Chinese Virus statistics week number 28 as at 26/02/21 (plus political comment and our personal news) since August 21st. 2020 (196 days)

Hi to all,

We hope that everyone, despite advancing years - like us(!) -  is still in the pink. Once again, please note that figures in parenthesis relate to 21/08/20 - except where otherwise indicated.

MUNDO - World

Total cases - 113,785,596 - (21,168,111) - up 92,617,485 or 437.5%

Deaths - 2,523,840 - 2.2% - (759,328 - 3.6%) - up1,764,512 or 232.4%

Recoveries - 89,371,349 - 78.5% - (13,984,843 - 66.1%) - up 75,386,506 or 539.1%

Therefore active cases - 21,890,407 - 19.3% - (6,425,939 - 30.3%) - up 15,464,468 or 240.7%. Of the total population (which is estimated to be increasing by 1,557,692 per week) of 7,848,534,295 (7,804,380,455), the percentage of active cases is 0.279% (0.082%) of the total world population.

Total active cases per 1 million of total population - 2,789 - (1,437)

Compared to last week, active cases are down 749,466 or 3.3%

A key indicator is "active cases per 1 million of population" and since last week it is down by 96 which is a reduction of 3.3% worldwide. Active cases themselves are down 749,466 or 3.3%. Slowing rates of reduction since last week.

All good, but the rate of reduction has slowed considerably from last week.  

A comment about vaccinations - there is a huge amount of adverse opinion being expressed about all the vaccines at the moment. We, like most people, do not know who to believe, but our opinion is that there is enough disquieting information out there to raise serious doubts. Therefore, for us we will delay getting any vaccine for at least 12 months until there is more corroborating data available. We've listened to all the propaganda, both for and against, and all that has done is make us more uncertain and concerned at side effects than ever. These side effects may take months to develop. 

ESTADOS UNIDOS - United States

Total cases - 29,072,532 - (5,429,115) - up 23,643,447 or 435.5%

Deaths - 521,343 - 1.8% - (170,781 - 3.2%) - up 350,562 or 205.3%

Recoveries - 19,438,280 - 66.9% - (2,844,535 - 52.4%) - up 16,593,745 or 583.4%

Therefore active cases - 9,112,959 - 31.3% - (2,413,829 - 44.6%) - up 6,699,130 or 277.5%. Of the total population of 332,272,677 (331,236,184), the percentage of active cases is 2.743% (0.729%) of the total population.

Total active cases per 1 million of total population - 27,426 - (9,043)

Compared to last week, the comparative figures are:

Total cases up 528,781 or 1.9%

Deaths up 15,399 or 3.0%

Recoveries up 641,278 or 3.4%

Active cases down 217,846 or 2.3%

A further reduction in active case numbers but at a slower rate than last week. So, not sure where the claims of a huge reduction in infections and hospitilisations comes from; maybe there's a lag in reporting. But at least the figures are heading in the right direction - slowly!

The following article from Liberty Planet bears repeating here in view of the determined attempts on the part of the left to permanently suppress free speech in America.

It is headlined "Democrats Are More Concerned With Censorship Than Actually Governing Anything"

"The war against the right, waged by hardened leftists is just getting started. The Democrats currently in power do not seem content to enjoy their victories and get back to the business of governing. Instead, they are targeting the right at every turn. Initial efforts were devoted to impeaching President Trump yet again. Fortunately, the Senate failed to convict the former president, which means he is able to run for office again should he choose to do so.

However, recent actions show their efforts will not end with the impeachment of President Trump. In fact, they will continue with several actions aimed at discrediting, demoralising, and dehumanising conservative voters and silencing conservative voices.

These are just a few efforts currently in the works:

* An FBI investigation into the role certain members of Congress had in the Capitol riot.

*Congress is drafting a bill to create a 'Capitol riot Commission' to investigate the events leading up to the riot - one that would include seven Democrat appointees and four Republicans.

*Lawmakers calling for 'truth' commissions to investigate President Trump's actions in office.

* Democrats call on cable and streaming providers encouraging them to address 'misinformation' from conservative networks like Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax.

