Covid-19: An American Bioweapon? A Proposition Only Those of Exceptionally High IQ Can Believe

For some time now, Ron Unz, an anti-Semitic Jew, who has claimed an IQ of 214 (which would place him in the one-in-a-trillion category), has deployed in his web "zine," the Unz Review, articles and reader comments promoting the idea that Covid-19 is a bioweapon unleashed on China by the United States government or Zionist Jew elements therein.

 That the idea may be self-evident to those of exceptionally high IQ, is suggested by its endorsement by comics publisher Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day or Vox Popoli, who's high self-assessed IQ is implied by his frequent disparagement as "gammas" those whose views he derides. Thus, Beale quotes approvingly an Unz response to a comment at the Unz Review:

Well, ignorant retards like you can believe whatever ridiculous nonsense you get from FoxNews or similar sources. But the actual evidence is pretty strong that the Coronavirus outbreak was an American biowarfare attack on China (and Iran), presumably arranged by the Deep State Neocons in the Trump Administration. Otherwise, how could our Defense Intelligence Agency have distributed a November report to all our top government officials and European allies describing a “cataclysmic” disease epidemic taking place in Wuhan OVER A MONTH before any Chinese officials had become aware of it: Four separate government sources described the report to ABC News and its existence was independently confirmed by Israeli TV: Now go back to watching Mike Pompeo’s silly accusations on FoxNews…

Well, LOL, where to begin.

First, "Well." 

Not the pithiest way to begin an argument.

Second, " ignorant retards like you."  

Well, LOL again. Nothing like a bit of abuse to begin a high IQ argument.

Third, "you can believe whatever ridiculous nonsense you get from FoxNews or similar sources." 

Here there is some ambiguity. Is this the granting of permission to believe "ridiculous nonsense," or a statement about his protagonists gullilbility? Most likely the latter, i.e., a reiteration of the "ignorant retard" label.

Fourth, "But the actual evidence is pretty strong that the Coronavirus outbreak was an American biowarfare attack on China (and Iran), presumably arranged by the Deep State Neocons in the Trump Administration."

Here we come to the heart of the argument: "[T]he actual evidence," none of which (actual or otherwise) is to be sourced, is "pretty strong". So, boy, you'd better believe it.

Fifth, and here's what's supposed to be the clincher: "Otherwise, how could our Defense Intelligence Agency have distributed a November report to all our top government officials and European allies describing a “cataclysmic” disease epidemic taking place in Wuhan OVER A MONTH before any Chinese officials had become aware of it."

Well I dunno how they could, but could we please have a link to the text of that "Defense Intelligence Agency report distributed in November," or other evidence of its existence and contents.

Maybe here really is a killer argument. But we're supposed to take it on trust from someone who'd call us an "ignorant retard" if we refused to swallow without demur his unsupported account of the contents Defense Intelligence Agency report? Surely only a gamma, or probably a sub-gamma, would buy that.

And even if the high IQ Mr. Unz has seen, or been given convincing evidence of, the contents of a report such as he describes, what is so conclusive about it? The novel corona virus, Covid-19, is reported to have been circulating in Wuhan in November of last year. Why then should the US Government not have been aware of it? The US has a world-spanning network of virology labs designed, at least in part, one assumes, for precisely such detection -- a network that, for some reason, both China and Russia demand be shut down. Moreover, as Cambridge University virologists have reported in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, Covid-19 was circulating in China earlier than November, not in Wuhan, but far to the south of that city. So the US  probably had at least several months to detect the circulation of Covid19 in China prior to the end of November. 

Sixth, more proof without any actual evidence:  "Four separate government sources described the report to ABC News and its existence was independently confirmed by Israeli TV".  Now you're really screwed. Proof positive of what you deny based on "four separate government sources" to none of which a reference is provided, merely a reference to one of America's mass media "News," sources, which Unz has already derided as totally useless. And, plus, Israeli TV, which you no doubt watch every day. 

Seventh, another sneer: "Now go back to watching Mike Pompeo’s silly accusations on FoxNews."

Then, Beale continues, in case you are beginning to feel uncertain what to believe, "remember to apply Vox's [i.e., Beale's] First Law of Media": 

the Official Story put forth by the mainstream media is always false. 

Which is an odd way of endorsing Unz, since the mainstream media, i.e., ABC News and Israeli TV are the only information sources Unz explicitly mentions in support of his claim that Covid19 was a bioweapon deployed against China by the United States or rogue Zionist elements therein.

Furthermore, as an aside, it should be noted that Vox's (i.e., Beale's) claimed First Law, dates back at least to the Middle Ages, and probably, to Nineveh and Tyre, if not since the dawn of civilization. Moreover, it is an apothegm that is usually stated, probably since the days of Gobekli Tepi, more pithily thus:

Believe nothing until it has been officially denied.

Beale then lays on more oleaginous approbation of Unz's huge brainpower applied to the mentality of the gamma, stating:

Unz further lays out his logic:

There are multiple, independent sources in both the US government and Israel that agree that our Defense Intelligence Agency distributed a report in November warning of the “cataclysmic” disease outbreak that was taking place in Wuhan. Those facts seem almost incontrovertible. As it happens, that was indeed right around the time that the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan had actually begun, but at such an early stage that no Chinese officials were yet aware of it, just like the virus later began circulating in various parts of America several weeks before people noticed it. So unless you believe that our DIA has developed “precognitive technology”, how can they have possibly been aware of the outbreak before anyone in China unless elements of our national security establishment had themselves released the virus in Wuhan as a biowarfare attack against China?

Taking that apart, we see that the first paragraph is merely a reiteration of what the US and, apparently, the Israeli Governments are supposed to have known in November 2019 about a disease outbreak in Wuhan, all public knowledge of which Chinese authorities were, at the time, vigorously attempting to suppress. But, again, there are no actual references, leaving the reader without evidence of the validity or plausibility of these alleged sources, assuming such sources exist. 

The second paragraph spells out the claim that the US was well informed about the emergence of a virulent corona virus infection in China, whereas the Government of China knew nothing about it. But there is abundant evidence that the Government of China was well aware of the outbreak, but was attempting to suppress public knowledge of it. 

So is Unz's claim bullshit, or what? 

