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“Pandemic Proportions”: COVID-19 Is Starting To Spiral Out Of Control All Over The Globe
This is already the most frightening virus outbreak that we have seen in the past several decades, and it appears that it is just getting started. A week ago, there were about 3,000 confirmed cases outside of China and now there are more than 10,000. 4,812 cases have been confirmed in South Korea, 2,036 cases have been confirmed in Italy, and 1,501 cases have been confirmed in Iran at this point. Of course by the time you actually read this article those numbers are likely to be significantly higher. It is like we are watching a really bad Hollywood disaster movie play out right in front of our eyes, and so far every effort to contain this virus has failed. On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci stunned many people when he told NBC News that COVID-19 has likely reached “pandemic proportions”…
News of the additional deaths came after Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News on Monday that the disease had likely reached ‘pandemic proportions’ as 100 cases were confirmed across the U.S.
‘We’re dealing with an evolving situation. We’re dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions,’ Dr Fauci said. ‘If you look at multiple definitions of what a pandemic is… multiple sustained transmissions of of a highly infectious agent in multiple regions of the globe.’
Dr. Fauci is definitely not an alarmist, and for him to use the word “pandemic” is a major red flag.
Last week a lot of people were pointing out that not a single American had died from this virus yet, but now six victims have died in the state of Washington alone…
Four more people have died of the coronavirus in Washington state, raising the death toll in the state and the nation to six, health officials said Monday.
Jeffrey Duchin, a health officer in King County and Seattle, said at a news conference Monday that five of the deaths were people from King County and one was from Snohomish County, north of Seattle.
If you live in the Seattle area, you need to understand that you are in the middle of a crisis zone. As I discussed yesterday, it is likely that the virus has been circulating in that region for weeks, and each day the number of potential carriers will only get higher.
At this point, local officials are specifically warning everyone to “avoid crowded settings if possible”…
“To increase your chances of staying healthy, avoid crowded settings if possible,” King County Public Health said on Twitter. “Especially if you are over 60, or have other chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, or a weakened immune system.”
There’s particular concern about the spread of the virus in nursing homes. One such facility, Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, said in a statement that one of its residents and one of its associates have been diagnosed with COVID-19. The center is banning visitors for now.
And this doesn’t mean that you will need to change your behavior for a few days or even a few weeks.
At a minimum, if you live in the Seattle area you are going to want to avoid crowded settings for the next several months.
Of course it is just a matter of time before other major cities are facing similar outbreaks. In recent days the number of states with confirmed cases has grown quite a bit larger…
- Arizona – 1
- California – 20
- Florida – 2
- Illinois – 4
- Massachusetts – 1
- New York – 1
- Oregon – 3
- Rhode Island – 2
- Washington state – 18 (includes 6 fatalities)
- Wisconsin – 1
Unfortunately, this list probably only represents the very small tip of a very large iceberg. Up until just recently, the CDC was mandating that the only people that should be tested are those that have traveled to China or those that have had close contact with a known victim. By using such restrictive criteria, the number of Americans being tested was kept extremely low, and a lot of infected people slipped through the cracks.
Now this virus has escaped containment, and authorities are telling us that “community spread” is inevitable all over the United States.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 continues to sweep across much of the rest of the planet like wildfire.
In Iran, the fact that a top adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei just died from the virus made headlines all over the globe…
AN adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died of coronavirus, state media reported today.
Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71, died in hospital in Tehran as the pariah nation reels from a worsening outbreak that has left several senior officials in hospital.
But despite the fact that the number of confirmed cases in Iran is escalating at an exponential rate, and despite the fact that dozens of Iranians have already died, many Iranians continue to engage in the practice of “kissing and licking Shi’ite shrines throughout the country”…
Videos spreading on social media are showing Iranians kissing and licking Shi’ite shrines throughout the country as many call to close the shrines amid a severe coronavirus outbreak in the Islamic Republic.
The epicenter of the outbreak in Iran, Qom, is a religious city home to several shrines. The shrines remain open as some reports place the death toll in Iran in the hundreds.
