Viral History and Human Behavior

Posted on by Thor

People have always responded the same way to plagues and pandemics. When faced by the tragic forces of nature most people stand by and watch. With an earthquake or hurricane maybe 10% of the people do the right thing and help. Another proponent do the opposite they actively impede recovery. Most people however wait to be told what to do. They are the frog in the slowly boiling pot of water. Rather than panic or gear into recovery mode, they mellow out and pretend nothing is happening.

When the twin towers were hit, most people didn’t immediately run to the stairwells. They sat back down and waited to be told what to do. Many who waited died. Today we are still experiencing a 9/11 worth of death every week from COVID and most have mellowed out, pretending nothing is happening. Those who wear masks and social distance are treated with suspicion. They break the illusion promoted by top officials that the pandemic is over.

During the Black Death of the 1830s, the rich stole from the poor and vulnerable and scapegoated people of other socioeconomic classes, along with the sick and disabled. Families abandoned the dead. In general hatred of “others” took hold. Those with money believed themselves to be safe from infection. Leadership in general denied the reality of what was happening. In Europe. the Jews were blamed for purposefully infecting Christians. Doctors advised patients that “the best way to protect against disease, causing bad air, was to expose oneself to more bad air.” Rumors and misinformation flourished.

The 1889 Russian Flu was known for a post-acute stage that caused “nervous disorders” including depression that lasted years. In 1893, Edvard Munch, still suffering post-flu, painted The Scream.

Austrian artist Egon Schiele died October 31, 1918 from the Spanish Flu. His wife, Edith Schiele who was 6 months pregnant died two days earlier.

As bodies piles up in 1918 officials insisted there was no cause for alarm. Propaganda fueled by the WW I war effort had little regard for a statements truth or falsehood. Citizens were considered the mental equivalent of children. The president at the time, Woodrow Wilson never made a statement about the virus.Woodrow Wilson had a bad bout of the Spanish Flu and later suffered a stroke which parallelized his left side and caused brain fog. His inability to focus kept him from promoting his peace treaty at Versailles.

By ignoring the unfolding tragedy terror settled into the populace. As the director of public health in Chicago said, “It is our job to keep people from fear. Worry kills more than the disease.” A war drive parade was held in Chicago despite warnings and there was a huge surge of 8,000 deaths that followed. Mass graves had to be dug. San Francisco on the other hand promoted the use of masks and the weathered the influenza outbreak much better with 1,857 deaths.

COVID Causing Immunity of an 80 Year Old in Children

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In an interview with Rheinische Post, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said, “It is worrying what we are seeing in people who have had multiple corona infections. Studies now show very clearly that those affected are often dealing with an immune deficiency that can no longer be cured. This can be a risk factor for the development of chronic diseases, from cardiovascular problems to dementia.”

This immunity damage isn’t only happening to adults. Children are being affected as well. Professor Christian Drosten said, “Children have naive immune cells. With each corona infection infection those cells cannot be reproduced indefinitely. Immunologists are getting findings that suggest that this aging of the immune system in children after a COVID infection is much more advanced that expected.”

Researchers are still learning how COVID hijacks our immune system.

To put it bluntly, one can now ask whether an unvaccinated child, after being infected, will perhaps have the immune system of an 80 year old at the age of 30. Infecting children would have been a huge mistake. That would be an extreme scenario, but one that needs to be considered.

Flu RSV and Strep A have been causing havoc among children in the last several months. It is possible that children are having worst cases of these infections because their immune system has “aged” due to COVID. So, no, it want’s a good idea to get your child infected before they could walk. They will have to live with your mistake for the rest of their lives. Politicians may eventually have to acknowledge that they were wrong to let COVID rip through society, but they will find a scapegoat so they can blame someone other than themselves.

Not the Virus you Are Looking For

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Why is COVID-19 getting so good at immune evasion? The COVID virus uses  spike proteins to recognize and enter host cells. Recent COVID variants contain changes, or mutations, at a key site on the spike protein called the receptor-binding site (RBS).

Some of these mutations render antibodies that fought earlier virus strains less effective. This allows the variants to partially escape the immune response produced after vaccination or prior infection. It raises concerns that new variants could make existing vaccines less effective and draw out the pandemic.

Antibodies created by COVID-19 vaccines or natural infection by the original pandemic strain are often ineffective against the new variants of concern. COVID hijacks human cell machinery to blunt the immune response, allowing it to establish infection, replicate and cause disease.

