Coronavirus Pandemic: Apocalypse Now! Or exaggerated scare story?

[Ursus Minor]

Best article so far: Para un prestigioso científico argentino, “el coronavirus no merece que el planeta esté en un estado de parate total”
Is in spanish, try using Google translate or we can help with the basics.

Lucas, please render a service to others and provide the translation into English yourself. Thank you.

 

[mamibio74]

My daughter works in a private hospital and the carers are regularly supplied with masks, gel etc.. The public hospital is located next to the private, the two buildings touch each other. The situation is not the same in both hospitals. The public lacks masks, outfits such as over-sleeves , etc... Nurses decided to bring their own masks, this was refused and for those who violated this order, they would be "punished" and forced to join the service of patients infected with covid19. The consequence is that the replacements no longer come, the services are understaffed ans the nurses and nursing assistants are at the edge of the nerve

 

[SOTTREADER]

Riiiiight, this one Company keeps popping up on the mRNA Vaccine thing: Moderna Inc

They have a grant to make a vaccine for Corona virus..... Here is the president of the company

Check out what this youtuber said underneath that video: In 2013 Moderns Inc was given a grant by DARPA to make a vaccine for biological warfare!!

DARPA Awards Moderna Therapeutics a Grant for up to $25 Million to Develop Messenger RNA Therapeutics™ | Moderna, Inc.

Research to focus on antibody production for immune defense CAMBRIDGE, Mass., October 2, 2013 —Moderna Therapeutics, the company pioneering messenger RNA therapeutics™ , a revolutionary new treatment modality to enable the in vivo production of therapeutic proteins, announced today that the

investors.modernatx.com

Organizations and companies Moderna works with.

Moderna collaborates with pharmaceutical, government and research organizations to further mRNA medicines.

www.modernatx.com

DARPA – Advancing mRNA therapies and vaccines for biodefense
In October 2013, DARPA awarded Moderna up to approximately $25 million to research and develop potential mRNA medicines as a part of DARPA’s Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics, or ADEPT, program, which is focused on assisting with the development of technologies to rapidly identify and respond to threats posed by natural and engineered diseases and toxins. This award followed an initial award from DARPA given in March 2013.

Moderna Announces Funding Award from CEPI to Accelerate Development of Messenger RNA (mRNA) Vaccine Against Novel Coronavirus

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 23, 2020-- Moderna, Inc., (Nasdaq: MRNA) a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines to create a new generation of transformative medicines for patients, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness...

apnews.com

The potential advantages of an mRNA approach to prophylactic vaccines include the ability to mimic natural infection to stimulate a more potent immune response, combining multiple mRNAs into a single vaccine, rapid discovery to respond to emerging pandemic threats and manufacturing agility derived from the platform nature of mRNA vaccine design and production.

[.....]

We believe our mRNA vaccine technology offers potential advantages in the speed of development and production scalability, which positions Moderna to potentially develop a vaccine against coronavirus, 2019-nCoV,” said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna. “Advances in global public health require the collective effort of public-private partnerships – no organization can act alone. We are honored to be supporting NIH and CEPI in their mission to identify a potential vaccine to prevent infection. It is impressive that CEPI was able to commit to this grant in a matter of days. We are thankful for the financial support from CEPI and the multi-year scientific collaboration we have with the NIH.”

And of course, surprise surprise, Bill Gates has his fingers in this company too

Moderna Wins Initial $20M Grant from Gates Foundation

Grant to fund preclinical study, Phase I trial of mRNA-based antibody combination therapeutics toward preventing HIV, with potential to grow into a $100M commitment

www.genengnews.com

This is some SCARY stuff!

These guys are going to use these vaccines to mess around with our genes and God knows what else in the process.

I wonder what the plan is for those who got infected by Covid but have the antibodies? PTB can't let people walk around with potential STO mutations in them... They will for sure catalogue everyone and then do what?

 

[Persej]

We have 10 deaths so far. Still not enough for complete lockdown. But we are slowly getting there. The curfew during the weekend will be from 15 till 05h. That means that poor doggies will have to be inside with us for 14 hours. People who complain about this are easily shut down by comments that they should have not bought a dog in the first place, since they live in apartment. Yeah, take that dog lovers! It's all your fault!

