We do a 'peasants, pestilence and plague' school topic every couple of years in upper KS2. Hopefully I can weave this sorry saga into the topic next time we run it 

so is it 100% from the Wuhan wet market?

The point is it doesn't have to be a biological weapon. It can be an accidental escape of any virus that is being studied. The evidence shows that accidents in biotech labs are commonplace. Given the lax regulation and sheer proliferation of these labs it is only a matter of time before something of consequence happens.

This is not a conspiracy theory it is based on reliable evidence.

This is an interesting read.

I'm not sure about that given we have a long way to go yet. The economic damage may still be felt in a few years, people still discuss the lesser financial crisis even now.

It is still a conspiracy theory because there is no evidence it was an escaped bioweapon vs some natural mutation. But not all conspiracy theories are false.

A conspiracy theory, by definition, has no evidence because the evidence has been covered up. Of course that also makes it really easy to make conspiracy theories about anything. When someone asks 'why is there no evidence', of course there is no evidence because its a conspiracy theory. So because they are so easy to come up with the overwhelming majority will be wrong. However conspiracies do exist, every government on the planet hides information from the public. So there are bound to be occasions when a conspiracy theory is correct. Although any declassified evidence that proved such a theory correct would render the conspiracy theory no longer a conspiracy theory!

Emailed my MP this morning about the Danish technique and she has already responded that she is "feeding this in".

Here is more on the topic:

https://en.ssi.dk/news/news/2020/03-ssi--solves-essential-covid19-testing-deficiency-problem

So is this: https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/experts-know-the-new-coronavirus-is-not-a-bioweapon-they-disagree-on-whether-it-could-have-leaked-from-a-research-lab/

We have to forgo universal coverage of every health condition whatever route we choose to follow. A blank cheque is by definition unaffordable.

Yep, I don't think an accidental release from a lab can be categorically ruled out.

Agreed, I think we can rule out the bio-weapon theory, however.

I'm not specifically talking about covid 19, I'm talking about the possibility of an escape from a biotech lab. Unsurprisingly it's almost impossible to find evidence of biotech incidents in private labs but I provided a link earlier which shows well over 300 such incidents recorded over a 5 year period in US government labs alone. 

Think about this logically, if there are that many incidents in government labs in the US where you would expect regulation to be extremely strict do you not think it is possible that these incidents could be repeated in other countries where regulation might not be as strict? Add to that the fact that there are thousands of private biotech labs all over the world which are not obliged to report incidents.

I'm not sure it's a conspiracy theory to suggest that the chances of accidental release are incredibly high, it's just a sober interpretation of the evidence.

English death toll rises by 367 to 1,651

Sounds like a huge amount but the UK's stats are all over the place so I wouldn't read much into it. Likewise if they go down markedly tomorrow.

I don't think we can rule anything out.

But it is true that indulging in conspiracy theories is not helpful, since there is no evidence for them we can't do anything about it even if it turns out to be true.

I'm working under the assumption that it's a virus of natural origin, as that's the most likely, but even if it was a bioweapon the nature of our response is going to be the same anyway.

Breaking: 367 new deaths in England

Okay, a bit off topic.  But maybe one benefit of this virus will be more people learning to cook for themselves and realising that they can survive on a lot less than they thought.



Edit: just to clarify, I do not mean to suggest that 2 people can, alternatively, live comfortably on just a single parent and 2 children a week

It will rise further Brian, the admissions curve tells you most of what you need to know.

Oh I definitely agree with that. The idea that such an incident is inconceivable seems akin to blind optimism.

Breaking: 393 deaths in the UK have been reported today.

Are we sure this time?

That 21 YO that was in the news turned out to not have COVID after all.

Even allowing for the inconsistencies of the daily numbers, I think it's difficult for the 'daily peak' to be below 500. Hopefully the peak will occur within the next 2 weeks or so. At the moment hospital admissions double every 4 days or so, which is pretty bad.

There have been a few in Italy (very small number though).

Deaths do have a very large lag behind cases, I think its as high as nearly 3 weeks. Even confirmed cases will have a lag as they are more related to hospital admissions than symptoms developing.

When you include the incubation period the lag between confirmed cases and infections is probably about 2 weeks.