Due to the COVID-19-causing coronavirus, the last couple of months have been quite a ride. But it seems the madness is just beginning. People are growing tired of the restrictions on day-to-day activities. They are also starting to question whether this virus is as deadly as people initially told themselves it was, or had braced themselves for.
So far, the skepticism has had several consequences. It has created a cottage industry of self-made theorists who say the hype about this coronavirus is a tool that serves the media, global elite, the Democrats or even China. And, in the United States, doubts about the seriousness of COVID-19 have spawned protests. We are now seeing protests in Germany as well.
Already inclined to be discussing the political, the dissident right has been swallowed by these developments. There is talk of a new Tea Party populist movement to support opening up the economy. But I was and remain skeptical of these protests and this campaign.
To begin, we are losing sight of the fact that the system has failed us. Sure, China may have covered up the situation and initially failed to contain this coronavirus. There are accusations that the World Health Organization (WHO) was in China's pocket and its downplaying the threat of the pandemic's expansion was critical to the West's initial non-response, allowing things to progress as they did. And there is even the fact that WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has links to the communist party of his native Ethiopia. But where we are now as a result comes down to the following: relying on foreigners, including potentially compromised agents from the former "third world", to make assessments concerning the safety, health and security of our Western nations. And that alone has blown up in our faces. Perhaps we can chalk it up as global "outsourcing". It coincides with the modus operandi of the West in so many ways - and without it, arguably, we would not be in a position where we now need to have the discussion as to what sort of lockdown is appropriate or not.
Speaking of outsourcing, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the impact of job and manufacturing outsourcing, especially to China, in terms of the spread of this virus. Amidst the disruptions to the supply chain and China's own needs, there were shortages in the amount of protective gear available in the West, which made containment of the virus all but impossible. Sure, amateur-run, equipment-manufacturing operations sprung up in the U.S. as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, which is how a supply/demand economy works, but it was far too late for masks and protective equipment to factor in to the initial attempt to contain the outbreak.
And in Europe? Well, Italy had a certain dependence on Turkey to manufacture protective masks, but Turkey ended up recalling and hoarding orders. Italy depended on masks from Sweden, but France hijacked those masks. Italy also depended on France and Germany to import medical supplies, but both prioritized their own needs. The takeaway here is that the outsourced, global economy - and those who depended on it - failed. This surely put us in a position where the virus could spread more easily, and we need to even have a discussion as to what sort of lockdown is now appropriate given the danger.
Likewise, most of the Western countries delayed in closing down tourism and inbound travel from early virus-infected hotspots like China. So many Western countries were flooded with a social-justice driven impetus to not close borders, to not judge or quarantine newcomers, to not close down immigration and to even virtue signal by hugging Asian-looking people. This surely put us in a position where the virus could spread more easily, and we need to even have a discussion as to what sort of lockdown is now appropriate given the danger.
Finally, as Gregory Hood has suggested at American Renaissance, the rapid spread of the virus in Italy could perhaps be attributed to its surfacing in the unaccounted-for illegal immigrant sweatshop labor community in Lombardy, Italy, which serves "Italian fashion" labels like Prada, Giorgio Armani, Fendi, Bottega Veneta, Salvatore Ferragamo.
The strongest market for these goods is China, which is wrong on so many levels. First, it suggests that the West is transforming into China's sweatshop. Second, it reminds us of what global capitalism does, not just with outsourcing to find cheap labor, but insourcing to create cheap labor in a country where, before the pandemic, one out of every ten Italian citizens was unemployed. The example also sheds light on the sham of "Italian fashion" and the dark shadow behind the culture-fed hunger for designer label whatever. And, whether because of vendors of "Italian fashion" linked to China, or because of the unregulated back channels of a hidden society within society, we need to consider the impact on the spread of this coronavirus, putting us in a position where we have to have a discussion about what sort of lockdown is now appropriate given the danger.
In hindsight, it was extremely predictable that all of these factors would align by default to create one giant mess of a pandemic. That already seemed to be the case during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and we need to understand that, as long as nothing changes, we will be in this same position again and again. The criticism that "we overreacted" in 2020 is taking the focus off of the failings of the modus operandi and the public is even less likely to demand immediate action to stop the next major epidemic. Instead of accepting such an unfortunately turn of events, we need to pin the system to the wall and demand change.
As for those who propose hitting the streets because they do not like the lockdown and doubt the serious of this coronavirus, how many were silent after each and every decision and development that put us where we are now, as we have to contemplate what sort of restrictions on personal behavior are appropriate or not? It all goes back to the support for, or indifference to, the modus operandi. Here, I am reminded of my experiences while canvasing for Ron Paul in 2008, where I was often told that politics were "boring" because they did not concern anyone's immediate life. As we can now attest, politics affect daily life perhaps more than anything - but now people want to walk away from this hard lesson and for everyone to take more risk so they can get their "normal" back, no matter the consequences? I don't think so.
