The CDC Confesses To Lying About COVID-19 Death Numbers

Published on April 11, 2020, Written by Matthew Vadum
https://principia-scientific.org/the-cdc-confesses-to-lying-about-covid-19-death-numbers/

Can any government statistics on COVID-19 deaths be trusted?

It is an open question now that we are learning that the highly respected, world-class Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been lying to us.

This revelation comes a few days after I wrote here at American Thinker that New York City was lying about COVID-19 deaths. The normal rules about reporting deaths have been violated by that city in the rush to inflate the body count, presumably to steer more taxpayer money to the Big Apple.

That the CDC isn’t telling the truth to Americans is no conspiracy theory: it’s right out there in the open for everyone to see. The CDC openly admits that it is fudging the COVID-19 death figures.

We know this because, among other truth-tellers, a plainspoken small-town physician from Kalispell, Montana, has pulled back the curtain.

Dr. Annie Bukacek, MD, explained in a presentation how death certificates are made. (See “Montana physician Dr. Annie Bukacek discusses how COVID-19 death certificates are being manipulated,” YouTube, April 6)

Why should anyone care how a certificate of death is made?

Everyone should care “today when governments are making massive changes that affect our constitutional rights and those changes are based on inaccurate statistics,” Bukacek says.

The system is deeply flawed, she argues.
Few people know how much individual power and leeway is given to the physician, coroner, or medical examiner, signing the death certificate. How do I know this? I’ve been filling out death certificates for over 30 years.

More often than we want to admit, we don’t know with certainty the cause of death when we fill out death certificates. That is just life. We are doctors, not God. Autopsies are rarely performed and even when an autopsy is done the actual cause of death is not always clear. Physicians make their best guesstimate and fill out the form. Then that listed cause of death … is entered into a vital records data bank to use for statistical analysis, which then gives out inaccurate numbers, as you can imagine. Those inaccurate numbers then become accepted as factual information even though much of it is false.

This has been the way it has been done for some time, Bukacek says.


So even before we heard of COVID-19, death certificates were based on assumptions and educated guesses that go unquestioned. When it comes to COVID-19 there is the additional data skewer, that is –get this— there is no universal definition of COVID-19 death. The Centers for Disease Control, updated from yesterday, April 4th, still states that mortality, quote unquote, data includes both confirmed and presumptive positive cases of COVID-19. That’s from their website.

Translation? The CDC counts both true COVID-19 cases and speculative guesses of COVID-19 the same. They call it death by COVID-19. They automatically overestimate the real death numbers, by their own admission. Prior to COVID-19, people were more likely to get an accurate cause of death written on their death certificate if they died in the hospital. Why more accurate when a patient dies in the hospital? Because hospital staff has physical examination findings labs, radiologic studies, et cetera, to make a good educated guess. It is estimated that 60 percent of people die in the hospital. But even [with] those in-hospital deaths, the cause of death is not always clear, especially in someone with multiple health conditions, each of which could cause the death.

Bukacek refers to a March 24 CDC memo from Steven Schwartz, director of the Division of Vital Statistics for the National Center for Health Statistics, titled “COVID-19 Alert No. 2.”

“The assumption of COVID-19 death,” she says, “can be made even without testing. Based on assumption alone the death can be reported to the public as another COVID-19 casualty.”

There is a question-and-answer section on the memo.

One question is, “Will COVID-19 be the underlying cause?”

The answer is: “The underlying cause depends upon what and where conditions are reported on the death certificate. However, the rules for coding and selection of the underlying cause of death are expected to result in COVID-19 being the underlying cause more often than not.”

Another question is, “Should ‘COVID-19’ be reported on the death certificate only with a confirmed test?”

The answer is:

“COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.” [Boldfacing in original]

“You could see how these statistics have been made to look really scary when it is so easy to add false numbers to the official database,” Bukacek says. “Those false numbers are sanctioned by the CDC.”

“The real number of COVID-19 deaths are not what most people are told and what they then think,” she says.

“How many people have actually died from COVID-19 is anyone’s guess … but based on how death certificates are being filled out, you can be certain the number is substantially lower than what we are being told. Based on inaccurate, incomplete data people are being terrorized by fearmongers into relinquishing cherished freedoms.”

It’s hard to argue with what Dr. Bukacek says, but no doubt angry social media mobs will find a way as her chilling words enlighten the populace that has been bullied into submission.

