Today we light this subject from two angles; one medical/historical, one astrological.

So, what is this Coronavirus? From the CDC,

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in people and many different species of animals, including camels, cattle, cats, and bats. Rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread between people such as with MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and now with this new virus (named SARS-CoV-2).

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a betacoronavirus, like MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. All three of these viruses have their origins in bats. The sequences from U.S. patients are similar to the one that China initially posted, suggesting a likely single, recent emergence of this virus from an animal reservoir.

Early on, many of the patients at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China had some link to a large seafood and live animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread. Later, a growing number of patients reportedly did not have exposure to animal markets, indicating person-to-person spread. Person-to-person spread was subsequently reported outside Hubei and in countries outside China, including in the United States.

From another source,

Coronaviruses are common in animals of all kinds, and they sometimes can evolve into forms that can infect humans. Since the start of the century, two other coronaviruses have jumped to humans, causing the SARS outbreak in 2002 and the MERS outbreak in 2012.

Scientists think this new virus first became capable of jumping to humans at the beginning of December. It originally seemed like the virus first infected people at a seafood market in Wuhan and spread from there. But one analysis of early cases of the illness, published January 24th, found that the first patient to get sick did not have any contact with the market. Experts are still trying to trace the outbreak back to its source.

The emergence of the new virus is consistent with the around once-a-decade spread of a human coronavirus seen since the start of the century: SARS spread in 2002, and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), also caused by a coronavirus, circulated in 2012. Coronaviruses are common in animals and can be found in most wild species. But before SARS, the coronaviruses that infected humans only caused mild respiratory illnesses. Public health experts and virologists learned a lot from fighting both SARS and MERS in the past 20 years that can apply to the current outbreak.

The type of animal the virus originated from is not clear, although one analysis found that the genetic sequence of the new virus is 96 percent identical to one coronavirus found in bats. Both SARS and MERS originated in bats.

We are told the incubation period is “within 14 days of exposure to the virus” and the symptoms are cough, fever, and shortness of breath.

From the Johns Hopkins site,

COVID-19 appeared in Wuhan, a city in China, in December 2019. Although health officials are still tracing the exact source of this new coronavirus, early hypotheses thought it may be linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, China. Some people who visited the market developed viral pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus. A study that came out on Jan. 25, 2020, notes that the individual with the first reported case became ill on Dec. 1, 2019, and had no link to the seafood market. Investigations are ongoing as to how this virus originated and spread.

So there are several types of Coronavirus, and we’ve had pandemics of it before. The first known began in China in 2002, the second began in the Middle East in 2012, with other outbreaks since then. The first was SARS. From the NIH,

In November 2002, a form of atypical pneumonia called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) began spreading rapidly around the world, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the ailment “a worldwide health threat.” At the epicenter of the outbreak was China, where the outbreak of SARS infected more than 5,300 people and killed 349 nationwide…

With hindsight, China’s health system seemed initially to respond relatively well to the emergence of the illness. The earliest case of SARS is thought to have occurred in Foshan, a city southwest of Guangzhou in Guangdong province, in mid-November 2002. It was later also found in Heyuan and Zhongshan in Guangdong. This “strange disease” alerted Chinese health personnel as early as mid-December. On January 2, a team of health experts was sent to Heyuan and diagnosed the disease as an infection caused by a certain virus…

Then, as now, Beijing kept it all secret until February, when the nation was in a panic and they finally had to acknowledge it was a problem and do something about it. By May 7, 18,000 people had been quarantined in Beijing. Free treatment was offered to SARS sufferers anywhere in the country. These momentous measures appeared to have worked. The epidemic started to lose its momentum in late May, and on June 24, the World Health Organization lifted its advisory against travel to Beijing. On August 16, with the last two SARS patients discharged from the Beijing Ditan Hospital, China for the time being was free from SARS.

