“Coronavirus has people keeling over in streets” (TomoNews US, February 3, 2020)

For instance, on January 31, 2020, British newspaper The Guardian titled: “A man lies dead in the street: the image that captures the Wuhan coronavirus crisis”. A week before, the British Express titled: “Coronavirus horror: Social media footage shows infected Wuhan residents ‘act like zombies’”.

But an analysis of these videos and their context shows the following:

  1. Contrary to claims that there were “dozens” or even “hundreds” of such videos, there were only about ten such videos, which were shown in various places and in various combinations.
  2. Most of these videos really had nothing to do with covid. Rather, these videos showed drunk people, homeless people (even in other Chinese cities), road accidents, unspecified medical emergencies, and even training exercises run by Chinese authorities.
  3. Because of the simultaneous virus outbreak, first responders in Wuhan often already wore protective equipment (the famous white bio-hazard suits). Thus, to bystanders and to people uploading and sharing the videos, it may have looked like actual “sudden coronavirus deaths.”
  4. In many cases, video titles, captions, or comments did suggest or claim the videos showed “sudden coronavirus deaths”, but in no case was this confirmed or claimed by Chinese authorities. In fact, several of these videos were quickly debunked by Western “fact checkers”.
  5. It looks like most of these videos were shared internationally, not by people close to the Chinese regime but by people and groups opposed to the Chinese regime (e.g. by ‘Voice of Hong Kong’ and ‘Badiucao’), who wanted to show that the Chinese regime had lost control. The above video compilation, for instance, was published by Taiwan-based news platform TomoNews US.

If any of these videos really showed someone collapsing due to the coronavirus, it may have been due to a sudden cardiac arrest caused by viral myocarditis (heart muscle inflammation), or a major heart attack, stroke, or embolism. Such cases have been observed even in the US and in Germany.

Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the first English-language mention of the alleged “Chinese whistleblower doctor” Li Wenliang (who later died or disappeared) came from “China Change”, an “NGO” funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government controlled (ER: CIA-linked) entity that sponsors opposition groups in adversarial countries. (ER: In other words, the western Deep State.)

This again might indicate that Western state actors either tried to leverage the situation in China, or tried to “frame” China (the real origin of the virus remaining unknown to this day). In contrast, the Chinese government itself primarily tried to downplay the situation, and continues to do so.

While antibody data indicates that by April 2020, coronavirus prevalence outside of Wuhan city and Hubei province was near zero (despite domestic travel in January 2020), China has experienced repeated local outbreaks and continues to impose extreme lockdown and quarantine measures.

In conclusion, there is currently no evidence that the “collapsing people” videos of January 2020 were a “Sun Tzu style” Chinese psyop. Instead, they may have been part of the “mass psychosis” at the time, leveraged by clickbaiters and hoaxers and Western media, or they may have been part of a Western psyop against China, the Western population, or both.

Addendum: Chinese measures, such as disinfection of public places, construction of dedicated field hospitals and quarantine facilities, and early use of ventilators, were based on epidemic response plans developed after the 2003 SARS epidemic and aimed at preventing aerosol transmission. Although extreme and partially ineffective, these measures weren’t part of a deception, either.

Video compilation: “Coronavirus has people keeling over in streets” (January 2020)

“Coronavirus has people keeling over in streets” (TomoNews US, February 3, 2020)

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