2/18/2020
Instagram has removed the option to view the recent posts on the hashtag coronavirus. to me, this is a huge RED FLAG.
Russia temporarily bans ALL Chinese visitors amid coronavirus epidemic
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree on Tuesday evening prohibiting Chinese citizens from entering Russia for tourism, work and for private purposes. The new rules are effective from Thursday.
The decision is the strongest measure yet taken to prevent the entry and spread of the new coronavirus in Russia. Previously, Russian Railways suspended all passenger traffic to and from China, and flights have been heavily restricted. In addition, border crossings in the Far East have been closed.
“From 00:00 local time on February 20, 2020, the passage of citizens of the People’s Republic of China across the state border of the Russian Federation entering the territory of the Russian Federation for labor purposes, for private, educational and tourist purposes, is temporarily suspended,” read a statement issued by the government’s operational headquarters headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova.
Russian man diagnosed with coronavirus on board cruise ship in Japan
Additionally, from Wednesday Russia will temporarily stop issuing entry invitations to Chinese citizens for private and educational purposes.
There are currently no reported live cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Russia. Two infected Chinese citizens who were quarantined in the Tyumen and Transbaikalia regions have recovered and were discharged from hospital.
One Russian man has, however, been hospitalized in Japan after becoming ill on board the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which was docked and locked down because of a virus-spreading passenger.
He and his spouse have been transferred to medical facilities, with Japanese authorities clarifying on Tuesday that only the man is currently known to be infected.
Over 1,800 people have so far died from COVID-19, with more than 72,000 infections recorded. The vast majority in China. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the epidemic a global health emergency.
UK: HOSPITALS TO DENY CARE TO “RACIST” OR “HOMOPHOBIC” PATIENTS
What could possibly go wrong?
FEBRUARY 18, 2020
Patients deemed to be “racist” or “homophobic” will be denied care in NHS Trust hospitals under new rules set to take effect in April.
“Currently, staff can refuse to treat non-critical patients who are verbally aggressive or physically violent towards them,” reports Sky News. “But these protections will extend to any harassment, bullying or discrimination, including homophobic, sexist or racist remarks.”
Police will also be given new powers to prosecute “hate crimes” committed against NHS staff.
What is determined to be “racist” or “homophobic” is anyone’s guess, since many elderly patients will be totally unfamiliar with modern politically correct speech codes and could be deemed to have behaved in a racist or homophobic way even if they didn’t maliciously intend to.
As Jack Montgomery highlights, “In late 2017 an NHS patient who requested a female nurse to carry out a cervical smear complained when the hospital sent a person with “an obviously male appearance… close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble” who insisted “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”
The line between critical and non-critcal care is also up for debate. Will refusal to treat a patient because they said something someone deems offensive result in accidental deaths?
This is even worse than China’s social credit score, which hasn’t yet gone so far as to punish people by withdrawing medical treatment if they engage in wrongthink.
First it was deplatforming people from social media websites, then it was deplatforming people from bank accounts and mortgages. Now it’s deplatforming people from hospital treatment. Literally eliminating people’s right to basic health care because of their political or social opinions.
It’s also important to emphasize that these changes are coming in under a supposedly “conservative” government.
Respondents poked fun at the new rules.
“This is going to be hilarious when a boomer is denied his double bypass cause he called someone coloured on Facebook,” remarked one.
“Don’t get sick in the UK if you’ve ever posted “Grooming gang” statistics,” commented another.
WHO Holds Secret Talks With Tech Giants To Stop Spread of Coronavirus “Misinformation”
Despite the fact that some things labeled “misinformation” turned out to be true.
The World Health Organization has held talks with tech giants to stop the spread of coronavirus “misinformation,” despite the fact that some things once labeled “misinformation” have since turned out to be true.
The meeting was organized by the WHO but hosted by Facebook at its Menlo Park campus in California. Attendees included representatives from Amazon, Twilio, Dropbox, Google, Verizon, Salesforce, Twitter, YouTube, Airbnb, Kinsa and Mapbox.
According to the WHO’s Andy Pattison, an “infodemic” of misinformation has accompanied the coronavirus outbreak and big tech giants need to respond by censoring “fake news” content.
