In March, the World Health Organization (WHO), a notoriously inefficient and corrupt organization, declared the COVID – 19 virus (also called the corona virus) to be a global pandemic– an indication of its possible contagion.
The WHO pronouncement expectedly created pandemonium. The timing of its various pronouncements raises concerns but I’ll leave that for investigators to probe after the dust has settled.
But it is suspicious that while the corona virus was limited to its source in China the WHO kept downplaying its contagion. And the day after it was very abruptly contained in China, the WHO declared it a global pandemic.
The results of the declaration are there for everyone to see. Global financial markets have crashed, production of goods and services worldwide has shut down, large-scale corporate bankruptcies are a certainty, and human liberty has been curtailed with forced lockdowns.
And while the world has shut down its factories, Chinese factories are ramping up production capacity and rolling out products that the world will soon demand. Over the next 6 to 8 months while millions of businesses the world over will be pulling down their shutters, Chinese goods will be flooding global markets. And because those shuttered businesses will likely never come back, Chinese businesses could be well positioned to capture market share.
This may all be a coincidence, but the probability of it also being a well-designed conspiracy is not zero.
Think about this for a second. Denmark, with a population of less than 6 million and located 8000 kms from Wuhan, has so far reported 2860 cases and 90 deaths while Shanghai, with a population of 24 million and located just 800 kms from Wuhan, has reported only 340 cases and 3 deaths. And while the economy of Denmark is in lockdown, the factories in Shanghai are in full production.
Or why is it that the greatest damage done by the virus in Italy is in the Lombardy region whose major exports are clothing and leather goods which compete directly with the Chinese.
Could it also be a coincidence that Italy has recently started borrowing lots of money from the Chinese and this economic dependence has led to Italy signing on to the “one belt one road” initiative which has given China the right to manage the port of Trieste in northern Italy.
And what about the timing of the virus and the declaration of the pandemic– four months before the start of the greatest show on earth – – the Olympics– in guess where, Japan, an economic competitor of China and a historical enemy. Imagine the billions in losses for the Japanese economy from the cancelled games.
Could it also be a coincidence that the corona pandemic started during the flu season, a virus to which it is genetically similar with almost identical symptoms?
Terrifying scenes of people dropping dead on the streets first started emanating from China. Subsequently, TV pictures of Italian patients lying outside crammed hospitals sent shivers down the global spine. It was universally concluded that this stuff was indeed lethal and truly dangerous.
The pandemic was indeed happening. More people started to show symptoms. Fear ran through nations, press coverage became a 24-hour barrage of bad news and fear, people started distancing themselves and governments saw political wisdom in pronouncing complete lockdowns.
A lockdown is a political win-win. When nothing bad happens politicians will take credit for imposing a lockdown. Then they will use the economic loss from the lockdown to paper over their poor economic policies.
Soon the pandemic was really becoming “bad” news and experts started talking about its “exponential” growth without realising that the exponential growth was a mathematical phenomenon associated with increased testing and is a common feature of all viruses.
Medical experts predicted millions will be affected. Some suggested up to 70% of the US could be affected (so far after several weeks less than 0.05 percent has been infected). And India, with its crowded living conditions, would most likely be devastated. The predictions were dire and no one dare question them lest they be labelled insensitive.
Everyone was focused on the health risks and rightly so. No one wanted to see anyone die from a viral infection that could easily be avoided with a few days of social isolation. Better safe than sorry.
In this pandemonium no one wanted to ask the question: What if the WHO is wrong? What if the pandemic is more pandemonium than a real medical threat? What if the health risks from corona are no more serious than that of its genetic cousin, the common flu?
Of course, no one knows the real risks from Corona–the data is simply incomplete and has not been put through scientific scrutiny. Even the best scientists and medical experts, including those at the WHO, are simply guessing.
So, let’s examine what little data we do have so far. A recent study published in The Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals in the world, concluded that the true death rate from the corona virus, using both the confirmed and unconfirmed cases, was more likely to be around 0.66% instead of the 2% to 8% published in the popular press. These new estimates, unlike the previous more onerous ones, take into account the reality that the reported cases are grossly understated (because only the severe cases are tested) while deaths are more accurately reported.
These Lancet numbers then put the fatality rate from Corona closer to the common flu.
And because no one really knows the real risks associated with corona, and because the available data seems to support the notion that the virus is not as dangerous as purported, one has to at least be open to asking the question: Is this really a dangerous pandemic or a created pandemonium?
I don’t know the answer any more than anyone else. But of one thing I am certain: once the true costs of the human misery associated with the economic shutdown are tallied, more and more people will question whether Corona was a pandemic or a pandemonium.
And as a betting man I am willing to bet that the Chinese will be laughing their way to bank. They saw the entire chessboard and were able to checkmate the pesky democracies of the world, especially the US.
A simple virus might have altered global hegemony faster than all the expensive weaponry in the world.
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