Pirate's Cove

I’m sure they went into the labs and checked, right? It’s absolutely no surprise that a far left outlet like the U.K. Guardian would champion these “studies”

Coronavirus came from Wuhan market and not Chinese lab, twin studies say

International scientists on Saturday released two major studies which one participant said made it “extraordinarily clear” a market in Wuhan, China was the source of the coronavirus which fueled the Covid-19 pandemic – and not a Chinese government laboratory, a theory championed in the US by rightwing campaigners, columnists and politicians.

The question of where Covid-19 came from and how it spread has proved divisive. (snip)

In August last year, a US intelligence review of the issue proved inconclusive.

The New York Times first reported the new studies, which it said had not been published in any journal.

Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author on both studies, told the paper: “When you look at all of the evidence together, it’s an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market.”

The one-sentence summary of one study said: “Geographical clustering of the earliest known Covid-19 cases and the proximity of positive environmental samples to live-animal vendors suggest that the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan was the site of origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

In the abstract to the other study, scientists said: “Understanding the circumstances that lead to pandemics is critical to their prevention.”

So, none of the studies have actually gone through peer review and been published? Huh. Anyhow, neither of the studies actually spent any time investigating the actual lab, which has had previous releases, and was, in fact, playing around with coronaviruses. We know this. It is a fact. The studies are simply putting together some data and “analyzing” it. It doesn’t even appear that they spent time in China.

It’s cute how this is a right wing thing, saying it was a lab leak, when you’ll find that plenty of Democrats, and left leaning folks in countries around the world, have serious reservations that this happened because someone ate a bat or pangolin or something in a we market that just happened to be right down the road from the Wuhan Institute of Virology which just happens to have a poor record of security and was working on coronaviruses. A lab which the Chinese haven’t let anyone into since this all started.

Read: “Studies” Say Wuhan Flu Came From Wet Market, Not Lab Or Something »

At a time that most states, counties, and cities are getting rid of their mask mandates, even for schools, the CDC thinks they’re still relevant

CDC to release guidance Friday that would ease mask restrictions for many Americans

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release new and highly anticipated guidance on Friday that eases indoor masking recommendations in many parts of the U.S., officials told ABC News.

The new guidance is expected to outline how the country should move into the next phase of the pandemic, with a shifted focus from daily spread in a community to the more severe impacts of the virus, like hospitalizations and health care strain.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said publicly the agency was updating the guidance.

“Moving forward, our approach will advise enhanced prevention efforts in communities with a high volume of severe illness and will also focus on protecting our healthcare systems from being overwhelmed,” she tweeted late Thursday.

The new guidance will be intended to help states and counties decide what metrics should guide that decision at a local level. Omicron, which has substantially subsided across the country, left many Americans feeling eager to retain some normalcy during a potential lull in the pandemic.

Most states have been ignoring the CDC’s masking guidance for well over a year, because it has made little difference. You have lots of mask cultists stating that wearing masks brought down Delta and Omicron, yet, both variants rose while people were wearing masks. If masks work so well, why change the guidance? They didn’t after Delta cases crashed. And the infection rate right now is still higher nationally than it was before Omicron hit.

Though a majority of states went ahead and announced that they will drop mask mandates before the CDC’s guidance was ready, the new information could still aid local leaders and public health officials who are facing vastly different versions of the pandemic even within the same state.

Looks like the CDC is giving up on trying to influence states and, instead, target cities, getting them to listen to the CDC.

Walensky has cautioned, though, that there won’t be a “date certain” that ends the pandemic.

“I think we’re gonna tiptoe out of this and that we will very gradually, one day, realize in retrospect, we’re no longer in this anymore, or at least in it the way we have been for the last two years,” she said in a podcast interview on Tuesday.

In other words, they want to keep this going as long as possible, while most nations seem to be moving away from keeping this going. You know, this might have all turned out a lot better if it wasn’t so darned apparent that groups like the CDC weren’t using a pandemic for authoritarian power.

Read: CDC To Update Their Mask Guidance Or Something »