Of course, the disease’s body count is not the sole concern we should have about the Chinese contagion, but it is undeniably the primary driver of the rampant mass hysteria that has allowed state and local governments across America to crush our cherished civil liberties.

As they say in newsrooms: if it bleeds, it leads. Deaths are always going to be more “sexy” than confirmed cases. It is the number that really, really counts, and Americans know this.

The fraudulent death statistics also give ammunition to the legions of snitches and scolds who try to shame their fellow Americans for attending church or playing catch in an empty park or taking a harmless drive in the countryside to prevent themselves from going stir-crazy.

The fake death data from the CDC, coupled with wild guesstimates from experts, and the relentless barrage of fear porn the mainstream media subjects Americans to around the clock, have been getting results, even with a plague that is, so far at least, underperforming.

First, experts told us 2.2 million Americans would die. Then the number fell off a cliff, plunging down to around 200,000.

As of April 8, the number of those expected to die from the disease by August 4 was down to 60,000, or roughly a very nasty flu season. The new figure comes from the influential model produced by the University of Washington that the White House regularly cites.

Has social-distancing, wearing face masks, hosing down packages with bleach, using hand sanitizer that is at least 60 percent alcohol, and washing hands with soap and water for a minimum of 20 seconds helped bring the grim worst-case-scenario body count down?

Probably, I’m guessing, but it’s hard to know for sure.

Maybe those epidemiological modelers can be forgiven for scaring the bejeezus out of Americans. Epidemiology is not, after all, an exact science, as its practitioners sometimes acknowledge.

But those who have force-fed modelers skewed data that led to the terrifying death forecasts that stampeded governors into pushing the nation down the road to totalitarianism need to be held to account.
Let the investigations begin.

Read more at www.americanthinker.com

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Possibilities for mail-in vote fraud: 16 million ballots went missing

Federal Data: 16.4M Mail-In Ballots Went Missing in 2016, 2018 Elections

3,735

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

JOHN BINDER

10 Apr 20201,396

3:08

About 16.4 million mail-in ballots went missing in the 2016 and 2018 elections, data provided to Breitbart News reveals.

The data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Election Administration and Voting Surveys for 2016 and 2018, provided by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), shows that between the 2016 and 2018 elections, roughly 16.4 million ballots mailed to registered voters went missing.

In the 2018 election, about 42.4 million ballots were mailed to registered voters. Of those mailed, more than one million were undeliverable, more than 430,000 were rejected, and nearly 10.5 million went missing.

The 2016 election showed similar discrepancies. That year, about 41.6 million ballots were mailed to registered voters. Of those mailed, more than 568,000 were undeliverable, nearly 320,000 were rejected, and close to six million went missing.

“Putting the election in the hands of the United States Postal Service would be a catastrophe. In 2018 and 2016, there were 16 million missing and misdirected ballots,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said in a statement. He went on:

These represent 16 million opportunities for someone to cheat. Absentee ballot fraud is the most common; the most expensive to investigate; and can never be reversed after an election. The status quo was already bad for mail balloting. The proposed emergency fix is worse.

Los Angeles County, California, for instance, had nearly 1.4 million mail-in ballots go missing in the 2018 election, while Maricopa County, Arizona saw 408,000 mail-in ballots go missing.

Likewise, Orange County, California, had 374,000 mail-in ballots go missing in 2018 and King County, Washington, had 353,000 mail-in ballots go missing.

San Diego County, Sacramento County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Alameda County, Santa Clara County — all located in California — saw a combined 1.6 million mail-in ballots go missing in the 2018 election.

Left-wing organizations, funded by billionaire George Soros, are spearheading a nationwide effort to hold mail-in state primaries and nationwide mail-in voting for the 2020 presidential election.

Research director of the Government Accountability Insititute Eric Eggers has said nationwide mail-in voting would potentially send ballots to an estimated 24 million ineligible voters — including two million dead voters and nearly three million voters who are registered to vote in more than one state.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/10/federal-data-16-4m-mail-in-ballots-went-missing-in-2016-2018-elections/

Copper kills coronavirus. Why aren’t our surfaces covered in it?

