Author: Luca Ammendola (Page 1 of 2)

“He goes in search of liberty—so precious,

as he who gives his life for it must know.”

Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Canto I by Dante Alighieri

Hikikomori, a Japanese phenomenon that first gained attention during the 1990s, is a severe form of social withdrawal which involves a complete withdrawal from society for six months or more. It is currently viewed as a sociocultural mental health phenomenon, rather than a distinct mental illness. Although the phenomenon began in Japan it is rapidly being identified in other countries all around the world. The term Hikikomori (derived from the verb hiki “to withdraw” and komori “to be inside”) was coined by Japanese psychiatrist Tamaki Saito and is now used across the world to describe anyone who fits the criteria.

The phenomenon is most common in young people, especially young men, and research shows traumatic experiences of shame and defeat are commonly reported as triggers across cultures. These young adults are unable to work, go to school, or step outside the house for months or years. They also don’t make or maintain any personal relationships outside their families. Often, they have a sense of apathy that is believed to border on nihilism. They might be disillusioned by the society in general and have a lack of motivation to engage with anyone. They might also have difficulty expressing their emotions.

Hikikomori tend to use the internet profusely, they prefer communicating online, and they often spend much of their time in the online world. The emergence of smartphones, food delivery services, and all services that reduce social interaction has a compounding effect on the issue. Essentially, you can live your entire life from your bed and, guess what, this is exactly what many hikikomori are doing.

Now close your eyes for a minute and think back about the last twelve months of your life… does the above sociocultural phenomenon sounds familiar? It should: we have all become Hikikomori or on the dangerous road to do so! Mandatory and anti constitutional lockdowns have imposed such a lifestyle on us. We are isolating in our homes, retracting from social interactions, unable to work, go to school, gather, protest, party, travel, experience art, laugh together, cry together, hug each other, have sex, meet new people, share new ideas… in one word: live! 

Plugged into a virtual reality dictated by technology, we have zoom “meetings”, shop online, visit virtual museums, share ideas on Facebook and release our sexual frustrations on Pornhub. Meanwhile society around us is crumbling into an economic catastrophe of biblical proportions (and that, in very practical terms, means extreme poverty and death) while a feudal resource grab by multinationals and financial interests is stealing our future. And all of this to “fight” a virus that, according to the WHO, has a fatality rate (the chance of dying if you catch the virus) under 1%. That is a 99% survival rate folks! We must be the most hysterical generation in human history.

ZÔÊ OR BIOS

The ancient Greeks, people much wiser than us, did not have a single term to express what we commonly refer to as life. They used two words: zôê, which expressed the simple fact of living, common to all living beings (animals, men or gods), and bios, which indicated the form or way of life specific to an individual or to a group. Such an elegant distinction should be a primordial source of conversation in a cultured society facing matters or life and death. Such distinction forces us to ask the oldest question in the world: what is life? Or more precisely what constitutes human life? Is human life nothing more than a beating heart and a breathing lung? Or is human life defined by the quality and the quantity of experiences it encounters?

Of course it goes without saying that there is no bios without zôê. Without a beating heart and a breathing lung no experience can be encountered within this earthly reality. But that’s a simple minded superficial fact. The real interesting question is: what is the purpose of a beating heart if such heart is deprived of emotions, memories and experiences that make it’s beating a worthwhile endeavour? Is the act of breathing enough to consider human existence an experience worth living?

One of the mantras of the daily political propaganda is that lockdowns, social distancing, masks and all of the other freedom murdering measures put in place by unelected “experts” are meant to save lives. In reality, if these systems have any usefulness at all (and it’s a big if) it is to save the zôê, the simple fact of living. But in doing so they kill the most important form of existence: the bios, the form of our lives. We therefore fall into a strange contradiction in which politicians and scientists are killing the meaningful and profound experience of being in order to save the bare life.

A practical, albeit extreme, example of the distinction between zôê and bios is the condition of irreversible coma. In such cases the bare life of a human being is kept alight by artificial means: his heart beats, his lungs breathe and from a medical stand point the patient is alive. But what of it’s human experience? Without entering into the intricate discussion of dreams and brain function within a comatose state we can clearly assess that human beings in such a state are unable to cultivate new experiences nor nurture emotions. Their bios is de facto inexistent. In science fiction literature such figure is best represented by the zombie, a creature that lives but yet is not fully human. In our attempts to combat the virus we are “zombifying” ourselves and living as if already dead.

Of course the most common rebuttal to such thinking will be: “but this is an emergency! These measures are provisional!”. Such a proposal is, in my opinion, flawed on many levels. First of all with a survival rate of 99% can we really claim this is an emergency? Secondly, if this is an emergency how long will it last? Many scientists seem to believe the virus is here to stay and the current crisis will continue for years to come. How long are we supposed to survive rather than live in the name of a 1% chance of dying? Thirdly, are we sure that these measures are provisional? Are we sure that what we are experiencing is not social distancing as a political model? A model run through a digital matrix that replaces human interaction, which, by definition, will henceforth be considered fundamentally suspect and politically “contagious”?

We’ve already experienced such a change in paradigm after 9/11. At the time the political propaganda had a very similar approach in convincing us that we were all in imminent danger and that in order to save our lives we had to sacrifice more and more of our freedoms. Such arguments were always underline by the assurance that such measures would be provisional. Of course twenty years after the facts the security measures put in place are still standing (think airport security, biometric passports, digital spying of citizens by the governments, data gathering… just to name a few obvious ones) The threat of terrorism made each of us into a potential terrorist and therefore a potential threat who needs to be surveilled. With the virus, an invisible terrorist that circulates in the air, we have all become potential carriers and spreaders. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben hits the nail on the head when he states that “it is not that citizens of the whole West have the right to health security, they are now legally forced to be healthy. This, in a nutshell, is the essence of biosecurity.” It is intrinsically linked to the logic of this thinking that the pandemic will have consequences that will transform the whole of society into a monitored area, into a permanent quarantine, where everyone will be treated as a potential carrier of the virus. 

The third article of the Italian Constitution (which inspired the United Nations’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights) states: “It is the duty of the Republic to remove those obstacles of an economic or social nature which constrain the freedom and equality of citizens, thereby impeding the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and social organisation of the country.” The full development of the human person is precisely what’s at stake in our current situation. How can we aspire at the full expression of the “better angels of our nature” (to quote Abraham Lincoln) if stepping out of our own homes has become a crime? How can we exercise empathy and love and our moral sense and our reason? How can we quench our thirst for knowledge, emotional growth and human relations? How can we still call ourselves human beings if what makes us so (the being) is shackled to the chains of mere survival? 

Echoing these principles, while sitting in a prison in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently described our predicament when he wrote: “A just law is a man-made code that coincides with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is not in harmony with the moral law. Any law that elevates the human personality is right. Any law that degrades the human personality is unjust… One has not only the legal but also the moral responsibility to obey the just laws. On the contrary, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”. 

CROSSROADS

We are living very dangerous times ladies and gentlemen and the real danger seems to me not the virus itself but our social, political and cultural response to it. We seem adamant to comply with the idea that our bare life, removed of it’s form, is the supreme good to which all other goods must bow. This is a very dangerous idea and the thinking of slaves. 

Our grandparents, when death stared them in the eyes, had a different understanding. When the German war machine rolled over Europe destroying, killing and burning all that they held dear they took the brave choice of fighting back. Without much hesitation they decided that their freedom, the sacred fire that burns inside just human beings, was more important than everything else, including their lives. They understood that without freedom, total, non-negotiable, self determining freedom, all expressions of human existence are voided of any profound meaning. And so they fought and died in the millions to conquer that freedom we, today, are so casually compromising. Had they, like we are doing, put their bare life rather than freedom as the supreme good, today we would all speak German and Hitler’s vision of history would be a reality. 

But us? What will we tell our grandchildren when they’ll ask us about these times? Will we tell them, with pride, that for fear of infecting ourselves with a virus with a lethality rate of under 1% we have sacrificed all other values? That we threw away all the freedoms and conquests for which our grandparents gave their lives? Will we swell with pride in telling them that, out of fear, we erased the pillars of our civilisation?

Understandable reasons of health safety are imposing on us the acceptance of an indeterminate limitation of personal freedoms, without debate and without this being questioned. In doing so we run a serious risk of addiction to slavery, with the combination of the almost totalitarian one-way information system. It is clear that in such a situation the peoples either adapt or go towards extremes (an expression of anger also due to the perception of suffered violence).

Such perception of injustice is exponentially growing because it is ever more clear that the virus is not fought by locking citizens up, but by strengthening public health (destroyed by the nefarious policies of liberalism). It is not fought by hiding in our homes but by protecting the 1% amongst us who is most fragile. It is not fought by creating millions of new poor but by enhancing timely medical care on the territory. It is not fought by putting in charge scientists and experts riddled by conflicts of interest but by implementing clear guide lines following the knowledge of the doctors who have successfully treated thousands of patients (and there are many such doctors). It is not fought by less democracy but by more democracy. It is not fought by censorship but more discussion. But above all it is not fought by renouncing to live in the name of survival but by unleashing the best part that resides in all of us… by giving wings to the better angels of our nature.

It is everyday clearer that we are at a crossroad and the only question everyone should ask is which side of history they want to be on! Those of you who are afraid of the virus you can shut yourself at home, lockdown, wear two masks and shower with disinfectant gel. We understand you and, if we can, we are here to help! But do not selfishly demand the same for everyone. If spending years of your life on a couch watching silly TV shows on Netflix and having Deliveroo bring you semi fresh food at your door sounds like a life worth living to you, be our guest! But don’t arrogantly request for all to do the same. If you think that freedom is overrated and a well worth bargain chip in exchange for health safety, feel free to chain yourself to whatever master will have you! Just don’t hysterically urge for all to be enslaved. If you wish to live in a virtual world of digital realities, plug yourself in! Just don’t childishly expect we all stop walking through the mystical woods of our lives. Some of us don’t want to give up living for fear of dying. 

