I know everyone is sick of reading about how horrible COVID-19 is, but it is very important right now to stay calm, be logical and objective, and try to look at the evidence wherever possible before jumping to any conclusions.

In that spirit, Paul Ramsey has done a lot of analysis and careful measuring of the available evidence, and asks some basic questions that nobody else seems to be asking:

It is indeed the case that Germany has a very low mortality rate relative to, basically, anyone else. As of this exact moment of writing, Germany has 15,320 total cases – 15,161 active, 115 recovered, 44 dead. That is a mortality rate of 0.29%.

Here are how the top 10 infection centres, so to speak, stack up, using data from Microsoft’s Bing COVID-19 tracker site – though bear in mind that this is Microsoft we’re talking about, so take their data with a BIG chunk of salt:

Country	Total Cases	Fatal Cases	Mortality Rate
China	80,967	3,248	4.01%
Italy	41,035	3,405	8.30%
Iran	18,407	1,284	6.98%
Spain	18,077	833	4.61%
Germany	15,320	44	0.29%
United States	14,363	218	1.52%
France	10,995	372	3.38%
South Korea	8,652	94	1.09%
Switzerland	3,438	33	0.96%
United Kingdom	3,280	144	4.39%

So… what gives?

Why is it that Germany and Switzerland are doing just fine, and the mortality rates there are basically in line with a really bad flu season?

Why is the USA doing really rather well overall?

Why is Italy totally screwed?

Why is Iran doing so badly?

Can we even believe the numbers coming out of China?

(We can already answer that last question, by the way. I’ll answer in gangsta: HELLS NAW!!!)

And it’s not just the USA and a few central European countries that are doing well, either. Take a look at the Czech Republic, which slammed its borders shut last week. They have 765 confirmed cases right now, and ZERO deaths.

Russia has about 200 cases and precisely ONE death – a 79-year-old woman who had a history of breathing difficulties anyway. That’s a mortality rate of 0.50%. While that WILL go up, it’s still nowhere near the craziness going on in Italy or Iran.

Again… what’s up with this? Why are some countries responding far, far better than others?

Here’s what I can tell you based on my own personal and firsthand information.

The Russians are not panicking. There is some panic-buying going on in Moscow, because that’s where all of the COVID-19 cases are clustered right now. There are a lot of jokes going on about how the company that sells Zewa brand toilet paper is going to become rich enough to buy Google before long. But the supermarket shelves are not bare. There is still plenty of food to be found.

Basic necessities are being bought out, fast – paper, cotton pads, soap, cosmetics, and so on. But food is still plentiful. You can easily buy fresh eggs, milk, bread, and other necessities in Moscow supermarkets without problems.

The ruble has absolutely crashed against the dollar. A month ago it was trading at about 60 to the greenback – today it’s at 80. It is the WORST-performing global currency in the world, and that is due in no small part to the fact that Russia decided to increase its oil production significantly, and then the Saudis followed suit to punish the Russians for breaking an OPEC production agreement. The ultimate goal of both countries is to destroy the US shale and fracking industries, but I seriously doubt that they will succeed beyond inflicting significant short-term pain.

But, again, the Russians aren’t panicking. The metro is still running. Traffic is still on the streets. People are still going to work. Some folks are fleeing Moscow for the countryside, certainly, but overall, life carries on as usual there.

And all of that is because their government and public institutions are reacting in a relatively sober, mostly fact-driven way.

The reality is that COVID-19 is exceptionally dangerous to people over 70 with pre-existing respiratory conditions. Does this mean that we should shut down the entire world’s economy simply to preserve Boomer grandparents?

Is that worth the tradeoff?

Let me be absolutely clear about something. I am NOT writing from a disinterested or cold-hearted position here. My own parents are in exactly the age range that makes them vulnerable to this disease. My father smoked for nearly 45 years before he finally gave it up, so his lungs are damaged. They live in a highly polluted city with lousy air quality and extremely damp, humid conditions.

And now, to make matters even worse, it turns out that a student carrying the virus returned from the UK, went through the airport in their city, somehow evaded the screening procedures, got back to the very housing compound that my parents live in, and on top of all of that, proceeded to go out to several public places in direct violation of any sensible quarantine measures.

As a result, the entire township where my parents live has simply shut down.

Corona-chan has suddenly become very personal, and very real, for me.

Yet here I am, still trying to analyse things carefully and dispassionately, because it is clear that we are surrendering to fear and madness right now.

As I pointed out yesterday, we are fighting two diseases right now.

The first is a virus with a highly variable mortality rate that will leave between 8 and 9 out of 10 of those who catch it with zero to mild symptoms, and of those that it actually well and truly infects, only really affects people over a certain age, mostly with preexisting medical issues, and disproportionately affects men.

