Opening Comments
Picture of the Day
Wash my Mouth Out With Soap
Quick Bites
Markets, Bitcoin, Big get Bigger
Ford F-150, Inflation, Wages, Hamptons Pricing
Egyptian Mediators, Assaults on Jews, Brooklyn Principal
Lightfoot, Chris Cuomo, Porn in School, Attempted Kidnapping
Virus/Vaccine
Data continues to improve
BIG section on PCR/Ct from a 10/27/20 Rosen Report and Updated
Fauci on Virus Origin
Opening Comments
We made it to NY and it is a nice change in weather with crisp air and temps in the 60s with far less humidity. Living out of bags is quite inconvenient, but looking forward to a fun summer none the less. Hope to catch up with a bunch of readers during my travels as well. I will say, my allergies are in full bloom up here. I took Jack for a practice round yesterday and my eyes were watering and I sneezed about 100x. Note to self, allergy meds are needed.
I am taking Jack to map out a course for a qualifier tomorrow, so I am hitting send early as I will not be home until later tonight. I hope to see Phil Mickelson win the PGA today at 50 years old (51 on 6/16), but don’t think he will pull it off.
My last note on UFOs had the lowest opens of any Rosen Report since this started over 15 months ago. I know delivery issues persist. I am losing patience.
Picture of the Day
This article gives five ideas for summer travel and thought this photo of Moab, Utah was amazing. Other article suggestions include Florida, Hawaii, Denver and New Hampshire. I would recommend all but Florida which is a hot, humid, rainy mess in the summer.
Wash my Mouth Out With Soap
The Rosens left the house at 7:40 am for a 9:50 am flight on Friday. Given the TSA travel #s are back up to 65-70% of pre-pandemic levels, I was a little concerned about airport lines. We arrived at Palm Beach Airport, and it was empty. With no line, we checked in our 7 bags and went to TSA security check-in. Again, ZERO line and got to the gate 45 minutes prior to boarding. Shockingly, the flight was 100% sold out. On our last flight on August 31st of 2020, maybe 15% of the flight was sold. How did all these passengers just appear at the gate, given no lines at baggage check or security? No hazmat suits this time, but my wife did wear two masks, a face shield and gloves. She also did a seat wipe-down for 5 minutes. My seat was so wet from alcohol wipes, I could not stand up for fear it looked like I had an “accident.”
The flight was uneventful, with everyone wearing masks. We landed and my wife and kids waited for the luggage, while I went to Budget to pick up the car. I waited for at least 20 irritating minutes before a Budget van appeared to take me from the terminal to the car rental location. I should have taken a cab in hindsight. I had already muttered a handful of inappropriate words while waiting and now was at the Budget counter in line, which moved shockingly quickly. A lovely young woman was helping me, and I asked if there was any way I could get an upgrade to a larger SUV, given I was renting the car for 100 days.
Indeed she had something, so we were in luck. She gave me my paperwork and told me to go to C-13, and the keys would be in the car. I thanked her profusely for helping me and felt a sense of relief and calmness. I loaded up the back with the luggage I was carrying and needed to put the 3rd row seats down. I was unable to do it because of the arrangement and position of the other seats. That feeling of calm sure didn’t last long as the cursing began more aggressively than before, and I even surprised my own self with my choice of terminology. I had landed 45 minutes before this, was and am not in the car yet and was demonstrating the patience of a two-year-old, maybe.
I then went to the front driver’s seat and realized Shaquille O’neal must have been the prior renter. The seat is all the way back and in the recline position. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the driver’s seat to move to allow me to rearrange the other seats behind it. the driver’s seat. I sat in the seat and I turned on the car thinking maybe it needs to be on to make these moves. No joy. I could barely reach the pedals and was sitting up without touching the back of the seat because it was almost parallel to the floor. Another quick dozen inappropriate words were now more audibly heard. I had to grab all my bags (guitar and three other carry-ons) and go back to the counter. The line was now 25 deep.
