Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Amid COVID-19, India Buys $116M Worth Of Weapons to Israel

teleSUR | March 25, 2020

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed Thursday an arms deal with Israel worth hundreds of millions of dollars, as cases of the coronavirus infections are surging and concerns are rising over the country’s ability to face a health emergency of such magnitude.

Israel will deliver to the Indian military 16,479 Negev light machine guns, the Indian government said in a statement.

The US$116 million contract was signed as doctors and health professionals in India continue to sound alarms about the shortage of masks and protective gear, pointing out the country’s ill preparation to deal with the crisis.

The weapons contract is part of a series of arms agreements between India and Israel under Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The provisioning of this operationally urgent and very critically needed weapon will boost the confidence of the frontline troops and provide much-needed combat power to the Armed Forces,” India’s defense ministry said.

There have been around 536 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in India with 10 deaths reported. But like several other countries, it has barely done any tests and is now going through a spike in infections.

India’s “total lockdown” began at midnight Tuesday and will continue for 21 days.

At a time of crisis with a fatal pandemic spreading like wildfire and concerns rising over the consequences it is likely to have on economies around the world, the decision to give priority to military spending has sparked indignation among critics.

A retired professor of International Relations and Global Politics at the University of Delhi, Achin Vanaik, described the move as “extraordinary and highly condemnable, especially as it becomes clear that authorities are well aware that official stats are a gross underestimation at this point.”

“India needs every rupee to deal with the very real danger of the coronavirus pandemic spreading in a country of 1.3 billion people – living in densely populated cities and towns. As it is, compared to Europe, North America or even China and other countries in Asia, the medical system here is woefully under-equipped to deal with this emergency. This diversion of funds is deeply distressing,” Vanaik told the MEE.

Likewise, many critics are denouncing the fact that the far-right government led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chose to spend hundreds of millions on military purchases while it has so far not announced any measure to assist those who are losing their income sources as a result of the epidemic.

“People rendered suddenly jobless are forced to rush back to villages to survive, risking the spread of the virus as they go,” leader of the Communist Party of India Kavita Krishnan told MEE.

“Why is the government of India choosing to spend massive amounts on military purchases instead of prioritizing a corona relief package, medical infrastructure, free healthcare and testing for all right now?” Krishnan asked.

March 25, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

As the world turns its attention to the pandemic, Israel is moving forward with military raids

By Lucas Leiroz | March 25, 2020

The West Bank situation is becoming increasingly complicated amid the coronavirus pandemic and territorial disputes between Palestinians and Israelis. At first, the Palestinian Authority and Israel showed signs of cooperation in combating the pandemic. A few weeks ago, joint measures were announced between both sides to contain the epidemic of the new coronavirus in the region. The measures include distribution of cleaning and personal hygiene materials, in addition to virus testing kits and medical equipment.

On the part of Tel Aviv, the total closure of the West Bank was promoted, allowing, however, access for Palestinian workers involved in the construction and agriculture sectors to the Jewish state, which is why the proposal was well accepted by Ramallah. On the part of the Palestinians, the West Bank has also been blocked, but only partially and for two weeks, since last Sunday (March 22), in addition to the implementation of a series of control and quarantine measures.

However, efforts to contain the pandemic have not prevented Israeli incursions into the region, which have increased recently. Ibrahim Melhim, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, acknowledged Israeli efforts to contain the coronavirus in the country and in Palestine, but criticized the unstoppable incursions against the Palestinians. “We have very strong round-the-clock coordination with the Israeli side to prevent the coronavirus from spreading (…) At the same time, Israel continues to operate in the Palestinian Territories as if there is no coronavirus crisis (…) They [Israeli forces] continue their raids across the West Bank, arresting people and confiscating lands, and that harms the existing coordination between the PA and Israel putting an additional burden on the Palestinian Authority,” said the spokesman.

Apparently, Israel pretends to collaborate with Palestine to stop the pandemic, when, in fact, it freely promotes its military maneuvers in the region, which go unnoticed by the mainstream media, strongly focused on covering the viral tragedy. In addition, Tel Aviv’s own collaboration to control COVID-19 in the region seems extremely limited. The blocking measures made it impossible, for example, for doctors from the “Physicians for Human Rights” (an Israeli NGO that serves Palestinians free of charge) to move alongside the West Bank, clearly hampering medical care in the region.

