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For Immediate Release: April 24, 2020

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a letter to Bayer outlining conditions for submitting additional postmarket information to the agency about Essurea permanent birth control device Bayer sold in the U.S. until 2018. The letter applies to reportable adverse events Bayer is or becomes aware of from social media information received in relation to ongoing litigation regarding Essure.

Because of the anticipated volume and nature of this information, the FDA granted Bayers request for a variance from some medical device reporting requirements but imposed conditions for reporting to ensure protection of the public health. Under the conditions, Bayer is required to start providing reportable adverse events to the FDA in July 2020 and continue submitting additional reportable events identified through review of the information on a monthly basis. The FDA will make these events publicly available on its Problems Reported with Essure webpage. The conditions the FDA developed for this particular variance also require Bayer to submit summaries of the reportable events that include information such as the type of event (death, serious injury or malfunction), a description of the reported patient events or device problems, and patient demographics. These summaries will be accessible through the FDAs Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database. The FDA continues to require that Bayer submit Essure-associated reportable events, outside of the events specifically covered in this variance, in accordance with current medical device reporting requirements.

This variance will expire after one year, unless the FDA grants an extension, at which time, Bayer will be required to follow the regular adverse event reporting requirements for all Essure-associated reportable events.

Even though the device is no longer being manufactured or distributed, and hasnt for some time, the FDA continues its engagement with Bayer on postmarket safety monitoring of Essure, said Terri L. Cornelison, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDAs Health of Women Program in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Bayer alerted us to the social media information it received in connection with litigation. We are committed to ensuring that all reportable adverse events identified from this information are submitted to the agency and that they are made publicly available.

In addition to providing summary information that will be available in MAUDE, Bayer is required to provide quarterly and final analysis reports evaluating the events reported under the variance and how the information compares to other medical device reports (MDRs) for Essure. Bayer will make each analysis report publicly available.

Today, the FDA is also updating the Problems Reported with Essure web page to include updated information on the MDRs the agency has received on the device since its approval. This update includes MDRs received in 2019. While the number of MDRs received in 2019 is the largest received for a single year, due to the continued volume of reports citing litigation and using terms related to device removal, the source and nature of the reports are consistent with recent years.

In addition, Bayer has reported to the agency that all unused Essure devices of which Bayer is aware have been returned to the company, and there should be no devices available for implantation in the U.S. Bayer voluntarily stopped selling and distributing Essure in the U.S. on December 31, 2018. In 2019, the agency reminded health care professionals and facilities to return unused Essure devices to Bayer by the end of that year.

Bayer has also submitted the most recent postmarket (522) study report for Essure to the FDA. The FDA will post the interim study results once its review of the data is completed. The FDA believes clinical data from the study will help patients, health care providers and the agency to better understand certain complications that women who have Essure permanent birth control may experience when compared to women who undergo tubal ligation. Findings from the study may serve to inform future FDA actions.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nations food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

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04/24/2020

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FDA Provides Updates on Adverse Event Reports and Postmarket Activities Associated with Essure - FDA.gov

The plague that broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December has now spread to the four corners of the earth, and its coming ravages can only be glimpsed in the limited forecasting capacities of epidemiology. Its a science that relies on predictive analytics and models that can be skewed by any number of confounding variables, so theres little certainty about whats in store for us all.

As the geopolitical upheavals set off by the pandemic shudder with a force without precedent since the Second World War, some things, however, are clear and plain. Chinas most draconian lockdowns have been lifted. Beijing is claiming victory over the plague. And the Chinese Communist Party is seizing what its senior officials are calling the opportunity of the pandemic to realize the partys long-game objective of fully eclipsing North America and Europe in the global order.

Battered by the worst first-quarter economic performance since 1976, the Chinese economy is now being shifted into hyperdrive. Production is already back on track to achieve Beijings goal of making 2020 the year the countrys annual Gross Domestic Product doubles in size from 2010 to $13.1 trillion. But Beijing isnt just doubling down on its usual methods, which involve constraining access to Chinas growing markets while securing technological and global supply-chain dominance in critical trade sectors, and otherwise resorting to crude foreign-policy strong-arm tactics to get its way.

