Month: December 2023

By John Kemp, Senior Market Analyst

India produced a record amount of electricity from coal in October to make up for a shortfall in hydro generation following lower-than-normal monsoon rains.

Coal remains fundamental to the country’s energy security, despite rapid deployment of wind and solar generation, underscoring the challenge of reducing emissions.

Notwithstanding the ambitions expressed at the UN climate conference in Dubai, for the foreseeable future, India will depend on its mines and rail network to satisfy rapidly growing electricity demand and ensure reliability.

Total electricity demand met increased by 24 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) (+21%) in October compared with the same month a year earlier.

But hydroelectric generation fell by 5 billion kWh (-30%) as unusually low monsoon rainfall depleted water resources.

Total precipitation across most of India, the Himalayas and Tibet has been less than 80% of the long-term average since the start of the rainy season in June.

The volume of water stored in the 150 reservoirs monitored by India’s Central Water Commission was 20% below the level in 2022 and 7% below the average for 2013-2022 on November 23.

Reservoirs are managed to provide a mix of hydroelectricity and irrigation; depletion would have been even more severe if hydro generation had not been curbed to save water for agriculture.

Despite big increases in installed capacity, solar and wind generation were unable to make up the deficit. Wind increased by 0.3 billion kWh (+10%)…

…. while solar was up 1.3 billion kWh (+16%).

Instead the electricity system turned to extra gas (1.6 billion kWh, +103%) and especially coal (28 billion kWh, +33%) to meet demand.

Coal-fired generators produced a seasonal record of 111 billion kWh in October 2023 up from 84 billion kWh in October 2022.

Coal satisfied 80% of electricity demand up from 73% a year earlier, while the hydro share fell to 9% from more than 15%.

COAL REMAINS KING

India’s installed solar capacity has risen by almost 47 million kilowatts (+24% per year) while wind capacity is up by 9 million kilowatts (5% per year) since the start of 2018.

Over the same period, coal generation capacity has increased by just 9 million kilowatts (1% per year) and gas-fired capacity has been essentially unchanged.

But coal units have much higher utilization, and are particularly critical to meet load in the shoulder seasons of March-April and September-October, when renewable generation is lower but air-conditioning load is relatively high.

In the final analysis, India’s electricity system remains overwhelmingly reliant on coal for baseload and ensuring reliability.

To cope with rising electricity demand and poor hydrological conditions, India boosted mine production and the volume hauled by the railways to generators to record rates in October.

Coal output was up by 13 million tonnes in October and by a total of 87 million tonnes since January compared with a year earlier.

The volume dispatched to power producers was up 8 million tonnes in October and by 35 million tonnes in the first ten months.

Even so, coal stocks at generators were severely depleted in September and October, and by the end of October had been reduced to just 7.5 days at the required level.

Inventories had been reduced near to three-year lows and close to levels that sparked the fuel crisis and blackouts in September 2021.

Coal production and dispatch will have to remain high throughout the winter, when consumption is lower, to rebuild stocks ahead of the next shoulder season.

Much of the international community has seen the ongoing temporary truce and accompanying hostage/prisoner swap in Gaza as a good and welcome development. The UN and even regional Arab countries have urged for the ceasefire to become permanent, but hardliners in the Israeli government are growing impatient concerning Israel’s stated aim of wiping out Hamas.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is now demanding an end to the truce, which his ultra-conservative Otzma Yehudit party has opposed from the beginning.

He’s even threatening to break apart the governing coalition under Prime Minister Netanyahu. Ben-Gvir posted to X this week in Hebrew: 

“Stopping the war = breaking apart the government.”

It’s being widely reported as a clear threat to collapse the unity ruling coalition government; however, it remains unclear whether his party’s exit would ultimately fragment the coalition at this moment of war and national emergency.

On Thursday a pair of Palestinian gunmen unleashed M16 and pistol fire on a crowd waiting at a Jerusalem bus stop, killing three Israelis and injuring 16.

Shortly after the attack, Hamas claimed responsibility.

The Hamas statement said “the operation came as a natural response to unprecedented crimes conducted by the occupation” and further called for “an escalation of the resistance.”

