Some of this we’ve already know for a while, and were talking about many months ago. Nice to have the confirmation.
First up is that Vitamin D works well as a preventative / ameliorating thing. It is critical for, and enhances, your innate immunity that is most important in stopping Chinese Wuhan Covid before you get to the hospitalization stage.
Frankly, my Mum would give me a spoon of Cod Liver Oil whenever I got a winter cold as a child. The notion that Vitamin D is very important in colds, flu, etc. was WELL KNOWN a century ago. The Cod Liver Oil industry was built on it. We even had somewhat better tasting “Cod Liver Oil Pills”. I’d love to get them, I liked the flavor ;-0
But now we know the mechanism too. I’d been thinking of putting this video up, but Ilanfar (h/t) beat me to it here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/12/10/w-o-o-d-10-december-2020/#comment-136332
IIRC, Dr. Seheult prior “update 59” was banned by EewTube and can be found here:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HFbykZcEjnmA/
In it, Dr. Seheult makes the case for Vit-D, Vit-C, Zinc, Quercetin, and NAC. NAC is N-actylcysteine. Just what he says about NAC at about 9 minutes is worth it.
We recorded this video in response to your comments asking what Dr. Seheult’s daily regimen is – to optimize his immune system and minimize COVID-19 risk. In the absence of good clinical data that is specific to SARS-CoV-2, Dr. Seheult discusses supplements, sleep, and his daily disinfection routine when removing PPE, getting in his car, and returning home from the hospital. We look forward to more randomized, blinded, placebo-control studies in the future that will build upon the current body of evidence as it relates to immunity and specifically coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2.
I think YouTube may have since restored it, but “burned once”…
Here’s the newer video:
There’s a fair amount of overlap on the Vit-D insight, while the script and the citations are different as is the currency. The first video touches on Vit-D along with the others, while the recent video has more details on just Vit-D.
Vitamin D and COVID 19: The Evidence for Prevention and Treatment of Coronavirus (SARS CoV 2)
MedCram – Medical Lectures Explained CLEARLY
863K subscribers
Professor Roger Seheult, MD explains the important role Vitamin D may have in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Seheult illustrates how Vitamin D works, summarizes the best available data and clinical trials on vitamin D, and discusses vitamin D dosage recommendations.Roger Seheult, MD is the co-founder and lead professor at https://www.medcram.com
He is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine and Assistant Prof. at Loma Linda University School of Medicine
Dr. Seheult is Quadruple Board Certified: Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine
[…]THE MEDCRAM WEBSITE:
Visit us for videos on over 60 medical topics and CME / CEs for medical professionals: https://www.medcram.com
[…]MedCram medical videos are for medical education and exam preparation, and NOT intended to replace recommendations from your doctor.
#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #VitaminD
A HUGE number of links in each video description at the video site, so “hit the link” for the video to get all those supportive article links.
In this video Dr. John Campbell discusses the fact that Ivermectin has been shown to work in clinical use. He sites I-MASK and other things we’ve seen in passing here.
In this next video, Dr. John Campbell talks about vaccines (happening now).
Per Vaccines: one interesting bit is that the Australian Vaccine, despite working very well in phase 1 trials, is being abandoned. “Why?” is interesting. Seems the used a fragment of protein that is in common with HIV for making the vaccine. This doesn’t give anyone HIV as the virus is not present. BUT… a few people, after vaccination, tested positive for HIV antibodies, so presumptive HIV diagnosis. Bit of a problem… especially when you don’t have HIV.
Starting Monday (next I presume, not stated which Monday…) the vaccines are rolling out nation wide in the USA. 145 Sites “Monday”, 425 “Tuesday”, then on “Wednesday” 66 more. OK, I’m personally not signing up for it for several months, if ever. I want to see the side effects and unexpected Aw Shits that just about everything can cause. I’m also “very prone to allergies” and a couple of folks “like me” have had strong allergic reactions to the UK Vaccine.
But watch for a “Bum’s Rush” on getting you to go get “who know what” squirted into you… (IMHO, anyone under 30 ought to give it a pass as you just don’t really have any significant risk anyway. Take some sun or Vit-D, zinc, and Vit-C and call it done.) However, the USA “only” getting enough for 25 million people now, with the rest waiting until Summer.
Fine with me. Let the adventuresome and those at risk due to work go first.
Doctors, Nurses, Police, meat packers & undertakers. Anyone working in close quarters or “on the front line” AND over 30…
At about 20 minutes he talks about genetics and the “immune disregulation” causing severe symptoms. Seems the worst reactions are happening when the virus is dying and keeping viral load low up front makes all the difference. Interesting chart cited.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Update 59 is currently up on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM2A2xNLWR4
Note that it dates from April 21. Some things are new since then (but yet to be “discovered” by the officials.
Not only are YouTube, Facebook and others censoring videos by expert doctors, the FDA is sending them letters to explain themselves, wink wink. And then with the lawyer excess, all are very hesitant to say what they think. Some mentions of Ivermectin get by, but whatever you do, don’t say “miracle cure”, “wonder drug”, or mention Ivermectin for animals!
For those who want a deep dive into mechanisms (without being “too hard”!), “Doctor Been” is very good. He has patients outside of the US for whom he prescribes Ivermectin, with excellent results.
That video was supposed have been a list of videos.
Try again, to force it to be a link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_voXEIX5Xhvo-4N-Wg7rFuG7JwY8AOHp
I’ll get it and let you know. And t was this past monday.
Ah, so already in progress with Monday PAST being D-Day and H-Hour…
Regarding Vit D
Last Thursday I spoke with my “Doc”, a PA-C. Will also see her this Thursday to go over the full blood profile.
I was taking 2,400 units of D3 and asked about testing for it and for Zinc. As I knew, the insurance doesn’t cover these two and she thought it wasn’t worth it (~$70 each). If a test came back saying I needed more, she would say “You need more.” And, without the test she was willing to say “Take more.”, so that’s easy. The small golden pills are 2,000 units, so I added one. Now taking 4,400 units.
Going with beef for Zinc, and purple onions, apples, and red wine for Quercetin.
_ _ _ _ _
As for taking the vaccine, I’ve never had a reaction to any shot and have no known allergies.
I think covid vaccine won’t be offered to me for 6 months or more. Then there will be 3 or 4 choices – immediate side effects should be known for each. I’ll not worry about what might happen 3 or 5 years out.
Maybe there will be 100,000,000 vaccinated by then. That’s enough of an experiment to gauge the issues.
If a person knows they have issues, caution is good. Let the rest of us get the herd immunity thing going.
You guys might like this.
It is what India does for it’s patients.
Well I have searched the internet that Ziverdo Health kit and cannot find anything on it at all.
Does it really exist?
Is it being suppressed?
Very odd indeed.
found it listed here.
https://www.rxindia.com/medicines/medicines-by-therapeutic-class/covid-19/ziverdo-kit/
I searched ziverdo kit India and top link was to dispensary with details and price and button to upload prescription.
That Rs. 150 is about $2.
Think about that vs. remdesivir at $3000 and needing a hospital… then consider that Doxycycline / Ivermectin / Zinc are shown to actually work.
Who’s your chumps, eh?
@barkerjim:
That link is interesting, thanks!
