The Corona Pandemic Panic: Is Some Skepticism Warranted?

First, and perhaps worst: ‘Denmark’s parliament on Thursday night unanimously passed an emergency coronavirus law which gives health authorities powers to force testing, treatment and quarantine with the backing of the police’, March 13, 20210, thelocal.dk [They’ve changed the title since yesterday which had included mandatory vaccination]

“The Ministry of Health will now work with the Ministry of Justice on the details of how the police will work with health officials to enforce their demands.

As well as enforcing quarantine measures, the law also allows the authorities to force people to be vaccinated, even though there is currently no vaccination for the virus.”

How many other nations will follow suit with laws for Forced Vaccinations?  Will citizens have any civil rights in the end?  Will the most draconian laws and protocols sunset eventually, or be covertly extended for other purposes?  Israel, for instance, is using counter-terrorism protocols cell phone data to monitor the movements of citizens who’ve tested positive for the virus.

Right on cue:  ‘First vaccine trial for Covid-19 has begun – WHO’, 18 Mar, 2020, RT.com

“In a media briefing on Wednesday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the trial had commended “just 60 days after the genetic sequence of the coronavirus was shared.”

Tedros paid tribute to the “incredible achievement” of researchers around the world “who have come together to systemically evaluate experimental therapeutics.”

He said that “multiple small trials with different methods” may not result in the clear and strong evidence needed about which treatments save lives. The WHO and its partners are therefore organizing a large study across many countries to compare some untested treatments.

The study will be called the ‘Solidarity trial’ to reflect its unified nature.

“The Solidarity trial provides simplified procedures to enable even hospitals that have been overloaded to participate,” Tedros said, adding that countries including Argentina, Bahrain, Canada, France, Iran, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand have already joined.” [snip]

“There are now more than 200,000 cases of the novel coronavirus worldwide, and over 8,000 deaths, with Europe taking over from Asia as the epicenter of the pandemic. Europe’s death toll from the virus is currently around 3,421, surpassing the 3,384 recorded deaths in Asia.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the second largest contributor to the WHO, and Jacob Levitch has said that Bill had personally seen the new director appointed.  You may remember Levitch’s ‘The Real Agenda of the Gates Foundation’ by Jacob Levich’, wd. caucus99percent.com, March 18, 2018 and Gates’ Philanthrocapitalism, most especially using Africans as guinea pigs for vaccines and other questionable Big Pharma products and programmable birth control chips.

From Nov. 6, 2019: ‘Pandemic simulation exercise spotlights massive preparedness gap;  Event 201, hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, envisions a fast-spreading coronavirus with a devastating impact’, “For Event 201, hosted in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the experts added a new layer of realism by reaching beyond government and NGOs to leaders in the private sector and business community. Participants included representatives from NBCUniversal, UPS, and Johnson & Johnson.

“Very few people have included the private sector in pandemic preparedness, but that’s where most of the resources are,” Toner says.

That’s particularly true when it comes to vaccine development. The CAPS virus—which Toner describes as a cousin of SARS, “but slightly more transmissible, like the flu, and slightly more lethal”—was presented as resistant to any existing vaccine, as scientists scrambled to come up with one. Citizens, meanwhile, were rioting over scarce access to the next best thing: a fictional antiviral known to treat some CAPS symptoms.

That scenario, Toner says, is utterly realistic. “We don’t have a vaccine for SARS, or MERS, or various avian flu viruses that have come up in the past decade,” he notes. “That’s because vaccine development is slow and difficult if there isn’t an immediate market for it.”

In the simulation, CAPS resulted in a death toll of 65 million people within 18 months—surpassing the deadliest pandemic in history, the 1918 Spanish flu.

From the discussions Event 201 inspired, the Center for Health Security plans to release a set of formal recommendations within the coming weeks.”

(with this highlights reel, 11:45)

2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV): estimating the case fatality rate – a word of caution’,  07.02.2020, Swiss Medical Weekly

“By definition, the case fatality rate is the number of deaths divided by the total number of confirmed cases, which appears to be what the W.H.O. did to arrive at its rate.

Is 3.4 percent a misleading number? We spoke to a number of experts in epidemiology, and they all agreed that 1 percent was probably more realistic (the W.H.O. has also said the number would probably fall). But they also said evidence about the spread and severity of the disease was still too new and spotty to know for sure.

