Nearing Midnight: Please, One Pandemic at a Time – Todd Strandberg - https://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/ The Covid-19 pandemic will soon be in its third year. The Spanish Flu pandemic ran for two years and two months. The vast majority of the deaths occurred in 1918. COVID-19 is set to last longer because it comes in wave after wave. The Spanish Flu mostly had just one wave that killed 6.2 million people. The current pandemic has only seen 1.2 million deaths. The latest variant of COVID-19 is very contagious, but it is far less deadly than the first two variants. Here are some stats to compare this year to last year: COVID CASES USA 7-DAY AVG 107,787 MAY 24 2022 24,769 MAY 24 2021 DEATHS 7-DAY AVG 335 MAY 24 2022 568 MAY 24 2021 U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned of burnout among the nation’s health care staff. Murthy issued a new report sounding the alarm over a projected shortage of 3 million “essential low-wage health workers” in the next five years, and nearly 140,000 doctors by 2033. “People are really struggling,” Murthy said. “After two years of COVID-19 and more than 1 million precious lives lost, the people we all turn to to keep us safe, to comfort us and help us heal, they have been pushed to their limits.” We have spent over $7 trillion on COVID-19, and the Biden administration is back asking for more money to fight the virus. The White House says it is planning for “dire” contingencies that could include rationing supplies of vaccines and treatments this fall if Congress doesn’t approve more funds for fighting COVID-19. In March of 2021, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan that was dedicated directly to COVID-19 response. The price tag for that bill was $1.9 trillion, so Biden will likely be asking for a similar amount of money. In public comments and private meetings on Capitol Hill, Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator, has painted a dark picture in which the U.S. could be forced to surrender many of the advances made against the coronavirus, and even the most vulnerable could face supply shortages. “We have the resources,” Jha told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “One of the reasons I’ve been talking a lot about the need for Congress to step up and fund this effort is if they don’t, Martha, we will go into the fall and winter without that next generation of vaccines, without treatments and diagnostics. That’s going to make it much, much harder for us to take care of and protect Americans.” While we are still fighting COVID-19, a new virus has appeared and may trigger a second pandemic. Monkeypox is a disease caused by the monkeypox virus, part of the same family as smallpox, though typically less severe. Despite its name, it is most commonly associated with rodents. It was first identified in 1958, but there’s never been a global Monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa until now. As of last Wednesday, a total of 118 monkeypox cases had been reported across 12 countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area, according to the European Centre for Disease and Prevention Control. The virus can only spread through close physical contact. Because deadly diseases are part of the birth pang signs, I’ve been watching for them for many decades. I remember in the 1990s, we had one false alarm after another, most with Ebola. This virus would pop up in Africa, kill a few people and then quickly disappear. After following the same pattern for many years, I noticed things drastically changed with the 2014-2016 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa. It was the most widespread outbreak of Ebola in history. It caused major loss of life (11,323 Deaths) and socioeconomic disruption in the region, mainly in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. I have no doubt why we are locked into this constant state of pandemic. Because the rapture is very near, the world is reflecting what Bible prophecy proclaimed as a major warning sign. “I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth” (Rev. 6:8, NIV). “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places” (Matt. 24:7, KJV).