COVID Venom

The COVID-19 contains a neurotoxin that has sequence similarities to the rabies virus and the HIV glycoproteins, as well as to snake venom. The virus enters into human cells  by attaching to target macromolecules located on host cells. The target cells at located in  the nose, lungs, central nervous system, and immune cells.

COVID is not the flu, it is a neurovascular disease that destroys and hardens the inner lining of blood vessels, it shrinks brain matter, and weakens the heart along with attacking every other organ of the body. Even if an initial case of COVID was “mild” reinfections are common. Reinfections can happen within 16 days and those reinfections can result in a higher incidence of Long COVID symptoms which can destroy your quality of life.

The virus is still circulating, but politicians and even health care workers seem to want to “let it rip.” The 3000 lives lost in the World Trade Center collapse triggered a 20 year “war on terror”, where we get frisked, and can’t take bottles on flights. But with over 1.1 million deaths from COVID so far the United States extinguished the Public Health emergency orders in under 4 years. It is a policy of mass infection. We lost the “war on COVID.”

Anyone can get long COVID. PhD Anthony J Leonardi, expressed the astonishing opinion based on simple math that ‘if omicron reinfections average six months, and long COVID rates for reinfections remain 10-20%, The rate of long COVID in the United States per lifetime will be over 99.9%.’

COVID Organ Damage

Is there any organ in the body that COVID-19 does not harm? Many people are more sick now than they ever used to be. And it’s due to COVID. In June 2022 the CDC estimated about 7% of adult Americans had long COVID. Governments are ignoring the virus, hoping it will miraculously go away.

Stanford medical school researchers recently said COVID is “akin to HIV” and has not magically transformed into the common cold. What is repeated exposure to COVID  going to do to the kids? No one knows. The flu has a short limited season each year, but COVID is the virus that keeps on giving. Spikes happen all year round summer, winter, fall and spring.

The John Snow Project reported that, “current evidence suggests infected adults and children are at greater risk of new onset diabetes, adults are at increased risk of cardiac problems, and the long-term impact on children’s cardio-vascular health is uncertain. In addition, people can experience kidney injury, liver damage, erectile dysfunction, hearing loss, immune dysfunction, brain and memory dysfunction, ocular damage and dermatological complications. In fact there are few organs that COVID can’t harm, largely because COVID-19 is a vascular disease with immune-mediated severity impacting multiple organs. 

COVID Sweeps Through Jury

Sudbury.com reported that the second-degree murder trial of Robert Steven Wright was delayed again after several jurors tested positive for COVID-19. The court is discussing the possibility of having ill jurors to continue by participating virtually. However, one juror is “not feeling well enough to participate virtually.

The first infected juror tested positive on March 16, 2023. The virus then swept through the jurors who had been in close quarters throughout the trial. They were told to self-isolate through the weekend. The exact number of positive jurors was discussed during voir dire and can’t be reported. Nationally in America the exact number of people infected by COVID is also kept under wraps.  Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is also in the best interest of any politician letting the virus rip.

Wright is on trial for the second-degree murder of 23-year-old Laurentian University student Renée Sweeney, who was stabbed 27 times while working at a video store on Paris Street on Jan. 27, 1998. At the time, Wright was an 18-year-old student at Lockerby Composite School, which was within walking distance of the store where Sweeney worked.

Partygate

Partygate is a political scandal in the United Kingdom that lead to the downfall of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. While United Kingdom lock downs were in place, multiple gatherings took place at 10 Downing Street, its garden, and other government buildings. The police issued 126 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) to 83 individuals whom the police found had committed offenses under COVID-19 regulations, including one each to Johnson, and his wife. All apologized and paid the penalties.

Public unrest over the events led to a decline in public support for Johnson, the government and the Conservatives, and contributed to the party’s loss of the 2021 North Shropshire by-election and poor performance in the 2022 local elections.

Fighting for his political future, Johnson strongly denied misleading parliament in a marathon session in front of the Commons Privileges Committee on March 22, 2023. His excused were feeble and misleading at best. He claimed that the COVID guidance allowed for exceptions for him and his staff. The policies however did not allow exceptions for the public who were unable to visit loved ones or attend funerals for those who died. Measures in the guidance were “usually” expected to be complied with, just not in his case at 10 Downing Street.

Johnson did mislead parliament about parties held at Downing Street but his defense is that he wasn’t intelligent enough to recognize the lies.  Johnson said it was not realistic to operate in Downing Street in a socially distanced way as if there had “an electrical force field.” Social distancing is not rocket science. Getting 20 or so staff drunk in a small room is just plain stupid. Stupid is as stupid does.

