Dear friends,
I have the painful obligation to let you know that “my eyes were bigger than my stomach” and that I am shelving the COVID19 Cafe project. Simply put, I don’t have the energy, and we don’t have the manpower. Furthermore, this might have been an ill-conceived idea to begin with, as this blog is really not a medical one.
Anyway, first I want to apologize to all those who were looking forward to this COVID19 Cafe. This is entirely my fault and I ask for your understanding and forgiveness.
Next, I will issue new, very strict, rules about COVID19 discussions on the Saker blog. I *have* to do that, because right now this is putting the entire blog under stress, including for our moderators whose task is already difficult enough.
I will make a special post about that in the next couple of days.
Kind regards to all
The Saker
wrong move. the corona section shoulda been to take the pressure off the main site…
bigger developments are happening right now…
de-dollarization is in full swing (which i predicted)
the FED is buying all dumped treasuries
all countries will use the dollars they got from selling treasuries to cover the holes due to the shutdowns
as putin said few months ago : the dollar is dead soon
this is happening now.
So far, the quality of information shared on this blog in regards to this virus is spectacular. Please allow for this sharing to stay the way it is. Thank you!
Never mind Saker, at least you were quick and the truth is, we can cope without it. I don’t know who had the idea to post that picture on the front page, it fits perfectly.
Good plan to leave this COVID19 section or SARS 2 COV as is legally defined in Ireland……
Optimistically now we have pretty much figured out all or most of what we need to do to survive this madness in the immediate future,The real and imagined after effects are probably scary for any sane human begin to contemplate,none the less we must and will.
By now all who are locked down and not panicked have had a lot lot more time to think about life and who might be behind this madness.Of course it will be blamed on incompetence and the need will arise to appoint even more agencies or none,referencing Thierry Meysann https://www.voltairenet.org/article209572.html
It is fairly predictable what may come from this given that the Fench parliament is reported to have voted down a proposed law wishing to impose mandatory download of a tracking app on all smart phone owners,even the Macronists themselves could not stomach that one,wonder why.
So here we are stranded alone or with our families .housemates and all combinations thereof,old people being left to die alone in squalor in privately run nursing homes unable to cope,fear and all feeding in to the crazy matrix,
We surely need most of all our courage and clarity to prevail now,internally,spiritually,mentally,physically and socially and this website is one of these great social spaces and not at all virtual.
Numbers loaded
Dice was thrown
Now we are alone.
I read that article you linked, thank you. The tracking was already a fact, be it from state agencies or by different business corporations, institutions etc., the purpose was almost similar. By the way, in these circumstances, I don’t think that the value of an official parlament vote has any value at all, once the state of emergency is declared, this is much more a symbolic move, willing to show some kind of normality. I cannot imagine otherwise mostly now when millions of people are closed indoors and hanging on the internet, talking, chatting on their phones, when the single possibility to have social contact remained this.
On the other hand, people are searching for information, they want to have a clue about what is happening, what are the reasons and what is the outlook in a situation which is unprecedented on such a scale in human history. The entire world has been caught with its pans down, personally I don’t even understand how, when a lot of signs were already there, in the making. Someone who followed more closely the events unfolding in the last decades, could have seen the different bubbles forming and growing but the large majority were continuing with their lives in the same way, not having the slightest interest in changing the course. The wind of change was swirling in the air waiting for the stage to be set up by the world big actors, which they did wittingly. Given the average mediocrity of players, they were taken by surprise, making now hasty decisions which only inflamed the wound.
By lack of sports events daily Corona Score Figures are presented in the news: virologist experts are appearing now like sports commentators to be interviewed by seemingly naive or pretend naive news anchors.
It all feels very childish together with inconsistent measures being taken.
I feel many commentators on this blog site would do a way better job out there and would do it for free.
Hope they can continue to speak their sharp mind maybe not in a Covid café but with perspective to the post Covid – world.
Don’t worry about the moderation of medical advice / information: out there waits the jungle steered by agro corps, big pharma that have food to make you live but way below capacity and a pill to calm your every symptom & side efect for life…
it’s each for its own to research, compare advice and everyone’s idea’s and sharing are welcome if explained well in terms of what and how it works.
I thouight I was being a flipant asshole when I would say to the wife every day, “no sports again, lets check the covid scores.” Aye, a sick bastard leprechaun I be! Glad it’s not confind in mind.
