The media is doing an excellent job of panicking the public with this latest flu variant, which is essentially a mild illness that nearly everyone who gets it will recover from. Even amongst reported cases, the mortality rate is VERY low, and there are likely many many thousands of unreported cases of COVID-19, all of whom recover just fine. The unlucky few who do sadly perish to this illness are typically immune-compromised individuals in any case, those who would be at great risk from any common illness.
The regular seasonal flu is just as dangerous, and kills many more people every year, but as it’s difficult to generate mass panic, hype, and most importantly, attention and eyeballs for the media with the common flu, it rarely gets a mention when discussing this latest global pandemic.
All we would have to do is show actual statistics of the seasonal flu, every time the Corona Virus gets some airtime, and the whole mess might gain some perspective. Even then, next to the statistics and probabilities of real threats like heart disease, car or workplace accidents, obesity and high sugar diets, the risks from any flavor of flu pale in comparison.
My prediction is that this will likely all fade away with the Northern Hemisphere summer – as happens every year with new flu variants. That said, preparation and prevention is always a good thing, as although I don’t think COVID-19 is any more dangerous than regular influenza, these conditions do kill people every year. There’s just no reason for panicking.
I’m quite frankly utterly sick of this ongoing propaganda cycle – I haven’t had television or mainstream media in my life for over 10 years, and that’s a decision I continue to believe pays dividends, although the reach of the mainstream is now pervasive throughout the Internet and social media. They’re getting very efficient at messaging these days. The current hysteria, panic buying, and mass cancellation of events and travel is the result of decades of conditioning, as evidenced by any number of previous ‘end of the world’ scenarios perpetrated by, you guessed it, the mainstream media. Hence, I made a shirt, it’s in my teespring store, and available in a number of styles. For 10% off, use code ‘MARCHFLASH’, it expires at midnight PT March 10.
If you’re wondering what it is I’m talking about with ‘conditioning,’ then I can only recommend you watch a fantastic series of documentaries by Adam Curtis. starting with 2002’s “The Century of the Self,” then 2004’s “The Power of Nightmares” and finally 2007’s “The Trap: What Happened to our Dream of Freedom.” These are widely available on the Internet, and are very much worth the time it takes to watch them.
The ‘since 1987’ on the shirt is a reference to the year that Ronald Reagan’s administration killed the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ that applied to mass media, which gave rise the current trajectory of propaganda – at least in the USA, although this isn’t the only cause for our current information-age dilemma.
Now, there’s always a chance that I might be wrong here, but as of right now, I see no reason to panic. The unfortunate result of the media generated mass hysteria is that when the REAL pandemic hits, we’ll have no way of actually knowing it. This is now a near yearly cycle – it’s practically guaranteed in election years – and is designed to do nothing more than increase viewership and generate advertising revenue for the ever profit-hungry mainstream media.
When it comes to the current COVID-19 threat, if that is indeed what it is, I agree with the perspective of Dr Drew Pinksy – who is NOT someone that I often agree with, but I do in this case:
Further sense from Dr Drew, more recently:
I read a good tweet recently that sums up my perspective on this topic:
” Being prepared is good
Testing people to understand the scope of the problem is good
Hand-washing and telecommuting are good things anyway
But Whipping people into a frenzy when we don’t yet have good data to fully understand what’s happening here is counterproductive.”
If you look at the CDC site this new coronavirus is just SARS 2 that came sometime before when called SARS in 2003. This I thought is another scare tactic. Just another man made virus, like most of these virus are, like back when aids was created. I had to tell a friend who was so scared she didn’t want to take a job that she really needed, that if you give in to fear, then you won’t leave your house ever in your life time…
What’s interesting to me, is the fact people get flu shots and then come down with a severe case of the flu. I saw how sick people would get after getting those shots that’s supposed to protect them from the flu. This didn’t make since to me and I stopped getting any type of shots. We have to be wise and not fall victim to lies.
I watch your shows and enjoy them. Thankyou for all your hard work.
I think the precautionary principle should be at work in tegards to this disease. We may get lucky and the death rate may be not much worse than the flu. We may have a nasty shock in the other direction. Its too early to be making t shirts like these. Have you seen the estimated global deaths from various Epidemiologists?
Have you ever seen a tshirt that makes reference to fat people?
How many people do you think die from obesity every year?
Better ban them!
Jokes aside, if you read my post you’ll see that I am also advocating for the precautionary principle, and a bit less of the media-induced panicking principle.
