I’m sure you’ve seen it. Loads of hand wringing over Racist! history and disparaging the white race for “health inequality” with demands for better “access” (to be paid for by white tax payers, no doubt).
The problem with viewing everything through the “Progressive Racist! Lens” is that it severely distorts your vision. It can and often does prevent finding the real causes for things snd thus prevents fixing them.
There ARE very real physiological differences between the races. Blood type rates. Sickle cell gene frequency. Nitrous Oxide metabolism (making different heart medication best for different races). Bone density. Whites have Neanderthal derived immunity genes and enrichment in special immunity genes from waves of plague. And just skin color that modulates Vitamin D production in sun.
The MSM / YSM is chock full of stories citing Black deaths as double white rates from Chinese Wuhan Covid. Yet none of them mention the critical role of vit-D in immune function, nor that black skin in temperate lattitudes doesn’t make enough in the best of environments. It is WHY whites have white skin. To be able to survive northern winters.
Now we add on the sunscreen cult, then place folks indoors at work all day, out of the sun. Crowd them into the shade canyons of major cities. It is hard for even white skin to make enough. Per the video (at about 3 minutes) 40% of whites are vitamin D deficient. 80% of Blacks. Golly, the same 2:1 ratio.
Were we not being shouted at with the Racist! slur, perhaps we could be getting Vit-D assays on patients and educating the Black communities on the need for a bunch of Vit-D pills.
IMHO, the differential sun exposure can also explain why New York is going ballistic while California is mellowing along.
If you know any Black folks, please encourage them to get their Vit-D status checked and take a supplement. You could be saving their life. Especially elderly folks stuck indoors in elder care facilities.
And find some time to bag some rays yourself, too!
Musings from the Chiefio 
I am a now Sun Racist because I get more of such than Seattle or Pittsburgh because I live in West Central Florida.
I only have one thing to say. If you feel that way, MOVE! :-)
That’s all I gotta say about that…..
In that video he says Vit-D gives immunity. He might not have meant to say it quite that strongly. But if it helps at all, why do the journalists who are so keen to protect our health not mention that? Maybe Trump has to say it before the media pays attention.
When a patient goes into the hospital, do they do blood tests and measure things like this to look for patterns?
I’ve been intrigued for more than a year now that the blood test for glomerular filtration rate, labeled GFR, and reportedly considered “the optimal way to measure kidney function” [#], is quantified differently for “African Am” vs. “Non African Am”. Yes, I mean a single specific blood sample is quantified as ~20% higher for “African Am” vs. “Non African Am”, e.g. 191 vs. 158. There are no separate quantifications for other plausible groupings, e.g., “Native Am” (a.k.a “Indians”) nor East Asians nor Pacific Islanders.
Well! All the lab technicians must be racists! How else could any woke person explain it?
——-
Note #: E.g., (U.S.) National Kidney Foundation: “https://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/siemens_hcp_gfr”. Where higher numbers indicate better health. I’m quite pleased that it’s not among my health issues, at least for now: My numbers are very reässuring to this lapsed homebrewer.
@YMMV:
I figured he was saying ~”gives more immunity function” in an abbreviated way. It does do that in vit-D deficient people.
Like:
https://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/vitamin-d-helps-the-immune-system-during-cold-and-flu-season
https://www.amymyersmd.com/2016/06/vitamin-d/
Note that highly active innate immunity is characteristic of folks with low / no symptoms. Weak innate immune response and high antibody response is characteristic of those with worse outcomes.
A couple of key passages from a paper on special considerations for vitamin D in the south Asian population in the UK:
Vitamin D deficiency is estimated to affect the majority of the UK SA population, with one report suggesting that this may be as high as 94% of the SA population in the winter, and 82% in the summer.8 This high prevalence can be accounted for by several risk factors that are particular to the SA population, including poor dietary intake of vitamin D, as many SAs in the UK follow religions with an emphasis on a vegetarian diet, which is low in vitamin D content.9 However, some Banglasheshi populations may have a lower prevalence of deficiency due to a diet that includes the regular consumption of oily fish. The protective effect of melanin in SA skin that limits cutaneous vitamin D synthesis is compounded by the cultural needs to cover the body amongst many SA women. Studies conducted around the world report lower vitamin D status in veiled women compared with males or females adopting Western dress,10 however, sun avoidance when outside is common to both male and female SA adults. Kift et al.11 conducted a prospective cohort study comparing the seasonal variation in vitamin D status in SA and white adults living in Manchester, UK over a 12-month period. The study revealed a marked seasonal variation in both groups. In summer, the median 25(OH)D level in the SA group was 9.0 ng/ml, falling to 5.8 ng/ml in winter.11 This compared with values in the white population of 26.2 ng/ml in summer and 18.9 ng/ml in winter. The majority of SAs never reached sufficiency in vitamin D status.
and:
Studies in south Asian populations with type 2 diabetes mellitus
SA communities have a four-to-six-fold greater rate of people with T2DM than White British communities,28 and there have been a number of recent studies investigating the relationship with vitamin D status and T2DM in this ethnic group.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466148/
Don’t forget we see an unexplained gender difference too. I am sure that if women were dying in a ratio of five to each three men there would be much indignation, but as that ratio is the other way round, nobody is worried.
