We Are Not But Achieved with COVID-19
When the world faced the Spanish flu in 1918, it had no drugs or vaccines to aid them in their struggle. The only tools they had were masks, social distancing, and quarantine. Hmm! Sounds strangely familiar, doesn't it? But wait, it gets better. They also faced job losses, severe economic damage and protests. In other words, just as we see today, there has been incredible pressure to break the quarantine and open it as soon as possible. And as we see today, every city, every state and every country has responded differently to this pressure. Some resisted; some gave in; and some even cited charges of reopening their economies.
What they learned was that those places that resisted the pressure and held the quarantine a little longer and then vanished from quarantine in a controlled manner ended up facing far fewer deaths, far less disruption, and far less damage to their economies The problem was that those who lifted the quarantine too early and were faced again with the virus, which killed even more people than in the first round, were forced to remain in quarantine for much longer than in the areas in which they were found to re-implement the course and thus had much more serious economic consequences. Guess what path much of the world, and especially many areas in the United States, has taken in this pandemic?
If you believe what you hear from many world leaders and the media, we've turned COVID-19 around the corner. Not only did the lockdown flatten the curve, it magically defeated the virus. The blockage is being dismantled to varying degrees around the world. In the United States specifically:
- For the first time in weeks, people have emerged and exercised their constitutional rights to freedom of movement, assembly and freedom of religion.
- Many have given up their sissy masks.
- Images of people congregating in bars and on beaches fill the waves of the air.
- Restaurants are reopening in many states.
- Professional sport is announcing its return soon.
- And the stock market is booming again.
Everything is fine, right? If only.
Look, I don't wanna be a Donnie Downer, but maybe not that fast.
As the Spanish philosopher and poet George Santayana once said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Apparently he was talking about us.
I'm not a virologist, but stayed at a Holiday Inn Express
First of all, let me be clear that I am not scared. Over the years I have looked at SARS fear in 2003, avian flu in 2005, swine flu in 2009, and Ebola in 2014 and 2019. In any case, health officials warned of the impending epidemic. The media jumped on the bandwagon with all its might, trying to outdo the next with garish headlines heralding the impending end of life as we know it. Even many alternative health bloggers have felt the need to join the choir and scare you with stories about the zombie wars to come. In each case, I suggested that the threat was nowhere near as severe as depicted, and that the ultimate effects of any "epidemic" are economic and psychological in nature rather than actual health related.
For example, in 2014, when many websites and experts worldwide forecast 1.4 million deaths as a result of the Ebola epidemic, I said: “The bottom line is that Ebola is unlikely to spread outside Africa if there aren't enough people in the West Suspicious of the intentions of its own governments, then fearful makes the same misguided decisions as the people of West Africa, turning a small outbreak into a full-blown epidemic. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. "
In other words, when I realized we were facing a pandemic earlier this year on February 27th, two days before the first death from COVID-19, it was the first time in nearly 50 years that we were about health and nutrition wrote that I ever used those words. And it turned out to be true. In fact, almost everything I have said in this newsletter has played out exactly as I predicted.
So how did I do that?
To be very clear, I'm not a virologist (not even a doctor), but I've been studying pandemics and immunity for nearly 50 years, so I'm one extremely knowledgeable "amateur". Yes, specialists like Dr. Fauci know far more than I'll ever dream of knowing about viruses and pandemics, but that means I've spent years of college knowing well over 99% of the experts you see on TV now ( or read it on the internet) who come up with it over time. And maybe that's why they need to continue their predictions into the 180s, while the predictions I made in February turned out to be spot on.
I think I'm trying to tell you that what I'm going to explain in the rest of this newsletter is based on rational, science-based projection, not scare tactics.
And one more note before we begin: I am not making politics in these newsletters. Do I have a political opinion? Absolutely! But I will not express it on this website. The purpose of this website is to provide honest health and nutritional information from a natural health perspective. and to shut down half of our readers by expressing political likes and dislikes would be a disservice. The only time I mention anything political is when this is politics directly affect your health. For example: When I called the current administration in 2018 for:
- Removing most of the funding for State Department emergency response (including those for health and social services) and shutting down our ability to respond to pandemics.
- Orchestrating the departure of the National Security Council's Chief Health Security Officer, Counteradministrator Timothy Ziemer, who was responsible for coordinating the response to a potential pandemic.
- And we've closed our entire pandemic prevention office so the United States lacks clear authority to respond to an outbreak of disease
It was about health, not politics. And, as we've seen in the past six months since the virus first became aware of the virus outside of China, it has proven remarkably predictive.
And why the political disclaimer? That's because everything about COVID-19 has been politicized. It is now impossible to talk about any aspect of COVID-19 without stepping on someone's toes – on both sides of the political spectrum.
- Quarantine has become fascist, socialist, communist and a violation of constitutional rights. It is of course not one of them. And it is impossible to be all as most of these terms are self-contradicting. But hey!
- Both masks and social distancing are a denial of masculinity, our individual freedoms, and a violation of constitutional rights.
- Accurate death counting from the coronavirus has become a political debate and denial of our constitutional rights.
- Tracking down the people who may have been in contact with someone who is infected is now viewed as an Orwellian program that includes George Soros and the Clintons – no kidding.
- Even simply disclosing the number of deaths in some states has become a political issue and a denial of our constitutional rights.
- Heck, we are now renaming those who die of COVID-19 as "warriors" and "fallen heroes" to make their deaths more politically acceptable, and claim that anyone who says otherwise is violating their constitutional rights.
How did we get here? (BTW, if you're from outside of the US, replace our protesters and your constitution with ours in the paragraphs below.)