The fatality rate is a key figure that public health officials use to respond to disease outbreaks. The more deadly a disease, the more aggressive they’re willing to be in disrupting normal life. But current data allows scientists to measure only a crude statistic called the case fatality rate, which is based on reported cases of an illness. Eventually, they hope to have a more comprehensive number called the infection fatality rate, which includes everyone who is infected with the virus.

“It’s essential for understanding how big our response should be,” said Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard. “All responses have costs. If we think the risk is higher, then we should be willing to tolerate bigger costs, more inconvenience and the mental health loss from social distancing.”

There are several reasons we still don’t know the right number. Insufficient testing, for example, may be making the fatality rate look larger than it actually is — but deaths where a coronavirus infection was never diagnosed could make it look smaller. These are the key biases that epidemiologists and public health officials think about when looking at the case fatality estimates so far, and how they might change in coming weeks and months.

Not enough people have been tested

The fewer people you test for a disease, the fewer infections you are going to measure. In the United States, until this week, the only people being tested for the disease were those who had traveled to China or were known to have had contact with other ill people. Those strict standards were driven in part by a shortage of reliable tests. But we now know that there were many infected people in the country who weren’t being counted.”

One chart shows how many coronavirus tests per capita have been completed in 8 countries; The US is woefully behind’, businessinsider.com, March __, 2020

I’d also wondered if all coronavirus test kits are equal, and found:

‘Some coronavirus test kits shipped around US are flawed, CDC claims’, February 13, 2020, nypost.com

Do any tests result in false positives?  Are those made in China better?  I’ve read they’ve created fast-track tests down to 15 minutes.  And earlier today I’d read that coronavirus deaths there have topped out at 3,245, with 70,420 recovered, no new inside China cases reported, so they must be doing something right.

Eager to try to catch up, and the devil will be in the details: ‘Trump invokes defense production act to fight against coronavirus and lack of medical supplies’, 18 Mar, 2020, RT.com

“Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Trump announced that he would be activating the Defense Production Act of 1950. The act, written at the outbreak of the Korean War, gives the federal government power to instruct manufacturers to make much-needed equipment, in this case protective masks and ventilators.

“Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation,” Trump said, comparing the efforts to beat the COVID-19 coronavirus to the mass mobilization seen during World War II.

Trump also announced that two hospital ships would be deployed to house coronavirus patients, one moored in New York and another on the west coast. The Empire state has the biggest number of cases so far.”

Now how the CDC had come up with the magic number of 50 as ‘large crowds’, I can’t say.  Nor do I know in either France and Greece what their lockdowns, shutdowns, entail, but 50 or so shopkeepers who hadn’t closed down have been arrested, in France just fined so far.  Whether or not it’s about the US or pan-global (sources differ), Jeff Bezos is kindly adding 100,000 jobs to his Amazon workforce of 800,000 to serve the shopping/dining vacuum or whatever.

In Colorado. Gov. Jard Polis is using the Magic Number 10 as a crowd, shutting down everything, really.  He’s deployed the National Guard to Denver and ‘mountain towns’, and so on, to aid coronavirus testing.  The Cortez Journal is reporting that in San Miguel County (which includes mega-gentrified Telluride and servants, the head official of the County Health Dept. will test every single citizen in the county, whether they want it or not.  Not just a simple swab test either, but a freaking blood test, which will be repeated every 2 weeks. So part-time residents are being advised to leave the county, go back to their primary residences in Hollywood, Malibu, wherever.  Whooosh.

In our little town, all restaurants, the library, scheduled performances, have closed, save for take-out food orders.  Dunno what’s on the shelves at the county seat’s grocery stores, but as we just got 8 inches of snow overnight, Mr. wd’s not bout to sally forth to check out which paper products, etc. are being…rationed X to a customer.  My Kingdom for some bogroll and tissues!

What’s closed in the Bay Area, or California in general?

Coronavirus has been weaponized against China and Iran, as we know, but wouldn’t it be lovely if the US Empire would end the egregious sanctions on VZ and Iran so they had more money to fight the virus?  The IMF refused VZ’s request for a $5 billion loan for that purpose because…they didn’t know who should receive it: Maduro or Juan Guaido.

Will Jeanine Añez’s usurper government in Bolivia cancel the nation’s May elections because: coronavirus?

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Raggedy Ann's picture

I've been listening to many who are pointing this stuff out. This is why, a couple weeks ago, I was issuing my alarm about the vaccine for this and mandatory vaccines all around. It's coming and it's to control us. Adult vaccines are on the horizon and we won't be able to travel without them. A healthy amount of skepticism is necessary. Be wary.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

WaterLily's picture

@Raggedy Ann See this.