Ben Gvir quickly pointed out that this means Hamas has broken the truce, and that Israel should continue attacking Gaza: 

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir argued that Hamas had broken the truce, centered around fighting in Gaza, after the organization claimed responsibility for a Thursday terror attack in Jerusalem. Less than an hour after Thursday’s truce extension was finalized, the shooting attack killed three Israelis.

“With one hand Hamas signs a ceasefire, with the other it sends terrorists to murder Jews in Jerusalem,” the police minister, who was against the pause in fighting to begin with, said in a Thursday statement released by his Otzma Yehudit party.

“This is not a ceasefire but rather a continuation of the conception of containment [of terror attacks] and concession that brought us murdered people, which gives [Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar hope that he can exit this conflict with the upper hand,” he continued.

Ben Gvir declared in his Thursday statement, “We have to stop deals with the devil, and return immediately to the fight, with rare strength.”

PM Netanyahu’s words conveyed to US Secretary of State Blinken on the same day appeared geared toward assuaging these growing voices that are critical of the truce. “I told him we have sworn, and I have sworn, to destroy Hamas. Nothing will stop us,” he informed a post-meeting press conference.

Netanyahu later in the day issued a statement specifically reacting to Ben-Gvir, insisting that the war against Hamas would continue until Hamas is eliminated: “There is no situation in which we do not go back to fighting until the end,” the prime minister stressed. “This is my policy. The entire Security Cabinet is behind it. The entire Government is behind it. The soldiers are behind it. The people are behind it — this is exactly what we will do.”

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A rule to redefine what doing business as a gun dealer means—proposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)—is supported by a majority of public commenters, with 10 days left in the comment period.

On Nov. 27, more than 230,000 of the 280,098 comments supported the plan. This is an estimate based on a review by The Epoch Times.

A search of the comments section revealed that 237,172 comments include the opening sentence about loopholes in federal law from a sample email posted on the Everytown for Gun Safety webpage.

Everytown for Gun Safety (Everytown) did not respond to an email seeking comment for this report.

On its webpage, Everytown claims that “loopholes” in the law allow the sale of guns to criminals through online sales, private transactions, and gun shows.

“The regulation goes directly to the loopholes we have been trying to close for years by expanding background checks to guns offered for sale online or at gun shows, keeping weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, and ultimately saving lives,” the webpage reads.

“But for ATF to finish the job on this life-saving action, it needs to know that the public supports closing these dangerous loopholes. ATF needs to hear from us.”

Many of the online comments use language similar to the Everytown email, with some posting the sample message word-for-word.

This does not mean that all 237,172 support the rule. In at least one entry a commenter appears to support the rule but closes his comment with a vulgar expletive directed at the ATF.

Still, it appears clear that a majority of the commenters support the redefinition and the expansion of background checks.

One commenter who supported the redefinition claimed to have been involved in a school shooting in which the shooter’s parents reportedly purchased guns for him. The commenter also claimed the shooter stole guns from family members.

Second Amendment advocates point out that the issues raised by Everytown are already addressed by the law. They say the comment section shows an organized anti-gun campaign, combined with cynicism among gun owners.

“Frustrated citizens frequently disengage from the process of public comment periods for new and unconstitutional rules. They unfortunately feel like their voices aren’t heard by ATF and that the Biden Administration won’t take these comments seriously,” Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America (GOA), wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

According to gun rights activists, the proposed rule would virtually eliminate private gun sales.

The ATF proposed the rule to bring gun regulations in line with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed by Congress in June 2022.

The BSCA, touted by gun control activists as “the most significant gun safety legislation in 30 years,” changed the definition of a gun dealer from a business that buys and sells firearms with the objective of “livelihood and profit” to anyone who sells a gun for profit.

This means that private individuals who sell a gun to a friend, neighbor, or family member would have to have a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and run a background check on the prospective buyer.

One Second Amendment advocate told a U.S. Senate Committee the ATF’s explanation of the new definition should raise concerns.

Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at the Ed Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies for the Heritage Foundation, said the new definition is a “slight wording change” while the ATF’s explanation is 108 pages long.

“That should be a red flag immediately,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a Nov. 27 hearing on whether gun violence is a public health issue.

A Houston, Texas-based lawyer who specializes in the Second Amendment agreed with The Epoch Times’s assessment of the comments.

According to Richard Hayes of Walker & Taylor, PLLC, and host of the Armed Attorneys YouTube channel, it’s clear that gun control groups have organized to support the rule. This is not the first time a group has spoken out in the comments section, he says. But, in his experience, it’s been Second Amendment supporters who have been the most outspoken.