This may be an explanation for the variation in winter death rates south to north in the UK.
Jo Nova’s post on this subject should be required reading – lots of information.
“In the US 42% were found to be [Vitamin D] deficient, including 80% of blacks, 70% of hispanics. (Forrest et al 2011)”
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/perhaps-solve-the-other-pandemic-vitamin-d-deficiency-to-help-beat-coronavirus/
I’m just tired of this endless “feel sorry for me” thread which has crept into Western society. Has become so annoying – it brings out the worst in everyone……
@Don B.:
I love it when multiple independent people come to the same conclusion from different samples. It makes the conclusion more likely to be valud, IMHO.
And another clueful one. An M.D. somewhere.
Between 80% mild symptoms, up to half asymptomatic, and vitamin-D deficiency as contributory, that all tends to move the character this bug to more manageable.
So if CFR is really about 4% of of the symptomatic cases in northern climate areas, then it would be about 2% of total cases including asymptomatic. With about 1/2 the temperate region population vit-D deficient, elimination that deficiency could easily cut that number a lot. That starts to put CFR in the fractional % range; and more importantly; is likely to cut total hospitalizations, severity, and duration of stay.
E M I think you might find this very interesting & worthwhile reading:
https://foundationforhealthresearch.org/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret/
Trump pulled off another Stable Genius move on the media and dimowits. In the CV briefing yesterday, he stated in this situation he has ABSOLUTE authority over the USA. A few reporters jumped on the bait immediately and he re-asserted his statement. Today, the media and governors have swarmed the bait like a hungry hoard of piranhas on a freshly decimated pig carcass.
Cuomo is on TV lauding Thomas Jefferson and the Constitution!, stating Trump isn’t King or a dictator. Today they and the media have broadcast far and wide it is the Governor’s who will take us into economic recovery, NOT TRUMP!
So now, it’s all on the governors. Not Trump!!
Trump is brilliant and the YSM and dimowits continue to operate without a single iota of a clue. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
@Graeme No.3, excellent video TED talk. UV B on skin produces Vit-D. This talk is about sunshine (UV A) on skin producing nitric oxide (NO) from the stored nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosothiols in the skin which we get from eating vegetables. Then that NO dilates blood vessels and coronary arteries, lowers blood pressure. And stops agina and improves heart health.
It doesn’t mention covid, but it could be a factor.
I’m still waiting for the definitive statement on how the virus gets from the sick person to the next victim. Meanwhile, we see stories and animations about how far a cough spreads, how close you should be if you jog or cycle, and so on. I know that particles hang in the air because I can smell some of them, wafting in the breeze. Cigarette smoke. Marijuana smoke. Cigars, that smell hangs around! Perfume. Do masks cut down on these smells? I don’t know, I don’t hang around smokers.
“Do Medical Masks Work?”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/do_medical_masks_work.html
This article discusses the sizes and ranges of droplets from breathing, speaking, and coughing, and discusses how good the various masks are for filtering them.
“What about this two-meter business? Imagine that you send out a breath. It goes out at 1.5m/s and has the form of a speaking trumpet, spreading out a little as it moves. It is surrounded by a toroidal vortex that, in the old days, was visible as a smoke ring.”
Interesting. Wearing a mask would definitely stop that projection of droplets. But you knew that.
@YMMV:
In bacteriology class at University, the lecture was in a 400+ person sized auditorium. Professor far far away downhill in front. Because I don’t like stairs and mountains, I sat in the very back.
3/4 of the way through the quarter, after scaring us with all sorts of evil bacteria for 7 weeks:
At each door at the far back, a Grad Student set up a small stand with s petri dish on it. Thd professor lectured about contagion and aerosols. Covered an obscure bacteria not normally in the environment. Then says “I garled with it prior to this lecture. Next week we will see the petri dish cutures from throughout the auditorium. ”
Well, next week every single dish had colonies of that bacteria.
That was the last week of the quarter, and he covered immunity and how bodies fight off bacteria… and the whole class had a wave of relief…
But it was a VERY effective demonstration of real world exposure and risks. And eventually why it is all down to your immune system.
IF there is a person in the same room as you, speaking. Even a big auditorium, You ARE exposed to their bugs. Only size of dose and your immunity keep you healthy.
Now I’m wondering why men tend to have a poorer outcome with Covid19 than women. How about the zinc angle? Maybe men need more zinc and tend to be deficient unless they take supplements or eat lots of zinc-containing foods?
I’m totally on board with the vitamin D angle with regard to variations in outcome by race. One of my long-time favorite sources of health advice always reminded his patients they could avoid the flu by making sure they got enough vitamin D and probiotics. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that several times on this blog. ;-)
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-reason-more-men-die-from-covid-19-may-lie-in-their-chromosomes
Compu Gator @5 am
I noticed a couple of years ago: “ GFR Non AA ”
I had to look this one up and a few others.
