I see that there is a whole new section for the Corona virus on Avalon.
I see that there is a whole new section for the Corona virus on Avalon.
Last edited by Wind, 3rd April 2020 at 22:11.
Aragorn (4th April 2020), Chris (4th April 2020), Dreamtimer (4th April 2020), Emil El Zapato (3rd April 2020)
Well, part of it is undoubtedly also due to the poor education system in the United States, which mainly serves as a propaganda machine for American Exceptionalism. US Americans have a very insular culture, and if you add the anti-communist (and thus pro-capitalist, pro-fascist) indoctrination to that, in combination with the fact that the predominant level of education in the southern states is very low, then what you get is a very dumbed-down population ─ politically polarized between corporate globalism and corporate nationalism, but nevertheless all unconditionally corporate and unconditionally believing in the supremacy of their country over all other nations and cultures. It is the primarily secular equivalent of fundamentalist Islam ─ and I write "primarily secular", because the southern states also add their own touch of Christian fundamentalism into that already very dangerous mix.
As for the worst of the pandemic, China has had its peak already, and Italy and Spain are currently experiencing that peak because they were so late in responding. The rest of Europe ─ which has responded in time ─ is expecting the peak now in this first week of April, and preliminary figures seem to indicate that it's on the turn now, although it's a slow turn, and there are still hundreds of new infections being diagnosed every day, and still thousands of people in intensive care. But the lockdowns are paying off, and the curve is flattening out ─ very carefully and mildly, as it may.
The big problem however is the United States, where Trump has been as incompetent as any US president could ever possibly be. He's just winging it, and any tempering of his negationism has come from the influence of his slightly more informed entourage, who were urging him to take certain measures that he would otherwise never have taken if left to his own device. After all, it's an election year, and he is adamant to get re-elected ─ which he most likely will be anyway, because the propaganda machine of the far-right has been working overtime, and to a far greater degree even than under Bush Jr. And thus, with the elections in mind, he's listening to his advisers, but it's still way too late. He's sacrificing his "fellow Americans" for the sake of his own grandiose ambitions.
Either way, the United States is now the global epicenter, and from there it could easily spread to the rest of the world again if travel restrictions are not respected. But the problem is that Trump only respects travel restrictions on account of people flying into the United States, not on account of US Americans taking a flight out of the United States. After all, he only cares about what happens on the American island, not about what happens in the rest of the world.
There is however yet another aspect to this whole thing, the gravity of which still remains to be seen, but personally, I do find it worrisome. The thing is that over in China, many people are being tested as positive again, but without that they show any symptoms of the disease. These can be both newly infected people as well as previously infected people who have suffered through the symptoms but who've recovered in the meantime, and who should thus in theory have completely vacated the virus from their bodies. But apparently that did not happen.
So this could mean any or all of the following...
- Certain people may have a natural immunity to the effects of the virus, but not to getting infected with the virus, so that they become unwitting carriers.
- Even though people have recovered from the symptoms of the virus ─ which means that their bodies will have managed to build up an immunity ─ the virus still remains dormant in their bodies for much longer than anticipated, and is using these people as carriers, just as with the bullet point here-above.
- Following the bullet point here-above, the virus may actually have mutated into a (symptom-wise) harmless or possibly dormant form ─ as opposed to that the antibodies of the recovered human beings would have killed the virus ─ and as such, it is still propagating itself via the human species. (Note: Dogs can carry and propagate the virus but won't suffer any illness from it. Cats on the other hand are just as susceptible to the symptoms as humans. A Belgian domesticated cat was found to carry the virus, and it was ill for a number of days, with both respiratory and metabolism problems.)
- Given that coronaviruses in general ─ which includes the common cold ─ are commonly seasonal, a new outbreak could and should be expected later this year, when temperatures in the northern hemisphere start dropping again.
In any case, what the above means is that over time, each and every human being could become a carrier for this particular coronavirus without that we're even aware of it ─ just as we're already carrying lots of other microorganisms in our bodies right now ─ and given the devastating effects of this virus, we could all end up as ticking time bombs toward our fellow human beings. And that would of course be the ultimate naturally-born biological weapon against the human species.
I do not believe that SARS-CoV-2 would be a man-made biological weapon, but rather that nature itself created this particular virus as a weapon for bringing about a near-extinction-level event, given how humanity has been behaving itself like a plague upon the planet for about two centuries already. Nature as a whole is clearly a sentient/sapient entity ─ a kind of group consciousness.
= DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =
Chris (4th April 2020), Dreamtimer (4th April 2020), Emil El Zapato (5th April 2020), Wind (4th April 2020)