Strikes me less as an opinion piece, and more of a (possibly inadvertent) projection of what the goal's been all along.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

@WaterLily
This is definitely in their plan. It will keep revolution from taking place.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

wendy davis's picture

@WaterLily

"and tune in to MIT's Radio Corona!"

excellent. again: flatten the curve, life will never ever be normal again! i heard a quote last night on a dvd eries on the early life of leonardo davinci, and a man who was one of the sons of mithras (never mind, like a Seer or close) said something close to:

'hell is when one imagines that there’s no way out.'

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wendy davis's picture

@Raggedy Ann

would be hell, especially given that bill gates eems to be in the middle of it. i'd forgotten to mention that he'd recently resigned from the the boards of both microsoft and berkshire hathaway to...concentrate on his philanthropic ventures and the coronavirus global health issue. he also made a Big Deal about having 'contributed' another 100 million or close to the problem.

the only time i ever had any sort of flu was years ago when a doc who was a client of mine insisted i get one for whatever flu as i worked with the public. it was allegedly a dead virus, bot jeezum crow, i've never been so sick.

they'd have to take me to jail.

commenter w hall at the café provided this video, saying it was quite comprehensive. no way i'd ever spend 2 hours on any video.

'Del lays out a path to defeating the 2020 push for vaccine mandates, and unearths a potentially catastrophic problem with the world’s strategy against #Coronavirus.'

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVizW1OgQZQ&feature=emb_logo]

it's 3-loaves of bread day for me, and i need to go prep them for their final proof in their pans. be back soonish.

on later edit: from del on the twit machine:

and file under 'beats me':

'Del Matthew Bigtree is an American television and film producer who became a prominent anti-vaccination activist. He is the CEO of the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network and the producer of the movie Vaxxed based on the discredited views of Andrew Wakefield concerning vaccines and autism [that would be MMR]. Despite having no medical training, his appeal as a public speaker and a recent influx of funding make him one of the most prominent voices in the anti-vaccination movement.'

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https://www.lauriegarrett.com/the-coming-plague
Even after the tinfoil hat antivaxxers we still go there? Well yes - read the chapters on smallpox and malaria, the first a success against human stupidity and paranoia, the second an immensely destructive idiocy.

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On to Biden since 1973

wendy davis's picture

@doh1304

i'm not sure where you're headed on this, but the pale grey text is all but impossible for me to read, doh1304.

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@wendy davis
I read The Coming Plague in the mid 90s. so I could be injecting my opinion into the text, but:
Eradicating smallpox required 100% vaccinations worldwide, and the effort was almost impossible. For example the last places that refused to vaccinate anyone were two sides of a petty regional war between 2 opposing warlords, both of whom were afraid that the health people were trying to poison them. The Indian (?) government had to threaten to eradicate both sides if they didn't comply.
Malaria was a disaster. In the first place it didn't work. In the second (and part of this might be me) it became a crusade to eradicate all mosquitoes - including mosquitoes that not only didn't, but could not possibly spread malaria. (A tropical disease in Canada? Alaska?)They did not try to find a vaccine, they spread terrible pesticides everywhere, indiscriminately, without considering the consequences. The result - rapidly reproducing pests developed immunity while carnivores accumulated toxins while developing immunity too slowly. And I don't mean just spiders and wasps, I mean birds. It went far up the food chain. We're finding DDT in polar bears today. In the breast tissue of 13 year old girls today. (well as of 1995)

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wendy davis's picture

@doh1304

and understand most of it. but as to malaria, my ears pricked up in remembering this:

Bill Gates Is Funding Genetically Modified Mosquitoes To Fight Malaria
,June 23, 2018, newspunch

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation plan to release genetically-modified mosquitoes which will then use sex to destroy their own offspring in a bizarre bid to wipe out the disease.
...............
The genetically-modified mosquito can then continue to mate with many other wild females, continuing to pass on the deadly gene “for up to 10 generations.”

The mosquitoes have been developed by Oxitec, a UK company that Gates has previously funded and which has already created modified mosquitoes to tackle the Zika virus and dengue fever. Oxitec said its new strain of its “Friendly Mosquitoes” are expected to be ready for trials by 2020.

Gates has long been interested in fighting malaria, spending about $2 billion to curb the disease since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was created in 2000. Malaria cases have been on the rise since 2015, with scientists warning the disease-carrying parasite is becoming resistant to antimalarial drugs.

as i remember it, they were first released in hawaii; dunno what occurred, for better or worse. but any genetic tinkering flips my knickers. was he one of the author/funders of CRISPR gene editing?

