Viral

Viral
Author: Matt Ridley
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2022-06-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0063273608

"Chan and Ridley write with an urgency...that inspires gripping depictions of what viruses are, how infectious-disease laboratories work and wonderfully lucid descriptions of bats. . . . They powerfully recount how dangerous pathogens can both leak from a lab and emerge in nature." (New York Times Book Review) Understanding how Covid-19 started is crucial for the future of humankind. Viral is the most incisive and authoritative book about the search for the source of the virus. A new virus descended on the human species in 2019 wreaking unprecedented havoc. Finding out where it came from and how it first jumped into people is an urgent priority, but early expectations that this would prove an easy question to answer have been dashed. Nearly two years into the pandemic, the crucial mystery of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not only unresolved but has deepened. In this uniquely insightful book, a scientist and a writer join forces to try to get to the bottom of how a virus whose closest relations live in bats in subtropical southern China somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometres away in the city of Wuhan. They grapple with the baffling fact that the virus left none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create: no infected market animals or wildlife, no chains of early cases in travellers to the city, no smouldering epidemic in a rural area, no rapid adaptation of the virus to its new host—human beings. To try to solve this pressing mystery, Viral delves deep into the events of 2019 leading up to 2021, the details of what went on in animal markets and virology laboratories, the records and data hidden from sight within archived Chinese theses and websites, and the clues that can be coaxed from the very text of the virus’s own genetic code. The result is a gripping detective story that takes the reader deeper and deeper into a metaphorical cave of mystery. One by one the authors explore promising tunnels only to show that they are blind alleys, until, miles beneath the surface, they find themselves tantalisingly close to a shaft that leads to the light.

Where COVID Came From

Where COVID Came From
Author: Nicholas Wade
Publisher: Encounter Books
Total Pages: 27
Release: 2021-08-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1641772344

Did the Covid virus jump naturally from an animal species to humans, or did it escape from a laboratory experiment? In this essay, science writer Nicholas Wade explores the two scenarios and argues that, on present evidence, lab escape is the more likely explanation. His inference is based on specific research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Institute’s lack of adequate safety precautions, together with the continuing absence of any direct evidence to support natural emergence. The essay discusses the failure of the mainstream media to penetrate the self-interested assurance of virologists that lab escape was a dismissible conspiracy theory. It also notes how the politicization of discussion impeded consideration of the scientific facts.

The Origin of the Virus

The Origin of the Virus
Author: Paolo Barnard
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-09-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9781854571069

Ground-breaking, evidence-based book asks how many lives were lost because of Chinas negligence about lab-leaked SARS-CoV-2. In a disturbing reconstruction of events by two of the most reputable scientists in the world, a new book reveals for the first time how Chinese authorities and elite Wuhan scientists knew about SARS-CoV-2s menacing biological features from the start but remain silent to this day. In The Origin of the Virus (Clinical Press) Dr Steven Quay and Prof Angus Dalgleish, working with Italian reporter Paolo Barnard, show how China engaged in lies, omissions and obfuscations to cover up the laboratory origin of the virus. Had they immediately alerted the international community and policymakers of the extremely pathogenic molecular machinery present in SARS-CoV-2's genome, very large numbers of lives may have been spared, argue Quay, Dalgleish and Barnard. The authors provide a shocking account of the extreme experiments that led to the outbreak of the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish influenza. They broaden the censure to explain why some American and British scientists thwarted a proper investigation of the origin of COVID-19. Despite its impeccable scientific grounding the book is both a readable and gripping account that, for the first time, allows the public to partake in what lies at the heart of the many scandals surrounding the birth of the most deadly virus in modern times.