Mention should also be made of the fact that Israel, not Palestine, is the major focus of infections by the new coronavirus in the region. Israel has already more than 1,000 officially reported cases of the disease, in addition to one death, and several suspicions. In contrast, Palestine has around 60 infected people. It is clear from these data that the most stringent containment measures should come exclusively from Ramallah, since the Israeli military presence in the region itself poses a serious risk to Palestinian public health.

According to a survey by the Truman Institute for Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 63% of Israelis say Israel must help Palestinians during the coronavirus crisis. Vered Vinitsky-Serousse, president of the Institute, said that “the majority of Israelis believe that, when necessary, the government should devise preventive measures to help Palestinians during the Covid-19 epidemic.” The big problem, however, is how these joint maneuvers are conducted. Perhaps the first step to be taken in establishing joint measures is the definitive and immediate end to military incursions in the region, which constantly bring insecurity and terror to the Palestinian people.

The situation of tensions in the region must still be read in the context of the so-called “Deal of the Century”, the “peace” proposal for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians announced by American President Donald Trump. The “agreement” was celebrated unilaterally by the Washigton-Tel Aviv axis, with no participation of Palestinians, which is why it was rejected by the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League. The document foresaw the annexation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, leaving around 70% of the region under Palestinian rule – a figure much lower than that proposed by all previous attempts to resolve the conflict. Everything indicates that Israel will not stop its attempts to occupy that territory as much as possible.

It is in this context that the “joint” actions between Israelis and Palestinians must be analyzed with skepticism and suspicion. Are these pandemic containment measures really good, even when behind them the Israeli army expands its occupation in the region with increasingly aggressive incursions? Also, to what extent does Palestine benefit from the help of these joint actions when Israel has an absurdly greater number of infected people? Would Israel be able to help the Palestinians? Or would that aid be a mask for such military incursions? All of these are valid questions.

It is also worth remembering that a few weeks ago, at the end of February, Israel announced the construction of more than 2,000 new settlements in Palestinian territories – and on the same occasion, Netanyahu authorized the construction of other 7,000 units in the East Jerusalem region. These data mean that Israel’s aggressiveness against the Palestinians was increasing recently. Did this aggression really disappear from Tel Aviv’s plans in the face of a “commotion” with public health in Palestine (which is much better than the situation in Israel)? Perhaps, the mainstream media and Human Rights observers should divide their attention between the coronavirus and the conflict in Palestine, before more serious clashes erupt.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

March 25, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Covid-19 has exposed just how broken American economy & society are – a $2 trillion package alone won’t fix it

By Scott Ritter | RT | March 24, 2020

As Congress and the president bicker over a huge financial stimulus package designed to keep the US economy afloat, they must confront the real existential questions facing the country.

Despite all the wrangling, there will be a national economic stimulus package passed by the Congress and signed by the president. Domestic political imperative guarantees as much. The American economy has largely shut down because of the social lockdown mandated by the coronavirus pandemic, and without a stimulus package the entire system would collapse with little hope of ever fully recovering.

The cost of the package will approximate $2 trillion, give or take a few hundred billion. No matter what the final amount is, it will exceed by far the nearly $1.5 trillion combined bailout/stimulus packages approved by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to recover from the 2008 economic crisis. The 2008 package, however, was a one-time deal; the coronavirus stimulus covers a period of approximately one month, after which the economy either gets restarted, or Congress and the president will be looking at the need for a follow-on stimulus package of similar size and scope.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed some uncomfortable truths about the state of America today. First and foremost is the fragility of the American economy. After years of outsourcing manufacturing, the United States has constructed an economy where services industries comprise some 55 percent of overall economic activity. In the age of globalization, with interconnectivity functioning seamlessly, this model has been able to generate the appearance of prosperity, with a booming stock market and increased GDP.

The reality, however, is that the American economy lacks resilience in time of crisis. The ongoing trade war with China, combined with a depressed global oil market, were in the process of exposing this reality before the coronavirus pandemic. The national lockdown, and resulting economic stoppage, only accelerated what was a gradual economic recession in progress. Even if the US economy could be taken off stimulus-driven life support, the conditions that preceded the shutdown still exist and, if anything, have only been exacerbated by the impact of the pandemic on global economic health.