The latest COVID variant in the United States is XBB.1.5 which seems to be the most immune evasive variant so far. It is the first recombinant COVID variant expected to become dominant in the United States. It is called “recombinant” because it was created when two  Omicron sub-variants merging inside the same human cell. By doing so, it gained, a mutation for immune evasion as well as an increased ability to bind to and infect human cells. The variant was first noticed in New York State in December 2022 and became dominant in by mid-January, so it’s too early to tell whether it causes more severe illness. The numbers of reported cases keep doubling every 7-10 days.

With so much at home testing it is hard to know just how wide spread it is. Meanwhile excess deaths keep rising as young and old alike die from heart failure and organ failure. COVID attacks the linings of blood vessels, causes blood clots, attacks the nerves, the brain and the heart. People seem confused by all these unexplained deaths. The answer, COVID, is staring everyone in the face.

So many politicians and medical experts however have been gaslighting the public into believing the pandemic is over. It isn’t. “Recovering” from an infection, does not mean the virus is done causing damage. COVID surges have been links to heart attacks in people of all ages but particularly ages 25-44.  Heart attacks rose by almost 30% with each wave of the pandemic. A heart attack is likely a COVID delayed effect. The German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, admitted that COVID causes incurable immune deficiency. “Letting it Rip” just isn’t working.

The Davos Effect

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Each year in a World Economic Forum is held in Davos, Switzerland. Simply put, the world’s billionaires go to Davos to talk money. The 2022 Davos World Economic Forum was postponed due to the outbreak of the Omicron Variant.

On twitter, people started sharing photos from the Forum pointing out that the Billionaires are taking every precautions against COVID this year. Each room has one or several HEPA Air Filters to remove any virus from the air. Rooms also had  Far-UVC lighting, used to  kill pathogens in the air.

Every attendee at Davos was PCR tested before entering the forum. If someone tested positive then access to the forum was automatically, electronically, revoked. Drivers for the speakers were required to wear masks and many in the audience wore masks as well. If an attendee started to feel ill at Davos, they could go collect a free rapid test, or even call the dedicated COVID hotline.

Part of me wonders if the outrage expresses online is actually a brilliant ad campaign to convince people to be like the rich and buy their own HEPA filtration devices.

Many on Twitter were up in arms that the billionaires get such preferential treatment while children and workers are forced to go to poorly ventilated schools and workplaces. I fell a bit different, I am happy that at least one public gathering was willing to recognize that they have a responsibility to keep people who attend safe.

The problem is that the public narrative on COVID is that the pandemic is over. Joe Biden said as much to a reporter on National TV. The “New Normal” for everyday citizens seems to me mass infections that result in increasingly worst outcomes as people infect one another over and over. health problems due to repeated infections include, like cardiac damage, viral persistence, and immune system dysfunction. COVID literally shrinks the brain which might explain why some are so hell bent on denying COVID is much worst than a cold or flu.

France and Belgium have already introduced new air quality standards, and DIY projects to build Corsi-Rosenthal boxes for schools and healthcare settings have popped up around the country. Parliament in England and Congress in the United States have both quietly installed HEPA filtration to keep the politicians safe.

COVID kills the ignorant and the divisive, but the rich prosper and can afford clean fresh air.

 

COVID Tipping Point

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Is there an unacceptable level of COVID deaths that could convince people that “living with the virus” should not mean mass infection? We have been at a high plateau of over 300 deaths a day for months now. It would seem that 300 deaths are considered acceptable to most, since people think life will return to normal if they just ignore the virus. Wishing the virus away does nothing to mitigate it’s spread.

The media seems to regard these deaths as insignificant since most who die are old or vulnerable. Do more children need to die for anyone to care? Do the caskets need to be smaller? Since the easing of masking and social distancing more children are being infected than adults. The children then take the virus home and give it to their parents and grand parents. Since the start of the pandemic about 700 children have died as of October 2021. I am assuming parents consider this acceptable collateral damage now that they can live without masks.

Governments around the world have been quietly installing air filtration HEPA systems to keep themselves safe, while telling everyone else that the pandemic is over. Meanwhile the caskets are also quietly being stacked up.

COVID deaths in New York State spiked 30% in December 2022, to the highest tally since early 2022, a Post analysis showed. This is in part due to the highly transmissible XBB.1.5 (Kraken) variant that is now spreading across the country. Meanwhile home tests have made it impossible too track just how the virus is spreading.

