If you wanted to bring the US (and the rest of the world) to its knees....

Flopping Aces ^ | 04-08-20 | DrJohn

[Starman417]

Let's play a thought game.

If you wanted to bring the United States to its knees, what might you do?

You might build a hazardous lab near a wet market to study Corona viruses.

You might know where a cave is in which a particularly virulent Corona virus is carried by bats and keep its location a closely guarded secret.

In 2004, deep in the wilderness of China’s Yunnan province, a group of scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology discovered a cave full of wild bats carrying hundreds of SARS-related viruses. Their work, published in a draft paper in 2005, unearthed the link between SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and bats for the first time. Now the virologist who led that study, Shi Zhengli, has revealed one of the strains found in that cave — the exact location of which is a closely guarded secret — is almost identical to the 2019-nCoV coronavirus which has so far killed at least 1,115 people and infected more than 45,000 worldwide.

Then, somehow, the virus is leaked and there is an outbreak in your own country.

Before that outbreak explodes, you hoard masks.

The World Needs Masks. China Makes Them, but Has Been Hoarding Them.

SHANGHAI — As hospitals and governments hunt desperately for respirators and surgical masks to protect doctors and nurses from the coronavirus pandemic, they face a difficult reality: The world depends on China to make them, and the country is only beginning to share. China made half the world’s masks before the coronavirus emerged there, and it has expanded production nearly 12-fold since then. But it has claimed mask factory output for itself. Purchases and donations also brought China a big chunk of the world’s supply from elsewhere. Now, worries about mask supplies are rising. As the virus’s global spread escalates, governments around the world are restricting exports of protective gear, which experts say could worsen the pandemic.

China did not just stop selling masks — it also bought up much of the rest of the world’s supply. According to official data, China imported 56 million respirators and masks in the first week after the January lockdown of the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus emerged. On Jan. 30, the last day for which data is available, China managed to import 20 million respirators and surgical masks in just 24 hours. Through February, civic-minded entrepreneurs and aid groups visited pharmacies in affluent countries and emerging markets alike, buying masks in bulk to send to China.

You also might  hoard all kinds of medical supplies.

Beijing authorities mobilized the Chinese diaspora to help buy up goods. “Keep on buying while sending back to China [medical supplies], and try your best to buy as much as possible,” read one article posted on the official website of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s United Front Work Department, an agency dedicated to spreading the regime’s agenda inside and outside China. In the West, United Front organizations are usually Chinese student unions at colleges and universities, Chinese chambers of commerce, and Chinese associations. The United Front encouraged all overseas Chinese to follow in the association’s footstep.

More on hoarding

As the coronavirus took hold in Wuhan in February, staff of a Chinese government-backed global property giant were ordered to buy up vast quantities of western medicines and medical equipment to send to China. Sources within the company told the Sydney Morning Herald that it was an international endeavour by the Greenland Group to scour the world for bulk supplies of surgical masks, thermometers, antibacterial wipes, hand sanitisers, gloves and paracetamol for China’s health system.

Then you get your stooge at the World Health Organization to lie for you. You have him tell the world the virus is not contagious:

Your stooge might just happen to be a Communist with a history of covering up outbreaks

As The New York Times reported in 2017, a full two years before the current coronavirus pandemic even began, Tedros was accused of covering up three separate outbreaks in Ethiopia when he was the country’s health minister. The deadly cholera outbreaks were brushed off as “acute watery diarrhea” by the doctor.

Then you might continue to lie about the conditions in your country

https://twitter.com/JerylBier/status/1243383768200577024

You might fail to mention that you had a peculiar method of controlling the outbreak:

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As the World Health Organization (WHO) praises China for its "tailored approach" to handling the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, a video has surfaced of a Chinese woman vividly describing patients being bound in body bags and cremated while still alive.

You might shut the affected province off from the rest of your country, but not from the rest of the world to make sure everyone is infected:

[GOPJ]

My novel would have the US government aware of the attack but would not publicize for fear that the public would demand retaliation.

Or concern that thin-skinned Chinese 'leaders' might up the ante (if they knew for sure that we knew) and move their plans forward by a year or two... In my novel American leaders would use the time they're pretending 'not to know' to their advantage... getting their ducks in a row, planning stuff only we can do.

We didn't become the strongest power the world has ever seen by allowing psychopathic 'leaders' of hellholes to push us around.

[GOPJ]

My novel would have the US government aware of the attack but would not publicize for fear that the public would demand retaliation.

Or concern that thin-skinned Chinese 'leaders' might up the ante (if they knew for sure that we knew) and move their plans forward by a year or two... In my novel American leaders would use the time they're pretending 'not to know' to their advantage... getting their ducks in a row, planning stuff only we can do.

We didn't become the strongest power the world has ever seen by allowing psychopathic 'leaders' of hellholes to push us around. That said we have time to 'do it right' and NOT harm the world any more than it's been harmed already. Maybe the solution can be peaceful... maybe not.