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| Chinese Government's NIVDC Funded Its Joint Research Lab "Arrangement" In China |
One reason the Center for Infection and Immunity [CII] of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health may have neglected to spend enough of its time between 2013 and 2019 focused on preparing New York City’s public health system to respond more effectively to the spread of expected viruses like COVID-19 is that the Columbia’s CII director, Professor of Epidemiology Lipkin, was, instead, also apparently spending his time serving as one of the scientific directors of the “market socialist” Chinese state-capitalist government’s National Institute for Viral Disease Control[NIVDC]-funded Joint Research Laboratory for Pathogen Discovery in Beijing, China between 2013 and 2019.
According to a May 28, 2013 Columbia Mailman School of Public Health website article, titled “In An Historic Arrangement, Columbia University and the Chinese CDC Open Joint Pathogen Discovery Lab In Beijing,” the purpose of this “historic arrangement” was “to conduct surveillance, identify new infectious microbes, establish novel platforms for diagnostics, and develop drugs and vaccines to treat diseases in humans and animals..” And the same 2013 article also quoted Columbia’s Center for Infection and Immunity [CII] Director Lipkin as claiming that the Columbia’s arrangement with the Chinese Center for Disease Control [CDC]’s NIVDC would “enable CII and Chinese CDC investigators to work side-by-side developing solutions for pandemic threats to global health.”
Yet between 2013 and 2019 no effective “drugs and vaccines to treat” the over 21,000 estimated New Yorkers who possibly died from COVID-19 in 2020 were apparently developed from Columbia’s Chinese government connection; and Columbia’s “historic arrangement” with the Chinese CDC did not apparently help New York City’s public health system develop particularly “effective solutions for pandemic threats” to New York City’s public health.
Another reason the Center for Infection and Immunity of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health may have also neglected to spend enough of its time between 2013 and 2019 focused on preparing New York City’s public health system to respond more effectively to COVID-19 is that the Columbia’s CII director, Professor of Epidemiology Lipkin, predicted in 2013 that “in 2013 the threat is not the SARS coronavirus—this time the imminent threats are the H7N9 influenza virus and the new coronavirus emerging in the Middle East,” according to the same May 2013 press release. Yet by 2020 the threat to New York City ‘s public health, which produced so many elderly patient fatalities and deaths of patients with underlying health conditions in New York City, apparently turned out to be a “coronavirus” that did not emerge “in the Middle East.”
After receiving an email from this writer, asking him why he predicted in May 2013 that “the threat is not the SARS coronavirus—this time the imminent threats are the H7N9 influenza virus and the new coronavirus emerging in the Middle East,” Mailman School of Public Health CII Director and Professor Epidemiology Lipkin, by email, provided the following reply:
“It seems that you are asking why I did not predict the emergence of SARS-Co-V-2 and suggesting that this failure means that the Mailman School of Public Health has failed to protect the health of New Yorkers.
“Perhaps your disappointment is rooted in nomenclature. COVID is not SARS. SARS-CoV-2 is not the same virus as SARS CoV.
“We do our best to promote public health. I told my colleagues at the NIH and the CDC about a new coronavirus circulating in Wuhan in December. I went to China in January and related my concerns in interviews while I was there and after my return. We have also produced public service messages, developed diagnostic tests, evaluated the utility of drugs, and are running plasma trials.”
Yet in an article posted on Apr. 6, 2020 on the Science Alert website, University of Texas A& M University-Texarkana Professor of Biology Benjamin Neuman noted that “SARS-CoV-2 is genetically very similar to other human respiratory coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV;” and “SARS-CoV-2 has all the same genetic equipment as the original SARS-COV…but with around 6,000 mutations sprinkled around in the usual places where coronaviruses change. Think whole milk versus skim milk.”
Ironically, despite the “historic arrangement” between “Columbia University and the Chinese CDC Open Joint Pathogen Discovery Lab In Beijing,” in a March 27, 2020 International Federation of Journalists website blog post, Louisa Lim asserted that “with its latest propaganda blitz on the novel coronavirus...Beijing is attempting to gaslight the world as it escalates its propaganda push to obscure the source of the disease;” and involved in “an effort to distract attention from accusations that its initial cover-up is responsible for the rest of the world’s plight, in particular the looming economic catastrophe.” According to Lim:
“The composition of China’s coronavirus task force highlights its priorities: Two out of nine members are from the propaganda bureau. They faced a challenging job in shifting the narrative when Beijing’s cover-up of the initial outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year allowed the virus to spread unabated. There was further dismal publicity after nine doctors who tried to raise the alarm were punished. When one of them, Li Wenliang, died from COVID-19, the domestic groundswell of anger was so intense that a gratitude campaign thanking the state for its efforts had to be dropped. That popular rage is still evident. Touring a residential compound in Wuhan, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan was greeted by a chorus of shouts of `Fake! All this fake!’ resounding out of the safe anonymity provided by high-rise apartments….”
