The Coronavirus and Galileo: An Interview with a Italian Nano-pathologist Dr. Stefano Montanari

Editor’s note: I am posting this not as a claim that Dr. Montanari’s ideas on the virus are correct—I do not have knowledge in this area— but only that his views should be aired. We are living in a time when science has become politicized and the claims of establishment scientists have become political orthodoxy and dissenters punished. In my field, psychology, decades-old findings have been to be unable to be replicated. Yet they are still to be found in textbooks because they favor leftist and environmentalist explanations for human behavior, particularly regarding racial differences, and dissenters are shunned and denied academic positions. Climate science has become completely politicized, so non-experts are left not knowing what to think while the establishment media and academic groups cling to an orthodoxy and brand anyone who disagrees as intellectually deficient and morally suspect. Can anyone trust the pharmaceutical industry (e.g., the Sacklers and the opioid crisis) or experts on nutrition? So much of what is produced in these fields is subject to financial motivations, and again, the average person is left wondering what drugs to take and what foods to eat. So let’s be open to Dr. Montanari’s ideas. Personally, I find many of his ideas quite compelling, and he is definitely well-versed in the field.

As the following content may be controversial, I do not pretend to truth, even to the truth of him whose thought and findings I report. My basic knowledge rests on the understanding that the property of rain is to wet and of fire to burn, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun.

Furthermore, given the current rapidity of the information flow, it is possible that what I relate here, by the time it is published, may have become the majority’s opinion. Though probably not, for we should keep in mind that, historically, the fabric of superstition (religious or even scientific) has often defied the feeble efforts of reason.

Which is why I begin with Galileo. It is universally known that Galileo was tried for his unorthodox notion that the earth circled around the sun, rather than otherwise. He had to recant his findings to avoid what happened to Giordano Bruno. Hence Galileo’s reported legendary mumbling as he left the court, “And yet it moves” (‘it’ being the earth in its revolution around the sun).

Theoretically speaking, the theologians may have had a point. Those readers who in their youth used trains instead of planes for transport, may recall what happened when they sat on a train waiting to depart, while another identical train was stationed on the adjacent rail. When your train, or the other began to move, for one second or so it was difficult to say if it was yours or the other train that was moving. A phenomenon consistent with the general notion of relative motion.

But Galileo’s assertions proved even more heretical when — using his DIY telescope — he discovered that Jupiter had satellites. For the finding disproved the assumption whereby the earth is the exceptional celestial object around which all other worlds orbit — the astronomical equivalent of the ‘exceptional’ nation of Obamanian memory.

Faced with the dilemma, the bishop of Pisa issued a directive to the parishes, admonishing that it was sinful to look through a telescope, because it showed objects that didn’t exist.

As of now, it is uncertain whether the world is a large assembly of bishops of Pisa or, as it may still be not sinful to hope, common sense will prevail.

One prevailing characteristic of the current Coronavirus metaphorical fever is the fantastic and logical inconsistence of the reports.

The Latin dictum or principle “Natura non facit saltus” (nature makes no leaps) has been an important principle of natural philosophy.  The sentence is attributed to Gottfried Leibniz, (1646–1746), one of the inventors of the infinitesimal calculus — though perhaps better known for his assertion, reached through elaborate reasoning, that ours is the best of all possible words.

The principle is/was also an essential element of Charles Darwin’s treatment of natural selection in his Origin of Species. And while many may take issue with Leibnitz’ opinion of our world, fewer probably disagree with the notion of natural selection.

As readers know, Italy is at the forefront of the coronavirus phenomenon because of the extraordinary higher number of cases and terrifying death toll, even exceeding China’s, where it all started.

At which some dissenting voices began to be heard, disputing the earlier findings — and/or at least disputing how they were reported.

The bitter and obstinate opposition made to those who, however clearly and with tenable arguments, disputed the data, induces the unbiased observer to at least hypothesize that some dormant privilege or as yet unexplained assumption has been attacked.

I would suggest disregarding the ‘battle of qualifications’ whereby a graduate of university X knows more than a graduate of university Y. As I mentioned before, my (however tentative) assessment of the plausibility and credibility of an explanation rests on:

1. Whether the explanation is consistent with common sense and with what is commonly known on the debated issue;
2. Whether the person in question has direct experience (and for how long) with the problem on which he expresses his views; and
3. Whether his physiognomy is in reasonable harmony with perceivable symptoms of credibility—an idea elaborated in extreme detail in a massive study, by the Swiss author Johann Lavater, at the end of the 1700s.

