The original SARS was much more deadly, but we caught it early and was able to isolate it. We didn't have China trying to hush it up at the time and letting it spread rather than admit they had a new virus. I wonder if the original SARS popped up again tomorrow how soon we would detect it and if we would be able to isolate it before it gained.a strong toehold. Obviously Omicron had been circling a long time before we caught it. This new variant found in France might already have thousands of sufferers in Cameroon. If someone has SARS/COVID symptoms today people will assume it is COVID. If SARS came back today, it probably wouldn't be until one hospital notices their death rate has spiked that we would even realise we have a new disease to fight. In places where they have more funding, they might be more willing to do covid tests and if they come back negative investigate more... But its the poorer countries where more people are exposed daily to all sorts of animals that a new virus like this would likely start. If the original SARS came back in Africa or central Asia today we probably couldn't stop it. And as bad as COVID pandemic is... SARS would have been worse (or maybe not because maybe people would take it more.seriously).
Ah crap. Hadn't even thought of AFCON. Yeah, this new strain will go global. Hope it's not a bad one.
I dont think the above is fair as global travel was far less at the time. You seem to be falling for the china bashing that the yanks are engaged in to prepare for their next war.
Until the who look at it and examine the levels of threat nobody can tell but until theres no travel then by the time any country detects a new varient its inevitable it has spread. Global travel is something that eventually people will realise needs to change radically (far less)
I do believe China acted irresponsibly in the very beginning... They were suppressing information early on and prosecuting people who spoke out. They acted like nothing was going on until it got out of hand. Although, once the world knew about CoVID they were far more responsible and active in trying to stop it than the west. China wasn't the only one. Russia got hit bad and hard before they admitted it or took precautions. There is evidence that lots of people were dying and getting sick there before they admitted they had a case or try to prevent it. In the very early days it was common for countries to play the "Us? Have coronavirus? Don't be silly!" Card. There was plenty of global travel in 2003... And SARS did spread globally, but it never managed to grow so big that it couldn't be contained. SARS was never allowed to gain a reservoir of sick people too large to contain. Granted, one big difference is that CoVID spreads easier before symptoms show and that's a major factor in how Covid succeeded where Sars didn't.
Sure I read something other day about how we can’t keep going on giving booster jabs every 3-6 months here when a lot of the world havvent even had 1 jab yet.
all we know really is that the first case was supposedly november in china. but there is some evidence of potential cases in europe and it does hint at a much earlier date. The WHO were reported to in december and there were cases in italy in january. there is however an element of hindsight in this stuff as frankly the italians dismissed deaths as pneumonia for a long time and that was why their death rates were off the charts. do we expect china to be that much better? honestly the uk and us and others acted knowing the data showed bad things with absolute disregard to try ignore it and hope it went away. the evidence focund in italy suggests they had corona cases misdiagnosed as pneumonia as far back as October 2019. this all suggests that it was starting up in the late summer and just didn't spread enough to ping up as a disaster for a while. I personally think attacking "china" (in a trump accent) is convenient but is a political not a scientific approach to the issue. it took a while to get the data out but yes a lot of countries all refused to close anything or put any precautions in until the deaths started (not cases)
Yes, but I don't think it should be either/or... We should boost production. Get boosters here AND vaccinate the rest of the world.
sure we can. You forget we've loads of capacity but the take up is important. ask yourself first why is the vaccination so low in cameroon rather than assume they can't access it. Their government could be denying the need. There might be resistance to it. who knows.... we should just ask first why.
As an aside it is interesting to see that due to the backlash about Djokovic's antivax stance the Australian government have now cancelled the visa they gave him with an exception to their rules. No Australian open for him
The Australian Govt never gave him an exemption that was issued by the state and Tennis Australia and he may still be in the Open as there is an appeal in .
i found it interesting that he was apparently already flying when the Australians kicked off. very disingenuous and populist sort of move.
well why wouldn't he as the medical exemption had been agreed by the "authorities" as apparently a number of others have .
of course. he has his visa in his hand and has everything arranged so it's a pure stunt. As much as i think he's a thundering gobshite for his views I still have to call the Australians on this level of ****-housery. I mean the Chinese were accused recently of basically disappearing that tennis player and then a so called "western style" democracy grabs a leading tennis player out of an airport and locks him up after giving him authorisation to come in the first place.
This is what happens when you give spivs a vast majority. by the time these clowns are called to account they will have manufactured another reason to say that labour are communist and they are needed and of course the idiots will have forgotten all about covid as the party starts. They are already withdrawing testing requirements and will withdraw fee antigen tests and so the number of results will go away. if nobody mentions covid it will go away attitude.
surely the best way to deal with this is to put up some posters with the queen sitting alone at a funeral alongside a photo of Boris at his party? surely even the most ardent brexiteering froth bag would be whipped up in an anti boris tar and feathering. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
