HIV-Like "mutation" recalls Indian scientists claim: Coronavirus
engineered to incorporate parts of HIV genome
Newsletter published on February 28, 2020
(1) HIV-Like "mutation" recalls Indian scientists claim: Coronavirus
engineered to incorporate parts of HIV genome
(2) Chinese scientists: Coronavirus has 'mutated' gene similar to those
found in HIV and Ebola
(3) China steps up scrutiny of travelers arriving from other nations
(4) China, Japan, South Korea supply chains under threat from ‘second
wave' of disruptions
(5) Navarro: US no longer makes masks, relies on supplies from China
(6) EU Officials Refuse To Implement Border Controls To Stop Coronavirus
(7) Government inaction spreads Virus. Trump's reelection chances sink
as Covid-19 cases rise
The most important of this material is online at
I will keep that webpage updated.
(1) HIV-Like "mutation" recalls Indian scientists claim: Coronavirus
engineered to incorporate parts of HIV genome
Scientists Discover HIV-Like "Mutation" Which Makes Coronavirus
Extremely Infectious
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/26/2020 - 19:45
While mainstream scientists continue to perform mental gymnastics to
insist that the new coronavirus wasn't man-made, new research from
scientists in China and Europe reveal that the disease happens to have
an 'HIV-like mutation' which allows it to bind with human cells up to
1,000 times stronger than the Sars virus, according to SCMP.
Recall that at the end of January, a team of Indian scientists wrote in
a now-retracted, scandalous paper claiming that the coronavirus may have
been genetically engineered to incorporate parts of the HIV genome,
writing "This uncanny similarity of novel inserts in the 2019- nCoV
spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag is unlikely to be fortuitous in
nature," meaning - it was unlikely to have occurred naturally.
Fast forward to new research by a team from Nankai University, which
writes that COV-19 has an 'HIV-like mutation' that allows it to quickly
enter the human body by binding with a receptor called ACE2 on a cell
membrane.
Other highly contagious viruses, including HIV and Ebola, target an
enzyme called furin, which works as a protein activator in the human
body. Many proteins are inactive or dormant when they are produced and
have to be "cut" at specific points to activate their various functions.
When looking at the genome sequence of the new coronavirus,
Professor Ruan Jishou and his team at Nankai University in Tianjin found
a section of mutated genes that did not exist in Sars, but were similar
to those found in HIV and Ebola. -SCMP
"This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV [the new coronavirus] may be
significantly different from the Sars coronavirus in the infection
pathway," reads the paper published this month on Chinaxiv.org - a
platform used by the Chinese Academy of Sciences which releases research
papers prior to peer-review.
"This virus may use the packing mechanisms of other viruses such as
HIV," they added.
For those confused, what the latest scientific paper claims is that
whereas the Coronavirus may indeed contain a specific HIV-like feature
that makes it extremely infectious, that was the result of a rather
bizarre "mutation." However, since the scientists did not make the
scandalous claim that Chinese scientists had created an airborne version
of HIV, but instead blamed a mutation, they will likely not be forced to
retract it, even if it the odds of such a "random" mutation taking place
naturally are extremely small.
As a reminder, the running narrative is that the new coronavirus lie
dormant in bats somewhere between 20 and 70 years, then 'crossed over'
to humans through and unknown species - possibly a Pangolin - before it
emerged at a Wuhan, China meat market roughly 900 feet from a level-4
bioweapons lab.
And what were they researching at said lab? Among other things - why
Ebola and HIV can lie dormant in bats without causing diseases.
According to the new study, the 'mutation' can generate a structure
known as a cleavage site in the new coronavirus' spike protein, SCMP
reports. "Compared to the Sars’ way of entry, this binding method is
"100 to 1,000 times" as efficient, according to the study."
The virus uses the outreaching spike protein to hook on to the host
cell, but normally this protein is inactive. The cleavage site
structure’s job is to cheat the human furin protein, so it will cut and
activate the spike protein and cause a "direct fusion" of the viral and
cellular membranes. -SCMP
(a recent paper published by Dr. Zhou Peng of the Wuhan Institute of
Virology, meanwhile, is "Immunogenicity of the spike glycoprotein of
Bat SARS-like coronavirus.") ==
(2) Chinese scientists: Coronavirus has 'mutated' gene similar to those
found in HIV and Ebola
chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com>
Coronavirus far more likely than Sars to bond to human cells due to
HIV-like mutation, scientists say
Research by team from Nankai University shows new virus has mutated gene
similar to those found in HIV and Ebola
{Ebola was one of the viruses smuggled from Winnipeg to Wuhan Institute
of Virology by Dr. Xiangguo Qiu}
Finding may help scientists understand how the infection spreads and
where it came from
Stephen Chen in Beijing
Published: 12:30am, 27 Feb, 2020
Updated: 1:32am, 27 Feb, 2020
The new coronavirus has an HIV-like mutation that means its ability to
bind with human cells could be up to 1,000 times as strong as the Sars
virus, according to new research by scientists in China and Europe.
