2019-nCoV warnings days before officials

First warnings of the deadly coronavirus didn’t come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization. They came from a robot in Canada.  

Da se radi o epidemiji coronavirusa, umjetna inteligencija kanadskog startupa BlueDot je ustanovila još krajem prosinca prošle godine i poslala "alert" svojim klijentima - uglavnom poslovnim ljudima koji putuju u Kinu, koji su odmah počeli poduzimati mjere zaštite i tako pomogli smanjiti razmjere i brzinu širenja virusa na Zapad.

Tada su bila registrirana samo četiri oboljela od "neobične upale pluća", sva četiri radnika tržnice živim životnjama u Wuhanu. Ipak, tim liječnika, veterinara, epidemiologa, statističara i software developera je napravio takav AI kojem je to bilo dovoljno da prepozna kako se radi o pojavi koja ima potencijal da "eksplodira". Naime, uz službene medicinske podatke, AI Blue Dota je analizirao i profesionalne forume, i vijesti iz medija - o tome da li se netko negdje onesvijestio i slično.

BlueDot Insights sends near real-time infectious disease alerts based on what’s relevant to you.

Protect staff and populations from infectious diseases.

Reduce your risk of exposure to infectious diseases. Elevate the diagnostic acumen of frontline healthcare workers.

Prevent operational disruption.

Save time on infectious disease surveillance while gaining global visibility.

Stop an outbreak from spreading to the community.

Communicate crucial information more effectively during an outbreak. Reduce reputational risk and legal liability.

Da je svijet tada alarmiran - ta četiri oboljela bi bilo lako staviti u karantenu, kao i kupce njihovih proizvoda i ostale koji su s njima bili u dodiru, i virus bi danas vjerojatno bio potpuno pod kontrolom.

Na žalost, vlasti država se uglavnom ne pouzdaju u "neprovjerene" usluge malih, inovativnih kompanija, vec čekaju obavijest Svjetske zdravstvene organizacije (WHO) - koja je pomoću klasičnih birokratiziranih procedura, tek tri tjedna kasnije ustanovila da se radi o epidemiji.

First warnings of the deadly coronavirus didn’t come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization. They came from a robot in Canada.

BlueDot, an AI-powered health monitoring platform, sent users an alert about the outbreak on Dec. 31. The CDC and WHO reported the news on Jan. 6 and Jan. 9, respectively.

The platform, run by a team of physicians and programmers, uses a sophisticated disease surveillance program to scour news in 65 languages, as well as airline data, to pinpoint issues and alert users to avoid certain areas, like Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak began.

“We help governments protect their citizens, hospitals protect their staff and patients and businesses protect their employees and customers,” BlueDot’s website reads.

The platform was created by Kamran Khan, the brand’s founder and chief executive officer. In a Wired report, he said after the AI sifts through data, using machine learning to sort out trends and other parallels, epidemiologists ensure that the conclusions and predictions are accurate before alerts are sent to users, government officials and other businesses.

It uses “language processing to train this engine to recognize whether this is an outbreak of anthrax in Mongolia or a reunion of the heavy metal band Anthrax,” he said. “We know that governments may not be relied upon to provide information in a timely fashion,” and “can pick up news, little murmurs or forums or blogs of indications of unusual events.”

To znači da je svijet alarmiran kad je oboljelih bilo već osamdeset puta više nego na dan kad je mali startup odaslao upozorenje svojim korisnicima. Usto, svaki od 312 oboljelih je imao kontakte s ljudima iz obiteljskog kruga, na poslu, u javnom prijevozu i na ulici - pa i sa strancima iz drugih zemalja.

Naime, broj oboljelih nije rastao linearno nego eksponencijalno - dakle dvostruko dulji period da se ustanovi epidemija - tri tjedna potrebna Blu Dotu naspram šest tjedana koliko je trebalo WHO-u -  značio je porast broja oboljelih za čak osamsto posto.

Kao i u slučaju katastrofe u Černobilu, o kojoj su komunističke vlasti šutjele a problem registrirao laboratorij s "demokratskog Zapada" u Švedskoj - i kinesko ministarstvo zdravstva je liječnicima naredilo da slučajeve oboljelih prijavljuju samo interno, sistemu.

Zapad je ovoga puta bio brži, pa je kanadski startup svoje klijente o epidemiji obavijestio dan prije nego su kineske vlasti zabranile informiranje javnosti i uhitile osam liječnika "jer su širili protuzakonite radnje izmišljanja i širenja glasina te uzurpiranja društvenog reda", o čemu je izvijestio Washington Post.

Jasno, širenje panike nije konstruktivno, ali kod brzoširećeg coronavirusa ipak je bilo krucijalno da se javnost informira što prije.

BlueDot je startup čiji tim od četrdeset ljudi ne izgleda impresivno u odnosu na golemu i skupu birokraciju ministarstava država i Svjetske zdravstvene organizacije, i iako nije imao puno klijenata, ali  ako su u početnoj fazi epidemije samo jednog korisnika svoje usluge potaknuli da promijeni ponašanje i tako se sačuva od zaraze, taj mali, jeftini startup je spasio velik broj ljudi. Da su ga vlasti poslušale odmah - danas epidemije možda ne bi niti bilo.

BlueDot Explorer is a cloud-based GIS platform integrating more than 100 diverse datasets, including global air travel and near real-time disease surveillance.

Perform higher quality risk assessments in less time.

Wield more than 100 datasets, including global surveillance and drivers of disease that have been curated, cleaned, and combined for you.

Communicate crucial information more effectively.

Share complex information through superior data visualization, to build a collective understanding of risk across geographies and sectors.

