https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/13/17-diseases-named-after-places-or-people/ West Nile Virus

• Guinea Worm

Named by European explorers for the Guinea coast of West Africa in the 1600s.

• Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

Named after the mountain range spreading across western North America first recognized first in 1896 in Idaho.

• Lyme Disease

Named after a large outbreak of the disease occurred in Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut in the 1970s.

• Ross River Fever

Named after a mosquito found to cause the disease in the Ross River of Queensland, Australia by the 1960s. The first major outbreak occurred in 1928.

• Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever

Named after its 1940s discovery in Omsk, Russia.

• Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever

Named in 1976 for the Ebola River in Zaire located in central Africa.

• Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)

Also known as “camel flu,” MERS was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and all cases are linked to those who traveled to the Middle Eastern peninsula.

• Valley Fever

Valley Fever earned its nickname from a 1930s outbreak San Joaquin Valley of California, though its first case came from Argentina.

• Marburg Virus Disease

Named after Marburg, Germany in 1967.

• Norovirus

Named after Norwalk, Ohio after an outbreak in 1968.

• Zika Fever

First discovered in 1947 and named after the Zika Forest in Uganda.

• Japanese Encephalitis

Named after its first case in Japan in 1871.

• German Measles

Named after the German doctors who first described it in the 18th century. The disease is also sometimes referred to as “Rubella.”

• Spanish Flu

While the true origins of the Spanish Flu remain unknown, the disease earned its name after Spain began to report deaths from the flu in its newspapers. Hong Kong Flu (1968)

• Lassa Fever

Named after the being found in Lassa, Nigeria in 1969.

• Legionnaire’s Disease   Named in 1976 following an outbreak of people contracting the lung infection after attending an American Legion convention in Philadelphia.

3) The wide variance in forecasts.  I touched on this above to some extent. Forecasts of doomsday are as old as mankind itself.  But there is a link, This outstanding post several days ago on CFACT: https://www.cfact.org/2020/03/13/greta-preaches-many-of-the-first-earth-days-failed-predictions/ showed how wrong forecasts were from the first earth day. Many of those same forecasts are showing up now, but of course, the opposite reason from the first one. Which as I have reviewed before, is opposite of what previous warmer times have produced and so much so they were called climate optimums. But only time will tell if the worst forecasts with either will come to pass.  In almost all cases, such forecasts have not come true which is why they are never brought up. 4) Showing the real value of the American Safety net. This gets interesting also. I believe in less government, but we do need an essential framework. There is the argument in the man-made climate change community that we should have the same kind of response we have for COVID-19. This which is interesting in that if anything COVID-19 is showing, what happens when the business engine of the nation is shut down, it leads to misery. One can not argue that before this hit, life on the planet had improved dramatically over the last 100 years. This despite and aided in fact by warming. Yet a threat like COVID-19 will be something to show that the government is essential in stepping in for threats like this.  Trying to portray a much more gradual event, arguably not hindering man’s progress but enhancing it, seems like a false equivalency. One thing is for sure, you are seeing what taking a couple of trillion dollars out of the economy can do. Imagine a 10 trillion dollar plan to fight “climate change”?!  The Covid-19 event, like hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.  are showing why there has to be a safety net. The question is the extent. 5) The attacking of ideas. I have found that people I see are treating each other nicer. However over social media and regular media, the level of viscousness in COVID-19 is mimicking the kind of things I see in climate. I have been accused of minimizing the threat. Since I am 64 years old, and the people I have known, loved and looked up to longest are right in the middle of the median age this disease is killing. I am exactly opposite. But if you are looking to destroy an idea, you do anything you can to do so. I had a dear friend of mine say he wanted to make sure I was not cavalier about this. On a personal level, for me, its a test of my faith. That it may not be for other people, does not upset me. What is concerning in this matter, climate,  etc, is the branding of people that offer different ideas, even people that you agree with on almost everything, get upset because they may think you don’t see things their way. They will do anything to FORCE, keyword FORCE,  another person to bend to their will. Attacking people is an attempt to censor ideas. It is close-minded and intolerant.  If I had a nickel for every time in my life someone that disagreed with me, exposed me to something I learned, I would be a very rich man. You don’t learn anything shutting out ideas. I welcome discussion and if wrong it makes me stronger if I learned something I can use. You don’t do that by trying to destroy people, and there seems to be some of that going on. Obviously this is a very serious situation, one of my professors at Penn State used to say that Weather Watches for a common events such as snow can cause more disruption than the snow itself. (For those in the south, how many times have you seen snow forecasted and the shelves laid bare? The storm comes and 2 days later all the snow is gone.) There is that possibility here, but what it does show with no uncertainty, is what happens when our business engine shuts down. So it is instructive.  I believe that the pain we are going thru will be worth it, even if this fizzles out completely. I can not say the same about using this as a strategy to develop a war footing on “climate change” and trying to portray COVID-19 as actually MINIMIZING the seriousness of the common foe in front of us now. As someone who believes in linkage in events, similarities in patterns,  I am noticing some here. There are good people on both sides on all issues that truly are searching for the right answer. Watch closely and see if you can see the linkage I am talking about. Perhaps not, but the call is yours, not mine. The bottom line is that freedom is needed for the pursuit of any answer. Those wishing to limit that by demonizing and destroying people who disagree with them are motivated by their desired outcome, no matter what the actual outcome may be. (Examples: The call for the new dust bowl back in 2012, when the exact opposite evolved the rest of the decade or the idea the arctic would be ice-free by 2013.) Please stay safe and heed the cautions being advised. I do not know or pretend to know the outcome of COVID-19, though I  may believe in a certain result. Yet, like the weather, I can not let contrived notions cloud my vision pertaining to the challenge. I do know open-mindedness and freedom should be used as keystones for the way to face challenges and if one looks at the prosperity of our nation, the results speak for themselves. Joe Bastardi is a pioneer in extreme weather and long-range forecasting. He is the author of “The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore — and Others” This article appeared on the CFACT website at https://www.cfact.org/2020/03/23/covid-19-and-climate-false-equivalencies/]]>