The discovery could help to explain not only how the infection has
spread but also where it came from and how best to fight it.
Scientists showed that Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) entered
the human body by binding with a receptor protein called ACE2 on a cell
membrane. And some early studies suggested that the new coronavirus,
which shares about 80 per cent of the genetic structure of Sars, might
follow a similar path.
But the ACE2 protein does not exist in large quantities in healthy
people, and this partly helped to limit the scale of the Sars outbreak
of 2002-03, in which infected about 8,000 people around the world.
Advertisement
Other highly contagious viruses, including HIV and Ebola, target an
enzyme called furin, which works as a protein activator in the human
body. Many proteins are inactive or dormant when they are produced and
have to be "cut" at specific points to activate their various functions.
When looking at the genome sequence of the new coronavirus, Professor
Ruan Jishou and his team at Nankai University in Tianjin found a section
of mutated genes that did not exist in Sars, but were similar to those
found in HIV and Ebola.
"This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV [the new coronavirus] may be
significantly different from the Sars coronavirus in the infection
pathway," the scientists said in a paper published this month on
Chinaxiv.org, a platform used by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to
release scientific research papers before they have been peer-reviewed.
"This virus may use the packing mechanisms of other viruses such as HIV."
According to the study, the mutation can generate a structure known as a
cleavage site in the new coronavirus' spike protein.
The virus uses the outreaching spike protein to hook on to the host
cell, but normally this protein is inactive. The cleavage site
structure's job is to trick the human furin protein, so it will cut and
activate the spike protein and cause a "direct fusion" of the viral and
cellular membranes.
Compared to the Sars' way of entry, this binding method is "100 to 1,000
times" as efficient, according to the study.
Just two weeks after its release, the paper is already the most viewed
ever on Chinarxiv.
In a follow-up study, a research team led by Professor Li Hua from
Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Hubei province,
confirmed Ruan's findings.
The mutation could not be found in Sars, Mers or Bat-CoVRaTG13, a bat
coronavirus that was considered the original source of the new
coronavirus with 96 per cent similarity in genes, it said.
This could be "the reason why SARS-CoV-2 is more infectious than other
coronaviruses", Li wrote in a paper released on Chinarxiv on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a study by French scientist Etienne Decroly at Aix-Marseille
University, which was published in the scientific journal Antiviral
Research on February 10, also found a "furin-like cleavage site" that is
absent in similar coronaviruses.
A researcher with the Beijing Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy
of Sciences in Beijing, said the studies were all based on genetic
sequencing.
"Whether [the virus] behaves as predicted will need other evidence
including experiments," said the researcher who asked not to be named.
"The answer will tell how the virus makes us ill," he said.
Scientists' understanding of the new coronavirus has changed
dramatically over the past few months.
At first the virus was not considered a major threat, with the Chinese
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention saying there was no evidence
off human-to-human transmission.
But that assumption was soon invalidated, and as of Wednesday, there had
been more than 81,000 confirmed infections around the world.
Chinese researchers said drugs targeting the furin enzyme could have the
potential to hinder the virus' replication in the human body. These
include "a series of HIV-1 therapeutic drugs such as Indinavir,
Tenofovir Alafenamide, Tenofovir Disoproxil and Dolutegravir and
hepatitis C therapeutic drugs including Boceprevir and Telaprevir",
according to Li's study. This suggestion is in line with reports by some
Chinese doctors who self-administered HIV drugs after testing positive
for the new coronavirus, but there is as yet no clinical evidence to
support the theory.
There is also hope that the link to the furin enzyme could shed light on
the virus' evolutionary history before it made the jump to humans.
The mutation, which Ruan's team described as an "unexpected insertion",
could come from many possible sources such as a coronavirus found in
rats or even a species of avian flu.
(3) China steps up scrutiny of travelers arriving from other nations
China Tightens Screening of Travelers, Fearing Reinfection From Abroad
As epidemic's spread eases within China, some cities step up scrutiny of
travelers arriving from other nations
By Chun Han Wong
Updated Feb. 26, 2020 8:43 pm ET
HONG KONG—As the coronavirus epidemic takes hold in more countries
around the world, China is trying to stop the disease from being
repatriated by travelers arriving from abroad.