The second is a highly virulent, extremely contagious and infectious, mind-destroying plague of misinformation, fear, uncertainty, and doubt, spread by “journalists” in the mainstream (((media))) with room-temperature IQs (if you measure in Fahrenheit), who are guilty of distributing so many lies that in a more rational world they would all be lined up and tried for treason.

The first plague is something that we can deal with using evidence, data, and careful analysis. We can put older people under home quarantine. We can tell people to work from home. We can institute ID checks to ensure that only people under a certain cut-off age are able to get to and from work. We can ensure that borders remain closed to China, (Western) Europe, and much of the rest of the world. And we can ensure that only those who are actually infected, are quarantined.

Furthermore, we can look forward to the fact that this disease doesn’t respond well to heat and humidity – which also helps explain why countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, where conditions are hot and humid, have relatively few cases despite their very large populations, and have experienced quite low fatality rates.

That first virus WILL cause an economic calamity because the travel industry and all of the ancillary industries that depend upon it will simply implode. But, as long as the response to it is relatively calm and careful, that industry will recover fast once the travel restrictions are lifted. There will be severe economic pain for a few months to, perhaps, one year. But after that, things will bounce back fast.

The second plague depends entirely on you and me keeping calm, staying objective, and trying to do the right thing. That is the disease that we are completely failing to fight.

So, here’s what you should do.

If you are a man, over 70, with preexisting health conditions that have damaged your immune systems – for instance, if you are a cancer patient, or if you have a history of smoking, or if you are unusually susceptible to chest infections, etc. – STAY HOME. Don’t shake hands with people. Don’t be around other people. Keep to yourself.

If you live in a household with such a person, stay away from him (or her). You’re not doing that person any favours.

If you are younger and in good health, you are most likely going to be all right. Don’t panic, don’t freak out, don’t go to the shops and buy a hundred rolls of toilet paper. Keep about a month’s worth of long-lasting food supplies at home, stay fit and healthy, take some Vitamin C and immunity-boosting supplements, but stay calm. You’re almost certainly going to be just fine. Stay out of the hospitals unless you are really sick, they are already getting overwhelmed by people freaking out.

Above all, TURN OFF YOUR DAMNED TV. It’s feeding you a lot of lies through the whorenalists of the mainstream (((media))).

If you need a source of strength and help during these difficult times, get on your knees and pray. The Lord is listening to you and He is doing His best to help you.

For those of you who work in the services sectors, stocking shelves in supermarkets and driving trucks and basically keeping the urban population fed – you guys are heroes. You’re showing up, doing your job, and trying to keep civilisation from collapsing, and for that, I salute you.

Speaking of civilisation – it is worth remembering that, as our beloved and dreaded Supreme Dark Lord (PBUH) pointed out very recently:

One thing the open borders and human equality crowds have never understood is that civilization is little more than the art of permitting large numbers of humans to live in close proximity without dying like flies. Import too many barbarians and it won’t be long before that art is lost.

That is correct. We are now seeing the direct consequences of open borders and globalism. These are genuinely deadly ideologies and their lethal results are punching us right in the face now.

The lesson is absolutely clear. If you do business with a highly homogeneous but extremely low-trust group of people who absolutely will take advantage of you if you let them and consider you to be inferior to them in every way, you will get screwed eventually.

And if you let in tens or hundreds of thousands of people from inferior – and that is the right word – civilisations that have no respect for your own traditions, no care for how your civilisation got to the point that it did, and no ability to maintain it, well, don’t be surprised when your own civilisation falls to pieces.

The other harsh lesson we are learning here is that life is all about trade-offs.

Is it worth shutting down the entire world’s economy to stop a disease in its tracks that – let’s be brutally honest here – is mostly lethal to the old and infirm, not the young and productive?

A sober, cold-eyed analysis would probably conclude that it is not. But that is what we are doing.

Is it worth locking down entire cities and keeping populations under military-style curfews in order to stop the spread of a disease where the mortality rate is extremely variable and in some cases is about as dangerous to its victims as a bad flu?

Possibly, but the jury appears to be out on this one right now. The economic cost of doing so is certainly vastly greater than the number of lives lost would indicate.

Is it worth reassessing the benefits that we get from lower prices and cheaper material goods due to free trade and globalisation, in the face of the proven fact that the Chinese government and, to a lesser extent, people, simply cannot be trusted to prevent deadly plagues from escaping China and spreading to the rest of the world?

HELL yes!

Life is about choices and trade-offs. Some of those choices are extremely ugly and unpleasant. But they have to be made. And if we could all just sit still for a few minutes and remember this basic fact of life, perhaps we can avoid succumbing to the mind-virus which has so far proven to be vastly more dangerous and destructive than the physical one.