Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Is it possible that COVID-19 is an example of mass delusion (or mass panic) with irrational fears creating imaginary illnesses?
original to FR | August 1, 2020 | Peter O'Donnell

Posted on 08/01/2020 1:30:39 PM PDT by Peter ODonnell

I wonder how many people might agree that some aspects of the global pandemic resemble historical cases of mass delusion or panic, where hundreds or thousands of people imagine that they have an illness or medical condition largely on the basis of frequent mention of it in the people around them.

There are historical examples of airliners full of healthy people where the notion of a fast-spreading illness led a significant number of passengers to imagine that they too were ill (some may have been), and then when taken to hospital after landing, it became apparent that most were not ill at all.

The parallel would be "asymptomatic positives" combined with some actually ill people who imagined they had the coronavirus when in fact they had some other condition entirely, but then with the apparently large spread of the asymptomatic COVID19, they tested positive and were counted as cases, when in reality, what brought them to medical care was an entirely unrelated illness.

I have the suspicion that mass delusion is playing a significant role in this event. An identifiable class of people can see benefits from the spread of the virus, in terms of political outcomes they favor, or inductive reasoning gains related to unrelated outcomes (e.g., fighting climate change).

As I walk around my home town (unmasked like 90% of the population) what I see of the masked individuals is that they all look very frightened, as if any passing stranger might end their lives. In that mental state, it would be easy to imagine that (for example) an allergy attack or a common cold was the onset of dreaded COVID19. Then a test might reveal the presence of the virus (despite not being the illness presenting). The large number of alternating positive/negative tests and the wide range of outcomes further confuses the situation.

Perhaps the best thing to do now would be to declare an end to this madness, identify the most vulnerable people still left alive and isolate them, otherwise, let this perhaps mild to non-effectual virus run its course and develop herd immunity.

The alternative approach of rolling the dice with the future of the economy and personal liberty seems far too strong a response to the actual threat. And that too is a sign of mass delusion, an over-reaction to a real but minor threat (an example would be, one person goes nuts and shoots up a Walmart, therefore a hundred million armed Americans could pose a huge risk to public safety; or, a few days turn out rather warm, therefore the weather/climate machine is broken and we need to take drastic action to fix it).

The auto-suggestion involved in climate change is fairly obvious to the political right but not to the mainstream or the left who blunder on into ever more bizarre responses. Carefully crafted media images (the setting sun over the ice pack, the heat waves distorting the image of the oil refinery) accelerate a sense of mass panic and lead to compliance from voters who have no real vested interest in the political madness being offered up to them.

I wonder then, how much is this also true of the COVID-19 phenomenon, a mix of actual illness and death with a wider sense of panic, mixed with resignation (this is now our destiny, things will never be the same, etc etc).

Check out other examples of mass delusions. This is far from being the first one. And a considerable number of them have a spiritual dimension (involving outbreaks of demonic possession).


TOPICS: Government; Health/Medicine; History; Society
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last
To: ThunderStruck94

smell comes back, btw


41 posted on 08/01/2020 2:17:32 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Amendment10

Trump was unassailable on race and economy. It’s no coincidence that race relations and the economy have been ground into the dirt.

It’s all real and all engineered. I’m freaking convinced.


42 posted on 08/01/2020 2:19:59 PM PDT by coaster123 (Suspect Everyone)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Jan_Sobieski

Acts 14:16
In past generations, He let all nations go their own way.

Romans 1:24
Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.

Romans 1:26
For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

Job 8:4
When your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to their rebellion.

Psalm 106:43
Many times He rescued them, but they were bent on rebellion and sank down in their iniquity.

Isaiah 44:18
They cannot comprehend or understand, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see, and closed their minds so they cannot understand.

Isaiah 65:2
All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people, who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations,

Need I say more? Most of Americans have lost their way.


43 posted on 08/01/2020 2:22:13 PM PDT by delta7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Scott from the Left Coast

“the world we live in is a dangerous place”

If you are under the age of 55, you don’t remember the Hong Kong flu in 1968. It was our last big outbreak. So a lot of the population has no experience, being seriously ill with something like this. I had mononucleosis my freshman year in college. My temp hit 104+, it was tough time. But now I know what being really sick feels like.

Somehow, during that year of the Hong Kong flu, we managed to have Woodstock. Nobody complained.


44 posted on 08/01/2020 2:22:26 PM PDT by Not_Who_U_Think
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: ThunderStruck94

Sounds like the Flu to me!


45 posted on 08/01/2020 2:22:51 PM PDT by tallyhoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: hanamizu

I think the Chinese reaction to the disease triggered the shutdowns and much of the official hysteria The Chinese reacted as though they knew they had released a Bubonic level plague from their lab and their frantic and really heavy handed approach scared the pols and bureaucrats in this country causing them all to react in a panic. The other countries that reacted first did it the rational way and shut their borders as soon as they heard, Vietnam probably first. Vietnam apparently had no CCPV until the last ten days. Japan and South Korea got a handle on it early and the ROK probably would have stayed at a uniform low level of infection but for one crazy cultist. Sweden did not panic and had a relatively high death count in one episode of the disease and no is pretty much free of it because it affected many more early and the vaunted “herd immunity” set in. The countries that tried their hardest to keep the disease from spreading by shutting down their economies don’t get to HI for a long time so they have the virus around and welling up again here and there until sometime in another year or two we reach HI. We, by maintaining the life of the plague cycle, are forcing countries like Vietnam to stay closed to keep the carriers out. If everyone had acted like Vietnam or Sweden this thing would be nearing an end of its run and the world economy, and ours, would not have taken such a wallop.