Of course, I can understand where it would be advantageous for the dissident right to be leading that charge to open up the economy. But doing so automatically shifts the blame and liability when things go wrong to those who are all over the news demanding the economy reopen. In other words: the plantation-master elite would be able to do exactly what they would want to stimulate the economy - put everyone back to work - and would now get a "get out of jail free" card, passing the blame to their chief opposition if reopening is a mistake. Granted, none of this would matter if I did not think there was something the "coronavirus deniers" were missing. But, unless the virus just disappears because of warmer weather patterns, there is plenty of scrutiny to pass in their direction.
I am alarmed by some of the claims of the "coronavirus deniers" who demand an immediate end to the lockdown. They point to Sweden as an example of where we would be if we had not shut down our economy. But as we have shown, this is an entirely foolish assessment (see: sorry coronavirus deniers, you are probably wrong about Sweden). Strangely, the "virus deniers" also point to statistics in the U.S. that were gathered with all the mitigation measures in place, including a near freeze of all commercial and social activity, to argue that the virus is no more harmful in the U.S. than the regular flu. They forget that millions of people are no longer commuting by rail or bus, that nobody has infected their coworkers, that nobody is visiting cities and snapping tourist photos, so there is a highly-reduced level of contact. We have a situation where the carriers have confined themselves, or are mostly in hospitals. It is a narrow-sighted conclusion that the number of cases and deaths is as low as the flu and therefore nothing should have been done after the virus was allowed to enter the country and multiply." But the "virus deniers" do exactly that.
They also insist deaths by unknown causes are being tallied as a COVID-19 death. There are signs that this could be happening, but there are also signs that the opposite is happening. What makes this virus concerning, at least based on what we have been told, is the sudden onslaught of pneumonia that COVID-19 comes with. Incidentally, we are seeing this:
Had the virus managed to progress slightly further than it did before the lockdown was initiated, a case could be made that the hospitals would have been overwhelmed by now. It is true that hospitals can expand as needed - and did, anticipating an influx. But think about the timetables, and how long it took for hospitals to prepare for a potential mass influx. Now think about this coronavirus' rate of transmissibility and ease of transfer (see: "stop riding the coattails of 'it's just the flu, bro'"). It was exactly this sort of scenario that led the predictive analysis think-tank Deagel to forecast the following in the 2010s:
Are we prepared for a mass influx into hospitals now and, if so, is it worth the risk of immediately lifting the lockdown? Some say it is. Others remain fixated on and angry about the decision to initiate a lockdown, even for a short period, because the economy has been flattened.
But try to imagine what would have happened to Wall Street had the number of infected continued to grow without a shutdown, especially as angry people panicked and millions concluded that perhaps it was a government depopulation conspiracy to purposely put people in harm's way. Panic buying would still have occurred amidst this uncertainty. Speaking of uncertainty, imagine the unpredictable delays as millions fell ill, all accelerated by asymptomatic carriage and the ease of transmission in major urban hubs of transit. Certain businesses would have failed hard due to the rapid, unexpected and dramatic changes in spending and leisure-activity behavior because of the virus. Instead, because of the shutdown, business owners are for the most part getting compensated for the lockdown. There is definitely an argument to be made that, for some companies, an economic freeze was preferable. And, for a stock market that does not respond well to unpredictability, that is the most predictable thing.
As for the general working population, going with the flow and working until they are ill is a very poor model to introduce given what we know about this coronavirus. Not just because of asymptomatic carriage and the ease of transmissibility, but because of the sudden, hard-hitting three day pneumonia period, which is particularly severe and can require hospitalization and leave patients gasping for air. Here, we reference back to the potential for hospitals to become overwhelmed.
Beyond these considerations, as noted previously (see: "stop riding the coattails of 'it's just the flu, bro'"), long-term organ damage is also potentially on the menu with this virus. What are the long-term repercussions of that? Are these people particularly likely to succumb to illness and disease in consequence, with fatal results? It seems nobody knows.
The final point of note regards the lessons of the Spanish influenza; it was not the first wave of the virus that carved out the particularly-nasty legacy we know today, but the second:
And there are clear, hypothesized reasons why the Spanish influenza epidemic was the monster it was. Are we really ready for this?
So far, the skepticism has had several consequences. It has created a cottage industry of self-made theorists who say the hype about this coronavirus is a tool that serves the media, global elite, the Democrats or even China. And, in the United States, doubts about the seriousness of COVID-19 have spawned protests. We are now seeing protests in Germany as well.
 |
| Lockdown protester in Germany, April 25, 2020 (AFP Photo/Tobias SCHWARZ) |
Already inclined to be discussing the political, the dissident right has been swallowed by these developments. There is talk of a new Tea Party populist movement to support opening up the economy. But I was and remain skeptical of these protests and this campaign.