I got the attention of the woman who helped me initially and let her know the situation about Shaq and his love for the recline position. She tried to get me another car, but couldn’t seem to find the upgraded size. Son of a…. Finally, she found something, and I am on my way. Mind you, I have now landed well over an hour ago and my kids and wife are calling and texting me every 3 minutes asking what is taking so long. My son Jack, who thinks he is Mr. Funny Man tries to prank call me. I know it is him, but it irritates me none the less resulting in a few more curses. Clearly, we have passed 50 curse words on the Budget fiasco, but I ain’t done yet. I finally got to my family and tried to load up all the crap that barely fits and I am struggling to see out the rear view mirror. You could not fit a feather in that cargo space after I shoved everything in there. Thank goodness for the upgrade.
I made my way to the Grand Central Parkway, as we were heading to Southampton to see Jill’s mom. Shockingly traffic is moving ok despite it now being Friday afternoon at 1:45pm. Well, that did not last long. I got on the LIE and it was bumper to bumper with nowhere to go. Additional vulgarities just flowed out of my mouth like a waterfall; I could not control it. I don’t miss this traffic or the anxiety it created when I did the drive for years every weekend. I had so much angst getting out and then returning Sunday night or Monday am at 4:30, that my weekends were always frustrating when I lived in NYC.
This story gets better… I had scheduled a call for 2:30pm on a deal I have been working on for a month. The guy called me, and I had forgotten how bad the cell reception is on parts of the LIE. The call dropped 7x in 20 minutes. Well, that requires another 15 inappropriate words. We were just getting into the thick of discussion and it became impossible to hear each other and the line kept dropping. How is it possible that in 2021 there is no cell reception on Long Island? I could feel my blood pressure boiling. The traffic finally opened up at exit 48 and I got enough bars to finish the call. With all the wealth and business deals which need to get done, how is the reception is so bad? It makes no sense to me.
An unofficial count of curse words muttered from the Budget van waiting experience until we arrived in Southampton is 73. From the time we landed at 12:30pm it took almost 4 hours to get to Southampton (82 miles). I probably should have gone for an even 100 curse words, but I showed some serious restraint to stop myself at 73. Even with that accomplishment, I’m not too proud of myself. Maybe I should wash my own mouth out with soap.
Quick Bites
The S&P 500 erased earlier gains and finished Friday near the flatline as the tech sector came under pressure again amid another drop in bitcoin price. The broad equity benchmark dipped less than 0.1% to 4,155.86 after rising as much as 0.7% earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 123.69 points, or 0.4%, to 34,207.84, thanks to a jump in Boeing shares. The Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.5% to 13,470.99. For the week, the S&P 500 fell 0.4% to register its first back-to-back weekly losses since February. The blue-chip Dow dipped 0.5% on the week, while the Nasdaq Composite eked out a 0.3% gain this week, breaking a four-week losing streak.
The U.S. Treasury said the Biden administration’s proposal to strengthen tax compliance includes a requirement for transfers of at least $10,000 of cryptocurrency to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service. “As with cash transactions, businesses that receive cryptoassets with a fair-market value of more than $10,000 would also be reported on,” the Treasury Department said in a report on tax-enforcement proposals released Thursday. Also contributing to the crypto volatility was Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and the State Council who said tighter crypto regulation is needed to protect the financial system. Bitcoin’s price on Coin Metrics slid more than 6% as news of China’s statement circulated. Bitcoin rebounded only to fall again and as of Sunday am, it was as low as $32k. Ethereum traded below $1.9k on Sunday after recently hitting $4.2k. However, Ethereum is closing in on fix to cut energy use over 99%. The shift could boost Ether as Bitcoin’s environmental rap worsens; ETH’s 45,000 gigawatt usage may fall to 1/10,000th of that.
The world’s biggest businesses were doing fine until Covid-19 arrived. Now they’re doing even better. The top 50 companies by value added $4.5 trillion of stock market capitalization in 2020, taking their combined worth to about 28% of global gross domestic product. Three decades ago the equivalent figure was less than 5%.
The Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup has been revealed with standard all-wheel-drive and a shockingly low price of $39,974, which drops to $32,474 after the $7,500 federal tax credit it qualifies for is deducted. That undercuts many of the smaller electric vehicles on sale today, including the Ford Mustang Mach-E compact utility vehicle. If anyone is considering an EV, you need to consider battery range. We bought a TSLA 2 years ago and have a 320 mile range when fully charged. It is fine if you are going around the area where you live, but becomes challenging for distance travel. We cannot use it to travel for Jack’s golf tournaments as you cannot count on chargers at this point. When we buy another EV, the range must be well over 400 miles for me to care. The other takeaway for me here is TSLA is vulnerable. The experts I speak with in general believe TSLA competitors have very good quality product in many cases which should create some problems for Musk. After hitting a late Jan high of $863, the stock is now $580/share.
Inflation is landing in America’s refrigerators -- and it’s hitting meat-eaters most of all. About one in three U.S. adults say they’re spending more on groceries than they were at the start of 2021, according to a Morning Consult survey of 2,200 U.S. adults conducted May 17 to 19 for Bloomberg News. Red meat was the ingredient cited most often for its higher prices, with chicken right behind. Food inflation has been inching up for months, driven by soaring commodity costs, costlier transportation and challenges securing labor. Rising demand for meat, from home cooks as well as from the booming fast-food industry, has buoyed prices, too. I have written extensively about my inflation concerns for almost 3 months. Some, I believe is transitory, but much is not in my opinion. I spoke with a logistics professional on Saturday who confirmed that anything shipping or trucking has gone crazy with prices up sharply and in some cases +300% or more.
In a related story, workers are getting higher wages, but at some point that could bite into companies’ profits. As the economy reopens, costs are climbing for everything from packaging and raw materials to shipping. In addition to these expenses, companies are also paying more to get workers to come in the door.
In the Hamptons, there is sticker shock for home prices, camps, boat docking and food according to the NY Post story on the subject. Restaurant owners discussed rising prices as well. I can tell you that I have been coming to the Hamptons for 20 years and ran to the grocery and wine stores yesterday and I could not believe it. Almost all the food in Citarella was 30-100% more than in Florida. They wanted $14 for 3 leeks. Pasta was $10 a box compared with $6 in Florida for the same brand. I went to buy some wine and generally found prices 40-50% higher than in Florida. Don’t get me started on camp. Julia’s first sleep away camp may require the Rosen’s mine Bitcoin to pay for it and the crap we need to buy for her 3.5 week stay.
Egyptian mediators sought to reinforce a day-old ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants on Saturday, and aid officials appealed for a period of calm to start tackling a humanitarian crisis in Gaza after 11 days of fighting. The ceasefire, which began before dawn on Friday, was still holding on Saturday evening, enabling officials to start assessing the scale of the damage. Despite confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at a Jerusalem holy site on Friday, there were no reports of Hamas rocket launches from Gaza or Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian enclave overnight or on Saturday.
Authorities are investigating assaults in New York and Los Angeles as tensions flare over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid days of violence between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza that have left hundreds of people dead. A man was arrested after a 29-year-old Jewish man was punched, kicked and pepper-sprayed Thursday during an incident in New York's Times Square, a source with the New York Police Department told CNN. The assault involved about five to six men who allegedly yelled anti-Semitic statements, the police source told CNN. Waseem Awawdeh, 23, was held on $10,000 bail in the Thursday attack, in which he is accused of beating Joseph Borgen, 29, with crutches and punching, kicking and pepper-spraying him. “If I could do it again, I would do it again,” he told one of his jailers, according to a prosecutor at Awawdeh’s Saturday arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court. “I have no problem doing it again.” Let’s be clear, this is a hate crime and the man accused will do it again and again (his own words). He is being held on $10,000 bail? Seriously? I feel the same about the recent uptick in Asian hate crimes. There needs to be serious consequences for the bad actors in my opinion.
The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating a possible hate crime after pro-Palestinian demonstrators hopped out of their vehicles passing a Beverly Grove restaurant and allegedly began singling out and attacking Jewish diners as the brawl was caught on camera. The Los Angeles Times reported that a witness, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said some people from the caravan threw bottles and chanted "death to Jews" and "free Palestine." Several vehicles stopped, and men who got out began running toward the tables and began asking "Who’s Jewish?" the woman said. KTLA-TV reported that another witness, who also was not identified, said fighting erupted when two men replied that they were. Investigating this as a “possible hate crime?” Is this a joke? These thugs screamed anti-semitic slurs and beat people up because of their faith. How about we deport them to Gaza? It is on camera, kind of challenging to refute this. How is this considered anything but hate? Death to Jews?
