Over the last ten days, I have been watching and reading the news from the US on the coronavirus spike of late, trying to find any sensible pattern or reasoning behind it. Since I live in Moscow, where we are down to a daily reported new infection rate in the 500’s to 600’s, life has largely returned to normal, but the news from the United States appears to scream of a “second wave” that will be far worse than the first one. It is logical to assume that if such a second wave took place in one land, it would do so elsewhere, and Russia is still Number Four in leading numbers of cases in the world. But the news is so inconsistent that it is honestly impossible to predict what will happen. Not only that, it is impossible to get a good idea of what created the spike in the US. To put it succinctly, the one thing that we know about this pandemic is that we do NOT know anything about it. With all the scientific resources thrown at it, this is truly astounding and, honestly, it is humbling.
Predictions people got wrong since this started are numerous.
Let’s go through a perfunctory list of all the claims we were told were facts that turned out to be incorrect about COVID-19 and its parent virus SARS-CoV-2.
- The virus is not highly contagious.
- The virus is confined to China and a very few Americans who were exposed to it.
- It will not spread through the US.
- Masks do not help. Do not wear them (Dr Fauci).
- Masks are required. We must wear them as much as possible (Dr. Fauci).
- Going to Church and singing in Church is deadly. Don’t do it. In fact, don’t receive Holy Communion. (Dr. Fauci)
- Race rioting is necessary and sanctioned by 1,000 medical professionals, and it is worth the risk if people social distance.
- We will have as many as two million deaths in the US (Trump)
- We beat the virus, we will stay below 60,000 (Trump)
- The spike in the virus is due to border crossings
- The spike in the virus is due to the riots
- Masks do not help
- Coughing expels no virus – people sick with COVID-19 (See video below)
- Businesses and restaurants can open but Churches must be at 25% (amalgamation in the US)
- Holy Communion is dangerous (Greek Community of Toronto, covered here)
- Kids are generally not susceptible to COVID-19 so schools must open.
- Some kids died, so COVID-19 is super dangerous and schools must be closed.
- The virus is from the Andromeda galaxy, not from China.
- The virus is Bill Gates’ personal servant to enslave us all with birth-cancelling vaccinations and DNA overwriting with “custom” genes. Therefore we will all either become supermen and superwomen, or we will enter upon the Zombie Apocalypse.
Okay, so the last two I just made up or derived from super crazy conspiracy theory guesses.
But the consistency of almost diametric contradiction does tell us something. I believe that it tells us that we do not know anything about the virus. What is more is that it says that the news media is using this story to pump its own business (as am I, to tell the truth), and as such the COVID story creates a great deal of buzz. It is a great success story for the media.
I also believe it shows Dr Anthony Fauci’s utter incompetence (at best) and political and policy manipulation (at worst, especially if this story is true). He has shown himself to be a good politician, because he lies. Period.
However, it is a terrible distraction for all people everywhere. From what I observe, it appears that the biggest effect the virus has had on Americans is to tip them past a psychological “breaking point” and now we have these awful riots and manifestations of truly brutal, godless and vile behavior from leftists.
That is awful to watch but it is also useful. Now the nature of such people is revealed. Even the Democrat Presidential candidate sounds like he might be accepting membership to Black Lives Matter at any point. It also reveals the nature of the great many Americans who may have widely varying political and social views, but who have retained their sanity enough to know that this violence is deadlier than its “causes”, and that law and order must be preserved and strengthened in the country.
Here in Russia by contrast, there is no virus rioting. We hope for the best, but do not trust our news media much. Nevertheless, with the reopening of businesses life seems to be returning to normal and the number of new cases is reportedly dropping gradually. Church is fully open as normal, after a period of complicity with the secular authorities.
Perhaps one difference here is that the Coronavirus cannot be tied to Putin either for a sign of his failure or success. Nor can this be done with the Mayor of Moscow, the city hardest hit by the virus. The measures were painful but they appear to be sensible, and we do not see Russians going out and burning things down in anger. We were all not happy with the quarantine. We prayed and did what we could and some fared better than others, but overall, things seem to be reasonably peaceful.
In light of all the contradictions, I have made my own set of predictions to people privately about what is to come, but predictions are not very useful in a situation like this, so I may be wrong. The only thing to really come to understand is that we do not understand, and the amazing truth is that an invisible fragment of RNA is now being treated like it is the Ultimate Power on Earth. It has certainly humbled ALL the experts, both scientific and political. It has become the policy setting lynchpin for many places and people all around the world. I think that power is wrongly attributed, and I glad to see great numbers of people beginning to realize this error, in the US, certainly here in Russia, and everywhere else.