Warning: This article contains content that some readers may find distressing.
Saturn is the planet of disease, pandemics, public health measures, poverty, scarcity, famine, food insecurity, climate/weather, storms, floods, drought, loss, despair, hardship, grief and suffering: And in 2021 Saturn was a bad news buffet. There was so much suffering.
Coronavirus was for the second year in a row the dominant news story and a tidal wave of extreme weather caused death, destruction and despair.
In the Aquarian Age chart progressed Mars was parallel birth chart Saturn; progressed Saturn formed 20 aspects in the Saturn cycle; and Saturn was square Uranus in the sky all year – peak power dates were February 17, June 14 and December 24, 2021.
On January 1, 2021 the total global death count from covid-19 was estimated at 1.9 million and by December 31, 2021 it was around 5,5 million but the true number was believed to be much, much higher.
In January- February 2021, with Saturn square Uranus in the sky at peak power on February 17, a second wave of coronavirus raced across Britain, Europe and America. It was worse than the first. America was reporting over 200,000 new infections per day. By mid January the newly discovered Delta variant accounted for more than half of the new infections in Brazil.
In March-April India experienced a covid-catastrophe; Europe, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru experienced a second or third wave; and a fourth wave was taking hold in Spain. The total death toll in Latin America and the Caribbean surpassed one million.
On May 31 the Delta variant that was first detected in India in late 2020 was named. It was spreading quickly in countries with both low and high vaccination coverage and soon became the dominant global strain.
In June-July, with Saturn square Uranus in the sky at peak power on June 14, the Delta variant was surging in Britain, Russia, Brazil, Peru, Nepal, New Guinea and many African nations; a third covid wave19 hit South Africa; the Delta variant was out-of-control in Indonesia and surging in Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Myanmar, Mongolia, Bangladesh and Fiji. By now the Delta variant had been detected in over 100 countries and according to nCoV2019.live the total global death count surpassed 4 million.
In August-September the Delta variant was surging across South East Asia; two Australian states were in lockdown; America was averaging 100,000 new infections and nearly 2000 deaths per day; Brazil’s death count surpassed 600,000; Indonesia’s death count surpassed 100,000; and the total global case count topped 200 million.
In September-October a nightmare fourth wave surged across Vietnam with everyone in the country struggling to survive; and the virus raced across Russia.
In November, as winter closed in, Europe was again the epicenter of the pandemic; and on November 24 South Africa reported a new covid variant to the World Health Organization (from a sample taken on November 9) which was later named Omicron.
In December, with Saturn square Uranus in the sky at peak power on December 24, the Omicron variant was racing around the globe at lightning speed; the World Health Organisation declared it a ‘very high’ global risk; cases surged; America, France, Britain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Australia reported record daily case numbers; and according to data published by the AFP there were a record 6.51 million coronavirus cases reported around the world between December 22 and 28.
In 2021 the loss, grief and suffering caused by covid was catastrophic. Tens of thousands of children lost one or both parents to the virus. More than 2.1 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean died of covid-19. The death rate in the region was the highest in the world and the economic toll was crushing.
Extreme weather
In 2021 flooding displaced more than 700,000 people in South Sudan. Among the most vulnerable were villagers in the vast wetland of the Sudd, where the White Nile and its tributaries swelled to never before seen levels.
In January 2021 storm Eloise dumped heavy rain and caused flooding that destroyed buildings, drowned crops and displaced thousands in Mozambique.
In February extreme storm Darcy battered the Netherlands; and Texans experienced a harrowing week when extreme winter weather caused widespread blackouts and water shortages.
In March the worst flooding in 60 years in New South Wales, Australia caused massive destruction with thousands evacuated.
In May extreme cyclonic storm, Tauktae, made landfall and battered India’s west coast with high winds, storm surges, heavy rainfall and flooding; and in China’s Gansu province at least 21 people participating in an ultramarathon were killed after ‘abrupt, extreme weather’ hit a high-altitude section of the 100-kilometre cross-country race.
In June Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo erupted leaving nearly 500,000 people without clean drinking water; and Lytton, British Columbia recorded its highest ever temperature for a third straight day – 49.5C (121F). Dozens of people died in the unprecedented heatwave.