Is there a constitutional right to oppose quarantine?
And the answer is, maybe, and it depends. The constitutional standard argument to challenge state quarantines is based on two quotations.
The first change
Congress must not enact law that respects the establishment of a religion or prohibits its free practice. or restrict freedom of speech or the press; or the right of the people to peacefully assemble and apply to the government for redress for complaints.
Article VI, paragraph 2
This Constitution and the laws of the United States to be enacted under this Constitution; and all treaties which are made or are to be made under the authority of the United States are the supreme law of the country; and the judges in every state are bound by it notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in the constitution or laws of any state.
In other words, the first amendment gives us the right to go to church and gather in groups of any size wherever we want (at work, in restaurants, at public protests and in sports stadiums for example) – COVID- 19 be damned. And Article VI, paragraph 2, states that no state can override these rights. So ipso facto, any Quarantine that hinders these rights is a violation of our constitutional rights.
However, there are several problems with this argument. First, taking things out and putting things together can lead to bizarre conclusions. For example, the proverbs “look before you jump” and “who hesitate is lost” contain wisdom. Combine them with each other: "Look before you jump, because whoever hesitates is lost" and you have learned nonsense. Second, and more importantly, the courts have already decided on this issue. An extremely relevant example would be the 1905 Supreme Court ruling in Jacobson v Massachusetts, in which the court upheld the Cambridge, Mass, Board of Health's authority to require vaccination against smallpox during a smallpox epidemic. Above all in section 6 of their decision they stated:
The power of the state to enact this statute is to be referred to the so-called police power – a power which the state did not give up when it became a member of the Union under the constitution. Although this court has so far made no attempt to define the limits of this power It has clearly recognized the power of a state to enact quarantine laws and health laws of all kinds; “Indeed, all laws which relate solely to matters in its territory and which are not affected by their necessary application affect people in other states. According to established principles, the police power of a state must at least include adequate regulations that have been directly established by law and that protect public health and public safety.
And no decision in the past century has challenged this sovereign power of states to enact laws of all kinds. However, what has changed since Jacobson v Massachusetts is the Court's recognition of the importance of individual freedom and its limits. but is not overwritten, That power. In order to preserve the health of the public, respect for personal freedom must now be preserved – but here, too, the right of states to pass laws to protect public health and safety does not have to be abolished.
Let me offer you a hypothesis
Let's see if we can bypass the legal back and forth here and get to the point with a hypothetical scenario. If you are an advocate for constitutional rights regarding quarantines, what do you think of the following?
A family infected with the Sudanese strain of Ebola virus and highly contagious, with a 71% death rate, shows up in your community insisting on defying the quarantine and exercising their constitutional right to go to church ( what happens to be your church) Gathering with your family and all of your neighbors' families. Do you help them exercise their constitutional rights, even if it means your spouse and all of your children die? Does Fox and Friends invite them to the studio to join them on the couch and tell America how they exercise their constitutional rights?
If not, then you recognize the limits of your personal constitutional rights and thus the right of the state to carry out compulsory quarantines and even vaccinations. at least in some caseson behalf of its citizens. The argument then depends on whether the COVID-19 pandemic qualifies as "one of these cases" or not.
But more to the point
A full quarantine should never be a problem. We should never have been put in a position to quarantine large parts of the population indefinitely. Unlike the 1918 pandemic, we had one thing they didn't have back then: the ability to test for a specific virus. Quarantine of the general population only became a necessity in those countries where an adequate testing, tracing and isolation program was never in place. In fact, six months later, the United States still doesn't have enough stats. If the US as a country had cited the warnings, only those who tested positive for the virus and those who were in direct contract with them would have to be quarantined – and then only for a fortnight. The only reason we were forced to do a nationwide lockdown is because we flew blind (and still are). If you don't know who is infected and you have no idea who they may have infected, your only alternative is to quarantine everyone. And if you don't know when people are free of infection, you don't know when to unquarantine, leaving you stuck in an indefinite quarantine.
If you want to blame someone, blame the government officials for ignoring the warnings and the media for giving those officials a free pass and even encouraging their inaction. And even if you want to loosen them up for not acting fast enough (after all, who knew exactly what was going on in the early days), there is no conceivable excuse for not getting adequate testing six months after the pandemic were. If you want to complain that quarantine is a violation of your constitutional rights, at least hold the elected officials responsible for putting us in that position. As Keith Humphreys of Stanford University points out, the barriers to introducing a nationwide "test, trace and isolation program" are not technical – Germany and South Korea have done it. The challenges are political and cultural in a country that has been trained to distrust the government since the Reagan administration.
Where are we now?
We have now recorded 100,000 deaths in the US, more deaths than any other country in the world – nowhere near. By the way, a few months ago many experts called the COVID-19 pandemic a joke from a certain perspective and compared it to the flu. They pointed out that the flu kills more people each year than the coronavirus. Doesn't that look a little wrong now? And remember that in the US, the flu kills an average of 55,000 a year and the coronavirus has only killed 100,000 people so far, which bypasses an important point. For the flu, this sum is valid for a whole year. For the coronavirus in the US, it took just three months to go from one death to 100,000. In other words, that number will continue to rise for nine months before we can compare it to annual flu totals. To understand how high that number could be, we must first understand the difference between simple and effective reproductive numbers. (Fortunately, this happens to be part of a chapter I just finished rewriting the Miracle Doctors' lessons, so I could just cut and paste it here. But I digress.)
