Coronavirus?
One thing for certain: CENSORSHIP is ramped up to a new high, unlikely to return to free speech again..Twitter is literally scrubbed of 'coronavirus' news unless it is pre approved by censors. I expect all social media (I hate to call it that) posts pertaining to 'coronavirus' will be scrutinized closely.
Philippines reports first coronavirus death outside China
BEIJING/MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines on Sunday reported the growing epidemic of a coronavirus has claimed its first fatality outside of China, where new confirmed infections jumped by a daily record to top 14,000 cases.
The Philippines Department of Health said a 44-year-old man from Wuhan city in central Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, had died in a Manila hospital after developing severe pneumonia.
It was the first death out of more than 130 cases reported in around two dozen other countries and regions outside of mainland China.
The man who died was a companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman, also from Wuhan, who was the first and only other person to test positive for the virus in the Philippines. Both patients arrived in the Philippines via Hong Kong on Jan. 21.
China’s death toll from the outbreak reached 304 as of the end of Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday, citing the country’s National Health Commission.
China is facing mounting isolation as other countries introduce travel curbs, airlines suspend flights and governments evacuate their citizens, risking worsening a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.
The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, but said global trade and travel restrictions are not needed.
However, some countries are responding to fears of the virus spreading by ramping up border controls. Singapore and the United States announced measures on Friday to ban foreign nationals who have recently been in China from entering their territories, and Australia followed suit on Saturday.
Russia introduced visa restrictions and will start evacuating Russian citizens on Monday and Tuesday, Interfax and TASS news agencies reported.
The Philippines expanded its travel ban to include all foreigners coming from China, widening an earlier restriction that covered only those from Hubei.
New Zealand and Vietnam also barred foreigners who have been in China, with Vietnam saying it would halt all flights to and from China.
Taiwan is asking its diplomats to talk to governments where Taiwanese airlines fly to ensure more flights are not cut off due the island’s inclusion by the WHO as part of China due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Nations continue to evacuate citizens from China.
More than 100 Germans and family members landed in Frankfurt on Saturday after being evacuated from Wuhan. Around 250 Indonesians were being evacuated from Hubei.
China will start making arrangements to fly back to Taiwan the first 200 Taiwanese who have been stranded in Hubei, Chinese state media reported on Sunday. China says about 500 Taiwanese are in the province.
Japan plans to send another chartered plane mid-week or later to bring back Japanese nationals who are still in Hubei, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.
Japan also confirmed an additional three cases of the new coronavirus among an earlier batch of evacuees, including one who initially tested negative, the health ministry said, bringing the country’s total to 20 cases.
Japan has barred foreigners who have been in Hubei from entering the country, a move South Korea followed on Sunday. The entry ban will go into effect on Tuesday, South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said.
Slideshow (18 Images)
PROVINCE IN LOCKDOWN
The number of deaths in Hubei from the outbreak had risen to 294 as of the end of Feb. 1, with a total 9,074 cases, the majority in the capital Wuhan, where the virus is thought to have emerged late last year in a market illegally trading wildlife.
New confirmed cases also surged by 276 in nearby Huanggang. One death was reported in the city, about 60 km (37 miles) east of Wuhan.
China has completed construction of one of the two new dedicated hospitals in Wuhan to treat coronavirus patients, state media reported Sunday. Huoshenshan, a hospital with 1,000 beds, was built in eight days and can admit patients from Monday, the report said.
China’s environment ministry on Saturday urged local governments to step up disposal of medical and urban wastewater to prevent the spread of the virus.
Local authorities in quarantined areas must disinfect faeces and sewage, the ministry also said.
Genetic traces of the coronavirus were found in the faeces of some patients, said the health authority of Shenzhen, one of the most populous cities in China.
Hubei has been under virtual quarantine for the last week, with roads sealed off and public transport shut down. The province extended its Lunar New Year holiday break to Feb. 13 in a bid to contain the outbreak.
