Page 36 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 6

MY AFRIKA

place forbidding international I saw on Twitter that Hanks
movement, then local move- had announced that he and his
Chioma ment, then personal interac- wife had caught the Corona
Phillips is the tions, then personal hygiene Virus and were quarantined in
editor of mandates, then purchases of Australia’s Gold Coast and now
msingi afrika items deemed non-essential they’re talking about using his
magazine. and waited with bated breath blood to create a vaccine. Not
editor@ and almost universal approv- a coincidence. I don’t believe
msingiafri- al for a cure – most probably in those. Incidentally, ‘Inferno’
kamagazine. a mandatory vaccine. All this is about a viral super-weapon
com happened in quick succession, (called Inferno) that was cre-
once the world had inhaled the ated by an unstable billionaire
mind numbing gas of fear. geneticist and has the capacity
If we take a look back in time, to wipe out half of the world’s
we can find some interesting population. On October, 2019,
crumbs that can lead us to the a few short months BEFORE
orona Virus strutted
truth, if we’re curious enough. the outbreak was announced,
onto the global scene
By now you may know that a Johns Hopkins Center for
like a gangster, who
patent for an attenuated live vi- Health Security in partnership
Cwas ready to take down
rus was applied for in 2015 and with the World Economic Forum
the whole world. It became the
issued in 2018 to the Pirbright and the Bill and Melinda Gates
newest and fastest spreading
Institute, which has as major Foundation held a ‘high-level
fear-demic the world had expe-
stakeholders the WHO and The pandemic exercise’ in New
rienced by far, partly because of
Bill and Melinda Gates Founda- York, ‘simulating an outbreak of
global inter-connectedness, and
tion, among others. In February a novel zoonotic corona-virus
primarily because of the seeds
2017, at the Munich Security transmitted from bats to pigs to
of fear that had been sown for
Conference, Bill Gates said: people…’ (just like the scenario
decades into the hearts of men.
“Whether it occurs by a quirk in the movie Contagion) even-
These seeds had been plant-
of nature or at the hand of a tually becoming ‘transmissible
ed using books, movies, news
terrorist; epidemiologists say a from person to person, leading
and global health scenarios
fast-moving airborne pathogen to a severe pandemic.’ In this
each of which portrayed the
could kill more than 30 million table top simulation, the pan-
worst possible outcome. News
people in less than a year. And demic known as CAPS (Coro-
reports, books and movies that
they say there is a reason- navirus Associated Pulmonary
had used vivid imagery and
able probability the world will Syndrome) ‘killed’ 65 million
sound to convey messages of
experience such an outbreak people in a simulated 18-month
utter misery, suffering and help-
in the next 10 to 15 years.” In period.
lessness in the face of certain
April 2018 at a discussion on For those who have stopped to
doom. The world was fertile
epidemics, Bill Gates present- consider why there have been
ground for the fear of death to
ed a simulation by the Institute increasing numbers of ‘dooms-
take root in and spread rapidly.
of Disease Modelling showing day’ or ‘post apocalypse’ mov-
And like a choking weed, in
a new flu could kill 30 million ies on the aftermath of a virus
the face of the so-called pan-
people within six months. In his or nuclear fallout, you may want
demic, this fear spread far and
speech he talked about how to start to think carefully about
wide. Almost the entire world
movies give the impression of the power of movies to create
became an out of control mob,
preparedness that the world subliminal impressions in the
panic-buying and locking them-
does not have, and he men- mind and to influence conscious
selves at home, while attacking
tioned the movie Contagion, thought and response.
those who did not do like they
the series 24 and the movie As soon as the Corona Virus
did or look like they did. The
Inferno, starring Tom Hanks ‘outbreak’ was announced in
panic-stricken nodded in quiet
who the very same day (12th China (the date of its start, the
acquiescence while new laws
March 2020) that I saw the duration of its spread and the
and regulations were put in
2018 Gates presentation online, date of its announcement in
36 | heal . restore . rebirth . Afrika