Basic VS effective reproduction numbers: R0
One quantity that scientists use to measure how a disease spreads in a population is "Basic reproduction number, ”Otherwise known as R0 (pronounced“ R naught ”). In epidemiology, the baseline reproduction number of an infection can be viewed as the expected number of cases directly generated by a person / case in a population where all persons are susceptible to infection and there is no attenuation. This number indicates how many people, on average, each infected person will infect. While it doesn't tell us how deadly a particular virus (any type of disease, actually) is, R0 is a measure of how contagious it is, so it helps governments and health organizations implement the containment strategies they need to take. The "effective reproduction number, ”On the other hand, reflects the R0 after being mitigated by factors such as increased natural herd immunity, social distancing, and mask wear. As governor, Cuomo is now so fond of reminding us of COVID-19 when the Effective R0 is less than 1, the disease becomes less and less. An effective R0 of more than 1 means that each sick person infects more than one other person on average, who then infects others, so that the disease grows and spreads through the population at an ever faster rate. For example, a typical seasonal strain of flu has an R0 of around 1.2, which means that for every five people infected, the disease spreads to an average of six new people who pass it on to others. COVID-19, on the other hand, has a base R0 of 2.5, making it 66% more infectious than the flu, but with mitigation, its effective rate can be pushed below 1, as is currently the case in a number of states and countries around the world World. (By the way, COVID-19 is far more deadly than the flu, but that's a side effect of the R0, so we're going to leave that point for now.)
As we just explained, it's important to remember that R0 is a statistical estimate of the spread of a disease in a given population if it is not checked. For example, SARS has a higher R0 (3.5) value than seasonal flu, but never spread enough to become a global epidemic as governments acted aggressively to reduce their "effective reproduction number”Below 1.0. On the flip side, despite having a relatively low base reproductive number – the CDC estimates that between 3 and 11 percent of the US population gets the flu every year – because governments take no more steps than vaccinating, the flu is always widespread lower that number. It is common for people with colds and flu to go to work and infect anyone around them who is not immune.
The bottom line is that all of these diseases would be catastrophic without mitigation.
Note: There is one more damage control factor to consider: weather. President Trump suggested that the virus would magically go away in warmer weather. That will not happen. But then again, he was on to something. According to public health expert Ali Mokdad, the chief strategy officer for population health at the Institute of Health Metrics and Assessment at the University of Washington, it states, "For every 1 degree Celsius increase in heat (that's 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) we see a decrease in transmission of around 2%. We find this relationship in our data and possibly it would be more if the weather warms up this month. “In other words, when the temperature rises, you will see the virus slowing down, but nothing close to magical disappearance. And when the temperatures cool down in the fall, you will likely see an acceleration factor – and with it a resurgence.
The bottom line is that this virus infects so many people with asymptomatic to mild symptoms that it is almost uncontrollable. As I said in February, there are all signs of settling in with the human population. In a few years, we will likely be considering an annual cold, flu, and COVID-19 season for the foreseeable future, unless an effective and annually updated vaccine is used each season.
So how many deaths are we talking about?
That's the big question, isn't it?
Some experts claim that the current "official numbers" are way too high, that a number of flu deaths have been mistakenly identified as coronavirus, and it is true. However, it can be argued even more strongly that we are undercounting deaths from the coronavirus and that the real number could be twice the official number. A study published May 14 in JAMA Internal Medicine found that in the week leading up to April 21, the number of reported deaths from coronaviruses was 20 times higher than the deadliest week of flu season (over an average of seven years) . Based on this analysis, the researchers concluded that the current number of COVID-19 deaths may "significantly underestimate" the actual number of deaths.
For now, let's just use the official numbers.
The first officially declared death from the virus in the United States occurred on February 29. Yes, it is likely that many people have died before, but since we do not have an official list of these deaths, we cannot use these numbers in our calculations. In either case, the basic point is that it only took three months to go from 1 to 100,000. Now it is important to recognize that these deaths are weighted against infections that occurred in the first few weeks before states took action to reduce the infection rate. In other words, the infection rate (and ultimately deaths) was higher when there was no attenuation and the virus spread at its base reproduction number. The rate of infection and death (with a delay of two to three weeks) began to slow as the attenuation resulted in a lower effective reproductive number. And what do we mean by damage control? Vaccines can of course be an important mitigating factor (and we'll talk more about that in a moment), but in the absence of vaccines, the main mitigating factors (and the ones that have been used to combat the pandemic so far) are the same as those 1918 employed: quarantines, social distancing, hand washing, persecution and masks.
Let me translate that. In the first three months we lost an average of 1,000 people a day. If we continued the nationwide lockdown, we would expect that number to trend lower as it progresses. Surprisingly, a key coronavirus model from the University of Washington's Institute of Health Metrics and Assessment (IHME) says the number has dropped to around 688 deaths per day just as quarantines were being lifted. The researchers expressed surprise, saying, "We expected that we would probably increase because of the sharp increase in mobility." They believe the difference lies in the number of people who wear masks and that people take care to keep their distance from others.
As if!
While some states have announced that they will slowly and carefully relax their quarantines, other states have pretty much opened the gates, driven by political and economic factors. Not surprisingly, encouraged by the carefree demeanor of these politicians, many citizens have decided to “see” the open door policy and raise it to the “let's party” level. In other words, they have decided to give up masks and social distancing and pretend COVID-19 is either on the decline or a joke.
Tens of thousands recently came to the nation's beaches as if the virus never existed.
And then there's the fact that Carnival Cruises reopened a limited number of routes in early May for bookings from August. Not a big deal in itself, but according to a report from TMZ, cruise reservations made through an American Express travel franchise are 200 percent higher than they were at that time last year.