The weather was nice today and a lot of people went outside, most of them without masks. Our health minister said how angry he was seeing all those people outside, so he decided to increase the curfew. And in the comments people are saying that this is the fault of the people who live in the capitol, because people in small places are supposedly abiding the rules. Yay, let's hate the people from capitol now! It's their fault that we all have to suffer from these new measures! Lock down the capitol, since they do not follow the rules!

People are really saying that, I kid you not.

I heard one woman on the street complaining that she has to pay one euro every day for going out, because that's how much these masks cost here. And I realized that our government just introduced a tax on going outside!

As in other countries, green markets are now closed.

I went to the store and today I got used to this 2m distance rule while waiting outside in a line. All right, I'll play this game with you, I was thinking. But the people with masks are hilarious! Not even 2m is enough for them. The guy behind me was standing maybe 10m behind me!

The good news is that people without masks are still not minority here. But I'm sure that masks will become mandatory at one point, and that it will be our fault that this virus is spreading.

But a scary part came a little later. I heard a young woman speaking on the phone. She asked somebody where can she report the people in the park. She wanted to take a picture of them and report them for braking the rules. Little Nazis are everywhere!

 

[Metrist]

People are bureaucrats

I saw some signage on the floor at the store that sets the distance we should keep while standing in line. And I noticed how nice and professional looking it was applied. I couldn't tell if it was stickers, or if they painted it on but it looked so orderly and a part of the store, it took me a while to notice.

And I went to the bank to cash a check... it had a notice on the door: 'by appt. only'. So, I made a appt. and had to wait an hour. And as I waited, people were coming to the door, and I could tell they were as confused as I was when I first tried to get in... and I felt like I was helpful in explaining what they had to do - like I was now a expert.

And I went to pay a bill, but the lobby was shut down until further notice, and you were referred to their online services.

So, I thought about the way this crisis is herding us with bureaucracy. And it reminded me of army soldiers marching in columns toward another group of soldiers who were situated similarly. And they would kill each other in a orderly fashion.

So, these bureaucratic machinations are a programming of sorts to aid in our compliance. And the 'learned' ones actually reinforce this bureaucratic conditioning by trying to be helpful - but what can you do?

So, when the state takes measures that are like this, be aware how our best interests can be utilized into their controlling hands, and they will herd you with bureaucracy, with you facilitating it by thinking you're being helpful in your compartmental scope.

I don't see it as a threat as much as it is a nuisance, because we are more aware of this form of manipulation these days - even though rarely discussed.

 

[angelburst29]

Q: (L) So they need to stop that which they have created because in some cases, it does the opposite of what they wanted it to do?

A: Yes and this is the interesting factor: The virus can change DNA making individuals more susceptible to cosmic information of the STO variety. It can also enhance and activate long suppressed codons of a beneficial nature. So you can see why they are so desperate to halt the spread.

WATCH: Debate raging on link between 5G technology, coronavirus pandemic

Claims that 5G technology played a role in spreading the coronavirus worldwide would have further alarmed residents concerned about its roll-out in Cape Town.

www.iol.co.za

His relating of Steiner’s intriguing viral theory, relative to EMF, and resultant “excited biology” then particularly notable, I thought, following the latest C’s session?

And having never thought much past the general assault on the immune system concept myself, was also surprised to learn that academics had also identified possible correlations between pandemics and solar flux !

Mechanisms of Geomagnetic Field Influence on Gene Expression Using Influenza as a Model System: Basics of Physical Epidemiology

Such that I wonder if that could be similar to what 'cosmic information' may look like?

Who has also made some interesting statements regarding Covid19 -

A clue to the electromagnetic nature of the present pandemic comes from an interesting observation: as many as two-thirds of the people who test positive for the coronavirus have lost their sense of smell, and often that is their only symptom and they are otherwise not sick. (“Loss of sense of smell as marker of COVID-19 infection,” ENT UK). Loss of sense of smell is a classic sign of the disease that was called radio wave sickness in the former Soviet Union...

