This has not yet happened in Australia, but we need to keep our eyes open. In the US the pandemic has led to some US jurisdictions just releasing jailed suspects and inmates:
  https://nypost.com/2020/03/17/city-may-free-jailed-suspects-over-coronavirus/?

“The city is considering freeing jailed suspects over the coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday — a move backed by the city Board of Correction and Manhattan and Brooklyn DAs. City officials are “evaluating right now people who might be particularly high-risk in terms of vulnerability to the virus,” de Blasio said at an afternoon press conference. The inmate group would presumably include the elderly and those suffering from diabetes, asthma, heart disease, lung disease and compromised immune systems — all identified as leaving people vulnerable to the virus. Suspects deemed at low risk of committing new alleged criminal offenses also could be released, the mayor said. Authorities would “evaluate those numbers, the details, and determine if, case by case, any of those individuals should be taken out of our jail system,” he said. The city Board of Correction, which oversees the jails, said in a statement Tuesday that the Big Apple needs to follow the lead of Los Angeles and Ohio authorities who have already started to release inmates to try to prevent the spread of the deadly contagion. “The City must begin this process now,” the BOC said. “The City’s jails have particular challenges to preventing disease transmissions on a normal day and even more so during a public health crisis.”

     Old time League people will be saying ‘I told you so at this one,” and Eric Butler, in Heaven now, will be nodding:
  https://www.yahoo.com/news/zimbabwe-gives-land-back-white-150503602.html

“Two decades after President Robert Mugabe wrecked Zimbabwe’s economy by urging black subsistence farmers to violently force white commercial farmers and their workers off their land, his successor has thrown in the towel. Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has proposed settling all outstanding claims against it by farmers by offering them land. “The object of the regulations is to provide for the disposal of land to persons entitled to compensation,” Land Minister Perence Shiri said in regulations published in the Government Gazette Friday. The seizures that began in 2000 were ratified by the government, which said they were needed to redress colonial imbalances. A vibrant agricultural industry that exported tobacco and roses and grew most of the food the nation needed collapsed. Periodic food shortages ensued, inflation became the world’s highest and the manufacturing industry was decimated. What was one of Africa’s richest countries became one of its poorest. Almost 4,500 white-owned properties and others protected under government-to-government agreements were affected by the program. The southern African nation this year budgeted about Z$380 million ($21 million) for compensation. Several farms that were protected under so-called Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements belonged to nations including the U.K., South Africa, Australia, the Netherlands and Denmark.”

     Clearly, regardless of the biological reality, the Covid 19 pandemic has even more alarming social consequences, being an example of “sheer fear” and a of how easily people can be stampeded.
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8123665/Coronavirus-Prime-Minister-Scott-Morrison-addresses-nation.html?ito=push-notification&ci=10675&si=1326534

    One view has it that the shutting down of entire nations in the West is a form of national suicide that will allow China to rise to world control sooner rather than later. This view gains some further plausibility if the Chinese bioweapon idea is correct:
  https://www.technocracy.news/technocrats-use-coronavirus-to-drive-u-s-to-national-suicide/

     Does one really need to read articles, in these financially scared and scarce times, when the URLs are so informative? The Pope, a communist, is going slow on the beatification of an anti-communist, because it might offend China. Well, that is morality and courage, and leftism, for you!
  https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/03/17/report-vatican-stalls-beatification-of-anti-communist-for-fear-of-offending-china/