READ:China kidnapped two Canadians. What will it take to free them?

Whats new is that the Chinese state is committing vast resources to a hybrid strategy of intensified propaganda and information control in lockstep with an aggressive Russian-style disinformation effort. Aimed almost entirely at western audiences, the effort takes its cues from several Kremlin-backed operations, most obviously the barrage of fabricated news unleashed on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

Experts in the field say Beijing isnt just selling a narrative anymore. The new strategy is intended to spread chaos and confusion and incite mistrust of governments in democratic countries. According to an analysis undertaken by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Beijing is adopting increasingly aggressive tactics and techniques and rapidly ramping up its messaging on social media platforms, often cross-pollinating with Russian and Iranian disinformation efforts and amplifying conspiracy theories from fringe third-party websites.

Chinas more confrontational posture on COVID-19 represents a clear departure from its past behavior, the ASD analysis concludes. We have been able to see, in near-real time, Chinese state-backed media and government interlocutors borrowing a page from the Russian playbook in an attempt to influence global public opinion.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is the breakthrough Xi Jinping, Chinas all-powerful paramount leader, has been waiting for. And hes making his move.

While the Chinese governments internal statistics are routinely questioned by outside analysts, Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology credibly reports that roughly 75 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses across the country have already resumed production. According to MIIT deputy minister Xin Guobin, even Hubei province, which had been hit hardest by the COVID-19 outbreak, is already back up and running. Roughly 95 percent of companies with annual industrial revenues of at least $4 million have resumed production.

Meanwhile, most of the worlds advanced economies are being sequestered in a state of suspended animation that is expected to last at least several months, or until a vaccine for the COVID-19 disease is developed, which is expected to take at least a year.

READ:Coronavirus in China: My travels through a land in lockdown

The worlds liberal democracies are scrambling to plank the curvea necessary public-health strategy to flatten and drive down the rate of infections so that hospitals are not overwhelmed to the point of collapse. In order to enforce and maintain the social and physical isolation the curve-planking strategy requires, most western governments are devoting hitherto unimaginable resources to the building of economic life-support systems.

The House of Commons has authorized $107 billion in emergency aid and economic stimulus, and cabinet has been granted the authority to borrow up to $350 billion to cope with the pandemic. The White House signed off on a US$2 trillion relief bill. France has committed 350 billion ($547 billion) in direct relief, tax refunds and bank loan guarantees. The United Kingdoms bailouts, wage guarantees and tax deferrals rack up to 458 billion ($812 billion).

According to an analysis by Horizon Advisory, a consultancy that investigates Chinese policy on behalf of corporations, investors and government agencies in the U.S., Chinas central planners are taking every advantage of the democratic worlds predicament. Beijing intends to use the global dislocation and downturn to attract foreign investment, to seize strategic market share and resourcesespecially those that force dependence, and to proliferate global information systems, the Horizon Advisory analysts conclude.

Beijing used the opening presented by the 2008 economic downturn to reach parity; to position itself as an alternative world leader. In COVID-19, Beijing sees the chance to win.

With a GDP still at least 25 percent larger than Chinas, the United States is still the worlds preeminent superpower, but the COVID-19 crisis accelerates the process that Beijing has put in place to overtake the U.S.it will allow China to claim market share across the globe and across strategic sectors as the rest of the world shuts down.

A key focus of Beijings strategy for global dominance is an information technology infrastructure that is already being exported around the world, mostly through Huawei Technologies, Chinas national champion telecom giant.

So far the Five Eyes security partnership of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada has mostly resisted Beijings moves to assert dominance in fifth-generation (5G) technology infrastructure. But just barely. The U.S., Australia and New Zealand have barred Huawei from their 5G internet connectivity systems and the U.K. has tentatively decided to allow Huawei to take up only a third of its 5G outer edges. But Canada remains paralyzed.

