“Your life is yours to love, no matter how you choose to live it. When you do not think about how you intend to live it, it lives you. When you occupy it, step into in consciously, you live it.”
Gary Zukav
The numbers of cases are on the extraordinary rise. Let’s revisit the Spanish Flu for just a minute.In April of 1917 the United States entered World War I. Lots of medical personnel were called to duty. Fort Riley, Kansas was an important training facility for soldiers and in March of 1918 the Spanish Flu was born in the USA at this training facility. Six months of disease spread throughout the Country. But then what happened? In May of that year literally hundreds of thousands of military personnel traveled to Europe each month. The flu
resurged at another military camp in Boston in September. Over the three months from September to November, the second wave of the virus broke out and was responsible for the majority of the total 675,000 deaths in the United States. In November World War I was
over, and the pandemic resurged as celebrations occurred and military personnel began returning home. By the end of the war, our military had 4.7 million soldiers and they were all over Europe and were grouped together both in battle and while coming and going across the Atlantic. So let’s remember, it was the second wave that killed everyone, but don’t forget, there was also a third wave and the whole process was a year and a half. All in all, 50 million people died in the world. When the really cold weather sets in, I’m betting any public place will be a lot like those men and women experienced on those ships coming back across the Atlantic.
Advanced Science news reports this month on some great news about the flu. Researchers at MIT and Harvard are close to designing a universal flu vaccine that could work against any strain of flu. It’s now coming out right away but it looks promising. What if you could take a shot or two and be immune to all flu strains? I think a lot of people would be really helped by such a development. And consider this: these famous scientists aren’t even playing political gamesmanship or kneeling before the experiment. I don’t know how that’s possible. How did we ever do it before all the madness?
James Gallager of the BBC did a report on “long covid” where he reported on patients with COVID-19 for many many months. He quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association which did a study on 143 people with symptoms for 2 months or more. 87% had at least one symptom, Fatigue being the most common then shortness of breath, joint and chest pain, cough, loss of smell, headache, loss of appetite, loss of taste vertigo and muscle pain. There was no link on how severe it had to be to have the “long covid”. It is theorized that the virus is cleared from most of the body but hangs around in pockets.
Really obese patients have to be ventilated sometimes in the prone position. Peripheral nerve damage unfortunately is all too common. Colin Franz, MD suggests the protocol used in surgery by surgeons be adopted to these patients. This came out of the Journal of British Anestheseology in September.
Smallpox killed 350,000,000 people, yet no one dies from it today. And why is that? A vaccine created by Dr Edward Jenner in 1796. So I hear a lot of talk about how many will not take the vaccine once available. The choices we make change the future. HIV killed millions and thousands still die. However, if you live in a country with great healthcare and have access to antiretroviral drugs, you can lead a long and healthy life with HIV. How will this pandemic end? Hard to say because everyone took the smallpox vaccine. I’m thinking with all this diversity and hard lined diametrically opposed viewpoints in out country there will be resistance to taking the vaccine. As for me, sign me up.
A new test, as reported in Science Magazine, is cheap, reliable, and takes 5 minutes. Researchers used CRISPR gene-editing (identifying a small segment of the RNA virus) to identify the SARS-CoV-2. They make a segment that will attach to 20 RNA bases to bind it in solution. Then get this: they introduce the “scissor gene” to cut up the virus releasing fluorescent particles you blast with a laser showing the fluorescence lighting up and in 5 minutes you know yes or no with extreme reliability. Jennifer Doudna won the nobel prize in Chemistry recently for discovery of the CRISPER.
Francis Collins is the director of the NIH (the National Institute of Health). He said “I know there’s a great deal of anxiety about mischief here. It would be pretty darn hard for mischief to derail this process. And I hope everybody can start to get calmed down about that.”
In the The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr Beigel, et al describe and prove that remdisivir is effective in treating the virus. If you have a burning desire to read the article here is the reference: DOI: 10.1056/NEJMMoa2007764
In more news, CPAP patients have more complex cases of COVID, obstructive sleep apnea associated with greater risk, IgG antibodies still detectable 3 months later, the US has 7,607,950 cases with 650 deaths per million population. Guess what? We are number one in the world for number of cases. https:..coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Football is back. The coach of LSU, ED Orgeron said they didn’t have any COVID around the team, most of the young men just had a runny nose……………….hmmmmmm. At least most of the young people aren’t devastated by the disease. I think a lot of us are glad college football and school is back. Our kids are suffering thru a lot of rules and regulations, restrictions, and for the most part are struggling on their own to survive. It will either create a whole new generation of self sufficient hard working self taught motivated go getters, or it will be a disaster. Educators are being tested to their maximum levels, and thank God they are up to the task.
I hear there’s an election coming up. We’ve never seen anything like it before and I hope we never see anything like it again. Just remember, your great doctors, nurses, staff, personnel are out there on the line no matter who you vote for or if you even vote. Wear a mask in the hospital and the office, all of us are grateful for your courtesy and selfless sacrifice.