Gee, other than adding Doxycycline, it’s the same thing we were talking about many months ago… They repeat the Ivermectin once every 2 weeks for 6 weeks, but their dose is very similar to the one I calculated using “sheep sized mammal”… (and my PDR mg/kg)
I did cite the doxycycline study but said I’d score from a kid with pimples :-) seeing as it needs a prescription…
Prior article:
From a Fox News story:
Jocelyn Edwards wasn’t sure she got Moderna Inc.’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine or a placebo when she received her first of two doses in August. Hours after the second shot, she said she was sure it was the genuine article.
“I woke up around midnight freezing,” said the 68-year-old retired nurse. “For the next 24 hours I had intense chills, serious neck pain, headache, all my joints were aching.” She had a fever that peaked at 102.4 and poured out so much sweat that she lost 3 pounds, she said. The following day she woke up and felt fine.
Ms. Edwards, like the other 30,000 volunteers who took part in Phase 3 clinical trials for Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, wasn’t told whether she got the vaccine or a placebo. However, she said a trial researcher attributed her symptoms to her body mounting a strong immune response to what was most likely the vaccine. “It’s better having 36 hours of feeling really rough than getting Covid,” she said.
“Hours after the second shot, she said she was sure it was the genuine article.”
There’s a problem here. If the volunteer can tell if she got the vaccine and not the placebo, then the trial is not totally blind. It matters because now that she thinks she is protected she might go party party party while the volunteers who got the placebo are cowering in their basement. Throws off the stats.
To avoid this, some vaccine trials use another different vaccine as the placebo.
A big part of the problem with Covid is the body’s overreaction to it. Hopefully there will not be a problem with the vaccine causing an overreaction, even if it is only temporary. Presumably that is why the vaccine is given in two doses, so that each one is small enough so that it is not harmful. But if the first one works, the body is primed to react to the second dose, so the answer is not clear. Hopefully, that was tested thoroughly enough.
The other point this raises is whether this person was given too big a dose. Some of these vaccines have very complicated unthawing and dilution procedures. Can we be sure that the vaccinating personnel have enough training and experience?
So many “light at the end of the tunnel” statements, but we are still in the tunnel.
YMMV,
Good comments.
I’ve read a bit about testing drugs and the difficulty thereof.
There are, in fact, specialists in “medical ethics” – who knew!
When my wife was seriously ill 10 years ago – needing valve replacement – I discussed such things with her cardiologist.
Neither of us had been seriously ill, so the medical technology and the ethics were of great interest.
For instance, if it is known that a heart valve is faulty (significant murmur; tests), why not replace it when that becomes known?
Another:
A blood thinner named Heparin is used frequently during medical procedures. For a few people there is an adverse reaction, namely Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). In street language – your red blood cells die. Oops! After a double blockage removal in the cardiac catheterization lab, 48 hours later she was in intensive care, deeply sedated, and on life support for 8 days. During about 30 days time medical miracles (my view) happened.
Why not test people for this reaction before using Heparin?
The work-around is “Low Molecular Weight” Heparins.
Why not go that way in the first place?
Long story short: My wife survived – to the surprise of the entire medical team. Their choice was to let her die, or try to save her. Her cardiologist (mentioned above) pushed for the surgery team to do the operation.
While her heart was damaged, she did recover to a useful and happy life. Her valve replacement surgery was the last week of December, 2009.
[Also, from the experiences mentioned and reading, I know why we don’t get tested for Vit D3 even when a full blood profile is done.]
This perspective is very USA focussed. Yes Vitamin D2 works with Zinc etc. I’ve been taking them both and others for ages. And I have Ivermectin in the cupboard. But how many folks can afford these supplements which are not covered by medicare or health insurance ? Globally not many. And I suspect not a high proportion in the USA, UK, Japan, or Europe or Australia. And of course these supplements have to be taken each day and often folks forget…..
( Hey I have to take mine now before I forget ! :-)
So that’s the big picture. Hence the need for a vaccine which globally is low cost.
PS This is what our former Prime Minister thinks of Trump and the Pandemic : https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/john-howard-slams-donald-trump-for-mishandling-coronavirus-pandemic/news
I agree with Howard. A classic example of how to rescue Defeat from the jaws of Victory ! :-(
Billinoz, exactly zero established critics of Ivermectin or HQC have stated cost as a reason for breeding a vaccine. Indeed, I have not heard one vaccine proponent relate the inexpensive treatments available as ” hence the need for a vaccine”.
Is it not obvious that if the percentage of those contacting Cov19 that become symptomatic is reduced by over 50 percent, and fatalities reduced to a very average flu season, then there would be no need to rush a potentially harmful vaccine?
billinoz, your 2nd link appears to be lacking anything other then a blanket assertion.
Likely the poster is also lacking understanding of the responsibility President Trump gave each Governor, and the disparate factors that exist within the US.
Regardless, if the very effective low cost treatments had not been suppressed by the globalists, there would be no issue here.
Also the poster is lacking awareness of the massive fraud in the US election. President Trump won by a large margin.
@billinoz: I followed that link, but the article has been removed. I have no clue what John Howard had to say on the subject.
@Pres Elect.
Looks like it was just a bad (truncated) link.
Try this one https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/john-howard-slams-donald-trump-for-mishandling-coronavirus-pandemic/news-story/d384890b1c169dd6989cc445f536453d
Uh, BillInOz:
Vit-D, Zinc, Ivermectin expensive? WT? Um, India sells it in a full treatment package for $2.
That’s 2 Dollars. Vaccines cost a LOT more. Like 5 to 10 times more (or even 100 x).
BTW, I scored a jug of Ivermectin Drench about 9 months ago for about $20 for 20 doses. It is one of the cheapest most widely available drugs in the world, sold by the gallon to dump on sheep, cattle, and horses.
Vit-D in the “3rd World” is free. Spend a bit of time in the sun each day. ALL it requires is information. (Canada, Northern USA, Europe and Russia not so much).
Zinc? Choose your foods a bit better or just soak some zinc in vinegar and titrate the dose. Extremely cheap drug to make.
Sheesh.
Per Trump & Covid:
The USA infections / million are lower than Czechia, Belgium, Luxembourg, and about on par with Switzerland and Qatar (two of the richest in the world). So are they doing a “Horrible Job” too?
I think you are “channeling nonsense”.
Also note that while many other countries are testing only folks with significant disease presentation, we’re testing anyone who wants it and using a PCR test with cycles cranked up so high we’re finding anyone with dead virus fragments in their nose, and a lot of folks with nothing (high false positives).
Season that with Democrat Governors doing their best to extend and promote the “crisis” so as to exploit it (Cuomo killing tens of thousands, Nuisance in California trying to destroy small business for his friends in Big Business & China, and lock up liberty, etc.) then recognize that the Governors run their State medical show, NOT the Feds. The Feds can “maybe sorta” make suggestions, or shove money at things, but have no real authority for forcing Governors to do anything.
Then, just for grins, add in “Don’t use HCQ, Ivermectin or anything else” shown to work and being used in 3rd World Countries from Mr. Masks NOT needed Y’all fly in from China Faucci… fighting Trump all the way.
And then YOU want to blame Trump?
Sheesh again.
I think you need to find better sources of info for what’s going on in the USA and study up on how the USA Government in structured. (Hint: It is not like the UK nations, it is NOT like the EU At All, and it isn’t like Australia).l
Check this site out.
https://ivermectin24h.com/
@Philip Mulholland: Hey, that link worked.