A number of Chinese municipal governments are imposing stricter health
screenings on people entering China and, in some cases, even quarantine
measures on those arriving from coronavirus-afflicted countries. These
controls come after Beijing waged a concerted campaign urging other
governments not to impose restrictions on travel to and from China,...
(4) China, Japan, South Korea supply chains under threat from ‘second
wave' of disruptions
Coronavirus: China, Japan, South Korea supply chains under threat from
‘second wave' of disruptions The three Asian countries contribute around
24 per cent of the entire world economy, but have been hit hard by the
coronavirus outbreak China was attempting to boost trade and investment
with Japan and South Korea to offset risks of decoupling from the United
States
Orange Wang Published: 9:15pm, 27 Feb, 2020
China, Japan and South Korea are at risk of a second wave of disruptions
to their supply chains due to the ongoing impact of the coronavirus
epidemic, which risks already slowing global trade, analysts warned.
The three Asian countries contribute around 24 per cent of the entire
world economy with a combined yearly trading volume of over US$720
billion, forming one of the most integrated international economic blocs
in the world. [...]
Analysts from Guotai Junan Securities, led by chief economist Hua
Changchun, said on Monday that the supply chains linked to the
production of cars, machinery, optical electronic equipment and chemical
products could suffer short-term shocks if the outbreak expanded further
in Japan. China's heavy dependence on purchasing semiconductor
materials, industrial robots, engine parts, cameras and related goods
from Japan could also prove to be problematic, the analysts said.
"The industries that face potential risks from the epidemic in Japan
overlap with some of those influenced by domestic outbreaks in badly
infected provinces [in China]," Guotai Junan Securities said. According
to a survey last week by TSR, a Tokyo-based marketing research company,
66.4 per cent of the 12,348 Japanese companies interviewed said they had
either already been impacted by the coronavirus, or expected to be.
The manufacturing sector was among the worst hit, with nearly 30 per
cent of surveyed companies reporting an impact, while another 51.7 per
cent expected losses in the future. Machine tool orders received by
Japanese manufacturers slumped 35.6 per cent from a year earlier in
January, declining for the 16th straight month, hitting the lowest
monthly level in seven years, according to the data from the Japan
Machine Tool Builders' Association.
"In the context of weak investment into equipment, the epidemic of new
pneumonia becomes a new threat," said association chairman Yukio Iimura,
according to The Nikkei. "It will take up to one month sometimes for
negotiations [because] commercial talks cannot be completed." Analysts
from China International Capital Corporation, one of the country's
leading investment banking firms, said that if the epidemic were to
spread faster in South Korea, more companies would likely reduce their
production or even shut down, "adding insult to injury" to Korean
manufacturing, especially the key electronics, steel, automotive,
shipbuilding, and electrical equipment sectors.
Last weekend, Samsung Electronics was forced to shut down a handset
factory in South Korea after confirming one of its employees had been
infected, while LG Electronics also temporarily shut down a research
complex on Monday after confirming the child of a member of a staff had
been infected. Factory shutdowns in China and South Korea have also
resulted in a significant decline in shipping movements, with 46 per
cent of scheduled shipments between Asia and northern Europe cancelled,
according to ocean freight data firm Alphaliner. "Disrupted flows of
essential items may cause a shock in European and American supply
chains. In addition, less incoming goods from Asia will also mean fewer
intra-European re-exports from the coastal regions to inland European
countries," said Timme Spakman, an economist at ING. Chinese analysts
said disruptions in Japan and South Korea could, though, become an
opportunity for domestic parts and components makers as the demand for
alternative products may increase rapidly in the car, semiconductor,
machinery and equipment sectors. "The epidemic in Japan and South Korea
may cause China's import substitution to accelerate," analyst from
Zhongtai Securities said on Monday.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as:
‘second wave of disruptions if epidemic spreads'
(5) Navarro: US no longer makes masks, relies on supplies from China
Navarro: China Has Hold On Manufacturing Meds, Face Masks
By Cathy Burke | Sunday, 23 February 2020 12:12 PM
China's got the upper hand in making medicines — and face masks — amid
the coronavirus epidemic, affecting supplies to the United States, Peter
Navarro, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, said
Sunday.
In an interview on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," the adviser to
the president said the United States has had "far too much of our supply
chain, not just for coronavirus but essential medicines we need" in China.
"Same reasons... cheap labor environment, most of all trade practices,"
he said. "A lot of it is in China, some of it is in India, some in
Europe but we've got to get that back on shore."
The "immediate issue," he stressed about the COVID-19 outbreak is the
manufacturing of face masks.