I will begin with Dr. Stefano Montanari, a nano-pathologist who, for over twenty years, along with his wife, has researched nano-pathogens, the very minute illness-causing particles that typically float in the air of all crowded, polluted, highly trafficked, industrial cities, as well as factories.

[For Italian speakers, the link to the original interview is at https://bit.ly/2UBuRX2 ]

The prefix ‘nano’ refers to the dramatically small size of the items studied. It takes 25,400,000 nanometers to make an inch. The size of the smallest particle recognizable by the naked eye is 100,000 nanometers. Therefore nano-pathogens are dramatically small, though the damage they cause to the lungs is inversely proportional to their size.

The size of a nano-pathogen is between 5 and 200 nanometers. Considering that a virus is considered large at 250 nanometers, nano-pathogens and viruses (corona or otherwise), have the same order of magnitude. For expedience I will signal the questions put to Dr. Montanari in bold.

— Where did the virus originate?

All the news we have had so far is varied, fragmentary, and unverifiable. First it seemed it was born in China, then not in China (see previous article “Science and Fiction” — where virologist Dr. Wodarg claimed that some coronaviruses, belonging or related to the current entity called ‘the’ coronavirus, were already discovered in Georgia, USA in 2015).

Some said they come from bats, some that they were created in a laboratory to exterminate people en masse. Someone may know but they are very few. As for the bats, we may as well add the unicorn and we have completed the picture.

The fact that ‘this’ coronavirus is considered new, is anything but exceptional. There are very many coronaviruses. The common cold is often due to a coronavirus. They are viruses that by themselves cannot cause death, and very often are totally innocuous. This new strain is very infective, which means that it can more easily enter into people.

However, in the overwhelming majority of people it remains innocuous and without showing clinical indication of symptoms. But it hits, as an illness, old people, especially old people who take medicines used to treat other pulmonary diseases, or who have other pathologies.

Healthy people suffer absolutely no damage from this virus(es), which is probably ubiquitous and can be found everywhere in the billions, like billions of other viruses. Therefore I am convinced that, if we sought the virus in the 60-million Italians, we would find it at least in 30 million and probably more. As I said, this virus is found everywhere and it stays there without absolutely causing any harm, just like the enormous number of other viruses, present but harmless.

Mortality from the virus is very low and probably non-existent. But an illness with the virus is another matter. Yesterday evening [about Mar 23] we heard a primary doctor in a hospital saying that the virus is the same as an illness. This gentleman should go back to school, but not to university, a bit further back, to elementary school. It is a statement that makes no logical sense.

To die of an illness means that the illness is the cause of death. For example, a myocardial infarction is a cause of death. If someone is run over by a train, the ensuing trauma is the cause of death. If he who is run over by a train happens also to have a cold, the cold is not the cause of death. He casually happened to have a cold.

I am convinced that if all deaths were checked — about 650,000 people die in Italy physiologically every year — you would find more than half having the coronavirus, probably many more than half. For they are old people who have this coronavirus in their body. The omnipresence of the coronavirus type and other coronaviruses is a fact, not a hypothesis.

— I see here the latest numbers from the official press service, indicating that Italy surpassed China in number of deaths during a single day, 475, of which 319 were in Lombardy. Therefore, I am asking you, Dr. Montanari, if you still use the adjective ‘harmless’ referring to the virus.

No, the virus is not harmless. It affects the lungs, just as there are viruses that affect the guts, hence diarrhea, the stomach, hence vomiting, the nervous system, hence headaches etc.

It means that, in certain cases, especially the old, they need respiratory care. If you examine the age of the dead, they are on average eighty-years old. A respirator is common equipment in a hospital. I have spent more than 40 years in hospital operating rooms, and it is absolutely standard equipment.

That we do not have them or have too few (in Italy) is due to our having, through the last 10 years, destroyed our health system. We have closed entire hospital departments, as well as many smaller hospitals.

The purchasing system is bad, and all that is needed in a hospital costs double than in other countries  because the purchasing system is corrupted at the capillary level. [My note: the very governor of the region of Lombardy was recently condemned to six years in jail for a monstrous misappropriation of funds (in the hundreds of millions) destined for health care.]

