Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Post-viral apocalypse? Raccoon City?

The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at U of Minnesota states that the COVID-19 pandemic could well be with us for another two years. Their main recommendations are:

• States, territories, and tribal health authorities should plan for the worst-case scenario, including no vaccine availability or herd immunity.
• Government agencies and healthcare delivery organizations should develop strategies to ensure adequate protection for healthcare workers when disease incidence surges.
• Government officials should develop concrete plans, including triggers for reinstituting mitigation measures, for dealing with disease peaks when they occur.
• Risk communication messaging from government officials should incorporate the concept that this pandemic will not be over soon and that people need to be prepared for possible periodic resurgences of disease over the next 2 years.

Scary stuff, huh?

The response of most politicians in the U.S. has been to flatten the economy with a hammer and sickle. We cannot tolerate this for another two years. Thirty million Americans have lost their jobs in the last four weeks. Make no mistake, our economic malaise has been caused by politicians, not a virus. Elon Musk recently referred to the ongoing government-mandated lockdowns as fascist. Benito Mussolini would agree with that. Others disagree.

Mike Whitney has a plan to revive the economy:

We start by allowing the younger, low-risk people to go back to work. (Older and infirm people should take the recommended precautions of self isolating as much as possible.) That allows the economy to restart while the virus spreads among a segment of the population that is least likely to die. If you’re under 40, your chances of dying are near zero, so it shouldn’t be a huge concern.

Also, you open up restaurants, primary schools, parks and some retail shops while–at the same time–monitoring the rate of new Covid-positive cases. If it looks like the health care system is going to be overwhelmed, you pull back by implementing new guidelines and restrictions on public activities and get-togethers. You don’t just send everyone back to work on Day 1 announcing “The coast is clear”. The coast is not clear and it’s not going be clear for quite a while, but at least the new policy will get us to where we want to go eventually. And that’s the point, because if we don’t chart a new course, we’re definitely not going to reach our destination.

What we need is immunity, which comes through human interaction. An infected person passes the infection along to a healthy person who develops the antibodies to fight the virus now and in the future. When the majority of the population develop these antibodies, they achieve “herd immunity” which is “a form of protection from infectious disease that occurs when a large percentage of a population has become immune through previous infections.”

I posted a similar proposal a month ago, on April 2. Agreed, the coast is not clear in New York City or New Orleans, but it is clear in many other places. We need to quit hiding under our beds from the bogeyman virus.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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One of these is healthy for age, the other is not. Should they take different precautions?

On April 21, 2020, a panel of experts at Charles University in Prague published some thoughts on the Coronavirus pandemic. I recommend the entire article to you; it’s not long. What particularly caught my attention was advice on social distancing for the elderly and other vulnerable populations:

5. ELDERLY CITIZENS NEED SAFE SOCIAL CONTACT, NOT ABSOLUTE QUARANTINE

The stigmatization and imposition of limitations on older people in the “fight against COVID-19” is baseless and unjustified and establishes age discrimination in public sentiment.

As part of the solution to the COVID-19 crisis, the public is being massively persuaded by fear of the extraordinary danger of infection for “older” people and the necessity of implementing identical emergency measures for this very heterogeneous group, including not leaving their apartments or having specific shopping times. At the same time, the public is finding out that it is precisely these seniors affected by COVID-19 that could overwhelm the health care system. Suggestions were even raised to classify patients based only on age. Defining “endangered old age” at 65+ has led to an unprecedented stigmatization of 20% of the population of the republic, including people who are healthy and not particularly endangered. Some became uncertain of themselves or had to suffer the manipulative behavior of their environment. Many of them suffer from exaggerated fear of infection, from reduced contact with families, isolation, loneliness, deprivation of communication, disruption of daily routines with serious psychological consequences, disproportionate to the risk and the potential for reducing it. Several weeks without going outside has endangered fragile people through loss of stability, mobility, and thus self-sufficiency. However, there is no reason for them not to move freely in open spaces while keeping a distance from other people.

It appears that worsening of the COVID-19 prognosis is mainly related to associated illnesses, not age as such. These include nutritional disorders, oncological and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, possibly some medications. It is not primarily “the elderly” who are affected, but those who are “fragile and severely ill”. In this, COVID-19 is no different from any other stress factor, including disease, as we know from influenza epidemics, heat waves or freezing weather.

Particularly problematic are residential social service facilities (senior residences, assisted living homes) and long-term care facilities. This is an instance of risky concentration of exceptionally fragile people with a number of serious illnesses. Experience from other countries as well as the initial data from the Czech Republic show that these people probably make up the majority of all COVID-19 victims. This shows that one’s health potential (fitness, resilience, adaptability) is a much stronger predictor than age as such. Many frail patients succumbed to this infection as a non-specific stress factor, just as they would have succumbed to the flu or a major injury.On the contrary, even in the Czech Republic, not enough has been done to protect this most endangered group — residents of residential social services facilities. These include the quality of preventive measures, personnel training, quarantine training, sufficient protective and hygiene products, frequent staff testing, the main source of its [the pathogen’s] introduction, testing in case of suspicious symptoms and the immediate transport of infected clients to high-quality quarantine facilities with the necessary care available should difficulties develop, and so on.