Unfortunately, John Howard didn’t present a single example to bolster his claim of “Orange Man Bad. Neener, neener, neener.”
I have no idea what facts are behind Howard’s opinion because he didn’t present any.
Thank you for the working link, Philip.
Even if most of us are not going to be offered a vaccine for Covid soon, it might be on your mind whether you should get it or not.
On one hand,
“Candace Owens brands Fauci and Bill Gates ‘evil’, claims big pharma is ‘wrought with corruption’ in Twitter attack”
https://www.rt.com/usa/509864-candace-owens-attacks-fauci-gates/
Owens previously vowed that she will “under no circumstances” take any coronavirus vaccine, “Ever. No matter what,” she wrote back in April.
Gates and Fauci, sure, but is big pharma corrupt or just greedy? Are the viruses for Covid safe?
Here is the other hand, ZDoggMD (Stanford): Scientists have been working on these new types of vaccines for years. In this case, the crisis was an opportunity to get the funding to complete that work. The testing has been done properly, it has not been rushed. Nobody is being forced to take it. It is effective. It’s safer than getting the actual virus because it only has the spike protein, not all the proteins that attack the immune system. The reaction to the virus is your immune system firing up, so if you get a fever do not treat it. Treating the fever lessens the immune system’s training. The vaccines are the way to end the pandemic and eliminate the virus.
One of his points I would argue is that we don’t need Ivermectin. After the vaccine is available, we will still need it to treat any cases of the disease. Before the vaccine is available, it is one of the few good treatments we have. We should have been using it for the past year. Whoever prevented us from getting useful or possibly useful treatments while we waited for the vaccine, they are evil.
By the time we are offered a vaccine, there will be lots of info from those ahead of us. My current thinking is mRNA type and not traditional, and leaning towards Moderna.
Is there any other country like the USA.
Here’s an old saying about “this place” – – –
https://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-details.php?product=698
Blaming DJT for the covid mess is like blaming him for bears pooping in the woods.
Building is in Texola – –
Google Earth and “Street View”
{look SW} at
35.219938, -99.996086
Thanks for finding those Ziverdo links guys, I don’t know why duckduckgo couldn’t find it.
The study summary is also great Jim.
@ E M : How curiously one eyed you are ! The vaccine is being distributed in the UK FREE ! And will be distributed here in Oz free as well early next year. I gather that similar arrangements are being made in many countries perhaps not in the USA ?.
The Vaccine is intended ( and we hope ) to be a one shot cure & maybe also prevents infection.
Meanwhile supplements like Vitamin D3 & Zinc, for the likes of us older folk, must be bought either over the counter or by the web and taken daily at our own expense. That’s a cost burden that the bulk of the world’s poorer population cannot afford. Luckily Ivermectin is not under patent. ( The Japanese discoverer/inventor gave his patent to the WHO in the 1980’s. ) So it is cheap & widely available.
PS Former Australian Prime Minister Howard’s remarks about Trump are what he thinks. Curiously they have not been widely reported here. I happen to agree with him. I suspect most Australians think Trump blew it with his Pandemic strategy. But Note Bene, Howard regrets that this has happened.
Fortunately we Australians have a Commonwealth government & state governments which acted reasonably swiftly & effectively and collectively over the pandemic. And continue to do so faced by the threat of new infections from overseas arriving here each day via overseas travellers & flight crew. From your perspective that might seem smug. But in fact no offence is intended. It is a simple statement of the facts. Or maybe that we are different ‘civilisation’ to your own evolving along our own path ?
Best wishes & good luck to you all there in the States.
@BillInOz:
You confuse price with cost. Somebody pays the cost of your “free” stuff. I get free vaccinations too, but they still have a cost (to make and destribute) even if the price to me is zero.
But you are also making a false choice. The two modes of treatment serve different needs,
A vaccine prevents infection and leads to herd immunity (while killing and damaging a few folks) when given to almost everyone. A treatment is used on those who get the disease to help them recover. Much fewer folks.
Vit-D and zinc are necessary nutrients for normal function of metabolism, they are not being given beyond the proper blood level for best health. They are needed at that level, covid or not. Marginal cost from covid, zero, for publuc health purposes.
Every person being vaccinated still needs proper Vit-D, Vit-C, and Zinc levels. Period full stop. It is not an either – or.
Ivermectin is a treatment. The only folks who need it are sick. That is a very small number compared to total population. Cost essentialy zero compared to cost to vaccinate 80% plus of the population. It also looks to be a prophylactic treatment. Given to those “at risk” (front line workers, family of sick, institutionalized folks) it would essentialy end the pandemic and could have been done 6 months to 9 month ago but for “Fauci & Friends in Big Pharma”. We would still have low levels of disease, but not enough to matter. Compared to the cost of hospitalizations for that time period, it is a strong negative net cost (I.e. you save a ton of money).
Then there’s the age thing. Those under about 40 to 50 essentially don’t die in significant numbers (and likely with proper vitamin & mineral levels near zero). Vaccinating them serves little purpose beyond pushing herd immunuty a bit faster. Waiting a year before you can start vaccination, while suppressing treatments and nutrition therapy, is either profoundly stupid, or evil. I lean toward evil as the evidence points to supression of treatments “for political effect” (by GEB globalists and TDS Anti-Trumpers).
Trump was advocating for treatments, closed borders and more. He was advocating for Australia like isolation when it would have been beneficial. But Fauci & the Democrats advocated for, and mostly got, continued influx of foreigners to the point where we had big community spread. IMHO that pushing to get more disease carriers in was for political effect. This is a biological political war. Natural or lab made, the virus was being exploited in either case.
Don’t blame the victim for the actions of their attackers.
Finally, there is physical scale & geology. Australia is just profoundly empty and isolated. I drove for days seeing one or two cars a day (Sydney to Back ‘o Burke then through hills to Melbourne). It is way easier to break chain of transmission there than in Los Angeles or New York City. A giant island is much easier to isolate than a 3000 mile border or one under assault by Soros “Caravans” (remember those? 10s of thousands of people being driven at our border…)
So when comparing Australia to the USA, don’t forget the “contrast” part of “compare & contrast”.
There is a bit of a population disparity between Australia and the U.S.
Rounding off the odd 100,000 or so, Australia’s population is around 23 million while just the greater Los Angeles and New York (city) populations are 12.5 million and 20 million respectively. That’s 32.5 million people jammed into a rounding error of Australia’s total area. Then there’s the rest of the U.S. coming in at about 300 million.
That’s not to say that Australia doesn’t have its own urban concentrations. It’s just that the comparison is not exactly apples to apples.
Different countries have different challenges.
Bill in Oz – “free” distribution of a vaccine still results in the people paying for it via taxation (or their kids will get the bill for the cost + interest somewhere down the line). TANSTAAFL….
In the USA, the President can’t really control what each State does, but instead is severely limited as regards edicts. Each State governor has control over what happens in his/her State as regards how to cope with a pandemic. It’s a federation. Much the same in Germany, and Oz as far as I know, whereas here in France Macron can decree what happens in the whole of France, with the UK being somewhere in between with England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland having slightly-different approaches but with a lot of control being central.
