Several noted astrologers in India — where a total of 99 COVID fatalities had been reported this past weekend — have expressed assurances that the novel coronavirus will have run its course by mid-summer, at the latest.
According to astrologer Parappanangadi Unnikrishna Panicker predicts coronavirus will virtually cease to exist in India come May, 2020.
“After May, there will be very few coronavirus patients left here. It will almost finish by April’s end. Coronavirus hates the sun, and summer season has begun in most parts of the country. Sun will protect us, for sure,” he said.
My casual research into recent surveys of US residents suggests that about 25% of Americans believe in astrology, although the level of belief is considerably higher among young adults aged 18-29 years — reportedly approaching 60%.
Most Americans, meanwhile, firmly believe in science. A 2019 survey, by the Pew Research Center, calculated that 86% of Americans ‘trust’ that scientists act ‘in the public interest’. This compares to 47% who trust news media, and 35% who trust politicians.
Medical scientists ranked even higher, at an 87% ‘trust’ level.
But exactly which medical scientists do we want to trust in the midst of a viral pandemic?
On March 31 — the day before April Fools Day — the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force released a prediction, endorsed by task force coordinators Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, projecting 100,000 to 240,000 COVID-19 fatalities in the US.
The day that report was released, the US had seen 800 fatalities.
Several days earlier, Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and professor of structural biology at Stanford University, released an analysis of global COVID cases he’d begun in January, and calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted. He foresaw a similar outcome for the United States, and the rest of the world.
While some epidemiologists were expecting months of social disruption and millions of deaths, Levitt argued the data simply didn’t support such a dire scenario, especially in areas where reasonable social distancing measures are in place.
“What we need is to control the panic,” he said.
Levitt emailed his report to a number of colleagues on February 1, predicting that — thanks to ‘social distancing’ and other public health policies — China would likely see a total of 80,000 cases and about 3,250 fatalities.
The professor’s prediction was rather remarkable in its apparent accuracy.
According to official Chinese news sources, by March 16 the new infection rate in China had dropped to about 25 new cases per day, and the total number of infections stood at 80,298. A total of 3,245 patients had reportedly died of COVID-19.
In a nation of 1.3 billion with a government-controlled media, the viral epidemic appears to be ramping down after two-and-a-half months of government-enforced ‘social distancing.’ As of yesterday, China was reporting only 3,330 fatalities.
We’re uncertain whether China has been drastically under-reporting its confirmed cases and fatalities. But we note that several other Asian countries have reportedly seen their rate of new infections essentially flat-line over the past couple of weeks — including Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. Declining infection rates are also being seen now in France and Italy.
The US, meanwhile, yesterday reported a total of 8,407 COVID deaths since the first fatal case on February 29.
Why would a Trump administration task force want to release a prediction of up to 240,000 deaths?
I can think of one possible reason. If the actual number turns out to be 40,000 — more than ten times the total being reported by China — the administration will be able to claim that its deliberate, timely handling of the emergency saved 200,000 American lives.