Or what about the impromptu 3,000-person block party that became violent in Florida when the governor eased the quarantine?
After all, on Memorial Day weekend, beaches were packed from coast to coast and along the southern tip in Florida, Texas and more. Boaters and parties flocked to the lakes. While many did practice social distancing, not all did, and the large crowd made the six-foot rule debatable in many cases.
People gather on the beach for Memorial Day weekend in Port Aransas, Texas, Saturday, May 23, 2020. Beach goers are encouraged to practice social distancing to protect themselves against COVID-19. (AP Photo / Eric Gay) AP Images
Yes, a vast majority of the people in the United States are rightly concerned about the virus and will continue to keep their distance from other people regardless of what the president and governors say about opening up the economy. But as we see now, there is a significant minority who will do things very differently. In the name of freedom, of false courage, or simply believing that the whole thing is a joke. They will brazenly try to fight the virus face to face – which is exactly the wrong way to fight a virus.
Unsurprisingly, the number of COVID-19 deaths rose to 1,552 on May 19, instead of falling, contrary to IMHE prediction. Even if we use the conservative IMHE model of 688 deaths per day, which is believed to be people responsible, we are still looking at 244,000 deaths at the end of the year. And if we use the May 19th numbers as our model, we see 415,000 deaths. And if the virus does reappear in the fall, as most health experts predict, we expect more than 700,000 deaths by the end of the year. To give you some perspective, the top causes of death in the US are:
- Heart disease: 647,457
- Cancer: 599,108
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
That means COVID-19 in the US, depending on which numbers we hit, will be ranked either 1st, 2nd or 3rd as the leading cause of death in 2020. And remember, it won't hit that mark in just nine months, not 12!
And when it comes to the resurgence, said Lothar Wieler, President of the Robert Koch Institute: “We know with great certainty that there will be a second wave. The majority of scientists are certain of this. It is also assumed that there will be a third wave. "He continued," This is a pandemic, and in the event of a pandemic, this virus will remain on our list of medical concerns until 60% to 70% of the population is infected (or vaccinated). "
Is the cure worse than the disease?
I have to admit, I wasn't a fan of Fox's coverage of COVID-19.
- You compared it to the flu, but the flu doesn't kill 100,000 people in 90 days.
- You called it a joke, but only if you ignore all the dying people.
- They have claimed the death toll was grossly exaggerated but, if anything, the death toll was grossly underreported.
- They have claimed that quarantine is a violation of our constitutional rights, but the Constitution clearly allows states, with certain restrictions, to take steps necessary to protect their citizens.
- They have promoted hypocrisies and then doubled in size even after these "cures" were found to be hypocrites.
Aber eine Sache, die sie nicht falsch verstanden haben, ist, wenn sie sagen: "Die Heilung darf nicht schlimmer sein als das Problem." Wie ihre Experten die dieser Aussage innewohnende Frage beantworten (Wie viele Todesfälle sind wie viel Geld wert?), Ist möglicherweise fraglich, aber nicht die Frage selbst. Und wie die meisten anderen Netzwerke zu antworten, dass es zumindest unaufrichtig ist, auf diese Weise zu denken, dass dies hartnäckig und unmenschlich ist, dass sogar ein Tod zu viel ist. Tatsächlich beschäftigen wir uns ständig mit diesem Problem. Beispielsweise:
- In den USA sterben jedes Jahr etwa 38.000 Menschen bei Autobahnunfällen, weltweit etwa 1,35 Millionen. Und doch schlägt niemand vor, dass wir Autos von der Straße nehmen und Menschen am Fahren hindern. Ja, wir versuchen, das Fahren sicherer zu machen, aber wir haben den Kompromiss akzeptiert, dass der Wert des Autotransports 1,35 Millionen Todesfälle pro Jahr überwiegt.
- Mehrere epidemiologische Studien haben ein erhöhtes Risiko für Blasen-, Dickdarm- und Rektalkrebs durch mit Chlor behandeltes Trinkwasser festgestellt. Wir haben jedoch festgestellt, dass die Verwendung von Chlor im Trinkwasser zur Verringerung des Todesrisikos durch bakterielle Infektionen, die Cholera, Typhus, Ruhr und Legionärskrankheit verursachen, die Todesfälle durch die Verwendung von Chlor selbst mehr als ausgleicht.
- Und natürlich die Tatsache, dass wir es Unternehmen ermöglichen, fettreiche, natriumreiche und zuckerreiche Lebensmittel zu vermarkten, die jedes Jahr hunderttausende Todesfälle durch Herzkrankheiten, Diabetes und Krebs verursachen, einfach weil sie massive Gewinne für große Unternehmen generieren und weil Menschen buchstäblich süchtig nach ihnen geworden zu sein, ist bestenfalls ein Kompromiss von zweifelhaftem Wert, aber ein Kompromiss, den wir trotzdem eingehen.
Die Frage, ob die Heilung schlimmer ist als das Problem, ist also nicht unangemessen. Wenn ich fragen würde, ob 3 Billionen Dollar und 39 Millionen Arbeitslose es wert sind, nur ein Leben zu retten, würden die meisten Leute nein sagen. Was ist mit zwei Leben? 10 Leben? 100? 1.000? Was ist mit 500.000 – der mögliche Unterschied in den verlorenen Leben, wenn wir die Quarantäne zu früh brechen und dies ein Wiederaufleben auslöst? Ist das eine Wendepunkt-Heilung gegen Problemfrage?
