Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:10 pm

Iamwhomiam » Tue Mar 10, 2020 6:46 pm wrote:This morning I calculated the US fatality rate to be just above 3.5% according to the latest figures reported. Right now it stands at 2.9%.


...and you get why that number is worthless, right? It's good to keep the arithmetic skills up to par and all, but you didn't learn anything this morning.
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby identity » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:56 pm

It's from the Daily Mail, so for whatever it's worth...

"The medic's comments were published in a Twitter thread by UK-based friend Jason van Schoor (pictured), an anaesthetist and clinical fellow at University College London"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8095835/Overwhelmed-Italian-hospitals-running-200-cent-capacity.html


'This tsunami has overwhelmed us': Doctors reveal the horrors of Italian hospitals where coronavirus 'war has exploded' and dying patients have to be left untreated as medics work 'day and night' - while experts warn UK and US public are not SCARED enough

An intensive care doctor in northern Italy has described the scale of the crisis
The medic said colleagues were becoming 'sick and emotionally overwhelmed'
Also issued a warning for the UK that the Italian chaos could come to Britain
Experts have warned that UK outbreak may be around two weeks behind Italy's
One Italian medic warned the public may be underestimating the disaster

By Tim Stickings For Mailonline

Published: 10:00 EDT, 10 March 2020 | Updated: 19:25 EDT, 10 March 2020

Italian hospitals are so 'overwhelmed' by coronavirus that strokes are going untreated and elderly patients are not even being assessed, a doctor at the centre of the crisis has said - while another medic said people in the UK and US should be panicking more.

Doctors in Italy have been forced into life-or-death decisions over who should receive intensive care, with virus cases piling up around the country.

One Italian medic warned that the public may be underestimating the 'epidemiological disaster' because of warnings not to panic.

Daniele Macchini said he 'understands the need not to panic' but said he 'shuddered' because the 'message of the danger of what is happening does not reach people'.

'The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night,' Daniele Macchini said in a lengthy Facebook post.

'Cases are multiplying, we arrive at a rate of 15-20 hospitalisations per day all for the same reason.

'The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the emergency room is collapsing.'

The surgeon in Bergamo in northern Italy said that doctors on the front line were 'part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us'.

He also urged people to abide by Italy's stringent new quarantine measures.

'So be patient too, you can't go to the theater, museums or gym. Try to have mercy on that myriad of older people you could exterminate,' he said.

'It is not your fault, I know, but of those who put it in your head that you are exaggerating - and even this testimony may seem just an exaggeration for those who are far from the epidemic, but please, listen to us - try to leave the house only to indispensable things.

'Do not go en masse to stock up in supermarkets: it is the worst thing because you concentrate and the risk of contacts with infected people who do not know they are higher. You can go there as you usually do.'

Despite his warning, many Italians have done exactly that today with long queues forming outside supermarkets.

The virus is spreading so fast in Italy that doctors are making comparisons to wartime triage medics deciding who lives, who dies and who gets access to intensive care.

Another medic in northern Italy told a friend in the UK that hospitals were running at '200 per cent capacity' with operating theatres hurriedly converted into intensive care units.

Non-coronavirus cases are being sidelined with some medics being given a 'leaflet' and told to perform specialist tasks for which they are not qualified, while some patients over 65 are not even being assessed, the doctor said.

In addition, medical staff themselves are becoming 'sick and emotionally overwhelmed' and left 'in tears' because they cannot stop people dying, they said.

The medic's comments were published in a Twitter thread by UK-based friend Jason van Schoor, an anaesthetist and clinical fellow at University College London.

The doctor also issued a warning for the UK, saying that the Italian chaos would repeat itself in Britain 'if you don't take it seriously'.

His warning was echoed by a second doctor who suggested people should be more scared, saying that overzealous warnings to remain calm meant 'the danger of what is happening does not reach people'.

Experts have suggested that the UK outbreak is around two weeks behind that in Italy, meaning Britain could be heading for a similar nightmare within a fortnight.

Mr van Schoor said he was passing on a message from a 'well-respected' friend who worked as an intensive care medic and A&E consultant in northern Italy.

'The current situation is difficult to imagine and numbers do not explain things at all,' the unnamed medic told Mr van Schoor.

'Our hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid-19 [the disease caused by coronavirus], they are running 200 per cent capacity.

'We've stopped all routine, all operating rooms have been converted to intensive care units and they are now diverting or not treating all other emergencies like trauma or strokes.

'There are hundreds of patients with severe respiratory failure and many of them do not have access to anything above a reservoir mask.

'Patients above 65, or younger with comorbidities, are not even assessed by [intensive care], I am not saying not tubed, I'm saying not assessed.'

The medic added: 'Staff are working as much as they can but they are starting to get sick and are emotionally overwhelmed.

'My friends call me in tears because they see people dying in front of them and they con only offer some oxygen.'

The medic added that Lombardy, the area of northern Italy at the centre of the crisis, was 'the most developed region in Italy and has extraordinary good healthcare'.

