The question that is being asked is this. Is this, or could a Coronavirus pandemic be one of the signs that signal the soon-return of Christ? Is this an End Times event? Matthew 24 is a prophetically pregnant passage. In it, Jesus lays out for His disciples what conditions would be like just prior to His return. At one point the disciples ask, “And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3) So Jesus begins His answer. “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” [The NIV and many other translations translate that word “sorrows” as “birth pains.” The sense of it is that, like labor pains, the disruptive signs of Christ’s Second Coming will, over time, become both more intense and more frequent.] But it is that word “pestilences” that we are interested in here. According to Strong’s Concordance, it is referring to a disease or a pest. A virus, perhaps. That ‘take’ would be included in the meaning of the word. So a disease of this sort could certainly be part of the End Time mix of things.
God’s word is clear. In Leviticus 26, God warns Israel of the punishment that would follow disobedience. Verse 21 reads: “Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins.” And in 2Chronicles 7:13-14, God let’s Solomon know that sending disease would be part of His corrective package. “When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” It is a clear call for repentance on the part of His people.[i]
But what really are we looking at here? Well for one thing, the Chinese government has consistently tried to downplay the severity of what’s going on. The accumulated evidence points to the fact that the numbers released by Beijing bear little resemblance to reality. What we do see, is that we are being lied to on an unprecedented scale. And part of that may be a good faith attempt to quell the panic that would set in if the reality of the situation were fully realized. But reports from social media posts by doctors and medical personnel at the scene painted a different picture. One MD claimed that the situation was at least 40 times worse than the official story would have it. Back in January, the Wall Street Journal reported that that Chinese were doctoring the numbers. Zero Hedge: “Subsequent reports that Wuhan officials were rushing to cremate coronavirus casualties before they could be counted did not add to the credibility of the official data.”[ii] This story was given more credence by the fact that satellite imagery showed “very high levels of Sulphur dioxide” around Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak. Sulphur dioxide is produced when medical waste and bodies are cremated.[iii] With his own unique set of contacts, investment maven, Egon von Greyerz that up to 10,000 people a day may be dying in China. According to Greyerz, as of February 9th, 400 million Chinese were on lockdown. Beijing and Shanghai were both added to the Quarantine list.
But the biggest hit to the narrative and China’s officially reported epidemic numbers came overnight, when a slip up in China’s TenCent may have revealed the true extent of the coronavirus epidemic on the mainland. And it is nothing short than terrifying. As the Taiwan Times reports, over the weekend, “Tencent seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the actual number of infections and deaths, which were astronomically higher than official figures”, and were far closer to the catastrophic epidemic projections made by Jonathan Read.
According to the report, late on Saturday evening, Tencent, on its webpage titled “Epidemic Situation Tracker”, showed confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China as standing at 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure. And while the number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official number that day of 300, most ominously, the death toll listed was 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that day.”
“This was not the first time Tencent has done this: as Taiwan Times notes, Chinese netizens have noticed that Tencent has on at least three occasions posted extremely high numbers, only to quickly lower them to government-approved statistics.”[iv] [Even Sean Hannity noted this on his radio program.] So there you have it. BIG LIE #1 – The Numbers.
BIG LIE #2 has to do with the fact that the Coronavirus is under control. The death rate for the virus is being officially reported at 2.1% for all of China and 4.9% for Wuhan.[v] However Chinese ‘good news’ press conference accidentally let the truth out. It’s closer to 17%, a devastating figure. Earlier we reported on a Lancet medical journal story that put the mortality rate at about 15%. But the presser run by Wang Guoqiang, “an infectious disease expert at Peking University” let out some interesting statistics. Here’s Mike Adams of Natural News. “Wang said that about 6 per cent had recovered after being in a serious condition, while less than one per cent had recovered after being classed as in critical condition…. If you do the math, this means that 94% of patients in “serious” condition don’t recover, which means they die. Similarly, 99% of those in ‘critical’ condition also die.”
So here’s the bottom line. “There are 83 survivors out of every 100 infected patients. That means there are 17 who do not survive (i.e. deaths). That’s another way of saying the mortality rate is 17%, by the way.” Those figures line up with the leaked data that appeared briefly on the Chinese website Tencent before being quickly removed and replaced by the real numbers. Recall it showed over 154,000 infections and over 25,500 deaths. That’s a 16% mortality rate.