American corporations have been shown to have little capacity to plan for “rainy day” contingencies, instead focusing all their economic resources on the generation of short-term profit. And the American working class has been likewise exposed as living on the edge of catastrophe, with few Americans able to fall back on savings that would enable them to ride out a period of sustained economic inactivity or, worse, to pay for emergency health care.

The other uncomfortable truth about America that has been exposed by the crisis is the overall fragility of American society. The medical emergency brought about by the need to treat this virus has shown that what passes for a national healthcare system is, in fact, a fragile construct of for-profit institutions susceptible to being rapidly overburdened and unable to function once the cash-stream of overpriced healthcare has been cut off. The coronavirus crisis has revealed the reality of the US healthcare system today – most Americans don’t have the wherewithal to get quality healthcare when needed – the cost of such care is prohibitive, as are the insurance premiums one must pay to cover it.

President Trump, while supporting the emergency economic stimulus package, has questioned whether this approach is sustainable. The short answer is that it is not. In addition to the approximately $2 trillion that the stimulus is adding to the US debt, the Federal Reserve has been pumping additional trillions into the American equity market, making virtually interest free money available to US banks and financiers.

The purpose of this injection of free money is to stimulate economic growth in a system which purports to be built on the principles of private capital. But when an ostensibly private equity market must be pumped up with government infusions of capital, it is neither private nor liquid.

Trump is wrestling with the horrible reality that in order to take the American economy off government life support, he must lift the restrictions on socializing that were imposed to slow down and reduce the human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus disease. Whether this move is economically sound, medically advisable or politically viable has yet to be seen. But one thing is for certain – the US is at a crossroads in its history.

Trump’s best-case scenario is that he can jump start the US economy, bringing it back up on all cylinders to resume where it had left off prior to the coronavirus-inspired shut down. Even if this plan worked, however, it would not resolve the underlying deficiencies in the US economic and social model that have been exposed as a result of the crisis.

The other alternative is to recognize the reality of the situation confronting the US today – that the crisis has fundamentally broken the American economy along with the American model of society which drove and sustained it. To fix the innumerable flaws and issues that have been identified by Covid-19 will require a level of government economic intervention over time that will forever tip America away from the vision of capitalism-inspired prosperity it aspired to, toward a more egalitarian form of socialism founded on the European model so many Americans claim to disdain.

Trump, the quintessential capitalist, recognizes this reality. He knows that the decision on whether to restart the American economy is much more than a question of simple economics. It is one which touches on the existential survival of America as we have come to know it.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

March 25, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Western Journalists Really Want There to be a Huge Corona Epidemic in Russia

By Anatoly Karlin • Unz Review • March 21, 2020

The stream of articles suggesting that Russia is covering up its Corona numbers has increased from a stream to a veritable flood:

Let’s take a look at that last article, written by FT’s Henry Foy today, and one of the more balanced (read: less Putin Derangement Syndrome – afflicted) journalists doing the Russia beat (not to mention the most prominent in the above sample, having scored an exclusive interview with Putin in 2019).

“The present number of patients with coronavirus will be hidden from us,” said Anastasia Vasilieva, chairman of Doctors’ Alliance, a Russian lobby group affiliated with opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Now Foy, to his credit, at least has the journalistic integrity to acknowledge that this doctors’ group (which I have never heard of before now) is affiliated with Navalny, whose entire shtick is to oppose everything and anything the Kremlin does.

A political tilt that its chairwoman helpfully confirms:

“The value of human life for our president is nil . . . We don’t want to admit to any pandemic,” said Ms Vasilieva. “We know of hospitals that are completely full and nurses who are asked to sew face masks from gauze.”

***

But otherwise it follows the usual template on Russia COVID-19 coverage.

She claimed Moscow was instead classifying cases of the virus as pneumonia, the incidence of which increased by almost 40 per cent in January compared with a year previously, government data showed.

The aim here is to insinuate that there was a raging coronavirus epidemic camouflaged as the flu from as early as January 2020.

Oh Corona, where to start.

1. Flu mortality fluctuates wildly season to season by a factor of as high as 4x. So this is a perfectly meaningless fact from the outset.

