Free Republic

A third Chinese city has locked down its residents because of a COVID-19 outbreak, raising the number confined to their homes in China to about 20 million people. The lockdown of Anyang, home to 5.5 million people, was announced late Monday after two cases of the omicron variant were reported. Residents are not allowed to go out and stores have been ordered shut except those selling necessities. Another 13 million people have been locked down in Xi’an for nearly three weeks, and 1.1 million more in Yuzhou for more than a week. It wasn’t clear how long the lockdown of...

In 2018 — nearly two years before the start of the global coronavirus pandemic — U.S. officials in China sent warnings to Washington expressing safety concerns over a Wuhan facility's research into coronaviruses in horseshoe bats, adding weight to the theory that the novel virus originated in a lab and not at a Wuhan wet market. The news broke in a report Wednesday by Josh Rogin of the Washington Post, who said that he obtained access to the first of two diplomatic cables sent from State Department officials who had visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in January and March...

A trove of newly-leaked documents detail how China bungled its handling of the pandemic’s early days — including lowballing COVID-19 data and taking weeks to diagnose new cases, according to a report on Monday. The 117 pages of internal docs obtained by CNN outline how health officials in Hubei, where the virus was first detected, were hampered by chronic underfunding, leading to gaps in staffing and testing equipment. “It was clear they did make mistakes — and not just mistakes that happen when you’re dealing with a novel virus — also bureaucratic and politically-motivated errors in how they handled it,”...

More than a dozen Chinese financial institutions, mainly trust companies, loaned 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) over the past five years to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry Inc. with pure gold as collateral and insurance policies to cover any losses. Kingold is the largest privately owned gold processor in central China's Hubei province. Its shares are listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York. The company is led by Chairman Jia Zhihong, an intimidating ex-military man who is the controlling shareholder. What could go wrong? Well, plenty, as at least some of 83 tons of gold bars used as collateral turned...

A riot erupted on March 27 on a bridge connecting China’s Jiangxi Province and the virus epicenter of Hubei, where provincial authorities had lifted lockdown measures days earlier. Footage of the incident shows residents from Hubei shouting and stomping on police cars, overturning multiple vehicles after Jiangxi police blocked them at the checkpoint on the bridge. “Go Hubei, go Hubei!” Locals shouted, according to videos posted on social media. One video filmed from a distance showed that throngs of people had filled almost the entire length of the bridge. At least five officers from the Jiangxi side were injured, according...

The city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China was, as I’m sure everyone knows by now, ground zero for the coronavirus pandemic. It was the site of the now-infamous “wet markets” where bats and other exotic animals were sold as fancy food products and was very likely the spot where the virus initially made the jump from animals to humans. It was also where the original, massive cluster of original deaths from the COVID-19 took place.But now, with there having allegedly been no new deaths in the past week (assuming you can believe anything that the...

A new report claims that the first people infected with the virus took sick more than a month before China ever admitted the virus existed, according to The Western Journal. Based on Chinese government documents to which it had access, the South China Morning Post reported that a 55-year-old in the Hubei province, which contains the city of Wuhan, contracted the disease on Nov. 17.

Residents of Hubei province, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus outbreak, resumed a more normal daily life routine as factories and other businesses reopened Wednesday, possibly offering encouragement to the U.S. and other affected nations. Health experts around the world are carefully watching the pandemic as it plays out in China, where the virus originated, for clues to how the new COVID-19 coronavirus strain works its way through a target population. At first overwhelmed by new cases and outbreaks, Chinese officials are reporting a sharply declining number of new cases in recent days. Food processors, manufacturers and other businesses essential for...

A senior researcher involved in efforts to contain the coronavirus epidemic is predicting there may be no more new cases in mainland China, except for the Hubei province epicentre, by mid-March, but the death of a patient after being discharged from hospital has added a worrying new aspect to the spread of Covid-19. The mixed news comes as the epidemic continues to spread around the world at an alarming pace, with global infections outnumbering those in mainland China and European countries reporting sharp spikes. Zhang Boli, one of 14 members on a research team working to control the epidemic, had...

Health authorities in Hubei province said Thursday that "clinically diagnosed" cases accounted for much of the increase in the "confirmed case" count, resulting in a surge in new confirmed cases for the prior day. (see 7:55 am update) The change was made so that more patients could receive the same treatment as a confirmed case would, according to a CNBC translation of the official announcement's Chinese text.

Chinese authorities have been accused of leaving people to ‘starve and die’ after shocking videos emerged of police barricading families into their homes to stop the spread of coronavirus. Footage sent to Metro.co.uk shows masked men nailing huge metal bars over the doors and windows of people feared to be infected with the deadly disease. In one, a woman can be heard screaming and pleading as uniformed officers lock her inside. A sign outside her sealed off door reads: ‘This family came back from Wuhan. Stay away, no contact’. The video is believed to have emerged from Nantong, in the...

The United Nations’ World Health Organization on Jan. 9 announced an outbreak of a new—or novel—coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China. In the three weeks since the announcement, the virus has intensified in China, infecting thousands there and is now spreading across the globe, far beyond its origin in Hubei province. Indeed, this new coronavirus has taken nearly 200 lives in China. As Chinese public health officials strive to contain the virus, it’s important to identify three early lessons that can be drawn from the outbreak and the initial response to it to prevent this Chinese epidemic—and others that will undoubtedly...

10 Strange Archaeological Finds Straight Out Of A Horror Story Scattered under the ground beneath our feet are the remains of history. There are little pieces of the lives of people who lived before us that give us little glimpses into who they were—the things they held dear, the homes they lived in, and the bones of their decaying bodies. But life thousands of years ago wasn’t always gentle and easy. Sometimes, when these remains are uncovered, the stories they reveal are brutal and violent—and sometimes, they’re pulled straight out of a horror story. 10 A Pit Of Amputated Arms10b-amputated-arm-bones-from-pit...

VideoHubei, China - Chinese scientists have discovered a fossil that they claim is the earliest known ancestor of humans. The find has challenged the long-held belief that apes began their evolution in Africa. The Archicebus Achilles was discovered in 2002 on a lake bed in China's Hubei province, but took more than 10 years of analysis for scientists to declare it as the world's oldest known primate fossil. The scientists contend that the 55-million-year-old fossil, which looks a bit like a mouse with monkey-like feet, is the world's oldest known ape-like creature. "Now after we discovered this fossil, we can...

Eighth bird flu outbreak in China   China has conducted mass culls of birds in a bid to stem the virus China has confirmed a fresh outbreak of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu - the country's eighth within a month. The latest cases are in Jingshan county in Hubei province, indicating that the virus appears to be spreading. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao warned this week that the country was facing a "very serious situation". Four suspected human cases of the virus are being investigated, but so far there have been no confirmed human infections in China. Bird...

China working to contain bird flu, foot-and-mouth disease Fri May 27, 1:22 PM ET BEIJING (AFP) - China was battling two separate disease outbreaks after more than 1,000 migratory birds died from bird flu and thousands of cattle were culled following a foot-and-mouth outbreak. The number of birds found dead from the H5N1 strain of avian flu is far higher than previously acknowledged. "Up to May 26 a total of over 1,000 birds have been found dead, including bar-headed geese, great black-headed gulls and cormorants," Jia Youling, director of the Ministry of Agriculture's veterinary bureau, said Friday at a press...