Another clue is the frequently reported effects of the coronavirus disease on the cardiovascular system, including “arrhythmias, hypotension, tachycardia, and a high proportion of concomitant cardiovascular disease in infected individuals.” This was reported on March 6, 2020 in Cardiology Magazine. These are also classic effects of exposure to radio waves.

A third clue is the astonishing variation in the severity of the current pandemic, regardless of the measures taken by governments to prevent person-to-person contact. Why, for example, does Italy have 74,000 cases of coronavirus disease, and Japan only 1200? Eighty percent of the cases identified in Japan have not passed on the infection to anyone else. Tokyo, among the world’s most densely packed metropolitan areas with a population of 38 million, has almost no disease. This despite a nationwide quarantine and a shutdown of society in Italy, and few measures taken against the disease in Japan. There is no quarantine in Japan and bars, restaurants and clubs are busy and bustling. Temples are packed, and parks are filled with people viewing cherry blossoms. The subways are packed, and people are going to work, yet the disease does not spread. Japan has close contact with China, and did not even stop incoming flights from Hubei until February 1. Japan has an older population than Italy, and a higher rate of tobacco smoking.

I'd love to know what the 'smoker / non-smoker infection rate' data is...

Points of interest ...
* The virus can change DNA making individuals more susceptible to cosmic information of the STO variety.
* ... enhance and activate long suppressed codons of a beneficial nature.
* ... the general assault on the immune system concept.
* ... possible correlations between pandemics and solar flux.
* ... the electromagnetic nature of the present pandemic.
* ... frequently reported effects of the coronavirus disease on the cardiovascular system.
* ... classic effects of exposure to radio waves.
* ... the astonishing variation in the severity of the current pandemic, regardless of the measures taken by governments.

Nostradamus is noted for making predictions based on planetary alignments and cosmic influences in the Heaven's. Everything on our Planet is affected by electromagnetic and gravitational forces, both within and outside of our Planet.

The Coronavirus began to peak during the months of December 2019 and into January 2020. Annular SOLAR Eclipse on December 26, 2019, at 00:13:00 at 4° Capricorn 07′ (New Moon) and January 10, 2020 Full Moon Penumbral Lunar Eclipse.

The variation on severity of symptoms in the pandemic would depend on the position of the Country (location on Earth) most exposed to Planetary alignments and distances between Planets and interaction with the Earth's placement.

2019 Planetary Overview

Solar Eclipse Chart December 2019 Lunar Eclipse Chart January 2020

Close up view of Solar Eclipse Chart December 2019
https://cafeastrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/solareclipsedecember2019-1.png

Dec 2	1:20 PM	Jupiter enters Capricorn
Dec 8	11:27 PM	Jupiter square Chiron
Dec 9	4:41 AM	Mercury enters Sagittarius
Dec 12	12:12 AM	Full Moon in Gemini
Dec 12	10:47 PM	Chiron Direct
Dec 14	2:01 PM	Saturn quintile Chiron
Dec 15	2:01 PM	Jupiter trine Uranus
Dec 20	1:41 AM	Venus enters Aquarius
Dec 20	1:15 PM	Jupiter quintile Neptune	’
Dec 21	11:19 PM	Sun enters Capricorn
Dec 26	12:13 AM	New Moon (Annular SOLAR Eclipse) in Capricorn
Dec 28	11:55 PM	Mercury enters Capricorn

2019 Zodiac Sign Ingresses
Dec 2, 2019 1:20 PM Jupiter enters Capricorn
Dec 9, 2019 4:41 AM Mercury enters Sagittarius
Dec 20, 2019 1:41 AM Venus enters Aquarius
Dec 21, 2019 11:19 PM Sun enters Capricorn
Dec 28, 2019 11:55 PM Mercury enters Capricorn

Close up view of Lunar Eclipse Chart January 2020
https://cafeastrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/lunareclipsejanuary2020-1.png

