I am thinking of some B-grade movie here, the Monster from the lost lagoon, no it is Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), which probably scared many naughty boys, sneaking out to watch late night TV in the 1960s, while their parents slept the sleep of innocence. Today, we just laugh at this stuff. But, I digress, blame it on exhaustion from these articles, and preparing for doomsday. China is getting pretty upset about claims that it had anything to do with the Covid-19 pandemic, being communist-pure. Why, it is claiming that Pompeo, who reminds me of Popeye, is even betraying Christianity:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-slams-evil-liar-pompeo-over-wuhan-lab-nonsense
  https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/05/05/china-degenerate-pompeo-betrayed-christianity-wuhan-lab-remarks/

“China’s state-run Global Times newspaper accused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday of “betray[ing] Christianity” and bringing “shame to the evangelical Christians” of America for saying that “enormous evidence” exists linking the current pandemic to a biological laboratory in Wuhan, where it originated. The first cases of Chinese coronavirus are known to have occurred in Wuhan, a central Chinese city of 11 million. Chinese officials initially stated that the virus originated in a “wet market,” where anyone can sell animal carcasses for consumption, and shut the market down in early January. Police “disinfected” the market, making it impossible for scientists to search for samples of the virus to study. Now, China denies that the virus originated there, despite the fact that all earliest known cases were documented in Wuhan. Instead, Chinese officials have speculated that the virus originated in a U.S. Army laboratory in Maryland, offering no evidence to corroborate this claim. More recently – and in the anti-Pompeo editorial on Tuesday – Chinese media have begun floating the idea that some link exists between the Chinese coronavirus and diseases related to the use of electronic cigarettes in the United States. The Global Times column on Tuesday was a response to Pompeo stating in an interview on Sunday that there was “enormous evidence” linking the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the pandemic.

     Getting a Pulitzer Prize does not mean that one got one’s history right. Consider this gem:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/history-prof-debunks-central-claim-pulitzer-winning-new-york-times-1619-project

“The Pulitzer Prize Board announced Monday that Nikole Hannah-Jones had won a Pulitzer Prize for her essay published as part of the New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project, in which she made the claim that American colonists sought independence from Great Britain because “they wanted to protect the institution of slavery in the colonies.” But as Campus Reform previously reported, Hannah-Jones asked Northwestern University history professor Leslie Harris to fact check the essay before it was published and, according to Harris, she flagged the portion of the essay claiming that American colonists' motivation in claiming independence was to maintain the institution of slavery. Harris noted that while that may have been one of the factors that led to the Revolutionary War, it was not the primary determinant. Despite the historian's concern, however, the New York Times and Hannah-Jones published the essay anyway. On Monday, it won a Pulitzer. Media Research Center's TechWatch Vice President Dan Gainor previously told Campus Reform, “The New York Times 1619 Project wasn’t about history, it was about rewriting history." Journalism doesn’t really deliver news now; it delivers narrative. To the Left elite like The Times, there’s no narrative they want to destroy more than American exceptionalism," Gainor continued. “If America had been more evil from the founding, then everything it created must be destroyed - the Founders, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, religious freedom, gun rights - everything Americans hold dear." "The actual truth of American history isn’t the narrative that the Times cares to report," Gainor added. Harris told Campus Reform Tuesday, "I agree with the New York Times's clarification, as printed on March 11, 2020."

     At least Madame Corona has done a little bit of good, in hitting some aspects of globalism. Just ask the socialist/ feminist/gun banner across the merky pond:
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52540733

“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country will not have open borders with the rest of the world for "a long time to come". Ms Ardern was speaking after attending part of Australia's cabinet meeting via video link. The meeting discussed a possible "trans-Tasman bubble", where people could go between Australia and New Zealand freely, and without quarantine. But she said visitors from further afield were not possible any time soon. Both Australia and New Zealand have closed their borders to almost all foreigners as part of their Covid-19 response. What did Jacinda Ardern say? Ms Ardern said New Zealand and Australia were discussing a "bubble of sorts between us, a safe zone of travel". She stressed there was "a lot of work to be done before we can progress...but it's obviously been floated because of the benefits it would bring". But, in response to a question about the country's tourism sector, Ms Ardern said: "We will not have open borders for the rest of the world for a long time to come."

