I have always been very fond of this photo, for reasons which are perhaps obvious. We are left to right Celia, Stuart, Neil, Craig and throughout our childhood we really were that close and that happy. The reason that I post this now is that my mother always told me she was amazed how good we looked in the photo, because it was taken when we were all off school sick with Hong Kong flu.
The Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968/9 was the last really serious flu pandemic to sweep the UK. They do seem extraordinarily regular – 1919, 1969 and 2020. Flu epidemics have much better punctuality than the trains (though I cheated a bit there and left out the 1958 “Asian flu”). Nowadays “Hong Kong flu” is known as H3N2. Estimates for deaths it caused worldwide vary from 1 to 4 million. In the UK it killed an estimated 80,000 people.
If the current coronavirus had appeared in 1968, it would simply have been called “flu”, probably “Wuhan flu”. COVID-19 may not be nowadays classified as such, but in my youth flu is definitely what we would have called it. The Hong Kong flu was very similar to the current outbreak in being extremely contagious but with a fairly low mortality rate. 30% of the UK population is estimated to have been infected in the Hong Kong flu pandemic. The death rate was about 0.5%, mostly elderly or with underlying health conditions.
But there was no massive panic, no second by second media hysteria, over Hong Kong flu. Let me start being unpopular. “Man in his 80’s already not very well from previous conditions, dies of flu” is not and should not be a news headline. The coverage is prurient, intrusive, unbalanced and designed to cause hysteria.
Consider this: 100% of those who contract coronavirus are going to die. 100% of those who do not contract coronavirus are also going to die. The difference in average life expectancy between the two groups will prove to be only very marginal. That is because the large majority of those who die of COVID-19 will already be nearing the end of life or have other health problems.
Let me make this important statement. I write as somebody whose heart and lungs are damaged and in poor condition, following the multiple bilateral pulmonary emboli which nearly killed me in 2004, which mysteriously appeared at precisely the time the UK and US governments were desperately trying to get rid of me as Ambassador, just a couple of weeks after I had been finally cleared of all the false charges with which the British government had attempted to fit me up. I was in a coma for days and subsequently given a maximum of three years to live (read Murder in Samarkand for the full story). If I get COVID-19 I expect I shall be fairly quickly gone off on my next adventure.
But I am OK with that. I have lived an incredibly full and satisfying life. I have no desire whatsoever to die – I have a wife and children I love deeply and I have important political battles I wish to fight. But human beings are not supposed to live forever and one day my time will come.
What worries me about the current reaction to coronavirus, is that it seems to reflect a belief that death is an aberration, rather than a part of the natural order of things. As the human species continues to expand massively in numbers, and as it continues casually to make other species extinct, it is inevitable that the excessive and crowded human population will become susceptible to disease.
As we see the catastrophic effects of human beings on the environment, including on other species and the climate, I am genuinely perplexed as to what are the underlying assumptions and goals of humankind. Do we really believe that medical science could and should eliminate all disease? There are numerous, well-funded medical scientists working very hard on research into the idea that ageing itself is a process that can be prevented. Because that is a notion very attractive to wealthy westerners, more money is being spent on preventing ageing than on fighting malaria and other tropical diseases. Where does this end? Do we really want a world – or at least a wealthy word – where everybody gets to be a centenarian? What are the effects of that on overall population, on demographics, economics and the allocation of finite resources including food and housing?
The mass hysteria around the current coronavirus is being driven by a societal rejection of the notion that the human species is part of the wider ecology, and that death and disease are unavoidable facts, with which it ought to be part of the human condition to come to terms. Let me offer a comforting thought to those of you who have bought into the hysteria. I have no doubt whatsoever that mortality rates from the coronavirus are being exaggerated. They are all based on extrapolation from those who have been tested, but there exists a very large population of people, worldwide, who have or have had the coronavirus, whose symptoms have been those of a cold or non-existent, who have not put themselves forward for testing. The Hong Kong flu had a mortality rate of 0.5% and I believe that ultimately COVID-19 will prove to be very similar. Just like flu once you get it, the only difference being it is more contagious so more people will get it.
Yes wash your hands, bin your tissues, keep things clean. Don’t hang around someone who has the flu. Take advantage of everything modern medicine can do to help you. But don’t be too shocked at the idea that some sick people die, especially if they are old. We are not Gods, we are mortal. We need to reconnect to that idea.
All human deaths are individual tragedies. I wish all solace and comfort to the grieving, and in no way wish to minimise the pain of individual loss of anybody of any age (I lost my own mother not long ago), or that even a small number of child deaths in particular will be dreadfully painful. My deepest and heartfelt condolences go to all the bereaved, and my warm regards go to all the sick and the worried. But the perspective of the wider place of human life in the cosmos is a help in grieving. The purpose of this blog remains not to shirk from saying what might be unpopular. I do hope people will start to consider COVID-19 in a more measured way.
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Craig, please consider pinning “Julian Assange Hearing – Your Help Wanted” as the front post of your blog. Your Tweets and Facebook posts will still route visitors to the most recent post even though they would have one article above them on the home page.
Very sensible article Craig; CoVID-19 should neither be exaggerated nor played down. The corporate media is obsessed with it because of its economic effects.
Having said that, extreme measures do need to be taken to slow down the spread, preserve life, and to prevent catastrophic economic collapse – modern “Just in Time” supply chains are far more vulnerable and interdependent than the older-fashioned systems present during the historic pandemics listed; all redundancy has been sacrificed to maximising fast profit. It is likely that travel and assembly restrictions will interfere with the May protests at Assange’s hearing.
If Parliament is shut down using COVID-19 as an excuse we’ll know the reason for the second by second media hysteria.
@ Phil Abel March 7, 2020 at 11:44
They need an extra holiday to spend their epic pay rise.
There is no mass hysteria, though. The media are getting hysterical because there is money and power to be gained for their bosses by frightening people. The vast majority of the public are continuing with their lives as normal and, from what I have seen, are rather bemused or amused by it all.
“The flu has already killed 10,000 across US as world frets over coronavirus”.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/the-flu-has-already-killed-10000-across-us-as-world-frets-over-coronavirus.html
Every year (with infrequent exceptions) over 20 million people catch flu in the USA alone. That’s more than 1,000 times the number of Coronavirus cases worldwide so far.
Every year (with infrequent exceptions), over 20,000 people die from flu in the USA alone. That’s 60 times the number of deaths from Coronavirus worldwide so far.
Yes, but CoVID-19 has only just started; only a tiny minority have been exposed to it so far. Best case scenario estimate is like the 1918 ‘flu pandemic. Worst case is getting on for a billion deaths globally in under a year. Only time will tell.
“Worst case is getting on for a billion deaths globally in under a year”
You’ll end up like the old Japanese trooper found years after the end of WWII, thinking it was still going!
Oh, wait! Your food will have run out by then.
As usual Craig, straight to the heart of it. As someone who works within Critical Care over many years I too have become disillusioned with the relentless and expensive efforts to prevent the natural scheme of things.
As often you say what many are thinking. Old Ill man dies ? Not exciting as a news headline is it.
This will be a chaotic period precisely because of the mitigation strategy rather than the disease itself.