The tech giants of Twitter, Facebook, and Google are doing their part to silence the voices of conservatives by censoring what can be said and who can be heard and even 'fact checking' legitimate news stories, or removing them completely, so that only one narrative is heard among their audiences. Congress is wasting no time in seeking to make these challenges universal.

On Feb. 22nd. 2021, Democrat lawmakers sent letters to executives from various cable companies, satellite companies,and streaming services, including:

Altice, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Dish, Google parent Alphabet, Hulu, Roku, and Verizon.

The letters urged these organisations to address misinformation by those who use their services stating that this information has led to radicalisation and seditious acts, the rejection of public health best practices, and other issues.

The letters specifically mentioned Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network as offenders for spreading the disinformation and asked the organisations not only if they intended to continue to carry these networks, but why.

Fox is not taking these actions sitting down and released a statement claiming, 'For individual members of Congress to highlight political speech they do not like and demand cable distributors engage in viewpoint discrimination sets a terrible precedent'.

Of course, big tech has already engaged in this type of censorship earning rebukes from Germany and others around the world about the slippery slope these actions create.

Republican Federal Communications Commissioner, Brian Carr, indicates that this is a massive transgression against free speech rights all other media outlets in this country enjoy.

We're glad to see Democrats are focussing on the issues that matter. Secondary things such as vaccine distribution and an economic recession are taking a comfortable back seat."  

We had the pleasure of seeing the former President Trump addressing the CPAC conference in Florida on Sunday. As a result, there is no doubt in our minds that he will be president again in 2024 - if not sooner, if forensic examinations of state voting systems prove widespread fraud as claimed. Trump also claimed again in his CPAC speech that he lost the election fraudulently citing some very compelling statistics such as more ballots received than there were registered voters in many counties, as well as the overall statistic of Trump receiving more votes (75 million) than any sitting president EVER, including more than Obama ever received. Put that alongside Biden's fraudulent claim from his basement of 80 million votes, and that's a total of 155 million. There were only 135 million registered voters - period. So, where did those extra 20 million come from. They were produced from vote counting machines that had been fraudulently tampered with, as well as dead people voting in droves and votes received from non-residents. These anomalies and others were enabled by crooked vote tabulators who unilaterally and illegally changed the rules with no reference to their state legislatures so these "new rules" were UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Thanks to a few very determined Arizona state Congressmen and Senators, there is as we speak beginning the first forensic examination following the November 3rd. election. An Arizona judge has now ordered a forensic audit to proceed. If evidence has been tampered with there will be serious repercussions as electoral evidence destruction is a serious crime. Other states are watching closely and all it would take in each of those "battleground" states (Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin) would be to find similar fraud which would easily overturn Biden's razor-thin margins in those states. What happens after that would be totally unknown because the situation would be unprecedented. But you could not have a fraudulent administration in power which at that point would have received way less than the required 270 Electoral College votes.  

Other snippets from the Biden maladministration -

Children as young as 3 are being "counseled"  at kindergarten and school about their sexuality without the knowledge of their parents with a view to encouraging them to take sex changing drugs and possibly at a slightly older age undergoing medical procedures to physically confirm the change. At their ages they are quite simply and obviously unable to even understand the ramifications and it is our belief that it is all designed to ultimately destroy on-going family life with the aim of pursuing an extreme Socialist agenda. This is the ultimate child abuse.

A number of "red" states are now instituting legal action to counter many of the dimwitted Biden's executive decrees which are in the main unconstitutional. These actions are mainly aimed at illegal immigration, which is now at crisis point once again with thousands of unacompanied minors being apprehended and having to be incarcerated. Their ages range from younger than 10 or 11 up to 17-18. These kids are being taken from their parents with false promises, and then pushed across the border where they are inevitably picked up by the border authorities whose resources are at breaking point. Then the criminal traffickers will seize them again when they are released by a grossly overwhelmed border force where they will be sold to paedophile gangs which are rife in the US, and indeed in many other places these days. There was a people smuggler SUV with 25 illegal aliens packed in like sardines which was involved in an accident on a California freeway with a large interstate truck. 13 of them were killed - God knows the condition and trauma of the others.

