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#blackdeath/coronavirusYesterday I heard a brilliant podcast of the coronavirus outbreak. It came from Stratfor (Rane Group), This is a private intelligence agency. Here is the link:
https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/rane-insights-preparing-second-wave-amid-sea-data
If any of you are serious about listening to it and get password hassles, please contact me.
A few words in the middle of the talk caught my attention. A speaker started to talk about the Black Death (bubonic plague pandemic that ended in 1350-sime 670 years ago.) You can imagine how primitive life was all those centuries ago. Communications were word of mouth. (They did not even have printing presses then.) Medicine and science were very primitive. I could go on for a long time with all the deficiencies.
Despite these you had two distinct groups of people who had vastly different outcomes as follows:
1) Those who believed that the disease was spread by close human contact. These people fled to the countryside and had a high survival rate.
2) Those who did not believe that the disease was spread by close human contact. These people stayed in the towns and cities. They gathered in large groups. They drank in pubs(bars). Their death rate was in the millions.
Fast forward 670 years. You have some people who wear masks, believe in social distancing, and avoid big crowds. You have others who refuse to wear masks and social distance. Now it is a rallying point for those with conservative political views and an anti-science attitude. We have a definite lack of political will in this country.
Elena is optimistic and believes that a vaccine will be developed and ready to administer right after the presidential election in November. I am not so optimistic. The vaccine will not come until the middle part of 2021 or later.
I have a prediction on the total number of US coronavirus deaths before a vaccine is available for mass immunizations- +/-1,500,000. I see a similar death rate for Brasil.