The hysteria over this is absolutely ridiculous. My son is worried about it but what can you do? The laughable ‘advice’ we’re getting makes no sense to him. We live in France where kissing on the cheek and shaking hands is their default setting and yet, the ‘advice’ is not to do that. It simply can’t be avoided here plus he goes to school, so he’s mixing with crowds, something else which we’re advised not to do so despite my attempts at reassurance, is it any wonder he’s up to 90 about it? I suspect this is the same as the majority of the population just now too. It’s shameful behaviour from the media and health ‘experts’. They’re actively inducing panic rather than calming things down.
On a more personal note, what I dislike is that I’m being dragged into a situation about which I’m deeply skeptical and can’t take the hysteria seriously. My family need food, same as everyone else but what about all these people panic buying and stocking up on food?
What can you do? If all these people are panic buying and stocking up on food, then there’s going to be nothing left for us to buy normally, so we might struggle for food. I object to the fact that we’re being dragged into even considering buying and stocking up too, even though we don’t want to, but we might have to.
I could go on but to spare any readers patience I won’t, except to say that the whole thing is ridiculous. It’ll all be forgotten about by the time summer arrives.
Mist001
One thing I have learned from your posts is invariably you are wrong. 8 days on this post is no exception.
Very sensible perspective Craig – i well remember the 1958 ‘flu epidemic in England. My boarding school of some 240 boys was almost all in bed – teachers as well as students. Matron was ok, but one of the two young Irish assistants caught it. We got it, were sick, and got better. I’m sure many died, but I heard of none!
Keep up your good work Craig – stay well!
Well said Mr Murray,
Death has been pushed at us as an end to everything for too long.
The state uses execution as the final punishment, religions threaten us with hell should we not live by their rules.
Death is ours to come to terms with, I don`t welcome it but it is always there.
Every child we bear we pass on a death sentence.
It is as natural as life itself, accept it as another part of this wonderful paradise that surrounds us.
Death may well be the beginning of yet another amazing adventure and those people we have put to death may well be there and laughing at us.
Stay safe and healthy and care deeply for all things for all things must pass.
Happy weekend from the paradise that is South West France
To correct some erroneous impressions in Craig’s post:
CoVID-19 is not a threat just to the old and infirm; though such people are at greater risk, CoVID-19 is killing large numbers of fit people in their prime as well.
Hospitalisation of massive numbers is key to reducing the fatality rate; this is why China built hospital facilities for 30,000 people in 10 days, and I would feel more reassured if other governments were following this example. A large proportion of those infected become critically ill, requiring ventilation / oxygen. The wide variation in mortality rate reflects the proportion of these critical cases that can be given intensive care – as the infection spreads the number of critical cases becomes very large, overwhelming intensive care availability by a large factor.
Critical cases kill horribly; yes, we all need to meet death eventually, but CoVID-19 kills in a particularly unpleasant way. Hospitalisation can minimise the suffering.
This seems a pretty objective documentary:
Coronavirus: How the deadly epidemic sparked a global emergency
Four Corners – ABC News in Depth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycrqXJYf1SU
– Wuhan — a city more populous than London or New York — placed in ‘lockdown’ following the outbreak of the new and deadly coronavirus.
– In China, more than two thousand people have died, with tens of thousands more infected, and authorities are resorting to extreme measures to try to halt the contagion. In interviews filmed on smartphones, Chinese activists and Australians trapped in the lockdown explain what they are going through.
– Four Corners charts how the outbreak occurred and investigates whether a cover-up by Chinese authorities allowed the virus to spread.
I shouldn’t comment because I don’t/won’t watch the ABC but I suspect from your final sentence, ‘… a cover-up by Chinese authorities …’ that they are still taking the opportunity to bash China and Russia.
Yes, media does propaganda but no government is perfect. Doctors had their Internet chat forum suppressed. The outbreak might have been contained had they been listened to instead.
If the allegations that China covered up the early stages of the outbreak in December are true then they deserve a good bashing.
I can’t think of a government that doesn’t deserve a good bashing. From its own people.
I’ve never been of religious belief. Not that anyone can be certain that there is/isn’t a deity who created everything, just that we don’t know the who, if anyone, or the why, if anything, of the existence of the cosmos.
However, ‘dust to dust’ has always resonated with me, but more as ‘chemical to chemical’. I decide that long ago my dust would grow into a plant with pretty flowers that, I hope, would give people pleasure at looking at them, even tho I will almost certainly not be conscious of any such affect.
I won’t really be dying, I’ll be changing form and that gives me comfort.
1. Corona viruses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus) are not in the same family as influenza viruses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Types_of_virus). Infection/death rates from previous ‘flu epidemics/pandemics are therefore irrelevant.
2. There has been consistent lying about infection/death rates in China from the outset (https://www.eutimes.net/2020/02/coronavirus-real-death-toll-finally-revealed-in-china-25000-dead-and-154000-infected/). Lying about infection/death rates outside China has almost certainly also occurred in Iran and other “closed” societies.
3. In the more “open” Western countries, an effort equivalent to the Cold War-era “put a paper bag over your head and hide under the stairs in case of nuclear attack” advice has been rolled out, followed like glue by MSM “journalists”. However, the odd “off message” predictions from non-State employed specialists can be found with a little effort.
4. The WHO are gradually admitting the reality of the situation: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.
Thanks for the eutimes.net link. To add a fifth point to your own four – the US probably has far more cases than realised due to the extremely low amount of testing in the US. The following page hasn’t been updated for a few days, but…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/
Tests Performed per Million People:
2,138 – South Korea
386 – Italy
235 – Austria
214 – Switzerland
199 – UK
23 – Finland
18 – Vietnam
11 – Turkey
1 – United States*
* as of March 1. On March 2, the “Total tested” figure was removed from CDC’s website.
“The US probably has far more cases than realised due to the extremely low amount of testing in the US”.
You could also infer the same conclusion statistically by looking at the number of deaths reported in the US and then multiply that by the number of infections divided by the number of deaths reported in other countries.
Indeed you are right Hugh. Other corona viruses are classified as common colds rather than influenza.
You are also right that it is difficult to know true figures from China or Iran.
In countries where we can be confident of the truth of the figures, there is to date no evidence of anything other than a very marginal threat of death to healthy young adults or children. I retain my scepticism. Neither Clark nor yourself are seeing the wood for the trees.
Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
It is true that the death rate does not exceed 1% for those below 50 years. But that has to be set against CoVID-19’s very high mortality rate (3.6% estimated overall, rising to around 20% where hospitals are overloaded) compared with ‘flu’s 0.1%, and that these figures are for confirmed cases not resolved cases, ie. many of these are yet to either recover die.
From ages 10 to 39 years the death rate of confirmed, not resolved cases is 0.2%, twice the ‘flu – and remember, the ‘flu’s 0.1% overall mortality rate is already concentrated in the older and those with pre-existing conditions.
And the overall mortality rate increases by a factor of around ten if hospitals are overloaded.
British government are planning for half a million deaths – worse case.
There is no medication that will do.
If you catch it and it transforms to viral pneumonia, you may survive
but if that changes in to Bacterial pneumonia, unless you have had your bacterial pneumonia jab, it will see you off.
So book up your flu jab and your pneumonia jab, even if you have to pay for it.
My council has announced it is now reported in my town, from somebody who has come back from skiing in Northern Italy.
The first U.K. death was just up the road from me in Royal Berkshire Hospital, the person died within twelve hours of being diagnosed.
Not having recently been abroad and not apparently having contact with persons who had recently come home from abroad.
This Covid-19 must be quite infectious.
