Why The Global Shortage Of Toilet Paper: Lock Down!

(Will Oremus's article from the MARKER MEDIUM on 03 April 2020.)

No toilet paper in Sydney supermarkets for more than
3 months now since the epidemic started in December.

What Everyone’s Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage? It isn’t really about hoarding. And there isn’t an easy fix. Stores have placed limits on purchases of toilet paper, yet they’re still selling out, suggesting that hoarding isn’t entirely to blame.  

Around the world, in countries afflicted with the coronavirus, stores are sold out of toilet paper. There have been shortages in Hong Kong, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. And we all know who to blame: hoarders and panic-buyers. Well, not so fast.

Story after story explains the toilet paper outages as a sort of fluke of consumer irrationality. Unlike hand sanitizer, N95 masks, or hospital ventilators, they note, toilet paper serves no special function in a pandemic. Toilet paper manufacturers are cranking out the same supply as always. And it’s not like people are using the bathroom more often, right?

Dengue-Antibodies: We Burmese Do Not Get Corona?

(Translated extracts of Kelvin Power's article from the FACE BOOK on 27 February 2020.)

Are Dengue-Antibodies protecting Burmese from COVID-19?

Strangely in this global-virus-ravaged word, our Burma still doesn't have any case of China Corona Virus, yet. The whole epidemic has started in China last year well before January and now is almost the end of February. Even if  we had any hidden infections in January we should already have many hospitalizations and some deaths by now.

For me it is very strange, for Burma and China  have over 1,000 miles long common border line which is so notoriously porous. When I was in Mandalay just last year, there were so many Chinese who don't speak a single word of Burmese, I felt like I was in China. People don't realise how massive and constant the bilateral movements of goods and animals and humans across that long porous border, and we still do not have a single case of that fatal Wuhan viral disease now called COVID-19?

Now is almost the end of February and if we don't have any Coronavirus cases by the middle of March we will never have a case unless some infected-ones coming back from one of the viral hotspots abroad brought virus into Burma.

The Cure Is Much Deadlier Than The Wuhan Virus?

(Kevin Ryan's article from the OFF-GUARDIAN on 01 April 2020.)

Could the Covid19 Response be More Deadly than the Virus? The economic, social and public health consequences of these measures could claim millions of victims: The initial, alarming estimates of deaths from the virus COVID-19 were that as many as 2.2 million people would die in the United States.

This number is comparable to the annual US death rate of around 3 million. Fortunately, correction of some simple errors in overestimation has begun to dramatically reduce the virus mortality claims. The most recent estimate from “the leading US authority on the COVID-19 pandemic” suggests that the US may see between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, with the final tally likely to be somewhere in the middle.” This means that we are expecting around 150,000 US deaths caused by the virus, if the latest estimates hold up.

How does that compare to the effects of the measures taken in response? By all accounts, the impact of the response will be great, far-reaching, and long-lasting. To better assess the difference we might ask, how many people will die as a result of the response to COVID-19?

Wuhan Virus Killed 21 Million Chinese In Last Jan & Feb?

(Bhaswati Majumder's article from the IBTIMES SINGAPORE on 29 March 2020.)

Is China hiding real COVID-19 death toll? 21 million cell phones disappeared, why? Since the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus which emerged in China's Wuhan, the pandemic has killed just 15,374 people globally and infected only 351,731 individuals. Recently the death toll in Italy surpassed the initial epicentre of the outbreak in China, where officially 3,153 people have died due to the COVID-19.

But recently Beijing authorities announced on March 19 that more than 21 million cell phone accounts were cancelled while in past three months 840,000 landlines were closed in China, which gives an idea that probably these closed numbers belonged to the people who died due to the disease.

Tang Jingyuan, a US-based China Affairs commentator told The Epoch Times on March 21: "The digitization level is very high in China. People can't survive without a cell phone. Dealing with the government for pensions and social security, buying train tickets, shopping... no matter what people want to do, they are required (forced by the authorities) to use cell phones.

End The Shutdown: Unlawful & Unconstitutional

(Editorial article from the MISES INSTITUTE on 31 March 2020.)

The shutdown of the American economy by government decree should end. The lasting and far-reaching harms caused by this authoritarian precedent far outweigh those caused by the COVID-19 virus. The American people—individuals, families, businesses—must decide for themselves how and when to reopen society and return to their daily lives.