2. Even China’s epidemic only broke 1,000 cases in January 25. Where were Russians getting infected??

3. If this was true, it is Russia, not Italy, that would be the center of the COVID-19 epidemic now – something that would certainly be noticed, e.g. in overflowing hospitals (no sign of that to date) or in exported cases (but that was all China in February, and predominantly Italy, Iran, and other EU nations now). It is Britons that Vietnam has started barring ten days ago, not Russians.

Here’s what I guess happened. People got agitated by reports from China, and were more likely to consult doctors, producing more flu diagnoses. Even though the actual chance of Russians having COVID-19 in January if they hadn’t been to Wuhan was on the order of a meteorite hitting them on the head.

While other foreign leaders have steeled their citizens for a long crisis and have spoken of a “war” against the pandemic, Mr Putin has played down the threat and urged citizens to remain calm in an effort to minimise panic — and ensure the nationwide ballot on April 22 takes place. …

“The virus is a challenge and comes at a very bad moment for him,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R. Politik, a political analyst. “Putin doesn’t want to postpone and is insisting that the referendum takes place as soon as possible . . . The longer they wait, the more risks will appear.”

LOL. Trump was saying Corona was fake news/nothingburger up until the end of February.

The US epidemic (22k cases) is about two orders of magnitude more advanced than Russia’s (306 cases), but most states have continued to hold primaries for the Dem nomination.

And in any case Putin has allowed the possibility that the April 22 Constitutional Referendum may be postponed. There’s no indication it’s a hard, immovable date.

At the same time, Mr Putin has sought to project an image of control, continuing with his diary of local visits and meetings with senior officials, shaking hands and never wearing a face mask.

Although it would be nice for Putin to set a better example, this is the rule, internationally – not the exception. Stressing this is so petty, LOL.

“No matter what happens in the next 35 days, they have to lie, hush up, and deny. It doesn’t matter at all what really will happen to coronavirus in Russia, whether there will be a moderate outbreak or tens of thousands are killed,” said Igor Pitsyn, a doctor in Yaroslavl, a city 250km north-east of Moscow.

“By Putin’s decree all information about this is declared a state secret until April 22 . . . This ‘nationwide vote’ will be held at all costs.”

First time I hear of this. Searching “путин коронавирус гостайна” doesn’t produce any relevant results. This doctor must have some very high placed sources.

Or perhaps Foy had to travel all the way to Yaroslavl to get a sufficiently juicy quote.

While officials have cited the low number as proof of the success of swiftly closing its border with China in January and steadily cutting flights to affected countries, experts have questioned how the country has proved far more immune than almost any other. … Neighbouring Belarus has five times more infections per capita than Russia, and France, which has roughly half Russia’s population, has more than 50 times the number of cases.

Russia doesn’t have large numbers of Gastarbeiters in the EU, unlike Belarus. Our Belorussian commenters also tell us that there are next to no control measures in place.

But Ukraine has perhaps 20x more Gastarbeiters in the EU than Belarus, and yet 2 days ago reported only 1/3 as many Corona cases (16 vs. 51). Which suggests where Western journalists covering Eastern Europe should really focus their attention. If they, you know, cared about the Corona situation in Eastern Europe. As opposed to promoting the US line that Russia bad and China bad.

***

Incidentally, an update on Ukraine, two days after my alarm-raising article, in which I suggested that it’s likely there’s a big cluster developing undetected in Ukraine.

Even though testing in Ukraine remains extremely patchy – even in per capita terms, its ~500 tests are two orders of magnitude lower than Russia’s ~150k, or for that matter Belarus’ ~16k – the past two days have seen a surge of new cases from 16 to 41. The majority of those cases, some 25 of them, are concentrated in Chernivtsi oblast, which also saw the death of a 33 year old woman from existing problems magnified by the coronavirus.

The unlikelihood of such a mortality profile, coupled with the flood of new cases despite continued low testing rates, strongly suggests that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that a cluster is developing in Chernivtsi oblast.

This suggestion is backed up by an observation by Twitter user from_kherson:

There’s a reason Chernivtsi has so many cases – large # of people go to Italy for work.

An acquaintance of mine from there confirmed his business partner just tested positive for the virus.

But just in case you think I am piling on to Ukraine because of my own political obsessions you would be mistaken.