QUICK SUMMARY OF PART TWO

• We are at war! Not with a virus but with a thought.
• The two fighting sides are neoliberalism versus constitutionalism
• After the Russian October Revolution of 1917 the economic system known as capitalism was kept in check by an alternative reality called communism.
• This translated, in the West, into the fear, of political and industry leaders, that workers could “go red”. And that meant that workers had to be kept happy.
• When the Berlin wall came down and once the Soviet Union collapsed there was no need for capitalism to be so generous no more.
• In the 1990s market forces began to reign supreme.
• Instead of the triumph of democracy, we witnessed the triumph of the elites.
• One of the first things to be cut out of the welfare system was healthcare.
• In the past ten years the Italian public healthcare was the victim of financial cuts worth 37 billion Euros.
• There are only two possible explanations for the way governments have been dealing with the crisis: complete ineptitude and idiocy or connivance with a criminal intent. 
• The practice of locking down entire countries will have tremendous consequences in the short, medium and long term.
• According to the UN, lockdowns may put the livelihood of 1.6 billion people at acute risk and may push an additional 150 million children into poverty.
• According to the UN, because of ‘The Great Lockdown’, 207 million people could fall into extreme poverty.
• 2020 is “the worst year of humanitarian crisis since the beginning of the United Nations” 75 years ago. 
• Fear was spread by the so called mainstream media, the great source of terror.
• Fear is the great obstacle that blocks all other feelings, namely the ability to reason.

THE RULES OF THE GAME

Any good detective will tell you that there are different forms of evidence. There is statistical evidence, anecdotal evidence, historical evidence, circumstantial evidence and definitive evidence (the so called “smoking gun”). 

Each individual piece of evidence cannot be understood independently and must be contextualised within the paradigm created by the larger body of evidence. In other words: an information on it’s own might be insignificant; it is only by piling up, comparing and cross referencing the evidence that we might begin to see the bigger picture and therefore take small steps towards the truth. 

This of course should be the job of any serious, curious and honest journalist. Just like a detective a journalist must search within the details in an attempt to put together the final picture of the puzzle. 

Sadly today, most journalists demonise the curiosity of those with whom they disagree in order to avoid the difficult task of explaining how the accusations are “baseless” or “conspiratorial”.

In my opinion being conspiratorial is a quality of intelligence because it forces you, out of curiosity and as a moral and civic duty, to take a look behind the scenes, beyond the propaganda and the veil of appearances.

Finally we must keep in mind (I say this mostly to myself) that aggregate evidence does not necessarily constitute proof. 

The following is therefore an attempt to take a further step into looking at the Coronavirus crisis from afar, trying to piece together the evidence at our disposal knowing all too well that his does not necessarily constitute a legal proof (yet). 

In other words the following is a philosophical and political exercise of reasoning.

ORIGINS

What do we know for certain so far? Let’s state the obvious: a new virus has made it’s appearance on our planet. About it’s origins only three options are on the table: a natural occurrence (the bat soup theory), a human error (the lab accident theory) and a deliberate release of the virus (the biological weapon theory). All three theories must be taken in consideration with almost equal levels of seriousness and possibility. It is worth noting that this discussion has been dropped pretty quickly and without definitive proof in the public conversation. This is very strange. It would be like a detective giving up on looking for the murderer and it’s motives while shrugging his shoulders and saying “oh well, the victim is dead anyway… who cares?!”.

It is worth noting that as of today we are in a situation of “he said, she said”. Most mainstream scientists defend the “bat soup” theory. Fadela Chaib a WHO spokeswoman claimed: “It is probable, likely, that the virus is of animal origin”. She was joined by Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University: “Based on the virus genome and properties, there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.”

Then there is, amongst others, Professor Luc Montagnier winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for “discovering” HIV as the cause of the AIDS epidemic, claiming that SARS-CoV-2 is a manipulated (man-made) virus. He defends the “lab accident theory” accusing the Wuhan lab of accidentally releasing the virus. He claims that Chinese researchers have used coronaviruses in their work to develop an AIDS vaccine. He also claims that HIV RNA fragments have been found in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.

He said: “With my colleague, bio-mathematician Jean-Claude Perez, we carefully analysed the description of the genome of this RNA virus,” and he formulated his theory based on this study. 

It is worth noting that others have already explored this avenue: Indian researchers have already tried to publish the results of the analyses that showed that this coronavirus genome contained sequences of the HIV virus (AIDS virus), but they were forced to withdraw their findings as the pressure from the mainstream was too great. 

If this were true it’s worth considering that in order to insert an HIV sequence into a genome, molecular tools are needed, and that can only be done in a laboratory.

So far no serious claims can be found for the “biological weapon” theory (if you know something that I don’t please let me know). This does not mean that it is an impossibility, simply that, as of now, it’s the least likely option. I could try to defend this theory as a mental exercise but I feel that, for the moment, it would be a waste of our time.

But whether a natural occurrence, a human error or a deliberate biological attack (we simply don’t know for sure), it is undeniable that the virus was (is) used for a general reorganisation of society and government in an unprecedented authoritarian turn of capitalism.

THE GIANT WITH FEET OF CLAY

Let’s take a small step backwards to analyse the social/economical situation pre Covid19. 

Much of the Western world was living in a deep crisis of neoliberal capitalism. The “free-market” economy (I use quotation marks because the “free-market” is a chimera, pure illusion, it never existed and never will) was on fragile footing prior to the virus. The virus was not the cause, but rather the pin that pricked the bubble. 

Sure, the total global financial wealth went up almost 3 times since 1990 from $80 trillion to $225 trillion. But this massive wealth accumulation was resting on a very weak foundation of debt. The world hasn’t created any net wealth. Instead wealth has just been inflated artificially by credit creation and money printing of the same magnitude.

Since 2000, 200 trillion dollars of global debt have been created. 66% of which composed of low level and low quality debt (that is very risky, likely to never be paid back). It goes without saying that the risk of implosion was, and still is, massive.

A major part of the $150 trillion debt created since the Great Financial Crisis, started in 2006, has stayed with the banks and not gone to consumers or industry. This is what happens when governments and central banks primary economic strategy consists of creating money out of thin air and then these funds are used to support the stock market (the toy of the elites) rather than sustain the real economy and needs of the people. 

In other words the over financialization (in the interests of the few) of our Western economies have made the system economically unsustainable and the whole castle of cards was about to collapse.  

On top of this it had become clearer and clearer to most people that the winners of such system were fewer and fewer (the infamous 1%) to the detriment of the masses. The oligarchic bloc of international capitalism was losing support and a climate of dissatisfaction reigned everywhere. Protest movements (Occupy Wall Street in the US, the Gilets Jaunes in France…), the rise of so called “populism” all over Europe, the loud NO to changes to the constitution in Italy (changes explicitly wanted by the international financial power) the highly successful call for a more socialist society by Bernie Sanders, the victory of Trump over Clinton (perceived by lots of people, rightly or wrongly that’s not the point, as a vector of change in the status quo), Brexit and so on and so forth, were all clear signs of demands for a change in the paradigm. In other words people were beginning to realise that neoliberal capitalism was (is) the real pandemic and that change was (is) needed. 

And then came Covid and with it the possibility of hiding all of this under the carpet. The imminent financial crisis could be blamed on the virus (and not on the greed of capitalists and the intrinsic unfairness of the system) and all of those annoying protestors roaming in the streets would soon be locked in their houses. 

ONE OF THE GREATEST WEALTH TRANSFERS IN HISTORY

You know how one of the mantras during this crisis has been “We’re all in this together”? Well we ain’t! For instance the world’s billionaires did extremely well during the pandemic, growing their already-huge aggregate fortunes to a record high of $10.2 trillion.

A report by Swiss bank UBS found that billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5%) at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs.

In the US alone over a roughly seven-month period starting in mid-March – a week after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency – America’s 614 billionaires grew their net worth by a collective $931 billion. At the same time four in ten Americans didn’t have enough cash in their bank accounts to cover a $400 unexpected expense (say medical?) and more than 40 million Americans filed for unemployment.

In the beautiful home of capitalism, the Small Business Administration (a US government agency that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses) made $349 billion available to small businesses with the Paycheck Protection Program. But, much like in 2008 and the whole too big to fail scam, $243 million of that was snapped up by large, publicly traded corporations, some of which were valued at over $100 million. Even hedge funds submitted claims to try to tap into what they saw as free money.

Of course it was of great further help to our billionaire friends that every substantial piece of Covid 19 legislation enacted worldwide has harmed small businesses while benefiting large corporations. This indicates, at the very least, a wilful indifference on the part of lawmakers to the plight of small businesses, but more likely, a conscious effort to disadvantage small businesses for the advantage of multinationals. As correctly pointed out by an American analyst: “Unless our policymakers are woefully incompetent, the intent of policy cannot be divorced from its effect. And the effect of Covid19 policy on small businesses has been devastating.”

In the US three people are the real winners of the greatest wealth transfer in history. And they are (rolling of drums)…

Third place: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) with a pre-pandemic estimated net worth of $54.7 billion he saw his wealth grow by $46.5 billion (+85.1%) to $101.2 billion. Like nearly every other publicly traded company, Facebook’s stock price fell precipitously when Covid 19 hit – from over $220 per share in February to less than $150 per share in March. But by May, Facebook stock hit record highs and shares were worth over $276 per share in mid-October.

Second place: Elon Musk (Tesla) with a pre-pandemic estimated net worth of $24.6 billion he saw his wealth grow by $68.2 billion (+277.4%) to $92.8 billion. Just like Mr. Zuckerberg Mr. Musk made this money on the stock market. On March 18, Tesla stock was worth $72 per share. By October 13, it was worth over $440 per share and has continued to increase to over $500 since.

