Saturday, April 18, 2020



INTENTIONAL DISGUISED BIO WARFARE



The Comprehensive Timeline of China’s COVID-19 Lies




Paramilitary officers wearing face masks to contain the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus walk along a street in Beijing, China, March 18, 2020. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)
INTENTIONAL DISGUISED BIO WARFARE



With China knowing it can not compete with the USA militarily it resorted to infect the whole world attacking 123 countries and torpedo their economies.  This is a day-by-day, month-by-month breakdown of China’s coronavirus coverup and the irreparable damage it has caused around the globe.

The Timeline of a Viral Ticking Time Bomb


The story of the coronavirus pandemic is still being written. But at this early date, we can see all kinds of moments where different decisions could have lessened the severity of the outbreak we are currently enduring. You have probably heard variations of: “Chinese authorities denied that the virus could be transferred from human to human until it was too late.” What you have probably not heard is how emphatically, loudly, and repeatedly the Chinese government insisted human transmission was impossible, long after doctors in Wuhan had concluded human transmission was ongoing — and how the World Health Organization assented to that conclusion, despite the suspicions of other outside health experts.




Clearly, the U.S. government’s response to this threat was not nearly robust enough, and not enacted anywhere near quickly enough. Most European governments weren’t prepared either. Few governments around the world were or are prepared for the scale of the danger. We can only wonder whether accurate and timely information from China would have altered the way the U.S. government, the American people, and the world prepared for the oncoming danger of infection.

Some point in late 2019: The coronavirus jumps from some animal species to a human being. The best guess at this point is that it happened at a Chinese “wet market.”








December 6: According to a study in The Lancet, the symptom onset date of the first patient identified was “Dec 1, 2019 . . . 5 days after illness onset, his wife, a 53-year-old woman who had no known history of exposure to the market, also presented with pneumonia and was hospitalized in the isolation ward.” In other words, as early as the second week of December, Wuhan doctors were finding cases that indicated the virus was spreading from one human to another.

December 21: Wuhan doctors begin to notice a “cluster of pneumonia cases with an unknown cause.

December 25: Chinese medical staff in two hospitals in Wuhan are suspected of contracting viral pneumonia and are quarantined. This is additional strong evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Sometime in “Late December”: Wuhan hospitals notice “an exponential increase” in the number of cases that cannot be linked back to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.




December 30: Dr. Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of other doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), urging them to take protective measures against infection.





December 31: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission declares, “The investigation so far has not found any obvious human-to-human transmission and no medical staff infection.” This is the opposite of the belief of the doctors working on patients in Wuhan, and two doctors were already suspected of contracting the virus.

Three weeks after doctors first started noticing the cases, China contacts the World Health Organization.

Tao Lina, a public-health expert and former official with Shanghai’s center for disease control and prevention, tells the South China Morning Post, “I think we are [now] quite capable of killing it in the beginning phase, given China’s disease control system, emergency handling capacity and clinical medicine support.”

January 1: The Wuhan Public Security Bureau issued summons to Dr. Li Wenliang, accusing him of “spreading rumors.” Two days later, at a police station, Dr. Li signed a statement acknowledging his “misdemeanor” and promising not to commit further “unlawful acts.” Seven other people are arrested on similar charges and their fate is unknown.




Also that day, “after several batches of genome sequence results had been returned to hospitals and submitted to health authorities, an employee of one genomics company received a phone call from an official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission, ordering the company to stop testing samples from Wuhan related to the new disease and destroy all existing samples.”

According to a New York Times study of cellphone data from China, 175,000 people leave Wuhan that day. According to global travel data research firm OAG, 21 countries have direct flights to Wuhan. In the first quarter of 2019 for comparison, 13,267 air passengers traveled from Wuhan, China, to destinations in the United States, or about 4,422 per month. The U.S. government would not bar foreign nationals who had traveled to China from entering the country for another month.

January 2: One study of patients in Wuhan can only connect 27 of 41 infected patients to exposure to the Huanan seafood market — indicating human-to-human transmission away from the market. A report written later that month concludes, “evidence so far indicates human transmission for 2019-nCoV. We are concerned that 2019-nCoV could have acquired the ability for efficient human transmission.”








