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The Day the World Became China: Tuesday March 10th 2020

by Eugyppius
31 March 2023 11:00 AM

I’d like to draw your attention to Jeffrey Tucker’s recent piece at Brownstone, on ‘How They Convinced Trump to Lock Down‘.

The problem he addresses is a chronological one. As late as March 9th 2020, Donald Trump was arguing vehemently to stay open, and emphasising that no shutdowns had ever been enacted to stop seasonal influenza. By March 11th, he suddenly declared himself “fully prepared to use the full power of the Federal Government to deal with our current challenge of the CoronaVirus!”

Tucker asks:

What changed? Deborah Birx reports in her book that Trump had a friend die in a New York hospital and this is what shifted his opinion. Jared Kushner reports that he simply listened to reason. Mike Pence says he was persuaded that his staff would respect him more. No question (and based on all existing reports) that he found himself surrounded by ‘trusted advisors’ amounting to about five or so people (including Mike Pence and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb). …

Something about this story has never really added up. How could one person have been so persuaded … ? He surely had other sources of information – some other scenario or intelligence – that fed into his disastrous decision. 

Isolating the date in the trajectory here, it is apparent that whatever happened to change Trump occurred on March 10th 2020, the day after his Tweet saying there should be no shutdowns.

Tucker hypothesises that the sudden reversal is related to a decision, taken around this time, to place American pandemic policy in the hands of the National Security Council, rather than the ordinary public health offices. He suggests these steps ultimately represent suspicion that the virus had been enhanced in a laboratory.

Note, though, that crucial date: Whatever happened to change Trump’s mind, happened on March 10th 2020. This is the precise day that the Italian lockdowns, at first exclusive to Lombardy, were extended to the whole country; and it is also the day that Silicon Valley thinkfluencer and general pandemic cipher Tomás Pueyo posted his first, mysteriously viral Medium essay on ‘Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now’.

I hardly ever bold for emphasis on this blog, but I’ve made an exception here, because these coincidences are hugely important.

Pueyo’s significance is often overlooked by my friends on the other side of the Atlantic, because the pandemic in America and the pandemic in Europe were very different. If you had to pick a single figure most responsible for bringing lockdowns to Europe, though, that figure would be Pueyo and his ominously dumb blog posts.

Pueyo’s March 10th essay and his March 19th follow-up on ‘The Hammer and the Dance‘ racked up tens of millions of views within days, were discussed at the highest levels of multiple European governments, and received translations into nearly 40 languages. Pueyo went on British television to debate Government epidemiologists about their herd immunity approach; in a secret strategy document, German modellers named their ideal scenario of maximum restrictions ‘Hammer and Dance’ after him.

Almost as important as the sheer fact of Pueyo’s influence, is the content of his blog posts, which reveal a definite and well-informed strategy. ‘The Hammer and the Dance’ was a deeply successful attempt to popularise the assumptions behind Neil Ferguson’s notorious March 16th modelling paper demanding lockdowns in the United Kingdom, making his basic idea universally applicable (and no longer specific to the British health system) and more politically palatable. The March 10th piece, timed exactly to Trump’s change in attitude, transparently popularises the basic arguments and thin research underpinning the late-February report endorsing Chinese-style lockdowns issued by the WHO-China joint mission. It was with this report that the WHO abandoned all prior pandemic plans and recommended lockdowns to the rest of the world.

Without Pueyo, it’s very likely the dry WHO report would’ve gone mostly unread. Relatedly, Ferguson’s lockdown mania wouldn’t have even a fraction of the influence without those millions and millions of Medium impressions. Pueyo turned the incipient pseudoscience behind lockdowns into a popular, viral internet phenomenon, which seized the minds of people across the West and created popular enthusiasm for novel mass containment policies.

The sequence of events, then, is this:

  1. The WHO-China joint mission endorses lockdowns at the end of February.
  2. All of Italy locks down in accordance with the recommendations of this report between March 8th and 10th.
  3. Also on March 10th, Pueyo released his viral blog post, explaining in heavily annotated, easy-to-understand pseudoscientific prose and imagery the WHO/Chinese case for locking down.
  4. Donald Trump immediately abandons his prior minimisation of Covid and promises to use all his powers to “deal with” the virus.

One theory would simply be that Tomás Pueyo’s posts resounded within the American national security establishment as much as they did in European governments, and convinced Trump that he had to “act now.” Birx, Pence, Kushner and the rest can’t agree on a story about why he changed his mind, because the truth – that he or his closest advisers were convinced by a sciencey viral blog post – is too ridiculous to admit.

Another theory – not necessarily mutually exclusive – would be that Pueyo’s work was brought to prominence via algorithmic manipulations, bots, influencer amplification, or other means, to support decisions which were taken in the days leading up to March 10th, and which were probably related in some way to the general Italian lockdown announced on that day.

This piece originally appeared on Eugyppius’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.

Tags: Biodefence networkChinaChinese Communist PartyCovid originsLockdownNeil FergusonPropagandaTomas Pueyo

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12 Comments
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago

“Another theory – not necessarily mutually exclusive – would be that Pueyo’s work was brought to prominence via algorithmic manipulations, bots, influencer amplification, or other means, to support decisions which were taken in the days leading up to March 10th, and which were probably related in some way to the general Italian lockdown announced on that day.”

How whyever would someone have wanted to support such decisions via such manipulation?

I simply do not buy the theory that the US administration were bounced into lockdowns by some blog post, or that they were keen to emulate the Chinese whom they obviously love so much.

31
-2
stewart
stewart
2 years ago

If the WHO proposed global lockdowns and the whole of Italy locked down all before this Pueyo character wrote a blog, then this is just a red herring. The decision was made earlier by others. At most this Pueyo is an additional cog in a much larger wheel.