Other Dim executive orders being targeted by the states are those which directly impact upon the states' ability to govern themselves from the point of view of infrastuctural and financial capacity. This includes the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline and the consequent loss of thousands of skilled jobs. 

All of these "orders" are very likely to be overturned - if not it is likely that the worst affected states will simply defy federal authority in order to survive Washington's deliberate efforts to destroy them. Secession and/or Civil War will not be far behind. 

So far all who comment on these issues, such as state governors and AG's, are being very circumspect in their language. They need to take this tack for the moment because if they overstep the boundaries they also will be "cancelled" by big tech at the behest of the Dims. Certainly any mention of presidential election fraud is prohibited, except that every so often someone dares to make an oblique reference. Such is the almost total control that the Dims have managed to exercise in suppressing free speech in what was once the greatest democracy in the world. 

There are continuing lies and obfuscations emanating from the Dims as regards the Jan. 6th. riots. They are continuing to try to pin the blame onto President Trump when he has been exonerated in the sham impeachment!! And they are hiding the real events of that day. Pelosi's "commission of enquiry" when it uncovers some inconvenient facts, is likely to blow up in the Dims' faces. 

The Dims know that they almost certainly only have a maximum of 2 years to destroy America because in the midterms in 2022 when the Dim malfeasance will have become starkly obvious, if not already, they will lose the House and probably also the Senate. However, this assumes that the integrity of the US electoral system will be retrieved from the debacle of 2020 and re-established. The Dims are doing their best to stop this happening, and indeed to permanently alter the electoral landscape to ensure that they stay in power for at least the next 3 generations. So they are going hell for leather and their proposals and attempts to change the law (and by extension the Constitution) are truly horrifying. Their propaganda is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930's. 

The USA is at war with the criminal and fanatical Dims, and all freedom loving people need to know it because if they succeed, our cherished way of life is finished. Most people, especially in geographically and socially isolated countries like NZ, fail to realise this, or they say -  what can I do? Same attitude as prevailed in Germany in the early to mid 1930's. Apathy is the Dim's friend and the absolute enemy of freedom - and the Dims know this only too well. We are all on a knife edge.

COLOMBIA

Total cases - 2,241,225 - (433,805) - up 1,807,420 or 416.6%

Deaths - 59,396 - 2,7% - (14,145 - 3.3%) - up 45,251 or 320.0%

Recoveries - 2,138,193 - 95.3% - (250,494 - 57.7%) - up 1,887,699 or 753.6%

Therefore active cases - 43,636 - 2.0% - (169,196 - 39.0%) - down 125,560 or 74.2%. Of the total population of 51,236,893 (50,948,628), the percentage of active cases is 0.085 % (0.332%) of the total population.

Total active cases per 1 million of total population  - 852 - (1,367)

Active cases compared to last week are down 5,110 or 10.5%

Again massive reductions in active cases per 1 million of population of 100 (10.5%) and active cases down by 5,110. We can only hope that these reported figures are true.

Following are this week's headlines from www.colombiareports.com:

Feb. 20th. Colombia's military executed more than 6,400 civilians in 6 years: court

Feb. 21st. Medellin: Colombia's extrajudicial execution capital

Feb. 21st. Colombia's elderly still waiting for COVID-19 vaccines

Feb. 22nd. Uribe accuses HRW chief of terrorism support amid war crime probes

Feb. 22nd. Will the politicians behind Colombia's mass killing of civilians go to court?

Feb. 22nd. The president's bosses Part 3: Colombia's mafia

Feb. 22nd. "Only peace process can stop Colombia's return to war"

Feb. 23rd. 11 killed in eruption of narco violence in southwest Colombia

Feb. 23rd. Notorious crime family pleased with Colombia's election chief

Feb. 25th. UN urges Colombia to dismantle paramilitary groups

Feb. 25th. Tensions in Colombia over lost COVID-19 shots

Feb. 25th. Coronavirus crisis bankrupted 500k of Colombia's small businesses 

Feb. 26th. Colombia's COVID-19 vaccination campaign shows first cracks

Feb. 26th. Does Colombia's ruling party believe everybody is a terrorist?

