"The great plague and darkness will come before the Ball of Redemption." - Our Lady, March 25, 1973

Coronavirus is now reported to have spread to 150 countries. We will all know soon enough if this is one of the plagues prophesied by Our Lady of the Roses, and is even the "great plague" mentioned so many times in the Bayside messages. 

We must all increase our prayers, asking God to have mercy on the world for its sins, and ask our bishops and priests to encourage the Catholic faithful to pray the Rosary daily for an end to this pandemic.  

Additionally, we all need to get up to speed on the progression and nature of this pandemic, and spiritually/materially prepare ourselves for what lies ahead. To know what we are up against we need to learn from the medical experts, those doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and other health care professionals who have given their lives to literally save ours.  

Right now, my go-to sources for coronavirus information are Chris Martenson, Dr. Eric Ding, Dr. Gregory Rigano and Liz Specht.  

Our Lady mentioned in the Bayside message that God has given many graces to doctors, and that we should seek their counsel: "We have given many graces to physicians on your earth. Seek their counsel, too." (Our Lady, December 30, 1972) 

Our Lady always gives wise advice. The best information I have found on coronavirus has been relayed by medical professionals. 

True lethality of Coronavirus will be apparent to all, in the days and weeks ahead 

Regarding the lethality of coronavirus, until it spread outside of China we did not have trustworthy statistics on the virus (few trust the Chinese figures on coronavirus and with good reason because the communists are liars, as Our Lady of the Roses so colorfully told us: "for what communism means is liars, and murderers, deceivers straight from the bowels of hell." - Our Lady, October 2, 1987). 

In fact, it was reported that in December 2019, the Chinese government destroyed records of the coronavirus, to cover-up the nature of the disease. They initially hid the fact that it was communicable to humans: "When a CDC team was sent to Wuhan on January 8, 2020 it was intentionally not informed about medical staff being infected by patients, thus confirming that the disease was contagious."  

This information was also reported by the Times of London. 

WorldNetDaily states that "If Chinese authorities had acted three weeks earlier than they did, the number of coronavirus cases could have been reduced by 95% and its geographic spread limited, according to an analysis by Axios." 

No one should believe that China has this under control either, as Steven Mosher explains: "It is just one more piece of Chinese propaganda to add to the ever-growing pile of lies that Beijing has been telling these past three months."  

Italy's case fatality rate 

Italy has become a clear window for the world into the grim reality of coronavirus. The announced fatality rate in Italy is around 8% of all infections, at least twice that reported in China. Whether this is due to the false China statistics, a more lethal strain in Italy, or a combination of the two, either way everyone should be gravely concerned at what is transpiring in Italy because it could be the future scenario in other countries as well. The case fatality rate in this chart is calculated by deaths vs. all reported cases in a particular country. 

One statistic that I haven't heard anyone but Chris Martenson talk about is the case fatality rate in Italy, when measured with deaths vs. those who have recovered.  

The standard means to determine case fatality rate is deaths divided by all cases. But Chris Martenson uses a different method: deaths divided by recovered + deaths [deaths/(recovered + deaths)]. Using Chris' method, this gives the fatality rate after the infected have passed through the disease entirely to a resolution (recovery or death).  

And that is what I personally want to know: After people have gone through coronavirus entirely, what percentage have died. 

Not all who have coronavirus are recorded in the data. Those with more significant symptoms or have sought to be tested show up in the official data, so these numbers are more or less from those seeking medical attention in Italy. I have done the math for Italy, from March 13-20, and here are my calculations following Chris Martenson's formula.

Italy (according to Chris Martenson's formula): 

March 13 - 47%
March 14 - 42%
March 15 - 44%
March 16 - 44%
March 17 - 46%
March 18 - 42.5%
March 19 - 43%
March 20 - 44% 

Breitbart has an alarming report, that a spike in Italian funerals may indicate that Italy's deaths are many times higher and is therefore underreporting their coronavirus numbers. That would be horrific. 

And the figures don't look like this just in Italy. Here are four days from Spain: 

Spain (according to Chris Martenson's formula): 

March 19 (831 dead, 1107 recovered) - 43%
March 20 (1092 dead, 1588 recovered) - 40% 
March 21 (1378 dead, 2125 recovered) - 39%
March 22 (1756 dead, 2125 recovered) - 45%

Also, here's some figures for the United States (a large number of elderly who died in Washington state seems to have made this figure disproportionately high, for the time being): 

United States (according to Chris Martenson's formula): 

March 19 (207 dead, 108 recovered) - 66%
March 20 (235 dead, 125 recovered) - 65% 
March 21 (302 dead, 176 recovered) - 63% 
March 22 (419 dead, 178 recovered) - 70% 

Notice that, for now, there are more dead than recovered from coronavirus in the United States, at least in the officially known statistics.  