“Rome — The Vatican is dragging its feet in the beatification of Chinese Catholic hero Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-mei due to “diplomatic sensitivity,” according to a report from UCANews. Cardinal Kung was the Catholic Bishop of Shanghai who was arrested by the communist regime in 1955 and thrown into jail for 30 years for refusing to renounce his loyalty to Rome. Revered as a hero of the Christian resistance by Chinese Catholics, Kung has served as an inspiration to all those who suffer persecution for their faith under Chinese communist rule. March 12, 2020 marked the 20th anniversary of Kung’s death, who was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1979, while Kung was still serving a life sentence in prison. “I felt that the whole Church could not but honor a man who has given witness by word and deed, through long suffering and trials, to what constitutes the essence of life in the Church: participation in the divine life through the apostolic faith and evangelical love,” John Paul said in 1991, while praising Kung for his steadfast communion with “the Church of Rome and the successor of Peter.” According to UCANews, some church leaders think the Vatican now values its current agreement with China on the appointment of bishops more than the beatification of Cardinal Kung, and therefore the Church will avoid doing anything that could upset the Chinese government. “Pushing for Cardinal Kung’s beatification is a waste of time, and the Vatican would not accept it,” said Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong. Cardinal Zen told UCA News that the Vatican is delaying the beatification process because it does not want to offend China, “Cardinal Kung is a faithful representative of the Catholic Church. How can the Vatican ignore his cause of beatification following Chinese authorities?” Cardinal Zen asked. Others agree with Cardinal Zen, including Father Zhu Lide, who was also imprisoned by the Chinese communists for 27 years and now lives in Taiwan. “The Chinese government does not like Cardinal Kung, and therefore there is no public Mass for him,” Father Zhu said. “Cardinal Kung is loved by the entire Church. At his time, there was only one Church, no underground or open church,” Zhu said. “All Catholics in China love him. His is a revered name for all Catholics but a prohibited one now in China.”

     If Australians want a symbol of how bad the West could get, before the inevitable collapse, Baltimore, murder city, is a … well …not “good’ but an example. There, gangs freely slaughter each other, and recently the black mayor has asked the gangs politely to stop killing, or rather injuring each other, so the sick from the coronavirus can get medical attention. I suppose he could have equally asked them to improve their aim:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/18/baltimore-mayor-residents-quit-shooting-each-other-we-need-hospital-beds-virus-victims/

“Baltimore Mayor Jack Young (D) is begging city residents to quit shooting each other so more hospital beds can be used for coronavirus patients. WJZ reports that Young’s request comes after seven people were shot on Tuesday alone in the city’s Madison Park neighborhood. Young said, “For those of you who want to continue to shoot and kill people of this city, we’re not going to tolerate it. We’re going to come after you and we’re going to get you.” He added, “I want to reiterate how completely unacceptable the level of violence is that we have seen recently. We will not stand for mass shootings and an increase in crime.” Young said, “We cannot clog up our hospitals and their beds with people that are being shot senselessly because we’re going to need those beds for people infected with the coronavirus. And it could be your mother, your grandmother or one of your relatives. So take that into consideration.” On December 29, 2019, Breitbart News reported that gun control failed to end the shooting epidemic gripping Baltimore. Despite an “assault weapons” ban, a ban on “high capacity” magazines, and registration requirements for new handguns, Baltimore’s homicide rate broke a record in 2019.”

     If this article below is to believed, it is possible that the global capitalist superclass may be toying with the idea of moving to the Chinese model of everything, and abandoning neo-liberalism:
  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-17/coronavirus-is-making-china-s-model-look-better-and-better

“If we now look back on 2008 as the end of America’s unchallenged post-Cold War primacy, we might one day look back on 2020 as the moment when Washington’s global authority truly began to buckle. The coronavirus saga is also certain to set off another round of debate on the merits of democracy and authoritarianism. The irony is abundant. It was actually the authoritarian characteristics of the Chinese system that initially allowed the virus to spread, and some democracies — notably South Korea and Taiwan — have done remarkably well in responding to the outbreak. Yet the fact that China subsequently claimed to have gotten a handle on the epidemic by energetically enforcing a draconian lockdown of the affected population, while the world’s leading democracy dithered in its own response, will be used by proponents of authoritarianism to argue that their system is best equipped for crisis. More recent events are further advancing the narrative. As America struggles to test its citizens and build adequate stockpiles of basic health-care supplies, such as masks, the Chinese government (and prominent Chinese firms) are providing supplies to countries such as Italy and even the U.S. itself. Beijing has promised additional funds to aid World Health Organization programs in poor countries, and the Communist Party propaganda arm has touted these contributions for all they are worth, while also alleging that the virus somehow originated in the U.S. Only a few weeks ago, when the impact of the coronavirus was still heavily concentrated in China, the dominant narrative was that Beijing was once again the new “sick man of Asia.” Now, the theme seems to be that the coronavirus shows just how badly America’s relative power and prestige have fallen. After 2008, this perception led to a surge in China’s willingness to defy the U.S. and its friends and allies in the South China Sea, in international institutions, and in negotiations on global responses to climate change. No doubt the coronavirus will stimulate new Chinese efforts to displace and discredit American leadership in global affairs.”