The cost of extra vitamin D3 is around the cost of a bottle of beer a week (or free if you spend enough time in the sun). Considering the other benefits it confers, such as reduced incidence of cancers and increased resistance to other diseases, I don’t see that poor people would not find it to be worth the expense if they only knew the benefits. The dreaded spoonful of Cod Liver Oil used to be a standard thing for even the poor kids, as mentioned by Mark Twain (and part of my history, too, and I grew up poor). The increased resistance to Covid-19 is just a nice side-benefit, really. The big problem here is that mostly they don’t know and aren’t being told. As regards the Zinc, again that’s more a matter of diet, and if you have a traditional diet for the country you’re in you probably wouldn’t need any supplements. However, it’s dirt-cheap as a supplement too, and can be made at low cost if you can’t afford bought-in stuff. It’s a bit like antacid tablets, in that you can buy slaked lime or chalk for around 20 cents per kg but if you buy Rennies then it’s going to cost around 200 euros per kg (3 orders of magnitude more).
As such, saying that Trump could have done better is assuming he had more power to dictate what was done than he actually had. He’d also have listened to the scientific advisors, who started by treating this as being ” ‘flu on steroids” and thus the medical advice to start with was to stay at home until you couldn’t breathe, and then go to hospital, where you were intubated once it got bad enough. Actually, that’s still the advice here in Europe and the States. The belief was that there was no medicine that would change the course of the illness, despite the evidence that HCQ given early reduced the damage and the need to go to hospital. There’s now more than enough evidence that Ivermectin works even better. It’s very hard to change peoples’ beliefs, maybe especially when it would show that a wrong decision was taken early on and that a lot of the deaths (and economic damage) could have been avoided very cheaply.
AFAIK the vaccine will be delivered “free” in the USA too, with the cost of the vaccine and the medics needed being covered by the Federal budget. In some states, there may be some other charges to the people getting vaccinated, but again that’s not controlled by the Federal authorities (or the President), but a decision that’s up to the States.
Over the course of this pandemic, I’ve found out that the governments of both Oz and the USA have less power than I’d thought, with the State governments having far more say than I’d thought. I’ve also found out that social media is far slimier than I’d realised, and that censorship is alive and well, and that beliefs win out over data for most people (at least people in authority). It’s been salutary to see just how fast the UK and France (and Oz) make things compulsory and drop civil liberties, where I’d have expected that if you give people of those countries information about how to keep themselves safer they’ll do it without compulsion. Though I’d say it’s fair dinkum that Oz requires people to go through quarantine on the way in, did you know that they are not allowed to go out either? I have a friend in Oz who would like to go to the Philippines to see his wife, yet he can’t go until travel out of Oz is allowed.
A nice bit of evidence that the mandatory masking-up doesn’t do a lot of good comes today with Macron being diagnosed as Covid-positive (and with symptoms). Also of course Lewis Hamilton, who I’d expect to have been professionally-careful about masking. Not that the masks have no benefit, since I’d expect that there is a measurable effect, just that the benefit is over-egged. It’s far more important to be aware of the environment you’re in.
The nice thing about this blog is that the necessary information gets put up early and it gets chewed over by some bright people to decide as to whether or not it can be trusted. I’ve passed on the information to friends, too, and for some I’m sure they have taken their own steps to better-protect themselves. You can’t eliminate risks, only reduce them.
Simon Derricutt: “You can’t eliminate risks, only reduce them.”
Actually, there are a lot of risks that can be totally eliminated… but the cost is usually prohibitive. It’s that diminishing returns thingy.
At most places I’ve worked, I’ve been in charge of ‘Elf & Safety.’ There were some risks that could be eliminated for not a lot of money. Some would have broken the bank at even a fortune 500 company.
The oddest one I ran across was making our tube bending machines risk-free. OSHA (Fed Safety and could fine the snot out of you or even close you down) audited us and told us we had to have no-one in the tube bending area where the tube was while a tube was being bent. It can’t be done at a cost that wouldn’t put us out of business developing a technology which hadn’t yet been invented.
They had a program where their safety engineers would assist a small company; small companies that didn’t have a safety engineering staff.
So they came in and… gave up. There were a couple of things we did that made it a safer job, but eliminating the risk was just not possible at the time for any budget short of the Federal Government.
billinoz says: 17 December 2020 at 11:28 am
Free Vaccine here in the UK, surely you jest.
Did you not see the Billions of Pounds of Tax Payers money that our benevalent Government gave to the Vaccine producers for this “free vaccine”
Along with the cost of “lockdowns” we will be paying this off for the next 25 years.
ps our NHS is also not “free” unless you are a health tourist or have never paid taxes and National Insurance.
A mental wall too tall to scale for non-citizens:
In the U.S. of America, governors and mayors are in charge of health in their realm.
It is not the POTUS’s realm. {If there is a clearer way of saying this, please offer.}
And a post script:
The same is true for elections. States!
My sister says, “Say the word. Spell the word. Say the word, again. It will be yours forever.”
States. S T A T E S – – control elections.
That is why the DJT folks made very little headway.
This was thorougly thrashed out between May 25 to September 17, 1787, in the old Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia – – The Constitutional Convention.
@Simon, My lady is a Filipina. She’s here with me in Oz. I’m sure your Australian friend with a Filipina wife knows that while Australians have the right to marry persons from other countries, that does not automatically confer on the wife the right to enter Australia. I think it’s the same in the USA & UK and even Canada.
As for Australians leaving Australia at the moment, well because of the pandemic, the Commonwealth government has shut down flying overseas without a permit or an exemption.
Why ? Well there are 40,000 + Australias waiting to get back here where they will be safer from Covid. And the number who can fly here each week is limited to ~ 6,500 as that is how many can be processed through the 14 day hotel quarantine. So of course Australians getting a permit to leave is hard – to lessen the numbers seeking to return.
And that raises the whole issue of ‘open borders and a globalised world’. I’m sure no one here agrees with either idea. We in Oz are mire successful that others at exercing control over who enters Australia and when & why. I suggest that you folks elsewhere learn from that example ( and se it’s benefits ) rather than saying what you can & can’t do because you’re not an island etc. After all that’s what BREXT is all about.It’s what ‘Build the Wall:” is all about.
Covid has simply illustrated ( once again ) why this open borders nonsense is so so dangerous.
PS I stand by my comments on supplements. I buy mine via IHerb. I know the cost to my cash flow each year. It is substantial. Hardly anyone in say the Philippines can afford such an expenditure; or Indonesia; or India; or China or Argentina or Brazil etc…I’m lucky; I can.
By contrast the Covid vaccine like the polio vaccine of the 1950-60’s is a chance to offer everyone protection. Yes I know : A Universal Health measure. ….And such things don’t get a lot of support in the USA. But then the USA is very very different to the rest of the developed world. Unique almost.
Take care there in the USA
@Billinoz – your hatred of the only country to WIN its independence from GB is duly noted. AND your jealousy is also DULY noted.
For the fake news watching ignorants, the US is administering the vaccine FREE!
Now go back and drink a pint to to GG. So he can remove your next PM.
@BillinOz -wrong again. You marry a foreigner, they can come it, but are subject to scrutiny, I.e. making sure it is a real marriage. They do not automatically become a citizen, but they are allowed in (unless on the terrorist list).
My lady is Guadalajaran! So I slap your bona fides down with my own. Stop pushing things that no one cares about. And research what you do not know about.