'Don't make the mistake to think that what is happening is happening in a third world country,' they said.

Offering advice for the UK, the doctor said: 'We have seen the same pattern in different areas a week apart, and there is no reason that in a few weeks it won't be the same everywhere.'

Describing the pattern, the medic said it would start with a few cases - as the outbreak did in the UK - before spiralling into a major crisis where intensive care units are 'saturated'.

They warned that staff would 'get sick so it gets difficult to cover for shifts' while mortality would 'spike from all other causes that can't be treated properly'.

'We have seen it, you won't be [safe] if you don't take it seriously. I really hope it won't be as bad as here but prepare,' the doctor said.

Experts have warned that the UK is following the same trajectory as Italy, and could end up in a similar situation within two weeks.

University College London biology professor Dr Francis Balloux said: 'The trajectory of the epidemic in the UK is so far roughly comparable to the one in Northern Italy, but with the epidemic in Northern Italy two to three weeks ahead of the situation in the UK.'

Dr Balloux said that it was possible the UK could face a similar lockdown to the one which has brought Italy to its knees.

Adam Kay, the bestselling British author and former doctor, warned in a tweet about the crisis in Italy: 'This is us in a fortnight'.

Italy has suffered the worst outbreak in Europe and one of the heaviest outside China.
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Mar 11, 2020 12:37 am

Wombaticus Rex » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:10 pm wrote:
Iamwhomiam » Tue Mar 10, 2020 6:46 pm wrote:This morning I calculated the US fatality rate to be just above 3.5% according to the latest figures reported. Right now it stands at 2.9%.


...and you get why that number is worthless, right? It's good to keep the arithmetic skills up to par and all, but you didn't learn anything this morning.



Sure, I do. tonight fatality rate is now 2.7%; worldwide, 3.5% I've been taking am & pm screenshots of the tallies for posterity. We all know those rates will remain fluid until long after it peaks, and an accurate count will remain impossible once it passes.

But what a gleaning will be had by the surviving wealthy! Talk about consolidation!
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Wed Mar 11, 2020 12:53 am

Now that the accleration is evening out it's easier to keep track of things. Per an industry news site, US hospitals on the West Coast are already dipping into the Strategic Reserve stockpile:

Hospitals throughout the country are bracing for a wave of patients.

Jan Emerson-Shea, vice president of external affairs for the California Hospital Association, told Healthcare Dive the group had heard some hospitals were getting low on PPE and masks in particular.

Hospitals in that situation can contact their local county health department or EMS agency for help acquiring additional supplies. The California Department of Public Health has made available some of the 21 million N95 masks it has on reserve to help ease shortages.


Civilization is a thin veneer, and our first world status is mostly the remnants of rep we longer deserve. As consumers, of course, Americans are unparalled, but our industrial capacity, leadership and expertise, and education systems have all been depleted by looters. This crisis will continue to reveal big problems that can't be turned around anytime soon. All of them desperately need to be, of course, but desperation is cheap.

Some more gleanings on the testing bottleneck. The Politico nerds had a piece today about the looming reagent shortage, which promises to be the ... third? fourth? ... severe roadblock to a serious assessment of the extent of our outbreak.

CDC Director Robert Redfield told POLITICO on Tuesday that he is not confident that U.S. labs have an adequate stock of the supplies used to extract genetic material from any virus in a patient’s sample — a critical step in coronavirus testing.

...

If enough processing kits aren’t available, the risk that testing will be disrupted is “huge,” said Michael Mina, associate medical director of molecular diagnostics at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

“RNA extraction is the first step in being able to perform” a coronavirus test, he said. “If we cannot perform this step, the test cannot be performed.”

Qiagen, a major supplier of the kits, confirmed that its product is backordered due to “the extraordinary pace” at which the world has increased coronavirus testing over the last few weeks.


The piece also announces that CDC is adjusting their testing guidelines to "combine a patient’s nose and throat samples into one test" in order to bypass the dual-testing problem. (Although this perhaps renders the results a bit less certain, it will undeniably make it all twice as fast. Such is progress.)

Also, the problem is compounded by the fact that rival reagent manufacturers are not all creating the same products. Switching over to materials from competitorRoche will "take a week, in part because technicians will need training to use it." Qiagen manufactures in Spain, Germany and Maryland.

Far more detail is provided from an excellent editorial at JAMA. "It is important to balance 2 concepts: remedying testing gaps is imperative, yet more testing is not always better."

The CDC test differed in some respects from a test developed at the same time by the Robert Koch Institute in Germany and adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO). As soon as the test kits arrived, however, many state laboratories encountered difficulty verifying the results; some of the expected results came back as inconclusive or invalid due to failure of the negative control. The source of these problems remains under investigation.

...

On February 29, FDA began permitting coronavirus testing using laboratory-developed tests without prior agency approval. Laboratories certified to perform high-complexity testing could begin testing patient samples using their own tests after showing that they took certain basic steps to validate them, so long as the laboratories submitted an EUA application within 15 days. Since the FDA announcement, the New York State laboratory announced it had received an EUA to test for the novel coronavirus. As of March 5, other laboratories are expected to begin testing soon, and it is anticipated that testing will be far more available nationwide by mid-March.