Both Facebook and Twitter already announced that they would remove content deemed to be misinformation regarding the virus, a dangerous new lurch to mass censorship given that what is considered “misinformation” is totally subjective and beholden to partisan bias.
Two clear examples of “misinformation” surrounding the coronavirus subsequently turned out to be true.
The first example was claims that China was hiding the true number of coronavirus victims, once labeled a “conspiracy theory” by the media but subsequently proven accurate on Friday when 14,800 new coronavirus cases were reported in a single day.
The second example was suspicions that the virus could have emerged from a bio-safety level 4 research lab in Wuhan.
This contention has been aggressively attacked by the media and big tech giants – Zero Hedge was even banned by Twitter for reporting it – but a new study by scientists at the prestigious South China University of Technology in Guangzhou has confirmed that “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.”
Chinese dissidents and others have been defamed and in some cases imprisoned by authorities, but the media continues to treat any questioning of the official Chinese Communist Party narrative with disdain.
Senator Cotton: China Refusing to Hand Over Evidence About Wuhan BioLab
New report says lab was likely source of coronavirus outbreak.
Senator Tom Cotton says that China is refusing to hand over evidence concerning the bio-safety level 4 research lab in Wuhan despite a new report from biological scientists at the South China University of Technology saying it may have been the source of the coronavirus outbreak.
During an appearance on Fox News, Cotton told Maria Bartiromo that new evidence confirmed the source of the virus was not the meat market in Wuhan.
“Here is what we do know. This virus did not originate in the Wuhan animal market,” said Cotton. “Epidemiologists who are widely respected from China published a study in the international journal Lancet have demonstrated that several of the original cases did NOT have any contact with that food market. The virus went into that food market before it came out of that food market. So we don’t know where it originated… We also know that only a few miles away from that market is China’s only bio-safety Level Four Super Laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.”
Cotton said that China’s “duplicity and dishonesty” meant that questions needed to be asked about the lab but that “China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all” and Beijing was being “very secretive” on what happens at the lab.
Cotton also accused China of consistently blocking American scientists from traveling to Wuhan to assist in discovering the origins of the virus.
A new report by scientists at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China concludes that “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.”
One of the laboratories named in the report which was conducting research on bat coronavirus was located just 280 meters from the site of the Wuhan meat market.
For weeks, the media has demonized anyone who suggested the lab could have been responsible for the coronavirus outbreak as a dangerous conspiracy theorist peddling fake news.
However, now that CNN/NY Times journalist Ezra Cheung tweeted precisely that yesterday, one wonders whether they will begin to change their tune.
More Americans infected with coronavirus
2/17/2020
The second of two flights carrying Americans home from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined in Japan, has landed in Texas. There were 380 Americans on board the ship, where dozens of passengers tested positive for the coronavirus.
From clothes to condoms: Coronavirus is threatening global consumption in ways you never knew were possible
China’s status as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse means the coronavirus epidemic’s effects are being felt in some odd places. We’ve come to terms with no new iPhones, but weirder shortages could upend people’s daily lives.
Plummeting iPhone production and a lack of new cars rolling off the assembly line dominated early discussion of coronavirus-induced shortages. But the epidemic currently sweeping China and making determined inroads into over two dozen other countries has forced hundreds of factories to close, affecting dozens of industries. If nothing else, coronavirus has made the world realize that globalization has its downsides.
Panic buying
It’s not just the virus itself that’s causing shortages, of course – rumors about the virus can be equally as devastating. Hong Kong, which is heavily dependent on China for many staples, has seen store aisles stripped of necessities like toilet paper, rice, and pasta in recent weeks as panic-buying ramps up while some factories struggle to reopen. Mere rumors of a toilet paper shortage earlier this month were enough to send thousands of locals pouring into stores to denude the shelves, triggering a rebuke from the government to those people “with evil intentions” spreading falsehoods “leading to panic buying and even chaos.”
No food
At the same time the virus disrupts its exports, China is having a difficult time getting meat into the country, its own pork supply decimated by a recent outbreak of African swine fever. The US, Europe, and Brazil are still shipping meat to China, but the refrigerated containers have to be handled carefully, plugged in as soon as they’re unloaded to keep the meat cold and moved out quickly to make way for other containers.
