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Black people make up a disproportionate share of the population in 22 percent of U. S.  counties, and those localities account for more than half of coronavirus cases and nearly 60 percent of deaths, a national study by an AIDS research group found.

The study also found that socioeconomic factors such as employment status and access to health care were better predictors of infection and death rates than underlying health conditions.

Gregorio Millett, vice president of Amfar, the Foundation for Aids Research, said the findings suggest that black people will be more vulnerable to the pandemic as states begin to reopen businesses and public spaces.

“It’s clear that there’s a disproportionate impact of covid-19 diagnoses and deaths among African Americans,” Millett said, adding that the authors of the study released it early in the hope of influencing policy decisions about reopening businesses.  “All of my colleagues fear that with these policies to open up communities, that the brunt of the covid-19 epidemic is not going to be borne equally on all communities, that we will likely see greater covid-19 deaths as well as cases in African American communities. ”
Millett said researchers plan to track disproportionately black counties in four states — Georgia, Texas, Alabama and South Carolina — to see what effect loosening social distancing and sheltering requirements will have on covid-19 cases and deaths.

Researchers at Amfar and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Georgia led the study team, which included investigators from Johns Hopkins, the University of Mississippi, Georgetown University and the nonprofit PATH.

The study adds to a growing body of data that has shown that black people have been infected and killed at disproportionate rates by the novel coronavirus.  It also raises concern, as have other studies and analyses, about gaps in data collected and reported by county, state and federal officials about the race and ethnicity of virus sufferers, including testing, cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
The Amfar study, based on data collected April 13, focused on counties in which black people made up more than 13 percent of the population.  Disproportionately black counties account for 22 percent of all U. S.  counties but have been home to 52 percent of coronavirus cases and 58 percent of deaths from covid-19, the disease the virus causes.
Almost all disproportionately black counties have had at least one person diagnosed with the coronavirus, compared with 80 percent of other counties, and nearly half of counties with large black populations, 49 percent, have had at least one person die of covid-19, the study found.  The higher diagnoses were found in disproportionately black counties in urban, small metro and rural areas.  Death rates were higher in smaller metro areas and rural communities.