If the Privileges Committee concludes that the former prime minister misled Parliament, and that this constituted a contempt, there are a range of possible sanctions that it could recommend. Possible sanctions could include suspension from the Commons for a number of days. Any sanctions recommended by the committee would have to be approved by a vote of the whole Commons. As Boris Johnson no longer holds ministerial office, the only sanctions that the committee could recommend relate to his status as a member of Parliament.

Stockholm Syndrome

COVID-19 is here to stay. Any chance of defeating the virus has long since passed. Airlines spread it around the world and countries no longer are making any attempts at mitigating it’s spread. The virus has won and humans are it’s fuel. Just as humans lust for fossil fuels, the virus loves each helpless host it infects.

I haven’t dropped my mitigation measures. I continue to filter the air I breath with a HEPA filter in the studio and anytime I am out in public, I wear an N-95 mask. Since COVID is airborne and can spread much further than 6 feet, I tend to maintain 22 feet of social distancing if unmasked outside. Basically if I hear to see someone the mask goes on. My thought is that if the artist Banksy can hide his identity all these years, I can certainly always be masked anytime I am seen in public.

Most of the country however has lovingly embraced the virus. I seldom see anyone masked anymore. For the past two semesters all my students have been unmasked. I hold the classes outdoors for their protection and mine. Only a few times have we worked indoors. In those cases I keep the door open and spread the mask less students out as much as I can. Those students only ever see my eyes.

Once infected, people seem to experience Stockholm Syndrome where they love their captor and drop all attempts to protect themselves and others. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Stockholm Syndrome as “the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor.” Once infected people lovingly promote the spread of the virus by hosting superspreader events in indoor spaces. Feeling invincible, since they survived the initial infection, they return to indoor bars, theaters, gyms, and restaurants. Huge indoor concerts are being held except when the performers become ill and have to cancel.  For the infected their new lover is a fast and wreck less return to normal.

This love affair is only in the best interest of the virus. It continues to spread as asymptotically among friends and family. One in five of these lovers develop long COVID and the quality of their life is sometimes forever destroyed. More and more people are not returning to the work force because they can not get out of bed. As a conservative estimate, about 16.3 million have long COVID so far. About 4 million people are out of work due to Long COVID. That number will continue to grow at the country promotes mass infection. According to one study Long COVID could cost the United States 3.7 trillion dollars a year. Improving ventilation in all buildings and educating the public about ways to avoid infection would cost a whole lot less.

People have always died from wildfires!

Misinformed minimizes love to portray COVID-19 as just a flu. In 2021 the flu accounted for 5,000 deaths in America. In 2021 there were 460,000 COVID deaths in America. That is a hell of a lot more deaths due to COVID-19. COVID is not the flu.

Influenza (flu) and COVID-19 are both contagious respiratory illnesses, but they are caused by different viruses. COVID-19 spreads more easily than flu. Compared with flu, COVID-19 can cause more severe illness. Other diseases with flu like symptoms include, Polio, Legionella, Lyme Disease, HIV, TB, Leishmaniasis, Syphilis, Hepatitus, Smallpox. Histoplasmosis, and Antrax.

Even a ‘mild’ case of COVID can result in destruction of the bodies immune response to to other viruses. COVID damages vital organs such as the brain, heart, lungs, nervous system and can cause Long COVID in about one in five people infected. Symptoms of Long COVID can appear months after the initial infection ‘recovery’.

COVID is not the flu. COVID is a much deadlier viral pathogen with debilitating long term effects which can destroy any quality of life. “COVID damages CD8 and T cell response an effect akin to that observed in earlier studies showing long term damage to the immune system after infection with viruses such as hepatitis C or HIV.” –NIH funded study Getting infected with COVID offers no immunity boost.

3 years into this pandemic and the American response continues to be denial. COVID is not the flu.

Wildfires can’t do any long term damage!

About one in five people who have been infected with COVID-19 experience health problems long after the initial ‘recovery’. Long COVID,  involves a variety of new, returning or ongoing symptoms that people experience more than four weeks after getting COVID-19. In some people, post-COVID-19 syndrome lasts months or years or causes disability. Many who were infected early in the pandemic still have problems three years later. It is not clear if the symptoms will ever go away.

The most commonly reported symptoms of post-COVID-19 syndrome include:

  • Fatigue
  • Symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort
  • Fever
  • Lung (respiratory) symptoms, including difficulty breathing or shortness of breath and cough

Other possible symptoms include:

  • Neurological symptoms or mental health conditions, including difficulty thinking or concentrating, headache, sleep problems, dizziness when you stand, pins-and-needles feeling, loss of smell or taste, and depression or anxiety
  • Joint or muscle pain
  • Heart symptoms or conditions, including chest pain and fast or pounding heartbeat
  • Digestive symptoms, including diarrhea and stomach pain
  • Blood clots and blood vessel (vascular) issues, including a blood clot that travels to the lungs from deep veins in the legs and blocks blood flow to the lungs (pulmonary embolism)
  • Other symptoms, such as a rash and changes in the menstrual cycle

Keep in mind that it can be hard to tell if you are having symptoms due to COVID-19 or another cause, such as a preexisting medical condition.

