"It's A Setup": Mysterious Brick Piles Appear Throughout Major Protest Cities

ZeroHedge
Mysterious pallets of bricks have been filmed throughout major riot hotspots across the country, in what appears to be more evidence that organized groups are using the George Floyd protests to incite chaos and terrorism throughout the US. 
Need more evidence of an operation? What's this:

"ANTIFA is a virtually all-white terror organization of cowards who pay minorities to commit their terrorism for them.

This is demonstrated perfectly in the video below.

ANTIFA are the scum of the earth and every one of their members should be in jailpic.twitter.com/s3nyNBvK1x

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) May 31, 2020"

WATCH: UK Chief Medic confirms (again) covid19 harmless to vast majority

off-guardian.org
The second message is that covid19 is actually pretty harmless and no big deal.
This message is rooted in a great deal of fact, because, as we have been pointing out since day one, pretty much all the data coming out about this virus supports exactly this conclusion.
No official body has ever denied this, and most of them readily admit it. Regularly and unambiguously. Here and here and here and here.
All these sources admit the virus is ‘mild’ or even asymptomatic in the majority of cases, and chiefly a danger only to the already ailing or severely immuno-compromised. Just as most coronaviruses are. So, Chris Whitty above is only one of many to point this out and this is not even his first go (see here) at explaining clearly that covid19 is only dangerous to a very very small minority of people, and that most who get it will be just fine."

"It's All Bullsh*t" – 3 Leaks That Sink The COVID Narrative

ZeroHedge
In recent days a series of leaks across the globe have further shown the “official line” on coronavirus does not hold water... 
The science of the coronavirus is not disputed. It is well documented and openly admitted:

• Most people won’t get the virus.
  
• Most of the people who get it won’t display symptoms.
  
• Most of the people who display symptoms will only be mildly sick.
  
• Most of the people with severe symptoms will never be critically ill.
  
• And most of the people who get critically ill will survive.
  

This is borne out by the numerous serological studies which show, again and again, that the infection fatality ratio is on par with flu.
There is no science – and increasingly little rational discussion – to justify the lockdown measures and overall sense of global panic."

Why they hate Sweden- Sweden’s civilised and open approach is an important challenge to lockdown mania.

Spiked
Of course, as everyone knows by now, the reason Sweden has been blacklisted is that it has steadfastly refused to implement a full lockdown. Life is by no means normal in Sweden. Gatherings of over 50 people are banned, as are visits to elderly care homes. Those who can are encouraged to work from home. Public-transport use has fallen dramatically. But in contrast to the rest of Europe, bars, cafes, restaurants and businesses have remained open. Schools have stayed open for all pupils under 16. There are guidelines on social distancing and hygiene but these are not enforced by the law. Sweden’s critics accuse it of pursuing a herd-immunity strategy – though this is denied by the authorities.  ...An Oxford University study which tracks the stringency of government responses across the world shows that it has little bearing on deaths. It finds that in terms of overall excess mortality (which includes all non-Covid deaths), Sweden has suffered more deaths than it otherwise would have – there is a pandemic on, after all – but in a similar proportion to locked-down Switzerland. In contrast, the UK, Spain and the Netherlands, which had lockdowns, have had extremely high excess mortality rates compared to usual."

Coronavirus is 'uniquely adapted to infect humans': Top vaccine scientist says and the possibility it leaked from Wuhan lab MUST be investigated

Daily Mail

A team of scientists has produced evidence that the pandemic virus is ‘uniquely adapted to infect humans’, raising fresh questions over whether its origins were natural or could have occurred in a laboratory. Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, a top vaccine researcher who headed the Australian team, said the virus was ‘not typical of a normal zoonotic [animal to human] infection’ since it appeared with the ‘exceptional’ ability to enter human bodies from day one. He said the virus should have emerged from an animal through ‘a freak event of nature’ but the possibility that it had leaked from a laboratory could not be ruled out.Petrovsky, professor of medicine at Flinders University in Adelaide, runs a biotech research unit that will start human trials for a Covid-19 vaccine next month.

‘I haven’t seen a zoonotic virus that has behaved in this way before,’ he said."

