Jeffrey Tucker of Brownstone Institute has identified the key WHO “edict” that led to four years of Covid madness.
In an essay for the Epoch Times, Tucker notes that draconian lockdowns were imposed on virtually all people of the world after the World Health Organization showered praise on Chinese officials for ordering lockdowns to “interrupt virus spread.”
The predicate accepted by all key public health and government officials – that lockdowns slow or stop virus spread and thus prevent Covid deaths – was never challenged and was indeed embraced as “settled science” (although public health officials had never before locked down billions of people at the same time.)
In a nutshell, the “China solution” to fighting Covid became THE solution every nation must … and did implement.
To me, a key alleged “fact” is that China (a nation of one billion people) recorded very few “Covid deaths” after it ordered its citizens to stay inside their apartments. Thus, if every other nation wanted to avoid massive numbers of Covid deaths, they should emulate China.
By now, every sane person should know the horrific consequences this edict produced. I believe I’m one of the few commentators who notes the entire scientific premise would be bogus and moot if, in fact, this “novel” virus had already been spreading for months before these lockdowns.
I’ll come back to the nonsensical or never-considered points of illogic later, but first I’ll reprint a few of Jeffrey’s excellent points. Writes Tucker (emphasis added):
Jeffrey Tucker’s Excellent Points …
“Three years ago, our social, economic, political, and cultural institutions were shattered by a central decree. The key edict came from the World Health Organization (WHO). The date was Jan. 30, 2020. The WHO was thrilled with how China was responding to the virus by shattering the lives of its citizens. It told the entire world of the CCP’s miracle cure!
“The WHO, said an official communique, “believes that it is still possible to interrupt virus spread, provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk.”
“The entire world, wrote the WHO, should embrace a “spirit of support and appreciation for China … and the actions China has taken on the front lines of this outbreak, with transparency, and, it is to be hoped, with success.” Cheers to China, said the WHO, because it is “setting a new standard.”
“And so the CCP welded doors of apartments shut and an entire city was turned into a prison in the name of virus control. Suicides and despair followed, along with population-wide terror. A month later, the government proclaimed that it had beat the virus.
“The WHO was thrilled, and so it set up a special junket for health officials from the United States, Europe, and the UK. This took place Feb. 16–24, 2020. The chartered flight to see the glories of the CCP miracle included Anthony Fauci’s deputy assistant. The report came in with nothing but rave reviews.
“At the individual level, the Chinese people have reacted to this outbreak with courage and conviction. They have accepted and adhered to the starkest of containment measures — whether the suspension of public gatherings, the month-long ‘stay at home’ advisories or prohibitions on travel.”
Report Became an ‘Instruction Manual for the Entire World’ …
“This one report should have been enough to discredit the WHO forever, and prompt its instant abolition. Instead, the report issued on Feb. 24, 2020, became an instruction manual for the entire world, including the United States. Three days later, the New York Times was calling for nationwide lockdowns. Two weeks later, the Trump administration ordered that “public and private venues where people gather should be closed.”
“We know the rest of the tragedy …Businesses, schools, churches, families, and communities were wrecked, and not just for two weeks but for a year or two or more. Looking back the goal was always to buy time to get the entire population pumped with mRNA shots delivered through lipid nanoparticles. Governments around the world used all their power to make it so.”
Discussion
Above, Tucker presents the salient points or global “takeaways” from The Great China Example. China did nip this virus in the bud. If your nation wanted to do the same thing, it would do what China did and what the WHO recommended with its authoritative “edict” (a decree corroborated by the WHO-appointed Cracker-Jack team of “observers.”)
According to a CNN article from January 24th, 2020, China had reported only approximately 50 “Covid deaths” by this date. When President Trump ordered a ban on travel from China on January 31st, his proclamation states that “more than 200” Chinese had (allegedly) died by the end of January.
Forget those videos of people falling dead on the streets of Wuhan; China – per China officials – had recorded hardly any Covid deaths by the end of January. And, presumably, a big spike of deaths hadn’t commenced when the WHO delegation arrived in China in late February to see what was happening for themselves.
The conclusion that framed the narrative that turned the world upside down might be expressed thusly: “Virtually no Covid deaths in China = every nation should impose draconian lockdowns just like China did.”
I’m Bill Rice … Of Course I’m Going to Get into Early Spread …
Implied – or accepted – in all public health edicts is the “settled science” that this virus definitely originated in Wuhan. But WHEN did the virus really begin to “spread” in China?
Even China’s officials seem to be saying they’d detected the virus early enough and thus were able to prevent the vast majority of its citizens from contracting said novel virus. This, presumably, is the reason so few Chinese died “from Covid.”