“As the human species continues to expand massively in numbers…”
Ahhh no Craig. As Chris Hamilton and others have demonstrated the increase in numbers (excluding Africa) is entirely due to people living longer not more people being born. There is a pronounced decline in youth and working aged population that is forecast to continue for at least 2 decades.
https://econimica.blogspot.com/
I am not suggesting this is a bad thing, just that the currrent global debt Ponzi cannot be sustained indefinitely without population growth.
Coronavirus is one word and not two.
This article is premature, given that the full extent of the virus is not yet known. There is now talk that the virus will not diminish when the summer begins, so it is prudent to wait and see, tedious as that may be for those who wish to indulge in simplistic comparisons or draw conclusions about society’s relationship to death, seemingly out of the ether (or, less charitably, out of their backsides.)
“This article is premature, given that the full extent of the virus is not yet known”. But all the panic and hype is not premature?
I am not seeing a particularly great amount of panic and hype, and I am on Taiwan, far closer to the centre of the outbreak.
However, given that in a single 24-hour period Italy has registered a thousand new cases, there is every reason to be seriously concerned, but don’t let myself stop you and the like-minded from resurrecting the ghost of Malthus and seemingly deriving grim pleasure from this pandemic.
In the news in Denmark there is hardly anything but Coronavirus related news. So here it is hyped.
Indeed Craig. We live in a society where you HAVE to die of something for the death certificate and so ‘accurate’ statistics can be gathered (when the cause of death is very subjective though the resulting statistics cannot be objectively accurate).
I’m a Biomedical scientist and if I tried to get a research paper published with such subjective measurements it would languish in a very low impact journal if it ever got published and deservedly so.
My Father will part of the statistics on death from prostate cancer in NZ, but it was the later acquisition of pancreatic cancer which killed him. He died WITH prostate cancer. Might it have hastened his end? probably but measuring that is beyond us so it was pancreatic cancer which killed him and which is the most lethal of the two cancers.
You are no longer allowed to die of simple old age. A final or co-morbid illness must be responsible. While some will have definite final illnesses many others will be ‘worn out’ by life and chronic conditions.
Bodies are a dance on a flame, the flame can be snuffed out in so many ways and every moment is a balancing act. It is when the balance gets out of balance that we begin the decline. My degrees are in Physiology, in exams I wrote essays on this dance with flow diagrams at the top.
I’m a lifelong distance runner, because I enjoy it and the effects of being fit and because I’ve seen the research and know that age related muscle decline can be moderated by exercise, I am lessening the slope of the decline.
On weekday mornings I get up and do 20 squats, on every second squat I lean forward onto my hands, shoot my legs back, do a pressup, shoot my legs back and stand up. I do them dynamically and they make my heart thump and I become slightly breathless.
Of late every second day I add 10 straight pressups and 15 full crunches. It was that or do more dynamic squat/pressups. I have a VERY strong core. I do NOT suffer back pain despite being 54 years old. This dynamic thing is new, pressups and crunches in the morning are not, squats are moderately longterm.
I saw a video ad on my phone where I guy did one of these dynamic squats and that was all the incentive I needed. No idea what it was for, probably a chain of gyms. One demonstration and I was off.
If you fancy trying it, get the pressups and crunches and straight squats under your belt first. I’ve been doing pressups and situps/crunches for 40 years to support the running.
Craig, it is not a surprise that the stress of your ‘disciplining’ over your Ambassadorship was the cause of your contracting that illness. That sort of long term existential stress will do that. Your marriage collapsing won’t have helped. People have heart attacks and/or strokes when things like that happen to them. They get PTSD etc.
Yes, I appreciate the impact of stress. But the experts at St Thomas’s were perplexed that I had multiple small pulmonary emboli across both lungs, not a few large clots as from a DVT. They couldn’t work out the cause. They were definitely suspicious and ran numerous toxicology tests, which turned up nothing.
I do not claim to know what happened. It may have been natural. It may not.
Well said Craig.
The October 2019 modelling of a coronavirus outbreak predicted 65 million deaths, or 0.8% of the population, over 18 months.
http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html
https://futurism.com/neoscope/recent-simulation-coronavirus-killed-65-million-people
If evenly spread that’s 500,000 in the UK, a ball park figure considered more than once:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/uk-has-plans-to-deal-with-pandemic-causing-up-to-315000-deaths
https://skwawkbox.org/2020/03/03/video-govt-admits-covid-19-reasonable-worst-case-is-over-half-million-uk-deaths/
This doesn’t detract from Craig’s piece, which is the very important point that we in the “civilised” west have been innoculated against the thought of death. Presumably because it’s a threat to corporate profits. A tad inconvenient for the bottom line, everyone going off and dying like that. Well, at least, the taxable and working part of the population. The worst thing you can do is expect this government to protect you from this or any other pandemic, they’re only interested in protecting business as usual:
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/03/03/what-are-we-planning-for/
” Presumably because it’s a threat to corporate profits. ”
Unless you’re an undertaker; or a solicitor specialising in wills and probate.
Who remembers Tamiflu? You can make a fortune from pandemics even when they don’t happen.
Precisely, Mr. Murray.
There is every incentive to maximise the ‘virus’ to astronomical levels if need be, some predicting billions of deaths, or comparing it with the 1918-19 ‘flu.’
That is how big business works.
And this ‘pandemic’ is not happening either. I have posted my reasons why previously.
ceo/shareholders of 3M?
Fear not, American TV Evangelist, Jim Bakker is selling a Coronavirus “cure” at $300 a bottle.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AAHqO736cXc
This stuff is incredible. Any conman that sets themselves up as a “Pastor” gets immunity from prosecution. They also get tax exemption from the IRS due to the Parsonage rule.
Not this Jim Bakker surely? Still not behind bars where he should be?
http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/images/b/b3/Zappa_Jim_and_Tammy_Baker.jpg
New variant coronavirus 2019 (nv Coronavirus 2019) has been snappily re-branded as Covid 19. A sceptic may ask why, and also question whether the new variety has evolved by natural mutation/evolution or whether there have been unseen human hands involved. In short, is the current outbreak, now international in scale, some kind of Bio-weapon. There have been plenty of articles since the initial Wuhan outbreak, on social media eg: Global Research, Zerohedge amongst others speculating that this is indeed a mad made malign element, created in a Lab. Whether it accidentally escaped or was deliberately released, is another element being widely considered.
If it’s a bioweapon, it’s just proving that bioweapons are uselessly indiscriminate.
If it’s to any extent synthetic it’s more likely an accidental release from a laboratory. Maybe biolab security should be reviewed? Like three month work shifts without going home each day, the first six weeks working and the second six weeks in quarantine. And don’t put these labs in city centres. Please?
Ah, but that would cost more…
“In 2012, a Dutch virologist, Ron Fouchier, published details of an experiment on the recent H5N1 strain of bird flu. This strain was extremely deadly, killing an estimated 60% of humans it infected – far beyond even the Spanish flu. Yet its inability to pass from human to human had so far prevented a pandemic. Fouchier wanted to find out whether (and how) H5N1 could naturally develop this ability. He passed the disease through a series of 10 ferrets, which are commonly used as a model for how influenza affects humans. By the time it passed to the final ferret, his strain of H5N1 had become directly transmissible between mammals.
The work caused fierce controversy. Much of this was focused on the information contained in his work. The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity ruled that his paper had to be stripped of some of its technical details before publication, to limit the ability of bad actors to cause a pandemic. And the Dutch government claimed that the research broke EU law on exporting information useful for bioweapons. But it is not the possibility of misuse that concerns me here. Fouchier’s research provides a clear example of well-intentioned scientists enhancing the destructive capabilities of pathogens known to threaten global catastrophe.