In July heavy monsoon rains triggered landslides and flash floods in refugee camps displacing thousands of Rohingya Muslims in southeastern Bangladesh; and at least 33 people died in extreme flooding in Zhengzhou city, China when a year’s worth of rain fell in three days.
On July 15 at least 170 people died in extreme flooding in western Germany and Belgium. It was a climate catastrophe. And in Iran the worst drought in 50 years saw water shortages and power blackouts in Khuzestan province.
In August at least 17 people were killed in Turkey’s Black Sea region when flash floods sent water and debris cascading through streets damaging bridges and roads; and in America tropical Storm Ida claimed at least 41 lives and dumped 80mm of rain over New York City in one hour, causing flash flooding.
In September livelihoods on the Canary Island of La Palma were destroyed when the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted spewing lava and ash and causing earthquakes for months.
And in December a rare tornado outbreak ripped through six US states killing more than 70 people in Kentucky and leaving a trail of destruction; and Super Typhoon Rai smashed the Philippines causing massive damage and hardship and killing more than 375 people.
People in distress
According to the World Health Organization and the World Bank more than half a billion people in 2020 were pushed into extreme poverty as they paid for health costs out of their own pockets during the height of the covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021 Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda suffered food insecurity; nearly a million people in Somalia were threatened by famine; soaring prices, high unemployment and surging inflation pushed 7 million Nigerians into poverty; and the unemployment rate in South Africa hit 44%, the highest in the world.
In 2021 Lebanon suffered a shortage of everything; Mexico’s poverty rate grew to nearly 44% with 56 million Mexicans living below the poverty line; Yemen, the world’s worst humanitarian disaster with at least 15.6 million people living in extreme poverty, was on the brink of famine; and poverty and economic hardship increased significantly in South East Asia as the tourism sector in Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines, Brunei and Mongolia collapsed resulting in 1.6 million people losing their jobs.
In June the UN reported that a famine in northern Ethiopia was getting worse with 350,000 people living in ‘severe crisis’ in the war-torn Tigray region as well as neighbouring Amhara and Afar; and the World Bank reported that Lebanon’s financial and economic crisis could rank as one of the top three worst crises in 150 years.
On July 6 Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab calls on the international community to save his country in deep economic crisis. More than half the population had been plunged into poverty. There was no food, no petrol and no end to the despair and suffering.
In November thousands of people were stranded in freezing conditions on both sides of the Belarus-Poland border. They were barred from entering the EU via Poland as a dispute between the bloc and Minsk raged. And in December Afghanistan was moving towards financial collapse as the global community refused to financially support the Taliban.
Major global reports
Oxfam reported that eleven people die every minute of hunger and the number of those facing famine-like conditions globally had increased by six times over the past year. The death toll from famine outpaced that of covid-19, which kills about seven people per minute. According to the charity 155 million people around the world now live at crisis levels of food insecurity or worse – some 20 million more than last year.
In June a UN report found that child labor had increased to 160 million – the first rise in two decades. The report found that 8.4 million children were pushed into child labour over the last four years and the number of children aged five to 17 years who are doing work that was dangerous or harmful to their health, safety or morals rose by 6.5 million to 79 million since 2016.
In August the UN climate panel said the world is dangerously close to runaway warming and that the ‘human influence is completely unequivocal in causing climate change’. Their report warned that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are already high enough to guarantee climate disruption for decades if not centuries and that the deadly heat waves, powerful hurricanes and other weather extremes that are now happening are likely to become more severe.
In September the World Meteorological Organization reported that the number of climate change weather disasters – such as floods and heatwaves – had increased fivefold during the past 50 years, killing more than two million people and costing $3.64 trillion in total losses; and the World Health Organization said that air pollution is more dangerous than previously thought with an estimated seven million people dying prematurely each year from diseases linked to air pollution.
In November a coalition of UN agencies reported that the number of hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean had risen by over 30% since 2019 to more than 59 million.
In December the UN warned that the need for humanitarian aid is skyrocketing worldwide and will reach an all-time high next year, as the pandemic, climate change and conflict push more people to the brink of famine; and on December 25 in his annual Christmas Day message Pope Francis warned that the world is becoming so desensitised to crises and suffering that they now happen while hardly being noticed.
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