As a microbiologist and infectious disease clinician, it has been tough to watch the recent devolution of public discourse on Covid-19 origins. It has been especially difficult for me to read the comments of Anthony Fauci about the origins debate in his now-public diary. And it has been painful to watch the televised spectacle hosted by the US senator Rand Paul on 29 July involving a hostile interrogation of Fauci. Despite many early pleas, including my own, for a dispassionate, objective assessment of what we know, don’t know and need…
Tag: Coronavirus
Anthony Fauci’s diaries take aim at News Corp journalist Sharri Markson’s ‘nonsense’ Covid-19 investigation
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s chief medical adviser at the start of the pandemic, has described a book by News Corp investigative journalist Sharri Markson backing the “lab leak” theory of Covid-19’s origins as a “bunch of nonsense” in his newly released diaries. This week, Fauci, 85, was subpoenaed by the Republican senator Rand Paul to appear at a Senate hearing into Covid-19 and his handling of the pandemic. The physician and veteran former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who retired in 2022, accused Paul…
UN and rights groups condemn reported jailing of Wuhan Covid citizen journalist
The UN, human rights groups and media freedom watchdogs have condemned reports that Zhang Zhan, a Chinese citizen journalist, was sentenced to jail for the second time last week. Zhang, 42, is thought to have stood trial in Shanghai on Friday on a charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a charge often used in China to target critics of the government. Western diplomats were reportedly turned away from observing the trial. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media freedom NGO, said on Saturday that Zhang had been sentenced to four…
Child respiratory sickness overloads China’s paediatric clinics – reports
A surge in respiratory illnesses in China, particularly among children, has reportedly swamped paediatric units in city hospitals, while authorities have urged calm, attributing it to a post-lockdown wave of illness. Many hospital wards are full, according to state and other media reports in China. The Global Times reported on Tuesday that the Beijing Children’s hospital was receiving up to 9,378 patients a day and had been at full capacity during the past two months. It also said outpatient clinics, paediatric clinics, and respiratory departments at several Beijing hospitals were…
Respiratory infection clusters in China not caused by novel virus, says health ministry
A surge in respiratory illnesses across China that has drawn the attention of the World Health Organization is caused by the flu and other known pathogens and not by a novel virus, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday. Recent clusters of respiratory infections are caused by an overlap of common viruses such as the influenza virus, rhinoviruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and adenovirus, as well as bacteria such as mycoplasma pneumoniae, which is a common culprit for respiratory tract infections, a National Health Commission spokesperson said. The ministry called…
WHO requests details about respiratory illness clusters in parts of China
The World Health Organization has asked China for details about a rise in respiratory illnesses that has been reported in northern parts of the country, particularly among children. Epidemiologists have warned that as China heads into its first winter since the lifting of zero-Covid restrictions, natural levels of immunity to respiratory viruses may be lower than normal, leading to an increase in infections. Several countries, including the US and the UK, experienced large waves of respiratory viral infections in the first winter after Covid restrictions were lifted as people had…
Australia news live: Optus network goes down across nation; trains grind to a halt in Melbourne
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Halloween costumes in Shanghai poke fun at Chinese authorities
Halloween revellers in Shanghai have poked fun at the Chinese authorities with their costumes, dressing up as Covid prevention workers, surveillance cameras and China’s falling stock market. Videos posted on social media showed police shepherding away people with particularly subversive costumes on Tuesday night, including one dressed as Lu Xun, a Chinese writer from the early 20th century whose fable about a useless scholar has become a meme for China’s unemployed youth. Police monitoring a Halloween parade in Shanghai. Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/Shutterstock The Lu Xun impersonator carried a sign that said:…
North Korea abruptly cancels first post-Covid international commercial flight
North Korea’s national airline’s first commercial flight since it largely closed itself off from the world in early 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic has been abruptly cancelled. Journalists gathered on Monday at Beijing’s Capital international airport to await Air Koryo flight JS151 from Pyongyang, due to arrive at 9.50am. But almost two hours after its scheduled arrival, the arrivals board in the terminal showed it as cancelled, prompting groans of disappointment from media waiting to see some of the isolated North’s first international travellers in years. Beijing airport…
US-China cultural exchange at low point after tensions and Covid, data shows
Cultural ties between the US and China are at a low point after several years of decline, according to Guardian analysis of official figures. The Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, coupled with the continuing trade war between the two countries, is diluting cultural exchanges, with visitor numbers, students and even the world of literature all affected. During the late 2000s and early 2010s there was an increase in cultural exchange between the US and China. Since then, tensions between the two countries – which rose under Donald Trump and have…