CHINESE SCIENTIST FILED PATENT FOR COVID VACCINE

A Chinese military scientist filed a patent for a Covid vaccine before the pandemic was declared and mysteriously died just weeks later.

Yusen Zhou, who worked for the People’s Liberation Army, lodged the paperwork on behalf of the Chinese political party on February 24 last year, according to reports.

The first case of Covid was reported in Wuhan in December, 2019 - but the World Health Organization did not declare a pandemic until March 11, 2020.

It means the vaccine patent was filed just a short time after China first admitted there was human-to-human transmission of Covid - and two weeks before a pandemic was officially declared.

SCIENTISTS FEAR FUTURE LEAKS FROM LABS

In the US, the health department and the Centers for Disease Control jointly monitor the use of 67 different types of toxins and other potentially dangerous materials. Their latest report found that in the US in 2019, such substances were lost 13 times and accidentally released 219 times. This led to over 1,000 people undergoing medical assessments, and some taking preventive drugs. None however contracted identified illnesses as a result.

In 2004, nine people were infected with Sars and one person died after two researchers were separately exposed to the virus while working at the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing. In November 2019, just a month before the first confirmed case of Covid-19, more than 6,000 people in north-west China were infected with brucellosis, a bacterial disease with flu-like symptoms, after a leak at a vaccine plant.

China has been particularly keen to build more maximum-security labs in order to strengthen its scientific research capacity. Bai Chunli, the former president of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote an article last year warning of the country’s “clear shortcomings” in its number of high-level biosafety labs in comparison with the US. Guangdong province announced in May that it was planning to build between 25 to 30 biosafety level three labs and one BSL-4 lab, in the next five years.

TESLA's CHINA WOES

 On April 20, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s media and regulators began a series of public rebukes against the California-based electric carmaker. The criticisms were broad, ranging from Tesla’s car safety, to data gathering practices, as well as customer service. 

In early June, technology website The Information reported that Tesla’s May China orders fell by nearly half compared to April, according to internal data. Orders fell from 18,000 in April to 9,800 in May, a reflection that Chinese consumers were negatively impacted by the uproar.

And all of this has erased $137 billion in market value as Tesla’s stock price declined 19.5 percent since April 21.

PRICING CANADA OUT OF THE PHARMA MARKET

 Canada failed to develop a domestic COVID vaccine in time for this pandemic, which explains why Ottawa allocated $2.2 billion in the budget for the life sciences industry in the hope we are ready for the next one.

Yet the federal government’s proposed drug pricing reforms, due to come into force on July 1, appear to work at cross-purposes to the mission of rebuilding bio-manufacturing capability.

But relations with Big Pharma are at a nadir because of what many people consider the heavy-handed approach of the federal regulator, the Patented Medicine Price Review Board.

The PMPRB is charged with preventing excessive prices, without affecting innovation or access to new medicines.

PUBLIC DISAPPOINTMENT? TRY DISGUST & ANGER

 MONTREAL — Air Canada says its senior executives have chosen to return their 2020 bonuses in response to "public disappointment."

The airline company says in a news release the president and CEO, as well as executive vice-presidents of Air Canada, have volunteered to return their bonuses and share appreciation units. 

Former president and CEO Calin Rovinescu, who retired in February 2021, says he will also donate his share to the Air Canada Foundation. 

The statement does not include middle managers, whose bonuses made up more than $8 million of the $10-million bonus program, among those who are volunteering their bonuses. 

RETROACTIVE CYA IN ALBERTA

   Alberta  -  An issue that has attracted significant attention and controversy during the pandemic is whether the chief medical officer of health can independently order public health measures or whether she is merely an adviser to the government. This debate highlights a tension between the legal authority vested in public health officials and the political context in which they work. The legislative assembly debated Bill 66 this week, which would amend the Public Health Act. Although this legislation helps to clarify CMOH powers, it fails to address the inconsistency between the law and the political reality.

Critics argue that these powers were never intended to authorize a non-elected official to impose sweeping society-wide restrictions. Indeed, prior to COVID-19, typical public health orders addressed narrower matters such as closing a restaurant for failing to meet health standards or ordering an individual to isolate. Bill 66 would expand her authority from being able to prohibit “a person” from attending school or work or having contact with others to prohibiting “a person or class of persons” from doing those things. The CMOH can make these orders “for any period and subject to any conditions” that she “considers appropriate.” In other words, the amended law would permit the CMOH to do what she has already been doing throughout the pandemic.

The proposed amendments suggest that the government itself may be concerned with the legality of the CMOH’s existing orders as it would retroactively declare them “to have been validly made.” In other words, this bill would validate any orders that she did not have the legal authority to make at the time.

ANASTASIA LIN WARNS ABOUT CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY

To raise her profile and gain experience, she ran for and won the title of Miss World Canada in 2015. But she wasn’t allowed a visa to re-enter China for the final Miss World pageant. Her presentation at the Canadian pageant had been on how China harvest organs from prisoners.

Lin has been on the front pages of global newspapers, given talks at Oxford and other universities, met with leading politicians and worked in the film industry, all while getting out the message China’s leaders are infiltrating the West and bullying dissenters.

One of the accusations the Chinese Communist Party and its backers make against anyone who tries to speak out is they are fomenting anti-Chinese racism, said Lin. But while aware any ethnic group can be stereotyped, she said “Chinese leaders do it to try to shield themselves from being scrutinized for their brutal human-rights abuses in China. They claim they’re Chinese people’s protector. But it’s the biggest hypocrisy.”