Hydroxychloroquine rated 'most effective therapy' by doctors for coronavirus: Global survey

Washington Times
An international poll of more than 6,000 doctors released Thursday found that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was the most highly rated treatment for the novel coronavirus.
The survey conducted by Sermo, a global health care polling company, of 6,227 physicians in 30 countries found that 37% of those treating COVID-19 patients rated hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy” from a list of 15 options. Of the physicians surveyed, 3,308 said they had either ordered a COVID-19 test or been involved in caring for a coronavirus patient, and 2,171 of those responded to the question asking which medications were most effective."

The REAL Reason Boris Johnson’s Advisor Is Being Hounded to Resign? Brexit, Of Course.

The National Pulse
But in the grand scheme of things the story is small. So why are hordes of reporters camped outside Cummings’s house, non-socially distanced, demanding he resign?
Brexit, of course.
....You see, while Boris Johnson was out with the coronavirus and Dominic Cummings was quarantined with symptoms, the British Civil Service attempted a power grab over the Brexit process and more. There was an intended delay to the whole thing, facilitated by the British establishment, which would have caused the UK no end of complications in terms of fully extricating itself from the failing Union. And then, Cummings was back. Something had to be done. And here we are."

Lockdowns failed to alter the course of pandemic and are now destroying millions of livelihoods worldwide

Daily Mail

Author Marko Kolanovic, a trained physicist and a strategist for JP Morgan, said governments had been spooked by 'flawed scientific papers' into imposing lockdowns which were 'inefficient or late' and had little effect.

'Unlike rigorous testing of new drugs, lockdowns were administered with little consideration that they might not only cause economic devastation but potentially more deaths than Covid-19 itself,' he claimed. "

Do Lockdowns Work? Mounting Evidence Says No

MisesInstitute
The coerced economic "shutdowns"—enforced with fines, arrests, and revoked business licenses—are not the natural outgrowth of a pandemic. They are the result of policy decisions taken by politicians who have suspended constitutional institutions and legal recognition of basic human rights. These politicians have instead imposed a new orm of central planning based on an unproven, theoretical set of ideas about police-enforced "social distancing."
Suspending the rule of law and civil rights will have enormous consequences in terms of human life counted in suicides, drug overdoses, and other grave health problems resulting from unemployment, denial of "elective" medical care, and social isolation.   .....
In The Lancet, Swedish infectious disease clinician (and World Health Organization (WHO) advisor) Johan Giesecke concluded: It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries."

Lockdowns made NO difference to coronavirus but destroyed millions of livelihoods

The Sun
"Unlike rigorous testing of new drugs, lockdowns were administered with little consideration that they might not only cause economic devastation but potentially more deaths than Covid-19 itself," he claimed. "At the same time, millions of livelihoods were being destroyed."
Already the economic impact of the virus has forced governments to pass significant bailout packages to help workers and businesses."

The UK is facing the biggest recession in 300 years

Daily Mail

Although both the OBR and Bank of England see a quick rise if lockdown can be eased, it would still mean an overall 12.8 per cent contraction in 2020 - dwarfing the impact of the credit crunch, Second World War, First World War and Spanish Flu. The calculations also suggest that public borrowing in 2020-21 will reach £298.4billion. The increase is largely driven by the furlough scheme, which is now supporting 7.5million jobs and is expected to cost a net £50billion. Public debt will peak at over 110 per per cent of GDP in September, according to the latest figures. It will hit £2trillion in the coming weeks - four years earlier than was predicted at the Budget in March."

two metre social distancing rule is unnecessary and based on 'very fragile' evidence

Daily Mail

One of the top scientific advisers to the British Government said the two metre (6'6") social distancing rule is based on 'very fragile' evidence.

People in the UK have been urged to stay at least 2m, or six-and-a-half feet, away from anyone who they don't live with, to avoid catching or spreading COVID-19.

But the distance may be a non-scientific estimate that just caught on in countries around the world, as top researchers say there is not solid evidence to back it up.

Professor Robert Dingwall, a sociologist at Nottingham Trent University and a member of government advisory group NERVTAG (New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group) made the comments this morning."