According to an Apr. 17, 2020 TASS article, however, China’s Ambassador to Russia Zhange Hanhui claimed in April 2020 that “the virus was imported to China’s Wuhan, instead of emerging there;” and “although the novel coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, there are no facts determining that the source had originated from there.” The same Apr. 17, 2020 TASS article also reported that the Chinese government’s diplomat claimed “that in late December 2019, the Wuhan Center for Disease Prevention and Control (China CDC) discovered the previously unknown pneumonia cases;” and “starting Jan. 3, 2020, China `promptly and timely provided the World Health Organization (WHO), the US and nations’ relevant agencies with information on the epidemic" and, in addition, on Jan. 4, 2020 “the head of the Chinese CDC contacted the US CDC Director and briefed him on the epidemiologic situation," the envoy said.”
Coincidentally, in New York City-- on the same day that China’s Ambassador to Russia claimed that China “promptly and timely provided the World Health Organization [WHO], the US and other nations’ relevant agencies with information on the epidemic”— Professor of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health Lipkin (who was also a scientific director of the Chinese CDC Open Joint Pathogen Discovery Lab after 2013) was presented with a medal at the Chinese Consulate in new York City. According to a Jan. 7, 2020 article on the website of Columbia University’s School of Public Health:
“The government of China honored Ian Lipkin with a medal…During the Jan. 3 awards ceremony in the Chinese Consulate in New York, Counsel General Ping Huang presented Lipkin with the medal...The medal...was issued from the Central Government, Central Military Commission, and the State Council. Among attendees were Columbia Mailman School Dean Linda P. Fried and members of China’s Counsel of Science and Technology.
“`It is a great honor to receive this medal,’ said Lipkin. `I will cherish it as a reminder of my dear friends and colleagues in China and all we have accomplished together for the health of the Chinese people and all people around the world.’”
The same Columbia University School of Public Health website article also noted that “today,” Lipkin “continues to consult with the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Science, and the Ministry of Health.” And in 2019 “the Chinese Academy of Sciences awarded funding for a collaborative project between” Lipkin’s “CII and Sun Yat-Sen University in zoonotic diseases.” In addition, in 2016, the Columbia University professor of Epidemiology “was honored with the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award, presented in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, presided by President Xi Jinping.”
Yet if China “promptly and timely provided the World Health Organization [WHO], the US and other nations’ relevant agencies with information on the epidemic” on the same day Professor of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health Lipkin was presented with a medal at the Chinese Consulate in New York City in early January 2020, why did Columbia University’s School of Public Health apparently fail in January 2020 to help New York City’s public health system adequately prepare to either prevent the virus from spreading rapidly in New York City or to provide effective treatment medication for the many New Yorkers, with underlying health conditions or living in local nursing homes, who contracted the virus a few months later, as effectively as the Cuban government’s public health system apparently did in January 2020?
According, for example, to an Apr. 17, 2020 article by Charles McKelvey, titled “Covid-19: Lessons from Cuba”:
“In late January, a short time following the confirmation in China that the new coronavirus could be transmitted from person-to-person, Cuban scientists formed two teams, one to assess the knowledge and resources that Cuba had available, and another to focus on the application of measures to respond to the pandemic. They determined that Cuba essentially had the medical personnel, medical equipment, and medicines necessary to respond, but they possibly were short on hospital beds. So, the Ministry of Public Health established the necessary conditions with respect to hospital beds, making adjustments in the hospital infrastructure and incorporating tourist lodging. At the same time, Cuba intensified its previously established structures for the surveillance of incoming travelers at airports and other points of entry. Subsequently, international tourism was stopped, as was the entrance of Cuban citizens living abroad, except for those on medical and educational missions. “
Yet in New York City in late January 2020, instead of , apparently, helping New York City’s public health system prepare more effectively prepare to confront the COVID-19 virus, Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity Director Lipkin arrived in China on Jan. 30, 2020 (after saying in an article, updated Jan. 28, 2020 on Columbia University's website, that the novel coronavirus was not expected to spread to the same extent as SARS, which reached 33 countries), before he, himself, later eventually tested positive for COVID-19. As a Feb. 3, 2020 Xinhua website article noted, “Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, told Xinhua in a written interview Saturday that he” wanted “`to work hand in hand with Chinese scientists to create vaccines, drugs, diagnostic tests to address this outbreak, and to reduce disease and death among the Chinese people;” although the estimated number of New York City resident fatalities from COVID-19 is apparently turning out to be much higher than the number of estimated fatalities from COVID-19 in China. (end of part 3)
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