Coronavirus Pandemic: Apocalypse Now! Or exaggerated scare story?

[SummerLite]

Here is my report from Durango, Colorado, 336 miles SW of Denver. There has been one possible case in Denver with a man that spent time in Italy recently, had some symptoms then went to a hospital where he's being quarantined. He was tested for the virus but the results aren't in at this point as far as I know.

Things have been normal and quiet here so far but today showed the first signs of a bit crazy. My daughter is a nurse in a rehabilitation center that mainly cares for elderly people. Often, her 2 kids get off the bus at her work after school and wait for her to finish. Today the administrator told her that children are no longer aloud in the building only giving her an hours notice before the kids where to arrive leaving her scrambling for a solution for the sudden problem. She also informed me there was NO Toilet Paper left in town! I must say I was totally shocked to hear this, couldn't believe it! I drove down to the local supermarket to see for myself and sure enough, not one roll! Had a talk with one of the clerks and he said the Super Walmart here is also sold out. So I grabbed some paper towels which there were plenty, the next to go if the TP isn't restocked soon. Plenty of food though but the hand sanitizer is also all sold out.

So this toilet paper crisis seems to be happening all over the world! So crazy.... something hard wired into people at a very primal level? I told a friend he could set up a stand on the sidewalk and sell TP, which he's amply supplied already, and make a fortune! My motto is "never let a good crisis go to waste".

Maybe it was just me being a bit panicky about the toilet paper but I had a sense some people seemed nervous and concerned and others where not, which is reasonable. People weren't buying massive amounts of food either, just small purchases. A few days ago, at the gas station, the credit card machine went down and everyone was paying with cash. I remarked to the clerk '"See, thats why we need to keep the cash", she agreed. This was part of some chit chat about the virus. She said she didn't like how the media was hyping this up and causing fear, which I agreed. I glanced down at the local paper and in big head lines it said" What are you doing about the Corona Virus?". She told me it was good to meet another grounded person and I told her Vit C is good and she agreed. We exchanged a glance of recognition, like 2 sane people recognizing each other. Interesting.

Then Laura was reminded of Session 16 October 1994 which she just mentioned. This is the scenario I flashed on with the cash. At this time, its easy to consider a lot of things could happen if things are reeving up. Stay grounded everyone. I need to brush up on my Stoicism.

 

[Woodsman]

She also informed me there was NO Toilet Paper left in town! I must say I was totally shocked to hear this, couldn't believe it! I drove down to the local supermarket to see for myself and sure enough, not one roll! Had a talk with one of the clerks and he said the Super Walmart here is also sold out. So I grabbed some paper towels which there were plenty, the next to go if the TP isn't restocked soon. Plenty of food though but the hand sanitizer is also all sold out.

So this toilet paper crisis seems to be happening all over the world! So crazy.... something hard wired into people at a very primal level?

That's just amazing. Even when realizing that there is a crisis at hand, people are so disconnected from objective reality that they misinterpret their primal fear of want and stock up on the absolute wrong things. I don't even think peppers talk about toilet paper.

Maybe it's a kind of redirection of fear? A variation on the normalacy bias. -The idea of starving is not just alien, but also so scary to contemplate that they would rather project their anxiety in a more benign direction. It's possibly the same reason people get so weird about preppers.

I moved into one place and my landlord noticed some cardboard pallets containing jars of meat stew (which I'd processed with a pressure cooker). I told him, "Yeah, emergency food. A few months worth." I was surprised to see him visibly shaken and I could tell he didn't want it in the house. He nervously suggested that it could be given to charity or used up all at once at a big group picnic or something. What a strange response! I declined the suggestions (of course), explaining that it was mine and that it couldn't hurt to have it around. I explained my reasoning and he calmed down. (And may have managed to simply sequester the idea away from conscious thought.)

So maybe I was wrong. Maybe it did hurt him. -If people cope with fears by wishfully thinking that nothing bad can ever happen, then it probably does hurt to have a bit of reality poke them in the dreams. It's not the first time I've seen people react in strange ways when their primary coping mechanism is to strategically not think upsetting ideas.

Maybe it would have been different if I'd come in with lots of toilet paper instead?

But who knows. Maybe the current trend is just another version of Tickle-Me-Elmo madness, when everybody suddenly gets struck by a random lightening misfire of herd instinct. "Everybody else is doing it desperately, so I must too! Outta my way, Walmart scum!"