Much more striking, in my view is that one of the five advisers to Trump was a Pfizer board member. I’ll bet there were a few other pharma execs and/or vaccine enthusiasts (wink, wink) involved in the WHO’s endorsement of lockdowns.

52
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust.

27
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Uncle Monty
Uncle Monty
2 years ago

My mini theory:
Marxist panjandrums inhabiting the higher echelons of public health and the civil service pushed innumerate, over cautious governments to enact plans that they calculated would bring us all closer to their utopian vision: the popular acceptance of totalitarian government control.
Unbeknownst to the useful idiot Marxists, their utopian vision also aligns perfectly with that of the Satanic elite who wish to imprison and then destroy humanity so that the Earth becomes their demonic playground.

Last edited 2 years ago by Uncle Monty
39
-2
Paramaniac
Paramaniac
2 years ago

Six days later on 16th March 2020 I wrote in The Times comments on the article entitled ‘From plague-ravaged London of 1665, words of hope from Samuel Pepys’:
“My advice as a Paramedic is to self isolate for 2 weeks and spend your time reading ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds’ by Charles Mackay. It’s the only known cure.”

Say what you want about my views (that Covid 19 doesn’t exist) but at least I’ve been consistent.

Last edited 2 years ago by Paramaniac
29
-1
Mogwai
Mogwai
2 years ago
Reply to  Paramaniac

I think, much like hypnotism, some people are obviously way more susceptible to it and open to suggestion then others. There’s no way even Derren Brown could get me on stage dancing the Funky Chicken, for instance, but many others would be prime targets for such elaborate manipulation. This is the double-edged sword that is the human condition, unfortunately. Sadly many will live out the entirety of their remaining lives clinging on to their delusions. I do believe Covid was a thing they made in a lab and it existed but it was never ever a threat, therefore the flu had to be re-branded and made into a virus of next-level deadly status. What with denial of meds such as antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia and ivermectin etc, the fraudulent tests and the diagnosing of every influenza-like illness as ‘Covid’ ( not forgetting the nonsensical positive test within 28 days and you go down as being a ‘Covid case/death’ to inflate the numbers to increase the fear porn ) then you can see how they pulled off the biggest PsyOp of all time. People had to die of respiratory illness, whether it be genuine or fraudulently misattributed as such, in order to get those all important death numbers up because fear must be stoked in order for the masses to be more easily controlled at all costs.
I’m a bit wishy washy really because then I listen to Mike Yeadon, who no longer thinks Covid ever existed, and I’m swayed by his reasoning. So I’ve got splinters in my bum at this moment in time tbh. The fact mass formation existed and played a part is indisputable but I don’t think that saying it was all in our heads because the world took leave of their senses adequately explains it. That’s too simplistic an explanation in my opinion.

32
-1
Paramaniac
Paramaniac
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Totally understand where you’re coming from. The possibility that Covid 19 never existed is just too mind blowing for most skeptics to contemplate.
If they could though, and understand that it is entirely possible, then it would be a far more devastating weapon to use against our mutual enemy, the ‘elites’ that were in charge of this disaster.
First off, ALL the deaths would be down to them, the Doctors, the scientists, the politicians and the media. They’re being let off by still being able to use the Covid ‘virus’ as an excuse and being able to continue to argue that they weren’t to blame. Arguing about the severity (not the existence) of the virus will just result in them getting off the hook.
Secondly the utter, utter humiliation that they went insane over an imaginary virus (and killed millions) would be too much to bare for their credibility now, and forever in the future.
We need to stop playing their game and start to hit them where it really hurts, their arrogant egos.

28
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
2 years ago
Reply to  Paramaniac

Couldn’t agree more, but how do we hit them?

7
0
Paramaniac
Paramaniac
2 years ago
Reply to  DevonBlueBoy

Spread the word!

James Delingpole:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/covid-imaginary-pandemic-of-the-brainwashed/

Mike Yeadon:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-i-dont-believe-there-ever-was-a-covid-virus/

And the most important, as an example of hysteria over an imaginary illness having occurred before, the 2006 Dartmouth Hitchcock Whooping cough outbreak where the PCR was 0% accurate and there was NO whooping cough:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html

5
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
2 years ago

”A Belgian married father-of-two has died by suicide after talking to an AI chatbot about his global warming fears.
The man, who was in his thirties, reportedly found comfort in talking to the AI chatbot named ‘Eliza’ about his worries for the world. He had used the bot for some years, but six weeks before his death started engaging with the bot more frequently.
The chatbot’s software was created by a US Silicon Valley start-up and is powered by GPT-J technology – an open-source alternative to Open-AI’s ChatGBT.
Without these conversations with the chatbot, my husband would still be here,’ the man’s widow told La Libre, speaking under the condition of anonymity.
The death has alerted authorities who have raised concern for a ‘serious precedent that must be taken very seriously’.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11920801/Married-father-kills-talking-AI-chatbot-six-weeks-climate-change-fears.html

18
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
2 years ago

It wasn’t difficult to see that they were going to try something in February and March of 2020 given the projection in terms of a complete collapse of markets. My first impresion that it was a sort of in-joke and we all knew the virus didn’t exist but we had to pretend it did. And of course given the dependence of political parties on real time metrics it became suddenly quite clear which instincts would be catered for. Now they aren’t stronger than they were before they are much weaker. And so it is good that they showed their true colours. They can’t win I see this time that we are living through as essentially a triumph.

9
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
2 years ago

You shouldn’t perceive this as an expresion of energy that we have got out of our system. Apparently over forty percent of Brits hanker for the days of the lockdown. That is a pretty demoralised population. It is simply not possible to think that you can endure as a country with that level of despondency given the ruthlessness of reality. But you can’t breathe life into a corpse.

11
0

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