Neither the Trump administration nor Congress has the legal authority to shut down American life absent at least baseline due process. As Judge Andrew Napolitano recently wrote, business closures, restrictions on assembly and movement, and quarantines are not constitutionally permissible under some magic “emergency” doctrine.

At a minimum, the federal government must show potential imminent harm by specific infected individuals at some form of hearing or trial. These due process requirements are not suspended. State and local officials may claim, or even possess, lawful police powers to shut down their communities.

Thai King Self-isolating With His Harem In Germany

(Greg Norman's article from the FOX NEWS on 31 March 2020.)

Thailand's king self-quarantining in Germany with 20 women, servants: This isn’t your typical coronavirus quarantine. Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who has been vacationing in Germany this month, is now reportedly self-isolating in a luxury hotel there with an entourage of 20 concubines and servants, reports say.

The 67-year-old is said to have booked out the entire Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen after obtaining “special permission” from local officials, according to The Independent. Other hotels in the region have been ordered to close during the coronavirus outbreak.

But it’s not clear if Vajiralongkorn’s four official wives are among the group of women, the newspaper added, citing German tabloid Bild. A local official told Bild that the king’s entourage was approved for their stay at the four-star property because “the guests are a single, homogenous group of people with no fluctuation.”

Chinese Whistle-blower: Doctor Ai Fen Vanishes?

(Barnini Chakraborty' article from the FOX NEWS on 01 April 2020.)

Chinese doctor who first raised the alarm over COVID-19 vanishes: Ai Fen, the Wuhan-based doctor who first warned about the threat of COVID-19 has gone missing. The Wuhan-based doctor who first raised the alarm over the coronavirus outbreak in China has reportedly gone missing.

Ai Fen hasn't been seen for days and some fear she could be the latest high-profile person critical of Beijing's handling of COVID-19 to disappear without a trace, "60 Minutes, Australia" reported. Ai rose to fame as the first doctor to notice a cluster of patients with intense flu-like symptoms in Wuhan, more than a month before Chinese officials were forced to confirm the outbreak.

Ai, the director of the emergency unit at Wuhan Central Hospital, told a magazine in March that she had been harshly reprimanded by Chinese authorities for telling the world that the novel coronavirus could spread globally if China did not act. She shared a picture of a patient reporting a SARS-like coronavirus on WeChat, China's most popular messaging app used by more than 1 billion people.

The image Ai shared went viral and eventually made its way to Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor who tried to issue the first warning about the deadly coronavirus but was painted by China's propaganda machines as a liar who didn't know what he was talking about. Police ordered him to stop "making false comments." Li eventually contracted the coronavirus while working at Wuhan Central Hospital and died on Feb. 7.

Only Stupid and Diseased Need To Wear Face Masks

(Connor Perrett's article from the BUSINESS INSIDER on 01 March 2020.)

'STOP BUYING MASKS': US Surgeon General warns wearing face masks could 'increase the spread of coronavirus'. US Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Monday that wearing face masks could actually increase a person’s risk of contracting COVID-19, echoing remarks he made on Saturday that called for people to “stop buying masks.”

In a similar stance, Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the US coronavirus task force, said on Saturday that the “average American” does not need to “go out and buy” a mask to protect themselves from coronavirus.

However, Pence also said the US is working with 3M and other manufacturers to produce at least 35 million more masks per month. Photos and reports have shown masks and other supplies flying off the shelves as Americans grapple with the possibility of an outbreak in the US.

Not Hoarders But The Broken-down Food Distribution

(Michael Snyder's article from the END OF AMERICAN DREAM on 30 March 2020.)

Supplies Are Starting To Get Really Tight Nationwide As Food Distribution Systems Break Down: All across America, store shelves are emptying and people are becoming increasingly frustrated because they can’t get their hands on needed supplies. 

Most Americans are blaming “hoarders” for the current mess, but it is actually much more complicated than that. Normally, Americans get a lot of their food from restaurants.  

In fact, during normal times 36 percent of all Americans eat at a fast food restaurant on any given day.  But now that approximately 75 percent of the U.S. is under some sort of a “shelter-in-place” order and most of our restaurants have shut down, things have completely changed. 

Suddenly our grocery stores are being flooded with unexpected traffic, and many people are buying far more than usual in anticipation of a long pandemic.  Unfortunately, our food distribution systems were not designed to handle this sort of a surge, and things are really starting to get crazy out there. I would like to share with you an excerpt from an email that I was sent recently.  It describes the chaos that grocery stores in Utah and Idaho have been experiencing…