 

[Metrist]

Well, as far as shopping hysteria goes, maybe it isn't relative so much to the outbreak as it is related to the earth changes going on. Of course, it is part of it, but seeing all the animal die-offs, who knows how bad that really is... and we can't deny that the wind and rain is extreme. And fires all over. Quakes, volcanos, snow, ect.

So, with all that is going on, we have to expect shortages. So, the toilet paper madness... that might be to make preppers look paranoid, and downplay the necessity of planning ahead. And avoid runs ahead of panic situations.

As far as my local store, the bottled water is limited to a certain quantity, but it is on sale, so there is no price gouging. I don't know about other items. I noticed the meat department had a strong smell of bleach.

Anyway, the scope of the crisis is on the virus, but there is much more than that to be alarmed about.

 

[WIN 52]

I think that the fear is a big factor if a flu would hit you no matter your age. Ofcourse that your chances of fighting it off would be somewhat greater if you are younger but what if a flu hit you and you dont fear it at all. The biggest thing I got from his letter is its just flu. Ok, its a nasty one but its nothing we couldnt handle. Ofcourse, if youre already full of infections, loaded on cheap booze and youre swimming in 5G then your chances are extremely low, as we have seen in Wuhan.
I beleive we humans invent problems and disease for ourselves when we let wrong impressions fill our heads and when we act in fear. Literally!

Agreed!
I won't bore people with my life's history. Based upon what has already happened to me and my immune system, there is very little fear left. However, there is still plenty of resolve.

 

[JEEP]

I don't even think peppers talk about toilet paper.

Can't agree - I believe preppers have stocked up in the past on TP for the purpose of having an essential item to barter in the event that things get bad (besides having it for themselves). Tide detergent was also an item getting a lot of attention for potential bartering - apparently by thieves:

August 21, 2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. — When police in suburban Washington raided the home of a suspected drug dealer last fall, they found the cocaine, all right, but also something unusual on the man’s shelves: nearly 20 large bottles of liquid Tide laundry detergent.

It turns out his customers were paying for drugs not with cash but with stolen Tide, police said. Tide has become a hot commodity among thieves at supermarkets and drugstores in at least some parts of the country.

For a variety of reasons, the detergent in the familiar flame-orange bottle is well-suited for resale on the black market: Everybody needs laundry detergent, and Tide is the nation’s most popular brand. It’s expensive, selling for up to $20 for a large bottle at stores. And it doesn’t spoil.

One Safeway supermarket in Prince George’s County, Md., was losing thousands of dollars’ worth of Tide a week before police made more than two dozen arrests. In St. Paul, Minn., a man pleaded guilty to stealing more than $6,000 worth of the stuff from a Walmart and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Police in Newport News, Va., and other cities around the country have reported a spike in thefts.

In the Washington D.C. area, some CVS pharmacies have been attaching electronic anti-theft tags to bottles (see photo above). A clerk at a busy, 24-hour CVS in northwest Washington, has seen too many Tide thefts to count. “It’s a hot item! It’s gotten out of hand,” Charlene Holton said. “They usually take maybe four, whatever they can carry out the door. We have to fight for that. It’s rough!”

The store has put electronic tags on its Tide, but that doesn’t stop the thieves, Holton said. They run out of the store with the detergent and remove the tags later with wire cutters.

Tide shoplifters often work quickly. Surveillance videos from a Safeway in Bowie, Md., showed crews of two or three people entering the store, loading up shopping carts and rushing outside, where they loaded the detergent into a waiting car. Police made nearly 30 arrests when they broke up the theft ring last fall.

It’s not clear how new the Tide theft phenomenon is, but organized theft has been a growing problem for U.S. retailers, costing them $3.53 billion in 2010, according to the National Retail Federation.
[...]
And as I commented on a previous CD post in April about this issue, it appears that Tide laundry detergent has emerged as an alternative currency or “medium of exchange, something like a ghetto version of Bitcoin?