And the winner is: Jeff Bezos (Amazon) with a pre-pandemic estimated net worth of $113.0 billion he saw his wealth grow by $90.1 billion (+79.8%) to $203.1 billion. The reason is easy to imagine: with a whole economy shut down, small businesses forced to close and the prohibition to step outside people ended up shopping online. Of course the fact that he paid $0 in taxes two years in a row (2017/18) and that when its bill finally came in 2019, he paid just $162 million, a measly 1.2% of the company’s income that year, helped a bit in creating his fortune (but this is another story).

Part of what made this possible was the stock-market rebound. During the economy shut down the markets plunged but quickly climbed again. The journey from record high to a bear market to a new record took just 126 trading days, the fastest-ever climb. When the stock market bounced back, the unequal wealths meant that the rich and powerful still had money on hand to invest and thus profit, while the middle and lower classes did not. To quote Yanis Varoufakis: “One of the secrets that 2020 brought into the open was that the mountains of concentrated private wealth we observe have very little to do with entrepreneurship. I have no doubt that Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Warren Buffett have a knack for making money and cornering markets. But only a tiny percentage of their accumulated loot is the result of the creation of value.”

In other words the additional $931 billion billionaires amassed did not result from any innovation or ingenuity that generated additional profits. They got richer in their sleep, so to speak, as central banks flooded the financial system with manufactured money that caused asset prices, and thus billionaires’ wealth, to skyrocket. As one commentator pointed out: ““The bigger the business, the more it moves the major averages, and that matters because this is the first recession where big business is coming through virtually unscathed, if not going for the gold”. All of this while the real economy (small businesses) was being massacred. 

It is worth considering that such wealths equates to a fortune almost impossible to spend over multiple lifetimes of absolute luxury. Anyone accumulating riches on this scale could easily afford to raise the pay of the employees who generate their wealth, or contribute a great deal more in taxes to support vital public services, while remaining very well rewarded for whatever successes they’ve achieved. But it’s clear to anyone that they don’t. They don’t want to and never will unless forced to do so. 

The fact that billionaires’ wealth has increased so much at a time when hundreds of millions of people around the world are struggling could (MUST!) lead to public and political anger. For them there is a big risk of being singled out by society, that the plebes will go after them with pitch forks and torches, so to speak, and they are very aware (scared) of this.

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN

As we’ve just seen the firsts to profit from the Coronavirus pandemic have been billionaires, but they are not the only ones. 

The obvious second is the so called Big Pharma since, like usual, they decided to put profit before an effective medical response. The Coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented profiteering opportunity for them, because of the obvious reason that almost everyone on Earth is destined to become a customer of some kind. “The power of the industry combined with fear is driving extraordinary spending” says U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett. 

The most telling story of Big Pharma scandalous response to the crisis is the story of Remdesivir. 

In short: Gilead, a company with a market capitalisation of more than $90 billion (making it bigger than Goldman Sachs) develops an antiviral drug with the help of $99 million in American government grant money (Always remember than when we talk about Big Pharma the public pays for most research and manufacturing. Only the profits are privatised). Having failed to be approved as a treatment for hepatitis and Ebola, it was for about three months the most in-demand product in the world because it was sold as a cure for Covid (it is interesting to note that during these three months Gilead spent nearly $ 2.5 million in lobbying). The price for Remdesivir came in at a “measly” $3,120 per course of treatment (6 days) per patient. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) reported it costs just $10 of raw materials to make each dose and is being produced generically in Bangladesh. Gilead ended up selling hundreds of thousands of doses. The American government bought more than 500,000 doses, which is all of Gilead’s production for July and 90% of August and September. Of course by October the WHO announced that Remdesivir had “little or no” effect in treating Covid-19.

I beg you! When you consider Big Pharma always keep in mind that you can put about as much faith in their promises as you can in the pitch of any salesperson (actually maybe less because your life might depend on it).

As for vaccines let’s just point out that their revenues and profits have skyrocketed to over 60 billion a year by 2020. Each new vaccine is worth about a billion dollars.

Finally I close this chapter with Dr. Kamran Abbasi, executive director of the British Medical Journal and editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (hardly a conspiracy theorist). He said: “Science is being suppressed for political and financial reasons. Covid-19 has caused large-scale state corruption that is detrimental to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. As are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how it is possible to manipulate the medical-political complex at a time when it is very important to safeguard science.”

Talking about political corruption… on a side note I think it’s interesting to put on record (it could turn out to be useful information in the months to come) that Joe Biden has led the pack among recipients of contributions from the health care and pharmaceutical industries during his electoral campaign.

CUI PRODEST?

I realise that this information is enough to enrage those of us who still have a soul, yet, dear friends, we must continue down this rabbit hole of mud if we are to begin to put this ugly picture together. We must ask ourselves the most important question: cui prodest? Who’s to gain from all of this?

As we’ve just seen there are huge financial incentives behind this crisis but those could be classified as rotten human vultures (I apologise to the real vultures) using the capitalist system at a time of crisis to make some dough. The real question must be: who’s to gain in the long term? 

If one looks at the lessons of history it is self evident that depriving the masses of self-determination has always been the wet dream of the elites. Whether against pharaohs, caesars, emperors or billionaire capitalists, the struggle of the masses has always been a struggle for freedom and the struggle of the elites has always been a struggle to impede it. 

It is interesting to note (I’m sure this has at least crossed your mind) that all health measures are also unequivocally political in an authoritarian sense and all tend towards the realisation of the elites’ wishes. For instance social distancing (an old dream of capitalism), a ban on gathering (the last time it was implemented in Italy was during the “leggi fascistissime”- the so-called most fascist laws), and, in Italy, at least 9 articles of the Constitution suspended. Therefore, it is impossible to assemble, discuss, contest, organise riots, political movements… all that is allowed is compliance with power. All political activity outside of the official narrative has been de facto frozen. Stalin would be proud!

This is not only implemented at a political level but also at a social one. We must consider the profound and constant push towards a contactless society, a digitalised society without human interaction in this context. Online working, online banking, online teaching, online dating… it is worth noting that all of these activities lose all human meaning without physical interaction. 

Online working, as an example, destroys the dividing line between the time of life and the time of work. Capitalism insinuates itself inside our homes, transforming them into a place of production. The ability of workers to gather and therefore the possibility of organising protests (those that led to the conquest of social and labor rights) disappears. Online working marks the end of the communal work experience (this is the oldest dream of capitalist elites).

Online teaching or rather teaching without human experience, is the death of education. A big part of what makes education so important is the meeting and mixing of individuals in a cultural context. At a school it is not only knowledge we look for but also the social interaction of different cultures and visions and ideas. In other words in school we learn how to become effective citizens. Online teaching offers knowledge but not culture. It can only create students who are highly efficient technically but completely ignorant in the ways of the world (another dream of capitalist elites: highly efficient, highly asocial workers).

Online dating and all other online social activities amount to little more than masturbation and serve the continuous push for materialism and nihilism in the West. A push that wants us to believe in nothing other than the matter and the body (no ideals, no transcendence, no hopes, no imagination) and asks us to return to an animal state. Thus creating a mass of amorphous atoms without connections with each other.

In short capitalist destruction has reached it’s final goal. We are ready and willing to renounce our dignity as men and become nothing more that income machines.

“But there’s a deadly virus!” I hear you say. Diego Fusaro, an Italian philosopher, notes: “This is precisely the strength of the new therapeutic paradigm: it hides its political nature behind the alleged objectivity of medical science (only, of course, while discrediting any scientist who differ from the official narrative – hardly a scientific method of debate)”. 

It is also worth considering that everything that’s happening strangely resembles the most ancient of stratagems used by all dictators: declaring an emergency, suspending laws and rights and issuing arbitrary rules of conduct to justify the appropriation of absolute powers.

But I could be wrong and we still have no definitive proof so let’s keep digging by asking ourselves some questions. If all of the measures that have been taken exist only within the paradigm of the emergency, how long will the emergency last? And when the Covid threat will end (if ever), will the government’s absolute powers be automatically returned to the citizens? But above all, will the “emergency devices” foist themselves in our daily life long term?

A good indicator to answer these questions is the political response after 9/11. The emergency is ongoing 20 years later, the governmental powers put in place to respond to the terrorist emergency haven’t been returned to the people and the “emergency devices” that were supposed to be provisional have indeed made their way in our daily life (airport checks are just a silly example). 20 YEARS LATER!!!

In fact this is not the only parallel we can draw between 9/11 and the Covid-19. After 9/11 we were all to be considered potential terrorists. Today, after Covid-19, we are all potential spreaders. Both narratives help to imposes a disciplinary society of total control where everyone must be treated as a potential danger.

It seems to me imperative to ask ourselves this question: can we violate the constitution (and throw away the rights it took our ancestors centuries to conquer) in the name of fighting the virus?

According to some in a time of crisis it is necessary to put democracy aside. And this is not unconstitutional because these measures exist only in the time of the crisis. But what happens if the emergency does not end, if it continues indefinitely? Some virologists already openly stated that the virus will stay with us for many years, perhaps forever. In fact, the constitution is being circumvented.

As Diego Fusaro pointed out: “It is interesting how the ruling class has used the Covid-19 emergency to create a specific political rationality which, in the name of the ever-renewed emergency, renews and makes the emergency measures chronic. They ensured that the politically unacceptable in normality becomes politically inevitable with the emergency.”

THE GREAT MAKEOVER

To take a further step towards a clearer picture of the Covid crisis I invite you to follow a logical “cause and consequence” type of reasoning. It goes something like this:

A virus appears = governments decide to lockdown entire countries = small and medium commerces are closed but multinationals and financial institutions are not = destruction of the real economy, proliferation of the financial market and thriving of big companies = tremendous poverty on one side and further concentration of wealth on the other = governments intervene with financial help to the people = more government dependence of the people + more debt = more austerity to come = privatisation of the economy and infrastructure = more profits and power for multinationals and great wealths = greater government and private control over the population = strict compliance to whatever the government wants of the people in order to qualify for the financial aid.