According to my research, at least three scenarios attempt to date the initial cases of Covid in China. These are:
The First Cases were People Infected at a “Live Market” in Wuhan in Mid-December, 2019
When calculating “Covid deaths,” one needs to consider the period of time between initial infection and later Covid death. According to multiple studies, on average, people who later died from Covid were infected 21 days before their death.
As the entire premise of the lockdown strategy is that China’s measures prevented Covid deaths, I’ll use this figure to examine the people who did and, more significantly, didn’t die from Covid more than 21 days after the virus allegedly began to spread in this country/city.
If only 200 Chinese citizens had died from Covid by the end of January 2020, spread that began in mid-December at the live market hadn’t spread that far and certainly (if we believe Chinese death figures) hadn’t killed many people.
If this novel virus was super-contagious and super-lethal, in a nation of one billion people, one would have expected to see more than 200 deaths 45 or so days after spread commenced.
It should also be noted that China had NOT ordered lockdowns after the first possible cases were identified at the live market, so for at least a couple of weeks, the virus was able to spread without the resistance of draconian lockdowns.
In a cramped city of more than 11 million people, this would have given this contagious virus a big head start.
Or the Virus really Began to Spread in November
While mid-December was the presumed start date of the virus spread for more than a year, later reports said, “No. The virus probably escaped from a Wuhan lab in November.” This revised timeline is based on articles – published by the Wall Street Journal – that three scientists who worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November that they had to be hospitalized with presumed Covid. (The source for this key anecdote is “US intelligence.”)
The public has never learned when in November these scientists allegedly became sick. It could have been November 1st or November 30th. If one picks the mid-point of November 15, one could say that by the last day of January, the virus had been infecting people in this city for 77 days.
Still, with at least an extra month’s head start, the virus had still just produced 50 to 200 (alleged) fatalities.
Or Maybe the Virus was Really Spreading in Wuhan in October or September 2019
Plenty of contrarians have postulated that the virus was infecting many people in Wuhan by mid-to-late October when the city hosted The World Military Games.
It seems to be beyond dispute that large numbers of athletes and visitors from many countries became sick with ILI (or COVID) symptoms while at these Games.
If these people became sick from Covid, the virus must have been spreading in this city before these delegations arrived. If one believes an outbreak of “early Covid” made these visitors sick, it seems to me the virus would have been spreading weeks before their arrival, which would date “virus origins” in Wuhan to September 2019.
If Wuhan citizens were already sick with Covid in Wuhan on, say, October 1, the virus had a head start of 120 days before the end of January 2020. Surely, far more than 200 people would have died from this lethal and super-contagious virus by the end of January if virus spread really commenced in early October.
Quick Summary
One can pick his preferred “virus birthday.” But even with the latest arriving birthdate (mid-December), the virus had already been spreading in Wuhan for weeks or months before China decided to nip virus spread in the bud with its extreme lockdowns.
I also think this (common-sense) point is important: If an extremely contagious novel virus was spreading unchecked in Wuhan … it wouldn’t have remained in Wuhan. One assumes that perhaps millions of people had traveled to and from Wuhan in the weeks between Oct. 1, 2019 and mid-December 2019.
My takeaway is that whatever virus birthday we believe is accurate, the virus would have spread all around the world by the end of December 2019 (if not October 2019).
Now Let’s Look at America’s Virus-Mitigation Response and the Birthday of Covid in our Country
One of President Trump’s points-of-pride regarding his actions to stop spread and protect American citizens is that, via an executive order, he banned Chinese citizens from traveling to America on January 31, 2020.
If one believes this virus was primarily restricted to Chinese citizens, this order arguably makes sense and was warranted by “facts” known to President Trump at the time.
However, as the paragraphs above should make clear, even if the virus had originated in China in December, November or October 2019, by January 31st, travelers who’d left China would have already probably engaged in billions of “close contacts” with millions of people back in their native countries.
That is, if one believes “case zero” in China was in mid-December or mid-November, the only travel ban that might have kept Americans from contracting this virus would be one implemented a couple of days after “case zero” was infected.
President Trump’s travel ban on Chinese citizens was actually controversial (in some circles, it was deemed an unnecessary overreaction). Still, it seems to me the CDC should have supported this travel ban and probably did as the CDC, like Trump (and like every other public health expert) clearly believed it was not too late to “interrupt” the virus spread from China.
As I’ve written ad nauseam, the CDC believed (and perhaps still believes) that the first cases of “community spread” in America didn’t occur until “latter January 2020.”
According to CDC experts, “late spread” (which occurred outside the typical cold and flu virus season) is what really happened with this virus in America. However, Americans were in luck, as virus spread could be slowed or stopped if the public simply listened to public health officials and locked down for at least 15 days.
Lockdowns – the “narrative” quickly became – would keep hospitals from being overrun and would prevent perhaps millions of deaths.