Mum married a US GI and was shipped to the USA from the UK for “free” as a War Bride. Papers issued for residence on the spot.
Got citizenship about 20 years later… AFTER I was born.
So technically (now that the UK changed their law to recognize Mothers and not just Fathers for citizenship) I can now apply for UK Citizenship and passport, should I wish it.
Not sure what I’d do with it, but with Biden / Harris a possible, it might be a good idea to have it…
“A Universal Health measure. ….And such things don’t get a lot of support in the USA”
I’ve heard some hesitation about getting a shot of the vaccine, but I have not heard anyone who thinks that individuals should have to pay for it. Of course, everyone will pay for it with taxes, which is not free, but as painless as it gets (which is why taxes are so high). But I have no objection to everyone else getting it free because all that is to my benefit. It’s a public health thing.
A lot of “health care” is not directed at public health. (As an extreme example, any demand for free implants, abortions, and botox). Public health should be top priority.
Free Ivermectin and Vitamin-D would be a public health benefit, and I would support that.
The claim that Ivermectin has not been proven to be effective in a double blind trial? Or HCQ?
Those making that claim never suggested that it would be to the public health benefit of all of us to do a huge well designed trial that would establish that claim true or false. Instead of seemingly doing everything possible to keep the pandemic going until the vaccines were ready.
President Elect H.R.: “Actually, there are a lot of risks that can be totally eliminated… but the cost is usually prohibitive. It’s that diminishing returns thingy.”
There are lots of examples of trying to reduce risks, ranging from seatbelts to TSA airport security.
Some more successful than others. Hacking into personal or government computer systems? Or voting machines?
One example of risk reduction tradeoff is the fear of UV in sunshine causing people to avoid the sunshine and use sunscreen. Side effect, reduced Vitamin-D production, known to be a bad thing long before Covid. Trade one risk for another.
For mRNA vaccines, the risk from the vaccine is super small, the risk from the live virus can be huge. The following video is excellent. It is an interview with an immune system / virus / vaccine expert. It’s great to hear the experts speak directly instead of getting second hand information.
He says normally a vaccine takes ten years to develop. Now we have three done in ten months. Yet they have had much more testing done on them than normal for vaccines or any other medicine. The mRNA technology is a phenomenal breakthrough.
@phil, Ummmmm Hate ?
Nah ! I don’t have the energy for that. A waste of ‘life’ time also…But what with the continuing efforts you make to get up my nose, it may be that ‘Hate’ is your problem
Re Visas : How lucky you are Phil… That explains a few things..
However it is NOT so here in Oz. or in the UK now.
Here in Oz the application process is long & difficult and expensive. I estimate the paperwork for my lady’s visa was about 3 cm thick and it all had to be witnessed and notorised as well. In my day I had little change out of A$10,000 what with fees etc. And from Go to Whoa, it took 3-4 years. That was doing it myself with no agent. And if one did by a Migration Agent the cost was an extra A$3000.
Since then the fees have increased.All up now around $12,000. And I hear on the grapevine that the processing has slowed down – ’cause of Covid !
Another twist here is that nobody male or female is allowed to get a visa more than twice every 10 years. So if you make a mistake it a big problem.
The UK has gone down a similar path. I read on the BBC website that it can cost 19,000 UK pounds.
@ EM.. Yes quite a few Australian brides got a free entry to the USA back in 1945-46 after WW2.
But it’s now 2020 ( 75 years later ) If the USA has not gone that high cost route to controlling migration then I guess it’s your choice.
YMMV says: 18 December 2020 at 1:09 am
“Those making that claim never suggested that it would be to the public health benefit of all of us to do a huge well designed trial that would establish that claim true or false.”
You are so right, instead they deliberately designed the studies to cause failure by dangerously overdosing the patients with HCQ only and then declared it didn’t work and had dangerous side affects.
The Oxford trial also used the same only one drug design for Azithromycin to say it doesn’t work, when everybody knows it is HCQ + Azithromycin + Zinc Sulphate that works the best.
They cannot allow any cheap drug to work in the USA because they could then not allow emergency use of the new Vaccines.
This is total corruption of the medical profession at government level at the FDA and NIH, the UK and WHO.
E M It’s midnight Friday here. But no Oz post yet ?
Meanwhile here is a report which might set folks thinking :
https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/australia-locks-down-suburbs-amid-28case-spike-while-us-records-3500-deaths-in-one-day/news-story/3364914fa588897a69236c58d4792aa3
Billinoz, you continually ignore and don’t respond to any criticism of your posts, I see little reason to respond to yours.
Bill in Oz – The need to get a permit to leave a country is reminiscent of North Korea, East Germany, and other repressive states. Limiting the number who can arrive is understandable in the current circumstances, and if you don’t have a border you don’t really have a country. A citizen leaving should be made aware it’s going to be hard to return and that there’s a queue, but should not be obstructed from leaving.
As regards supplements, if your outlay seems excessive to you, maybe you’re buying the wrong stuff (too expensive) or too much. Cod Liver Oil was never that expensive, and neither is vitamin C, and as I see it most other supplements should not be needed if your diet is sufficiently varied. The Selenium needs (if there’s not enough in your food) can be covered by eating one Brazil nut per day, and a packet of Borax would last pretty well a lifetime for Boron supplementation (since some areas do produce food short on Boron). Cost for a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement (50 different constituents), last time I bought some, was in the region of £7 for a year’s supply. About the same for 360 1g vitamin C tablets. Total cost (with the Cod Liver Oil too) less than a bottle of beer a week, or a bottle of wine a month. Could likely be bought even cheaper, too.
My first wife was American (and still is…) and she got a permanent residence permit for the UK as a result. I also got a permanent visa for the USA at the time (not residence permit). Low cost, and happened pretty quickly (but that was around 40 years ago). When I moved to France around 16 years ago, no problems at all, and it’s only now I need to apply for a residence permit, though so far that seems pretty painless and free. I figure that the French governments sees the Brits in France as being a net benefit. The UK government should similarly see the French in the UK as being a net benefit, since they are obviously doing jobs where their skills are required.
Where countries are pretty much equivalent as regards pay-levels and cost of living, having no borders allows movement of labour to where it’s needed. You get a problem where there is a large disparity between countries with open borders, when labour-intensive jobs go to the country with lowest pay-levels, and where workers from the poor countries travel to take up low-paid jobs in the rich countries. After a while that will settle down to an equilibrium, and things will become more level, but even within a country there will remain areas where the young have emigrated to richer pickings, or where there are few well-paid jobs. People have always moved around to try to find a better life than they have.
There something paradoxical in international trade, in that both sides consider that they become richer as a result. I figure that in truth making the stuff locally that you need would result in less spent on transport and thus a lower cost, providing you can achieve enough economy of scale. This gain would however not show in the GDP of a country. Since people vary, the degree of excellence of a product may be higher in some other place, but that can change if the faults are recognised and fixed in the local manufacture. There’s maybe something being missed in the economists’ calculations here. Maybe too much imports/exports as a result. With the extra transport needed between countries, a true lockdown cannot be achieved, and this is where this ties to the subject here of diseases travelling between countries and the problem of borders.
These days I’m doing a lot of reconsidering of basic assumptions, and what is likely true and what isn’t.