And there you go ladies and gentlemen! A new dictatorship is born! The Covid crisis has allowed the ruling class (the infamous 1% – although in reality we should say the 0.001%) to proactively set in motion a controlled demolition of the global economy which stands to greatly enrich it’s members, whereas the inevitable spontaneous collapse would have wiped them out.

It is always necessary to destroy the old in order to introduce the new. A controlled demolition of the global economy paves the way for the “Great Reset” currently being promoted by the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Monetary Fund and other major global players.

You probably have heard of the term “great reset”, it is a political and economical proposal made, namely, by Klaus Schwab and his friends at the World Economic Forum (WEF) of Davos to count and then efficiently manage and control all resources, including people, on an unprecedented scale, with unprecedented digital precision. Of course the idea is being sold as a philanthropic enterprise (aren’t they always?) aimed at improving our social systems, reduce food scarcity, hunger and disease and combatting climate change (all things any normal human being desires). But in reality it is no great shift of paradigm but a desperate attempt at restructuring the capitalist system to last over time. An internal reorganisation of the means of production to accelerate and strengthen its processes. 

Vandana Shiva, the great Indian environmental activist and anti-globalisation author said it best: “The Great Reset is about maintaining and empowering a corporate extraction machine and the private ownership of life.”

In other words the “great reset” is nothing more than a “great makeover” of neoliberal capitalism. Klaus Schwab, founder of the Forum, warned: “The world must act jointly and quickly to renew all aspects of our societies and economies, from education, to social contracts, to working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate and every sector, oil, gas, technology, must be transformed.”

This quote of Mr. Schwab reminds me of another quote from another fellow germanophone… Adolf Hitler, when he said: “I’m not interested in politics. I’m interested in changing people’s lifestyles”. 

A video ad promoting the “Great reset” circulated for a while on the WEF’s website (it has since been removed). The logline of the proposal said: “By 2030 you’ll own nothing but you’ll be happy”. That’s lovely and I’m sure Mrs. Thunberg is very happy about that. Personally I have a simple question: if we’ll own nothing, who will own the means of production of whatever we will consume? I leave the answer to your imagination.

The Great Makeover (or Great Reset) is nothing more than the last desperate globalist effort to convince a skeptical world that those same people who created the post-1945 model of globalisation, hyper-financialization, neoliberal capitalism, led by the IMF and supranational mega-corporations, responsible for the destruction of the social welfare, the progressive lowering of the standard of living in industrialised countries, the relocation of work to countries with low-cost labor (read modern slaves), neo-colonialism, the destruction of the environment, the destruction of the traditional agriculture in favour of chemical agri-food, the over weaponisation of our planet, the constant military invasion of countries who dared to dream different dreams, the assassination of countless men, women and children all around the globe, will now be at the head of an humanitarian initiative that should correct their abuse and create a beautiful and fair world for all. It would be very naive, dangerous and stupid of us to believe that. And if we do, if we fall into their trap, everything that happens next will be of our own fault. 

SOME FORM OF SOCIALISM OR NEO-FEUDALISM

In the richest country in the world, the United States, 45,000 people die every year simply from lack of health coverage. The leading cause of children’s death on the planet – despite all of our technological power – has remained hunger. This when current resources are sufficient, according to Unicef, to feed 10 billion people out of the 7.7 billion who inhabit the planet. 

This is neoliberal capitalism baby and if you’re OK with that I’m surprised you kept reading this far. If you aren’t please keep in mind that the whole history of humanity is a succession of paradigms in which some men struggle to escape the prevarications of some others, in order to have a more just society on this Earth, and in which human beings are all protagonists within the limits of their possibilities.

To ask for more power and less freedom to ensure security is the oldest trick in the world. It is nothing less than blackmail and we MUST NOT comply. 

None of these degenerated neoliberal capitalist souls speak of sacred love for the truth, of justice, of the struggle for freedom, much less of love for our neighbour and for the exercise of the principles of Democracy. Their only thought is vulgar personal gain and the acceptance of a world that is distorted and increasingly depleted of humanistic aspirations.

Every change also depends on all of us, on what we believe, on the knowledge we seek, on what we accept, on what we adhere to for a quiet life or for interest or out of fear.

Due to a human nature that is failing to acknowledge the warnings coming from all sides and has chosen the convenient option of indulging the epic lies of the government and the media, rather than the uncomfortable alternative of confronting those same epic lies, we have embarked on a path that might lead us to some very dark times. As Antonio Gramsci wrote: “the ruling class, if it loses consent, uses authoritarianism and violence.”

The choice that we will face in this 2021 will be decisive: either we accept to enter an era of techno-fascist neo-feudalism (out of fear, ignorance and/or stupidity) in which middle class will be abolished to make way for a two-speed society with the super rich on one side and the rest of us on the other, or we FIGHT BACK!

So I beg you: don’t make compromises with what is in front of you, cultivate those inner values which can change the world and resist to any diabolical project. 

True denial is that attitude that refuses to ask questions about obvious things and denies a priori the exercise of critical reason.

Inform yourselves, study, base your opinions on facts not propaganda, stand up for what you believe in, do it with passion and above all don’t be afraid of being mocked or insulted. You are not alone! Other people have doubts too and more and more of the right kind of questions are being asked. The critical mass is growing and the propaganda is losing it’s power. This is already visible in all European and American cities, where tens of thousands take to the streets, in defense of their civil, human and constitutional rights.

Don’t allow power to walk all over you. We have the real power in our hands for we are many and they are few. Use your reason and fight with and for love, justice, truth and beauty.

And if you want to keep a mask over your mouth at least take off the one covering your eyes!

The world today needs rebels, spiritual rebels. So my friends, wishing you a revolutionary 2021, I leave you with one simple cry: LET’S REBEL!

QUICK SUMMARY OF PART ONE

• The origin of the new corona virus remains unclear. One question hangs in the air: is this virus a natural occurrence or is it man made?
• 94% of the infected are asymptomatic (no symptoms) or paucisymptomatic (light symptoms). In most cases it is a mild disease which heals by in about ten days and without complications. 
• The fight against the Covid disease is a race against time, the medical intervention must be prompt.
• As of today, no one has provided an official therapeutic plan.
• Hydroxychloroquine has shown “on the field” to be a highly effective treatment for COVID-19.
• 1.24% of all Italians have tested positive to the PCR test.
• PCR test is unable to measure viral load correctly. When the test is run at 35 cycles or higher it is useless and misleading. A PCR test that was run over 35 cycles of amplification will give anything between 50% and 91% of false positives. Italy uses anything between 35 and 45 cycles.
• Patients hospitalised with symptoms in Italy are 31,200 that is 4.1% of those tested positive or 0.05% of all Italians.
• The virus has a mortality rate (number of people who died due to the disease divided by the total population) of 0.09%. So its mortality rate is extremely low.
• 90% of the dead were over the age of eighty and/or had other preexisting diseases.
• The latest survival rate estimates from the Center for Disease Control (CDC-National public health institute in the United States) are:

Age 0-19 … 99.997%

Age 20-49 … 99.98%

Age 50-69 … 99.5%

Age 70+ … 94.6%

DISCLAIMER: As for the first part of the article I will use Italy as a case study.

TWO VISIONS OF THE WORLD

We are at war! Not with a virus but with a thought. The two fighting sides are camped in two diametrically opposed visions of the world. 

On the right corner we find the thinking currently known as neoliberalism. It’s vision of the world is rooted in extreme materialism, nihilism, competition, hedonism and the search of individual power at all cost. It is a profoundly separative thinking which promotes and creates conflict and injustice. It is a thinking that stops at the level of ordinary reason. Compared to the fundamental problems of life it is a dull and often criminal thinking which puts personal will against the will of the whole. It offers no possibility of orientation in the world other than violence and supremacy. 

On the left corner we find the thinking currently known as constitutionalism. It is a spiritual thinking rooted in a universal ethical conscience based on the declaration of human rights. It promotes and creates connection, collaboration, peace and justice. It’s vision of the world is rooted in spiritual intelligence and aims to reach a level of consciousness where the heart and the intellect walk side by side. It offers many possibilities of orientation in the world all based on love and compassion. It is a thinking that puts personal will in harmony with the will of the whole. 

The war between these two visions of the human experience has been raging since men have walked the earth. Of course the names and the weapons have changed over time but the fundamental dichotomy of vision has remained intact. It is the old and mythological war between good and evil and the Covid crisis is nothing more than it’s latest battle. 

HOW WE GOT HERE

To understand our current situation, it seems to me, it’s imperative to give a bird-eye view to the historical trajectory that led us where we are. 

After the Russian October Revolution of 1917 the economic system known as capitalism was kept in check by an alternative reality called communism. We will not enter the discussion about the pros and cons of each system but simply point out the fact that there was a duality in political ideology. Each system needed to prove to it’s people that it was the best. 

This translated, in the West, into the fear, of political and industry leaders, that workers could “go red”. And that meant that workers had to be kept happy. The proceeds of growth were shared. Trade unions were strong. Welfare benefits were generous. Investment in public infrastructure was high. In short capitalist countries experienced an extraordinary period of decreasing inequality from around 1920s to 1980s mainly because they incorporated a touch of socialism within their system. 

Then the Berlin wall came down and once the Soviet Union collapsed there was no need for capitalism to be so generous no more. The surprising fact of the end of the cold war is that both communism and capitalism, at least in it’s “kinder” version, were destroyed (I write surprising but it should not be surprising at all considering that both systems are nothing more than two sides of the same medal; both expressions of materialism and productivism). Communism became a relic of History and capitalism became a “let the bull loose” (Reagan dixit) neoliberal extravaganza. Or, as I like to call it, capitalism on steroids (and lots and lots of South American imported cocaine).

In the 1990s market forces began to reign supreme. They spread all over the world, namely in the poorest countries; that meant cheaper goods but it also put downward pressure on wages. What’s more there was no longer any political and/or economical need to be constrained by social fairness. Governments and companies could take much larger slices of the profit pie, reduce workers’ rights, remove benefits and begin to dismantle the welfare state because there was nowhere else for workers to go. If citizens did not like these “reforms” they could always hang themselves. Instead of the triumph of democracy, we witnessed the triumph of the elites.

Then came the financial crisis of 2008 which, to those who were even vaguely paying attention, revealed the dark side of the post-cold war model. The crisis cost 30 million jobs worldwide and yet, it was not used as an opportunity to set up a serious regulation of the financial market, nor a profound critical reflection on neoliberal practices and the consequences in terms of inequalities that derive from them. Instead, in the US, president Obama gave billions of dollars to these criminal systems (too big to fail, remember?) and in Europe one magic word was on everybody’s lips: austerity!

CUTS TO THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Shortly after the financial crisis, in 2011, following Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation (under blackmail from the European Central Bank and the financial markets), Italian president Giorgio Napolitano asked Mario Monti (an economist, advisor to Goldman Sachs, member of the trilateral commission and trustee of speculative markets and great no border capitals) to form a new government with a single purpose imposed by the European Central Bank: to apply austerity measures in Italy (a carnage for the working and middle classes). The purpose of the operation was to dismantle what remained of the welfare state and advance the privatisation agenda. The Monti government was the mask of the dictatorship of the markets against the interests of the people. It was the bearer of a vision of politics as a practice intended to guarantee the free play of the deregulated market, free from any kind of Keynesian interventionism without hindrance or slowdowns.

One of the first things to be cut out of the welfare system was healthcare. The reason why is simple to explain: healthcare is very expensive. Furthermore this allowed private healthcare to fill the void left by the public one. And it goes without saying that private healthcare is where speculators can make money.

The Monti government imposed a maximum standard of 3.7 beds available per thousand inhabitants, causing a decline of 26,708 units. His work was continued by the following governments (Letta, Renzi, Gentiloni and the current Conte).

In the past ten years the Italian public healthcare was the victim of financial cuts worth 37 billion Euros. According to the OMS during this period 70,000 hospital beds disappeared, and so did 51% of the beds for intensive care which went from 575 per 100 thousand inhabitants to the current 275. From 2007 to today 200 hospitals were shut down.

Staff cuts followed a similar trend: 46,000 employees (doctors, nurses, emergency medical service, family doctors) were lost in those years. Now, with the coronavirus emergency underway, the government was obliged to urgently hire 20,000 doctors and nurses whom, however, have not yet passed the state exam. Yes, you read that correctly, the current pandemic is being fought by an army of students.

The situation of the Italian health system is similar to that of the British health service, the famous NHS. According to research by a think tank close to the Labor Party, the “hollowing out” of funding to the NHS has caused about 130,000 avoidable deaths in the last 20 years.

As a final “fun fact” it is worth pointing out that a country should renew it’s pandemic plan every 3 years. Due to the cuts in healthcare, the Italian pandemic plan dates back to 2006. 

I invite you to always remember these numbers when the political class proclaims its action in the interest of the health of the people.

One might be tempted to blame this on Italians and their passion for pizza, wine and “making-the-sex” but the reality is that the same principles (destruction of the welfare system) have been taking place all over Europe. And then came Covid. 

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY

In an attempt to come to the defense of governments and to mitigate my criticisms I don’t think we can point fingers on how the Covid crisis was handled at it’s dawn. One could make the point that we were hit by a new disease, mistakes were made but the situation was unusual and unexpected and governments were trying to do their best. But nine months have passed and what could have been magnanimously classified as “mismanagement under pressure” must now be considered highly suspicious.

With the data in our possession (as listed at the top of this article), and attempting to reason through a “risk and benefit” analysis, I feel there are only two possible explanations for the way governments have been dealing with the crisis: complete ineptitude and idiocy or connivance with a criminal intent. 

There are multiple elements that make me think that governmental response to the crisis cannot simply be excused by ineptitude but must be looked for elsewhere. 

The most serious one being the prohibition and obstruction of autopsies because considered dangerous. From a scientific point of view this is an absolute idiocy! The autopsy is the basis for knowing and studying a disease. It is a fundamental medical procedure and has been practiced at least since the time of ancient Egypt in 3000 BC, in an attempt to understand and prevent diseases. It is unbelievable and unacceptable that in 2020, with all the necessary technological precautions at our disposal, an autopsy would be deemed dangerous by our governments and forbidden on such grounds. We can only ask ourselves: why was this done?

The second element is the multiple attempts to prevent, in every way possible, trained and honest doctors, who demonstrated they had multiple solutions to treat the disease, from doing their job. In the first part of this article we talked about how hydroxychloroquine was banned even though it was used to cure thousands of patients. The suppression, obscuration, and systematic rejection of any possible low-cost treatment that emerged (see plasmapheresis, hydroxychloroquine, cortisone…) must, again, make us ask this simple question: why?

Third we must consider how since the beginning of the health crisis doctors have been begging governments to implement and strengthen care from home. As soon as they understood that time was a key factor in treating the disease (and this happened very early in the crisis), they set up protocols to treat patients from their home. The latest numbers demonstrate the effectiveness of such approach very clearly: of all patients (who were treated early and from home) only 5% were hospitalised and the lethality rate within these people is close to 0%. Yes, you read that correctly: in Italy almost no one died from Covid-19 if treated early and from home. Following these protocols would have saved thousands of lives. Why was this not done?

Fourth we must ask ourselves why every and any dissenting voice coming from the medical field, no matter their degree of talent and recognition, was immediately and violently shut down through threats and expulsions from the medical order (a tactic that reminds of the Spanish inquisition or the trials of Galileo)? Why only the unison voices of doctors singing the official version were listened to? It is worth remembering that medicine is not an exact science (it’s not a dogma), it proceeds by trial and error and by sharing information and points of view. Furthermore please keep in mind that there is no such thing as a Covid-19 expert, simply because the virus is too young. Discussion between experts is at the heart of scientific discovery (and coincidentally at the heart of democracy) but these discussions never took place. Why?

Finally we must consider the continuously contradictory and confusing governmental directives. A good example of this is the back and forth of opening, then closing, then opening with precautions, then closing again of bars, restaurants and shops. This is a form of persecution of the citizens who no longer know what to do nor how. Reason, it would seem, was abandoned. If this was excusable at the beginning of the crisis it no longer is today and must force us to ask, yet again: why? Why no plan has been put in place other that advising us to wash our hands and stay at home?

As I said I only see two possibilities: we are either ruled by incompetent people or by criminals. In the first case they must be democratically removed from their position, in the second they must be judged in a court of law.

LOCKDOWN

I find it interesting that the expression used to describe the confinement imposed by governments is “lockdown”. They could have chosen ”stay-at-home” or “shelter-in-place”, for instance, but they went with lockdown, a term that is most often used in penitentiaries all over the world to describe a prison protocol used to control the movement of inmates. A protocol used to confine all prisoners to their cells to prevent prison riots or unrest from spreading. I know this will be read as “conspiracy theory” by some but I suggest to never underestimate the importance of words. Humans are humans because of the logos (from the Greek: word, reason) after all.

But definitions and etymology aside it is undeniable that the practice of locking down entire countries will have tremendous consequences in the short, medium and long term. It is clear that lockdowns have led to a number of adverse consequences such as unprecedented economic retraction, psychological stress, suicides, and disruptions to all sorts of important social and democratic institutions. These factors alone, combined with the questionable efficacy of lockdown policies in preventing Covid-19 deaths, should encourage us to consider the true utility of these measures. 

Although the idea of “Flatten the Curve” may have been a suitable strategy in the beginning, in order not to overload hospitals, there are significant unintended (maybe) consequences of lockdowns, especially in public health. Furthermore we must consider the fact that nine months of off and on lockdowns have had no significant effect on the spread of the virus. But what they did do is have an effect of the health of young healthy citizens. On this topic it is worth noting that a recent study showed that most deaths from Covid-19 occur in people close to life expectancy, while lockdown-induced deaths occur in young people far from life expectancy, resulting in a high number of total life years lost. So in a spirit of “costs and benefits” reasoning we must ask ourselves: was it worth it?

Dr. David Nabarro from the WHO doesn’t seem to think so, as he appealed to world leaders telling them to stop “using lockdowns as your primary control method” of the coronavirus.

He claimed that the only thing lockdowns achieved was poverty. “Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he said. “We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” He continued, “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

It is also worth remembering that a number of health experts from all over the world came together to write a petition, called the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for an end to coronavirus lockdowns because these were doing “irreparable damage.”

They wrote: “As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection” A strategy that can be resumed as follows: “Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19”. The petition was authored by Sunetra Gupta of the University of Oxford, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University amongst others. 

Now it’s not my place to judge the quality and effectiveness of their proposition, my ignorance on the subject is too great, but as a citizen I would like it to be openly discussed rather than silenced a priori. 

What is certain is that, according to the UN, lockdowns may put the livelihood of 1.6 billion people at acute risk and may push an additional 150 million children into poverty. Unemployment, bankruptcies and psychological problems have reached record levels worldwide as we will see in the next chapter.

So it seems clear that although shutting down entire countries, as you would a prison, has not brought us clear benefits, it’s having some deep, deadly and long lasting costs. In other words there are more risks of dying from the consequences of lockdowns than from COVID.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

A spokesperson of the International Monetary fund (IMF) said it best: “It is very likely that this year the global economy will experience its worst recession since the Great Depression, surpassing that seen during the global financial crisis a decade ago. ‘The Great Lockdown’, as one might call it, is projected to shrink global growth dramatically.” The same institution calculated a global growth contraction of 3% for 2020 alone. To have a comparative idea of what that means let me point out that the near meltdown of the global financial system in late 2008 made global activity shrink by 0.1% in 2009.

