Still Not Fixing COVID

We’re still not fixing COVID. In fact, we’re enabling it. (My tweet.) We’re vaccinating against it so that we can ‘get back to productivity and the economy.‘ We’re not eliminating it because . . . – Well, I can’t think of any reasons other than population control. (Yes, both in population numbers control and also population behaviour management control.)

Let me lay it out for you like this:

Viruses mutate. Being not technically alive (they can’t reproduce by themselves, they can’t move of their own volition, and so they’re just a toxic dust unless we breathe them in and they bump up against our cells and get stuck to their coating) they need a host to reproduce. As they enter a new host, they also steal some genetic material from the host cell and stick it in their own genome.

As an interesting aside, that means that delta and omicron both have chunks of someone‘s genetic material in their code now.

IFFF Interesting factoids for free by me

The particles of virus first need to get into a new host, then infect a cell or two, grab some genetic code snippets, mutate in the process, and then they just multiply. I wonder if the extra bits they snaffle are an effort to blend in a bit more? Most of the time the virus adopts junk snippets that do nothing, sometimes a chunk will make the virus different enough that it can be considered a new variant.

Of those new variants, most will be unfit and fail to survive long enough for us to discover it and name it a new variant, and any that survive will either be as fit as the parent virus, or more fit. In any case, unless the vaccination stops ALL the virus particles (= “virions”) from infecting cells and successfully mutating, it’s a trailing operation, always having to make new vaccines as new variants are generated that avoid the old vaccines.

In effect we’re “stud breeding” the virus to avoid all our vaccines just as we’ve been doing with influenza. So you’d think that making vaccines to try and stop the virus is the dumbest thing possible, and you’d be almost right. At least a vaccine will stop variants that are known up to the date the vaccine was made. But other than shutting each gate as each particular virus has bolted, it hasn’t stopped new variants.

Victoria, in Australia, came closest to eliminating the COVID virus way back at the beginning of the pandemic. If it hadn’t been for some quarantine fumbling (at Federal level) – and relentless pressure to open borders “for the sake of the economy” from federal government – it might still be the one island of COVID-free living in the world. (Oh aside, that is, from Western Australia which was similarly sabotaged more recently after more than a year of almost zero COVID. That these two states were both under a left-leaning governing party is just a coincidence, I’m sure. . .)

IFFF Interesting factoids for free by me

Overlooked vector of transmission:

There’s another thing, one that I predicted months ago. Feces. Monitoring sewage for virus traces has been shown to be a good predictor of a COVID outbreak. Feces come out gassy. COVID is airborne. Make your own conclusions, but public toilets are likely to be one of the superspreader locations. Walking through someone’s fart may do more than leave you gagging, it could (if you’re not masked) leave you with all the fine after-effects of COVID:

Virus effects on victims:

Here’s where we get to the scary part. U get da dumb. Among the most common and long-lasting (may even be permanent, we can’t know for a few years yet) is a measurable and directly observable decline in cognitive faculties due to SARS-CoV-2 damaging our organs, and the brain is one of the more commonly attacked, followed by heart and other organs issues.

You may also end up with reduced aerobic capacity due to lung damage, renal damage, liver function compromise, strokes, and heart conditions. Some of these events may resolve over time but at this point a) we can’t know as we haven’t any long-term experience due to the novelty of the virus and b) so far it seems that a number of Long COVID (LC) patients have not recovered significantly and it seems that they may have very long term damage or even permanent damage.

(For example, some stroke patients recover partially, many don’t and never will. Since COVID causes stroke effects in some patients, they’ll probably be stuck with the effects for life.)

To my mind, this suggests that we’re at war with a virus, a virus that will take no prisoners and instead as the variants get better and better at attacking hosts (= us …) and disabling vital systems will reduce the population, so our response should be total elimination of the virus, or as close as possible. It is possible to get to the latter situation, but the action needs to be worldwide and total.

Aftereffects:

Not aftereffects on COVID survivors – aftereffects on the entire world, on everyone:

We will have people with decreased cognitive function unable to perform their previous duties. The easy part of this is disability pensions and / or care. The hard part – the really REALLY hard part – is when dysfunctional individuals are left in their previous positions, and push the wrong buttons or react too slowly. . .

One thing that’s immediately becoming clear is that unless this becomes well known, managers (who may well themselves have suffered some virus damage) may be unaware that they have left a slightly less able crane operator operating a construction crane, and that could potentially become a disaster.

There needs to be legislation in place NOW to establish baseline cognitive function tests, and apply those to any COVID victims before placing them in a work situation where they may no longer be able to cope with the demands.

There needs to be legislation in place to make any people who are affected by the virus to be placed on government, or better yet corporate, subsidies for life. Or until they overcome the deleterious effects, at any rate.

A tool to stop the virus: Far UV light.

Far UV light has been shown to inactivate the COVID virus in the air. It becomes truly nothing but harmless dust. If far UV lights were to be installed on public transport, any buildings that allow more than ten or so people to congregate, and some public spaces like streets and malls, there’s a very good chance that COVID and MPV (Moneky Pox Virus) could be eliminated. The levels of far-UV required are quite low.

Portable far-UV equipment could be battery-powered and used to ‘sweep’ areas where virus may have settled out of the air, as well. Far better than waving huge fogging wands around spraying bleaches and potions on surfaces.

Yet another tool to stop the virus: Air purification.

Believe it or not, the major route for COVID to infect us is airborne. The particles float along and are breathed in. Yes, some settle on surfaces and remain viable there for periods from a few days to several weeks depending in the surface, but good hand hygiene (washing hands with sanitiser after touching surfaces in exposed places in public, washing hands first thing upon getting home) will all but eliminate that.

Good fine particle (PM2/PM2.5) air purifiers have been proven to reduce the incidence of infection significantly because they clear virus out of the air and it deactivates after a few days on the filter medium.

One of my contacts is a doctor with a closet-sized office with quite poor ventilation, who bought an air purifier early on and set it up, and despite having the usual heavy traffic of clients, insisted on masking and distancing and hasn’t caught COVID once.

I consider this to be an important tool, and we bought one back before the pandemic and liked it so much that we now have three, with the extra carbon filter fitted. They draw very little power, and the peace of mind of knowing that any virus we bring in is most likely to be absorbed into their filters is priceless.

The BEST tools we have:

Effective masks and use of them, social distancing, and hand hygiene. Combined with some sane use of air purification and far UV fixtures in any places likely to result in close contacts, these things could almost guarantee eliminating the virus in a few weeks.

But everyone has to do them. No special “Oh but masks are such a dreadful burdennn!” wailing and moaning. No “But the cost of air purifiers and far-UV fixtures” (of which there are not a great many needed per thousand cubic metres, it’s to be noted, and air purification can be built into existing HVAC systems to reduce the need even further) and everyone stand tough for six weeks and we’d be down to clearing existing cases, and then down to small, easily-managed outbreaks, and on the way to total elimination.

And we’d be prepared for any future surprises like this.

The future:

Nature abhors a vacuum. If there’s an evolutionary niche, something evolves to take advantage of it. So one thing worth looking into is – what eats viruses? Are they an unexploited niche? I think not… There has to be an organism that finds SARS viruses irresistibly tasty.

This winter will bring a new high tide mark in COVID infections and deaths. The government will be slow to react, leading to tens of thousands of deaths. Anyone out there that wants to be among the survivors should mask up, make sure to let people around you know to mask up. Use hand hygiene, use air purification, use UV light if you can. Stay safe.

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