YMMV: “One example of risk reduction tradeoff is the fear of UV in sunshine causing people to avoid the sunshine and use sunscreen. Side effect, reduced Vitamin-D production, known to be a bad thing long before Covid. Trade one risk for another.”
Good point about tradeoffs. Good example. There are diminishing returns and unintended consequences and if the gub’mint is involved, it’s a safe bet you’ll get both of those.
The one that I thought was government at its goofiest was during the initial AIDS outbreak. The rules were, you couldn’t ask anyone if they had AIDS. So dentists and their staff were required to wear masks and gloves and assume everyone had AIDS… oh, and they got rid of the spit bowls that constantly ran a stream of rinse water. I liked those 😊
So then we found that many people had terrible reactions to latex gloves, and worse, those with no initial reaction to latex often developed an allergy to latex from prolonged exposure. Some people became so sensitive that they couldn’t work in a place that had latex gloves in use, even if nitrile gloves were available to them, personally. Hmmm… and they didn’t come up with nitrile gloves until the latex issue became quite a problem.
It cheesed me off back at the time that some people had to give up their careers because of stupid regulations.
(I was reminded of the latex fiasco just last week. My physical therapist gave me some rubber strips to pull on to add resistance to my exercises. First thing she asked was if I was allergic to latex. She had an alternative if I was allergic to latex. I had forgotten all about the latex problem.)
Recall where latex comes from, at least before we learned how to make it: from rubber plants. Latex was one of that plant’s predation defenses. Sure, other organisms learned how to live with it. That said, I thought we were mostly using silicone elastics these days, with the exception of nitrile (synthetic) based elastic gloves.
@Bill In Oz:
Truth be known, I “went down the rabbit hole” of the “Interpreting Forensics Report” doing 2 modestly marathon posts in a row. I really really wanted to “wrap it up” so pressed it right through the lamb chops AND the bottle of wine…
Then, at about 9 PM California time, took a small break to watch Star Trek Disappointment (STD) … and a somewhat larger helping of wine… and discovered myself waking up to a discussion of Irish Grammar on EewTube (having checked something or other on it and the autoplay running a while) about midnight.
Deciding that I was clearly a bit too sleepy to do the posting as I’d likely be up another hour (and maybe need to apply “balancing coffee”) I decided to just push it off to today. Won’t be the first time.
So “watch this space” after the magic of “morning coffee” soaks in…
@Simon:
At the start of this Chinese Wuhan Covid fiasco, I was in full prep mode (as all evidence was that it would be The Spanish Flu+++ with 20% lethality and no treatment at all). As part of that prep, I bought a bottle of multi-vitamins at COSTCO and a bottle at Walmart. Each was on the order of $9 or maybe $16 for the COSTCO one. Whatever it was, was in the realm of “That does not matter at all”.
Now we already had SOME multivitamins kicking around, so it took a while to use them up. I’m now about 1/2 way through the Walmart bottle. It is 200 tablets. It contains 1000 IU Vit-D, so likely enough even if 2 x that was preferred, 60 mg Vit-C a bit light, but helpful, Zinc at 11 mg a bit low for therapeutics but you want to avoid too much, and Selenium 55 mcg. Both Zinc and Selenium at 73% and 79% of daily dose.
It is almost certain you could take 2 a day instead of 1 a day and be fine. So in an emergency needing extra, about 10 days / $
The COSTCO bottle (more expensive) has 500 tablets. We are yet to even open it. It is interesting in that it includes things suspected of being necessary, but not yet proven. Like Boron 150 mcg, Silicon 2mg. But then the ones we care about: Vit-D 400 IU (10 mcg), Vit-C 90 mg, Zinc 11mg (100% RDA), Selenium 55 mcg (100% RDA).
And obligatory “And a whole lot of other vitamins and minerals too” for each.
I’d figured if it was bad, I could take one of each brand as they have some complementary differences. If it was truly economic / food collapse time, I’d make it stretch with 700 days inventory. (plus what I already had, we were a bit over 2 years, or about 800 or 900 days). Now down to “only” about 600 days inventory ( I’ve not taken one every single day… we eat fairly well.)
So my best guess is that it costs about 16/500 = 3.2 ¢ ($0.032) per day. Or figure it as 500/16 = 31.25 days / $ or just call it $1/month.
Now that’s not the “therapeutic” dose. That’s just what is likely to assure you have not gone into a significant deficit. But realistically, it is likely “good enough” to keep you healthy as long as you have some semblance of a normal diet.
We also know that at prices in India the Therapeutic Dose of Vit-D, including Ivermectin and Doxycycline, is $2 for a full course.
So I’m just not seeing where telling people to take a daily mulitivitamin with minerals is terribly expensive. About the same as 3 Star Bucks Mocha a YEAR. And again, the obligatory reminder, that anyone in the zone from 35 N to 35 S just needs to each lunch in the sun for massive Vit-D production. (So New Zealand and maybe Tasmania need pills, the rest of Australia needs a lunch time walk; then the Rich North can buy pills, and all those poor folks in Africa, Middle East, South Asia, South America, again, a walk in the sun).
Arguments that it is just TOO expensive to assure no significant vitamin deficiency exists are plainly silly. Not to mention that all the OTHER medical costs from all the other medical conditions of deficiency “kept away” by vitamins will more than cover the costs.
(Were I “benevolent dictator for life”, I’d have MY “public health” program start with giving everyone a bottle of complete Multivitamins/Minerals, a small pot suited to cooking in and eating from, and IF they want it, and an allotment of “beans and rice”. That gets you past the most horrible step. Once nutritional status is achieved, then you can start working on what’s left over. )
First get the machinery properly oiled and fueled, then work on what bits are off.
@cdquarles: Latex gloves are still around. They are 1/2 or maybe 2/3s the cost of nitrile gloves. Most places use nitrile gloves now just to avoid the possibility that their users will develop a latex allergy. Where I worked, we had some processes that required skin protection and we used nitrile gloves. You’re right about that; mostly nitrile now, with only some using latex.
Oh! Back in the Spring, when the Kung Flu madness really took off, nitrile gloves for sale to the general public were nowhere to be found. Latex gloves were still available, but in reduced quantities. For several months, Harbor Freight – that’s where I get my nitrile gloves for around the house handling of pesticides, caustics, painting, and handling oily parts – cut off sales to the general public and gave all their gloves to the local hospitals. When production caught up enough to sell them in the stores again, the price had tripled!
We were early, early, early on top of the Wuhan Flu here on Chiefio’s blog, so I was able to buy a couple of boxes of nitrile gloves when I got home in March, and at the old prices. I also stocked up on TP, paper towels, canned goods and other stuff before the outages hit. We were way ahead of the curve here, even though not much was known in February, March, and April. 😁😎
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@V.P. Elect Smith – I bought the Costco daily multivitamins because they had a few things that other multivitamins did not have. I also buy their Super B-Complex, which protects the myelin sheath from damage from my diabetes.
Just about every Costco brand supplement comes around on their On-Sale cycle and are $3, $4, and sometimes $5 dollars off. So they can be really inexpensive if you buy when they are marked down.
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@Billinoz – yes hate. Or perhaps that is too strong and it is just envy and jealousy. Regardless, it is your problem. Not mine.