I will say that after Ukraine, probably the second biggest undetected Corona timebomb in Europe may be Serbia. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia page on COVID-19 testing doesn’t have information for Serbia. However, one of my Serbian friends on Thursday wrote me that:

We are still testing around 50 per day, with 1/5 being positive…

So both the intensity of testing and the rate of positives is similar to Ukraine.

This Friday, he continued:

We still have competent health care workers (the decision not to test the wider population is purely political, as was the decision not to close schools until 5 days ago), relatively functioning health care system, about 1500 respirators on a population that is 7+ million.

On the other hand, we have the second lowest reported total test volume anywhere in the world, after Malorossiya :), at 545 total as of this morning, one of the highest positive rates per 1000 tests (after Italy, Spain, Ecuador and the Philippines). We have seen an influx of over 250,000 gastarbeiters from Western Europe in the past 10 days… Many people are breaking the 14 day mandatory self isolation. When I say many, I’m talking about thousands every day…

We have 3 things potentially on our side. God, warmth, and Sun. Or it’s all just God? 🙂

And to think that Serbia was one of the first countries in the world to eradicate smallpox in the 1830s… Under the lifelong illiterate knyaz Miloš…

The large number of Gastarbeiters in Western Europe, most of whom are now going to be let go, is another similarity that Serbia shares with Ukraine. And is something that will be a very problematic issue going forwards.

Fortunately, it appears that China (and Russia) are going to bail Serbia out with test kits.

Despite their rather different geopolitical viewpoints, European attitudes to both Serbia and the Ukraine are quite similar. They are to be exploited to the extent they are useful; otherwise discarded as needed. It’s a lesson they should mull over.

March 22, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

US Military Accuses North Korea of Lying About Coronavirus Infection Rate of Zero

Sputnik – March 17, 2020

North Korea, whose contacts with the outside world remain limited even in a normal situation, was one of the first countries to introduce tough inspection and quarantine measures, canceling tourist visits, cutting off flights and rail travel and quarantining all workers coming home from abroad.

Nearly three months into the COVID-19 outbreak, North Korean health officials maintain that the country has zero cases of the virus.

The Korean Central News Agency reported last week that it there were no cases of COVID-19 in the country, but urged the public to remain vigilant. The agency reported that the country has enforced “strict, top-class anti-epidemic measures,” to intensify its coronavirus response, including the tightening of inspection and quarantine of imports from abroad. The measures are said to include comprehensive “inspection and disinfection of vehicles, vessels and goods,” and a 10-day quarantine of imports.

The World Health Organization too has indicated that it’s not aware of any cases of the virus in the self-isolating country, although the organization does plan to send equipment and supplies to help Pyongyang battle COVID-19. North Korea had previously asked the WHO for material assistance including disposable gowns, gloves and hazmat suits.

The popular Coronavirus Resource Center map run by Johns Hopkins’ University School of Medicine, which depends on credible sources including the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also reports zero cases for North Korea thus far.

However, US officials believe Pyongyang, which is required to report on any outbreak of contagious viruses as part of its WHO membership obligations, is lying.

Speaking to reporters last week, US Forces Korea commander Gen. Robert Abrams said the Pentagon was “fairly certain” that the country had coronavirus cases given the lack of noticeable military activity. According to the US commander, the North Korean military only recently restarted training following a month-long lockdown.

Keith Luse, executive director of the National Committee on North Korea, a Washington-based think tank, told Bloomberg that it “it’s hard to imagine that North Korea could dodge the COVID-19 bullet.”

Western media have similarly spread stories suggesting that the virus was quietly raging throughout the country, with one report by the US National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored Daily NK online newspaper claiming that as many as 200 soldiers had already died, and that another 4,000 people were in quarantine. These claims, citing anonymous sources, were never verified, but have been spread widely by English-language media.

North Korea, which is thought to have successfully weathered both the SARS and Ebola outbreaks in 2003 and 2014, became one of the first countries in the world to mount a nation-wide emergency response to COVID-19 amid rising infection rates in neighbouring China, South Korea and Japan.

These measures included a ban on all foreign tourists in late January, quarantine for travellers from China exhibiting potential symptoms of the virus in Sinuiju in the country’s west, and the declaration of a “state emergency” to deal with the epidemic on January 30, including the creation of a special ‘Central Emergency Anti-Epidemic Headquarters’.