The rich economies of the west are forecast to shrink by 6.1% on average. Italy and Spain, the two worst-affected European economies, will see GDP falls of 9.1% and 8%, respectively. Here’s a list of the rest:

• US             -5.9%
• Germany   -7.0%
• France       -7.2%
• UK             -6.5%
• Russia       -5.5%

The International Labour Organization has warned us that almost half the global workforce (1.6 billion people) are in “immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed” by the economic impact of Covid-19.

According to the UN:

• another 207 million people could fall into extreme poverty from the severe long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic (personally I claim from the political handling of the pandemic rather than the pandemic itself), bringing the total number to over one billion by 2030. 
• 80% of the economic crisis will persist for over a decade. 

Anyone bragging about a rebound in the next year is either delusional or a liar. The director of the United Nations World Food Program, David Beasley, warned that the year 2021 will be “catastrophic” and added that in a dozen countries famine “knocks on the door”. He addd that this is “the worst year of humanitarian crisis since the beginning of the United Nations” 75 years ago. 

Furthermore, for the first time in its 70-year history, UNICEF has launched an emergency response to help feed children in the UK. According to UNICEF, 2.4 million British children already grow up in food-insecure households and over a fifth of these households with children have gone hungry during the lockdown due to financial difficulty.

In Rome food aid has increased by 600%.

In Italy more than half of the country’s companies (51.5%) say that liquidity may not be sufficient to meet expenses in the current year. The situation worsens as the company size decreases.

Unemployment, bankruptcies and psychological problems have reached record levels worldwide.

In Italy alone:

• Suicides have increased by 15%
• Suicide attempts have increased by 40%
• Femicides have increased by 15%
• Violence against children has increased by 20%
• Consumption of anxiolytics has increased by 3 times.
• Psychological trauma is counted in millions of new cases (a recent study has found that 3 out of 4 children have had some kind of psychological trauma during the crisis)
• 4 million medical consultations have been postponed (how many lives will be lost because of this?)

I will stop this list here because I feel like crying. I will simply conclude with a simple question that I think we should all ask ourselves (preferably in the middle of the night, when alone and watching ourselves in the mirror): was all of this worth it? To fight a disease that has a 0.09% mortality rate. 

Or, to be even more provocative, we ask, is poverty the only way to fight a virus that in 99% of cases is non-fatal?

INFODEMIA

How was the majority of people convinced that we must cancel constitutional rights, let government officials govern by decree, devastate the economy (or at least small and medium businesses), make multinationals censor any dissent, force everyone to wear surgical masks, place in house arrest whole societies, psychologically terrify children and transform the planet into a paranoid and totalitarian society because of a virus that has a 0.09% mortality rate? 

The short answer to that is fear! Fear, fear, fear! Fear is the great obstacle that blocks all other feelings. There is no love where there is fear, no reasoning, no mental clarity, no rationality, no bravery. Fear destroys people’s psyche and generates inability to reason. It is the most effective way to topple down the rights of a people because only fear provides masses who are not very lucid, confused, afraid and therefore willing to do anything, to accept anything. The greatest pandemic we’ve witnessed in the past nine months has been a pandemic of fear and panic. And it was spread by the so called mainstream media, the great source of terror.

The media tried to scare us in every possible way (and in most cases succeeded) using refined tactics and techniques to create anguish, terror, pessimism, discouragement, resignation and above all division among human beings isolated in their fear of the dark.

The fundamental idea of these techniques is to control the “perception” of the situation. In other words, how the real situation is “received” by the subjects. This “perception” is artfully manipulated through the use of these techniques.

These are well known by people who (like myself) have studied the field of communication, especially advertising, or the work of Edward Bernays (a nephew of Freud and father of modern mass propaganda). They should also be recognisable by any serious historian for countless times they have been used by totalitarian regimes’ propaganda machine throughout history. I will simply point out the most common ones:

• Ad nauseam propaganda: this type of propaganda relies on the power of repetition. As Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany) famously said: “Repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” In the case of Covid we have a thumping information: at least two war bulletins a day.
• Card stacking: to present selective information to paint an incomplete and incorrect narrative to influence people. A clear example of this is the whole discussion and purposefully created confusion on the difference between people who died “of Covid” and people who died “with Covid” (a huge difference from a medical and statistical standpoint). This not only allowed to hide the real numbers of the crisis but also created a perpetual state of confusion and fear. Another example of card stacking is the fact that every news would begin by stating the number of new “cases”, leaving out the fact that all that “new cases” means is people who tested positive to a PCR test (a highly inaccurate test as we’ve seen in the first part of this article). It does not mean that the person is sick or that they have symptoms. Another example is the fact that most of the time the numbers of new cases and deaths are announced, but only rarely (or as background news) are the numbers of asymptomatic and people healed from the disease reported.
• Glittering generalities: it employs loaded words and strong slogans to leave an impact on the audience receiving the message. In Italy we had “All will be well”, in English speaking countries “we’re all in this together”, in China ““Mask or respirator, you have to ponder and choose one out of the two” just to give some examples (there were plenty more).
• Testimonial: to use well-known or credible figures to influence the target audience. How many singers, Hollywood stars and sports personality have we seen parroting the official narratives over and over, calling for the population to “stay at home” (of course from the comfort of their villas equipped with swimming pools, large gardens and Swedish saunas).
• Name-calling: name-calling propaganda is based on putting the other party down by all rhetorical means necessary. In the case of Covid anyone who dared ask questions or contradict the official narrative was immediately accused of being a “conspirationist”, a “fascist”, an “anti-vaxxer”, a “criminal”, a “subversive”, a “fool”, a “danger for himself and for others” and so on and so on. This helps cover up and marginalise any form of dissent.

In short the communication around the Covid situation is based on the “worst case scenario” approach, on confusion, exaggeration, frenzy and loss of reason that spreads the fear of contagion and death.

Fear has become virulent and contagious; common sense, reasonableness and critical ability to evaluate data for what it shows have been lost. Sadly reasoning and common sense are not contagious (being virtues of the few).

The conduct of most mainstream media, under the terms of the law, is called “Intentional alarm” and is punishable with imprisonment. I sincerely hope to see that day!

END OF PART TWO

In PART THREE, the final part of this article, we will discuss the most pressing question of them all: cui prodest? We will see who are the winners of this situation (because rest assured there are winners, there always are), how the political response to the pandemic has produced one of the greatest wealth transfers in history and the possible outcomes of this in the years to come (or what I call the new capitalist feudalism).

DISCLAIMER: The following article is the result of the work of Mauro Scardovelli (university rector of Unialeph, an Italian university founded with the goal of teaching and implement the values of the Italian Constitution) and his team. All the information you will find was presented by some of the best medical minds Italy has to offer, most of them have been on the frontline of the Covid crisis since it’s beginning. I stand on the shoulders of giants. All I’ve tried to do is to summarise, organise and simplify (wherever possible) the information they provided in an attempt to make it understandable to all. Most statistics are based on the situation in Italy (which is the worst in Europe and therefore a good case study). The following is an exercise in reasoning (from the latin rationem: to understand the causes). This article does NOT constitute an official medical protocol. If you have any symptoms you MUST contact your doctor. The article is divided in two parts. PART 1 is an overview of the medical aspects of the crisis. PART 2 covers the political, social and economic consequences. 

OVERVIEW

Let’s begin with the basics: a new virus has made it’s way into nature; it’ called SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), it belongs to the family of coronaviruses and causes the “Coronavirus disease 2019” (COVID-19). The first case was identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019 (although both the timing and the location are subject of debate). The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020.

The origins of this virus are as of today still unclear. It exist three main hypothesis. One: the virus is of animal origin (the famous wet market bat hypothesis) and then mutated to infect humans. Two: it is a man made virus (near Wuhan there is a laboratory that studies viruses, namely bat related viruses) that escaped from researcher’s control. Three: it is a biological weapon released on purpose on the population (we don’t know by whom or why). The three options are very much a possibility but, like I said, we don’t yet know for sure and any conclusion, as of now, would be purely speculative.

Whatever it’s origin the virus EXISTS and is moderately to highly contagious(depending on who you talk to). 

In the overwhelmingly majority of cases the virus provokes no reactions (asymptomatic) or very light reactions (paucisymptomatic) in the infected person. BUT in some cases it provokes a very serious pulmonary hyper-inflammation that can lead to a so called “cytokine storm” (more about this later). In some cases this can lead to death.  

PATHOGENESIS OF THE VIRUS

(Pathogenesis: the mode of production or development of a disease.)

The Covid disease has three development phases.

PHASE 1: Viral response phase

An initial phase, purely virological, in which viral replication prevails. It is usually a phase characterised by a clinical symptomatology that isn’t particularly serious such as fever, bone-aches, headaches, nausea, diarrhea… This viral phase tends to diminish because the host’s inflammatory response is triggered. (For most patients this is useful because it helps control the infection. That’s why fever exists in the first place: it is a natural defence mechanism. High temperatures, over 38 degrees celsius, kill viruses.)

PHASE 2: Pulmonary phase

As the inflammatory response takes hold, the virological response yields. This is what happens in all Infectious diseases. Up to this point (halfway into the second phase) the disease is no worse than the common flu. In most cases (between 80% and 90% of the infected symptomatic patients) it is a mild disease which heals by itself in about ten days and without complications. BUT in a number of patients (the remaining 10%-20%) a dysregulated inflammatory response (an excessive inflammatory response) is triggered, leading to the third phase of the disease.

PHASE 3: Hyper-inflammation phase

In some patients an excessive and dysregulated inflammatory response is triggered. A real “cytokine storm” (Disseminated intravascular coagulation), which leads the patients to a haemophagocytic syndrome (disorder of immunoregulatory abilities), to respiratory failure, to intensive care and in some cases to their death.