A Brooklyn middle school principal this week urged teachers and administrators to demand government sanctions against Israel — sparking outrage and a pending probe by the school system’s independent investigator. In an email sent amid the since-suspended fighting between Israel and Hamas terrorists, Principal Amanda Bueno told staffers at MS 136, “You can take action today by protesting, attending a vigil, making a public commitment to Palestinian Liberation, signing a petition, or calling your government officials to place sanctions on Israel,” she wrote Wednesday morning. ” Will this principal be reprimanded or fired?
The Jewish hate is not just in the US and Middle East. The man standing on a lion statue in Trafalgar Square yesterday held a Palestinian flag. Beneath him, a placard read: “Stop doing what Hitler did to you.” A poster held up by a woman read: “Israel, the new Nazi state”. The pair were among tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets in London and Manchester yesterday over the conflict in Gaza. Wow, that is insane. Nazis killed 6mm Jews and many more Soviets, non-Jewish Polish citizens and Serbs as well as others. Many Jews were gassed in concentration camps. I don’t believe this picture is a fair argument.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended her controversial announcement to grant individual interviews only to journalists of color and blasted the city's media institutions for their "overwhelming whiteness and maleness" in an extraordinary letter on Wednesday. Upon the two-year anniversary of her election, Democrat Lightfoot has drawn outrage after White journalists were told by her press office that they couldn't interview her one-on-one because of their skin color. One of the worst mayors in the history of the US who presides over a crime ridden death sentence of a city has made yet another major blunder. Could you imagine if a white mayor said, “I will only grant interviews to white reporters?” I was born in Chicago, worked there for six years and went to the University of Chicago for Business school. I would say, I have a great deal of experience in the city. It is gross now and I do not know one person who lives there who is happy. The once great city is now a war zone and although Lightfoot is not to blame alone, she certainly has not done anything in my mind to improve the situation. If she is only willing to deal with Black reporters, maybe she could do more about Black on Black crime in Chicago, one of the murder capitols in the US. While shootings in Chicago are up 36% from the same period last year, homicides are up 19%, according to data kept by the Chicago Sun-Times. At least 1,244 people have been shot this year and there have been at least 244 homicides.
Journalists across the nation slammed CNN anchor Chris Cuomo for advising his brother Gov. Andrew Cuomo on how to handle sexual harassment allegations against him — and even the network’s own reporters are “bothered” by the conduct. “The revelation that Cuomo had advised his brother during strategy sessions has vexed staffers inside CNN,” the network’s senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy, tweeted Thursday afternoon shortly after the news came to light. “Multiple CNN staffers told me they were bothered by Cuomo’s conduct and the violation of traditional journalistic standards.” Let me get this right. At the height of the pandemic, Chris had his brother on for 30 minutes every night to have fun and praise the Governor for his work. Free PR and hours of it. When his brother gets into trouble for the nursing home debacle and multiple accusations of inappropriate behavior, it is a conflict of interest for Chirs to comment. Then, Chris advises his brother on how to handle the barrage of harassment claims? Nothing to see here guys, unbiased reporting out of Chris Coumo.
Parents at the posh Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School are outraged they were never told of a fourth “R” being added to the curriculum: raunch. In addition to the usual reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic, the school this month launched lessons on porn — without informing families or allowing them to opt out, parents fumed. When juniors at the $47,000-a-year Manhattan school showed up for a health and sexuality workshop, most thought it was “just going to be about condoms or birth control,” a student told The Post. Instead, it was something called “Pornography Literacy: An intersectional focus on mainstream porn,” taught by Justine Ang Fonte, who’s the director of Health & Wellness at another elite prep school, Dalton. The often-explicit slide presentation and lecture by Fonte to the 120 boys and girls included lessons on how porn takes care of “three big male vulnerabilities”; statistics on the “orgasm gap” showing straight women have far fewer orgasms with their partners than gay men or women; and photos of partially-nude women, some in bondage, to analyze “what is porn and what is art.” I know, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is offensive and racist, Dr. Seuss is evil, but porn is good. Does anyone else feel we are on a bad path here? I read the email from the principal of the school who was apologetic for the class teachings and felt it was not indicative of the values at the school.
