Today March 31, 2020
SARS-COV-2/COV-19
The Coronavirus is now affecting 201 countries and territories around the world and 2 international conveyances, the Diamond Princess cruise ship and the Holland America’s MS Zaandam cruise ship.
Infected Cases: 853,864
Deaths: 42,000
(As we all know by now the number of infected cases above are very low estimates because of lack of testing in many countries. X10 or even X20 would be more realistic, and we also know China has never been transparent or honest in letting the world know of their deaths which some say could be in the hundreds of thousands or even millions).
“You Reap What You Sow” – A proverb that says future consequences are inevitably shaped by present actions.
On March 2, 2019 a group of Doctors from China specializing in infectious diseases published a paper “Bat Coronaviruses in China” and said, “It is generally believed that bat-borne CoVs will re-emerge to cause the next disease outbreak. In this regard, China is a likely hotspot. The challenge is to predict when and where, so that we can try our best to prevent such outbreaks.” This paper was published one year ago and yet the government of China and especially the rest of the world did not heed the warnings.
What we do know is that the first confirmed case came from Wuhan on December 8, 2019 and by the end of January, 2020 China had over 42,000 confirmed cases with over 1,100 deaths. Dr. Gabriel Leung from Hong Kong one of the world’s most famous epidemiologists and who played a major role in combatting the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003 said then 60% of the world’s population has the risk of becoming infected. We also know that China was very slow in the beginning of the outbreak and it took 3-4 weeks before they locked down the city of Wuhan population of 11 million. A week later Hubei Province population of 60 million also went under complete lock down. As the virus started to spread to other provinces China issued radical draconian measures throughout the entire country in record speed. Implementing measures of shutting down all air travel both international and domestic, mass transit, closing all stores except essential food and pharmacies. Massive amounts of testing, social distancing, contact tracing, and mass quarantining together with erecting a number of hospitals in 10 days. We all watched in amazement and yet the majority of us in Europe and especially here in the U.S quipped that it’s over there in China and will never ever effect us over here.
We couldn’t have been more wrong, in fact to go so far as we’ve never ever been right not even now as of March 31, 2020! We started seeing it spread across Asia to Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and then South Korea and we still joked and were even more positive that it was just an Asian type FLU. A Hong Kong surgeon was telling me the horror stories coming out of China as early as mid January 2020.
Many of us saw the videos that were circulating on social media and it certainly raised an eyebrow that something awful was happening in China, and also that the death rate was alarmingly way higher than they were reporting. But we will never truly know how many have died in China!
I started telling close friends 10 weeks ago that something bad is coming and to start prepping and to prepare for the worst. I tried to tell other colleagues many extremely smart academics but they told me I was being an alarmist and over reacting. One even called me a “Drama Queen”. I’ve been doing my own thorough research from the very beginning the virus emerged. I say this because there has been so much disinformation floating around on main stream media, (FOX, CNN, MSNBC) and especially social media and even organizations that we are supposed to trust with our lives like the CDC and WHO spouting incorrect information and changing their minds on a regular basis. People have no idea what to believe. For how many times I’ve heard that a cure has been found for COVID-19 it’s absolutely disgraceful. Many countries are trying and using a cocktail of different drugs like Chloroquine (immunosuppressive drug and anti-parasite) and Amoxicillin (penicillin antibiotic that is used to treat infections caused by bacteria in the lungs, sinus, throat, tonsils, and skin). There have been some varying degrees of success in slowing the infection of COVID-19 and I believe some patients have recovered. Though this has not been widely reported or verified.
Europe and the U.S had 10 weeks to prepare for this Pandemic. We didn’t prepare instead we joked about it downplaying it and still calling it the seasonal FLU. As Italy confirmed its first case on January 31, 2020 and then a cluster of cases was later detected with 16 confirmed cases in Lombardy and 60 additional cases and first death on February 22. By the beginning of March it had spread to all regions of Italy. Now one month later over 100,000 infected cases and 12,000 deaths increasing at an alarming rate. Europe became the epicenter spreading to other neighboring countries like wild fire. On March 5 the U.S confirmed it’s first case and yet we still paid it no mind. In only 26 days we now have upwards of 185,000 infected cases and 3,780 deaths climbing at an exponential rate.
The U.S administration has not paid any attention to South Korea considered the Gold Standard in combatting the spread of the virus and keeping the deaths to a very low number. Again like China with massive testing, quarantining, social distancing, contact tracing and also the use of mobile phone tracking and all these measures have helped tremendously. South Korea is a centralized democratic republic, unlike the communist party of China. But South Korea is a very disciplined and orderly society with a great health care infrastructure and system. It is run by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and is free to all citizens at the point of delivery the system is funded by a compulsory National Health Insurance Scheme that covers 97% of the population. We certainly can learn a lot from the South Korean approach and system. But will we learn? Sadly I doubt we shall.
It’s very plain to see that the present U.S Administration is still putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound. Still allowing domestic air travel, mass transit, people are still not practicing social distancing, instead gathering in parks and many states still having mass church services. Many people are still not wearing facemasks and gloves. How many have to needlessly die before they get it through their thick skulls. This is not the FLU and not SARS 2003-2004. This is a virulent disease much deadlier than the seasonal FLU. It seems even President Trump says keeping COVID-19 deaths to 100,000 would be ‘a very good job’. Well sorry to tell you Mr. Trump it’s going to get a hell of a lot worse and they’ll be way more deaths than that so you better start preparing a good supply of body bags. This virus is just getting warmed up and is just the tip of the iceberg.
In closing of today’s article I would’ve liked to have hoped that the COVID-19 pandemic might’ve changed human beings care and love of planet earth. But as expected we care very little and continue our selfish ways and only think of our own little inconsequential lives, and we wonder why things get so bad. We see it with people fighting over toilet rolls, xenophobic attacks on the Asian community, people not listening to our governments orders to stay indoors and now discarding face masks and gloves throwing them on the ground and now ending up in our seas, oceans. Have we already forgotten the virus remains on surfaces up to 9 days including face masks and gloves. We do it to ourselves and we are going to pay the ultimate price.
SELF-CENTERED HUMAN BEINGS ARE THE PLAGUE NOT COVID-19!