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

Anyone here read "The Screwfly Solution"?

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

i'd almost put 'what could possible go wrong?' in parentheses.

i'd tried to follow the story back in the day by asking the few hawaiians i was acquainted with, but got nothing back.

but GMO bill gates also created the svalbard doomsday seed vault in norwway last i'd read, it was leaking as the icecap melted:

via william engdalhl in oct. 2009.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

essentially what humans were doing to screwflies to drive them into extinction.

And it works.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

work best, but: Bill Gates, Alien Multi-billionaire. nah, not good enough, but thanks for the story line.

i sure do know i don't want him nor his ilk anywhere near a 'covid-19 vaccine, though. guy at the café believes it's cause by chinese 5G networks and chemtrails. go figure. but that point of view was on the 201 simulation in dec, 2019 iirc.

by my way of thinking, electromagnetic fields might be very unhealthy, but the main chich folks really have is the 5G system is that the NSA can't break the encryption.

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https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/11/06/event-201-health-security/ - that took me to the Johns Hopkins site that accurately mirrors the results of the "simulation" that took place in October. I have to say, the hypothetical outbreak laid out in the Event 201 simulation of a global "CAPS" (Coronavirus) pandemic is uncannily accurate in the sequence, scale and timing of Covid19. A virtual blueprint. The fact that these semi-annual exercises are run by US and NATO countries is also deeply disturbing.

Reminds me of the simulations that were being run by NORAD that similarly mapped out the 9/11 attacks. What can I say, except, at what point do high-level simulations stop and the real thing commence?

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wendy davis's picture

@leveymg

evn though i'd copy pasted some of it in, i'd never even thought of looking to see if there were comments. fuck me, some of them hate china, don't they? as in: them wiley commies created the coronavirus on purpose, just to get even with trump!'

but yes, it's quite a coincidence as to timing and the Need to create a SupraNational public/private organization to be the One Ring...to Rule Us All.

but did you dig Cheif tedros's inscrutable word salad?

"Tedros paid tribute to the “incredible achievement” of researchers around the world “who have come together to systemically evaluate experimental therapeutics.”

He said that “multiple small trials with different methods” may not result in the clear and strong evidence needed about which treatments save lives. The WHO and its partners are therefore organizing a large study across many countries to compare some untested treatments.
The study will be called the ‘Solidarity trial’ to reflect its unified nature."

but the upshot is quite bill gates and company imo.

i think i'd read that cuban doctors have been looking into some tweak or other on Interferon for a possible vaccine, maybe with Iranian researchers.

and this is quite new to me:

Reminds me of the simulations that were being run by NORAD that similarly mapped out the 9/11 attacks. What can I say, except, at what point do high-level simulations stop and the real thing commences?

whooosh. creepy-bo-beepy.

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WoodsDweller's picture

driving in that nasty snowstorm in the dark.
Got to WalMart at 7am, but it looks like it had opened at 6 (contrary to signage and web site), maybe 7am starts tomorrow.
Shelves had been stocked with what they had available. WM truck was pulling away as I parked. If you want to buy anything, get there when they open. I bought a 6 pack of TP, paper towels, and Kleenex. There wasn't much, I'm sure it was all gone in minutes. No fresh meat, period. Very little bread. A few canned goods they had put out overnight. Plenty of fresh fruits, veggies, and dairy. No hand soap (I could use a bit more), sanitizer, wipes, Vitamin C.
Overheard that they are going to let employees shop from 6-7am Friday. That's good, but that means there won't be anything to buy on Friday.
I had some blood drawn, the technician told me there were zero reported cases in the county, one case on the reservation. She hadn't heard about San Miguel County until I told her.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

wendy davis's picture

@WoodsDweller

good thing if they do let the employees shop first. they've gone thru utter hell watching the hoarders shop like it's Black Friday, pushing and shoving one another (at least according to mr. wd's friend Walmart Greeter jenny).

he decided to go tomorrow morning, called, and was told 'open at 7 a.m.', so...he'll go in hopes and all. maybe go again another day, but there are also slaveway and shitty market, as well.

that musta been a hella drive thru that storm in the dark, amigo.

jim mimiaga's coverage was yellow journalism, with his non-sequitur about 'area kids under six (mumble, mumble 'hospitals'): Corona Virus! if art goodtimes is still alive, he'll likely shove their needles...back at them.

hmmmm. would Stand Your Ground laws fit here?