We are facing an emergency — if we can thus call it — because we are not prepared, due to the 10-year long process of dismantling the system. And when I hear it said that the Italian health system is the best in the world, my arms fall, and maybe not just the arms.

— But how do you explain the images of coffins carried away by military trucks from hospitals in the city of Bergamo. Would you still maintain that the cause of the death was not the coronavirus?

Look, and I am quoting the National Institute of Health, the actual deaths attributed or certified as having been caused by the corona virus were 3 (this was a few days ago when the numbers reported were already in the hundreds).  And when I hear Mario Giordano (a well-known journalist) say that we should not divulge this news, I wonder what kind of journalism we have in Italy (and maybe in the world). I’m not talking about the parish newspaper, I’m talking about a journalist of great notoriety, who says something contrary to the very ethics of journalism… This man is advocating disinformation.  It is a shame.

— If this virus mutates quickly does it mean that maybe the Italian virus is not the same as the Chinese?

It is not maybe, for sure it’s not the same as the German virus isolated in Germany, nor it is the same as the Chinese virus. It is the nature of viruses — they look for stability, for a state to be in in for a while. To achieve this, the virus mutates at great speed.   Tomorrow it will no longer be what it is today, and so on. But (the coronavirus) is not the only virus behaving this way. We host a huge number of viruses in our body. Many of them are also indispensable for our life.  They are not even beings as such — they are a kind of chemical chains. The current type (Coronavirus) is peculiar for its relationship to RNA and DNA but let’s not go into this.  There are many with similar structural characteristics.  They mutate very quickly — therefore when attempting to look for a remedy for this or that virus you run after something that runs faster than us.

— But how about the images from hospitals showing people with respirators. Is your explanation that the phenomenon is not due to the severity of the virus but to the cuts to health care?

We are not prepared for a disease that affects the lungs. For our politicians have destroyed our health system. You know very well, as a journalist, how easy it is to manipulate text and images to create a message.

There are definitely people with respirators who definitely need it — and they must be helped by it. But all these coffins are part of the 650,000 deaths we have every year in Italy — there is no increase in mortality. And if you go to any hospital, you see coffins coming out every day. Many years ago I turned down a job in childhood oncology, precisely because I could not stand the spectacle of the white coffins that passed by me constantly. We are talking about nothing and, as I said, you know that it is possible to manipulate images and context to achieve the impression you wish to convey. (What follows are examples of unforgettable momentous events that are quickly forgotten)

Here we are talking of 3 people’s death attributable to coronavirus. If the number does not please the media, that is another matter, but the facts are what they are — and that number, as I said, comes out from the National Institute for Health.

— But then is the pneumonia caused by the covid-19 is different from the pneumonia we have known so far?

It is an interstitial pneumonia; it is a viral pneumonia, but there have been these types of viruses in Italy for several months. We never talk about it, but already, for example, in October, about 5–6 months ago, there were patients with atypical pneumonia — pneumonia not normally seen and about which we knew nothing. The source was unknown, it was impossible to counteract the virus pharmacologically, and we had to wait for those sick people to heal themselves. They healed by themselves, because, contrary to what some try to make you believe, we have immune defenses that are very much stronger than the vast majority of drugs.

We have on our skin various bacteria, fungi and viruses that are there to contrast and counteract pathogenic bacteria and fungi, meaning carriers of illness. In fact when we wear gloves to combat the coronavirus, we are not helping because we do not allow our bacteria, fungi and viruses present on the skin to interact with the pathogenic ones. Then with gloves-covered hands we touch our clothes, we touch the money handed by the cashiers from the stores still open — the same gloves on which the viruses came to rest. Hence those gloves are distinctly worse than non-gloves. We are dealing with imbeciles, ignorant of the elementary principles of biology.

— Therefore, it is as if we couldn’t build antibodies in this way …

We don’t build antibodies to this virus — we already have immune defenses. From rhinos to elephants to goldfish, we all have the capacity to heal ourselves. If you have a headache, and I give you some enamel to apply to your nails, it was not the enamel that cured the headache. It was just that by the next day the body eliminated the headache — and this happens at large.

My old professor of physiology used to say that an untreated flu lasts 7 days, a treated flu lasts one week. This means that we presumptuously interfere with nature without realizing what we are doing so.