BY MARK WILSON, March 16, 2020
https://www.fastcompany.com/90476550/copper-kills-coronavirus-why-arent-our-surfaces-covered-in-it

[Source Images: ekimckim/Blendswap (toilet), blenderjunky/Blendswap (bathroom)]

Civilizations have recognized copper’s antimicrobial properties for centuries. It’s time to bring the material back.

In China, it was called “qi,” the symbol for health. In Egypt it was called “ankh,” the symbol for eternal life. For the Phoenicians, the reference was synonymous with Aphrodite—the goddess of love and beauty.

These ancient civilizations were referring to copper, a material that cultures across the globe have recognized as vital to our health for more than 5,o00 years. When influenzas, bacteria like E. coli, superbugs like MRSA, or even coronaviruses land on most hard surfaces, they can live for up to four to five days. But when they land on copper, and copper alloys like brass, they begin to die within minutes and are undetectable within hours. “We’ve seen viruses just blow apart,” says Bill Keevil, professor of environmental healthcare at the University of Southampton. “They land on copper and it just degrades them.”

No wonder that in India, people have been drinking out of copper cups for millennia. Even here in the United States, a copper line brings in your drinking water. Copper is a natural, passive, antimicrobial material. It can self-sterilize its surface without the need for electricity or bleach.

Copper boomed during the Industrial Revolution as a material for objects, fixtures, and buildings. Copper is still widely used in power networks—the copper market is, in fact, growing because the material is such an effective conductor. But the material has been pushed out of many building applications by a wave of new materials from the 20th century. Plastics, tempered glass, aluminum, and stainless steel are the materials of modernity—used for everything from architecture to Apple products. Brass door knobs and handrails went out of style as architects and designers opted for sleeker-looking (and often cheaper) materials.

Now Keevil believes it’s time to bring copper back in public spaces, and hospitals in particular. In the face of an unavoidable future full of global pandemics, we should be using copper in healthcare, public transit, and even our homes. And while it’s too late to stop COVID-19, it’s not too early to think about our next pandemic.

The benefits of copper, quantified

We should have seen it coming, and in reality, someone did.

In 1983, medical researcher Phyllis J. Kuhn wrote the first critique of the disappearance of copper she’d noticed in hospitals. During a training exercise on hygiene at Hamot Medical center in Pittsburgh, students swabbed various surfaces around the hospital, including toilets bowls and door knobs. She noticed the toilets were clean of microbes, while some of the fixtures were particularly dirty and grew dangerous bacteria when allowed to multiply on agar plates.

[Photo: Backiris/iStock]

“Sleek and shining stainless steel doorknobs and push plates look reassuringly clean on a hospital door. By contrast, doorknobs and push plates of tarnished brass look dirty and contaminating,” she wrote at the time. “But even when tarnished, brass—an alloy typically of 67% copper and 33% zinc—[kills bacteria], while stainless steel—about 88% iron and 12% chromium—does little to impede bacterial growth.”

Ultimately, she wrapped her paper up with a simple enough conclusion for the entire healthcare system to follow. “If your hospital is being renovated, try to retain old brass hardware or have it repeated; if you have stainless steel hardware, make certain that it is disinfected daily, especially in critical-care areas.”

Decades later, and admittedly with funding from the Copper Development Association (a copper industry trade group), Keevil has pushed Kuhn’s research further. Working in his lab with some of the most feared pathogens in the world, he has demonstrated that not only does copper kill bacteria efficiently; it also kills viruses. (In 2015, he even demonstrated this phenomenon with a precursor to COVID-19, coronavirus 229E).

In Keevil’s work, he dips a plate of copper into alcohol to sterilize it. Then he dips it into acetone to get rid of any extraneous oils. Then he drops a bit of pathogen onto the surface. In moments it’s dry. The sample sits for anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. Then he shakes it in a box full of glass beads and a liquid. The beads scrape off bacteria and viruses into the liquid, and the liquid can be sampled to detect their presence. In other cases, he has developed microscopy methods which allow him to watch—and record—a pathogen being destroyed by copper the moment it hits the surface.

The effect looks like magic, he says, but at this point, the phenomena at play is well-understood science. When a virus or bacteria strikes the plate, it’s flooded with copper ions. Those ions penetrate cells and viruses like bullets. The copper doesn’t just kill these pathogens; it destroys them, right down to the nucleic acids, or reproductive blueprints, inside.

