China's Chernobyl

China is using its propaganda machine to blame someone else for the breakout of COVID 19. Their latest gambit is a report on CBS yesterday about a "Scientific Study" showing the virus originated in Europe. How lame is that? Everyone knows where it started, supposedly in a meat market in Wuhan China. Now we're beginning to hear more and more about a Level Four, biological laboratory located several blocks away.

Personally I don't particularly care if it generated spontaneously at the meat market or if it broke containment in a research laboratory. It happened, and it is another in a long line of biological agents that originated in China. Unlike many, I lean towards the bio-lab theory based upon my experience and knowledge of human nature. The problems, and there are several, begin with knowing the agent broke out of containment and taking actions that served self interest rather than world interest. They made sure they quarantined China while keeping everyone else in the dark. They contained the outbreak in China but made no attempt to keep the rest of the world from "sharing the love." They insisted that the rogue virus could not be transmitted human to human and insisted on a "Wet Market" go between. Meanwhile thousands of Chinese visiting in Wuhan for the new year boarded flights and returned back to countries across the globe. These were self serving and egregious actions... using miss-information that compounded the situation they wasted the vital response times and actions that could have mitigated the outbreak.

If you recall, Russia was glad when US technicians quietly began showing up after Chernobyl. Like the Chinese they had let forces out of the bag that they were unable to contain. Arrogance tends to evaporate as the sphincter begins to tighten. They quickly reached the conclusion that an event had happened for which they had no precedent and were willing to do anything to control the consequences. The Chinese have yet to reach a similar state of mind. They don't understand that threatening the virus with the Gulag isn't going to work. The idea that truth is a "state of mind" and any adverse action or consequence can be "Engineered Away" by mind control shows a complete lack of understanding and moral destitution. What they unleashed on the World, by mucking around with forces they were culturally unable to manage, is a testament to the limitations of a Totalitarian regime. Just because they put "Lipstick" on a lie does not mean their own people, much less the world at large is going to believe it. They "Stepped in It" big time and there will be consequence that will reverberate for years to come. What happened in Wuhan was a giant step backwards for China. They should have seen it coming as they had ample warning. They have "Egg" all over their faces and in Asia that is as bad as it gets. They committed a grave error, that will infuriate world and not dim for years to come.

In College my wife worked in a level 3 facility at the CDC in Atlanta. She was a Summer Intern for two years. When she began she tested negative for Tuberculosis and when she left she tested positive. She had not contracted the disease but was exposed and developed an immunity. She related to me the story of one of her coworkers who liked to sneak off and smoke cigarettes in the animal house. This individual contacted a full blown case of TB. All organizations have stories of what really goes on behind the scenes and research labs are no exception. Workers don't always follow procedures and mistakes are made. Nobody wants to admit they made a mistake and the tendency is to cover it up. Creating a disciplined culture that on one hand insists on attention to detail and is intolerant of slip-shod behavior while on the other is open and forgiving of human error is a hard needle to thread. As long as there are humans involved, accidents are going to happen and when they do getting people to own up will be no easy task. So, I don't really see how one can avoid lab workers becoming contaminated from time to time. When it happens they should report an incident, however when it does will just as likely try and cover it up.

If you look at the requirements behind the various levels of a bio test facility you will quickly see a glaring problem... This is that regardless of how sensitive the work is, the workers go home every night. It would seem to me that if the work is really dangerous then the workers should remain a month in the facility....They should spend two weeks with the agent and two weeks in quarantine. After the initial two weeks they are tested for the agent and tested again upon checking out. If they become contaminated the symptoms will develop while the worker is still inside the containment facility. This measure might seem draconian but it sure beats the measures we have currently in place. We operate nuclear submarines for months on end. Why not level 4 biological facilities.