Ich werde diese Frage übrigens nicht beantworten. Es liegt über meiner Gehaltsstufe – zumal ich nicht für das Schreiben dieser Newsletter bezahlt werde. Ich schreibe sie, weil ich will und weil mehrere hunderttausend Menschen auf der ganzen Welt sie lesen wollen. Ich sage nur, dass Kosten / Nutzen eine legitime Frage sind, selbst wenn es um menschliches Leben geht – und etwas, das wir ständig tun. Oh, und noch etwas. Wenn Sie ein Regierungsbeamter sind, der mitbestimmt, wann die Quarantäne aufgehoben werden soll, und nicht bereit sind, die Frage, wie viele Leben Sie bereit sind, gegen X Dollar einzutauschen, explizit zu beantworten, haben Sie keine moralische Autorität zu sagen dass die Heilung schlimmer ist als das Problem.
Letztendlich ist dies die 3-Billionen-Dollar-Frage: Wie viele leben für wie viele Dollar? Und bis jetzt habe ich noch keinen einzigen Regierungsbeamten oder Experten gehört, der darauf geantwortet hat. Ich habe sprechende Köpfe tanzen hören und versucht, die realen Zahlen zu verbergen oder diejenigen, die sterben, als "Krieger" zu bezeichnen, um ihren Tod als etwas Rechtfertigtes neu zu definieren. Aber ich habe nicht gehört, dass einer von ihnen vom Präsidenten abwärts tatsächlich eine Zahl ausspricht. Deshalb diskutieren wir die Frage in theoretischen Begriffen, die es jedem ermöglichen, sich selbstgerecht und moralisch bestätigt zu fühlen, ohne jemals seine Überzeugungen auf die Skala der öffentlichen Kontrolle stellen zu müssen.
Übrigens verzeichnete Schweden, das nie eine formelle Sperrung des Coronavirus erlassen hat und stattdessen die Bürger lediglich dazu ermutigt hat, zu Hause zu bleiben, wenn sie krank sind, und in der Öffentlichkeit soziale Distanz aufrechtzuerhalten, Mitte Mai die meisten Todesfälle durch Coronaviren in Europa pro Kopf in der vergangenen Woche. Nach Angaben von Our World In Data, einer Online-Forschungspublikation an der University of Oxford. Ich erwähne dies, weil Schweden von vielen in der Anti-Quarantäne-Bewegung häufig für ihren Umgang mit der Pandemie gelobt wurde. Again, if you are not willing to answer the question of how many deaths are worth how many dollars, you have no moral authority to judge whether Sweden’s approach is good or bad.
By the Way
A question may occur to you right about now. How is it even possible for everyone to ignore so many deaths? I mean, if we looked out our windows and saw carts hauling away dead bodies every day, would we even be having this discussion? And the answer is simple: out of sight, out of mind. Think about this for a moment. How many people die every year in the United States from the flu? As I mentioned earlier, it is 55,000 people at the high end. Over the last 10 years, we are talking about 500,000 deaths give or take in the U.S. alone. That is a lot of people. Now, let me ask you: how many people do you personally know who have died from the flu in the last 10 years? I don’t mean celebrities you heard about in the news but people you personally know—friends, family, coworkers. As for myself, I can only think of one—the landlord for where we used to rent our Baseline Nutritionals offices (a really sweet guy). I have to go back 35 years to think of a second, my mother. That is two people in 35 years. For Kristen, it is only one really as she had not actually met my mother at that time, only talked to her on the phone. Over the years, I have asked many people that question, and the answer is almost always: one or none. In a country of 330 million people, a half million people represents only one in every 660 people. In other words, you have to personally know 660 people to have an even chance of personally knowing one person who has died from the flu in the last 10 years—and over 1,300 people to know just two.
And that is why it is so easy to accept so many deaths—since we do not personally know them, and those that do die, die in hospitals, out of sight, out of mind. And that, by the way, is something politicians count on when they make decisions that affect our lives. And if that were not enough, states are beginning to jigger the numbers downward for political reasons to hide the true number of deaths. For example:
- The state of Georgia’s Public Health Department chart wrongly reported coronavirus cases that made it look like its COVID-19 cases were trending down by putting the dates out of order on its chart. May 5 was followed by April 25, then back to May again, whatever made it look like a downslope. When called out on it, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office issued an apology. Then again, the error was at least the third in as many weeks.
- In Florida, Rebekah Jones, the architect and onetime manager of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard, announced that on May 5th she had been removed from her post after she would not censor data. She said that she had refused to “manually change data to drum up support” for Florida’s plan to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. Once she was removed, well, you can guess how that went.
- Arizona’s governor tried to sideline analysts whose data predicted the state’s outbreak peak was still to come.
- According to news reports, at least three states—Texas, Virginia, and Vermont—are deliberately mishandling their COVID-19 data by combining results of active illness tests and antibody tests so as to inflate their perceived testing capacity. This, however, renders their results functionally meaningless.
- Meanwhile, the White House has treated COVID-19 data as campaign fodder, recently releasing a model created by a top administration economist that showed deaths dropping to zero by May 15, which, of course, they did not.
- And in possibly the biggest deception of all, the White House is no longer requiring nursing homes to count COVID-19 deaths that occurred before May 6th. Since nursing homes are a focal point for coronavirus deaths, this will severely understate any data designed to measure the impact of the pandemic on older Americans. And nursing homes will be happy to assist in this deception since it helps them cover up their death rates. The reason you didn’t hear about this is because the government’s decision not to require reporting of deaths prior to May 6 was buried in Question 10 of the FAQs section of a May 6 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services memo.