Respond with precision in an emergency.

When time is critical, know you're using the best evidence to make the best decisions.

Naravno, svjetski su se mediji raspisali o startup kanadskog Indijca dr Kamrana Khana, zainteresirani za puno jeftiniju i efikasniju uslugu detektiranja epidemija od onoga što nude birokracija i procedure Svjetske zdravstvene organizacije, pa je očekivano porastao interes i za druga rješenja globalne zdravstvene krize koja dolaze iz svijeta inovativnih startupa.

No, zbog nepredvidivog načina i velike brzine širenja coronavirusa - svijet se "zatvara", pa se tako otkazuju i  konferencije u raznim područjima, pa i na temu biotehnologije - dok istovremeno potreba za razmjenom znanja i iskustava i inovativnih pristupa problemu nikad nije bila veća.

Tako je naprimjer otkazana najveća azijska konferencija o zaraznim bolestima u Kuala Lumpuru u Maleziji te je prebačena za jesen, a sudeći prema raspoloženju ljudi koje pomalo zahvaća panika - mogle bi biti otkazane i druge najavljene medicinske i konferencije o biotehnologiji .

Ipak, početkom ovog tjedna je održana koferencija o zaraznim bolestima, farmaceutskoj mikrobiologiji i biotehnologiji u Berlinu, kao i konferencija za investitore Red Herring, i to upravo na temu coronavirusa - koja je u Jeruzalemu prošloga tjedna okupila 23 tisuće gostiju iz 183 zemlje. 

U ožujku je zakazana konferencija o europskom biotechu u Parizu, a početkom travnja farmaceustka konferencija Eye for Pharma u Barceloni. Tu su i konferencije o biotechu u Jeruzalemu u ožujku i Tel Avivu u travnju.

Nadajmo se da će se sva okupljanja održati, dapače da će se hitno organizirati i dodatna, jer unatoč strahu od zaraze i širenja virusa - stručnjaci iz državnih struktura i investitori bi upravo sada trebali intenzivno razmjenjivati iskustva i povezivati se s malim znanstvenim timovima koji su dovoljno fleksibilni da promptno odreagiraju na potrebe tržista vezano uz epidemiju coronavirusa, za razliku od velikih farmaceutskih i biotehnoloških kompanija - koje su zbog inercije velikih sistema spore i "otporne na inovaciju".

Bilo bi poželjno i da birokratizirane organizacije poput WHO-a i ministarstava zdravstva promijene stav prema malim startupima s kojima ne vole poslovati jer su nestabilni i "tko zna da li će postojati za godinu dana" - jer rješenje za obuzdavanje epidemije neće doci iz velikih kompanija, zbog već spomenute "otpornosti na inovaciju".

Kako su za regulaciju i izdavanje dozvola za lijekove i medicinske aparate nužne duge procedure registracije, koje znaju trajati godinama jer uključuju i kliničke studije, u situaciji epidemije virusa koji se ponaša nepredvidivo a brzo se širi najbolje je rješenje potražiti u području koje nije toliko regulirano, jer proizvodi ne predstavljaju rizik za živote ljudi i nemaju nuspojave, poput algoritama za detekciju i dijagnozu, ili  zaštitne odjeće za medicinsko osoblje i građane.

Osim investitora, poticaj za rad malih timova svakako bi bila veća spremnost političkih vlasti da surađuju s "malima", čija je financijska konstrukcija često jedva dovoljna da osigura rad za narednih par mjeseci. Sklapajući ugovore s njima pomogli bi znanstvenim timovima da budu opušteniji i bolje se posvete radu kad znaju da su ekonomski osigurani za naredno razdoblje.

Naprimjer, i europske bi zemlje mogle zatražiti uzorke zaštitnih maski od nano-vlakana, kakve je izraelski startup Sonovia poslao kineskim vlastima koje su odmah počele s testiranjima.

Naime, ako se pokaže da Sonovijina nano-vlakna, koja dokazano sprečavaju prodor bakterija, mogu spriječiti i prodor virusa, pa i corone do tijela osobe koju pokrivaju - ne bi bilo loše da su nadležni već povezani s tom kompanijom, jer će tada nastati neviđena potraznja za njihovim tekstilom i zaštitnim maskama.

Obećavajucim se čini i pamuk obogaćen bakrom s antibakterijskim i antiviralnim svojstvima jeruzalemskog Argaman technologies, originalno razvijen za zaštitu oboljelih od raka, a velika pošiljka njihovog tekstila je poslana u Hong Kong.

SONOVIA’S TEXTILE PROPERTIES

Our sonocavitation technology gives fabrics a highly durable layer of antimicrobial protection, which has been tested extensively against bacteria and fungi in laboratory and hospital settings. A large amount of academic evidence suggests that the metallic nanoparticles at the core of our technology could be an effective shield against the growing epidemic. Currently, we are working towards creating protective equipment by partnering with manufacturers across the globe, in hopes that we will be able to design effective, reusable, anti-viral gear.

Uz rizik izlaganja medicinskog osoblja mikrobima, u jeku velikih epidemija s velikih brojem oboljelih problem predstavlja i nedostatak medicinskog osoblja. U tom smislu obećava projekt umjetne inteligencije - "medicinske sestre superheroja" koji u telavivskoj bolnici Ichilov vodi Ahava Weiss-Meilik.

AI-supersestra moze predvidjeti da će se nekom pacijentu stanje pogoršati satima prije nego sto su to u stanju prepoznati liječnici i medicinske sestre, te predvidjeti da li će se pacijent vratiti u bolnicu nakon što je otpušten.