China let coronavirus spread – Communist Party should be held legally liable and pay damages

Newt Gingrich/FoxNews

On April 21, Schmitt filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri against the Chinese government, Chinese Communist Party, and other Chinese officials and institutions. ...The lawsuit fleshes out these allegations in incredible detail, showing the extent of Beijing’s malfeasance. The suit also details how the pandemic caused hardship in Missouri and across the globe – death, isolation from sick and dying loved ones, massive unemployment, economic dislocation, uncertainty, and trillions of dollars of economic losses."  (link here)

Imperial College model Britain used to justify lockdown a 'buggy mess', 'total unreliable', experts claim

FoxNews  (Video)
Experts have derided the coding from Professor Neil Ferguson, warning that it is a “buggy mess that looks more like a bowl of angel hair pasta than a finely tuned piece of programming.”   .....Scientists from the University of Edinburgh have further claimed that it is impossible to reproduce the same results from the same data using the model. The team got different results when they used different machines, and even different results from the same machines."

‘Professor Lockdown’ Modeler Resigns in Disgrace

nationalreview.com

Jay Schnitzer, an expert in vascular biology and a former scientific direct of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego, tells me: “I’m normally reluctant to say this about a scientist, but he dances on the edge of being a publicity-seeking charlatan.”

Indeed, Ferguson’s Imperial College model has been proven wildly inaccurate. To cite just one example, it saw Sweden paying a huge price for no lockdown, with 40,000 COVID deaths by May 1, and 100,000 by June. Sweden now has 2,854 deaths and peaked two weeks ago. As Fraser Nelson, editor of Britain’s Spectator, notes: “Imperial College’s model is wrong by an order of magnitude.”
Indeed, Ferguson has been wrong so often that some of his fellow modelers call him “The Master of Disaster.”

Computer code for Prof Lockdown's model....is a 'mess which would get you fired in private industry'

Daily Mail

Modelling from Imperial College London epidemiologist Prof Ferguson, who stepped down from the government's Sage group at the start of May, has been described as unreliable by experts, while tests of the model have pulled together different results, The Telegraph reports.

David Richards, co-founder of British data technology company WANdisco, said: 'In our commercial reality we would fire anyone for developing code like this and any business that relied on it to produce software for sale would likely go bust.'

Question Time Entrepreneur: Very Soon Lockdown will be Causing More Deaths than the Virus

Guido Fawkes
Entrepreneur and former Channel 4 boss Luke Johnson spiced up Question Time last night with his no-nonsense views on the need to end the lockdown to avoid the potential economic catastrophe claiming more lives than Coronavirus itself. Pointing out the problem that he was the only private sector panellist and therefore the only one who is at risk of actually losing their income because of the lockdown. Unsurprisingly short-sighted left-wingers are out in numbers slamming Johnson’s concerns about a depression…  (Video)

Lockdown will turn out to be a terrible mistake and now we’re being held to ransom by the bug

The Sun
We are in thrall to a shroud-waving public sector “blob” warning of mass fatalities if the Government makes one false step. We must heed the experts who swallowed “Bonking Professor” Neil Ferguson’s crackpot forecasts of half a million dead without lockdown. They are the same experts whose advice on testing, PPE and care homes led to one of the world’s biggest death tolls. The nation’s long-term physical, mental and economic health is being held to ransom by a bug which has virtually no impact on children, young adults and most people under 50. ...That same low-risk generation faces a potentially catastrophic price for a disease which should leave them and their parents free to return almost immediately to normal life. Coronavirus is an old person’s disease. Out of ten million under-5s in Britain, just two have sadly died from Covid-19. For under-25s, the risk is a “trivial” one or two per million, says respected statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter. Little more than the chance of dying by accident.    .....One day there will be a public inquiry. Everyone is covering their tracks.
With hindsight, global lockdown is likely to be judged a terrible mistake, forced on a panic-stricken world by China’s authoritarian example. Sweden alone rejected lockdown, keeping schools open, and the economy ticking over, yet its death toll is lower per head than Britain, France, Spain and Italy.
Former Swedish medical chief, Professor Johan Giesecke, believes we overreacted to a disease which is just twice as severe as winter flu and cannot be avoided anyway.
“I don’t think you can stop it,” he says, “it’s like a tsunami sweeping across Europe.
“We should do what we can to slow it so the health service can cope, but let it pass.”