2020 Calendar
2020 Planetary Overview

Jan 2	11:45 PM	First Quarter Moon
Jan 3	4:37 AM	Mars enters Sagittarius
Jan 8	11:08 AM	Jupiter opposition True Node	'
Jan 10	2:21 PM	Full Moon Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
Jan 10	8:48 PM	Uranus Direct
Jan 12	11:59 AM	Saturn conjunct Pluto
Jan 13	1:39 PM	Venus enters Pisces
Jan 16	1:31 PM	Mercury enters Aquarius	'
Jan 17	7:58 AM	Third Quarter Moon
Jan 18	5:31 AM	Pallas enters Capricorn
Jan 20	9:55 AM	Sun enters Aquarius
Jan 24	4:42 PM	New Moon in Aquarius
Jan 31	2:59 AM	Ceres enters Aquarius
Feb 1	8:42 PM	First Quarter Moon

 

[Abats]

Something's obviously going on. The LVMH group (one of the wealthiest in the world) which owns the Louis Vuitton stores is setting up a real barricade on its storefront during the Place Vendome confinement in Paris. The photo was posted on March 26th, we can see that all its people are wearing masks which could attest to its legitimacy.

 

[Pecha]

I read this article the other day:

_Republicans finally say it: You must be ready to die for capitalism

Actual title: "Trump's death cult finally says it: Time to kill the "useless eaters" for capitalism"

From what I've read, it looks like there's a whole lot of psychopathic projection going on here. It is a highly specific claim to make from the statement that was quoted from Trump in the article. It's weird too, the term useless eaters comes from Nazi parties and some elites as they look down on their cattle. The website also uses black, red, and white which are the colors of the Nazi flag.

Perhaps one of the elite's goals with the coronavirus is to rid certain undesirables? As the Cs said, there are still more twists and turns. A good sign is that the coronavirus has some aspect of STO due to STO forces.

 

[Laura]

Lighten up?

 

[Cristal]

Something's obviously going on. The LVMH group (one of the wealthiest in the world) which owns the Louis Vuitton stores is setting up a real barricade on its storefront during the Place Vendome confinement in Paris. The photo was posted on March 26th, we can see that all its people are wearing masks which could attest to its legitimacy.

Maybe they are just afraid that somebody might try to break in...

 

[SOTTREADER]

These people are all working together in these Vaccine stuff - the below is on Fort Detrick and how they are mixing in with all the above in this Vaccine stuff.

Weiterleitungshinweis

My days.... Here is a page if you want to volunteer for the first trials on Covid run by these types... Your Moderna Inc, government and all sorts

Atlanta Site Added to NIH Clinical Trial of a Vaccine for COVID-19

Emory University in Atlanta will begin enrolling healthy adult volunteers ages 18 to 55 years in a Phase 1 clinical trial of an investigational vaccine designed to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The trial, supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases...

www.niaid.nih.gov

Plus oh my days I just ran into this forum post

US soldier Maatejie Benassi is believed to be patient 0 in Wuhan - China & World - Chinadaily Forum

US soldier Maatejie Benassi is believed to be patient 0 in Wuhan ,Chinadaily Forum

bbs.chinadaily.com.cn

In Wuhan and all other cities of China scientist study the RNA of the virus is believed to be generation 3 virus. But where's the grandparent and parent of the virus?? They cannot be found in China. That make no sense. If the virus originated in China. The first generation virus should exist in China. People search around, only US has the first and second generation virus. In 2019 the flu pandemic killed alot of people, but CDC later admitted not all death cases are due to the flu. It's possible some of them are actual corona virus death. Here's what I came up. Chinese media said the female soldier went to Wuhan named Maateje Benassi, her uncle Matthew worked in a US Biological Weapon Lab in Fort Detrick. US CDC shut down the lab rumored there's a leak there. China media has reasons to believe the Uncle Matthew got contaminated and passed on to his niece Maateje , and she competed in the Wuhan game. So, Chinese think she is the patient zero in Wuhan!

Blimey

Chinese State Newspaper Amplifies Conspiracy Theory That First COVID-19 Patient Was U.S. Cyclist

The English-language Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times has been accused of spreading an unfounded conspiracy theory that a U. S. military cyclist was the source of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

www.forbes.com

Conspiracy theorist's allegation that US cyclist was coronavirus Patient Zero of Wuhan outbreak sweeps China

Claim prompts calls for US servicewoman who competed at October's Military World Games in China to be tested for virus

road.cc

It looks like YouTube has deemed this conspiracy too dangerous it took down the original video!!! HOLY MOLY!