And finally : "So unless you believe that our DIA has developed “precognitive technology”, how can they have possibly been aware of the outbreak before anyone in China unless elements of our national security establishment had themselves released the virus in Wuhan as a biowarfare attack against China?"

Hows that for a high IQ line of reasoning? 

First the sneer, "unless (your are such a total moron) as to believe that our DIA has developed “precognitive technology.” Then the question claimed to be unanswerable except by acknowledgement of an act of war by the United States against China: "how can they have possibly been aware of the outbreak before anyone in China unless elements of our national security establishment had themselves released the virus in Wuhan as a biowarfare attack against China?"

Fall for that and I would be inclined to think that your IQ can be stated with a single digit.

As noted, the US has a global network of microbiology labs a function of which must be to detect and follow the emergence and spread of viral and other disease agents. Why, then, would the US not have picked up early on, perhaps even sooner than the Government of China, that a novel corona virus was spreading in China? No reason.

And here's one more reason to consider Unz's claim that Covid19 is US bioweapon deliberately loosed on China, evidence of a loose screw:

As that graph shows, if it were true that the US did attack China with Covid19, it would indicate a degree of incompetence comparable to that of having accidentally dropped the first atom bomb on Chicago, rather than Hiroshima -- but with more US casualties from the virus than would have resulted from the nuke.

Amazingly, the source of that graph? The Unz Review.

 And here are two more interesting graphs (source), which indicated the existence of two strains of the Covid-19 that differ markedly in virulence. China, it is claimed was afflicted only by the milder, orange strain (see image below), whereas countries that have suffered the highest mortality from Covid-19 have been afflicted mainly by the blue strain. Are these claims true? I have no idea. Anyone with relevant details, please comment.

Related:

ZH: "Eat A Waffle, Go To Jail..." - Authoritarians Using COVID-19 Fear To Destroy AmericaOG: COVID19: The Big Pharma players behind UK Government lockdown

Dennis Prager: The Worldwide Lockdown May Be the Greatest Mistake in History
Rand Paul demolishes Fauci on the need for continued lock-down:

Why Lock-Downs Were a Mistake: The Swedish view

Johan Giesecke, Swedish State Epidemiologists, on Sweden's Covid19 response.



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South Korea Says Nearly 100 Recovered COVID-19 Patients Tested Positive Again

The Economy: Why It's Different This Time

Excerpt from This Isn't Just Another Crash, by Charles Hugh Smith

1. Households have never been so dependent on debt as a substitute for stagnating wages.

2. Real earnings (adjusted for inflation) have never been so stagnant for the bottom 90% for so long.

3. Corporations have never been so dependent on debt (selling bonds or taking on loans) to fund money-losing operations (see Netflix) or stock buybacks designed to saddle the company with debt service expenses to enrich insiders.

4. The stock market has never been so dependent on what amounts to fraud — stock buybacks — to push valuations higher.

5. The economy has never been so dependent on absurdly overvalued stock valuations to prop up pension funds and the spending of the top 10% who own 85% of all stocks, i.e. “the wealth effect.”

6. The economy and the stock market have never been so dependent on central bank free money for financiers and corporations, money creation for the few at the expense of the many, what amounts to an embezzlement scheme.

7. Federal statistics have never been so gamed, rigged or distorted to support a neo-feudal agenda of claiming a level of wide-spread prosperity that is entirely fictitious.

8. Major sectors of the economy have never been such rackets, i.e. cartels and quasi-monopolies that use obscure pricing and manipulation of government mandates to maximize profits while the quality and quantity of the goods and services they produce declines.

9. The economy has never been in such thrall to sociopaths who have mastered the exploitation of the letter of the law while completely overturning the spirit of the law.

10. Households and companies have never been so dependent on “free money” gained from asset appreciation based on speculation, not an actual increase in productivity or value.

11. The ascendancy of self-interest as the one organizing directive in politics and finance has never been so complete, and the resulting moral rot never more pervasive.

12. The dependence on fictitious capital masquerading as “wealth” has never been greater.

13. The dependence on simulacra, simulations and false fronts to hide the decay of trust, credibility, transparency and accountability has never been so pervasive and complete.

14. The corrupt linkage of political power, media ownership, “national security” agencies and corporate power has never been so widely accepted as “normal” and “unavoidable.”

15. Primary institutions such as higher education, healthcare and national defense have never been so dysfunctional, ineffective, sclerotic, resistant to reform or costly.

16. The economy has never been so dependent on constant central bank manipulation of the stock and housing markets.

17. The economy has never been so fragile or brittle, and so dependent on convenient fictions to stave off a crash in asset valuations.

18. Never before in U.S. history have the most valuable corporations all been engaged in selling goods and services that actively reduce productivity and human happiness.

Related: 
ZH: "Unprecedented" - Companies Slashed Over 20 Million Jobs In April, ADP

Comparing Covid-19 With the Flu

According to the Covid19 Dashboard maintained by folks at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the world-wide Covid-19 death toll to date is 252,000.

How does that compare with the seasonal flu?

According to a paper entitled Global mortality associated with seasonal influenza epidemics, authored by an international group headed by John Paget of the Netherlands Institute for Health Services, it compares rather modestly, although obviously the final total will be higher.

 According to that paper, which was published last December, during the period 2002-2011:

an average of 389 000 (uncertainty range 294 000-518 000) respiratory deaths were associated with influenza globally each year during the study period, corresponding to ~ 2% of all annual respiratory deaths. Of these, 67% were among people 65 years and older.

So the mortality due to the seasonal flu has averaged 0.05% of the world's population, versus Covid-19's toll thus far of just 0.03%. If the final toll for Covid-19 is twice the toll thus far, then, at 0.06% it will slightly exceed the estimated death toll from flu in the worst year during the period 2002-2011, but it will likely come far short of the worst flu seasons in living memory.

Among the most deadly flu seasons was the year of the Asian flu (1957/58) that killed 70,000 out of 149 million Americans for a death rate of 0.05%, and 1968, the year of the Hong Kong flu (H3N2 virus), which also killed about one out of every two thousand Americans. A final American death toll from Covid-19 of 0.05% would be 280,000, or almost four times the current total. To match the lethality of the Spanish flu of 1918, the death toll would have to be in excess of a million and a half.

