The Black Plague and Pandemics

Everyone has heard of the ten plagues of Egypt from the Book of Exodus – blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and first-born. Then there were the waves of the Black Death, the plague that encompassed most of Europe and it changed the face of Europe forever.

Albrecht Durer depicted the awfulness of the Black Death in one of his black ink etchings, bringing attention to the repenting frenzy of the strange penitents known as the Brotherhood of Flagellants.

The order included both men and women. They believed that, if they whipped themselves to bleeding or allowed a Master of Pilgrimage to do the whipping, ripping their flesh with a scourge of leather thongs and pointed metal studs, then the plague would be lifted. The penitents endured this horror for thirty-three and a half days during which time they were not allowed to clean or treat their wounds. They had hoped to appease God in this manner. Thankfully, Pope Clement VI outlawed this strange sect in October 1349.

To the people of fourteenth century Europe, the plagues were God’s punishment for their sins. Twenty-five million Europeans died within four years, 1347-1351. They believed that self-punished might appease God to relent this scourge.

Nobody understood that plague bacteria were carried in the fur of black rats and spread by flea bites and from bodily fluids of infected humans. The bacillus Pasteurella pestis lives in the bloodstream or the stomach of a flea. The fleas’ favorite rodent for residence is Rattus rattus, the black rat.

Trade caravans from Central Asia, where the plague was endemic, carried the plague to China then to Crimea, and then by ship to the Mediterranean coast via trade routes and finally across Europe. It was believed that the rats fled from droughts or floods to China.

Not many Europeans were spared. Isolation, segregation, and heat worked to stop the infection and its spread.

The Archbishop of Milan ordered the first three houses where the bubonic plague was walled in with all the sick, dead, and healthy entombed within. The city was spared and nobody else got sick.

In his Decameron, the author Giovanni Boccaccio described the isolation of ten young patricians in a palazzo to avoid contact with people in plague-stricken Florence. They kept themselves entertained by telling stories as written in the Decameron. Segregation worked for them and for the area of present-day Poland which was spared the plague because a quarantine was imposed. Quarantine was isolation for forty days.

Pope Clement VI isolated himself at Avignon, France. He sat for weeks in summertime between two large fires constantly stoked. It worked because fire and heat repelled the fleas.

An English nobleman ordered the nearby village to be burned to the ground. No fleas, rats, or disease reached his castle, and his property was safe. It seemed that overpopulation and overcrowding in unsanitary conditions contributed to the spread of the plagues.

The plagues came in three forms, bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic.

The bubonic variety appeared as swollen lymph nodes called buboes or boils in the armpits, groin, or the site of the flea bite.

The pneumonic variety infected the lungs, causing coughing and spitting of blood.

The deadliest was the septicemic plague where the bloodstream was invaded by bacteria and death occurred within hours.

Not everybody died of the plague. Many improved and their recovery was considered a miracle. Doctors prescribed bleeding, laxatives, enemas, burning of the buboes (sometimes it worked), aromatic woods burned to purify the air, rosewater and vinegar sprinkled on floors, special diets, and other strange concoctions.

The Black Death encompassed most of present-day Europe, all the way to Russia and the Black Sea, Constantinople, and Greece.

Following the loss of such a huge European population, the labor market changed; workers could ask for higher wages. Merchants had to sell grain and other commodities for lower prices.

As the population began to increase after the Black Death ended, new waves of plagues occurred centuries later. The epidemic of 1665 in London affected the population less as doctors learned better ways to control it. Still, thousands died. The 17^th century solution was to kill cats and dogs, the poor creatures that could have reduced the rat population carrying the fleas.

One of the famous plagues that hit the Roman Empire hard, the Antonine Plague, put an end to Pax Romana, according to Colin Elliott. Pax Romana represented two centuries of Roman domination of Europe, North Africa, and West Asia.

Millions died in the Empire, the population decline was so severe that a financial crisis followed, and borders were weakened. The 165 A.D. plague even killed one of the emperors. The pandemic lasted until 180 A.D., affecting the entire Empire. Marcus Aurelius could not save the Empire from pestilence, nor from the many other disasters of that time.

Interestingly, Marcus Aurelius only mentioned the Antonine plague once in all his twelve books of Meditations.

The second outbreak occurred in 251-266 A.D. which aggravated the effects of the earlier outbreak. Some historians are convinced that these plagues were the beginning of the ultimate fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D. The pandemic was a huge source of social, economic, and political disruption within the Roman Empire.

Galen described the symptoms of this pandemic. Some of the symptoms resembled smallpox and others appeared like the buboes of the plague.

As we have experienced, even with modern medicine and aggressive government intervention, the world suffered immensely from the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

The Bubonic Plague Pandemic of 1348

Walsham le Willows today

The bubonic plague pandemic of 1348 England killed off a third of its population. As many as three generations of men were killed, allowing a single male heir, sometimes a woman, to inherit property from multiple peasant farms, making them more economically sound and increasing their wealth.

The bubonic plague was caused by a bacterium, Yersinia pestis, previously unknown to 14th century English. The black ‘buboes,’ which were used to describe the pestilence in the 17^th century as the Black Death, emerged in the area close to where the bacterium entered the body. Contact with donated clothes after the death of a family member spread the plague like wildfire.

There were three types of plague, based on the route of infection:

1.      Bubonic plague was spread by fleas from small animals and body fluids from dead ones – 30-90% of those infected die within ten days unless treated with antibiotics.

2.      Septicemic plague was spread by infected blood from flea bites.

3.      Pneumonic plague was caused by exposure to the cough (airborne droplets) of an infected individual or may have been the result of the initial flea bite and then following septicemic plague infection. This type is almost always deadly unless treated with antibiotics.

After the plague ended in 1349, the nobility could not find people to fill positions [wages rose to such an extent that a law was passed to convince peasants to accept wages from the pre-plague period; it did not work] and were forced to offer incentives never before given to the peasant class. For example, records reveal that a peasant was seen plowing the land in noblemen’s attire, with holes and tears, but a nobleman’s clothing nevertheless, as an incentive to do the work.