A 26 year old British Olympic athlete rowing team was exercising 35 your a week post COVID. She experienced a mild case of the disease, so she felt able to make a quick return to training. The intense exercise may have exacerbated the virus, and she developed long COVID symptoms that forced her off the Olympic team. Getting out of bed became the burden she had to overcome each day. That became her exercise goal for the day. Intense fatigue only allows her to carry out a few hours of normal activity per day.

A high jumper for the United States was hoping to compete in the Tokyo Olympics. A bad case of Covid-19 derailed her chances and she failed to qualify.

Did a Racoon Dog Start the Pandemic?

Genetic material collected at the Wuhan Chinese Market where the first human cases of COVID-19 were identified show raccoon dog DNA commingled with COVID-19. Some scientists believe COVID most likely jumped from animals to people, others believe the virus could have been leaked from one of the several Wuhan coronavirus research facilities. The genetic material collected does not prove that a racoon dog stated the pandemic. Human DNA was also found in the sample. A human may have infected the animal, or the animal may have never harbored the virus.

The samples were collected from surfaces at the Huanan Seafood Market in early 2020 in Wuhan, where the first human cases of COVID-19 were found in late 2019. The racoon dogs, named for their raccoon-like faces, are often bred for their fur and sold for meat in animal markets across China. Some of the COVID positive samples were collected from a stall known to be involved in the wildlife trade. The sample also contained raccoon dog genes. The genetic sequences were recently uploaded to the world’s biggest public virus database by scientists at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The genetic sequences were then removed from the internet, but not before a French biologist spotted the information by chance and shared it with a group of scientists based outside China that’s looking into the origins of the coronavirus. The WHO stated that “this data could have and should have been shared three years ago.”

The inconclusive analysis did not find the virus within any animal, nor did it find any hard evidence that racoon dogs infected humans.

There are lots of other wildfires around you know!

Connor Brown outlined the simple things you might consider at this stage as many are proclaiming the pandemic “over.”

1. There is no upper limit to the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections any individual can have.

2. Each infection increases an individual’s risk of a cardiovascular problem, and increases an individual’s risk of developing Long Covid.

3. Long Covid can disable people for weeks, months, or years.

4. Cardiovascular problems can disable people for weeks, months, or years.

5. On average, with no mitigations, it is likely that any given individual will get Covid-19 twice per year.

6. With each infection, the risk of cardiovascular problems and / or Long Covid is always present. 1 in 5 people develop long COVID. That is worst odds than roulette gun with one chamber loaded.

7. On a population level, this means that as time passes, more people will tend to become disabled from cardiovascular problems and Long Covid than those who have fully recovered.

8. Therefore, as time passes, the percentage of the population disabled by Covid will increase.

9. Since people who are disabled may be unable to work full-time, or unable to work at all, the available workforce will decrease.

10. A decreasing workforce pool will damage productivity.

11. In tandem, an increasingly disabled population will lead to an increased demand on healthcare services.

12. Governments will have fewer workers to tax, and will need to spend more on healthcare services.

13. As such, allowing SARS-CoV-2 to spread in an entirely uncontrolled manner is very, very bad for the economy.

Slowing the wildfire will just prolong the wildfire!

The United States has embraced a COVID-19 policy of mass infection with the hope that the link has been broken between infection and mortality. This is an unfortunate and misguided notion.  The link between infection and death might have been weakened, but it has not been broken, and infection can still cause substantial morbidity in both acute and long-term illness.

Population wide immunity is impossible since the virus is mutating to often for scientists to keep up with the new variants. Breakthrough infections are common even among people who have had every available booster shot and those who have been infected and survived. Despite this Joe Biden has let it rip and wants to end the COVID state of emergency starting May 11, 2023.

The CDC quietly add is this to their website… ‘Emerging evidence suggests that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),the virus that causes COVID-19can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection. Documented serious post- COVID-19 conditions include cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, renal, endocrine, hematological, and gastrointestinal complications, as well as death.’

COVID is not a cold, COVID is not the Flu. COVID is a life threatening pathogen that can kill you months after you “recover from an infection. It damages your heart, lungs, brain and nervous system. Long COVID which can occur in 1 in 5 cases can lead to a massive loss of quality of life.

COVID also damages the immune system,  aging of immune cells, cell death, risk for autoimmune disease, cancer, it causes susceptibility to secondary infections, co-infections, inflammation. Excess deaths have been on the rise since the pandemic began,  and this is likely because COVID has destroyed the immune systems of so many many people.