• The Origins of Covid-19 and Preventing the Next Pandemic

    Did COVID-19 originate with bats or scientists? Amanda Moodie and Nicholas Evans write that the desire to identify the origins of the novel coronavirus is perfectly understandable, but that “while answering the question of where the novel coronavirus came from is important, many of the most important policy decisions the United States needs to make to prevent future pandemics do not depend on viral origins.” “there is one important scenario in which it would be absolutely vital to know the origins of COVID-19: If “the pandemic stemmed from a deliberate attempt to develop a biological warfare agent, this would have serious implications for the Biological Weapons Convention and the broader norm against the use of disease as a weapon.”

  • Is Covid-19 a Bio-Weapon?

    The “racial disparity” of the deaths from Covid should raise alarms.  Not the relatively small differences between white, black and Hispanic death rates in America, but the massive disparity between death rates of East Asian countries, and everyone else on earth. On a per capita basis, non-East Asians are dying at rates 20 times higher that of East Asians. That is not a statistical “blip.” It screams that the virus has massively unequal kill rates - and kills people of different races very differently. That is the signature of a bio-weapon.

  • The Next Pandemic Is Already Happening – Targeted Disease Surveillance Can Help Prevent It

    As more and more people around the world are getting vaccinated, one can almost hear the collective sigh of relief. But the next pandemic threat is likely already making its way through the population right now. My research as an infectious disease epidemiologist has found that there is a simple strategy to mitigate emerging outbreaks: proactive, real-time surveillance in settings where animal-to-human disease spillover is most likely to occur. In other words, don’t wait for sick people to show up at a hospital. Instead, monitor populations where disease spillover actually happens.

  • U.S. to Make Intelligence on COVID-19 Origins Public

    The United States will share the results of a new deep-dive by its top intelligence agencies into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed millions of people across the globe. Top U.S. intelligence agencies said last year that their information supported “the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified” but that they would “continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence” to determine whether the outbreak began after the virus was transmitted to humans from animals in nature or as the result of a laboratory accident.

  • Lab Leak Theory Gains Momentum

    On Wednesday, 26 May, President Joe Biden urged the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This is an about-face from the administration’s earlier reliance on the World Health Organization (WHO) to investigate the origins of the pandemic. This is a shift from the assessment that the novel coronavirus emerged naturally, jumping from an animal species to humans.

  • Intelligence Report on COVID-19 Origin

    Amid growing speculation that COVID-19 might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory, U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday instructed federal agencies “to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion.” Biden, in a statement, told the U.S. intelligence community “to report back to me in 90 days” after he had received a report this month that had no definitive conclusion.

  • Cummings’s Evidence Reinforces the Impression that Ineptitude over COVID-19 Reflected Errors Made by Individual Ministers. That’s Only Part of the Story

    Cummings’s evidence reinforces the impression that ineptitude over COVID-19 reflected errors made by individual ministers. That’s only part of the story. Insufficient attention has been paid to the inadequate public administration capability of British government as a factor in the COVID-19 response. the center of government lacks capacity, that its policymaking capacity is compromised, and that territorial conflict is growing as key systemic weaknesses that have compromised the UK’s ability to respond to such a crisis.

  • Evaluation of Safety Studies Affirms That Vaccines Are Safe for Children and Adults

    A new study looking across a large body of research finds further evidence for the safety of vaccines that are Food and Drug Administration–approved and routinely recommended for children, adults, and pregnant women.“These findings support decisions to vaccinate to protect ourselves and our communities from a variety of diseases,” said one expert. “This research is an important reminder that vaccines are safe and any risk they may pose is far outweighed by their ability to protect against diseases.”

  • The Civilian Toll of Explosives, 2011-2020

    A new repot finds that, over the last ten years, when explosive weapons were used in populated areas, 91% of those killed and injured were civilians. This compares to 25% in other areas. Incidents of explosives being used were recorded in 123 countries and territories around the world in the ten years.

  • Total Deaths Due to COVID-19 Underestimated by 20% in U.S. Counties

    More than 15 months into the pandemic, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is nearing 600,000. But COVID-19 deaths may be underestimated by 20 percent, according to a new study. The study uses data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to estimate the number of deaths in 2,096 counties from January to December 2020 above what would be expected in a normal year, or “excess deaths.”

  • What Do We Need to Do to Get Ready for the Next Global Pandemic?

    “Pandemics are going to happen, but we can absolutely prevent the devastation that occurs from a pandemic. We can act now to put us in a position so that when the next pandemic does happen, we don’t have to allow it to get out of control. We can build tools to find it quickly and to act fast. We can build up new public health infrastructure to tackle it once it starts spreading,” says Harvard’s expert Michael Mina.

  • From Visits to Vaccines: The Evolving Nature of China’s Military Diplomacy

    A new report details the growing role of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) military-to-military cooperation in response to the global coronavirus pandemic – a move which signals the greater involvement of the PLA in China’s diplomatic activities.

  • At the Critical Intersection of Public Health and Homeland Security

    Promoting wellbeing of “communities and families” makes the nation safer, says the new chief medical officer for DHS. “I think what this pandemic has shown us is that if we think about the need to build systems that promote the health and wellbeing of communities and families, we’re going to be better off as a nation,” he says. “We’re going to be safer.”

  • How to Use Statistics to Prepare for the Next Pandemic

    Publicly available statistics about population demographics and culture can help governments prepare for the next pandemic. We have found that by using existing socio-demographic data from early COVID-19 hot spots, where there was a lot of information, officials could have predicted how COVID-19 would spread through society. The next time there is a global health crisis governments can use our techniques to figure out how a disease will likely move beyond hot spots to regions that are not yet affected.

  • Solar Geoengineering May Alleviate Impacts of Global Warming on Crops

    Solar geoengineering — putting aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and reduce global warming — is not a fix-all for climate change but it could be one of several tools to manage climate risks. A growing body of research has explored the ability of solar geoengineering to reduce physical climate changes. But much less is known about how solar geoengineering could affect the ecosystem and, particularly, agriculture.