Related:
Off Guardian: Britain's meaningless Covid-19 death stats
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Covid-19: Some Links and Quotes

Yahoo.com: Scientists say a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus appears to be more contagious than original
Washington Times: Coronavirus hype biggest political hoax in history

Matt Taibi: The Inevitable Coronavirus Censorship Crisis Is Here

The Spectator: Covid-19 update: Sweden tames its ‘R number’ without lockdowne above chart shows Imperial's assumptions: that Sweden's actions (the distancing, etc) would have a tiny effect. Only lockdown would do. Its modelling envisaged Sweden paying a heavy price for its rejection of lockdown, with 40,000 Covid deaths by 1 May and almost 100,000 by June.

The above chart (not shown) shows Imperial's assumptions: that Sweden's actions (the distancing, etc) would have a tiny effect. Only lockdown would do. Its modelling envisaged Sweden paying a heavy price for its rejection of lockdown, with 40,000 Covid deaths by 1 May and almost 100,000 by June.

The latest figure for Sweden is 2,680 deaths, with daily deaths peaking a fortnight ago. So Imperial College’s modelling – the same modelling used to inform the UK response – was wrong, by an order of magnitude. Sweden has now published its own graph, saying its R was never near the 4 that Imperial imagined. More importantly, its all-important R level (all-important to the UK anyway – it has never much featured in the Swedish discussion) has in fact been below the safe level of 1 for the last few weeks.

Coronavirus Defeated By Experimental Antibody That Targets Spike Protein

Coronavirus updates: COVID-19 was present in Europe in December, doctor claims

Virus was present in Europe in late December, doctor claims

The novel coronavirus may have reached Europe much earlier than originally thought.

Dr. Yves Cohen, an intensive care chief in Paris, told French news channel BFMTV during a live interview Sunday that they had retrospectively identified a positive case at Jean-Verdier Hospital in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bondy on Dec. 27. Doctors reanalyzed samples from molecular diagnostic tests of 24 patients in December and January who were suffering from pneumonia-like illness but had tested negative, Cohen said. Tests for COVID-19 were not being offered at that time.

One of the patient's samples tested positive for COVID-19. Doctors even tested the sample twice to be sure, Cohen said.

Saudi Officials Say Whopping 70% Of Mecca's Population Likely Infected With COVID-19

(But no indication that they're not all dead, so getting to herd immunity can't be such a bad thing.)

Massachusetts Walmart Ravaged By COVID, 21% Of Employees Infected, Store Closed

(Twenty-one percent. Wow! That's less that the rate for the entire 1.4 million residents of the Bronx. Yep, 27% of the population of the Bronx have antibodies for Covid-19, as do 21% of the whole of NY City. So it's most likely that the Massachusetts Walmart is no more "Ravaged by COVID" that the rest of Massachusetts. (But headline writers gotta keep you wound up and reading the bilge they've got to sell.) 

Why Sweden Has Already Won The Debate On COVID-19 "Lockdown" Policy

As Europe and North America continue suffering their steady economic and social decline as a direct result of imposing "lockdown" on their populations, other countries have taken a different approach to dealing with the coronavirus threat. You wouldn’t know it by listening to western politicians or mainstream media stenographers, there are also non-lockdown countries. They are led by Sweden, Iceland, Belarus, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Surprisingly to some, their results have been as good or better than the lockdown countries, but without having to endure the socio-economic chaos we are now witnessing across the world. For this reason alone, Sweden and others like them, have already won the policy debate, as well as the scientific one too.

CDC Websites Give Vastly Different Coronavirus Death Tolls

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) website for the coronavirus lists the total deaths from COVID-19 – the disease caused by the virus – as 37,308 in the United States. That’s a much lower number than what has been reported in the media or by other coronavirus trackers. For example, the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker, lists the number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. at 65,645.

Even more confusing, a separate CDC website – dedicated exclusively to the novel coronavirus – lists the total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. as 64,283. The NCHS website was updated on May 1, while the CDC’s coronavirus-specific website says it was updated on May 2.

Pennsylvania Takes Hundreds of 'Probable' COVID Deaths Off Books After Coroners Come Forward

Pennsylvania has removed hundreds of COVID-19 deaths from the official death count after coroners pointed out the state’s health department numbers did not match their own.

Millionaire college administrators worry coronavirus might expose their scam

450 free Ivy League university courses you can take online

(While waiting for house arrest to end, why not get a zero-cost PhD in virology, public health administration, or epidemiology -- you won't do any worse at it than the morons calling the shots on the US/Canada/UK/etc. Covid-19 response.)

Nolte: They Told Us Lockdowns Were About Flattening the Curve. They Lied

In order to flatten the curve of the coronavirus, the politicians told us we must lockdown and be quarantined while our economy collapsed. They told us we had to flatten the curve to ensure our health care system was not overwhelmed by the sick and dying. They told us that if the health care system was overwhelmed, people would die who could otherwise be saved. They told us losing people who can be saved is intolerable, and America agreed…

And now we know we were suckers…

Now we know the politicians lied to us.

This was never about saving the healthcare system from crashing, because we have saved the system from crashing, and most of us are still in these goddamned lockdowns.

They lied.

Not all the politicians lied. But most of the politicians lied, most especially Democrat governors….

My Democrat governor, Roy Cooper, just canceled school for the rest of the year and extended our ludicrous, pointless, statewide, one-size-fits-all lockdown to May 8.

Why?

There’s no good answer.

Among others, all of California, Michigan, Hawaii, and Wisconsin are locked down through the end of May. Oregon is locked down until July 6!
Why?
There’s no good answer.
There is no threat the healthcare system’s going to crash in any of those states. You might be able to convince me there’s a small risk in some urban areas — in Detroit or Los Angeles or Milwaukee, but 95 percent of those states are completely out of the woods. But these Democrat governors refuse to open any part of their state.

My North Carolina county is completely out of the woods…
We had nine cases here and no deaths.
Nine cases.

Zero deaths.

We’re still locked down, even though there’s a full-blown medical center in my county.

In my five county area we’ve had fewer than 100 cases and one death. Each of those counties has a hospital. There is no chance these health systems will crash. None. So why are we still locked down?

Even in our most densely populated area, Charlotte, there have been only 1651 cases and 49 deaths.

The curve here in North Carolina, and the curve in 95 percent of the country is not just bent, it’s crushed, decimated, destroyed — and let’s now take this opportunity to go ahead and say the following out loud: in much of the country there was never any real danger of overwhelming the health care system.