Of course, such experiments are done in secure labs, with stringent safety standards. It is highly unlikely that in any particular case the enhanced pathogens would escape into the wild. But just how unlikely? Unfortunately, we don’t have good data, due to a lack of transparency about incident and escape rates. This prevents society from making well-informed decisions balancing the risks and benefits of this research, and it limits the ability of labs to learn from each other’s incidents.
Security for highly dangerous pathogens has been deeply flawed, and remains insufficient. In 2001, Britain was struck by a devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock. Six million animals were killed in an attempt to halt its spread, and the economic damages totalled £8bn. Then, in 2007, there was another outbreak, which was traced to a lab working on the disease. Foot-and-mouth was considered a highest-category pathogen, and required the highest level of biosecurity. Yet the virus escaped from a badly maintained pipe, leaking into the groundwater at the facility. After an investigation, the lab’s licence was renewed – only for another leak to occur two weeks later.
In my view, this track record of escapes shows that even the highest biosafety level (BSL-4) is insufficient for working on pathogens that pose a risk of global pandemics on the scale of the Spanish flu or worse. Thirteen years since the last publicly acknowledged outbreak from a BSL-4 facility is not good enough. It doesn’t matter whether this is from insufficient standards, inspections, operations or penalties. What matters is the poor track record in the field, made worse by a lack of transparency and accountability. With current BSL-4 labs, an escape of a pandemic pathogen is only a matter of time.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/06/worst-case-thinking-prevent-pandemics-coronavirus-existential-risk?fbclid=IwAR1wtjlt0WfcX5o4qRKHSwoYBBcbFeu753ELcC9iRr5fUuqG22tqPZg8waI
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1?fbclid=IwAR1yzWBvo4SL2gpPaOoB5jPhJf4UwP0MsAQerFgbVUrjEfM6Q0uwKSisyhw
‘zerohedge’ – ought to rename itself ‘coronavedge.’ MSM owned and run.
Speaking of unpopular thoughts, Craig, regarding the so called ‘Spanish Influenza’ pandemic, here are some thoughts which I already know from my own experience are not generally well received – perhaps in part because they are so well documented by official sources:
“According to a 2008 National Institute of Health paper, bacterial pneumonia was the killer in a minimum of 92.7% of the 1918-19 autopsies reviewed (ostensibly caused by the ‘Spanish Influenza epidemic’). It is likely higher than 92.7%.
The researchers looked at more than 9000 autopsies, and “there were no negative (bacterial) lung culture results.”
“… In the 68 higher-quality autopsy series, in which the possibility of unreported negative cultures could be excluded, 92.7% of autopsy lung cultures were positive for ≥1 bacterium. … in one study of approximately 9000 subjects who were followed from clinical presentation with influenza to resolution or autopsy, researchers obtained, with sterile technique, cultures of either pneumococci or streptococci from 164 of 167 lung tissue samples.
There were 89 pure cultures of pneumococci; 19 cultures from which only streptococci were recovered; 34 that yielded mixtures of pneumococci and/or streptococci; 22 that yielded a mixture of pneumococci, streptococci, and other organisms (prominently pneumococci and nonhemolytic streptococci); and 3 that yielded nonhemolytic streptococci alone. There were no negative lung culture results.” (3)
Pneumococci or streptococci were found in “164 of (the) 167 lung tissue samples” autopsied. That is 98.2%. Bacteria was the killer.
WHERE DID THE SPANISH FLU BACTERIAL PNEUMONIA OF 1918-19 ORIGINATE?
When the United States declared war in April 1917, the fledgling Pharmaceutical industry had something they had never had before – a large supply of human test subjects in the form of the US military’s first draft.
Pre-war in 1917, the US Army was 286,000 men. Post-war in 1920, the US army disbanded, and had 296,000 men.
During the war years 1918-19, the US Army ballooned to 6,000,000 men, with 2,000,000 men being sent overseas. The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research took advantage of this new pool of human guinea pigs to conduct vaccine experiments.
A REPORT ON ANTIMENINGITIS VACCINATION AND OBSERVATIONS ON AGGLUTININS IN THE BLOOD OF CHRONIC MENINGOCOCCUS CARRIERS
by Frederick L. Gates
From the Base Hospital, Fort Riley, Kansas, and The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York.
Received 1918 Jul 20
(Author note: Please read the Fort Riley paper in its entirety so you can appreciate the carelessness of the experiments conducted on these troops.)
Between January 21st and June 4th of 1918, Dr. Gates reports on an experiment where soldiers were given 3 doses of a bacterial meningitis vaccine. Those conducting the experiment on the soldiers were just spitballing dosages of a vaccine serum made in horses.
The vaccination regime was designed to be 3 doses. 4,792 men received the first dose, but only 4,257 got the 2nd dose (down 11%), and only 3702 received all three doses (down 22.7%).
A total of 1,090 men were not there for the 3rd dose. What happened to these soldiers? Were they shipped East by train from Kansas to board a ship to Europe? Were they in the Fort Riley hospital? Dr. Gates’ report doesn’t tell us.
An article accompanying the American Experience broadcast I watched sheds some light on where these 1,090 men might be. Gates began his experiments in January 1918.”
(continuing) “By March of that year, “100 men a day” were entering the infirmary at Fort Riley.
Are some of these the men missing from Dr. Gates’ report – the ones who did not get the 2nd or 3rd dose?
“… Shortly before breakfast on Monday, March 11, the first domino would fall signaling the commencement of the first wave of the 1918 influenza.
Company cook Albert Gitchell reported to the camp infirmary with complaints of a “bad cold.”
Right behind him came Corporal Lee W. Drake voicing similar complaints.
By noon, camp surgeon Edward R. Schreiner had over 100 sick men on his hands, all apparently suffering from the same malady…” (5)
Gates does report that several of the men in the experiment had flu-like symptoms: coughs, vomiting and diarrhea after receiving the vaccine.
These symptoms are a disaster for men living in barracks, travelling on trains to the Atlantic coast, sailing to Europe, and living and fighting in trenches.
The unsanitary conditions at each step of the journey are an ideal environment for a contagious disease like bacterial pneumonia to spread.
From Dr. Gates’ report:
“Reactions.– … Several cases of looseness of the bowels or transient diarrhea were noted. This symptom had not been encountered before. Careful inquiry in individual cases often elicited the information that men who complained of the effects of vaccination were suffering from mild coryza, bronchitis, etc., at the time of injection.”
“Sometimes the reaction was initiated by a chill or chilly sensation, and a number of men complained of fever or feverish sensations during the following night.
Next in frequency came nausea (occasionally vomiting), dizziness, and general “aches and pains” in the joints and muscles, which in a few instances were especially localized in the neck or lumbar region, causing stiff neck or stiff back. A few injections were followed by diarrhea.
The reactions, therefore, occasionally simulated the onset of epidemic meningitis and several vaccinated men were sent as suspects to the Base Hospital for diagnosis.”(4)
According to Gates, they injected random dosages of an experimental bacterial meningitis vaccine into soldiers. Afterwards, some of the soldiers had symptoms which “simulated” meningitis, but Dr. Gates advances the fantastical claim that it wasn’t actual meningitis.