Reporting by Lusha Zhang and Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Martin Pollard in Jiujiang, Roxanne Liu in Beijing and Yilei Sun in Shanghai; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Lincoln Feast.
source: Reuters.com
Fantastic near-real-time infographic:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
The available evidence most strongly supports that the 2019-NCoV virus is a vaccine strain of coronavirus either accidentally released from a laboratory accident, or the Chinese were performing clinical studies of a Coronavirus…
https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2020/01/30/on-the-origins-of-the-2019-ncov-virus-wuhan-china/
BEIJING (AP) — China sent medical workers and equipment to a newly built hospital, infused cash into financial markets and further restricted people’s movement in sweeping new steps Monday to contain a rapidly spreading virus and its escalating impact.
China’s updated figures of 361 deaths and 2,829 new cases over the last 24 hours, bringing the Chinese total to 17,205 cases, come as other countries continued evacuating citizens from hardest-hit Hubei province and restricted travel by Chinese or people who recently traveled in the country. The World Health Organization said the number of cases will keep growing because tests are pending on thousands of suspected cases.
Reopening of schools was also delayed to keep the virus from spreading further in Hubei, where the 1,000-bed hospital in the provincial capital Wuhan was completed in just 10 days. A second hospital with 1,500 beds will open within days. Restrictions were tightened still further in one city by allowing only one family member to venture out to buy supplies every other day.
Medical teams from the People’s Liberation Army were arriving in Wuhan to relieve overwhelmed health workers and to work at the new hospital, located in the countryside far from the city center. Its prefabricated wards, where patients began arriving by late morning, are equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and ventilation systems.
Leading Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan said additional hospital space was crucial to stopping the spread of new infections.
“The lack of hospital rooms forced sick people to return home, which is extremely dangerous. So having additional (beds) available is a great improvement,” Zhong told state broadcaster CCTV.
Zhong played a major role in overcoming China’s 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, a coronavirus from the same family as the current pathogen.
In a sign of the economic toll of the outbreak, China’s Shanghai Composite index plunged 8.7% when it reopened Monday following the Lunar New Year holiday. It steadied later on the central bank’s moves to inject cash.
“We are fully confident in and capable of minimizing the epidemic’s impact on economy,” said Lian Weiliang, deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a news conference in Beijing.
In Hong Kong, thousands of health care workers were threatening to go on strike Tuesday unless the government agreed to talks before a 6 p.m. Monday deadline. Hong Kong has recorded 14 cases of the virus and has cut flights and train and bus connections to the mainland, but a push is growing for the semi-autonomous Chinese city to close the border completely.
Strike organizers say about 6,000 medical staff were prepared to participate. Hong Kong was severely impacted by the SARS outbreak, which many believe was intensified by official Chinese secrecy and obfuscation.
South Korea, which has 15 confirmed cases, was quarantining 800 soldiers who had recently visited China, Hong Kong or Macao or had contact with people who had, defense ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyunsoo said. Military service is required of all young South Korean men to guard against the threat from the communist North.
In Beijing, officials sought to reassure the country’s 1.4 billion people of adequate supplies of face masks and disinfectant, despite reported shortages in parts of the country.
The Philippines banned the entry of all non-citizens from China after two cases were confirmed there, including the only death outside China. The U.S., Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and WHO’s guidance that such measures were unnecessary.
About 150 cases have been reported in two dozen other countries. The Philippine Health Department said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan died from the virus and his companion remained hospitalized. Vietnam’s confirmed cases increased to eight, including a Vietnamese American man who had a two-hour layover in Wuhan on his way from the U.S. to Ho Chi Minh City.
The U.S. total rose to 11, mostly involving recent travel to Wuhan. The U.S. said Sunday that Americans who had traveled in China within the last 14 days would be routed to designated airports for enhanced health screenings and most non-Americans who recently were in China would be denied entry.
Amid accusations of a slow official response to the outbreak, six officials in the city of Huanggang, next to Wuhan in Hubei province, were fired over “poor performance” in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city’s “capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks.”
The trading and manufacturing center of Wenzhou, with nearly 10 million people in coastal Zhejiang province, confined people to their homes, allowing only one family member to venture out every other day to buy necessary supplies. Huanggang, home to 7 million people, imposed similar measures on Saturday.
With no end in sight to the outbreak, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere extended the Lunar New Year holiday break, due to end this week, well into February to try to keep people at home and reduce the spread of the virus. All Hubei schools are postponing the start of the new semester until further notice.
With more countries imposing restrictions on travelers from China, and reports of discrimination against Chinese abroad, the country’s diplomats are speaking out.