The experts were wrong.

(We're supposed to believe that politicians lied without reason? Just out of dumbness? Come on, they're not that dumb.)

New York City: The Bronx Tests 27% Positive for Covid-19, And That's Good News, Not Bad

Breaking down the New York City report, Cuomo noted that the Bronx had the highest infection rate of the five boroughs, with a staggering 27.1% of respondents having COVID-19 antibodies. ...  “That number remains obnoxiously and terrifyingly high,” Cuomo said. “It’s not where we want it to be.” Source

There is a pernicious idea that the media, politicians and public health officials in the US, Canada and elsewhere seek to encourage, namely, that the spread of Covid19 is a bad thing. Actually, it's a good thing: here's why.

Epidemics don't end with everyone in quarantine, because life cannot be sustained by a population in perpetual quarantine. Eventually, a quarantined population must get back to work. then people will have to come face to face once again, and the disease will resume it's spread.

So how do epidemics end? They end when the number of people with immunity to the disease rises to the point that the number of people each infected person infects falls below one. At that point, disease spread slows and dies.*

And what determines who has immunity? There are two key factors. One is the acquisition of immunity among those who have been infected and survived the disease. The other is the process of natural selection. Those who lack the necessary immune system genes to fend off the disease die, so that a higher proportion of the residual population has the genes that provide either immunity to infection, or the capacity for recovery from infection.

The seasonal flu is an example of a non-lethal disease that induces immunity in those infected. The plague, or black death, is a an example of a more or less lethal disease that kills many but not all that it infects, leaving a more resistant population more or less immune to the disease.

And, in the worst case, are diseases against which an entire population is vulnerable, and in that case the entire population dies, as was the fate of many Amerindian communities afflicted by diseases brought by explorers and colonists from Europe to the New World.

Covid-19, fortunately, is a relatively mild disease for most who are infected by it, leaving them with protective antibodies that reduce susceptibility to future infection. The Covid epidemics working theirs way through the nations of the world seem to be killing no more than 30 to 40 people per thousand of those infected (at least in the developed world), these being mainly the elderly with existing heart or respiratory diseases**.

The end to the Covid-19 pandemic will thus occur when the virus has gone through every population causing an increased level of immunity that halts the disease's spread.

What proportion of the population must have immunity before the rate of recovery from the disease exceeds the rate of infection is not something that can be exactly predicted, since it depends on the way people in each community interact. In a nation of hermits, the disease would never spread and there could be no epidemic. Otherwise, the particular features of specific communities, in particular the way in which people interact with one another, but also many other factors such as age distribution, air quality, nutrition, etc., determine the infection rate that must be attained before an epidemic dies.

What that means is that although lock-downs, quarantines, social distancing and face masks can slow the spread of disease, they have no effect on the incidence of the disease at which disease spread slows and ultimately stops.

So well done The Bronx. With 27% of the population reported to have antibodies for Covid19, they  may not be there quite yet, but they are well on the way to the condition of so-called herd immunity, when immunity to the pathogen is sufficiently widespread to cause its spread to slow and die even after a return to normal life.

Despite what crackpots such as Ron Unz of the Unz Review, New York State Governor Cuomo and the political class generally, plus most public health officials tell you, the spread of Covid19 and hence of immunity to Covid19 is good news that heralds the return to normality. But don't expect to hear that from the gerontological medical experts, the politicians and the vendors of patent medicines and vaccines now in the limelight and positioned to profit by the present panic.

______
* In New York City, the hardest hit place in North America if not the world, the number of new infections reported daily is down to about one third of the peak rate, indicating that, under present conditions of restricted social mobility, herd immunity has been achieved and the epidemic is dying. An end to the lock-downs in NY City may increase the infection rate if the percentage of the population with immunity is insufficiently high for herd immunity under the changed social dynamics. Certainly, an end to the lock-downs will cause a temporary increase in the infection rate, but a new downward trend leading to extinction of the virus will resume within a reasonably short time.

What percentage of the population must have immunity to achieve herd immunity is impossible to model accurately since people do not interact randomly, but in many distinctive ways according to factors such as age, profession, the need to commute, etc. Certainly, the percentage of infected people needed for herd immunity will be less than the theoretical 67% (assuming an R nought of 3.0), and quite possibly less than half that number.

** In the Bronx, with 27% having Covid-19 antibodies, the number infected is around 382,000 people, of whom 1,700 have died for an infection-specific mortality rate of 0.44%. Of those who have died, 545 were resident of nursing homes or adult care facilities, and most had other serious medical conditions. For the remainder of the population the infection-specific mortality rate has been 0.3%. (Source: Riverdale Press).

Related:
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The Irish Savant: How can they possibly explain this away?
Tucker Carlson: How Some Elderly Power-Drunk Epidemiologist Wiped Away the US Constitution:

Here's a Weird Thing About the Unz Review and Google Search

Here's the title of a post I made yesterday here on Google's Blogger:

Covid-19, and the Weird World of Ron Unz

Now you might think, if only because Google is the publisher of that post, that Google's search engine would have been able to locate the post right away in response to a search on the exact title.

But if you were inclined to think that, you'd be wrong.

Here's the search query:

Covid-19, and the Weird World of Ron Unz

And wadderyer get?

Two and a half pages of contents of Ron Unz's Unz Review.

The only slightly relevant link is on the third page of results:

The curious case of Ron Unz

The former publisher of The American Conservative is a case study in contrarianism gone haywire

That's an interesting result, but it's not the the post I published on Google's blogger with the exact title as the search string.

And you cannot read the American Conservative article unless you're a subscriber to the American Conservative magazine (though they may allow you a month's access for free. Try it and see. Essentially, the article on Unz paints him, not as a devious propagandist for some unacceptable cause but merely a nutter. I'm not so sure. What the Am. Con. article does make clear is that although Unz is so vehemently anti-Semitic (though himself of Jewish origin), he firmly supports the Jewish plan for the European majority nations: extinction of the European peoples of traditional Christian faith and their replacement by people from elsewhere. That's pretty much Google's plan too.)

Odd though, innit -- the difficulty of finding content hosted by Google in a Google search. Maybe even worth thinking about.

Britain's Holy National Heath Service Lying About Universal House Arrest and How Epidemics End

Here's a video put out by Britain's most wonderful institution, the National Health Service.