The soldiers developed flu-like symptoms. Bacterial meningitis, then and now, is known to mimic flu-like symptoms. (6)
Perhaps the similarity of early symptoms of bacterial meningitis and bacterial pneumonia to symptoms of flu is why the vaccine experiments at Fort Riley have been able to escape scrutiny as a potential cause of the Spanish Flu for 100 years and counting.
HOW DID THE “SPANISH FLU” SPREAD SO WIDELY SO QUICKLY?
There is an element of a perfect storm in how the Gates bacteria spread. WWI ended only 10 months after the first injections. Unfortunately for the 50-100 million who died, those soldiers injected with horse-infused bacteria moved quickly during those 10 months.
An article from 2008 on the CDC’s website describes how sick WWI soldiers could pass along the bacteria to others by becoming “cloud adults.”
“Finally, for brief periods and to varying degrees, affected hosts became “cloud adults” who increased the aerosolization of colonizing strains of bacteria, particularly pneumococci, hemolytic streptococci, H. influenzae, and S. aureus.
For several days during local epidemics—particularly in crowded settings such as hospital wards, military camps, troop ships, and mines (and trenches)—some persons were immunologically susceptible to, infected with, or recovering from infections with influenza virus.
Persons with active infections were aerosolizing the bacteria that colonized their noses and throats, while others—often, in the same “breathing spaces”—were profoundly susceptible to invasion of and rapid spread through their lungs by their own or others’ colonizing bacteria.” (1)
Three times in his report on the Fort Riley vaccine experiment, Dr. Gates states that some soldiers had a “severe reaction” indicating “an unusual individual susceptibility to the vaccine”.
While the vaccine made many sick, it only killed those who were susceptible to it. Those who became sick and survived became “cloud adults” who spread the bacteria to others, which created more cloud adults, spreading to others where it killed the susceptible, repeating the cycle until there were no longer wartime unsanitary conditions, and there were no longer millions of soldiers to experiment on.
The toll on US troops was enormous and it is well documented. Dr. Carol Byerly describes how the “influenza” traveled like wildfire through the US military. (substitute “bacteria” for Dr. Byerly’s “influenza” or “virus”):
“… Fourteen of the largest training camps had reported influenza outbreaks in March, April, or May, and some of the infected troops carried the virus with them aboard ships to France …
As soldiers in the trenches became sick, the military evacuated them from the front lines and replaced them with healthy men.
This process continuously brought the virus into contact with new hosts—young, healthy soldiers in which it could adapt, reproduce, and become extremely virulent without danger of burning out.
… Before any travel ban could be imposed, a contingent of replacement troops departed Camp Devens (outside of Boston) for Camp Upton, Long Island, the Army’s debarkation point for France, and took influenza with them.
Medical officers at Upton said it arrived “abruptly” on September 13, 1918, with 38 hospital admissions, followed by 86 the next day, and 193 the next.
Hospital admissions peaked on October 4 with 483, and within 40 days, Camp Upton sent 6,131 men to the hospital for influenza. Some developed pneumonia so quickly that physicians diagnosed it simply by observing the patient rather than listening to the lungs…” (7)
The United States was not the only country in possession of the Rockefeller Institute’s experimental bacterial vaccine.
A 1919 report from the Institute states: “Reference should be made that before the United States entered the war (in April 1917) the Institute had resumed the preparation of antimeningococcic serum, in order to meet the requests of England, France, Belgium Italy and other countries.”
The same report states: “In order to meet the suddenly increased demand for the curative serums worked out at the Institute, a special stable for horses was quickly erected …” (8)
An experimental antimeningoccic serum made in horses and injected into soldiers who would be entering the cramped and unsanitary living conditions of war … what could possibly go wrong?
Is the bacterial serum made in horses at the Rockefeller Institute which was injected into US soldiers and distributed to numerous other countries responsible for the 50-100 million people killed by bacterial lung infections in 1918-19?
The Institute says it distributed the bacterial serum to England, France, Belgium, Italy and other countries during WWI. Not enough is known about how these countries experimented on their soldiers.”
References
1. Deaths from Bacterial Pneumonia during 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic
John F. Brundage* and G. Dennis Shanks†
Author affiliations: *Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA; †Australian Army Malaria Institute, Enoggera, Queensland, Australia
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/8/07-1313_article
2. World Health Organization: Unsafe drinking water, sanitation and waste management
http://www.who.int/…/health-risks/water-sanitation/en/
3. J Infect Dis. 2008 Oct 1; 198(7): 962–970.
Predominant Role of Bacterial Pneumonia as a Cause of Death in Pandemic Influenza: Implications for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness
David M. Morens, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, and Anthony S. Fauci
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2599911/
4. PDF of Fort Riley Study (1918)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/…/PMC2126288/pdf/449.pdf
5. American Experience, “The First Wave”, PBS
https://www.pbs.org/…/features/influenza-first-wave/
6. Mayo Clinic: Meningitis
://www.mayoclinic.org/…/symptoms-causes/syc-20350508
7. Public Health Rep. 2010; 125(Suppl 3): 82–91.
The U.S. Military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919
Carol R. Byerly, PhD
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862337/
8. Rockefeller Institute pamphlet PDF (1919)
https://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/…/viewcontent…
9. Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans’ Health? Lessons Spanning Half a Century, A Staff Report Prepared for the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, United States Senate, December 1994
https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=438835
10. Dr. Stanley Plotkin: vaccine experiments on orphans, the mentally retarded, and others (January 2018)
https://youtu.be/yevV_slu7Dw
11. Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (19 October 2005)
http://portal.unesco.org/…/ev.php-URL_ID=31058&URL_DO…
12. CDC Offers New Stats On Disability Prevalence
https://www.disabilityscoop.com/…/cdc-disability…/22034/
13. 1986 Vaccine Injury Compensation Act
https://worldmercuryproject.org/…/childhood-vaccine…/
wwwnc.cdc.gov
Deaths from Bacterial Pneumonia during 1918–19 Influenza…
Deaths from Bacterial Pneumonia during 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic
Thank you Craig. I am also old enough to remember Hong Kong flu -so I am at an age when natural mortality is on my mind quite a lot. Just wondering, like a lot of others, why WHO and co are treating this one with such concern. Maybe the only living things that can overcome human destruction are indeed viruses. What a mess we have made of this beautiful planet.
I completely agree that the level of mass hysteria is ridiculous. I also can’t help thinking that somehow, someone is making a lot of money because of it. Perhaps I am just getting too cynical as I see the constant distortions, lies, omissions and outright propaganda in the mainstream media, the casual acceptance of people like Trump and BloJo as being suitable candidates to represent their countries, the apparent tampering with elections to ensure the ‘right’ result for the wealthy few, the constant erosion of rights and healthcare for the majority of the population; and of course, the way in which whistleblowers of all kinds are hung out to dry (or worse) by authorities that do not want to be held accountable for their actions. Thank you for continuing to shine a light into the murky depths to which so many seem prepared to sink in pursuit of power and wealth.
Think The Weather Channel. I don’t know if you have it in the UK, but here in the US we get winter weather warnings quite often and it does always seem as if they are 4 feat of snow with blizzard winds. Then we get half an inch with breezes. Sometimes the channel is correct, but then sometimes it isn’t. So there you go.