Testing for SARS-CoV-2 highlights a controversial area of public policy—the regulation of laboratory-developed tests—in which there has long been tension between the goals of access and quality. Outside of emergency contexts, FDA largely does not regulate laboratory-developed tests, leaving major gaps in oversight of test accuracy and validity.

The current situation exemplifies the challenge of how to best utilize testing during outbreaks of novel pathogens. The initial testing criteria were too narrow to monitor and control the spread of the disease, but the sudden pivot to a far broader testing approach, even as capacity remains limited, may be an overcorrection.

...

High priorities for testing include patients with serious, unexplained respiratory illness and contacts of known cases. In March 2020, numerous patients with mild, nonspecific symptoms of COVID-19 have called for testing in clinic offices and on social media. There is a risk that widespread testing and test-seeking will overwhelm medical services needed for patients who have more severe symptoms. Furthermore, once in a waiting room for a test, a patient with mild or no illness may actually be exposed to the coronavirus from infected patients.

A related concern is misunderstanding results. Given the disease’s incubation period (estimated as 2-14 days), a negative result does not rule out infection, particularly for people with a known exposure. A positive result in an otherwise well or mildly ill patient does not require urgent medical attention but does require isolation at this time. Accurate communications will be essential to avoid confusion.


Finally, important to note that the ol' Washington State Supercluster that has been dominating the US news cycle was only discovered by stubborn accident. It wasn't the CDC, it was the "Seattle Flu Study."

Via: "Washington State risks seeing explosion in coronavirus cases without dramatic action, new analysis says" - 03/03/2020

Washington State health authorities announced late Friday that they have found a case of Covid-19 in a teenager from Snohomish County, north of Seattle. The teen had not traveled outside the country and had no known contact with a confirmed Covid-19 patient, meaning this was likely a case of community transmission of the virus. This was the first such case for Washington State and one of the first four or five detected in the country.

The case was actually found by the Seattle Flu Study. Bedford, a co-investigator, normally works on influenza but has been one of the key players trying to assess what is happening with the new virus by studying genetic sequences from around the world.

Frustrated by the lack of testing resulting from the problem with the CDC-developed kit, the Seattle Flu Study began using an in-house developed test to look for Covid-19 in samples from people who had flu-like symptoms but who had tested negative for flu. That work — permissible because it was research — uncovered the Snohomish County teenager.

Analysis of the genetic sequence of the virus from the teenager showed it was so closely related to that of Washington State’s first case that Bedford believes the teen was infected as part of a chain of transmission that started with the first case. That would mean the virus has been circulating in the northern part of the state for about six weeks.

The pattern seen in other locations that are fighting the new virus is that it takes a while for enough people to be infected for severe cases to start showing up in hospitals for care. The Seattle area is soon going to be there, Bedford said.

“So we’re going to expect a large uptick in just the number of people presenting to hospitals,” he said.


The key thing here is that the "large uptick" in question will be coming in cities across the United States. Seattle is only an outlier because the community spread was proven, and proven early.

Inevitable future hot spots to watch out for: 1) the entire ATL/FL corridor -- from the busiest international airport in the world down to the senior citizen capital of America, full of meth and rather poor hygeine, 2) San Francisco, home of a massive homeless population and streets full of feces, 3) Washington, DC, and of course, 4) New York City.

I'm not clear on why the National Guard is providing security to some synagogue in New Rochelle, but that's a mystery for tomorrow, and it probably involves organized crime ties anyway. Cheers.
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Mar 11, 2020 2:01 am

Big mistake to go to the hospital. Testing centers should be established at a distance remote from a hospital and people suspecting they've contracted the virus should go there to be tested and to not go to the hospital, and to keep only confirmed cases hospitalized if warranted. Isolate at home if you become ill and getting a flu shot might help you to avoid catching the flu. I imagine many who contract the flu will think they have contracted COVID-19 and rush to the hospital ER.

That the reagent manufacturers aren't on the same page demonstrates poor leadership and demonstrates our utter dependency upon these private industries.

What a clusterfuck we're experiencing! Everything that could go wrong has! Christ, it's gonna get bad.

Whatever will I do if I can't get light cream for my coffee and tea?!!

Who will be around to treat our water supplies to assure our water remains safe to drink?

Who will be around to maintain our nuclear power installations?

TPs already sold out; do they have any natural sponges left in stock?
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Grizzly » Wed Mar 11, 2020 2:17 am

Speaking of John Hopkins Hospital...


Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)


https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Image


Bonus:

I just happened upon the following and thought sombunal, maybe interested especially if you have kids or even grandkids.