Currently (March 21) Switzerland, UK, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Brazil are also countries that have more dead than recovered. 

You can do the figuring for yourself by getting the worldwide coronavirus numbers here (scroll down to the chart where the red column is, indicating new deaths for each country. You will need the numbers from "Total Deaths" and "Total Recovered" for a country to make the calculations). 

Italian ICUs straining under coronavirus

Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Ding warns that in Italy, the critical care ICU rate is at an alarming 18%, as reported by the Journal of the American Medical Association.   

The Italian intensive care units are being overwhelmed. First hand reports from Italy are grim. A nurse from an intensive care unit in the town of Cremona, Italy reported that "Unfortunately, here in this hospital, we haven't seen anyone recover so far." She went on to say that "There have been many deaths and it is destroying us, because we think we aren't able to do what we're here for, treating people and making them feel better. The reality is, we see them dying and we die inside, too." 

Another ICU nurse from the same Cremona hospital said that "even we are not used to such a rapid succession of people in danger of losing their lives." 

Dr. Giancolo Bosio stated, "In 40 years of medical practice, I have never seen anything like this. Sadly, the mortality rate is significant. The virus doesn't only affect the elderly, unfortunately. We had a 23-year-old man here." 

Sky News has reported that in one Lombardy hospital, the laundry room is being used to treat patients. 

The Lombardy governor Attilio Fontana stated that soon hospitals won't "be able to help" coronavirus patients. 

Stewart Ramsay of Sky News reports that the cases are overwhelming every hospital in northern Italy. "It's crippling - here they call it the apocalypse." He goes on: "Masked, gloved and in a hazmat suit, my team and I are led through corridors full of gasping people who look terribly ill…. The medical teams are fighting a war here and they are losing."  

In their valiant efforts to save lives, some of these doctors and nurses are succumbing themselves. According to Dr. Eric Ding, five more Italian doctors died of #COVID19 in Lombardy (as of March 20), bringing the tragic toll to 13 physicians who have succumbed to the virus, and 2,629 health care workers have become infected.  Ten priests from the diocese of Bergamo have also died, who heroically ministered to the dying.

United States and New York City

The US infection rate is currently outpacing the global infection rate, as well as even that of Europe. In fact, currently the US rate outpaces even Italy (see graph: Country by country). Without more aggressive containment efforts and social distancing among citizens, the current scenario in Italy may be our own.  The ferociousness of this virus has been sadly proven within the US, on one unfortunate New Jersey family in which 4 have died, and 3 others have been hospitalized.

Dr. Eric Ding warned that for the past 6 days (as of March 16) the United States had the steepest exponential increase in coronavirus infections. 

Furthermore, NIH director Francis Collins says that the US is on an "exponential curve" and is only about 8 days behind Italy.

New York doctor: "The sky is falling" 

Dr. Eric Ding has publicized the exponential spread rate in New York City.  

Alarm has been sounded by other doctors as well, such as pediatric surgeon Cornelia Griggs: 

The sky is falling. I’m not afraid to say it. A few weeks from now you may call me an alarmist; and I can live with that. Actually, I will keel over with happiness if I’m proven wrong.
     Alarmist is not a word anyone has ever used to describe me before. I’m a board-certified surgeon and critical care specialist who spent much of my training attending to traumas in the emergency room and doing the rounds at Harvard hospitals’ intensive care units. I’m now in my last four months of training as a pediatric surgeon in New York City. Part of my job entails waking in the middle of the night to rush to the children’s hospital to put babies on a form of life support called ECMO, a service required when a child’s lungs are failing even with maximum ventilator support. Scenarios that mimic end-stage Covid-19 are part of my job. Panic is not in my vocabulary; the emotion has been drilled out of me in nine years of training. This is different.
     We are living in a global public health crisis moving at a speed and scale never witnessed by living generations. The cracks in our medical and financial systems are being splayed open like a gashing wound. No matter how this plays out, life will forever look a little different for all of us. 

Coronavirus spreads at an exponential rate 

The rate at which coronavirus infections are doubling in various countries is truly astonishing. This video gives a graphical illustration of infections outside China since January 27. 

It has been calculated that the world's coronavirus infections increase by a factor of 10 (10x) every 16 days. The US rate currently increases 5x every 7 days, faster than the global rate. So what are some of the projections for global infections down the road? One projection predicts 1 billion worldwide infections by May 26 (see graph: 81 days). 

This incredible number is made possible by the high infection rate of coronavirus, estimated at between 3.0 - 7.6 (this is the estimated number of people who will be infected by one carrier of coronavirus, and all of those will each infect an additional 3 - 7.6 people). 

