泰晤士(TIMES)四合院儿

QHE wrote:

我们相信 "相信”，一切都是新的。（Photo Source:Tamebay）

2020年2月1日的北京王府井商業街（中新社）

In Beijing, China, subway passengers are being screened en masse for symptoms of coronavirus —
but not by health authorities.

Instead, artificial intelligence is in charge.
…

Artificial intelligence and security camera companies boast that their systems can scan the streets for people with even low-grade fevers, recognize their faces even if they are wearing masks and report them to the authorities.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Telecoms companies have long quietly tracked the movements of their users. China Mobile promoted this as a service this week, sending text messages to Beijing residents telling them they can check where they have been over the past 30 days. It did not explain why users might need this, but it could be useful if they are questioned by the authorities or their employers about their travel.

“In the era of big data and internet, the flow of each person can be clearly seen. So we are different from the SARS time now,” epidemiologist Li Lanjuan said in an interview with China’s state broadcaster CCTV last week, comparing the outbreak to a virus that killed 800 people in 2003.

“With such new technologies, we should make full use of them to find the source of infection and contain the source of infection.”

前日从新闻中得知，北京地铁将要应用人脸识别技术，来对乘客实施分类安检，理由是提高乘客的通行效率。

读到这个新闻，我的第一反应是，疯了吧。幸好，昨日看到光明网评论员的文章《别把人脸别技术搞成现代“刺黥”》，心有戚戚焉。不然，看舆论如此之悄然，似乎没多少人关注此事，我要怀疑是不是自己疯了。

对安保的无节制投入，究竟是要防谁，要保护谁，我是越来越困惑了。我原本以为，自己应该是被保护的对象，但在这样的连番举措之下，我分明感到，自己就是被防控的对象。作为一名合法公民，自己平时遵纪守法，没有违法犯罪的前科，工作比较敬业，也能与人和睦相处。不知道为什么要这样防着我？
http://www.sohu.com/a/362157335_404494

BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has written back to Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, after receiving a letter from the US business leader on the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

In his letter dated Feb 20, the Chinese president wrote: "I deeply appreciate the act of generosity of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and your letter of solidarity to the Chinese people at such an important moment."

Gates said in his letter on Feb 6 that his foundation has committed up to $100 million in emergency funding, much of which will help China bolster epidemiological research, emergency intervention, and the research and development of drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics.

"Since the outbreak began, I have called for confidence, unity, science-based approach and targeted response as guidelines for China's epidemic control efforts," Xi wrote in the letter. . . .

Full text of Chinese President Xi's letter to Bill Gates
http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0222/c90000-9660661.html

wherestip wrote:

The movie stars quite a few Hollywood heavyweights: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lawrence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle ...

ysun wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8LafV1F75U

此片中的CDC主任说，“人类从历史中学到的唯一教训就是人类无法从历史中学到任何教训！”

Scientists around the world are scrambling to develop a vaccine to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, but the best candidate might be an experimental one stored in a Houston freezer.

The vaccine, developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers, effectively protected mice against SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, the pneumonia-causing virus from the same family that spread in the early 2000s. The vaccine never progressed to human testing because manufacturing of it wasn’t completed until 2016, long after SARS had burned out.

“It generated zero interest from pharmaceutical companies,” said Peter Hotez, a Baylor vaccine researcher and infectious disease specialist. “Because the virus was no longer circulating, their response was essentially, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ ”


Hotez thinks the vaccine-in-storage can provide cross-protection against the new coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19, whose spread through China and, increasingly, to other countries has the world on edge. The virus, first detected in Wuhan, China, has now infected more than 75,000 people and killed more than 2,200, more than the 774 deaths from SARS. Although the bulk of the cases and deaths have occurred in China, COVID-19 now has been confirmed in 28 countries, the U.S. among them.

The 34 cases in the United States — 21 repatriated individuals and 13 travelers who fell ill after returning — include three in Texas, an American citizen who was part of a group evacuated from China on a State Department-chartered flight, and two citizens on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. All three were taken to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

The Baylor-UTMB vaccine looks promising for COVID-19 because the virus so resembles SARS — Hotez calls it SARS-2 — which circulated between November 2002 and July 2003, mostly in mainland China and Hong Kong but also in Toronto, whose economy was so badly wrought by the outbreak that it needed a boost from a benefit concert featuring the Rolling Stones, Justin Timberlake and others to help shake the effects.

COVID-19 shares 82 percent of its genes with SARS and infects people through the same cell receptor, one of the “spike-like” proteins that stud the surface of coronaviruses and gives the family their name. The viruses originally jump from animals to people.

...

QHE wrote:


“好像历史重演”

双黄连——“抗冠新药”
中国武汉病毒研究所的发布让难以计数的人“行动起来”，可能要归因双黄连。
1月31日，中科院发布，中科院上海药物研究所、武汉病毒研究所联合研究初步发现，中成药双黄连口服液可抑制新型冠状病毒。
这一发布经包括《人民日报》在内的诸多媒体高调报道，在大陆直接引发抢购潮，不少地方的双黄连线上线下瞬间断货。
在中国社交媒体上被有些网民称为“抗击新冠肺炎的双黄连之母” 的武汉病毒研究所所长王延轶瞬间成为风云人物。但是，收获点赞的同时也遭遇人肉搜索，资历、背景被起底。
虽然中科院在发布消息的同时明确指出，双黄连口服液将“开展临床研究”，但是，武汉病毒研究所和上海药物研究所仍被指急功近利，“没有任何证据就发布双黄连可抑制新型病毒”。

QHE wrote:

Dr Bruce Aylward:
“So to break the monopoly of my voice, maybe I can show you a picture to try and illustrate this.
So this is the epidemic curve of the outbreak in China. This is not the work of the WHO,
this is the work of the Chinese CDC. First let me give credit to the great people who did this.”
https://youtu.be/71GLQRj2Rls?t=2921

wherestip wrote: Error in Interpretation

I skipped to where you bookmarked the video clip and listened to a bit of it though. Around 31:40, Dr. Aylward mentioned that some of his Chinese colleagues were so overworked and exhausted they would collapse and doze off for 30 seconds every chance they got. The Chinese translation came out all wrong.