Now that Donald Trump Has Caught the Corona Virus, Here Are the 7 Basic Points about Covid-19 that You Need to Know

(Or: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Covid-19, But Were Afraid to Ask)

In view of the fact that Donald Trump has become, along with the president's wife, infected with the Wuhan virus (doesn't this mean that China's plan has succeeded?!), it is pertinent to do a thorough reassessment of the pandemic.

A close study of the Coronavirus — as well as of the various government responses thereto around the world since the epidemic erupted in January and February — ought to lead to the following seven main conclusions, which I consider definite:

1) The main question regarding the Coronavirus is:
A) whether we are facing one of the dreadful pandemics like the Middle Ages' Black Death, 1918's Spanish Flu, ancient Rome's Antonine Plague, or the Athens plague of 430 BC;
or: B) whether we are facing one of the regular epidemics such as the 2009, the 2002, the 1968, the 1957, and the 1889 outbreaks — which being more common seems to be the more logical explanation (and all of which happened to originate in China or Asia) — where no action was taken and which came to an end because the various countries' population ended up having immunity, precisely due to… no action being taken (in this case refraining from reacting functions almost like a vaccination, which suggests that wearing a face mask turns out to be nothing if not outright counter-productive).

Into this equation comes a bunch of people, mainly politicians and élites, who affirm that we need to act, we need to restrain, we need to mask — just to be on the safe side. 

2) The only problem with that attitude is that there is nothing pointing to the virus being anything other than one of the normal epidemics. Besides the (far from inconsequential) fact that the scary statistics we received in the beginning ("457 Spaniards have died in the past 24 hours," "The death toll in Italy has now reached 34,000," etc) happened to apply mainly to weakened seniors in clinics and retirement homes (see point 4), those news reports have totally ceased — not in the past three to four days, not in the past three to four weeks, but in the past three to four months…

3) In that perspective, do you remember the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that did not bark in the night? Fake news is usually not about stating flat-out lies, but about the medias' professional drama queens refraining from reporting a certain type of news — notably news that are… positive and inspiring. 

During the past nine months, has there been a single country, a single city in the world where a single person has seen a single (rotting?) corpse lying in the street or a single disfigured person wailing in the subway as he or she collapses to the floor, erupting in convulsions and vomiting black blood? The answer is No, correct?

4) In other words, most of the infected were/are already in hospices, and if anyone feels unwell, they can simply choose to self-quarantine (exactly as Donald and Melania have just done) or, if need be, head for a hospital (see point 6). This, incidentally, is based on the revolutionary concept that (wait for it) the average adult is actually a responsible being with little need for bureaucrats, politicians, and kings (see, say, 1776) and who can be counted on to (yes) behave with a minimum of maturity.

Speaking of which: wouldn't it be nice if élites and politicians — aka professional drama queens always on the outlook for crises, real or imagined — started treating adults like responsible adults and stopped their attempts to derail their respective economies? As far as I know, none of these knights in shining armor have made any sacrifices themselves, by, say, requesting that their salaries be lowered, if not outright canceled…

As for the main argument against my position — i.e.,  the argument of those who blindly follow every command given by authority — unless I am mistaken, it has little to do with the virus and knowledge of epidemics past or present: it seems to be based on this, and no more: that we must trust the authorities and we must follow the rules, i.e., we must trust that professional politicians and our élites know what they are doing and talking about…

5) Now the world is seeing another outbreak of Covid-19 (of which, more below), but the only news we get nowadays is "Denmark registers 76 new Corona-infected" or "1,000 new hospitalizations in France in the past seven days." And yet, these reports continue to frighten us (or, at least, the politicians) just as much as with the dreadful death tolls at the outset, in February, and they continue to create just as much mass hysteria.