“There’s no chance of mutation [or evolution] because all the genes are being destroyed,” says Keevil. “That’s one of the real benefits of copper.” In other words, using copper doesn’t come with the risk of, say, over-prescribing antibiotics. It’s just a good idea.

In real-world testing, copper proves its worth
Outside of the lab, other researchers have tracked whether copper makes a difference when used in real-life medical contexts–which includes hospital door knobs for certain, but also places like hospital beds, guest-chair armrests, and even IV stands.

In 2015, researchers working on a Department of Defense grant compared infection rates at three hospitals, and found that when copper alloys were used in three hospitals, it reduced infection rates by 58%. A similar study was done in 2016 inside a pediatric intensive care unit, which charted a similarly impressive reduction in infection rate.

But what about expense? Copper is always more expensive than plastic or aluminum, and often a pricier alternative to steel. But given that hospital-borne infections are costing the healthcare system as much as $45 billion a year—not to mention killing as many as 90,000 people—the copper upgrade cost is negligible by comparison.

Keevil, who no longer receives funding from the copper industry, believes the responsibility falls to architects to choose copper in new building projects. Copper was the first (and so far it is the last) antimicrobial metal surface approved by the EPA. (Companies in the silver industry tried and failed to claim it was antimicrobial, which actually led to an EPA fine.) Copper industry groups have registered over 400 copper alloys with the EPA to date. “We’ve shown copper-nickel is just as good as brass at killing bacteria and viruses,” he says. And copper nickel doesn’t need to look like an old trumpet; it’s indistinguishable from stainless steel.

As for the rest of the world’s buildings that haven’t been updated to rip out the old copper fixtures, Keevil has a piece of advice: “Don’t remove them, whatever you do. These are the best things you’ve got.”

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Chilling video reveals how coronavirus spreads from a single cough in a supermarket

https://www.foxnews.com/science/video-reveals-how-coronavirus-spreads-from-a-single-cough-in-a-supermarket

Researchers in Finland have created a chilling video that models how coronavirus could spread from a single cough in a supermarket.

The video was uploaded to YouTube by scientists at Finland’s Aalto University. “In the 3D model, a person coughs in a corridor bounded by shelves under representative indoor ventilation airflow conditions,” the video explains. “As a result of coughing, an aerosol cloud travels in the air to the corridor. It takes up to several minutes for the cloud to spread and disperse.”

“Preliminary results indicate that aerosol particles carrying the virus can remain in the air longer than was originally thought, so it is important to avoid busy public indoor spaces,” the researchers explain in a statement. “This also reduces the risk of droplet infection, which remains the main path of transmission for coronavirus.”

As of Thursday morning, at least 1.5 million coronavirus cases have been diagnosed worldwide, 2,605 of which are in Finland. The disease has accounted for at least 89,915 deaths around the world, including 42 people in Finland.

A screenshot from the video models how the aerosol cloud spreads from a person's cough. (Aalto University / Finnish Meteorological Institute / VTT / University of Helsinki: Animation: Mikko Auvinen and Antti Hellsten)

In their study, the researchers modeled the airborne movement of aerosol particles smaller than 20 micrometers, noting that the particle size for a dry cough is typically less than 15 micrometers.

“Extremely small particles of this size do not sink on the floor, but instead, move along in the air currents or remain floating in the same place,” they said in the statement.

A supercomputer at CSC, which is the Finnish IT Center for Science, and 3D-visualization technology, were used in the research.

The researchers modeled a situation in which a person coughs down a shelf-restricted corridor typical of grocery stores. (Photo: Petteri Peltonen / Aalto University)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently recommended wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, such as grocery stores and pharmacies. This is particularly important "in areas of significant community-based transmission," the CDC said.

The research was undertaken by experts from Finland’s Aalto University, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and the University of Finland.

Experts studied how small airborne aerosol particles are transported in the air when emitted from the respiratory tract when sneezing, coughing or even talking.

“The researchers modeled a scenario where a person coughs in an aisle between shelves, like those found in grocery stores; and taking into consideration the ventilation,” they said in the statement. Each research institution performed its modeling independently but employed the same starting conditions.

The researchers all obtained the same preliminary result.

“In the situation under investigation, the aerosol cloud spreads outside the immediate vicinity of the coughing person and dilutes in the process,” they explained, in the statement. “However, this can take up to several minutes.”

The study could have major implications for the spread of coronavirus.