Note that it was reported as “AA”. Strange. No?
jim2 says at 4:16
“broadcast far and wide it is the Governor’s ”
The governor of Washington State was busy running for POTUS on the one legged stool of saving the World from CO2, and just recently banned “single use” (sic) plastic bags.
A major virus tragedy happened in his backyard, so to speak, and he took the wrong message. So the 627th Army Hospital Center, out of Colorado sent and set up a 148 bed unit in Century Link Field. Over 200 medical professionals came from Fort Carson. Just as it was ready, it was shut down. Moved to a more needy state.
Now the Govs of Calif, Org, and Wash are agreeing to a joint plan to . . . blah, blah, and blah.
The three together are not as smart as a stump.
Their brain cells are practicing social distancing, John.
Alexa, what is the weather going to be like tomorrow.
Answer, It doesn’t matter your not going anywhere anyhow!
I unplugged it :-)
Just a very interesting podcast by Ivor Cummings (bio engineer) and Dr. Paul Mason (MD, honors. Univ. of Sydney) of how metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance) appears to a key risk factor for patients having poor outcomes. Youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUdD8odrdc ”
Via
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/tuesday-open-thread-11/#comment-2311370
Thus is the age of PC, and Anti-science. What it is is a matter of social justice, not science. To contend otherwise makes you a racist.
I can’t stop my mouse. :-)
@Another Ian, great video, the two have a great conversation! about the importance of insulin resistance — it’s bad for the immune system, and it’s worse for cytokine storms. And delayed cytokine storms. Insulin resistance is bad even if you have normal blood sugar levels.
And then it continues on, talking about how keto and low carb diets are good. High cholesterol is good (LDL, HDL, and total) for fighting infection. Fasting can be good for you.
Hospital tube-feed diets are sugar and vegetable oils and IV diets are sugar water. Hospitals don’t even try to regulate your blood sugar. They feed you insulin resistance inducing junk food.
And about the studies that were not published because they gave the “wrong” answer, about saturated fats and health.
Fascinating stuff. Their point is that it is not age per se which gives poor corona outcomes, it is poor metabolic health. Metabolic health in the US is poor, and it gets worse with age. Poor diet.
@ EM:
Thanks for that article. It is a new one on me. I think it will require a long and steady chew to assimilate!
And now 2 Million reported globally:
@PowerGrab:
It is simple at the core, but has odd quirks.
Men have one X chromosome. We get what Mom gave us which is only one of her 2 X chromosomes. If, for example, the code for blood clotting is damaged, we are bleeders.
Women get 2 X chromosomes. If one has a broken blood clotting code, the other one can still make proper clotting factor.
So far so good.. The “twist” is that in each cell for a woman, one of the X chromosomes gets set aside as a “Barr body” and is mostly inactive. Just which one is random in any given cell. So every woman is a chimera of 2 different cell types / genetic lineages. One from Dad, One from Mom. So if they code for different ACE2 binding sites, just a modest amount, the virus might only be able to infect 1/2 of a woman’s cells, but all of a mans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barr_body
So between redundant code for things giving more odds of good copies, and 2 types of cells making a more complicated and resistant target (“rotate the shields!”), women resist some infections better than men.
Anyone in doubt about COVID19 being a biological weapon should watch this Italian RAIR video from 2015.
https://rairfoundation.com/breaking-salvini-demands-answers-does-a-2015-italian-documentary-prove-the-coronavirus-was-created-in-a-chinese-lab-watch/
What possible medical researh reason could you have for doing what they did.
Re chromosomes, fer females two bites of the cherry. E.M. you are a fount of information and we benefit from yer compulsion to ‘Dig here.’ Thx from a serf in the turnip field. )
Just a couple of musings. This things seems to affect first-world populations worse than the rest. What distinguishes us in the first world? Well, among other things the presence of first-world health care and the likelihood that you will be on some sort of persistent medical regime. Some pill you will take every day for the rest of your life. Some pill that is easy to get pushed into taking and impossible to get off, at least with your doctor’s agreement. ACE inhibitors are not prescribed to women as much as to men, they get an alternative hypertension medicine. Diabetics frequently get ACe inhibitors to protect kidney function. I don’t say that is the answer, just that somebody ought to be checking it out.
(Obviously, don’t stop taking your meds on the basis of anything I write..)
I posted this on MD Case report etc. Probably should have been here
“Dr. Fauci’s own career-making medical research had no clinical control group, used historic controls #coronavirus”
I read that, he is not doing President Trump, or the people with COVID19 any favours.
A critical bit of data is how many have been exposed to NCV but didn’t get sick. The count in the US is 0.16 per cent of the population. Even if this is only a quarter of those exposed, that’s still only 0.67 per cent of the population. That ain’t squat! All this effort and still a huge majority of people unexposed, just waiting to flood hospitals when they are.
So, I’m not sure where all this is headed. A lot hinges on these antibody tests and how many of those how soon will we have?
@Rhoda:
It is being looked at, but unclear what would happen.
Biology is full of control systems with inverters, or paradoxical reactions. So does an ACE inhibitor enable virus replication? Or does it plug up the ACE binding site and inhibit virus entry? So far the data are unclear. There is a MedCram video on it.
