Op-ed:
Coronavirus...Facts vs. Media Generated
Fiction
By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots on American Political Radio
Author's note: the numbers cited below are those verified at the time of writing. Coronavirus...COVID-19...the respiratory illness that started in Wuhan, China is now spreading globally with numerous cases reported here in the United States.
Coronavirus...the weaponiztion of a disease that for the most part and for most people is but a bad cold now is being used not only against President Trump for the Democrat party's hoped for 2020 political gain, but also as a scare tactic to try and instill in we, the American people, a fear that our very lives are in imminent danger.
Coronavirus...now being dubbed the "Trump Virus" by the bought-and-paid-for liberal media because of what they and the Democrats deem to be Trump's lackluster response to said virus...is but part three of the Democrats tried for political coup, And with both parts one and two...the Mueller Report and the impeachment proceedings respectively...having failed to remove our duly elected president from office, politically crafted fear-mongering over the coronavirus has become the Democrats hoped for last chance to do so before the upcoming November election.
Coronavirus...an
anything but true pandemic that has caused upheavals in the global stock
markets and disrupted supply chains around the world, as expected sent
Wall Street into a temporary financial crisis...a crisis that shook
investor confidence to such a degree that it caused stocks to
temporarily tumble over the impact that the virus could...with “could” not “would”
being the operative word...have on both the American and the global
economies.
And this imagined fear, in turn, saw during the week of February 24th through the 28th the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 357.28 points to 25,409.36 while the S&P 500 fell 0.8% to 2,954.22, with the Nasdaq Composite closing flat at 8,567.37, thus translating into the Dow falling by more than 12%. And this now became the biggest weekly percentage loss since September 29, 2008 when the Dow fell 777.68 points in intra-day trading. In other words, not only did that one week in February see the Dow collectively falling more than 3,500 points, but said fall become the largest weekly point loss to date.
And this imagined fear, in turn, saw during the week of February 24th through the 28th the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 357.28 points to 25,409.36 while the S&P 500 fell 0.8% to 2,954.22, with the Nasdaq Composite closing flat at 8,567.37, thus translating into the Dow falling by more than 12%. And this now became the biggest weekly percentage loss since September 29, 2008 when the Dow fell 777.68 points in intra-day trading. In other words, not only did that one week in February see the Dow collectively falling more than 3,500 points, but said fall become the largest weekly point loss to date.
And
while the stock market started to rebound just as I began writing this article...as projected would happen... and with there being but few if any signs
of widespread economic damage to our American economy, fear of the
virus still remained leading to last Thursday's Dow closing 970 points lower
(as in 3.6% lower), and doing so even after the Federal Reserve announced that
it would slash interest rates by another half a percentage point. Now
wiping out nearly all of last Wednesday's gains, this newest drop became
the fifth worst one-day point drop in the history of the index, thus
shaking the global economy and trading once again. And this drop in turn
saw the misinformed amongst us running last weekend to purchase the
dwindling supply of face masks...face masks that offer little to no real
protection from coronavirus at all.
Maybe
what these folks should have realized instead is that the coronavirus
scare and the market response...which also is a by-product of what's
called stock market corrections...proves once again that we Americans
should be relying less upon cheap foreign made products, goods and
services and more upon quality “Made in America” products, goods and services...something that President Trump has been trying hard to make happen.
And
so now we're left with fear...simple raw emotionally driven fear that's being
egged on by the Democrats and aided by the liberal media in hopes that
said fear can be manipulated enough to in the end not only help with crashing
the stock market and thus the American economy, but hopefully to aid in
taking the wind out of President Trump's economic successes and hoped
for reelection bid. And with that truth finally being told, the all important
question now becomes, how can fear of the coronavirus be stopped...with the
only possible answer being through factual information put into proper
perspective minus the liberal media's partisan spin and fabricated input.
So
let's begin to answer that question with what I call six key facts.
Fact one: the risk of getting coronavirus here in the U.S. remains
relatively low no matter that isolated cases have started to surface in
some 25+ states, with most of the now 540 confirmed cases stemming from an individual having
recently traveled to highly infected countries or coming in direct
contact with someone who has done so. Fact two: as for coming down with
the virus itself, for most people the coronavirus, now dubbed COVID-19,
is like I previously stated either a bad cold or a seasonal flu-like
illness both which they will naturally recover from while those reacting
more seriously to or dying from the virus are either the very elderly
or those with an underlying medical condition or a compromised immune
system.
Fact
three: COVID-19 is not pandemic in scope no matter the disinformation
the media is spewing out for in no way has it reached nor will it reach
the proportion of the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918...the pandemic
coronavirus is being compared to. That flu was indeed a true pandemic as
it infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide...which was then
about one-third of the world's population...with it killing an
estimated 20 million to 50 million people, including roughly 675,000
Americans. To date, worldwide, around 3,500 people (mostly in China)
have died from COVID-19 with most deaths being in immune compromised folks, while the virus has
sickened roughly 105,000 others...others who have since recovered or who are on the road to recovery...hardly
the makings of a true pandemic...especially when such viruses do tend to wind
down as warm weather approaches which is now beginning to happen.