But the Narrative Didn’t Pass any Logic Test …
However, the narrative that we could prevent “millions of deaths” should have been considered ridiculous …. even by February 2020.
By February 2020, it was believed/understood that the virus had begun to spread in Wuhan around mid-December at the latest. Still, by February 1, only 200 Chinese had (reportedly) died “from Covid.” And probably 90 percent of the people who died had already reached or exceeded normal life expectancy and many suffered from serious comorbid conditions.
Why Didn’t these WHO Experts Pick Up on this?
The death risk from Covid for healthy Chinese under the age of, say, 60, was minuscule. Officials had to know this by the end of February 2020. For example, members of the WHO delegation must have looked at the medical charts of a few Covid patients and noted the ages and comorbid conditions of the “Covid” decedents. (Or maybe they didn’t do this …. in which case, what good is an official delegation of experts from the WHO?)
By mid-February, public health officials (including those with the WHO delegation) should have also known the average span from infection to death is approximately 21 days.
It seems to me at least a few public health officials should have asked: “If this contagious and deadly virus began spreading in China in mid-December, where are the large number of Covid deaths?”
Did China officials somehow conceal tens or hundreds of thousands of “Covid deaths” from the WHO? Why didn’t America’s “intelligence” analysts pick up on tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of extra funerals or cremations that were now occurring in China?
All that Matters is the Lockdowns were Deemed Necessary …
As Jeffrey Tucker notes, all that really matters is that, almost overnight, the public health community decided in unison that lockdowns were the only thing that was going to save millions of world inhabitants. China had prevented X thousands of deaths by locking down.
That is, it never occurred to any of America’s trusted public health officials that the virus might have escaped China’s borders and reached America at some point in 2019.
If nothing else, our trusted public health officials must be obtuse to have never considered the possibility this virus was already spreading (widely) in America at least by December. “Evidence” of this was almost literally “everywhere” (Here’s one summary of this evidence and here’s another possible clue) … if officials had just done some cursory “investigations,” which they could have done before ordering the lockdowns of March 15.
President Trump Signs on to Lockdowns …
At some point, President Trump’s advisors convinced him that the country should lockdown for at least 15 days. As we all know, “15 days to slow spread” (“or flatten the curve”) became, in some states, 365 days to slow the spread.
If he was once skeptical of the pronouncements of his medical advisors, President Trump quickly came around to their point of view.
For example, here’s a quote from an April 22, New York Times article where President Trump urges more patience regarding the duration of the lockdowns.
“President Trump on Wednesday criticized the decision of a political ally, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, to allow many businesses to reopen this week, saying the move was premature given the number of coronavirus cases in the state.
“I want him to do what he thinks is right, but I disagree with him on what he is doing,” Mr. Trump said at a White House briefing. “I think it’s too soon.”
“I love those people that use all of those things — the spas, the beauty parlors, barbershops, tattoo parlors,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday. “I love them. But they can wait a little bit longer, just a little bit — not much, because safety has to predominate.”
These 4 Words Trouble Me …
The last four words of this quote define the authorized narrative of this world-changing period of time. These words also scare the living daylights out of “freedom” proponents like myself.
According to President Trump – “safety has to predominate.”
That is, President Trump believed (and perhaps still believes) that “safety has to predominate” but, more importantly, he apparently believes that draconian lockdowns are/were the only thing that provided the public this “safety.”
In other words, he swallowed the WHO guidance – hook, line, and sinker.
I don’t want to pick on President Trump too harshly. In some respects, I give him a pass because he’s not an epidemiologist. He was simply acting on the advice and counsel of what he thought were the greatest minds in American public health.
I have no doubt his advisors told him if he didn’t order lockdowns millions of Americans might die from this virus … and those deaths were going to be on his conscience. Such a massive spike of (believed deaths) occurring under his watch would also no doubt sink his re-election hopes.
The great irony is that the lockdowns President Trump signed off on (and then extended) probably ensured the election of “Joe Biden” via the mechanism of voter fraud, voter fraud largely enabled by the necessity of widespread mail-in ballots … which were themselves a virus-mitigation measure.
The reason President Trump’s quote troubles me is that it accepts as gospel, that for any president, “safety has to predominate.”
To me, this thinking represents the “Nanny State” view of government and should frighten anyone who believes in the rights of individuals to make their own decisions regarding their personal safety.
After the WHO edict, it became widely accepted that the State was in charge of everyone’s safety and could do whatever it wanted to “ensure” this alleged result (a result many skeptics believe actually guaranteed that more people would be harmed).
Our Lockdowns weren’t as Draconian as China’s Lockdowns …
It’s true America’s version of the lockdowns weren’t as draconian as China’s version.
For example, in America, officials did not weld apartment doors shut. Only half the population was told to stay in their houses or apartments, not 100 percent.