GOAL OF THE THERAPIES

If there is one thing all doctors seem to agree on this is the time factor. The fight against the Covid disease is a race against time, the medical intervention must be prompt. Medical intervention must be aimed at the first and second phase of the disease. When patients enter the hyper-inflammation phase it becomes much more difficult to help them. 

So, basically, the antiviral therapy should be concentrated at the beginning of the disease. When we move into the hyper-inflammatory phase of the disease, antiviral drugs are no longer of any use. At that point all therapy is based on the modulation of the excessive inflammatory response, on turning off this “cytokine storm” that generated in the patient’s lungs.

In between these two extremes, of course, there is an intermediate zone which, in the opinion of many doctors, is the zone in which the maximum therapeutic effort should be concentrated.

The goal of the therapies should be to intercept patients in the initial phase of the disease and immediately treat them with antiviral therapy.

If the patient evolves towards the hyper-inflammatory phase, the other goal is to intercept the onset of this excessive inflammatory response early to avoid being faced with patients in whom the containment of the excessive inflammatory response is very difficult. At that point the whole game is played on their resistance to ventilatory therapy. 

So being precocious with the therapy should ideally avoid the evolution towards the third phase of the disease, therefore save lives and reduce hospitals/intensive care admissions.

THERAPIES

Most doctors are confused about treatment because, as of today, no one has provided an official therapeutic plan. The government and health institutions have been suggesting what treatments NOT to use but nobody took the responsibility to advise the use of a specific therapy. 

So doctors on the frontline had to invent/create one using the fruits of the experience and observation they acquired by the bed of the patients; outside the laboratories, outside mental ruminations. And this is what they found:

Drugs play different roles at different times. Different drugs are needed during the three phases of the disease.

PHASE 1: Antiviral therapy should be concentrated at the beginning of the disease. Doctors cannot remain idle and allow people to stay in bed without having a proper therapy or, even worse, with a therapy, for instance Paracetamol, which can be harmful (Paracetamol is dangerous in Covid patients because it creates a depletion of glutathione reserves, which is essential as an antioxidant and is very useful in anti-inflammatory reactions. Removing glutathione means opening the doors to the advancement of the inflammation.) Phase 1 must be addressed with anti-viral and anti-inflammatory remedies that block or reduce the inflammatory state (for instance vitamin C and D). There is one specific drug that has been shown (on the field) to be the most effective at this stage. But we will cover this (extensively) in the next chapter.

PHASE 2: anti-viral remedies must be continued for a while but they begin to lose effectiveness. Low-molecular-weight-heparin (an anticoagulant with a strong immunomodulatory activity) must be started as soon as the first signs of hyper-inflammation appear, together with antibiotics. The use of antibiotics is needed because it has an action on possible bacterial super-infections. Why? because an inflamed lung is predisposed to the colonisation of pathogenic bacteria. An inflamed, mucus producing, lung is a fantastic breeding ground for pathogens. We cannot stress enough that timing is essential. The dead patients in March and April were, in most cases, patients on which no intervention was made. They were patients left home alone.

PHASE 3: As we’ve already mentioned patients that reach phase three of the disease are strongly compromised. The medical goal here is to “turn off” the hyper inflammation. This is done with anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant remedies. But these take time to have effect and many patients that reach phase 3 are unable to breath normally. Therefore they most be intubated. Oral-tracheal intubation is a medical practice that can only be done by an intensive care doctor. It is an invasive medical procedure, extremely delicate, that no doctor uses with a light heart; it is literally the last thing they want to (and can) do. It is worth noting that intensive care is seen by most doctors as the failure of the therapeutic strategy and NOT, like it is promoted by governments and in the media, an intelligent and structural answer to the disease. In light of that, having more intensive care as the main response of the system to a viral infection is profoundly worrying.

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

As I mentioned earlier there is one specific drug that has been shown (on the field) to be the most effective as an antiviral during the first phase and the first half of the second phase of the disease. This drug is called Hydroxychloroquine and it is one of the most controversial drugs in the Covid affair (some call it the smoking gun, the irrefutable proof of the mismanagement of the crisis).

Hydroxychloroquine is a derivate of Chloroquine. It is drug that has been in use for a long time, the American FPA approved it in 1955 and it is the 128th most prescribed drug in the United States. It is a particularly tested drug, has a very low cost (a few euros per box) and is easy to supply (it’s a common medicine). It is most commonly used to prevent Malaria and anyone who has travelled in malaria risk areas has taken it (I know for certain I have, multiple times in my life).

The drug can have adverse/side effects (of course it does, all drugs do, even aspirin) but these are negligible. The most common adverse effects are nausea, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. Other common adverse effects include itching and headache. The most serious possible side effects affect the eye, with dose-related retinopathy (damage to the retina). 

Before prescribing the drug the doctor must always ask the patient a few questions (this is the case with ANY drug). The patient must not be affected, for example, by Long QT syndrome (a heart disease) or so-called Favism (an inborn error of metabolism that predisposes to red blood cell breakdown) or other conditions that interact with Hydroxychloroquine. But this it is the ABC of medicine.

The AIFA (the Italian Drug Association – a public authority) initially gave the green light to the use of Hydroxychloroquine but then withdrew it from the market. This was supported by a series of studies conducted in the USA claiming that it can lead to very harmful side effects. But these studies are highly problematic (so much so that The Lancet, the oldest scientific publication in the world, had to retract the one they recklessly and hastily published). Many doctors have no problems calling these studies bogus studies. This because these studies were made on hospitalised patients (patients that had reached the second half of phase two or even phase three of the disease) and with very very high dosages (overdose). In this case it is obvious patients will show harmful side effects. As we’ve seen earlier Hydroxychloroquine is most useful in the early stage of the disease and should be used with the correct dosage. It is worth pointing out the obvious: any drug, if used in very high dosage, can be harmful.

Worse yet (in the writer’s opinion) clinical evidence of thousands of people healed with Hydroxychloroquine has been ignored and/or obstructed by AIFA and the WHO.

Hydroxychloroquine has been used on thousands of patients in Italy at a reasonable dosage and for a reasonable period. The clinical observation of many, authoritative and above all experienced doctors, led to say that in their clinical experience Hydroxychloroquine has been able to positively change the progress of the disease in patients.

Honest doctors talk about the centrality of timing (we’ve covered this many times now). The drug is useful at the onset of the disease. And must not exceed the dosage of 800 mg per day for a maximum of 7 days.

Andrea Mangiagalli, just to give a practical example, one of the first family doctors to test “on the ground” the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine, treated 300 patients. He never saw any complications apart from a few patients who had a modest diarrhea (very modest grade 1 or 2). Out of these 300 patients 3 were hospitalised, 1 died and 297 were CURED (I don’t know about you but I’d take those odds any day of the week).

The evidence provided by doctors on the frontline of the crisis has not been small, it is strong positive evidence of the utility of Hydroxychloroquine in the fight against COVID. The kindest thing I can say about the failure to use Hydroxychloroquine is that it’s danger was overestimated by the authorities. Nevertheless it is the writer’s opinion that the failure (because of incompetence or connivance) to use a cure that could have potentially saved thousands and thousands of people is a crime against humanity and must be judged in a court of law.

(UPDATE: on December 11, 2020, after an arduous seven-month legal battle carried out by a group of general practitioners, the Italian Council of State approved the use of hydroxychloroquine as a therapy for Covid-19. The ordinance reads: “The continuing uncertainty about the therapeutic efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, admitted by the AIFA itself to justify the further evaluation in randomised clinical trials, is not sufficient legal reason to justify the unreasonable suspension of its use on the National territory”. Better late than never!)

LETHALITY, MORTALITY AND OTHER STATISTICS

The Italian population is approximately 60,360,000.

At the time of writing (December 5, 2020) according to the Ministry of Health, the total number of PCR tests carried out is equal to 22,767,130 that is 37.7% of the population.

The PCR test positives for Covid-19 are 754,169 or 1.24% of all Italians.

94% of the infected are asymptomatic (no symptoms) or paucisymptomatic (light symptoms).

Patients hospitalised with symptoms are 31,200 that is 4.1% of those tested positive or 0.05% of all Italians.

Of those hospitalised, 3,567 people are in intensive care, that is 11.4% of the hospitalised, or 0.47% of all positives, or 0.05% of all Italians.

The total deaths from/with (hard to say) Covid-19 are 60,078.

The virus therefore has a lethality rate (number of deaths divided by the total of positive PCR tests) of 7.9% and a mortality rate (number of people who died due to the disease divided by the total population) of 0.09% .

The lethality rate of the virus is difficult to interpret due to various problems with PCR testing (which we will cover in the next chapter).

But we can safely say that Covid-19 is a fatal disease but its mortality rate is, percentage-wise, very low. So it is a disease to be taken seriously but not to panic about.

Let’s be clear: Covid-19 is not the “Black death” nor the “Spanish flu” (that in 1918-20, in a time we had no penicillin, Hydroxychloroquine, heparin, antibiotics, cortisone or intensive care, killed between 50 and 100 million people in the space of two years). Covid’s lethality is also much much lower than two modern coronaviruses: Sars-Cov1 (10% lethality during the 2002-04 outbreak) or Mers (37% lethality during the 2002 outbreak). And is incomparable to the lethality of extremely dangerous viruses such as the Avian flu (60% lethality) or Ebola (65% lethality).

To put things further in perspective Covid has a lower annual lethality than road accidents, suicides and respiratory diseases (due to nano-dust/pollution).

It is also worth noting that today (fall 2020) only 0.5% of all positive cases end up in intensive care (this is 30 times less than in March).