Also on this day, the Wuhan Institute of Virology completed mapped the genome of the virus. The Chinese government would not announce that breakthrough for another week.

January 3: The Chinese government continued efforts to suppress all information about the virus: “China’s National Health Commission, the nation’s top health authority, ordered institutions not to publish any information related to the unknown disease, and ordered labs to transfer any samples they had to designated testing institutions, or to destroy them.”

Roughly one month after the first cases in Wuhan, the United States government is notified. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gets initial reports about a new coronavirus from Chinese colleagues, according to Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar. Azar, who helped manage the response at HHS to earlier SARS and anthrax outbreaks, told his chief of staff to make sure the National Security Council was informed.

Also on this day, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission released another statement, repeating, “As of now, preliminary investigations have shown no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission and no medical staff infections.




January 4: While Chinese authorities continued to insist that the virus could not spread from one person to another, doctors outside that country weren’t so convinced. The head of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Infection, Ho Pak-leung, warned that “the city should implement the strictest possible monitoring system for a mystery new viral pneumonia that has infected dozens of people on the mainland, as it is highly possible that the illness is spreading from human to human.”

January 5: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission put out a statement with updated numbers of cases but repeated, “preliminary investigations have shown no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission and no medical staff infections.

January 6: The New York Times publishes its first report about the virus, declaring that “59 people in the central city of Wuhan have been sickened by a pneumonia-like illness.” That first report included these comments:


Wang Linfa, an expert on emerging infectious diseases at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, said he was frustrated that scientists in China were not allowed to speak to him about the outbreak. Dr. Wang said, however, that he thought the virus was likely not spreading from humans to humans because health workers had not contracted the disease. “We should not go into panic mode,” he said.

Don’t get too mad at Wang Linfa; he was making that assessment based upon the inaccurate information Chinese government was telling the world.

Also that day, the CDC “issued a level 1 travel watch — the lowest of its three levels — for China’s outbreak. It said the cause and the transmission mode aren’t yet known, and it advised travelers to Wuhan to avoid living or dead animals, animal markets, and contact with sick people.”

Also that day, the CDC offered to send a team to China to assist with the investigation. The Chinese government declined, but a WHO team that included two Americans would visit February 16.

January 8: Chinese medical authorities claim to have identified the virus. Those authorities claim and Western media continue to repeat, “there is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been tied to any deaths.”

The official statement from the World Health Organization declares, “Preliminary identification of a novel virus in a short period of time is a notable achievement and demonstrates China’s increased capacity to manage new outbreaks . . . WHO does not recommend any specific measures for travelers. WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on China based on the information currently available.”

January 10: After unknowingly treating a patient with the Wuhan coronavirus, Dr. Li Wenliang started coughing and developed a fever. He was hospitalized on January 12. In the following days, Li’s condition deteriorated so badly that he was admitted to the intensive care unit and given oxygen support.

The New York Times quotes the Wuhan City Health Commission’s declaration that “there is no evidence the virus can spread among humans.” Chinese doctors continued to find transmission among family members, contradicting the official statements from the city health commission.





January 11: The Wuhan City Health Commission issues an update declaring, “All 739 close contacts, including 419 medical staff, have undergone medical observation and no related cases have been found . . . No new cases have been detected since January 3, 2020. At present, no medical staff infections have been found, and no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission has been found.” They issue a Q&A sheet later that day reemphasizing that “most of the unexplained viral pneumonia cases in Wuhan this time have a history of exposure to the South China seafood market. No clear evidence of human-to-human transmission has been found.”

Also on this day, political leaders in Hubei province, which includes Wuhan, began their regional meeting. The coronavirus was not mentioned over four days of meetings.

January 13: Authorities in Thailand detected the virus in a 61-year-old Chinese woman who was visiting from Wuhan, the first case outside of China. “Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health, said the woman had not visited the Wuhan seafood market, and had come down with a fever on Jan. 5. However, the doctor said, the woman had visited a different, smaller market in Wuhan, in which live and freshly slaughtered animals were also sold.”

January 14: Wuhan city health authorities release another statement declaring, “Among the close contacts, no related cases were found.” Wuhan doctors have known this was false since early December, from the first victim and his wife, who did not visit the market.


This is five or six weeks after the first evidence of human-to-human transmission in Wuhan.

