Tag Archives: WorldNews

Ignore the conspiracy theories: scientists know Covid-19 wasn’t created in a lab | Peter Daszak

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Instead of following false claims, we should be focusing our efforts on the regions where the next pandemic is likely to emerge

• Peter Daszak is president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to analysing and preventing pandemics

In a recent interview with the Telegraph, the former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove cited an “important” scientific report that suggested that the novel coronavirus had not emerged naturally, but had been created by Chinese scientists. Dearlove said he believed the pandemic had “started as an accident” after the virus escaped the lab. A month earlier, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, had said he had “enormous evidence” that Covid-19 had originated in a lab in China, only to backtrack from this claim on live TV in the same sentence.

Suggestions that Covid-19 is a manmade virus are the latest chapter in a tale of blame, misinformation and finger-pointing. Cue the conspiracy theorists, marching out their narrative about the high-security BSL-4 lab in Wuhan, where mysterious experiments to design “frankenviruses” led to the tragic global pandemic. Cue the genetic analyses pointing to “unexpected” insertions in the code of A, G, T, and C that explain how this virus could not have evolved naturally. Cue political posturing against China, with calls for an inquiry, trade sanctions and even reparations.

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Coronavirus may have been in Wuhan in August, study suggests

So… Harvard is getting assistance from NSA to cloud view on China?

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Research finds rise in hospital car park usage and web searches for ‘diarrhoea’ and ‘cough’

Coronavirus may have been present and spreading in Wuhan as early as August last year, according to a study that analysed satellite imagery of car parks outside major hospitals and search engine data.

The study, by researchers from Harvard Medical School, Boston University of Public Health and Boston children’s hospital, looked at images captured between January 2018 and April 2020 and found a “steep increase” in vehicle counts starting in August 2019 and peaking in December 2019. Between September and October, five of the six hospitals observed had their highest daily volume of cars in the period analysed.

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Singer Bonnie Pointer, of The Pointer Sisters fame, dies aged 69

RIP – love their songs

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Member of Grammy-winning group went on to launch solo career with Motown Records

Singer Bonnie Pointer, best known as a member of the Grammy-winning group The Pointer Sisters, has died at the age of 69, a representative has said.

She died on Monday, according to her sister and fellow singer, Anita. No cause of death was revealed.

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Coronavirus: Belgian shepherd dogs trained to sniff out Covid-19 score top marks in armpit odour tests

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Dogs may be able to sniff out Covid-19 in infected patients, according to a new study by French scientists.The researchers, from the National Veterinary School in Alfort, challenged eight Belgian Malinois shepherd dogs to identify coronavirus patients from odour samples taken from the armpits of more than 360 subjects, both healthy and suffering from Covid-19.The dogs’ success rate varied from 83 to 100 per cent, according to a paper published on Friday on Biorxiv.org, a preprint website that…

Pennsylvania man who wrongly spent 23 years on death row is freed

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  • Walter Ogrod’s conviction for 1988 murder overturned
  • Ogrod, now 55, has long protested his innocence

A man who spent more than 23 years on death row in Pennsylvania for a crime he did not commit walked free from jail on Friday.

A judge overturned Walter Ogrod’s conviction in the sexual assault and murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, his neighbor in Philadelphia, in July 1988.

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