BRANDON J. WEICHERT | THE WEICHERT REPORT
There was a time when “breaking news” really was breaking news. Today, it seems, that the news cycle is being carefully stage-managed. This is especially true in the case of the #coronavirus outbreak emanating from Wuhan, China.
As I’ve reported (and been castigated for daring to state what should be blatantly obvious to anyone outside of the Beltway Bubble), the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) official explanation for the particulars of the coronavirus outbreak do not add up.
Instead, I’ve offered my theory that the coronavirus is, at the very least, a problem the CCP knew about well before they informed the world’s health community. Their lies and persistent failure to adequately quarantine the disease proves that the world is headed for another Spanish Flu-type event. What’s more, American media institutions and our own government are either lying or simply being painfully lazy in pressing their Chinese counterparts about the truth and extent of the disease.
Here’s What We Really Know
We know for a fact that the Wuhan virology lab is located a mere 300 yards away from the outdoor market that sold exotic animals (bats, snakes, dogs, etc.) for human consumption in Wuhan.
We know from further reports that the scientists who worked at the Chinese military-affiliated Wuhan virology lab (a level four lab) complained about lax safety standards. What’s more, we know that the lab in Wuhan specialized in the study and weaponization of the coronavirus (dubbed CoVID-19 by the medical community).
The world was also told by the Chinese leadership that authorities were not alerted to the outbreak of CoVID-19 until the start of January 2020. Of course, these claims were dispelled by the death of Chinese medical doctor Li Wenliang earlier this month, who was an ophthalmologist in Wuhan and was infected with the coronavirus in December.
At that time, he had been arrested by Chinese authorities and made to sign a false confession admitting to “rumormongering” after he had sent private messages to fellow doctors warning them of the strange new respiratory illness.
After his death, the Chinese people turned Dr. Li into a hero. Even in isolation and under threat from the Chinese authorities, Li continued to transmit cellphone videos to the BBC in which he documented the extent of the outbreak.
The Chinese Centers for Disease Control, according to Fortune reports that there is now evidence of a fecal-oral route to the CoVID-19 disease which may explain how the disease is spread so rapidly:
Squat latrines, common in China, lacking covers and hands that aren’t washed thoroughly with soap and water after visiting the bathroom, could be a source of virus transmission, said Nicholls, who was part of the research team that isolated and characterized the SARS virus.
Things since Li’s death have only gotten bleaker in China.
Here is an excellent undercover investigation that NDTV did a week ago in which they asked Wuhan funeral directors how many dead bodies they’ve been burying since the outbreak began. The results are horrifying:
We’ve been told by our institutional betters, whether they be in the Chinese-dominated World Health Organization (WHO), or the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), that we’re in the same proverbial (sinking) boat with China when it comes to fighting the coronavirus scourge. I somehow doubt that.
Since 2015, China has deployed spies to lie their way into the National Institute of Health (NIH) and pilfer proprietary data related to coronavirus, cancer, and HIV research. There are presently 55 active cases into these incidents–with the MD Anderson breach in 2015 (which receives almost $200 million in taxpayer money from NIH) in Texas being the most prolific breach.
This, coupled with the Steven J. Lieber case, as well as the breach of Canada’s only Level 4 Virology lab in Winnipeg, as I’ve noted repeatedly, indicates something more nefarious was afoot. Why was China’s intelligence arm so interested in garnering proprietary data on coronavirus, cancer, and HIV?
What were they doing?
Why were they so invested in paying American scientists, like Harvard’s Dr. Steven Lieber, under the Thousand Talents Program, to covertly send over data and know-how about how to establish, manage, and conduct research on coronaviruses in a Level 4 Virology Lab?
The Mainstream Media’s Malfeasance
More importantly, why is our media not asking the hard-hitting questions?
Whatever happened to “speaking truth to power”?
Many mainstream media-types would counter that their job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Their silence in asking tough questions about China’s intentions and efforts in the coronavirus outbreak proves this to be truer than the notion that the media’ job is to “speak truth to power.”
Last week, Tucker Carlson revealed that Politico, one of the most important “news” sites in Washington, D.C. (by Washington insiders for Washington insiders and wannabes) was well-funded by the Communist Party of China–and has been since its inception.