In the village of Walsham, about 100 miles north of London and 26 miles west from the port of Ipswich, the Black Death [the name was not used until seventeenth century] arrived in 1349. Out of the 1,200 residents on tax rolls, half died from the plague. Expecting the Black Death to arrive, records show that some peasants decided to go to the pub and get drunk instead of showing up for work. They knew death was imminent, why not have fun one last time?

In one family, William Cranmer’s family, the tax records show that three generations died within a couple of weeks, the grandfather, the father, and the brother of Olivia Cranmer. She was mentioned previously in tax records as having had to pay a few shillings in penalty taxes for having given birth to a child out of wedlock. The landlord of the manor had her married to a landed farmer named Robert, who also died of the plague.

The death records from the bubonic plague were accurate because each peasant had to pay a death tax, i.e. a horse, a cow, a yew, or whatever animal the family had.

As a survivor, Olivia inherited a total of 40 acres of land. But how was tax on the property going to be paid since women were not allowed to own property? To fix this problem, the lord and the tax collector allowed Olivia to become a landowner legally, thus being able to pay taxes on her 40-acre farm.

Olivia lived comfortably into her sixties, a remarkable age in medieval times, but especially since she survived the bubonic plague. She was in good condition financially, as she received a pension.

Many women in this period benefited from the Black Death financially. They were even allowed to become apprentices in different professions, traditionally only performed by men.

Waves of subsequent bubonic plagues followed, and it will be 300 years before the population of England grew to the pre-pandemic numbers of 1348.

The Cranmer Farm still exists today in the village of Walsham and farming continues on the same acreage as it was done during the medieval period by William Cranmer when the plague hit in 1349 and claimed the lives of so many of his family members.

Past and Present History Demonstrate Abuse of National Emergency

National emergency is an interesting and useful government tool. History in general demonstrates the point.

The national lockdown to “flatten the curve for two weeks” has turned into three mandatory shots, that may or may not work, to keep your job and feed your family. Many nursing homes in Fairfax, Virginia, have been under lockdown again, with staff wearing not just masks but shields as well and patients wearing masks even when alone in their rooms.

The corporate owners of the nursing home where my mom is a resident admitted that there were zero positive Covid-19 tests among the patients and zero positive Covid-19 tests among the staff. Have they lifted the lockdown? No, they are waiting for further instructions from the health department of Virginia, they claim. Even prisoners in jail get more free time outside for fresh air, sunshine, and recreation than the nursing home patients.

Are we really free in America anymore or is it just an illusion of the masses who are dumbed down to levels not even the most staunch Soviet or fascist totalitarians would have ever dreamed of?

Lockdowns were presented to the American public as a national emergency due to a pandemic. Billions of dollars have been made in profits at the expense of the American public while pharma “saved” their lives with Covid-19 vaccine, rushed to the market under emergency use authorization.

Cheap drug cures were denied to people and still are in many states and countries. The globalist propaganda vilified useful drugs and fired any doctors and nurses who were actually preserving their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. They kept most of their patients alive without vaccines.

Four weeks after Hitler took office, a national emergency was proclaimed.  It was not a medical one but it violated the rights of men just the same. None of the ordinary German citizens thought the emergency extraordinary or that it violated or even mildly inhibited their rights as human beings. None of the “little Hitlers,” as Milton Mayer called them, local or provincial officials, ascribed any moral evil to Hitler or to his constant edicts and mandates.

According to Mayer and the ten ordinary Germans he interviewed after WWII, Hitler was a man, who had his fellow Germans’ interest in mind, and, by doing what he did, became a testament to democracy, to the “ability of us little men to become great and to rule the whole world. Such a man is the modern pattern of the demagogical tyrant, ‘the people’s friend’ of Plato’s mob democracy.” He was a “charismatic leader,” not unlike some modern leaders.

While writing the introduction to his book, They Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayer stated: “As an American, I was repelled by the rise of National Socialism in Germany. As an American of German descent, I was ashamed. As a Jew, I was stricken. As a newspaperman, I was fascinated.”

As a newspaperman Mayer analyzed Nazism and the Nazi doctrine based on racial superiority by interviewing ten ordinary Germans. Mayer even tried to get a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berlin in 1935ing  but failed.

Mayer wrote that Nazism was the mass movement of the average German and “not the tyranny of a diabolical few over helpless millions.” While he did not find the average German, he claimed, he found instead “ten Germans sufficiently different from one another in background, character, intellect, and temperament to represent, among them, tens of millions of Germans and sufficiently like unto one another to have been Nazis.”

Mayer concluded that “Nazism overcame Germany  not by attack from without or by subversion from within,” but it was what most Germans wanted, under pressure of combined reality and illusion.” And Mayer realized that citizens from any country, who would succumb to that kind of pressure, “no Constitution, no laws, no police, and certainly no army would be able to protect us from harm.”

Not unlike our large cities today, the radicalism of the German cities bred howling Communists, then howling Nazis, and “nobody knows just how they will howl tomorrow.”

Uneducated men, young and old, who knew nothing about politics, history, wars, and the world, claimed to be Nazis, national socialists. The massive newspapers, fliers, and posters everywhere spewing non-stop propaganda convinced them that they knew what they were talking about. Many had a copy of Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, but never opened it.

How did they “feel” about the regime? The regime promised the uneducated bread and a “thousand year Reich.” It did not matter to the masses how long this empire would last. The uneducated masses were only concerned about the pebble in their shoes as the Roman soldiers used to say. In this case the pebble in their shoes was bread and a people’s car (Volkswagen) in every driveway.

History does repeat itself. American masses want free education, free food, free housing, free health care, free child care, free guaranteed income, equity of outcomes, and free travel. That they are going to get it at the expense of someone else’s freedom and violation of their human rights, they don’t care.

Most educated Germans were offended by the Nazi book burnings and even by the Nazi burnings of synagogues, and by Kristallnacht. Then there was the Reichstag fire, the burning in 1933 of the Parliament building, four weeks after Hitler took power. It was blamed on the communists. Then synagogues were blown up as a “safety measure” and Jews were locked up for their own “protection.”