Chinese ambassador in Sri Lanka Cheng Xueyuan expressed worries over Chinese people being turned away by restaurants and taxis in the Indian Ocean island nation.
“We understand the concerns of (the) Sri Lanka public but we at the same time hope that they could feel China’s responsible attitude and see the forceful and effective measures taken by China,” Cheng said.
The crisis is the latest to confront Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been beset by months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, the reelection of Taiwan’s pro-independence president and criticism over human rights violations in the traditionally Muslim territory of Xinjiang. Meanwhile, the domestic economy continues to slow, weighed down by slowing demand and the trade war with Washington.
___
Associated Press writer Bharatha Malawaraarachchi contributed to this report from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Discovery Of Coronavirus On Doorknob Of Infected Patient Sparks Transmission Concerns
Until now, the prevailing conventional wisdom was that China's coronavirus epidemic, which has spread to over 20,600 people around the globe as of February 3, did so by air or, according to some recent and unconfirmed speculation, human feces. That may be about to change.
According to the Global Times, new ways of transmitting the coronavirus have been reported, and virus nucleic acid has been detected outside human bodies, sparking public fears that the virus could be transmitted in unknown and undetected ways. Concerns emerged after scientists found coronavirus nucleic acid on the doorknob of a confirmed Guangzhou-based patient's house, the first case of novel coronavirus detected outside the human body, Guangzhou Daily reported Monday. The finding was confirmed by China's Health Commission, which said on Monday that the coronavirus can survive for five days maximum on smooth surfaces under suitable circumstances.
That would mean that mobile phone screens, computer keyboards, faucets and other household objects may indirectly transmit the virus, experts said.
A man from Northeast China's Jilin Province, who was confirmed with coronavirus infection on Monday, shared his experience, saying he had used the same microphone with another confirmed patient during a meeting in January.
In another case, a 40-year-old man from North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who lives upstairs of a confirmed patient, was also diagnosed with coronavirus infection on Saturday. Aside from respiratory droplets and contact transmissions, the person has no clear contact histories with people from other cities, patients, or wild animals and has never been to a market, according to the local health authority on Sunday.
Chinese netizens were concerned the patient from Inner Mongolia might have been infected through toilet plumbing or ventilation devices.
Over the weekend, some experts warned that the novel coronavirus could be transmitted through the digestive system as they found 2019-nCoV nucleic acids in patients' stool and rectal swabs, and health authorities had suggested the central air conditioning system be discontinued if coronavirus patients are found. The case drew attention to a case during the SARS outbreak in 2003 - In Amoy Gardens residential complex in Hong Kong, aerosolized feces spread from floor to floor through plumbing, infecting over 300 people with the virus, reports said.
Hong Kong records first virus death, Macau shuts casinos
HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - Hong Kong reported its first death from the newly identified coronavirus on Tuesday, the second outside mainland China from an outbreak that has killed more than 420 people, spread around the world and raised fears for global economic growth.
China’s markets steadied after anxiety erased some $400 billion in market value from Shanghai’s benchmark index the previous day, and global markets also staged a comeback after a sell-off last week, but the bad news kept coming.
Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, said it had asked all casino operators to suspend operations for two weeks to help curb the spread of the virus.
In another announcement that will compound worries about the economic impact, Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) said it would gradually suspend production at its South Korean factories because of supply chain disruptions from the outbreak.
The Hong Kong death took to 427 the toll from the virus, including a man who died in the Philippines last week after visiting Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicenter of the outbreak.
For a full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak click, here
Chinese authorities said the toll in mainland China rose by a record 64 from the previous day to 425, mostly in Hubei, the virtually locked-down province whose capital is Wuhan.
New cases were reported in the United States, including a patient in California infected through close contact with someone in the same household who had been infected in China.
It was the second instance of person-to-person spread in the United States after a case reported last week in Illinois.
“We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread,” said Dr Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The total number of infections in mainland China rose by 3,235 to 20,438, and there were nearly 200 cases elsewhere across 24 countries and China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the flu-like virus a global emergency and experts say much is still unknown about the pathogen, including its mortality rate and transmission routes.
GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus - here
Such uncertainties have spurred extreme measures by some countries to stem the spread.