Made in China

Made in China
Author: Jasper Becker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2021-12-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1787386120

What might COVID-19 mean for, and reveal about, China's place in the world? The coronavirus pandemic started in Wuhan, home to the leading lab studying the SARS virus and bats. Was that pure coincidence? This book explores what we know, and still don't know, about the origins of COVID-19, and how it was handled in China. We may never get all the answers, but much is already clear: China's record as the origin of earlier pandemics, and its struggle to bring contagious diseases under control; its history as both a victim of biological warfare and a developer of deadly bioweapons. When Covid broke out, Wuhan was building science parks to realise Beijing's ambitions in biotech research. Whoever achieves global leadership of the gene-editing industry stands to harvest great power and wealth. China has already challenged Western technological supremacy with 5G and in other industries. Yet this tiny, invisible virus has cruelly exposed a critical flaw in the Chinese political system: obsessive secrecy. The West wanted to trust the PRC, hoping that, as it prospered, it would become an open society. Made in China reveals how Beijing's leaders have betrayed that trust.

What Really Happened In Wuhan

What Really Happened In Wuhan
Author: Sharri Markson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2021-10-01
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1460714024

Walkley Award-winning journalist, Sharri Markson is the Investigations Editor at The Australian and host of prime-time show Sharri on Sky News Australia. The origins of Covid-19 are shrouded in mystery. Scientists and government officials insisted, for a year and a half, that the virus had a natural origin, ridiculing anyone who dared contradict this view. Tech giants swept the internet, censoring and silencing debate in the most extreme fashion. Yet it is undeniable that a secretive facility in Wuhan was immersed in genetically manipulating bat-coronaviruses in perilous experiments. And as soon as the news of an outbreak in Wuhan leaked, the Chinese military took control and gagged all laboratory insiders. Part-thriller, part-expose, What Really Happened in Wuhan is a ground-breaking investigation from leading journalist Sharri Markson into the origins of Covid-19, the cover-ups, the conspiracies and the classified research. It features never-before-seen primary documents exposing China's concealment of the virus, fresh interviews with whistleblower doctors in Wuhan and crucial eyewitness accounts that dismantle what we thought we knew about when the outbreak hit. With unprecedented access to Washington insiders, Markson takes you inside the White House, with senior Trump lieutenants revealing first-hand accounts of fiery Oval Office clashes and new stories of compromised government advisors and censored scientists. Bravely reported and chillingly laid out, Markson brings to light the stories of the pandemic from the people on the ground: the scientists and national security officials who raised uncomfortable truths and were labelled conspiracy theorists, until government agencies began to suspect they might have been right all along. These brave individuals persisted through bruising battles and played a crucial role in investigating the origins of Covid-19 to finally, in this book, bring us closer to the truth of what really happened in Wuhan.

Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19

Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19
Author: Alina Chan
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2021-11-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0008487510

Understanding how Covid-19 started is more important than we know for the future of humankind. Determining whether the virus came from nature or from a lab will help us to safeguard against the next pandemic.

Summary of Alina Chan and Matt Ridley’s Viral

Summary of Alina Chan and Matt Ridley’s Viral
Author: Milkyway Media
Publisher: Milkyway Media
Total Pages:
Release: 2022-01-12
Genre: Study Aids
ISBN:

Buy now to get the main key ideas from Alina Chan and Matt Ridley’s Viral Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 (2021) explores the possible origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-authors Alina Chan and Matt Ridley examine both the lab leak and natural origin theories while making clear that more research is needed to prevent such occurrences from happening again. They provide a transparent and comprehensive account of the events that have taken place during the world's search for the origins of COVID-19. Did SARS-Cov-2 accidentally leak from a lab in Wuhan, China? Did a natural spillover transmit the virus from animals to humans? The natural origin theory has been the default assumption thus far, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the truth.

Don't Tell the Boss!

