LIFE AFTER CORONA: WHAT CAN WE EXPECT?

CORONA TO PUT FINAL NAIL IN INDUSTRIAL ERA’S COFFIN

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY?

What kind of changes in our lives we can expect after this crisis is over?

** Restaurants, bars, social and nightclubs, for example, will become a dangerous luxury.

** So will the beauty salons. And gyms. And yoga classes. And… Because, in order to keep the social distancing, they will all have to reduce the number of customers and raise the prices if they are to stay in business.

** Also the way we shop will change. Even now over 60% of American consumers are shopping online more than they were just a month ago, according to a recent survey from cashback site TopCashback.com. Grocery delivery platforms such as Instacart, Walmart Grocery and Shipt are seeing dramatic spikes in sales, according to the US Chamber of Commerce.

** People will learn to prepare their own food at home, just like our great grandparents used to.

** Natality will rise. There will be a flood of Christmas and New Year’s babies. People will become more intimate with each other. But it will be harder to make new friends.

** Air travel will also become more expensive with fewer passengers on board. And, of course, all will have to wear masks and gloves.

** Public transportation will shrink as it has already. It has been a major source of infections in large cities.

** There will be less physical movement of people, more internet travel.

** Cash will become a dirty word, both literally and figuratively, as we move even faster toward a cashless society.

** “Mass-anything” (mass transit, mass gatherings of any kind) will be shunned. Except by fools or suicidal desperadoes.

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And so on.

UNIVERSE IS UNFOLDING AS IT SHOULD: SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

In short, the universe is unfolding as it should. And as this writer predicted several decades ago.

In the 1980s. I opined that “small is beautiful” – by contrast to the “bigger is better” motto of the industrial era.

“Most industrial era’s CEOs have tended to be empire builders.  They thought that “bigger is better.” 

Source: Annex Bulletin, May 2003 – http://www.djurdjevic.com/Bulletins2003/09_IBM_5Yr.html

We’ll see more “small is beautiful” examples in the coming years as the industrial era unravels and makes way for the information era to rule our lives. The term “mass-anything” will become outmoded. Large sports arenas, large concert halls, megachurches, political town halls… will operate at only partial capacity if at all.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY?

First, that the scope and danger of the current COVID-19 pandemic compared to the deadliest one is grossly overstated by the mass hysteria of the mass media.

As we speak, the coronavirus has infected less than 3.5 million people globally and killed 246,000. The deadliest pandemic in history – the Spanish Flu of 1918 – killed over 50 million people – more than the World War I (17 million victims).

While it is prudent to take precautions – such as practice social distancing, wear masks and gloves – we must not surrender ourselves to fear and panic. Because the mass media and the “liberal” (pink-socialist) politicians want to use this crisis to achieve something they never could in a free society – gain autocratic control of the population.

TRUTH IN MEDIA, May 3, 2020

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE “SPANISH FLU” OF 1918?

With mass hysteria ruling most of the mass media stories about COVID-19, it may be helpful to turn the page of history 102 years back. That’s then the deadliest pandemic in human history, erroneously dubbed the “Spanish Flu,” killed over 50 million people worldwide. In many ways, its symptoms were similar to that of COVID-19.

Influenza, or flu, is a virus that attacks the respiratory system. The flu virus is highly contagious: When an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks, respiratory droplets are generated and transmitted into the air, and can then can be inhaled by anyone nearby.

Additionally, a person who touches something with the virus on it and then touches his or her mouth, eyes or nose can become infected.

SPANISH FLU – HISTORY.COM

The first wave of the 1918 pandemic occurred in the spring and was generally mild. The sick, who experienced such typical flu symptoms as chills, fever and fatigue, usually recovered after several days, and the number of reported deaths was low.

However, a second, highly contagious wave of influenza appeared with a vengeance in the fall of that same year. Victims died within hours or days of developing symptoms, their skin turning blue and their lungs filling with fluid that caused them to suffocate. In just one year, 1918, the average life expectancy in America plummeted by a dozen years.

More U.S. soldiers died from the 1918 flu than were killed in battle during the war. Forty percent of the U.S. Navy was hit with the flu, while 36 percent of the Army became ill, and troops moving around the world in crowded ships and trains helped to spread the killer virus.

Although the death toll attributed to the Spanish flu is often estimated at 20 million to 50 million victims worldwide, other estimates run as high as 100 million victims—around 3 percent of the world’s population. The exact numbers are impossible to know due to a lack of medical record-keeping in many places.

SPANISH FLU – HISTORY.COM

The “Spanish Flu” exacted a far greater human toll than all the victims of World War I combined (about 17 million).

Unlike the “Chinese virus,” as President Trump correctly referred to COVID-19 back in March, the “Spanish Flu” did not originate in Spain, though news coverage of it did. During World War I, Spain was a neutral country with a free media that covered the outbreak from the start, first reporting on it in Madrid in late May of 1918.

Meanwhile, Allied countries and the Central Powers had wartime censors who covered up news of the flu to keep morale high. Because Spanish news sources were the only ones reporting on the flu, many believed it originated there (the Spanish, meanwhile, believed the virus came from France and called it the “French Flu.”)

Scientists still do not know for sure where the Spanish Flu originated, though theories point to France, China, Britain, or the United States, where the first known case was reported at Camp Funston in Fort Riley, Kansas, on March 11, 1918.

Some believe infected soldiers spread the disease to other military camps across the country, then brought it overseas. In March 1918, 84,000 American soldiers headed across the Atlantic and were followed by 118,000 more the following month.

Officials in some communities imposed quarantines, ordered citizens to wear masks and shut down public places, including schools, churches and theaters. People were advised to avoid shaking hands and to stay indoors, libraries put a halt on lending books and regulations were passed banning spitting. [SOUND FAMILIAR? LIKE NOW?]

Spanish Flu Pandemic Ends

By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.

Almost 90 years later, in 2008, researchers announced they’d finally discovered what made the 1918 flu so deadly: A group of three genes enabled the virus to weaken a victim’s bronchial tubes and lungs and clear the way for bacterial pneumonia.

THE SPANISH FLU – HISTORY.COM

THE END