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edg's picture

There was panic about the swine flu in late 1976. Forty-five million Americans were vaccinated, including me, a soldier at the time. One person died of the swine flu. More than four hundred and fifty people were paralyzed by the vaccine with Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Due to the urgency of creating new immunizations for a novel virus, the government used an attenuated “live virus” for the vaccine instead of a inactivated or “killed” form, increasing the probability of adverse side effects among susceptible groups of people receiving the vaccination.

Source: The Public Health Legacy of the 1976 Swine Flu Outbreak

Some things can be rushed. Others, hell no.

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wendy davis's picture

@edg

had to come back into the front door of the site. 'attenuated live virus'; hmmmm. good more didn't die, then, including you of course. but this is fun, considering 2020 and WHO vaccine trials:

But while the World Health Organization adopted a cautious “wait and see” policy to monitor the virus’s pattern of disease and to track the number of emerging infections, President Gerald Ford’s administration embarked on a zealous campaign to vaccinate every American with brisk efficiency.

i had a bodywork client back in those days who'd contracted Guillain-Barré, and once his paralysis was mainly gone and he could get to my office, his musculature had no turger trigger points (toxic contraction points) due to the long paralysis.

thanks for the info, amigo. wish i could remember which bad-ass flu shot i'd gotten; must have been in the early 80s? doesn't really matter, of course. Never.Again.

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Granma's picture

@wendy davis but I'm fine with them for the last several years. No problem and no getting sick several a few times every winter either. The flu shots are different than they used to be. YMMV.

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wendy davis's picture

@Granma

good on you.

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Alligator Ed's picture

That’s particularly true when it comes to vaccine development. The CAPS virus—which Toner describes as a cousin of SARS, “but slightly more transmissible, like the flu, and slightly more lethal”—was presented as resistant to any existing vaccine, as scientists scrambled to come up with one. Citizens, meanwhile, were rioting over scarce access to the next best thing: a fictional antiviral known to treat some CAPS symptoms.

CAPS virus is a stupid name. The major cause of viral pneumonic deaths are through adult respiratory distress syndrome plus or minus superimposed bacterial pneumonia. My posting on this topic is strongly indicative that the Wu Flu is not as bad as advertised. In 4 or 5 months we will discover just how overblown this Wu Flu phobia is.

Make no mistake about my conclusion. Wu Flu can and does killl. But what kind of self-respecting virus doesn't ravage children. It all comes down to immunomodulation. Wu Flu will be a sucker for any good viral replicase inhibitor. by whatever means this is accomplished. Unalloyed self-promoting self-promotion follows. Please read the myriad of Wu Flu (aka coronavirus aka COVID-19 aka SARS-CoV-2) essays.

Wu Flu may not have been DS (deep state) initiated but they are sure promoting the heck out of Panic, panic, panic. Down with the economy to them equals down with Trump. DNC elitists care nothing about butterflies, cats, ants or alligators. Most of you useless eaters should die so that we, the mighty entitled rich folks can continue to have our way.

This whole deal is ginned up, undistilled diarrhea water, liberally (pun intended) sprayed amongst the populace to ensure the herds panic and run off the cliff.

As usual, wd, your encyclopedic review of the current situation is excellent. But the conclusion here is obvious--at least it is to me: Much ado about almost nothing.

Why are mortality figures so disparate. How can South Korea have 0.6 % case fatality rate while Italy has 7 %? Much of the answer is because of the testing and lack thereof. When huge numbers are tested, such as SoKo is doing, the CFR is low, not much worse than other epidemics. Italy has not been doing a good job of testing. When testing catches up to demand we will find that Italy's CFR is much lower. Much, much lower.

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wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed

extensively and helpfully on the subject, and as an actual doctor, to boot. including not being able grasp this or anything close:

It all comes down to immunomodulation. Wu Flu will be a sucker for any good viral replicase inhibitor. by whatever means this is accomplished.

but i will say that at every non-mainstream, alternative news sites, the subject of the month has been 'corona virus!' i really didn't want to know anything about it. after a time, it seemed to me that people loved freaking out over fear-porn the way folks love zombie movies. but when i began reading some of Twitter Skeptics, i knew i'd need to compile a list (and i brought about half, i reckon) and post it, knowing i wouldn't be thanked for it. so: thank you.

Much ado about almost nothing.