As a former congressional staffer, I can tell you with certainty that any number of the various lobbying firms on K Street in Washington, D.C. that hire former staffers like myself and “network” with various congressional leaders daily to “craft better policies” (read create laws that give preferential treatment to their clients at our expense), are beholden to foreign interests–notably China.
According to one report, 90 percent of what we refer to as the “mainstream” media in the United States is owned by just six corporations–all of whom have extensive business interests in China. Don’t take my word for it, though.
The former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, founder and owner of Bloomberg news (which netted the former mayor billions of dollars), has spent the last year praising the Chinese Communist Party.
Last Fall, Bloomberg claimed that President Xi Jinping was “no dictator,” despite Xi having declared himself “president-for-life” of China.
Then, in December of last year, Bloomberg reiterated his claims about Xi and argued that the CCP was “responsive” to the needs of their people because, if they weren’t responsive, they’d lose power.
Again, at his shambolic debate performance in Nevada last week, Mike Bloomberg argued that China was not a significant threat and, just like the FDR Administration’s infamous ambassador the United Kingdom, Joseph Kennedy, Sr. who argued accommodation with the Nazis, Bloomberg urged for an accommodation of the Chinese Communist Party rather than continual hostility toward it.
To claim that our media is unbiased or patriotic is an absurdity for the ages–particularly when it comes to the matter of China.
After all, how much have you heard about China’s recent successes in their space development? Or, about the heinous atrocities they’ve been perpetrating upon the Muslim Uighur population of Xinjiang Province?
You’ve not heard much about it, because the media has refused to report too much on it.
Why?
They say it’s because of ratings.
Yet, the Democratic Party primaries are some of the lowest rated events in news television. Still, the media persists in featuring them unabridged. There are several other, less interesting, stories that the media chooses to cover in excruciating detail–that do not give the media the ratings bounce they are so concerned with.
There’s something more here. They don’t want to report on China, let alone ask the hard-hitting questions about this coronavirus outbreak. If they did, they probably would not like the answers they got. At least this is the conclusion that Freedom House, an organization dedicated to tracking world freedom, concluded in 2018.
Remember: China has been caught consistently lying about or simply missing key data points, any one of which would prove vital for the international community to find a cure to this pernicious disease. As I reported here recently, China’s “response” to the illness has not mitigated its spread in any way.
In fact, if you keep in mind that nearly five million residents of Hubei Province (where Wuhan is located) fled their homes for greener pastures before the Chinese military could impose a quarantine of their province, it should be clear that the idea that China has the disease contained is unrealistic.
Meanwhile, the number of infected has spiked, not just in China, but globally–even as China tinkers with their accounting practices for tallying the number of infected (in order to artificially lower the number). China also restricts the information flow, forcing the international health community to take information and data from Chinese authorities–all of whom have a vested interest in downplaying the spread of the disease, lest they suffer international and, more importantly, domestic backlash (which, of course, they are already suffering domestic unrest but mitigation is the CCP’s only hope).
Earlier this year, the head of the WHO met with Xi Jinping. The expectation was that The WHO was going to declare the coronavirus an official pandemic. Even then, it met the definitional framework for “pandemic.” Yet, after his meeting with Xi, The WHO leader chose not to announce a pandemic and instead praised Xi’s handling of the outbreak.
Somehow, though, virtually overnight, the coronavirus has appeared everywhere–from Italy to Iran; even possibly in Michigan, where 325 potential coronavirus patients are now being monitored by medical professionals there over the last 24 hours.
We are made to believe by our media that this is a surprise event. We are told not to look too deeply into the fact that this disease has been around much longer than China officially declared. And for some reason, our elites take everything that the Chinese regime–which has been proven to lie and mislead about nearly everything–at face-value.
What’s more, rather than being the stewards of stability, the Chinese regime has been caught flat-footed and they are playing catch-up.
Of course, as I’ve noted, the coronavirus could be Xi Jinping’s Waterloo: it could be the end of his reign as president-for-life, as cadres form against him within the CCP. Yet, Xi is also at the height of his power and is using the coronavirus outbreak to hit hard against his political foes before they can hit him for his shabby handling of everything from the slowing Chinese economy, to the Hong Kong protests, to the coronavirus outbreak.