The “little men” in Germany had no substantial status in the community - “if everybody is little, nobody is little.” And such men can be easily manipulated, controlled, and ruled. The “little men” were sixty-nine million plus in a nation of seventy million. “They were the Nazis, the little men to whom, if ever they voiced their own views outside their own circles, bigger men politely pretended to listen without ever asking them to elaborate.” (Milton Mayer, p. 45)

These little men believed in the Nazi program and practice, “the democratic part.” They did not know that Nazism [national socialism] was total tyranny which degraded its adherents and enslaved its opponents and adherents alike; terrorism and terror in daily life, private and public; brute personal and mob injustice at every level of association; a flank attack upon God and a frontal attack upon the worth of the human person and the rights which that worth implies.” (Milton Mayer, p. 47)

One German, when asked why he believed in National Socialism [Nazism], he replied, “Because it promised to solve the unemployment problem. And it did. But I never imagined what it would lead to. Nobody did.” (Milton Mayer, p. 47)

But with it they enjoyed ten-dollar holiday trips for the family in the ‘Strength Through Joy’ Nazi program, trips to Norway in summer and Spain in winter, trips to people who had never before dreamed of such trips. Nobody went hungry, nobody was cold, nobody was sick and uncared for. What is there not to like about Nazism from the standpoint of the ordinary German? The horrors of the Nazi regime were never advertised anywhere nor did they reach any ordinary German. (p. 49)

The National Socialist regime promised bread and butter and delivered housing, cars, health, and hope, a New Order the average German liked. They were enthralled during Nazi festivals by everyone’s enthusiasm after so many years of galloping inflation and disillusion. They explained the looting in this euphoria of predatory behavior with euphemisms such as “little men gone wild.”

As long as the “little men” were left alone in their mundane lives, the compulsory military service, the secret police, the rationing, the constant propaganda on street posters, in newspapers, on radio, on fliers, the Friday evenings and Sunday mornings compulsory public volunteer work, and the propaganda on public address systems were not meant for them. “Service to the tyranny” was necessary and non-compliance was highly frowned upon.

When on November 10, 1938, Mayer wrote, a mob of children were carrying sacks of candy out of a Jewish candy store whose windows had been smashed, parents and bystanders were watching and did nothing and said nothing. Only one witness is alleged to have said, “You are teaching your children to steal.”

In 2020 America, we all watched in horror as mobs of American young people looted and set fire to store after store and none were punished and sent to jail and good Americans did nothing, just watched.

Mayer believed that the ordinary Germans were guilty of tyranny and Nazism because “nothing was done, or attempted, that they would not stand for.” Nobody rose to protest the sacrilege, the lawless destruction of valuable property, statues, books, synagogues, stores, etc., and nobody clamored for authorities to uphold the law.

And history repeats itself in another place and in another time. The citizens go along with the program and remain silent.

Soviet-Style Sacking of Statues by Sanctimonious Stalinists

Violence, looting, sacking statues, lawlessness, burning, and murder by police and protesters should be condemned by all humans, no matter what political leanings one has. Yet the radical leftist Democrat Party refuses to agree with the Republican Party in condemning mob violence.

There is so much supported mob violence that other nations are shaking their collective heads not understanding what is happening to America, “the shining city on the hill” that everyone aspired to flee to when oppression and tyranny was too much in their countries. International enemies are laughing at us and even rejoicing. Watching CNN internationally, Europeans truly believe that Americans are dropping dead like flies of Covid-19.

Romanian friends are crossing themselves every day about what is happening to America in hopes that it will not infect the minds of their younger generations. Who wants to live in anarchy and chaos, with mobs tearing down statues with gusto, with approval of the Democrat state and local officials?

It is a movie that has played before in early 20^th century Russia when Bolsheviks and other Marxists tore down every historical statue they disagreed with and installed ugly monuments dedicated to the Marxist philosophy and the tyranny that it inspired.

And the Stalinist style sacking of statues continues unabated. The councilmen of Jackson, MS, have voted to remove the statue of President Andrew Jackson, following the destruction of a similar statue near the White House in Washington, D.C. and one in New Orleans in the famous Jackson square. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/take-em-down-nola-pushing-to-remove-andrew-jackson-statue-in-jackson-square/ar-BB15oCAZ

It is the symbol of the white man behind the statue that offends the Marxist and highly racist mob. They want every trace of person’s existence if they deem him/her a “systemic racist,” whatever this empty liberal construct means. They want them erased from history and their books burned.

As one website wrote, it is a “demented pandemic” born by a flu virus and a communist insurrection facilitated by the brutal police killing of George Floyd.

George Floyd became a martyr, a symbol of everything that is perceived wrong with America by those who wish to abolish and destroy capitalism and the white race.  A murdered criminal with a long rap sheet became suddenly “the most beloved son of America.”

Thousands of people mourned publicly a person they never knew a few days before, with fake pain and tears, dripping with remorse for being “white.”  The world watched in disbelief thousands of imbeciles in the #resist movement begging for forgiveness for imaginary crimes they did not commit, apologizing for being white and kissing the feet of the BLM mob that had burned their cities, their neighborhoods, and their livelihoods just a few days earlier.

All wealthy millionaire and billionaire black athletes and actors came out in droves, resplendent in their opulent limousines and offensive wealth, telling stories of racism they had to endure while hiding behind their gated mansions, partying on yachts, jetting around the world in their private airplanes, protected by body guards, and what it was like to have to walk in their 400 plus pairs of tennis shoes and Gucci loafers.

Every Soros neo-Marxist came out to condemn the police, demanding its dismantling and defunding, denouncing the racist America that made them so wealthy in the first place, and the “systemic racism” that does not exist as we have laws against such racism and discrimination in the workplace.

George Floyd has become such a symbol of America’s “most beloved son” that a scholarship was established in his name. They might even consider him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The bereaved widow, divorced from him for several years, received donations upwards of $20 million dollars. Bless his heart-Biden cried and wished that he was black.