     Here is one which is self-explanatory:
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51935991?utm_source=amerika.org

“A court in New Zealand has found a Samoan-born chief guilty of more than 20 charges of dealing in slaves and human trafficking. Joseph Auga Matamata, 65, was convicted of offences over a 25-year period. His victims, who were all Samoan, were too scared to alert the authorities because of his status as a matai or chief, the court heard. Each of the 13 slavery charges on which he was convicted carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. Matamata faces up to 20 years in jail or a fine of nearly US$300,000 for the human-trafficking convictions. Sentencing will take place on 6 May. Matamata, a horticultural contractor, was convicted of 10 counts of trafficking and 13 counts of slavery which took place between 1994 and 2019. He had promised his 13 Samoan victims, the youngest of whom was 12, a better life, the prosecution told the High Court in Napier, where the five-week trial was held. Most came on three-month holiday visas and some ended up staying for years. They worked long hours for no pay and were often beaten. He promised them "big money" by Samoan standards but ended up taking the cash they earned at orchards and other work sites, prosecutors said. It is the first time someone has been charged with both slavery and human trafficking in New Zealand.”

The Fate of Empires 24

     Knowledge and our experience (perhaps our basic human intellects) are inadequate to pronounce whether or not the rise and fall of great nations is the best system for the best of all possible worlds. These doubts, however, need not prevent us from attempting to acquire more knowledge on the rise and fall of great powers, or from endeavouring, in the light of such knowledge, to improve the moral quality of human life.

     The present paranoia over the coronavirus, especially panic buying, fuelled by media expose if not fascination, is having its human toll. A little girl could have been killed by thoughtless brutes, with the intelligence of water buffalo:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8123543/Child-CRUSHED-stampede-Coles-panic-buyers-stormed-store-rush-toilet-paper.html?ito=push-notification&ci=10692&si=1326534

“A little girl has been crushed by panic buyers who stormed a Coles in a mad rush to buy toilet paper. The stampede at the Coles in Baldivis, Perth, on Wednesday left a 13-year-old girl injured and crying on the ground.
Her mother, who is currently wheelchair-bound due to a recent operation, said she went to the supermarket to collect toilet paper and snacks for school with her daughter and nine-year-old son. When the doors opened the mother was quickly separated from her daughter until she found her crying on the floor, according to The West Australian. 'She was pushed to the ground and then stood on by adults who had no care in the world for a child on the floor. People were walking over her while she was crying on the ground just to get what they wanted,' she said. As her daughter tried to enter the store, shoppers knocked her to the ground as they charged towards the toilet paper located near the entrance. The mother took her to get x-rays on a swollen knee and was waiting on results. 'I am shocked at how people were acting this morning even before the doors opened. People pushing, people telling people to get back in line,' she said.”

     The present pandemic, for my two cents worth is bringing out the worst in the Left/Greens, and the technocrat state, if that is still possible. Thus, the Illinois mayor has signed an executive order giving herself powers dictators would envy:
  https://summit.news/2020/03/16/illinois-mayor-grants-herself-power-to-ban-guns-during-coronavirus-pandemic/

“Champaign, Illinois mayor Deborah Frank Feinen signed an executive order giving herself the power to order the seizure of firearms, ammunition, alcohol and gasoline during the coronavirus pandemic. The executive order also enables the government to “take possession of private property” and cut off an individual’s access to gas, water or electricity. The city promised to “keep the public’s best interest in mind” while also handing itself the power to shut down all liquor stores and bars, although Gov. J.B. Pritzker has already ordered the shut down of all bars and schools across Illinois until March 30.”     Of course, now that the bans are in order, these will remain, until people go all-out in a political battle to remove them.”