"Someone infected by the coronavirus, can cough and walk away, but then leave behind extremely small aerosol particles carrying the coronavirus,” explained Aalto University Assistant Professor Ville Vuorinen in the statement. “These particles could then end up in the respiratory tract of others in the vicinity.”

Coronavirus now killing more Americans than cancer, heart disease: report

https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-now-killing-more-americans-than-cancer-heart-disease-report

COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is now the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. -- killing more people on average per day than cancer or heart disease.

The virus is the cause of 1,970 deaths in the U.S. per day, according to a graph published Tuesday by Dr. Maria Danilychev, based in San Diego, Calif. In comparison, the graph shows 1,774 deaths per day are attributed to heart disease and 1,641 to cancer, according to Newsweek.

The visualization comes as the death toll in the U.S has continued to dramatically rise in recent weeks. Fatalities surpassed 16,600 by the end of Thursday, an increase of more than 12,000 deaths from data posted by Johns Hopkins University just eight days earlier.

A patient is wheeled out of Elmhurst Hospital Center to a waiting ambulance, Tuesday, April 7, 2020, in the Queens borough of New York, during the current coronavirus outbreak. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is now the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. -- killing more people on average per day than cancer or heart disease. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) (AP)

Deaths related to the coronavirus across the U.S. hit 1,939 on Tuesday, which was also the highest single-day total for any country since the virus was first detected in China late last year.

Just a week ago, the graph, which cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Worldmeters.info as sources -- showed COVID-19 as the third leading cause of death, averaging roughly 975 fatalities per day.

On March 22, it showed COVID-19's daily death rate starting to surge, passing flu and pneumonia and suicide, as well as liver and kidney disease.

The graph features a time-lapse to show how daily deaths have increased since March 15.

Dr. James Lawler, a public health researcher at the University of Nebraska, estimated in mid-March that 480,000 deaths were a possibility if the infection and death rates stayed consistent at 30 and 0.5 percent, according to The New York Times.

That estimate would trail only behind cancer, which kills just under 600,000 Americans per year, and heart disease, which kills around 650,000, according to the Times.

New York has seen more than 161,000 coronavirus cases, with deaths in the state surpassing 7,000 on Thursday.

New York City, the epicenter for the outbreak in the U.S., saw its death toll rise past 5,000 on Thursday. The virus has now killed more than 2,000 more people than the number who died on 9/11.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said deaths in the state reached a third-straight daily record on Wednesday.

While the death rate has increased, reports have shown hospitalizations have decreased in some areas of the U.S. Cuomo added that hospitalization rates in New York have slowed due to social distancing measures.

"Our efforts are working," he said according to NPR. "They're working better than anyone projected they would work. That's because people are complying with them."

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that based on newer data, U.S. deaths will be lower than the original projection of 100,000 to 240,000 total deaths. A decrease in daily death rates usually lags behind hospitalization rates.

"I believe we are going to see a downturn in that, and it looks more like the 60,000 [range] than the 100,000 to 200,000," Fauci said, according to The Hill.

As of early Friday, the U.S. had more than 465,750 COVID-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

Coronavirus traces found in Massachusetts wastewater at levels far higher than expected

https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-traces-found-in-massachusetts-wastewater-at-levels-far-higher-than-expected

Coronavirus was detected in Massachusetts sewage at higher levels than expected, suggesting there are many more undiagnosed patients than previously known, according to a new study.

Researchers from biotech startup Biobot Analytics collected samples from a wastewater facility for an unnamed metropolitan area in late March, according to a report Tuesday on medRxiv.

Eric Alm, one of the authors of the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, stressed that the public is not at risk of contracting the virus from particles in the wastewater, but they may have the potential to indicate how widespread the virus has become, Newsweek reported.

“Even if those viral particles are no longer active or capable of infecting humans, they may still carry genetic material that can be detected using an approach called PCR (polymerase chain reaction,) which amplifies the genetic signal many orders of magnitude creating billions of copies of the genome for each starting virus,” Alm told the outlet.

The researchers, along with a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, analyzed the samples and found the number of coronavirus particles was on par with if there were 2,300 people infected with the virus.

But at the time of tests, there were only 446 confirmed cases in the region, according to the study.

“It was interesting that our estimation was definitely higher than the number of confirmed cases in the area,” said Mariana Matus, CEO and co-founder of Biobot, according to Stat News.

