Coronavirus Pandemic: Apocalypse Now! Or exaggerated scare story?

[loreta]

The devil box (tv) is responsible of all the histeria concerning this Coronavirus. They lie like Pinocchio. They manipulated emotions, control the mind of people and make them feel fear. This is very good for becoming sick, when you live in fear.

In Spain there are around 10 people with Corona. Because of these 10 people all the news and energy on tv is about Corona. 10 people. One thousand people are in an hotel in Tenerife because one man and his wife I think, had Corona. They don't care about these 1000 tourists, they leave them in the hotel like dogs in a kennel. Very nice while people listen obsessed the devil box for more deaths of Corona. There is something macabre in this. Prices on the stores are much high then last week but well what is important is Corona and find masks to protect of the pestilence. I like to see all of this because it is almost funny, absurd. I am not happy of the deaths, and they are and everyday people die of cancer in hospitals that are like death camps. We live in an absurd world.

 

[SOTTREADER]

Objectively, or subjectively? I'd say an outbreak objectively becomes a pandemic when at least 1% of the population of multiple countries spread around the globe become infected. An outbreak subjectively becomes a pandemic when a tiny fraction of one percent of the population in multiple countries become infected and an even smaller fraction of those die from the infection, but nevertheless the media says it's a pandemic (to sell papers/gain readers/earn money). So yeah, we're in a subjective pandemic, i.e. not one at all.

Interesting definition.

Sometimes I wished subjective things didn't have such a real impact. I've learnt that sometimes, what people think and feel is more important than what is real.

To use a metaphor, if a man is objectively innocent of a crime, but his peers think and / or feel differently, then the man might be powerless to face the fate decreed on him by his peers.

So objective / subjective pandemic, does it matter when people have made up their mind about a situation?

In the subjective world of feelings, the mood is the authorities have lost control and with the outbreak spreading further, a good majority feel like it's moving to pandemic territory if not already there (regardless of the 1% threshold you mentioned).

Objectively on the other hand, well maybe it's not.

To be fair, it's like arguing what constitutes someone being rich or not! Maybe for someone it's having £1,000,000 maybe for another it's having £100,000. So what constitutes pandemic status? Can everyone really agree? I'm tending to think the answer is no.

 

[United Gnosis]

Objectively on the other hand, well maybe it's not.

Objectively, I believe the functional definitions is person-to-person transmission on more than one continent. Different organizations use different definitions, unfortunately.

 

[Gaby]

Well, we (health staff in Spain) have been briefed. My reaction and that one of my colleagues including the secretaries: what a load of hysteria for such a little thing. Granted, we're used to seeing so many biggie ones. Think about it, 1 out of 2 men will get cancer and 1 out of 3 women will get cancer in their lifetime. We deal with so many REAL tragedies on a daily basis, that we can't get even worked up by the flu, which has been pretty bad in the last years. Most of us are amused while reading the protocols of action, like "that means that if I had contact with a confirmed case without the appropriate gear, I get a sick leave for 14 days?" We will be planning next our special quarantine place in the mountains to help us recover from the burnout of dealing with so many heart breaking tragedies on a daily basis. .

Just because this is a "new virus", people get treated with the red carpet in terms of treatment, lab and hospital support. What about my other patients who have a neurological condition and have to wait for 1 year to see a neurologist because the speciality is completely booked up for one entire year?! Neurological issues should qualify as a "new virus", maybe people will get priority evaluation if that is the case.

This seems like obvious confirmation bias. It's not because you don't look at cases affecting healthy adults that they don't exist, but of course early data will predominantly feature weak/immunocompromised people. Reports of healthy, working age adults - such as medical workers - being seriously affected and requiring ICU care are plentiful. It indeed seems to me that you are trying to strengthen a conclusion for which there is very little data either way.

Health staff usually falls first because whether we have vocation or not, we're pretty much forced to work despite exhaustion. We can be drafted by law and ethic norms. Anybody on those conditions is immunocompromised.

10 days ago, I saw like 40 people with either a cold or the flu in just one morning. It has been like that for pretty much most of this season. Then the rest of the days I see the usual tragedies multiplied by 30 during the week. Weekends are slightly better. Last Monday, I finally collapsed despite all my super complementary protocols (and they are practically: "you name it, I did it"). It could have been worse. I mean, I still went up each day to work and by now, I'm recovered. We are already short in staff and a histericized population doesn't make the work easier on us.

