Just a Few Questions We'd Like Answered, Beijing...?

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

Even though the World Health Organization sent an investigative team to Wuhan, China, to look into allegations that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 might have been initiated as the result of a viral 'escape' from research being carried on at one of two laboratories in the city, the investigative team reached no conclusion. Their intention was to interview the Chinese scientists at the laboratory, and to visit both the high-security (P4) laboratory and the wild food market that the laboratory insisted was the source of the outbreak.

The WHO team was never permitted any independence, always accompanied by both Chinese authorities and members of the high-security laboratory. Their findings were 'guided' by Chinese authorities who strenuously denied any possibility that the virus could have escaped from the laboratory confines. This, though it was known and reported by visiting scientists that conditions at the laboratory were not as strictly controlled as they should be for such a high-security laboratory working with deadly bacterium and coronaviruses.

Beijing has been criticized from day one for its lapse in immediately notifying the WHO that a new virus was wreaking havoc on Wuhan. Initial reports played down the serious nature of a strange new type of pneumonia arising in Wuhan hospitals that was not responding to usual treatment, and causing deaths. Soon enough the world became aware of a young eye doctor who alerted his colleagues through social media of a peculiar and dangerous new virus, and who was brought before authorities for 'spreading false news'. He contracted COVID himself and died of it.

Now The Wall Street Journal has revealed that three employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been taken to hospital as a result of symptoms now familiarly associated with serious bouts of COVID-19, a full month before the authorities in Beijing alerted the world of the presence of a new and extremely disturbing virus that had somehow leaped the species barrier from animals to humans. Beijing is well known to have kept possession of critical, sensitive information  the investigators were interested in studying.

What swiftly took place since December of 2019 across the globe as SARS-CoV-2 swept through the world is well enough known; a coronavirus pandemic we're still struggling with over a year-and-a-half on. But with the misfortune of the global pandemic came a ray of light, as soon afterward highly effective vaccines emerged out of other laboratories to throw a lifeline to humanity. 

 

Once China had got its outbreaks under control after screaming 'racism!' when it was offended that closed-border recommendations took effect, it focused on producing a number of vaccines. While denying it was responsible for the global outbreak of a dangerous new zoonotic, Beijing saw an opportunity to ingratiate itself to the world, as the manufacturer of anti-COVID vaccines which it would generously share with an ailing world. 

Although China was the first country out of the starting  gate with its vaccines, it has never produced a vaccine with a high efficacy rate. Its four different vaccines which it has trialed in a number of countries facing desperately high COVID-19 rates, like Brazil,  have been anything but successful, with an average efficacy rate hovering around 50 percent, as compared to the leading Western vaccines with rates of 85 to 95 percent efficacy.

The world deserves answers to some of its questions. China's reaction to a situation which impacted the entire world was first and foremost to protect its reputation. Any responsible government must recognize that in a situation of this magnitude that would swiftly affect the global community, it would have an obligation to act swiftly and decisively. Beijing chose not to. The long-suffering people of China deserve better from its suffocating government.

In this March 14, 2020 file photo, health officials inspect bats to be confiscated and culled in the wake of coronavirus outbreak at a live animal market in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia. The WHO on Tuesday urged countries to suspend the sale of live animals captured from the wild in food markets as an emergency measure, saying wild animals are a leading source of emerging infectious diseases like the coronavirus. (AP Photo, File)

Sobering but unsurprising news for those living in the country's most populous province and in the nation's capital. Unsurprising to anyone keeping tabs on the continually growing daily count of new cases and deaths attributed to COVID-19. Sobering because you feel from your own experience that the public is engaged in doing  what it can to avoid either contracting or passing on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but you also know from what you've read that there are those in society who feel it entirely unnecessary to heed the pleas and warnings from the medical community.