In China doctors are being instructed too try not to write COVID as the cause of death. No official wants the public to be aware of what is happening. A doctor Wen noted that most countries are finding that most deaths from COVID are caused directly by the infection rather than by a combination of COVID and other diseases. Just as in China, some American talking heads want to convince people that the numbers of deaths due to COVID have been under-counted. The truth is that even American deaths due to COVID have been under counted since long term complications are not taken into account.

The CDC predicted that the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths will remain stable or have an uncertain trend over the next 4 weeks, with 1,500 to 5,400 new deaths likely reported in the week ending February 11, 2023. The national ensemble predicts that a total of 1,108,000 to 1,120,000 COVID-19 deaths will be reported by this date.

Off the Cliff

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The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to recommend the use of masks by the public in specific situations, and this update recommends their use irrespective of the local epidemiological situation, given the current spread of the COVID-19 globally. Masks are recommended following a recent exposure to COVID-19, when someone has or suspects they have COVID-19, when someone is at high-risk of severe COVID-19, and for anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space.

The drive to “end the pandemic” began almost as soon as the pandemic arrived in the U.S. The 45th president downplayed the severity of the pandemic knowing full well that the virus was airborne. Joe Biden has not done any better, proclaiming that the pandemic was over in one TV interview. The economy is always more important than public health.

COVID is airborne. Airborne transmission is different from droplets, which are large particles containing the virus, expelled when you speak, cough, sneeze, etc. Droplets are heavy enough that they will eventually drop to the ground or nearby surfaces, meaning it’s relatively easy to contain: any physical barrier, like a cloth mask or plexiglass barrier might stop the spread. However an airborne virus can remain airborne for much longer. If someone is smoking in a closed room, you can small the smoke from across the room and even further away. I have always maintained a physical distance of 22 feet from others. If I hear or see someone approaching, my mask is always slipped into place.

A quality N-95 mask is needed to stop the virus if you are around others. The problem is the entire country has been groomed to believe the pandemic is over. The pandemic is not over since over 300 people continue to die every day in America. The horror of what is happening in China may never be fully reported. The tired masses have been groomed  for a mass infection. Their desire to return to normal while abandoning all masking, means the county has already driven the car off the cliff.

This is not the end of the pandemic but the end of the beginning of the pandemic.

Let Them Breath COVID

Posted on by Thor

Marie Antoinette is famous for saying to her subjects, “Let then breath COVID.” In our century millions are dying since officials and those who serve them are more concerned about the economy rather than their subject’s health. The media has gone silent about over 300 deaths a day or a 9/11 levels of death every week. The fact is that the pandemic is far from over, and it is far worse than any politician has lead you to believe.

When the pandemic began the upper class were not concerned about public health, they were concerned about maintaining their power and keeping the economy healthy.  Millions of deaths are just collateral damage when profits are to be made. Half measure were made like mask mandates and some lock downs but they soon realized the economy would slow down if such measure stayed in place. When subjects protested all protective measure were simply lifted. Let the people infect one another and die but keep the profits climbing.

It took forever for most to even admit that the virus was airborne. The World Health Organization (WHO) has still not said as much in full. We have known for years that it can spread through aerosol as papers from the New England Medical Journal, National Library for Medicine, and the Wiley Online Library demonstrate going back to 2020. Aerosol is composed of much smaller particles that bounce around between air particles, and can stay suspended and infectious in the air.

So how does the Biden administration handle this health crisis. Why they are doing the same as the 45th president. Deny deflect and ignore. If no one talks about the pandemic maybe it will go away on it’s own. Let them breath COVID. But mass infection is not a cure it is genocide.

COVID Does Merica

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A few of the lies promoted in America by politicians and public health “experts” to help the economy and destroy public health.

