We don't know how this came out

Submitted by Kepha (United States), Mar 25, 2020 at 15:36

Accusing the Jews of launching COVID-19 is rightly called "conspiratorial dreck"--the latter term I will leave untranslated

As for calling it Wuhan Virus or Chinese virus being discriminatory, I'm afraid there is a problem. I live in a community that is full of Far Eastern immigrants and their US-born offspring, and some people have been attacked and discriminated against. However, this is not to say that the initial labeling after the place of origin was intended to be discriminatory, no more than calling rubella "German measles" reflects anything more than early 19th century German doctors being the first to distinguish it.

As for the role of the Chinese government, it is clear they tried to cover up the epidemic. Whether their government labs in Wuhan spread it, it accidentally got out, or it arose from some other cause is another question. Still, SecState Pompeo was completely correct in calling out Zhao's calumny that the US Army spread the virus to China--as if there were US units patrolling the streets of Wuhan.

Nor will I blame Chinese wet markets. In my time in the Far East, I ate a lot of animals which are not commonly eaten in the West; and especially not cetain parts of the Middle East! I was in markets where live animals were sold and butchered. But I did not have any discernible ill effects. In some parts of rural America, people eat the raccoons and opossums they hunt. I've known Orthodox Jews who not only kept kosher, but went out of their way to keep glatt kosher (being sure the slaughtered animal or bird had nothing wrong with its lungs), yet the Orthodox Jews are not famous for launching strange viral infections (save in conspiracy-mongering works).

I will concede to Michael S that perhaps the Chinese government is the bad guy here. But just perhaps. It intrigues me that the Trump administration has merged CDC and NSC anti-pandemic units. Perhaps this administration is simply trying to control administrative bloat and reduplication, which has been a long-standing problem. But perhaps, to me, this suggests that the administration knows something about China's bio-warfare labs in Wuhan that it doesn't want the Chinese government to know that it knows about.

I won't blame any group for this disease. But I will end by expressing optimism. Perhaps we are now in a race between the medical researchers developing medicines and our own immune/antibody systems adjusting to a new problem.

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