That’s the kind of sense of humour my girlfriend and I normally have, but we’re stuck in different countries because of this Covfefevirus, my income stream has mostly evaporated because my work has fallen to 10% of usual, and right now my sense of humour is under some strain. But your attitude is definitely the right one.
Like this crisis actor, sitting across from Laurence Fishburn in the 2011 movie, now the C No News medical correspondent doing his blatherings now live on air!:
MAR31
https://youtu.be/SkT0uIUSdWs?t=726
Correct decision for the correct reasons. This blog is way better on other issues and there are many others topics that need to be covered. (I think that anti-empire.com has enough stuff on the corona-debacle, not to mention Swiss Propaganda Research.) Now that the dollar seems to be in deep crisis and very much is going on simultaneously, we need The Saker to deal with the issues he wants to address.
All the best for you Saker, thanks for all you do for us!
Here’s some information about Strains of COVID-19.
Very interesting and no longer a suspicious piece of information.
https://nextstrain.org/
https://nextstrain.org/ncov
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1244750383840292870?s=20
Started doing some research for the continuation of my short biology course in the other thread, but that also involved some work. The effort is stalled . .
But I was going to say this about the graph from ‘nextstrain.org’ — the reason it appears to point to China is simply because the first place to report on the virus was the Wuhan lab. That does not necessarily mean the virus originated there. It just means it was first reported from there.
We have anecdotal evidence to suggest that it was widely dispersed in the months before the Wuhan report.
— Amerikanski
Doctors are reporting from around the world that this virus has a long presence inside humans before it “erupted” in Wuhan. It went unrecognized as a novel coronavirus, but it was seen as an “other”, “unknown”, and blissfully allowed to incubate for a long time, 5-6 months some say, even years long others say.
Maybe it leapt out of Fort Detrick in 2019. Maybe from one of many other labs playing with coronaviruses.
Whatever its true origin, Wuhan certainly was not from where it originated as COVID-19. It became epidemic in Wuhan.
One other thing, the experts have misled us about prevention and mitigation.
Germany and South Korea seemed to do best by testing as much of their ‘herds’ and then tracked and corralled the infected. Masks on everyone seems to have helped.
The US had no tests for months. And they still have not enough masks for everyone because they don’t have enough masks for the healthcare and first responders and all the logistics people.
Consider one last thing. Money for a vaccine has been starved by governments, so there is no vaccine for coronavirus. It could have been developed. David Ho, who led the HIV-Aids vaccine work needed $20 million. A pittance that Gates, Zuckerberg, or Bezos could have pitched at the project.
When the self-righteous Senators write their Sanctions and Sinophobic tariffs and blacklists, they need to be called out and shamed.They left us undefended, helpless, and are not factors in the fight against COVID-19 except to spend Trillions and create more unsustainable debt. 3 monkeys could do what our 565 bozos in Congress and Senate have done.
Couldn’t agree more —
It shines a harsh light on the sorry state of our for-profit ‘healthcare’ system. When they removed my appendix 60+ years ago, it might have been the best system in the world. At that time it was not for profit. By now, it’s a sorry collection of insurance companies, lawyers, and bureaucrats pretending to know anything about medicine.
About the articles claiming that this virus evolved organically all by itself, I think it is really some sort of ass-covering by the biotech industry. It wasn’t a weapon — even to a deranged lunatic, it makes no more sense as a weapon than lighting a match in a powder magazine. But modern technicians have been tinkering with Corona and several other virus families for decades now. Shit happens . . .
Amerikanski
You said…”It wasn’t a weapon — even to a deranged lunatic, it makes no more sense as a weapon than lighting a match in a powder magazine.”
Yes, indeed they are “deranged lunatics” as you point out… so why on earth would you think even a scrap of “sense” could be found in any of their actions.
Besides “lighting a match in a powder magazine” is their MO…this is what they do…they do this regularly and globally. They continually search out potential flashpoints and pour petrol on them.
Their mayhem creation is always accompanied by blowback and let’s not refer to unintended consequences…with these lunatics, there is no such thing.
Cheers
Col
@Lm45.
$20 million for a vaccine…..
They probably spent that much on drinks and finger food at Event 201…..
Event 201, a pandemic exercise to illustrate preparedness …
http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
Event 201. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York.
I read the other day that Bill Gates hopes to put out a subdermal chip that contains a vaccine that it releases, so they can keep track of who’s been vaccinated. I hope it is nothing but a nasty rumor.
At least with Germany I have to disagree. Even the local mayor had to wait for a test, according to my neighbor, who works there in the office. She also said that tests would be lacking.