And I do note that while you (Royal usage, meaning All Oz) rail against us evil Trumpians for daring to deny blanket entry for every tom, dick and rapist that decides they want free health care, yes you (forget the UK, I gather you have not been keeping up with real news and instead relying on fake news) have a policy so strict, it makes Trump envious. And you just puffed out your chest to promote it. WOW! Yet we are the Xenophobes. Kind of like Biden calling republicans misogynist when he is raping his associate. Yea, you would be a good democrat.
And here is another clue for you. Money is not a deterrence for illegals since they pay Coyotes (let me guess, are you AOC and think they are actual animals?) $5k to get here in the first place.
So stop polluting the thread with irrelevancies. Stick to the facts.
Fact 1: Oz has the strictest immigration (possibly, but definitely top 10) in the world
Fact 2: You have no land borders
Fact 3: Your official position is “Orange Man Bad, Xenophobe”
Fact 4: You are more strict than Trump has ever proposed.
As far as your emotions towards this country, we can only discern the end result, not the emotions behind them. So you are free to choose – Hate, Envy, Jealousy? All 3? 2 of 3? Pick one?
Frankly my dear, I do not give a damn,
@EM – Re: waking up to pewtube. I have several movies on a DVR. Let me see if I can recount all of them. Centennial (the complete 12 episodes), Paint Your Wagon, Ben Hur, and then McLintock, In Harm’s Way, Chisum, Hellfighters, Hatari, Donovan’s Reef, Rio Lobo, Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Big Jake.
Notice a pattern? The latest is Centennial (I hate the Massacre episode and have never forgiven Richard Crenna for that. ;-), but all the rest before the mid 70s. When I decide to do a wine tasting, I make sure that they are on autoplay so when I do wake up, I am not faced with a bunch of hate mongering woke idiots.
I may add Hacksaw Ridge to my collection. One of the best ones I have seen! And while I hate remakes, I do like the new Midway (the original showed the battle from the viewpoint of the Yorktown, while the latter showed the battle from the Enterprise – so not really a remake, and a 2 thumbs up recommendation). But the latter is just not quite up to my standards (see above).
Beats waking up to some woke idiot telling you how bad they think you are.
@ E M, re Supplements,Costco does not exist here. I rely on IHerb for most of them. ( In fact all but 2 ) Why ? Because Oz has some weird regulations about what can & can’t be sold and in what strengths. An example Vitamin D3 is available over the counter at Pharmacies. But only in doses less than about 1000 IU. And I prefer to take 10,000 a day. ( A great preventative of Covid and an anti ageing tonic. ) Ditto for lots of the others. But I can get them via the mail from IHerb. Yes that’s weird but it is so – another Aussie oddity :-(
@ Simon, I was born in the UK ( Liverpool) and still have a passport.. I keep abreast of UK issues. And supported BREXIT ( but no vote in the referendum of 2016 ). I guess there will be UK folk living in Europe who are worse off after December 31st. I do not believe in an ‘open borders globalised one world’. That is left wing BS.
@ Phil, I just try to present just facts here especially as they relate to Australia compared to other countries. But you keep responding with full bore emotional comments. It feels like verbal bullying Phil. As for polluting this blog I suggest it is you who is doing that with your emotional remarks.
@billinoz – Are there no chain retailers with house brands in Australia? The house brands are usually good for a 30% or more in savings. It’s not just Costco, but most other retailers have house brands.
Here in the States, we have places that make house brands and often make the same product for the national ‘Name’ brands. The only thing that changes is the packaging.
My wife’s cousin worked for such a place. They had several products that only they made for everyone. One example: Topal® toothpaste which was formulated to eliminate stains on smokers’ teeth. Pricey stuff. But several major chain retailers bought the same toothpaste and sold it under their name for a lot less. That company also makes a lot of generic drugs and over-the-counter medications. Same stuff for everyone; different labels.
Interesting company. Here’s a link for anyone who isn’t aware of just how many products might be made by one company, same thing for everyone, but completely different packaging. It’s worth a 2-3 minute visit if you aren’t aware just how few companies there are actually making what seems to be many, many different products.
https://www.perrigo.com/
Anyhow, you need to do some shopping around, Bill 😉
@HR, the ‘ legal’ situation here is different to the USA.
1 : Some supplements over the counter there are prescription only here. That means finding a ‘cooperative’ doctor.
2 : ‘Pharmaceutical products’ are not allowed in large supermarkets. So no Costco type competition. There are some pharmacy chain stores ( like Chemist Warehouse ) which are cheaper than the normal pharmacy but they are few & far between. My nearest one is 45 ks away. :-(
3 : And then there are the self imposed ‘limits’ on what USA web based companies will sell into Australia. There one big web based company which will not sell me items that I can get via IHerb. Go figure !
Oh, wow, Bill. Quite different laws indeed.
I see you do have discounters, but you’re limited by distance and not that they don’t exist. I was going to really get intrigued by the Australian retail restrictions if you had told me there were some prohibitions on discount chains. But, you’ve got ’em. Just not near you.
So, BillInOz, your complaints about 3rd world costs are really complaints about Australian restraint of trade laws. OK, I get it now.
… and distance to the local discount drugstore, E.M. But yeah, that was all plain to see.
My comment is that in most poorer countries the people will not have the money to fork out for all these supplements. I remember when I lived in the Philippines most items were far more than Iherb and the actual stores selling them were few & far between.. 2-4 in Manila..Outside Manilla ? None at all. Similar situation in Argentina, Indonesia, Thailand, China. etc.
But yes here in Oz, they are more expensive than in the USA, Canada. Why ? Because both state & Commonwealth laws restrict availability and the level of competition. Do I like it ? No. That’s why I get mine from the USA based IHerb.
@billinoz – I take your point that in the poorer countries, the poor in a poor country are generally concerned with earning enough just to eat for the day… maybe, and with luck… and what they earn isn’t going to buy the complete nutrition they need, but…
This is where the big, global, centralized Aid organizations such as W.H.O. and various UN programs show that they are not fit for purpose. They get many billions of dollars and, as evidenced by all the poor who receive no aid, they don’t solve the problems they were created to address.
Why?
They become large bureaucracies that are more concerned with perpetuating themselves and increasing their size, and therefore their budget. And if they actually solved the problems they were tasked with solving, there would be no more need for them.
The organizations are riddled with corruption and many, not all, but many in those organizations are skimming, scamming, and scheming to get the money that flows to the program.
And then the recipients of the aid use the aid as a cudgel to maintain power by withholding aid to punish enemies and keep the population under control by giving out just enough aid to keep the remainder under control. They also do their fair share of skimming, scamming, and scheming to sell off some of the aid and stash the money.
Puerto Rico is a good example. Last year(?) there were warehouses found where a couple of billion dollars worth of aid foodstuffs and supplies were sitting and rotting away a couple of years after the hurricane devastated the island The Governor and Mayor(s) were doing exactly what I described; selling off the aid to their friends for the money and withholding the aid so they could ask for more – cash this time – because the people at large still didn’t have food and supplies. And remember the Iraq oil for food program? That was quite the scandal.
So, yeah, you have a point about the poor maybe not even having the pennies needed to maintain a good immune system, but the reasons they don’t get the pennies-worth of needed food and supplements is not due to a lack of money being spent on food and medicine. It’s a problem of the money and aid being skimmed, scammed, and schemed before it ever reaches its intended recipients.