January 15: Japan reported its first case of coronavirus. Japan’s Health Ministry said the patient had not visited any seafood markets in China, adding that “it is possible that the patient had close contact with an unknown patient with lung inflammation while in China.”

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission begins to change its statements, now declaring, “Existing survey results show that clear human-to-human evidence has not been found, and the possibility of limited human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out, but the risk of continued human-to-human transmission is low.” Recall Wuhan hospitals concluded human-to-human transmission was occurring three weeks earlier. A statement the next day backtracks on the possibility of human transmission, saying only, “Among the close contacts, no related cases were found.

January 17: The CDC and the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection announce that travelers from Wuhan to the United States will undergo entry screening for symptoms associated with 2019-nCoV at three U.S. airports that receive most of the travelers from Wuhan, China: San Francisco, New York (JFK), and Los Angeles airports.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission’s daily update declares, “A total of 763 close contacts have been tracked, 665 medical observations have been lifted, and 98 people are still receiving medical observations. Among the close contacts, no related cases were found.”

January 18: HHS Secretary Azar has his first discussion about the virus with President Trump. Unnamed “senior administration officials” told the Washington Post that “the president interjected to ask about vaping and when flavored vaping products would be back on the market.


January 19: The Chinese National Health Commission declares the virus “still preventable and controllable.” The World Health Organization updates its statement, declaring, “Not enough is known to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, the clinical features of the disease, the extent to which it has spread, or its source, which remains unknown.”

January 20: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission declares for the last time in its daily bulletin, “no related cases were found among the close contacts.

That day, the head of China’s national health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in China’s Guangdong province had been caused by human-to-human transmission and medical staff had been infected.

Also on this date, the Wuhan Evening News newspaper, the largest newspaper in the city, mentions the virus on the front page for the first time since January 5.





January 21: The CDC announced the first U.S. case of a the coronavirus in a Snohomish County, Wash., resident who returning from China six days earlier.

By this point, millions of people have left Wuhan, carrying the virus all around China and into other countries.

January 22: WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus continued to praise China’s handling of the outbreak. “I was very impressed by the detail and depth of China’s presentation. I also appreciate the cooperation of China’s Minister of Health, who I have spoken with directly during the last few days and weeks. His leadership and the intervention of President Xi and Premier Li have been invaluable, and all the measures they have taken to respond to the outbreak.”

In the preceding days, a WHO delegation conducted a field visit to Wuhan. They concluded, “deployment of the new test kit nationally suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan.” The delegation reports, “their counterparts agreed close attention should be paid to hand and respiratory hygiene, food safety and avoiding mass gatherings where possible.”

At a meeting of the WHO Emergency Committee, panel members express “divergent views on whether this event constitutes a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ or not. At that time, the advice was that the event did not constitute a PHEIC.”

President Trump, in an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, declared, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.

January 23: Chinese authorities announce their first steps for a quarantine of Wuhan. By this point, millions have already visited the city and left it during the Lunar New Year celebrations. Singapore and Vietnam report their first cases, and by now an unknown but significant number of Chinese citizens have traveled abroad as asymptomatic, oblivious carriers.

January 24: Vietnam reports person-to-person transmission, and Japan, South Korea, and the U.S report their second cases. The second case is in Chicago. Within two days, new cases are reported in Los Angeles, Orange County, and Arizona. The virus is in now in several locations in the United States, and the odds of preventing an outbreak are dwindling to zero.

On February 1, Dr. Li Wenliang tested positive for coronavirus. He died from it six days later.

One final note: On February 4, Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella urged residents to hug Chinese people to encourage them in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, a member of Associazione Unione Giovani Italo Cinesi, a Chinese society in Italy aimed at promoting friendship between people in the two countries, called for respect for novel coronavirus patients during a street demonstration. “I’m not a virus. I’m a human. Eradicate the prejudice.”



This kind of behaviour should not go on unpunished, China should bare the consequence by isolating it, and subjecting the CCP leaders like the Nuremberg trials in WWII.