The story of an 11-year-old girl who said she used something she learned from watching "Law & Order: SVU" to help her fight off and identify an alleged would-be abductor is an example of how TV police dramas are influential in real life. What a brave little girl. Amazing video. How scary for her.
Virus/Vaccine
The US data continues to improve across the board. The 7-day average for cases is now well below 30k and stands at 25.6k. The total hospitalized is now at 30.4k and the 7 day average death rate is at 578. More than 1.63 billion doses have been administered across 176 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 28.4 million doses a day. In the U.S., 284 million doses have been given so far. In the last week, an average of 1.87 million doses per day were administered. Finally, we are seeing a slight uptick in doses given after a recent bottom of 1.78mm/day.
PCR/Ct from the Rosen Report on 10-27-20
I feel I was very early in writing about PCR tests and the ridiculous Ct values which were magnifying the virus and the numbers of those infected. I wrote EXTENSIVELY with the help of scientists on this topic. The section below was in my piece on 10-27-20 and goes into GREAT detail on PCR tests and the Cycle Threshold issues. Now, the CDC has changed its guidelines (outlined at the bottom). If you were a loyal Rosen Report reader, you were over 7 months ahead of the CDC. Embarrassing.
COVID-19 Conversation-CT Cycle Threshold-Dr. Kevin Maki
A new reader reached out to me and has an impressive background as an epidemiologist. Dr. Kevin Maki and I had a great one-hour conversation on Monday night. I am summarizing the discussion and feel it is important readers take the time to understand some of the testing facts which will be outlined. In summary, all positive COVID-19 test are not equal in terms of viral load and infectiousness and it is about Ct or cycle threshold.
Many people are testing positive but are not infectious. Most people who get infected with SARS-CoV-2 can only infect others for about one week. Viral shedding peaks roughly the day prior to being symptomatic, or about 4 days after infection. After that, the viral load drops continuously in most people.
Testing is picking up cases, but many are not contagious. Ct-Cycle Threshold=# of cycles of amplification required to detect virus. The tests today are amplifying the virus 35-40x. Ct values of 29 or less are strong positives, indicative of a substantial amount of nucleic acid in the sample. Ct values of 30 or higher are considered positive, but indicate that only moderate or minimal amounts of target nucleic acid are present in the sample, with values of 35 or higher very unlikely to be associated with infectiousness.
Unfortunately, when you get tested, you get positive or negative result and labs do not generally disclose the Ct value. A reporter did a study which went to the NY Dept. of Health and showed that 70% of positive tests had a Ct over 30, which is a value that some have proposed as a more appropriate cutoff for a positive test than the more commonly used 38 or 40.
I have discussed the magnification process before in less certain terms. Dr. Maki helped to explain it more clearly. People are testing positive with CTs of 35-40, but are not contagious, lacking culturable virus. For example, many asymptomatic college and university studies are being tested as part of surveillance programs and, of those with positive results, some have CT values that are high and these individuals likely cannot infect others, but are nevertheless required to go into isolation for 2 weeks.
The graph below illustrates this issue. The red squares indicate positive PCR result in people with culturable virus, indicating infectiousness. Note that only one square has a Ct value above 30 and none are over 35. The blue triangles are samples where no virus could be cultured, indicating lack of infectiousness. While they cover a wide range of Ct values, more are above 30, and especially above 35, compared to the samples that contained culturable virus.
For a more in depth understanding of Ct levels, Joe Battaglia helped me to explain it. Ct levels are not linear. This puts the difference between Ct levels into perspective. The cycle threshold is inversely correlated (Log2) to the amount of starting material in a sample and each cycle results in an approximate doubling of the amount of starting material (viral RNA in this case). So a Ct of 10 means there was 2x as much viral RNA to start as a Ct of 11. Since it's a Log2 scale, you can use 2^x to roughly estimate the fold-difference between two Cts. I.e., Ct = 33 vs Ct = 40 = 2^7 or 128-fold difference.
