by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

As the main stream media and leftist politicians and religious leaders go into absolute panic mode, voices of sane individuals in the medical, scientific and statistical fields are questioning the underlying characteristics of Corona virus epidemic.

On Feb. 24, 2020, the Italian Insider published one of the first calls against the Panic Syndrome, by Dr. Gismondo, Diretor of Clinical Macrobiology, Virology and Bioemergency Diagnostics at Sacco Hopital in Milan:

However, Maria Rita Gismondo, director of Clinical Macrobiology, Virology and Bioemergency Diagnostics at the Sacco Hospital in Milan where possible coronavirus cases are analyzed, has said that many cases look more like serious flu than coronavirus. “It’s not a pandemic! Mortality from influenza is at 217 deaths per day during the past week! For Coronavirus one!!!” she wrote in a widely reported Facebook status.

Jackson Ryan, writing for Cnet, the internet magazine, on March 11, was one of the few to cite the extreme danger of labeling an infection a pandemic, citing no less than the head of the World Health Organization himself:

Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, at a press briefing.

This same WHO Director, according to Ryan, has put major doubt into the mass media reporting of 3.4% mortality rate for Corona virus infections. As I observed yesterday, from only a brief study of the data — I hold a degree in Cultural Anthropology and am trained in statistical analysis of social phenomena — when he quoted Ghebreyesus discounting the numbers:

“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a press conference on March 3. “By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.” However, experts are unconvinced, because limited testing across the world, along with the mild symptoms that many infected experience suggests there may be many people currently undiagnosed with COVID-19 and this would push the fatality rate lower. On the other hand, if deaths are under-reported, perhaps 3% is conservative. 

Moreover, it seems that COVID-19 does not even merit the fears of a pandemic. As Ryan cites:

A widely shared Twitter thread by Eric Feigl-Ding, a Harvard University epidemiologist, suggested the new coronavirus is “thermonuclear pandemic level bad” based on a metric known as the “r nought” (R0) value. This metric helps determine the basic reproduction number of an infectious disease. In the simplest terms, the value relates to how many people can be infected by one person carrying the disease. It was widely criticized before being deleted.

The criticism, however, confirms what Dr. Feighl-Ding said, as the reporter at The Atlantic reported:

First, the R0 estimates for the new coronavirus are in line with those for many other diseases. They’re similar to those for SARS (2 to 5) and HIV (also 2 to 5), and considerably lower than those for measles (12 to 16).

As we know, from HIV, the World Health Organization never declare a pandemic. There is probably a political reason, too, for HIV, because a protected political elite class is involved, but the R0 Values also tell a story.

The top experts in the Medical profession also are betraying that they are not convinced that COVID-19 is transmissable through the air, as Ryan reports:

On Feb. 29, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued a plea on Twitter for people to stop indiscriminately snapping up masks. “Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” the tweet said. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”

Jeremy Brown, writing at The Atlantic, confirms that face masks are not really helping anyone. They should be used only by those who are actually infected, as Ryan of Cnet remarks, but Brown explains why most are wearing them, in his article comparing Corona Virus with the Spanish Flu of 1918:

If the terrible influenza pandemic of 1918 and the current coronavirus outbreak share one feature, it is this: People are terribly afraid. In December 1918, in the midst of the pandemic, 1,000 public-health officials gathered in Chicago to discuss the disease which had by then killed an estimated 400,000 people over three months. They did not know the cause of the epidemic, they had no treatments, and they had little idea how to control its spread. Face masks, which were then being worn by a large portion of the general public, offered no guarantee of protection (and that remains true of face masks today). Many health officials believed that the masks provided a false sense of security. Perhaps that was correct, but there was still a value in providing any kind of security. Chicago’s health commissioner made this clear. “It is our duty,” he said, “to keep the people from fear. Worry kills more people than the epidemic. For my part, let them wear a rabbit’s foot on a gold watch chain if they want it, and if it will help them to get rid of the physiological action of fear.”

As Statisticians in the USA have widely reported, the fear mongering and fear acceptance of possible pandemic are related with the political affiliations of individuals. With a much higher level of panic among left wingers, than conservatives.

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