Here We Go Again!
In mid December at the end of last year, a zoonotic epidemic broke out in a second tier city in China. The Chinese medical community was quick to choose an animal as the source of the disease. Fatalities were high, and the city was eventually locked down, but Chinese medical authorities insisted there was no reason for alarm, as Human-to-Human transmission was impossible. No, you haven't fallen through a time warp to the beginning of 2020. This is the present situation, as of early 2022.
Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome
On 22 December, 2021, numerous outlets responded to "Breaking News" that the Chinese government had ordered the city of Xi'an, in Shaanxi Province, into a Wuhan-like state of lockdown (Feng & Shelton). This itself has been a source of news. Accounts of the nightmare endured by the citizens of Xi'an as they were left for dead, have become commonplace (Yeung & Gan). The news of a city under lockdown, after China's chest-beating about how they had "beaten" the virus they unleashed on the world, was so shocking that most people did not even notice reports from the Chinese Center for Disease Control from 3 days prior.
Since October 2021, the number of reported cases of HFRS has been increasing rapidly in Shaanxi Province. As of December 19, 2021, a total of 2,657 cases were reported with 14 deaths, 35.84% more than that in 2020 (2,051 cases and 3 deaths). Furthermore, in 2020, there were 8,121 cases and 48 deaths nationwide for morbidity and mortality rates of 0.5785 and 0.0034 per 100,000 population, and a case-fatality rate of 0.59%. In all reported cases, 7.56% were aged 1–14 years, 67.11% aged 15–59 years, and 25.29% aged over 60 years. Compared to 2020, student cases (272 cases) had increased in proportion from 9.00% in 2020 to about 10.24% in 2021, and farmer cases continued to comprise the largest proportion from about 70% in 2020 to about 66.58% in 2021.
So let's review. China's Center for Disease Control discovered a drastic rise in cases of a deadly zoonotic virus, shortly before the largest annual migration on Earth (Chinese New Year), setting the stage for an outbreak in one of the most densely populated countries on Earth (just like it did with Covid-19) just in time for that dense population to travel all over the world carrying the disease (just like they did with Covid-19). Oh, but not to worry, because the "People's Government" is assuring us Human-to-Human transmission is "basically impossible (Xu & Sui)."
Just, like, they did, with Covid-19 (KFF Staff).
It seems that a closer look at Xi'an is now required.
After the city of Xi'an was placed in lockdown in mid-December, word got out that the city was facing not only a rise in Covid-19 cases, but a rise in HFRS cases as well (Wang & Ao). The CCDC has not released stats for just how many new cases the city discovered during the lockdown, but recall that the authorities warned of the dangers of the situation even before the city went into lockdown. Three days before, in fact. It could almost lead one to suspect that the lockdown was not brought on by fear of Covid, but by fear of the spread of HFRS.
Of course, while the current scientific consensus is (generally) that Hantavirus (such as the one that causes HFRS) cannot be spread from Human to Human, there is at least one credible, peer-reviewed study that challenges this notion (Macready). As Alemka Markotic of The Lancet writes, "It would not be the first time that hantaviruses have surprised us." Indeed, China's scientific community in 2021 seems to have become quite quite interested (likely spurred on by the PLA's renewed interest in bioweapons after Covid-19 gave them Proof of Concept) in the possibility of a hantavirus mutating to an H2H transmissible form.
We observed dynamic changes in the seasonal distribution, geographical distribution, and demographic features of HFRS, which should be well considered in the development of control and prevention strategies in future.
-Zhang et al."
Loose in Xi'an Under the Guise of Covid?
This then begs the question of whether the rate of spread of hantaviruses increased in Xi'an during the lockdown. The fact that the symptoms of hemorrhagic fever in the early stages mimic the symptoms of Covid-19 (Global Times Staff) means if, hypothetically, a hantavirus HAS made the quantum leap to become capable of H2H transmission, it could be spreading right out in the open and be misreported as Covid-19, just as early Covid cases in Beijing were falsely reported as "pneumonic plague."
Conveniently enough, the CCDC has been rather mum about the precise numbers. In fact, it seems the Chinese authorities have been determined to keep the issue from even being mentioned because at time of press I have been unable to find a single article in 2022 that even passingly mentions hemorrhagic fever, anywhere in the world, in any context, that was published any time more recently than December 2022.
That is, except one.
A Familiar Face Returns
A site called Natural News (whose credibility I can neither dismiss nor attest to, having never heard of them before, though I am forced to confess the style seems a bit sensationalist), published an interview with Dr. Yan Limeng, asserting that the PLA intended to deploy a modified hemorrhagic fever virus against athletes from the US and their allies during the Olympics, with the express intention of sending them home to infect their homelands. She also asserts that the virus had been modified to have a long enough incubation period that they would show no symptoms until they returned home and, more concerningly, that the PLA was already hoarding the drug which was known to treat it, guaranteeing their own personnel will be safe while simultaneously causing shortages of the same medicine abroad (Adams).