DISASTER ARCHAEOLOGY FOR KIDS AND TEENS

Published on Jun 23, 2019
https://issuu.com/alaoupi/docs/laoupi._disaster_archaeology_for_ki
485 pp. richly illustrated e-book in English especially for kids 11+ and teenagers
------

Fires from Heaven. Comets and diseases in circum-Mediterranean Disaster Myths
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332710803_Fires_from_Heaven_Comets_and_diseases_in_circum-Mediterranean_Disaster_Myths
Abstract
The present work follows the two previous steps of disaster myths' analysis and interpretation (Homeric Hephaistos as comet/meteor god / Aristaios and the Sirius' cult in Bronze Age Mediterranean). The aim of this work is to: a) assess contemporary and future trends concerning the interrelations between astrobiological phenomena (comets, impacts, plasma emissions, Super Novae explosions, solar cycles, Venus transits as biohazards) and past epidemics (Justinian plague, the Black Death, the AD 1918 flu pandemic spread, other more recent cases), and b) provide new evidence through famous circum-Mediterranean 'myths' (Venus as a comet,
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Mar 11, 2020 9:26 am

Funny you mention foreboding comets, Grizzly. Earlier this morning I was wondering "Hey, where's the comet? Aren't we supposed to have a comet when times like this strike home?"
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Mar 11, 2020 12:44 pm

https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-dow-is-tumbling-again-bull-market-will-soon-end-51583939074

The Dow Is Tumbling Again. ‘Bull Market Will Soon End,’ Goldman Sachs Says

By Ben Levisohn
Updated March 11, 2020 11:53 am ET / Original March 11, 2020 11:04 am ET

Another day, another 1,000-point drop for the Dow Jones Industrial Average after Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that the U.S. should consider reducing the payroll tax, but that there’s no need for action as of yet.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that while a cut should be under consideration, it isn’t currently needed. according to a Bloomberg News report.

“I wouldn’t say we ought to do it now, but it’s something you could quickly kick in if needed,” Grassley said. “We’re in the process of analyzing the economic impact of the virus so right now I wouldn’t say it’s necessary.”

Michael Zona, a spokesperson for Sen. Grassley, tweeted that the senator’s comment is “being widely misinterpreted. Sen. Grassley has said all along that a payroll tax cut is an option that should be considered. Everything reasonable is on the table. Right now, congressional leadership is engaged in discussion and working toward building consensus.”

The stock market, however, is unthrilled. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has tumbled 1,008.19 points, or 4%, to 24,009.97, while the S&P 500 has dropped 3.7% to 2777.79, and the Nasdaq Composite has fallen 3.3% to 8,072.83. The yield on the 10-year Treasury has slipped .05 percentage point to 0.71%.

The real action is in the Vix, more formally known as the Cboe Volatility Index. The Vix has risen to 52.52, and is set to spend its fourth consecutive day above 40, the longest such streak since the financial crisis.

>>> Please visit link for Fear Factor Gauge the CBOE Volatility Index, an interactive graph <<<

We don’t need the Vix to tell us that the market is acting a little bit crazy. The Dow has closed up or down more than 1,000 points six times during the past 12 days, and has traded down between 786 points and 970 three additional times. Each of the three other day’s moves was more than 100 points.

Slip and Slide
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been seized by volatility.

>>> Please visit link for interactive graph <<<

Chalk it up to a market trying to price in what is impossible to know. How much the coronavirus spreads—and how much damage it does to the economy in the process—is still up for debate. Investment banks are busy laying out potential scenarios.

UBS economist Arend Kapteyn and team, for one, cut their global economic growth target to just 2%, reflecting what’s currently priced into the market by their estimates. That’s down from 4% before the coronavirus, and 2.8% before Russia and Saudi Arabia started a price war.

They have little confidence in their number, however. “As long as the flow of new cases is rising, the low is likely not yet in place for a number of risk assets,” they write. If the outbreak becomes a pandemic, the market could drop another 20%, they conclude.

The problem for U.S. stocks, however, is one of earnings, according to Goldman Sachs strategist David Kostin. After recently cutting his earnings forecast for the S&P 500 to $165 a share, he slashed it once again to $157, a drop of 5% from last year. That leads him to one obvious conclusion: “We believe the S&P 500 bull market will soon end,” he writes.

Still, we have a way to go before then. The S&P 500 needs to hit 2708.92 to enter a bear market—just 2.5% away. First though, it has to wrestle with resistance at 2740, Instinet’s Frank Cappelleri writes. And if that doesn’t hold? The S&P 500 could be headed for 2320, the December 2018 low.

For now, though, nothing can be taken for granted, and we should avoid reading too much into any single move. “To put this bluntly, we can trust the market when it’s displaying minimal price movement,” Cappelleri says. “We should be suspicious of it when the swings are wild.”

Just remember, as Elvis once sang: “We can’t go on forever with suspicious minds.”

https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-dow-is-tumbling-again-bull-market-will-soon-end-51583939074
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Mar 11, 2020 1:38 pm

https://www.timesunion.com/news/medical/article/Store-owner-charged-after-homemade-sanitizer-15122317.php

Store owner charged after homemade sanitizer burns youths
March 11, 2020
Updated: March 11, 2020 11:04 a.m.

