Year of the Plague – 5 – From Whence the Coronavirus – Preliminary Considerations

Moutnain bluebird among the grasses at Clear Creek Valley Park.

1. Clear Creek Valley Park

We have tried to go for a walk every day for the past ten days or so that we have been self-isolating. We’ve taken the suggestion – now a legal directive – seriously. The walks have been 2-3 miles, an hour, hour and a half in different parts of the Metro area, mostly near our home.

Yesterday we went over to Clear Creek Valley Park where I have frequently taken photos of bird life of which there is a good deal at different times of the year. To get out of the house or apartment for an hour or two, people are streaming into Denver area parks, although there were very few others out at Clear Creek Valley Park yesterday; those who were there – four or five – were careful to keep their distance as were we.

The park sits just north of Cherry Creek – for those familiar with the area between Lowell Blvd and Tennyson Street at approximately W. 59 Ave in southwest Adams County a few blocks north of the Denver city line. It’s not “a beautiful” park because it’s bereft of trees. Essentially it’s a series of former gravel pits, the dirt and gravel of which was used to build the nearby highway I-76.

After the gravel was removed the pits were filled with water from Clear Creek making a series of ponds that bird life, especially ducks and other water birds – herons, egrets, avocets – thrive in. Lately Adams County has added a playground, peers jutting out from the main pond for fishermen, of which there are almost always some. It is starting to be frequented by more people. Three miles from our home in northwest Denver, we’re out of the city – I wouldn’t overstate it – but somewhat out there in Nature, and since my retirement I spend a good deal of time here.

As so we walked.

The bird life is picking up. First we saw a group of five mountain blue birds with their blue blacks, striped black tails and gray underbellies. There were a large group, twenty or more, gadwells in one pond, a few American wigeons and ringnecked ducks in another. The female redtailed hawk, a part of a couple that often perches on a cable tower was there too. I looked to see if a nearby osprey nest on Lowell is occupied. Not yet.

Was able to get a few decent shots.

At one point we ran into neighbor-friends, Marie and Doug Edgar, who were out getting their walking in. We talked – I’d say at a distance of ten feet for a few minutes and then each went our separate ways. We talked briefly about how difficult – but important self-isolation is. Later I learned across the backyard fence – again carefully distanced at more than ten feet – that other neighbors had visited the same part earlier in the day.

Of course all the emphasis is put on our responsibility as individuals to self isolate and very little to nothing is mentioned about the responsibility of the state to organize an active response, with the Trump Administration floundering to find an effective antidote to the growing pandemic. Fear is everywhere, in large measure because our knowledge of the pandemic and how to address it is weak, information contradictory.

2. Something is fishy (again) in Washington DC

The mainstream narrative concerning the origin of the Coronavirus widely reproduced in the US media – and beyond – is simple and direct – that it originated “by animal-to-human transmission in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, that it spread from there internationally. From the outset I have wondered about that.

Having a certain experience with dissembling mainstream narratives appearing in the media from the very outset I wondered about “the China-did-it” finger pointing.

Another curious thing – the suggestion that the Trump Administration was not aware of the Coronavirus threat earlier was not credible. A number of credible reports are surfacing in sources like the NY Times and Washington Post that both the President and Congress have been briefed repeatedly on its potential damage as early as January but did nothing to either alert the public or prepare for an active medical response.

While some Congresspeople in the know were dumping stock, the public was kept essentially in the dark as to the dangers that were about to burst on the scene.  With certainly the most expensive, and probably one of the best intelligence services in the world that includes medical intelligence, it is not illogical to have thought that the threat would have both been identified earlier and a serious public warning  announced to the American people and the world. Those who claim that the Coronavirus pandemic is the most far-reaching global crisis since World War II are proven more accurate each day.

But none of that happened.

By now the Trump Administration’s fumbling lack of preparedness – which continues  – is obvious to all as are its devastating consequences. No doubt the task at hand is to bring the pandemic under control worldwide, including here in the USA where the extent of its impact is yet to be felt. Nothing could be more important.

Now a few weeks into the active part of the crisis, questions are being raised about how it all began. Scott Ritter, a former UN Weapons inspector who was apart of the team that looked into the Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” allegation has written a well documented piece that uncovers the bureaucratic bungling that was going on in the nation’s intelligence apparatus.

The article is revealing in two ways:

1. It shows a decay in U.S. security medical monitoring and a shrinking transparency about pandemic research, which contributed to a delay in the public’s understanding of the the seriousness of the pandemic
2. It suggests – although does not prove – that the mainstream narrative as to the virus’ origin – is perhaps inaccurate and that it is possible that the virus did not originate in China

The Trump Administration has become increasingly defensive in responding to the increasingly insistent Chinese claim that the Coronavirus did not originate in China, but was instead brought into Wuhan Province from the outside. They are pointing their finger at the USA. As Ritter’s article notes:

“The importance of this date as it relates to the NCMI is that in mid-October 2019 a delegation of 300 U.S. military athletes arrived in Wuhan to participate in the 2019 Military World games. China has suggested that these personnel might have introduced the coronavirus infection to Wuhan, citing their own research that suggests that the virus was introduced into China from elsewhere, and Japanese and Taiwanese studies that point to the U.S. as the likely source of the virus.

There is, however, no independent evidence to support these allegations.

The fact that there is, at the time, “no independent evidence” suggests we should hold our fire for the

Clear Creek Valley Park’s Redtail Hawk atop a cell tower where it is often perched

time being on drawing too many conclusions, but at the same time not that the countries corroborating the Chinese allegation are important U.S. allies – Japan and Taiwan. There is another aspect of this article that I found curious – that the delegation of several hundred U.S. military athletes who participated in October, 2019 Military World Games – who ever heard that that? – did not the standard medical exams when returning to the USA. Again, more of a curiosity than an outright formal allegation… but still.

The main point of republishing Ritter’s article – with this allegation – is that it calls into question the mainstream narrative as to how the Coronavirus pandemic initially began. It is not necessary to say the Chinese are innocent – they sat on this pandemic for too long – as did the Iranians, the French and the Trump Administration – not taking the threat seriously until it was already far along. This is the common feature of all governments’ to date: they have procrastinated and then themselves, panicked when they could no longer hide the seriousness of the issue.

Here is a link to the article in full. Good stuff.

Scott Ritter: The Staggering Collapse of U.S. Intelligence on the Coronavirus