Citywide quarantines have limited the supply of workers to move meat in Shanghai and Xingang, meaning much never makes it off the ship.
No clothes
If anyone was hoping to break the monotony of quarantine with a little gym time, they’re out of luck unless they already have the duds. Athletic-wear behemoth UnderArmour revealed that coronavirus-related delays were causing shortages of fabric, packaging and raw materials, potentially reducing first-quarter revenues by up to $60 million.
They’re far from the only clothing brand hit hard by the outbreak – London-based designer Xuzhi Chen lamented that his clothes are manufactured in Shanghai, and he doesn’t know when production will be back online. He’s not alone in his plight – plenty of western brands have clothes made in China.
At the same time, Chinese buyers have stayed home from fashion shows in Milan and London, hitting even those Italian, and British brands that do their manufacturing at home hard.
No sex?!
Selling a niche product doesn’t guarantee safety from the ravages of virus-related factory closures, either. The owner of a chain of Russian sex shops revealed he was feeling the coronavirus squeeze in an interview with Gazeta, lamenting that many of the products he sells are either made in China or have major components sourced from China.
Condom shortages in Singapore and Hong Kong would at first seem to suggest that people are using their quarantine time to get hot and heavy, but photos circulating on social media indicate the prophylactics are flying off the shelves for other reasons – to cover for shortages of gloves and masks, to start. About a quarter of the world’s condoms are made in China.
No sports
Even sports stars have had to deal with coronavirus-induced shortages, a problem they might have expected their celebrity to insulate them from. Bauer Hockey, which makes custom hockey sticks for elite customers including many NHL players, saw its factory in Tongxiang City in Zhejiang province shut down last month and delay reopening twice.
The issue has apparently caused ripples in the league, leading to players being restricted to a “one-stick limit for practice and maybe two for games.” A player might typically go through several sticks in a single game, so while the shortage is very much a “first world problem,” it has caused much consternation in the hockey world.
No business
Coronavirus’ economic impact is likely to be felt far into the future. A handful of major trade shows have either been put on hold or canceled altogether, most notably the Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest smartphone trade show. Scheduled for later this month in Barcelona, the conference – which typically hosts 100,000 attendees – has been completely called off. Smaller events for brands like Swatch and Cisco have also gotten the axe. Even gatherings still on the calendar, like this week’s Singapore Airshow, will see attendance severely curtailed as over 70 exhibitors have pulled out. Multi-million-dollar deals that might have been sealed at these temples of commerce will fall by the wayside or be postponed until the return of a favorable business climate – and no one knows quite when that will be.
The virus has disrupted next week’s Berlin Film Festival, with over 50 Chinese delegates and several other international execs pulling out because they couldn’t get travel visas. The festival is supposed to include three Chinese features and one short, which presumably will be screened anyway – even if their directors are stuck home in quarantine. But with China an ever larger international market for films, the absence of the executives will be felt.
No communion
And the virus has caused behaviors to change even where it hasn’t reached epidemic levels. People are thinking twice before having unnecessary contact with others, and redefining what contact might be “necessary.” Our Lady’s Acomb Church in York has pressed pause on its Communion ritual, which involves drinking wine out of a communal chalice, “until further notice” – lest an infected parishioner sicken others.
Such symbolic attempts to stave off an uncertain, invisible threat exemplify the global response to an epidemic that is still not well understood: a combination of panic and prayer.
VIDEO: Chinese Hazmat Team Puts Couple in Metal Cube, Drives Off With Woman Screaming Inside
A video of a couple apparently being forced into a mysterious metal cube in the back of a white pickup truck by men in pink hazmat suits is circulating on social media.
The footage shows two men in pink hazmat suits and possibly a third man holding an umbrella conversing on the sidewalk with a couple, on the opposite side of the street from the pickup truck emblazoned with what appear to be government markings.
The man comforts the woman with him, who appears to become increasingly distraught as the conversation unfolds.
A cut in the video then shows the couple entering the cube strapped to the back of the truck, carrying what appears to be hand luggage.
The woman in white still appears very reluctant to enter the cube.
She eventually enters the container, and her luggage is pushed in after her.