Why are mortality figures so disparate. How can South Korea have 0.6 % case fatality rate while Italy has 7 %? Much of the answer is because of the testing and lack thereof. When huge numbers are tested, such as SoKo is doing, the CFR is low, not much worse than other epidemics. Italy has not been doing a good job of testing. When testing catches up to demand we will find that Italy's CFR is much lower. Much, much lower.

likely so.

i had videos by docs in foreign lands, one italian, (one i dunno from whence) with subtitles, aiming in this direction, as well. but i loathe trying to comprehend video info, as i mainly 'think' in images any longer (even if written text, sometimes), and have no auditory memory at all. but i does do copy/paste purdy good, don't i?

gotta go check my purdy loaves; thanks for reading and contributing, gator man.

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wendy davis's picture

as night follows day:

‘Vague emergency legislation gives UK police & ‘public health officers’ powers to DETAIN suspected Covid-19 sufferers’, 19 Mar, 2020, RT.com

“....but it’s not clear exactly how the new powers will be exercised.
The proposed powers were outlined in a 329-page emergency bill on Thursday and come as the UK implements more draconian measures to curb the spread of Covid-19.

In explanatory notes provided with the bill, the government says “public health officers, constables and (in some circumstances) immigration officers” will be granted the means to enforce “sensible public health restrictions...where necessary and proportionate.” This includes returning people to places they have been required to stay.

It adds that officers will be able to “direct individuals to attend, remove them to, or keep them at suitable locations for screening and assessment.” It’s not entirely clear what constitutes a “public health official” or what “necessary and proportionate” might cover in practice, given the vague language used.

The meaning has been interpreted differently by various British media outlets. While some reported that the powers to detain are granted to “law enforcement agencies” and “police,” others went with a more dramatic interpretation, suggesting the bill gives NHS staff “powers to arrest” coronavirus sufferers.

When it comes to patients with a mental health disorder, the bill says only one doctor's opinion will be needed in order for the person to be detained, rather than the usual two doctors.”

from there on it gets even more enigmatic, 'WTH: over! (as our local volunteer fire dept. chief used to say.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@wendy davis Coercively forcing people into quarantine. I can dig that. P.S. dear house-confined victim, you are not allowed to bring your filthy money back home with you. Instead, I will take loving care of your exchequer for you. If you croak, well then your heirs will be S.O.L.

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wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed

i'd always assumed your swamp was in florida, but when you'd mentioned voting in SoCal (iirc) i was surprised. but if it's so, you won't have to travel so far:

California governor orders statewide lockdown as US coronavirus deaths top 200, Patrick Martin, 20 March 2020

California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a statewide “stay at home” order effective Thursday midnight, requiring the state’s 40 million residents not to leave their homes except in cases of necessity—to work in certain vital occupations, or obtain food and medical care.

Newsom acted after state health officials projected that 56 percent of California residents will contract the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 over the next eight weeks, or a total of 25 million people. The number of those whose infections cause critical illness requiring treatment in an Intensive Care Unit is far greater than the number of such beds in state hospitals.

The governor also asked President Trump to send a US Navy hospital ship, now docked at San Diego, to the port of Los Angeles “immediately.” The ship would not treat coronavirus patients, but would take in patients facing other life-threatening conditions who would be displaced from hospitals to make room for those hit by COVID-19.

Newsom had announced Tuesday that he was putting the National Guard on alert, and would invoke martial law if it became necessary to do so under conditions of quarantine. Six counties in the San Francisco Bay area had already imposed a “stay at home” lockdown at the weekend."

Meanwhile a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released Wednesday, rebuts suggestions that COVID-19 is a serious threat only to the elderly. Analyzing all US cases from February 12 through March 16, 4,226 in all, the CDC found that only 20 percent of those who died were under 65, but in cases of diseases requiring hospitalization, 55 percent were under 65, as well as 47 percent of those sent to ICUs. “These preliminary data also demonstrate that severe illness leading to hospitalization, including ICU admission and death, can occur in adults of any age with COVID-19,” the study found.

and a hella lot more including what an ignorant asshole is the Tweeter-in-Chief.

i will offer that wsws has been epic in their coverage of coronavirus, but these reports seem verifiable.