READ:Criticism of the Chinese governments handling of coronavirus is not racism

A decision was supposed to be forthcoming from Ottawa before the last federal election. But Beijings hostage-diplomacy imprisonment of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, to punish Canada for acting on a U.S. extradition warrant and detaining Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, has left Ottawa fearful of Beijings wrath.

And now, Beijing is planning an end-run around the Five Eyes alliance altogether.

Chinas Communist Party leadership and Huawei have teamed up to effectively take over the architecture of the global internet with a proposal to the International Telecommunications Union, one of four major UN agencies that China now controls. Backed by Russia, and with support anticipated from several African countries that have benefited from Huaweis largesse, the Huawei plan is co-sponsored by two of Chinas state-owned telecom corporations and Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The proposed new system would be more centralized, top-down and readily controlled by authoritarian UN member states, according to an analysis prepared for NATO by the cyber security company Oxford Information Labs. Obtained by the Financial Times, the analysis warns that the Huawei plan poses grave threats to national security and raises human-rights implications for all internet users. Beijing hopes to push the restructuring through at the ITU, currently headed up by Chinese telecommunications engineer Houlin Zhao, by November.

In the meantime, Beijing is relying on its multi-pronged, multimedia propaganda and disinformation campaign to achieve two immediate purposes. The first is to dismiss, deny and deflect away from the irrefutable evidence of the Communist Partys catastrophic mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. The second is to portray China, in contrast to Donald Trumps divided and dysfunctional United States, as the worlds saviour, rushing to the rescue of plague-afflicted countries with expertise, money and medical equipment.

It has been widely reported that on March 12, Zhao Lijian, a senior spokesperson for Chinas foreign ministry, began circulating an insinuation that the U.S. military somehow smuggled the coronavirus into Wuhan. In subsequent posts, Zhao directed his Twitter followers to Montreals Centre for Research on Globalizationa crank website notorious for trafficking in outlandish anti-imperialist conspiracy theorieswhich had been circulating the claim. The ministrys senior spokesperson, Hua Chunying, followed suit, as did several Chinese news organizations and diplomats.

But less widely noticed is the origin of President Trumps scandalously reckless claim during a February 26 press briefing that COVID-19 is comparable to the common flu, and well essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. This is the deadliest piece of disinformation about the coronavirus in circulation. It was given its earliest boost on February 3 at a formal press briefing in Beijing convened by the Chinese foreign ministrys Hua Chunying.

Hua made the claim that day in the course of praising Canada for allowing flights from China to continue arriving at Canadian airports. Hua singled out Health Minister Patty Hajdu for breaking with the U.S., which had shut down air traffic from China the day before, as had several other countries. Canada believes the ban of entry has no basis, which is a sharp contrast to the U.S. behaviours, Hua said, citing statistics intended to illustrate that the U.S. flu was far more lethal than COVID-19.

Trump repeated what might have been the single most devastating piece of disinformation on coronavirus: that it is comparable to the common flu (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

On Feb. 6, Hua continued to downplay the presence of a lethal virus in Wuhan, claiming that the current pneumonia outbreak in China was nowhere near as serious as the seasonal influenza in the U.S., and that travel bans were unnecessary, and opposed by the World Health Organization. The travel bans had sowed panic among the public and gravely disrupted normal personnel exchanges, international cooperation and order of the international market of air transportation.

It was in these first two weeks of Februarywhen China was still circulating disinformation to the effect that COVID-19 was comparable to the seasonal fluthat Canada dug in its heels, insisting that there was no cause to stop incoming fights from China. For being so agreeable, Health Minister Patty Hajdu and Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne were treated to a flurry of flattering commentary in the Chinese state media and in Beijings official foreign ministry statements.