With one and a half million employees available to assemble the facts clearly and honestly, here's the NHS's explanation of how the Covid-19 epidemic is spreading and will die.



The explanation offered is that curbing the spread of the virus depends entirely on the social distancing and quarantine measures implemented by the government.

That is a lie.

The virus spreads readily at first BECAUSE NO ONE HAS IMMUNITY TO IT. 

But those who have been infected by the virus and have then recovered continue to have antibodies to the virus, which protect them from subsequent infection. Thus, as the number of those who have been infected and then recovered increases, the number of susceptible people that each infected person comes into contact with, and thus can infect, decreases.

Yes, it's true that changing the social dynamics by lock-downs, quarantines, and social distancing slows the spread of the disease, but it won't stop it, and it won't reduce the number eventually infected once such measures are abandoned.

So all that wrecking the economy through lock-downs has achieved is to prevent the possibility that hospitals will be overwhelmed by severe cases.

That this small benefit, which could have been achieved much more cheaply in other ways, for example by setting up temporary Covid-19 treatment centers, is not mentioned in this NHS video.

Which means that the video is propaganda.

The video is intended to fool the public into thinking that government did the right thing when it clearly did the wrong thing in responding to the Covid-19 epidemic.

But in shutting down the economy, were governments dealing with something quite different from Covid19?

That's a question for another post.

Covid-19, and the Weird World of Ron Unz

Ron Unz, publisher of the Unz Review, a web-based collection of articles -- many by odd-ball Hitler admirers, anti-Semites, and advocates of Communism -- has run a series of posts concerning Covid-19 in which it is asserted (a) that Covid-19 is a biowarfare agent directed by the US at China, and (b) that Covid-19 is a truly terrifying disease, and that those who compare it with the seasonal flu are hoaxers. Furthermore, comments of said hoaxers are mostly, if not always, deleted from Ron's Review.

Thus, on finding a statement in an article at Zero Hedge asserting, on reliable authority, that the Covid-19 death toll has been comparable to that of the seasonal flu, I was overcome by an irresistible impulse to post it at the Unz Review, as a comment on an article by Ron himself:

Here's a quote that Ron Unz will have to delete, unless, that is, he's an honest man: "... researchers at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University estimate Covid-19 to have an infection fatality rate (IFR) of between 0.1% and 0.36%. Similar to seasonal flu. Source

Did Ron approve it?

Nah!

Here's another comment I attempted to make at Ron's Review, in response to a comment referring to a WHO tweet that was subsequently deleted:

"There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from #COVID19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection." First, to say that there is no evidence of X is no evidence of of not X. But in any case the tweet [by the WHO] was deleted, so it would appear that their claim (the WHO's claim, that is) was either unsupported by evidence or known to be false. Second, to claim, as you do, that antibodies for Covid19 are short-lived is not the same as saying they are non-existent. Third, if antibodies to Covid19 exist -- as they must or immunological tests for the disease would be impossible -- and as even the WHO now acknowledges, that implies a degree of immunity in those who have been infected. And remember, without an immune system response, every case of Covid19 would be fatal. The fact is, Covid19, like the flu, a virus of the same family*, is a relatively mild disease except in a minority of cases (chiefly the elderly afflicted by one or several other serious diseases). The usual mildness of the disease is evident from the fact that although a substantial proportion of the population where serological surveys have been conducted have been shown to have been infected, the death rate as a proportion of those with antibodies is low, in the order of no more than about 0.3%. However, the antibody tests are not known to be highly reliable and the actual death rate is likely much lower. So far, the reported US death toll is just over 60,000 of 328 million Americans, and with the daily totals trending down, the total is thus unlikely to exceed 120,000. If so, the disease will prove considerably less lethal than both the Asian flu of 1957/58 that killed 70,000 of 149 million Americans, or the 1968 Hong Kong flu (H3N2 virus) that killed about 100,000 out of 200 million Americans.

Does that sound like the comment of a hoaxer, or does it sound like the sort of comment that a hoaxer might delete in order to suppress the truth?

 Yes, the Unz Review is a weird world, which deserves further scrutiny.

Related:
Vox Popoli: Facebook bans The Unz Review

Ron Unz, has said he believes the reason for his being banned on Facebook is " 

Facebook’s plans to crack down on misinformation related to our ongoing Covid-19 epidemic."

Having been banned by Ron Unz for what I assume he considered to be "misinformation related to our ongoing Covid-19 epidemic," I am inclined to think that justice has in some way been served -- not that I would consider Facebook a reliable guide to what I personally should or should not read.

Headline of the Day: April 29, 2020

The Corona virus response will go down as one of the world’s most shamefully overblown, overhyped, overly & irrationally inflated & outright deceptively flawed responses to a health matter in world history Source

These are the facts: COVID-19 is a real disease that sickens some, proves fatal to others, mostly those with comorbidities, — and does nothing to the vast majority.

Thats it.

That, in a nutshell, is it.

Or, in the words of Dan Erickson and Artin Massih, doctors and co-owners of Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, California: Let’s get the country reopened — and now.

“Do we need to still shelter in place? Our answer is emphatically no. Do we need businesses to be shut down? Emphatically no. … [T]he data is showing it’s time to lift,” Erickson said, in a recent interview.

He’s right. They’re right.

The data to keep America closed and Americans closed in simply doesn’t exist.

If truth be told, it’s questionable it ever did.

The scientists leading the coronavirus shutdown charge predicted in March that in America, between 100,000 and 250,000 would die. They based those estimates on computer modeling.

But at the same time they were basing those estimates on computer modeling, they were acknowledging that computer modeling is inaccurate and errs on the side of hype.

“I’ve never seen a model of the diseases I’ve dealt with where the worst-case actually came out,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of President Donald Trump’s White House coronavirus task force, during a CNN interview in March. “They always overshoot.”

Catch that? Fauci’s message: Computer models are flawed and inaccurate and always overestimate the problem.

But from these faulty overinflated computer figures came all the constitutionally questionable actions by government anyway — from ordering businesses closed to quarantining-slash-house arresting American citizens to doing some quick and pitiful and economically painful income redistribution schemes via stimulus funds’ legislation.

Since, about 56,000 have died in America due to coronavirus — or have they? Again, the facts are flimsy.

