This Feels Disturbingly Like the Months Before COVID...

The Eerie Similarities Between Then and Now, and What They Mean for What's Coming

Right now, feels like the calm before the storm.

It reminds me of early 2020 – right before the COVID pandemic upended daily life.

While I don’t believe we’re going to see pandemic emergencies declared, we’re likely to see a number of eerily similar events take place, including:

Regional lockdowns.

Supply chain disruptions.

Crashing financial markets.

And authoritarian government mandates.

Welcome to the next global emergency.

And yet, here in the United States, the corporate mainstream media is pushing government propaganda 24/7, assuring us all “everything is just fine.”

But as in 2020, everything isn’t “just fine.” We’re about to have our lives significantly disrupted.

Here are four similarities between early 2020 and right now. I encourage you not to dismiss them:

1) A Global Event the Western Media Largely Ignores

In early 2020, the U.S. mainstream media largely ignored COVID until schools and workplaces began to shut down. By then, it was too late for the majority of the population to do anything to prepare. Most people were caught off guard and went into panic mode, battling crowds of people for the last items on retail store shelves.

It didn’t have to be that way.

Jenny and I were tracking stories about what was then just known as “the coronavirus” the first week of January. Every day, alternative media brought forward new stories about the virus spreading in China. Then came a day I’ll never forget – January 23^rd.

We were attending a wake on a Thursday night, and I took our six-month old daughter out in the lobby because she was overwhelmed by the crowd. I checked the news on my phone, and there it was – China had locked down the entire city of Wuhan.

The mainstream media covered the story, but not prominently.

In the days which followed, more Chinese cities went into lockdown. Then, more and more cases started to appear in countries all over the world.

By early February, Jenny and I couldn’t believe the coronavirus wasn’t the #1 story for every news outlet. I remember the two of us scrolling through the Yahoo! News feed looking for any mention of the virus. Almost every story was about the Super Bowl, Kobe Bryant’s tragic death, or some other pop culture issue. Almost 100 stories into the feed, they finally mentioned the coronavirus.

The story’s headline and conclusion? It’s “nothing to worry about.”

This went on week after week. The media interviewed “expert” after “expert,” and they all said it won’t come to the U.S. It won’t impact us. We aren’t going to have lockdowns.

Even after Italy announced a nationwide lockdown on March 9^th, the U.S. media didn’t make a big deal out of it. About a week later, large parts of the U.S. started to lock down. And it caught many people off guard. They were never warned about what was coming.

Right now, I feel as though history is about to repeat itself.

I started warning about the greatest energy shock in history in my March 2^nd article, “ALERT: A Global Energy Shock Is Coming!” Even then, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, the mainstream corporate media put out story after story saying, “Iran can’t close the Strait of Hormuz.”

For seven months now, and with the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a 43-year low and diesel prices at all-time highs, the corporate mainstream media continues to claim the same thing it did in early 2020 – “nothing to worry about.”

Instead, they continue to push propaganda like this 👇

Unfortunately, just as happened in 2020, the people who get their news from such sources will be blindsided by what’s coming.

2) A Situation Few Are Preparing For

Because they weren’t properly informed by the media they consumed, most people were blindsided by the government lockdowns and authoritarian mandates issued during the pandemic.

In January of 2020, we began preparing for a lockdown here is the U.S. After the news regarding Wuhan’s lockdown, we went out to our local box store, BJ’s, and stocked up on essential items. Every other day for seven weeks, we went out to the store and got toilet paper, baby formula, long shelf-life food, and other essential items.

We never hoarded any items, never bought the last item on the shelf, and we never bought more than two of any one item on a single trip. But each time we arrived at the store and others weren’t panic buying items, we counted it as a blessing. Each time I drove to BJ’s, I thought, “If the parking lot is full, I’ll turn around and go home. Otherwise, I’ll get a few more items.”