Can you believe that?
We live at a time when it seems like much of the world has gone nuts. Most people believe whatever they feel like believing, and most people do whatever they feel like doing. But there are always consequences for our actions, and I have a feeling that this virus is going to spread particularly rapidly in the Middle East.
Here in the United States, it appears that this outbreak is far more extensive than we are being told. As the U.S. starts to finally ramp up testing, it is inevitable that a lot more existing cases will be found. In fact, in just a little while I will be posting an article on End Of The American Dream about an ER doctor in New York that is claiming that there is “going to be thousands” of confirmed cases inside this country by next week.
I don’t think that it is going to happen quite that rapidly, but it appears to be inevitable that the number of cases is going to be steadily rising.
This is not a drill. This is an exceedingly dangerous virus that is killing people all over the planet, and we need to prepare for a scenario in which this crisis could extend for many months or even for several years.
About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.
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Fortunately, or perhaps not, depending on how you personally handle choices, is the fact that companies today rarely leave a design untouched for long. There’s always something better. Something new. Something more powerful, lighter, stronger. It never ends until you end it personally. To be truly content with an outdoor tool, the very existence of the tool must become invisible in the presence of its task. The object itself must melt into the background completely overshadowed by its capabilities.
The
I’ve been a big fan of headlamps ever since my first one that used four D-cell batteries carried in a red plastic belt-mounted case with a heavy wire leading to a rubber headband containing a large plastic flashlight-like head. Although that particular light worn on the head (or helmet) was heavy, dim, and had a short runtime, it opened up the world of hands-free lighting.
The microUSB charging port on the
As a comparison, my other superlight headlamp is the Streamlight Bandit LED headlamp. However, the Bandit has never seemed to be much of a performer outside of it’s tiny footprint and low weight. The light it casts is bland and shallow, and the on-off button is troublesome with bare fingers and near-impossible with gloves. Until new interfaces are discovered, the finger-push button will remain the industry standard as long as the finger is also the standard. That fact limits how small or sensitive a headlamp interface can be. Black Diamond does have some touch control headlamps, but only minor systems like brightness. The main I/O is still a rubber-covered index-finger-ready switch.
The
The Bandit actually contains 10 individual LEDs in a row across the front of the headlamp window. Rated at 180 lumens, I suspect that it means that each of those individual LEDs is about 18 lumens thus totaling 180. You can do that. But the human eye does not agree. Two 50 lumen flashlights do not appear as bright as a single LED 100 lumen one. So lumens are only one kind of reference point. Imagine fighting a fire with a garden hose that sprays water at 10 gallons per minute. Now get nine more hoses giving you 100 gallons per minute output. Compare that to a single hose blasting out 100 gallons per minute. While not quite the same as our eye’s logarithmic interpretation of brightness, you can see that there is more behind the lumen number than just quantity. The initial single-point brute force lumen number is appears greater than the sum of multiple lesser lumens with an equivalent total.
Both the BioLite HeadLamp 200 and the Bandit tilt downward. It seems that around 60 degrees down (a little more than half way) is about right for most close tasks and is the limit of theBioLite HeadLamp 200. Any more and the glare off your nose will be a problem. But that doesn’t stop the Bandit. Since it uses a dual clip mechanism to allow it to attach (and shortly thereafter fall off of) a baseball cap brim, it can fold 180 degrees allowing you to point the light directly into your own eyes. But the big difference is the operation of the on/off switch. Both the
For fans of a red light, there is both a red flood (solid on) and a red strobe option. Red light is the longest wavelength our eyes can see. Anything longer is infrared or beyond (microwaves, radio waves, etc.). By using a red light source, the retina stays within its scotopic (rods) black and white vision mode. A white light would cause the retina to transition into the photopic (cones) color vision mode which is much less sensitive in low light. So even though you are using an artificial light source, the red wavelengths are as close to dark as possible meaning when you turn off the red light, you still have dark-adapted vision. There is little to no time delay between seeing under the red light, and with ambient moon light.
The 