Decarbonizing Energy: BP's Solar Investment -- One Small Step

The British-based company, BP, has for many years sought to transition from being primarily a producer of oil to a producer of low or zero-carbon energy.

Initially the focus was on increasing the production and distribution of natural gas, a fuel that, on combustion, yields about a third more energy per unit of carbon dioxide emitted than does oil. Furthermore, due to higher plant efficiency, replacement of natural gas for coal in electricity generation lowers by half the amount of carbon emitted per unit of power generated.

In addition, BP has invested in most areas of alternative energy including wind, solar, ethanol, carbon-free hydrogen and landfill methane. Among these investments, the most promising results thus far have been in the field of solar power. Through a 50% stake in Lightsource BP, BP now has a stake in two gigawatts of solar power generating capacity, with something like another half gigawatt to be installed this year -- that's about 5% of the World's total capacity.

A simple way to understand the significance of BP's solar investments is to translate installed solar capacity to power production measured in barrels of oil equivalent. Then the solar power business can be directly compared with BP's original business of oil production.

Although we do not know the power output per unit of installed capacity for Lightsource BP, we know that worldwide, the average year-round electrical energy production per kilowatt of installed solar capacity is around 1200 kilowatt hours. Applying that value to Lightsource BP's plant indicates that electrical production by the end of this year will be at a yearly rate of around 3000 gigawatt hours. One gigawatt hour is equivalent in energy to 588 barrels of oil. Therefore, the solar power generated by BP's share in Lightsource BP amounts to around 1.75 million barrels of oil per year.

How does that compare with BP's oil and gas production?

Its about 12 hours worth.

So, yes, BP is looking in the right direction, but for their solar investments to change the world is gonna take a while.

Covid-19: Are You Scared Yet?

"Canada Warns Against the Folly of Herd Immunity," blares the top story at Bourque.org, with a link to an article on, where else, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website.

The CBC article, titled more informatively: "Canada's top doctor warns against relying on herd immunity to reopen economy," suggests that the powers that be in Canada want the population to remain cowed and fearful over the novel Corona virus for a while yet.

The CBC article quotes, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer saying: "The idea of ... generating natural immunity is actually not something that should be undertaken," which leaves little room for confidence in the scientific competence of Canada's top public health official. 

The CBC article does helpfully -- sort of, explain the concept of "herd immunity," saying:

Herd immunity is conferred when enough people in a given population have been infected with a virus, marking them immune to reinfection and slowing down the rate at which the virus spreads on its own.

which is almost right, but not quite, making it quite wrong. Herd immunity is achieved when enough people have immunity that the average number of people each infected person infects is less than one. It's at that point that the number of new infections begins to fall, and to fall at an accelerating rate until it reaches zero, at which point the epidemic is over. 

Europe's Covid-19 death toll as of April 26, 2020.
Image source: Zero Hedge

In most jurisdictions in Europe and North America, infection rates are declining, indicating that herd immunity has been achieved. However, the proportion of the population with immunity that is required to achieve herd immunity depends on social dynamics. That is, it depends on the number of people each infected person comes into contact with and may, therefore, infect. Furthermore, social dynamics in most countries have been radically modified by quarantines, lock-downs, school and business shut-downs and other social distancing measures. 

What that means is that a return to normality will increase the number of people without immunity that each infected person contacts. In turn, that means that a return to normality will reverse the achievement of herd immunity that obtained under the conditions of controlled social interaction. As a consequence, the rate of new infections will increase until the number of people with immunity rises to the point at which herd immunity is regained.

 So, yes, attainment of herd immunity under near universal house arrest does not mean everything can return to normal without a cost in terms of an increased rate of new infections. But herd immunity must be reached or the disease will rage on until everyone has been infected. 

And, yes, there are different ways of getting to herd immunity, not all of which have the same outcome. If you "take it on the chin," to use Boris Johnson's term for the idea of going for herd immunity without modifying social arrangements, hospitals will be overloaded with severe cases, mortuaries will be unable to deal with the piles of bodies that accumulate, and there will be general panic and despair. 

But if you delay the achievement of herd immunity by shutting the economy for too long, there will be many bad consequences too, including the loss of economic output, the loss of schooling, and for some people, probably, the loss of their sanity.

The best course, therefore, now that declining new infection rates indicate that herd immunity has been achieved, is a progressive return to normality. Schools opening first, perhaps, then a staged return to work by other sectors, with massive Covid-19 testing being conducted to ensure that the return to work does not drive the rate of new infections to the point of creating chaos.

Meantime, creating panic and fear seems to be the mandate of the global medical establishment. Thus, on Friday, the World health Organization (WHO) announced that there is "currently no evidence" that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.

Well anything is possible and perhaps we are all doomed to get Covid19 over and over again until civilization collapses and Greta Thunberg is fulfilled, as the smog abates and carbon dioxide concentrations subside to pre-human levels. But what the WHOOO-HOOOO said is bunk as confirmed when it later issued a clarification to the effect that most people infected would end up with "some level of protection."

So, yes, Covid19 is a nasty disease that, in New York City, one of the worst hit places, is killing around 0.35% of those infected, but it won't kill us all. What's more, if you are under 65, your risk of death from Covid19 is probably less than that of being killed driving to the office, or so it has been calculated by the distinguished epidemiologist, John Ioannides of Standford University's Medical Faculty.

Related: 
Off Guardian: Why are so many healthcare workers dying from Covid-19? Answer: They're not.
Zero Hedge: WHO Deletes Tweet About Reinfection As 'Immunity Passports' Being Debated
The Hill: Chinese scientists predict coronavirus won't be eradicated
TechStartUps: UV technology developed by Columbia University to fight the spread of coronavirus
WSJ: The Bats Behind the Pandemic
Great Game India: Dutch Virologist Ron Fouchier – Another Key To COVID-19 Investigation
Great Game India: How China Stole Coronavirus From Canada And Weaponized It
Great Game India: Dr Fauci Funded Wuhan Virus Experiments – Former NY Mayor
Great Game India: Secret US Cable That Saw Coronavirus Crisis Coming

Michael Moore/Jeff Gibbs: Planet of the Humans

This video has three themes:

(1) the logic underlying bioenergy is the grotesque self-contradiction that burning down the world's forests and converting the Amazon forest to sugar plantations to support the ethanol-as-motor-fuel industry will save the planet.