Feb. 26th. Colombia's prosecution shield against government's narco ties

We have spent a ridiculous amount of time booking Jean's tickets to go to Miami next month. One airline's website was non-functional so we eventually booked her with Jet Blue. They have the best prices as well. Jean will be away for a fortnight and Jim will be keeping the home fires burning - figuratively of course! Then she has to obtain a visa waiver from the US Govt. (ESTA), which is available to NZ passport holders among others, plus medical cover - which is expensive for the US - especially in these Chinese Virus times. At least she can be with Carter and Nash again after a hiatus of 15 months. Not what we imagined when we first came to live in Medellin! 

Then, although strictly outside the parameters of last week, we experienced a 5.1 magnitude terremoto (earthquake) at about 6 pm. on Monday. The shaking was sufficient to cause the building to sway and it lasted for around 5 seconds. That was the longest 5 seconds we have ever spent!! The movement seemed to get worse during the shaking and then mercifully abruptly stopped. We are on the 8th. floor and there is one residential floor above us. The shake was sufficient to cause a water pipe buried in a concrete floor or wall to rupture on our floor and on the floor below us there was something of a waterfall. The water to the building was turned off for a time so, as we did not know when supply might be resumed, we decided to augment the bottled water supplies we already had in storage. We made a quick trip in the car, which is parked in the basement, to a local supermarket and bought more water. However, when we returned the supply was back on with the affected damaged pipe isolated. Still, we are well prepared for next time - provided we can get to our storage unit!! There was no other damage anywhere that we are aware of.

It is said that Medellin is situated on a massive bed of granite rock and that protects the city from anything major in the earthquake department. And hopefully these lesser quakes are a way of letting off steam in lieu of a really big one. Certainly Medellin, unlike some other urban areas in Colombia, has not had a major earthquake (touch wood), despite having been settled now for at least 400 years. We can only hope that situation continues.

An amusing little distraction - yours truly had been getting frustrated by the fact that the electronic clock in the car had been upset during the recent work where of course the battery had been disconnected. But the instruction manual which is massive is all in Spanish, and in spite of considerable time trying, he could not even find the appropriate reference!  So, in a flash of intellectual brilliance, for which he is well-known, he decided to try and find something on the internet. Lo and behold there was a website which among other things purported to deal with the issue as it applies to the 2007 Mercedes Benz B Class.. So, armed with this vital information on the trusty smart phone, it was then necessary to take the car out of the basement parking in order to regain internet access. This was done and things were progressing quite satisfactorily when it became apparent that the website had left out a vital step. Finally the problem was deduced by focussing yours truly's considerable brain power on the problem. A feeling of quiet triumph then prevailed once the correct time was once again displayed. 

Once upon a time all you had to do was tweak a stalk on the clock face - computers have hugely complicated our world and distracted us from matters that are actually important. 

   

MEXICO, COSTA RICA, PANAMA, COLOMBIA, ECUADOR, PERU, BOLIVIA, PARAGUAY, BRAZIL, CHILE, ARGENTINA, URUGUAY plus UNITED KINGDOM, THAILAND and MALAYSIA.

Following are the "active cases per 1 million of total population" for each country nominated above. Figures in parenthesis are for the previous week.

Mexico - 2,047 - (2,055) - down 8 or 0.4% - slight improvement but not significant

Costa Rica - 4,924 - (5,890) - down 966 or 16.4% - big reductions over the past few weeks - almost down by 50 % during that time. Believable??

Panama - 2,160 - (4,796) - down 2,836 or 55.0% - same comments as for Costa Rica. But let's not denigrate too much. Hopefully the figures keep reducing.

Colombia - 852 - (952) - down 100 or 10.5% - again a substantial reduction. Now the best figures in S America!!

Ecuador - 1,498 - (1,427) - up 71 or 5.0% - figures creeping up again.

