“Coronavirus Is No Worse Than The Common Cold”
So espoused the Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh on his radio show: –
“It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump,” Limbaugh said on February 24th. “Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus … I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.” He went on to claim that the media was drumming up panic about COVID-19 purely to undermine the Trump administration: “They are trying to use this coronavirus to scare the hell out of everybody in their madcap hopes of finding something that will get rid of Donald Trump. It’s exactly like the panic and fear mongering you heard for two years over Russia meddling in and stealing the election.”
Remember the “Spanish Flu”?
“In 1918, It Wasn’t the Coronavirus. It Was the Flu”
The “Spanish flu” pandemic of 1918-19 — the subject of a new, ongoing exhibit at the Mütter, a medical history museum — is often overshadowed by World War I, but it killed tens of millions of people worldwide. With nothing to offer the sick but palliative care, influenza was as frightening as the COVID-19 coronavirus is today.
An emergency hospital during the influenza epidemic at Camp Funston in Kansas, circa 1918. [Credit: National Museum of Health and Medicine]
The flu arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of 1918. On Sept. 28, despite warnings that the sickness was circulating, the city held the Fourth Liberty Loan Parade, a patriotic affair to encourage buying war bonds. Thousands of people packed Broad Street.
Within days, flu cases — and deaths — erupted.
“The flu followed the parade so closely that nobody had taken down the fund-raising banners,” Dr. Robert Hicks, former director of the Mütter Museum said, “and instead they started slapping up ‘Spit Spreads Death’ public health posters.”
An anti-spitting sign posted on streetcar in Philadelphia, October 1918. [Credit: Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia]
“Spit Spreads Death,” the name of the exhibition at the Mütter, is a reference to the since disproved belief that illness could be spread through the inhalation of dried saliva particles. Anti-spitting measures included fining offenders and plastering the signs on lampposts and streetcars.
With so many doctors and nurses in Europe on the front lines of World War I, hospitals were understaffed. The city ran out of coffins and pine boxes, resorting to mass burials. Like a scene from the Black Plague, carts were pushed through neighborhoods collecting the dead.
On Sept. 28, despite warnings that the sickness was circulating, the city held the Fourth Liberty Loan Parade, a patriotic affair to encourage buying war bonds. Thousands attended. Within days, flu cases — and deaths — erupted. [Credit: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command]
Propaganda posters show the aggressive patriotism that contributed to suppressing news of the illness and to putting war efforts ahead of public health. Even as the virus was devastating the population, said Dr. Hicks, “it’s worth noting that Philadelphia not only met, but exceeded their fund-raising quota.”
A demonstration at the Red Cross emergency ambulance station in Washington, D.C., during the influenza pandemic of 1918. [Credit: National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division]
After two years, they had 17,500 documented flu deaths — most likely fewer than there actually were because of mistakes on death certificates and a community overwhelmed by trauma.
A flu vaccine wasn’t developed until the 1940s.
The question folks gotta ask today is,
Are American authorities mistaking the deadly Coronavirus for Influenza?
Chinese media reports shocking claims — This coronavirus sample was isolated from a U.S. patient on Feb. 21. Shockingly, Chinese media is reporting that the novel disease may have originated in the United States.
- Chinese state-run media has reported that many Chinese believe Coronavirus originated in the U.S.
- The report claims that the disease is being mistaken for influenza – which has already killed 16,000 this season.
- The conspiracy may be part of an intensifying information war between competing governments.
Since the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak, which has now grown to infect more than 100,000 and kill over 4,000, Chinese authorities have attempted to deflect attention away from the crisis by comparing it to the American flu season. Some claim that influenza, which has killed over 16,000 people this year, is more deadly than the coronavirus.
Now, new conspiracy theories claim that it may actually be the coronavirus.
No, It isn’t the Flu. It’s the Coronavirus. And the virus originates from the U.S.
According to Chinese state-run media, some Chinese speculate that Americans who died of the flu may have unknowingly become infected with the deadly Covid-19 – which they claim is spreading undetected in the United States.
Some even speculate that infected Americans brought the illness to China.
This comes at a time when U.S. authorities have begun testing individuals with influenza-like symptoms for coronavirus. Currently, the United States has tested 414 people for Coronavirus with only 14 confirmed to be infected.