     The Left are falling over themselves here in the UK at the creation of a socialist Big Government society beyond the Orwellian politically correct cesspool that the UK was before the Covid-19 panicdemic.
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8287631/More-HALF-UK-adults-paid-government.html

“More than half of British adults are now receiving money from the state, it emerged today - as Chancellor Rishi Sunak warned the situation is 'not sustainable'. The scale of the impact of the coronavirus lockdown is becoming clearer after the government revealed it is subsidising the wages of 6.3million workers under its furlough scheme. Meanwhile, more than 1.8million new claims for Universal Credit have been received, as people find their incomes slashed by the crisis. If the unemployed, 5.4million public sector workers and 12million pensioners are taken into account, the state now pays just over half the 52million UK adults. It came as new data suggested the UK economy is on course for a downturn deeper than anything seen in living memory as the service sector plummeted to a new record low. The closely watched IHS Markit/CIPS purchasing managers' index (PMI) for services dropped to 13.4 in April, by far the worst score since the survey started in 1996. In an interview last night, Mr Sunak tried to reassure workers and businesses that they will not face a 'cliff edge' of subsidies being withdrawn immediately when lockdown measures are eased. But amid signs of strains within government about the huge burden on the country's finances, Mr Sunak pointed out that the furlough scheme could soon be costing the same as the NHS budget. 'I'm working, as we speak, to figure out the most effective way to wind down the (furlough) scheme and to ease people back into work in a measured way,' he told ITV. 'As some scenarios have suggested, we are potentially spending as much on the furlough scheme as we do on the NHS, for example. Clearly that is not a sustainable situation.'" 

     I was hoping to cover this debate between writers in two leading financial sites about whether or not lockdowns work, with Joe Malchow and Yinon Weiss arguing, no, I think. But, I can’t assess the site without a subscription. Anyway, maybe you can access it:
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-lockdowns-save-many-lives-is-most-places-the-data-say-no-11587930911

     Then there is the reply to them by Ana Bendix, with the case study of Sweden being addressed which lockdowners do not devote much space to, but is taken on in this reply:
  https://www.businessinsider.com.au/coronavirus-lockdowns-successful-evidence-from-around-the-world-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

     Talk about double standards, and sleazy too, the guy who gave us the lockdowns, a technocrat, sneaking out to have an encounter with his lover. I was disappointed that his lover was not transgendered, but I guess we can’t have everything in this corona world:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/health/scientist-whose-doomsday-models-prompted-worldwide-lockdown-broke-quarantine-bang-married
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/05/05/professor-lockdown-quits-after-breaking-own-rules-to-meet-lover/

“The UK scientist whose doomsday predictions triggered a massive lockdown on both sides of the Atlantic has resigned his government advisory position, amid claims he broke the strict lockdown rules he pushed to meet his married lover. Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist of Imperial College, London resigned from his role as a senior scientific advisor to the British government Tuesday evening. He became known as professor lockdown after his alarming data modelling predicted huge casualties for the populations of the United Kingdom and the United States unless they enacted severe curbs on individual freedoms to lock the nations down. While the moves were criticised by senior legal figures as approaching a police state, Professor Ferguson’s advice was nevertheless heeded by the government in March. While Professor Ferguson frequently appeared in the media to defend his work and to tell the public not to break the lockdown rules, he was himself spectacularly breaking them in secret, according to a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, which claims the hard-line scientist was meeting his married lover. The paper names Antonia Staats, a married mother, who was quarantined with her family at a separate address to the professor. Breaching the terms of the lockdown — as enforced by police — she travelled to Ferguson’s own home on at least two occasions, the paper claims. Staats, who is identified as a “left-wing activist”, was said to be in an “open marriage”, The Telegraph claimed. Posts on Staat’s public Facebook page show strong left-wing themes, including paid activism as an employee of a campaign group, encouraging tactical voting in the last general election to oppose the Conservative party, and hard green activism.

     What we have seen with the Covid-19 pandemic is the rise and continual rise of the technocracy, the rule by elites, wielding alleged technical and scientific knowledge. This was first seen with the climate change debate, but it was not as explicit, as the technocrats were behind the politicians. Yet today, it is all out in the open. Technical elites, who differ from the usual capitalists and financiers, set down rules that the rest of the capitalist must follow under pain of apocalypse. No doubt at the highest levels, the unseen and unknown demons who rule, control the technocrats, but from what we can see of the iceberg, the newer new class technical elites have called the shots on the corona freak-out.
  https://mises.org/wire/america-technocracy-not-democracy