“It seems that the anti-gunners have taken a page from the Second Amendment playbook,” Mr. Hayes told The Epoch Times. “It appears that the gun grabbers have gotten wise to the importance of the public comments.”

Mr. Pratt said his organization is encouraging its members to make their voices heard before the public comment period ends on Dec. 7.

“We at GOA know that judges weighing challenges to agency actions like the Universal Registration Check Rule certainly look at and consider citizen comments,” Mr. Pratt wrote.

Once the comment period has ended, the ATF will consider the public comments before deciding whether to adopt the rule, modify it, or drop it.

Russia has long faced widespread international condemnation for what outside countries have decried as a crackdown on sexual minorities. President Vladimir Putin has persisted in stressing that Russia must safeguard traditional family values, and that this means protecting children from the pervasive propaganda of the West which seeks to sexualize young people.

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday in an official ruling designated what it called the “international LGBT public movement” as a banned “extremist” organization. The new ban is expected to take full effect by early next year – but some reports have said it is effective immediately – and while specifics haven’t been forthcoming, the label would clearly give state authorities much broader powers to go after activist groups.

This follows on the heels of prior controversial legislation that extended the ban on “LGBT propaganda” even to adults. At first this was aimed at protecting children, but the law applies among adults as well, as of a year ago. This chiefly impacts media and publications, and activist organizations and public demonstrations.

Additionally it’s aimed at NGOs. The Kremlin has long complained that well-funded NGOs from the West enter Russia and often spread counter-family values. 

The Moscow Times has quoted the following activist in reaction to this latest planned expansion of the law: 

“There are still some LGBT rights activists here in Russia. But they might well be the last ones,” Alexei Sergeyev, a St. Petersburg-based civil rights and LGBT activist, told The Moscow Times. 

“As I always told myself, ‘I can handle the fines, but if there is a threat of imprisonment, I will leave’.”

Individuals face a maximum of six years in prison if convicted of involvement in an “extremist” organization.

Critics of the policy under Putin have claimed that such a thing as the “international LGBT movement” doesn’t exist.

However, as CNN and other media outlets have long acknowledged, during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State (under Obama), promotion of “LGBTQ” became “a core value of U.S. foreign policy”. This meant that any country seen as being resistant to this agenda was marked as a target for reform – and this has of course included Russia at top of the list.

Recent years have witnessed US Embassies across the globe fly large rainbow flags. But many have pointed out glaring hypocrisy in the fact that while the biggest flags can be seen in places like Moscow or Belarus, the US doesn’t dare fly the ‘Pride’ flag in places like Saudi Arabia or other allied Muslim-dominant nations.

Thus the Kremlin sees the cause of ‘gay rights’ as yet another public social domain that Washington has ‘weaponized’ to bring about political change in Russia. US officials have simultaneously publicly opined on overthrowing the “repressive” Putin “regime”. 

The Supreme Court of Russia has recognized the LGBT movement as extremist and has banned its activities within the country.

The decision to completely ban the LGBT movement in Russia comes into effect immediately. pic.twitter.com/DGPcYzygFZ

— Constantin von Hoffmeister (@constantinvonh) November 30, 2023

Conservative pundits in America have at the same time highlighted the mythology of a supposedly unified LGBTQ “community”. In recent years the “T”/or Trans has been effectively at war against the “L” and the “G”. Most Lesbians and their allies are traditional feminists, but the transgender movement has sought to erase feminism altogether.

This is further highlighted in the long-running smears and attacks on Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, given she maintains there is a uniqueness to womanhood that can’t be mimicked or duplicated by men wishing to change their sex. It could be the case too that Russia doesn’t want to see this internal LGBTQ split and ideological war come to its own society.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

Don’t Do Unto Others What We Would Have Done to Them?

Once more, it gets even creepier how the projectionist Left is daily still shrieking about impending Trump “revenge” and “rage”, or about Trump’s purported enemies lists to come, or about his planned weaponization of the bureaucracies.

The fear is in direct proportion to Biden cognitive decline, sinking polls, and walls-are-closing-in family corruption.

Should we laugh or cry about the transparent hypocrisy?