The role of the World Health Organization in recirculating Beijings self-exculpating propaganda has come under particular scrutiny. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has lavished praise on Beijings handling of the outbreak, going out of his way to support Xi Jinpings insistence that any precautionary travel restrictions would be an unacceptable encumbrance to Chinas economy. John Mackenzie, a member of the WHOs emergency committee, has called Chinas conductits delays, its suppression of datareprehensible.

The WHOs disinformation deference to Beijing went to such absurd extremes that its own official guidance against resorting to traditional herbal remedies to treat COVID-19 was quietly ditched to assuage Xi Jinping, who had been instructing Chinese health officials to speed up tests of drugs that combine Chinese traditional herbal medicine with western medicine. The Chinese version of the WHOs list of ineffective remedies was amended to cut references to traditional medicine, while the English version remained intact and later, reference to traditional medicine was struck from the English list as well. An online petition calling on Tedros to resign has gathered 702,498 signatures.

Canada also went to some extremes. In a Xinhua news service account of his February 14 meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference, Champagne is quoted as saying that Canada would stand firmly with the Chinese people in the fight against the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, and this: Unlike some other countries, Canada has never stopped normal exchanges with China and opposes any discriminatory practice.

RELATED:Beijings credibility deficit makes the coronavirus crisis much worse

In return, Wang Yi praised Canadas rational, calm and scientific attitude and promised better days to come in the fractured Canada-China diplomatic relationship. China is willing to take this opportunity to enhance communication with the Canadian side and jointly solve existing bilateral problems so as to bring China-Canada relations and cooperation in various fields back onto the track for sound and stable development at an early date, Wang pledged.

Early on, Champagne was upbeat about Beijings polite tone. There was some healthy diplomacy in play, Champagne said. Canada was raising the matter of Kovrig and Spavor, and China was raising the business about Meng Wanzhou. At least it allows us to talk more often.

Nothing has come of it. Canada had served Beijings propaganda purposes. Canada attempted to impose effective screening measures at Canadas airports, but they consisted mostly of requesting voluntary declarations from travellers about where they were coming from and how they were feeling, and having Canadian Border Services Agency keep an eye out for anyone who looked ill. Canada did not join 80 other countries in banning travel from China until a blanket ban on almost all foreign arrivals was imposed March 16.

But while Champagne and Wang were exchanging pleasantries, a massive new propaganda machine involving at least 10,000 Twitter accounts kicked into gear. Most of them are fake. Many of them are hacked accounts. All of them have ties to the Chinese government. And all of them are devoted to spreading the word about Beijings gallant struggle with the coronavirus, and Beijings generosity and solidarity with all those countries that had been waiting in vain for leadership from Trumps America.

The machine was brought to light last week in a lengthy investigation undertaken by the independent American journalists consortium ProPublica. The machine had been assembled last year to do Beijings propaganda bidding during the mass uprising in Hong Kong, but on January 29, the network shifted its focus to propaganda and disinformation about COVID-19.

It was the Wall Street Journal that first reported the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. That was January 7, two days before Chinese authorities publicly confirmed it. An estimated five million people left Wuhan after the virus first appeared in December, and before Wuhan was locked down January 23.

China revoked the press credentials of three Wall Street Journal reporters on February 19, on the pretext that the Communist Party leadership had taken offence at an opinion essay the newspaper had published. A month later, Beijing announced that it was revoking the credentials of journalists with the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Timesthe largest expulsion of foreign journalists since the days of Mao Zedong. The pretext was the Trump administrations payroll cap on four Chinese state-owned media platforms in the U.S., reducing their staff from 160 to 100.

RELATED:When will the Chinese government be held accountable for the spread of coronavirus

The Chinese Human Rights Defenders Organization has documented 452 cases of citizen journalists punished for spreading rumours about the coronavirus. The CHRD reports that by February 21, the feared Ministry of Public Security had handled 5,511 cases involving fabricating and deliberately disseminating false and harmful information.

During an hour-long interview on the program Fox & Friends on Monday, President Trump said he wasnt at all worried about the Chinese, Russian and Iranian disinformation circulating in the United States. Every country does it. They do it, and we do it. And we call them different things. . . Hey, every country does it.