Another thought I had – do you have any tshirts with alcohol products on them? Almost everyone does – yet alcohol related illness kill hundreds of thousands of people all around the world. I’m not seeing any calls to ban those tshirts, let alone the TV and print advertisements. The public isn’t panicking because there’s a global profit driven supply chain and infrastructure that ensures you can get access to poison like this and nicotine products on every street corner.
It’s all about perspective, and my point with the shirt was to show that we live in a conditioned and programmed state of fear, it’s deliberate, and it’s coming from the mainstream media, if not society in general. Everyone needs to calm down, stop buying toilet paper, and understand some basic statistics. This is a mild flu variant that will (in my estimation) go away in a few months, (although I’m sure the media will try and stretch all the way to the US general elections) and nearly everyone who gets it will recover from it. We have these every single year, and far more people die from the common flu than will from this. But we’ll see.
Nice!
This may even go beyond media irresponsibility. Jon Rappoport does some fine actual journalism on this.
Cheers from one sensible human to another.
Whatever might come the fear is more dangerous, thats the trix for us kids.
How many die in flu, bad heath, junk food, sugar, meanless life, poorness, cancer from bad enviroment, suiside, unluck accident, criminsal victims and the list goes on each year.
Who talk about that ?
-I think its about time we should wake up and see thru all this what’s going on now.
That don’t mean we should not use comon sense and be careless.
Theese people means evil buseniss, and it’s not a news.
A thoughtful article, thank you. And I must agree : no need to panic.
But I think you’re wrong to say that the seasonal flu is more dangerous than Covid-19 (let alone “far more”). Obviously, the seasonal flu has killed more than Covid-19, so far, because Covid-19 is entirely new amonst humans, and the seasonal flu has it’s foothold in society.
It seems that Covid-19 is more “lethal”. It’s too early to say one way or the other. But some statistics are definite eye-openers : 2 week incubation period ; mortality rate over 10% for those 70 years or older; in Italy over 500 dead in only four days.
I believe, although the media has hyped it up, that this is something serious! …at least at the moment, more serious than the seasonal flu.
Yeah my point is really about the engineered climate of fear that has led to the reaction to this. But I disagree with it being any more dangerous than the regular flu. See this article that breaks down some of the numbers, the mortality rate is declining to below seasonal flu rates, and the average age of the people that do die from it is around 80 : https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/coronavirus-by-the-numbers-mortality-rates-of-87-of-countries-affected-are-lower-than-typical-flu-virus/
Consider also that those are only the reported cases. It’s definitely infectious, so there must be tens of thousands if not more cases that go unreported, because people simply recover from it. That would drive the mortality rate down further. However, I’m certainly no expert, and I suspect time will tell. My prediction (for what it’s worth) is that the virus will fade away with the northern hemisphere summer, as happens every year with flu strains. Preparation is always good. Preventative anti-flu measures, hand washing etc are always good. Media induced panic is ridiculous.
Hola Ben,
Although well aware of the vile manipulations employed by the MSM to control the masses, the degree to which everyone has immediately fallen in line this time around has stunned me. The real danger is NOT the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but rather the immediate and drastic usurping of our individual rights and liberties without so much as a peep from the public.
My God….the wolves are literally within arms length reach and no one seems to notice. The overall picture is not only distressing but the public’s lack of reaction to that danger is downright eerie.
I’ve seen Century of Self (excellent) and will now watch the remaining two docu’s from Adam Curtis. When you get a few minutes, Ben, take a gander at these, please:
1) https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-086-medical-martial-law/
2) https://www.corbettreport.com/lies-damned-lies-and-coronavirus-infection-numbers-propagandawatch/
3) https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1521-derrick-broze-fact-checks-the-5g-coronavirus-hypothesis/
4) https://www.corbettreport.com/is-this-the-big-event-questions-for-corbett-056/
I know you are as busy as the rest of us, so I wouldn’t waste your time. These aren’t too long and they are chocka block full of info. I don’t think you’ll regret it, Ben
Thanks for the comment! Agreed that this sets a fairly dangerous precedent, and I expect we’ll see similar things happening in future years. I am a fan of James Corbett’s work. I very much enjoyed his recent documentary on WW1, and I admire his commitment to follow the evidence on topics no matter where it leads. As they say, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Watch out for patriot-act-esque legislation being attached to funding bills to ‘deal’ with this current problem.
Hey Benjamin!