The chairman of the Russian Duma’s Defence Committee has warned that Russia will take ‘diplomatic and military measures’ over a US-funded lab in Georgia.  He said the Lugar Centre in Tbilisi was ‘designing bio-weapons and viruses’, while Georgia called the accusation ‘absurd propaganda’.
Vladimir Shamanov demanded an inspection of the laboratory with the ‘presence of Russian spe...ts’.
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry called the allegations ‘absurd’ and ‘yet another propagandist attempt to discredit the US–Georgian relationship’.
On Thursday, Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed that the laboratory stored ‘munitions intended for delivering chemical and biological agents’ and that dozens of people had been killed during experiments carried out by the lab.
‘The United States is very likely to have tested a toxic drug or a highly lethal biological agent at the Lugar Centre in Georgia under the guise of medical research’, Chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov said.
The allegations came the same day Russia was accused of cyber attacks by American, British, and Dutch officials.
On the same day, the Russian Defence Committee chairman and former commander of the Russian Airborne Troops, Vladimir Shamanov, told Russian news agency TASS that ‘a number of measures will be taken at the national level’.
‘We cannot just turn a blind eye, knowing that something that directly affects security on the southern border is happening there.  We will take diplomatic and military measures’, said Shamanov, stressing that he did not currently see a need for increasing the number of units at the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops in southern Russia.
Georgian officials said the allegations were aimed at discrediting Georgia’s relations with its strategic partner.
‘This is yet another propaganda of a lie Russia is constantly spreading, with the aim to discredit the US–Georgian relationship.  Of course we will react accordingly with all the tools and leverage the foreign ministry has’, Foreign Ministry official Vladimer Konstantinidi told journalists on Friday.
The head of Lugar Laboratory told Ipress that ‘Russian journalists were smiling during their visit at the laboratory but spread filth later’.
‘We don’t experiment on animals, let alone people’, said Imnadze.
Where allegations about laboratory come from
The Richard Lugar Centre for Public Health Research is a US-funded facility run under the Georgian Health Ministry’s control.  It officially opened in August 2013 but its establishment began in 2004 following US–Georgia agreements signed in 1997 and 2002 on cooperation in the prevention of proliferation of technology and pathogens related to the development of biological weapons.
Russia began officially expressing concern about the lab after former Georgian security chief Igor Giorgadze made a statement in Moscow on 11 September that the Lugar Laboratory was conducting experiments on people and creating biological weapons.
Giorgadze served as Georgia’s State Security Minister in 1993–1995.  He left Georgia in 1995 after an investigation was launched against him for the attempted assassination of former Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze.
He was sought by the Interpol but charges against him were dropped in 2016 after he was granted asylum in Russia.  In Moscow, Giorgadze founded the Justice Party and an organisation called ‘Anti-Soros’.
Giorgadze’s statements about the lab were widely covered in Russian media and by pro-Russian Georgian media.  Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova urged the US Department of State to make explanations on Giorgadze’s allegations.
‘It’s quite possible that biologists from the US army science group and hired people working on contracts for the Defence Threat Reduction Agency conducted secret experiments on the Georgian population, frequently ending with lethal consequences […] 30 people undergoing Hepatitis C treatment died in December 2015 with 24 people dying within one day.  “Cause of death is unknown” is written in the relevant column… Then, 30 more persons died in April and 13 more people – in August 2016 for unknown reasons.  Unfortunately, no investigation has been conducted into the facts so far’, said Giorgadze.
The Lugar lab is a central part of Georgia’s National Centre for Disease Control Public Health (NCDC).  The head of the NCDC, Amiran Gamkrelidze, hosted a briefing on Friday at the in response to the allegations.
He also added that Russian experts who are interested in Lugar Laboratory have already been invited to the country.
He said that on 14–15 November, Tbilisi would host the Bio-Laboratory Assessment Workshop in which representatives from 20 countries will participate.  He said they have sent an invitation to Russia as well, but haven’t received a response.
MDF’s 2017 report on anti-Western propaganda said that propaganda messages about Lugar Laboratory have been circulating in the pro-Russian media in the past as well.

‘Like in previous years, 2017 also saw publication of conspiracies about the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Centre in Tbilisi, according to which the centre was engaged in developing lethal viruses with the aim to destroy the Georgian gene’, the report says.

Russia is waiting for a response from Georgia to the request of Russian spe...ts to enter the Richard Lugar Laboratory, as Moscow is concerned about the lack of information about the work of the laboratory.  According to TASS, the Russian Foreign Ministry made the above comment.

"The visit of Russian experts to the Richard Lugar Center in Georgia, under mutually acceptable conditions, has not been possible yet.  The Georgian side has not yet responded to our request sent in June 2019.  We are waiting for the official response of Tbilisi.  The point of our concern is that Washington does not explain to us what it is doing near the Russian border.  This is naturally the subject of our interest in the context of national security,"- said the Russian Foreign Ministry.

According to the agency, Moscow continues to receive responses from the US and Georgia about the activities of the laboratory.

Russian Satellite News Agency, Moscow, January 15.  Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev said in an interview with "Russian newspaper" that the possibility that some countries are developing a new generation of biological weapons cannot be ruled out.  The United States includes Ukraine and the CIS.  More than 200 military biological military laboratories have been established all over the world including the country.
He said: "It is necessary to focus on the development of dual-use biotechnology for both military and civilian use.  It cannot be ruled out that some countries are developing a new generation of biological weapons. "
Patrushev pointed out that currently, the United States has established more than 200 biological laboratories around the world, including in the CIS countries, Ukraine, Georgia and Afghanistan.