Source: Academic Coronaskeptics in the Czech Republic | Gates of Vienna

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: Diabetes and obesity are risk factors for severe illness from COVID-19.

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The governments “top men” were working on it

Being on the front lines in the war against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, I can attest that lack of testing capability was a major problem early-on. An article at Popular Mechanics claims this is the CDC’s fault. This is not the first time I’ve heard this.

From Pop Mech:

Back in January and February—when cases of the deadly disease began aggressively circulating outside of China—diagnostics already existed in places like Wuhan, where the pandemic began. Those tests followed World Health Organization (WHO) test guidelines, which the U.S. decided to eschew.

Instead, the CDC created its own in-depth diagnostics that could identify not only COVID-19, but a host of SARS-like coronaviruses. Then, disaster struck: When the CDC sent tests to labs during the first week of February, those labs discovered that while the kits did detect COVID-19, they also produced false positives when checking for other viruses. As the CDC went back to the drawing board to develop yet more tests, precious time ticked away.

Eventually, the CDC turned over development and distribution of test kits to non-government clinical and research labs.

Source: Coronavirus Test Kits | COVID-19 Test Kits | Coronavirus Testing

Steve Parker, M.D.

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From The Washington Free Beacon:

The Mesa [Arizona] City Police Department’s homicide division is investigating the death of Gary Lenius, the Arizona man whose wife served him soda mixed with fish tank cleaner in what she claimed was a bid to fend off the coronavirus. A detective handling the case confirmed the investigation to the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday after requesting a recording of the Free Beacon’s interviews with Lenius’s wife, Wanda.

Gary Lenius, 68, died on March 22. Wanda, 61, told several news outlets last month that both she and her husband had ingested a substance used to clean aquariums after hearing President Donald Trump tout one of its ingredients, chloroquine phosphate, from the White House briefing room.

Source: Police Investigating Death of Arizona Man From Chloroquine Phosphate

“Go back! This is a quarantine zone.”

African Americans and nursing home residents are way over-represented among the deceased from COVID-19.

From JAMA Network:

In Chicago, more than 50% of COVID-19 cases and nearly 70% of COVID-19 deaths involve black individuals, although blacks make up only 30% of the population. Moreover, these deaths are concentrated mostly in just 5 neighborhoods on the city’s South Side. In Louisiana, 70.5% of deaths have occurred among black persons, who represent 32.2% of the state’s population. In Michigan, 33% of COVID-19 cases and 40% of deaths have occurred among black individuals, who represent 14% of the population. If New York City has become the epicenter, this disproportionate burden is validated again in underrepresented minorities, especially blacks and now Hispanics, who have accounted for 28% and 34% of deaths, respectively (population representation: 22% and 29%, respectively).

Source: COVID-19 and African Americans | Health Disparities | JAMA | JAMA Network

Steve Parker, M.D.

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If you’re curious, click the link to see the video. I understand the test is very uncomfortable for many. From NEJM:

This video demonstrates the collection of specimens from the surface of the respiratory mucosa with nasopharyngeal swabs for the diagnosis of Covid-19 in adults and in children. It is important to use approved PPE and the appropriate technique to minimize the possibility of spreading the virus.

Source: How to Obtain a Nasopharyngeal Swab Specimen | NEJM

“I knew my doctor was FOS”

From Spiked:

There’s not much to laugh about these days, but the news that smokers might be protected from Covid-19 is certainly one of them. With study after study showing that smokers are under-represented in coronavirus wards, the renowned French neuroscientist, Jean-Pierre Changeux, is working on a randomised control trial to test the effect of nicotine patches on Covid-19 patients.

This is far from being a crackpot theory. Changeux has explained his hypothesis at length here. In simple terms, he says that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors play a key role in the development of the disease and that nicotine can put a brake on it. If he is right – and the banter heuristic says he is – it would not only save thousands of lives but would also be one in the eye for the ‘public health’ groups who have been claiming that smoking and vaping are risk factors for Covid-19.

Source: Smoke fags, save lives – spiked

It would be premature to start a smoking habit. And nicotine is not the same a cigarette smoke.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Are you tired of this pic yet?

Did the large Chinese population in northern Italy contribute the devastating COVID-19 epidemic there?

From American Renaissance:

For decades, a large, sometimes hostile Chinese community has worked in the Italian fashion and textile industries. Immigrants — legal and illegal — started as a cheap, “exploited” labor source that allowed high-fashion companies to slap a “Made in Italy” label on products churned out in sweatshops. Now, Chinese own many off-the-books factories, ignoring employment and safety laws, and dodging taxes. They are also carving out a competitive niche in the fashion industry, and even buying up iconic Italian companies.

Was the China connection the reason the coronavirus outbreak hit Italy so hard and so early? So much immigration has been illegal — and so many Chinese factories don’t even exist on paper — that contact tracing and other disease control measures were impossible.

The odd thing about the author’s theory is that there doesn’t seem to have been an outbreak of COVID-19 in the Chinese community in Prato, Italy.

Italian seaside tangentially related to this post

Source: Italy, China, and the Coronavirus – American Renaissance

Steve Parker, M.D.

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