Some analysts believe the scale of the coronavirus outbreak may be wider than currently reported. This is because cases are cropping up with no direct link to mainland China. In addition to the roughly 77,600 cases confirmed in China, the disease has grown to infect 602 in South Korea, 155 in Italy and 43 in Iran.
The cases in Iran are particularly troubling because the death toll doesn’t seem to match the number of confirmed cases.
Despite only 43 confirmed cases in Iran, eight Iranians have already died from the Coronavirus. In comparison, there are 1,343 confirmed infections in Guangdong province, China, but only six have died. The high death rate in Iran suggests the coronavirus could already be spreading uncontrollably in the country.
Some Chinese netizens believe the coronavirus could also be spreading uncontrollably in the U.S. Their wild theories assert that Americans could be mistaking the disease for influenza.
Chinese State Media Reveals A Shocking Conspiracy Theory
According to the Global Times, a report from Japan’s TV Asahi Corporation claims that some of the 16,000 Americans who died of influenza during the flu season may have unknowingly contracted the Coronavirus. They argue that the United States misrecorded these deaths as influenza while they were actually Covid-19.
Chinese netizens took the story and ran with it. Global Times reports their commentary:
Perhaps the US delegates brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, and some mutation occurred to the virus, making it more deadly and contagious, and causing a widespread outbreak this year.
These reports build upon earlier conspiracies in Russian media that outrightly suggest the U.S. government may have intentionally created the Coronavirus to wage economic warfare on China.
The theories are, apparently, so widespread in Russia that several Russian political leaders speak about them openly.
Comparing Coronavirus To Influenza
While many are quick to compare Covid-19 with influenza, the two diseases are not very similar.
Influenza kills a huge number of people each year, but its fatality rate has been around 0.05% so far this season. In comparison, Covid-19 has reached death rates as high as 2.9% in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. The new disease seems to overwhelm hospital infrastructure because of the severity of its symptoms.
According to data, Covid-19 puts around 20% of patients in critical condition, with many going on to develop pneumonia.
Even though most Covid-19 patients survive, their symptoms are severe enough to send them to the ICU. In comparison, most influenza patients have symptoms mild enough that they can recover at home.
Needless to say, if the United States were dealing with an uncontrolled coronavirus outbreak, authorities would have noticed it by now.
This comes at a time when the online information war is heating up. Governments are increasingly using online media to promote national agendas and damage the reputations of their adversaries.
Recently, the United States forced several Chinese news organizations to register as agents of the Chinese government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. China has also expelled several Wall Street Journal reporters from Beijing, accusing the outlet of racist reporting in its coverage of the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
The Global Times report looks to be the latest in an escalating tit-for-tat between competing governments. But it should encourage Americans to be more vigilant about the new and deadly Covid-19.
Other conspiracy theories surrounding coronavirus including:-
1) The U.S. government introduced the coronavirus in 2018, and Bill Gates was also somehow responsible.
On January 21st, QAnon YouTuber and professional shit-strirrer Jordan Sather tweeted a link to a patent for coronavirus filed by the U.K.-based Pirbright Institute in 2015. “Was the release of this disease planned?” Sather tweeted. “Is the media being used to incite fear around it? Is the Cabal desperate for money, so they’re tapping their Big Pharma reserves?” This theory quickly gained traction in many conspiracy theorist circles, with QAnon and anti-vaccine Facebook groups posting links to the patent suggesting that the government had introduced coronavirus, presumably to make money off a potential vaccine.
2) There is a vaccine or cure for coronavirus that the U.S. government won’t release
A viral Facebook post dated from January 22nd contains a screengrab of a patent filed by the CDC for what is purported to be a coronavirus vaccine, suggesting that the virus was introduced by the government for pharmaceutical companies to profit off the vaccine.
And of course, nothing is complete with the “U.S. vs China” theory
3) Coronavirus is a bioweapon engineered by the Chinese government (or by the CIA) to wage war on America (or China)
Due to the recent history of strained diplomatic relations between the two countries, it makes sense that some would speculate that coronavirus was covertly engineered in a lab as part of an extended campaign to weaken the opposing country. Sen. Tom Cotton (R – Ark.) has publicly endorsed this idea on Fox News last month, “We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,” Cotton said. “We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.” (British tabloid the Daily Mail also published a story on the existence of this lab, heavily implying that it was responsible for the spread of the virus.)
However, it appears Sen. Tom Cotton’s conspiracy theory has been busted by revelation from the Chinese media?
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