Australia sent hundreds of evacuees from Wuhan to a remote island in the Indian Ocean, while Japan ordered the quarantine of a cruise ship with more than 3,000 aboard after a Hong Kong man who sailed on it last month tested positive for the virus.
ON STRIKE
In Hong Kong, hospital staff said the 39-year-old male victim had a pre-existing chronic illness and had visited Wuhan in January before falling ill.
Thousands of medical workers in the former British colony held a second day of strikes to press for the complete closure of its borders with mainland China, a day after embattled leader Carrie Lam left open three remaining checkpoints.
“We’re not threatening the government, we just want to prevent the outbreak,” said Cheng, a 26-year-old nurse among the strikers.
The Asian financial center has confirmed 17 cases of the virus and its public hospital network is struggling to cope with a deluge of patients and measures to contain the epidemic.
Hong Kong was badly hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that emerged from China in 2002 to kill almost 800 people worldwide. WHO figures show SARS killed 299 people in Hong Kong then.
Chinese data suggest that the new virus, while much more contagious than SARS, is significantly less lethal, although such numbers can evolve rapidly.
Slideshow (14 Images)
In Wuhan, authorities started converting a gymnasium, exhibition center and cultural complex into makeshift hospitals with more than 3,400 beds for patients with mild infections, the official Changjiang Daily said.
The United States said on Friday it would block nearly all foreign visitors who have been to China within the past 14 days, joining Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Vietnam and others with similar restrictions.
China accused the United States on Monday of scaremongering and said on Tuesday it would welcome its help to fight the outbreak.
The White House said China had accepted its offer of U.S. experts among a WHO mission to study and help combat the virus.
With Wuhan and some other cities in virtual lockdown, travel severely restricted and China facing increasing international isolation, fears of wider economic disruption are growing.
Sources from the OPEC oil cartel said producers were considering cutting output by almost a third to support prices.
Many airlines have stopped flights to parts of China, with Japan’s biggest carrier, ANA Holdings (9202.T), the latest to announce cuts, saying it would slash the number of flights to Beijing by two-thirds for at least seven weeks.
Organizers of the Singapore Airshow said a meeting of about 300 international aviation officials had been canceled although the show itself would go ahead this month.
Some economists predict world economic output will shrink by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points due to China’s lockdown.
For a graphic comparing coronavirus outbreaks, see here
Reporting by Lusha Zhang and Ryan Woo in Beijing and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Cheng Leng and Winni Zhou in Shanghai, Roxanne Liu, Muyu Xu and Se Young Lee in Beijing, Tom Westbrook in Singapore, Byron Kaye in Sydney, and Linda Sieg, Sakura Murakami and Ami Miyazaki in Tokyo; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Clarence Fernandez
How does the Wuhan coronavirus cause severe illness?
There are four known ways, and some can occur at the same time.
By Allen Cheng, Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Monash University, Australia
We usually think of viral respiratory infections, like the common cold, as mild nuisances that pass in a few days. But the Wuhan coronavirus has proven to be different. Of those infected, around 2% are reported to have died but the true mortality is unknown.
There’s much we’re yet to learn about this new virus, but we know it often causes pneumonia, an infection of the lungs which produces pus and fluid and reduces the lungs’ ability to absorb oxygen.
Of the first 99 people with severe infection, three-quarters had pneumonia involving both lungs. Around 14% appeared to have lung damage caused by the immune system, while 11% suffered from multi-organ system failure, or sepsis.
Others are at risk of complications from being treated in hospitals, such as acquiring other infections.
At this stage, we know some people develop only a mild infection, while others become critically ill, but the exact proportion of each is not yet clear.
Overall, there are four key ways the Wuhan coronavirus can cause severe disease – and some can occur at the same time.
1. Direct viral damage
For the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus, direct viral damage was probably the most common way the infection caused disease. This is likely the case with the Wuhan coronavirus.
Early studies have found the Wuhan coronavirus attaches to a particular receptor found in lung tissue. This is like a lock and key mechanism allowing the virus to enter the cell, and is the same receptor the SARS coronavirus used.
Viruses “hijack” the host cell’s mechanisms to make more copies of itself. Damage results from either viruses taking over the cell completely and causing it to die, or immune cells recognising the viral infection and mounting a defence, triggering cell death.
If large numbers of cells die, then the affected organ can’t function effectively.