 In the first wave of  COVID to hit the province the hospitalization, intensive care and death toll was borne largely by the health-compromised and elderly who lived in long-term care homes and retirement homes. Now, in the second phase of the pandemic, long after governments at all levels pledged to ensure that the elderly would never again become victims of a vicious virus, those same governments are shrugging their shoulders in helpless dismay as the same scenario is once again unfolding.

Case numbers have been rising steadily for the past month, and accelerating for the past week and more. Each day brings another record-shattering total of numbers of people infected, hospitalized, placed in intensive care and ultimately buried. And, once again, it is the elderly and the infirm taking the brunt of the assault. We're given the grim news that a projection of daily cases in the province exceeding 6,000 by mid-December, if new cases continue to grow at five percent.

It doesn't seem too much to ask of people that they wear masks when in indoor spaces, to practise responsible social distancing, to wash hands repeatedly, given the threat facing all of society, with our medical system groaning under the weight of new admissions to hospitals. Most people are happy to comply even if it has disrupted their lives in ways both slight and profound. The upward trend in infections is deeply worrying across the country.

So you go on living your life as close to what you know is normal as possible. All the way the dark shadow of the coronavirus threat hovers in the background. We're fortunate that we have easy access to an alternative venue outside our home that has meaning to us, that helps us stay focused on the value of life and how much it is to be appreciated. Out on the forest trails, we're exposed to clean, fresh air, the views of a natural landscape's beauty, while we're exercised, moving our limbs, relaxing our minds.

My husband is an avid reader of short stories. Of the writers he most admires, he turns to reading and re-reading the classing literature of late 19thCentury and early 20thCentury Russian classics. Some of which I have read myself in years past. The stories move him greatly, and he believes that the quality of the writing in its insightfulness far surpasses that which issues from most other countries' writers in portrayals of humanity and the vicissitudes of life. While we're out, walking through the trails, he often describes and recounts the stories to me. He has always, as long as I can recall, narrated stories to me.

Our house last night was redolent with the smell of onions, although I had kept the kitchen stove fan on while I was cooking a vegetable stir-fry featuring, onion, garlic, snow peas, bell pepper, broccoli and bok choy. The vegetables were paired with steamed rice and chicken strips cooked separately that had been marinated in garlic, soy sauce and olive oil. I had planned it for the day before, but a power outage prevented it, so it was featured for yesterday and the fish dinner I usually prepare for Thursday has been moved forward to tomorrow.

Friday night meals are immutable, starting with chicken soup and rice. It's traditional in most Jewish households as a culinary custom. This morning I decided to bake a cheesecake. My husband, who often drops by to pick up extra food items here and there brought home a large tub of cream cheese yesterday. Since it has a best-before date of 16 November, half of it was destined for a cheesecake. It's the best-tasting cream cheese I can recall; smooth, creamy and rich. As for the cheesecake, it's vanilla with white chocolate, glazed with blueberries.

Jackie and Jillie's reward for being good little dogs was a promise that 'soon' we'd depart for our afternoon turn in the ravine, where they could revert as they usually do from good little dogs to bad little dogs. Their trail manners leave much, much to be desired. Not only are we not particularly good teachers, it would appear, but it might also be that we can continue placing the blame for their hostility to dogs they don't know to their very specific breed as toy poodles.

The day was much like yesterday temperature-wise, with a high of 6C, a bit of wind, and heavily overcast. So we dressed for it, and were comfortable throughout the hour-and-a-half time we enjoyed our circuit. Because of people being cooped up in their homes and getting tired of it, we've seen an increasingly-steady stream of new faces in the ravine. And while we certainly can't blame anyone for seeking out venues where fresh air and exercise can be had in an impressive natural setting, we've come across a surprising number of  truly morose individuals whose grim faces would curdle the good cheer of anyone else.

 

People who simply ignore the presence of others, not bothering to respond to polite greetings. This has nothing to do with maintaining distance, and everything to do with some people in society harbouring sociopathic tendencies for whom social etiquette of polite acknowledgement of the presence of others makes no impact whatever. And that's a pity. The human equivalent to bad-mannered little dogs.