Los Alamos Labs recently completed a study in which they estimated the coronavirus infection rate between 4.7 and 6.6. This report was referenced by Bloomberg.  

For those (like me) who are a little rusty at these types of calculations, Chris Martenson has a video explaining exponential growth in an easy to understand way. He states that if countries do not quarantine, coronavirus will break their medical systems (all hospital beds will be filled and ICUs will be overwhelmed).  

And here’s another video on exponential growth (a more technical explanation in this one). 

Once you understand exponential growth, you will truly see why coronavirus is so very dangerous and why the medical professionals are so alarmed. 

The potential for global growth exists in coronavirus (and is now apparent), as Dr. Richard Hatchett has explained: 

"I think the most concerning thing about this virus is the combination of infectiousness and the ability to cause severe disease or death. And we have not since 1918, the Spanish Flu, seen a virus that combined those two qualities in the same way. We have seen very lethal viruses. We have seen certainly, Ebola, or Nipah, or any of the other diseases that CEPI, the organisation that I run, works on - but those viruses had high mortality rates - I mean, Ebola's mortality rate in some settings is greater than 80%. But they don't have the infectiousness that this does. They don't have the potential to explode and spread globally."  

How Coronavirus will overwhelm health care systems 

In Italy, their health care system is now overwhelmed, one article saying they are "one step away from collapse."  The number of hospital beds and ICU units will determine the limits of optimum care for coronavirus patients. When that is exceeded, the death rates will soar as each nation reaches a saturation point. 

There are numerous articles detailing the alarming fact that the United States is on the lower end of hospital beds per capita. The inevitability of the US being overwhelmed as the virus peaks is all but certain, unless very strict containment measures are used. 

Liz Specht has written a marvelous but sobering article on the US hospital bed shortage. She states that simple math offers alarming answers on the limits of the US healthcare system to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.  

The warning signs are already here, even with only a relative minor strain (as of March 20th) upon the US health care system, hospitals are already starting to run out of masks and other key equipment. The need is becoming so great that some medical personnel are turning to craft stores to build makeshift personal protective equipment (PPE). The mayor of Seattle has publicly begged for PPE due to shortages there.

Urgency of social distancing and home isolation to slow spread 

Containment of coronavirus is no longer possible; that ship has already sailed. A major goal now is to slow the rate of infection so that healthcare systems are not overwhelmed. If that happens, the mortality rate will skyrocket. 

This is what social distancing, self-isolation, and flattening the curve are all about: to minimize infections and to buy us time to find and ramp up production of a cure (hydrochloroquine + azithromycin treatment may be this hoped-for cure).  

History shows the effectiveness of such measures. Researching the benefits of banning public gatherings during the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, one "study found that cities that banned public gatherings in places such as churches, restaurants, bars and parades had 50% fewer fatalities than cities that did not move to ban such activities." Philadelphia, unfortunately, had a public parade during the 1918 pandemic and later was one of the hardest hit cities in the United States. 

No, this is not like the flu. If coronavirus was only as dangerous as yearly influenza outbreaks, nations would not be shutting down their borders, closing all schools, ordering shelter-in-place and enacting measures on a scale never seen before in history. 

We don't want bad news, I get that. But we have to trust our medical professionals when they warn us what is coming, and trust those who are already experiencing the fury of coronavirus in Italy. A Massachusetts woman stuck in Italy due to the coronavirus lockdown urges Americans to 'stay inside'. 

Get prepared 

For those who have read Our Lady of the Roses messages and acted upon them, they will already have a deep pantry and have stocked up on essentials. If not, you have only yourself to blame because Our Lady has been repeating Her warnings for decades. If people are ignoring Our Lady's guidance, then they are implicitly saying yes to all the consequences of that bad decision. 

Start wearing a mask (if you can find one) when you go out shopping. Most of the Asian countries are doing this and is one of the reasons they have a much lower infection rate. When I was flying, there was always at least one Asian wearing a mask on the flight; this is a common practice there, even before coronavirus. They are protecting themselves better than Europe and the United States. We can save lives by following their example. 

The coronavirus tsunami is just a few weeks away from the US. As Chris Martenson recently warned, "here comes the boom stage." 

Again, Our Lady has warned us many times that a "great plague" will come upon the world. It is not a question of if, but when.

I agree with Michael Snyder: "Anyone that is not taking this outbreak seriously at this point is just being delusional." 

Please prepare, protect yourself and your family, and pray the Rosary daily.

"There will be visited upon your country and the world a great plague. Many children will die in this cleansing—young souls rescued from the contamination of a world that has given itself to satan!" - Our Lady, March 18, 1973

Directives from Heaven 

D154 - Plague and Pestilence  PDF
D576 - Children's Plague  PDF