As for the masks… they are useless. There are millions, billions of viruses for every square meter of the earth, on the sidewalk and so on.  It’s an illusion following from the (imagined) idea that viruses are as big as sewer rats. A notion that perhaps arose from the words of Ms. Lorenzin when, as Minister of Health, she said that viruses crawl and jump around (as if they were animals).

Viruses exist in enormous quantities and can enter in enormous quantities inside the cells, which are a few thousandths of a millimeter wide. Wearing a mask compares with raising a gate to prevent mosquitoes from entering your house.

— But if the disease is not so serious why every day more and more restrictive measures are placed on us? How do the authorities of the institutions justify their behavior?

The major issue at stake is, or are, the vaccines. The regime that now encompasses the world will force the world to vaccinate — that is to vaccinate with and against a virus that does not give immunity, as this (the coronavirus) is the case.

If 50 years ago, at my exam of pharmacology, I had told my examining professor — who was one of the most knowledgeable pharmacologists of the time — something like that, I would have been thrown out of the door. For only an incompetent can imagine a vaccine against a virus that does not give immunity and has no chance of being effective. We are talking about a virus that mutates at very fast speed and we cannot possibly run after it (i.e., its mutations).

It’s a virus somehow similar to the cold virus, whose family it belongs to. You can’t vaccinate against the common cold because the common cold does not give immunity. In the course of a life, a person can have a cold 200 times, and at no time will that cold will give immunity (against the next). It is a colossal fraud. We are close to 8 billion people forced to be vaccinated and it will be an unimaginably enormous business.

— But then, if the most immediate defence consists in keeping the lungs efficient how does a smoker deal with the issue?

Badly. We all have bronchi. They are tubes that become thinner and thinner (as they approach the lungs). They convey air to the 600 million small bags, called pulmonary alveoli, in which oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged.

Along the bronchial tubes all healthy people have a thin, but indispensable layer of mucus, which envelopes and blocks dust, viruses and bacteria. Furthermore healthy people have, in the bronchi, what are called vibratile cilia — they are a kind of whips whipping out of the lungs these dust, viruses, bacteria and fungi.

The smoker has a layer of mucus that is relatively enormously thicker. The vibratile cilia not only cannot throw out what has been enveloped by the mucus — which in the smoker becomes catarrh — but they become paralyzed. What happens then is that the invaders slip down, slip into the pulmonary alveoli and do not come out anymore. Consequently the smoker gets viruses, bacteria, fungi in much greater number than a non-smoker does.

— On the subject of swabs (to verify the presence of the coronavirus), I would like to know from you what do you think of the governor of Veneto (Mr. Zaia) who said that we will take swabs from everybody.

The governor is clearly incompetent and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Besides, for the analysis of the swabs special equipment is needed. The analysis cannot be done in the kitchen — both equipment and expertise are required.  And then there is a further problem. The results, in more than 80% of the cases are false positive. Therefore there is a real risk of telling a person that he is  ‘positive’ when he is not.

But there is more. Most of those who are actually positive have no symptoms — as is the case with the vast majority of viruses that exist in this world. Therefore, should we isolate and turn perfectly healthy people into sick people?

This is very serious, because — and this has been known for many decades — depressed people have lower defenses against pathologies and get sick more often. You take from these people the possibility to go out in the sun — without which the body cannot properly metabolize vitamin D, which is essential to protect our immune system.

So we stay at home in a bad mood, we cannot metabolize vitamin D and we get sick more easily. All these ideas, taken by perfectly incompetent people, are deleterious and worsen the situation.

People should be told to stay outside in the sun, to walk, to move around, to try staying healthy and eat healthily.  Not to stay indoors, in the dark and without sun. These incompetents don’t realize the harm they do or maybe they realize it, I don’t know.

— This seems a vicious circle. But, compared to the SARS (epidemic) what are the differences?

(The coronavirus) is one of the many lung viruses (like SARS), causing an atypical pneumonia. They are cousins, almost brothers. And SARS did not cause disasters.

There have been other similar pathologies, the swine flu, the avian flu… In the case of the avian flu Italy bought 27,000,000 vaccine doses and disposed of 26,700,000 of them. We paid all that money for vaccines that we threw in the sewers. We have no money for respirators but money to buy a vaccine.

We are ruled by the incompetent and I do not wish to talk about corruption, though I am tempted to. It’s like commander Schettino to the umpteenth power [Schettino was the commander of the Cruise Liner “Costa Concordia” that ran aground near an island close to Tuscany in 2012. He wanted to blow the ship’s horn to wish a Happy Birthday to a friend in the island, while showing off for his Moldavian girlfriend, a personal friend as well as unregistered passenger on board — 32 people died, the cost of the damage was in the billions range).

