Dennis Prager Show - Fumento: Philippines are Basically Quarantined
Aired: 2020-03-17
Duration: 06:22


=== Quarantined in the Philippines (04:27) ===

[00:00:00]  Michael Femento, are you still in the Philippines?
[00:00:05]  Yes, Dennis, and I have to say that the people here are relatively sane, but the politicians have just absolutely gone bonkers.
[00:00:17]  We're basically in quarantine here.
[00:00:21]  I'm allowed out of my house, but they make it such that there's really nothing to do with this, so you might as well stay in your house.
[00:00:29]  I feel like I've been boarded up.
[00:00:31]  Yeah, well, that's what's happening here.
[00:00:33]  Worldwide.
[00:00:34]  Yeah.
[00:00:35]  Yeah.
[00:00:36]  So, I'm shocked.
[00:00:38]  I thought the Philippines, with its hot climate, was fairly impervious to this.
[00:00:46]  You hit on something right there, Dennis.
[00:00:49]  There is no correlation between the epidemic and the hysteria.
[00:00:56]  None.
[00:00:57]  I live on the second most populated island in the Philippines.
[00:01:02]  Five million people on this island.
[00:01:04]  We haven't had a single case.
[00:01:07]  It doesn't matter.
[00:01:10]  The stores are closed.
[00:01:12]  The bars are closed.
[00:01:14]  The gyms are closed.
[00:01:16]  Everything's closed, closed, closed by order of.
[00:01:21]  And we just have to, you know, unfortunately, you know, Filipinos, after 350 years of Spanish rule, that's what I say, they become very sheep-like.
[00:01:32]  They simply accept it.
[00:01:33]  Oh, sheep-like?
[00:01:36]  They're not more sheep-like than Europeans or many Americans.
[00:01:41]  There is a...
[00:01:42]  Individualism is dead.
[00:01:45]  The notion that the state knows best is universal now.
[00:01:52]  I love the Filipinos, but I'm not defending their reaction.
[00:01:58]  I find this amazing.
[00:01:59]  You are on an island of 5 million people.
[00:02:01]  Not one person has been found to have coronavirus or even hospitalized for symptoms, and it's in lockdown.
[00:02:13]  Yeah, they are looking.
[00:02:16]  They're looking?
[00:02:17]  I'm sorry go on.
[00:02:19]  They're looking at, I mean, everywhere you go they have these temperature readers.
[00:02:25]  They look like something out of Star Trek.
[00:02:28]  And they aim it at your forehead to see if you have an elevated temperature.
[00:02:32]  Mind an elevated temperature, your temperature could be elevated for all sorts of things.
[00:02:36]  Of course.
[00:02:37]  But I don't know what they do to you if your temperature is elevated.
[00:02:41]  How many people in all of Philippines have been tested positive?
[00:02:48]  Um...
[00:02:49]  I think it's about 100, maybe a couple hundred now, and I think about 60. No, I'm sorry.
[00:02:59]  It's probably about 60 to 80 right now.
[00:03:01]  But that's out of 105 million people.
[00:03:06]  This is, you know, this is one of the largest population countries in the whole world.
[00:03:11]  But something dampening the virus here that we discussed on earlier shows.
[00:03:16]  What clearly is applying to coronavirus already is that coronavirus, like most respiratory viruses, cold, flu, sirens, doesn't like heat and humidity.
[00:03:31]  And as we all know, the Philippines is hot and the Philippines is humid.
[00:03:36]  So it's never going to spread very much here.
[00:03:40]  Really, I am truly amazed.
[00:03:43]  I am amazed to hear that about the Philippines.
[00:03:46]  So I'll put you on the spot here.
[00:03:48]  Do you continue to be as negative on the response and characterize it as hysteria as you were in the beginning?
[00:03:59]  Yes, it's all the more interesting because I'm pretty much all alone on this.
[00:04:07]  I do have a third article coming out in a publication called Issues and Insights, and it's tomorrow out of Los Angeles.

=== Burial Pits and the Black Death (02:10) ===

[00:04:17]  But I'm almost alone, not completely.
[00:04:21]  A few other people have put in writing that this is hysteria that the media has not to be trusted.
[00:04:27]  It's such madness.
[00:04:31]  Let me give you an example.
[00:04:32]  Both the Washington Post and CNN reported They're digging burial pits in Iran.
[00:04:40]  If you know history, what does a burial pit make you think of?
[00:04:45]  It makes you think of the Black Death.
[00:04:48]  Bring out your dead.
[00:04:50]  A third of all Europeans swept away and all that.
[00:04:53]  And they emphasize this in the headlines.
[00:04:57]  These burial pits can be spotted from outer space.
[00:05:01]  Well, guess what?
[00:05:03]  Google Maps.
[00:05:09]  I should hope that, you know, every individual grave can be seen from out of state.
[00:05:16]  That tells you right there, this is media hype.
[00:05:19]  But another thing is that on average, 12,000 Iranians die each and every day.
[00:05:27]  Through the course of the epidemic, over a month long now in Iran, 30 people or 60 people have died.
[00:05:36]  So why would they be digging burial pits for an additional three or so people a day, when on average 12,000 a day are dying?
[00:05:48]  It's just nonsense.
[00:05:49]  It's made up of these article publications.
[00:05:53]  Didn't I just say CNN and the Washington Post?
[00:05:56]  It's maddening.
[00:05:58]  Okay, we'll be back in a moment.
[00:06:01]  Thank you.
[00:06:04]  You have no idea how much information I hear.
[00:06:12]  Of course you have.
[00:06:12]  You hear it too.
[00:06:13]  But I get it personally because I have relatives in medicine.
[00:06:18]  We'll be back in a moment.
[00:06:20]  The Dennis Prager Show.