COVID-19: Did Nostradamus Predict the Pandemic of 2020?

From Worldometer, I have adjusted this table to show how new deaths best determine the phase of COVID-19:

DAY     China   Italy   USA   Spain   Germany   S. Korea  WORLD

May   1         0    269   1897      281          113               1        5624
          2         0    474    1691     276            76               2        5215
          3         0    174    1154     164            54               0        3481
          4         0    195    1324     164          127               2        4096
          5         0    236    2350     185              ?               2        5787
          6         0    369    2528     244          282               1        6811

          7         0    274    2129     213          117               1        5589
          8         0    243    1687     229          118               0        5550
          9         0    194    1422     179            39               0        4248

Summary:

• Good Mother's Day, as all the above showed declines in new deaths.
• One-third of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. occur in nursing homes.  About 11% of cases can be found in these facilities, but they account for 35% all deaths.  In Hawaii, there are three cases and one death.  
• The top three in new cases continue to be the USA (25,524), Russia (10,817) and Brazil (10,169), but now, after the UK (3,896), are Peru (3,168) and India (3,113), plus Pakistan (2,301).  Clearly, hotspot shifts are occurring to South America and the region around India.
• While China has had NO deaths in almost a month, they are still getting new cases, while one diseased individual in South Korea who went to three night clubs, resulted in a flurry of new cases and the closing of 2100 nightspots.  Contact tracing is following up with 1940 individuals who might have interacted with him.

Nosferatu is a German vampire film, while Nostradamus is Michel de Nostredame, a Jewish French physician and seer, best known for Les Propheties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains allegedly predicting future events.  It was first published in 1555 and has been constantly available since then.  The Amazon Kindle version sells for 99 cents.  It is 714 pages long.

He lived during the Plague, having to leave college because it was closed for that reason.  He became a doctor and was on the front line to combat this virus, and lost his wife and two children from the Black Death.  But he was fruitful, for with a second wife, had six more children.  He later steered away from medicine towards horoscopes and necromancy.  He published 6,338 prophecies.

Circulating on social media during this time of COVID-19:

Turns out this is fake news.  Not from Snopes, but Reuters has a fact-checking team.

You need to be really creative to glean our Pandemic from the actual quatrains referenced by the above article.  Professor Stephane Gerson is quoted:

...his arcane predictions could mean anything.

Did he omen the rise of Hitler?  Note that he wrote stanzas in four lines:

In Century 2, Quatrain 24, Nostradamus wrote:

 “Beasts ferocious from hunger will swim across rivers:

“The greater part of the region will be against the Hister,

“The great one will cause it to be dragged in an iron cage,

“When the German child will observe nothing.”

Many interpret the above as soothsaying the rise of Hitler.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy (and Bobby)?

In Century 1, Quatrain 27, Nostradamus wrote: 

“The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt,

“The evil deed predicted by the bearer of a petition:

“According to the prediction another falls at night,

“Conflict in Reims, London, and pestilence in Tuscany.”

Kind of stretches the imagination for anything.  His quatrains are similar to astrological signs.  You read what you want into it.

Some say this predicts the assassination of Donald Trump, or some kind of removal from office:

The trumpet shakes with great discord.

An agreement broken: lifting the face to heaven:
the bloody mouth will swim with blood;
the face anointed with milk and honey lies on the ground.

The Greatest Prophet of all-time sounds to me like an astrologer.

There is a meme going around that for the only time in history, TONIGHT in military time at 20 minutes and 20 seconds after 8PM (or 20) in this 2020 year, 20:20:20:2020 will occur.  I thought about this and said, nah, doesn't this happen every night this year?  So I checked into it:

As I'm now into 1978, here is Billboard's #1 hits for that year, in four minutes.  My mind is fuzzy on what I did that year, except for some generalities regarding my role at the University of Hawaii:

• Using hydrogen for aviation.
• Converting biomass to methanol for ground transport.
• Teaching Technology and Society, plus Environmental Engineering.

Nothing much seemed to have happened on Planet Earth.  On the other hand, New Scientist in 2013 picked 1978 as the best year ever.  Some items:  first Sony Walkman, first test tube baby and transparent plastic trousers are in vogue.  I'm now also losing confidence in New Scientist.

Let me close with a video from China mocking the USA, and Donald Trump in particular, about COVID-19.  Only a minute or so long.  Certainly looks like a Democratic Party TV ad.

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