I've been doing puzzles and reading mysteries since I was nine. Word puzzles are the best. Confusing mysteries, especially set in a specific place, are amazing because it's like visiting a location or time. I read mysteries set in Rome, mysteries set on the Navajo Rez, even mystery thrillers that reflect our worst fears from the headlines. Puzzles are fun to figure out. Mysteries are fun to anticipate. It's become a habit to look at situations and wonder "What if.....?"
Consider epidemics. Human history is full of them. The Black Death, The Spanish Flu, Polio, AIDS, Zika were surges of disease that ravaged different populations. I remember the Polio Epidemic of the late 1950's. As a very young child I remember lining up in the school gym of Dowling Elementary waiting to get my sugar cube in a paper condiment cup soaked with a vaccine engineered by Jonas Salk. The AIDS epidemic was frightening because it was a communicable disease that nobody wanted to really discuss. We've had disease promoted by poor hygiene, crowded populations and utter disregard for access to vaccinations. But this time is different.
The "Corona Virus" or COVID-19 if you prefer, appears to be an engineered virus. The prefix "novel" means it hasn't been identified prior to this outbreak. That doesn't mean it didn't exist, but it most likely didn't exist in a human accessed format. To look more closely we need to look at Wuhan. (and NO it is not "racist" to call this the Wuhan virus any more than it was racist to call the Spanish Flu by that name...). Wuhan, in the Hubei province of China has been a huge research entity for awhile now. Maybe it's just a coincidence that COVID-19 manifested in that region, but since the 1960's many of our flu bugs seem to originate there. The way epidomologists look at mass infections of populations is to use timelines and maps. Here are a few examples:
Real time chart of COVID-19 outbreak (made by a 17 year old! If you go there, give him some props)
I'm putting in some graphics mainly to get people to focus. But you should go to the website linked HERE and investigate for yourself.
So here's your outbreak. Here's the path of the pathogens as it were (Biology pun, I love gallows humor). We can see it started in China, with the "official" date of 12/24/2019 which is most likely a month later than it was really first introduced into the human petri dish of Chinese culture. From there, for awhile, the second largest outbreak was in Iran. This is dark humor indeed since they claim to have nothing to do with the Chinese officially. The existence of the virus in Iran proves otherwise. From there the virus moves to Italy which is now second in terms of total cases and deaths. Part of this is due to the aging population in Italy, but it also says a great deal about crowded conditions and open borders. Both play a role in this morality play.
From there, the third largest cluster is in Washington state. This is not an accident. While folks rant about the lack of security on our southern border, people from all over the world literally walk across from Canada, many of them in Washington state. Let's not forget that Washington is a "Sanctuary State" where people are discouraged from asking questions or making observations about the living conditions of others. Even now, I am willing to bet that the tolerant folks in Seattle are loathe to ask someone who is sitting on the bus by them coughing if they have COVID-19. This idea that you should not defend yourself from something or someone who could be a threat is a very dangerous idea. But that is the nature of what has happened in the culture of the Left Coast.
The first and worst outbreak was in a senior rest home. If I was an investigator, I would look at workers who were dealing with multiple patients. This would point to nursing staff, but even more to food handlers and service workers. If I was a profiler I would say this was a member of the food services staff who was ill or living with someone who was ill. It is likely they don't speak English and were fearful of being turned over to ICE. What's scarier, that same person may be working at multiple facilities. Remember food services means not just rest homes, but also hospitals, schools, public buildings. Look up the history of Typhoid Mary if you want a similar scenario in real life.
As a result, Americans who are currently raised to believe they can control outcomes are panic buying things like bleach, toilet paper and bottled water. God knows I'd rather face the apocalypse with a good bottle of Bourbon and a cheeseburger, but I digress. We have a generation that doesn't know how to handle adversity AT ALL. They seek internet solutions and blame politicians when none of that has any bearing on when and where the virus landed. All I can say is thank God the "Greatest Generation" had enough balls to endure the deprivation of the Great Depression and the mobilization of WWII because I'm not sure the current crop of young people could do it. Sometimes you have to learn how to respond in spite of your fears. When I think of the college kids with safe rooms because they can't endure the words of a conservative speaker or the people who melt down because they don't like who gets elected, I wonder if some massive psy-op program has removed maturity from the population.
Now we get to the total conjecture part of my column.
IF I was an evil villain intent on destroying Western Civilization, how would I do it?
The Chinese are reliant on American and European markets for their newfound wealth. They would not knowingly destroy it. But with wealth, also comes envy. There are many Chinese millionaires now. There are also many underpaid tech workers who are more interested in acquiring wealth than moral and ethical concerns. These folks are probably not particularly knowledgable about the nature of research in Wuhan. Nor would the Chicoms inform them of the potential danger. So selling off some deceased lab animals to local wet markets, or worse, deliberately running off with live virus material to sell at a premium on the dark web isn't that much of a muchness to them. Enter the Source (which the Chinese government is probably still trying to find.)
The Source, being an opportunist, bumbles the security measures, likely infecting his family, his friends, his neighborhood. This is the more deadly L-Strain that has so many panicked. For those bemoaning the naming of this virus, please note that the Chinese called it Wuhan 1. Now enters the Buyer. What region or nation desires to destroy Western culture which it view as an abomination? Let's go to the map and timeline. Early after the Chinese infections were named, which nation was second? Correct, it was Iran. So we have the feckless Source selling to a Buyer intent on attempting bioterrorism on a large scale. Iranians know they can't get into Israel. They'd be stopped before they could reach the Wailing Wall. But Italy houses the seat of early Christiandom in the location of the Vatican and the person of the Pope. Even though Catholics are DEEPLY divided on the nature and intentions of the current Pontiff, he is the figurehead for a huge number of Catholics around the world. Please notice that Italy has had to deal with EU's open border policies and so could not check who is coming in or from where. Italy now has the second most cases and deaths.
The numbers will only grow. It's causing social and political chaos here and abroad. It's reshaping the social functions of the US as we recoil from gatherings and indeed are canceling festivals and events faster than Antifa can cancel Ben Shapiro. This doesn't feel like a "normal" epidemic to me. It feels like something else. And I think it feels like something more to others as well. I do wish for once politicians would stop using this to push agenda. I also wish that we could shut down social media for a few days until cooler heads prevail. IF something is going on here beyond what the MSM is being allowed to tell us for security reasons, I hope, at some point, they will let us know the truth. But then again they told us they'd open all the records on the JFK assassination after fifty years and that didn't happen either.
If you liked this column, send me a roll of toilet paper. Kidding.....sort of.