Fact
four: this particular coronavirus,...COVID-19...as is being reported,
sees Wuhan, China's fresh kill markets as ground zero of this current
outbreak with the virus probably originating in bats and jumping to
humans from an “intermediate host,”...a
not unheard of cross-species contamination if you will. And why
bats... simply because recent studies found that a naturally occurring bat
coronavirus shared 96% of its genetic material with the virus that
causes COVID-19. Fact five: the coronavirus is most assuredly not a
man-made bio-weapon of any sorts nor was it constructed in some secret Wuhan military
lab as the conspiracy theorists claim for independent non-Chinese
studies of the virus' genetic makeup do show specific scientific
findings that this particular coronavirus did indeed originate in
wildlife, most probably in the above stated bats. Remember, numerous
pathogens exist in wildlife... pathogens for example like those found in
civets, the very animal that caused SARS.
Fact
six: while China continues to deny it, COVID-19 has probably been
sickening folks for a lot longer than is being reported, coincidentally
surfacing around the same time China needed to “save face”
after they had to acquiesce to President Trump's demands in the somewhat
now diffused trade war. A case of Chinese media generated, American
media-style, divert and deflect reporting, for the fact is that
coronaviruses have naturally been around for a long time, crossing over
to man only when conditions and circumstances allow it to do so.
So
where do we stand now as coronavirus cases are being reported in 70 countries and are increasing even here in this country with 21 deaths so far? First, the Trump White House recently announced the
expansion of airport screenings along with new travel restrictions being
placed on foreign nationals who have been to Iran and Italy within the
last 14 days as well as his adding those two countries to the Level 3
warning list that currently includes South Korea and China (who is now seeing a drop in new coronavirus cases) as being
countries Americans are being told to avoid.
Also,
while government health officials have warned that the risk of
infection from COVID-19 is still relatively low for the general American
public...remember, the flu is way more deadly than COVID-19 and to date
14,000 Americans have
died and 250,000 others have been hospitalized during this current
2019-2020 flu season alone...they suggest that individuals and
communities at large should at least be prepared for a possible but not
inevitable outbreak. And said officials also suggest that older
Americans and adults who take needed medications to manage chronic
conditions...chronic conditions such as heart disease, high blood
pressure and diabetes...should make sure that they have an adequate
supply of their medications on hand just in case there is a shortage...a
wise move in general given their state of health.
And
just last Thursday, in a rare show of bipartisanship, the Senate voted
to approve the House's $7.8 billion emergency spending package that would address
the coronavirus outbreak itself and the government's response to it.
Included in this spending package...a package that sees the bulk of
funding being designated to agencies responsible for prevention and care
including $2.2 billion allocated to the CDC to contain the outbreak; $3
billion toward research and development of vaccines and other
treatments; and $1+ billion to fund State Department operations abroad
along with humanitarian assistance...is an authorization for $500
million in mandatory spending to fund a telehealth program that would
expand access to health services for America's seniors bringing the
total spending package to a total of $8.3 billion.
And
this package, this measure, passed by a vote of 96-1...with Republican
Senator Rand Paul casting the lone vote against the measure after the
Senate voted down his proposed amendment that would have offset this
additional spending with cuts elsewhere, so as to avoid adding even more
onto the $23 trillion national debt thus further burdening future
generations. Something to at least think about I'd say.
In fact, just this past Friday, President Trump signed said $8.3 billion emergency spending package while promising that we will spend whatever it takes to stop the
spread of COVID-19 here in the U.S. And know that a promise made by
President Trump is indeed a promise kept.
And
as for a vaccine against COVID-19, know that Israel...a country now seeing
17 cases of coronavirus with seven of those cases being in the Palestinian controlled now closed town of
Bethlehem...is already way ahead on the vaccine game as they recently
announced that Israeli researchers at MIGAL Institute have developed an
effective vaccine against the Avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus
(IBV) and are adapting that vaccine to create a new vaccine against this
current human strain of coronavirus. Discovering that the poultry
coronavirus has a high level of genetic similarities to the human
COVID-19 virus and that it uses the same infection mechanism in both
poultry and people increases the likelihood of achieving an effective
human vaccine within a very short period of time. In fact, right now
Israeli researchers are working to garner the safety approvals that will
enable both pre-clinical testing and the initiation of production of an
oral vaccine to counter COVID-19 within a matter of months if not
weeks.
Lastly, in regards to the coronavirus outbreak here in our country...and note I
say outbreak not epidemic nor pandemic...the simple fact is that most people who come down with coronavirus survive
and those who do not are usually the elderly, those with a compromised
immune system, or those who already have a serious medical
condition...the stuff that would put their lives in jeopardy even from
something as simple and mundane as the common cold. This is the truth the media
should be reporting on instead of their deliberately fanning the flames
of a politically generated call to panic for it's
truth alone that will prevent more American deaths while panic will
only cause more deaths. And those deaths will not be the fault of
President Trump no matter the Democrats and their media cohorts claim
that it is. Case closed.
Copyright @ 2020 Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / All Rights Reserved.
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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Craig Andresen's blog The National Patriot to read his latest article, The Latest in Liberal Lunacy.
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Check out RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS newest podcast where Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss 'Coronavirus...Facts vs, Media Generated Fiction'; 'The Latest in Liberal Lunacy'; and important news of the day.
Listen to our podcast on SoundCloud at: https://soundcloud.com/right-side-patriots-260798913/right-side-patriots-3920-topics-coronavirus-liberal-lunacy
