Coronavirus Conspiracies Part 1: Is It Really That Bad?
Coronaspiracies? Covidacies? Chinavirusies?
Why even bother looking into Coronavirus conspiracies? Why not just accept the official narrative on the cause and effect of the pandemic, and focus our energies on how to best navigate this new social and individual reality that we all must face?
I’ve already made my thoughts clear on accepting official narratives without our own independent investigation: in short, it is a terrible idea, with 9/11 as the most glaring example of this.
But let’s leave that aside. Let’s look at the principle of it. We should do it because looking into conspiracies is a form of intellectual protest.
We are constantly infantilised by our intellectual superiors, who think they need to protect us from these dastardly fringe theories for our own good, in case we might be stupid enough to believe them. Fact checkers are given infallible-like authority to determine fact from fake news, giving cover for online giants like Facebook and YouTube to censor and remove information at their own will. People who have worked hard to build loyal fan bases and make a living off these platforms are de-monetised with no warning and little explanation or grounds for appeal.
Yes there is misleading information out there, and yes we need to always show discernment in what information we take seriously. But that’s not what this is about. This is a systematised and deliberate conditioning of a fear of taboo information, and fear of our own inability to discern truth from BS. This is a central part of the conspiracy against conspiracy theories, and i’m calling BS on that. And there is no better time than now for you to do the same.
I have found that investigating conspiracy is good for your spirituality. It is good for your humility, if you happen to find out that the propagators of these wild theories may actually not be as crazy as you assumed. It is good for your compassion, as you learn how other people think, even if you still end up disagreeing with them. It is good for your brain, as long as you have your brain (and your heart) turned on, because you will almost certainly learn something that you didn’t know before.
Rather than just accepting mainstream narratives, this pandemic gives us an opportunity to do our own research on important issues: not just on the virus in question, but also China and their human rights abusing Government (to go with the United States and their human right abusing Government); on the nature of viruses, as well as our own health and immune systems; on the ease by which supposedly objective scientific information can be manipulated and then misused by elite institutions; and on incredibly divisive issues like 5G and vaccines.
I liked to think I was already fairly woke before this (hey, don’t we all though!), but I have now had my eyes opened to a range of new perspectives on each of these issues.
So it is in that spirit that I share the digging I have done into this still transforming and deepening wombat hole.
Is It Really That Bad?
Before I get in too deep and lose all credibility, let’s start with a theory that should be palatable with and bring optimism to everyone: the Corona/COVID-19 virus (I’m just gonna go with CV) was and is not as bad as we were conditioned to believe.
Now, a few necessary clarifications up front, which shouldn’t really be necessary but, given the state of black or white discourse that largely exists on CV at the moment, probably is. Saying it’s not that bad doesn’t mean that it isn’t still something to take seriously. It doesn’t mean we should all go back to our normal lives straight away and blindly embrace herd immunity. It doesn’t mean we were systematically lied to across all levels of Government, Media and the Medical Establishment. And, just to be very clear, it doesn’t mean the virus doesn’t exist, that people aren’t dying, and that the risk being taken by frontline workers isn’t real. It simply means it wasn’t as bad as it was originally made out to be, and in many circles still is being made out to be. That’s it.
From a conspiratorial point of view, this is a reasonable place to dip our toes in, because there is a fair bit of solid evidence to support this conclusion. In fact, my friends and family know that I have been going pretty hard on this one. While some countries and locations certainly appear to have been hit much harder than others, for the most part the virus doesn’t appear to have had the impact that was originally predicted and planned for.
One can arrive at this conclusion based not on speculation and ideology but official statistics and emerging research into the virus. It is not always easy to find, not least because Google is very effective at hiding problematic information when it chooses to, however it is out there. A good starting point is aggregating sites such as this one.
The necessary disclaimer here is that the numbers underlying all of these argument are still incomplete and evolving. For example, according to the CDC the lag for accurate information on the cause of a death can be 1 to 8 weeks. Nonetheless, given that the CDC and others are widely extrapolating these incomplete numbers and using them as the basis for how we should be responding, it seems fair enough for people to do their own counter analyses using these same numbers.
Mortality Rate
Just how deadly is CV, in terms of the proportion of people who die after becoming infected? This seems like the most important factor when considering whether our reaction to the virus has been proportionate.
Despite early predictions that the mortality rate was in the range of upwards of 3% (still well short of SARS/MERS territory thankfully), data from the best studied countries now indicates likely lethality rates between 0.1% and 0.4%. Essentially, CV is considerably more infectious than originally thought (see studies here and here) meaning it is much more wide spread in the population than we thought. Taking into account these extra numbers of low or asymptomatic carriers brings down the mortality rate significantly. You can find a good summary of some of the most recent research on CV in this interview.