The major outbreak areas form a band across the temperate region of the north. This is the non-malaria zone. It is also the low Vit-D zone of low UV and indoors workers. So which, if either, is it? Low D or prophylactic use of anti-malarial drugs? Or neither and something else? Or both?
FWIW, I think it is both. But we won’t know until Southern Hemisphere data, after months more contagion, is available.
@AC Osborn:
Realizing that about the CDC was why I wrote:
I was, and am, astonished at how useless, harmful, and political both the W.H.O. and CDC have been.
@Rhoda Klapp – I’m taking Lisinopril 5mg 1/day to “protect my kidneys”.
As I understand it, that’s the smallest dose with any effect that will be prescribed. I see the doc twice per year to check my A1C, kidney, and liver function… and my cholesterol, which results I ignore as well as the prescription for statins that is always given.
So far, all my tests have been good, which is why they bumped me down to 6 month checks instead of the quarterly checks they were doing after I was first diagnosed with Type II diabetes.
Mrs. H.R. takes 20mg 1/day for reasons related to her life-long high blood pressure and Afib. She takes a strange cocktail of meds that was hit upon by trial & error over the years. No one has ever been able to determine the cause of her hypertension and she’s had every test there is, including some invasive ones with that little skinny scope where they go look at your heart and kidneys, oh and her brain for a peek at her carotids and the stroke-damaged area, and who knows what all.
Between your post on ACE inhibitors and E.M.’s post on women having 2 X chromosomes, It’s hard for me to evaluate how much our risks are elevated other than to determine that we do NOT want to mess with the Chinese Virus.
The ACE inhibitors was brought up before, maybe by you, but not kicked around too much in regards to the hypertension meds. So thanks for bringing that up again.
I’m going to talk to my doctor and see if I can cut my small dose in half and still maintain good test results. She’ll have to monitor such an experiment more frequently than every six months. I like her because she’s willing to give something like that a try or will give me firm evidence against trying it.
Do the ACE inhibitors help or hinder? Well, the most common co-morbidities are the ones where ACE inhibitors are likely to be prescribed. In the case of hypertension the threshold blood pressure for treatment has been lowered (here in the UK) several times. If they wanted to make it look like a collusion between doctors and drug makers they have done it. It’s just one of those forever treatments the medical profession seems so keen on.
Anyhow, it looks like first-world health systems or lifestyle make us more likely to get CV in its more serious forms.
Before changing any medications, watch this. By an M.D. treating Wuhan Covid. It explores the ACE2 receptor and likely effects of drugs:
Then talk to your own doctor. Drugs interact and removing one from a mix can be as bad as adding one. Some drugs require tapering off, others a hard cutoff.
Realize it is just as likely that any covid correlation is just from folks on ACE2 inhibitors not going in the sun as much, so low vit-D.
Interesting read.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-its-so-freaking-hard-to-make-a-good-covid-19-model/
From: https://townhall.com/columnists/marinamedvin/2020/04/15/israeli-professor-shows-virus-follows-fixed-pattern-n2566915
“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks,” Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concluded. The reason why coronavirus follows a fixed pattern is yet unknown. “I have no explanation,” he told Mako, “There are is kinds of speculation: maybe it’s climate-related, maybe the virus has its own life cycle.”
Also, it appears that reported deaths from flu and flu-like, from stroke, and from cardiac events are all significantly down. Perhaps down enough to be very nearly normal, within the multi year variation.
Transmission seems to be nearly exclusively in enclosed spaces, and nearly absent in open air outside. Farmers Markets outdoors better than supermarkets indoors.
An interview with Professor Knut Wittkowski.
Apologize, no idea how to embed it.
My Dr. PRESCRIBED Vit. D for me. 80,000 units once a week.
As you may or may not know. It is unusual for Drs. to prescribe Vitamins.
A C Osborn says:
15 April 2020 at 8:33 am
?What possible medical researh reason could you have for doing what they did.
The age old excuse: What if THEY develop it first and we have no defense?
Terry Jackson said: Farmers Markets outdoors better than supermarkets indoors.
So, let’s hope some of those are toilet paper farmers :)
@Terry Jackson:
As stated on another thread: the pattern of growth of cases is measuring the response profile of politicians.
Few cases, ignore it.
Modest cases, talk about it and advise folks to be careful.
Hospitals stacking up cases and someone you know gets hit: minor prohibitions.
It slows but doesn’t stop, hospitals overrun, deaths in the news: Effective hard lock down.
Essentially there is a rate of new cases that is acceptable and politicians react above that point, not below. Watch Georgia are it removes restrictions. If acceptable rate of cases, loosen more; if pops too high, tighten more. Titrating to hospital capacity.
@Jim2:
Yup:
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/info/using-plants-for-toilet-paper.htm
Got Lamb’s Ear seeds?
;-)
The Times in the UK has analysed the first 12600 English hospital deaths. Death rates per 100,000 population were 23 for white British, 27 for Asians and 43 for black people. The mortality rate for Bangladeshis was 20 per 100,000, less than for white Britons; for those of Caribbean heritage it was 69.
