I have taken to calling the Corona Virus the Wutang Flu and I have developed a working theory as to what has really happened because, of course, whatever the Chinese are telling us is a lie.
Here is the essence of the Wutang Flu Theory:
1. The Chinese have been sitting on this mess for more than 3 months trying to dampen the information because it reflects poorly on the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to control …………………………………………………….. everything.
Sort of like the year long riots in Hong Kong.
2. It may or may not have actually originated at one of two biological (weapons) labs in Wuhan. I have no reason to think that, but I am a little skeptical about the snake-seafood market explanation.
3. The Wutang Flu has been circulating around the world for a long time and many people have gotten it, recovered, and are moving on with their lives.
4. The deaths from the Wutang Flu — almost entirely older folks with compromised or challenged immune systems — have been subsumed in the normal seasonal flu deaths. The USA has had more than 95,000 normal seasonal flu deaths in the last 24 months.
5. There is a huge fountain of “a very hard flu this year” anecdotal information, world wide.
6. The Wutang Flu seems not to impact children. I read several reports from China that nobody under the age of 15 had contracted the Wutang Flu.
Can that possibly be right? Yes, I know, it’s China.
Flu vaccine mojo
Here is the most alarming thing I have learned about China and the normal seasonal flu in general, and the Wutang Flu in particular:
1. The US has 330,000,000 people and will deliver almost 170,000,000 doses of flu vaccine.
A lot of people didn’t get their flu shot — about 26,000,000 of them contracted the flu.
[Those were 2019 CDC numbers. In 2018, the US had 45,000,000 flu victims (14% of population), 21,000,000 hospital visits, 810,000 long-term hospital stays, and 61,000 deaths.]
2. China has 1,400,000,000 people and will administer 8,000,000 doses of flue vaccine with another 20,000,000 in stock.
Approximately 15% of China got the seasonal flu and one has to believe that about 1% of that 210,000,000 died — this is what the Chinese say, but they keep revising it.
That indicates as many as 2,100,000 deaths from seasonal flu.
Just look at that comparison for a second.
Bottom line it, Big Red Car
Here is the bottom line as to the Wutang Flu Theory:
1. It started in China, a country with a Stone Age approach to the flu based on their winter seasonal flu practices — 8,000,000 flu shots for 1,400,000,000 people? Egads! Look at how sloppy they are on the winter seasonal flu.
2. The Chinese are lying and they lie about everything.
3. The old, the infirm, the sick, the weak are at risk from the Wutang Flu, exactly as the winter seasonal flu.
4. There have to be a bunch of people who have never been diagnosed who have had the Wutang Flu and recovered. Any deaths are subsumed in the routine flu numbers.
5. The anecdotal information as to a “hard flu” is likely the 20% of cases that develop into bilateral pneumonia. This is where the deaths are coming from — again, limited to the sick, the weak, the infirm, the old.
So, dear reader, there you have it. What do you think?
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway — I’m not a freakin’ epidemiologist, I’m just a Big Red Car. Thanks for the CDC, y’all.