North Korea’s presumed infection rate stands in sharp contrast to those of its neighbours, with China, where the virus originated, reporting over 81,000 cases, including some 218 cases in the North-Korea neighbouring regions of Liaoning and Jilin. South Korea has 8,320 confirmed cases. Japan has reported 833 cases. Russia, meanwhile, has 93 confirmed cases.

March 17, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Beijing believes COVID-19 is a biological weapon

By Lucas Leiroz | March 16, 2020

From conspiracy theory to geopolitical realism, the possibility to treat COVID-19 as a biological weapon has been finally accepted in the public sphere. The recent statement by the Chinese spokesman Zhao Lijian, formally accusing the US of bringing coronavirus to China, has highlighted a series of new opinions about the pandemic.

The hypothesis of biological warfare behind the global pandemic had already been raised by Russian experts some weeks ago. Like any opinion that is slightly different from the official version of Western governments and their media agencies, the thesis was ridiculed and accused of being a “conspiracy theory”. However, as soon as the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the second largest economic power on the planet publishes a note attesting to this possibility, it leaves the sphere of “conspiracy theories” to enter the realm of public opinion and official government versions.

In addition to making the explanation of biological warfare official, Zhao Lijian raised important questions about the pandemic data in the USA: “When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”

The supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, ordered on the same day of the declaration of the Chinese Ministry the creation of a unified center of scientific research specialized in the fight against the coronavirus. The motivation, according to the Iranian spiritual and political leader, was motivated by evidence that the pandemic is a biological attack. These are his words: “The establishment of a headquarters to fight the outbreak [of COVID-19] occurs due to the presence of evidence that indicates the possibility of a biological attack, signaling that it is necessary that all coping services [to the coronavirus] be under the command of a unified headquarters”.

In fact, what the mainstream Western media has called a “conspiracy” has been manifested in US defense programs for a long time. We must briefly recall the official document named “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, published by the conservative think tank “Project for a new American Century”, where we can clearly read: “(…) advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

Taking into account that the document was published in 2000, we can see that the possibility of biological warfare has been carefully considered and worked on by American strategists for at least two decades. However, the projects are even older. This article published in Global Research tells a brief history of biological warfare technology, tracing the remote origins of this practice by the American armed forces. In this genealogy of biological warfare, we find reports of the use of bio-weapons in wars in great conflicts of the last century, such as the Second World War, the Korea War and the conflicts with Cuba. Even so, until last Thursday, the mere fact of mentioning this hypothesis for the new coronavirus was rejected as conspiracy.

We must attain to concrete data: Pentagon has 400 military laboratories around the world, whose activities are still obscure; the USA has not yet made a clear statement about the COVID-19 data in its territory, having not yet informed the identity of its patient zero and maintaining uncertain information about the number of infected; Chinese scientists conducted a complex study in which they concluded that the virus did not originate in China, but that it had multiple and diverse sources from the Huanan marine seafood market from where the virus subsequently spread.

In February, the Japanese media agency Asahi TV reported that the virus originated in the U.S., not China, and that Washington would be omitting its actual numbers, with some cases of death attributed to influenza being, in fact, camouflaged cases of coronavirus; on February 27, a Taiwanese virologist presented a series of flowcharts on a TV program, corroborating the thesis that the virus has an American origin, providing a scientific explanation to the flow of the virus sources devoid of any geopolitical purpose.

Another curious fact is that China has been unexpectedly affected by epidemic phenomena, particularly during the period of the trade war between Beijing and Washington. Only between 2018 and the beginning of 2020, the country recorded epidemic episodes of H7N4, H7N9 (two variations of bird flu) and African swine flu. Also, the US has not officially responded to any of these notes, remaining silent about the coronavirus situation in its territory.

Not proposing a concrete answer, but only speculations, we can consider that the circumstances of the case present us a very extensive list of possibilities about what in fact the coronavirus is. Obviously, it is possible that it is not a biological weapon – and this is the official version of most of the media agencies and governments – however, once this hypothesis has been raised and no concrete evidence to the contrary is presented, it is also possible that it is a biological weapon.

