This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Most Important News.
This coronavirus outbreak just keeps getting weirder. With each passing day, the number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths continue to rise, but not all demographic groups are being affected equally. That seems very odd, but it may also give researchers important clues about how to fight this very deadly virus.
On Tuesday, global health officials finally gave this mysterious new coronavirus an official name. From now on they will be calling it “COVID-19”, but I doubt that moniker will really catch on with the general public. In any event, what everybody can agree on is the fact that this disease has the potential to rapidly spread all over the planet, and let us hope that the extreme measures that are being taken to prevent it from getting out of control will be enough.
One of the things that we have just learned about this virus is that it does not seem to affect men and women equally.
According to two different studies, it appears that men are significantly more likely to get infected than women are…
More men than women seem to contract coronavirus, several recent studies of patients at the heart of the outbreak suggest.
Among the Wuhan University hospital patients documented in one study, 54 percent were men. Another earlier study of hospitalized patients was made up of 68 percent men, Business Insider reported.
Scientists do not currently understand exactly why this is happening.
But researchers have pointed out that there was a similar pattern during the SARS outbreak…
The 2003 outbreak of SARS struck more women among younger adults (20-54), but was more prevalent among men in older ages (55 and up).
When University of Iowa researchers exposed male and female mice to the virus, the males were more likely to contract SARS.
Could there be something about male physiology that makes us more vulnerable to a coronavirus outbreak?
This is something that scientists should investigate further.
Another thing about COVID-19 that seems quite strange is the fact that children seem to be a lot less vulnerable to the disease. The following comes from CNBC…
The new coronavirus that has already killed more people than the 2003 SARS epidemic appears to be sparing one population group: kids.
Of the more than 43,100 people it’s infected since Dec. 31, World Health Organization officials say the majority are over 40 years old and it’s hitting those with underlying health conditions and the elderly particularly hard.
Some researchers are theorizing that a lot of kids are actually getting infected but that their stronger immune systems are preventing severe symptoms from manifesting…
Prep For Cold & Flu Season: How To Boost Your Immune System Naturally
The apparent lack of children among confirmed coronavirus cases could also be because they are getting infected but developing more mild symptoms and aren’t being reported to local authorities, according to Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. World health officials say they are working to improve surveillance of the disease and expect more mild cases to be reported. It could be a while before we have a clear picture on cases, Lipsitch said.
With any disease, those that have weaker or compromised immune systems are always going to be more vulnerable.
And if this outbreak starts to spiral out of control all over the globe, the number of victims could potentially be absolutely staggering.
In fact, Hong Kong epidemiologist Gabriel Leung is warning that 60 to 80 percent of the entire global population could potentially end up catching this virus if urgent action is not taken…
Prof Gabriel Leung, the chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, said the overriding question was to figure out the size and shape of the iceberg. Most experts thought that each person infected would go on to transmit the virus to about 2.5 other people. That gave an “attack rate” of 60-80%.
“Sixty percent of the world’s population is an awfully big number,” Leung told the Guardian in London, en route to an expert meeting at the WHO in Geneva on Tuesday.
The official death rate is still fairly low, but if billions of people end up catching this bug it could result in tens of millions of deaths…
With the global population currently at more than 7 billion (7,577,130,400), that means that the virus has the potential to infect more than 4 billion (4,546,278,240) if Professor Leung is correct and its spread continues to accelerate.
And if one percent of those people die, that means there will be more than 45 million deaths.
A death toll of that magnitude would put this crisis on par with the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.
Once again, I want to stress that there is absolutely no guarantee that such a scenario will actually unfold. The SARS outbreak in 2003 was eventually brought under control, and my hope is that this outbreak will eventually be brought under control as well.
But even if this outbreak ends tomorrow, life is not going to go back to normal. In fact, the truth is that our problems are just getting started.
As far as COVID-19 is concerned, we would be in far better shape if the Chinese had locked down the entire city of Wuhan much earlier. By waiting as long as they did, it allowed five million potential carriers to leave Wuhan for other areas of China…
EXPERTS fear it is too late to stop the deadly spread of coronavirus as FIVE MILLION people left the outbreak epicentre before it was even put on lockdown.
Millions continued to pour out of Wuhan – now dubbed zombieland – long after the first reports about a deadly new virus broke.
Now there are confirmed cases in every single province of China, and we will wait to see if this virus ultimately spreads all over the globe.
Thankfully, world health officials are taking this threat very seriously. On Tuesday, the head of the WHO warned that “a virus is more powerful in creating political, economic and social upheaval than any terrorist attack”…
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva the vaccine lag meant “we have to do everything today using available weapons” and said the epidemic posed a “very grave threat”.
“To be honest, a virus is more powerful in creating political, economic and social upheaval than any terrorist attack,” Dr Ghebreyesus said.
And he is right.
This virus has the potential to absolutely turn the entire planet upside down.
I am still hoping that does not happen, but I am also encouraging all of my readers to get prepared for the worst.
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About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations, I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help.
Your leaving out the most important part.
To date it has only killed asians, to everyone else it’s basically
the new flu.
Older already ailing men that are Asian are the ones dying..
No blacks, no whities, no mexicans, no arabian peoples
have died..
Nobody will talk about this.
Eventually there will be some non asian deaths, there will
be serious other health issues with those people when
it happens.
As fond as I am of Mr Snyder, whose veracity is usually top-notch, a correction is in order here. Specifically, the sentence in the article asserting that;
” Some researchers are theorizing that a lot of kids are getting infected but that their STRONGER immune systems are preventing severe symptoms from manifesting…”
This statement is patently false as any parent knows who has children I’m the US Public school system. To clarify this point we need to go back to the 1918 global outbreak of “Spanish Flu” and analyze it in the context of what – exactly – modern medicine has learned therefrom.