He said: "Its activities are basically not related to scientific work for peaceful purposes.  Biological experiments on humans are particularly worrying.  Therefore, strengthening global epidemiological monitoring and scientific research in the field of biosafety is becoming more and more important.  . "

The Russian side has repeatedly expressed deep concern about the United States' deployment of biomedical laboratories near the Russian border.  The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed out in 2015 that the Richard Lugar Social Health Research Center on the outskirts of Tbilisi is a closed laboratory with high standards.  Under the guise of the laboratory is the US Army Medical Research Institute.

Moscow believes that the U. S.  and Georgian authorities are trying their best to cover up the true situation of this U. S.  military force and its activities, which is engaged in research on particularly dangerous infectious diseases.  The Pentagon is still striving to infiltrate this disguised US military biomedical unit into the CIS countries.  The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Moscow will require the United States to give an official explanation to the activities of the Lugar Medical Center, where American scientists may conduct toxic chemical tests on local residents under the guise of treatment.

Russian Satellite News Agency, Moscow, January 15.  Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev said in an interview with "Russian newspaper" that the possibility that some countries are developing a new generation of biological weapons cannot be ruled out.  The United States includes Ukraine and the CIS.  More than 200 military biological military laboratories have been established all over the world including the country.
He said: "It is necessary to focus on the development of dual-use biotechnology for both military and civilian use.  It cannot be ruled out that some countries are developing a new generation of biological weapons. "
Patrushev pointed out that currently, the United States has established more than 200 biological laboratories around the world, including in the CIS countries, Ukraine, Georgia and Afghanistan.

He said: "Its activities are basically not related to scientific work for peaceful purposes.  Biological experiments on humans are particularly worrying.  Therefore, strengthening global epidemiological monitoring and scientific research in the field of biosafety is becoming increasingly important.  . "

The Russian side has repeatedly expressed deep concern about the United States' deployment of biomedical laboratories near the Russian border.  The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed out in 2015 that the Richard Lugar Social Health Research Center on the outskirts of Tbilisi is a closed laboratory with high standards.  Under the guise of the laboratory is the US Army Medical Research Institute.

Moscow believes that the U. S.  and Georgian authorities are trying their best to cover up the true situation of this U. S.  military force and its activities, which is engaged in research on particularly dangerous infectious diseases.  The Pentagon is still striving to infiltrate this disguised US military biomedical unit into the CIS countries.  The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Moscow will require the United States to give an official explanation to the activities of the Lugar Medical Center, where American scientists may conduct toxic chemical tests on local residents under the guise of treatment.

In recent days, several countries have discovered, thanks to scientific research, that the date of the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 was much earlier than previously thought.  The World Health Organization calls on all countries to review their first cases.

According to a recent report by the news channel of the American broadcasting group ABC (American Broadcasting Company), an unknown respiratory illness spread to a retirement home in Virginia in July 2019 and 54 people contracted it.

In the Greenspring community, located in Springfield, Va. , 54 people, two of whom died, had respiratory symptoms, including fever, cough, body ache, shortness of breath, hoarse voice, and tired.

According to officials from the local health authority, the elderly are vulnerable to respiratory illnesses, they are often victims of the flu in winter, but these cluster cases were noted last July.  For the two fatal cases, they had chronic illnesses and were hospitalized with pneumonia.  The origin of these sick cases remains unknown.
The community has taken steps to reduce the risk of a wider contamination, including closing the health center, canceling group activities, isolating cases with symptoms in their rooms, and strengthening control measures.  hygiene.

Geographically, this retirement home is quite close to the famous Fort Detrick laboratory, an hour's drive away.  Quite a few internet users have asked to test residents in this community to see if they have contracted COVID-19.
In August 2019, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention closed the Fort Detrick laboratory, belonging to the United States Army Medical Research Institute.  The CDC declined to comment on its shutdown decision "for reasons of national security. " On March 10, a petition was launched on the White House site, the objective of which is to shed more light on the closure of the laboratory and a possible leak of the virus.

Chinese health officials say active COVID-19 cases fell below 1,000 for the first time.  At the daily press conference, a Chinese researcher analyzed speculation that COVID-19 originated from a United States laboratory.