 

[Agron]

People need to know that throwing down a party is still an option... even in the midst of "crISIS"

 

[Abats]

Maybe they are just afraid that somebody might try to break in...

I'm not sure because in the context of the state of health emergency, orders (so-called temporary and currently 26 in number) are being issued in France. We can find for example a relaxation of the legal working hours, i.e. going beyond the 35 hours that can go from 48 to 60 hours per week. They can be consulted in French on this site 26 ordonnances dans le cadre de la loi d'état d'urgence sanitaire

 

[Tristan]

According to this guy (a Spanish doctor) the population of Spain and Italy would be more susceptible to the most pernicious symptoms of infection due to our genetics and our auto immune response. I don't know to what extent this could be true, or what he bases his claim on.

He also says that the key marker would be ferritin when it is at high levels.

The video is only in Spanish:

 

[miguel angel]

Best article so far: Para un prestigioso científico argentino, “el coronavirus no merece que el planeta esté en un estado de parate total”
Is in spanish, try using Google translate or we can help with the basics.

A very good article indeed, imho.

I've been translating it with DeepL in case anyone wants to have a look: (the emphasis are from the original)

For a prestigious Argentine scientist, "the coronavirus does not deserve that the planet is in a state of total stop"

Pablo Goldschmidt, a renowned virologist, spoke to Infobae from Monaco - where he lives and is undergoing his French quarantine - and launched a controversy over the number of cases and the adequacy of the WHO, the obscure reason for so many deaths in Lombardy, Italy, and blamed poor health systems for the deaths rather than the virus.

By Hugo Martín 28-03-2020

As someone who swims against the tide, Dr Paul Goldschmidt (born in our country 65 years ago - he turned two days ago - who has been living in France for 40 years), has been fighting the panic of viruses for years. His book "People and Microbes", in which he explains the psychosis caused by the H1N1 flu and SARS, bears witness to this.

Now, this retired virologist from the French Ministry of Health, who spends his days in his department in Monaco, is taking action against the calculations made by the World Health Organization about the scope of the coronavirus COVID-19, which has already infected 595953 people and killed 27333 (690 and 17 respectively in Argentina), although Goldschmidt will put it into perspective.

"We are all locked up. There are drones in Nice that are fining people from the air. Look as far as this control has gone. You have to read Hannah Arendt, look at the origins of totalitarianism. When someone puts fear into the people, they do what they want with it…”, he maintains. And if you point out to them that because of their age they’re in the risk group, they’ll take it: "But of course... we're all at risk. But there are people in their 80s who are fantastic."

-Why do you claim that there is unwarranted paranoia about the coronavirus?

-Look, these kinds of diseases don't deserve the planet to be in a state of total cessation, unless there are predictions that are realistic.

-And there aren't?

At Imperial College London, which has a very good epidemiology and mathematical prediction service, there is a professor, (Neil) Ferguson, who has modelled the flattening or non-flattening curves in epidemiology. And that was taken for all government policy decisions on the advice of the World Health Organization, without discussing or questioning the equations. I started to analyze this from the beginning and I saw that there was something strange. That didn't close me down. The night before last, this Mr Ferguson said that the projection they made should be massively reduced - the word he used in English - with regard to the numbers of deaths.

-What does it mean?

-That, for example, for the United States he projected with his model -which everyone is using right now without even questioning it-, 2,200,000 deaths; and 500,000 in the United Kingdom if measures were not taken to flatten the curve and all that that meant. Now he says no, that the predictions don't seem to be accurate. The same thing happened with H1N1. They predicted a lot fewer deaths now, as long as the closing measures like those taken by governments are maintained. The estimates are much lower.

-But because of the blockade...