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Wow! So you have tales to tell of restraint of trade in Australia. If it’s anything like the US, the Big Boys get onerous laws passed that they have the size to deal with and the Little Guys can’t, so potential competitors drop off or are stuck in small niches.
What H.R. said….
Here in France, if you want Aspirin, antacids, or any other medicine you need to buy them in the pharmacy, since the chain-stores aren’t allowed to stock them. Cost around 364 times the market rate if it was a free market. You can buy some animal de-flea and de-worm preparations in the farm/gardening shops, but not Ivermectin-based stuff. If you want effective medicines for the pet, you need to go to a vet. Then again France is well-known for paternalism and restrictive practices, and requiring official proofs of competence for a lot of jobs. There are official qualifications for table-waiters here. I thus have the same sort of limitations as Bill in Oz.
The UK is somewhat freer as regards such things, which is probably why it is more productive than France. Red tape in France is such that I read there are more French entrepreneurs in California than there are in France (starting a business needs a lot of authorisations and if you don’t fit into the pigeonholes of acceptable businesses or don’t have the right qualifications you’re stuffed). The government here costs around 47% of GDP. I suspect Oz isn’t that far off that, too. In my situation (retired on a small pension), France is a good place to live, but the taxes rise pretty quickly as you earn more and the rich get hammered (so they move to Monaco or Luxembourg etc.).
The actual manufacturing costs of the medicines proposed here are very low, and (as H.R. said) if the WHO were doing their job correctly a lot could have been done to fix the Covid problem in poor countries at a relatively small cost. The current vaccine (BioNTech) costs around $20 per shot IIRC, and you need two of them. Using the Ivermectin and vitamin D etc. you can treat maybe 10 times more people for the same money, and reduce the damage from the disease by around the same proportion (90-95%). It would probably be cheaper than supplying masks and hand-sanitiser gel, and have a much better result.
Though people at this blog are generally clued-up as regards what information can be trusted and what can’t, I also read comments in other places and it’s obvious that the general gaslighting has been pretty effective. On AGW, the majority accept what the BBC says as being Gospel, and it’s also obvious that most people think a mask will protect them from being infected. The vaccine is seen by most as the only way out. Trump gets subjected to the 2-minute hate nearly every day. There is no election fraud, and Epstein killed himself (as did all the others with dirt on the Clintons). The USA has been the worst-affected country in the world because of Trump’s policies, even though in deaths per million it’s around median and the State governors set the policies, not Trump.
Oh well…. At least we do have the information.
It is completely obvious that there is far more then ample funds to supply the inexpensive medications and vitamins needed to reduce Cov19 to a minor problem, and likely reduce flu deaths considerably as well. It has ZERO to do with costs.
Here’s an example of unbelievable markups and a nifty product that could be made for pennies.
There’s a brand of immune pills named Airborne. They have a raft of formulations and it’s available in chewable tablets, gummies, fizzy tablets, and liquid form. But the basic ingredients of the product line are what we’ve been discussing; Vitamins C, A, E, D3, Magnesium, Zinc, Selenium and some herbals.
They have choices like the basic with Elderberry or Echinacea or a bigger mix of herbals.
The one I scored was a one ounce ligiid (30ml), single serve-from a foil pack and sold for immune support and energy. It skips the D3 and adds B6 for the energy. I gave 49¢ per serving and regular price was $3.49 for the packet. No wonder they were ditching them at 49¢ because who’d pay $3.49 for a single serve when right next to them on the shelf is a bottle of 30 or so chewable tablets for $9 or $10?
I bought about 40 of those packets to grab for an extra shot if I’m feeling a bit of the sniffles and a scratchy throat.
Well, the point being that someone is already making an all-in-one immune boosting tablet, no doubt for pennies, and the markup is… ummmm… let’s just say, healthy, particularly on that single-serve foil packet.
As David A points out, it’s not cost and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. There’s plenty of money for all-in-one pills already being stolen from the funds that are supposed to be distributing preventatives like the Vitamin and Mineral supplements. It’s just a matter of smuggling it past the strongman dictators and thieving bureaucrats to get it to the ones who need it.
@President Elect H.R. – Yea, folks in the rich countries, whether they be “poor” and demanding free stuff, or just middle class and whining about prices for luxury goods – yes luxury – forget that they are better off than 90% of the rest of the world where the “average” person is trying to ensure enough on the table to eat. Makes them sound like a 21st century version of Marie Antionette. Let them eat cheap vitamins!
The sad truth is, 99% of the first world citizens have no clue what real poverty is. And in point of fact are merely unappreciative greedy gluttons in comparison.
The old adage of “walk a mile in my shoes (or lack thereof)” should be stapled onto every whine of “poor poor pitiful me”.
“forget that they are better off than 90% of the rest of the world”
True, but it is in third world countries with less regulation that things like Ivermectin are actually available to their people. Ironic? With all of our laws and regulations to protect us (including from ourselves), they end up killing us by withholding something that might work.
NAD+ (Niacin)
https://nkalex.medium.com/the-team-of-front-line-doctors-and-biohackers-who-seem-to-have-solved-long-covid-5f9852f1101d
Not Using Ivermectin, One Year In, Is Unethical And Immoral
Ivermectin for Covid-19
By Mary Beth Pfeiffer January 18, 2021
https://trialsitenews.com/not-using-ivermectin-one-year-in-is-unethical-and-immoral/
In Far-Flung Places, COVID-19 Is Being Treated Early And Well. Here’s Why Americans Don’t Know This
By Mary Beth Pfeiffer
https://trialsitenews.com/in-far-flung-places-covid-19-is-being-treated-early-and-well-heres-why-americans-dont-know-this/
A Letter to NIH and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Is Anybody Home?
By Mary Beth Pfeiffer January 30, 2021
https://trialsitenews.com/a-letter-to-nih-and-dr-anthony-fauci-is-anybody-home/
Whiteboard Doctor says: “Four experts discuss Ivermectin and COVID-19! Dr. David Scheim, Dr. Jennifer Hibberd, Juan Chamie, and Dr. Pierre Kory talk about a new article published by Dr.’s Scheim, Hibberd, and Juan Chamie on Ivermectin use in Peru (decreased excess deaths by 74%!). They then dive into the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19, what this study means, and where things may be going! This is a DO-NOT-MISS video that is worth a watch!”
It’s at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiMhM7xCTT8b5SJRnhpH7Ag
Ivermectin and COVID-19 Playlist:
To follow results from the field about ivermectin, subscribe to TrialSite News at https://trialsitenews.com and/or to the Whiteboard Doctor YouTube playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5bMa9_tvRhOX1m2kZL3ixWDxxar3lg2 Once at TrialSite News, click on the Covid-19 link in the upper left corner, and on the Opinion link there too.
Be sure to register at Trialsite News too, so you can see the comments and comment yourself.
This is a rant about current absurdities. I love a good rant. Why can’t we have articulate people like this in control? People who know how to think and can express themselves well. Instead we get admin bots and politicians who can only read speeches on a teleprompter which were written by someone else (or a committee).
And this is a new video with Dr. Paul Marik about Ivermectin and other things to take in advance of getting Covid. Note how important Melatonin is. Also note at 25:27 the number of deaths and adverse effects from Covid-19 vaccines so far. Compare that with the numbers for the Tetanus vaccine (very low), and Ivermectin (even lower).