The most important thing to do is to dispel the myth that biological wars are conspiracy theories. We must begin to take this possibility seriously and analyze the evidences in search of real solutions. Biological weapons are methods that have long been used and that form a fundamental part of modern warfare, whose costs are less than the methods of direct confrontation of the old wars of mobilization – and whose benefits are greater.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

March 16, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Coronavirus and the Sun: a Lesson from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Fresh air, sunlight and improvised face masks seemed to work a century ago; and they might help us now.

By Richard Hobday | March 10, 2020

When new, virulent diseases emerge, such SARS and Covid-19, the race begins to find new vaccines and treatments for those affected. As the current crisis unfolds, governments are enforcing quarantine and isolation, and public gatherings are being discouraged. Health officials took the same approach 100 years ago, when influenza was spreading around the world. The results were mixed. But records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza — little-known today — was effective. Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks and months ahead.

Influenza patients getting sunlight at the Camp Brooks emergency open-air hospital in Boston. Medical staff were not supposed to remove their masks. (National Archives)

Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu virus and other harmful germs. Equally, sunlight is germicidal and there is now evidence it can kill the flu virus.

`Open-Air’ Treatment in 1918

During the great pandemic, two of the worst places to be were military barracks and troop-ships. Overcrowding and bad ventilation put soldiers and sailors at high risk of catching influenza and the other infections that often followed it.[2,3] As with the current Covid-19 outbreak, most of the victims of so-called `Spanish flu’ did not die from influenza: they died of pneumonia and other complications.

When the influenza pandemic reached the East coast of the United States in 1918, the city of Boston was particularly badly hit. So the State Guard set up an emergency hospital. They took in the worst cases among sailors on ships in Boston harbour. The hospital’s medical officer had noticed the most seriously ill sailors had been in badly-ventilated spaces. So he gave them as much fresh air as possible by putting them in tents. And in good weather they were taken out of their tents and put in the sun. At this time, it was common practice to put sick soldiers outdoors. Open-air therapy, as it was known, was widely used on casualties from the Western Front. And it became the treatment of choice for another common and often deadly respiratory infection of the time; tuberculosis. Patients were put outside in their beds to breathe fresh outdoor air. Or they were nursed in cross-ventilated wards with the windows open day and night. The open-air regimen remained popular until antibiotics replaced it in the 1950s.

Doctors who had first-hand experience of open-air therapy at the hospital in Boston were convinced the regimen was effective. It was adopted elsewhere. If one report is correct, it reduced deaths among hospital patients from 40 per cent to about 13 per cent.[4] According to the Surgeon General of the Massachusetts State Guard:

`The efficacy of open air treatment has been absolutely proven, and one has only to try it to discover its value.’

Fresh Air is a Disinfectant

Patients treated outdoors were less likely to be exposed to the infectious germs that are often present in conventional hospital wards. They were breathing clean air in what must have been a largely sterile environment. We know this because, in the 1960s, Ministry of Defence scientists proved that fresh air is a natural disinfectant.[5] Something in it, which they called the Open Air Factor, is far more harmful to airborne bacteria — and the influenza virus — than indoor air. They couldn’t identify exactly what the Open Air Factor is. But they found it was effective both at night and during the daytime.

Their research also revealed that the Open Air Factor’s disinfecting powers can be preserved in enclosures — if ventilation rates are kept high enough. Significantly, the rates they identified are the same ones that cross-ventilated hospital wards, with high ceilings and big windows, were designed for.[6] But by the time the scientists made their discoveries, antibiotic therapy had replaced open-air treatment. Since then the germicidal effects of fresh air have not featured in infection control, or hospital design. Yet harmful bacteria have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

Sunlight and Influenza Infection

Putting infected patients out in the sun may have helped because it inactivates the influenza virus.[7] It also kills bacteria that cause lung and other infections in hospitals.[8] During the First World War, military surgeons routinely used sunlight to heal infected wounds.[9] They knew it was a disinfectant. What they didn’t know is that one advantage of placing patients outside in the sun is they can synthesise vitamin D in their skin if sunlight is strong enough. This was not discovered until the 1920s. Low vitamin D levels are now linked to respiratory infections and may increase susceptibility to influenza.[10] Also, our body’s biological rhythms appear to influence how we resist infections.[11] New research suggests they can alter our inflammatory response to the flu virus.[12] As with vitamin D, at the time of the 1918 pandemic, the important part played by sunlight in synchronizing these rhythms was not known.