Same here with the Met Office, once a government department as part of the MoD and which now has to earn its living under the control of Messrs Kwarteng and Sharma in the newly named Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Their new HQ in Exeter cost £80m and a new super computer is coming in 2022 to replace the existing three Cray supercomputers. Cost not stated. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/technology/supercomputer
The BBC produce frequent reports on the half hour and hour and they are over egged and dramatised. Phrases such as ‘rain will be pumping in’ are used when they could say ‘there will be some rain’. The presenters chat away to the news presenters and they all know each other’s first names. We are kept under the proverbial thumb like good children and their stuff is lapped up.
@ Mary March 7, 2020 at 16:09
And the antics of weather forecasters on the TV (I only ever watch the TV when in a pub or in someone else’s home) are past farcical. They wave their arms around, and prance beside their weather charts like Prima Donnas (especially the ‘men’).
The whole ‘coronavirus’ story is fake as hell.
All the ‘recyclable’ refuse from the UK and US ends up mainly in Chinese industrial provinces. This includes electronic waste, where workers have to break the units (PC’s, ‘phones, laptops, printers etc.) to remove the circuit boards which contain gold, tin, copper and, in older units, lead. They do this by dipping the boards into vats of molten lead, whereby the unwanted parts are melted off and thrown away. To remove the gold, an amalgam has to be made: this is accomplished with mercury. The environment is terrible, with pools of polluted water and toxic fumes filling the air.
My comment refers to Wuhan province. Pictures of the city were shown on BBC and ITV, where the ‘virus’ first appeared. The air was quite obviously thick with smog, and yet none of the reporters bothered to mention this. Even small amounts of SO2 (the by-product of fossil fuel burning, particularly lignite) in the air will cause illness. The people there have been protesting about this, for years while now, and little is done to improve things. The ‘coronavirus’ is a hoax to cover for the government’s lack of environmental action that has resulted in a serious health issue for their people.
The real problem is the old problem: poor air quality from the smogs enveloping the city etc. Recall the infamous London ‘Pea-Soupers’ that were a direct result of the SO2 pollution from Battersea power station. People were being found dead in shop doorways from the sulphuric acid, produced from the SO2 they had breathed in, that had destroyed their lungs from the insides. Their symptoms could be easily interpreted as ‘flu: coughing, hard to breathe, chest pains. From wikipedia (not trusted on contentious issues, of course): “The worst recorded instance was the Great Smog of 1952, when 4,000 deaths were reported in the city over a couple of days, and a subsequent 8,000 related deaths, leading to the passage of the Clean Air Act 1956, which banned the use of coal for domestic fires in some urban areas.”
The situation is as bad today in China, with refuse being burned in incinerators and no attempt to clean the effluent emanating from them is made. The same for coal burning power stations, right there. On top of this the Wuhan province is a major industrial zone, making many billions in money every year for their economy. It is not something the government want closed down, rather, delayed ‘until the smog clears’. The problem is environmental, but their government has turned it into a medical issue for political reasons. It stopped the ‘democracy’ protests dead, for one, and the anti-pollution protests in mainland China, too.
And this is before I looked at the BBC and ITV farce with the so-called ‘infected British citizens’ from China. The bus driver, calmly driving along with passengers carrying a ‘deadly virus’, and not even a mask on his face, breathing their air!
The ‘tests’ are not conclusive – a qualified viewpoint can be found here:
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-covert-operation/
MSM report here, where middle-class Chinese are buying £3000+ aircon systems to keep their children’s lungs safe whilst indoors (no need to read the MSM commentary, just look at the video’s.) The air pollution is horrendous:
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/10/asia/china-wuhan-pollution-problems-intl-hnk/index.html
I am amazed that people who generally have a sceptical approach to the media, have fallen for this one. Now, someone with a bad cough or ‘flu-like’ symptoms is jumped on by the media as a ‘possible’ or ‘likely’ to have the virus, and added to the total for the outbreak.
All done on behalf of big pharma and the security apparatus. Even in Europe, the people ‘self-curfew’ themselves, and not a baton or riot gun in sight, there, or in China. Bet on it that when Sterling crashes in a year to 18 months following brexit, this ‘outbreak’ will again appear, in order to render populations passive.
Typical anti-science conspiracy theory; “there are no scientists and no science; it’s all just made up to fool the masses”.
Here’s the plummeting NO2 production over China as the roads are shut down:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146362/airborne-nitrogen-dioxide-plummets-over-china
But of course all satellite observations are faked, by the fake scientists… Here’s China’s electricity production, at 60% normal:
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/china-reports-catastrophic-data-manufacturing-non-mfg-pmis-crash-record-lows
And here’s the Keeling curve of atmospheric CO2 concentration, taking a downturn two or tree months early this year:
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_two_years.png
All made up and coordinated to sustain this “hoax”, obviously. I dunno, I thought people went into science because they were kids with curiosity. I didn’t know they were all really concealing ambitions to be spooks; none of my friends at university seemed like that. Odd.
Are you any good at science, Magic Robot?
“Typical anti-science conspiracy theory”
Ah. I wondered when the sophist would write. Clearly, you want to believe it – well suit yourself. If you rely on MSM run zerohedge… well, good luck with that.
I suggest you read thoroughly, first Jon Rappoport’s blog, to which I have linked. He has some most credible and qualified people in, and outside the scientific community that he refers to.
Further, no response to any of the actual content I wrote, concerning pollution protests? Or looked at the pictures linked from the MSM? I also wrote of SO2 and its effects, long ago, here in the UK. It is also noticeable that you agree with China that this is not a simple environmental problem but a ‘hey, wow, oh no! it’s the virus!’ problem. Using silly expressions like ‘dunno?’, ‘spooks’, ‘satellite observations are faked’ just make your ripost read silly, and, of course, your old favourite – ‘conspiracy theory.’
Me, I’m sure. I’ll take my chances. Bring the ‘virus’ on – no problem. You can self-curfew until you starve, if you wish – your choice, nobody stopping you.
It’s not exactly a matter of ‘belief’. You’re using a computer to post, and people designed it and the factories that produced it. Do you trust that they knew how to do this, or did they just get lucky, and computer capabilities are really just a magical property of, say, walnuts?
I accept that specialists know their jobs, because the evidence for that is all around me in the technology that humans create.
Magic Robot,
you didn’t mention the implementation of the brand new 5G mobile bandwidth rolled out in Wuhan just then. Maybe you have not noticed, but 5G is getting some less than enthusiastic reports from some circles. Not the telcos, of course.
cheers.
Are you actually trying to say this is nothing to do with a virus, but rather all down to 5G?
Unbelievable. Clearly, the education system has got a lot to answer for.
Yup, got it in one.
Magic Robot, what are you best at? What is your area of expertise, or what do you do for a living?
I don’t want to be one sided, so I’ll tell you that I mostly repair things. Everything from bicycles to computer software. So to achieve that I have to understand how such things work or were meant to work before they failed, and understand systems and materials such that I can fashion a repair.
See, a lot of experts in their fields have been studying SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the illness CoVID-19. Some have imaged the virus with electron microscopes, others have sequenced its genetic material or analysed its protein cover. Others have compared that genetic material with that of organisms found in nature. Some have identified different strains, and traced its evolution. Some have developed tests for the virus. Epidemiologists have studied the virus’ spread. They publish all this in the public scientific literature.
These are these people’s careers, yet you say they are studying – nothing at all. They’re just churning out hoax materials on the instructions of their paymasters – who must somehow know how to fashion a scientifically convincing hoax. So I wonder what it is that you do, to be qualified to dismiss all this scientific material as fake?