Pacijentima se na prsa pričvrsti mali senzor poput onoga za EEG, koji je bežičnom vezom povezan s centralnim sistemom. Istovremeno, kamere u bolničkim sobama prate ponašanje pacijenata. Sve te podatke procesuira AI u centralnom sistemu.

- Nema tog doktora, ma koliko god dobar on bio, koji bi tako brzo mogao pregledati sve te podatke i odmah uspostaviti dijagnozu, kaze Weiss-Meilik.

Direktor bolnice Ichilov Roni Gamzu kaze da je AI-supersestra budućnost medicine, a tim u bolničkom I-Medata Centeru  zapravo čini više manjih timova:  AnyVision specijalizira software za prepoznavanje lica, tijela i objekata sa slika te projekt snabdijeva kamerama, BioBeat je razvio maleni bežcni senzor za praćenje vitalnih znakova poput tlaka, pulsa, zasićenosti krvi kisikom, temperature i znojenja, Zebra Medical i Aidoc pomažu radiolozima da na rentgenima i CT-jevima brzo uoče problematična mjesta na pacijentu, dok je startap Agamon specijalizirao procesiranje govornog jezika kako bi iz povijesti bolesti koje su napisali liječnici i medicinske sestre mogli izvući relevantni podaci.

Razvoj umjetne inteligencije tzv. AI-supernurse je omogućilo i to što je zadnjih deset godina povijesti bolesti digitalizirano, a bolnica godišnje ima 400 tisuca hospitalizacija, 1,8 milijuna vanjskih pacijenata, 36 tisuća operacija i 220 tisuća posjeta hitnoj pomoći. Bez te količine podataka projekt ne bio bilo moguće razviti.

Zatim, startup Insilico Medical razvija AI koji bi istraživanje lijekova za pojedinu bolest s nekoliko godina trebao skratiti na nekoliko dana.

U nedjelju je sveučiliste Bar Ilan objavilo da bi tehnologija koju je razvio jedan njihov profesor mogla vrijeme dijagnoze s dva dana skratiti na 15 minuta, a iz kompanije Memed ciji ImmunoXpert - tehnologiju za ustanovljavanje radi li se o bakterijskoj ili virusnoj inflekciji već koriste Švicarska, Europska unija i Izrael - kažu da s kolegama iz cijelog svijeta surađuju na tome da razviju dijagnostiku koja bi bolest otkrila i prije nego se zaraženi osjeti bolesnim.

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=32891948

Bubonic Plague 1620, Plague of 1720, Cholera of 1820, Spanish flu of 1920, Coronavirus of 2020

Every hundred years, there seems to be a great pandemic, Bubonic plague 1620,  plague 1720, cholera epidemic 1820 and Spanish flu 1920.
The pandemics mentioned above seem to follow the same pattern as the current viral epidemic.

But history has really repeated itself. Below, I will write a bit about the history of these pandemics:

The year 1620: 

Bubonic Plague 
The Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague, a disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis that circulates among wild rodents where they live in great numbers and density. 

The year 1720:

In 1720, there was the last large-scale bubonic plague pandemic, also called  the great plague of Marseille  . Records show that the bacteria killed around 100,000 people in Marseille.
It is assumed that the bacteria are spread by flies infected with this bacteria.

The year 1820:

The first records of a  cholera pandemic  took place in 1820, which took place in Asia, in the countries of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. In 1820, more than 100,000 deaths were recorded in Asia due to this bacterium. The pandemic is said to have started with people who drank water from lakes contaminated with this bacteria.

The year 1920:

The  Spanish flu  occurred 100 years ago, at the time people were struggling with the H1N1 flu virus which had undergone a genetic mutation, which made it much more dangerous than the virus normal. This virus infected 500 million people and killed more than 100 million people in the world, this pandemic was the deadliest in history.

The year 2020:

It seems like history repeats itself every 100 years, is it just a coincidence?

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=32891948

Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Was Predicted

A mother sends her son on a camping trip with a leader who has led this trip into the mountains 16 times before without mishap; that is until this time. Every single camper and leader and driver die with no explanation. As the grieving mother who is the protagonist begins to accept the fact that her son, Danny, is dead she starts getting vicious bully-like attacks from nowhere saying he is not dead, such as writing on chalk boards, words from printers and other various 'signs'. Along with her new friend, Elliot Stryker, Christina Evans sets out to find out what could have possibly happened on the day that her son 'died'.

A virus called Wuhan-400 causes outbreak … in a Dean Koontz thriller from 1981. How is it that some books appear to prophesy events?
The Eyes of Darkness features a Chinese military lab in Wuhan that creates a virus as a bioweapon; civilians soon become sick after accidentally contracting it
In fact, the one lab in China able to handle the deadliest viruses is in Wuhan and helped sequence the novel coronavirus the world is currently battling.

The Eyes of Darkness, a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz, tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as part of its biological weapons programme. The lab is located in Wuhan, which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400. A chilling literary coincidence or a case of writer as unwitting prophet?
In The Eyes of Darkness, a grieving mother, Christina Evans, sets out to discover whether her son Danny died on a camping trip or if – as suspicious messages suggest – he is still alive. She eventually tracks him down to a military facility where he is being held after being accidentally contaminated with man-made microorganisms created at the research centre in Wuhan.
If that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, read this passage from the book: “It was around that time that a Chinese scientist named Li Chen moved to the United States while carrying a floppy disk of data from China’s most important and dangerous new biological weapon of the past decade. They call it Wuhan-400 because it was developed in their RDNA laboratory just outside the city of Wuhan.”