Mike Adams went on to analyze what that could mean for the United States. Now the standard wisdom – or another Big Lie that is being pushed out there is that the seasonal flu is more dangerous than the Coronavirus. “The CDC claims that the seasonal flu infects about 35.5 million people in the United States each year, leading to 16.5 million people going to a doctor. The CDC also claims this leads to 490,600 hospitalizations and 34,200 deaths. Thus, according to the CDC, the ‘death rate’ of the seasonal flu is 0.0963%, or roughly one person out of every 1,000 who are infected. We now know, from China’s own press conference, that the coronavirus kills 17 out of every 100 people who are infected. That’s a 177 times higher mortality rate than the seasonal flu.” If the same number of people got the Coronavirus as get the flu that would result in about 6 million deaths. “The only reason the coronavirus is ‘no worse than the flu’ is because it isn’t out of control here yet.” And the numbers could get worse because this strain has a higher infection rate. Adams believes that number could get as high as 17 million.[vi] [That’s NOT to say that it will, but that the possibility is there given the characteristics we’ve seen thus far.]
Now, even if we take the Chinese government numbers at face value – (which I don’t) – the Coronavirus could rack up a monumental toll. There is an “AI-powered simulation” being run that is successfully predicting the “following day’s publicly-released numbers within 3%.” According to that model: “If this AI-powered simulation continues to accurately forecast the trajectory of this outbreak, approximately 2 million people will be dead 30 days from now, and after that the numbers really start skyrocketing.” Carry that out a little farther and the model says that by a little after the middle of March, 2.5 billion would be infected and nearly 53 million could die. But the man who wrote those words does not believe that the situation is quite that dire. “Fortunately, however, conditions of infection and detection are changing, which in turn changes incredibly important factors that the AI isn’t aware of. And that probably means we’re safer than we think…. Personally, I don’t think that the numbers will be anywhere close to that…. I don’t think that we will see that sort of an exponential increase in the numbers. There are so many factors that a computer model simply can’t anticipate, and one of them is the fact that this virus is mutating very rapidly.”[vii] Of course the mutations could work for or against us.
THE ECONOMIC FALLOUT
We noted earlier that much of China is on lockdown. Now that is a direct hit to the Chinese economy, the second largest in the world. Egon von Greyerz believes that “based on Lancet figures, all of China could be quarantined in a few weeks’ time….Over 65% of the Chinese economy is shut down. More than 80% of the manufacturing industry is closed and 90% of the export industry.” China accounts for around 17% of the global economy. Their debt has rocketed up since the turn of the century. Greyerz: “A major part of this debt is likely to turn into junk.”[viii] The Russian news source Pravda reports that China’s economy “collapses and stops.”[ix]
The effect of this on the global economy will be huge. The site, The Organic Prepper, lists dozens upon dozens of ems that will be hard to get, many of them essential items that are made in China and sold here in the US. You can check it out here.[x] Now one of the main hits to the US economy will come in the food sector. America has just gone through a horrible series of natural weather occurrences that have reduced crop yields in many areas. That, along with higher demand for long-term storable foods in response to the crisis are putting inflationary pressures that will drive up prices.
DEALING WITH THE CRISIS
Besides the lockdowns, Chinese authorities have responded with threats of jail time for those who share any information that differs from the government line, drones that can hunt down anyone with a fever and mass arrests for anyone perceived to be a threat. Civilians are being forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to quarantine facilities. The Daily Mail reported that videos have surfaced showing “suspected coronavirus sufferers dragged from their homes. Officials in protective suits and face masks are seen walking two of the people out while holding their arms. A third man then resists by kicking out and it takes three officials to pick him up and forcefully remove him.” In another video, a man is seen running away from officials wielding large metal sticks. It is being reported by several sources that the US has prepared that the US is preparing 16 quarantine centers to deal with the crisis. All are tied to military bases.
SO, IS THIS AN ‘END TIME’S’ EVENT?