RIVER VALE, N.J. (AP) — A convenience store owner in New Jersey reacting to the coronavirus outbreak created and sold a spray sanitizer that left four children with burns, state and county law enforcement officials said.

Authorities on Tuesday issued a summons charging Manisha Bharade, 47, of Wood-Ridge, with endangering the welfare of children and deceptive business practices. State consumer officials also opened an investigation into the sale and promotion of health and sanitation products at her 7-Eleven store in River Vale.

Bharade mixed commercially available foaming sanitizer, which wasn't meant for resale, with water and packaged the bottles in her store, authorities said. “An apparent chemical reaction from the mixture caused the burns” to the three 10-year-olds and an 11-year-old, authorities said.

“Let me be perfectly clear: if you try to take advantage of our residents during a public health emergency, we will hold you accountable,” said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal in a news release. ”Retailers who try to make a quick buck by exploiting others will face civil and criminal consequences."

One person in the state has died and more than a dozen residents have been sickened from the coronavirus.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover. In mainland China, where the virus first exploded, more than 80,000 people have been diagnosed and more than 58,000 have so far recovered.

Five of the 14 bottles that were sold were turned over to police for analysis.

It was not known if Bharade has an attorney.

___

The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

https://www.timesunion.com/news/medical/article/Store-owner-charged-after-homemade-sanitizer-15122317.php
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Grizzly » Wed Mar 11, 2020 3:04 pm

WHO officially declares COVID-19 is a pandemic

And away we go...

Image
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51839944
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby chump » Wed Mar 11, 2020 4:35 pm

identity » Sun Mar 08, 2020 3:46 pm wrote:Remember The Corbett Report?

[...]




https://www.minds.com/blog/view/1080314433557057536
Coronavirus: “Cures" Worse Than The Disease
(links at original)

It’s spreading. It’s mutating. It’s going viral.

Am I talking about coronavirus? No! I’m talking about theories about coronavirus.

It’s a natural virus. / No, it’s a manmade bioweapon!

It’s less deadly than the regular flu. / It’s worse than the Spanish Flu! / It’s flying bat AIDS!!

The numbers are being underreported. / The numbers are being inflated!

It was patented in 2015! / No, it really wasn’t.

It was unleashed by accident. / It was unleashed on purpose. / It doesn’t even exist!

Yes, there are as many theories about coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) as there are people talking about it. The reality is that I don’t know the truth about what this virus really is or where it came from and neither do you.

But there’s something that we do know for sure regardless of where this virus came from or whether it even really exists. The hype and fear and panic and pandemonium surrounding this (supposed) outbreak is going to be far worse than the disease could ever be. Because, as I’ve been screaming about for over a decade now, a bioweapon attack (real or manmade, false flag or otherwise) is the perfect cover for a slew of agenda items on the globalist checklist. And the more the population panics, the more they play into the globalists’ hands.

Here are five items on The Powers That Shouldn’t Be’s wishlist that are being delivered on a silver platter as people scurry around panicking about coronavirus.

1) Unprecedented surveillance and control of population

As Corbett Reporteers will know by now, China is in many ways the model for the technocratic Brave New World of the 21st century. Social credit scores and facial recognition CCTV networks and government-controlled internet are just the most obvious examples of how governments will seek to surveil and control their populations in the future. So it shouldn’t be surprising that China, as the epicenter of this new coronavirus outbreak, is pioneering new and hitherto undreamt of ways to keep their population in line during the crisis.

The first thing to note is the sheer scale of what the Chinese government is attempting here. The quarantine imposed in Wuhan last month, encompassing a city of 11 million people, was already the largest quarantine in human history. But when that quarantine expanded to include the entire province of Hubei—a population of 57 million people—the scope of the lockdown became nearly unimaginable. How can such a quarantine possibly be maintained?

Well, as we’ve all seen, it can be done by good old-fashioned brute force. When in doubt, just weld the sick person’s door shut so they can’t leave their room!

But to really manage millions of people, you need technological help. And so the Chinese government has been deploying every tool in its arsenal to monitor and maintain restrictions on citizens and their movements.

Flying drones to harass anyone walking around without a mask? Check.

A nationwide video surveillance system called—you can’t make this up—Skynet to help spot quarantine evaders? Check.

A color-coded rating on a smartphone payment app to identify people as low or high-risk for carrying the virus based on their payment and travel history? Check.

If you can think of a creepy and invasive way of tracking and controlling the population, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Chinese government has already thought of it (and is likely already using it).

But here’s the real question: When this is all over, do you think the government will simply shelve these technologies and systems? Or do you think that once this level of control becomes normalized that the authoritarians in the Chinese Communist Party will continue using it?

And here’s the even realer question: Do you think there’s a government anywhere around the world that wouldn’t use this technology on its own population if given a convenient excuse (like, say, a freakout over a novel coronavirus)?