Ottawa doesnt seem to worry much, either. The job of paying attention to online disinformation in the Canadian context falls to Dominic LeBlanc, president of the Privy Council. LeBlanc is supposed to be working with Bardish Chagger, Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, to keep an eye on things. The file is apparently dormant.

Canadians are now moving through a wholly unfamiliar landscape. We may be stumbling headlong into an uncharted realm of social breakdown and mass graves. We could be destined for something else, somewhere dark and foreboding, where Xi Jinping calls all the shots. Or we might be traversing an excruciating social and economic terra incognita towards some eventual semblance of normalcy.

The models the epidemiologists look at cant tell us.

We just dont know.

Read more:
The coronavirus pandemic is the breakthrough Xi Jinping has been waiting for - Maclean's

John Tufts, San Angelo Standard-Times Published 7:20 p.m. CT April 24, 2020

Mark Pilon sprays disinfectant on a bus in the Concho Valley Transit fleet on Wednesday, March 18, 2020 as an enhanced measure against the coronavirus.(Photo: Colin Murphey / San Angelo Standard-Times)

Governor Greg Abbott announced April 17the Texas economy would reopen in stagesafter weeks of being shut down due to the coronavirus.

"Some businesses, if fully open without better distancing standards, would be more likely to set us back, rather than propel us forward," Abbott said April 17. "A more strategic approach is required to ensure we don't reopen only to have to shut down again."

On April 24, 2020, stores in the state will be allowed to reopen usinga "retail to-go" model, Abbott said. Reopened retailers willdeliver goods to customers' cars or homes, but customerswill not be able to go inside the stores.

Abbott said additional openings will be announced April 27after further input from advisers and medical professionals.

While Texas residents wait for officials to bring the state's economy fully back to life, the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) continues to maintain an online list of essential services.

The list TDEM uses is based off recommendations by the Department of Homeland Security under 17 categories, which are:

On March 28, 2020, officials with the the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA),in collaboration with other federal, State and local governments, as well as the private sector, developedan Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce advisory list.

CISA Director Christopher C. Krebs said the list is advisory in nature.

"It is not, nor should it be considered, a federal directive or standard. Additionally, this advisory list is not intended to be the exclusive list of critical infrastructure sectors, workers, and functions that should continue during the COVID-19 response across all jurisdictions," Krebs stated.

Officials said local jurisdictions should add or subtract essential workforce categories based on their own requirements and discretion.

Electricity Industry

Petroleum Industry

Natural Gas, Natural Gas Liquids (NGL), Propane, and Other Liquid Fuels

Communications

Information Technology

More: OPINION: Texas leaders pen letter demanding expansion of Medicaid amid COVID-19 pandemic

John Tufts covers enterprise and investigative topics in West Texas. Send him a news tip atJTufts@Gannett.com. Consider supporting West Texas journalism with asubscription toGoSanAngelo.com.

Read or Share this story: https://www.gosanangelo.com/story/news/2020/04/24/essential-worker-texas-check-list-critical-jobs-critical-infrastructure-workforce/3012617001/

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Are you an essential worker in Texas? Check out this list of critical infrastructure jobs - Standard-Times

Even though Abbott has promised to open the state, hes only taken piecemeal steps to-date such as putting together a task force of industry executives, mostly campaign donors, to weigh when to lift the ban on nonessential businesses. While New York City created a tip line for everyday people to help enforce social distancing, Abbott has permitted residents to gather in small groups in state parks, retail stores to offer to-go service as long as they follow safety precautions and hospitals to resume some elective procedures.

But hes already closed schools for the remainder of the semester. And many conservatives are unimpressed by his attempts to throw meat their way by declaring abortions nonessential procedures and allowing churches to remain open while urging congregants to maintain social distancing measures.

He seems indecisive, he seems timid, he seems bureaucratic and he seems tone deaf to the concerns of so many Texans, said Matt Rinaldi, a former Republican state representative who is part of the movement to open the state. Alabamas taskforce has already completed their work. Why werent we doing this weeks ago?