My colleague was super sick with the flu, and he has attended Wim Hof's (AKA Ice Man) seminar a few seasons ago, and knows how to boost his immune system with his cold adapted breathing techniques. I was not surprised either. At least he showed up to work on a record time. Thanks God! He has like 1500 patients, just like the rest of us. If one of us is missing, the bulk of the job falls on the ones who can keep on going.

You're welcome to believe that, but you just expose your confirmation bias. You suggested contradictory information, but the suggestion that it conclusively exposes the source as 'fake news' is laughable. There were no reported cases in that region, so it can be it. Medical workers infected and dying, no, that's just overwork. A great amount of leaked and decentralized videos showing collapsing people and bodies on the street, sources on the ground both official and unofficial concerned by the issue, but no, you _know_ it's exposed as fake news because France 24 did a report on it? Really?

Calm down! The mortality rate is nothing to be worked about. I literally see people dying every day, and it's not this coronavirus that's taking them out. Plus, it's not nearly as bad for a seasonal virus and a health-compromised population. That's what happens every season with all the folk who have heart failure, cancer patients, those with COPD, etc. Even a banal bug could take them out.

That's because it generally doesn't kill kids or healthy people. That's how much of a mundane epidemic this is. What you're really seeing in the media is how 'on edge' the global population is because of all the crazy stuff that has been happening in every sphere (politics, social, cultural, economic, wars, Earth Changes, etc) in recent years.

I second that!

 

[Glenn]

The crazy making about this (none event in the grant scheme of things) is just jaw dropping. I wonder how the same people and medias would react if a really serious pandemic would happen?

That is an interesting question. My thought is that they, (PTB) would not be the source, intentionally, of a real pandemic. For the simple reason that they don't like things they can't control, and they wouldn't want the risk of being caught in a trap of their own making. If it gets out of control, there is a good chance they could die from it...

So the likely cause of a real pandemic would be something out of their control, ie earth changes, cosmic etc. The X Factor, as the C's have described it.

How the reaction would be to something like that, Lord only know...

 

[Thebull]

Well, we (health staff in Spain) have been briefed. My reaction and that one of my colleagues including the secretaries: what a load of hysteria for such a little thing. Granted, we're used to seeing so many biggie ones. Think about it, 1 out of 2 men will get cancer and 1 out of 3 women will get cancer in their lifetime. We deal with so many REAL tragedies on a daily basis, that we can't get even worked up by the flu, which has been pretty bad in the last years. Most of us are amused while reading the protocols of action, like "that means that if I had contact with a confirmed case without the appropriate gear, I get a sick leave for 14 days?" We will be planning next our special quarantine place in the mountains to help us recover from the burnout of dealing with so many heart breaking tragedies on a daily basis. .

Just because this is a "new virus", people get treated with the red carpet in terms of treatment, lab and hospital support. What about my other patients who have a neurological condition and have to wait for 1 year to see a neurologist because the speciality is completely booked up for one entire year?! Neurological issues should qualify as a "new virus", maybe people will get priority evaluation if that is the case.



Health staff usually falls first because whether we have vocation or not, we're pretty much forced to work despite exhaustion. We can be drafted by law and ethic norms. Anybody on those conditions is immunocompromised.

10 days ago, I saw like 40 people with either a cold or the flu in just one morning. It has been like that for pretty much most of this season. Then the rest of the days I see the usual tragedies multiplied by 30 during the week. Weekends are slightly better. Last Monday, I finally collapsed despite all my super complementary protocols (and they are practically: "you name it, I did it"). It could have been worse. I mean, I still went up each day to work and by now, I'm recovered. We are already short in staff and a histericized population doesn't make the work easier on us.

My colleague was super sick with the flu, and he has attended Wim Hof's (AKA Ice Man) seminar a few seasons ago, and knows how to boost his immune system with his cold adapted breathing techniques. I was not surprised either. At least he showed up to work on a record time. Thanks God! He has like 1500 patients, just like the rest of us. If one of us is missing, the bulk of the job falls on the ones who can keep on going.