The researchers shared their findings with local health officials who said it was plausible there were hundreds of undetected cases.

“They could believe that [our] numbers could be correct and not out of the realm of possibility,” Matus told the outlet.

There’s nothing more relaxing for a Russian than a pandemic-induced disaster

‘I told you a crisis was coming!’ There’s nothing more relaxing for a Russian than a pandemic-induced disaster

8 Apr, 2020 10:06 / Updated 1 day ago

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People visit supermarket during mandatory self-isolation in St. Petersburg, Russia ©  Sputnik / Alexander Galperin

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By Diana Bruk, a Russian-American journalist living in New York, who has written for The New York Times, The Paris Review, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Elle, amongst other publications.

My usually morose father, born and brought up in the Soviet Union, is the jolliest he’s been in years. It’s not schadenfreude, honest — we Russians just love being vindicated over our obsession with preparing for the worst.

To be clear, my father is not a sadist.

Like virtually everyone else, he’s very sympathetic to anyone who’s been hospitalized and healthcare workers, concerned for his own health (he’s 63), and financially impacted by all of this. But he was also in the best mood I’d ever seen him, actually laughing on the phone as he delivered potatoes and pelmeni in what I humorously referred to as the first round of the Russian crisis care package (the next is a baseball bat, followed by an air rifle). 

My Russian friend and I joked that it was because his Soviet persecution complex had finally been vindicated. 

“We all laughed at your dad when he installed a security camera INSIDE the living room,” she said. “But he’ll be the most prepared when the looters arrive looking for toilet paper. The soundproof basement he built is basically already a panic room, and he can easily convert the garage into a bomb shelter.” 

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Russia’s Covid-19 cases jump by record 1,154, with 11 new fatalities pushing overall death toll to 58

As I looked around, I couldn’t help but notice that both I and all of my other Russian friends seemed to be — in many ways — the most relaxed we’d been in forever. 

“It’s because we were prepared,” another Russian friend said. “My mother has been living in the wilderness and going to bed with a chainsaw since I was born. Now the fact that she’s been growing her own vegetables for years is really paying off. She’s even making her own face masks for hospitals with her homemade sewing kit.” 

There’s a darkness to all of these jokes that we all understand without having to say it out loud. Most Russian Americans my age — 31 — were raised in relative privilege but grew up hearing the horror stories of World War II, the terror of Stalinism, the ache of not being able to feed your family in the early ‘90s. 

“It’s all going to be OK,” my father said, when I complained that there was no chicken left in Whole Foods. “We’ve dealt with long lines and empty shelves before.” 

In many ways, for us, it feels like we’re finally living out the nightmare our parents had always warned us about. People keep saying the coronavirus crisis is a war, and it certainly feels like one, even though it’s obviously not the same. Still, I feel a weird connection to my ancestors as I make another buckwheat dinner and wash my clothes by hand while singing Russian folk songs. I know the army motto: stay busy, stay positive, make jokes, and remember we’re all in it together. And don’t feel guilty about breaking out that pack of emergency cigarettes. 

ALSO ON RT.COMOrganizers want Russian WWII veterans who defeated Hitler to STAY AWAY from Victory Day parade over Covid-19 fears

There’s obviously a psychological element to all of this, given that — on a cultural level — Russians seem particularly prone to anxiety, and for good reason. We were all raised by people who were raised by people who had legitimate reasons to worry about making it out alive by nightfall, and anxiety is genetic. As experts will tell you, people who have generalized anxiety disorder often feel more calm in the event of an actual crisis. The invisible thing that you’ve been panicking over and silently dreading has finally happened, so now you can relax. And there’s a sense of solidarity in knowing that everyone is now waking up with the same feeling of existential panic that you experience on any given day. 

I feel a surge of love every time I see videos on social media of how Russians are handling the quarantine. There’s one in particular that resonates with me: a babushka casually drinking vodka on a balcony with her next door neighbor in the middle of a snowstorm, set to the soundtrack of Sluzhebniy Roman (Soviet comedy). 

Yes, I know it’s every Russian stereotype rolled into one, but it also exhibits what I love most about my culture: our resourcefulness, our ability to make the best out of bad situation, how we find ways to connect even if we have to stay apart, how we achieve victory over despair with humor, and the poetry that we see in loss. 

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/485253-pandemic-disaster-russians-prepared/