Maybe some of you computer savvy peeps can do more research into this comic book thing I came across. Tired of dealing with search manipulation from big tech:
EU-funded comic PREDICTED deadly pandemic escaping China - and guess who saves the day?
BRUSSELS once predicted the escape of a deadly virus from a Chinese laboratory that threatened the lives of billions - and even painted the European Union as the hero behind the world's recovery.
By
JOE BARNES, BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT
PUBLISHED: 14:24, Thu, May 14, 2020 | UPDATED: 16:25, Thu, May 14, 2020
The European Commission-funded comic book “Infected” foresaw a worldwide lockdown enforced after B1049 disease leaked out of a Chinese testing facility that was carrying out experiments on deadly pathogens. Similar to the coronavirus pandemic, the fictional virus was transmitted from animals to humans before rapidly spreading across the globe through international travel and trade links. The publication, released in 2012, tells the story of how the EU played a leading role in the international effort to bring the outbreak under control.
As the infections popped up across the world, bosses from the EU’s Commission, Parliament and Council eventually claim credit for bringing the disease under control.
They proclaimed to have been at the forefront of a global effort to find a vaccine, which kept the worldwide death toll below just one million.
But they were only able to act with the help of a time traveller who came back in time to warn about the pandemic that had claimed almost one billion victims in the future.
He befriended Chan Wenling – whose boss at the Chinese lab passed on the deadly disease to an unsuspecting journalist – and worked to convince people to act together in order to save lives.
EU-funded comic 'Infected' told the story of a global pandemic back in 2012 (Image: EU COMMISSION)
In another parallel to the real-life pandemic, their efforts to save the day were, however, almost thwarted by a crooked official who wants to cover up the leak from the laboratory.
He uses the disease to seize control of democracy by implementing draconian social distancing rules and engineering phoney vaccines.
The fictional publication was released by the EU Commission’s international cooperation and development arm.
While the story bears an uncanny resemblance to the coronavirus pandemic, it was released as an educational tool.
Eurocrats wanted to inform readers about the dangers of a potential pandemic – including Ebola and SARS – and how the EU would respond.
“While the story may be fictional, it is nevertheless intertwined with some factual information,” the publication explained.
An accompanying factsheet explains the need for “pandemic readiness”, “cross-sectoral cooperation” and management of the “interactions between animals, humans and their diverse environments”.
It even calls for “better surveillance” in diseases transmitted between animals and humans, and even limit population sizes to prevent a future outbreak.