Some great point on here. I’m so glad you have a comment section. That’s where the best info is most of the time. I agree with the gentleman who is concerned about our rights being trampled on. Also the fact that I’m sure thousands of people have been sick and don’t go to the dr. Myself included. I had very bad flu like symptoms, only thing I could point out that was different would be the headaches and pain in my eyes. It was terrible. Cleared it up with colloidal silver, oregano oil and doubled up on organic vitamins. It was about a weeks worth of aches off and on, by day three I was in bed for two days. Snapped right out of it once the natural meds kicked in. Question: if the rest of the world had test kits by the thousands and the US can only come up with a few hundred. Why? So they can tell you the numbers they want you to know. To that point, that likely hundreds of thousands kicked it with their natural immune system. God gave us all the seed bearing plants and herbs to use!
Heya Zack!
good to hear from you – and good points mate. I agree, the statistics are tough to trust, but what we do know is that it pales in comparison to any actual significant cause of death, and its no reason for the panic we’re seeing.
I wondered when religion would start appearing in this so called pandemic. With all the different Gods around the world you would have thought they would have got their heads together and sorted it by now!
Let’s see if this is just warning shuut from the global elite or if they think the right time is here
But as NO peep from public all over the world ( amazing see this by not going into all details )
So after a problem is here the reaction is obvisly and we will soon see some solution.
Things to come is the vaccine, restrictions in civil rights/travell and the 5G plus allot of bankrupts.
The elite will help huge corporations of course.
If one just wake up, welcome to Orewellian times in front of you.
-More is to come, so be prepered.
Don’t think for a moment goverment do all this to protect +70 multi sick people.
In Denmark a new law made up at 1 hour to go into anyone and get him vaccine or sent to quarantine ( country is all closed ) and police (military) has new rights.
This is now a police state.
In Sweden immigration going on as usual ( 150K/year ) huge problems.
Country is loted out years ago, and one of highest taxed people on planet.
For freedom to work it carries accountability and responsibility.
That includes: Freedom of the Press!!
Otherwise we have chaos. Maybe it’s time to get heavy with the main stream media. Law suits and fines (like billions) should shut them up and we will see genuine news as it is, instead of all the misrepresentations and in some cases outright lies
So these are the facts:
The virus had an R0 (R naught) of 2.2-2.5. This means that it will grow exponentially in a population once it has taken hold.
The virus has a 5-14 day incubation period. With an R0 of 2.2 and a 7 day cycle, it would infect almost 30% of the population in 4-6 weeks. The morality rate is at best 1%, at worst 2+% (10x worse than the worst flu). (Here’s a question: if that’s true, how many people will die, how many will need to go into hospital?)
In the China phase of this virus 20% of people were sick enough to go to hospital. (10x what happens in a bad flu season)
If you do the maths; any and every healthcare system in the world would be overwhelmed within a few weeks. There are not enough beds, and there are certainly not enough ventilators to deal with the sheer weight of numbers. (Go look at the pictures of the Spanish Flu: imagine that in your own city right now).
It’s mostly (not exclusively) the old and the immunocompromised who will suffer most, and the mortality rate for the elderly is 15%+
The human catastrophe that will occur unless these “control” measures are taken is unimaginable; seriously…
I admire your libertarian values, and deplore the contemptible way that governments treat us all, but with the attitudes expressed in this Comments people are going to die unnecessarily. They may be a member of your family. Much more than the Government and the media, this virus, these bacteria, these plagues; they are all out to get us. And they have the wherewithal to get the job done much more efficiently than a bunch off shiny-arsed politicians. Get real people!
Those aren’t facts – they’re fearmongering based on computer models, that (as an expert in computer models) no one should trust to give you any real prediction. Most computer models are wrong, some are helpful. I think we can all think of a few in this category.
In china, there were undoubtedly many many thousands of cases that went unreported, a reality that will be ignored in order to hype up the apparent danger of this flu variant. In fact it’s just been reported that China does not include asymptomatic cases in their count.
My point is also with the media created panic, and this deliberate economic crash on the back of some vague threat, not with the virus specifically, but yes, it’s being massively overblown. This panic we seem to be in is the result of legislation passed during the several pandemics in the last two decades, and the culture of fear propagated by the media, and by comments like this. Don’t give in to the fear on this. Unless you’re specifically at risk, as you would also be from influenza, you’ll be fine, go about your business, wash your hands. Prevention and precautions are good things, I think I may have said something similar in the post.