Calm down! The mortality rate is nothing to be worked about. I literally see people dying every day, and it's not this coronavirus that's taking them out. Plus, it's not nearly as bad for a seasonal virus and a health-compromised population. That's what happens every season with all the folk who have heart failure, cancer patients, those with COPD, etc. Even a banal bug could take them out.



I second that!

Thank you for your detailed on the ground update Gaby. Been on the front line must be difficult especially when your short staffed. Hopefully your information can calm some of the more worried minds here. Take as much care as you can and be careful as no doubt you’ll deal with some hysterical people as well.

 

[Ellipse]

The University Hospital Institute of Marseille, France, specialized in infectious disasters, entitled its yesterday video "Coronavirus: Game Over !".

Chinese doctors had just confirmed that chloroquine is effective against the virus in vivo. In the video professor Didier Raoult say that Chinese scientifics had word very fast and are really the best actually.

Coronavirus : fin de partie ?

Les médecins chinois viennent de confirmer que la chloroquine (un antipaludique bien connu) est efficace in vivo contre le coronavirus. La vidéo de l'annonce par le professeur Didier Raoult :

fr.sott.net

 

[SOTTREADER]

Guys, there is this video on YouTube I saw awhile back about what would constitute 'the pandemic'. The video was made 3 months ago and I've been trying to find it since YouTube recommended it to me but there's just too many videos now about viruses and plagues since corona virus that it's like searching for a needle in a haystack.


Anyways, this is what the video said. In this modern tech saturated interconnected world, for a virus to truly reach plague status (I mean to literally get to the point humanity is at risk of going extinct), it should be able to satisfy a number of criteria

• The first one is the virus needs to be stealthy. The video said a long incubation period would be paramount - say 4 weeks. Why? Because after a person starts showing symptoms, they will seek help which will then alert authorities to the virus. The authorities will then institute counter measures. So a long incubation period means that by the time the authorities know, the virus would have already spread far and wide.
• It needs to be highly transmissible from one person to the next. This goes without saying.
• The majority it infects need to be asymptomatic. Again, the authorities can't contain it if they don't know who has it.
• It needs to be deadly. The video said that whilst the virus is generally asymptomatic, it still proliferates within your body to such a point the viral load becomes to much for your body to bear which then leads to a sudden onset of organ failures and the like (i.e. resulting in death)

The video said if such a virus appeared on the scene, then humanity will be in very big trouble.

Viruses that appear on the scene screaming "look at me, look at how crazy I am" sadly do not make it to far.

So perhaps something to think about. "The pandemic" we're all waiting for might not be ebola like with people bleeding through their eyes but something more sinister, silent and deadly like a ninja in the darkness of the night.

I am trying to find this flipping video so I can post it here but it's like looking for a grain of sand at the beach!

 

[Aeneas]

In the social media world though, people have been expecting the worst from day one and are now getting positively angry by the mainstream downplaying it but also at the same time failing to control the spread. It's only leading to an atmosphere of disconnect and mistrust between the so-called authorities and the so-called plebs.

Hindsight is 20/20. Of course everybody as you say knew from day one that this was the killer pandemic. It must have been around late November or at the very latest early December that we all knew this. What you didn't know? Are you not on social media? Do you not know that social media is akin to the delphic oracle which tells the truth and nothing but the truth?

So what should they have done on day one? Lock it all down? No that would be authoritarian? Scream at the top of your lungs: "Pandemic!!!!"...and then what?

Let us take France as an example. Let us say you are in charge of the French authorities. A 80 year old Chinese tourist died of the virus in France on the 15th of February and nothing was done. Today a 60 year old died in a hospital in Paris of the virus. It is not known where he got it from. Ok, what would you do at this moment if you are in power? Call in the army and seal a ring around Paris and another ring around France? If not why not. You realise that if everyone with a sneeze comes to the hospitals, there won't be enough capacity as they already are overloaded just with the usual day to day work. Bulldoze whole districts and build hospitals in a few weeks? And the crisis is serious. More than 2 people could die from this and it is pretty much a certainty. What is the correct response? You will surely not call on people to calm down from what you have written so far above. How would you react? Your response is critical to France and to the whole world and as it happens, I am going to Paris on Saturday so time is of essence

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I am trying to find this flipping video so I can post it here but it's like looking for a grain of sand at the beach!