Now for the 2012 MERS outbreak. Also from the NIH, written a couple of years ago

In June of 2012 a man in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was admitted to a hospital with severe pneumonia. A novel coronavirus (CoV) related to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) was isolated from this patient and shown to be the etiological agent (1). Further studies showed that it was related to several bat CoV, including HKU4 and HKU5 and it was named the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-CoV (MERS-CoV) (2). Retrospective studies showed that the same virus was also responsible for an outbreak of respiratory disease in Zarqa, Jordan in April 2012. Since these initial outbreaks, MERS-CoV infection has been identified in 1728 patients (12 May 2016), with 624 associated deaths…

In the summer of 2015, an outbreak of 186 MERS cases occurred in South Korea. This outbreak stemmed from a single patient who had returned from the Middle East…. The 2015 MERS outbreak in South Korea was halted by placing approximately 17,000 individuals under quarantine. 36 patients succumbed to the infection, with a case fatality rate of 19%, substantially less than that reported in the Middle East…

Dromedary camels are primarily present throughout Africa and the Arabian peninsula and camels at all sites were shown to be seropositive with rates as high as 80% in some populations (reviewed in (48). Surprisingly, serum samples from as far back as 1982 in Africa and 1992 in Saudi Arabia were positive for MERS-CoV antibodies. This suggests that MERS-CoV has infected camels for an extended amount of time and raises the question as to why MERS was not detected in patients in Saudi Arabia before 2012. Of note, camels from Australia, Canada, USA, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan are seronegative for MERS-CoV (48). These data all point to a likely transmission of MERS-CoV to camels in Africa many years ago with subsequent spread to the Middle East.

From this it’s clear that SARS was only a pandemic because Beijing refused to allow people to know to self-quarantine. Once they did it was over in a few months. MERS is still a problem in the world today; even though we don’t hear about many cases, it’s clear that it too is only stopped by quarantines. There are no vaccines for MERS, indicating there probably won’t be a Covid-19 vaccine anytime soon.

Some Astrological Markers

In the SARS epidemic which began to be known in mid-November 2002, we see Sun, Mercury, and Venus retrograde all in Scorpio. Late October and early November had the Sun, Mercury and Venus in Scorpio square Neptune in early Aquarius, followed by the Sun and Mercury squaring Jupiter in mid-Leo and then squaring Uranus in late Aquarius.

That was followed in late November and early December with Mercury and the Sun conjunct Pluto in mid-Sagittarius and then Venus direct conjunct Mars in Scorpio with both square Neptune by mid-month, around the time the Sun opposed Saturn in late Gemini. Between mid and late December Venus and Mars both squared Jupiter retrograde, and then in January both quincunxed Saturn and squared Uranus. By June the virus alert was lifted, and by August it was considered over.

Since these coronaviruses are lung related, I note we had a Solar Eclipse at 23 Sag conjunct the NN and opposed Saturn in Gemini conjunct the SN in mid-December 2001, and another Solar Eclipse at 20 Gemini conjunct Saturn and the SN in June 2002.

In the MERS epidemic which began in June 2012 but was traced to a virus found in April 2012, we see in April that early on Venus in Gemini was square Mars retrograde in Virgo and then quincunx Pluto in Capricorn while Mercury in Pisces was quincunx Saturn in Libra, followed by Sun opposed Saturn. It seems to have spread while Jupiter in late Taurus quincunxed Saturn most of May while Venus went stationary retrograde in late Gemini.

By June Venus retrograde was quincunx Pluto while Jupiter in early Gemini exactly squared Neptune and Mercury in Cancer first formed a T-square with the Uranus in early Aries square Pluto in early Capricorn, and then squared Saturn in late Libra when the Sun replicated the T-square at the end of the month. As it never really stopped, we don’t have an end point. However, it seems to affect those who are around Middle Eastern camels and dromedaries, so don’t do that if you can help it.

We had a Solar Eclipse at 3 Sagittarius conjunct the NN in late November 2011 which was square Mars in Virgo just as Mercury went retrograde at 21 Sagittarius. That was before the April outbreak, and we had another Solar Eclipse at 1Gemini conjunct the SN and in close square to Neptune in early Pisces in late May 2012. We also had a Lunar Eclipse at 15 Gemini/Sag in early June which was conjunct Venus retrograde in Gemini with everything square Mars in mid-Virgo.

In the current Coronavirus pandemic, which gave us the first reported case on December 1, 2019, we see Sun square Neptune, Mars in Scorpio septile Jupiter at the last degree of Sagittarius, followed by Venus conjunct Saturn and Pluto while Mercury was quincunx Uranus. That’s important since the virus has gone pandemic during the time Jupiter in Capricorn has been approaching the Saturn and Pluto positions of the outbreak.