The answers to these questions are obvious, but just look at the prisoner conditioning that has been taking place at the airports for the past two decades. Even people like myself who grew up pre-9/11 can scarcely believe there was a time where you could hop on a plane with little more than a step through a metal detector. What? You want to bring a water bottle through security!? What are you, crazy? In just two decades, the entire experience of air travel has been utterly transformed, and no declaration of victory in the so-called “War on Terror” will ever bring back the old security screening practices. For the average American, the TSA if just a fact of life now.

And for those who live for long enough in a quarantine crackdown, complete government surveillance of every citizens movements, purchases and interactions will just be a fact of life. These tools of control are here to stay, and the longer these quarantines last and the greater the areas effected, the further it will go in conditioning the public to accept it.

2) A blank check for Big Pharma and the WHO

When a detective is looking to solve a crime, it’s important to ask cui bono. Although it may be circumstantial, establishing who benefits from a crime at least points you to some suspects.

In this case, though, the question of who benefits has a simple answer: WHO benefits, of course. The World Health Organization, that is. As the United Nations body tasked with directing international health and leading the response to global health concerns, the WHO always grows in power in the wake of every crisis.

During the swine flu non-crisis and the ebola non-crisis and the zika non-crisis the WHO was led by Director-General Margaret Chan. It was under Chan’s watch, remember, that the WHO declared the 2009 swine flu outbreak a “global pandemic,” a move that automatically triggered billions of dollars of vaccine purchases by various governments. This was a blatant cash grab, of course, and even the Council of Europe was compelled to note that the members of the WHO council that made the pandemic declaration were also sitting on the boards of the vaccine manufacturers who stood to benefit from that decision.

With the Covid-19 outbreak, too, the WHO is playing a game with the pandemic declaration, only this time its motivation is precisely the opposite. In 2017, the World Bank issued a $425 billion bond in support of its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility. Investors in that bond issue will lose everything if a global pandemic is declared before July . . . a key reason, some suggest, why the WHO is refusing to call coronavirus a pandemic despite it quite clearly meeting the criteria.

So who is heading the WHO this time around? Well, it’s not Margaret Chan anymore. She stepped down in 2017 and was replaced by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian politician and academic who, William Engdahl notes, is the first WHO director-general who isn’t even a medical doctor. Instead, after earning his degree in biology at the University of Asmara in Eritrea and serving in a junior position at the Ministry of Health under the Marxist dictatorship of Mengistu, he:

“[. . .] then went on to become Minister of Health from 2005 to 2012 under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. There he met former President Bill Clinton and began a close collaboration with Clinton and the Clinton Foundation and its Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI). He also developed a close relation with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As health minister, Tedros would also chair the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that was co-founded by the Gates Foundation. The Global Fund has been riddled with fraud and corruption scandals.”

Oh, you mean the Gates Foundation and their GAVI Alliance for vaccination that are the WHO’s biggest donors? The Gates Foundation that helped host the Event 201 “high-level pandemic exercise” in New York last October that war gamed out the entire coronavirus scenario we’re currently living through? Right.

And how are WHO going to save the day? With Big Pharma drugs, naturally! Governments are already lining up to pledge tens of millions of dollars to fund the effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine. And that’s just the funding to develop the vaccine. There are many more billions waiting for the big pharma manufacturers who can deliver the first vaccine to market.

Yes, coronavirus is going to be a big payday for some rich and well-connected people in the international medical mafia. But don’t worry, the politicians are going to get in on the fun, too . . .

3) An excuse to implement medical martial law

A decade ago, in the midst of the swine flu hype, I released an episode of The Corbett Report podcast on medical martial law. In that episode I laid out the various ways that governments around the world (including, of course, the US government) have been quietly passing legislation that would enable them to implement martial law in the event of a global pandemic. This would allow them to quarantine and incarcerate citizens suspected of infection, and would allow the government to administer whatever medications (including vaccinations) it deemed necessary to stop the spread of the infection.

In the US specifically, this legislation took the form of The Model State Emergency Health Power Act, a piece of legislation that was drafted by the Center for Disease Creation (CDC). The act grants government the power to quarantine, force vaccinate, and mobilize the military to help implement emergency procedures as deemed necessary to contain the outbreak. It is designed to be forwarded in each state legislature so that the states could harmonize their emergency pandemic plans, essentially creating a federal system enabling medical martial law. As the ACLU notes:

“The Act lets a governor declare a state of emergency unilaterally and without judicial oversight, fails to provide modern due process procedures for quarantine and other emergency powers, it lacks adequate compensation for seizure of assets, and contains no checks on the power to order forced treatment and vaccination.”

Regardless, at last count the act has been the basis for 133 pieces of legislation in 33 different states.

And, sure enough, the citizens of the developed, Western world who thought that martial law was only for banana republics and exotic Eastern countries are about to get a taste of this bitter medicine on the back of the coronavirus hype.