Abbott has to constantly negotiate a raucous coalition of urban, suburban and rural conservatives that spans homeschoolers, anti-vaccine advocates, religious activists and business groups for a party whose grip on the states politics is loosening.

So far, Abbotts strategy is working politically.

About 58 percent of Texas voters trust Abbott to give them information on the virus, compared with 44 percent who say they trust Trump, according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released Friday. This week, even President Donald Trump said Kemp moved too quickly in allowing businesses to operate blowback that Abbott is carefully watching.

Its certainly accurate to say that Abbott is a measured and deliberative conservative, said Ray Sullivan, who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Rick Perry and a senior communications aide to George W. Bush, as governor. When you are engaged in a high-profile public policy matter and you are getting flak from the left and the media and even the further right groups on the spectrum, you are usually in a good place from a policy standpoint.

One factor bolstering his critics, albeit indirectly, is Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. The position is elected separately in Texas but Patrick is catching criticism and a following for suggesting senior citizens risk their health in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren.

Texas appears to have been spared the worst of the virus, buoying leaders like Patrick who want to see the state send people back to work sooner. The state has recorded nearly 600 Covid-19 deaths, considerably less than the 1,000 in Florida, 1,500 in California and 16,000 in New York, though low levels of testing might obscure that data.

Lets face the reality of where we are: In Texas, we have 29 million people, Patrick told Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week. Weve lost 495 and every life is valuable, but 500 people out of 29 million and were locked down.

Abbotts coming announcement is bound to disappoint critics like Rinaldi and others who want Texas to follow governors like Kemp, who announced plans to open bowling alleys, gyms, hair salons and tattoo parlors Friday.

Instead, Abbott, who has kept many details of the upcoming announcement private for fear of blowback, is likely to issue a set of guidelines on the use of protective equipment and sanitation standards for restaurants and other businesses that might open up rather than pursue a blanket statewide order to immediately reopen, according to business executives and policy experts who say that he is deferring to medical professionals. During a Friday evening television interview, Abbott said efforts to boost asymptomatic testing and tracing would also be part of the announcement and plans to urge people to continue social distancing if they venture out of their homes.

He has said people will be able to start going to hair salons and restaurants as soon as next week, though cautioned the rules would be different across the state.

There are some counties where the outbreak is still progressing too rapidly and they may not be able to fully participate in the initial phase of opening until they get the spread of coronavirus in their county under control, Abbott said in the radio interview earlier this week.

At the outset of the crisis, Abbott let city and county officials take the lead in the pandemic response and moved later than other large states like California and New York in issuing a stay-at-home order. When he eventually did at the request of state public health officials, he refused to use the term for fear of upsetting conservatives.

But even the slightest perception of top-down overreach could further upset GOP activists like Steve Hotze, who sued Houstons Harris County on Thursday over a local mask requirement.

Texas Democrats have slammed Abbott over prioritizing business interests and social conservatives over public health policy. They say Abbotts lack of leadership has led directly to a lackluster pace of testing a key component of lifting lockdown measures, according to public health experts. Theyve also chided Abbott for not including city and county leaders in the state taskforce.

I dont think anyone knows what the governor is going to do, Austin mayor Steve Adler said. He said the city council members were planning to meet after the Monday announcement to decide their next steps, but acknowledged state orders will likely override local measures.

The pandemic poses a political dilemma for Texas Republicans pinning their reelection hopes on the states strong economy, as collapsing oil and natural gas prices have put people out of work. But some state leaders acknowledge that fears of a resurgent Covid-19 are eclipsing short-term economic concerns.

It is our job to do what the data and the science and the medical experts tell us is the most intelligent and responsible things to do, said Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, who is not seeking reelection this year after a far-right activist released a politically damaging conversation.