To put it another way, there are ~3.3 cycles for each 10-fold difference in the amount of starting material. That is what the graph below is illustrating. So a sample with a Ct of 30 means roughly ~1000x viral RNA was present in the starting material than a sample with a Ct of 40.
This paragraph explains the chart below and is fascinating to me. Joe wrote this as I kept pushing for a clearer explanation. The bold sentence at the end is the stunner to put Ct levels into perspective and why I am pushing this section today. In a real-time PCR test, the amount of viral RNA is measured after each amplification cycle using fluorescent dyes attached to the RNA molecules that produce a fluorescent signal (fluorescence). Thus, the measured fluorescence (y-axis) is proportional to the amount of viral RNA present at the end of each cycle. The change in fluorescence over time is used to calculate the amount of RNA produced in each cycle and, ultimately, the initial amount of viral RNA that was present in the sample. The amount of fluorescence (RNA) required to be detectable by the test is the fluorescence threshold. The cycle number at which that occurs is called the quantification cycle (Cq) and is determined by the amount of viral RNA present in the sample at the start of the test. So a sample with a small amount of starting viral RNA will have a higher Cq than a sample with a larger amount of starting viral RNA. In the graph, each colored line represents a 10-fold difference in the amount of starting viral RNA in a sample compared with the previous or subsequent lines, which corresponds to +/- ~3.3 cycles to reach the fluorescence threshold. Thus, the yellow line, which represents a sample that requires ~37 cycles to reach the detectable fluorescence level (i.e., Cq=37) has ~1mm (10^8) fewer RNA molecules in the starting sample vs the red line, which only requires ~14 cycles to reach that level (Cq=14). This is why a patient which required a Ct of 37 is very different than a Ct of 14.
To me, this means that there is a lot of misinformation out there about cases and the virus and many "positive" results are not infectious/contagious. It is disappointing that the media does not give such information and the labs do not generally disclose Ct levels. If I were infected, I would want to know if my Ct was 10 or 40. The difference is MASSIVE as explained above. As an aside, I took my daughter, Julia, to the pediatrician the other day for an earache. They have tested 250 kids for COVID-19 and had ONE positive.
CDC Data-IFR (infection fatality ratio)-all positive tests symptomatic or asymptomatic with and without co-morbidities. Big chart in the link above. I simplified it below. Young people are very unlikely to die from SARS-CoV-2 infection is the summary.
Under 19 .003%
20-49 .02%
50-69 .5%
70+ 5.4%
People over 65 and those with co-morbidities need to continue to be incredibly vigilant and stay home. Younger (e.g., under 50 years of age) people who are healthy, with no co-morbidities, are very unlikely to die from COVID-19, although a small percentage may become ill enough to require hospitalization.
New CT story today
Throughout the pandemic, CT values in excess of 35 have been the norm, with labs around the world going into the 40s. Essentially labs were running as many cycles as necessary to achieve a positive result, despite experts warning that this was pointless (even Fauci himself said anything over 35 cycles is meaningless). But NOW, and only for fully vaccinated people, the CDC will only accept samples achieved from 28 cycles or fewer. That can only be a deliberate decision in order to decrease the number of “breakthrough infections” being officially recorded. Secondly, asymptomatic or mild infections will no longer be recorded as “covid cases”. That’s right. Even if a sample collected at the low CT value of 28 can be sequenced into the virus alleged to cause Covid19, the CDC will no longer be keeping records of breakthrough infections that don’t result in hospitalization or death.
Dr. Anthony Fauci says he is "not convinced" COVID-19 developed naturally, and called for an open investigation into the virus' origins.v"There’s a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19 still, so I wanted to ask, are you still confident that it developed naturally?" PolitiFact’s Katie Sanders asked the nation’s top infectious disease expert in an event, United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-checking event. "No actually," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said, around 12 minutes into footage of the event, which was held earlier this month but overlooked by most media outlets. "I am not convinced about that, I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened." I am a firm believer this was not a natural occurrence and the lab in Wuhan is to blame. I believe this is some part of a biological weapons test gone awry. Think of how well China has done relative to the basket of other countries. This has been a huge win for them with almost zero consequences.