Australia just activated its emergency pandemic plan despite not having a reported case of human-to-human transmission of Covid-19. The plan grants the government the power to cancel public events, force people to work from home, close childcare centers and otherwise impose mandates and restrictions on the daily lives of its citizens as it sees fit.

Not to be outdone, the Swiss Federal Council has just declared a “special situation” which allows the council to issue emergency police ordinances “without a basis in federal law.” Some of the powers explicitly assumed by the council include the power to mandate vaccinations, order quarantines and ban events or close institutions.

Now Britain, the US, and other countries are dusting off their own emergency plans and preparing to get in on the martial law bonanza.

Of course, this is not only the perfectly predictable response to the current outbreak hype, it was the predicted response. That’s right, as noted above, the high-level exercise dubbed Event 201 that was held last October and which simulated a global coronavirus pandemic featured extensive discussion about the need to implement medical martial law in order to bring the virus in check.

Thus we saw Stephen Redd of the CDC opining during the exercise that “governments need to be willing to do things that are out of their historical perspective [sic] . . . It’s really a war footing that we need to be on.”

Likewise, Brad Connett of medical supply manufacturer Henry Schein Inc declared that “it can happen quickly. A martial [law]-type plan–they may not say that, exactly–but a martial [law]-type plan can go into effect and stimulate change very quickly.”

It certainly can. And what room do you believe the governments that implement martial law are going to leave for dissent on the issue? Why, none, of course. But how are they going to stop the spread of information in this age of 24/7 always-connected social media?

Funny you should ask, because that leads us to our next New World Order agenda item.

4) An excuse to crack down on the internet

In New World Next Year 2020—the annual year-end New World Next Week wrap up episode—I predicted that 2020 was going to be The End of the Internet As We’ve Known It! At the time I formulated that prediction, the 2020 (s)election circus and the inevitable wave of censorship that it would bring about weighed heavily on my mind. As it is, it’s quite possible that coronavirus will be the convenient excuse for governments to flex their internet censorship muscles.

Zero Hedge has already had its Twitter account suspended for posting the details of a particular Chinese scientist working in the Wuhan bio lab that some suspect was the origin of the outbreak. This was done in the name of Twitter’s policy about “abuse and harassment,” but given that the website did nothing more than post the already publicly available contact information for the scientist, it seems more likely that this is part of a campaign to control the narrative on coronavirus from the get go.

As I write this editorial, the front page of Google News (which I strongly advise against using as a source of information, for the record) is filled with “Fact Checks” about various coronavirus theories that are floating around the internet.

Given the current state of online censorship, can there be any doubt that governments around the world will jump at the excuse to scrub dissenting voices from the internet? As alternative information about the virus, its origins, and the vaccines that are intended to “cure it” flood the net, a propaganda campaign unlike any we have seen before will be waged to portray the purveyors of this information as a threat to public order. They will be purged from the internet accordingly, with (no doubt) the approval of a large proportion of the population. And with that precedent set, it will only be a matter of time before any information that challenges the ruling power is deemed a “threat to public order” and wiped from the internet.

Lest there be any doubt that the online purge is an aspect of the pandemic scenario that is particularly important to TPTSB, it should be noted that Event 201 dwelled extensively on how to “stop the spread of misinformation.” Their answer: Internet shutdowns and censorship, of course!

5) Precipitating economic crisis

Given that I make my living online, the prospect of internet shutdowns and censorship crackdowns are worrying to me. But before you become too distraught over the plight of the poor podcaster, let’s put this crisis into perspective: Assuming that the virus does go pandemic, it is quite likely that this will be the largest economic disruption of our lifetime.

This is the point where I would put forward some facts to back up such a bold statement, but given that we just saw the worst week in the markets since the financial crisis, including the worst two day point drop in Dow Jones history, I doubt that it’s really necessary to elaborate.

As mass quarantines expand, public events are canceled, businesses are shuttered, and economic activity generally grinds to a halt, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce that we are in for a global economic crisis of nearly unthinkable proportions. But the real disruptions are going to start long before we get to that point.

Given that the mass quarantines have started in China, a.k.a. the most important link in the global just-in-time supply chain, we are going to see significant difficulties for many manufacturers producing basic consumer goods in the very near future. Smartphones. Cars. Even, in a perverse bit of irony, medical supplies. So much of the global economy that depends on Chinese manufacturing is already experiencing shutdowns and shortages. And this is only the razor thin edge of what promises to be a gigantic wedge.

Here’s the worst part: These disruptions are already baked into the cake. Even if everyone on the planet was suddenly cured of their disease overnight and all quarantines were lifted, the effects of these last few weeks of lockdowns and closures would still continue to ripple their way through the global economy for months. But as the fear and hype spreads from continent to continent and the mass disruptions expand, these effects will get worse and worse.