From comments:
"This has been a defacto currency for at least a decade now – not the first time I heard of this. It seems to follow the classical definition (which some say is bunk) of how a currency is initially created. People gravitate to an item which can be used for barter, which is relatively easy to carry, easy to verify, doesn’t spoil, and is universally recognized as something of value. And then you get the examples. Cocaine, Salt, Yap stones, sea shells, gold …

And an added bonus, it can be converted into alternate currencies, and it is easy to barter with without tracking or tracing. Yes the poor man’s bitcoin."

The 'Tide Theft Phenomenon'-Why Has the Laundry Detergent Become Such a Hot Commodity Among Thieves at Drugstores? | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

I took the photo above yesterday at my local CVS store in DC, showing the anti-theft devices on each bottle of $12 Tide laundry detergent. There are a lot of items at CVS that are much smaller and much more expensive than bottles of Tide — and therefore much easier to shoplift — and yet …

www.aei.org

I was at my local supermarket today and decided to check on the supply of TP. The shelves were a mix of brands still there along with gaps of missing product, but I noticed these gaps had the bright yellow tags indicating they were currently on sale. Also, two store workers were busy opening cartons of new product to restock the shelves. So, it appeared that only the TP on sale was being cleaned out. I didn't bother to check on hand sanitizer or water - figured if there was TP, then all was normal.

 

[Gawan]

FWIW I recreated one "anti flu and corona" version that it can be shared for German folks. The full-resolution version is in the attachment.

 

[Carl]

Nobody even knows the lower range! It could be less than 0.5%.



About the 'Spanish Flu' (it wasn't Spanish; it started on a US military base, but anyway)...

Manufacturing a crisis: Wikipedia slashes Spanish Flu death rate

We've had a couple of people BTL take issue with us regarding the case fatality rate (CFR) of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Citing Wikipedia and the CDC we gave that rate as being between 10-20%. A couple of commenters, however, insisted the actual CFR...

www.sott.net

The human population of the Earth was 1.8 billion at the time. This means that it's CFR (case-to-fatality rate) was 10-20%... but Wikipedia (and, no doubt, other media and institutions) are currently editing that figure downwards to make this current outbreak seem worse than it is.

It does seem that current results put it way milder than the "Spanish flu" but also reports say its a fair bit worse than the regular flu. The main concern is the state of European health systems in that if it does infect many people and say, 1% of those people get very bad breathing difficulties, that's already enough to absolutely overwhelm our medical systems. Looks like in total its not worth losing your mind over but definitely worth preparing for.

 

[luc]

people hope for a real plague to strike in order to fullfill their zombie apocalypse fantasies.

Yes, I think there are two factors at play here - first, an unconscious desire for chaos and breakdown. I can't even blame those who feel that way deep inside, this reality has become so incredibly bleak, plastic and silly, so entirely void of soul nourishment, that anything might seem better than that. A crisis at least brings people together, at least it leads to some real conversations, to some real life. If you don't have any knowledge and live entirely in mainstream-MSM-manufactured reality, I can understand that people crudely crave something different subconsciously.

Then there are the narcissists and psychos of this world. They feel special when they go to the doctor for mild flu symptoms, they want to be that corona case in the media, the one who stops a train, the one who causes everyone trouble, the one who blocks the medical system from caring about really sick people. OSIT

 

[Ina]

When going to dusty sites I used to wear buffs to partially cover my face against dust and weather elements. When I was in Afghanistan I had to wear a hijab (actually a full hijab). I was wondering, in the light of keeping up with the health and safety demands, would the use of a hijab for partial face cover be considered offensive cultural appropriation? I have seen some real nice ones.

 

[loreta]

The masters of the world, the globalists, UN included, and WHO, have always said that we are too much in the planet, too many humans. So this Corona is maybe part of their plan to eliminated people? not just to control, but simply eliminate. They have always do that, with their wars and famines, and genocides, but now this Corona virus seems to me an ideal tool to do what they decided to do: eliminated population.First, the old ones, that are not anymore good for work and receive money, then the fragile people, with illness and health complications. The kids and young ones are good to work for them, for their wars and anything they wanted to do. Just a though.

 

[loreta]

At last a piece of useful information, the list of Disinfectants to use against Covid-19 from EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). To get the list in PDF format click on the hyperlinked text in first paragraph. I am sure many products maybe still on the shelves.

EPA Releases List of Disinfectants to Use Against COVID-19 | Global Biodefense

Beach is a good disinfectant. My grand-mother used it to clean. Just one drop is enough. So maybe just taking liquid soap with a drop of bleach is enough?