     There is some small resistance to the open borders ethnic replacement immigration of the Great Replacement in both Sweden and Norway, basically a handful of sand in a raging storm, but it is a start:
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/05/swedish-populist-leader-hands-out-sweden-is-full-flyers-turkey/

“Populist Sweden Democrat (SD) leader Jimmie Åkesson appeared along the Turkish border with Greece this week to hand out flyers to migrants stating “Sweden is full”. Åkesson, alongside his Chief of Staff Mikael Eriksson, met with migrants on the Turkish side of the border and travelled to the town of Edirne to get their own first-hand view of the situation following Turkey’s opening of the border last week. Both men proceeded to hand out English-language flyers to the migrants that stated: “Sweden is full. Don’t come to us! We can’t give you more money or provide housing. Sorry about this message.” It was signed by “the people of Sweden, Sweden Democrats”. “Above all, the visit is about forming your own picture of what the situation is,” Åkesson said in comments reported by Nyheter Idag. He added: “Both by looking with our own eyes and by talking to migrants and police. We also handed out flyers with the message that Sweden is full.” The SD leader went on to say that he observed a “constant flow” of migrants and that they told him Sweden, Germany, and France were most mentioned as the target countries for the migrants. “The EU’s external border was tested in 2015 and collapsed. We can’t just rely on it,” he said and called for Sweden to also increase support for controlling its own border. Following the order from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to open the gates to Europe for migrants last week, Turkey’s interior minister has claimed that as many as 100,000 migrants have travelled to the border with Greece in recent days. European leaders like Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz have made it clear they do not want a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis, while tensions remain high on the Greco-Turkish border with violent clashes taking place between Greek authorities and migrants. Earlier this week, Greek armed forces conducted live-fire drills at the Evros land border with Turkey as conservative Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he would not be “blackmailed” by the Turkish government.”

     Italy is in full swing with China-style quarantines to attempt to contain the coronavirus. At this point it is worthwhile speculating about why this is happening at all.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/08/italy-imposes-china-style-quarantine-on-16m-people-in-attempt-to-contain-coronavirus/

     There are some interesting pierces of material indicating that the coronavirus is a bioweapon, created by the US. This is the view taken by the Chinese scientist quoted here:
  http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/international-relations/whos-behind-the-covid-19-outbreak-in-china-and-iran-two-countries-that-the-us-hates

     Among other things, climate change seems to yield unending globalist conclusions:
  https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/climate-change-could-affect-human-evolution-here-s-how-ncna907276

“As we change on the inside, we’ll also be changing on the outside. Evidence suggests that a warming planet could melt away differences between human races — or population groups, as scientists more accurately call them. The reason why climate change could reduce racial differences is that it will trigger massive migrations. In recent decades the world has become more urbanized, with people moving into large cities in coastal areas. But as polar ice melts and sea levels rise, large numbers of people will be forced to flee the coasts. And as droughts become more common and more severe, people living in more arid areas will have to move to places with more reliable sources of water. These migrations will erode the geographic barriers that once separated human populations. In fact, this process is already underway. As of 2017, 258 million people were living in a country other than the one they were born in — an increase of 49 percent since 2000, according to a report from the United Nations. A World Bank report released in March predicts that climate change will cause 140 million people to migrate by 2050, with those now living in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America especially likely to migrate. One consequence of large-scale migrations is what biologists call gene flow, a type of evolution caused by the blending of genes between populations. When people from different populations mate and reproduce, their genes intermingle in their children. That can lead to combinations of traits not seen in either parent or in the populations they come from — like the dark skin and blue eyes of Cape Verde islanders, the result of interbreeding between Portuguese and West Africans.