The interesting thing is about all these doomsday predictions, we’re going to find out, and soon. It’s not some vague ‘1 degree of heat in 50 years’ nonsense, we’re talking weeks. We’ll revisit this post soon and see if 30% of the population gets infected in 4-6 weeks, or if the healthcare system gets overwhelmed. I’m betting this isn’t going to happen, but I can already see the fearmongers patting themselves on the back for ‘averting the catastrophe’ with all these draconian measures.
Thanks for the comment, don’t fold to the fearmongering.
As we speak, ex Spain close all works and one can easy understand this will become a huge economical issue all over.
Ben, This is more than a little panic now the media boost over that will ’blow over’ soon and it will be back to normal pretty soon ( a big fast overreact )
-I see fear in peoples eyes and that’s the big issue here as I was into before.
It shore will be something to see whats going on let’s say in 2-3 month away !
COVID-19 causes mild cough and fever in most healthy people. In non-healthy, high-risk “vulnerable” people it may cause pnemonia and maybe death. The best way to deal with corona virus is to isolate and social-distance the vulnerable or high-risk people only. They could be placed in the empty hotels and motels as isolation centers. Non vulnerables should go about business as usual. And if they get infected, they get immunity. Thus society aquires what ecologists recognize as herd immunity. Otherwise society does not get sufuciently immune to the virus and it will never end. It will in that case return, and then may be worse than it was. It is therefore selfish and spineless for a non-vulnerable healthy person with a good immune system to be concerned about their own personal comfort, while the future of greater society becomes, as a result, at risk of losing housing, food, money, economic stability, etc. The social majority who are healthy individuals personaly isolating themselves also assures the return of the virus which threatens lives of “the vulnerable people” as society remains insuficiently immune. Importantly, “herd immunity” is when only the majority of the population needs to develop immunity as a natural method for controlling viral outbreaks, again, according to the study of ecology. Shutting down society with extreme social distancing measures is not how to deal with this outbreak. Mass society should stop being wimpy and selfish, stop panicking and think, isolate only the vulnerable, and thus responsibly end the spread of COVID-19, ASAP.
Additionally, the hospitals fear they wont be able to handle the influx of patients if corona virus spreads too fast, so they are trying to have the virus spread slowly. The hospitals are therefore ill equiped for this outbreak, being understaffed and having not enough beds and respirators for expected pneumonia victims. The hospitals are not prepared and this is therefore a mismanagement and or funding issue and not a health threat for the vast public majority. Health care industries are being egocentric by seeing the world through their eyes only. Doctors and the governments around the world have used the media to spread unecessary panic throughout greater society for an issue involving a minority group – that being overwhelmed hospital staff and high-risk people vulnerable to serious effects of COVID-19. The solution is, again, to isolate the high-risk vulnerables and for healthy non-vulnerables to go about their business as usual. Ask not how I as a low-risk individual can protect myself from this virus; ask what can I do to protect high-risk individuals from getting this virus. Koreans were very succesful in stopping the spread of corona virus by identifying vulnerable high-risk people and isolating them only. They did not shut down their society. They have the best rates of surviving and managing this corona virus. And they did not panic and shut down their society. Hospitals and political social decision makers need to learn from this and be better prepared for future viral outbreaks so they don’t promote mass hysteria and economic shutdown for the responsible members of society. For example, everyone understands that people seeking emergency aid must wait in hospital emergency rooms for hours and hours to see a doctor. The problem of hospitals being overwhelmed is already a regular part of common day to day existence, before corona virus started. This reflects our North American society. It is not fair for mass society to have to shut down their lives because the hospitals, polititions, and other group leaders demand it, as they, as social reps, are not qualified to make such decisions. Hospitals have to be better prepared for all emergencies. Period. The immediate solution is aquiring a social herd immunity while isolating high-risk vulnerables; the longterm solution is overhaul hospital management and funding systems.
Additionally, 100% of social decision makers including politicians and doctors did not lose their jobs or incomes as a result of their decisions to shut down society; only non decision makers, however, lost their freedom to work and earn money. If social deciders lost their employment and/or income as a result of their shutting down society, they would not have shut down society and would have came up with a better solution such as isolting high-risk individuals by having many of them, for example, isolate in the empty hotels and motels and for the healthy rest of society to behave normally thus aquiring a herd immunity. Using the empty hotels and motels as high-risk isolation centers would revive that industry plus greatly illeviate hospitals being overwhelmed with future corona virus victims. Isolating high-riskers in empty hotels and motels would also save many more lives and allow healthy society to go back to work.