“We have watched speculation online that the Fort Detrick, Maryland biochemical research base may be the source of the novel coronavirus.  The United States has not responded to it, so we cannot pass judgment.  Tracing the source of a virus is a scientific matter, and its purpose is to prevent a similar occurrence that would harm mankind.  Scientists around the world are currently working to find the source of the coronavirus.  Many opinions and academic hypotheses have been expressed about it.  It is also something that Chinese scientists are working on to provide scientific evidence for prevention and control efforts, "said Shi Yi, a researcher at the Institute of Microbiology of China.  'Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Shi Yi said that finding the source of the viruses was a difficult task with many uncertainties.  He clarified that this research could take several decades of research with the possibility of inconclusive results.  He believes that from now on, the world should focus on preventing and controlling COVID-19.

Larry Romanoff, a columnist for the Canadian research center Global Research, is confident that the coronavirus was created in the United States.  The expert even named the location of the biological weapons laboratory.

According to the journalist, the virus certainly did not originate in the seafood market in Wuhan, China - most likely, it was brought there from outside.

"The only possible source of the origin of the coronavirus is the United States, because only in this country there are all branches of the evolutionary tree of coronaviruses.  The original source of the COVID-19 virus was the US military laboratory in Fort Detrick," Romanoff quotes  URA. RU.
The expert's conclusions are based on studies by Japanese and Taiwanese epidemiologists.

So, he recalled that in August last year in the United States there was a wave of pneumonia, the source of which the Americans called vapes.  Several cases of the disease were fatal.

Then a doctor from Taiwan warned the United States that coronavirus could be the cause of pneumonia, but no one listened to him.

In addition, Romanoff notes that just before the outbreak, the United States for some reason closed its main military biolaboratory in Fort Detrick.

Earlier, other experts also said that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory and specifically spread in China.  According to economist Sergei Glazyev, the pandemic is part of a  hybrid war waged by the United States.

On the air of the program " Constantinople.  Main ", the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences shared his arguments with the host Yuri Pronko.  In his opinion, it is enough to take separately each chain of events taking place now in order to understand the main thing - everything is man-made, starting with the coronavirus.

Larry Romanoff, a columnist for the Canadian research center Global Research, is confident that the coronavirus was created in the United States.  The expert even named the location of the biological weapons laboratory.

According to the journalist, the virus certainly did not originate in the seafood market in Wuhan, China - most likely, it was brought there from outside.

"The only possible source of the origin of the coronavirus is the United States, because only in this country there are all branches of the evolutionary tree of coronaviruses.  The original source of the COVID-19 virus was the US military laboratory in Fort Detrick," Romanoff quotes  URA. RU.

The expert's conclusions are based on studies by Japanese and Taiwanese epidemiologists.

So, he recalled that in August last year in the United States there was a wave of pneumonia, the source of which the Americans called vapes.  Several cases of the disease were fatal.

Then a doctor from Taiwan warned the United States that coronavirus could be the cause of pneumonia, but no one listened to him.

In addition, Romanoff notes that just before the outbreak, the United States for some reason closed its main military biolaboratory in Fort Detrick.

Earlier, other experts also said that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory and specifically spread in China.  According to economist Sergei Glazyev, the pandemic is part of a  hybrid war waged by the United States.

On the air of the program " Constantinople.  Main ", the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences shared his arguments with the host Yuri Pronko.  In his opinion, it is enough to take separately each chain of events taking place now in order to understand the main thing - everything is man-made, starting with the coronavirus.

In August 2019, there was a wave of pulmonary pneumonia or similar diseases in the United States, which Americans attributed to the "vapor" of electronic cigarettes.  But according to the famous Taiwanese scientist, symptoms and conditions could not be explained in this way.  He said that he wrote to US officials, pointing out his suspicions about the coronavirus as the likely cause of death.  The warnings were ignored.

Immediately prior to this, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completely closed the main military biolaboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland, due to lack of safeguards against leakage of pathogens, giving the military a total cease and desist * order.  Immediately after this incident, the "electronic cigarette epidemic" arose.