(2) alt-energy schemes are for the most part scams run by rich humbugs such as Al Gore and the Koch brothers intent on adding billions to their already enormous wealth.

(3) solar and wind power depend on a vast range of mining and fossil-fuel-dependent industrial processes and achieve little if anything in terms of energy return on energy invested.

A reviewer at Gizmodo contends that Point 3 is an outdated view based on the state of technology a decade ago. That may be so, but it remains to be seen whether wind and solar have the potential to displace fossil fuels on a global scale. There is, however, no question that large scale investment in bioenergy is a total insanity and a monstrous crime against humanity and all other life on Earth.

Overall, an important story, well presented, with a fine musical accompaniment.

How the Covid-19 Epidemic Spreads and How It Will Die

Epidemics result when each person infected by a disease infects more than one other person. Then the number of persons infected grows day by day. But if those who are infected survive to become immune to the disease, then, as disease spreads through the population, the number of persons that each infected person infects must fall, ultimately falling below one. At that point the population is said to have achieved herd immunity. From there on, the number of persons infected daily declines until the spread of disease is entirely extinguished.

Because infectious diseases have an incubation period during which an infected person remains in apparent good health, observable or reported infections follow actual infections by the duration of the incubation period. In the case of Covid-19, the incubation period is usually between one and two weeks. Thus the occurrence of Covid-19 herd immunity precedes the peak of observable infections by one or two weeks and the peak in reported deaths by as much as a month.

Many communities in North America and elsewhere, are reporting declining daily totals of new  Covid-19 infections. That means that herd immunity has been achieved and the epidemic is dying. In New York City, herd immunity is reported to have been achieved with just 21% of the population having been infected.

The spread of the disease depends, however, on social dynamics and other measures to control disease spread. Currently, social dynamics in most communities have been radically altered by so-called social distancing in public places, lock-downs, and quarantines. The use of face masks and the use of disinfectant both indoors and out have also affected disease spread. Once such measures are relaxed or eliminated, disease spread among those still susceptible will occur more readily and the number of persons infected by each newly infected person will rise.

Relaxing or ending measures to control social dynamics thus raises the number of persons that each newly infected person infects to a number greater than one. As a result herd immunity is temporarily lost and the rate at which new infections occur will increase. However, the continued rise in the number of those infected will increase the proportion of the population with immunity, so that herd immunity will be regained, but with a higher proportion of the population infected.

The rise in the proportion of the population infected that occurs during transition from a period of controlled social interaction to a new period of normality is unavoidable. Adverse consequences of the transition to normality from the current period of controlled social interaction can be limited in two important ways.

First, by a progressive transition that prevents a spike in new infections that overloads hospital capacity to treat those who suffer serious adverse reaction to the disease.

Second, measures to to protect those most likely to suffer severe illness or death as a result of infection. Mostly, that means protecting the elderly, who account for the vast majority of those killed by Covid-19.

Also in need of special protection are those with conditions such as a respiratory disease, obesity or diabetes who may suffer particularly adverse reactions to the disease and should, therefore, be held in quarantine for their own protection until the epidemic ends.

Currently, the death rate due to Covid-19 in North America is probably close to 0.3% of those infected. Of those who have died, almost half in the United States, Canada, Italy and probably most other countries are elderly people suffering multiple other diseases and resident in a care home.

The future death toll due to Covid-19 could therefore be greatly reduced by better protecting the elderly, particularly those in care homes, from infection. The most important measure to achieve this would be repeated testing of care home workers and residents for Covid-19 infection to insure infected individuals are promptly quarantined.

Related:
David Stockman: "The Ripple-Effects Of The Government Lockdown Are Only Starting To Take Shape..."

Has New York City Achieved Covid19 Herd Immunity?

New York State Governor, Andrew Cuomo announced today that random surveys indicatd that 14% of New York State residents now have antibodies to Covid19, and in New York City, the number is 21%.

Assuming that being antibody positive means Covid19 immunity, that is immunity from re-infection, has New York achieved so-called herd immunity, which is to say immunity to the Covid19 virus that is sufficiently widespread to prevent each newly infected individual from, on average, passing the virus to more than one other person?

If herd immunity has been achieved, then the decline in reported deaths should continue even if the present measures of quarantine and lock-down are abandoned.

Unfortunately, there is no clear guide as to the infection frequency required for herd immunity. Assuming a reproduction number of more than three, which is to say the average number of people each infected person infects before the development of any population immunity, then an infection rate of over 60% of thereabouts would be needed to end the epidemic, assuming that people interact and spread the disease in a random fashion. However, people do not interact in a random fashion. Some are much more effective as disease spreaders than others. Children, for example, are excellent spreaders, both among themselves and among family members and family friends. Old folks, however, tend to live relatively isolated lives and are therefore extremely poor spreaders. It is not implausible, therefore, to suppose that an immunity rate of 21, as in New York City, or even as low as 14% for New York State as a whole, is sufficient to cause the epidemic to die.

As the various jurisdictions dealing with the epidemic make decision on ending lock-downs and other quarantine measures, and as more surveys of population immunity are reported, we will soon know.

Related:
YDN: R nought in New York City is less than one: Herd immunity achieved
The Hill: The results are in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
The Irish Savant: Heads I win, tails you lose
DC Whispers: Sweden Kept Economy Open, Yet Has A Mortality Rate Similar To America’s
Pepe Escobar: What Did U.S. Intel Really Know About the ‘Chinese’ Virus?
Post News: 94% of All NYC Coronavirus Patients Have Underlying Health Problems

the Corona Virus Response: A Media Induced Panic For What Reason?

Here's a comment from an actual expert on viral respiratory diseases:

Dr. John Oxford, virologist, Professor at Queen Mary College, University of London, and a leading expert on influenza, including bird flu and the 1918 Spanish Influenza, and HIV/AIDS.

What he says:

Personally, I would say the best advice is to spend less time watching TV news which is sensational and not very good. Personally, I view this Covid outbreak as akin to a bad winter influenza epidemic. In this case we have had 8000 deaths this last year in the ‘at risk’ groups viz over 65% people with heart disease etc. I do not feel this current Covid will exceed this number. We are suffering from a media epidemic! Source

So why the continued lock-down?

Many unofficial reports are now emerging that reveal Covid19 infection rates in the general population that are huge multiples of officially reported rates.

