Sir Humphrey Appleby,
the Machiavellian senior civil servant in the hit 1980s British sitcom Yes, Minister once famously commented that
one should “never
believe anything until it’s been officially denied.” Which meant we could be
fairly confident that racial and ethnic differences in susceptibility to
Coronavirus exist, because our race-denying Ruling Class so dogmatical refused
to consider the evidence. Now that’s over: a study by a Chinese research group
has emerged that offers concrete proof of race differences in susceptibility to
Corona virus are very real.
The
study—a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed—is entitled Single-cell RNA expression
profiling of ACE2, the putative receptor of Wuhan 2019-nCov, By Yu Zhao et al., bioRxiv, 2020] and is authored by a
group of medical scientists based at Tongji University in Shanghai
The
authors explain that “2019-nCov was reported to share the same receptor,
Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2)” as the SARS disease, an
outbreak of which in 2003 seemed
almost exclusively to
kill Northeast Asians.
Based
on “the public database and the state-of-the-art single-cell RNA-Seq technique”
the Chinese scientists “analyzed the ACE2 RNA expression profile in the normal
human lungs.” Crucially, they further found (in a comparison of eight
individual samples) that the “Asian male one has an extremely large number of
ACE2-expressing cells in the lung” in comparison to other races. (The database
was based on analysis of eight normal human lung transplant donors of different
races.)
As
they put it:
We
also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing
cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47% of all
cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic
and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian area.
So,
there you have it: scientific evidence of how there are, indeed, genetic
differences underling the empirical evidence that I have been presenting for
weeks that there are racial differences in susceptibility to the Coronavirus
(now widely known as COVID-19).
See:
And
this finding comes as more and more people are beginning notice the racial
dimension to Corona virus. According to Woke Wisdom—which declares that “race”
is only skin deep—the Corona Virus should be ravaging Africa by now. After all,
Africa is poor, poor health compromises the immune system, and access to
medical care is, for most Africans, extremely limited. Surely, Africa should be
worse affected that any other continent in the world—as should black minorities
within white countries. But, consistent with the findings of the Chinese
scientists, this is not the case:
Whether
it’s a matter of faulty detection, climatic factors or simple fluke, the
remarkably low rate of coronavirus infection in African countries, with their
fragile health systems, continues to puzzle – and worry – experts.
To
date, only three cases of infection have been officially recorded in Africa,
one in Egypt, one
in Algeria and one in Nigeria,
with no deaths.
This
is a remarkably small number for a continent with nearly 1.3 billion
inhabitants, and barely a drop in the ocean of more than 86,000 cases and nearly
3,000 deaths recorded in some 60 countries worldwide.
[With only three official
cases, Africa’s low coronavirus rate puzzles health experts, France 24, March 2nd, 2020].
Does
this low infection rate worry “experts” precisely because it raises the
possibility—which I discussed last week—of
blacks having a relatively high immunity due to many of them being adapted to a
hot and wet ecology which, like the cold and wet ecology of much of Europe, is
high in flu and thus selects for flu resistance?
The
report then presents a number of hypotheses. Has there been a lack of travel
between China and Africa? No. Could it be to do with the climate? France-24 produced a senior medic
to reject this one:
“This
hypothesis was rejected by Professor Rodney Adam, who heads the infection
control task force at the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.
‘There is no current evidence to indicate that climate affects transmission,’”
he said.
Professor
Adam also used his interview as an opportunity to cast doubt on the race
hypothesis:
“While it is true that for
certain infections there may be genetic differences in susceptibility…there is no current evidence
to that effect for Covid-19.” [Emphasis added, ellipses in original]
It’s
not obvious why Professor Adam felt obliged to offer this opinion, since France 24does not directly raise the
race hypothesis.
But
note that, significantly, he concedes that “for certain infections there may be
genetic differences in susceptibility…” Of course, this is known to everyone in
medicine (see: Tay-Sachs Disease; Sickle-Cell Anemia).
But for some reason, we’re not allowed to ask about it with COVID-19.
And
there is “current evidence.” It
has not yet passed “peer-review,” it has not yet been critiqued by other
scientists, but there is certainly evidence—beyond the circumstantial—that
genetic differences seem to explain race differences in the reaction to the
Corona virus.
The
African media have noticed the surprising lack of deaths as well. Recently, a
series of African news outlets reported that “the African Blood Genes” may
permit resistance to Corona. In response, the Nigeria-based Centre for Democracy and
Development (a democracy-promoting NGO, not a scientific
organization) has asserted on its blog that: “experts have said claims that
black people were resistant to the virus were ‘false information.’”
It
added:
A
UK-based specialist in infectious diseases and epidemics, Paul Hunter,
told DW [Africa has been spared
so far from coronavirus. Why?, February 14, 2020 ]that the
absence of Covid-19 on the continent maybe largely due to luck. There is nothing special about
Africa not having seen a case other than pure chance at the moment… “I doubt we will see a big
outbreak in Africa, Droplet diseases don’t seem to be as big an issue in
Africa,” he said, adding that SARS, a respiratory disease that is also a
coronavirus, spread through 26 countries in 2003 but failed to gain a hold in
Africa.
From
scientific evidence, there is no medical proof that African blood is resistant
to the Coronavirus
Perhaps
not. But there is now scientific evidence that Africans (and Whites) are more
resistant to it than Asians and that this is for genetic reasons.
Lance Welton [email
him] is the pen name of a freelance journalist living in New
York.
(Republished from VDare by
permission of author or representative)