medicines' and killed in the billions such as tiger parts, crocodile bile, deer musk, sea horses, lizards, sea cucumbers, powdered antlers, dog penis, pangolin (scaly anteaters), only to name a few on a seemingly unending list. All are considered no more than 'products' to be abused and murdered in the most monstrous ways possible, even if it means permanently wiping many of these species from the face of the planet in order to fulfill often frivolous, antiquated and selfish needs.
Obviously I am not blaming the entire nation of Chinese people in general and I am not absolving the West from many of their own practices that are less than pleasant towards animals and must also be addressed, but as I said before China is on a whole other level and the government and a proportion of the population do think much of the above is acceptable. It isn't!!!

Hope that helps clarify my position. Have a great day! :rolleyes:
 
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