This low mortality rate has clearly been known by those in the know for a while. On the 19th of March the UK Government (largely unnoticed) downgraded CV from a ‘high consequence infectious disease’, due primarily to the available information pointing to a low overall mortality rate.
Even before this however, a paper was published on the 28th of February in the New England Journal of Medicine, whose lead author was none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has essentially become the CV spokesman of the US medical establishment. Noting the likely high asymptomatic spread of the virus that has lead to high numbers of un-reported cases, the paper also suggests the fatality rate to be “considerably less than 1%”. Most importantly, the paper even goes as far as saying that “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza”.
Straight from the horse’s mouth! Who would have thought Fauci would be one of those crazy people trying to compare CV to the flu?
Cause of Death
Then there is total amount of deaths attributed to CV, which (along with infection rates) is the crucial variable in determining the overall mortality rate of the virus.
There are numerous claims emerging that the total number of deaths recorded as being directly from CV is being inflated. The suggestion is that doctors and hospitals have been told by the CDC and various other agencies to classify any death for someone who has tested positive to CV as dying from CV, regardless of other conditions they have had. You can find discussions of CV death numbers that I found really helpful here and here.
The CDC, for their part, is clear on their website that ‘probable’ CV deaths are being recorded alongside confirmed CV deaths, with probable being defined in very vague terms. Some fudging of the numbers was also straight up admitted recently by the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health.
You may even have heard of a notorious video by a Dr. Erickson and Dr. Massihi, which was deleted by Youtube after 5 million views: another spectacular own goal for a company whose trademark is already fast becoming ideological censorship (you can find a follow up interview with one of the doctors here). The Doctors for the most part were simply making the same claims as those above about overall infection rates and mortality rates. They appear to have earned the ire of the establishment and the rapture of the fringes, however, when they decided to go the extra step of calling for the reopening of the economy (read the comments for the video to get a sense of the level of support for this opinion that is out there).
A similar argument is also made here by a doctor from The Bronx in New York City, which is notable given this is essentially ground zero for the virus across the whole world right now. You can also find arguments that the consequences of the lockdowns are outweighing the benefits here, here and here.
The Role of the Flu
Another theme emerging from this picture is that mortality rates are varying significantly from location to location. While this seems to be the biggest mystery of the nature of CV so far, it would seem likely that the impact of CV is strongly determined by the environment and existing health risk factors that are present in any single location.
The main risk factor at play seems to be other viruses or respiratory conditions, most notably the good ol’ flu. This is probably something that has been under-appreciated by many (including me) who tend to downplay this pesky virus as something to just ‘push through’: the flu is extremely dangerous for many parts of the population. Two years ago, it was estimated by the CDC that over 60,000 people died from the flu in peak season in the United States.
Given that the peak of the outbreak in the northern hemisphere occurred during normal flu season, and given the general similarity in symptoms, it is likely that many deaths from the flu and related respiratory illnesses like pneumonia were attributed to CV simply because of a positive CV test. This is why many are starting to compare the severity of this outbreak based on total mortality rates of previous flu seasons.
In the UK, the death rate is certainly high, but is not out of range of the strongest flu seasons. This same page also suggests that the UK is faring worse after their lockdown than Sweden, which is acting as the canary in the CV coalmine given the ‘cajones’ they showed in refusing to lockdown. That overall deaths from flu-like illnesses across the whole flu season is comparable (albeit at the high end) to previous severe flu seasons seems to be a general pattern across many other European nations.
This would give some context (and a slightly ominous warning) to mortality rates from sunny southern hemisphere countries like Australia and New Zealand, particularly as we bask in a not so subtle smugness about how much better we are doing than other places despite flu season waiting just around the corner.
Air Pollution
Another significant CV risk factor, which itself is almost certainly linked to rates of death from influenza and pneumonia as well, is air pollution. The Guardian, which has been at the forefront of driving a fear-driven narrative around CV, recently put together a summary of the various studies linking air pollution to CV deaths.
In China, researchers had already declared pneumonia to be rising to epidemic proportions in many developed cities before CV became a thing. It is likely that many of the deaths attributed to CV were continuations of this epidemic caused in large part by the deteriorating air quality in major Chinese cities (not to mention incredibly high rates of smoking in China, upwards of 40% of male adults!). Similar arguments have been made about other hotspots such as Northern Italy and Iran.