Texas, when you look at the data, has managed this, whether were blessed by God I dont know," Bonnen said. "Maybe its great leadership I dont know,

See the original post here:
Texas governor takes heat from his right as he plots careful course on coronavirus - POLITICO

Biological warfare is an established weapon of war. From the disease-based experimentation on humans mounted by Japans Unit 731 during World War II to the Soviet Unions development of natural diseases such asanthrax into weaponized pathogens in its illicit Biopreparat research facilities, this is not a topic reserved to Tom Clancy novels or Mission Impossible movies.

As a result, it is reasonable to ask whether COVID-19, which originated in China and has taken more than 167,350 lives globally to date, is a naturally occurring disease or a man-made (or modified) agent of attack.

This is an especially justified question given that the geographic locus for the new coronavirus that causes the disease is Wuhan, home to one of communist Chinasinstitutes for virological research.

>>> When can America reopen? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, is gathering Americas top thinkers together to figure that out.Learn more here.

Recent media reports indicate that the virus that causes the disease COVID-19 indeed may have been accidentally leaked. Indeed, much analysis points to the possibility of a connection between the Chinese governmentswork on corona-type viruses and the novel coronavirus that has killed so many across the globe.

It is crucial for all Americansto understand the depths and extent of what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hascalled Beijings coronavirus disinformation campaign.

To that end, here is the chronology of exactly what happened when, and how the communist regime in Beijing lied about it. (I am grateful to Pompeos team, especially the Bureau of Global Public Affairs, for compiling the original COVID-19 cover-up chronology.)

Nov. 17:The first case of someonein China suffering fromCOVID-19 is reported, according to government dataseen by theSouth China Morning Post.

Dec. 10:WeiGuixian, a seafoodmerchant in WuhansHuananmarket, began to feel sick. She will be discharged from the hospital in January, having survived thecoronavirus.

Dec. 27:ZhangJixian, a doctorfrom Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and WesternMedicine,tellsChinas health authorities that a new disease affecting some 180 patients was caused by a newcoronavirus.

Dec. 26-30:Evidence of a new virus emergesfrom Wuhan patient data sent tomultipleChinese genomics companies.

Dec.31:Chinese officials alert theWorld Health Organizations China Country Office of several cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan.

Jan. 9: The World Health Organization releases a statement on the cluster of pneumonia cases inWuhan.

Jan.11: Having provided the genomic sequence of the virus to national authorities Jan. 5 and seeing no action from them,professor ZhangYongzhenof theShanghai Public Health ClinicalCentrepublishesthe data onvirological.organd GenBank, allowing teams around the world to begin work on testing methods.

Jan. 14:The WHO announces for the first time that there may have been limitedhuman-to-human transmission of thevirus.

Jan. 18:Wuhan authorities go ahead with apotluck banquet for 40,000 families in an attempt to break a world record.

Jan. 20:Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a leading authority on respiratory health who was well known for his role in fighting SARS, confirmsin a TV interview that the diseaseisspreadingfrom person to person, a fact first identified by doctors in Wuhan in December. Zhong later will say that if the government had takenaction earlier, in December or even early January, the number of sick would have been greatly reduced.Wuhan Mayor ZhouXianwangsays that rules imposed by the central government in Beijing limit what he could disclose about the threat posed by the Wuhan virus.

Jan. 23: Chinese authorities lock downWuhan after allowing 5 million people to leave the city without screening amid the growing outbreak.

Feb. 7:Dr. Li Wenliangdies of COVID-19 after contracting it from a patient, five weeks after police detained him for trying to alert fellow doctors to the outbreak. His death triggers an outpouring of grief and anger at Chinese authorities.

***

Those are the crucial facts ofwhat happened in China last year and at the beginning of this year.

Another, just as important chronology exists, though: the timeline of how China hid the truth, destroyed crucial biological and genetic evidence, and intimidated those who tried to tell the truth about the Wuhan virus.

Dec. 26-30: The health commission in Chinas Hubei province orders a genomics company to stop testing and to destroy all samples of the new coronavirus.