Sunday, April 5, 2020





India Accuses China of Bio-War Attack with CV19, Files Court Case



As a direct impact of extensive GreatGameIndia reporting on the sinister aspect of Coronavirus being manufactured as a biological weapon, now India has dragged China to international court for waging COVID-19 War. India’s complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council seeking compensation from China specifically presents as evidence GreatGameIndia‘s report on how Chinese biowarfare agents stole Coronavirus from a Canadian lab and weaponized it at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In addition to the Indian complaint, a $20 trillion lawsuit has also been filed against China for waging a Biological war in Texas Federal Court, alleging that it unleashed the coronavirus as a bioweapon upon the world.

GGI has come under massive attack for reporting these stories from so-called fact-checker organisations like NewsGuard who themselves are funded by Bill Gates to clear their name. The mainstream media owes GGI a big apology for slandering our name, failing to ask the basic question of ‘conflict of interest’.
EXCLUSIVE: Coronavirus Bioweapon – How China Stole Coronavirus From Canada And Weaponized It (watch here Visualizing The Secret History Of Coronavirus)
Watch the exclusive interview of Bioweapons Expert Dr. Francis Boyle on Coronavirus Biological Warfare blocked by the Deep StateIndia Drags China To International Court For COVID-19 War
The Complaint

The International Council of Jurists (ICJ) and All India Bar Association have moved the United Nations Human Rights Council seeking compensation from China for “surreptitiously developing a biological weapon capable of mass destruction.”

The complaint was penned by senior advocate Adish C. Aggarwala, the Chairperson of All India Bar Association and President of International Council of Jurists, in the backdrop of the spread of deadly coronavirus, which has claimed thousands of lives across the world.




“It is humbly prayed that the UNHRC may be pleased to enquire and direct China and to adequately compensate international community and member states, particularly India, for surreptitiously developing a biological weapon capable of mass destruction of mankind,” Aggarwala stated in the complaint.

The advocate demanded remuneration from China for inflicting serious physical, psychological, economic and social harm on the world. Aggarwala also pointed out the effects of the pandemic on the Indian economy, the imbalance in demand and supply of commodities and migration of marginalized people.


“The economic activity of the country is put on hold, in turn causing a huge dent on the local economy of the country as well as in general, the global economy,” the complaint added.

The complaint further claimed that China meticulously hatched a conspiracy to spread the coronavirus in the world and violated provisions of International Health Regulations (IHR), International Human Rights and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Laws and UDHR clauses.


“It remains a mystery as to how the virus has not spread to all provinces of China but at the same time, has spread to all countries in the world. The speculation only increases the likelihood of the COIVD-19 being a carefully assembled biological weapon, aimed at crippling major countries in the world leaving only China as the beneficiary,” the complaint pointed out.

The complainant further claimed that the virus was developed in the Wuhan Virology Lab from where it was carefully deployed to affect a miniscule 0.001% of the Chinese population.

He said that the neighboring country deployed the coronavirus virus in a bid to control the economy of the world by buying up stocks from countries that are on the brink of economic collapse.

The Chinese government had deliberately censored information and hid the early warnings given by Dr. Li Wenliang, who was, in fact, reprimanded and initially punished by local authorities in China, he said.




EXCLUSIVE#Coronavirus Bioweapon Thread

How China Stole Coronavirus From Canada And Weaponized Ithttps://greatgameindia.com/coronavirus-bioweapon/ …







“The government also did not sufficiently contain and curb the travel of infected persons from further contaminating the world.”
GGI Impact

It complaint states that the Chinese government has meticulously planned the execution and spread of the Novel Coronavirus and the same can be inferred in the way China has taken regard of the situation as also of the curious case of the spread of the virus all over the world. As pointed earlier, it remains a mystery as to how the virus has not spread in all provinces of China but at the same time, has spread to all countries in the world.

The complaint further presents as evidence findings of GreatGameIndia‘s investigation cited by India’s national daily on how Chinese biowarfare agents stole Coronavirus from a Canadian lab and weaponized it at Wuhan Institute of Virology.


A group of Chinese scientists in Canada were accused of spying and were stripped of their access to Canada’s National Microbiology Lab, sometime in August 2019 and the said lab is known to contain some of the world‟s deadliest pathogens. These scientists then were sent to a High security biochemical Wuhan Lab, which is one of the world‟s most heavily guarded labs. That these scientists later developed the COVID-19 virus and released it to the outside world somewhere in the early days of December 2019 in Wuhan, from where the virus spread.

