<gu-island name="KeyEventsCarousel" deferuntil="visible" props="{"keyEvents":[{"id":"6414e8df8f089504f3596e3a","elements":[{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":" Early voting centres have opened this morning across NSW ahead of the state election’s official polling day next Saturday. ","elementId":"23dbfb3a-0756-4d69-bff3-97da39f2c947"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TweetBlockElement","html":" Early voting is open for the 2023 NSW State election. To view the eligibility criteria, and early voting centre locations and opening times visit: https://t.co/oaFDmOvgb2 pic.twitter.com/u4JiQTKlqK — NSW Electoral Commission (@NSWElectoralCom) March 17, 2023 ","url":"https://twitter.com/NSWElectoralCom/status/1636849897096765442?s=20","id":"1636849897096765442","hasMedia":false,"role":"inline","isThirdPartyTracking":false,"source":"Twitter","elementId":"e55ec751-6f7d-4691-b644-4f8a7abf1b4e"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":" AAP reports that NSW electoral commissioner John Schmidt expects the early voting centres will see strong demand in the run-up to the day of reckoning on 25 March. ","elementId":"f7cafb73-4c34-432f-83fc-0f79489e7254"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":" The state…
Tag: Infectious diseases
New data links Covid-19’s origins to raccoon dogs at Wuhan market
Newly released genetic data gathered from a live food market in Wuhan has linked Covid-19 with raccoon dogs, adding weight to the theory that infected animals sold at the site started the coronavirus pandemic, researchers involved in the work say. Swabs collected from stalls at the Huanan seafood market in the two months after it was shut down on 1 January 2020 were previously found to contain both Covid and human DNA. When the findings were published last year, Chinese researchers stated that the samples contained no animal DNA. That…
Cabinet Office ‘told Matt Hancock to tone down lab leak claims’
Matt Hancock was instructed by the Cabinet Office to tone down claims in his memoir that the Covid-19 pandemic originated from a laboratory leak in China, according to leaked correspondence. Officials warned it would “cause problems” if Hancock repeated the claim in his Pandemic Diaries and insisted he must make clear he was not reflecting the government’s view, the Daily Telegraph reported. The changes to the book were made after he submitted the manuscript to the Cabinet Office for review last year – a procedure all former ministers are obliged…
How did the Covid-19 pandemic begin? We need to investigate all credible hypotheses | Alison Young
This week’s revelation that a top US scientific agency has joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in leaning toward a lab accident in China as the most likely source of the Covid-19 pandemic has once again surfaced the entrenched politics that have impeded the search for answers since day one. The new assessment is contained in a classified intelligence report, first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by other media organizations. It is a small, yet important development in what has been the largely stalled search for…
How seriously should we take the US DoE’s Covid lab leak theory?
What has the US energy department said about the origin of the Covid outbreak? According to the Wall Street Journal, an updated and classified 2021 US energy department report has concluded that the coronavirus behind the recent pandemic most likely emerged from a laboratory leak but not as part of a weapons programme. Does this report mean it is more likely Covid came from a lab? Not necessarily. The report’s conclusion runs counter to that from several scientific studies as well as reports by a number of other US intelligence…
China claims Covid wave is ‘coming to an end’ as tourism and factory activity rebound
China’s wave of Covid is “coming to an end”, health officials have claimed, saying there had been no sign of a new surge from the lunar new year holiday period, despite a big increase in travel compared to last year. Government figures released on Tuesday showed big rises in tourism and hospitality activity compared to the same time last year. Factory activity has also rebounded for the first time in four months, an early sign of economic return after the country reported its slowest growth in about half a century…
‘It was all for nothing’: Chinese count cost of Xi’s snap decision to let Covid rip
When Sunny* thinks back to March last year, she laughs ruefully at the ordeal. The 19-year-old Shanghai student spent that month locked in her dormitory, unable to shop for essentials or wash clothes, even banned from showering for two weeks over Covid fears. In April, the entire city locked down. It was the beginning of the chaos of 2022, as local Chinese authorities desperately tried to follow President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid decree while facing the most virulent strain of the virus yet: Omicron. “Everyone was panicking, no one was ready,”…
China claims Covid wave has peaked with severe cases, deaths falling fast
China’s health authorities have said the Covid wave is past its peak, with rapid decline in both severe cases and deaths in hospitals, but experts remain wary of the government’s official data. According to China’s Center for Disease Control (CDC), the number of critically ill patients in hospital peaked in the first week of January, then rapidly declined by more than 70%. The number of deaths also reached its highest level that week, the data said. Prof Chi Chun-huei, director of the centre for global health at Oregon University, said…
Chinese flock to Hong Kong to get private Covid booster shots
Private services offering Chinese travellers access to mRNA vaccines are attracting droves of mainlanders to Hong Kong and Macau seeking a booster shot that their government has refused to approve. As part of its dismantling of the country’s zero-Covid policy last month, China’s government also lifted quarantine and other border restrictions. It prompted a wave of interest in overseas travel, particularly for the upcoming lunar new year holiday later this month. However, there also appears to be a large contingent chasing the mRNA bivalent vaccines. Throughout the pandemic the Chinese…
China isn’t following the science in dealing with its Covid outbreak | Letters
There has been a desire around the world to shield political decisions with science, so I understand the basic logic of the remarks by the Chinese ambassador to the UK (In China, here is what we want the west to know about our Covid response, 30 December). Politics is about the allocation of resources, however, and science always has to operate within a political framework, so it is not the case that decisions have been made on a scientific basis only. That said, from a strictly public health point of…