To begin, we are losing sight of the fact that the system has failed us. Sure, China may have covered up the situation and initially failed to contain this coronavirus. There are accusations that the World Health Organization (WHO) was in China's pocket and its downplaying the threat of the pandemic's expansion was critical to the West's initial non-response, allowing things to progress as they did. And there is even the fact that WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has links to the communist party of his native Ethiopia. But where we are now as a result comes down to the following: relying on foreigners, including potentially compromised agents from the former "third world", to make assessments concerning the safety, health and security of our Western nations. And that alone has blown up in our faces. Perhaps we can chalk it up as global "outsourcing". It coincides with the modus operandi of the West in so many ways - and without it, arguably, we would not be in a position where we now need to have the discussion as to what sort of lockdown is appropriate or not.
Speaking of outsourcing, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the impact of job and manufacturing outsourcing, especially to China, in terms of the spread of this virus. Amidst the disruptions to the supply chain and China's own needs, there were shortages in the amount of protective gear available in the West, which made containment of the virus all but impossible. Sure, amateur-run, equipment-manufacturing operations sprung up in the U.S. as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, which is how a supply/demand economy works, but it was far too late for masks and protective equipment to factor in to the initial attempt to contain the outbreak.
And in Europe? Well, Italy had a certain dependence on Turkey to manufacture protective masks, but Turkey ended up recalling and hoarding orders. Italy depended on masks from Sweden, but France hijacked those masks. Italy also depended on France and Germany to import medical supplies, but both prioritized their own needs. The takeaway here is that the outsourced, global economy - and those who depended on it - failed. This surely put us in a position where the virus could spread more easily, and we need to even have a discussion as to what sort of lockdown is now appropriate given the danger.
Likewise, most of the Western countries delayed in closing down tourism and inbound travel from early virus-infected hotspots like China. So many Western countries were flooded with a social-justice driven impetus to not close borders, to not judge or quarantine newcomers, to not close down immigration and to even virtue signal by hugging Asian-looking people. This surely put us in a position where the virus could spread more easily, and we need to even have a discussion as to what sort of lockdown is now appropriate given the danger.
Finally, as Gregory Hood has suggested at American Renaissance, the rapid spread of the virus in Italy could perhaps be attributed to its surfacing in the unaccounted-for illegal immigrant sweatshop labor community in Lombardy, Italy, which serves "Italian fashion" labels like Prada, Giorgio Armani, Fendi, Bottega Veneta, Salvatore Ferragamo.
The strongest market for these goods is China, which is wrong on so many levels. First, it suggests that the West is transforming into China's sweatshop. Second, it reminds us of what global capitalism does, not just with outsourcing to find cheap labor, but insourcing to create cheap labor in a country where, before the pandemic, one out of every ten Italian citizens was unemployed. The example also sheds light on the sham of "Italian fashion" and the dark shadow behind the culture-fed hunger for designer label whatever. And, whether because of vendors of "Italian fashion" linked to China, or because of the unregulated back channels of a hidden society within society, we need to consider the impact on the spread of this coronavirus, putting us in a position where we have to have a discussion about what sort of lockdown is now appropriate given the danger.
In hindsight, it was extremely predictable that all of these factors would align by default to create one giant mess of a pandemic. That already seemed to be the case during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and we need to understand that, as long as nothing changes, we will be in this same position again and again. The criticism that "we overreacted" in 2020 is taking the focus off of the failings of the modus operandi and the public is even less likely to demand immediate action to stop the next major epidemic. Instead of accepting such an unfortunately turn of events, we need to pin the system to the wall and demand change.
As for those who propose hitting the streets because they do not like the lockdown and doubt the serious of this coronavirus, how many were silent after each and every decision and development that put us where we are now, as we have to contemplate what sort of restrictions on personal behavior are appropriate or not? It all goes back to the support for, or indifference to, the modus operandi. Here, I am reminded of my experiences while canvasing for Ron Paul in 2008, where I was often told that politics were "boring" because they did not concern anyone's immediate life. As we can now attest, politics affect daily life perhaps more than anything - but now people want to walk away from this hard lesson and for everyone to take more risk so they can get their "normal" back, no matter the consequences? I don't think so.
Of course, I can understand where it would be advantageous for the dissident right to be leading that charge to open up the economy. But doing so automatically shifts the blame and liability when things go wrong to those who are all over the news demanding the economy reopen. In other words: the plantation-master elite would be able to do exactly what they would want to stimulate the economy - put everyone back to work - and would now get a "get out of jail free" card, passing the blame to their chief opposition if reopening is a mistake. Granted, none of this would matter if I did not think there was something the "coronavirus deniers" were missing. But, unless the virus just disappears because of warmer weather patterns, there is plenty of scrutiny to pass in their direction.