If a movie were to be made about the martyred Floyd, the title of “The Republic Burning” was suggested. The “demented psychosis” continued under the anti-racism ruse – rabid screaming by white girls, violence, looting of stores, destruction of statues, bystanders and old people beaten, rapes, burned out cars, buildings torched, police killed, and so many other vicious acts of anarchy. http://yusmedia.ro/cand-vezi-imaginile-din-sua-toata-mascarada-grotesca-de-la-inmormantarea-celui-mai-iubit-fiu-al-americii-stai-si-te-intrebi-daca-n-ar-fi-necesar-un-control-psiho-pupu-pentru-intreaga-omenire/

It is just the beginning of this “collective dementia.”  In addition to the still-ongoing Covid-19 pandemic lunacy, the “collective dementia” will enable book burnings, complete destruction of history, wealth destruction, culture, movies, writers, jobs, a stable economy, and everything else that the well-funded and armed neo-Marxists deem offensive. 

Orwell’s book “1984” is no longer just a warning, it has become a manual to take power away from the “evil” white man and install anarchy. As a BLM leader in NY said, “we want black sovereignty and, if we don’t get it, we are going to burn everything down.” It reminds me of Zimbabwe.

The Fabric of Society is Badly Frayed

“An evildoer listens to wicked lips, and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.” Proverbs 17:4.

The Corona virus which has originated in Wuhan, China, has fundamentally transformed the globe, and facilitated the last nails in the economic coffin of the West, particularly in the United States.

Whether it was a planned lockdown or one of opportunity to destroy a booming economy for the sake of political destruction of an opponent the Socialist left and its media lackeys hate so much that it has morphed into a Trump Derangement Syndrome, remains to be seen in the outcome when the volcanic ash settles on what is left of the economy. One thing is certain, if the lockdown continues, the middle class will be wiped out financially and so will small businesses.

Sadly, thousands of lives have been lost due to the “pandemic’ predicted by faulty computer modeling. The losses occurred because medical systems were inadequate in their response, overwhelmed because they did not know how to treat patients properly and lacked the resources.

The lock-step media fearmongering, panic, and hype which had reached global proportions, suffocated earnest attempts to deal with the novel corona virus. In addition to the innocents who have died from a virus that does not exist in nature, the global economy crashed, and it will take a long time to recover. In some states in the U.S., for every person who has died with the COVID-19 flu, 3,000 or more people have lost their jobs permanently. Unlike the U.S., most countries do not have the “luxury” of printing endless trillions, creating runaway or galloping inflation.

The dilemma remains, do we protect the medically weak and allow the healthy to become weak themselves in a prolonged and forced quarantine at state and local levels, or do we let “herd immunity” take over as it happened in Sweden?  

People are emerging scared of their shadow, hateful of others even more so than they were before, and living a virtual existence locked in their own homes and minds, fearful and resentful of their neighbors, snitching on them in case they are seen as a threat to their existence and survival, encouraged by their governments to turn in potential offenders to the Orwellian lockdown for the healthy masses. It would certainly make the Stasi quite proud. Nobody must pay them to become a Snitches-R-Us tyrannical society.

Unfortunately, the wealth that we once had, when ordinary people had access to culture, restaurants, entertainment, is gone. Many had already lost patriotic conscience to the indoctrination in schools and by the media. They’ve lost values and lived in total confusion, have lost the zest to live in harmony and peace, they’ve lost respect for humans with whom they disagreed, for moral values, for religion, and for the desire to respect their wiser elders, men of worth, and the history of their country. The moral role models were replaced by the scum of society with money and a nefarious agenda.

Who would have thought possible that the only Americans courageous enough to protest the infringement on our Constitutional rights to freedoms of assembly, religion, speech, and the right to make a living, would be cosmetologists and barbers?

The “never let a crisis go to waste” millionaire crowd in Hollywood is urging the government to end capitalism as they lecture us from their state-of-the art mansions built on the foundation of capitalism and free markets and telling us hypocritically that “we are in this together.”  When the masses are losing their jobs permanently and small businesses are devastated, the lefties could not care less, they’ve already made their millions and wealthy lives in Hollywood, let the rest suffer in their penury, waiting on government to give them $600 a week to survive on with printed inflationary money.

“CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza.” https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

Last year more than 34,200 people died of the flu but nobody was scared because the media and constant public service announcements (PSAs) did not tell us to panic, be scared, hide behind a mask, and wash our hands. We were not placed under quarantine, stores were not forced to close, the economy did not shut down, and the quarantine “breakers’ were not put in jail or on ankle monitors. Criminals were not let out of jail for fear that they might develop the corona flu and die in prison. They are now walking among us, waiting to pounce and commit new crimes.

We will eventually find out if this World Health Organization (WHO) declared “pandemic” was a Plan-demic, Panic-demic, Progressive-demic, Politic-demic, Pander-demic, Poverty-demic, a Psycho-demic, or a huge mistake. One thing is certain, as George Orwell said, “The people that elect corrupt politicians, impostors, thieves, and traitors, are not victims… but accomplices.”

Until then, stay in your homes, wear masks everywhere, even in the woods, and social distance from other humans. The lockdown will last until most small businesses will be unable to recover and the vultures will step in to pick the carrion.  Sick, broke, and dependent will be the easiest way to control the masses.

It is sad that the strong fabric of society is so badly frayed and tattered and in dire need of mending.

Collecting Parking Fees in Virginia's State Park

This is how parking fees were collected in Leesylvania State Park on April 15, 2020 by order of Governor Northam of Virginia, the most draconian Covid-compliant state. As a socialist dictator, Northam will not open businesses in Virginia until June 10, 2020, the last state in the union to do so.

Valid Questions and What Happens Next

Woodcut: Ship of Fools

There are numerous questions that I have pondered in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. How long can the economic patient survive without economic oxygen?  How is this temporary medical crisis going to be used to curtail your freedoms permanently? And is the crisis temporary? Does the saying, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” frighten you? How will life change in the AC (after Coronavirus) when compared to life BC (before Coronavirus)?

Employment

The 6,648,000 seasonally adjusted for unemployment claims have doubled in the last two weeks. Millions of workers were furloughed and laid off as “demand for goods and services, as well as the ability to provide them” has decreased dramatically due to orders to stay home and to more severe lockdowns. Some states, however, have elected “business as usual” for their population.

Economists are predicting as many as 20 million unemployed by the end of April. Put that into perspective with the 8.7 million unemployed during the Great Recession. How high could the unemployment rate spike, 20 percent or perhaps 30 percent in the coming months?