From The New York Times, August 8, 2019 ( https://www. nytimes. com/2019/08/05/health/germs-fort-detrick-biohazard. html ) for security concerns.  Problems with disposal of hazardous materials forced the government to suspend the activities of a leading military biological center.  "

In September 2019, Japanese citizens were infected in Hawaii - people who had never been to China, infections occurred in the United States long before the outbreak in Wuhan, but soon after the closure of Fort Detrick.

Then an article appeared on Chinese social media confirming the above, but with additional details.  It partially indicated that five “foreign” athletes or other personnel who visited Wuhan at the World War Games (October 18-27, 2019) were hospitalized due to an unknown infection.

The article explains more clearly: The Wuhan version of the virus could only have been sourced from the United States, as this is what they call an offshoot.  It could not be primary because it did not have a “seed”.  It was supposed to be a new variety, emerging from the original "trunk" that only exists in the United States.

There have been speculations that the coronavirus was deliberately introduced in China, but a less sinister alternative is possible, according to the article.

If some members of the US team at the World War Games contracted the virus as a result of an accidental outbreak in Fort Detrick, then it is possible that their symptoms were mild during the long initial incubation period.  These people could easily have traveled around Wuhan during their stay there, infecting thousands of locals in various places, many of whom could later travel to the seafood market, from where the virus spread like wildfire (as it did).

This also explains the practical impossibility of finding the legendary "patient zero", which in this case was never found, since there were many of them.

Further, Daniel Lucy, an infectious disease expert at Georgetown University in Washington, in an article in the journal Science ( https://science. sciencemag. org/content/367/6477/492. full ) indicated that the first human infection was confirmed as which took place in November 2019 (not in Wuhan), suggesting that the virus originated elsewhere and then spread to the seafood market.  "One group reported the origin of the outbreak as early as September 18, 2019. " “As confirmed cases of the new virus are spreading around the world at an alarming rate, all eyes have so far been focused on the seafood market in Wuhan, China as the source of the outbreak.  But the description of the first clinical cases, published in The Lancet, refutes this hypothesis.  "

The article, written by a group of Chinese researchers from several institutions, details the first hospitalized patients (41 people) who have been confirmed to have an infection dubbed the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).  In the first case, the person fell ill on December 1 and did not report any connection to the seafood market.  "No epidemiological link was found between the first patient and subsequent cases," the authors state.  Their data shows that a total of 13 cases out of 41 had no market connection.  “13 is a large number,” notes Daniel Lucy.

Earlier reports from the Chinese health authorities and WHO said the first patient began symptoms on December 8, while current reports simply emphasize that "most" of the cases had ties to the seafood market, which closed on January 1.

Lucy said that if the new data is accurate, the first human cases should have occurred in November 2019, if not sooner because there is an incubation period before symptoms appear.  If so, the virus may have been quietly spreading among people in Wuhan and elsewhere before a cluster of cases were discovered in late December from the now infamous Huanan City Wholesale Seafood Market.  “The virus entered this market before it left this market,” says Lucy.

FORT DETRICK, Md.  -- Army researchers at Fort Detrick are fast at work growing batches of COVID-19 to help test treatment options and eventually find a coronavirus vaccine.

"They take some of the virus and put it onto cells," Dr.  Kathleen Gibson, a core laboratory services division chief at the U. S.  Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases [USAMRIID], explained through a triple-glass window as Army researchers wearing protective gear worked with the deadly virus.  "They look for the virus that will actually kill portions of the cells and they'll count those killed portions. "

These are the same army scientists who helped develop vaccines for anthrax, the plague and Ebola.  Now, they have been working double shifts growing large amounts of the COVID-19 virus at this sprawling lab complex.

"We have more capacity to run more studies at the same time," Col.  E.  Darrin Cox, the commander of USAMRIID, explained.  "We can be running things in parallel rather than having to do things sequentially, and that's helped speed up the process of the science. "

Fort Detrick has one of the country's few labs with biosafety level 4-specialized equipment, allowing researchers to work on the most deadly viruses.