Dec.31: Chinese internet authorities begincensoring terms from social media, including Wuhan unknown pneumonia, SARS variation, Wuhanseafood market, and related keywords and phrases critical of thegovernments handling of the infection.

Jan. 1:Authorities bring in for questioning eight doctors in Wuhan who had warned about the new virus via social mediain late December, including Li. They condemn the doctors for making false statements on the internet. Authorities also force Lito write a classic Maoist self-criticism denouncing his own prior statements.

Wuhan authorities close the citys seafood market, then disinfect it without swabbing individual animals and cagesfor samples ordrawing blood frominfected workers,eliminatingevidence of whichanimal might have been the source of the coronavirus and who had been infected but survived.

Jan.3: Chinastop healthauthority, theNational Health Commission,follows Hubeis health commissionby issuinga gag order directing that Wuhan pneumonia samples be moved todesignated state testing facilities or destroyed. The National HealthCommission also orders institutions not to publish any information related tothe unknown disease.

Jan. 10:Prominent Chinese governmentexpert WangGuangfatells state broadcaster China Central Televisionthat the Wuhan pneumonia was under control and mostly a mild condition.

Jan. 12: Authorities close Zhangslab in Shanghaifor rectificationone day after sharing genomic sequence data with the world for the first time.

Jan. 14:Plainclothes policedetain journalistswho are trying to report from WuhansJinyintanHospital, andforce them to erasetheirvideo footage and hand in their cellphones and cameras.

Jan. 15:LiQun, head of the emergency center at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, plays down the threat of human-to-human transmission on state television: After careful screening and prudent judgment, we have reached the latest understanding that the risk of human-to-human transmission is low.

Feb. 6: Chinas internet watchdog tightens controls on social media platformsfollowing Chinese President Xi Jinpings directive to strengthen online media control to maintain social stability.

Citizenjournalist and former human rights lawyer ChenQiushidisappears in Wuhan after posting mobile-phone videos of packedhospitals and distraught families.

Feb. 9:Citizen journalist andlocal businessman Fang Bin disappears after posting videos from Wuhan that circulated widelyon Chinese social media.

Feb. 15:Authorities arrest lawyer and civil rights activist XuZhiyong, who has been on the run fornearly two months, after he publishes a Feb. 4 essay calling on Xi to step down for suppressing information about the Wuhan virus.

Feb. 16: Authorities place Tsinghua University professor XuZhangrununder house arrest, bar him from social media, and cut him off from the internet after he publishes an essay declaring: The coronavirus epidemic has revealed the rotten core of Chinese governance.

Feb. 19: Beijing revokes the press credentials of threeWall Street Journalreporters who had covered the coronavirusoutbreak, including one who was reporting from Wuhan.

March 14:Real estate entrepreneur and activist RenZhiqiangdisappears in Beijing after criticizing Xis coronavirus response.

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At the same time that the Chinese Communist Party and its security organs were suppressing the truth domestically and arresting those who knew the truth about the new coronavirus, its diplomats and bureaucrats initiated a global disinformation campaign.

Their most egregious lie was that COVID-19 originated in America and was brought to China by U.S. military personnel.

China hasnt just lied about thevirus that originated in Wuhan and may have escaped from its own virology lab.The communist regime also is using this global pandemic as a weapon ofdisinformation against the United States.

President Donald Trump is on the cusp of making the decision to reopen America. He has established a task force on restarting the economy, and key nongovernmental organizations, such as The Heritage Foundation, are submitting recommendations as to how we can revitalize and resurrect an economy that was the end of the world prior to our self-enforced lockdown.

The question now is will thedeaths of tens of thousands of Americans, in large part as a result of themendacity of communist China, be our new Sputnik Moment?

We have one strategic-level adversary in the world today.That adversary is China, and it has a plan to displace America and become, at the very least, a regional hegemon. China is using the coronavirus, man-made or not, as a tool in that plan.

We will come through this national emergency. But will we draw the right conclusions?

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The Truth About China and the Coronavirus - Daily Signal