According to Breitbart, “roughly 90% of the U.S. population is now under stay-at-home orders, which have been imposed by most U.S. states.” Disposable income is not coming in but rent, bills, loans, hospital bills, must be paid. https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/04/02/jobless-claims-jump-by-6-6-million/?fbclid=IwAR0gzqw0FFKOynSOhCONc52PhIaFGvQTeoku_NZ812e5WRVHiLtiL9S7nEY

Many Americans will get $1,200 from the U.S. government’s $2 trillion Economic Stimulus bill to mitigate the effects of the Coronavirus economic shutdown. This huge sum full of unnecessary and shameless political Democrat and some Republican pork will add to the already unpayable national debt as the government will have to print money to cover the sum, increasing inflation.

“Kyle Pomerleau, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, estimates that 165 million people, or 93% of all tax filers, will get some benefit, with about 140 million of them getting the full amount. Seniors whose only income is from Social Security and veterans who rely solely on disability payments will receive the payments.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-26/when-and-how-will-i-get-that-1-200-stimulus-payment-quicktake

Will that cash infusion arrive soon enough, how long will that last, and will the likely cash infusion into pre-existing goods (car payments, mortgage payments) which had already been counted into the previous GDP, really stimulate the economy?

Potential business collapse

Despite the stimulus bill, not all businesses will be able to keep their doors open and will close forever or will be bought out under a different umbrella for potential basement prices.

Businesses large and small must still pay rent and loans as well under collapsing revenue. There is Internet shopping, but some smaller businesses are not set up that way and shopping has dried up, limited to essentials. Restaurants, hotels, cruises, vacation venues, entertainment, theaters, parks revenues have dwindled. Malls have closed. And retailers were already in trouble before the Corona virus pandemic hit, they were slashing personnel and closing stores. Furthermore, the CBO expects the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to contract by 7 percent.

Obligatory Vaccinations

Afshin Yaghtin is writing in Principia Scientific.org that “Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced on March 18, 2020 during a “Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ session that he is working on a new, invisible ‘quantum dot tattoo’ implant that will track who has been tested for COVID-19 and who has been vaccinated against it.” The vaccine is being researched and tested and will be available soon. Yaghtin wonders, “Will this mean forced vaccinations or perpetually ‘sheltering in place’ for those who refuse the coronavirus vaccine?” https://principia-scientific.org/bill-gates-digital-tattoo-implant-to-track-covid-19-vaccine-compliance/?fbclid=IwAR1GG9CqQhJ3sewd9zoHufLh52x-gzy-pulD3QkWP0jkVEbDgMDWEfyJOtI

Working on the ID2020 Certification Mark, Gates Foundation, in alliance with Accenture, IDEO, Gavi, and the Rockefeller Foundation hopes to use “immunization to serve as a platform for digital identity” and to bring ID2020 to the masses.

How did Bill Gates become a medical expert as the main stream media is asking him questions which should be addressed to medical doctors and policy makers, not to a computer billionaire who dabbles in the population control agenda, vaccines, malaria prevention, and child vaccinations in Africa.

Schools and Universities

Schools and universities have closed for the remainder of the year. Many opted for online instruction and parents have stepped in with home schooling. Testing has been cancelled until further notice. Academic competitions as well as competitive sports have been canceled. Would schooling change in the future, with less and less physically going to class?

Telecommuting

Government employees and those working for large corporations can work from home. After kinks have been worked out, this may become the model for work in the future. In large metropolitan areas commuting by bus, metro, train, or “slugging”/rideshare in a stranger’s car have come to a halt.

Malls and stores

The locked and empty malls and stores may remain so permanently as people are moving more and more to online shopping as a business model. Ordering online and picking up items at the store will probably be eliminated when the overwhelming rush of home deliveries would have been resolved by the introduction of more trucks, routes, and drivers.

Socialized medicine

After decades of advocating for the socialized medicine model, Medicare for all and healthcare for none, Democrats will be happy to realize that one viral pandemic has succeeded in bringing in medicine based on a patient’s usefulness to society, age, and level of sickness. The much sought-after rationing that liberals have been pushing for years would have been achieved. Never have dentists been told by state governors that they must close their practices by a certain date.

Big Winners and Losers in Business

Intermediate businesses and mom and pop stores without Internet footprint were closed while the big companies like Walmart, which sold the same products plus food, could open via governor executive orders. Amazon emerged as the biggest winner.

Hygiene Habits

People finally learned how to properly wash their hands often and keep a 6-foot distance from the nearest human. People also finally realized what a great sanitizer Purell is and how scarce toilet paper and other necessities become under socialism. They also learned how to stand in line every day in order to find food or paper products. Some Americans learned to sneeze and cough onto their sleeves. The old German handshake will disappear, replaced by fist and elbow bumps. Hugging, a favorite of Americans, will become obsolete or verboten.

Environmental liberals have finally learned that reusable grocery bags are contaminated and harbor many harmful bacteria and viruses which are spread around through bags that are not sanitized/washed at high temperatures after each use.

Family Time

Americans rediscovered their wives, children, and loved ones, and learned that spending more time with them instead of watching sports on television was quite fun and became happier, enjoying life to the fullest. Not eating in restaurants so often but having meals at home and cooking favorites for each family member became a new and enjoyable experience, brushing up on cooking skills long forgotten due to the hustle and bustle of commuting and too many competitive activities.

Freedoms Lost

Freedom of assembly was curtailed overnight by governors’ decrees. People were fined for having parties at home with more than 10 people, a highly arbitrary number based on bogus determination. Was there an exact footage that 10 people could interact on? Forced “social distancing” altered people’s behavior towards one another.

Freedom of religion was also restricted. Interestingly, we did not hear anything about closed mosques, just churches, temples, and synagogues. Large churches may never recover.

People were forbidden by governor’s orders in Virginia to practice at indoor gun ranges.

National parks, forests, and local and state parks were also closed. Night fishing and boat were also forbidden. Picnics in parks were limited to 10 people and in other areas they were entirely verboten.

Traveling by airplane and cruise ships was also curtailed. The cruise ship industry may never recover fully, especially huge vessels that could accommodate several thousand passengers. There will be less airlines as the industry struggles to recover passengers lost.

Airports will be plagued by more invasive health screenings under the guise of protecting the population from unseen threats.