— There are those who claim that the coronavirus is seasonal. Could you give a prediction on when this emergency will end?

I cannot say whether it is seasonal or not. Like almost all viruses it can be affected by temperature. It is certain that nature is wiser than our statesmen and many doctors. Besides, it is not corrupt.

Nature knows well that when we get sick , the body raises the temperature because, from the point of view of fighting the illness, the higher the temperature, the more efficient is the illness-fighting system — meaning that the temperature improves the efficiency of our immune system and decreases the vital capacity of bacteria and fungi — assuming that the viruses have a life.

But what do the doctors do? They gives the patient Tachypyrine — which takes away that defense connected with higher temperature. The doctor prescribes Tachypyrine when his patient has a 37.8 C  (100.04 F) temperature. It compares to a besieged city throwing down the walls to let more air in.

It is pure folly.

As for the coronavirus, it happens that in the summer the temperature rises and it is possible that this reduces the virus’s vital capacity. Vital capacity is a wrong expression, but let’s say so for simplicity.

It is possible that in the summer the virus presence drops. Even so, the matter is not that relevant. Every year we have 20,000 deaths from influenza but no one talks about it. Furthermore, we have 49000 deaths per year due to infections contracted in the hospital. The data are official. 49000 people (130–140 people per day) die because they are admitted into a hospital, say, for an appendicitis and then they die of pneumonia. No one is talking about it, but we have many more deaths from these infections than we have had from a coronavirus, even since the beginning of this farce. We are facing something beyond absurd, which at least invites suspicion.

— Therefore, in summary, one cannot die of covid-19 unless the patient has previous pathologies.

Listen. If I throw you from the tenth floor and you had a cold or flu or had arthritis, I cannot say that you died of arthritis, flu or cold. You died because I threw you from the tenth floor.  Go and see the data from the Higher Institute of health. You find that those who died from coronavirus are all people who have cancer, who have a very strong diabetes, who are obese, who are old. Eighty-year-olds, as is the average death-norm in Italy, and 80 years also remains the death-norm associated with coronavirus, because they are all people who die of other diseases.

— How about the latest news about the death of a 32-year-old young man (from coronavirus)?

I cannot blame them but I did not understand. How sure are we that he died of coronavirus and not ‘with’ coronavirus? This patient had several health problems, some caused by an infection contracted in Cuba 2 years ago. Is this not meaningful in your opinion?

Surely you cannot think that if one is infected with coronavirus, then he should heal from cancer or from whatever other disease.  If someone has cancer, or a heart condition, and also accidentally the coronavirus, what does it mean? We are really facing a colossal scam.

— Do you agree, however, that it is good that the most affected, the weakest should stay at home?

No, it’s good for them to go out, to sunbathe, to stay outside, to stroll, to stay healthy, because if they remain locked in the house, they are more likely to die. Do you want to speed-up the death of the elderly? Should we keep them out of the air, out of the sun? They must walk, they must stay in the sun, they must exercise. In summary, they must do all that has always been said (as good for health) and that today is denied to them for interests that are abhorrent.

 

—  Let’s move on to England and Boris Johnson, as the last question. He wanted to rely on ‘’Herd Immunity’ but then he retracted…

His reasoning  resembles his hair. We are facing pure madness. First, herd immunity is a brilliant invention and fantasy created by the pharmaceutical industry. Only an imbecile can believe that there exists such a monstrosity as herd immunity, which simply doesn’t exist.

If you wish, we can make another show where I’ll explain why (herd immunity) is a scam. But even if it existed, how does herd immunity exist for a disease that does not give you immunity? It is as if you were saying that herd immunity exists for colds. We’re really in front of a character (Boris Johnson) who speaks because he has a tongue. He is dangerous and should be stopped.

— He cannot because he is the Prime Minister of Great Britain. We have touched on the most important points. Have we left anything out?

There is one point we did not touch — the economic, which is not part of my competence.  We are now blocking the world and, as for Italy, the economy was already at a low point. What do they do? They freeze all activities but keep the stock exchange open. Stocks reach a low bottom. What does it mean? The ultra billionaire can easily purchase companies that are now worth pennies.