Trevor Phillips, former head of the equality and human rights commission, said anyone citing structural racism should note death rates in the Bangladeshi community, among the poorest English households,were lower than those among white Britons.
Here I must quote again from the article I mentioned in a posting above, regarding vitamin D deficiency in the UK’s south Asian population:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466148/
“some Banglasheshi populations may have a lower prevalence of deficiency due to a diet that includes the regular consumption of oily fish.”
Does anyone, other than me, remember cod liver oil? That was required when I grew up. Grandma demanded it, a teaspoon a day.
@ cdquarles:
I started taking cod liver oil in 2003 because it was so highly recommended by the Weston A. Price Foundation. I call it my “secret weapon”.
@cdq – Yup. The 4 of us kids got our spoonful every day.
My oldest brother didn’t mind it nor did my sister, the youngest. She gave it to us two middle brothers with an orange juice chaser and it was quite tolerable.
A psychiatrist would probably attribute my lifelong fishing obsession as me seeking revenge on fish for all that CLO (that’s what we called it back then) I had to take. The shrink would be nuts because I have never in my life caught a cod. ;o)
EMS – toilet plants. Love it!
Cod liver oil is still a thing in Iceland. You traditionally drink a shot with breakfast. I did it while I was there. I didn’t mind. It’s different, but it’s not Marmite :-)
They claim lots of health benefits.
https://icelandmag.is/article/consuming-fish-oil-icelandic-lysi-helps-burn-fat-and-fight-weight-gain-after-middle-age-new
“The scientists also found that beige cells formed from white fat cells in the mice that ate fish oil, suggesting fat-storage cells were being converted to fat metabolizing cells.”
(Any comments on that?)
https://askaboutfood.com/has-iceland-found-the-fountain-of-youth-october-2017/
Take it for rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration, coronary artery disease, wound healing, cognitive function, osteoarthritis, autoimmune disease, cancer, heart disease, cystic fibrosis, and dental cavities. (Any comments on that?)
https://www.lysi.com/consumer-products/cod-liver-oil/liquid-cod-liver-oil
The straight nutrition info.
“U.S. Navy officials announced on Thursday that the entire crew of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was tested for the novel coronavirus, and over 800 samples came back positive.”
Out of a crew of about 4,600, ages 20-50+, that lived in close proximity, 92 required some amount of medical treatment, 1 died and 4 remain in treatment, over 840 tested positive for Corona-19 antibodies.
Those numbers look to be in line with results of testing in the civilian population in Santa Clara as well as New York. I would guess that 60% of the population is naturally immune to the infection. Of the 25% that get infected, most of their bodies will easily mount a successful immune response. The 15% remainder will require medical support of some amount.
I would think that this is the best enclosed study to date on a cross section of the general population that is generally of good health. I know from personal experience the life in the close confines of a Navy War Ship. Everyone is in everyone’s face 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for months, there is no isolation or distancing to be had.,,pg
Cod Liver:Oil, you say. I know two songs which mention it:
First, the Dubliners, I couldn’t find the Burl Ives version.
Second, a very specialist Glaswegian culture lesson from Hamish Imlach.
I have no idea what non-Scots are going to make out of that.
@Rhoda Klapp – Not a bit of Scot in my Mom. All Czech and Texan. Dad was the first in his family since they arrived in 1834 to marry a non-German.
I wonder where she came up with the orange juice to go with the cod liver oil? No internet 60 years ago, so how did she stumble upon that?
My mother-in-law is a Scottish immigrant. My wife was born in London but became a U.S. citizen at age 18. Nary a peep about CLO, let alone with orange juice, from my mother-in-law.
Her mom’s memory is now pretty much shot, but her cousins, still in Scotland, might have something to say about the topic.
Thanks for those references.
Any bit of winter illness and Mum would be dispensing the Cod Liver Oil.
I had a jug of it in my fridge up until about 8 years ago. Now I’m thinking maybe I ought to get some more ;-)
@P.G.:
The problem with using the Navy Ships as exemplars is that the cohort on board is predominantly of the age group that gets mild or no illness. Compare North Italy where they have a preponderance of very old folks. Compare the “splat” Princess ships – lots of old folks and lots of them still with issues.
It requires a cross section by age, gender, and race to really know what’s happening.
Perhaps averaging the Roosevelt & Diamond Princess would give a decent approximation of reality overall.
The Princess had much the same infection rate with some isolation/distancing available. Much worse out comes due to geriatrics so I think you are right about the averages of the two.
I’m beginning to think that my lady and I were infected in February considering the symptoms. Body pain, hot and cold chills, scratchy throat for 5-6 weeks, screwed up smell and taste. It will be interesting to find out when tests become available. We had been taking vitamin “D” “C” and zinc since before December. Her and her son’s business sets them into the middle of any virus infections going around. pg
@CD and HR – yep! Hate it to this day! AN YMMV – I always wanted to try Marmite – until you equated the 2.. Now I am not so sure.