Again, this went on for seven weeks, and the parking lot was never full – until March 13^th. That’s the day I turned around and went home.

By then, we had built up a deep pantry and an ample supply of essential items. This put us in a position not just to take care of our family, but to bless others with items no longer available in the stores.

One of those items was toilet paper. To give you an idea of how quickly an item can go out of stock, just take a look at the difference from one day to the next at our local BJ’s.

Here’s a video of what the toilet paper aisle looked like on March 11, 2020 👇

As you can see, while inventory was getting low, plenty of toilet paper was still available on March 11, 2020.

One day later, this is what the same aisle looked like 👇

Why do I bring this up?

Because I believe we’re going to see similar shortages emerge before year end.

Right now, this is what the store shelves look like for motor oil 👇

And trash bags 👇

Just like March 11, 2020, items are on the store shelf right now. But I don’t think that will be the case forever.

Like COVID, once the supply chain shortages kick in and the general public realizes these items are running low, we’ll find that overnight they become nearly impossible to find.

When that happens, most people who consume mainstream media will be shocked at the “sudden” shortage of specific items.

But those who consume alternative media, such as this Substack, will be prepared.

Back in April, we put out this article: “How to Prepare for an Energy Shock: A Practical Checklist of Items to Consider“.

Just as with the pandemic shortages, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve had plenty of time to prepare.

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Many people in your life weren’t prepared in 2020, and they might not be prepared for what’s coming now.

Share this article with them — while there’s still time to prepare 👇

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3) Financial Markets Oblivious to What’s Happening

During the early part of 2020, the financial markets left me perplexed. Anyone paying attention to what was happening in the world knew China was going into a lockdown state in late January.

As the world’s second-largest economy and a critical node in the global supply chain, it was impossible for China to lockdown its population and not negatively impact the global economy. Yet, the global financial markets shrugged it all off for weeks – almost to the end of February 2020.

I remember reading this article on January 28, 2020 👇

Confirmation of asymptomatic spread likely meant all nations would institute similar lockdown policies. If so, the global economy would go into a depression.

Yet I remember reading that article and the financial markets weren’t impacted at all. “Certainly everyone will understand this by the morning,” I thought. Yet, they didn’t. Instead, the U.S. stock market went up for three more weeks…

On February 19, 2020, the S&P 500 closed at an all-time high of 3,386.15. Then, the impact of what was happening finally sunk in.

What resulted was the fastest descent into a bear market in financial history with the S&P 500 losing about 34% in just 23 trading days – hitting its bear market bottom at 2,237.40 on March 23, 2020.

A similar set-up is taking place right now.

According to Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, the world market lost more than 2.6 billion barrels of crude oil between March 1, 2026 and August 4, 2026. That’s 16.5 million barrels per day over that time period, and nothing has changed in the past two months to make the situation better.

Meanwhile, 20% of the world’s liquified natural gas has been lost as well.

Despite what some people would have us believe, the world runs on fossil fuels. Nothing in the economy moves without energy.

We have diesel at all-time highs in the United States, shortages in France, and active discussions of fuel rationing in the UK.

It’s mathematically impossible to have global fuel shortages and a growing global economy at the same time. Therefore, the market should be pricing in at least a severe global recession if not an outright depression.

But it’s not.

Instead, the S&P 500 closed at an all-time high of 7,798.99 on August 13, 2026.

As I write this article, it’s only down about 1.5% from that all-time high.

Why?

Likely for the same reason the market took so long to react in early 2020 – market participants believe the propaganda that “everything’s just fine.”

Like the pandemic lockdowns, they’ll only wake up once the fuel shortages and rationing become an undeniable reality of their everyday life.

Meanwhile, the U.S. stock market sits at extreme overvaluation levels we’ve never seen before.

This makes the U.S. stock market particularly vulnerable to a sudden downturn.

Again, it’s simply impossible to take away billions of barrels of oil and still grow the global economy.

Eventually, reality will set in.