Now, for those who have forgotten who Yan Limeng (or if you prefer the Westernized arrangement, Li-Meng Yan) is, here is a review. She was working at the Hong Kong School of Public Health as a researcher on virology and immunology. She was one of the first researchers on Earth to become aware of SARS-CoV-2 and fled to the US to warn the world that it was in fact a PLA bioweapon, at a time when the Western world was being told that it was a "Conspiracy theory" to think it could possibly have had anything other than natural origins (Urian). For this, the "crime" of going against the acceptable narrative at the time (a narrative established by known Chinese collaborator Anthony Fauci), she was immediately silenced with extreme prejudice by the tech sector and the Democrat-controlled media complex went into overdrive trying to discredit her (despite impeccable credentials, and despite being later vindicated when even the Beijing-controlled Biden administration was forced to admit it was "possible" the virus originated in a lab) for her association with Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and a handful of others who had been deemed personae non grata by the Left (Crump).
Makes a Frightening Level of Sense
If you haven't had time to watch the video, I'll sum it up by saying she offers evidence (albeit not proof) to support her claim. In the absence of a smoking gun, from here I cannot offer any new facts. I can only offer inferences, based on previously known facts. With that disclaimer out of the way, I'm inclined to believe her. Here is why.
- The Scale: I have already hinted that I suspect the lockdown in Xi'an was not to control Covid, but to control an outbreak of their new, transmissible hantavirus. The symptoms match Covid, so it would be easy to hide. And considering that China swears they have "beaten" Covid, why would they suddenly order an entire city into lockdown like they did in Wuhan? They have had other outbreaks since the original, and have curtailed them (or curtailed news of them) with smaller lockdowns. To lockdown an entire city over what they claimed was a few dozen cases is suspicious, even for China. There was something that made Xi'an different.
- The Timing: The epidemic of Hemorrhagic Fever was discovered in mid-December, just like Covid was. That gives exactly the right amount of time, if it is H2H transmissible, for a significant portion of the population to be infected just in time for the CNY holiday, and to carry the disease far and wide when Chinese travel overseas, just as they did in CNY of 2020. And isn't it convenient that China lifted the lockdown of Xi'an just in time for this to be possible (Associated Press)?
- The Noise, then The Silence: Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, there were volumes upon volumes of studies from China's scientific community regarding the potential of SARS-like coronaviruses to cause an outbreak, and these studies were funded by a combination of the PLA and (thanks to Fauci's deceptiveness about allocation of funds) the American taxpayer. Then once Covid was released, suddenly there was nothing. Well, for the past several years, China's scientists have been feverishly studying the transmissibility of hantaviruses (Zou et al.; Zhang et al., Li et al., Liang et al., Yang et al., Shi et al). And suddenly, they have gone silent on the subject. The pattern I see is "we have the research we need to create a bio-weapon from a Hantavirus, and Covid gave us proof-of-concept, so now we're going to be extremely quiet about it so we can deny culpability just like we did with Covid."
- The Irony: In their desperate attempts to claim Covid came from absolutely anywhere in the world except Wuhan, China, the Chinese government spun a tale that the US Army brought the virus to Wuhan during the World Military Games in October, 2019 (Myers). While this crackpot tale is characterized by a glorious dearth of any actual evidence, it proves that the idea of deploying a bioweapon at a major international sporting event as a means of guaranteeing a global spread has occurred to the PLA. For them to employ exactly the tactic they still insist we used, would enable them, if they were found out, to simply beat their chests and say "it was poetic justice for what the Yankees did to us." The fact that the "crime" for which they claim they are taking revenge is absolute fiction, would be irrelevant. For internal consumption all they would have to do is declare that the official story and it would become a death sentence in China to say otherwise. The Party really doesn't care if the rest of the world believes them as long as the Chinese peasantry do.
But the smoking gun, as yet not found, would be if it turns out the Chinese are, in fact, hoarding Darzalex (or daratumumab), a drug that has been found to treat HFRS. IF this is true, as I said, it would be the ultimate guarantee against large scale casualties at home from exposure to their new weapon, while simultaneously causing shortages abroad and inhibiting anyone else's ability to treat the disease. I am unable to independently verify or refute that at present, but it bears IMMEDIATE investigation.
Fool Me Once...
The world is still reeling from one Chinese bioattack. The last thing we need is for them to deploy another, especially considering there is not a chance in Hell they'd ever be held accountable since the White House (the only office in the world with enough power to hit China with enough force to punish them) this time around is occupied by someone who will spout China's official line just as surely as Tedros did. I seriously hope I am wrong about this. But if I am right (and God Help us all), well...
...Remember where you read it first.
Works Cited
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Associated Press. "China lifts monthlong COVID-19 lockdown in Xi'an, new restrictions in Beijing as cases rise." Firstpost. 24 Jan, 2022. Web. 18 Feb, 2022. https://www.firstpost.com/world/china-lifts-monthlong-covid-19-lockdown-in-xian-new-restrictions-in-beijing-as-cases-rise-10314961.html
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