The video then registers a very distinct and high-pitched series of agitated screams as the truck drives away to an unknown destination.
The video has since circulated on image boards, YouTube, and Twitter.
Many people are disturbed by the footage.
Vietnam Quarantines 10,000 Villagers for Coronavirus
The first mass quarantine outside of China for the Wuhan coronavirus was reported in Vietnam on Thursday, with over 10,000 people living in farming communities near Hanoi locked down for 20 days after six virus infections were discovered.
AFP reported on Thursday that six villages in the Son Loi farming region, covering 2,500 acres about 25 miles from Hanoi, have been quarantined and surrounded by security checkpoints:
Health officials wearing protective suits sprayed disinfectant on vehicles. Police warned people wanting to enter the quarantined area that while they would be allowed in, they would not be able to leave.
The order comes after the health ministry reported that five people have been infected with the virus. It later announced a sixth case.
They all originated from a female worker who was sent to Wuhan in central China — where the virus originated — for training.
The disease then spread to her family and her neighbors, including a three-month-old baby.So far, only the female worker has fully recovered and been discharged from the hospital, according to updates from the ministry, while the others remain in a “stable” condition.
The disease was reportedly spread by celebrations of the Lunar New Year, a holiday known as Tet in Vietnam. Villagers said they have been told to avoid large gatherings for the duration of the crisis. Residents of the area said they are having trouble getting work in the vital construction industry because clients are suddenly reluctant to hire anyone from Son Loi.
Vietnam has reported a total of 16 coronavirus infections to date. Although the Vietnamese government banned air travel to China, the land border has proven difficult to lock down.
Vietnam rejected docking requests from two cruise ships this week due to coronavirus concerns. A local official explained that forbidding cruise passengers to disembark was “just a temporary solution to prevent the intrusion of diseases.”
The captain of one ship, the Norwegian Jade, shot back that Vietnamese port officials have been “unreasonable during this process” and refused to allow his ship to dock despite having no signs of illness aboard and no passengers who had visited China recently.
The Norwegian Jade ultimately headed for Thailand, which is believed to have given it permission to dock at the port of Laem Chabang.
Reuters noted that Vietnam is planning to quarantine hundreds of its own citizens at military camps and temporary facilities along the border as they return from China.
SHOCK VIDEO: MAN IN HAZMAT GEAR BARGES INTO CHINESE OFFICE, DOUSES EVERYTHING IN CHEMICAL SPRAY
Office workers stay frozen in place as man marches through their work space
FEBRUARY 14, 2020
Video footage shows a man in full white hazmat gear marching into what appears to be a day trading office or call center in China, spraying everything with an aerosolized spray.
The employees, who appear to be mostly women, stay frozen in place, some ducking low and covering their heads as the suit-clad man barges unceremoniously through the office.
A male employee standing by a doorway, seemingly unaware, is caught off guard when the spray cannon-wielding juggernaut shoots him the face with the liquid blast.
The employee recoils and ducks away as the hazmat guy storms past into the next hallway, brushing another woman aside with the spray cannon.
The video surfaces as China moves to “disinfect” Wuhan with fleets of rolling trucks and platoons of men in hazmat suits wielding spray cannons like the one seen above.
Chinese government-owned newspaper The People’s Daily released video of the “disinfection” of the city of Wuhan featuring fire trucks and platoons of men in hazmat gear roaming the streets and spraying chemicals in the air.
The People’s Daily, which is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, posted the video to Twitter.
“Full-front disinfection work has started in #Wuhan, an effort to contain the spread of #coronavirus,” the tweet caption read.
In the footage, fleets of fire trucks can be seen rolling down the streets of Wuhan spraying some type of chemicals, presumably disinfectant, into the air.
The flashing emergency lights and clouds of mist create an interesting scene on what appear to be otherwise deserted streets.
In another clip, men in hazmat suits run while rolling a wheeled liquid cannon down a street, covering storefronts in a white mist.
Another man-portable variant of the “disinfectant” cannon is seen carried by several members of the hazmat crew. This version has a set of twin gas canisters that are mounted to the back of the user.
The measures being taken by Chinese authorities to fight the coronavirus stand at odds with previous reports that the coronavirus was no more harmful than the common flu.
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