4) Impending Lockdowns, Mandates, and “Passports”

In early 2020, a number of alternative media sources pulled the government emergency pandemic plans and published what they said.

They explicitly called for various “non-pharmaceutical interventions,” measures such as social distancing, mask wearing, and mandatory lockdowns.

Many people suggested they would eventually roll out “a vaccine” and require everyone to show proof of vaccination in order to participate in society. I know several individuals who were banned from YouTube in 2020 for suggesting such “conspiracy theories” and for “spreading misinformation.”

Of course, all of this turned out to be true.

Governments around the world issued authoritarian mandates regarding social distancing, mask wearing, and lockdowns. And in 2021, they introduced “the vaccine” with many governments around the world mandating it and requiring proof you received it in order to keep your job, enter public places, and participate in various aspects of society.

The vaccine passports derided as conspiracy theory, and which led to the de-platforming of numerous social media accounts, turned out to be right on the mark.

Events are lining up in an eerily similar way now.

Like pandemic emergency plans, governments all over the world have plans in place for an energy emergency as well.

Instead of “non-pharmaceutical interventions,” they have plans for “energy conservation measures,” such as work-from-home edicts, lower speed limits, priority fuel access, and fuel rationing.

And while many will object to my “conspiracy theory” and call it “spreading misinformation,” I believe they’ll roll out digital ID for fuel rationing – essentially making it mandatory in the same way we saw with “vaccine passports” during the pandemic.

As I wrote in June, “If I Wanted to Trigger a Great Reset, I’d Do Exactly What We’re Seeing…” If my goal was to implement a digital control system involving digital currency, tokenized assets, and digital ID – my first priority would be making sure everyone is onboard with digital ID.

A fuel crisis provides the perfect backdrop for the rollout of a global system of digital ID.

Want your allotment of fuel? First, you have to download the app and make sure you have a digital ID connected to it…

I hope I’m wrong about that, but I don’t think I am.

Prepare While You Still Can…

If I’m right about this being the greatest energy crisis the world has ever seen, and if I’m right about all the similarities we currently see, right now is the equivalent of late-February/early-March 2020.

This means you still have time to prepare.

The Bible says:

“A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” Proverbs 22:3 (NLT)

Make sure you have adequate supplies of items critical to you which might experience a shortage. Such items could include medications as well as motor oil, trash bags, or other products we previously mentioned.

Back in April, I put together a list of potential items in the article “How to Prepare for an Energy Shock: A Practical Checklist of Items to Consider.”

As reminder, here are some of the other articles and videos we’ve put together in the past on how to prepare:

“How to Prepare for the Great Reset” – If it turns out this energy crisis is a planned event to usher in an economic/monetary reset, then you’ll want to be adequately prepared for what that entails.

“How to Prepare for a Bank Holiday” – Crashing financial markets due to energy shortfalls will likely trigger a credit crisis within the global banking system. Central banks will likely eventually be able to bailout the system, but in the interim, several nations could experience banking system shutdowns.

“How to Prepare for Bank Runs” – In 2024, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted how close we came to bank runs in the spring of 2023.

She told the House Financial Services Committee, “We did everything we could to put together a package of measures that would stop what could have become a run on the banking system – to the huge detriment to our economy and to hardworking Americans and businesses.”

Despite what the mainstream corporate media might tell you, bank runs are still possible today – they’re not just relics of the 1930’s.

And once again, make sure you have a deep pantry and a back-up water supply. If you ever need them, you’ll be glad you have them.

Most of all, make sure you have Jesus. You can have the whole world, but if you don’t have Jesus, you’ve lost everything. Put your trust in Him, and He will give you a peace that surpasses all understanding, even in the worst of circumstances.

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NLT)

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Many of the people in your life weren’t prepared in 2020, and they might not be prepared now.

Watchmen warn people. Share this article with someone who needs to see it — while there’s still time to prepare 👇

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