Nonetheless, China’s response has not been an example of central planning working. It has been an example of abject incompetence and threat denial. From insufficient medical supplies to an inadequate quarantine, or more importantly, to a lack of proper understanding of the disease–which led to the failed screenings of infected patients–China’s response has been lethargic at best.
Plus, Beijing only went to the international community for help when it was too late; after they realized they could not handle the problem on their own.
For years, American media has been complicit in towing the CCP’s line–whether it be on the glories of “free trade” or the threat of China’s military buildup. At every turn, the mainstream elite have ignored and obfuscated China’s threat to the West in favor of preserving the profits of their corporate masters.
Lacking Proper Info, US Government Response Falls Flat
Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s response has been shoddy. Yes, President Donald J. Trump finally instituted the travel ban–after delaying for more than a week, after it was clear that China was in-over-its-head.
I suspect that President Trump delayed instituting a travel ban (leaving it up to individual U.S. air carriers, such as Delta, to determine on their own whether to terminate flights to and from China) for much the same reason he ended the “Trade War” with China with his Phase I deal: he wanted to avoid negative economic news going into the hotly-contested presidential election this year (while also avoiding panic).
But, while sheer, bloody panic is rarely the proper response to a problem. Concern and proaction are often the best ways to mitigate a potential pandemic, such as the coronavirus. Even with the presidential order barring travel to-and-from travel, flights are still coming in from affected areas; it’s just that air carriers and Chinese citizens who may be infected (but think they are not and are fleeing China while they can) are engaged in artful bureaucratic legerdemain in order to move from China to the United States.
For example, Forbes reported on February 13:
Airlines have been cutting U.S. China service since Jan. 17, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would begin screening passengers at Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York Kennedy airports. On Jan. 28, the CDC expanded screening to 20 airports.
Remaining flights include Air China four-day a week service from Beijing to Los Angeles and four-day-a-week service to New York Kennedy. Those flights continue on to San Francisco and Washington, D.C. respectively.
Previously Air China flew daily from Beijing to LAX And JFK. The flight suspensions, which took effect Feb. 11, are currently in effect through Feb. 28. The airline has said it will continue to “meet the needs of passengers who need to travel between China and the US, as well as maintain flight operations to major cities in the US”.
China Eastern Airlines continues to fly Shanghai to LAX and JFK, while China Southern Airlines continues to fly Guangzhou to LAX and JFK.
[…]
Xiamen [Airlines] continues to operate a Fuzhou to JFK flight as well as Qingdao to LAX. Singapore Airline operates Hong Kong-San Francisco daily, while Cathay Pacific serves six cities from Hong Kong.
What happens after February 28, when Air China will technically be allowed to resume direct flights into the United States?
We already know that China either is unable or unwilling to properly track the outbreak of the disease. They are carefully stage-managing the outbreak, so as to avoid having to look bad in the eyes of the world. Their supplicants in American and Western media dutifully tow their line, and for whatever reason, American and Western governments accept whatever the CCP tells them at face-value. As this occurs, the disease spreads faster and farther; it mutates, and it makes the discovery of a vaccine that much more difficult.
It is now only a matter of time before the disease saturates even the United States, because government action has been slow due to bad information coming from China and the press. The medical community, meanwhile, refuses to acknowledge even the possibility that the Chinese are lying or that China may have actually created CoVID-19 in a weapons lab.
Because American leaders refuse to acknowledge the possibility that there is something more nefarious at play with outbreak of CoVID-19–and that the Chinese are utterly out-of-their-depth in responding to the outbreak–we will be misled into a pandemic here. It’s already a world pandemic; it’s just that the WHO has been compromised by China and political correctness. Thus, even they are unreliable in gathering correct information on the outbreak.
Don’t be fooled any longer: we’re being lied to and the Chinese have already failed to stop the disease. In fact, it’s a pandemic now and it is only a matter of time before this pandemic reaches our land as well. I’d dare venture to say that our institutions likely had some semblance of an idea that this pandemic was happening and merely downplayed and ignored the story for as long as they could, so as not to inspire panic. Now, it cannot be ignored, and they are still unsure of what to do or how to create a cure (how can a cure be created when the information coming from the source of the outbreak–China–is so badly compromised?)
Sad!
THE WEICHERT REPORT 