-He says the blockade is going to keep them. But the blockade to flatten the curve was made according to the first calculations, which gave a higher transmissibility and mortality coefficient. But now he says it's not like it was before, that it's in the order of 3 or 2.5, within the flu values. And he said on Wednesday that, because of the estimates he reviewed and the closure measures adopted by the British government, hospitals are going to treat infected people and about 20,000 people will die from the virus... or because of the excitement that other illnesses associated with the virus are going to cause.

-What kind of ailments?

-Infarcts, strokes... Because you go to hospital and if you die from a heart attack, they'll say you died from the virus. The problem is that now everything gets mixed up. A person who arrives for a suicide attempt and who took a remedy for a cold, died from the virus. Someone with a mishandled stroke, if they have a cold, died from the virus, not the stroke. He says the numbers need to be corrected because that's all that's being considered. Of course, there is another epidemiologist in Oxford who says he is surprised that the Imperial College model has been so unconditionally accepted by international organizations. They're doing another kind of predictive model and they say that this virus has spread in an invisible and uncontrolled way at least a month earlier than anyone would have suspected, and if you start testing the population probably half of them will have been infected, and then the mortality is much lower and the risk is much lower too. If that's true, one in a thousand infected would be the one who gets sick and would need hospitalization, because 86 percent don't have serious symptoms. This appeared yesterday in England.

-What does this change for the health care system?

-Of every 100 people who go to see a doctor, 86 percent suffer from flu syndrome. The doctor, in that case, will do a blood test and ask for four parameters, which the laboratory can do in half an hour or an hour. There you can find out whether or not the person has a viral infection. It won't tell you if you have a coronavirus. He has a virus. Influenza, adeno, anything else. But you need labs that can make dimers, C-reactive proteins, blood counts... If the positive dimers are high, there's gonna be some damage to the lung. And they do liver enzymes and ask for an ionogram to see how the potassium is doing. If they do, the person has a virus, whether it's corona or not. If those things aren't altered, they send him home and give him flu treatment. Do you understand? So far there's no need to panic, and we're talking about 85 percent of the people. It happened in Korea, China, and all over the world.

-What happens to the 15 percent who do get a viral infection?

- It can be serious. The only way to know is to do a PCR test, which is not accessible in every city, province or laboratory. The cost of each test is $30 or $40 and it requires very well trained staff and materials. I was just in Argentina in December, and I gave a talk on how to develop home-made molecular biology tests that are not expensive. But to develop them you have to wait at least two months. You have to buy the ones from Korea, because the Chinese at this moment have a quite serious problem, many people don't want to buy them anymore. But even if you buy the best test in Korea, there are 20 percent false negatives.

-What if the result is a coronavirus COVID-19?

-If you have a viral infection, and you say I have a fever (over 38.5 for two days), I'm tired, coughing, I feel short of breath, and also, for a very rare reason, I lose my taste and smell, the only way out is an MRI or a lung scan. There is no other. An X-ray does not always give good results. If the radiologist says there is an infection compatible with coronavirus pneumonia, that person has to be admitted to intensive care, but that is for a maximum of five percent of people. Now, if you don't have MRIs or CT scans, what do you do? You don't know, and that's where the problems start.

-Is there no solution in that case?

-What the Koreans do, and now the French are claiming paternity, is to give an antibiotic, like amoxicillin with clavulanic and hydroxychloroquine.

-Does hydroxychloroquine work?

-It's the only thing that can be given now. There's no hard evidence, but it's better than nothing. It's treated like pneumonia. The difference with classic pneumonia is that this time the hydroxychloroquine is added, but only if the doctor does an electrocardiogram and measures the patient's potassium. Because it changes the heart's conductivity, and after three pills the electrocardiograms bring surprises. You can't just give it to anyone. That's why in France there was a negotiation between Public Health and the professor from Marseille who took the procedures from Korea (Didier Raoult) and said they were for everybody... but no. It is for those who have a doctor who follows them, because if they have a heart rhythm disorder, if their potassium drops, the remedy can be worse than the disease. But in the end, we're talking about these people having to be hospitalized. And here comes the big question.

-What is it?