The case of Italy is interesting, not just because of their poor air quality, but because of the demographics of those who have died. It is now well known that the vast majority of these deaths were from elderly individuals, almost 90% being over the age of 70. Further analyses of these individuals found that only 12% of deaths could be shown to have been caused directly from CV, while the other 88% had at least one ‘pre-morbidity’, with many having 2 or 3. Thus, while CV may still have contributed to their deaths, the high morbidity rate was primarily due to the prevalence of underlying health conditions in areas of Italy hit hardest.
Hospital Overload
Given the early chaos in places like China and Iran, it is appropriate and not surprising that hospitals and other medical facilities in the West adopted somewhat of a war-time footing to prepare for a seemingly inevitable incoming mass of infectious people.
This summary highlights that serious overloads of hospitals during peak flu season was already common before the pandemic. While a CV-exacerbation of this situation certainly seems to have occurred in many places (although, again, not in places like Australia living outside of flu season), there have also been reports from many countries of hospitals, intensive care units and clinics put aside for large influxes of patients left unused. This again would lead to the conclusion that the rate of serious illness caused by CV is not as bad as anticipated in most locations, but that certain hotspots are emerging that are being catalysed by other underlying causes.
With efforts like this, the media have also not helped in fuelling conspiracies that the perception of overrun hospitals is a myth.
It is also worth mentioning the impact that such a total focus on CV might be having on other non-CV illnesses. There are estimates from various outlets that many people are likely dying at home from completely unrelated illnesses like heart attacks and strokes due to a reluctance or inability to use the health system. This alternative ‘second wave’ may prove to be more fatal than the virus itself in many places, and could be largely avoidable if hospitals aren’t in fact as busy as people are being lead to believe.
I’m Done
So there you go. A snapshot of some of the arguments out there that run counter to the conventional narrative about the severity of CV and the response that is proportional to it. There are still many question marks — it really is confusing and slightly unnerving how certain areas appear to be getting hammered while others are not — but I am for the most part convinced.
If you were also to come to the conclusion that CV is not in fact been as bad as you thought, you would still have a choice to make about whether you believe this is actually a ‘conspiracy’ or not, as there are reasonable explanations that are not nefarious in nature.
Firstly, people freaked out. This is fair enough — or at least not surprising. We have movies like Contagion that live in our collective consciousness as a blue print for how bad a virus outbreak can be and how we should react to it. We have hopefully well meaning Governments and authorities who consistently erred on the side of caution and overreaction when faced with a rapidly evolving and confusing situation. We have a mainstream media that relies on sensationalising events in order to receive the clicks that keep them clinging to economic viability as old profit models collapse. Plus, we still don’t know what actually happened in China to start all of this — how the virus was released and how bad it actually was on the ground in Wuhan — because we probably shouldn’t believe a word that comes from their Chinese Communist Party Government.
So yes, we can excuse and expect somewhat of an overreaction. We can also argue that social distancing and other preventative measures were implemented so effectively as to lessen the severity of the situation to some extent. But that shouldn’t excuse our own critical thinking about what is really going on, for as long as this state of affairs continues — particularly in countries like the US and the UK where lockdown measures are hitting hard.
These are questions that I have been asking myself, which you might also find relevant as you seek to better understand this situation for yourself:
Why have we locked down the majority of the developed world and been forced to relinquish fundamental liberties by an event that even the man in charge of the narrative — Dr. Fauci — admitted was likely going to have the impact of a severe influenza outbreak?
Should these lockdowns that are putting millions of people out of work and dependent on the Government to survive still be in place when they have lead to increased cases and deaths from depression, domestic violence and other untreated illnesses that could be outnumbering deaths from CV in many places?
Why are people like Bill Gates, who we hold up as a figure of moral authority, seemingly using the situation to advance a personal agenda by trying to tell us we need to remain in lockdown for up to 18 months until a vaccine can be introduced as mandatory?
Why is mainstream media consistently and uniformly avoiding important conversations — for example shutting down debate of any potential experimental treatment, whilst completely ignoring potential natural treatments, whilst being almost completely silent on reinforcing that good health through diet, exercise and sunlight is the only true way to beat any virus — that might provide an alternative to the lockdown >> mandatory vaccine endgame?
For what it is worth, it is my opinion the we have every right to be inherently suspicious of elite governing institutions manipulating any event to give themselves a greater amount of power and control over us. And there is now enough discrepancy between the real pandemic and the perceived pandemic to indicate that these people are not currently missing the chance to — as the saying goes — let a good crisis go to waste.
9/11 is often called the defining red-pill moment of this century: an event whose officially-peddled narrative is so obviously detached from what actually happened that it reveals to an entire generation of people that they are being sold a false reality. If we use wisely all this extra time we have (essential service workers excepted), the awakening that results from this CV pandemic could well give 9/11 a run for its money.