“This is not a new trend. Over the past several decades—and especially since the New Deal—official experts in government have gradually replaced elected representatives as the primary decision-makers in government. Public debate has been abandoned in favor of meetings among small handfuls of unelected technocrats. Politics has been replaced by "science," whether social science or physical science. These powerful and largely unaccountable decision-makers are today most noticeable in federal courts, in "intelligence" agencies, at the Federal Reserve, and—long ignored until now—in government public health agencies. Technocracy as a style of governing has been around at least since the Progressive Era, although it has often been restrained by traditional legislative and elected political actors and institutions. Globally, it has gained prominence in a variety of times and places, for example in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s. But the technocracy's power has long been growing in the United States as well. This may seem odd in a world where we are told democracy is among the highest political values, but technocrats have nonetheless managed to justify themselves through myths asserting that technocrats make scientific decisions guided only by The Data. These technocrats, we are told, care nothing of politics and only make sound decisions based on where the science leads.

     Asiatimes.com features Australian plasma physicist Heirich Hora who believes that a fusion reactor can be built for as little as $ 100 million. “Producing electric power from the hydrogen-boron microexplosions is relatively straightforward in principle. The shower of positive-charged alpha particles emitted by a microexplosion in the center of the chamber generates a powerful current pulse, which can be harvested using technology already developed in the context of ultra-high-voltage DC electric power transmission systems. The DC pulse is then transformed into alternating current.”
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science/lasers-fire-hopes-of-clean-energy-switch/news-story/c95e88bae781899dd45b9e0ec532f020

     Here is the Hora et al. scientific paper:
  https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/laser-and-particle-beams/article/road-map-to-clean-energy-using-laser-beam-ignition-of-boronhydrogen-fusion/8BE057DC1BC9E0A588FB3ABAA993078C

     In the driest continent on Earth, which is perennially in drought, with endless battles over limited water resources, the endgame is to let China buy water from the Murray Darling; my God, why don’t they just give it to them!
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-06/chinese-state-owned-companies-buy-up-water-in-murray-darling/12215548

“Chinese state-owned enterprises have acquired water entitlements in Australia and some foreign water investors face limited scrutiny by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
Key points:

     Look, unlike other writers here, I am not much interested in race issues, and I learnt that in ‘Nam, where the “Negro” soldiers, as they were called then, now regarded as derogatory, and now called “Blacks,” were in my opinion brave men too. What I don’t like is emasculation, especially by symbolic acts such as gun banning and firearms culling. Like this, just to please the wife:
  http://archive.is/0oBRk

“Prince Harry recently sold his custom-made hunting rifles as a way to please “animal-loving” wife Meghan Markel, U.K. tabloids said Wednesday. “A fellow hunter bought the pair of prized Purdey firearms, thought to be worth at least £50,000, in a private deal,” The Sun reported. “Harry learnt to shoot as a child and once killed a one-ton buffalo,” the outlet said. “But Meghan is opposed to hunting and pals hinted the Duke of Sussex would give up to appease her.” The 35-year-old was absent from recent shoots at Balmoral and Sandringham, The Sun outlined. “He sold his two British-made guns five months ago — before he and Meghan, 38, quit the UK for a new life in North America.” “He bought them because he wanted them, not because they belonged to Harry, but he was quite chuffed when he found out,” a friend of the anonymous buyer said. “They are beautiful examples and he’s very pleased with them but he’s not the sort of person who wants to boast about the royal connection.”    

     Some of my fellow writers love Natural News.com as source material. In my dissenting opinion it is ok, but I read better, and so don’t use it too much. Consider the coverage of the coming war with China, where the bioweapon hypothesis is accepted and taken further:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-05-06-interviews-dave-hodges-and-jr-nyquist-china-plan-to-attack-and-destroy-america.html

“The deliberate release of the genetically engineered Wuhan coronavirus was a “bioweapons Pearl Harbor” attack against the United States and Western nations. China dropped the virus in their own back yard to start the attack, then rapidly exported the virus to targeted nations through international flights while pressuring the WHO to condemn any nation that sought to block those flights. (The left-wing media also took part in condemning any effort to block flights from China as “racism.”) Importantly, the Wuhan coronavirus bioweapons attack was just the opening chapter of an attack plan against the United States that will involve financial attacks, cyber attacks and eventually kinetic attacks. I recently interviewed two experts to learn more about China’s plans against the United States. They are JR Nyquist, who publishes JRnyquist.blog (an excellent source of important articles), and Dave Hodges from TheCommonsenseShow.com, an indy media investigator who has excellent sources within the Pentagon and the US State Dept. Together, these two investigators paint a very worrisome picture of what the future holds between the USA and China, as it’s clear China has already launched a bioweapons attack against the United States and intends to follow that up with yet more direct attacks against America.”