Further the complaint also blasts the mainstream media’s agenda for suppressing these facts being raised by prominent experts and influential personalities worldwide.


The purpose of developing such a potent and deadly virus remains a secret. However, there are solid evidences to show that the Chinese government intends to utilize the same to take control of the world’s economy. The hypothesis of biological warfare behind the global pandemic had already been raised by Russian experts some weeks ago.

Like any opinion that is slightly different from the official version of Western governments and their media agencies, the thesis was ridiculed and accused of being a “conspiracy theory”. However, as soon as the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the second largest economic power on the planet publishes a note attesting to this possibility, it leaves the sphere of “conspiracy theories” to enter the scene of public opinion and official government versions.

In addition to the Indian complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council, a $20 trillion lawsuit has also been filed against China for waging a Biological war, alleging that it unleashed the coronavirus as a bioweapon upon the world by U.S. lawyer and conservative activist, Larry Klayman, his Company Buzz Photos and his group Freedom Watch.First page of the class action lawsuit brought by Larry Klayman against China for waging a Biological War. Find the full document here Source: Freedom Watch

In the lawsuit, Klayman argued that because China had already agreed by Biological Weapons Convention treaty to outlaw such weapons c. November, 1984, these actions cannot be official governmental actions of the People’s Republic of China and therefore, China cannot claim legal immunity from the class action lawsuit.

Klayman added in a statement, “There is no reason why the American taxpayer should, contrary to the establishment in Washington, D.C., have to pay for the tremendous harm caused by the Chinese government. The Chinese people are a good people, but their government is not and it must be made to pay dearly.”

Klayman is seeking $20 trillion in damages and has called for affected Americans to sign up at his website Freedom Watch USA and become part of the class action lawsuit. The case has been filed in a Texas Federal Court.

Klayman is not the only one calling out China’s Biological Warfare activities. Chinese mishandling of the virus has attracted global criticism and numerous prominent personalities have come forward urging the international community to conduct an investigation into these serious matter and take action.

As China’s Virus Cases Reach Zero, Experts Warn of Second Wave



China will be test case for what happens after lockdown lifts

New virus won’t fade out like SARS as it’s harder to detectWe’re tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know.



China has no new infections of the coronavirus domestically for the first time since the start of a crisis that has sickened over 80,000 Chinese people. But what could be a sign the country has defeated the fatal pathogen is likely to just be a temporary reprieve.



While the outbreak’s epicenter has shifted to Europe, where there are now more cases being reported daily than at the height of China’s crisis, epidemiologists warn that the Asian giant could face subsequent waves of infections, based on patterns seen in other pandemics.




Medical staff wave goodbye to a recovered coronavirus patient at the Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan on March 16.


Photographer: AFP via Getty Images

The nature of this particular virus also raises the risk of a resurgence. The coronavirus is harder to detect and lingers longer than the one that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, which infected 8,000 people before fading out. That will make future waves of the new pandemic more difficult to prevent.




As other countries wrestle with how far to close down civic life, they’ll be watching China, where the virus first emerged last December, to see what happens when it lifts the harsh lockdowns and social distancing measures that have helped curb the its outbreak.

Spread of Coronavirus Has Slowed in Asia

Europe, U.S. seeking ways to reduce increase in infections


Sources: World Health Organization, NHC and Bloomberg reporting as of March 17, 2020 18:00 GMT

Note: WHO reporting began on Jan. 21. Chart shows only the first 30 days with more than 100 cases for each area.

There were no new cases reported Thursday in Wuhan, the city in central Chinese Hubei province from which the outbreak began. There have been no new cases in the rest of the country for seven days, a dramatic plunge from the height of an outbreak that killed more than 3,000, and caused a historic economic contraction.

China’s measures -- which included a massive quarantine of Hubei province, a region of 60 million people -- had success in interrupting transmission in the rest of the country, said David Heymann, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

“The concern is what will happen after they end these measures.”






Even if there had been many times more coronavirus cases than officially reported by the Chinese government, less than 1% of the population would have been infected in its first wave, “leaving most people in China susceptible,” said Raina MacIntyre, a biosecurity professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

“The global pandemic will not be contained until we have a vaccine, or most of the population is infected,” she said.
Imported Cases


There have been 189 cases of infection in total among travelers entering China. In Beijing, all inbound visitors must now spend 14 days after arrival in specified quarantine locations, the cost of which they must foot themselves. The Chinese capital is also likely to order flights to stop in nearby cities to test passengers before they can journey on to Beijing.