In another strange coincidence, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses China’s only level four biosafety laboratory, the highest-level classification of labs that study the deadliest viruses, is just 32km from the epicentre of the current coronavirus outbreak. The opening of the maximum-security lab was covered in a 2017 story in the journal Nature, which warned of safety risks in a culture where hierarchy trumps an open culture.

Fringe conspiracy theories that the coronavirus involved in the current outbreak appears to be man-made and likely escaped from the Wuhan virology lab have been circulated, but have been widely debunked. In fact the lab was one of the first to sequence the coronavirus.
In Koontz’s thriller, the virus is considered the “perfect weapon” because it only affects humans and, since it cannot survive outside the human body for longer than a minute, it does not demand expensive decontamination once a population is wiped out, allowing the victors to roll in and claim a conquered territory.
It’s no exaggeration to call Koontz a prolific writer. His first book, Star Quest, was published in 1968 and he has been churning out suspense fiction at a phenomenal rate since with more than 80 novels and 74 works of short fiction under his belt. The 74-year-old, a devout Catholic, lives in California with his wife. But what are the odds of him so closely predicting the future?

Albert Wan, who runs the Bleak House Books store in San Po Kong, says Wuhan has historically been the site of numerous scientific research facilities, including ones dealing with microbiology and virology. “Smart, savvy writers like Koontz would have known all this and used this bit of factual information to craft a story that is both convincing and unsettling. Hence the Wuhan-400,” says Wan.
British writer Paul French, who specialises in books about China, says many of the elements around viruses in China relate back to the second world war, which may have been a factor in Koontz’s thinking.

“The Japanese definitely did do chemical weapons research in China, which we mostly associate with Unit 731 in Harbin and northern China. But they also stored chemical weapons in Wuhan – which Japan admitted,” says French.
Publisher Pete Spurrier, who runs Hong Kong publishing house Blacksmith Books, muses that for a fiction writer mapping out a thriller about a virus outbreak set in China, Wuhan is a good choice.
“It’s on the Yangtze River that goes east-west; it’s on the high-speed rail [line] that goes north-south; it’s right at the crossroads of transport networks in the centre of the country. Where better to start a fictional epidemic, or indeed a real one?” says Spurrier. (Spurrier works part-time as a subeditor for the Post.)

In bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz’s 1981 thriller The Eyes of Darkness, a virus to be used as a biological weapon is developed in Wuhan, China, but humans end up contracting it. Photo: ShutterstockIn bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz’s 1981 thriller The Eyes of Darkness, a virus to be used as a biological weapon is developed in Wuhan, China, but humans end up contracting it.
In bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz’s 1981 thriller The Eyes of Darkness, a virus to be used as a biological weapon is developed in Wuhan, China, but humans end up contracting it.
The Eyes of Darkness, a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz, tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as part of its biological weapons programme. The lab is located in Wuhan, which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400. A chilling literary coincidence or a case of writer as unwitting prophet?
In The Eyes of Darkness, a grieving mother, Christina Evans, sets out to discover whether her son Danny died on a camping trip or if – as suspicious messages suggest – he is still alive. She eventually tracks him down to a military facility where he is being held after being accidentally contaminated with man-made microorganisms created at the research centre in Wuhan.
If that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, read this passage from the book: “It was around that time that a Chinese scientist named Li Chen moved to the United States while carrying a floppy disk of data from China’s most important and dangerous new biological weapon of the past decade. They call it Wuhan-400 because it was developed in their RDNA laboratory just outside the city of Wuhan.”
In another strange coincidence, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses China’s only level four biosafety laboratory, the highest-level classification of labs that study the deadliest viruses, is just 32km from the epicentre of the current coronavirus outbreak. The opening of the maximum-security lab was covered in a 2017 story in the journal Nature, which warned of safety risks in a culture where hierarchy trumps an open culture.


Fringe conspiracy theories that the coronavirus involved in the current outbreak appears to be man-made and likely escaped from the Wuhan virology lab have been circulated, but have been widely debunked. In fact the lab was one of the first to sequence the coronavirus.
In Koontz’s thriller, the virus is considered the “perfect weapon” because it only affects humans and, since it cannot survive outside the human body for longer than a minute, it does not demand expensive decontamination once a population is wiped out, allowing the victors to roll in and claim a conquered territory.
It’s no exaggeration to call Koontz a prolific writer. His first book, Star Quest, was published in 1968 and he has been churning out suspense fiction at a phenomenal rate since with more than 80 novels and 74 works of short fiction under his belt. The 74-year-old, a devout Catholic, lives in California with his wife. But what are the odds of him so closely predicting the future?

Albert Wan, who runs the Bleak House Books store in San Po Kong, says Wuhan has historically been the site of numerous scientific research facilities, including ones dealing with microbiology and virology. “Smart, savvy writers like Koontz would have known all this and used this bit of factual information to craft a story that is both convincing and unsettling. Hence the Wuhan-400,” says Wan.
British writer Paul French, who specialises in books about China, says many of the elements around viruses in China relate back to the second world war, which may have been a factor in Koontz’s thinking.


