"The French government has been notably restrained in their criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for unleashing a pandemic upon the world. One possible reason for their reticence is a single, highly embarrassing fact: They essentially built the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab in which the coronavirus now sweeping the world was being researched, and from which it escaped.That the French delivered the turn-key, high-containment biolab to China has long been public knowledge, but now a German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has added riveting details to the story. The insider information comes from interviews with French scientists directly involved with the effort.
The picture they paint of the lab’s origins and operations is, to say the least, disturbing. It tells us a lot about why we are currently in the midst of a pandemic.
The French government agreed to construct the state-of-the-art lab on condition that scientists from the two countries would collaborate on joint research projects there. The French were to have a significant presence. According to the terms of the agreement, no fewer than 50 French researchers were to have taken up residence in the apartment building attached to the lab, where they would work on a daily basis. The construction of the Wuhan lab was completed by February 2017. This was such an important moment in the history of Sino-French relations that the French premier, Bernard Cazeneuve, personally traveled to Wuhan for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
To the surprise and consternation of the French, that ceremony marked the effective end of the “research partnership” that the opening of the lab was supposed to inaugurate. Now that China had the P4 lab and technology it wanted, it promptly stiffed its foreign “partner” and tore up the agreement it had signed.
Not a single French researcher was allowed to take up residence in the compound and do research at the lab.
...
In other words, from the beginning the Wuhan P4 lab failed to meet international standards. What this means, according to Izambard, is that “the Wuhan lab’s handling of highly-contagious material was never adequately ensured.”Given what a disaster for the French the P4 lab in Wuhan has become, it is worth asking why they embarked upon it in the first place. Like so many other failed public and private ventures in China, it was an effort to increase trade with the Communist giant. Add to this the fact that France already had close commercial ties with Wuhan, as more than 100 French companies were doing business there.
The stage was set for the P4 lab fiasco back in 2003 during the SARS-epidemic, when Chinese leader Jiang Zemin approached Jacque Chirac for help in building high-containment biolabs. In response, the French president authorized the export of four medium-containment mobile biolabs, or P3-labs. He did this against the advice of his own Defense Ministry, which argued that all existing P3-labs in China were under the direct command and control of the People’s Liberation Army and were being used for military purposes.
The French President’s authorization of the construction of a P4 biolab in Wuhan met even fiercer opposition, this time not only from his own Defense Ministry and the French intelligence service, the DGSE, but also from other member states of the European Union and from the United States. The U.S. had consistently opposed helping China create a P4 lab, and transferring the sensitive technology required to operate it, because of the risk that the facility could be used for military purposes..."
IRISH DEMOCRACY: Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. The lockdown can’t go on forever, and it isn’t. In Tennessee, we’re following a reasonably well-thought-out plan for reopening things. But a friend from Manhattan writes that she’s seeing stores, coffee shops, etc., just spontaneously reopening in spite of the orders. Not with loud defiance, just ignoring the government. It’s “Irish democracy,” and we’re going to see a lot more of it.
The shutdowns were sold as “two weeks to slow the spread,” and “flattening the curve,” and so on, and lots of people thought that was sensible, and it was. A two-month (or longer) shutdown is a different animal, and nobody consented to that. So now people are, mostly silently, withdrawing their consent from the state.
Well, I’ll be darned. Even IL is partially opening parks.
https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/closures/Pages/ParksOpenDuringCoVID19.aspx
Barbers and hair salons booked solid on opening day (Arkansas, 5/7/20)
Texas Supreme Court orders jailed salon owner released (5/7/20)
Governor sets 2% testing goal for state; virus cases still rising at lockup (Arkansas, 5/7/20)
Sioux City Farmers Market begins season with new COVID-19 restrictions in place (Iowa, 5/6/20)
Watch Now: Gov. Kristi Noem gives COVID-19 update 5/6/2020 (South Dakota)
Watch Now: Gov. Pete Ricketts gives COVID-19 update 5/6/2020 (Nebraska)
PHOTOS: Sioux City Farmers Market opens (5/6/20)
COVID-19 Measures Highlight Absurdity of Plastic Bag Bans (5/6/20)
Australia and New Zealand Differ on COVID-19. The Economic Fallout Could, Too. (5/6/20)
4 Ways the Private Sector Is Combating COVID-19 (5/6/20)
PING!