Studies from patients who died from SARS coronavirus showed the virus caused damage to not only the lungs, but also other organs in the body. Early research suggests the Wuhan coronavirus can also damage other organs, including the kidneys.
2. Pneumonia
While we’re still piecing together the relationship between the Wuhan coronavirus and pneumonia, there’s much we can learn from influenza.
Influenza is a virus but it commonly leads to bacterial pneumonia – this is what’s known as a secondary infection.
It’s thought the influenza virus weakens the usual protective mechanisms of the lung, allowing bacteria to establish and multiply. This is especially true in children, older people and those with compromised immune systems.
Secondary bacterial pneumonia is more severe than influenza alone – in hospitalised patients, around 10% of those with influenza and pneumonia die, compared to around 2% of those who don’t have pneumonia.
The Wuhan coronavirus appears to cause pneumonia in two ways: when the virus takes hold in the lungs, and through secondary bacterial infections, however, the first way appears to be more common.
3. Sepsis
Sepsis is a serious condition that can be caused by many infections.
When we get an infection, we need to mount an immune response to fight off the pathogen. But an excessive immune response can cause damage and organ failure. This is what happens in the case of sepsis.
Although it can be difficult to determine whether organ damage from the Wuhan coronavirus is a result of direct viral infection or indirect “collateral damage” from the immune system, initial reports suggested around 11% of people severely ill with the Wuhan coronavirus experienced sepsis with multi-organ failure.
So far no drugs or interventions have been able to dampen this immune response. Although several treatments have been proposed for Wuhan coronavirus, none have yet been shown to work.
4. Complications of hospital care
Finally, patients who require hospital care may have complications. These include infections from intravenous lines (for drips/medication) or urinary catheters (flexible tubes inserted into the bladder to empty it of urine), pneumonia, or non-infectious complications such as falls or pressure sores.
Studies have found 10% of patients in hospital have some sort of health care-acquired infection, and around 5% have a pressure sore.
Hospitals work hard to try to prevent these complications, by making sure health care workers disinfect their hands and other equipment. However, complications still occur, particularly in patients who are debilitated from long hospital stays.
While most respiratory viral infections are mild, some can trigger serious complications, either directly or indirectly. It’s too early to tell how often this occurs with the Wuhan coronavirus. While we have initial data on those who were severely affected, many others may not have required medical care.
Allen Cheng, Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Data suggests virus infections under-reported, exaggerating fatality rate
BEIJING (Reuters) - Fatalities from the coronavirus epidemic are overwhelmingly concentrated in central China’s Wuhan city, which accounts for over 73% of deaths despite having only one-third the number of confirmed infections.
In Wuhan, the epicenter of the disease, one person has died for every 23 infections reported. That number drops to one on 50 nationally, and outside mainland China, one death has been recorded per 114 confirmed cases.
Get our full coverage on the coronavirus: here
Experts say the discrepancy is mainly due to under-reporting of milder virus cases in Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province that are grappling with shortages in testing equipment and beds.
“In an outbreak your really have to interpret fatality rates with a very skeptical eye, because often it’s only the very severe cases that are coming to people’s attention,” said Amesh Adalja, an expert in pandemic preparedness at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.
“It’s very hard to say those numbers represent anything like the true burden of infection” said Adalja, who estimates current fatality rates are likely below 1%.
As of Tuesday, 24,551 cases have been confirmed globally. A 1% fatality rate would put total cases at over 49,000, based on the current death toll of 492.
Gauden Galea, the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative for China, told Reuters on Sunday that a “crude calculation” done by dividing total cases by deaths put the rate at 2% and said the rate was generally falling.
“Trying to really demystify those fatality numbers by including mildly symptomatic cases will help people to better understand the risk,” said Adalja.
CLUSTER OF DEATHS
In Wuhan, some patients with milder symptoms have been turned away from hospitals in recent weeks because of the strain on resources, several people in the city told Reuters. Others have opted to self-isolate.
Wuhan resident Meiping Wang said she and her sister both believe they have mild cases of the virus after their mother tested positive, but have not been tested.
“There is no use going to the hospital because there is no treatment,” Wang, 31, said in a telephone interview.
Under-reporting mild cases - which increases fatality rates - could have a negative social and economic impact as global health authorities race to contain the disease.