The Bible is clear that during the Tribulation, mankind will experience mass depopulation events. We saw already how Jesus predicted pestilence will be part of the End Time scene. Revelation 6:7-8 describes one way that will manifest. “When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, ‘Come and see.’ So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.” So right now the world population is a little over 7.5 billion. Take that down by a quarter and we are left with 5.625 billion.
Then jump to Chapter 9, which describes the Trumpet Judgments. “Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind.” (Revelation 9:13-15) Do that math and it brings the global population down to 3.75 billion – about half of the original number.
So some people are asking straight-up, ‘Is this a sign of Christ’s coming?’ And, ‘Are we in the Tribulation?’ And the short answer is NO! The coming Tribulation has a defined starting point. The Tribulation will begin when the Antichrist “confirms a covenant” with the Israeli people. Here’s the pertinent scripture, from the NIV. “He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’[h] In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” (Daniel 9:27) The ‘he’ that confirms the covenant refers to the Antichrist, who will confirm some sort of agreement with Israel for seven years, and then at the precise mid-point, he (AC), breaks the covenant and – [we learn from other scriptures] – declares himself god, and demands to be worshipped in the Temple. Well, that agreement has NOT been signed yet. So, while it fits the pattern, it is NOT an offical End Time’s event.
LATE BREAKING UPDATES
From Mike Adams at Newstarget: According to Dr Nancy Messonnier, a top official at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “At some point, we are likely to see community spread in the U.S. or in other countries.” Such an event would “trigger a change in our response strategy.” Adams analyzes the impact of the situation. “What they aren’t telling you is rather obvious to anyone who’s still able to think: If there are ‘community outbreaks’ in the USA, how do those stay contained within each community? The correct answer is they don’t. Any community outbreak in America will, of course, expand to become a nationwide pandemic. That’s because U.S. communities are very mobile, ….. especially true among public transportation commuters in large, liberal cities like New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and so on. Buses, trains and subways are perfect places for the coronavirus to spread, especially since we now know it can survive on surfaces for up to 9 days (not just 5 as we previously believed). This means one infected person boarding a subway train in NYC, for example, could leave behind a coronavirus deposit that would continue to infect potentially hundreds or thousands of other people for the next nine days. Similarly, you could argue that commercial air travel will also be overrun by the coronavirus.”[xi]
From Ethan Huff at Newstarget – “A top Hong Kong medical official has warned that, apart from full containment, the novel coronavirus could end up infecting upwards of 60 percent of the global population, leading to 45 million deaths. According to Professor Gabriel Leung, even a one percent death rate from the Wuhan coronavirus could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths – and likely many more if the actual death is closer to 15 percent, which a recent study published in The Lancet contends.” At the 1% mortality rate would result in 45 million deaths worldwide. At 15%, the death toll goes up to 600 million.[xii] That would be about an 8% reduction in the world’s total population.
[i] What does the Bible say about pandemic diseases/sicknesses?, Got Questions, monitored February 10, 2020
[ii] Did China’s Tencent Accidentally Leak The True Terrifying Coronavirus Statistics, Zero Hedge, February 8, 2020
[iii] Does this satellite image show the scale of China’s coronavirus cremations?, Daily Mail, February 10, 2020
[iv] Did China’s Tencent Accidentally Leak The True Terrifying Coronavirus Statistics, Zero Hedge, February 8, 2020
[v] Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Mortality Rate, Worldometer.info, February 11, 2020
[vi] Mike Adams, DO THE MATH, Natural News, February 8, 2020
[vii] Michael Snyder, One AI-Powered Simulation Predicts That Coronavirus Will Kill Up To 52 Million People, Natural News,
February 6, 2020
[viii] Greyerz – Up to 10,000 People A Day Are Dying in China, King World News, February 9, 2020
[ix] Chinese economy collapse and stops, Pravda, February 7, 2020
[x] Daisy Luther, The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Affect the Availability (and Cost) of THESE Essential Products from China,
February 11, 2020
[xi] Mike Adams, CORONAVIRUS: Top CDC official warns “we are likely to see community spread in the U.S.”, Newstarget,
February 13, 2020
[xii] Ethan Huff, If not contained, the coronavirus could infect 60% of the world population, Newstarget, February 13, 2020
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