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The little virus that could - Part II

And here is a third blog I did not bring myself to publish for exactly one year.  It's as fresh today as it was 365 days ago.

The feeling of grief  permeates everything these days, but there are happy moments. Let me paint for you our act of random wildness. We were coming back from an early morning walk, when behind a road curve we heard the loud shrieks of a scared deer and the much fainter shrieks to the right. When we approached the curve, this is what we saw: On our side, a young doe was running back and forth and shrieking her lungs off. To the right, behind a wire net fence was a new-born fawn of the size of adult cat, trying to join mama. But how could she? The fawn was pursued by a large black labrador, who was visibly upset and confused, and tried to sniff her. Finally, the fawn hid behind a bush on the side on the fence with the dog behind the bush, standing there and doing nothing. We talked to the dog trying to calm her, and my wife, Joanna, was able to touch and pet the mortally scared fawn, and catch her. We worked together passing to each other the firmly held fawn, and moving her up the wire squares. After four such exchanges, the little baby was lifted up to our side of the fence and reunited with the absolutely crazy-mortified mama. We saved a Bambi today, and it felt so, so, so very good!

Here is Professor Woland speaking to a writer, Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, at the Patriarch Pond in Chapter 1 of  Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, my most favorite book of all times.

" 'I beg your pardon,' retorted the stranger quietly,' but to rule one must have a precise plan worked out for some reasonable period ahead. Allow me to inquire how man can control his own affairs when he is not only incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term, such as, say, a thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow? ' "

The little corona virus that could is continuing to undo our fragile, bloated civilization and our highly optimized supply chains. The cost of our collective myopia and the criminal negligence and incompetence of almost all governments on the planet will be measured in a few tens of trillions of dollars, putting a 30-40% dent in the economists' still-born child, the global GDP.   The idiot MBAs and economists, who rule everywhere, apparently saved a few tens of millions of dollars here and there by discontinuing the pandemic preparation programs.  Now they are all busy printing  in unison rivers of money and looking for the customers who might buy their paper obligations, while not delivering the promised loans to the people and small businesses who really need them. Oh, well. But not all news is bad...
"Seeing and growing closer to God require purifying one’s heart from the sins and prejudices that distort reality and blind people to God’s active and real presence", Pope Francis said. "Dear Pope", I ask, "would it be too much to ask you to please  communicate this message to most world leaders, but especially to President Trump, the creature so coveted by the US so-called 'Christians'?"

Pope Francis just said the coronavirus pandemic is one of "nature's responses" to humans ignoring the current ecological crisis. In an email interview published Wednesday (04/08/2020) in The Tablet and Commonwealth magazines, the pontiff said the outbreak offered an opportunity to slow down the rate of production and consumption and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. "I don't know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature's responses," he added.  I simply love this man.

Not all news is bad. Joanna, the love of my life and wife of forty years, and I have been self-sequestered on our beautiful, 16 acre property and in the surrounding rural neighborhood for five weeks.

Rainbow after a thunderstorm.  A view from our hill. I am standing just east of  the house.  April 9, 2020.

We went to the grocery store only three times, and saw our neighbors from a distance a few more times. Each morning, but Fridays and Saturdays, I start at 6 am, go through dozens of emails, reply to many, and work with my students and researchers for 5-6 hours. Then I work on other things, mostly papers. Later in the afternoon and on weekends, we both work on the property and in the house.  We have been finishing our new bathroom that was not quite finished five years ago, when we left for Saudi Arabia.  I'll post a photo or two of our achievements when we are done. Significant woodwork involves making the front wall of the tub, and frames for two doors and three windows. We are using the local, beautiful red cedar wood to fabricate them.

These window frames and the front wall of the tub were all fabricated by us from the beautiful Texas red cedar wood covered with 4-6 layers of sealing oil with ultrafine sanding in between.  The wall is clad in a single 2.5 cm thick slab of granite.

This is the other end of our bathroom. All the woodwork you see, including the pine bathroom door were fabricated, finished and installed by us.  The water-efficient Caroma toilet came from Australia.  Its water tank doubles as a bathroom sink to wash hands.

The view of the bathroom door and the southern entrance door to our house. Again, the door frames and floor boards were fabricated by us.  The cabinets were fabricated from the old barn pinewood floor boards by a carpenter friend.  The hermetic exterior door is made of insulating fiberglass.

No on to the bad news. The corona virus related deaths are undercounted in the U.S., just like everywhere else. With bodies that begin to pile up on the streets, the giant India has registered barely more CV cases and deaths than the tiny Ecuador. (How true this comment is a year later!)

In the US, in New York for example, the Fire Department data shows that 1,125 patients were pronounced dead in their homes or on the street in the first five days of April, more than eight times the 131 deaths recorded during the same period last year. Paramedics are not testing for the virus those they pronounce dead, so it is almost impossible to say how many of the people were infected with it. Some may have been tested before they died and either were not admitted to hospitals or were discharged. But the huge jump in the numbers suggests that the virus was involved in many of the recent deaths. In New York, the unclaimed bodies bodies are now buried in mass graves.

Fast forward to May 2021, and the US is the only large country that has vaccinated most of its population with the COVID vaccines that actually were produced at home and work, in contrast to the Chinese vaccines that don't.  We are a gleaming success story that shines bright light on the incompetence of most other governments in the developed countries, and - singularly - in the tragic India, where perhaps millions of people have perished.  Modi, that wannabe cruel mini-Trump, has succeeded in bringing down this great country of 1.3 billion people.