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wendy davis's picture

time for me to close down and go watch some fictional evil: the holy roman empire v. florence.

i wish i could think of any way that this house, this Empire is not on fire, save for loving people helping others in distress.

thanks all for participating, and good night. i wish tomorrow would dawn to a brighter world.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF8vRGN6Bss]

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Pluto's Republic's picture

Coronavirus has been weaponized against China and Iran, as we know, but wouldn’t it be lovely if the US Empire would end the egregious sanctions on VZ and Iran so they had more money to fight the virus? The IMF refused VZ’s request for a $5 billion loan for that purpose because…they didn’t know who should receive it: Maduro or Juan Guaido.

Among my notes:

Italy has broken away from the herd and dared to forge ahead with trade & economic policies that are drawing it into China’s orbit, this is simply not acceptable to the international Zionist criminals, they want China to be isolated, bereft of allies and therefore vulnerable.

Italy’s ‘reward’ for daring to ally itself with China is to become a victim of Israeli bio-terrorism and it will be hit very hard, just to make sure that every other nation is scared off from forging deals with China or joining its Belt & Road Initiative.

The answer to why Italy is under attack is not hard to discover, just read the opening paragraphs of this article by the European Council on Foreign Relations:

One only has to glance at the Italian media to know that, across the political spectrum, Italy’s public debate is dominated by discussions of whether the Chinese government is attempting to buy the country. Following Rome’s official endorsement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) earlier this month, most prominent Italian decision-makers and political commentators seem to have put aside urgent challenges on the European agenda to focus on this unexpected shift to the east. Even issues as divisive as migration and the powers of the European Union – pillars of the ruling Five Star Movement’s and League’s political identity – now seem somewhat outdated.

The debate pits those who prioritize strengthened economic relations with China against those who fear that the initiative will turn Italy into the “next Africa or Greece”. In many ways, the recent increase in Italian enthusiasm for closer economic relations with China began in 2014, when Matteo Renzi, then prime minister, conducted a high-profile tour of the country. Renzi’s successor, Paolo Gentiloni, continued the effort to court Beijing, as has the current Italian government.

China and Italy are currently negotiating a memorandum that includes 50 economic, cultural, and infrastructural agreements, most of which concern Italian state-owned and private companies, including national champions. The memorandum – which, unlike those Beijing has with 13 other European states, is not legally binding – will be signed during President Xi Jinping’s 21-24 March trip to Italy (the first such visit by a Chinese leader since Hu Jintao attended the G8 summit in L’Aquila in 2009). Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, a former lawyer, has repeatedly emphasized that the memorandum will include all necessary references to the European and multilateral values Italy has asked China to respect. He aims to reassure Rome’s European and other partners – primarily Washington – that Italy remains committed to the EU and the transatlantic relationship.”

The monsters are unleashed.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

first, allow to me say i need an explanation of this:

Italy’s ‘reward’ for daring to ally itself with China is to become a victim of Israeli bio-terrorism and it will be hit very hard, just to make sure that every other nation is scared off from forging deals with China or joining its Belt & Road Initiative.

as to the article by the EC of foreign relations this is the money quote, isn't it?

The debate pits those who prioritize strengthened economic relations with China against those who fear that the initiative will turn Italy into the “next Africa or Greece”. In many ways, the recent increase in Italian enthusiasm for closer economic relations with China began in 2014, when Matteo Renzi, then prime minister, conducted a high-profile tour of the country. Renzi’s successor, Paolo Gentiloni, continued the effort to court Beijing, as has the current Italian government.

but when i'd clicked into msn.com (our email provider) something close to this was on their rolling thunder: 'china asks US to erase sanctions on iran, trump says fuck off'.

meanwhile china's been sending masks (gowns?) and gloves everywhere it can (and i'm assuming their masks are the good ones, not the ineffective ones).

the amerikan imperium refuses to cede to a multipolar world at their peril.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@wendy davis

There's an intense high stakes propaganda war in the background, as China, Italy, and the US frantically search for Patient Zero. Some believe this is the smoking gun and it will prove how the virus entered the human realm. In the meantime, governments and media fraught with dueling accusations, but only a few of these narratives make logical sense.

• China asserts that the US military planted the Coronavirus in Wuhan in October 2019. (It is the third bioweapon attack in 18 months to harm China's economy. On top of all the tariffs and sanctions.) Cui bono?

• The US is claiming China leaked the virus and infected itself in late December, and then hid it from the world for a week or so. Some Congress members want China to pay US medical costs. Cui bono?

• Iran asserts that the Coronavirus is a US-Zionist bio-weapon that was planted in China and Iran — but only after they were sure that Israel could produce the vaccine. Cui bono?