Occam’s razor? Remember? The simplest solution (clearing the environment of pollutants) is to be preferred.
I have not dismissed any science at all. I believe I have shown that there are valid reasons why GOVERNMENTS are distorting the true cause of what happened in China.
You showed no such thing. You asserted some nonsense about it all being down to smog in China, then referred us to some dodgy youtube video.
Obviously, you want to ‘believe.’
Smog is good?
Happy for your loved ones to endure pollution? Any problems could only be ‘the VIRUS!’ (Oh no! Gasp, horror!) couldn’t they?
Remember – Occam’s Razor – simple solution first.
That’s right. The Chinese quarantined a city of 13 million and shut down half their country because they suddenly noticed a smog problem.
Of course they did.
Then smog started showing up in northern Italy, and the smog followed a gentleman back to the UK – have I got this right? And the Diamond Princess had a major smog problem on board – right?
“Magic Robot” – crazzy name, craaazzy guy! 🙂
Glenn ‘believer.’
Bring the ‘virus’ on – no problem. You can self-curfew until you starve, if you wish – your choice, nobody stopping you.
This is not so much about your or my personal death, as whether society and the economic system will break down under the strain.
Clark
You write like you fear you ‘will break down under the strain.’
Yes, of course I have personal fear, of suffering and of death. That is normal for any living animal. It helps keep us alive.
You write like you’re trying to displace your fear with ignorant bravado, as if you can’t face your own fear, so you stick your head in the sand instead, to comfort yourself.
And you don’t answer questions.
“And you don’t answer questions.”
The information, believer, is held within the post.
My life is none of your concern, stranger, so no questions need be asked or answered concerning that.
Focus.
You really believe you’re superior, and that you’ve found secret knowledge and determined it to be accurate, don’t you? Such arrogance. How do you think your computer came into being? Gifted by extraterrestrials perhaps? 😀
Magic Robot; what are you good at or what are your creative hobbies? What do you know about? I know about technology, and some of the science it is based on. What about you?
It’s all very well saying “governments are distorting this information” (always choreographed governments with conspiracy theorists, isn’t it?), and of course governments do distort information, but who are you to tell everyone that this is a hoax? What makes your knowledge so superior?
It’s worth reading again. It’s not MY knowledge, anyone may read it, and you clearly have not comprehended it.
Pointless me trying to reason with a ‘believer.’
Stock up well for your self imposed ‘curfew’, won’t you?
What’s worth reading? The Rappoport piece? There’s no science in it, and I gave up when I reached the word “chemtrails”, though I have since scanned the rest. Worthless.
Science isn’t a “belief system”; it’s a system of organised scepticism.
Clark
You wrote: “There’s no science in it, and I gave up when I reached the word “chemtrails”
The blog has this concerning ‘chemtrails’:
“People began taking sides: the contagious coronavirus is a natural microbe; it’s a leak from a biowar lab; it was weaponized in a lab and intentionally released; it’s rather harmless for the most part; it’s deadly; its effects are somehow magnified by interacting with chemtrails; because people are dying, the virus must be the cause, etc.”
Note the author is trying to show how the hoax is ‘sold’ to the public via disinformation from the MSM.
Either your comprehension skills are poor, or as usual, a sophist taking anything out of context to prove his ‘beliefs.’
If the ‘science’ is as worthless as you say, then you as a self-declared sceptic, will have no problem at all in exposing it as such. However, you seem to prefer a diet of BBC commentary.
I don’t ‘believe’ because “it’s in the MSM” (as conspiracy theorists like to call the corporate media). There is a large and growing body of scientific analysis of the CoVID-19 illness and the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes it. You can find some of that work from the WHO, the CDC, the British health authorities, in the Lancet, peer reviewed and published in the scientific journals.
Your theory requires that all this be fake; that all these scientists and technical journals are just gabbling nonsense at each other, and actually they’re conspiring with government and corporations to produce material that looks convincing but has no genuine substance. Prove it, or stop parroting it, or you yourself become one of the agents of disinformation that you condemn.
Your theory requires that the entire fields of virology and epidemiology be corrupt, including all the newcomers to it. Supposedly, not one scientist in these fields has pointed out that there is no such virus as SARS-CoV-2, and that therefore there can be no test for it, it cannot have the genetic sequences that have been published, etc. etc. etc.
It’s just typical anti-science conspiracy theory, like global warming denial.
Me:
“If the ‘science’ is as worthless as you say, then you as a self-declared sceptic, will have no problem at all in exposing it as such.”
Clark: I can’t – so I’ll just keep putting ‘conspiracy’ etc.
Tell you what, as a bit of light relief when you are enduring your self-imposed ‘curfew’, hiding from the ‘virus’, lighten your mood a little by reading a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, entitled ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ The Prince and his cohorts did exactly that, hiding, confidently expecting they would be protected, behind the ramparts of his locked and barred castle, while the peasants waited to die outside.
I won’t spoil it by telling you the ending.
If it is a real virus – well I say ‘come and get me.’ See you on the other side.
? There’s no science to ‘expose’. I don’t know why you think I’m hiding from the virus; on a personal level it’s better to get it before all the intensive care beds fill up. I was in town all day yesterday, and at band practice in the evening. Hoping to go to Yorkshire soon.
Mystified :/
This is from the World Health Organisation (WHO) :
—-
We’re concerned that in some countries the level of political commitment & the actions that demonstrate that commitment don’t match the level of the threat we all face. This is
NOT a drill
NOT the time to give up
NOT a time for excuses
This is a time for pulling out all the stops
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 5, 2020
—–
So on the one hand we have this from the prestigious WHO.
On the other hand we have an overly defensive individual who’s just popped up on the Internet, calling himself “Magic Robot.”
Who to believe? Who do we take the more seriously? Hmm. Tough one that.
“the prestigious WHO.”
Ah, yes WHO.
From Rappoport’s report:
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-covert-operation/
“a Canadian biologist, Frank Plummer, working for the World Health Organization, spoke frankly to the press, saying the number of SARS patients with the coronavirus was fewer and fewer. In fact, it was approaching zero. This, obviously, cut the legs out from under the claim that SARS was a new disease caused by a new coronavirus.
Where did SARS begin? Where was it first found? Guangdong, China. In their excellent book, Virus Mania, Torsten Engelbrecht and Claus Kohnlein explore non-virus causes of flu-like illness in that locale. They found causes. It turns out this area is one of the world’s largest re-cyclers of e-waste:
“Guangdong is China’s largest industrial area…extremely polluted. Garbage lies everywhere; above all high-tech waste…For $1.50 a day, locals disassemble computers, monitors and printers with their bare hands, endangering both their own health and the environment… There, workers empty toner cartridges from laser printers the whole day long without protective masks, breathing in fine carbon dust. Others, mostly women and girls, dip circuit boards into baths of liquid lead to separate and collect the soldering materials with which the memory chips and processors are attached to the plates. Unprotected, they are exposed to toxic fumes. While the plastic plates are simply burned up, the chips and processors are put in acid baths, to extract their gold. Here as well, poisonous fumes are generated, and the unusable leftover acids are just dumped into the river. A lot of garbage is simply burned up or dumped onto rice fields, irrigation facilities or into waterways. The bodies of water and groundwater around Guiys have become so contaminated that drinking water has to be brought in daily from other cities…”
A real cause of real illness. No need for a virus. Except…as a cover story.”
WHO would trust them?