 That means that infection rates in many communities are pretty certainly past the point necessary to achieve herd immunity, which is to say the point at which the disease spreads with ever increasing difficulty before dying out entirely.

Yet no government has reported a survey of the general public to determine whether herd immunity has been achieved.

Why not?

Presumably, because governments do not want the public to know.

And that presumably, is because governments want the lock-downs to continue for reasons quite other than those stated.

What are those ulterior and unstated motives?

Interesting question that:

To drive up unemployment while destroying small businesses that are the chief employers of low-wage labor?

Why would governments want this?

Many reasons come to mind. Here are a couple:

1. By creating a much larger pool of the unemployed, a desperate and docile pool of cheap labor is made available to the corporate giants that own the government.

2. While thousands upon thousands of small business that have been forcibly closed -- shops, restaurants, a multiplicity of service enterprises -- the big boys, Amazon, Star Bucks, Tim Hortons, Crispy Kreme will have been planning how to take over the space newly created for their own expansion.

3. Or is the objective simply to create widespread poverty on a permanent basis?

Is it the idea that living standards for the majority having been crushed, they are to remain crushed?

What, after all, is the point of so many people stuffing their faces with junk food, pissing away energy and other resources on  hedonistic cruise vacations, trips to Vegas and stuffing themselves with toxic, obesity- and diabetes-inducing  grease- and sugar- loaded junk food.

Welcome to the new peonage.

Other possibilities? Suggestions welcome!

And here's one obvious alternative: a Deep State plot to get rid of Trump.

Related:
LA Times: Hundreds of thousands in L.A. County may have been infected with coronavirus
Perspective on the Pandemic: Interview with Prof. John Ioannides

Thierry Meyssan: Covid-19: Neil Ferguson, the Liberal Lyssenko
Ron Paul: What If The Lockdown Was A Giant Mistake?
Jim Fedako: Exactly How Many Deaths To Justify Giving Government's Control Of Everything?
ZH: Why The Shutdown Must End

Professor Luc Montagnier, Discoverer of the AIDS virus, Nobel Prize Winner, Backs Indian Researchers' Claim that Covid19 is man-made

Contrary to to the Chinese Communist Party apologists over at the Unz Review and elsewhere, Professor Luc Montagnier, who won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the HIV or AIDS virus, believes that Covid 19, aka SARS-CoV-2, is a man-made entity accidentally released from China's only Level 4 biohazard (i.e., biowarfare) lab, which is located in Wuhan, China.

Professor Montagnier is reported by Zero Hedge to have stated that the laboratory in Wuhan is known for its work on coronaviruses and tried to use one of these viruses as a vector for HIV in the search for an AIDS vaccine.

Further, Prof. Montagnier stated that, with a colleague, the biomathematician jean-Claude Perez, he had "carefully analyzed the description of the genome of this RNA virus" and concluded that it contained sequences from the HIV (AIDS) virus. Moreover, he said:

Indian researchers have already tried to publish the results of the analyses that showed that this coronavirus genome contained sequences of another virus, … the HIV virus (AIDS virus), but they were forced to withdraw their findings as the pressure from the mainstream was too great.

Questioned as to whether the Covid19 virus may have come from a patient who is otherwise infected with HIV, Dr. Montagnier replied:

No,in order to insert an HIV sequence into this genome, molecular tools are needed, and that can only be done in a laboratory..

The full text of the retracted paper by Indian researchers that Prof. Montagnier referred to is currently available here.

Meantime:
The CBC (Canada' State Broadcaster): Instructs Kids on How to Shut Down Your Parents’ “Conspiracy Theories” About the Origins of the novel Corona virus

Conspiracy theories, the CBC warns, can be “just as dangerous as a virus.” they then suggest:

“Maybe send [your conspiracy theorist Dad] an article from a legitimate source quoting credible scientists on why the virus wasn’t manufactured.”

Almost needless to say, the suggested article comes from the CBC and is entitled ‘No, the new coronavirus wasn’t created in a lab, scientists say.”

However, as Fox News has just reported, quite apart from the Nobel Prize winning virologist Luc Montagnier, it is now believed by a number of those in a position to make an informed assessment that Covid19 did indeed leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Related: 
American Spectator: Stanford study suggests coronavirus is more widespread than realized
FoxNews: One third of folks on the street in Massachusetts town have Covid19 antibodies.
NY Times: They’re Death Pits’: Virus Claims at Least 7,000 Lives in U.S. Nursing Homes
Fort Rus: From COP-21 To COVID-19: The Collapse Of ‘Predictive Models’ And The Return To Actual Thinking
YDN: US will see an ‘exponential explosion’ in COVID-19 cases if it relaxes lockdown measures too early - sparking a second wave of infections, MIT model predicts
True Pundit: EXCLUSIVE: Robert F Kennedy Jr. Drops Bombshells on Dr. Fauci For Medical Cover Ups and Fraud; Fauci “Poisoned an Entire Generation of Americans”
Daily Star: Coronavirus began months earlier and not in Wuhan, bombshell UK report claims
BBC: Coronavirus: Is there any evidence for lab release theory?
San Francisco Chron.: Stanford study suggests far more [Covid] infections than reported
The Irish Savant: Vaccines and Bill Gates, The Taker

Nssim Taleb: The Only Man With a Clue About Covid19?

A post by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at the Automatic Earth blog begins with the following words:

Today, I’m going to try to show you how and why we know that in the case of a pandemic like the one we’re in, surrounded by doubts and uncertainties, there are still a series of measures that we can and, more importantly, must take. But also, how these measures are hardly ever taken, and if they are, not in the correct fashion. This has to date led us into a ton of preventable misery and death. If only we would listen. And there’s still more we can do to prevent more mayhem, there is at every step of the process.

What follows is an exposition of the risk to humanity of a viral pandemic made years ago the financial analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb, together with Taleb's conclusions as the the steps that must be taken to avoid catastrophe.

Needless as it is to say to those with any understanding of the way governments function, or more generally fail to function, Taleb's analysis and recommendations have been generally ignored with catastrophic consequences for those afflicted by Covid19, and for all who have been or will in the future be affected by the economic consequences of the Covid pandemic.

Rather than copy and paste the article from the Automatic Earth for those wanting to better understand the challenge of Covid19, here is a link to the original article:

The Only Man Who Has a Clue.