• Through a remarkable coincidence, an Israeli pharmaceutical company, MIGAL, happened to be working on a uniquely similar virus, and announced they are poised to have the first vaccine against the novel coronavirus in just weeks. “We decided to choose Coronavirus as a model for our system just as a proof of concept for our technology,” said Dr. Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology group leader. “Let’s call it pure luck.” Cui bono?

These competing narratives aren't as interesting to me as the power dynamics on this final desperate push for Empire we are engaged in.

Parallels revealed between Netanyahu, Trump, Elections, and Pandemics.

This dramatic entanglement between Israel and the US has been generating the world's event horizon for a long time.

Deep State patterns like these become clearer as we draw closer to the path to Empire.

In Israel, as in other countries roiled by the covid-19 pandemic, professionals in the health and finance ministries have been leading the implementation of extraordinary measures: closing schools, curtailing travel, shutting theatres, putting citizens potentially exposed to the coronavirus—myself included, after being seated at a café near an infected Italian tourist—into fourteen-day quarantine. More controversially, the Secret Service is tracking infected people, and the people they visit, with cell-phone monitoring that was developed to track terrorist cells.

::

[Netanyahu’s political opponents] could not foresee was how the timing of the virus would play to his strengths. General anxiety and a sensed need for government action have given him an opportunity to appear indispensable, while making an authoritarian style and Jewish tribal solidarity seem second nature. Much like Donald Trump, Netanyahu has been on prime-time television virtually every day during the past week—flanked by government epidemiologists and economic planners—detailing methods of personal hygiene, bragging that Israel is an exemplar to the world, and calling for funds for economic relief. Netanyahu has also been sure to hand the microphone to political allies on the right, including the religious right, who praise his tirelessness and his skill.

If Trump’s aim is to rally his voters for the upcoming election, Netanyahu’s is to make opposition voters forget the results of the previous one. And his performances seem to be working. Trump, so far, has largely failed to elide criticism of the foundational blunders of his Administration. Netanyahu, who, for the past ten years, has severely underfunded hospitals, doctors’ salaries, and medical education, has largely succeeded in escaping such criticism by flaunting his mastery of the stringent guidelines imposed by the health bureaucracy. If there is to be a national-unity government, he insists, it must be led first by him — the Jewish people’s emergency strongman and savior. “Only the strong survive,” Netanyahu will often remark.

.

Neither man seems likely to wait for a working legislature to raise money under emergency powers. There is, meanwhile, no oversight of the States cell-phone tracking by anyone elected to government.

For anyone who has been concerned about WWIII — we are past midnight. If the US is willing to drop a pandemic on China because it is too successful — then the nuks are ready to fly. This species has no sanity.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

night owl, amiga. great choices from the New Yorker, but yes, i'd asked in the OP:

Will citizens have any civil rights in the end? Will the most draconian laws and protocols sunset eventually, or be covertly extended for other purposes? Israel, for instance, is using counter-terrorism protocols cell phone data to monitor the movements of citizens who’ve tested positive for the virus.

and boy, howdy, is there new amerikan news on that afoot i'll bring...tomorrow, i reckon, as i've kinda burned up my mornning already and more chores callin' my name.

fascinating on your cui bonos? and 'how convenient' in israel. as far as patient zero, there are so many opinions out there, but my understanding is that even covid-19 has either mutated already, or IS a fast mutation from an earlier coronavirus.

was it an opthamolgist in china who'd first reported the new virus? RT has a huge hit piece up on china's 'virtue signalling now after withholding info', etc.

i read an oddish TRNN interview with this 'futurist' in seattle on the possible etiology of coronavirus, never mind the progrssive v. conservatives silliness. but melting permafrost, etc. i have no idea. but the panic is only too real and is bringing more and more to praise our loss of civil liberties including the militarization of nations and states.

thanks, pluto, for all of your fulsome comments and epic reading lists.

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my mileage, on the other hand, might just fucking vary.

[video:https://youtu.be/Hks6Nq7g6P4]

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Anja Geitz's picture

@UntimelyRippd

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@UntimelyRippd

and by the juice media!

The Juice Media is an Australian film and media company, that produces contemporary political and social satire from a left wing perspective. They are known for their Internet series Honest Government Ads and Juice Rap News.

the juice media on twitter.

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wendy davis's picture

ending sanctions on iran and russia, and the IMF NOT giving a paltry loan to VZ in the face of the virus should be called a War Crime. palestinians in gaza seem to be likewise impacted by the virus, but i'd need to refresh my memory as to the exact Whys of that.

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