Financial hub Shanghai and manufacturing center Guangdong are also tightening restrictions.




“It’s going to keep burning. The virus is still out there,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “We expect it to leak back in from the rest of the world.”



And while China has officially stated that it believes the peak of the current outbreak is over, its top scientists are still struggling to predict how the virus will behave from here.

“No one knows whether the virus will disappear ultimately, or will it persist like flu and become prevalent intermittently, or will it be like hepatitis B that resides in people without sufficient immunity and spreads to others in that way?” said Wang Chen, the dean of Peking Union Medical College, in an interview with Xinhua on Friday.

He called for serological testing -- which identifies anti-bodies in a patient’s blood to see if they’ve been exposed to the virus -- to monitor how immunity is generated so as to understand the pathogen’s transmission patterns.
Spreads Too Easily

Beyond the challenges of stopping a pandemic in an inter-connected world with frequent travel, many researchers have already concluded that it will not be eliminated like its cousin that caused SARS.

In the early days of infection, when people have not yet developed symptoms to realize they are sick, high amounts of the virus are already present in their blood and they are transmitting it to others, said John Mackenzie, an emeritus professor of infectious diseases at Curtin University in Perth, Australia.

Early on in an infection, it’s also possible that a person could test negative even if they have the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These stealthy qualities make complete elimination difficult, if not impossible, without a vaccine -- a product that drugmakers have said will take until next year to develop.






Very different factors were at play in the SARS pandemic, where those who were infected weren’t contagious until they were visibly very sick. That’s also the case for viruses that cause Ebola and MERS.

“With SARS, there was no transmission during incubation or during the early symptomatic phase, and so control was relatively easy once we knew the transmission dynamics,” said Mackenzie.

Isolating sick patients ultimately arrested transmission, and health authorities were able to stamp out the pathogen without a vaccine or cure being developed. Ebola and MERS also do not spread easily, and most infections occurred through contact with the virus’s animal host or in hospitals when caring for infected patients.

In contrast, the pandemics that began in 1889 and 1918 -- caused by influenza viruses that had similar levels of contagiousness to the coronavirus -- had three waves of infections, with the later waves more lethal than the first.

In 1918, three waves hit in quick succession within the space of a year, with the latter two waves accounting for most of the 50 million total death toll.

While researchers do not know for sure why later waves were more deadly, a phenomenon known as “antigenic drift,” in which small, natural changes build up in a virus’s genetic make-up over time, can change the pathogen enough to make it more harmful to human beings.

“This coronavirus is more comparable to influenza,” said Ben Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at Hong Kong University, who said it might take two months for fresh cases to emerge in China. “It spreads too easily, and most parts of the world don’t have the ability like China to do containment and control to get rid of it.”
Long Road

The U.S. and European countries are focusing now on trying to “flatten” the curve -- spreading out infections over a longer time period to reduce the strain on the health system. What containment will look like in the long term depends on what we learn about the virus, said Dorit Nitzan, coordinator of health emergencies for the WHO’s European office.





She cautioned against counting on protection from herd immunity -- when the majority of a population is no longer susceptible to a virus because they’ve either been vaccinated or have already contracted it and recovered -- as there are still too many unknowns.


“It’s a new virus, and we have to learn it,” Nitzan said in a press briefing on Tuesday. It is still unclear how long patients who recover will be immune, or whether the virus will change frequently like the seasonal flu, she said.

In one of the first studies to model the dynamics of the coronavirus once the current pandemic is over, a team from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health projected that future outbreaks will probably recur in the wintertime. This finding was based on factors like seasonality, the duration of immunity and the strength of cross-immunity to and from other human coronaviruses.

With some breathing space for now, China must pivot from fighting the virus to finding a way to live with it.


“The virus is constantly growing and changing, which makes total containment impossible,” said Chan Kung, health policy analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Anbound, who advised the local government during the SARS outbreak. “The only way to go forward is to understand it, adapt to it and make sure the virus doesn’t cause dramatic outbreaks so that the existing healthcare system can handle it.”