Coronavirus
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Prof John Drury, a member of a subgroup to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage)
If people don’t know, John Drury is a founder member of the journal Aufheben. There was a minor scandal when his identity was revealed.
Not a single delivery driver coming to my door has worn a mask. Half of them have approached and tried to hand me what they bring.
Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, has written a short book The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop it Happening Again, apparently containing scathing comments on how world governments have approached the pandemic. Too little too late, ignoring medical advice, scientists in thrall to the government, putting capitalism before needs, etc. etc. All things we would have predicted when it started.
How to stop it happening again? Pity people like him can’t just go that bit further and campaign for an end to the system itself.
My experience is more positive, seeing local food deliveries to others, is they wear gloves and masks.
In one instance the driver photo’d the parcel in my drive rather than have me sign for it. (I was alerted by email prior to delivery that this would happen.)
Tulsa, Okla., is about to host an event that scientists call a “natural experiment.” It may offer important clues about one of the COVID-19 pandemic’s most perplexing features: The undetected spread of the novel coronavirus by people who do not appear to be sick.
Peoples will do anything to worship political leaders, it looks like they are masochists, they have created a cult around Donald Trump
Rebealing article in the latest (July/August) issue of the Skeptical Inquirer by Stuart Vyse on “Did Superstitution Cause The COVID-19 Outbreak?” His answer is, yes, it did contribute to it because Traditional Chinese Medicine and eating exotic animals as a luxury are supported by powerful economic and political interests.
“… it seems unlikely that the many references to superstition in the Chinese commercial market (e.g., red-colored products, lucky cats, the number eight, and feng shui) will ever disappear because they are sustained by the profit motive. Similarly, profit provides a strong incentive to promote Chinese live and wild animal markets using false claims of health benefits.”
“Peter Li, professor of East Asian Politics at the University of Houston-Downtown, points out that the Chinese government considers wildlife a resource, and wildlife breeding is a powerful and lucrative industry. ”
“What we can say, however, is that the unfounded beliefs of TCM and the practice of breeding wild animals—often mixed with wild-caught but sick and injured animals—creates dangerously unsanitary conditions in China’s wet markets. Where they exist, these markets are fertile incubators for new zoonotic diseases, epidemics, and pandemics, and every link in this pathogenic chain is supported by powerful economic and political forces.”He also writes if we “stop eating species that are genetically similar to humans” this woud “reduce our vulnerability to zoonotic diseases.”And of course expects to be accused of “cultural imperiaism”.Here’s the link (hope it works)An interesting read.
In addition, the choice to domesticate animals as a source of food has exposed us to additional zoonotic diseases. If we needed another reason to become vegetarians—or stop eating species that are genetically similar to humans—it might be to reduce our vulnerability to zoonotic diseases.”
😛
This could easily be posted on that other topic thread why meat-eating will be a transformed custom.
I’m daily faced by Asian superstitious beliefs but they are not too far distant from UK trust in winning the lottery and the process that they pick their lucky numbers.
Actually, zoonotic diseases are transmitted to humans by us being in contact with other, live animals, whatever the reason (e.g. transport, ploughing, carrying loads), rather than by eating them; in fact only rarely by eating them. After all, some of these diseases are transmitted via animals that we don’t normally eat such as mice and rats. This would suggest that one way to reduce our vulnerability to zoonotic diseases like the COVID-19 virus would be to keep our social distance from other animals as well as from ourselves.
Tsk tsk…i cited the article you recommended as recommending vegetarianism and yet you insist on prevaricating …
Why would you be transporting live animals unless its part of the meat-industry…why would ploughing be a cause unless livestock was previously reared in the fields….(anthrax i think can still be contracted from soil from ages ago)
One of my dogs got Weils disease which led to a dispute with the Buddhist vet when because of the high risk of transmission to family and neighbours i asked her for my dog to be put down. Ended up with a compromise – the vet prepared the syringe but i had to press the plunger.
You know my ultimate position…pet-ownership will become more redundant as the psychological crutch for having pets disappears so people will end up with more social distancing from animals.
A caveat – as we have seen with the todays self isolation and staying at home, perhaps with socialism turning urban centres into a more countrified and rural setting, wild-life will once again be common in residential areas and bring increasing contact…just a thought.
But I drew attention to that passage in his article myself ! My point was that it wasn’t just “the choice to domesticate animals as a source of food” that “has exposed us to additional zoonotic diseases” but domesticating animals for any purpose. If you want to introduce eating then you would have say that it was the “choice” to cultivate and store grain that exposed us to this too as it led to us coming into contact with rats, from whom humans contracted the deadliest of zoonotic diseases historically— smallpox and the plague.
But of course neither domesticating animals nor agriculture were “choices”. They developed as humans sought to survive better in the rest of nature just as all other animals seek to. In any event we couldn’t even consider doing away with the domestication of other animals for use as a source of power for transport and for ploughing fields to cultivate crops (not that anyone did, even Hinduism made cows sacred because cow dung was a useful source of fuel) until the full development of industrial capitalism which substituted other sources of power for these purposes.
“But I drew attention to that passage in his article myself”
You didn’t quote what i quoted in your #204345 message. The emphasis of your post was the quackery of TCM and there we agree 100%.
We have the knowledge, technology and resources to make choices right now but one reason that we make our choice is the all-pervasive power of advertising we are subjected to from childhood into adulthood on what to eat.
Religion is another factor, Cultural custom is another. I note the Yulin festival of dog-eating is currently underway. No meat-eater can object to their choice of flesh. I myself have eaten roasted guinea-pig washed down with Inca Cola, (My wife’s favourite snack is ants eggs)
He also writes if we “stop eating species that are genetically similar to humans” this woud “reduce our vulnerability to zoonotic diseases.” (message #204345)
Beaches packed to the hilt today. No distancing. Boozing and fighting instead.
Meanwhile down the road from our Head Office:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-53176472
People seem to be fed up with being prevented from congregating outside in the hot weather. It looks as if one reason the government has relaxed conditions might have been because it knew it could no longer hold the line.
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