“It’s good to remember that when H1N1 influenza came out in 2009, estimates of case fatality were 10 percent,” said David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, who was working in public health at the time. “That turned out to be incredibly wrong.”
“As the denominator is growing in terms of case numbers, and case fatality goes down and down... you start to realize it’s everywhere,” he said.
The global response to the coronavirus epidemic has been swift and fierce. Several countries have implemented partial or full travel bans on Chinese travelers.
“There are many actions going on all over the world that really are premised on the idea that this is a very severe illness,” said Johns Hopkins’ Adalja.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday that the bans were an unnecessary interruption to travel and trade.
Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
Source : reuters.com
The Lies We Are Being Told About The Coronavirus
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Lies are a powerful form of magic; they can mislead large groups of people into making terrible errors, as well as cause them to be blind to the obvious. Lies make people hurt themselves while thinking they are helping themselves. It is a truly dark and horrific act of sorcery.
As the world stands at the edge of a global pandemic event, the people who are immune to the effects of lies have an opportunity to take action should the virus continue to expand beyond the borders of China. We have a small window of time, perhaps a couple of months, in which we can prepare ourselves for the fallout and ensure we are as protected as we can be. This means taking precautions to prevent viral transmission, increasing the strength of our own immune systems, prepping for the loss of supply lines and freight shipments to retailers, organizing family, friends and neighbors for mutual aid and security, as well as preparing for the inevitable government attempts at martial law.
Of course, a person cannot or will not take any of these measures as long as they believe that the virus is not a threat, or they think that the pandemic will have little effect on their daily lives. I have recently seen a discomforting level of propaganda and disinformation agents invading the media and discussion boards related to this issue. Whenever I see such an intense disinformation campaign surrounding an event, this tells me a couple of things:
1) If they are trying to overtly downplay the seriousness of the event while lying about the facts involved, it tells me that the event is a legitimate threat and it will probably get worse as time passes.
2) If they all push the same false narrative and talking points it tells me that this is an organized effort paid for by a larger party with extensive resources.
If the narrative glosses over or hides recently revealed evidence by claiming that the event is “all hype”, then it is designed to create inaction in the public – It is designed to make us apathetic, which means there is a concerted conspiracy to harm us. It is not just an attempt to hide the guilt of the people involved in creating the crisis.
So what are some of the most insidious lies being spread right now on the virus threat? Lets go through a quick list of those I've identified so far:
Lie #1: Deaths Caused By The Coronavirus Are Nothing Compared To The Death Rate Of The Average Flu...
This lie seems to be the most common being used to plant seeds of apathy in the public consciousness right now. I have even heard people on the street regurgitate it verbatim as they try to convince themselves that all is well. But even using official numbers, which are likely false and greatly reduced, the argument is simply wrong on every level.
There is a big difference between “number of deaths” and the actual “death rate” of a virus. The flu infects tens of millions of people annually around the world with deaths in the US numbering usually under 10,000. In the US in the 2019-2020 season so far, the flu infected over 9 million people resulting in 4800 deaths; meaning the death rate of the flu is minor compared to the number of sick. Flu deaths are usually collated over the course of a year, yet people are already trying to compare death rates to the coronavirus, which has only been active for a few weeks.
Keep in mind also that the CDC has been called out for greatly inflating influenza death rates in order to push vaccine propaganda. They consistently attach flu death numbers with pneumonia deaths; which I would point is is the exact OPPOSITE of what the Chinese are doing with the coronavirus numbers.
The coronavirus has been active for about a month in China, it has a hibernation of around two weeks, and, China has been lying extensively about the number of deaths associated with the disease by labeling most deaths due to pneumonia. We truly have no idea what the potential death rate of this illness is. What we do know is that it behaves much like SARS, which had a death rate of around 11%. According to official numbers the coronavirus transmits faster and has already killed more people in a few weeks than SARS did in over a year.
The notion that the virus only kills the elderly is also incorrect. The two deaths now confirmed outside of China were both men in their 30's and 40's.
When considering the issue of viral death rate, we have to take into account the capacity of local medical facilities in handling patient load. If hospitals are only handling a few cases at a time, then the patients will get better overall treatment and less deaths will occur. But, if hospitals are overwhelmed with thousands of cases at a time, as is happening in China, then treatment quality will go down and many more people will die. A minimal death rate outside of China today does not mean a minimal death rate tomorrow should the virus spread beyond hospital capacity.