If you have a YouTube account you can open your "history" in the menu on the left side of the screen, and then search by keyword (results are displayed in reverse chronological order). YT keeps a record of all videos you watch while logged in.

 

[Metrist]

I was wondering...

The flu is like a seasonal thing - it is usually in the winter. So, can we expect that it will diminish as the weather gets warmer, going into summer?

 

[Niall]

Indeed, my point. There is serious fog of war over the entire issue. Which makes it even funnier when we can't dig into data with an open mind, then Niall cites France 24 as conclusive proof. It seems Niall is the one who's neither open or neutral here.

Then do it! Dig into the claims/data made in such videos.

Look, we're fundamentally on the same page. The CCP is probably hiding something. But not 'lots of people incinerated alive'. It's hiding the culpability of its 'top bio-lab' letting this thing loose. And the WHO and media is 'all in' on helping them cover that up.

Suspicions about the lab are growing though, which is why the media is running interference on it...

Why a Chinese virology lab is unable to quell the coronavirus conspiracy theories around it

A Chinese state-owned virology lab in Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus epidemic, is finding it extremely hard to quell conspiracy theories proliferating around the institution—a sign of the sharply decreased level of public trust in the government since the outbreak of the virus.

At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a subsidiary of the state-owned research institute the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), scientists carry out virus research at a lab with the highest level of biological containment available on the mainland. Its construction was approved in 2003, during China’s last deadly coronavirus outbreak, SARS, and completed five years ago, according to Nature journal. The lab came under spotlight in late January, after Chinese scientists said the virus could have a connection to bats via an intermediary, such as some form of game sold at a seafood market in Wuhan. As the lab has researchers who study bat-related viruses, it became a target of online suspicion that coalesced into theories that the virus could have escaped from the lab, or be a bio-weapon gone wrong.

That isn't why it's suspicious. It's suspicious because those lab researchers were located at Ground Zero of the outbreak: the country's only BSL-4 lab!

All that stuff about bats, snakes, pangolins and the fish/wet market was probably disinformation in an effort to pawn blame for it off onto ordinary people.

An unvetted research paper published on Jan. 31 by a group of Indian scientists, in which they claimed similarities between the nCOV-2019 virus and the HIV virus, appearing to hint at human engineering, also stirred further controversy surrounding the institute. The paper was later withdrawn by the researchers, who said they “intend to revise it in response to comments received from the research community.”

Theories suggesting the new virus was purpose-built or the work of scientists have been emphatically rejected by scientists globally, including 27 prominent public health scientists from outside China who issued a statement on Wednesday published by medical journal The Lancet. “Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent…and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” it said.

So maybe there's no HIV sequence in its genome, but that isn't the only evidence for it having man-made origins. See here for example.

Some journals, such as Nature, have appended notes to older stories about the Wuhan lab calling the conspiracy theories about the lab “unverified.”

However, the rumors have kept spreading widely online, to the extent that Shi Zhengli, a lead researcher on bat-related viruses in the lab, posted on her WeChat account on Feb. 2 that the virus was “a punishment from the nature for humans’ uncivilized life habits,” and said she “guaranteed with her life” it was totally unrelated to the lab. But just as Shi’s assurance seemed to have calmed some down, a notice from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology last Saturday (Feb. 15) started a fresh wave of suspicion towards the lab.

Oh I bet that went down well with people in China.

"It's all your fault, not ours!"

The ministry said in the notice that China should enhance its management of viruses and bioagents at all labs and research institutes, without any explanation as to why this is being proposed right now, leaving some to speculate whether this could be a subtle official acknowledgement of a role played by the lab. The following day, US senator Tom Cotton appeared on Fox News to say that the virus was not far from the wildlife market where many people were infected in December.

That's as good an admission as you'll get from the Chinese govt that the virus escaped from the lab.

There are a number of reasons why these theories keep finding many takers—not just among China hawks but among so many in China. One is, there’s still so much that isn’t known about the virus and its origins.