After all, who tried to wreck an administration with a 22-month-long Russian “collusion” fraud, suppressed a laptop with the lie it was Russian “disinformation”, or impeached a president for a phone call correctly identifying the Biden family’s operation in Ukraine as utterly corrupt and at the expense of U.S. interests?

Do we recall that the Obama-Biden nexus—from 2009-17, and from 2021 until now—cemented the reputation of FBI as a partisan operation, rebooted the Pentagon as an agent of woke change ferreting out “white rage” and “white privilege”, reinvented the DOJ as a Biden family protection service, politicized the CIA so that it, along with the FBI, interfered in the 2016 and 2020 elections, and warped the IRS by suppressing evidence of Biden family tax fraud?

What Lois Lerner, Eric Holder (self-identified as Obama’s “wingman”), and Loretta Lynch left undone was taken up by Merrick Garland.

Does the New York Times, or Joe Scarborough or any of these strange pundits raging about Trump rage to come remember how the “Logan Act” farce was used to destroy Michael Flynn?

Or the Foreign Policy essay of Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-era Pentagon lawyer, about how to drive out Trump without waiting for the 2020 election, by either impeachment, the 25th Amendment – or a military coup?

How about the “kill Trump” porn that saw celebrities, actors, and academics envisioning decapitating, stabbing, shooting, exploding, or incinerating the orange man?

How about Anonymous’s confessions about how fellow bureaucrats were trying to undermine and sabotage the operations of the Trump administration from within? Or the Pentagon’s retired 4-stars calling for Trump to be removed the “sooner the better”, or labeling him a Mussolini or Nazi-like figure?

Who paid Twitter millions to censor the news of political opponents?

Who paid foreign national Christopher Steele to peddle a fake dossier to destroy the 2016 Republican candidate?

Do we remember Biden’s Phantom-of-the-Opera harangue about his “ultra-MAGA” and “semi-fascists” political enemies?

Were not the twin pillars of Biden’s current foreign policy team, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, once respectively knee-deep in the anti-Trump Alfa Bank-ping hoax and the “51 Intelligence Authorities” laptop scam?

Again, the reason the media and politicians are terrified is that they are convinced Trump would do exactly what they would do in his place—and what they would do utterly suddenly horrifies them.

Authored by Austin Alonzo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Vice President Kamala Harris is headed to Dubai for the COP28 summit being held Nov. 30 through Dec. 12.

The White House announced on Nov. 29 that Ms. Harris, along with “dozens of senior U.S. officials representing more than 20 U.S. departments and agencies” will be headed to the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, being held in the United Arab Emirates’ capital.

In a Wednesday afternoon press call, Ike Irby, deputy domestic policy advisor to the vice president, said the visit builds on the administration’s “leadership on bold global action to address the climate crisis.“

“Throughout her engagements in Dubai, Vice President Harris will highlight the administration’s historic investments to address the climate crisis at home and abroad and announce several initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions support, adaptation, and boost climate resilience alongside global partners,” he said.

Senior administration officials declined to share specific details of Ms. Harris’ expected visit but did say the vice president is expected to speak at multiple engagements on Dec. 2.

Mr. Irby said Ms. Harris will have an opportunity to engage with global leaders assembled at COP28 and discuss the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Ms. Harris is expected to speak during the World Climate Action Summit. More details are expected to be announced on Ms. Harris’ visit in the coming days.

An overview schedule published by the UNFCCC said the World Climate Action Summit will take place on Dec. 1 and Dec. 2. It is scheduled to include high-level roundtables and events. The G77 and China Summit is expected to take place on Dec. 2.

The overall objective of COP28, according to the UNFCCC, is to “address the climate crisis by agreeing on ways to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.” More than 70,000 delegates are expected to attend the event.

“Countries are developing plans for a net-zero future, and the shift to clean energy is gathering speed, but … the transition is nowhere near fast enough yet to limit warming within the current ambitions,” the UNFCCC release said.

Authored by Paul Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

Congressional leaders with the House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee will question CDC Director Mandy Cohen tomorrow in what should be an interesting hearing on restoring public trust.

The hearing “should” be interesting, because this committee has a long history of holding corporate and government leaders accountable.

However, we have yet to see this committee get any actual explanation for a rash of mistakes and failures during the COVID pandemic.