Yes? SARS was contained. By a programme to contain it. So at some point, “the number of SARS patients with the coronavirus was fewer and fewer. In fact, it was approaching zero”, and eventually reached zero. This, obviously, says absolutely nothing about SARS being a new disease caused by a new coronavirus.
Yes, there is very bad pollution. But there are also viruses, and just because Magic Robot doesn’t understand virology doesn’t mean that no one else can either.
Death rate by country. These figures will vary for many different reasons..
China 3.8%
South Korea 0.7%
Italy 3.9%
Iran 2.5%
France 1.7%
Looks like the virus has a noticeably high death rate compared to most respiratory viruses. No matter the country.
Wuhan province has a death rate of over 5% for this virus. This could be due to pollution, inadequate medical care, the number of tests etc.
Craig doesn’t mention if his mother is still alive.
My parents are 86 & 89 and living active lives much as they did 10 years ago.
I’m not much fussed about me, or my children. But Corona virus is real threat to my household.
Besides that it is triggering a Economic collapse which was over due.
Yes he does. Read – (I lost my own mother not long ago) in the last paragraph.
Michael, living up to my name 😀 , in the case of aged relatives I wouldn’t worry so much about the likelihood of coronavirus killing off any of your family, but I would worry about the likelihood of being in hospital killing them off. Should I get to such an age I think I would prefer to take my chance on recovery at home, assuming the authorities didn’t force me into hospital.
I remember feeling this way about swine flu and posted some rebellious blog post about people getting fear-fingered with an accompanying shot of a toddler gleefully licking the snout of a pig.
I don’t get why some people are so easily fearmongered. Here in Australia we have no coronavirus pandemic, not even close to yet. Yet a small portion of people are stockpiling toilet paper, clearing the shelves and sending our local toilet paper manufacturers into 24 hour production.
I don’t want to be all down on humanity but it’s hard sometimes, especially here in Australia where so many shits are not being given for Assange. Have to keep reminding myself most people aren’t reacting with this better-vote-for-Biden Pavlovian type response to this unfortunate virus.
The MSM in uk is relentlessly promoting this fake ‘epidemic.’ It takes up all of 80-90% of news air time now. One might be led to think, that this ‘virus’ is all we humans will ever die from.
Not to mention the plethora of white coats holding test tubes, etc constantly being shown in the gigantic multi-national pharmaceutical companies’ labs, who care only for our well-being (not just the shareholders, honestly), not the bottom line, (promise) – that’s just a financial side-effect (really, it is, believe!).
Zero mention of Julian from MSM.
Thank God there’s an anonymous (but rather defensive) individual who’s just popped up on the Internet called “Magic Robot”, eh? Now that’s a source we call all trust with our lives!
Absolutely!
Now I get it. You’re a wanna-be cult leader. Hence all these whacked out views, combined with “Believe me! Never mind anything else you hear!”.
In normal times you’d be a boring chump. On occasions like this, your idiocy is positively dangerous.
Glenn, as usual, stoops to ad-hominem. Attacking the attorney, rather than the defendant and bankrupt of reason, he loses before the race starts.
For one with such faith in the media, I suggest it is you who are a ‘believer’.
Ah, now comes the customary practice the speaking to an imaginary set of followers – talking _about_ your debatee instead of _to_ them. A tired old tactic, which is supposed to bring an air of superiority. Usually used by the desperate when they cannot actually address the point at hand, as demonstrated here.
You’re lying again, though. Why pretend that I have such faith in the media?
Why all the lies and misrepresentation?
Perhaps a reminder of those that see no problem with mass immigration to europe, now added with another deadly dimestion with the virus.
Utter nonsense. Nothing at all to do with migration.
Really Craig? So how did a virus travel from Wuhan to this country?
On a jet-plane, most likely.
But did it pay for it’s ticket?
No you idiot, it was carried by a passenger.
“One a jet plane, most likely.” Exactly. The virus was brought to this country via migration.
“Nothing at all to do with migration.”
Quite right.
But not, perhaps, for the same reason.
Epidemics have nothing to do with migration period?
It goes without saying that epidemics are more easily spread in this world of world travelling.
So, if we have a gigantic immigration coming from Turkey, Syria but also african migrants going through Italy you can not possibly deny that the virus will spread much more easily.
Is that why the countries where immigrants come from have no or low number of cases: Afghanistan, Syria Iraq and transit through Turkey. More likely o spread are the frequent travellers businessmen and the like. Immigration is not the cause of all evils.
SA
I didnt say arabs nor africans is the source of Corona, I said the combination of mass migration and epidemics carries some obvious negative result.
If you have a big epidemic outbreak in northern italy and alot of migrants are going to pass through that very area you should realize what kind of dire effects that very likely will have.
Oh my LOL. Here are some facts for you…
Population of UK: 66 million
Migrants into the UK: ~300,000
International flights to / from UK, 185 million (2008)
These figures show that migration is a tiny compared to people just visiting places for a multitude of different reasons.
Jack your mind lives in a parochial world.
Mighty Drunken
Coronavirus: Northern Italy quarantines 16 million people
“Anyone living in Lombardy and 14 other central and northern provinces will need special permission to travel. Milan and Venice are both affected.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51787238
Italy just put northern Italy under lock down, are you going to change your mind now or keep living in denial of this epidemic?
Qui bono? The vaccine industry, of course.
Let’s talk up a storm of hysteria, to create ‘demand’ for a new vaccine, paid for through the bottomless public purse, naturally.
I’d say our little manufactured doomsday scenario fulfills many functions e.g. distraction, shifting the blame for worsening state of public services away from the economic system, forbidding of public gatherings to neutralise effective protest etc.
People die in hospital. Sadly that has always been the case and will continue in the future.
Uniquely in Scotland anyone dying in a Scottish hospital according to the Britnat media and the Britnat politicians is the direct responsibility of the Scottish Health Minister and/or The FIrst Minister.
They also leave hospital ALIVE.
Just not enough of them.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13487/NHS-causes-40-000-deaths-year.html
Typical ignorant content from the Heil there. I am sure Lord Rothermere knows much about the NHS’s work.
Tom
Indeed.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/officials-misled-coroner-who-warned-of-hospital-opiate-deaths-6mj6mxxt3
And if you are fearful of your fate in hospital (as I would be) you only need to read this part of the influenza pandemic contingency plan, which is being used as the basis for the coronavirus contingency plan, to be really worried. It gives ward staff the right to determine who should live or die, whether or not there is treatment available which could benefit the patient. All decisions to be discussed in full with the patient’s relatives of course. Well that makes it all right.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pandemic-flu#ethical-framework
Mary
I didn’t know that. Thanks.
It is not only about mortality it is the disruption due to its contagiousness and the quick spread caused by the vector Aeroplanus maximus.
Plus the support to those who are ill and need hospital HDU beds in the already overstretched NHS, the staff shortages caused by the expected illness of staff and effects on the zero hour and self employed workers. These are also important aspects of the current way in which the world runs.
If many airlines go under it may actually be beneficial for the fight against man made climate change.
There’s no denying there’s significant hysteria here but maybe there should be? Maybe we should be treating the regular deaths from influenza and coronaviruses as the extremely serious events they are. They’re certainly much more serious than terrorism or any shitty little wars. If we get sars-cov2 waves every winter from now one it’s going to change the actuarial tables by a percent or so. That’s significant even if the majority of those people would likely die in a few years anyway.