Moreover, the word quarantine comes from the French (or the Italian) quarantaine, which means 40 days' internment (and not a single day more). After nine months, let it be known that there exists no such word in French as centquarantaine (140 days), or as deuxcentsoixantaine (260 days)… And in any case, quarantine has always been for sick people alone, not for healthy people…

6) Indeed, today, for the overwhelming majority of infected, catching the virus means nothing more than two or three weeks in self-imposed quarantine (as it happens, three weeks' worth of interment is just about half of the prescribed 40 days, so the quarantine itself seems historically to have been a safe side measure), just like it did for people as varied as Tom Hanks, Madonna, Silvio Berlusconi, Prince Charles, Monaco's Albert II, and Greta Thunberg (for Boris Johnson, a brief stay in a hospital). What this suggests is that the average person (or at least the average Westerner) is, again, someone who behaves responsibly and is doing exactly what he or she would do if taken ill under any normal epidemic, with any normal flu, or, really, with any disease at all — including… the common cold!

In fact, if the survival rate of the virus is close to 100%, one is entitled to ask: what is the point of all the fuss to look for a vaccine?

7) In other words, it becomes self-evident that A) the Chinese virus is not, and has never been, significantly different from one of the common epidemics and B) we are in the middle of an outbreak of either a global scam (of which, more below) or mass hysteria (if not a combination of both). 

In that perspective, the politicians and the central planners of all Western countries are hereby invited to stop with their attempts to get their respective healthy and non-infected citizens to dress up like Boba Fett or like a circus clown; and same politicians and bureaucrats are hereby summoned, without further ado, to bring their attempts to destroy their respective countries' economies to an immediate halt.

In short: Offer the elderly, and those with weak immune systems, quarantine, and break the chains of the rest of the population.

• Update: Nr. 8) Here Is the Key Question Regarding the Coronavirus

A final note about the new wave of Covid-19 — which occurred, by the oddest and by the most peculiar of coincidences, after America's Democrats and the rest of the world's alleged "health experts" abruptly made a 180º turn in May regarding face-masks, social distancing, and lock-downs (all for the citizens' safety, of course) and decided that gigantic crowds engaging in mass protests — in addition to riots, arson, looting, and statue toppling — were suddenly permissible, indeed encouraged, if only they were/are in pursuit of the fight against racism, real or alleged. (Yes, you're right, these would be the same politicians who passed rules to arrest a lone paddle boarder off the Malibu coast or who ordered police helicopters over the Vosges mountains to fine isolated hikers…)

There is a theory that the hysterical response to the Wuhan virus (as well as the 180º protests) actually is (are) little more than a more or less well-thought-out clandestine plan by the Democrats and the rest of the world's politicians — few, if any, of whom make any sacrifices themselves (aren't all of them still getting their salaries?) — to weaken the economies of the United States and of the entire West in order to defeat Donald Trump in November.

No matter how you feel, dear reader, rightly or otherwise, about Donald Trump, I ask you the following question: Is the leader of one country such a danger for America and for the world that regular folk across the planet, our fellow citizens, our neighbors, and our families must accept downturns, bankruptcies, and other means of sacrifice — in addition to riots and looting — in order to bring down said leader?

In that case, I have what I believe is a truly extraordinary suggestion to make (and I believe that this just might apply to whether you are an American citizen or the citizen of any foreign country): 

As a citizen who has never been asked (before an election or at any other time) whether I agreed to the stealth policies of our politicians (in the USA, they are called not "our leaders" but "our servants") destroying, directly or indirectly, the economy, our businesses, and our statues — and engaging in the creation of mass impoverishment among our people, our neighbors, and our families — I would suggest that the élites in America, in Denmark, and elsewhere in Europe might not only be just as dreadful as Donald Trump allegedly is, they might actually be far worse.

From the March and April archives:
• Is There 100% Irrefutable Proof that the Covid19 Pandemic Is Overstated?
• Anti-Americanism in the Age of the Coronavirus, the NBA, and 1619 

• Update: Here Is the Key Question Regarding the Coronavirus