I am alarmed by some of the claims of the "coronavirus deniers" who demand an immediate end to the lockdown. They point to Sweden as an example of where we would be if we had not shut down our economy. But as we have shown, this is an entirely foolish assessment (see: sorry coronavirus deniers, you are probably wrong about Sweden). Strangely, the "virus deniers" also point to statistics in the U.S. that were gathered with all the mitigation measures in place, including a near freeze of all commercial and social activity, to argue that the virus is no more harmful in the U.S. than the regular flu. They forget that millions of people are no longer commuting by rail or bus, that nobody has infected their coworkers, that nobody is visiting cities and snapping tourist photos, so there is a highly-reduced level of contact. We have a situation where the carriers have confined themselves, or are mostly in hospitals. It is a narrow-sighted conclusion that the number of cases and deaths is as low as the flu and therefore nothing should have been done after the virus was allowed to enter the country and multiply." But the "virus deniers" do exactly that.
They also insist deaths by unknown causes are being tallied as a COVID-19 death. There are signs that this could be happening, but there are also signs that the opposite is happening. What makes this virus concerning, at least based on what we have been told, is the sudden onslaught of pneumonia that COVID-19 comes with. Incidentally, we are seeing this:
Had the virus managed to progress slightly further than it did before the lockdown was initiated, a case could be made that the hospitals would have been overwhelmed by now. It is true that hospitals can expand as needed - and did, anticipating an influx. But think about the timetables, and how long it took for hospitals to prepare for a potential mass influx. Now think about this coronavirus' rate of transmissibility and ease of transfer (see: "stop riding the coattails of 'it's just the flu, bro'"). It was exactly this sort of scenario that led the predictive analysis think-tank Deagel to forecast the following in the 2010s:
The 2014 strain of Ebola has a death rate of 50-60% but try to imagine what would happen if there is a pandemic of Ebola with hundreds of thousands or millions infected with the virus. So far the few cases of Ebola-infected people have "enjoyed" intensive healthcare with anti-viral and breathing assistance but above all with abundant human support by Physicians and nurses. In a pandemic scenario that kind of healthcare won't be available for the overwhelming number of infected leading to a dramatic increase of the death rate due to the lack of proper healthcare. The "quality" factor is that the death rate could increase to 80-90% in a pandemic scenario from the stated 50-60% rate. The figure itself is not important what is relevant is the fact that the scenario can evolve beyond the initial conditions from a 50% death toll to more than 90%. By the way, no pandemic or nuclear war is included in the forecast.
Are we prepared for a mass influx into hospitals now and, if so, is it worth the risk of immediately lifting the lockdown? Some say it is. Others remain fixated on and angry about the decision to initiate a lockdown, even for a short period, because the economy has been flattened.
But try to imagine what would have happened to Wall Street had the number of infected continued to grow without a shutdown, especially as angry people panicked and millions concluded that perhaps it was a government depopulation conspiracy to purposely put people in harm's way. Panic buying would still have occurred amidst this uncertainty. Speaking of uncertainty, imagine the unpredictable delays as millions fell ill, all accelerated by asymptomatic carriage and the ease of transmission in major urban hubs of transit. Certain businesses would have failed hard due to the rapid, unexpected and dramatic changes in spending and leisure-activity behavior because of the virus. Instead, because of the shutdown, business owners are for the most part getting compensated for the lockdown. There is definitely an argument to be made that, for some companies, an economic freeze was preferable. And, for a stock market that does not respond well to unpredictability, that is the most predictable thing.
As for the general working population, going with the flow and working until they are ill is a very poor model to introduce given what we know about this coronavirus. Not just because of asymptomatic carriage and the ease of transmissibility, but because of the sudden, hard-hitting three day pneumonia period, which is particularly severe and can require hospitalization and leave patients gasping for air. Here, we reference back to the potential for hospitals to become overwhelmed.
Beyond these considerations, as noted previously (see: "stop riding the coattails of 'it's just the flu, bro'"), long-term organ damage is also potentially on the menu with this virus. What are the long-term repercussions of that? Are these people particularly likely to succumb to illness and disease in consequence, with fatal results? It seems nobody knows.
The final point of note regards the lessons of the Spanish influenza; it was not the first wave of the virus that carved out the particularly-nasty legacy we know today, but the second:
 |
| Charting the 1918/1918 Spanish influenza epidemic Note the difference between the 1st wave fatalities (left) and 2nd wave fatalities (center) |
And there are clear, hypothesized reasons why the Spanish influenza epidemic was the monster it was. Are we really ready for this?
