Cheers !
"The Only thing to Fear is Fear Itself" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He made this prescient quotation at the height of the Great Depression in 1929. The fact that people were so fearful than the stock market would mean the end of their money, many millions of Americans went to the banks and simultaneously withdrew millions upon millions of dollars leading to bank runs and indeed thats when the system actually collapsed and made the whole situation worse.
Well, now we are into the 2nd month of the COVID 19 global pandemic and there are many countries fighting all out to a) contain b) mitigate and c) await the vaccine. So I won't add on to stoke further discussions or controversies when there is already a panicky population worldwide trolling for all bits of information real or fake regarding this disease.
Lets get the facts right first and foremost (I will sidestep all claims about where it started as this is left to the scientists and epidiemiologists for the months and years to come).
a) It is a virus ; and it causes upper respiratory tract infection cough, fever and (may) attack the respiratory system which is the lungs.
b) the corona name means nothing more than a crown, which is nothing new for viruses as coronaviruses have been around our earth for many decades since medicine caught up with technology and the medical fraternity was able to distinguish the coronavirus from other types of viruses
c) As of today, 14th March 2020 it has mutation (as we know it) into 2 distinct strains, the "L" and the "S". The "L" strain is much more lethal than the 'S" strain.
d) It was first detected in the China's Wuhan Huanan Seafood Center which not only sold seafood but lots of other live 'exotic' animals such as bats, pangolins, snakes, salamanders and reptiles. The virus is zoonotic meaning it is present in some animals and scientists believe it jumped from firstly the bat to an unamed animal and then to humans. The human to human transmissions is when the virus mutated itself to be able to live and adapt in the host's body.
This seafood market has been shutdown since December 2019 and the whole of the Hubei province (with Hunan as epicentre) has been shutdown since late January 2020.
e) While it was detected in China, the origin of the virus is still not clear. Just as the Spanish 'flu which killed 50 million people worldwide in 1918 did not originate in Spain, it was clear that Spain was the FIRST country to truthfully report that young men whe were fighting the war were coming down by the thousands daily and dying.There were thousands others who fell sick in Germany, France, Belgium and US but they were not reported as the allies and the axis powers did not want to divulge 'weaknesses' in their strengths hence downplayed the numbers actually sick or dying.
Hence the Spanish 'Flu actually did NOT originate from Spain
f) There are some excellent information from Youtube doctors like Dr John Sullivan who has been advising all who watch his channel to take daily at least 1000 IU or 25 micrograms of Vitamin D. That and 1000 mg of Vitamin C can boost our front line defence against this hidden and most unholy of terrors.
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So let me state this :
I am Not Afraid of Dying
I have stated my position. I am not afraid of death.
It doesn't mean I necessarily want to catch the virus and die from it. But the risk of catching the disease is something we all have to live our lives meaningfully and carry on as normally every single day.
Think for a moment, the heroes in our midst ; the doctors, nurses, healthcare providers, the car jockeys at the hospitals, the front desk concierge, the cleaners and the night watchmen. Every single one faces this added risk every day since we have come to know of Covid 19. Do they panic and go 'gaga" and fight over toilet rolls and say the end is near ? No.
They remain as stoic as they can, keep calm and carry on their duties as their professionalism and their years of training time and again.
China, having controlled and stopped the disease (since early March 2020) in its tracks yesterday sent their experts to Italy and provided Italy with hundreds of thousands of masks, ventilators, intubation equipment and a team of doctors. This is about the human race coming togtehr to help one another in times of existential need. Why would foreign doctors want to put their lives in danger if not for the common and greater good of humanity ? Bravo to them !
Israel's Migal Galilee Research Institue is about to being production of a coronavirus vaccine.
This is great news from Israel as they had 4 years of research of similar type Coronavirus and the matching was more than 80%, so it is really an act of God that Israel can actually have something which would save the world. The approval processes and human testings are ongoing but they are confident of fast tracking everything given the urgency and seriousness of the pandameic.
The risks involved in living (if one really thinks hard enough) can be quite high and there is a fair to good chance before we kick the bucket, we will succumb to one of the below. Insurance companies will have the whole gamut of potentially life threatening diseases which easily runs into the dozens.:
a) Lifestyle diseases like heart disease, diabetes 2, cancer, Parkinsons
b) Stroke
c) driving accident during the daily commute
e) Slipping in the bathroom
f) Choking on food or fishbone stuck in the throat
g) Influenza (yes the yearly 'flu) and the more lethal
h) Pneumonia.
So, step back, pause, reflect and think what we can do to mitigate the risk and possibly avoid the risk before the vaccine is made readily available to everyone.
Try not to go to crowded places too often. If possible, work from home and buy stuff if you must by online means.
This will mean the new normal for 2020.
Stay Healthy and till the next blog post, take your Vitamins D and C daily !