With the flu, people can usually treat themselves with ease at home; the coronavirus is obviously much more dangerous. No country in modern times has EVER quarantined over 50 million people in 16 cities because of the average flu. The comparison between the coronavirus and the flu is patently ridiculous. There is no comparison. The coronavirus is on another level entirely.
Lie #2: The Coronavirus Came From An Animal Market And The Claim It Is Engineered Is A “Conspiracy Theory”...
The phrase “conspiracy theory” is usually exploited as a way to dismiss facts and evidence without consideration on the basis that the official story is the only story that has any validity. In other words, the official story requires no justification because the authorities are infallible and always have our best interests at heart.
The problem is, governments and the mainstream media have been caught lying over and over again about issues far less important than a global pandemic, so I'm not sure why we should trust ANYTHING they say ever. There is considerable evidence that China has been lying incessantly about the number of sick and dead due to the coronavirus, including leaked accounts from medics and other people at ground zero in Wuhan. These people are now being silenced by the Chinese government. In fact, the Chinese government was suppressing coverage and information on the coronavirus from the very beginning of the contagion, which helped allow it to spread unchecked.
Now, social media companies are taking action to remove people who try to document the facts of the virus and its potential source in the name of "stopping fake news". Anyone who questions the official narrative is not only a "conspiracy theorist" but also a "danger" to the public. This narrative is supported by US government officials:
"These lies can cause immediate and tangible harm to people, and the platforms must act to stop them from spreading," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) said in a statement to The Hill. "It’s critical that Americans receive verified, trustworthy information about the coronavirus and heed the advice of our country’s public health officials as we learn more about its potential impact here at home..."
The facts are the facts, and if the facts suggest a conspiracy, then so be it. Only 20 miles away from the market in question stands the LARGEST Level 4 Biohazard Lab in Asia, which studies directly into the world's deadliest pathogens including SARS and coronavirus. In 2017, experts warned that a virus could escape the labs in Wuhan because of lax containment standards. To put this in perspective, it would be like an Ebola outbreak striking the city of Atlanta and then blamed on a food market only 20 miles from the CDC. It looks suspicious...
Last year, Chinese researchers were dismissed from a Level 4 lab in Winnipeg, Canada without public explanation, but the same lab was exposed last year for sharing deadly virus samples with China, including Ebola and henipavirus. One of the Chinese researchers work focus was the SARS virus. Media and government attention in Canada at the time of the scandal was on concerns that the lab in Winnipeg was supplying viral samples that would be used in China's biowarfare programs.
According to a paper published by virologists in India, the coronavirus genetic code also contains proteins that are exactly like those found in HIV. Interestingly, coronavirus patients have been shown to respond positively to drugs that are meant to treat HIV and AIDS carriers. Through official pressure the paper has now been retracted and the authors have said they will “revise it". But, the whole point of peer review is for the data to be examined by others in the field and then proven or disproven. If the data can be reproduced, then it needs to be taken seriously.
This is not what the CDC and other official institutions on disease study want. They seem intent on dismissing any information outright that suggests the coronavirus might have been made in a lab rather than in nature.
If true, the chances of coronavirus containing protein combinations identical to HIV in nature are astronomical, meaning, the virus was engineered. If the virus is proven to be engineered, then this makes future narratives and propaganda harder to implement. For example, it will be much harder to blame the pandemic on "global warming" if the virus was created by a bunch of guys in lab coats rather than in nature.
To repeat the facts, Wuhan is a hub for China's largest biohazard labs and these labs are suspected by biological warfare experts of being involved in bioweapons testing. Until there is more independent examination of the virus (the original strain before mutation), no one knows for certain what the source is.
The mainstream media has been very aggressive in denying any links to bioweaponry, claiming that there “is no evidence” linking Wuhan's labs to the virus; yet, there is FAR MORE evidence of the involvement of the biohazard labs than there is evidence proving that the virus originated an animal market. They have simply decided that the animal market story is the tale they prefer, and so it has become the official story.