     Everything has an economic cost, even if there are benefits: this is known as opportunity costs, or cost foregone. So, what are the costs of open borders?
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/open-borders-are-trillion-dollar-mistake

“As I first read Bryan Caplan’s “Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Idea” in Foreign Policy, besides disbelief, my thoughts were that this person must not get out much or must not read much. A quote from writer Upton Sinclair came to mind as well: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” What is Just? “Open borders are not only just but the most promising shortcut to global prosperity,” writes Caplan. This raises the question of who determines what “just” is? Just is not a defined term that someone can easily review (as Caplan seems to imply) and determine whether a particular policy is just or unjust. In fact, each individual probably has a different definition of what just is. But in the United States, I believe the vast majority of citizens see Open Borders as a totally unjust policy. It is unjust because it is generally accepted that the population of a country has entered into a social contract with the leaders and government of a country. Under this contract, the population will follow the rule of law, and the government will pass and enforce policies that have beneficial impact upon the population of the country. There is no social contract between the leaders and government of one country and people who live in another country. As an example from across the pond, the new Italian government recently released figures showing that the state will allocate €50 million next year, €200 million in 2021 and €300 million in 2022 to the Disability and Self-Reliance Fund of Italy. Some 2 million disabled in Italy rely on these state benefits, which work out to just 54 cents per day in welfare – insufficient for even a subsistence diet. In contrast, Italy is providing migrants €20 euros a day. Most Italians are likely to see this policy as unjust. Similar per capita spending differentials exist in funds furnished to needy citizens and migrants in the United States. That is also unjust! What Missed Opportunity?

     As expected, the new class can see that the coronavirus pandemic is a conceptual and philosophical challenge to the ideology of open borders, since sane countries are doing exactly the opposite, and closing up. Hence, their need to turn up the heat and push the globalist, we-are-all-in-this-together, bs line:
  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/opinion/sunday/corona-virus-usa.html

“Forget isolationism. One thing the current moment shows is the folly of presuming that viruses will respect borders — that they can be kept out by walls or wrangled into submission with good intentions. They cannot. Restricting and rescinding foreign health and development aid, pulling global health workers from outbreak zones abroad and undermining health care at home makes Americans more vulnerable to threats like Covid-19.
The best strategy for thwarting this epidemic, and for preventing the next, is to help other nations — wherever they are — fight humanity’s common enemy over there before we have to fight it over here.”

     A Chinese teacher I work with is keeping up with the alternative views on the coronavirus by using my articles as a clearing ground, so I am grateful for this, since all of the white liberal feminist teachers think I am a racist, but not the Chinese and other ethnic ones, whom I sit with each day at lunch time, while the feminists sit in their own quarantined  area, and well, whinge about how oppressed they are. Anyway, here is an Italian professor hosing down the idea that the coronavirus only knocks over old folk, for the Italians are seeing increasing numbers of young people in hospital. My Chinese teacher friend thinks that the commo Chinese government genetically engineered the virus to kill old people to reduce health care costs. That is horrible, but initially credible. However, the hypothesis is probably refuted by the Italian data on young people now getting the infection.

     So, this week we still have not got a clear theory on what is happening with the virus, and it may be some time before we do. In the meantime, keep prepping.
  https://news.yahoo.com/italians-told-stay-home-until-april-3-223951312.html

     Things are hotting up in the fear/paranoia stakes regarding the coronavirus, with calls from the Grattan Institute’s chief executive John Daley, to shut down schools and universities to attempt to stem the advance of Covid-19. Well, shut down the universities … it looks like James Reed will get his wish! After all, Trump has just shut down America to Europe:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/11/donald-trump-suspends-all-travel-from-european-union-for-30-days-to-fight-coronavirus/
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8100251/Australia-close-borders-shut-schools-universities-face-coronavirus-epidemic.html