More After-effects

Americans will learn that the death panels appended in 2010 Obamacare do exist under the guise of rationing and these will increase over time.

Hotels and global vacation venues will struggle to recover for years especially in countries like Italy and Spain.

Organized sports, already under attack for bodily injuries and by transgenderism, may never recover. Olympics will be derailed.

Lost jobs and income, involuntary isolation, forced distancing will cause loss of homes, marriages, and even families.

Depression and a sense of hopelessness and confusion will cause suicides to rise. Rodney Atkinson predicts that “the suicides from the economic and social effects of lockdown will far exceed the number of deaths actually caused by the Coronavirus.” He wrote that worldwide deaths were 21,297 by Coronavirus, 113,034 from seasonal flu, 228,095 from malaria, and 249,904 from suicide (in the period of March 1-25, 2020) http://freenations.net/a-pandemic-is-a-panic-of-academics-lockdown-suicidesvirus-flights/

Atkinson said, “there are increasing reports of family killings and suicide in Britain as families face the desperation of lockdown and financial worry. A tragic case from Germany was the suicide of the Finance Director of the State of Hessen, Thomas Schaefer, because he had become depressed about how to cope with the economic collapse due to the lockdown.”

Americans will have to realize that food and resources are limited and may have to get used to less supply, long lines, and rationing.

Whether this pandemic was accidental or not, the end result will be the crashed consumption and production which will affect the global economy profoundly due to severe unemployment, recession, significant wealth loss, diminished or wiped-out savings, depleted pension funds and, over time, if recovery is slow worldwide, it may cause localized skirmishes and more tribal wars.

Lessons Learned from The Chinese Wuhan Virus Global Crisis

 What are my lessons learned from the Chinese Wuhan virus global crisis and “pandemic?”

I live in Reality Ville and know the face of communism and forced collectivism. I’ve stood in food lines, toilet paper lines, and other essentials’ lines every day in the first twenty years of my life. The number one lesson I learned today is that globalism is EVIL.

Globalism does not serve the interest of our country; it serves the interests of like-minded globalists invested heavily in cheap labor in China and profits at all costs. Globalism, no matter what professors tell their students, does not serve the interests of the average American citizen who has no idea that 90 percent of his/her prescription drugs and OTC drugs are made in China, a hostile communist nation.

Economically speaking, it is not a good idea to allow a potential enemy to produce items for key industries needed for survival of our children and grandchildren. Our nation cannot defend itself in case of attacks, whether military or viral ones, if its key industries’ production depends on a potential enemy.

I learned that we should bring our drug manufacturing and other key industries back to America as soon as possible and we should lobby Congress to pass legislation to make that happen. And if they should object, then the Executive Order pen must be used.

I learned from this Chinese Wuhan Virus crisis that nationalism is necessary if we are to survive. I learned how fragile we really are in the 21^st century despite our technology or perhaps because of it.

I learned from this Chinese Wuhan Virus crisis that our President Trump was right about China all along and was correct in promoting incentives to industries to return to America.

I learned that we should never trust the communist government of China. This misplaced trust in a communist country is now lethal to our economy.

I also learned that it is going to cost us trillions of dollars to recover and a long time for mom and pop businesses to come back if ever.

The American “bread and circuses,” football, baseball, volleyball, hockey, and other organized sports and competitions may never come back in the same form.

I learned from this “pandemic” that having family time is amazing and we should go back to the basics of family life, turning off the blue screens of the highly addictive and intelligence-robbing smart phones.

I hope Millennials learned, after the shock of having to stand in line for food and toilet paper, that the socialism they so desperately desire is a disaster that will never work no matter who is in charge.

I hope all socialists in this country who want socialized medicine learned that socialized medicine in Italy and in communist China were quickly overwhelmed – rationing ensued and they had to make hard choices for treatment.

Americans learned, I hope, that socialized medicine does have death panels, rationing of medical care based on a person’s age and utility to society.

I learned from this Chinese Wuhan virus crisis that the European Union did not respond well to its member states with medical help.

I also learned that unfettered liberalism screaming for open borders and releasing medically unvetted foreigners among their midst was a disaster waiting to happen and it did. Yes, disease does not recognize borders, but we can screen people for disease and illnesses that can cause a potential pandemic globally. Isolation and quarantine do work.

Preventive medical tests before admission into a country is a great idea, it is not an intrusion on a person’s manufactured global rights. You don’t have rights in a country you have invaded or are a guest of. You must follow their rules, regulations, and laws, including borders.

We isolated ourselves in our homes, gave up rather quickly our constitutional liberties for our own “good” without as much as a whimper – the controlling globalists won, and the media won.

We learned that President Trump was right to build the fence on the southern border.  He was also right about restricting travel from China.

I learned from this “pandemic” that family life in general was improved by staying home and cooking instead of eating in restaurants so much. It was fun to take the kids to the park and re-discover nature, play in the sand, get dirty, chase the dog, fish, instead of watching TV non-stop, playing electronic games, or being obsessed with social media all the time. Life became simpler and more enjoyable, it seemed that we lived it more fully.

I learned from this “pandemic” that schools closed and taught their students online, eliminating a lot of unnecessary personnel and administrators. And why pay high college tuition when you can learn online much cheaper?

The Chinese Wuhan virus crisis taught me that some Americans are still kind and generous, that some went to work despite their immediate contact with a lot of potentially infected people. But they did it anyway because they have a great work ethic, love to help other Americans, and needed the well-deserved paycheck they earned.

I learned that Americans are just as shameless to hoard food and essentials as the hoarders I encountered under socialism. Some became scalpers and stores price-gouged their customers, taking advantage of the shortage caused by increased demand and decreased supply.

Despite the mainstream media telling us otherwise, it is not racist to say that the Corona virus originated in Wuhan, China. To the liberals out there glued to their favorite leftist alphabet soup “news” channel, Chinese is a nationality, not a race.

From the Chinese Wuhan virus crisis, I learned that the Wuhan province was the location of 10,000 5G stations rolled out by the end of 2019. It is probably a “tin foil hat” coincidence but I am a skeptic and I do not believe in coincidences.