Ten reasons to end the lockdown now

Spectator

1. You cannot understand the significance of this virus simply by looking at the raw death figures

2. The policy response to the virus has been driven by modelling of Covid – not other factors

3. We don’t know if lockdown is working

4. We should ease the lockdown to save lives

5. Lockdown is not sustainable

6. Lockdown directly harms those most likely to be affected by coronavirus

7. Lockdown directly harms those who will be largely unaffected by coronavirus

8. The health service has not been overwhelmed nor likely to be

9. The virus is almost certainly not a constant threat

10. People can be trusted to behave sensibly

One thing has become clear: Covid is not, in fact, an extraordinarily lethal pathogen, just a nasty one, similar to many others. So it makes no sense whatsoever to follow the science on Covid to the exclusion of everything else. The government should rapidly lift the lockdown to a condition similar to that of Sweden’s. " 

We DON’T have the worst Covid-19 death rate in Europe and it’s wicked of the Left to pretend we do

Daily Mail
‘UK coronavirus death toll is now the worst in Europe,’ screamed The Guardian on Wednesday. ‘How on earth did it come to this?’ demanded Sir Keir Starmer, as the Prime Minister returned for his first PMQs since so nearly becoming a fatality statistic himself.   ....Britain does not have the worst Covid-19 death toll in Europe. And the Government’s critics know it...... unlike the UK, other nations’ coronavirus statistics don’t include deaths outside of hospital. But in Italy, the effective collapse of the country’s health provision meant that significant numbers of patients were sentenced to death at home. .......Yet to those intent on driving Britain to the top of the Covid-19 death league table, the Italian and Spanish death figures are sacrosanct, and the UK’s are not. Which is odd, given that last week Italy’s own statistics agency acknowledged their official mortality totals represented a staggering underestimate of the true death toll.  ....But the Government’s critics don’t care. Cast your mind back to the referendum campaign, and the attacks on Leave’s ‘£350 million for the NHS’ pledge. The claim was devious and bogus, we were told. The bald figure may be accurate, but it didn’t stand up to the most simplistic statistical analysis. ......To what end? Obviously part of it is base hostility to Boris and his administration. As I’ve written before, there are those on the liberal Left who will never forgive him for winning that Brexit referendum, then cementing his victory in last year’s General Election."

America has ‘absurdly overreacted’ to the COVID-19 pandemic

YouTube/ SkyNews
America needs to lift these stringent lockdown procedures in order to boost the economy and save lives according to statistical consultant William M. Briggs. More than half the states in the US are planning to reopen businesses and lifting restrictions put in place to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. According to official data, at least 1.34 million people have contracted the novel pathogen, resulting in 79,696 deaths. The overwhelming majority of the deaths have occurred in densely populated states such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois and California. Mr Brigg disputed these official figures, arguing the death rate doesn’t consider the victim’s significant co-morbidities. “At first, it was dying from, you had to have this bug (COVID-19) and nothing else,” he said. And then that was moved to dying with, which you had to have this bug among a whole range of other things that were probably going to kill you anyway” “The people dying of this have multiple comorbidities on average, other sicknesses.” He said it is “absurd” America has overreacted to COVID-19 “to an unprecedented degree.”

Leading German Virologist: "COVID-19 Less Deadly Than We Thought"

ZeroHedge
German scientist, Professor Hendrik Streeck has been studying groups of subjects in his country and has reached a number of compelling provisional findings regarding the viral behaviour of the new Coronavirus. Streeck also explains why he thinks that draconian ‘lockdown’ measures were decided in haste, and may ultimately be deemed to have been completely unnecessary. 
.....After UK ‘experts’ like Prof. Ferguson had massively overestimated the IFR, Boris Johnson’s government then switched course – away from a more common sense, science-based approach like Sweden, and instead implemented an experimental Medieval-style quarantine, or “lockdown” method, to try and contain the coronavirus. In the end, the UK policy turned out to be a disaster, leading to an unprecedented economic catastrophe as well as the highest COVID death totals in Europe."