“The Japanese definitely did do chemical weapons research in China, which we mostly associate with Unit 731 in Harbin and northern China. But they also stored chemical weapons in Wuhan – which Japan admitted,” says French.
Publisher Pete Spurrier, who runs Hong Kong publishing house Blacksmith Books, muses that for a fiction writer mapping out a thriller about a virus outbreak set in China, Wuhan is a good choice.
“It’s on the Yangtze River that goes east-west; it’s on the high-speed rail [line] that goes north-south; it’s right at the crossroads of transport networks in the centre of the country. Where better to start a fictional epidemic, or indeed a real one?” says Spurrier. (Spurrier works part-time as a subeditor for the Post.)
Albert Wan runs the Bleak House Books store in San Po Kong, Hong Kong.
Hong Kong crime author Chan Ho-kei believes that this kind of “fiction-prophecy” is not uncommon.
“If you look really hard, I bet you can spot prophecies for almost all events. It makes me think about the ‘infinite monkey’ theorem,” he says, referring to the theory that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text.
“The probability is low, but not impossible.”

Chan points to the 1898 novella Futility, which told the story of a huge ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. Many uncanny similarities were noted between the fictional ship – called Titan – and the real-life passenger ship RMS Titanic, which sank 14 years later. Following the sinking of the Titanic, the book was reissued with some changes, particularly in the ship’s gross tonnage.
“Fiction writers always try to imagine what the reality would be, so it’s very likely to write something like a prediction. Of course, it’s bizarre when the details collide, but I think it’s just a matter of mathematics,” says Chan.
Many of Koontz’s books have been adapted for television or the big screen, but The Eyes of Darkness never achieved such glory. This bizarre coincidence will thrust it into the spotlight and may see sales of this otherwise forgotten thriller jump.

Amazon is currently offering it on Kindle for just US$1. Perhaps, like Futility, it will also be reissued with some updates to make it really echo the current outbreak.


You want more?

China wasn’t original villain in book ‘predicting’ coronavirus outbreak – it was Russia
Dean Koontz’s The Eyes of Darkness originally contained details of a man-made virus called Gorki-400 from the Russian city of Gorki
The change to Wuhan came when the book was released in hardback under Koontz’s own name in 1989 – at the end of the Cold War

The 1981 book by US thriller writer Dean Koontz that appeared to predict the coronavirus outbreak in China initially had the virus originating in Russia.
The book appears to have been rewritten after the collapse of the Soviet Union meant the country was no longer seen as a communist bogeyman.
Koontz’s The Eyes of Darkness made headlines in the past week after readers noted the story concerned a man-made virus called Wuhan-400 developed in a biological weapons lab in Wuhan – ground zero of the current coronavirus outbreak – and described as the “perfect weapon”.
“They call the stuff ‘Wuhan-400’ because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside the city of Wuhan, and it was the four-hundredth viable strain of man-made organisms created at that research centre,” Koontz writes in the book.
However, Wuhan wasn’t even originally mentioned in The Eyes of Darkness. The first edition of the book, written under Koontz’s pseudonym Leigh Nichols, concerns a virus called Gorki-400 that was created by the Russians and emerged from “the city of Gorki”.

The change to Wuhan came when the book was released in hardback under Koontz’s own name in 1989. The year of the book’s re-release is significant – 1989 marked the end of the Cold War. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country was no longer communist.
“Starting in 1986, relations between the US and the Soviet Union began improving,” says Jenny Smith, co-founder of indie bookshop Bleak House Books in Hong Kong and a student of Russian history. “Mikhail Gorbachev came in in 1985 and was very interested in making the Soviet Union a more open society and improving relations. By 1988, it is our friend and not our enemy.”

An American author pointing the fictional finger of blame at Russia would not have gone down well in that climate, so The Eyes of Darkness needed a new villain. There were only so many places with bio-weapons facilities – think France, Britain and Japan – and most, as far as the US was concerned, were the good guys.

“China is the only place that comes to my mind that would have had an active programme and it’s likely there was a deep suspicion [in the US] of China covering a lot of things in this period,” says Smith, who wrote her PhD on Soviet technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
This was in the immediate aftermath of the 1989 student demonstrations and the bloody Tiananmen crackdown that followed. It was a period when there were rumours swirling about leaks and cover-ups at biological weapons facilities, says Smith, and the US would have been aware of the repression of these rumours.

The switch from Gorki-400 to Wuhan-400 in the book was a literal cut-and-paste and appears to reflect the shift in mentality after the Cold War.
“Everyone was thinking in terms of two great powers – America and the Soviet Union, the good guys and the bad guys. It’s easy to see how you might substitute one bad guy for another, Gorki for Wuhan,” says Smith.
It is not known whether Koontz himself requested this change or his publisher made it.

Leigh Nichols wasn’t the only pen name Dean Koontz wrote under in his early career. He also used David Axton, Deanna Dwyer and K.R. Dwyer.
“It’s not unusual to use a pen name when you are starting off in your career. To play it safe, you don’t want to be as exposed,” says Albert Wan, Smith’s husband and the co-founder of Bleak House Books. “When his books started to take off in popularity, he may well have decided to use real identity.”
As for the Gorki referenced in the book, it could be one of a number of Russian towns with that name. The largest, just south of Moscow, is home to 3,500 people today. Compare that with Wuhan, with its population today of more than 11 million – even in 1989, Wuhan’s population topped 3.3 million.
The revised edition of The Eyes of Darkness brought the book closer to possibility, but it’s still some way off what’s happening with Covid-19. Significantly, contracting the fictional Wuhan-400 is a certain death sentence, while only 2 per cent of Covid-19 cases are fatal.

“It might run as science fiction, but it’s not impossible as it has happened in the past and people would be aware of it,” Smith says. “Think of the cover-up over anthrax – a lot of these stories are stranger than real life.”
Meanwhile, readers are also pointing to a passage in a book by the late Sylvia Browne, an American author who claimed to be psychic, that predicted an international outbreak of a virus this year.
“Around 2020, a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments,” Browne wrote in the book End of Days. “Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack 10 years later, and then disappear completely.”