- Finally, it is probably worth noting that, on a global level, coronavirus cases spiked by more than a million in less than a week near the end of May, topping 5 million cases. And that included a 106,000 new cases in a single day, the highest daily spike in coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.
Incidentally, large corporations are even more cold-blooded about the deaths VS dollars thing. For example, automobile companies do actuarial studies to determine the cost of having to do a recall to fix a defect in a line of cars VS the estimated cost of having to pay X number of families for the loss of someone who dies as result of the problem if they don’t fix it. And as often as not, they decide it is cheaper to pay for the dead.
When all is said and done, when all the calculations are made by politicians as to how many lives are worth how many dollars, it is crucial for our humanity that we not forget that each death we see tallied on our computer and TV screens was a real human being. And the loss of each person represents not just that one person but has devastating impact on all their family, friends, coworkers, and all the people who depended on them in their daily lives. Make no mistake, when the human costs of COVID-19 are finally added up, it will be a huge number–not just in the United States, but across the world. But we also must not forget that the costs of quarantines are huge, not just in economic terms, but in human terms. Not everyone will financially recover. Jobs will be permanently lost. Businesses will be permanently closed. Homes will be lost, families evicted. Lives will be Irreparably devastated. Make no mistake. These are human costs too. COVID-19 is not the flu.
Masks
At this point I need to say something about masks.
In the same way that protesters have argued that lockdowns infringe their freedom, much of the anti-mask rhetoric seems to draw from the same well—i.e., resistance to government mandates as an infringement on personal freedom. As Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech with experience in airborne transmission of viruses, said recently “There’s such a strong culture of individualism that, even if it’s going to help protect them, people don’t want the government telling them what to do.”
Right now, thanks to encouragement from some politicians and media channels, according to a peer-reviewed paper published in the health Kennedy School Misinformation Review, a staggering 30% of Americans believe in some type of coronavirus conspiracy theory. And masks have become a central part of it, with security guards even getting shot for telling people they need to wear a mask to enter a store. And it’s not just the conspiracy aspect. Some people view wearing a mask as an affront to their man- or womanhood, their courage to take on the virus “mano e mano.” Others see it as an assault on their Constitutional rights. And others have stated that their immune system can protect them better than any mask. And still others aren’t even pretending any justification but shamelessly trying to game the system by claiming immunity under laws written to protect the rights of disabled people and lying to store management they “have a medical condition that means they cannot wear a mask.”
But the truth is, wearing a mask has nothing to do with any of those things. Quite simply, wearing a mask in public is not about you. Despite what many people think, wearing a mask offers you almost no protection from catching the coronavirus. As I said in my March 12th newsletter, “In the end, a mask won’t keep you from getting infected, but if used properly, it should minimize your chances of infecting others and could push their infection down the road, which isn’t a bad thing.”
Or as Chris Hayes from MSNBC says, “If the stated goal here is to open up the American economy and get people back to work and achieve some level of normalcy, something we all desperately want, there is really good evidence that everyone wearing a mask can really help us in that project.”
Criminally Negligent Manslaughter
In a recent opinion piece written for USA Today, Rand Paul and Andy Biggs wrote:
“Freedom allows us to judge the risk and reward and determine a course we think best. If we feel going to a certain retailer, barber shop, restaurant, or some other business is risky, we have the judgment to decide to not go there. If we want to stay home, we can.”
But that so misses the point. It is not about your personal freedom to put your own life at risk. It is about whether you have the freedom to put other people’s lives at risk.
And with that in mind, let us wrap up this part of our discussion with a question. How would you feel under the following scenario?
In an exercise of his Constitutional rights, and in the name of a good time, Citizen A decides to head down to the local bar that has just reopened to mingle with his friends. And also, as an exercise of their “Constitutional rights” they decide to not wear masks and not to maintain social distancing as they celebrate the evening away.
- Now, Citizen A does not catch the virus that evening for one simple reason: he already has it, but being asymptomatic, he does not know it.
- But he does infect one of his drinking buddies who is partying in the bar with him.
- And his friend then goes home and ends up infecting his sister who works at a nursing home where your great aunt resides.
- The sister then goes to work asymptomatic, but infectious, and infects all the seniors where she works, killing 20 of them, including your great aunt.
How do you feel knowing that Citizen A is responsible for the deaths of 20 people including your great aunt simply because he chose to celebrate his defiance of government authority for an evening? There is actually a term for what he just did. It is called “criminally negligent manslaughter”—death resulting from a high degree of negligence or recklessness. And although he and his friends could never be prosecuted for it, you would hold them morally culpable, wouldn’t you?
Something to think about if you are one of those who feels that your state’s guidelines do not apply to you.
Vaccines and Drugs
Many people have suffered from an illusion/delusion—that “flattening the curve” meant that at the end of the quarantine, the virus would be “magically gone” and life would return to normal. That was never going to happen. All that flattening the curve meant is that you were going to spread out the same number of infections and deaths over a longer period of time. This would accomplish three things:
- Although the same number of people would ultimately be infected and have to go to the hospital, since those infections would now be spread out over a longer period of time, hospitals would not be overwhelmed and unable to care for patients. Italy missed the mark on that goal, and conditions for several weeks were horrific with patient beds lining hallways in crowded Italian hospitals. And New York came right up to the edge but was able to avoid crossing over into disaster. Most other states and countries acted in time to avoid the worst of it.