-That you have to be in an intensive care unit with trained people. Are there people trained in every country and city for intensive care? Are there enough people who know how to put in a laryngoscope to intubate patients? Are there nurses and doctors who have been made responsible by the State for training them to deal with that? The answer is "no". And there aren't enough machines either. There are six times as many ventilators in Germany as there are in Italy. And ten times fewer deaths from the same pathology. In Europe there are 80,000 therapy beds with trained personnel, an average of 12 per 100,000 inhabitants; in the United States there are 28 per 100,000; in Germany, 29; in Portugal, 4.2; in Spain, 10.3, but the problem is that there 78 percent of those who attend these beds are trained for medical-surgical therapy and coronary unit, people who know how to handle heart attacks and strokes, but the State did not train pneumonologists to take charge of this type of crisis. So how far is the virus alone responsible?

-Is it Italy, the country where they say everything went wrong?

-The problem in Italy is much more serious and needs to be analysed separately. There the mortality rate is very high, and people are singing the hymn, but they don't know that for 25 years they have been closing beds and not creating doctors' positions. And much less, intensive care doctors working in hospitals. What this is talking about is that it's not just the virus. There are 75,000 people diagnosed and 7,400 dead, 9 percent of them dead. It means something.

-How do you see the Argentinean health system?

-I couldn't say. The Argentinean system is complicated. There are state hospitals, private hospitals, municipal hospitals, union hospitals. When I was there last year, everything was working at the Fernandez Hospital, but you can't go to the Clinicas because the elevator wasn't running. And as for the professionals, I don't know at this moment how pneumonology is. There are good individuals, brilliant people, but in general, I don't know.

-You say there's no need for paranoia, and that's fine. But if in China they had to create hospitals out of nothing, this is different from a common flu, something happens...

-Look. Anyone who coughs goes to intensive care. Last year, in the United States there were 460,000 people with pneumonia, in therapy. This year I don't know if there will be 100,000. It's not like that. People run to the hospital for anything. And the nurses and doctors were not trained, because until three months ago it didn't matter. Patients are put on oxygen masks, and over 100 elderly people in a south Rome nursing home died 11 in one morning. Did the virus kill them? Maybe they were with the corona. But what if they'd been properly cared for? They didn't even have procedures! In China, at first the mortality rate was 9 per cent, and now they're at one. In Italy they're at 9, but it's going down because they're learning to work. That they're learning means that they weren't trained, that there was no infrastructure. There is a patriotic sense, people go to the window, but doctors are not heroes, they are workers who are going to put their backs into it but they are not trained. They are put in front of dramatic situations, and many do not know what they should do. The procedures were not written down. Only now it is known. That's why I ask, is the virus alone responsible for these deaths? They say that the bodies are accumulating, but in Spain, yesterday, they showed that last year there were the same number of deaths.

-But dead from what cause?

-Because of heart attacks or pneumonia. Now they're all from COVID-19. But last year they didn't start taking nasal samples from all the dead.

-You mean what they call COVID-19 deaths aren't from that cause?

-That's probably COVID-19, but that's where last year there were other respiratory viruses. I'm sure there were, because influenza killed a lot of people in Spain and Italy. But they were dying of pneumonia, without putting any labels on them. Now. We have already analysed the lack of respirators, of training, of staff, of doctors and nurses, who in Italy shout every day because they don't open charges in public hospitals. There were practically no therapy services in the small towns. So far one reasons, but pushing the reasoning to the limit, I start looking at the causes of death in Lombardy, where more people died. And what I'm about to tell you was not published by anyone.

-What did you see?

-In Italy, in Lombardy, that's where most people die from mesothelioma. All the fibre cement factories that used asbestos were there. Until 1992, when it was banned, it was on roofs and factory insulation. The walls had asbestos, which long crystals that reach the lung, which can then heal, or not. Mesothelioma is the lung cancer caused by asbestosis or asbestos. In the autopsies carried out in Lombardy in the last ten years, 85 percent were due to occupational exposure. Malignant tumors with pulmonary and peritoneal location. And until '92, no one banned the use. Lombardy has ten million inhabitants, it is the place that has more employees in the asbestos industry, the place in the world with more asbestosis. But in addition, asbestos sticks to clothes, to fibres. The haute couture clothes of northern Italy are made by women seamstresses. You can believe that between 2000 and 2012 there were 4,442 malignant mesotheliomas (2,850 in men and 1,592 in women), invasive lung cancer from asbestos exposure. And it's growing. This year there were 3.6 percent more than in previous years in men and 3.3 in women over 65. And until 2030 there will be 20,000 more.