Comments

  1. You might want to have a look at ISBN-10 : 3752629789.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Duncan, I know about the "Virus Mania." There is a huge and profitable vaccine-making industry out there. However, on the hugely overpopulated Earth, with the genetically decaying humans, who live unhealthy live styles in close proximity, we need all the good vaccines we can get. The COVID virus is not done with us. I estimate the global death toll from this virus to be in the 10 million, plus plus, not the 3.5 million currently reported. India alone may have 10 million dead by now.

      I am of the generation that got all the required vaccines, no questions asked. I am 69, and going strong, other than the lymphoma I have had for the last 20 years. The lymphoma is now being kept at bay by a miracle medication by Astra Zeneca. Go figure...

      Delete
    2. Sorry to hear about your lymphoma. What did you do when you were diagnosed. Did you change your diet or revise your exercise regime or working hours? Made sure you got more rest etc.?

      Delete
    3. There are lessons from history that are not common knowledge, see the paper -
      Salicylates and Pandemic Influenza Mortality, 1918–1919 Pharmacology, Pathology, and Historic Evidence

      Delete
    4. Duncan, I tried to get my lymphoma diagnosed in the US for about 14 years. I had clear symptoms that were treated with steroids by the doctors, who did not want to prescribe a PETCT scan, and I did not insist. In fairness to them, over the years, nothing seemed to work, blood tests, biopsy of a lymph node in my jaw, and finally a lumbar puncture. The lymphoma was hiding very well indeed. Doctors in Saudi Arabia, apparently had more than 10 minutes to think, and did a PETCT on me, showing a clear lymphoma everywhere. To make a long story short, I underwent chemotherapy in Saudi Arabia that helped me for 2-1/2 years, but the lymphoma mutated to its current form. In 2020, in the US, I was treated rather poorly at MD Anderson, but survived a brutal chemo, moved to another set of doctors and am fine taking the second generation acalabrutinib (a BTK inhibitor).

      Did I change much in my lifestyle? Some, but not too much. I definitely started eating less of healthier food, stopped drinking, lost weight and thought more about exercising. I have also started paying more attention to my family, including students. So many things have changed in subtle ways, one of them is me thinking about retirement and spending more time with my grandson. Woland would agree with me, a mere miserable mortal, who does not know what the next day might bring.

      As to your second note, I definitely am concerned with anything beyond aspirin (which I cannot take anyway). But this should be a subject of along and serious conversation. Our US medicine does not prevent. It mostly treats the effects of our generally unhealthy lifestyles.

      Delete
  2. Are you sure the deaths were not caused by the vaccine(s)?

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    Replies
    1. Dear Anonymous,
      I am positive. When the deaths were occurring, there were no vaccines! Please do the arithmetic. Today 50% of the US population is vaccinated, and case numbers and deaths are steadily going down. Is there a correlation? Please vaccinate yourself and you loved ones. The likely side effects of a new COVID variant outweigh 1000:1 the largely non-existent risks of vaccination. We have been fully vaccinated since February 1. All of my children and their spouses are fully vaccinated now.

      Delete
    2. Tad, Please see:- https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2392/rr-8 . Pay particular attention to option 3.

      As can be seen here, the evidence is not in favour of vaccines, although it is not against it either. The studies have not been done, but bare in mind that a general improvement in nutrition & sanitation is also a good fit for correlation.

      The benefit ratio is highly exaggerated at the moment through using the PCR test as a screening tool - it is not qualitative.

      https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30424-2/fulltext

      So I really don't understand how the Lancet get away with a report like this, as I know of no lab that is working with a CT of less than 35. Anything above 25 is in the realms of white noise (Fauci got it wrong when he said above 30). Prior to 2020 if PCR was used in a legal court case, CT above 20 would not be admissible.

      It was never designed for screening and a "case" does not equal infection. Especially if not preceded by symptoms. The CT of "infections" are not recorded or at least disclosed. Also not that the "quality" of lateral flow tests are bench marked against PCR.

      See the VAERS reporting data which is quoted (optimistically) as capturing one tenth of actual events. Some estimate one hundredth.

      Delete
  3. It was great to see your new post! Reading this post gives me a feeling like the one I get from a glass of ice water after I have worked physically hard on a hot day.

    I have a question for you. If, as I do, you have children and grandchildren what would you tell or advise them so that they could deal better with the future?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Richard,
      As an immigrant, I have three children, my only family. Among them, they still have only one child. I have been preparing my children for what is going to come for most of their lives. Perhaps, I prepared them too well... They all have fundamental skills needed by the society. My oldest son, Lucas, is Executive Director at Napa County Resource Conservation District, and supervises running much of the agriculture there, watershed management, and land management. My middle daughter, Sophie, is an endocrinologist and researcher at UC Sand Francisco, and my youngest daughter, Julie, is an RN at UC San Francisco. They all live close by and are very close to one another. With their spouses, they form a large, tightly knit family.

      Delete
  4. Hello Tadeusz
    It’s Great to see your post again.
    Hello from Warsaw to you and Your family.

    Tereska W
    Piotr W
    (Olivia i Thomas)

    ReplyDelete

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