February 07, 2020
There have been a number of disease outbreaks that have caused concern over the last few years, SARS, MERS, any number of bird flu variants, Ebola, and others were (and in the case of Ebola still are) serious problems and genuinely dangerous, but they did not approach anything like what was feared and may contribute to a cry wolf effect when the big one hits. Something feels different about this, it may not pan out but the impression I get is that if it doesn't become a pandemic, it will be because of heroic efforts and luck.
A leading indicator of what the U.S. government may think is coming can be found in the fact that the Pentagon is being asked to set up quarantine stations on or near 11 airports nationwide. This is in addition to the 20 that the Centers for Disease Control operate. As of a week ago there were already 1,000 people in the U.S. in quarantine for this virus.
I was asked on Discord to comment about the following:
There has been some speculation that the location of China's Class 4 Biohazard facility smack dab in the middle of this mess, and that the 2 week asymptomatic contagious period (which is near the gold standard for a bioweapon) indicate that this disease is a military pathogen that got away from them like Glanders did from the Germans in WW1.
First of all, there's no direct evidence. Second, evolution is perfectly capable of producing horrific examples of pestilence as the Black Death, Plague of Justinian, Smallpox and Spanish Influenza show. Third, it is probably not relevant as the disease exists and must be dealt with. I emphasize probably because if it were an engineered virus that might have implications for treatment, though such matters are beyond a mere bachelor of arts' area of expertise.
I'm skeptical, but in the interest of devil's advocacy it should be noted that the P.R.C. is, like the U.S.S.R. before it, is a communist dictatorship. Using bioweapons seems unwise in the extreme, but the hubris of a bureaucrat knows no bounds and if the 5-year plan says that there will be a vaccine fore one's own forces, then in the mind of a bureaucrat that vaccine will exist. Additionally, in an earlier post we mentioned that serious concerns were raised about the then-under-construction Wuhan lab in 2017 and that there were 2 earlier containment failures with the less dangerous SARS virus in a Beijing lab about a decade ago. One involved a protocol issue and one involved an attempted live virus vaccine that had not, in fact, been rendered fully safe. China doesn't have a good track record in this area. Here is an interview with Ken Albiek who was an executive at Biopreparat (the soviet bio-warfare program). It's pretty horrifying, particularly the bit about what happened in Sverdlovsk when a filter was not properly installed and someone broke a container. Anthrax is not person to person contagious, had it been a more virulent disease it would have been a major incident, with the only saving grace being the closed nature of the Soviet Union. It's entirely possible that the odious Chinese regime did botch something like happened in Sverdlovsk , but there is no hard evidence I'm aware of and eating fruit bats is a perfectly reliable way to get dreadful new diseases.
So heed this friendly advice...

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February 02, 2020
There's nothing particularly unexpected in the news of the Coronavirus except for this that Instapundit found this morning. A story indicating that the bug's transmission rate outside China is expected to closely follow that inside China (hardly news) is getting deleted.
Perhaps it's the wording.
Coronavirus infections predicted to grow exponentially; first death outside China; outbreak becomes political.
That WaPo link was good as of 10:50 AM, but several of the links on this ">screenshot are not.
Note that the John Hopkins tracking page does not match the aforementioned headline as of this post.
In other news, Ebola is having something of a resurgence in the Congo.
Fortunately, humanity is resilient, and can find something positive even in this mess.
OK...perhaps it's not that fortunate, but this exists.
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February 01, 2020
Over 17,000 chickens have been killed trying to get a handle on this secondary mess, about which the news is mixed.
The virus does not infect humans easily, and spread from person to person appears to be unusual," the WHO said. "There is no evidence that the disease can be spread to people through properly prepared and thoroughly cooked food." The mortality rate in humans is 60%, the WHO added.
Emphasis mine
Let's hope it stays mostly bird-bound.
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January 27, 2020
One on quarantine.
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January 26, 2020
What we can be reasonably confident of is that the Chinese Communist Party, being a totalitarian state, is going to try to cover-up or minimize the situation to the maximum extent possible and even rather beyond credulity.
Thus, seeing that Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has declared that the situation is "grave" is cause for some concern. This is as close to a declaration of emergency as we're ever likely to see from the politburo. I've got a degree in Asian history and while certainly no China hand, I've done several papers on Chinese politics, and the fact that Xi Jinping is admitting even this much is a genuinely terrifying thing. The CCP considers its people to be grease for the machinery of their state.
But this situation actually seems to have them scared.
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January 23, 2020
The data's probably NOT accurate. It's almost certainly skewed one way or another. However, the Chinese have instituted a quarantine(!) of Wuhan, where the outbreak started. Wuhan is a city that's bigger than London. There are now multiple cities that are also locked down. I don't know the provenance of the following video, but it is alleged to be from inside Wuhan...where they are apparently going to great lengths to look like the beginning of a zombie movie.
Entirely coincidentally, Wuhan is the home of China's National Bio-Safety Laboratory China's first level 4 Biohazard facility which now handles the most deadly diseases on the planet, because China has had such a good record with the less dangerous ones.
Fortunately, we can all rest easy, because despite what some on the internet are implying when they talk about the situation in Wuhan City, it turns out that the Chinese word for raccoon is not actually wuhan , it's huànxióng.
So rejoice! There are no zombies in evidence at this time.
But there is reason to keep one's eye on this.
UPDATE:
In the U.K., doctors are being given instructions on how to deal with a patient that is suspected of having this bug. "Lock the patient in a room and leave the area straightaway."
I don't know if this just socialized medicine at work, or this is serious business, but I'm starting to lean towards the latter.
Good LORD!
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May 07, 2018
"We’re seeing members from all the three letter agencies,” said Fortitude creator Drew Miller, a retired Air Force colonel and intelligence officer, in a reference to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.


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May 06, 2018
The cyber threat hunters had honed their chops at the National Security Agency -- the world's premier electronic spy agency. And last fall, they were analyzing malware samples from around the world when they stumbled across something highly troubling: the first known piece of computer software designed to kill humans.
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January 14, 2018
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May 20, 2011
Now as I type this, tomorrow is alleged to be the end of the world. The Anchoress of all people is, amongst other things directing her readers to Rapture looting parties.
I'm pretty sure that this whole silly thing is being hyped out of proportion by Dick Dawkins athiests. Predicting the end times is actually a sin in Christianity and I'm unaware of anyone who takes this seriously except the dunderhead preacher and members of his flock. I suspect at least some of the "believers" being interviewed are Mobys. Still, there is much idiocy to lampoon here. Don has thoughts and links to thoughts along those lines.
There is also the potential for amusing mischief: Steven Den Beste points to a helpful suggestion and of course there is this.
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May 11, 2009
Wonderduck is taking the malware hits so we don't have too.
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