  • Masks don’t work. Masks work.
  • Masks do work, but cloth masks are fine. Get a quality well fitted n-95 and wear it properly around others.
  • Stop the spread by sanitizing surfaces. Surfaces aren’t the primary way an airborne virus spreads, do sanitize.
  • 6 feet of social distancing will stop the spread. The virus can remain airborne for much further than 6 feet.
  • COVID is not airborne. COVID is airborne.
  • COVID is airborne, but that’s not the main way it spreads. If you smell a smokers cigarette you can catch COVID.
  • The only people harmed by COVID are old and immune-compromised people. All ages are harmed.
  • Children don’t get COVID. Children get COVID and their life expectancy is reduced with each new infection.
  • Children can get COVID, but they can’t spread it. Children are the primary spreaders of the virus. 
  • Reinfections are rare. Reinfections are common.
  • Breakthrough infections after vaccination are rare. Breakthrough infections are common.
  • Reinfections and breakthrough infections happen, but they’re mild. Each reinfection increases chances of organ failure and death.
  • Once enough people have been exposed, herd immunity will end the pandemic. There will be no herd immunity with a virus that is allowed to mutate indefinitely.
  • Viruses naturally evolve to become less deadly. There is no guarantee that the next variant will be less deadly.
  • Once you recover from acute infection, you’re out of the woods. You can easily be reinfected with a worse outcome.
  • Long COVID is psychological, not physical. Long COVID is debilitating for children and adults.
  • Long COVID is physical, but not a big concern. Long COVID will destroy the lives of 1 out of 10 people.
  • Heightened lethality of non-COVID diseases is due to “immunity debt.” Avoiding exposure to a deadly virus does not damage you immune system. You do not need to get sick to be healthy.

 

Casa Feliz

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I often venture off to sketch Casa Feliz with my Crealde Urban Sketching students. Since I have sketched the same structure many times, I get to play with how I treat the subject without much concern about the final result. I don’t focus explosively on the sketch but also circulate among the students to give them tips and show them my progress.

I think it is a good idea for students to see how much time I spend on each stage of the sketch process so they can make adjustments to their time management. Finishing a sketch in the course of two hours is a challenge if you are studying every detail. The key to this sketch is the blue door. Even outdoors, I remain masked when sketching on location.

Crealde Urban Sketching classes resume on Sunday January 27, 2023.

Golden Globes Superspreader

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The hands down winner at the 2023 Golden Globes Award Ceremony is COVID-19. In the spirit of “the pandemic is over”, more COVID-19 infections were handed out to the mask less crowd than awards at the Golden Globes on January 10, 2023. LA County where the awards were held had recommended mask mandates to help stop the spread of the virus. Despite this the privileged felt it was their right to spread disease at the ceremony.

Jamie Lee Curtis proudly announced on the red carpet that “We are out of COVID” just prior to being infected.  So far, Jamie Lee Curtis, Colin Farrell and Brendon Gleason, ans Jen Statsky, have have tested positive after the ceremony. Michelle Pfeiffer, tested positive before the ceremony and did not attend.  Jamie Lee Curtis  also pointed out that “life is short and precious” and COVID has trimmed 10 years off of every American’s life expectancy. Lisa Marie Presley attended the Golden Globes and died of a cardiac arrest days later.

Curtis took to social media to announce the results, posting a picture of three positive rapid antigen tests and sharing that she would be sitting out of some other upcoming award season events. According to the CDC, it can take up to 10 days for COVID-19 to develop once a person is exposed, and it’s possible to spread the virus before becoming symptomatic—so while Curtis tested positive Friday, it’s possible that the actress could have been contagious at the January 10, 2023 in-person award show.

With hardly anyone in attendance wearing a mask and over 11,000 reported cases in Beverly Hills (where the ceremony took place), the Golden Globes had all the makings of a “super-spreader” event, and some say it’s only a matter of time before more stars fall ill—especially as stars return to the social award circuit. Many of the infected will soon be going to Sundance for another super spreader. After many stars see the back lash from early COVID positive tests being announced, I suspect many will sweep their positive tests under the rug.

One actress, Jessica Chastain, wore a sequined mask that went beautifully with her sequined gown. Shockingly she was not infected at the Golden Globes super spreader. Of all the photos I saw from that evening, hers is the only mask I saw. The awards show was also a dinner, so stars chowed down on food and drink with open mouths as they shouted across the table at each other. It is amazing that people feel they can remove the mask to eat as if the virus will pause at that moment. A full list of the infected from the Golden Globes is slowly coming to light.

Los Angeles County reported 1,534 new infections and 25 additional virus-related deaths, bringing the county’s cumulative totals to 3,659,260 cases and 34,969 fatalities since the pandemic began. Health officials have stressed, however, that the official number of cases is an under count, due to the large number of people who rely on at-home tests without reporting the results to the county. Other people don’t test at all, despite being possibly infected. The county is also averaging 23 new COVID related deaths per day. I am amazed I need to say this, but the pandemic is not over people.