     Yep, one by one they fall from Facebook, with the anti-immigration site vDare now copping it. Well, this is a war, and they, like us, will have to carry on regardless. I hate bloody Facebook, and would rather be subjected to the Chinese water torture than have to look at it every five minutes just to see who let off wind today (I just did, sorry, it was me, it’s the high meat diet):
  http://www.amerika.org/politics/facebook-takes-off-the-mask-bans-vdare/
  https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/06/facebook-supreme-court-packed-with-anti-trump-progressive-figures/

“Recently, Facebook decided to go down the dark path of hive-mind conformity and zapped longstanding Right-wing think tank VDARE from the platform. As Peter Brimelow writes: My refutation of Facebook’s ridiculous rationale for banning us.

     It was predictable; the globalist Left never let a good crisis go to waste, however it turns out. Thus, Covid-19 is now linked with climate change and the planetary crisis, at least in the minds of the acting class:
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/05/06/robert-de-niro-madonna-use-coronavirus-to-demand-climate-change-reforms-massive-extinction-of-life-on-earth-is-no-longer-in-doubt/

“Left-wing politicians have woken up to the fact that  the coronavirus pandemic “would be a terrible crisis to waste,” in the words of Hillary Clinton. Now a group of wealthy Hollywood stars is also capitalizing on the crisis to push a sweeping climate change agenda. Celebrities including Robert De Niro, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, and Joaquin Phoenix have signed their names to an editorial published Wednesday in France’s largest newspaper, Le Monde, demanding a total overhaul of economies around the world in the name of saving the environment and fighting global warming. “The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragedy. This crisis, however, has an upside in giving us the chance to examine what is essential,” the editorial says. “The ongoing ecological catastrophe is a ‘meta-crisis’: the massive extinction of life on Earth is no longer in doubt, and all indicators point to a direct existential threat. Unlike a pandemic, however serious it may be, it’s a question of a global ecological collapse whose effects will be immeasurable.”

     When it suits them, feminists and the Left push “believe women,” on sexual assault offences/allegations, when the agenda is to take down a conservative, but when one of their own commits alleged sexual offences against women e.g. Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, why they all join ranks and attack the victim. It that is not corruption, nothing is!
  https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/05/05/nolte-biden-media-and-feminists-resurrect-clinton-era-playbook-to-destroy-tara-reade/

“What’s happening to Tara Reade at the hands of the corporate media, feminists, and Joe Biden is a disheartening return to the 1990s, to the infamous Bill Clinton era. Reade has come forward with one of the most credible sexual assault allegations we have seen in a very long time. She alleges that in 1993, while working in his Senate office, then Sen. Biden (D-DE) sexually harassed her, sexually assaulted her, and then fired her in retaliation for filing a harassment complaint. Tara Reade is Joe Biden’s eighth accuser. Tara Reade has five witnesses who corroborate she told them about the alleged assault at or near the time. If her claim is eventually debunked, Tara Reade risked prison last month by filing a formal criminal complaint against Biden. We now have video of Tara Reade’s anguished mother calling into a 1993 edition of CNN’s Larry King Live to ask advice about her daughter’s problems with a “prominent senator.” Tara Reade has challenged investigative reporters to dig into her story. Finally, Tara Reade is calling for Biden to make his Senate papers available in the hopes her harassment complaint will be found. Tara Reade is behaving like a woman with nothing to hide. Joe Biden denies the allegation, but is behaving like a man with everything to hide. And in an effort to allow Biden to hide straight through to the November election, and in an effort to personally destroy Tara Reade, Biden, feminists, and the media have decided to resurrect the Clinton-era Playbook. Those of us old enough to remember the 1990s, the way in which the media and feminists circled the wagons to protect Clinton, are very familiar with these cynical tactics.

     The religion of climate change has been given a slap in the face by socialist Michael Moore’s new film, Planet of the Humans, which is an obvious allusion to the Planet of the Apes move franchise. Moore has upset the environmentalists by attacking the sacred of sacreds, renewable energy. Here is Rolling Stone on this:
  https://theconversation.com/3-times-michael-moores-film-planet-of-the-humans-gets-the-facts-wrong-and-3-times-it-gets-them-right-137890
  https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/bill-mckibben-climate-movement-michael-moore-993073/