Early on in the official pandemic, almost every American was forced to wear a mask when they ventured out to the pharmacy or grocery store (about the only places we were allowed to visit).
(In one infamous example, lifeguards paddled into the ocean to cite a kayaker who was happily paddling sans mask).
But Did the Lockdowns Work as Advertised in America?
No, they didn’t. The reason President Trump publicly (if gently) scolded the governor of Georgia for discontinuing lockdown policies too early is probably because by that date (April 22) President Trump was reading and watching accounts of the staggering number of deaths that were happening in New York City in April.
However, this massive spike in deaths in New York City should have activated the brain synapses of any official capable of critical thinking.
How could there be a massive spike in deaths in New York City in April and May if lockdowns had been ordered in that city in mid-March?
Again, the knowledge that it takes 21 days for someone to die from Covid should have proven the math didn’t add up.
Most (or many) of these New York residents had clearly contracted Covid after the lockdowns were implemented.
Since approximately half of these residents weren’t leaving their apartments (except to go to the grocery store and even there they were socially distancing) … and since there were no public events they could attend …. and since everyone was wearing masks (which supposedly prevent spread) … how did so many New Yorkers contract the virus in the first place?
Furthermore, as censored mortality data later revealed, the vast majority of deaths occurred in senior citizens who interacted with far fewer people than younger people. Many of the people getting Covid – and then dying from it 21 days later – were the people being the most diligent with their precautions.
If it only takes 21 days to contract and then die from Covid, why did all the Covid deaths explode after the lockdowns that were designed to prevent deaths?
Again, we come back to the iron-clad truth that President Trump and his advisors obviously thought was “settled science.” The virus was simply not spreading or infecting hardly anyone in America – until around the second week of March … when, suddenly, millions of people started becoming infected – including millions of people whose only “close contacts” were at home with family members while binge-watching TV shows on Netflix.
Here’s another question our public health officials never asked: Why did a densely-populated huge city like Wuhan not experience a massive spike of deaths like what happened in another densely-populated huge city (New York)?
Surely, virus experts thought the virus spread in Wuhan began much earlier than it did in New York. And Wuhan didn’t lock down for weeks (or probably months) after this contagious virus started doing what contagious viruses do. Despite this, only 200 (very old) people died. Surely most Wuhan citizens had had 21 days to contract the virus and then die from it … but very few did succumb to the virus.
But, for some reason in New York City, they did.
New York City had 135 Times More Covid Deaths than Wuhan
As Jessica Hockett and her writing colleagues have pointed out, 27,000 (alleged) “excess deaths” occurred in New York City in an 11-week period starting from roughly mid-March (the lockdowns) through the end of May. (The vast majority of extra deaths happened in April and May, well after the lockdowns).
The number of “extra deaths” in New York City (most presumed to be from Covid) was 135 times greater than the number of deaths attributed to Covid in Wuhan by the end of January (27,000 extra New York City deaths/200 Wuhan “Covid deaths”).
Even if one assumes China officials somehow managed to conceal thousands of Covid deaths, the New York virus was still (apparently) far more contagious and lethal than the same virus was in Wuhan.
A Few Officials Should Have at Least Asked these Two Questions:
Shouldn’t Wuhan have experienced far more deaths by January 30?
Or: Shouldn’t New York City have experienced far fewer Covid deaths, especially since half the city locked down by mid-March? (And the other half was taking extreme precautions by then).
These questions, if asked, might have led to this unasked question:
Is it possible all these deaths in New York City really weren’t “from Covid?”
If a few people answered this question with “Yes, that seems entirely possible,” the next question would be even more awkward:
What did cause all or many of these “extra” deaths?
The answers to these questions might be seismic and certainly couldn’t be asked on social media or by the MSM. Maybe other factors explain those deaths (or as Jessica’s hypothesis suggests, maybe all of these “extra” deaths didn’t really happen in the time span we were told they happened).
Maybe the accepted wisdom that “safety must predominate” … actually made many people less safe?
Conclusion
As Jeffrey Tucker’s article makes clear, the key event that ensured the world would be locked down was the WHO’s endorsement of China’s lockdown policies.
As I hope my article makes clear, the lockdowns in China happened far too late to prevent global spread.
If it takes only 21 days for someone to get infected and then die from Covid, the world should have seen a massive spike in deaths by at least some point in January 2020 … in China where spread, allegedly, started.
Instead of the narrative becoming “Lockdowns save millions of lives” perhaps the narrative should have been “This novel new virus isn’t that lethal at all.”
The WHO’s rousing endorsement of the “China model” of lockdowns should have been considered “junk science” before the governments of the world pulled the trigger on these “virus-mitigation” mandates, civil-liberty-eviscerating dictates which also caused a public health disaster for the people of the world.
*****
This article was published by The Brownstone Institute and is reproduced with permission.
Image Credit: Wikiemedia Commons
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