-What's the connection with the coronavirus? -I don't know.

-That in that region, punished by lack of means, the closing of beds, lack of breathing apparatus, we find older people, with lungs with cancer or chronic injuries, which makes a viral infection turns into a deadly one. A lung attacked by a mineral fibre will have a different reaction to a healthy lung. And it is no coincidence that more people die where asbestos factories are located.

-But COVID-19 kills more than the common flu...

-All viral infections can be fatal. The difference is that this one caused a panic and the others didn't. Last year a lot of people died from the flu and no one closed the planet. So what happens now?

-I'm asking you, what happens?

-I don't know...

-But what do you perceive, a conspiracy?

-No, that's immediately apparent. Last year there were 36 million people with the flu in the United States. 370,000 were hospitalized and 22,000 died. Is that clear? And no one closed any airports. In France, there are 33,000 cases, but when 23,000 elderly people died in nursing homes due to a heat wave, the country did not close either. There's something very strange here.

-That's why I insist, what do you see?

-A serious error by the WHO experts, which I denounced from the beginning. Do you know what a pandemic means? It doesn't mean serious or severe illness. It means that many countries have a disease. Every year there's a cold pandemic, and nobody closes anything down! Shouldn't we put all this into perspective?

-But COVID-19 is very contagious, doctor...

-Yes, like the cold, which is how people die in nursing homes. They didn't used to count them, now they do. There were over half a million cases of pneumonia in the world last year. There are a million people who can get meningitis in Africa, and it's transmitted by saliva, and planes come and go. And nobody cares about anything. There are 135,000 people who are going to walk around with tuberculosis in Latin America, and nobody makes a fuss. To me, when something makes a lot of noise like with the corona... It's getting very theatrical. From the first day I said that the accounts didn't add up, like when the H1N1 flu appeared.

-And what would you do?

-I'm not an authority to say what I would do, but I see a lack of training and materials. So, first, I would train the staff for what is to come. In three weeks, when they see the signs of the disease, they are going to be the ones to push for the new measures. Look at what is happening in Germany. Mortality is ten times lower because there are specialists in pneumonology and intensive pulmonary therapy. Well, let's do courses in Argentina, and all over the world. Doctors can't be thrown out on the spur of the moment in front of a person who can't breathe. When these people are trained, the figures will show that these five percent of serious cases will be able to be treated in hospitals. And that the rest will fall under their own weight.

-Does the quarantine have to be stopped?

-When the system is in place, with trained staff, equipment, drugs and infrastructure, yes, it doesn't make any sense. As things stand now, you cannot say anything about quarantine because you do not know how many people will be infected and whether the intensive care beds and staff will be sufficient for 5 per cent of them. The measure is not because of the virus, but because of the risk of not being able to take care of people who are in a critical situation. I don't know if it's wrong, because there are no objective figures. At most, it is good that they have stopped because the WHO forced their hand, and once the quarantine is lifted it cannot be stopped. But we should compare it with last year's death figures. The panic is absurd. There are 690 positive... How many were tested? 30 million or a thousand? 17 died, I want to see how many died in nursing homes or in their homes from pneumonia due to pneumococcus or hemophilus, which there are many in Argentina, last year.

-How do you evaluate what the government is doing, then?

- With that said, I think the government is acting very well and very cautiously. But the international authority pushes them with the mortality figures provided by the WHO experts, who do the mathematical calculations. But this is not bad faith, but incompetence. There is no one behind it. But I insist, in Argentina they are doing things right and seriously. I think Ginés is very good. And Carla Vizzotti is a woman who knows what she is doing, she is very competent, she knows, she studies. When you are with people who are studious, who are not pamphleteers, who are serious, they give you confidence. I talked to her and she impressed me. I've never seen that level of training in public health. They do things the best they can with the budget they have.

-But you don't think so about the World Health Organization.

-Not at all.