Furthermore, a maximum of 0.5% masks are worn here. I only saw two people here. An Asian and an elderly gentleman.
Doctors also complained that they had no protection or could not buy them.
Japan started out rather lax about testing too, and some people are saying that the apparent spike in cases after the Olympics were postponed may be due to wider testing now that they don’t feel under pressure to downplay it. If you look at new cases over the past two weeks, there is a big dip last Sunday. I guess they weren’t testing very many people that day. The citizens, on the other hand, have generally been careful to take precautions, such use of face masks in public, that have been promoted on TV.
Your call as always . we do need to keep our focus and minds clear.
Here is something I wrote on my blog last night:
April Fool’s Day cancelled
Hi, everyone who reads this.
Normally on the first of April I post some kind of April Fool article, often a fairly complex one. But this time I won’t post any.
I won’t post any because nothing I could write would ever measure up to the colossal April Fool governments around the world and their corporate owners are inflicting on us with their Great Big Coronavirus Panic. This Covfefevirus is probably the biggest, most blatant con game ever played. And like victims of any other con game who resolutely refuse to believe that they’ve been tricked, most at the receiving end are determined to be True Believers till the end. They’re turning in their neighbours, they’re demanding to be imprisoned even further, they’re even more afraid than they’re asked to be.
I couldn’t top that if I tried. Nobody could. The lunacy on display makes April Fool impossible to pull off, and I suggest we just rename April Fool’s Day this year as Moronavirus Day.
So if I write and post anything tomorrow you can be certain that it’s meant to be serious.
Sorry about that.
Dang! That means I can’t share the best one I heard, that Amazon is selling toilet paper with the categories of “new” and “used.” (Apparently true though.)
Exactly all you got to do is a normal ‘cafe’ free-comment about once a week, so they float, and just like the software you have now for the cafe, nothing changes, you just call it the cafe.
Need to have a place to talk about the virus, as it does effect the real world, and the MILitary world ( that you would prefer to talk about )
The problem of course is the virus is not a MIL-WEAPON, its cultivated virus that was test-released in USA probably SEP-2019, released in Wuhan Oct-2019, and in Italy & Iran in Nov-2019; The rest nature did take care of.
I think in near time the ‘VIRUS BS” will blow away, these things always do, but we can’t discuss the “elephant” without understanding the virus.
It’s like the six-blind indian truth seeking men, one of the leg says its a tree, the one with the ear says its a fan, all are partially right, none are totally right; Saker you say you seek the truth, you need to have a forum for the ‘full picture’
The Virus has destroyed
1.) Chinese Euro making machine in Italy, Chinese Owned factory’s for 30+ years in North-Central have been destroyed. This means no more Euro’s for China, which is how they pay the Iranians for oil, in euros
2.) Iran has been destroyed, the main supplier of oil to China
3.) Wuhan-Hubei has been destroyed, the Great Chicago of China, the hub, that main source of USD for China has been destroyed.
God works in strange way’s as he only kills the enemy’s of Israel. In the meantime Israel is safe from the ‘virus’, so are the great Chinese city’s of Africa.
….
Not talking about the virus doesn’t mean the problem will go away, doesn’t mean the problem will go away, or the trolls will go away, they’re here now, they have been led here by ZH, which promotes your posts, so the Trolls follow the links back to the mother post. Just because you quit the virus discussion doesn’t mean these trolls are gone, they’re here to stay sadly.
This virus is like the Dracula that will drive a stake through the heart of the US-Economy which is dependent upon cheap Chinese crap. This Virus will show the world that the USA is a paper-tiger.
This virus is an act of War, but yes its not a BIO-WEAPON, its a means to and end. To destroy freedom, and track everybody and control their spending, and consumption.
“Google is NSA” – Putin
Remember that Google is also Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter.
“When everything the American People believe is a lie, are job will be done” – Casey CIA Director
When everything the world believes is a lie, the NWO will arrive. ( Its almost here courtesy of the virus )
Blocking discussion of the ‘effects of the virus’ only enables Zionism.
It seems to me like blocking discussion about 9-11 in October 2001.
I don’t come to Saker for information on specific things. I come for general solid information on everything. In fact, I have posted, emailed and distributed the “Debunking Clickbaits” Joe Rogan video thread to many, many people, telling them the 100+ comments are the best thing on the internet for rational, sober, thoughtful discussions on both sides of the argument for whether/from where it is a bioweapon.