When eventually it will be decided that the (coronavirus) farce is ended — and nothing will end because this virus will continue undaunted to do what it’s doing now (or its evolving strains will do), the ultra-billionaires will own everything. The rich (a degree below the billionaires) will have bought, say, 3–4 restaurants and/or 10 stores that had to close. In summary, all who were rich will be infinitely richer, But we will also have a flood-tide of people who will always be poorer. This will be another consequence of this fake epidemic, perhaps, who knows, created on purpose.

—  I would like to close with your comment on the possible correlation between pollution and the development of the virus…

We have talked and studied this for many years. When there are dusts, micro and nano particles, the viruses — all almost infinitely small —stick to the nano-particles, which then become the vehicles for the viruses, as well as for dioxins, furans (another toxic compound), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and an infinite number of other substances.

All this is widely known — but now some pundits say so as if it were a novelty.  We have been saying this for 20 years.

End of the interview.

I started with Galileo, because I had a cunning plan to bring him up again at the end. The Vatican chief prosecutor of Galileo was Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, the same, by the way, who was instrumental in condemning Giordano Bruno to the stake. In the circumstances Galileo’s decision to officially renege on the on the geo-centric theory of the universe was wise.

We should, however, consider that both Galileo and Bruno lived during the peak times of the Counterreformation. The Counterreformation was the Catholic response to Lutheranism, just as the Patriot Act (never rescinded, by the way), was the response to 9/11.

Still, Cardinal Bellarmino had some remarkable skills. One of them was persuasive oratory. He attracted both Catholic and Protestants to his debates and was skilled at counter-arguing and rebutting the Calvinist theories that were spreading rapidly in the Dutch provinces.

In the case at hand, Dr. Montanari found a contemporary Cardinal Bellarmino in the shape of a Dr. Burioni, who has become a TV celebrity (corporate official channels) and made big bucks as an adamant advocate of the universal power of all vaccines.

It goes without saying that the pharmaceutical lobby ensures that only pro-vaccine voices are heard in the syndicated (there are no other) corporate channels. The situation mirrors the US. In fact, Dr. Montanari could only be heard on an Internet channel.

But whereas Cardinal Bellarmino was acknowledged as an intelligent individual — though misguided at least from a Christian or humane point of view — Dr. Burioni is an ass who uses his ass as an instrument of cogitation.  And this not for his views on vaccines, which are a matter of opinion, but for his reaction to Dr. Montanari’s interview, when it became clear that it was circulating more widely than expected.

Among other things Dr. Burioni is the head of a nebulous “Coalition Across Science,” whose funding is obscure but whose aim is to make all scientists agree with Burioni’s interpretation of the coronavirus and with the worth of a forthcoming vaccine. Hence the “Coalition Across Science” even includes sociologists, behaviorists and ethologists who, for example, study the mating behavior of bonobo monkeys.

To fight Dr. Montanari, Burioni has filed a legal suit, seeking penalties or incarceration for Dr. Montanari and the closure of the Internet station that published the above rendered interview.

I will spare the reader the lengthy motivations in the accusations of the braggart Burioni. The most interesting and to any same person incredible are:

Montanari is a scientific popularizer — therefore his voice is perceived by people as authoritative and therefore his statements take on an even more serious aspect….

It is therefore up to the judicial authority to determine whether there are any criminal wrongdoings in Montanari’s video and in particular a breach of Art 656 (publication of criminal information or dissemination of exaggerated or tendentious false news, likely to disturb public order)….

Art 656 prescribes a prison sentence of at least 3 months and a monetary penalty.

When the judicial authority verifies criminal offences in the conduct described, it will have to consider the adoption of any measure, also aimed at obscuring and seizing the YouTube channels where these videos are present, if not already removed.

The patient reader who read so far, may or will draw his/her own conclusions. The information published here is clearly inconsistent with the perception conveyed by the corporate channels — suggesting massive coronavirus deaths and great dangers to disbelievers or disobeyers of the safety injunctions.

Puzzled by the inconsistency — and to run a check, however minute -—I travelled around two local hospitals near the emergency section and saw nothing unusual, at least as measured by the traffic of ambulances.

As for judging who is telling the truth and who isn’t, let any of my 25 readers decide. As for me I am reminded of the advice that Timon of Athens gave to two robbers who came to see him, “Trust not the physician, for his antidotes are poison, and he slays more than you rob.”