I would expand on this point, but I have a feeling this is going to become a dominant and recurring topic of review in these editorials in the future. Let me just say this for now: Regardless of whether coronavirus is natural or manmade or even whether it exists at all, the economic effects of this event are going to be very real and very profound. Given that I write for the International Forecaster and have been documenting the Ponzi scheme that is the modern global economy for over a decade now, I’m often asked when the scam will collapse and the long-predicted global financial crisis will hit. Well, it’s very possible that the crisis has now officially hit and the decades of pie-in-the-sky negative-interest-rate helicopter-funny-money insanity that has papered over our grim economic reality is about to come crashing down all at once.

Conclusion: Coronavirus panic is a giant boost for the globalist agenda

I recently heard a suggestion that if this does eventuate into a global pandemic then it will set the globalist agenda back by decades. After all, an event like this will surely teach us all a hard lesson in national self-sufficiency and the inherent danger of an overextended, just-in-time global supply chain, right?

Of course not. No, that’s the conclusion that a rational person thinking about the crisis in a rational way would come to. So of course the globalists are going to force feed us the exact opposite idea: That a crisis like this will demonstrate how we need even more global integration amongst all levels of public and private society.

Don’t believe me? Just read the press release that Johns Hopkins and the Event 201 participants put out last month just before “Wuhan” and “coronavirus” became topics of daily conversation:

“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering. Efforts to prevent such consequences or respond to them as they unfold will require unprecedented levels of collaboration between governments, international organizations, and the private sector.”

Oh, that’s right. This is another chance to “fail forward.” After all, as that great globalist soothsayer Rahm Emanuel told us during the last financial catastrophe, the global elitists’ mantra is to “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Do you really think this “crisis” (whether real or imaginary) would be any exception?
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Wed Mar 11, 2020 4:38 pm

4 hours ago - Health
Congressional doctor predicts 70-150 million U.S. coronavirus cases

Jonathan Swan, Alayna Treene

Congress' in-house doctor told Capitol Hill staffers at a close-door meeting this week that he expects 70-150 million people in the U.S. — roughly a third of the country — to contract the coronavirus, two sources briefed on the meeting tell Axios.

Why it matters: That estimate, which is in line with other projections from health experts, underscores the potential seriousness of this outbreak even as the White House has been downplaying its severity in an attempt to keep public panic at bay.

Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician of the U.S. Congress, told Senate chiefs of staff, staff directors, administrative managers and chief clerks from both parties on Tuesday that they should prepare for the worst, and offered advice on how to remain healthy.

Between the lines: Forecasting the spread of a virus is difficult, and the range of realistic possibilities is wide.

But other estimates, including statistical modeling from Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, have said that somewhere between 20% and 60% of adults worldwide might catch the virus.

Yes, but: These estimates include people who will get sick and make a full recovery, and many people will catch the virus without ever feeling seriously ill.

Monahan told staffers that about 80% of people who contract coronavirus will ultimately be fine, one of the sources said.

Monahan's office declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have told lawmakers they have no immediate plans to close Congress, despite it being a potential petri dish for the virus.

Many lawmakers fit high-risk profiles because they're over 60, have underlying health conditions and are mixing in close quarters with visitors, staff and reporters.

Go deeper: The latest coronavirus developments

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say that Monahan told staffers he expects 70-150 million cases, not 75-150 million.


The good news for Americans is that is a lower infection percentage than Angela Merkel gave Germany at 60-70%. The bad news: that's still somewhere between 2.1 to 4.5 million dead Americans.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:28 pm

Cuomo just loves being first. He called out the National Guard to contain the virus within New Rochelle, NY,

Cuomo Sends in the National Guard

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cuomo-sends-in-the-national-guard/
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby coffin_dodger » Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:37 pm

The bad news: that's still somewhere between 2.1 to 4.5 million dead Americans.


This estimated number assumes that hospital space will be available for any American that requires it. Approx 20% of cases require professional medical intervention - i.e. admittance to a hospital - involving oxygenation, ventilation, or, in the case of 5% of the total - admittance to round-the-clock ICU units.

This is managable while case numbers remain low(ish).

For instance, there are approx. 1000 ICU beds available in the UK. Therefore, should the total number of infected reach 100,000 in the UK, 5000 ICU beds will be required. The UK has 1000.

This situation has already been reached in Italy. Triage has been introduced in some areas. There are insufficient beds or equipment to keep everyone who needs assistance alive, so hard decisions are having to be made. This is why Italy has introduced more draconian measures to contain the virus - and will continue to do so.

Statistically, if 1 million people have the virus, up to 200,000 could die from it, should the healthcare system in the UK become inundated, which it obviously would be.

This is why some less high-profile epidemiologists (and statisticians) have become increasingly dismayed at many Western countrries response to this outbreak. A reduction in the bell curve is crucial, to flatten out the amount of cases at any given time.

But of course, the economy - and money - is far more important.
Gotta keep those revenues flowing!
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Re: Manufactured 'Contagion' - Coronavirus Edition

Postby Karmamatterz » Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:51 pm

The states and locals to freak out the most are most likely to get more federal pork.

Apologies if this was already covered or posted. Did anybody else hear about the CDC giving USAMRIID a cease and desist last summer?

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/ ... ef6f7.html

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opin ... arch-66235
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