@EM – Re the Teddy R. He was not using it for mortality rates, but for infection rates. That is independent of the age group, and it is an excellent study to see what percent of the population actually has it. We kind of know the mortality rate (it is inflated), so applying the infected rate of the Teddy R to the population of infected states, and then applying their actual deaths (forget NY – too much garbage in that sample) gives the mortality rate.
Which is looking like the flu. Not 10x. Just the flu.
Which is what I have said from the beginning. Mass hysteria ginned up by the duplicitous fake news media.
Errata – Not “kind of know the mortality rate”. It should be “kind of know the deaths from” The rate is still being calculated.
Data update by doctors in the field.
Sorry E.M this isn’t it. Agenda 21 instead.
I will try to retrieve the one I meant to send. Maybe just wipe this one.
Here it is,. Dr Erickson COVID-19 Briefing.
Hmm, @ phil; there is a difference between cod liver oil and marmite. That they are both extracts is the thing in common. I’ve had yeast extract before, too; yet granny didn’t require it daily :). Now I’m going to go see if I can find yeast extract in the store.
@ HR re:
“I wonder where she came up with the orange juice to go with the cod liver oil? No internet 60 years ago, so how did she stumble upon that?”
From reading the articles on the Weston A. Price Foundation’s site, I learned that it became a tradition for mothers to offer the cod liver oil in orange juice to their families every morning.
I read Weston Price’s book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”. He spoke highly of it as a source of fat-soluble vitamins (particularly vitamins A and D). His research about the things he wrote in that book made a big impression on the country. Perhaps people got the idea from him. The orange juice was probably intended as a source of vitamin C, and to mask the taste of the cod liver oil. It can get rancid if you don’t refrigerate it. Back in the 1930s, perhaps there were still lots of families without a refrigerator?
Power Grab: “Back in the 1930s, perhaps there were still lots of families without a refrigerator?”
I’m not that old. ;o)
We did have one of the refrigerators with the motor on top, though. Not enough room for food for mom, dad, and 4 kids. They upgraded when I was 4 or 5. They upgraded again, not because the refrigerator died. Those older ones are bulletproof. No, 3 teenage boys is wot dunnit, and if they would have had the room, they probably would have put in a walk-in.
@ HR
LOL! I’m not that old, either. I wish I still had an elderly relative to talk to about it.
Hummm, motor on top of a fridge? What was it’s quarter mile time?
@Ossqss – Do you have Prince Albert in a can?
I am not sure what that is HR, but no I don’t. I didn’t get to see that motor on a fridge top :-)
I still ask however, how do we justify quarantining the healthy for the first time ever?
There is more to this story. Jut Sayin>>
I believe this is NOT the first quarantine of the healthy. Whole ships were quarantined 40 days (thus the name) to assure no one carried the plague. Whole families were quarantined if one member was sick. Whole cities quarantined if plague was in them.
In the UK most houses did not have a fridge until well into the fifties.
Although this is not the first quarantine of the healthy, nor is it a quarantine at all, because there is no exit after forty days or any other specified period. Quarantine is a well-established public health measure with legal precedent. I don’t know the legal precedent for what we have now.
My grandparents definitely had one in the 60s, for I remember it (and their wringer style washing machine). Both were upgraded in the 70s.
They had a cellar in the yard and talked about ice boxes. Yes, the literal ice boxes that you put in the cellar. Cellar temperatures were nearly steady and nearly 50F year round. Though we had a flush toilet, they still had an outhouse. My grandparents had seen life change greatly from when they were born in the 1890s to when they died in the 70s and 80s.
@CD – Marmite and CLO – I know there is a difference, But if one proclaims to love both, my tastes buds are not theirs.
E.M.: “Whole cities quarantined if plague was in them.”
Was that in the U.S. of A under our constitution?
@H.R.:
Not that I know of. I was thinking of Medieval Europe and plague.
(Nothing in the assertion of “never” specified USA or time limits).
Researching it for this answer, though, I found an even more egregious transgression:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2014/10/07/a-brief-history-of-quarantines-in-the-united-states/
Locking up the whores in time of war? Denying them their livelihood while destroying troup morale! (moral already gone) Oh, The Humanity!
Being stuck at home watching reruns pales in comparison…
Countries have never done this even close to this scale GLOBALLY. Sure, protect who we know are vulnerable, but tell everyone (300+million in the US) to stop in their tracks, nope.
I get the initial reaction, but we are all under high density NY rules, when we aren’t.
We are starting to see changes in the numbers. WOM, down to 19% CRF. Testing is off the charts as far as volume and things are becoming more apparent on past non-flu respiratory illness the end of last year into this year.
28 total cases in my zip code. Has not changed much since the first week of testing. Added 2 cases in 2 weeks. Why do I lockdown any longer is the question?
A verse from my Tom Petty “Breakdown” parody song I wrote/posted that nobody seemed to like.
“It Ain’t Right”
@Ossqss::
Not a question of like or didn’t like. More “not got to it yet” and “maybe after wine” :-)
I think we have proven with groceries, gas stations, and other stores, that masks, gloves, and washing is enough. We can do that at work too.
Various States are doing the start up process now, so it is happening.