I’ll here remind you that we’ve had several important outer planet aspects made these past 110 days. The outbreak began with Uranus biseptile Pluto and semisquare Neptune. We had Mars in Scorpio forming septiles to Saturn and Pluto in early January followed by a biseptile to Neptune, just before the Sun, Mercury, and Saturn conjunctions with Pluto in mid-January.

These multiple conjunctions with Saturn and Pluto are all being triggered by Mars at present, with the most intense focus (RIGHT NOW!) associated with Mars and Jupiter biseptile Uranus and conjunct Pluto, triggering the Grand Irrationality I’ve been speaking of these past months. As Venus in Taurus is trining Jupiter and Pluto through the end of the month and Mars will be past the conjunction with Jupiter and Pluto by the end of March, we should have a practical understanding and handle on the “earth” part of the pandemic. You’ll note the current transits in Pisces have corresponded with Asia getting a handle on it in their countries.

The problem for me is that Jupiter will go retrograde in May, as will Venus in Gemini in close square to Neptune. That would imply a “return” of the Jupiter/Pluto intensity, with things getting a bit scattered with the Sun and Venus retrograde both square Mars conjunct Neptune in early June. That would seem to be a “distributing” effect rather than a “containment” effect.

Of course, squares can be a time to “turn the corner” so it’s equally possible that we’ll find a variation on a vaccine which worked on a previous form of the virus. I believe we’ll begin to see it wane by July/August when planets in Cancer oppose the planets in Capricorn associated with this outbreak.

As for Eclipses, I believe this one is directly related to the August 2017 Total Solar Eclipse at 29 Leo which sat on top of the entire US. Last Summer we had a Solar Eclipse at 11 Cancer in July 2019 which occurred near the Mercury SRX conjunct Mars with both sesquisquare Jupiter and square Uranus, forming a “Hammer of Thor” configuration. Major friction “hammering us into shape” by that one!

We recently had the Christmas 2019 Solar Eclipse which was conjunct Jupiter, favoring the “expansive shutting down” of Capricorn (social participation in society). Because the pandemic occurred under the beams of the subsequent Lunar Eclipse at 20 Capricorn/Cancer, it’s clear that the festivities indicated by 20 Cancer have been shut down! And yes, that Lunar Eclipse happened at the Superior Conjunction also conjunct Saturn and Pluto with Mars biseptile Neptune that I mentioned earlier.

You can certain see this is a formula for things (and people) getting incredibly compressed with many things ending! This compression of planets has become somewhat obvious when you go to the stores and see massive crowds all buying all they can in a panic. Sounds like Jupiter conjunct Pluto to me! Of course, this will affect the supply chain for months to come, with the restrictions of Capricorn obvious across several industries. That’s why we have to be “good Saturn” and take the long view, accept the limitations and disciplines we need to, and wait for the Aquarian energy to begin to be made manifest in a few weeks.

HOWEVER! Remember that Saturn will go stationary retrograde on a degree of a “cosmic visitation” which will mobilize us all into action due to potentially devastating “natural events.” At least by the time this year’s done we will all have a vision of a better way to live in community, and have learned one of the most valuable lessons Capricorn Doctor Benjamin Franklin once offered us: “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

We must learn cooperation and let go of the need to make a profit off human suffering. We must learn a more effective way of being connected, or our isolation will drive many to despair. This will change the way we learn, we live, we interact, we teach, and we assemble. Fear is useless in dealing with this pandemic; courage, perseverance, maturity, discipline, and vision will carry us to the other shore.

Here’s I’m reminded of the poster issued as the UK was preparing to be bombed mercilessly by the Nazis for months to come. As it was once famously written, “Keep calm and carry on.” And to paraphrase something famously sung, “We will get by, we will survive.”

The world has survived pandemics before; we will survive this one. The world has survived economic and supply disruptions before; we will survive this one. Because this is going to keep a lot of people off the streets and out of the stores for a while, it’s a great opportunity to get to know your neighbors and yourself, reconnect with your loved ones, get focused on those things which truly matter, and open to contact with your Higher Self, which never fears, never gets sick, and never dies.