b'Editorcompanies are owned and controlled by the communistin China, where it has been just about hunted into ex- net and warned that if he did it again, he would be government. Those tens of trillions of dollars collectedtinction. Although the meat is described as rubbery andarrested and prosecuted. Dr. Li returned to work and over the years was not used to expand freedom in Chi- bitter, and Chinese doctors have warned against its con- was infected with Covid-19 on January 8th by a glau-na, but to further secure the Communist Partys controlsumption for hundreds of years, it is considered a del- coma patient who ran a shop in the Huanan Market, of the Chinese people and to expand their reach of in- icacy in the Asian world and a status symbol for thoseas it was learned after he began developing symptoms fluence around the globe. who can afford to eat pangolin clay pot with ginger andand tested positive for the disease on January 30th. The Virtuallyeverydeadlyinfluenzavirusthathascitronelle. The animals scales are also widely used innext day, he posted the admonition from the Wuhan emerged in the world over the last 50 years startedancient Chinese medicines and other concoctions. police that he had received weeks earlier, and declared in China. There are strains in the vast nation that areIn the 1990s, live pangolins in Chinese marketsthat he was one of eight doctors labeled rumormon-more deadly than anything ever seen in the U.S., thatwent for about $7 a poundthese days, its closer togers for speaking out about the emergence of the vi-make Covid-19 look like mild sniffles. These viruses$300. So how does the coronavirus transfer from batsrus. Self-nursing from home on February 6th, Dr. Li start in animals and then transfer to humans throughto pangolins? They eat fruit, and veggies and leaves,was taken to the emergency room of the hospital where farming and consumptionthe Spanish Flu, like ourone would suppose, that get rained upon with bat gua- he worked after developing trouble breathinghe was common seasonal flu, started in pigs, swine flu. Thisva (yes, poop) carrying this and other pathogens. Adead within six hours of his arrival.years pandemic has been shown to have originated inreport from the Chinese agricultural lab claimed thatThe Chinese governments overt efforts to hide the bats, and other deadly strains start in birds, avian flu. Covid-19 had a 99% genetic match with a virus foundexistence of Covid-19 for as long as they could, feeds H7N9 is a bird flu virus that was first identified inin pangolins in Wuhanbut a new theory, tagged aspeculationthattheyweretryingtohidesomething humans in 2013 when 144 cases were diagnosed, andconspiracy,hascirculatedinsidethegovernmentofmuch more sinister than a SARS virus that emerged from 46 patients died (32%). The fifth human epidemic ofthe United Kingdom, and has recently been repeated bya wild animal market. At worst, they could be blamed this new virus in China was reported in 2016, whenU.S. Senator Tom Cotton from Oklahoma. for turning a blind eye to the illegal trade of pangolins, Meet the pangolin. Think of himA Chinese medical worker waving off as the armadillo of the Far East. cameras while wheeling in a Covid patientMemorial to the doctor in Wuhan who first exposed the Chinese Government cover-up of Covid-19more than 1,200 people were diagnosed and about 400TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENTS LIE, A BIT MOREan endangered speciesbut what could lead China into of them died. So far, only bird-to-human transmissionTHAN THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED ONES. aneconomically-disastrousinternationalcontroversy has been identified for H7N9, and not human-to-hu- TheWuhanCenterforDiseaseControl,whereoverwould be a man-caused pandemic that kills thousands man, but identifying the virus in commercial flocks is1,500 strains of deadly viruses are stored and studied,or millions of people around the world. Reports out of impossiblewithoutuniversaltestingbirdscarryingincluding those collected from bats, is situated adjacentthe UK say that the virus was released into the public the virus exhibit no sickness or symptoms. H7N9 wasto Union Hospital where the first group of doctors werethrough the accidental exposure of a lab technician at first found in the U.S. on a Tennessee chicken farm ininfected. The WCDC is located just 300 yards south ofthe Wuhan Center for Disease Control, and that the virus 2017, and a report was just published, in March 2020,the Huanan Seafood Market where the virus is said towas among a collection of previously unseen strains tak-about turkeys on a commercial farm in South Carolinahave emerged, and about a mile north of that is Wuhanen from bats living in caves 600 miles away.testing positive for H7N9. The mortality rate in the U.S.Central Hospital, where the unintentional whistleblow- On December 30th, the same day Dr. Li told his for Covid-19 is officially just under 4%this is 30%. er, 33-year-old ophthalmologist Dr. Li Wenliang, workedcolleaguesaboutthereportofsevenpatientswith Ithasbeenwidelyreported,incorrectly,thatand eventually died. On December 30, 2019, Dr. Li saw aSARS-like symptoms, officials in Wuhan confirmed 27 Covid-19 was first transmitted to humans through thereport from the emergency room director at the hospi- cases of viral pneumonia connected to the Huanan consumption of bats that had been purchased in a Wu- tal that detailed seven patients who had been admittedMarket, which they immediately shut down. Four days han wet market, where livestock are slaughtered on- with symptoms consistent with Severe Acute Respira- later was when Li and seven other doctors were round-site. While the animal accused of the viral transfer wastory Syndrome (SARS). That afternoon, he voiced hised up and warned not to say anything else about the likely purchased in one of these markets, the suspect inknowledge of the report in a private WeChat sessionoutbreak. The New England Journal of Medicine report-question is the pangolin, a virtually unknown creaturewith former medical school classmates, and at least oneed that between December 10th and January 4th, 425 to the Western World. Think of the pangolin as the ar- of them shared it with the world. cases of a novel (new) coronavirus disease in Wuhan madillo of the Far East, same scientific family of mam- On January 3rd, Dr. Li was summoned to the Wu- were identified by patient symptoms and the extremely mals, but the only one to have scales. While not muchhan Public Security Bureau where he was officially ad- long wait times for admission to the hospital, as doc-to look at, the pangolin has become highly sought-aftermonished for making false statements on the inter- tors had trouble identifying their sickness.14 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEFEATURED: The Stories that Mattered TheCoastalBend.com'