MedCram has a good video on why patients fail. Once the virus is in your blood, it attacks ACE2 in the vessel walls and you start throwing clots that screw up everything else.
E.M.: “(Nothing in the assertion of “never” specified USA or time limits).”
Nope. That’s why I asked. Different times now. Different people. Different laws. Same ol’ tyrants.
No doubt, lawyers are gearing up for a massive payday. Unfortunately, we’ll be suing ourselves, because it is devilishly difficult to hold politicians personally responsible and liable.
Interesting… scrolling back up thread, the Dr. Erickson video is now deleted.
It is pretty bizarre when videos by M.D.s discussing medicine get banned…
I wonder what the deal is. Harrased into deleting it, or against The Narrative so removed by Big Brother?
@ EM re:
“… the Dr. Erickson video is now deleted”
Phooey! I used to be able to capture videos as they played, many moons ago. I need to find out what the modern method for doing that is.
As of the Laura Ingram show, they stated the vid was pulled by youtube. Don’t go against WHO apparently is policy of the overlords.
Queue up “Who are you”, by the WHO in this case.
new video showing the HUGE importance of Vit-D for resisting the virus.
“Ep73 Vitamin D Status and Viral Interactions…The Science” by Ivor Cummins.
It gets into it right away. He notes that taking Vit-D pills may not be as effective as having the life-style that gives good Vit-D levels. He also notes how poor the Vit-D levels are in the population, and that for blacks it is much worse (but not for blacks in Africa).
@Phil Jourdan, “I always wanted to try Marmite – until you equated the 2.. Now I am not so sure.”
Technically, I said they were not the same. Tastes vary, for sure, so I say go for it. Sometimes taste is in the mind, for children especially. Sometimes a taste is acquired; you don’t like it at first, then you do. But if you don’t taste/smell anything, get yourself checked.
@E.M.Smith, “the Dr. Erickson video is now deleted”
So of course I Googled it (not even DDG) and found an active link to
“Dr. Erickson COVID-19 Briefing, Pt. 2”
Part 1 was the one they censored, after 6 million views. Part 2 next?
And Google kindly showed this article.
https://www.aier.org/article/open-up-society-now-say-dr-dan-erickson-and-dr-artin-massihi/
It has links to two videos (the first is a replacement video?)
And more TDS inspired censorship.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/snitching_reporter_from_nyt_sees_bid_to_censor_cedarssinai_for_covid19_light_research_blow_up_in_her_face.html
https://summit.news/2020/04/27/now-twitter-censors-bio-tech-conmpanys-uv-light-treatment-research-after-trump-touted-it/
Though the Dr. Erickson video was based on real data, the thing they missed was that the figures they saw (and compared to the ‘flu figures) were a result of having a lockdown. Even with some people not doing logicl self-protection measures, a lot would have been taking extra precautions that reduced the spread.
As EM said, this is not the ‘flu. I seem to recall he also said that, if the lockdown worked, then the resultant reduced mortality would lead people to say that the lockdown wasn’t necessary.
A lot of focus is on the reproduction number. This is probably a mistake, since it is an average and not a real number. Some individuals would not pass it to anyone, but others could pass to hundreds (for example the lady in Daegu infecting most of a churchful of people, since singing will do a great job of spreading). Averages lose data, and need to be treated with extreme caution.
We’re also finding out new problems from getting infected with the WuFlu. https://actu.orange.fr/societe/sante/une-autre-mauvaise-surprise-du-covid-19-des-caillots-de-sang-CNT000001pKpwJ.html (use autotranslate if needed) says that blood-clots are a feature, so causing strokes, heart attacks, kidney failures, and other problems (leading to amputations depending on where the clots accumulate). Also there’s https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52439005 saying that some children (about 20 in the UK) have had a severe illness that could be linked to WuFlu. Seems to be basically sepsis, but information on this is a bit thin at the moment. Not all the kids tested positive for WuFlu, but then I have a suspicion that the tests aren’t that reliable yet.
Interesting that here in France all nicotine products (except tobacco itself) have been restricted. Someone noticed that smokers were under-represented in the people going to hospital with WuFlu, so nicotine was suspected to have some protective ability. Seems also that, if you are a smoker and do catch it, the outcome is a bit worse, so a bit of swings and roundabouts there, but people were stockpiling nicotine patches anyway. Of course, it may not be the nicotine, but that smokers head out into the sunshine every so often rather than staying indoors where it’s illegal to smoke, so maybe their vitamin-D level is higher. As usual, correlation does not mean causation….
Maybe the big problem with this corona virus is that the data isn’t really that good. With any death marked as because of the virus, and the general age of the people who succumb to it, and the general advice to tough it out until you can’t breathe before calling the doctor, I suspect it’s both killing more people than it ought to do if the right medication was done early enough (HCQ+Zinc+vit-D) and that the numbers we read are also higher than actually died of the WuFlu. The lockdown has been interpreted as to “stay indoors”, and the police in the UK even told people not to be in their own gardens (though this has now been corrected, the general interpretation will remain) and so vitamin-D levels will be reduced. Counter-productive….