"China and export restrictions and nationalizing that and producing them
there — we are dealing with that in time," he said. "This week we will
be sending out a [Request For Proposal] to make sure we have plenty of
those."
According to Navarro, in a crisis like COVID-19, "we have no allies."
"One last point on the supply chain issue... in crises like this, we
have no allies," he said. "Back in 2009 during the swine flu problem,
our best friends in Australia, Great Britain and Canada denied us what
we needed, which was 35 million doses of vaccines."
"With respect to economic impacts," he added, "the American economy is
exceedingly strong and not particular vulnerable to what happens in
China. We are going to go about our business and to try to get what we
need."
(6) EU Officials Refuse To Implement Border Controls To Stop Coronavirus
Wed, 02/26/2020 - 03:30
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
Even as the coronavirus begins to spread around the continent, EU
officials have steadfastly refuse to implement border controls,
insisting that the sanctity of open borders is more important.
The number of confirmed cases in Italy has soared from 3 to 322 in the
space of just five days, with 10 deaths, but authorities insist that the
Schengen Area, which abolishes passport checks and border controls
between 26 European states, must not be compromised.
Despite 50,000 citizens in Lombardy and Veneto being under internal
lockdown, no such measures have been proposed for national borders.
Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte has refused to implement border
controls, claiming it wouldn’t help stop the containment of the virus.
This prompted former interior minister Matteo Salvini to demand Conte’s
resignation "if he isn’t able to defend Italy and Italians."
"We agreed to keep borders open, closing borders would be a
disproportionate and ineffective measure at this time," Health Minister
Roberto Speranza also told reporters in Rome on Tuesday.
As RT highlights, borders will remain open despite Italy now being a
major source of coronavirus spreading into neighboring European
countries. ...
French transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari has also refused to
close the border between France and Italy. Germany has likewise refused
to do so.
European commissioner for health Stella Kyriakides also said borders
should remain open while suggesting that the threat of "disinformation"
was more of a concern. ...
(7) Government inaction spreads Virus. Trump's reelection chances sink
as Covid-19 cases rise
February 27, 2020
Virus Spreads Over The Planet As Governments React Too Slowly
After a uneven first response China did its very best to limit the
spread of the nCov-19 virus and the Covid-19 disease the virus causes.
The extreme quarantine, which began in mid January, has come at a great
economic cost but bought the rest of the world time to prepare for the
inevitable surfacing of the virus in other countries.
Unfortunately many governments did not use the month given to them and
botched their responses. The number of newly confirmed cases per day
outside of China is now bigger than the new daily number inside of
China. South Korea alone reported 334 new confirmed cases today while
the much larger China only reported 433.
China has shown that it is possible to successfully fight and stop the
epidemic. Unfortunately other countries are not ready to follow its
example. This is now making it likely that the epidemic in China will
become a pandemic and will spread mostly uninhibited all over the globe.
South Korea, Japan, Iran, Italy and the U.S. are now the countries which
will see the next great impacts. Other countries will follow in a third
wave as Brazil, Pakistan, North Macedonia, Greece, Georgia, Algeria,
Norway and Romania all saw their first cases in the last 24 hours.
The wide spread in South Korea came through a religious cult which
demands mandatory participation in overcrowded services. It was patient
31 and her contact with 1160 other persons that led to the wider spread:
It’s not clear where Patient 31 became infected with the virus, but in
the days before her diagnosis, she travelled to crowded spots in Daegu,
as well as in the capital Seoul. On February 6 she was in a minor
traffic accident in Daegu, and checked herself into an Oriental medicine
hospital. While at that hospital, she attended services at the Daegu
branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, on February 9 and again on
February 16. In between those visits, on February 15, doctors at the
hospital said they first suggested she be tested for the coronavirus, as
she had a high fever. Instead, the woman went to a buffet lunch with a
friend at a hotel. In an interview with local newspaper JoongAng Ilbo,
the woman denied that doctors had advised her to be tested. As her
symptoms worsened, however, doctors say they once again advised her to
be tested. On February 17, she finally went to another hospital for the
test. The next day, health authorities announced she was the country’s
31st confirmed case. In only a matter of days, those numbers had soared
as hundreds of people at the Shincheonji Church and surrounding areas
tested positive.
The quarantine of a whole cruise ship in Japan and the incompetent
bureaucratic response to it made a further spread in that country
inevitable:
On Saturday, the health minister admitted that 23 passengers had been
released from the ship without taking a valid recent test and had
traveled by public transit after disembarking this past week. Now that
the quarantine has ended and most of the passengers have left, the
concern is that they could start spreading the virus on shore.
