Slowly at first, but now steadily, two things are becoming clear:
1. The sheer scope and audacity with which the State has reacted to the COVID19 pandemic: a terrifying update follows
2. Far from being “science-led”, the measures being put in place to counter a problem we don’t have are a combo of political excuses and naked power grabs; these almost certainly have a broader motive.
Brexit was a major learning-curve for the Establishments in the West. It proved conclusively that an alarming list of completely invented scare stories could first of all persuade 48% of the UK population that Brexit would be an unmitigated disaster….and that empty imagery and lies about the real nature of EU autocratic federalism would be found convincing (on some occasions) by most of the population.
For three years after 2016, 90% of the UK press and both major TV stations insisted that the UK was in a weak bargaining position. The economic data, fiscal realities and political shambles flatly contradicted the Establishment line.
The eventual victory for opportunist “Brexiteer” Boris Johnson was not as convincing as the vagaries of Britain’s FPTP would suggest. On a popular vote basis, those voting against him were only 0.8% less than those who supported him. The virus we now face could wipe out enough older people to even that up.
So too in this case – as this site has been insisting since January – the same concerted media >> political >> alarmist projection witch’s brew has been used stirring.
But as we shall see, this is now beginning to unravel.
THE RIGHTS WE HAVE LOST
In the US, people are puzzled as to why Trump closed the CDC, what good “lockdowns” will do, why the stock markets have overreacted to COVID19, and why already some Presidential primaries have been cancelled. In the UK and France, however, the actions taken have been considerably more draconian: an injudicious mélange of hidden nasties and brazen autocracy.
Yesterday, London’s controversial Mayor Sadiq Khan told the media, “I will have no hesitation in curtailing civil rights if there is any flouting of these science-led measures”.
Indeed, ‘science-led’ is the default claim being bandied about in the UK; but it’s a lie.
As if to offer solidarity to this unpleasant little man, powers announced yesterday mean police will be able to detain and quarantine patients with coronavirus for up to six weeks: it will be a criminal offence not to comply. Yet only three days ago, the Prime Minister told people to “self-isolate for seven days”. The real figure is 25 days.
Science led?
John Apter, chairman of the police federation, angrily told the press, “it’s vital to ensure that officers have masks, but we’re not getting this equipment we need”. Yet throughout February, we were told wearing masks was pointless.
Science led?
Under this latest batch of emergency measures, officials get powers to stop “any vessel, aircraft, train or other conveyance leaving any place” and seize buildings and objects for decontamination. But new evidence shows that the virus can only remain viable in the air and on pavements for up to 3 hours, and this is not the way 95% of infection occurs.
Science led?
What’s more alarming – the evacuation of a street for twelve hours, or lines of men dressed like sci-fi disaster aliens spraying stuff everywhere?
In France especially, Macron’s government has gone out of its way to create alarm. The few types of shop left open resemble M*A*S*H emergency rooms more than food halls. Even greater incursions upon civil rights have been adopted – most notably, the Right of Assembly has been suspended, and the daily 6pm curfew is being enforced by the army. Yet the overwhelming balance of data series we now have show beyond any reasonable doubt that demo crowds of the young and middled aged (the Gilets Jaunes) have an almost homoeaopthic chance of dying from COVID19.
Science led?
WILFUL EXAGGERATION
There is growing awareness (among the very few, sadly) that the stats available are being interpreted in the darkest possible light…and other ways of looking at them censored.
Stanford virology professor John Ioannidis observes, “If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to “influenza-like illness” would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average. The media coverage would have been less than for an NBA game between the two most indifferent teams….If the level of the epidemic does overwhelm the health system and extreme measures have only modest effectiveness, then flattening the curve may make things worse: Instead of being overwhelmed during a short, acute phase, the health system will remain overwhelmed for a more protracted period. That’s another reason we need data about the exact level of the epidemic activity.”
Ioannidis is echoing the point I made yesterday: a high infection rate is better in the long term, because it maximises immunity. He estimates a death rate below 55 years of age at 0.05%. A strategy focusing on old people and retirement homes with very high levels of security would make far more sense.
But then, the alarm in the general population would have been minimal…and one gets a growing sense that this is not what the Unelected State and their media lackeys want.