Why deny this to the thoughtful people of the world?
Count how many articles Saker has posted on the topic.
There will be more as the crisis continues.
Really? There is a lot here, but why do I come here? To hear some reasonable analysis of Russia.
Yes, thoughtful analysis of Russia is a great reason to be here. The Saker and others are just about the only voice in the U.S. with a sober, rational analysis. But that same trusted analysis is needed for views regarding the U.S., China, the economy, the globalists, freedom of religion, etc. etc. etc. I see the Saker site as a trusted voice across the board, not a specialist voice on one subject. Such a trusted voice is sorely needed in this age.
It also reminds me of Fukushima.
We had nuclear ‘experts’ telling us there might be a tiny leak, but they’d have it all straightened out in a couple weeks, patch up those reactors and be good to go! Their essays would be laced with jargon and reassuring language that radiation is actually good for you. . .
Meantime there were videos around showing massive explosions blasting the tops off the buildings, and apparently the lid of one of the pressure vessels flying 1000 feet in the air. And radiation levels that not only prevented people from going in, they were lethal to robots after a few minutes’ exposure.
On other end of the spectrum we had some folks saying it was the end of humanity, because eleven atoms of radioactive cesium had been detected in the seawater off of Hawaii. The number of calm, knowledgeable experts on the subject could be counted on one hand, with fingers to spare.
I posted a long comment to the previous article, an attempt to unpack some of the jargon from the biotech guys. I sort-of understand some of it … comment ran long and rambling, and I realized I needed more research, so broke off with (continued). By now, I’m glad the Saker deleted that whole thread.
Bottom line, after reading more articles in Nature PubMed, NIH, etc., I am convinced that this virus was probably touched by a lab at some point in time. But I cannot fully rule out a natural origin — there are certainly some historical precedents for microbial plagues. The Nature article, the one that all the ‘news’ media point to and declare it was not from a lab, acknowledges in one of its concluding paragraphs that it could have been from a lab.
Which lab, or under what circumstances it escaped, we shall probably never know.
Interesting stuff on COVID-19
http://www.preearth.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1184
Dear Saker, my very respected boss and also my dear friend,
A simple open thread, refreshed to a new one if it gets cluttered, no muss no fuss, no technology required, with a few guidelines to filter the nonsense, will do the trick for us. We cannot take the health issues from the virus, but we can ask people to follow simple guidelines on medical issues – We have medicos of different stripes among our commenting population. It presents a health issue, but it is also a political and economic issue – probably the biggest one of our times. We cannot drown out the world on this issue, as for many of us, it is our world right now. As we cannot take the ‘geo’ out of geopolitics, so we cannot take the ‘health’ part out of this virus. We cannot ‘rule’ and ‘legislate’ it to death – it won’t die for rules and legislation.
We can bring a balance, so that the important geopolitical and economic moves in the background get the required attention.
The writing from Gary Littlejohn today on the oil prices illustrates – it is one of those background happenings that is very important. And we have it front and center. /oil-price-rises-after-trump-phones-putin/
This is what we do. This is what you do, sift the wheat from the chaff.
We are doing the right things. We just have to structure a very little bit and knock some sense into some babble heads.
amarynth
Your committed supporter
Your fearless and tireless (grins) worker, warrior and friend
Your assistant and general saker support catch-all.
(I also whine at those that are out of control and usually they stick to the program after I knock heads).
Putin has allegedly been exposed to the virus:
https://twitter.com/NorbertElekes/status/1245055308638142464
Do not worry about Mr. Putin’s health. He has many friends in the martial arts community who are totally
aware of this virus, its nature and how to “Harden” oneself against its ravages. And the ones I have seen
are totally prepared for the next wave or two.
And, yes, it is a bio weapon and the only reason I keep insisting on it is because of the concept of “gain of function” the exploration of which in this case is most necessary for learning how to combat its various manifestations. It is a bio weapon because it came from a bio weapon research lab. Evidently the Chinese have re opened their wet markets so even they know it is a bio weapon.
Use the right term to know the right path to reach the right goal. A rose by any other name is a rose, but call it an orange, and you might get pierced.
Ok.
This blog is very important, and Bring quality information, i wait more information over geopolitics, special over the changing of de axis the power in the world.
Thank your.
It’s a little hotter topic than most first allowed themselves to believe. I apologize to you if any of my comments caused unnecessary problems, truly.