Lie #3: The Virus Won't Have Any Effect On America
The general thrust of the mainstream view of the coronavirus has been to assert that the US will not be affected and that concerns are "overblown". The UN's World Health Organization continues to refuse to take the event very seriously, and even Larry Kudlow, Trump's Director of the National Economic Council, claims the damage to the US economy will be 'minimal'.
Now, firstly I have to say I would take the economic analysis of a long time cocaine addict with a grain of salt. This is the same guy who was wildly incorrect in all his calls on the housing bubble in 2005-2006, and yet he is now advising the White House on financial crisis events? But lets set the incompetence of Kudlow aside for a moment and consider that perhaps he is just reading from a script prepared for him by others. Certainly, there are a lot of people out there that would like to keep the public ignorant of the depth of the situation, and they will give all sorts of half-assed rationales as to why they lie.
For the Chinese authorities, the pandemic is an undeniable fact of life, but they will say their economy and global image required the truth to be “tempered” to prevent civil unrest and to stop investors pulling from their money out of Chinese markets en masse.
For US authorities who waited far too long to start shutting down flights from China carrying multiple infected, the claim will be that they had to lie to prevent general panic and market panic.
For the UN's World Health Organization that lied about China “containment” and actually downplayed the danger of travel to China for a time while the virus was raging and human-to-human transmission was confirmed, I see no excuse really. Their behavior, and the behavior of the US and Chinese governments makes me suspect that they WANT the pandemic to spread.
As I write this the 11th confirmed case of coronavirus has been identified in the US with many more suspected cases still under observation. Obviously, the virus is here already, but the issue of how much it will affect Americans is being diminished or buried in an endless stream of propaganda.
Given enough time, a viral outbreak that spreads as fast as the coronavirus with a death rate of 5% or more is going to cause negative effects in every facet of the US economy. But in our current window of the progression of the pandemic, I think it's important to point out that even if the death rate is low in the US, there is no escaping the economic consequences attached to this event.
The US economy is interdependent with multiple nations, and is tightly connected to China. The greatest danger of globalism in terms of economics is that it forces national economies into losing the redundancies that protect them from systemic collapse. When one major economy goes down, it brings down all other economies with it.
Not only that, but the US financial structure is precariously unstable anyway, with record levels of national debt, consumer debt and corporate debt, not to mention steep declines in manufacturing and demand. The US sits atop one of the most massive economic bubbles of all time – The Everything Bubble, created by the Federal Reserve over ten years of stimulus measures, barely keeping the system alive in a state of zombification.
The bubble was always going to collapse. In fact, recent events in Fed repo markets suggest it was already collapsing. The coronavirus outbreak is a perfect cover event for this implosion. To understand why a collapse event might be preferred by a certain minority of people within the elitist establishment, read my last article 'How Viral Pandemic Benefits The Globalist Agenda'.
As I have argued for the past couple of years, all that is needed to bring down the US economy is one major trigger event. The idea that a global pandemic would not damage the American system already teetering on the edge of the abyss is simply absurd. This event has the capacity to cause crisis around the world, not just in China.
Lie #4: The Virus Is Contained
You are going to hear this lie often in the next month or two. I've heard it several times already from Chinese and US authorities in the past few weeks, and clearly their definition of the word "contained" must be different from mine.
China's official sickness count and death toll rises exponentially by the day, and this is not accounting for the number of sick and dead they are hiding. Over 50 million people are now in forced quarantine and martial law measures have been implemented. Hong Kong's hopes of containment have been dashed and officials now expect the outbreak to grow worse in the region.
Japan just announced that a man carrying the virus boarded a cruise liner and then departed, infecting at least ten people in the process and forcing the ship into quarantine for the next two weeks.
A woman in Santa Clara, California carrying the virus came back from China and had been in the US for around 10 DAYS before the illness was identified. Meaning, every single person she came in contact with in that time is now a potential carrier, and for the next two weeks they won't know they are contagious. These are just a few examples of why it is foolish to write off this situation as "contained"; you cannot contain what you cannot identify.
The disinformation campaign seems designed to hide the true source of the virus, but also to keep the masses lethargic and inactive. We are meant to sit and wait while the virus and the potential economic catastrophe runs us over. Do not fall for the con; prepare accordingly, and never accept what lying governments and mainstream media outlets tell you as the whole truth. It is better to take precautions you might not need than to be found very stupid and desperate down the road because the "experts" told you it was all hype.
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