- It would buy time for the development of a vaccine that provides full, long-term immunity against COVID-19, which is the obvious crown jewel that the medical community is striving for. If you can get enough people inoculated (through a combination of people getting the vaccine and those who have developed antibodies to COVID-19 by having had the virus), you can make life return to normal. For example, smallpox, once the scourge of the world, is not even a consideration anymore. Likewise, outside of Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan, the same can be said for polio. The problem is that no such vaccine will be available anytime in 2020. The normal development time for a vaccine is 10-15 years. The hope is that we might be able to cut that to 12-18 months for the coronavirus.Incidentally, no one knows how long the protection from any vaccine in development might last. However, a study was done back in 2007 with the SARS coronavirus. The results, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, were that among 176 patients who had had severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), SARS-specific antibodies were maintained for an average of 2 years, and significant reduction of immunoglobulin G–positive percentage and titers (the concentration of an antibody) occurred in the third year. Thus, SARS patients were likely susceptible to reinfection 3 years after initial exposure. That might be an indicator for the extent of protection any COVID-19 vaccine—or natural immunity from having had the virus—might offer. Incidentally:
- Moderna potentially jumped the timeframe with its announcement on May 19th that their vaccine seemed to generate an immune response in Phase 1 trial subjects. This caused the company’s stock to surge to a $29 billion dollar valuation, an impressive feat for a company that actually does not sell anything yet. On the downside, they presented almost no data with their announcement. And even the limited data they did release was far more ambiguous than was reflected in their announcement. Bottom line: do not count on anything from Moderna this year. Even Dr. Fauci who has expressed optimism about the vaccine has talked early 2021 as an effective release date. And no other pharmaceutical company has announced anything that even looks likely to jump the 18-month timeframe.
- Something to keep in mind about a vaccine is that even when a vaccine becomes available, it does not guarantee 100% protection in everyone that receives it. When it comes to vaccination, there are all kinds of variables such as the duration of prevention and uptake. In other words, as Deenan Pillay, professor of virology at University College London, said, “So I would like to also suggest that when we’re talking about how the future looks and guiding that scientifically, we’re actually thinking for a long-term pandemic with ups and downs, an endemic infection that will come up and down for maybe years to come, with perhaps interventions such as maybe vaccines, maybe partially uptake and so forth.”
- And one other complication when it comes to a vaccine is mutation. A vaccine developed for one strain of COVID-19 may not be as effective when confronting a different strain, and the coronavirus has already shown an ability to mutate. To be sure, many mutations lead to no discernible changes in how a virus behaves. However, some changes in the genetic structure can lead to both changes in the virus structure and how the virus behaves. With that in mind, 13 mutations have already been identified, and one of those new strains has become dominant worldwide and appears to be more contagious than the versions that spread in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- PS: According to a recent survey, only 55 percent of Americans say they are willing to get vaccinated if/when a vaccine arrives. The rest—a significant minority—say they won’t get vaccinated (19 percent) or they’re not sure (26 percent). If those results were to hold, tens or even hundreds of millions of unimmunized Americans could ultimately undermine any vaccine’s ability to stop the spread of the virus. It is estimated that for COVID-19, we need to cross the 70% threshold for herd immunity. However, that final 15% required to cross the threshold could come from all those people who have gained natural immunity by having had the virus and overcome it. The confirmed count is that 1.7 million people have had the virus in the US, but the real number may be 10 to 30 times that, since only a tiny percentage of people have been tested.
- And finally, flattening the curve can buy time for the development of drugs that might lessen the severity of symptoms and hopefully even reduce the number of deaths. So far, there is little in this regard:
- Hydroxychloroquine. There is zero reliable evidence that hydroxychloroquine can help with COVID-19 in any way. On the other hand, there is reliable evidence that, at the dosages used for treating COVID-19 (1,200 mg a day VS 400 mg a day for preventing malaria), it can kill you. In fact, a massive new study published in the Lancet just found the chances of hydroxychloroquine improving COVID-19 outcomes is very low, while at the same time, seriously ill patients treated with the drug almost doubling their risk of dying or developing dangerous heart arrhythmias., In other words, despite Fox’s advocacy for this drug, you want to stay away.
- Remdesivir has demonstrated in vitro and in vivo activity in animal models against the viral pathogens MERS and SARS, which are also coronaviruses and are structurally similar to COVID-19. Preliminary data from a government-run study of remdesivir showed a 31 percent faster time to recovery than those who received a placebo—11 days versus 15 days, on average. The findings also suggested that patients given remdesivir were slightly less likely to die. But that effect was so small that you would need to treat 28 patients with remdesivir to save one life. The bottom line is that while remdesivir may be helpful and may marginally reduce mortality, and is therefore worth taking, it is not a cure. It is not a game changer. The other problem is that supplies are currently limited, and it will not be widely available until sometime in 2021.
- According to the Israel Defense Ministry, the Israel Institute for Biological Research (the IIBR) has made a “breakthrough” in antibody treatment for COVID-19. Unlike other proposed antibody treatments, which are polyclonal (derived from two or more cells from different origins), the Israeli breakthrough is a monoclonal antibody, meaning it was derived from a single recovered cell. This makes the Israeli antibody potentially more potent and potentially less “harmful.” However, it is experimental and nowhere near ready for use in humans.
Essentially then, none of these options will be of significant use to you any time before the end of the year.
- Hydroxychloroquine will never be useful
- Remdesivir is marginally helpful but will not be widely available until next year
- The Israeli antibody is promising but experimental, has not been fully tested, and is unlikely to be widely available until sometime next year, if ever
The bottom line is that for the foreseeable future, you are on your own. You are going to have to take care of yourself.