1.  "Novel predicted Wuhan virus 40 years before Coronavirus outbreak. Internet is stumped". India Today. 2020-02-17. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
2. ^ "Did a Chinese Novel Predict Coronavirus 40 Years Ago? 'Wuhan-400' Leaves Twitter Baffled". CNN News18, Delhi. 2020-02-17. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
3. ^ "Wuhan 400: Novel predicted coronavirus 40 years ago, Internet stumped". GN Media, United Arab Emirates. 2020-02-18. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
4. ^ Koontz, Dean (December 2, 2008). Afterword for The Eyes of Darkness. Berkley; Reissue edition. pp. 369–374. ISBN 978-0425224861.
5. ^ "Lee Rich Propping Four TV Features". varietyultimate.com: Variety. November 16, 1989. Retrieved June 30, 2014.

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=32891948

2019 Novel Coronavirus stolen from Canada?!

Natural pandemics can be horrific and catch us completely off guard. For example, three years elapsed between the first officially documented US AIDS cases in 1981 and the identification of HIV as its cause. It took another three years to develop and approve the first drug treating HIV. While antiretroviral treatments now allow those living with HIV to manage the disease effectively (that is, if they can afford the treatment), we still lack a promising HIV vaccine.

Yet as ill-equipped as we may be to fight newly emergent natural pathogens, we are even less prepared to cope with engineered pathogens. In the coming decades, it may become possible to create pathogens that fall well outside the range of infectious agents modern medicine has learned to detect, treat, and contain.

Worse yet, malicious actors might build disease-causing microbes with features strategically tailored to thwart existing health security measures. So while advances in the field of synthetic biology will make it easier for us to invent therapeutics and other technologies that can defend us from pandemics, those very same advances may allow state and nonstate actors to design increasingly harmful pathogens.

For example, new gene-synthesis technologies loom large on the horizon, allowing for the automated production of longer DNA sequences from scratch. This will be a boon for basic and applied biomedical research — but it also will simplify the assembly of designer pathogens.

First story

A Chinese scientific paper has suggested careless biosecurity at a disease research laboratory just 280 yards from the market where the outbreak was originally detected was responsible for the Covid-19 Chinese Corona Virus.

Did coronavirus originate in laboratory? Scientists believe killer disease may have begun in research facility 300 yards from Wuhan wet fish market

• Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology concludes that ‘the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan’
• It points to research on bats and respiratory diseases carried by the animals at  the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and the Wuhan Institute of Virology
• WCDC is just 300 yards from the seafood market and is adjacent to the hospital

PUBLISHED: 00:22 AEDT, 17 February 2020 | UPDATED: 03:00 AEDT, 17 February 2020

Chinese scientists believe the deadly coronavirus may have started life in a research facility just 300 yards from the Wuhan fish market.

A new bombshell paper from the Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology says that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC) could have spawned the contagion in Hubei province.

‘The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,’ penned by scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao claims the WHCDC kept disease-ridden animals in laboratories, including 605 bats. 

It also mentions that bats – which are linked to coronavirus – once attacked a researcher and ‘blood of bat was on his skin.’

The abstract of the paper.

The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus

Botao Xiao 21.93 South China University of Technology
Lei Xiao

The 2019-nCoV has caused an epidemic of 28,060 laboratory-confirmed infections in human including 564 deaths in China by February 6, 2020. Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients were almost identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus. It was critical to study where the pathogen came from and how it passed onto human. An article published on The Lancet reported that 27 of 41 infected patients were found to have contact with the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 meters from the seafood market. We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory. Our proposal provided an alternative origin of the coronavirus in addition to natural recombination and intermediate host.

Original link (deleted): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus
Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus

[PDF] The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus

B Xiao, L Xiao - researchgate.net

The 2019-nCoV coronavirus has caused an epidemic of 28,060 laboratory-confirmed
infections in human including 564 deaths in China by February 6, 2020. Two descriptions of
the virus published on Nature this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients …

The paper cited above does not go into detail about exactly what the Wuhan laboratory was doing with their infected animals, but careless biosecurity is a plausible explanation for what happened; researchers in constant close contact with infected mammals, obviously not wearing proper protective clothing to prevent injury or contamination, getting scratched and urinated on, not taking proper precautions, would have created plenty of opportunities for cross over and hybridisation between bat and human Corona viruses, and whatever else they were keeping in their cages.

If the claim of careless biosecurity is correct, the emergence of a dangerous hybrid virus capable of infecting humans was always a possibility. Through their carelessness, the virus researchers may have been inadvertently creating and incubating a stream of increasingly dangerous hybrid pathogens, until finally a potential pandemic escaped their laboratory.

report from a scientist at the prestigious South China University of Technology in Guangzhou China. A pre-print published by Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, titled "The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus" whose abstract is the following…

The 2019-nCoV has caused an epidemic of 28,060 laboratory-confirmed infections in human including 564 deaths in China by February 6, 2020. Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients were almost identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus. It was critical to study where the pathogen came from and how it passed onto human. An article published on The Lancet reported that 27 of 41 infected patients were found to have contact with the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 meters from the seafood market. We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory. Our proposal provided an alternative origin of the coronavirus in addition to natural recombination and intermediate host.