During her final appearance before Congress last summer, the prior CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky, gave false testimony about a study on masks. When two researchers pointed out Walensky’s mistake, a congressional staffer emailed them that the committee would correct the record. “We want the record to reflect the accurate facts for posterity,” the staffer with House Appropriations wrote, “And take this responsibility very seriously as the lack of trust in public health officials is becoming an enormous problem for many reasons.”

Having run congressional investigations for several years, I’m confused why the Energy and Commerce committee has done so little peeking into COVID scandals at the CDC—many of which I have documented during the last couple of years. Congressional staff work long hours and often don’t have the time to look into every problem, but how can the CDC regain public trust when employees with the PR firm for Pfizer and Moderna staff the CDC’s Vaccine Center?

Last October, I discovered that employees with the global PR firm Weber Shandwick are embedded at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), the CDC group that implements vaccine programs. Weber Shandwick won this multi-million dollar CDC contract back in September 2020, during COVID pandemic’s first year. 

A few weeks after Weber Shandwick won the CDC contract, a senior vice president at the firm posted a company blog that disclosed Weber Shandwick clients working on COVID-19 vaccines included GSK, Sanofi, and Pfizer. A special investigation by PR Week reported that Weber Shandwick provided publicity for Moderna’s COVID vaccine.

“So excited to be starting a new role today,” one Weber Shandwick employee wrote on her LinkedIn account. “I’m joining Weber Shandwick as an Account Director supporting a contract I know well, at CDC’s NCIRD!”

Weber Shandwick employees staffing NCIRD help to run the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). After ACIP recommended recommended in late 2021 that everyone over 12 receive a “bivalent” Covid-19 vaccine as a booster dose, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, warned that ACIP’s advice was made without convincing data.

Despite sending a slew of emails to the CDC—some directly to the CDC Director—I never got an explanation for this obvious conflict of interest. Senator Rand Paul later sent the CDC a letter, but the agency ignored him. Will the House Committee demand answers?

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A new report from Consumer Reports found that electric vehicles have almost 80% more problems and are “generally less reliable” than conventional internal combustion engine cars. Good thing every major government around the world is subsidizing their use in the name of ‘climate change’, right?

Even worse than electric vehicles were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which were found to have 150% more issues than traditional ICE vehicles, CBS reported. Ordinary hybrids are the best of the breed, with about 25% less problems than gas cars, the study found. 

The study encompassed information from over 330,000 vehicles produced from 2000 to 2023, including a limited number of reports on brand-new 2024 models.

The recent vehicle reliability report from Consumer Reports coincides with a time when car purchasers have the benefit of a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 when buying an electric vehicle. 

But, as CBS noted in their summary, the adoption of EVs by consumers has been slower than initially anticipated. One contributing factor to this slower adoption is the higher maintenance costs associated with EVs compared to conventional vehicles, along with the necessity for additional equipment like home electric charging stations.

EV owners most commonly reported issues related to the battery and charging systems, as well as issues with the fit and finish of the vehicle’s body panels and interior components. Consumer Reports observed that EV manufacturers are still in the process of mastering new power systems and suggested that as they gain expertise, the overall reliability of EVs would improve.

Consumer Reports also pointed out that persistent concerns about reliability are likely to compound the challenges that deter many potential buyers from transitioning to EVs. These concerns join existing ones about higher costs, limited availability of charging infrastructure, and extended charging durations associated with EVs.

CBS wrote:

“PHEVs may have more problems than conventional cars and electric vehicles because they combine internal-combustion engines with an electric drive, which creates additional complexity, Consumer Reports said. That means there’s more than can go wrong.”

“Consumer Reports rates vehicles on 20 problem areas, ranging from squeaky brakes to EV charging problems, and PHEVs can experience every one of them, it noted.”

Not all PHEVs were horrible. According to Consumer Reports, the Toyota RAV4 Prime and Kia Sportage received reliability ratings that are above average. In addition, three plug-in hybrid electric vehicles – the BMW X5, Hyundai Tucson, and Ford Escape – achieved scores that were average. 

Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports concluded: “This story is really one of growing pains. It’s a story of just working out the bugs and the kinks of new technology.”