Face Masks Coronavirus and Flu

Surgical masks are currently in short supply in China and elsewhere. They were worn 100 years ago, during the great pandemic, to try and stop the influenza virus spreading. While surgical masks may offer some protection from infection they do not seal around the face. So they don’t filter out small airborne particles. In 1918, anyone at the emergency hospital in Boston who had contact with patients had to wear an improvised face mask. This comprised five layers of gauze fitted to a wire frame which covered the nose and mouth. The frame was shaped to fit the face of the wearer and prevent the gauze filter touching the mouth and nostrils. The masks were replaced every two hours; properly sterilized and with fresh gauze put on. They were a forerunner of the N95 respirators in use in hospitals today to protect medical staff against airborne infection.

Temporary Hospitals

Staff at the hospital kept up high standards of personal and environmental hygiene. No doubt this played a big part in the relatively low rates of infection and deaths reported there. The speed with which their hospital and other temporary open-air facilities were erected to cope with the surge in pneumonia patients was another factor. Today, many countries are not prepared for a severe influenza pandemic.[13] Their health services will be overwhelmed if there is one. Vaccines and antiviral drugs might help. Antibiotics may be effective for pneumonia and other complications. But much of the world’s population will not have access to them. If another 1918 comes, or the Covid-19 crisis gets worse, history suggests it might be prudent to have tents and pre-fabricated wards ready to deal with large numbers of seriously ill cases. Plenty of fresh air and a little sunlight might help too.

References

  1. Hobday RA and Cason JW. The open-air treatment of pandemic influenza. Am J Public Health 2009;99 Suppl 2:S236–42. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.134627.
  2. Aligne CA. Overcrowding and mortality during the influenza pandemic of 1918. Am J Public Health 2016 Apr;106(4):642–4. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.303018.
  3. Summers JA, Wilson N, Baker MG, Shanks GD. Mortality risk factors for pandemic influenza on New Zealand troop ship, 1918. Emerg Infect Dis 2010 Dec;16(12):1931–7. doi:10.3201/eid1612.100429.
  4. Anon. Weapons against influenza. Am J Public Health 1918 Oct;8(10):787–8. doi: 10.2105/ajph.8.10.787.
  5. May KP, Druett HA. A micro-thread technique for studying the viability of microbes in a simulated airborne state. J Gen Micro-biol 1968;51:353e66. Doi: 10.1099/00221287–51–3–353.
  6. Hobday RA. The open-air factor and infection control. J Hosp Infect 2019;103:e23-e24 doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2019.04.003.
  7. Schuit M, Gardner S, Wood S et al. The influence of simulated sunlight on the inactivation of influenza virus in aerosols. J Infect Dis 2020 Jan 14;221(3):372–378. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiz582.
  8. Hobday RA, Dancer SJ. Roles of sunlight and natural ventilation for controlling infection: historical and current perspectives. J Hosp Infect 2013;84:271–282. doi: 10.1016/j.jhin.2013.04.011.
  9. Hobday RA. Sunlight therapy and solar architecture. Med Hist 1997 Oct;41(4):455–72. doi:10.1017/s0025727300063043.
  10. Gruber-Bzura BM. Vitamin D and influenza-prevention or therapy? Int J Mol Sci 2018 Aug 16;19(8). pii: E2419. doi: 10.3390/ijms19082419.
  11. Costantini C, Renga G, Sellitto F, et al. Microbes in the era of circadian medicine. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2020 Feb 5;10:30. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2020.00030.
  12. Sengupta S, Tang SY, Devine JC et al. Circadian control of lung inflammation in influenza infection. Nat Commun 2019 Sep 11;10(1):4107. doi: 10.1038/s41467–019–11400–9.
  13. Jester BJ, Uyeki TM, Patel A, Koonin L, Jernigan DB. 100 Years of medical countermeasures and pandemic influenza preparedness. Am J Public Health. 2018 Nov;108(11):1469–1472. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304586.

Dr. Richard Hobday, an internationally recognised authority on health in the built environment, is an independent researcher working in the fields of infection control, public health and building design. He is the author of `The Healing Sun’.

March 16, 2020 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

    Next Entries »