Going Forward
As I said, in my March 12 newsletter:
“If you don’t actually have the virus when you’re under quarantine, after the quarantine, you’re no safer than you were before you went into lockdown. You haven’t gained any immunity to COVID-19 while hiding out in your wife’s she-shed. Unless you’re infected with COVID-19 while in exile, it’s not a one-and-done. The hard reality is that once you emerge from your quarantine, you’re even more at risk than before your act of self-sacrifice for the simple reason that this is now officially a pandemic, and it’s spreading rapidly. That means that after your lockdown has passed, there are that many more people with the virus walking about, so you’re that much more likely to come in contact, yet again, with someone who has the virus.”
In other words (with two caveats), the virus has not gone anywhere, and you are still at risk—as well as a risk to others. You will want to:
- Keep social distancing even as you are out and about and reintegrating with the world. Incidentally, the risk of spreading the virus is 30 times greater at 3 feet away from an infected person VS six feet.
- Wear a mask to protect others.
- Wash your hands regularly.
- Make use of a good echinacea-based immune building formula, or an equivalent, to have your immune system in its highest gear if/when you are infected by the virus.
- Optimize your intestinal bacteria with a well-designed probiotic formula since they provide 60-70% of your immune function.
- Have a supply of a natural antipathogen formula available to use at the first sign of infection in order to keep your viral load down until your immune system can “learn” the virus, build a defense against it, and take over for the final assault. This is your best bet to stay out of the hospital.
- And considering the latest information about complications from COVID-19, you might want to consider supplementing with a good proteolytic enzyme formula, not only for its ability to reduce systemic inflammation, but also for its ability to break up and dissolve blood clots.
Now as for those two caveats:
- If you have already had the virus, you are probably safe yourself and no threat to others. (Although not yet “proven” to be true, most virologists consider it a good bet.) If you have had the virus and have the antibodies, all of the above steps are essentially unnecessary—other than to reassure people who would be freaked out if you approached them without wearing a mask. In other words, even if you no longer need to wear a mask and keep a distance, you are still going to have to, at least until a viable vaccine makes everyone “feel” normal.
- Also, the only way to know for sure that you have had the virus is with testing, and despite the continual assurances that anyone who wants a test can have one, that simply is not true. For example, I believe that Kristen and I had the virus almost two months ago, and we still have not been able to get tested.
- The test needs to be accurate, producing a minimum of false negatives and positives.
- It needs to be highly specific for COVID-19 so it is not identifying other coronavirus antibodies, such as those you developed in response a common cold, as COVID-19 antibodies.
- And it needs to differentiate and identify what are known as “effective” antibodies.
- Note: Finally, a reliable version of this test seems available in our area. We have scheduled an appointment.
Quite simply, as things now stand, you are on your own until such time as an effective treatment or vaccine is widely available. And of the two, the vaccine is more important, assuming you are willing to get vaccinated or haven’t already had the virus. Afterall, who wants to go to the hospital for an intravenous “treatment” if they get COVID-19. In fact, who wants to go to the hospital for anything if they do not have to.
The Status of My Antipathogen Formula
Despite never mentioning it by name or where to buy it, people from all over the world heard about it from friends or figured it out and tracked down my antipathogen formula sold by Baseline Nutritionals. They literally scooped up six-months of inventory in a matter of days, leaving Baseline out of stock for 4 weeks. The stunning thing was that 40% of the people who bought the formula had never purchased anything from Baseline Nutritionals before. It felt like this formula had become the toilet paper of natural antipathogen formulas—subject to a high degree of panic buying, leaving the shelves bare for anyone who followed.
It also should be noted that there is no definitive evidence this formula works with COVID-19. Yes, Kristen and I are convinced that it worked for us, but thanks to the lack of accurate antibody testing, we cannot even prove that we had the virus. We do know that the formula has built its reputation over the last 20 years from people who have used it to deal with colds and flu. And although we are talking about many, many, many, testimonials over the years, it is still anecdotal evidence—definitely not a double-blind placebo controlled “medical” study. And other than Kristen and me, all the testimonials are for other viruses, not COVID-19.
Anyway, Baseline now has thousands of bottles in stock. In other words, there should be plenty to cover anyone who wants any through the end of the year. Then again, if a resurgence of the virus redoubles panic buying, all bets are off. And if Baseline does run out as the result of panic buying, you will need to be patient. It would take anywhere from four to eight weeks to restock.
Also, if you have never used the formula before, you really should read the instructions for using it before buying (listed at thebottom of the Baseline Nutritionals product page for the formula). You will realize that you need 4-5 bottles per person on hand for dealing with an emergency situation.
And one final note: if you are looking to purchase the antipathogen formula from Baseline Nutritionals and you live outside the US, you will want to check Baseline’s list of the countries they can ship to. And check it regularly as the list is constantly changing, with countries coming and going as their postal services figure out how to deal with the flood of international package deliveries.
Addendum:
I can see from many of the comments below there was a misunderstanding about some of the things I wrote. Let me clarify.
I never said that I did not have a political opinion (quite the contrary, in fact)—only that I try not to express it in my newsletters. My intent is to only deal with politics as it relates to health. Which brings us to COVID-19 and the key line in the newsletter that many of the commenters seem to have missed:
"Everything about COVID-19 has become politicized. It is now impossible to talk about any aspect of COVID-19 without stepping on somebody’s toes–on both sides of the political spectrum. ”
A fact amply demonstrated in the comments below. And at this point, I bow out of that part of the discussion and wish you and yours good health and long life—and hope that at least some of the advice I’ve offered proves helpful–as we all just try to muddle our way through these difficult times.
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