Don't Tell the Boss!
Author: Dmitry Chernov
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2023-01-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3031052064

After a major disaster, when investigators are piecing together the story of what happened, a striking fact often emerges: before disaster struck, some people in the organization involved were aware of dangerous conditions that had the potential to escalate to a critical level. But for a variety of reasons, this crucial information did not reach decision-makers. So, the organization moved ever closer to catastrophe, effectively unaware of the possible threat—despite the fact that some of its employees could see it coming. What is the problem with communication about risk in an organization, and why does this problem exist? What stops people in organizations or project teams from freely reporting and discussing critical risks? This book seeks to answer these questions, starting from a deep analysis of 20 disasters where the concealment of risks played a major part. These case studies are drawn from around the world and span a range of industries: civil nuclear power, coal, oil and gas production, hydropower energy, metals and mining, space exploration, transport, finance, retail manufacturing and even the response of governments to wars, famines and epidemics. Together, case studies give an insight into why people hesitate to report risks—and even when they do, why their superiors often prefer to ignore the news. The book reviews existing research on the challenges of voice and silence in organizations. This helps to explain more generally why people dread passing on bad news to others—and why in the workplace they prefer to keep quiet about unpleasant facts or potential risks when they are talking to superiors and colleagues. The discussion section of the book includes important examples of concealment within the Chinese state hierarchy as well as by leading epidemiologists and governments in the West during the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan in 2019-2020. The full picture of the very early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unclear, and further research is obviously needed to better understand what motivated some municipal, provincial and national officials in China as well as Western counterparts to obfuscate facts in their internal communications about many issues associated with the outbreak.

Deception

Deception
Author: Rand Paul
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2023-10-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1684515149

Senator Rand Paul was on to Anthony Fauci from the start. Wielding previously unimaginable power, Fauci misled the country about the origins of the Covid pandemic and shut down scientific dissent. One of the few leaders who dared to challenge "America’s Doctor" was Senator Rand Paul, himself a physician. Deception is his indictment of the catastrophic failures of the public health bureaucracy during the pandemic. Senator Paul presents the evidence that: The Covid virus was likely the product of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab in China—research funded in part by the U.S. government. Taxpayer dollars for that research were deceptively funneled to Wuhan without the required regulatory review. Fauci and his scientific yes-men knew from day one about Covid’s origin and tried to cover it up. Fauci and his allies ruthlessly attacked everyone—including highly qualified scientists—who threatened to reveal the truth about the pandemic. Why? Hundreds of millions of dollars of grants and unreported royalties were at stake, and heads would roll if the truth got out. It almost worked. At Fauci’s insistence, the government imposed needlessly extreme lockdowns on Americans at the cost of immense personal and economic destruction. Covid-19 was deadly, but the real killer was the coverup, led by America’s most durable medical bureaucrat—a man for whom the truth was too often expendable. Senator Paul makes a powerful case that funding dangerous bioengineering in a totalitarian country is madness. If we don’t heed this warning, the next pandemic could be far worse.

The Infodemic

The Infodemic
Author: Gabriele Cosentino
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2023-03-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0755640756

What caused the Covid-19 pandemic, a natural spillover event or an accident in a Wuhan laboratory? Were the mitigation measures imposed by many governments - such as lockdowns and mask-wearing mandates - based on scientific evidence, or rather aimed at curtailing civil liberties and disrupting economic activities, under the secret maneuvering of a global cabal of politicians and financiers? And were Covid-19 vaccines effective in curbing the spread of the disease, or were they just a profitable scheme by big pharmaceutical companies? These questions and speculations, some legitimate, some dubious, have been swirling around the globe through social media, alternative information outlets, instant messaging apps, and mainstream media since the beginning of the pandemic, feeding the 'infodemic' - an overwhelming surge of information, misinformation, rumours and conspiracy theories which continue to linger in public and private discourse. With an original take on concepts and theories drawn from post-truth and disinformation studies, the book analyses the 'infodemic' through a series of global case studies. Framing the infodemic as a complex, multi-layered phenomenon with vast geopolitical implications, Gabriele Cosentino reveals the global competition for control in twenty-first century geopolitics between Western liberal democracies and non-Western autocracies, and above all between the United States and China.