“Basically, Moore and his colleagues have made a film attacking renewable energy as a sham and arguing that the environmental movement is just a tool of corporations trying to make money off green energy. “One of the most dangerous things right now is the illusion that alternative technologies, like wind and solar, are somehow different from fossil fuels,” Ozzie Zehner, one of the film’s producers, tells the camera. When visiting a solar facility, he insists: “You use more fossil fuels to do this than you’re getting benefit from it. You would have been better off just burning the fossil fuels.” That’s not true, not in the least — the time it takes for a solar panel to pay back the energy used to build it is well under four years. Since it lasts three decades, it means 90 percent of the power it produces is pollution-free, compared with zero percent of the power from burning fossil fuels. It turns out that pretty much everything else about the movie was wrong — there have been at least 24 debunkings, many of them painfully rigorous; as one scientist wrote in a particularly scathing takedown, “Planet of the Humans is deeply useless. Watch anything else.” Moore’s fellow filmmaker Josh Fox, in an epic unraveling of the film’s endless lies, got in one of the best shots: “Releasing this on the eve of Earth Day’s 50th anniversary is like Bernie Sanders endorsing Donald Trump while chugging hydroxychloroquine.”

     The mental health fallout from the actual Covid-19 lockdowns may be greater than the actual deaths, perhaps right across the West. Consider this material on the suicide factor for example:
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/suicides-toll-far-higher-than-coronavirus/news-story/25a686904b67bdedbdcd544b1cab7f96

“Suicide rates in Australia are forecast to rise by up to 50 per cent due to the economic and social impacts of the coronavirus and tipped to outstrip deaths from the pandemic by up to 10 times. World-leading research by the country’s top mental health experts predicts the impact of the virus could result in an extra 1500 deaths a year over the next five years and a generational mental health crisis linked directly to the pandemic. The modelling, conducted by Sydney University’s Brain and Mind Centre and backed by the Australian Medical Association, is expected to be taken to national cabinet next week by Health Minister Greg Hunt ahead of an accelerated second-phase mental health package. The modelling also predicts a significant economic blow from falling productivity due to the mental health effects of unemployment, school dropouts and family crises. Regions hard-hit by a collapse in tourism are expected to be particularly vulnerable to an increase in suicide and it is feared that young people are among those most at risk. Former mental health commissioner and the head of the Brain and Mind Centre, Ian Hickie, told The Australian that the modelling showed the annual rate of suicide could rise from 3000 to up to 4500, with youth suicides making up almost half. A joint statement will be issued today by Professor Hickie, AMA president Tony Bartone and Orygen youth mental health organisation executive director Patrick McGorry, calling for urgent¬ action to address an issue which they claim will kill more people than the virus. Preliminary modelling by the Brain and Mind Centre suggests the COVID-19 pandemic may give rise to 25 per cent more suicides, with up to 30 per cent of those among young people aged 15-25 years. This was based on an unemployment rate of 10 per cent and the associated recessionary impacts. But this could rise to 50 per cent if unemployment was to peak at 15 per cent. The modelling shows hotspots in regional areas, including the Grafton and Northern Rivers regions of NSW, which have been severely hit by loss of tourism and hospitality as well as outer-metropolitan areas of Sydney and Melbourne. “We are facing a situation where between an extra 750 and 1500 suicides may occur annually, this in addition to the 3000-plus lives that are lost to suicide already every year,” Professor Hickie said.”

     I must admit, that even though these are confusing, if not dangerous times, with the New World Order closing in, like one of those rooms with walls lined with spikes that come in on you, it is still … delightful! Much like a dessert, that is so sweet and fatty, and tasty, that you eat it and die happy. Take this one, for example, dear to my heart because it challenges, in a foundational way, the globalist ideology of the Australian universities:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8259917/China-stop-students-tourists-visiting-Australia.html?ito=push-notification&ci=13868&si=1326534

“Chinese students and tourists could stop coming to Australia if Prime Minister Scott Morrison pursues an inquiry into the beginnings of coronavirus, a leading Chinese official has warned. The stern warning was issued by Chinese Ambassador Cheng Jingye who labelled a push for an independent COVID-19 inquiry by the federal government as 'dangerous'. Mr Jingye warned that if Australia continued to be 'unfriendly' to China, its people - in particular its students and tourists - may have second thoughts about travelling. While admitting that his country had not handled the COVID-19 outbreak 'perfectly' he said the reaction by nations like Australia had left the Chinese people 'dismayed'. 'I think in the long term... if the mood is going from bad to worse, people would think 'Why should we go to such a country that is not so friendly to China? The tourists may have second thoughts,' he told The Australian Financial Review. 'The parents of the students would also think whether this place which they found is not so friendly, even hostile, whether this is the best place to send our kids.' Education is Australia's third biggest export and is worth more than $30 billion to the economy every year. The ambassador refused to comment on whether key exports such as iron ore, coal and gas would be affected by perceived anti-China sentiment.”