And I like a good conspiracy theory any day. Exposure to so much radiation leads to a microwave illness with flu-like symptoms and 54 other additional health problems listed here. https://5g-emf.com/wuhan-was-the-province-where-5g-was-rolled-out-now-the-center-of-deadly-virus/

The 5G roll-out announcement was made by the communist Chinese government. Here is the English version. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-10/31/c_138517734.htm

Last, but not least, Americans learned that toilet paper became the number one hoarded item, and nobody understood why.

Democrats, the political opportunists that they are, would never let a virus crisis go to waste. “Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told caucus members last week that the [stimulus] bill was ‘a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.’” Would that vision be Democrat socialism? https://news.yahoo.com/dem-rep-told-colleagues-coronavirus-145245071.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=fb But then everybody knows that Democrats in Washington do not have a problem putting their political ideology ahead of the welfare of the American people.

What some of my friends learned about the Chinese Wuhan Virus Crisis? Here are some salty and pointed opinions:

-          “How easily all Americans gave up their constitutional freedoms following a deliberate, media-created and hyped panic.

-          Never outsource anything to a communist enemy.

-          What socialism feels like.

-          How selfish and unethical 75% of the population is.

-          How stupid we are, how easily manipulated, and how incompetent the clowns are who lead various countries.

-          That despite millions of years of evolution, we are still Neanderthals.

-          How happily Americans surrendered their freedoms, they were not even fighting.

-          It was scary how many politicians and people were willing to ignore the Constitution’s protections when we needed them the most.

-          Life can change on a dime.

-          Prepping under Obama’s reign was a great decision.

-          Never trust a communist but I knew that before.

-          There is a lack of deductive reasons ability and an abundance of panic mode among many.

-          This Corona Pandemic is a sinister international conspiracy against America… The cause, the symptoms, the mortality and morbidity are not even a fraction of the H1N1… but we are not lead by a communist in the White House, we are led by a true patriot and great leader of the world, President Donald J. Trump.

-          Bring our manufacturing base back to America’s soil and employ American workers.

-          The “social distancing” quarantine came easy to me as I’ve been an introvert all my life.

-          The communists still want to take over the world.”

I sadly learned that people lie, cheat, and steal on a mass scale in order to get what they want, putting others at great risk, and neighbors are not neighborly at all in parts of the country where liberalism reigns supreme.

Explaining Emerging Infectious Diseases

“2015 was a very busy year for emerging infectious diseases.”  -  Steven Hatfill, MD

Dr. Steven Hatfill
Photo: Wikipedia

Dedicating his lecture to Médecins Sans Frontières, for their heroic actions in West Africa, Dr. Steven Hatfill spoke to a captivated audience at the 33^rd Annual Conference of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in California about the 43 newly emerging infectious diseases that jumped to a larger geographic area from their wild animal hosts to human populations in the past 30 years.

He described the contributing factors:

-          The expanding global human population (doubled in southern Africa in the last 20 years)

-          Breakup and destruction of animal habitat

-          Scarcer food sources forcing animals to move closer to human populations

-          Intensive domesticated animal breeding causing viral mixing from “wild cousins”

-          Changes in animal migration and viral reservoirs (Ebola has 3-4 mutated virus strains)

-          New contact with humans

Dr. Hatfill spoke of the 2014-2015 Ebola virus outbreaks in West Africa, as a “complete mismanagement of a disease at the national and international level,” with no vaccine or definitive treatment yet.  He cited numerous risks that contributed to this large Ebola outbreak across three countries:

-          Consumption of bush meat since protein is scarce; contact with wild animals exposes human microscopic skin abrasions to fresh animal blood

-          Funeral attendance of victims

-          Contact with patients

-          Laboratory accidents with infected animals or tissue

-          Infected paper money (“lab experiments have shown that Ebola virus can remain viable for hours on currency”)

-          Contact with three species of fruit bats, possibly several species of insectivorous bats

-          Bat guano (it is suspected that viruses in aerosols decay quickly with the exception of “Marburg virus that can last hours in the air;” guano can act as a protective surface; it is likely that bat droppings contained the live virus)

-          Pigs as possible reservoirs that could carry Ebola Zaire  

-          Antelopes have been found to carry Ebola virus

-          Monkeys

-          Dogs with serum-positivity

Dr. Hatfill explained that the epidemic is likely to continue or resurface if three safety steps are not followed:

-          identify and isolate confirmed and suspected cases

-          contact tracing – who came in contact with whom and isolate the cases

-          safe burial practices (burials are highly infectious due to tribal washing and handling of the dead body)

The start of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was traced in December 2013 in a village in Guinea. Children found some bats, a treat for locals, brought them home on Christmas Day. The epidemic started when a two-year old died after consuming the meat. His sister died nine days later, then the mother who was seven-months pregnant. “We’ve never had a case of a pregnant woman survive the Ebola infection,” said Dr. Hatfill. The grandmother who cleaned the hut became ill and sought treatment in another village, spreading the virus.

The disease spread silently over three months and killed 50 people. It was recognized and announced in March 2014 as an Ebola outbreak.  The Guinea Ministry of Health informed the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Hatfill opined that, because “Guinea had no idea how to respond,” Doctors without Borders came to the rescue and set up a field hospital in the middle of the 15-village outbreak area.

Sunlight inactivates the virus rather quickly in an open air field hospital, naturally ventilated, with high air flow exchange and high ambient humidity.  Viruses do not like high ambient humidity. Trees surrounding an Ebola field hospital/treatment center must be cut down so that bats cannot nest in them.  

“WHO had no idea what to do.” Doctors without Borders informed WHO that “this epidemic is unprecedented,” but the Ministry of Health said that the “doctors were overreacting and intentionally underreported the death count for political reasons,”  Dr. Hatfill added.

He described how, when the epidemic spread to a city of 2 million inhabitants, family members panicked and left their loved ones in the streets. Cases appeared in Sierra Leone by March 2014. A witch doctor died on April 8. A traditional burial was held for this highly respected healer. In the process, hundreds touched her, and this triggered a chain reaction of Ebola. “WHO was nowhere to be seen.” When nurses and doctors started to die in the hospital, MSF was called in. They found no list of patients, of villages, no contact tracing system, no surveillance system.”