“Australia has been urged to close its borders, shut down schools and universities and cancel mass events or risk facing a 'complete and utter coronavirus epidemic'. Grattan Institute's chief executive John Daley called for Scott Morrison to follow the lead of Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore, which have introduced radical social distancing measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Mr Daley said while some countries' approaches to the outbreak have impacted their economies, they had been successful in reducing virus cases. 'One option is that we can introduce very significant social distancing now and also potentially close the airports to foreign travellers. The consequence of that would be you would probably see the number of cases in Australia drop to zero,' he told The Australian. 'The second option is that you keep doing what we are doing at the moment. At some point it is likely that we will start to see significantly more person-to-person transmission in Australia.' Mr Daley warned if Australia keeps up its 'non-stringent measures like Italy', our cases would climb 'pretty quickly' and the fatality rate would skyrocket. Dr Muhammad Mohsin, who runs a number of GP clinics, called for all public events, schools, businesses, childcare centres and universities to be shut down for a month. 'This is the only way we can avoid a complete and utter epidemic in Australia. Otherwise, the virus will spread and it will devastate our country and our economy. We must do it before winter arrives. This is absolutely critical,' he said.

     Having a senile old man with his finger on the nuclear button, that was the scare campaign driven by the Democrats in their dirty tricks department against Donald Trump in 2016. Well, Biden so clearly has unending senior moments, that these are stunningly embarrassing, like saying that only Donald Trump can be elected, forgetting his own name, and so on:
  https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/03/11/forbes-removes-senior-contributors-article-calling-for-joe-biden-to-take-cognitive-assessment/
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c46EPOpHFc
  https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/03/06/joe-biden-keeps-forgetting-barack-obamas-name-and-its-getting-uncomfortable/

     This would be presidential rule from the nursing home, which is to say that the Deep State will have their other man, or woman, there pushing America further than anyone has gone before. Hello Hillary 2.0! Biden’s mental state is taboo in the mainstream press, just like the crimes of the Clintons:
  https://www.amazon.com.au/Partners-Crime-Clintons-Monetize-Personal-ebook/dp/B01JBKHHKK

     Russia is right, the West will end in civil wars, everywhere, not just America, although this monstewr will be the first cab off the rank:
  https://gellerreport.com/2019/11/civil-war-2.html/
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-27/daniel-greenfield-guns-are-how-civil-war-ends-politics-how-it-starts

“This is a civil war. There aren’t any soldiers marching on Charleston… or Myrtle Beach. Nobody’s getting shot in the streets. Except in Chicago… and Baltimore, Detroit and Washington D.C. But that’s not a civil war. It’s just what happens when Democrats run a city into the ground. And then they dig a hole in the ground so they can bury it even deeper. If you look deep enough into that great big Democrat hole, you might even see where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. But it’s not guns that make a civil war. It’s politics. Guns are how a civil war ends. Politics is how it begins. How do civil wars happen? Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge. That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war. I know you’re all thinking about President Trump. He won and the establishment, the media, the democrats, rejected the results. They came up with a whole bunch of conspiracy theories to explain why he didn’t really win. It was the Russians. And the FBI. And sexism, Obama, Bernie Sanders and white people. It’s easier to make a list of the things that Hillary Clinton doesn’t blame for losing the election. It’s going to be a short list. A really short list. Herself.

     It is wise to pay close attention to the policies of the state of Israel, since this nation, above all others has excellent survival instincts, and almost always gets things right. Take their response to the coronavirus pandemic:
  https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-closes-schools-universities-as-netanyahu-issues-dire-coronavirus-warning/

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday that Israel would be closing schools and universities effective Friday as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, calling the pandemic “a global event unlike anything” the country had ever seen. “We are closing the schools and the universities,” the premier announced on live television. He said the closure didn’t include preschools and kindergartens, special education and boarding schools, adding that a decision would be made for those institutions soon. In a prime-time speech from the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, Netanyahu warned that “the potential number of deaths is very high and we must take action to prevent that.” He said the mortality rate from the virus, which he put at between two and four percent, was “very high.” There have so far been no deaths from the virus in Israel, where there have been 109 confirmed cases. “We are in the midst of a global event unlike anything else in the history of the state’s existence,” he said, offering a dire warning of the potential death toll if most of the population is infected and even comparing the situation to the 1918 Spanish Flu, which infected some 500 million people — 27% of the world’s population at the time — and killed between 17 and 50 million people, according to estimations.”