Last week, you couldn’t open a mainstream newspaper, turn on the TV news, or check out the news online without being met with another blaring headline about the spread of the coronavirus. Some examples:
- “Coronavirus: Two new cases confirmed in UK”
- “France bans large gatherings to slow spread of coronavirus”
- “High school student in Washington latest coronavirus community spread victim”
- “A Week of Coronavirus Anxiety in Google Searches”
- “James Kwan identified as first Australian to die from coronavirus”
- “Mexico Confirms First Case of Coronavirus”
- “Brazil confirms first coronavirus case in Latin America”
- “Iran’s coronavirus death toll rises to 66, the highest outside of China”
- “2nd Death in Seattle Adds to Signs Coronavirus Is Spreading in U.S.”
- “Nigeria confirms first case of coronavirus”
- “First case of Covid-19 diagnosed in east of Ireland”
- “Coronavirus: two patients die in France as four new cases detected in England”
TRENDPOST: Is the mass fear and anxiety justified? Let’s look at the facts.
Since December’s outbreak in in Wuhan, China, some 3,000 people have died from it in that country, a nation of 1.4 billion people.
As Gerald Celente noted in last Friday’s “Trends in The News” Special Report, compare this to the 1.6 million premature deaths in China every year that are a direct result of air pollution… facts ignored by the mainstream media.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some seven million people worldwide die each year as a result of exposure to air pollution – a number slightly higher than the 3,000 dead from coronavirus. Indeed, even if 500,000 should die if the virus spreads, the number still is negligible compared to the air pollution deaths for which there is no media hysteria or emergency government measures.
Moreover, 3,000 people dead in a global population of 7.7 billion equals the grand total of 0.00003896103 percent.
TRENDPOST: As for the 66 Iranians having died to date from the coronavirus, absent from media coverage are the adverse health effects Iranians are suffering as a result of United States sanctions.
According to Human Rights Watch, “The consequences of redoubled US sanctions pose a serious threat to Iranians’ right to health and access to essential medicines – and has almost certainly contributed to documented shortages – ranging from a lack of critical drugs for epilepsy patients to limited chemotherapy medications for Iranians with cancer.”
Most Cases are “Mild”
Also absent from the headlines is the fact that the vast majority of people who have contracted the virus have recovered, and most of the cases do not have serious symptoms.
According a study published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, over 80 percent of the coronavirus cases produced mild symptoms from which people made full recoveries in a relatively short time. Worldwide, less than 15 percent of those who have contracted the virus suffered significant symptoms and less than 5 percent were deemed “critical.”
Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard epidemiology professor, stated that government measures to stop the virus from spreading were ineffective and the disease is not the deadly pandemic the mainstream media and politicians portray it to be.
Professor Lipsitch said, “I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable,” adding that many who test positive won’t even know they have it. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease or may be asymptomatic.”
Count With Your Fingers
As for the recent headlines voicing concern that the coronavirus has now spread to over 60 countries, look at the number of cases:
- Afghanistan: 1
- Austria: 1
- Brazil: 1
- Denmark: 1
- Egypt: 1
- Iraq: 3
- Nepal: 1
- Saudi Arabia: 1
Yet, we still get headlines such as the Guardian’s “Coronavirus map: How Covid-19 is spreading across the world.”
Countries that have had dozens of cases reported (very few serious) have reacted by shutting down institutions, putting people in quarantine who don’t even show symptoms, and banning people from where the outbreaks are the highest from entering countries.
In Japan, where just over 200 people have contracted the virus and four have died, every school is being shut down, affecting over 13 million students. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said a big part of the decision was to ensure the upcoming Tokyo Olympics won’t have to be canceled.
Compare the handful of Japanese who have died from coronavirus to those who committed suicide in Japan in 2018 over work-related stress: 2000.
In France, where less than 100 people have contracted the virus and only a few have died, authorities announced a ban on all public gatherings of more than 5,000 and shut down the Air Base in Creil, France, after some coronavirus cases were reported there.
In Hungary, despite not one case being reported, the government has imposed more vehicle checks on its land borders, and any traveler returning from a country with any infection will have to endure a quarantine.
In Singapore, where some 100 cases have been reported, the government arrested a healthy Chinese couple for not giving full information about their travel plans. The government has also stripped a number of people of their permanent resident status for not reporting their whereabouts to health investigators.
Here in America, a nation of nearly 330 million people, so far there have been six reported deaths from the virus, all from the State of Washington. Four of the victims came from a single nursing home.
TRENDPOST: Just three months into the New Year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some 18,000 Americans have died from the seasonal flu, while four people died of coronavirus since that time.
In Italy, the WHO reported that some regional government officials have created an over-inflated perception of the virus problem by including people who tested positive for the virus but had never gotten sick in their reports of total cases. And, of the 34 Italians who have died from the virus thus far, 29 were elderly with serious health conditions before contracting the disease.
Responding to the government crackdown hitting the Italian economy, which is already on the brink of recession, the tourism board issued the statement, “In just over 48 hours we have gone from a safe country, without a single valid or logical reason, to be a European cluster. Part of that is due to hysterical communication that does not take into account the real security conditions of the country. The consequences are an avalanche of cancellations, missed reservations, and closing of the Italian travel market that have no justification.”
TRENDPOST: The state of emergency and lockdowns imposed by governments not only have crippled many businesses but also exemplify the power of control governments have over its people.
In addition, the prohibiting of mass gatherings in nations have squelched the massive street demonstrations that had erupted across the globe among citizens protesting income inequality, government corruption, and lack of basic living standards, which was one of our 2020 Top Trends.