I’ve been trying to make some sense of the data available. I think that the basic infectivity of WuFlu is quite a bit higher than normally quoted, and that whereas talking will produce some aerosolised virus, singing and shouting will likely produce a lot more. Wearing a mask should reduce the load picked up by someone else. EM’s story about the lecturer who gargled with an unusual bacterium and showed it spread all over the lecture hall implies that someone with the virus will shed a certain amount and if you are within sight you’ll probably get some. The 2m “social distancing” is not going to stop that. As Dr. Erickson says, though, our immune systems should deal with a small viral load, and in fact need to do that. Providing we can keep the viral load we take in below the level that the immune system can deal with, we’ll simply become immune to larger doses over time.
Seems to me that if everyone wore masks, and washed their hands after a trip out before touching their faces, and washed clothes if someone coughed at them, then most people would safely gain immunity.
Though the lockdown has been expensive, it was likely the best response to the perceived threat while data was collected. It’s also pretty likely that the disease was circulating outside China before it was recognised there. I’ve mentioned that my daughter appears to have had something very similar back in February in Edinburgh, UK. The official response in China of building massive “hospitals”, and the number of bodies that appear to have been cremated (I’ve seen reports of 40k funerary urns delivered in Wuhan) implies that the ~4500 deaths there are around 1/10 of the real death toll, so the worldwide response is justifiable. Not the ‘flu….
What I still don’t understand is the response to HCQ or Ivermectin cures. Seems a low-risk medication approach if it’s applied early, though neither will likely work once the disease has progressed too far. Sure, there will be a limited supply initially, but medicate the doctors and nurses so they don’t get ill or die, and build up manufacturing capability. Since at this time it’s unlikely that those medical people will be out in the sun much, give them vitamin-D pills, too….
Seems we could get rid of the most onerous parts of the lockdown pretty fast if we applied what we know so far.
@Simon Derricutt, “A lot of focus is on the reproduction number. This is probably a mistake, since it is an average and not a real number.”
I agree, plus it is based on incomplete data. I think it is much higher if you count all the people infected and not just the ones who got sick. Since we have not tested everybody, we do not know how many have been infected and didn’t get it. I think it’s big.
[French link] “says that blood-clots are a feature, so causing strokes, heart attacks, kidney failures, and other problems (leading to amputations depending on where the clots accumulate).”
Yes. If you recall when “ground glass” in the lungs was a hot topic, that is caused by covid in the blood. Covid first gets the ACE2 in the lungs, then it gets the ACE2 in the linings of the blood vessels, which then causes the lung failure that puts patients on ventilators due to doctors not yet understanding the disease. This video explains that very well. This complication is something you do not want to get!
This article makes a good case for the main spreading mechanism is droplets from singing, shouting, speaking loud in noisy situations. And that sitting or standing close to each other, as in busses, airplanes, theaters is not as dangerous as thought. Masks better than lockdowns.
https://quillette.com/2020/04/23/covid-19-superspreader-events-in-28-countries-critical-patterns-and-lessons/
@Simon:
Yeah, I think I said those things.
There is a minimum infective dose for diseases. It looks to me like good vitamin status raises that level AND enables innate immunity to stamp out minor infections prior to the antibody inflamatory blood clot cascade failure.
Per HCQ and Ivermectin:
I’m torn. Part of it is certainly TDS driven “Get the bad Orange Man” stupidity. But I can’t shake the question of malevolent motives. Kill off older conservative voters. Establish precedent for government take over. Make the “crisis” worse to exploit it more. Keep payroll daddy Soros happy. Keep Chinese bribo supply happy. Advance client patented drug more so campaign contributions keep coming.
There’s a very potent stew of high pressure motivations and I just can’t see Progressives setting those aside for the greater good.
@YMMV:
What you said!
:-)
https://banned.video/watch?id=5ea4994ea881fd00808e95ad
The 2 M.D.s in Kern County video (same as above banned by YouTube / Youscrewed
This looks like it might be the Wittkowski interview:
https://banned.video/watch?id=5ec2dda2244ac5001d2a5d76
The new MedCram video is a revelation. Instead of going into what to take to avoid covid, he explores what not to eat to avoid it. In particular, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is BAD! It sets your body up for covid. And it lowers your vitamin C levels.
Take a look at the chart at 13:57 — The US consumption of HFCS is incredible.
(most other places limit its use)
The good news is that garlic and onions are good for you.
I dumped almost all HFCS years ago. It truly is horrible for you.
No sodas (other than about a once per quarter Real Sugar Pepsi. Other exception is the KFC “Honey syrup” on a biscuit. Said “honey” being mostly yellow HFCS. Also about once per quarter.
I make most of our meals from scratch. Classic meat, starch, vegetable pattern. Hardly any pre-packaged stuff other than some noodles (use real butter in the making) and soup (many I make from pan drippings but sometimes you just want “open and go”).
Almost no canned high sugar fruit, but occasionally. Again like once a quarter. Jam mostly made with sugar, but not eaten often at all. Usually preserves. Spouse likes it though. Even pancake syrup is real 100% maple.
It isn’t that hard to avoid most of it, really.
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