46 posted on 08/01/2020 2:24:41 PM PDT by arthurus (uw)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: OrangeHoof

Yes, it’s overblown for political purposes but it really does exist and people really die from it.

You can die from a common cold!! If it gets your lungs infected!!!


47 posted on 08/01/2020 2:24:53 PM PDT by tallyhoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: hanamizu

It’s a virus. If you(anybody) choose to let a virus make you live in fear & panic that’s on you.
If you choose to believe the media that everyone knows is lying that’s on you.
If you choose to believe wearing a useless mask will save humanity & restore order you are lost to reality.
It’s a virus, calm down.


48 posted on 08/01/2020 2:35:15 PM PDT by DeplorableGirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Scott from the Left Coast

“We are so afraid and removed from the reality of the world we live in...”

So true.

I said months ago that not only are they using the exaggerated danger for the socialist revolution but also for the transhumanist revolution.


49 posted on 08/01/2020 2:36:04 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: hanamizu
“All of this told me that the world leaders were told that something very dreadful was on its way to us.”

I’ve been wonder just what “they” were told. It wasn’t what “we” were told.
50 posted on 08/01/2020 2:41:20 PM PDT by Ouchthatonehurt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell

Repetition is very powerful. If a big lie is repeated enough times the masses will believe it.


51 posted on 08/01/2020 2:41:22 PM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell

We are being GasLighted on a global scale.


52 posted on 08/01/2020 2:42:36 PM PDT by Samurai_Jack (Democrats are not the enemy, Republicans are not your friends. We're on our own folks!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThunderStruck94

Were you on hydroxy or anything ?


53 posted on 08/01/2020 2:43:13 PM PDT by lilypad
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: hanamizu

That is very true, in the first days. We did not know what we were dealing with. Precautions and quarantines may have been necessary, especially if as you suspect there were dire behind the scenes predictions.
But within weeks we sorta knew better. Yes it was a flu and yes it COULD kill but it was on a par with swine flu...and we did nothing close to shutting down societies over that.

No...something now is going on that is very akin to a coup under the color of law. Governors and mayors...the vast majority of whom are leftists, have discovered we can be kept cowed and subdued with health concerns.
As people start to chafe, they get tough, having the police arrest and fine people who won’t play along.

And NO ONE has the spine to stand up. Much of that is because there is nothing to fight with. They have their science that they believe over your science. We have no facts to counter them because we cannot get them because the internet and media shut out fairly successfully any opposing views. [look at those Dr’s whose video has been scrubbed].
If you choose to fight without any rationale on your side you are easily subdued as a selfish denier, a cretin putting everyone at risk.
Its all there in their rhetoric. “Masks show you CARE...” and the ever popular “Do it anyway”
The entire country has been under mask orders for a month now but some how cases are “skyrocketing”. So the magic masks ain’t working.
Not that they ever would.

So yes the virus is real but the reaction is unabashed hysteria.

Sick of it.


54 posted on 08/01/2020 2:45:11 PM PDT by Adder ("Can you be more stupid?" is a question, not a challenge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: coaster123

The Greatest fraud
Perpetrated on the
World.
Because,,,
Orange Man Bad.


55 posted on 08/01/2020 2:49:18 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (READ,,,--flattenthefear.com---Stanford Prison Experiment)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell

Uh, no.

Especially if you know people who have died from it.


56 posted on 08/01/2020 2:54:10 PM PDT by kaehurowing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DeplorableGirl

I am not living in fear or panic. I am not relying on the media to shape my views on this, although I have watched Sky News UK and France 24 to inform myself on what those two nations are experiencing. I wear a mask right now in order to do my grocery shopping, not to save my life. I am calmer than most people I know even though I find myself in an age group that the virus seems to like to kill.

This is a real thing in my opinion-every bit as real as the “Spanish” flu, which did eventually go away and which most, including my mom and dad survived-but what some 20 million didn’t .


57 posted on 08/01/2020 2:54:52 PM PDT by hanamizu
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell

The illness is not imaginary. I’ve treated >100 proven patients, some have died, there’s no doubt it’s real.

The REACTIONS to it, though, are quite unusual and have some features of mass hysteria or a delusion.


58 posted on 08/01/2020 2:55:56 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Think like youÂ’re right, listen like youÂ’re wrong)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell
The parallel would be "asymptomatic positives" combined with some actually ill people who imagined they had the coronavirus when in fact they had some other condition entirely, but then with the apparently large spread of the asymptomatic COVID19, they tested positive and were counted as cases,

These are the questions I would like to have seen Jim Jordan and/or other Republicans ask the nation's leading infectious disease expert (barf) Herr Doktor Anitoly Faucist:

Have you treated a single covid patient?

Are the asymptomatic cases asymptomatic because the person's body is strong enough to battle the virus without manifesting symptoms or because the virus is so weak in the person that it cannot effect symptoms?

If it's the latter, can a weak version of the virus become stronger in another person?

Also, there are many coronaviruses out there. The common cold is a coronavirus. Are such cases counted among covid cases?

59 posted on 08/01/2020 2:56:17 PM PDT by Texas Eagle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell

Great post,
Thanks.
I’m convinced of the
Spiritual aspect of this.
The Palpable Fear is The
Real Danger. If I was a
Chatholic I’d suggest an
Exorcism.


60 posted on 08/01/2020 2:57:40 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (READ,,,--flattenthefear.com---Stanford Prison Experiment)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson