Coronavirus – coping with dread ++ market meltdown ++ **

Coronavirus has turned into a full-blown global panic as it spreads from the Far East into Europe and the USA. Despite the astrology being more similar to the Saturn Pluto 2003 SARS outbreak than the Saturn Neptune 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak, the numbers are veering alarmingly upwards. (See previous post January 25 2020). Apart from understandable personal fears, there is also an almost certain prospect of a ‘sudden stop’ financially as supply chains dry up and international travel is restricted.

Several things make 2020 stand out as a more-than-usually difficult year. One is the Saturn Pluto conjunction in Capricorn which points to hardship, deprivation, financial restrictions. There was only one exact aspect, last month, but its’ sombre influence will be in effect all year every time the Sun or Mars in a Cardinal sign aspects Saturn and Pluto still in orb – March, April, July, August, September, October, December.

There’s also the possible effect of Saturn moving into Aquarius late March to early July which, while not in exact square to Uranus in Taurus, will have a shiver of that effect, most often associated with financial downturns and economic instability. It moves to exact in 2021 though by that time Jupiter has also moved into Aquarius which should ease the effect.

The Saturn Pluto followed by Jupiter conjunction is similar to the 1817 broad conjunction of the three in Pisces which led to the ‘Panic of 1819, the first major peacetime financial crisis in the USA followed by a general collapse of the American economy persisting through 1821. The Panic announced the transition of the nation from its colonial commercial status with Europe toward a dynamic economy, increasingly characterized by the financial and industrial imperatives of laissez-faire capitalism. Though driven by global market adjustments in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the severity of the downturn was compounded by excessive speculation in public lands, fuelled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns.’  So financial collapse – Saturn Pluto = deprivation – followed by resurgence from Jupiter. It was a major turning point at least for the USA. (From previous post August 30 2017.)

The other relevant astro-factor in 2020 are the Eclipses. From earlier Feb 6 2020 post: The Solar Eclipses this year are in spine-straightening Saros Series. The late December 2019 at four degrees Capricorn heralded a sense of traumatic transformation and significant endings running in effect for several months across the beginning of this year.

The 21st June 2020 Solar Eclipse at zero degrees Cancer is associated with difficulties, restrictions, inhibitions, separations and illusions. Bernadette Brady remarks in The Eagle and the Lark that this eclipse brings blocks and ’the individual is prone to misjudging his or her strength and is best advised to wait before taking any real action.’ It was around previously in 2002, 1984, 1966, 1948, 1930 and 1912.

The 14th December 2020 Sagittarius Solar Eclipse casting its shadow over the following months is strongly emotional about relationships or money. There is a sense of fatedness and individuals feel they are caught up in situations or relationships beyond their control. This will bring acute frustrations and the advice is to avoid rash actions. It was around before in 2002, 1984, 1966, 1948, 1930, 1912.

A mishandled reaction in the USA (not beyond the bounds of possibility) plus a financial hit to the markets will impact on Trump’s chances of re-election if he’s still standing by then. The New York Stock Exchange chart is in serious meltdown from late this month on and off till late January 2021 with tr Neptune opposition the Mars.

European indexes have had their worst fall since 2011. The FTSE All World index, 31 December 1986, has the ‘utter devastation’ Solar Arc Neptune square Pluto at the moment as well as the bubble-bursting tr Neptune conjunct its Jupiter in Pisces and tr Neptune will continue on to conjunct the Mars/Jupiter midpoint and then Mars until late 2023 – so a longish phase of market panic.

The FTSE EuroFirst, 31 December 1985, is equally desolate and shaken to its core with a Solar Arc Neptune square the Mars/Pluto midpoint, moving to square Mars in 2022; with Solar Arc Saturn conjunct the Capricorn Sun with the Eclipses hitting on the Sun as well early and middle of this year. The Germany DAX has the car-crash halt of Solar Arc Pluto opposition Mars at the moment; and the Solar Arc Sun and Mercury picking up the tr Saturn in Aquarius opposition in late March, worsening through 2021 as the Solar Arc Sun is in a confused opposition to Neptune and a setback square to Saturn.

Stock Market index charts aren’t always as illuminating but these are fairly stark.

More Add on: Wall Street’s benchmark stock index has seen its quickest correction since the Great Depression. A six-day losing streak has pushed the market more than 10 per cent below its recent peak. That ranks as the fastest time to correction since July 1933 — when the S&P 500 dropped 13.3 per cent in two sessions — according to calculations by the Financial Times.

Other two index charts – Tokyo and Hong Kong would also suggest this isn’t an overnight panic but one which could well worsen in 2022/23.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph proffers a sobering but sensible review of the facts:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/02/25/coronavirus-threatens-global-economy-sudden-stop/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

The Daily Mail, as per usual, is working itself up into a catastropherian lather with a worst case scenario of half a million UK deaths. Their chart, 4 May 1896, has, as expected, not just a fear-the-worst Mars Pluto square but Mars square a delusionally-over-the-top Neptune Pluto. Mars Pluto types tend to see death, disaster and melodrama everywhere. Maybe I’m being unduly laid-back but it doesn’t feel like a rerun of the Black Death. Time will tell.

Saturn Pluto does tend to induce a sense of dread which, from personal conversations, appears to be affecting many people at the moment in all areas of their lives away from health. A pervading sense of alarm and a runaway imagination fearing disasters wherever they put out a foot.

Add On:

It’s an ill wind ………….. the 14th Century Black Death killed more than one-third of the global population. But one outcome was to empower workers, as a scarcity of labour meant wages increased. It contributed to the end of serfdom in countries such as England, as peasants’ bargaining power increased.
One other side effect was it prompted those still alive to enjoy life to the fullest. A Florentine chronicler wrote: “Men gave themselves over to the most disordered and sordid behaviour… As they wallowed in idleness, their dissolution led them into the sin of gluttony, into banquets, taverns, delicate foods and gambling. They rushed headlong into lust.”

The Great Plague of London in 1665 which killed a quarter of the population had calamitous instant results for trade. But the Great Fire in 1666 which followed led to a growth spurt with massive rebuilding much like the post-war recovery of Germany as the economy rose rapidly from the ashes.

The Spanish flu of 1918 was followed by the Roaring Twenties.
Not all plagues had good outcomes. The Roman Empire’s western sector collapsed after a series of plagues and Europe fell into the Dark Ages in the 5th century.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/03/17/history-tells-us-coronavirus-economic-effect-will-short-sharp/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

On the economic front there is a possibility of “a deflationary depression with a wave of defaults that breaks the capitalist system as we know it.”
And if Italy’s economy collapses which isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility and Germany refuses to bail them out – the break-up of the EU. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/03/17/moment-monetary-shock-awe-finally-fails-has-arrived-do-do-next/

A black swan indeed.

72 thoughts on “Coronavirus – coping with dread ++ market meltdown ++ **

  1. I saw on the WHO website that December 31, 2019 is the date this coronavirus was first reported. I did a chart for that day, at noon in Wuhan, and find a conjunction of Mercury/Jupiter as well as a wide Moon/Neptune conjunction. Let’s hope it’s a self-deluded virus that advertises itself as a Destroyer of Worlds, but isn’t so tough in reality.

  2. I work p/t at a local food store as a seafood clerk. During lunch last night, the employees were chuckling over how all the customers are suddenly wearing face masks and buying out everything from toilet papper to babywipes, tomato soup, bread, roasts, and fish. I have many customers asking me if they can refreeze thawed fish and for how many weeks. Absurd.

    Long long checkout lines. Like there was a 2′ snow warning pending. Never underestimate the power of human programming.

  3. Apparently, there is now an epidemic at a nursing home in Washington State. One patient dead, 50 staff and patients experiencing symptoms. Not clear where the contagion originated, so this seems like an epicenter for a similar outbreak we’re seeing in Italy – when people start getting tested, expect both the number of infected and death toll rise quickly.

  4. I don’t know if this affects anyone else reading, but my workplace now has placed extreme travelling constriction plus urged people to selfquarantine in some cases. I heard of a big name company in Continental Europe (not Italy) that hasn’t allowed visitors at headquarter for the past week. And, we now have the first official school quarantine 3 miles from where I live. It’s not surprising, since we are in Winter Holiday period and people have been travelling a lot. I have a school age child, too, with mild cold I think is another virus that’s circulating. The way this is closing in, I’m fully expecting to spend 14 days at home sometime in the next 2 months.

    • This has now spread beyond China, though. Italy and South Korea have more than 1000 tested infections, and it seems France will be there in 5-6 days. The data points to fatality rate of from 0.5 to 3 per cent. Obviously, not all infected have serious symptoms, but the elderly seem very affected. This would point out to people not having much immunity to Covid-19 type virus – there hasn’t been one quite similar.

      Iran seems to have a China Scale outbreak in hand, too, with half of their High Officials sick. Which is probably why Turkey has been “acting up” lately.

      Messy, messy business.

  5. Maybe China is retaliating over Trump trade, tariff & currency manipulation demands. Remember vid clips of people falling down dead in Wuhan streets? Chinese commie leaders are masters of deceit, and if they have to starve their people, they don’t care. Also an opp for them to round up dissidents & HK protesters and throw them in make-shift “hospitals”. It’s a threefer: Bet they have a nice organ harvesting biz going on while killing off anyone who displeases them. They also get revenge against the USA by causing panic in the markets and among some people.
    You really don’t know what’s happening in Wuhan unless you are actually there.

    • Yes, a way to “retaliate” is to send their own economy South. I have to ask, do you do business or know anyone who does business with China? I’d guess you don’t, because if you did, you’d know how grim the situation is there.

      I actually was in “China business” during SARS outbreak, and now directly again. China has been closed for the last 5 weeks. This has already affected manufacturing volumes, but what’s even more important is that this is going to affect R&D. Engineers and scientists now can work from “home office” to and extent, but there is some information they don’t want to pass through online (in some cases, businesses have actual “clean rooms”). This is an enormous setback for Chinese businesses, including likes of Huawei and Alibaba. And markets know this. They may have a herd mentality, but are not mindless.

  6. Keeping fears in perspective.
    Based on over 70,000 cases of Covid-19 from China, eight out of 10 people got a mild illness.
    About 3,000 people have died so far from the new coronavirus. This is in contrast to World Health Organisation estimates that between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally die from flu every year.

    • Yes, I think people overestimate the possibility of falling gravely ill with Covid-19 themselves, but underestimate the effects it may have to their daily lives. Japan only has 228 confirmed cases and 4 “native” deaths (I think most of the Diamond Princess victems, now 5 in total, were Japanese), but they closed all their schools for a month. Switzerland has 8 cases and no deaths, but they’ve banned all events with more than 1000 participants, including Geneva Motor Show that was supposed to start next week. Now, the most competent Health Authorities of The World are not taking these kind of steps “just because”. They know the pressure those two in ten people requiring hospital care would put to the system. I think that’s the main concern right now – and somehow very telling of Capricorn/Pisces chart we’re under.

    • The virus appears to be more dangerous among smokers, men and elderly in China. More than half of all men in China smoke and the elderly have smoked for a lot longer. So the numbers there *may* be higher than in some countries, although there are high rates of smoking in many European countries as well (24% of all adults in Italy, 36% in France). Elderly also have more pre-existing conditions that make fighting the virus harder.

    • Reasonably upbeat piece in Haaretz about Coronavirus in Vietnam which has been (so far) very well controlled. Don’t know if it’s behind a paywall so precis is:
      Firs patients – workers just returned from Wuhan. They infected their families. That was February 4, or 5. All told, 16 people were infected.”
      “The sick were put under military quarantine in a way only a totalitarian state can do. They were put into a hospital that had been evacuated. They erected a barbed wire fence and placed army sentries around it. They dispatched doctors with special equipment. Two [patients] were very ill, but all of them have been discharged.”
      How do you explain that in Italy and South Korea patients numbers rose so quickly, but not in Vietnam?
      “A possible reason is the weather, In South Vietnam it’s hot right now and in South Korea and Italy, it’s cold. When it’s cold, people gather at home where it’s warm and get close to each other – and infect each other.
      “Every day that passes and it gets warmer is good news. The Health Ministry is right when it says the key is to buy time until it gets warmer or a vaccine is developed. It could be that by the summer it will all be behind us.”
      https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-what-israel-can-learn-from-vietnam-on-how-to-beat-the-coronavirus-1.8589685

      • Yes, India seems relatively unaffacted, too, but this is of little consolation to people living in areas where day temperatures rarely reach 25 degrees Celsius and it’s raining all the time.

        Also, I’m not trusting Vietnamese authorities on this entirely. They are have an authoritarian regime, and authoritarian regimes rarely have the best response to these situations. We’ve seen this with China in SARS crisis and Iran in current crisis, not to mention the cluster funk that Soviet response to Chernobyl was. Some responses may be unintentional – scared lower level officials not reporting figures correctly -, but some are calculated. For instance, Chinese manufactures have been outsourcing their production to less expensive Southeast Asian countries for a while, because Chinese factory workers too have now become too expensive (!). Vietnamese authorities telling they have this situation in control could be an attempt to “capitalize” the fact China is all but closed.

  7. Keeping in mind that economic analysts and journalists tend to the melodramatic if not apocalyptic in their assessment of situations, the below has some useful financial facts.
    It made me wonder whether this is Pluto in Capricorn’s revenge, so to speak, ramming home the lessons that weren’t learnt after 2008. The EU especially has no elastic in reserve to withstand a gargantuan shock.

    “We are in an unprecedented global situation more akin to the outbreak of war than any episode in collective economic memory. “
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/02/28/central-bankers-have-no-power-against-economic-tornado-covid/

    • Good analogy. Reality is, policymakers didn’t learn their lesson from the last financial crisis. They bailed out the banks, while allowing them to continue operating opaque markets that are increasingly concentrated and interconnected. This added massive risks to the global financial system with corporate debt growing to unsustainable levels. Jupiter in Capricorn conjuncted Pluto in 2008. This transit returns once again in April, making three passes this spring, summer and fall. Themes from that period return, and if issues were not resolved before, they will come to a heads.

      Suffice it to say, it is going to be a memorable year, with many long term cycles coming to a close and new ones beginning. In times like this, the old gives way to the new, necessitating a crisis in between to clear out the chafe.

  8. Thanks for the historical comparisons. What was around for the 1345 and 1665 plagues was Saturn Neptune in the same sign, which is the classic epidemic signature – in Aquarius and Capricorn respectively. Which we don’t have till 2026 with Neptune Saturn in Aries.

  9. Hugh mentions 17th century London, when the Great Plague caused mayhem. It was preceded, or heralded by two bright comets – one in the winter of 1664, the next in 1665. Some noted astrologers produced a little pamphlet of predictions about the plague’s extent, “Prophecies and Predictions for London’s Deliverance”. Along with “Six oppositions of the Erratick Stars and two eclipses” Mr. Gadbury points to the transit of Saturn through Sagittarius and into Capricorn:

    “Lately, London hath at present been the Patient, and hath felt the force of the Almighties scourge to purpose; while most other places of England have escaped the lash. I wish with all my soul, that London might be the Scape-Goat for them all: but ah, I fear, before the Planet Saturn be gotten quite out of Capricorn, that those other parts of this Nation will drink deep of the same Cup.”

    The chart they are using for the city appears to be William Lilly’s, with Gemini rising.

    • Another historical example with perhaps a closer connection to the current outbreak of the coronavirus was the English Sweating disease a recurring epidemic in the 16th century which killed Henry VIII elder bother Prince Arthur in 1502 and infected two Queens Catherine of Aragon and Ann Boleyn who survived. Again it looks to have been a case of zoonoses with the prime suspect being the hantavirus found in rodents. The most serious outbreak occurred in May 1528 when interestingly Pluto was retrograde at at 24 Capricorn, Neptune was at 18 Pisces and Uranus was at 19 Gemini. Mars by transit was conjunct Uranus in and square Neptune during that month. Spookily that Pluto and Neptune configuration is being repeated now.

    • It’s so interesting to hear about the historic precedents. This sounds similar for the astrology of the Black Death. At the time, a chart was set up for the Vernal equinox of March 20 1345; there was a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in “the house of Aquarius”, I presume the 11th.

      • Looking that up, it was an exact conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at 18 degrees of Aquarius. The astrogers of the time wouldn’t have known that Neptune was in Aquarius also.

        • Astrologers then viewed Saturn as somewhat baleful. I tend towards a less gloomy view, but it’s certainly not the planet of endless fun….I think, without any outer planets, they would have paid close attention to Mars, and the fixed stars, when making their prognostications. William Lilly’s description of Mars fits Hugh’s “sweating sickness” – sorry, the sickness described by Hugh!

          “The Gall, the left Eare, tertian Feavers, pestilent burning Feavers, Megrams in the Head, Carbunckles, the Plague and all Plague-sores, Burnings, Ring-wormes, Blisters Phrensies, mad sudden distempers in the Head, Yellow-jaundies, Bloody-flux, Fistulaes, all Wounds and Diseases in mens Genitories, the Stone both in the Reins and Bladder, Scars or smal Pocks in the Face, all hurts by Iron, the Shingles, and such other Diseases as arise by abundance of too much Choller, Anger or Passion.”

          They also thought that Saturn was at his best or strongest in Aquarius, the sign Saturn rules along with Capricorn. Well, we shall see.

      • Planets in Capricorn, Pisces and Gemini crop up in other disease charts for London. The first indications of the Great Plague in London in 1665 occurred in the February of that year when Neptune was at 19 Capricorn, Mars at 18 Pisces and Pluto at 24 Gemini. During the Cholera outbreak in London during June to August 1854 Neptune was at 19 Pisces, Saturn at 15 Gemini and Jupiter went retrograde in late Capricorn tracking back from 27 Capricorn to 18 Capricorn.

        Similar degrees of these signs are in play this year at the Aries, Cancer and Libra Ingresses with Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter tracking forwards and backwards through Capricorn, Neptune at 18-19 Pisces and with the Moon at 25 Gemini at the Summer Ingress and the North Node at 23 Gemini at the Autumn Ingress.

        • Thanks Hugh. William Lilly’s Sun for London is at 25 Gemini, with 17-18 Gemini ascendant. I have not seen the whole chart. Boris Johnson’s Sun, Venus and Mercury in Gemini connect with these degrees.
          I was also looking into the charts for London Bridge itself, and found that both the start of 19th century construction – 15 March 1824, and the laying of the foundation stone, 15 June 1825, have Suns that echo this degree – 24 Pisces and 23 Gemini. And in 1824 Uranus was at 15 Capricorn, in 1825 at 18 Capricorn.
          Possibly these degrees are ones worth watching for London events?

  10. Spoke with a friend in Florida last nite. He & wife took a cruise last month; she was diagnosed with the corona virus but was likely infected from 100 people in a hospital waiting room , queueing up for normal reasons. She was waiting for her rheumatoid arthritis shots from the hospital.

    She was sidelined for several days with horrible flu symptoms but is now back on he feet, eating pizza. they hv concluded that the virus is worse than a cold but death-dealing. tHOSE who died tended to hv weakened immune systems (or generally bad health). They hv been assured that washing hands is the best preventive measure to implement; wearing face masks do nothing.

    so, the news right off the streets.

    • Good to hear your friend is doing fine! I suppose this will be the case for most patients. However, elderly seem to be more at risk. I suppose it’s because an upper respitory trait infection can lead to phemonia and sepsis, and very old people may not notice it, since they do not get fever as easily as young people. This is what took my grandmother last summer. She was concious long enough to tell she didn’t wish to be taken to intensive care. She was almost 98, and even though or maybe because she was the most resilient person I ever knew, knew it was her time to go.

  11. I’m not happy about the coronavirus becoming a global pandemic….but I am glad the stock markets keep dropping. Trump (who I hate with a passion) has been resilient mainly because of the strong economy President Barack Obama gave us. However, when the economy goes…so does the person in the White House. So, if it’s going to take a major financial crash to get Trump out of office, then I’m all for it.

    In other words, I’m looking on the bright side. Perhaps this coronavirus (which is the reason why the markets are destabilizing) is a bit of a strange blessing in disguise.

    I have stocks, a 401K, and many other financial investments…so, I know it would be a big risk if the economy collapses…it I feel it’s worth the risk. Trump has to go; he has no business occupying our White House. He’s destroying this planet and he has to be stopped.

    Chris Romero
    Jacksonville, Florida

  12. I think a vaccine is needed – and quick. This year – the next month – quick.
    Otherwise…

    (Am going back to this thread a month from now – 27 of March – to see what everyone is saying/experiencing.)

    Good luck. Buy groceries/water/bleach. Stay healthy.

  13. Worth a ponder. Will do Pence later – handed the poisoned chalice and no mistake.

    “COVID-19 is – likely to be the Chernobyl moment for Donald Trump.
    His systematic destruction of US pandemic defences – policy vandalism of the first order – and his surreal efforts to conjure away the virus with denialist spin suddenly brings an unthinkable prospect into play.”
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/02/26/trump-faces-chernobyl-moment-slashing-pandemic-defences-bone/

    • To me, the fact that this Pence move seemed to be a last minute curve ball has Kushner written all over it.
      I’m looking forward to see that pompous vulture get what’s coming to him as well; hopefully similar to his daddy.

      • This indeed! If his relationship with Trump is in turmoil going forward, why is he relatively chipper over the election and inauguration? Happy Trump lost after he threw him under the bus perhaps?

        I’ve been highlighting on here for sometime after Marjorie wrote a even earlier assessment of Pence as to why in the world does he looks happy in January 2021 if every other Trump goon looks miserable(which would correlate with a loss in November). Vital pieces of this puzzle coming soon it seems.

  14. I agree Jane. China has had 78497 confirmed cases and 2744 plus deaths mainly in Hubei province. However, it is worth bearing in mind that 58.5 million people live in Hubei alone. That means either the infection rate is fairly low or that a lot of cases have been missed because the virus is far less deadly than the bare statistics suggest. Of course, the Chinese authorities could be lying about the number of deaths so we can’t entirely rely on the figures given. It also needs to be remembered that viruses mutate (how appropriate Neptune in mutable Pisces) not only to cause the outbreak of disease but also as it progresses. Often they became more infectious but less lethal as killing the host normally tends to weed out the deadlier strains since they have less opportunity to replicate. There have been exceptions to that rule most notably in the 1918 flu pandemic when the second and third waves of the disease had far higher morbidity than the first. That may in part have been due to the unusual circumstances at the end of the Great War. At the moment the coronavirus appears to be mainly killing people in the at risk groups such as those with existing medical conditions or the elderly. This matches what happens in most seasonal flu outbreaks. I would suggest that if the age or health profile of the victims changes then this could be a sign of something more serious. As I mentioned in a previous post the inadequacy of the current testing regime means that the current data is probably not giving a fully accurate picture since the health authorities have essentially been waiting passively for cases to self present rather than proactively carrying out random tests on the population.

    • The numbers are what they are now because China has quarantined half of their population. An 8 million inhabitant city has been in a total, army enforced lockdown for 5 weeks. Yet their numbers, especially for fatalities, are likely underestimated, because when this epidemic started, hospitals in Wuhan were overwhelmed. Several locals have reported their elderly relatives had the symptoms, died and were never diagnosed.

      Now, compare that to Mayor of Milan openining bars and restaurants for business in after hours after a 3 day quarantine, because “it hurts business”.

  15. Ok. So Trump just appointed Pence as the virus czar. I never suspected this one coming!
    I’m gonna hypothesize something here. Marjorie alluded to strained relations between them in the near future. Is this a case where the virus may become a s#@t storm and Pence is purposely positioned as a scapegoat, just in case; and the fallout so bad Trump justifies changing VP?

    • well, pence has the backing of Mother; if people become infected, well, it becomes “God’s will”.

      perhaps drompf himself becomes infected. and enters the hospital but doesn’t come out.

      your line of thinking re: replace pence, assumes trump doesn’t get sidelined by coronavirus.

    • I was thinking about this too. Although I must most White House advisors must be geinuinly concerned about this, and think Pence is the best person deal with the immediate impact. It might not be much, but he used to be a Governor and cordinate emergency response on State level. So, he must, quite literally, be the only person left in Trump’s Senior Admin members with at least some clue.

      • Unfortunately Pence does not have a good track record on public health given his response to HIV and hepatitis B/C in Indiana in 2015, where cases spiked after he refused to allow needle exchange and cut HIV funding. He also believes in conversion therapy for gays. Pray away the virus and cut funding for actual medicine and health measures.

  16. It does not help that we are going through a retrograde mercury period and will not be out of its shadow until the end of March.
    This is square Uranus in Taurus so it will throw up some interesting things in the confusion but not much progress until April.

    • Lack of clear information and contradictory or confusing responses from governments and health authorities appears to be the norm at the moment. In order to control an outbreak of infectious disease the first step is to identify its precise numerical, geographical and chronological spread. That needs a bit more effort than waving hand held thermometers at international travellers or waiting for cases to self present. It is disturbing that six weeks into the outbreak some of the cases are only being identified after those infected have been under general medical care for some time. Proper control requires testing everyone who turns up at a GP surgery or hospital with symptoms matching those of COVID19 and more importantly random testing of other categories of patients. In the U.K. they are only just starting to move to this approach. Without that data you cannot really know what is going on or make an appropriate response. The world has had since 1918 to prepare for this sort of event yet at the moment a lot of the responses to the virus are not much more sophisticated than those dealing with infectious disease in 17th century London.

  17. IT”S THE COMMON COLD NOT EBOLA and there is still little evidence that quarentining does any good. It is sort of the survival of the fittest situation .You see all these 75 old boomers still running for office and maybe this is a message from nature that the fiscal and economic situation is no longer viable;the structure will achieve entropy/crash.

  18. I’m in bed with fever so self isolating. I can barely get up for the necessaries but I don’t have all the symptoms for covid19. I am over 60 and my immune system isn’t firing on all cylinders. My bday was mid Jan. I have pluto rising in Leo squaring Mars Saturn squaring a fishy moon and while I’m not a boomer doomer., I’m a teeny bit scared as I’m alone. The moment I woke up I rushed to see what Marjorie had to say. Maybe I shall live to see another day. I’m a capricorn after all.

    • At home now, so few other considerations:

      They’ve confirmed cases in half a dozen new countries stemming from Northern Italy today (Finland joined the list just a moment ago), so it’s obvious that there are many, and I mean many, more cases than have been tested, since Milan Metropolitan Area has a population amounting to 8 million. The long incubation period and the fact only about 20 per cent of people contracting the virus have any serious symptoms also means that Covid-19 travels wide and relatively fast.

      This is going to be a pandemia, no doubt about it. With one projection, 40 to 70 per cent of World Population will have contracted the disease within the year, when we’d probably have a vaccine. With one per cent death rate there will be minimum 31 million excess deaths from the virus, but the number could be up to 100 million. In Britain, this would amount to minimum of 264 000 excess deaths, in The US, to almost 1.5 million. This is nothing to joke about.

      But what’s even more troubling is the strain this will put to society. Hospitals, schools, businesses would all be affected. Not to mention private citizens, who aren’t even ill themselves. I think that there are two types of societies that will fare the best: The very developed ones, with extensive labor laws and social security programs and, ironically, the least developed ones. The ones in the middle have the most vulnerable population. There are astrological signs of this in charts of many Nations, too.

      The US, for instance, is still relatively well prepared – and in terms of intensive care units and research there are very few Nations doing better – to face the immediate challenge a pandemic will pose, even if Trump Admin and Republican led Senate have been defunding CDC, NIH and WHO. But this is a society where a large portion of workers do not have any kind of job security, meaning that if they lose the job during an economic downturn the unemployment numbers will go up fast. Even the once with a relatively secure job can’t often cover unexpected costs. This is truly worrying, and can lead to an aftermath not unlike that of Hurricane Katrina, only in larger scale. I think this could, also, be The US Saturn/Pluto Challenge.

      • As Marjorie says, ‘Time will tell’ and it’s probably not helpful to predict’31 million excess deaths’ . At the moment, there are no deaths from coronavirus in the UK so stating that there could be 264,000 deaths from the virus is quite something.

        • Greta, I wish I was “fearmongering”, but as said, this is what happens, mathematically, without extensive quarantee measures being taken. And it seems nobody in The West is taking them. We’ve had flights coming and going from Milan area, which BTW, hosted Fashion Week last week, for a week now. In Tenerife, where an MD tested positive on Covid-19, 700 people staying at the same hotel were quaranteened. Not the people who were on the same flight and shared tourist bus with him. Our first “native” Covid-19 patient flew in from Milan on Monday and was diagnosed yesterday. Authorities have not been able to trace people on near by seats on two flights she took yet. See where I’m going? It’s now very difficult to contain the spread.

          So, unfortunately, these numbers might not turn out to be an exageration. For a comparison, seasonal flu causes, depending of strain, up to 20 000 excess deaths in Britain yearly. Covid-19 has a fatality rate up to twenty times higher than seasonal flu. It is also about twice as contagious, with seasonal flu affecting 20 per cent of unvaccinated adult population yearly. And there is no vaccine to give to those most vulnerable and those working with them, which, with an 8 per cent fatality rate among people over 70 14 per cent fatality rate among people over 80 contracting the virus, is allarming.

  19. I know my brother is having moments of total meltdowns over this and gets even more irate because I’m, “not taking it seriously!” I’m still not anywhere near panic mode, though I would have been some years back. I even worried myself sick about the supposed Nostradamus end of the world predictions and the world going into meltdown with the Y2K bug! But I’ve since got more into my practical side. However, my brother does suffer from a compromised immune system and seems to get a lot of colds that go on for some time, so I get why he would be deeply concerned.

    For those who might be worried, here is an article from The Business Insider Malaysia stating the coronavirus shouldn’t be anything to worry about for most people: https://www.businessinsider.my/wuhan-coronavirus-unnecessary-panic-experts-say-2020-1-2?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0E0Qlhw6ql7dlcaZBvoUex8ZDe08b-G4QjMOgJx88u81sEapjdA_FfCW0#Echobox=1580451461

    Also, to validate the social media worries that seem to be causing a whirlpool of fear, Russia have been found to be stirring the pot with fake news and disinformation fear tactics as mentioned here in The Strait Times: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/us-says-russia-behind-huge-coronavirus-fake-news-campaign

  20. Thanks Marjorie. Global financial turbulence and potentially a global pandemic. Yet many thousands die from flu each year, but perhaps the panic is already in the collective unconscious, further stressed by social media and economic slowdown, as Solaia points out? Last week I sat next to a Chinese businessman on the tube. I noticed other passengers were glancing uneasily at him, and then at me, and so on. I could hardly believe it! I also saw people backing away from a Chinese family in a (posh) grocery shop, really quite extraordinary.

    Apparently, medieval astrologers blamed the Black Death pandemic on the conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in Aquarius in 1345, which was followed by a lunar eclipse in Libra. Plague hit northern Italy between January and March 1348, with Jupiter in Taurus, Saturn in Pisces, Uranus in late Aries, Neptune in Aquarius, and Pluto in Aries. Both the cholera pandemic in the 1850’s and the Plague of Justinian in 541 had Neptune in Pisces.

    The Black Death, and massive loss of population, had significant social and financial effects, and benefited those who survived – increased wages and freedoms for “serfs” being one result.

    Of course, this is not the Black Death or a cholera pandemic. Maybe some kind of folk memory of those times lies just beneath the surface?

    • The flu’s death to infection rate is 0.1%. the Coronavirus death to infection rate is between 2.3 – 2.5%. People tend to fall into the trap of only looking at the size of numbers instead of the ratio. The human immune system has adapted to combat the old typical flu relatively well given the death rate. Covid-19 is new. So no real comparison.

      • Thanks Troy. Very good point. However, my main point was that as far as we can see, this virus isn’t as deadly as some of those that have preceded it. At least, not in a relatively well nourished population. It could of course be much worse in less developed countries. And visceral fears, generated in response to the often boundary-less nature of modern society – internet, Schengen Zone, international trade and travel, mass migration etc. – seem to be represented well by Neptune’s current transit of Pisces, plus the potentially fearful nature of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, expanded by Jupiter there as well. Uranus in Taurus may represent the upheaval in the financial markets – it was eventually in Taurus during the Black Death which had a dramatic impact on the European economy, as well as its population.

        Of course, we must protect those who are vulnerable – children, elderly people, those with compromised immune systems. But I honestly don’t think most of us have to worry unduly, just take sensible everyday precautions.

        • True that the death rate may not be as bad as SARS, but the transmission or infection rate is significantly higher than any in recent history. And the signs of infection may take awhile to show obvious symptoms; dependent on the individual.
          I have one of those short video graphs that illustrates the infection rate compared to SARS, Ebola and others. Unfortunately I can’t post it here but it’s off the chain!

          • Apparently, people are infectious before they have symptoms of this virus, so they would be spreading it without realising. A professor referred to it on the news tonight as “clever”. Various sporting fixtures are being cancelled now, notably ones against Italy. However, some people only have a mild illness, so it is hard to know what further effects may be. Statistics from Iran and China may not be entirely reliable – Mercury retrograde, plus the usual caveats about information from certain sources….and the fact that those with mild infections weren’t counted properly at the start of the outbreak.

  21. Wow, so much information in one post that I have to digest it a bit! I have to say, the complete freak out happening in Italian traditional and social media on Saturday-Sunday as it became clear the virus had spread beyond limited circle of friend just as we had New Moon in Pisces was quite something. I was in Italy during SARS epidemic 2003, working in medical supplies field, and the reactions were nothing like this back then, even if SARS was, as far as we know, more deadly. I think that this is partially, but not completely, due to social media. We did have chats and message boards back then, too. More importantly, Government response seems different. Closing schools isn’t a good sign. The town I lived in is 250 km from “ground zero” of Italian contagion, yet people have been hoarding food. There have been acts of violence towards Oriental looking people and tourist buses from Northern Italy visiting South.

    Market reaction could be only part of this mass hysteria, if it wasn’t for other factors. Economic slowdown was here before the virus, and I was wondering when stock markets would realize how large the drop in manufacturing activity would have, in any case, been in 2020. I thought this might happen once Annual Reports for 2019 started to drop, but apparently, and added set of threats in their SWOT analysis was needed.

    • Please bear in mind they close schools at the drop of a hat in Italy. I remember there being a slight powdering of snow one year in the north of Rome and the schools were immediately closed. I was working with a woman from Canada at the time who blew a gasket – she’d had to find someone to care for her kids at short notice as she was working – and said they didn’t have any idea what real snow was. She was absolutely scathing. I think social media has a lot to do with this exaggerated reaction. The decent papers are clearly stating the reason for the “surge” in figures is because they’ve been frantically testing because they can’t find No.1 i.e. the source. So whereas in other states they took a more relaxed attitude to it all and tested as people became symptomatic, here in Italy they’ve been testing anyone who came into contact with someone who has presented symptoms even if the contactee (?is there such a word?) hadn’t presented any in an attempt to track back the source of the outbreak – which I don’t believe they’ve managed as yet. My husband is working in Bologna right now, 300 kms from Ground Zero and says everyone there is carrying on as normal. An English friend of mine who lives south of Rome is furious because the class her son is in at school was told to wear a face mask. Not every class – just his! No rhyme or reason to it. Much as I love the Italians they do tend to be drama queens. I hope Marjorie won’t mind but I’ve put this link here to lighten things up a bit. It will explain the Italians attitude to illness in general and also give you a good giggle. It is also, I promise you, absolutely true 🙂 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15987082

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