Professor: Economic Impact Of Lockdown Will Cause More Deaths Than COVID-19

ZeroHedge
Peter Nilsson, a professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at Lund University, warns that the economic devastation caused by lockdowns will cause more deaths than the coronavirus itself.  
Nilsson was commenting on Sweden’s approach to coronavirus, which unlike virtually every other western country in the world didn’t impose a lockdown to fight COVID-19.

The tactic appears to have worked, with Sweden’s ‘R’ rate of infection being roughly the same as the UK’s, a country which did impose a lockdown. The country also now has much more widespread herd immunity and didn’t sacrifice its economy, meaning deaths from poverty will be reduced.
Opining that he thinks this will “prove to be a good strategy in the long run,” Professor Nilsson said the approach had succeeded in preventing a spike in unemployment.

“It’s so important to understand that the deaths of COVID-19 will be far less than the deaths caused by societal lockdown when the economy is ruined,” said Nilsson.
“Why? Because of unemployment and all the social problems with it. A bad economy will hurt and kill people in the future.”

Code Review of Ferguson’s Model

Lockdown Sceptics
"Imperial are trying to have their cake and eat it.  Reports of random results are dismissed with responses like “that’s not a problem, just run it a lot of times and take the average”, but at the same time, they’re fixing such bugs when they find them. They know their code can’t withstand scrutiny, so they hid it until professionals had a chance to fix it, but the damage from over a decade of amateur hobby programming is so extensive that even Microsoft were unable to make it run right."

Computer model that locked down the world turns out to be sh*tcode.

AxisOfEasy
It was an Imperial College computer model that forecasted 500K deaths in the UK (and 2.5 million in the US) should policymakers pursue a “herd immunity” approach (a la Sweden), that influenced them to reverse course and go full lockdown instead. The model was produced by a team headed by Neil Ferguson, (who recently resigned his post advising the UK government when it surfaced that he was himself violating lockdown directives by breaking self-isolation for dalliances with a married woman).
The source code behind the model was to be made available to the public, and after numerous delays and excuses in doing so, has finally been posted to GitHub

....The most worrisome outcome of the review is that the code produces “non-deterministic outputs”

Non-deterministic outputs. Due to bugs, the code can produce very different results given identical inputs. They routinely act as if this is unimportant.
This problem makes the code unusable for scientific purposes, given that a key part of the scientific method is the ability to replicate results. Without replication, the findings might not be real at all – as the field of psychology has been finding out to its cost. Even if their original code was released, it’s apparent that the same numbers as in Report 9 might not come out of it.

a lockdown only pushes the severe cases into the future

Epidemiologist Professor Johan Giesecke writes in The Lancet…
“… facts have led me to the following conclusions. Everyone will be exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, and most people will become infected. COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire in all countries, but we do not see it—it almost always spreads from younger people with no or weak symptoms to other people who will also have mild symptoms. This is the real pandemic, but it goes on beneath the surface, and is probably at its peak now in many European countries. There is very little we can do to prevent this spread: a lockdown might delay severe cases for a while, but once restrictions are eased, cases will reappear. I expect that when we count the number of deaths from COVID-19 in each country in 1 year from now, the figures will be similar, regardless of measures taken.”

Ten reasons why it’s still too soon to compare international death rates from Covid-19

CH
Professor Chris Whitty has explained that “all-cause mortality, age adjusted, and possibly seasonally adjusted” would be the most important measure – sentiment echoed by other Governmental advisers.
This is not them trying to avoid criticism, nor is it an ideological position.  .....
But no one can make any assessments without doing a proper analysis. And that means stripping back data so you know what you’re measuring. Lockdown and other interventions (or lack of interventions) have to be isolated to see their impact.As the Government says, all-cause mortality, adjusted by age, will ultimately be the best way to access this – as it’s the only measurement that can be properly compared across countries – all of which are dealing with and recording Covid-19."

Just 332 under-45s have died in UK from Corona. It's madness to keep them from work while our economy burns

Daily Mail

 There can be no better illustration of the calamitous collapse in Britain's output and wealth since lockdown began on March 23 than the 97.3 per cent fall in motor registrations last month.

As a financial writer, I have reported on Britain's humiliating search for a bail-out from the International Monetary Fund in 1976, on the stock market crash of 1987, the UK's ejection from the European Monetary System (precursor of the euro) in 1992 and the financial crisis of 2008-09. 

I can honestly say we've never had it so bad.  In spite of the valiant effort of our young and inexperienced Chancellor Rishi Sunak to keep the economy alive with a hugely expensive package of measures, the nation is heading for a slump, a surge of insolvencies and levels of unemployment almost certainly not seen in our lifetimes."

Critically-ill coronavirus patient with 'very grim' outlook is saved after NHS doctors gave him promising arthritis drug that is being trialed worldwide

Daily Mail

• Leonard Whitehurst was admitted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital on March 16
• His condition deteriorated and looked 'very grim', Dr Giorgio Gentile said
• The Dr had heard of the use of tocilizumab from colleagues in Italy
• He believes he is the first to try it in the UK ahead of large-scale trials
• Mr Whitehurst was given two doses, recovered and is now at home

critically-ill coronavirus patients will be given an arthritis drug in world's largest trial of promising therapies in NHS hospitals

Daily Mail

• Tocilizumab, sold as RoActemra or Actemra, added to the UK's Recovery trial
• It's hoped the drug can help calm deadly immune reaction which inflames lungs
• Trial has already recruited about 6,000 NHS patients from 160 trusts in a month

arthritis drug being used to treat coronavirus patients in China helped to cure 95 PER CENT of critically ill patients, scientists claim

Daily Mail

• Tocilizumab, marketed as Actemra, is taken by patients with rheumatoid arthritis
• It reduces inflammation, which is considered a complication of COVID-19
• It causes lung damage and organ failure, eventually death in most cases
• Chinese doctors gave it to 20 patients during the peak of the countries epidemic
• Nineteen were discharged within 14 days despite being critically ill
• Actemra has now been approved for use in China and for trials in the US

New test proves coronavirus was in Europe as early as December

Metro
Dr Yves Cohen, an intensive care chief in Paris, said new tests on patient samples has confirmed the presence of the virus in France weeks before the first officially recorded case. He told broadcaster BFMTV that his team revisited negative tests for flu and other coronaviruses on 24 patients who had been admitted to hospital with respiratory symptoms in December and January. He said: ‘Of the 24 patients, we had one positive result for Covid-19 on 27 December when he was in hospital with us.’ Dr Cohen said his team repeated the tests several times to confirm the result."

Dr Yves Cohen, an intensive care chief in Paris, said new tests on patient samples has confirmed the presence of the virus in France weeks before the first officially recorded case. He told broadcaster BFMTV that his team revisited negative tests for flu and other coronaviruses on 24 patients who had been admitted to hospital with respiratory symptoms in December and January. He said: ‘Of the 24 patients, we had one positive result for Covid-19 on 27 December when he was in hospital with us.’ Dr Cohen said his team repeated the tests several times to confirm the result.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/04/new-test-proves-coronavirus-was-europe-early-december-12653049/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Dr Yves Cohen, an intensive care chief in Paris, said new tests on patient samples has confirmed the presence of the virus in France weeks before the first officially recorded case. He told broadcaster BFMTV that his team revisited negative tests for flu and other coronaviruses on 24 patients who had been admitted to hospital with respiratory symptoms in December and January. He said: ‘Of the 24 patients, we had one positive result for Covid-19 on 27 December when he was in hospital with us.’ Dr Cohen said his team repeated the tests several times to confirm the result.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/04/new-test-proves-coronavirus-was-europe-early-december-12653049/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

France reports Covid-19 re-tests confirm virus there by Dec. 27th

Katya Adler (BBC)
Causing a stir in France this eve: Dr Yves Cohen says his hospital re-tested the blood of patients treated in December for pneumonia.. Found a man whose blood tested positive for #coronavirus This was 27 Dec. Before #COVIDー19 was thought to have arrived in France

China hid coronavirus severity to hoard supplies, says US intelligence report

ABC News (Australia)
Chinese leaders "intentionally concealed the severity" of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1.

Not classified but marked "for official use only," the Department of Homeland Security analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by "denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data," the analysis states.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organisation that the coronavirus "was a contagion" for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad — and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply......China informed the WHO of the outbreak on December 31. It contacted the US Centres for Disease Control on January 3 and publicly identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus on January 8.

'Economic Fallout Accelerated' - Hong Kong Records Worst Contraction In History

ZeroHedge
Beijing warned last week that Hong Kong was headed for the worst recession on record as full-year GDP forecasts were downgraded to between -4% to -7%. Estimates in February were roughly -1.5% contraction to +.50%, though the pandemic has undoubtedly created an economic shock that has roiled the city.
There are some signs that the virus spread is slowing in Asia. However, Iris Pang, Greater China economist at ING, warned that "social distancing "will continue to hurt catering and shopping." She warned that more Hong Kong protests are expected "over the summer holidays."

The Invisible Hand Of Markets Is Handcuffed To QE-Infinity... There Will Be Consequences

ZeroHedge
I’m interested in how the real economic outlook unfolds. What will that mean for markets?
It will be kind of ironic if the current rally proves a bear bounce and stocks now tumble just as we see the exit signs. 
The outlook for markets remains massively challenging. There is a very delicate balance underway: the market’s confidence in QE Infinity and Government fiscal support vs the real economic damage in terms of failing companies, dividend stops, rising unemployment and permanently broken supply chains. If that confidence breaks… then it’s a massive sell signal.

The risks are compounded because of how distorted and overvalued markets were before this crisis even began. The ultimate mistake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis may yet prove to be the market price distortions caused by QE were never unwound. These have keep bond prices high, interest rates artificially how, and though cheap debt and yield tourism, kept stock prices well above where they should be. We’ve been waiting for the invisible hand of markets to correct the imbalances for years – but they never did. The invisible hand of markets is handcuffed to QE Infinity!

Why Assets Will Crash

ZeroHedge
his is how it happens that boats that were once worth tens of thousands of dollars are set adrift by owners who can no longer afford to pay slip fees.
The increasing concentration of the ownership of wealth/assets in the top 10% has an under-appreciated consequence: when only the top 10% can afford to buy assets, that unleashes an almost karmic payback for the narrowing of ownership, a.k.a. soaring wealth and income inequality: assets crash.
Most of you are aware that the bottom 90% own very little other than their labor (tradeable only in full employment) and modest amounts of home equity that are highly vulnerable to a collapse of the housing bubble. (The same can be said of China's middle class, only more so, as 75% of China's household wealth is in real estate, more than double the percentage of wealth held in housing in U.S. households."

Australia a ‘standout loser’ for damaging economy without COVID-19 immunity, Nobel prize-winner says

theaustralian.com.au
One of the world’s top scientists has branded lockdowns a “huge mistake” and called Australia a “standout loser” for “massively” damaging its economy and society without obtaining immunity to COVID-19.    .....Professor of structural biology at Stanford University, he said “panic” stemming from “incorrect numbers” had prompted lockdowns whose damage “will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor – there is no doubt in my mind”. 

Professor Levitt said “excess deaths” in Europe so far this year had been around 140,000, which was “actually not that much” when seen in context of severe flu seasons. “In some of the worst flu episodes we get to those kinds of numbers, sometimes a bit more or sometimes a bit less,” he added.

“Flu kills young people two or three times more than the coronavirus … if we put those facts into the situation the burden of death from coronavirus will in Europe be less than that of bad flu,” he explained.

Professor Levitt said “herd immunity” was the “right policy”. Britain, with 441 death per million, “was on exactly the right track before they were fed wrong numbers, and now have made huge mistake,” he said, referring to modelling in March that said 500,000 people would die in Britain. “If we were to do this again we would insist on face masks, hand sanitiser, and some kind of payment that didn’t involve touching,” he added.

The Stanford professor, who has been closely analysing the infection and fatality numbers globally since January, said the growth in infections was “never exponential” and tended to peter out after about four weeks regardless of the severity of lockdowns.