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This will end my long thread about how Corona went from being a "mild cold" (Christian Drosten at the start of March) to a deadly plague, all in a few days around 8 March.
Let's start by retelling the whole story from the very start. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346810217590386689
This will end my long thread about how Corona went from being a "mild cold" (Christian Drosten at the start of March) to a deadly plague, all in a few days around 8 March.
Let's start by retelling the whole story from the very start. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346810217590386689
In fact let's go back to January, when western social media filled with videos of people collapsing in the streets of Wuhan, apparently from Covid. https://twitter.com/caijinglengyan/status/1220420645437177862?s=20
The world has now seen almost 90 million Corona infections. These scenes have never been repeated. These panic videos all emerged on or around 23 Jan. That is to say, they coincided precisely with the start of the Hubei lockdown. They are surely fake.
Either they were intended to create domestic support for measures in Hubei, & later leaked to Western platforms; or the Chinese deliberately circulated them to the West, whether to justify their lockdown internationally, suppress protests in Hong Kong, or for some other purpose.
Lockdown & panic propaganda is a blueprint.
It was repeated in Italy with the Lombardy lockdown on 8 March. This panic propaganda targeted not just Italy, but the entire West. Its purpose was to justify and promote mass containment of Corona. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346386488007794688
It was repeated in Italy with the Lombardy lockdown on 8 March. This panic propaganda targeted not just Italy, but the entire West. Its purpose was to justify and promote mass containment of Corona. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346386488007794688
Lombardy did not lock down b/c things were bad there. That is not why anybody ever locks down. They locked down b/c they got steered into it by their WHO-affiliated corona tsar, after testing in n. Italy found more Corona cases than expected. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346810220874502144
Corona surely stressed Italian hospitals. The statistics show the Italian outbreak was worse than the Euro average. But Italy is really only an outlier in 1 respect: It was the 1st western country to test widely & attempt containment on a mass scale
[Side Note: There's no reason to think the pandemic was more advanced in Italy in late Feb than elsewhere in Europe. Germany and Italy were able to have a spat in the earliest days, about who had spread the disease to whom.] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-scientists/coronavirus-may-have-reached-italy-from-germany-scientists-say-idUSKBN20Y35B
Now, when we compare the January Wuhan propaganda - those grainy videos - with the March Lombardy propaganda, we see important difference.
Grainy videos of fever-dream SARS would not be credible given increasing direct experience with Corona in West, & would send wrong message.
Grainy videos of fever-dream SARS would not be credible given increasing direct experience with Corona in West, & would send wrong message.
High case-fatality-rate Corona would soon be falsified and could not be the basis of mass containment in Europe and North America. So Corona had to be bad for a reason.
The message went from: Corona is deadly, to: Corona overwhelms hospitals.
The message went from: Corona is deadly, to: Corona overwhelms hospitals.
Stories of brutal triage in Lombard hospitals played a key role. Thse derived from 2 social media posts.
The earlier (& more credible) of these was put on Facebook by a Bergamo physician, eager to explain to the public why Corona is worse than the flu. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346850131702931457
The earlier (& more credible) of these was put on Facebook by a Bergamo physician, eager to explain to the public why Corona is worse than the flu. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346850131702931457
This Italian fb essay was picked up by Corriere della Sera - the NYT of Italy, basically - the very day this doctor poasted
2 days later, a strange Twitter acct ran far more dramatic thred about strict triage for 65+ or ppl with comorbidies in n. Italy https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346398068367831040
2 days later, a strange Twitter acct ran far more dramatic thred about strict triage for 65+ or ppl with comorbidies in n. Italy https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1346398068367831040
Its most sensational details, to my knowledge, were never confirmed in any press reports. Reading these stories today, 1 thing stands out:
It is the ventilators.
They are an important theme in both. They are "like gold" according to the Bergamo doctor.
It is the ventilators.
They are an important theme in both. They are "like gold" according to the Bergamo doctor.
The doubtful Twitter thread also mentions several times, all the people who cannot be intubated because of triage.
The problem of the ventilator bottleneck immediately entered media. On 9 March the WEF ran headline:
EVERY VENTILATOR BECOMES LIKE GOLD https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/suddenly-the-er-is-collapsing-a-doctors-stark-warning-from-italys-coronavirus-epicentre/
The problem of the ventilator bottleneck immediately entered media. On 9 March the WEF ran headline:
EVERY VENTILATOR BECOMES LIKE GOLD https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/suddenly-the-er-is-collapsing-a-doctors-stark-warning-from-italys-coronavirus-epicentre/
This is the specific way Corona would overwhelm hospitals. Ventilators are inelastic. Un-contained Corona will require vastly more ventilators than you have. So you have to contain Corona, or you will run out of ventilators, like Italy did, and it will be a disaster.
The guidance to ventilate severe Covid patients early, and at high pressures, was pushed from the very beginning, by Chinese medical advisers.
Our Bergamo physician passed on this very advice himself, via facebook on 4 March:
Our Bergamo physician passed on this very advice himself, via facebook on 4 March:
In truth, overuse of mechanical ventilation was responsible for a lot of early Corona mortality. Ventilators aren't a bottleneck in the treatment of Corona patients & are now used very sparingly.
You might say this was an early treatment error.
You might say this was an early treatment error.
It would take an irresponsible and conspiratorially minded person, to say it was a myth, constructed to defeat the "mitigation" planning of western medical bureaucrats and convince them to adopt mass containment measures against Corona.