Similar to – but not exactly identical with – the current Coronavirus budding pandemic, the Spanish Flu had a rather curious propensity to attack young, healthy ADULTS… which is a wholly atypical pattern of action for virtually every pathogenic manifestation know to science.
The reason for that is simple…both children and the aged have more limited immune response than do mature adults. In the case of children they’re immunological response is not sufficiently ‘well trained’ via exposure to the gamut of possible, likely pathogens they will encounter, the ‘memory’ of which is stored (long term, typically in excess of 30 years) in that component of the greater immune system called “B cells”.
It is those that semi-permanent tpretain the viral protein signatures of previous encountered pathogens OR exposures to various vaccinations.
At the geriatric end of the spectrum, the natural course of aging both sees a steady diminution of the entire immunological response capacity partly but NOT exclusively due to the attrition of the body’s population of capable B cells as previously mentioned.
So, WHY did the Spanish Flu seemingly so specifically target young, healthy adults? Several years ago an NIH research expedition actually travelled far above the Arctic Circle for the sole purpose of retrieving viable samples of that Flu variant from corpses interred in permafrost…and thusly, likely viable still. Multiple gravesites were excavated and samples retrieved…and yes, some WERE still viable enough to successfully culture (an event I shuddered at upon hearing I might add…)
Upon study that virus was seen to act on the primate immune system in a hitherto unknown fashion. To wit, once successfully incubated in a host the viral proteins of that were seen to provoke an extraordinary response in the immune systems of otherwise healthy MATURE specimens. In short order epidemiologic studies revealed the nature of the oddity; Spanish Flu triggered a gargantuan production of a triggering element of the immune system known as Cytokines.
In effect, these ‘Cytokine Storms’ led the host immune systems to radically correspond to the virus. The upshot here; the host’s own immune systems began attacking so much host cellular matter pursuing the virus that the damage to internal organs due BOTH to the associated fevers and the actual immunological damage was an order of magnitude too much for the systems involved to survive and death all too often was the result.
IF nCoV IS attacking otherwise strong healthy adults then this may be ONE of the mechanisms producing the results we are currently witnessing.
Additionally, a recent medical journal analysis originating in China specifically identified a particular compromise of a particular bio molecular pathway that is almost exclusively seen only in smokers…and among Chinese adults the number of Male smokers radically exceeds that Women smokers by roughly an order of magnitude.
The foregoing – all – is established fact, incontrovertibly so…what follows is speculative…expressly.
In the weeks and months which follow, inasmuch as nCoV is now plausibly globally disseminated we will begin the real process of compiling non-political driven REAL data…and that’s where things will get ‘interesting’. Frankly, what has been publicized thus far to the global community by the Chinese government is absolute Shite and must needs be taken with a grain of salt amounting to several cubic meters.
IF this does not manifestly proceed to infect a large portion of Humanity, it will necessarily either need be be viewed as Miraculous (given the apparent transmissibilty inside China seen thus far) or it might have another interpretation, one much darker.
Consider that the thing which the Chinese Communist Party fears more than anything on Earth is a loss of control over the minds of it’s 1.2 Billion citizens who are currently facing extraordinary food supply issues. In the minds of a group of utterly immoral despotic Tyrants such as those might they actually consider a deliberate action to thin their ‘herds’?
I’ll leave that thought until further evidence is accessible.
On the other hand, given humanity’s current abysmal ignorance of ‘protein folding’, the action underlying all proteins interactions with one another, IF this does become globally pandemic, then it is VERY likely that as it further progresses and begins ‘looping’ through multiple genetic phenotypes (ethnic groups) then there exist a very real possibility that it can evolve therethrough into the nightmare scenario described in Steven King’s horror story “The Stand”…embodied as the ‘Captain Tripps’ virus.
Hereafter, only TIME will prove out which is which.
Prayer seems appropriate at this juncture. Good luck to everyone.
JOG
Hello JustOneGuy,
That’s a great summary of the physical reaction to this coronavirus. I have read an academic summary (can’t place it right now) that shows the same conclusion about the Cytokine storms. Also, the ACE receptors in the lungs pick up the virus. Smokers and Asians (among other similar genomes) apparently have more of these receptors than others, causing their bodies to be more easily overwhelmed.
It’s possible it was lab created, but like you say, more evidence is needed.
cheers
Hi, someone posting ‘Anon’ who knows what JOG signifies…
Well meet old friend! Thank you for the kind words.
I just stumbled over an analysis of the ACE2 relative susceptibility by enthnicity…and it is a strange mix to say the least.
The link is appearing over at steemit.com under
/coronavirus/@preparedwombat/genetic-ethnic-coronavirus-susceptibility.
I’ll be posting this a bit further upstream in the article question for better dissemination…which is something I feel is VERY important at this point.
As you scan the list you’ll see that is a truly odd, ‘mixed bag’ of ethnicities…I am scratching my head over this one.
JOG
New theory on men getting Corona Virus, it is Testicular (AKA Gonads)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v1
“Beware of a silent dog and still water”… and an even keel Snyder article.
This is dry run for the one world order.
It has worked great so far –
– long incubation
– airborne
– highly contagious
– Fast spreading
Just add the last mutation
Make it highly lethal – done – good bye 95% of the worlds population
Your leaving out the most important part.
To date it has only killed asians, to everyone else it’s basically
the new flu.
Older already ailing men that are Asian are the ones dying..
No blacks, no whities, no mexicans, no arabian peoples
have died..
Nobody will talk about this.
Eventually there will be some non asian deaths, there will
be serious other health issues with those people when
it happens.
1.14 males per females China one child policy so more men than women. So 54 men versus 46 women means equally likely to get virus. Some experts and columnists are not aware of this.