… and an especially ominous conclusion:

In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Who is Botao and should anyone listen to him? Well, yes: this is what we find about the research group of the Harvard post-doc:

The Xiao group study mainly in the fields of cellular and molecular biomechanics, single molecule biophysics and engineering. Current research areas are: protein-ligand interactions, DNA and RNA assembly, high-throughput nanometer measurements and manipulation, mathematical modeling and quantitative analysis. The experimental techniques include: magnetic tweezers, optical tweezers, biomembrane force probe, fluorescent microscopy, genetic engineering, and chromatography. An project example is using high-throughput single molecule techniques to study the modulation of protein drugs on interactions of integrins and their ligands such as TGF-beta. We also study von Willebrand Factor and glycoproteins on platelets. We collaborate with a number of well-known universities and institutions, and a few enterprises. Our research will be of relevance for the prevention and treatment of cancer, immune and cardiovascular diseases.

But what is far more interesting, and important, is that the paper was supported by China's National Natural Science Foundation, which means that the paper would likely never see the light of day if someone in Beijing did not stand to gain politically by endorsing the contrarian theory that a Wuhan biolab was indeed the source of the infection.

Which begs the question: is China's political elite set to change the narrative it has been spinning since day one about the origins of the coronavirus, and in order to appease an increasingly angry population, points the finger to one or more scientists at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention and/or Wuhan Institute of Virology. Perhaps even the same scientists we highlighted two weeks ago, and which led to our twitter ban?

And until we eagerly await the answer, here is the gist of Botao's paper, which we repost here just in case it does disappear after all (ResearchGate link here):

The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus

Botao Xiao^1,2* and Lei Xiao³

1 Joint International Research Laboratory of Synthetic Biology and Medicine, School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China

2 School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China

3 Tian You Hospital, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430064, China

Corresponding author: xiaob@scut.edu.cn

Tel / Fax: 86-20-3938-0631

The 2019-nCoV coronavirus has caused an epidemic of 28,060 laboratory-confirmed infections in human including 564 deaths in China by February 6, 2020. Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients were 96% or 89% identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in Rhinolophus affinis 1,2. It was critical to study where the pathogen came from and how it passed onto human.

An article published on The Lancet reported that 41 people in Wuhan were found to have the acute respiratory syndrome and 27 of them had contact with Huanan Seafood Market 3. The 2019-nCoV was found in 33 out of 585 samples collected in the market after the outbreak. The market was suspected to be the origin of the epidemic, and was shut down according to the rule of quarantine the source during an epidemic.

The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from the seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees. But the seafood market is in a densely-populated district of Wuhan, a metropolitan of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the bats to fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market. There was possible natural recombination or intermediate host of the coronavirus, yet little proof has been reported.

Was there any other possible pathway? We screened the area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus. Within ~280 meters from the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention (WHCDC) (Figure 1, from Baidu and Google maps).

WHCDC hosted animals in laboratories for research purpose, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification 4- 6. In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang province ⁴. The expert in collection was noted in the Author Contributions (JHT). Moreover, he was broadcasted for collecting viruses on nation-wide newspapers and websites in 2017 and 2019 ^7,8. He described that he was once attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection so he quarantined himself for 14 days ⁷. In another accident, he quarantined himself again because bats peed on him. He was once thrilled for capturing a bat carrying a live tick⁸.

Surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing ^{4, 5}. The tissue samples and contaminated trashes were source of pathogens. They were only ~280 meters from the seafood market. The WHCDC was also adjacent to the Union Hospital (Figure 1, bottom) where the first group of doctors were infected during this epidemic. It is plausible that the virus leaked around and some of them contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in future study.

The second laboratory was ~12 kilometers from the seafood market and belonged to Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences ^{1, 9, 10}. This laboratory reported that the Chinese horseshoe bats were natural reservoirs for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) which caused the 2002-3 pandemic ⁹. The principle investigator participated in a project which generated a chimeric virus using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, and reported the potential for human emergence ¹⁰. A direct speculation was that SARS-CoV or its derivative might leak from the laboratory.

In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11772133, 11372116).

Declaration of interests

All authors declare no competing interests.

References

1. Zhou P, Yang X-L, Wang X-G, et al. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7.

2. Wu F, Zhao S, Yu B, et al. A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China. Nature 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3.

3. Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, et al. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The Lancet 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140- 6736(20)30183-5.

4. Guo WP, Lin XD, Wang W, et al. Phylogeny and origins of hantaviruses harbored by bats, insectivores, and rodents. PLoS pathogens 2013; 9(2): e1003159.

5. Lu M, Tian JH, Yu B, Guo WP, Holmes EC, Zhang YZ. Extensive diversity of rickettsiales bacteria in ticks from Wuhan, China. Ticks and tick-borne diseases 2017; 8(4): 574-80.

6. Shi M, Lin XD, Chen X, et al. The evolutionary history of vertebrate RNA viruses. Nature 2018; 556(7700): 197-202.

7. Tao P. Expert in Wuhan collected ten thousands animals: capture bats in mountain at night. Changjiang Times 2017.

8. Li QX, Zhanyao. Playing with elephant dung, fishing for sea bottom mud: the work that will change China's future. thepaper 2019.

9. Ge XY, Li JL, Yang XL, et al. Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor. Nature 2013; 503(7477): 535-8.

10. Menachery VD, Yount BL, Jr., Debbink K, et al. A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence. Nature medicine 2015; 21(12): 1508-13.

The original pre-print is below (link):

https://www.scribd.com/document/447056518/Originsof2019-NCoV-XiaoB-Res#from_embed

Second story

Canada’s national police force is investigating “possible policy breaches” after researchers were escorted from a lab at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, CBC News reported earlier this week (July 14). Prominent virologist Xiangguo Qiu, her colleague and husband Keding Cheng, and an unknown number of her students from China were removed from the lab on July 5. 