The most blatant example of this is Italy.
THE ITALIAN JOB
This is what ScienceDirect had to say in 2018 about Italy’s two most recent flu epidemics:
‘In the winter seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17, an estimated average of 5,290,000 ILI cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%. More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period. Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries, especially in the elderly.’
That’s 68,000 deaths without any Coronavirus – and as Ionnidis points out, at least “30%” of all COVID virus deaths also involve other bacteria which would have killed the patient anyway.
He is being cautiously pessimistic – as we shall see. Note also the “elderly” reference there: it is a fact that Italy has the highest demographic bulge of over 70s in Europe. And the Health Service there has been badly damaged by idiotic austerity programmes dictated by Brussels-am-Berlin.
But the shock-horror stories about lockdown there never mention any of that.
A Greek source has passed me a piece on Italy. Some of these extracts from it make very disturbing reading:
‘Many people diagnosed as “coronavirus cases” in Italy who died were almost certainly put on antiviral drugs like Ribvarin….a significant percentage of these people had prior heart conditions or high blood pressure. Ribavirin causes anaemia – life-threatening in people who have heart disease or circulation problems.’
Once again, non-COVID complications and misdiagnoses.
‘Italian government researchers are combing through patient records, to take a much closer look…to see whether people are dying from the virus or other more obvious causes….The results are astonishing….99% of the dead had other illnesses’.
Proving yet again that, on the whole, COVID19 does not kill healthy people:
‘Just three victims – or 0.8% of the total – had no previous pathology. Almost half of the victims suffered from at least three prior illnesses and about a quarter had either one or two previous conditions.’
This in turn reflects studies in other countries: elderly people with obvious prior diseases who died in Australia, and elderly people who were diagnosed as coronavirus cases in the state of Washington were all living in long-term-care nursing homes.
If all this adds up to a science-led strategy, there’s an awful lot of skim-reading going on in high places. I’ve talked this week about the motives potentially behind the spurious hype, and they are myriad: an excuse for stock market collapse, an excuse to grab power in the light of serious economic failure, an attempt to disguise poor health investment and so forth. But there is also an attempt via the media to create heroes out of nothing here.
The French media’s laudatory showering of praise upon the ‘necessarily tough’ measures taken by President Macron is enough to give anyone symptoms of a deadly illness. It is beyond vomit-inducing in its consistency, and use of overblown, mindless praise for a reaction that is now revealed to have been completely unnecessary.
Lest we forget, this is the sort of media snowjob that got Macronapoleon elected in the first place. He lied at the time about where the money came from. He has lied all along about the real nature of the Gilets Jaunes. He lied about the need to bomb Syria’s “chemical weapons”. He lied about UK Leaver motives in voting for Brexit. He was lying when he said that France “was in a war” against COVID19.
This is a man who lies about everything.
The obvious, commonsense strategy would have been to lock down all elderly care homes and hospital wards catering primarily for older age-related conditions. That would have affected only a tiny minority of social activities…and been barely even noticed by the electorates at large.
But the (for me anyway) most terrifying question mark here – forgetting the stock market post-rationale for a second – is what’s at stake economically. Britain has a massive over dependence on financial services, France already has a tremendous deficit problem, and the US national debt is out of control.
Yet one or more soi-disant élite groups of people are acting in a way that can only make those problems incalculably worse.
So this has to be the high-roller poker game of all time. It’s a winner-takes-all poker school….and 97% of us aren’t even at the table.
But who exactly is at the table?
I don’t know…..but I suspect we’re on the verge of what’s been coming since 2003…..that is, The Big Reset. As I lack any of the formal credentials required to proffer financial advice, I cannot tell you what you should do.
All I can do is tell you what I’ve been doing this week, and will continue to do from Monday onwards: try and get out of fiat currency cash at the banks at best…and at worst, get every bank holding below the £75,000 guarantee limit.
I’m already long in gold: if the ludicrous price suppression currently at $1498 continues next week, I’ll buy more. Come what may, I’ll buy silver….at $12.58, it’s worth the risk for me. But it has to be real metal, not trackers.
After that, who knows? A longterm hold of the commodities everyone will still need once this insanity is over.
There is no cause for alarm. Do not adjust your set: we are in control.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
The Slog 