By July 2014 the virus reached Monrovia, Liberia, with a total death toll of 800. When rumor spread that doctors were killing patients, a riot ensued on Day 83 of the outbreak, but no emergency was declared for fear of mass panic.

Two infected American missionaries were brought back to the U.S. via an isolator. “The transport team did not appear that they wore positive-pressured suits…  The CDC response was unsafe,” Dr. Hatfill added. The special unit at Fort Detrick, that could have evacuated sick people from anywhere in the world in case of an infectious outbreak such as Ebola, had been dissolved as part of the Obama budget cuts, he said.

“When I heard Anthony Fauci say that a single layer of gloves is sufficient for protection, it was clear to me that Ebola had become political.” Public statements about fever, thermal scanners placed at airport were not realistic, Hatfill said, because a study of the outbreak showed that 12.9% of cases never ran a fever.

He asked rhetorically, what if someone coughs into your eyes. You are going to get infected. How much Ebola virus is actually shed by an infected person via tears, sneezing, coughing, saliva, body secretions, and blood?  Skin contact with an Ebola patient is enough to infect someone else. Skin cells in the lab document infection, but “the time of infection is not well documented, we are not really sure when the virus is shed from skin.”

“As little as ten Ebola viruses can cause an infection, in some cases I think it’s down to one or two.” Dr. Hatfill added that “a year later, the doctor who recovered, still has Ebola virus in the humor of his eye.”

Having spent $120 billion on domestic preparedness, we could not even handle three Ebola patients without major drama, Hatfill said. “Respirators are now necessary to handle Ebola cases. Why do you need respirators if the CDC says that it is not spread by aerosol?” The three patient cases in the U.S. resulted in 10,000 contact tracings.

By the time the West Point slums of Monrovia were affected, the new Director of WHO, Margaret Chan, declared an emergency but the response was the typical “unprepared bureaucracy.”

U.S. Army was deployed to Liberia 10 months after the outbreak. The goal was to train local burial teams, control infection, and build multiple treatment centers. By October 2014 cases began to drop in Monrovia. “The disease started to plateau off.”

A Brand Acyclovir by Gilead was given to the three American patients, a drug that Dr. Hatfill said he took himself for monkey pox and has suffered no ill effects from it.

He reported that the death toll status as of July 2015 was around 12,000, with more than 20,700 people infected since the outbreak began. “We are still seeing new cases weekly in Sierra Leone and Guinea and six out of ten of these cases will die.” A promising vaccine seems to work.

There were many other emerging disease outbreaks that took place but were overshadowed by the Ebola outbreak:

-          Influenza A, transmitted by birds and pigs (China is the center for new influenza strain production, he said, because of their dense agriculture in which they raise pigs with ducks and chicken, causing wild virus mixing and recombinations between human, avian, and swine; CDC gets samples each year and tries to predict which strain will go pandemic; “sometimes they get it right, sometimes they miss it; this is where your annual flu vaccine comes from and it takes six months to make enough vaccine for everyone;” treatment with Tamiflu and Relenza can help but there are drug resistant strains)

-          Migrating birds from the south pole to the north pole help spread emerging viruses

-          2014 saw two new strains of pathogenic Avian flu, H7 and H9

-          2015 a large outbreak of Avian flu in the U.S., H5 and H2,  in Oregon  killed 40 million turkeys and chickens, affecting 10% of the U.S. supply

-          The flu pandemic of 1918 killed 50-100 million people worldwide, about 3-5% of the world’s population; the world’s population is now 5 times what it was in 1918 - a virus with that virulence could kill today  over 300 million people

-          19 Megacities in the world; 2 billion people live in shanty towns yet most cities have 72 hours of fuel, water, and food for inhabitants totally dependent on agriculture, transport, and delivery; fuel supply is also made through a very complex delivery system; based on calculations of chaos theory, a catastrophic collapse resulting from 30% loss of the workforce from disease could result in catastrophic failure of everything;

-          Animal die-offs , i.e., West Nile virus outbreaks in the 1990s (dead crows), avian cholera (birds drop from the sky during migration), antelopes in Kazakhstan died at the rate of 40% in two weeks, 100% mortality among infected flocks

-          2015 outbreak of the Bourbon virus

-          Enterovirus D68 with 691 cases of polio-like disorder, coincides with the illegal children bussed into the U.S.

-          Vibrio vulnificus from raw oysters in the Gulf of Mexico

-          Tick born virus infections

-          Chikungunya fever  in the Philippines (the virus comes from Africa via mosquitoes)

-          Porto Rico virus from mosquito bite

-          Corona virus in South Korea outbreak

-          Legionnaires disease outbreak in the South Bronx in 2015 from contaminated air conditioners

-          2015 amoeba in New Orleans water supply in St. Bernard Parish  

-          353 Orangutans in Philippines were serum-positive for Ebola Zaire and six of those were serum-positive for Marburg virus; bats from Bangladesh were carrying the same African strain of Ebola virus

Why is the Ebola virus more widespread than we thought before? Possible causes include:

-          Population has doubled in the last 27 years in Africa but the infrastructure has not matched the growth, causing extreme overcrowding in African cities

-          poor public health

-          dysfunctional government at all levels and chaos (doctors ran away)

-          slow and improper response to a crisis

-          WHO was training their own small staff, not local doctors in hospitals

-          Problems with body disposal, hut decontamination, surveillance alert, patient identification, patient isolation, patient swabbing, bagging dead bodies correctly, safe burial procedures

-          Village contact protocol (waiting at the edge of the village to be noticed and for a tribal rep; “you can’t just walk into the village, they will kill you”)

Dr. Hatfill asked rhetorically if we are prepared for a biological attack if we can hardly handle emerging disease outbreaks. Do we have the facilities and the necessary personnel to handle mass casualties? Sequestration under the Obama administration, he said, scaled back work that would have involved hot spots of emerging diseases and epidemiologists with gun training to be inserted rapidly into infected areas.

Hospital trains were used in time of war with operating rooms on board but have been discontinued. We could have one on the west coast and one on the east coast.  He concluded, for $25 million we can handle 10,000 patients and severe ICU cases for multi-purpose disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and emerging infectious disease outbreaks.