Ventilators-as-bottleneck is one reason the UK abandoned its mitigation plans in favour of mass containment. They had planned for a pandemic flu & failed to model the increased ventilation requirements of Corona patients.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/what-went-wrong-with-the-british-plan/
https://www.unz.com/isteve/what-went-wrong-with-the-british-plan/
By April, ventilators-as-bottleneck had fallen apart. Doctors realised vented patients mostly died, & best results were achieved with a sparing use of ventilation. But, once you opt in to mass containment, you can't opt out. Nobody got to go back to the mitigation.
Now, finally, back to that unique barometer of American elite opinion, Vox, to see how all the beginning of the plague, 8 March, played out in the centre of empire.
I have now read hundreds of Vox articles, so you don't have to.
I have now read hundreds of Vox articles, so you don't have to.
Remember, Vox's early reporting on Corona, was all mitigationist in nature. It was about slowing the spread, to keep chaos at a minimum.
It was not about eradication or mass containment.
It was Sweden, not Italy. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1345793500730843136
It was not about eradication or mass containment.
It was Sweden, not Italy. https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1345793500730843136
Only on 10 March is Vox no longer confused about what is happening in Italy. They finally call it a "lockdown" and stop talking about "travel restrictions."
In separate reporting from same day, Vox is torn.
They still think lockdowns are about "slowing" the spread (in fact they are about stopping it) and they want to know if America could use lockdowns too
But also too, maybe they didn't help in Wuhan. Maybe they are bad.
They still think lockdowns are about "slowing" the spread (in fact they are about stopping it) and they want to know if America could use lockdowns too
But also too, maybe they didn't help in Wuhan. Maybe they are bad.
As late as 12 March, tho, Vox is back to debunking "conspiracy theories" about Corona. IT DID NOT COME FROM A LAB. This theory is "dangerous".
Notable is the entire change in tone towards China. Just 2 months earlier Vox had been all in for the Hong Kong protesters.
Notable is the entire change in tone towards China. Just 2 months earlier Vox had been all in for the Hong Kong protesters.
Also, pharmaceutical treatments are still possible. Here is Vox wondering about how we might medicate for cytokine storms. These are presumed to be what caused much youth mortality in the 1918 pandemic. Mid- to late-March Vox is very interested in comparing 1918 to Corona.
13 March: Italy's coronavirus crisis could be America's
13 March: Covid 19 is not the flu. It's worse
14 March: Chinese struggling with xenophobia.
It's fascinating to see new Overwhelmed Hospitals narrative laid atop the old minimalist don't-panic-don't-do-racisms narrative
13 March: Covid 19 is not the flu. It's worse
14 March: Chinese struggling with xenophobia.
It's fascinating to see new Overwhelmed Hospitals narrative laid atop the old minimalist don't-panic-don't-do-racisms narrative
Importantly, the Vox reporting on the "herd immunity" strategy that the UK abandoned mid-March is remarkably neutral. https://www.vox.com/world/2020/3/15/21180414/coronavirus-uk-herd-immunity-vallance-johnson
It's worth remembering that the main objections were also cast within the "mitigation frame". They wanted to slow the growth to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.
The mass containment frame doesn't really make itself felt consistently until the very end of March, as American Corona mortality was spiking. https://www.vox.com/covid-19-coronavirus-explainers/2020/3/29/21198801/coronavirus-us-italy-when-will-it-end
Here's just a sample. Corona "spreads stealthily". Some sceptical Italians shook hands and one of them got corona.
Oddly the whole article seems to have been inspired by alarmistry in the Harvard Business Review.
Oddly the whole article seems to have been inspired by alarmistry in the Harvard Business Review.
And ... there's a lot of stuff here. Like incidental hilarious.
They think the odd bespoke contraption this person is wearing is a mask, for example.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/24/21188121/coronavirus-covid-19-social-distancing-1918-spanish-flu
They think the odd bespoke contraption this person is wearing is a mask, for example.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/24/21188121/coronavirus-covid-19-social-distancing-1918-spanish-flu
Google tells me it is a "flu nozzle," apparently some kind of hair-brained prototype rolled out for the 1918 pandemic. This is while Vox is still nominally anti-mask, by the way.
The first sighting of "Lockdowns Help the Economy" I can find in Vox is this 31 March piece. Amusingly it features the nozzled woman. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/31/21199874/coronavirus-spanish-flu-social-distancing
Flu nozzle woman never comes back when they do their big mask switch following the new CDC recommendations. https://www.vox.com/2020/4/3/21202792/coronavirus-masks-n95-trump-white-house-cdc-ppe-shortage
To be enjoyed with this video, from 22 April, which still frames masks as a "personal choice" in the event your jurisdiction doesn't require them.
And for those of you still reading to the bitter end, a little hope. You see a huge drop-off in Vox Corona coverage after May.
Indeed, this is down to the emergence of a vastly greater public health crisis, namely George Floyd's death and "police brutality".
Interestingly, Corona never really comes back as a driving theme for Vox.
I'm not in the US, but impression is that mass containment remains a concern in certain jurisdictions, like California, but is mostly not the driving obsession it has become in places like Germany.
I'm not in the US, but impression is that mass containment remains a concern in certain jurisdictions, like California, but is mostly not the driving obsession it has become in places like Germany.
A lot of reasons for this. Media hysteria divided between Trump and the virus, federal jurisdictions adopting different approaches defeating horror-story narratives about what will happen if you don't lock down, but also the left developing alternate anxieties at a key moment.
Anyway, that's all. Thanks for reading guys.