“At this stage, no expert can be absolutely certain about the cause of the outbreak. This uncertainty makes it easier for some people to think all explanations have equal merit, no matter how fringe that is for experts with more extensive knowledge in the matter,” explained assistant professor Masato Kajimoto, who researches misinformation ecosystems in Asia at the University of Hong Kong’s journalism school.

After Shi’s statement, the lab too has stepped out more than once to try quell the theories. The institute first rejected speculation that the first patient to be infected with the virus was a graduate student who studied at the lab, saying on Sunday (Feb. 16) the student is in good health. Yesterday (Feb. 19), it issued a strong worded statement (link in Chinese), saying the rumors about it have “hurt the feelings of its frontline researchers hugely” and “severely interfered” with its task to study viruses. “We have nothing to hide,” the letter read.

Nonetheless, internet users don’t appear to be convinced by the assurances from the lab. “What is the truth? The collapse of trustworthiness of media and government is not only sad for the two parties, but also for us citizens,” said a user on Weibo commenting on the rumors. “Some might think the so-called rumors are just a prophecy ahead of our times,” said another.

Some “rumors” from the early days of the epidemic after all turned out not to be far from reality. Li Wenliang, a doctor, had told others about a cluster of cases of viral pneumonia before the outbreak had been made public, but was summoned by Wuhan police for “spreading rumors.” He later became infected himself, and his death turned him into a vivid symbol of the costs of the government’s opacity—prompting an outpouring of anger and grief, and rare public demands for freedom of speech and transparency from the government.

“With the government’s bungled handling of the epidemic in Wuhan, and the pain and uncertainty the epidemic and the efforts to cope with it have produced, public trust has clearly decreased,” said Professor Dali Yang, a political scientist at University of Chicago via email. “The death of Dr. Li was a milestone in shared grief in China.”

What now can be done to contain theories of a rogue lab? Probably not a whole lot, says Kajimoto.

“When the authorities and experts have the history of not being transparent, whatever they say could sound as if they are trying to hide something,” said the assistant professor. “In this case, publicly denying the link between the lab and coronavirus could even be construed as ‘evidence’ by people who believe in this conspiracy because denial is the ‘sign’ that the truth is hidden.”

The outbreak is not a 'conspiracy' per se. It's probably an accident. It's only a conspiracy insofar as they're not openly admitting that messing around with vaccines caused the very thing they're supposedly all about preventing.

Eejits!

 

[liam1310]

I was wondering...

The flu is like a seasonal thing - it is usually in the winter. So, can we expect that it will diminish as the weather gets warmer, going into summer?

Professor at the unversity of Hong Kong says it will.

"The transcript of the call showed Nicholls believes weather conditions will be a key factor in the demise of the novel coronavirus. Referencing the SARS outbreak from 2002 and 2003, Nicholls said he thinks similar weather factors will also shut down the spread of the novel coronavirus"

Coronavirus Expert in Leaked Analysis: 'This is Just a Severe, Localized Common Cold' -- Sott.net

 

[SOTTREADER]

If you have a YouTube account you can open your "history" in the menu on the left side of the screen, and then search by keyword (results are displayed in reverse chronological order). YT keeps a record of all videos you watch while logged in.

My God! YouTube is tracking me

I have found the video following your instructions. It actually contained quite a lot more superfluous stuff than I remembered lol. Interesting to see what one takes away from a random video watched weeks prior.

It's less dark, more positive towards the end but the essence remains the same with the added criteria that the virus needs to be something we haven't come across before.

Ps, the video was made pre-Corona virus outbreak i.e. November 2019

 

[liam1310]

Objectively, or subjectively? I'd say an outbreak objectively becomes a pandemic when at least 1% of the population of multiple Coronavirus Expert in Leaked Analysis: 'This is Just a Severe, Localized Common Cold' -- Sott.net spread around the globe become infected. An outbreak subjectively becomes a pandemic when a tiny fraction of one percent of the population in multiple countries become infected and an even smaller fraction of those die from the infection, but nevertheless the media says it's a pandemic (to sell papers/gain readers/earn money). So yeah, we're in a subjective pandemic, i.e. not one at all.

Yeah and spread some fear , no doubt the PTB are taking notes, never let a crisis go to waste.