     Here is an informative article showing why Italy has been so severely hit by Covid-19. It all has to do with Chinese migration. Well, blow me over, who would have thought that immigration could have any fault at all, being a gift of the gods?
  https://www.amren.com/features/2020/04/italy-china-and-the-coronavirus/

“For decades, a large, sometimes hostile Chinese community has worked in the Italian fashion and textile industries. Immigrants — legal and illegal — started as a cheap, “exploited” labor source that allowed high-fashion companies to slap a “Made in Italy” label on products churned out in sweatshops. Now, Chinese own many off-the-books factories, ignoring employment and safety laws, and dodging taxes. They are also carving out a competitive niche in the fashion industry, and even buying up iconic Italian companies. Was the China connection the reason the coronavirus outbreak hit Italy so hard and so early? So much immigration has been illegal — and so many Chinese factories don’t even exist on paper — that contact tracing and other disease control measures were impossible. Where did the Chinese come from? How many are there? The first Chinese migrants settled in Milan and Turin in the 1930s, with a few more trickling in over the next decades. Many were peddlers, and some opened family workshops for leather goods. In 1975, there were only 402 Chinese adults in the country, but more arrived during the early 1980s. Like earlier migrants, they came mostly from Zhejang Province in southeast China, especially the coastal city of Wenzhou. In 1986, Italy granted 1,618 residency permits to Chinese. In 1996, it granted 16,200, and in 2001, the figure was almost 69,000. The number of illegals was unknown. In 1986, 1990, 1995, 1998, and 2002, Italy passed a series of amnesties and “reforms,” and every one of them encouraged immigration. For example, in 1995, the government let illegals stay in the country if they registered with police. In 1998, a liberal government passed a law that let any public entity (including immigrant advocacy groups and NGOs) sponsor migrants. Immigrants got access to the medical system and can now bring in relatives through “family reunification schemes.”

     Censorship everywhere … why just a few months ago we would never have expected such measures, the equivalent of sending bad kiddies to their rooms. But, here we are, and it is only going to get worse:
  https://www.amren.com/news/2020/04/internet-speech-will-never-go-back-to-normal/

“COVID-19 has emboldened American tech platforms to emerge from their defensive crouch. Before the pandemic, they were targets of public outrage over life under their dominion. Today, the platforms are proudly collaborating with one another, and following government guidance, to censor harmful information related to the coronavirus. And they are using their prodigious data-collection capacities, in coordination with federal and state governments, to improve contact tracing, quarantine enforcement, and other health measures. As Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg recently boasted, “The world has faced pandemics before, but this time we have a new superpower: the ability to gather and share data for good.” Civil-rights groups are tolerating these measures—emergency times call for emergency measures—but are also urging a swift return to normal when the virus ebbs. We need “to make sure that, when we’ve made it past this crisis, our country isn’t transformed into a place we don’t want to live,” warns the American Civil Liberties Union’s Jay Stanley. “Any extraordinary measures used to manage a specific crisis must not become permanent fixtures in the landscape of government intrusions into daily life,” declares the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights group. But the “extraordinary” measures we are seeing are not all that extraordinary. Powerful forces were pushing toward greater censorship and surveillance of digital networks long before the coronavirus jumped out of the wet markets in Wuhan, China, and they will continue to do so once the crisis passes. The practices that American tech platforms have undertaken during the pandemic represent not a break from prior developments, but an acceleration of them. As surprising as it may sound, digital surveillance and speech control in the United States already show many similarities to what one finds in authoritarian states such as China. Constitutional and cultural differences mean that the private sector, rather than the federal and state governments, currently takes the lead in these practices, which further values and address threats different from those in China. But the trend toward greater surveillance and speech control here, and toward the growing involvement of government, is undeniable and likely inexorable.”

     This will be a big, big, problem for the position held by Sweden, that herd immunity will arise, sooner or later. Yes, but what if it does not?
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/what-if-covid-19-immunity-doesnt-last-long

“the most critical unknown by far is how long do people remain immune from the virus once they contract it and recover? A number of COVID-19 patients have seen the virus mysteriously resurface after initially contracting it, leading some to question whether antibodies truly do confer permanent and complete immunity on all recovered patients. That's why the WHO has pushed back against immunity passports, much to Bill Gates' chagrin.”