Peru - 1,565 - (1,628) - down 63 or 3.9% - hopefully the downward movement  continues

Bolivia - 3,750 - (3,876) - down 126 or 3.3% - going in the right direction

Paraguay - 3,133 - (2,992) - up 141 or 4.7% - going in the wrong direction!!

Brazil - 3,833 - (3,708) - up 125 or 3.4% - up again - hopefully the downward trend starts again

Chile - 1,227 - (1,203) - up 24 or 2.0% - up a little. Let's hope that they can resume a downward trend

Argentina - 3,412 - (3,222) - up 190 or 5.9% - Argentina's economy is a basket case (again!) - let's hope that the Chinese Virus doesn't take on the same characteristics!!

Uruguay - 1,897  - (1,499) - up 398 or 26.6% - very surprising as Uruguay was looking good. Let's hope that they can reverse this. Maybe a good part of their problem is that they only have a population of just over 3 million and they have very big neighbours in Brazil and Argentina.  

United Kingdom - 18,519 - (24,142) - down 5,623 or 23.3%. At least their figures are better than the US. But if the Johnson government had been responsible at the beginning, instead of letting flights in unchecked from hotspots like Milan and Teheran, they would probably be in far better shape than they currently are. At least the figures appear to be going the right way.

Thailand - 11 - (16) - down 5 or 31.3%. Miniscule figures but only achieved at the expense of border closures which have decimated tourism and the yacht maintenance business. Similar to NZ in that respect.
Malaysia - 858 - (1,128) - down 270 or 23.9%. Impressive reduction.

AUSTRALIA

Total cases - 28,958 - (23,035) - up 5,923 or 25.7%

Deaths -  909 - 3.1% - (370 - 1.7%) - up 539 or 145.7%

Recoveries - 26,164 - 90.4% - (13,634 - 59.2%) - up 12,630 or 91.9%

Therefore active cases - 1,885 - 6.5% - (9,022 - 39.2%) - down 7,137 or 79.1%. Of the total population of 25,692,909 (25,538,969), the percentage of active cases is 0.007% (0.035%) of the total population.

Total active cases per 1 million of total population - 73 - (56)

Compared to last week, active cases are up 14 or 0.7%

Seems to be a holding pattern - that's about as much as one can say.

NUEVA ZELANDA - New Zealand

Total cases - 2,371 - (1,714) - up 857 or 38.3%

Deaths - 26 - 1.1% - (25 - 1.4%) - up 1 or 4.0%

Recoveries - 2,278 - 96.1% - (1,531 - 95.5%) - up 747 or 48.8%

Therefore active cases - 67 - 2.8% - (49 - 3.0%) - up 18 or 36.7%. Of the total population of 5,002,100 (5,002,100), the percentage of active cases is 0.001% (0.001%) of the total population.

Total active cases per 1 million of total population  - 13 - (14)

Compared to last week, active cases are up 17 or 34.0%

NZ had a slight increase in community cases and as a result locked down Auckland -  a city of almost 2 million people. 25,000 vehicles were stopped at the city's  borders and only some 300 were actually turned back. People were waiting on the roadside for hours - needing to visit a toilet, and water supplies and running out of fuel big problems. 

Where is these peoples' headspace? Lunatic knee-jerk panic. NZ MUST REALISE SOONER OR LATER THAT ELIMINATION IS SIMPLY NOT AN ANSWER. Probably in 10 years from now we'll be saying the same thing!!

Follow the lead of the United States which has been one of the hardest hit countries - if you can believe the mostly fraudulent statistics. The states which had the least restrictions - Texas, South Dakota and Florida - have actually had way fewer deaths per 1 million of population than Dim controlled states like California and New York - although in the latter case, due to a murderous decision by the governor (whose tenure is now very much on the ropes), at least 15,000 elderly people in rest homes died entirely unnecessarily. 'Nuff said.

Hope the coming week treats you well. Let's hope that our next missive contains some better statistics.

With lotsaluv from us in La Cuidad de la Primavera Eterna, Colombia,

Jim and Jean