 

[Laurs]

You know, this whole thing reminds me of the following:

A: World will soon have nothing but credit and debit have you not heard of this new visa debit cards this is the future of money as controlled by the world banking system i.e. the brotherhood i.e. Lizards i.e. antichrist.

Q: (L) If I don't have a credit card then I don't have to belong to this system?

A: No. You will have no choices: belong or starve.



And of course, the question is: why is it pretty much NOW that "the Lizard beings desperate push for total control" is manifesting?

Is it because the Wave really is in progress? That some very interesting changes are in the wings ready to step on stage?

And in the Netherlands we find today that the supermarkets will only accept debit cards for payment and cash only in cases when this is impossible (guess you won't find too many of those though). So corona provides the excellent cover to abolish cash.

Supermarkten roepen klanten op om te pinnen vanwege coronavirus

Supermarkten en foodservicegroothandels willen dat klanten bij het betalen van de boodschappen pinnen in plaats van contant betalen, meldt het Centraal Bureau Levensmiddelenhandel (CBL) woensdag.

www.nu.nl

 

[Ina]

The masters of the world, the globalists, UN included, and WHO, have always said that we are too much in the planet, too many humans. So this Corona is maybe part of their plan to eliminated people? not just to control, but simply eliminate. They have always do that, with their wars and famines, and genocides, but now this Corona virus seems to me an ideal tool to do what they decided to do: eliminated population.First, the old ones, that are not anymore good for work and receive money, then the fragile people, with illness and health complications. The kids and young ones are good to work for them, for their wars and anything they wanted to do. Just a though.

One cannot stop that line of reasoning, can it? So let’s pretend we are in our mid 20s and we love our parents and grandparents, if we are lucky to have full sets of before mentioned. We’d probably think (in the long run) that there is justice after all since the number of job hogging dinosaurs will somehow diminish, hence increasing chances for more jobs available. Now, let’s think like a public sector economist or accountant in charge with public pensions. I am sure that in parallel to how much the health crisis costs there are calculations for savings, again in the long run.
No mater on which side I turn the issue, the long term vision vis-a-vis money equates to savings. Alas this vision is unilateral because the reason is the money. And since the economy has allowed the financial sector to become preponderant industry, the portion of money used as resource far outweighs the potion of money used as transactional medium or capital for development. So the fact that a large segment of the population will perish, it will largely be mourned in the social sphere but not in the financial one.

 

[SOTTREADER]

Coronavirus: Health minister Nadine Dorries tests positive

Nadine Dorries is self-isolating at home, while another MP says she has been advised to do the same.

www.bbc.co.uk

Shades of the Iranian minister coming down with the virus... I hope the UK is not on the same trajectory.

Top Polish general has coronavirus after German conference: Defence Ministry - The Economic Times

Poland's top armed forces generals Jaroslaw Mika took part in a conference on strategic communication involving the "Defender-Europe 20" U.S. army deployment exercises on March 6 in Wiesbaden. The commander of US Army Europe, Lieutenant General Christopher Cavoli, along with several staff...

www.google.com

 

[Konstantin]

The madness continues. New restrictive measures by the government in Macedonia. Starting from today, all schools, kindergartens, and universities are closed for the next 14 days but they will probably make this longer. No public gatherings, sports matches or concerts.

On April 12 There will be elections in Macedonia. The political parties will start campaigns in a few days and I just wonder how will they do all that under these restrictive measures. Will they cancel the elections? We will see that too.
I can feel that the circus is coming to my town this spring.
We will have to wait and see.

The government created a new webpage where people can follow the latest recommendation from WHO and news about this deadly disease

In all this madness I can see 2 types of people.
-One part is buying the propaganda and they are scared to death from this virus and the second group that doesn't buy this nonsense.
As I can see all this madness will not stop soon.

The company where I work received a lot of emails from Italian companies that we are working with. We import products from them and sell them here.
In the emails, all of them are saying that despite all the restrictive measures by the government, all the activities of all of them are going regularly without any delays.
Delays are possible in international transportation only.
The real problem will be made if the government restricts the work of the companies. That will be a real nightmare for the economy.

I am just really surprised how easy can propaganda spread fear between people. This is one good example of how knowledge protects, from many aspects.