Additionally, statistics are vastly misleading as most cases who survive have never been tested. Statistical comparisons are made with confirmed cases only, those being compared with total death rates. All deaths resulting from corona virus get tested and statistically reported; but only a fraction of corona virus infections actually get reported. That gives a vastly wrong impression of the survival rate. Survival rate should be made by comparing total estimated all-time cases with total deaths. Then society would get a realistic estimate of the severity of the virus. The question then is, “why is the death rate being made to sound worse than it is? Why is society being made to fear and panic?”
@Ben thank you so much for following your dream and doing what you love. We need more people expressing their passion through their work as you so obviously do. I have watched and enjoyed all your videos and I have huge respect for questioning the status quo as you do so intelligently and professionally. I am an acupuncturist which yes I agree is a profession which scepticism can be applied to easily enough but my experiences with it and it’s result encourage me to continue to try to learn more about its mechanisms and to treat people successfully.
Sadly my work has ground to a halt here in Ireland following a full lock down. I struggle to see how I’ll be able to work in the near future and despite my landlord reducing rent to 50%, the medium term future of my business remains in doubt.
I’ve regularly checked back on this post to see the comments as initially I was a bit shocked by your thoughts. We are a bit more conservative in our media in Ireland though and I’m sure Fox etc in the US had been going pretty hard with the fear mongering.
Hear its been about following the same political decision makers who have repeatedly passed the responsibility from one to the other ad infinitum.
I felt initially you hadn’t realised the severity of the situation but no your comments explain it’s the media hype which I believe is more your focus.
I’m Impressed with @four causes’ previous comment and I agree with all but one of his sentiments.
That all the milder cases of covid aren’t being reported and hence that affects the death rate percentage. While this is true, it is also being reported from Bergamo in Italy that doctors are telling people to stay at home in isolation despite fever and cough. If they don’t have breathing difficulties then stay at home. This is to protect the cities overrun ICU care centres in its highly advanced hospitals. Should these people then die and it’s thought many do, then their deaths aren’t reported as covid deaths. These are the words of the mayor of Bergamo who is coordinating the response to the disease in the city which is at the centre of the now most affected region of the worlds most affected country.
It’s a serious situation for us all but as usual the main stream thinking can be a blunt instrument.
Best wishes and keep up the good work.
Brian.
I’m closing the comments on this post, and I’m not approving several of the posts that seem to have degenerated to name calling. I don’t have the time, nor the inclination to argue with people/establishment shills that insist on promoting bogus, fear-mongering computer models. At this point most of the data we’re getting that is being thrown around left and right is highly suspect. For every figure I see quoted, I can find another report or a figure that contradicts it – who the hell knows what the truth is, but I have no interest in being drawn into a debate about people that break their neck falling down the stairs being attributed to a virus, whether or not high pressure ventilators are killing people, if the malaria drug works, or any other discussion that keeps this nonsense front of mind and that will likely never be resolved satisfactorily. I’m frankly utterly sick of hearing about it, a sentiment I think I expressed in the original article, and I won’t be drawn into the fear mongering on this. My post stands, it correctly reflects my thoughts on the date I wrote it.
All of that is beside the point, which was aimed squarely at the media for promoting the panic, and scaring the public around the world so much that they passively submit to the massive governmental over-reach we are currently experiencing. A situation that has occurred thanks to the last couple of decades of statistically insignificant ratings grabbing garbage peddled by the fear merchants in the mainstream media. Cower in place and watch the news slaves, it’s for your own good!
If you want a balanced perspective on this nonsense, listen to the No Agenda podcast. If you want to enlighten yourself as to the reason we’re in this situation, go watch those Adam Curtis documentaries. I don’t care if you don’t like the shirt, don’t buy it – but don’t presume to tell me what opinions, jokes, or wrong-think I can or can not engage in. You won’t get much of a reception, and you certainly won’t get any space on this website. I have nothing but utter contempt for the ‘cancel culture,’ for any form of nanny-state censorship, and for the people that think they ‘know better,’ and should decide what we can or can’t say, read, or write. We’re nothing more than a ball full of screaming monkeys flying through space, and it’s mostly a case of one group of monkeys trying to control all the other monkeys. I’m not interested in being told what to think, do or say by any of the other monkeys, thank you.
To quote one of the greatest comedy acts of all time (the Doug Anthony All-Stars) “We had jokes written about the Challenger disaster before the fucking thing hit the ground.” Know that I’m ok if you’re offended by that. Just remember to wash your hands.