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

Top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are calling for attention from U.S. health authorities on the “suspicious” clusters of viral infections and reports of pneumonia affecting Chinese children, warning that it would be “an abdication” of their duty for allowing the Chinese regime to “repeat its misdeeds from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In a Nov. 29 letter addressed to Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) director Mandy Cohen, who is set to testify before the committee’s oversight subcommittee on Thursday, the lawmakers underscored the Chinese regime’s repeated efforts to suppress information about the burgeoning COVID-19 crisis since it began to spread in China three years ago. Such actions by China have drawn criticism from international bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO), which, the lawmakers noted, “has long been criticized for being overly accommodating to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

The infections of children with respiratory illness and pneumonia in China have overwhelmed hospitals and alarmed the WHO, which is urging China to share data about the outbreak. Anecdotal reports have also indicated that children are transmitting the illness to other members of their family, including adults.

The Chinese authorities have responded by saying that they have detected no “unusual or novel pathogens or unusual clinical presentations,” and only a “general increase in respiratory illnesses due to multiple known pathogens,” according to a WHO statement on Nov. 23. It cited Chinese authorities as further stating that “the rise in respiratory illness has not resulted in patient loads exceeding hospital capacities.”

The three Republican lawmakers—Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Brett Guthrie (R-Va.), and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.)—while expressing skepticism about WHO, are asking the CDC to step up.

“The American people should not have to rely on the unaccountable and untrustworthy WHO to communicate information about Chinese public health threats. Further, we cannot allow the CCP to block the CDC from accessing the information it needs to protect Americans and assist in appropriate public health response efforts,” they wrote in the letter.

They requested the CDC to brief the committee on a biweekly basis on the issue, and respond to a list of questions about the wave of respiratory illness in China by Dec. 13, including whether CDC has engaged with the Chinese counterparts regarding the outbreak issue, related details, and its plan of action.

“There’s no question that we should be taking a hard look at it and not not counting on them to give us the real facts,” Mr. Griffith, chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, told The Epoch Times’s sister media NTD.

“We need to figure out what we need to do to protect ourselves from a disease that’s in China from coming here, if we can.”

From the early days of the pandemic, the CDC had tried to offer assistance to China. Letters The Epoch Times obtained showed that Dr. Robert Redfield, who was head of the CDC at the time, had attempted to arrange for a team of experts to fly to China to help identify the virus. The United States and allies made nearly 100 requests to China asking to offer assistance in the health crisis, but the regime rejected them all, according to David Asher, a former lead COVID-19 investigator at the U.S. State Department.

Now, concerns about overcrowded hospitals and long lines for seeing a doctor have led China’s top health body, the National Health Commission, to call for local clinics to increase their capacity.

Chinese People on Front Line

Chinese authorities haven’t provided any data on the current outbreak, but many schools are telling students to stay home because of the large number of sick children.

A woman from Yunnan Province in southwestern China said that her four children are all experiencing fever. One of them has had a fever for half a month, with pimples appearing on the face and their throat swelling up and festering.

“The doctor didn’t tell us much and prescribed us some drugs. We’ve been taking them, but there hasn’t been much effect,” she told The Epoch Times.

Beijing resident Ms. Lin said that her two children had become infected first, before spreading the illness to her and her husband.

At their school, parents have been asked to send digital requests for a leave of absence to a group chat monitored by teachers if their children become sick.

“Every day, we would see some children explaining why they can’t come to school,” she told The Epoch Times.

A majority of sick students are coughing. And even days after their symptoms go away, some of the children would start coughing again or develop fever soon after they returned to school, she said.

Gen-Zers have it rough: coming to age and entering the workforce in a period where ‘Bidenomics‘ has utterly failed and most everything is unaffordable. 

It’s not us saying this, but the poor, broke generation taking to social media platforms, X, TikTok, and Facebook, complaining about “owning nothing,” inflation, and working. 

Rabobank senior macro strategist Benjamin Picton recently explained, “Gen Z’s in developed countries can’t afford to buy a home no matter how much they save, so why not embrace nihilism and buy those Taylor Swift tickets?” 

The current mood of Gen-Zers…

But for the Gen-Zers who can afford homes. Don’t expect to be buying the suburban house featured in the 1990 Christmas movie Home Alone. 

Because you won’t be able to afford it. 

So, here you go – a tiny house community: Welcome to the tiny jail cell tiny house. 

You might not want to, but you’re going to live here pic.twitter.com/B1MqyQaK0O

— 🌴 Josh Lekach 🌴 (@JoshLekach) November 28, 2023