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said that it advised the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) about “possible policy breaches” in May, according to Reuters. The University of Manitoba, where Qiu held a non-salaried adjunct faculty position, cut ties with Qiu as a result of the RCMP investigation, according to CBC News.

Qiu had made regular trips to Beijing, and recent requests for trips were denied, according to the CBC. Sources also told the outlet that IT specialists entered her office after hours and replaced her computer several months ago.

Qiu was part of the team that developed ZMapp, an experimental treatment for Ebola used during the 2014 outbreak in West Africa. Heinz Feldmann, the former head of the National Microbiology Lab’s special pathogens program where Qiu worked, tells the National Post, “I still hope that this is a big misunderstanding. She is a great researcher, she has been a great collaborator, she has been a great interacter in the field.” A conference bio says she joined Cancer Care Manitoba in 1997 and NML in 2003, according to the National Post. The facility where she worked is the only biosafety level 4 lab in Canada, meaning that it is equipped to work with the most dangerous pathogens. 

PHAC and the RCMP refused to comment on Qiu’s removal from NML, according to Reuters. “There is no employee from the NML under arrest or confined to their home,” Eric Morrisette, spokesman for the PHAC, tells Reuters. “We can assure Canadians that there is no risk to the public and that the work of the NML continues in support of the health and safety of all Canadians.”

Chia-Yi Hou is an intern at The Scientist. Email her at chou@the-scientist.com.

This story was published on Oct. 3, 2019.

A Canadian government scientist at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg made at least five trips to China in 2017-18, including one to train scientists and technicians at China's newly certified Level 4 lab, which does research with the most deadly pathogens, according to travel documents obtained by CBC News.

Xiangguo Qiu — who was escorted out of the Winnipeg lab in July amid an RCMP investigation into what's being described by Public Health Agency of Canada as a possible "policy breach" — was invited to go to the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences twice a year for two years, for up to two weeks each time.

"This will be third-party funded, and therefore no cost to [the Public Health Agency of Canada]," say the documents, obtained through access to information requests. The identity of the third-party was redacted.

During a Sept. 19-30, 2017, trip, she also met with collaborators in Beijing, the documents say, but their names have also been blacked out.

Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng and her students from China were removed on July 5 from Canada's only Level 4 lab — one equipped to work with the most serious and deadly human and animal diseases, such as Ebola. Security access for the couple and the Chinese students was revoked, sources who work at the lab previously told CBC News.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/national-microbiology-lab-scientist-investigation-china-1.5307424

The CCP regards the intellectual property theft as a critical strategy for its rise becoming a great nation and its invasion of the world. Many Chinese researchers are either the CCP’s spies or lacking moral consciousness. Some of them cannot resist the temptation of huge benefits provided by the CCP and some of them feel obligatory with the calling of patriotism. They use the convenience of their work and research in the West to steal technologies and stealthily, provide them to the CCP. In this incidence, two Chinese-Canadian scientists secretly stole biological viral samples, which provided valuable data and samples for viral research, to the CCP, and should be hold responsible for the outbreak of coronal virus in Wuhan.

We have some possibly wild speculation. link

Chinese economic spying has been rampant. I find the possibility that China stole virus material to be at least somewhat credible. I really do not understand the web sites that say it couldn’t have happened. Read more: https://gnews.org/92280/

etc, etc.

You want more? 

WUHAN VIROLOGY INSTITUTE, CHINESE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AND CHINESE-CANADIAN SPY

https://spark.adobe.com/page/jqYLiDCeTSkBp/

Our conclusion

Beyond developing new global standards and practices, we need to adopt more flexible countermeasures to face off the threat of bioengineered pathogens. As noted in a recent CHS report, “One of the biggest challenges in outbreak response, particularly for emerging infectious diseases, is the availability of reliable diagnostic assays that can quickly and accurately determine infection status.”

Diagnostics based on cutting-edge genome sequencing methods could provide detailed information about all the viruses and bacteria present in a blood sample, including even completely novel pathogens. Meanwhile, as genome sequencing technology becomes less expensive, it could be more widely applied in clinics to provide unprecedented real-time insights into genetic diseases and cancer progression.

We also need to invest more in developing antivirals that hit a wider range of targets. Such broad-spectrum drugs may stand a better chance of slowing the proliferation of an engineered bug than treatments specific to single known pathogens.

And we should also develop “platform” technologies that allow rapid vaccine development. Currently, the process of designing, testing, and manufacturing a vaccine to prevent the spread of a new pathogen takes years. Ideally, we could immunize all at-risk individuals within months of identifying the pathogen. Accelerating vaccine development will require us to innovate new and likely unconventional technologies, such as vectored immunoprophylaxis or nucleic acid vaccines.

Even as we pursue and accelerate such research, we should also be mindful of the possibility of self-inflicted wounds. To avert a terrible accident, the international biomedical community should establish firmer cultural guardrails on the research into pathogens.

Currently, career advancement, financial gain, and raw curiosity motivate biologists at all levels to push the envelope, and we all stand to gain from their efforts. However, these same incentives can sometimes lead researchers to take substantial and perhaps unjustified risks, such as evolving dangerous strains of influenza to be more contagious or publishing instructions for cultivating a close cousin of the smallpox virus. It’s important for biologists to do their part to promote a culture in which this adventurous intellectual spirit is tempered by caution and humility.

Underlying the prescriptions above is the need to approach the problem with the sense of urgency it warrants. As our biotechnological capabilities grow, so too will the threat of engineered pathogens. An engineered pandemic won’t announce itself with a towering mushroom cloud, but the suffering of the individuals it touches will be no less real. 

Zeljko Serdar, CCRES