I agree with whatever decision you come to, and thank you for this venue of genuine human communication.
Peace be upon you and your loved ones.
I am sad it is cancelled but its OK and I understand the reasons.
Wish everyone good day or night and good health
The Event 201 scenario (New York, October 2019)
Event 201 simulates an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic.
The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms.
The disease starts in pig farms in Brazil, quietly and slowly at first, but then it starts to spread more rapidly in healthcare settings. When it starts to spread efficiently from person to person in the low-income, densely packed neighborhoods of some of the megacities in South America, the epidemic explodes.
It is first exported by air travel to Portugal, the United States, and China and then to many other countries.
Although at first some countries are able to control it, it continues to spread and be reintroduced, and eventually no country can maintain control.
There is no possibility of a vaccine being available in the first year. There is a fictional antiviral drug that can help the sick but not significantly limit spread of the disease.
Since the whole human population is susceptible, during the initial months of the pandemic, the cumulative number of cases increases exponentially, doubling every week.
And as the cases and deaths accumulate, the economic and societal consequences become increasingly severe.
The scenario ends at the 18-month point, with 65 million deaths. The pandemic is beginning to slow due to the decreasing number of susceptible people.
The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed.
From that point on, it is likely to be an endemic childhood disease.
So here we are, April 2020.
How close to the 201 “tabletop” theoretical scenario are we?
Like: are corona-chan cases doubling every few days?
Do reports say people seem to recover, and then it returns?
Is the virus highly communicable?
Surely it makes ya all go “hmmmmmm?” ?
Go all the way, no comments regarding the Corona Virus. With any luck in a few weeks it will all be over. Well, except for the incredible damage done to the World economy.
I have been a quite admirer of this site and most of your analysis, Saker. I don’t necessarily subscribe to any particular theory but can’t really make head or tail of your reactions to and the manner you sought to handle discussions about the pandemic.
Pushkina,
There are several groups of contrary viewpoints here.
Some think it was bioengineered and used as a weapon against China.
Some think it was China who accidentally allowed it out of the bio-lab in Wuhan.
Some think it developed naturally.
Some think it was spread to the globe because the Chinese didn’t report soon enough, didn’t include asymptomatic people in the total infected.
Saker took a position from the start that it was not a bioweapon.
Because this subject has very few proven, scientific facts to nail down an intelligent POV regarding its origin and spread, a thousand voices have spoken. It’s like talking about life in a distant galaxy.
People got heated with their arguments for their POV and against others’ POV.
The rational position is to wait and see what real proven science produces over the coming months.
Good explanation of the situation, Larchmonter. Lots of heated rants; too few solid data.
A comment from an Asst. Professor at Washington State University:
“Modest COVID proposal: Every time a techie writes a Medium post modeling the epidemic, they must agree to let a random epidemiologist run their company for a month, as the skillsets are clearly perfectly transferrable.”
https://twitter.com/GermsAndNumbers/status/1245310287919513603
This is a difficult thing to corral, all this COVID speculating.
There is more and more confirmation that it was bio engineered. The”bios” of the virus has been radically distorted in a way that could not happen or survive naturally according to molecular biologist.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6XTHiuGi_fA&feature=emb_logo
But to be honest i see it as the first shot. Its just the begining.
However much I hate to say it, I think it is a smart move to limit discussion of this here for the time being. An acquaintance in America recently put out a newsletter in which she gave some advice for helping to stay healthy, and it looked sound to me: well-used strategies with considerable research to back them up, generally regarded as safe, such as increasing vitamin C intake. A couple hours later, here comes another e-mail from her retracting it due to “seeing the light” from more informed persons, and giving a Snopes link. I took it as a signal of distress.
I haven’t seen any other clear signs of bullying of dissidents, but I don’t use any of the social networking services and am busy with volunteer work as a translator now, not to mention going on long hikes to keep myself healthy. This morning I got a very long, well-considered article from another friend, who had had to be persuaded to publish it (see it here: https://theemfguy.com/blog/coronavirus/ ) and I will tell you if he gets significant pushback. He says in essence that we are only being given one side of the debate and that a long list of experts have the opinion that COVID-19 is being grossly exaggerated by the press.
This is one great big gigantic hot potato. Don’t wade into it (I just love mixing metaphors) if you don’t feel confident. Plenty of expert chefs with their lives on the line in this kitchen.
I’ll put in a prayer for you, and in group prayer will silently add “The Saker.” The Divine spirits will know who you are. God bless you!