Japan now has 200 cases and its government has decided to close all
schools throughout March.
In Iran the epidemic came from China with people who went to Qom for
religious training. The spiritual center of Iran has many religious
schools and universities and many pilgrim visit the shrines in the city.
They contributed to the further spread of the virus. Iran now has a
total of 254 confirmed cases including two lawmakers, a vice president
and a deputy minister.
The Iranian government first blamed foreign broadcasts in Farsi language
for creating a panic. That was not without reason when one consider the
racist reporting like in the New York Times: ‘Recipe for a Massive Viral
Outbreak’: Iran Emerges as a Worldwide Threat. The Gulfnews even blamed
Iran for all Covid-19 cases in the Middle East while the first cases in
the Emirates came from contacts with Chinese tourists.
Yesterday Iran still rejected to close its shrines and to prohibited
religious services. Today it canceled tomorrows Friday prayers.
Italy has some 400 cases of which 190 are confirmed. It put 55,000
residents in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto under lockdown.
The above countries have now grasped the severity of the issue. The
Trump administration seems to be far behind them.
The U.S. is likely to already have a significant number of cases but a
lack of testing capacity has made any realistic estimate impossible.
Chinese scientists had published the genome sequence of the virus on
January 12 and, based on it, developed test kits within a few days. The
U.S. Center of Disease Control and Prevention also developed a test kit
but had problems with its first version and its wider distribution. More
than a month later it is still not ready for the foreseeable need:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isn’t yet ready to detect
whether the coronavirus is spreading across the country. Just 12 of more
than 100 public health labs in the U.S. are currently able to diagnose
the coronavirus because of problems with a test developed by the CDC,
potentially slowing the response if the virus starts taking hold here.
The faulty test has also delayed a plan to widely screen people with
symptoms of respiratory illness who have tested negative for influenza
to detect whether the coronavirus may be stealthily spreading. ... Only
six states — California, Nebraska, Illinois, Nevada, Tennessee, and
Idaho — are now testing for the virus, the Association of Public Health
Laboratories told POLITICO. ... Under current rules, each positive test
must be confirmed by a second round of testing at the CDC. [Director
Robert Redfield] told lawmakers that the agency can now screen 350-500
samples per day. ... "I understand very much the FDA is focused on
quality control, but there’s also a need to have a system that can
respond to their needs," [Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiology professor at
the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health,] said. "China tested
320,000 people in Guangdong over a three-week period. This is the scale
we need to be thinking on."
A case in Los Angeles shows where this leads to:
It took several days to test a coronavirus patient in Northern
California who might be the first to have contracted the disease through
community exposure in the United States. The individual is a resident of
Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County,
according to the state Department of Public Health.
UC Davis officials said the patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center
from another hospital Feb. 19. But the patient was not tested until Feb. 23.
The test results were only known three days later.
Under the U.S. medical system testing will be expensive for the
patients. Insurances may not pay for it. Many people will be unable or
unwilling to spend money on it. Care for serious cases will also be
limited by high prices. This guarantees that the virus will spread
further. China was smart enough to guarantee 100% state coverage for
testing and all necessary care. The U.S. should follow that principle
but is unlikely to do so.
Trump announced that Vice-President Pence, a man who does not believe in
science, will lead the response. The libertarian and neo-liberal
approach to the problem will further the epidemic's growth. Only after
it becomes really severe will the necessary measures be taken.
To assess the wider global impact of the pandemic this table is most
helpful ...
In an unrestricted pandemic the virus will infect between 40 to 70
percent of the population. The virus is more deadly than a normal flu
but mostly for elderly people with severe preconditions. Children and
grown ups in their most productive years can carry the virus without
showing symptoms and will only rarely become critical cases. This
guarantees that our societies will continue to function. The pandemic
will have severe, but not catastrophic, economic consequences as
quarantines and fear will limit production and trade on all levels.
Trump's reelection chances are sinking as Covid-19 cases rise. The
incompetence of his administration will come under new light. The stock
markets will continue to tumble and erase the economic gains Trump had
claimed. Bernie Sanders' chances to win, if he survives the pandemic,
will increase as his prime campaign promise -Medicare for all - will
become even more acceptable when the problems with the current U.S.
healthcare system come under new public scrutiny.
There are only few personal measures one can take to protect oneself
from exposure. One should avoid personal contacts where possible.
Wearing a mask, unless it is a special N-95 respirator which also makes
it difficult breathe, does not prevent one from catching the virus. But
infected persons should use masks to protect those they may come in
contact with from droplet infections. Stocking up on basic foodstuff and
other needs might help to avoid potential shortages.
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