The latest survival rate estimates from the Center for Disease Control (CDC-National public health institute in the United States) are:

• Age 0-19 … 99.997%
• Age 20-49 … 99.98%
• Age 50-69 … 99.5%
• Age 70+ … 94.6%

Finally please consider that 90% of the dead were over the age of eighty and/or had other preexisting diseases (respiratory, cardio vascular, metabolic diseases and/or obesity, diabetes… in short, everything that produces inflammation in our body). This is why healthy children and young people do not get sick or show very very mild symptoms: they have little to no preexisting inflammations in their bodies.

To conclude Covid is a serious disease but we will not all die from it (unlike most propaganda wants you to believe).With this in mind all further reasoning must impose a “risk and benefit” analysis.

PCR TESTING

The most common test (there are others) to test the positivity for Covid-19 is the Polymerase chain reaction test (PCR). It is a method used to rapidly make millions to billions of copies of a specific DNA sample, allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it to a large enough amount to study in detail.

To begin I believe it is important to clarify what “being positive to PCR testing” means. Being positive means that the person has, in his body, some nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) of the virus. BUT a positive subject does not mean that the subject is sick. Nor does it necessarily mean that the subject is contagious.

This is because the nucleic acid found does not necessarily represent an infecting viral particle, it can be a residue, a dead virus. Furthermore the nucleic acid found does not necessarily represents a concentration of virus sufficient to infect (yourself and others).

In vitro studies have shown that for infection to occur there must be at least one million equivalent genomes in a clinical sample (the viral load). In other words it is the viral load (and not the presence of nucleic acid) that determines if you’re sick and how sick. BUT the PCR test is unable to measure viral load correctly. This is one of the core problems with PCR testing. 

The second problem has to do with the cycles of amplification and it’s a problem of misusage. In PCR testing the DNA sequences taken from the subject being tested are exponentially amplified in a series of cycles. Imagine (to simplify) a zoom lens: the more you amplify the zoom the closer and more detailed you see. Still simplifying, each degree of zoom amplification is equivalent to one amplification cycle. Now the problem is that when the test is run at 35 cycles or higher it is useless and misleading. I quote Anthony Fauci: “If you get a cycle threshold of 35 or more…the chances of it being replication-competent are minuscule…you almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…it’s just dead nucleoids, period.” This is a generous estimation by the way. The more conservative scientists suggest a maximum of 20 to 30 cycles.

In other words, too many cycles and the test will turn up all sorts of irrelevant material that will be wrongly interpreted as relevant. That’s called a false positive. A PCR test that was run over 35 cycles of amplification will give anything between 50% and 91% of false positives (from the most optimistic to the most pessimistic possibility). 

On 11 November 2020, the Lisbon Court of Appeal in Portugal declared the quarantine of four Portuguese citizens illegal. They gave this reason: “Based on the scientific evidence currently available, this test [the RT-PCR test] is not in itself capable of establishing beyond doubt whether positivity is actually equivalent to infection with the SARS CoV-2 virus. And this for several reasons, two of which are of primary importance: the reliability of the test depends on the number of cycles used; the reliability of the test depends on the viral load present “

The problem of the cycles amplification also explains with we see disparate difference in numbers of contagions between different countries. Germany and Austria, for example, use 25 cycles of amplifications (and therefore have the lowest numbers of contagions in Europe) Italy and France use anything between 35 and 45 cycles (the exact number is difficult to say because the authorities are not clear on this).

I close this chapter leaving the floor to Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR test, for which he won the Nobel prize in 1993: “With PCR anyone can be tested positive for just about anything, if you do it long enough (enough cycles of amplification). For this reason, we must be very careful to use PCR as a diagnostic test”.

FACE MASKS

The topic of face masks is a minefield. This is because first, for many people, the masks have become a symbol, a totem of a semi-religious nature. Secondly, and this is more important, because the use of masks produces benefits in certain circumstances but serious damages in others.

The perception most people commonly have is that masks are something uncomfortable, a nuisance, but they must be worn because they are good for your health (since they protect from the virus). This is not correct: masks are a compromise. It is therefore a question of always calculating costs and benefits.

Prolonged use of the mask leads to a worsening of cardio-pulmonary performance and a reduction in respiratory function. This is harmless in healthy subjects who wear the mask for short periods but dangerous in subject with heart diseases. This is because the heart must make up for the fact that the lungs don’t work as well as they should. So the heart is under considerable stress while a subject wears a mask. 

Also the few studies available have shown that wearing a mask for prolonged period of time leads to worsening in respiratory virosis (respiratory diseases caused by a virus), which is exactly what should be reduced or avoided. In other words subjects wearing masks show more symptoms of respiratory infections. 

We must understand what happens in a person’s lungs when you wear the mask: the Italian Ministry of Health says that 95% of what a potentially infectious subject emits is shielded. So the crucial question is: where does that shielded 95% of emissions go? Well, it simply stays inside the mask, moistening it and creating a favourable environment for the development of germs, but above all it is partially re-inhaled. This creates the risk that a person wearing a mask for a long time, which screens and prevents a free exhalation, does amplification cycles of the virus all by himself. By continuing to re-inhale his own viruses, he can push them deep into the lungs and alveoli where viruses shouldn’t reach. In the upper respiratory tract there are the innate adaptive defences that “kill” most of the germs with which we enter into contact while breathing. But in the pulmonary alveoli, deep down in the lungs, these defences are lacking, precisely because the germs should not make their way there. If too many viruses arrive in the pulmonary alveoli and multiply without resistance, when the the antibodies finally arrive, after 10-14 days, instead of finding a little amount of virus, they find huge quantities. A formidable battle follows which creates a very high inflammation. This is exactly what is seen in many cases of subjects who, after a mild onset, after 10-14 days, have an inflammatory explosion and an aggravation.

We should therefore avoid worsening the situation of an asymptomatic by imposing a barrier to exhalation. Because the risk is to turn the subject into a symptomatic, or a paucisymptomatic, by continuing to breathe-in his viruses for a long time.

Wearing a mask is a compromise. Therefore, its use must be modulated and not imposed in circumstances in which it is more harmful than beneficial.

Of course in some cases wearing a mask is a very good idea (for as short a period of time as possible): inside hospitals, in environments with a high concentration of potentially infectious subjects, near COVID patients, in crowds, in public transport…

But outdoors, except in very special circumstances, wearing a mask is totally unreasonable. You cannot receive a sufficient viral load to get infected just walking by a person. The WHO says that you have to stay at close range of an infected person for at least 15 minutes (this even outdoors) to receive enough viral load to get infected. Occasional contact is of no particular importance, it constitutes a potential risk that is absolutely irrelevant compared to the risks of life. So outdoors, except in special circumstances (crowding etc.) masks are of no use at all. The only thing they can do is possibly harm people who have respiratory and heart problems and so on. The former Director of Microbiology in Bern said: “It would be wiser to wear a helmet because something is more likely to fall on your head than getting infected by walking around without a mask”. 

Wearing a mask is a compromise and like all compromises, it is right to push to the point where the harms are outweighed by the benefits and stop when the risks overcome the benefits.

PREVENTION

Almost no one talks about prevention and this is very dangerous because one of the absolutely incontrovertible facts of the COVID affair is that so-called “healthy” patients generally do not get sick and if they do they have no complications. Healthy patients fight COVID with their immune system without much need of therapy. And this is a huge difference. Therefore one of the main goals should be to promote healthy life styles that naturally reduce inflammation inside our bodies. These are basic things like eating healthy, not smoking, drink little to no alcohol, eat little red meat, loose weight if overweight, do regular physical activity and so on. Vitamin C, D and B12 have also shown to be very useful in preventing COVID. In short, anything that can be done to reduce inflammation in the body and increase the effectiveness of the immune system should be done!

Another fundamental aspect that is rarely touched upon is that this disease must be fought on the territory and not in the hospital. It must be fought with and by local family doctors who get to the patients early and begin to apply therapies early. Local medicine must be implemented.

Because very often patients who get to the hospital they do so after having wasted time and show up in complicated conditions. Furthermore the hospitals are places where the disease spreads even more, it becomes a nosocomial infection (an infection that is acquired in a hospital). This makes doctors and nurses sick, reduces their numbers and their work becomes unmanageable.

The sick must be treated early and at home, freeing hospital beds to patients with much more serious diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, tumors, etc.

MEDIUM/LONG MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS

Hospitals today have stopped most activity that is not COVID related. Most screenings, check-ups, medical visits and so on have been reduced or postponed. This means thousands and thousands of people who didn’t have their heart checked, that didn’t screen for cancer and/or other pathologies. The prevention of highly lethal pathologies is in stand by and this is very very dangerous.

Furthermore sick people don’t go into surgery. This is obviously a huge problem. Imagine a patient with an operable cancer. If 15-20 days pass without surgery, nothing happens, but if 3-4 months pass, the problems are accentuated and this can lead to some very very serious problems down the line. Because the tumor will not stand still; it will progress (and likely become inoperable). The same can be said for patients with acute myocardial infarction, or cerebral stroke and so on and so on. All these other pathologies still exist and need to be treated. In the coming months thousands of people will die from lack of treatment

It is also worth considering that the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) signed a report on motor activity in 2018 in Italy based on which during that year there were an estimate 88,200 deaths due to the fact that not enough physical activity was done in the average population. A little less than double the deaths that are today attributed to Covid19 (which are 36,000 and some). If we think about the limitation of motor activity that occurred with the lockdown, it is likely that the situation in 2020, in regard to deaths from insufficient physical activity, will increase.

Finally the consequences of the extreme measures taken by the authorities (lockdowns, freezing the economy…) will have profound consequences on the “social health” of the population. We’ve already seen spikes in the numbers of deaths by suicide, overdose and so on. 

If the economic crisis continues we will see more and more of these problems and things like malnutrition and possibly starvation will become serious health risks. 

END OF PART 1

In part 2 of this article we will cover the social, economical and political aspects of the COVID-19 crisis.