It's taken two weeks to grow a lot of COVID-19.  Fort Detrick received its first vial of the virus from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] a month ago.  Its scientists have started the genetic sequencing of the virus, using machines capable of fast, large-scale drug testing as well.

"We have a large capacity to be able to test a very large number of products.  Most other places don't have that infrastructure to be able to develop or test as many products at a time," according to Dr.  John Dye, the USAMRIID viral immunology chief.  "There are at least eight different companies that are developing vaccines that all can be assessed looking for safety in humans. . .  Having multiple shots on goal is our best chance of being able to basically battle this virus. "
Army researchers have shot compounds such as chloroquine into vials of COVID-19 to see how it's reacted.

"We can test about 300 drugs or compounds in each plate," Dr.  Sheli Radoshitzky said.  "We add the compounds using this robotic system and then we transfer the plates into bio-containment where we add the virus. "

Since 1969, this warren of Army research labs known as USAMRIID has served as the Defense Department’s lead laboratory for medical biological defense research.

It has worked with biotech firms such as Gilead to discover drugs including Remdesivir -- an antiviral to fight Ebola -- which may work on COVID-19.  USAMRIID has worked with the CDC, National Institutes of Health [NIH] and private drug companies to bring these drugs to market.

This past December, a vaccine for Ebola produced in conjunction with Merck received its license, a key step in Food and Drug Administration [FDA] approval.  It was several years in the making, but these Army labs found the key particle that led to the discovery.

CORONAVIRUS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Men and women in these hallways were some of the first boots on the ground during the first Ebola outbreak.

America’s main biological warfare lab has been ordered to stop all research into the deadliest viruses and pathogens over fears contaminated waste could leak out of the facility.

Fort Detrick, in Maryland, has been the epicentre of the US Army’s bioweapons research since the beginning of the Cold War.

But last month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – the government’s public health body – stripped the base of its license to handle highly restricted “select agents”, which includes Ebola, smallpox and anthrax.

The unusual move follows an inspection by the CDC at Fort Detrick which found several problems with new procedures used to decontaminate waste water.
For years the facility used a steam sterilisation plant to treat waste water, but after a storm flooded and ruined that machinery last year, Fort Detrick switched to a new chemical-based decontamination system.

But the CDC inspectors found the new procedures were not sufficient, with both mechanical failures causing leaks and researchers failing to properly follow the rules.

In recent years it has been involved in testing possible vaccines for Ebola, after several epidemics of the deadly virus in Africa.

A spokeswoman for the lab, Caree Vander Linden, said despite the CDC suspension order, there had not been any threat to public health or any leaks of hazardous material outside the base.
The shutdown of research at Fort Detrick is likely to last several months, she also told the New York Times.

This is not the first time the lab has been temporarily shut down due to failures in handling the dangerous pathogens inside.

In 2009, research at Fort Detrick was suspended because it was discovered it was storing pathogens which were not listed on its inventory.

The regulations on keeping close track of hazardous biological material were tightened after the 2001 anthrax attacks, which saw five people die after spores were posted to several media newsrooms and Democratic senators.

The FBI’s chief suspect in the 2001 case, Bruce Ivins, was a senior biological weapons researcher at Fort Detrick.  He killed himself in 2008, shortly before the FBI was planning to charge him with the attacks.

The US is trying to increase its “biological presence” outside of its territory, including in former Soviet republics.  Moscow has information that Washington offered Georgia the opportunity to extend the scope of biological research projects in a US-owned lab in the country, which is called the Lugar laboratory.  It is possible the US is researching materials causing dangerous diseases.
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative concerning the Tbilisi-based Lugar Lab.

The Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research is a facility of the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC)(opens in a new tab), which became operational in August 2013.  The Lugar centre is a top-tiered institution in NCDC’s laboratory network and serves as a reference laboratory for Georgia’s public health system.  In no case has this laboratory designed, redesigned or built biological weapons, though this is a trope in Russian media.

Read more about the Lugar lab on Myth Detector(opens in a new tab).