THE CHINESE CORONAVIRUS AND AMERICAN PANDEMIC HYSTERIA

     The American Media hyenas are once again seized with a bad case of Epidemic Fever. Whenever ratings get bad, the American press often casts about for some new, exotic disease to fan fears of a global pandemic. Sadly, in today's America, mass-hysteria is not very difficult to induce among the general public. 

     A few days ago, a type of pneumonia caused by an unidentified virus began being detected in hospitals in and near Wuhan, China and was responsible for several fatalities. To its credit, the Chinese Government reacted rapidly. Medical experts from all over China went to the scene. 

   The main problem that China faced however, is that Chinese New Year is tomorrow (January 25th). Just like our holidays here, people travel. President Xi took the decisive though controversial step of placing Wuhan---a city the size of Los Angeles---under Quarantine. This has never happened in China's recent history, and the CPC newspaper, The Global Times published an editorial appealing to Wuhan's citizens to patriotism and understanding.

   The other threat that China faces from such a drastic step is the threat of panic: especially with Soros-instigated unrest in Hong Kong and elsewhere. This doesn't seem to have happened in China so far; although Xinhua News reported yesterday that China's largest retailer, Alibaba, issued a directive warning its franchises against profiteering on respiratory masks, which have been in short supply since the breakout. 

    It's kind of shameful when we consider that reactions to emergencies in America usually happen the opposite way. Instead of appealing to people's better natures, our media fans panic; instead of the relative calm as in Wuhan, we get looting and violent rampages; our businesses turn into Black Markets and gouge consumers for the last possible dime. And Chinese politicians take decisive action while ours posture and pontificate while doing nothing of any substance. 

   As the Global Times' op-ed makes clear, the Quarantine decision was taken to keep the virus from spreading all over China and beyond on account of the holidays. But the US Corporate Media and numerous conspiracy theorists (which sadly today amount to nearly the same thing) have painted the whole thing in Apocalyptic terms. The reality is that China already turning the tide against the outbreak. 

   The latest update from the Chinese National Health Commissariat states that they have confirmed 830 cases so far; 25 people have died and 34 others have been treated and released from Wuhan hospitals. While this is a serious situation, it doesn't exactly sound like a global pandemic. Less than a dozen cases have been found outside of China; including two in the United States. The ones in the US were found because China gave our authorities a list of persons who'd recently traveled here from Wuhan.

  The World Health Organization declared after an emergency meeting that: "We are not declaring a public health emergency of international concern....Make no mistake, though, this is an emergency in China. But it has not yet become a global health emergency." 

  The fact that some victims have already been cured and that WHO has already determined that the virus is a mutated pathogen that jumped from an animal shows that the scientists are close to stopping this virus already. Some unconfirmed reports suggest that the virus may have originated in infected snakes. This could be so since snake meat and snake eggs are eaten in parts of China; and various parts of the serpent are employed in traditional Chinese folk-medicine. 

  Virology is a complicated and esoteric science. While we don't know everything about these pernicious organisms, the specialists in this field know more than most of us. Specialists, incidentally, don't include the American Media. For those concerned about the Emergency in China, there are many scientists monitoring the situation, and we should pay attention to them and not hired blowhards on CNN and MSNBC who are often tied to Big Pharma.