Covid-19 Diary : Thursday 7 January, 2021

Why do I write these diary entries, twice a week, every week?  Sometimes I ask myself this question, because for sure, it takes up a lot of time, and I’ve received some very negative comments, usually of the form “You’re not a doctor, shut up”.  Because, you know, doctors have unanimously agreed on everything and have done such a brilliant job so far……

The answer to this question comes in rarely, but is always appreciated when it does.  I got this email earlier in the week :

Hello David. Just an update on my family. My son tested positive 10 days after Thanksgiving.  The next day my husband and I took tests.  He was positive.  I was negative.  At 80+, it was frightening to get his news.  My pregnant daughter and eventually her partner tested positive.  They live 7 hours away but had visited here.  Placing no blame, but we’re guessing my son caught it when he was at a meeting with new boss and doing walk thru on new house.

The advice in your book was so helpful. I dosed everyone with your recommendations and they actually took everything.  Everyone including my husband had mild symptoms that would have been ignored in 2019.  My brother has since lost his sense of taste but he too has recovered.  I remain negative.  Everyone is fine now!!!

I want to thank you for your part in their recovery.

This is why – the hope that I’m able to help a few of you, my readers, and often my friends, in a case where there is too much confusing and conflicting information out there, making it very difficult to know what to accept and what to reject.

To be clear, I’m not saying the recommendations in my book guarantee anything at all, nor am I claiming as deserved the credit this writer kindly gives me.  But I am saying that many doctors, all around the world, are adopting similar treatment plans to those I describe in the book, with positive results more often than not.  Meanwhile, the official response in the US remains that if you’re infected, do nothing and hope for the best.  We all deserve better than that dismissive statement.

The reluctance in the US to embrace low-cost and totally safe medications as early treatments to head off the infection becoming serious, and even to use as preventative measures is astonishing, because it is inconsistent.  Think about the vaccines.  After a rushed and compressed testing and trialing, totally new types of vaccines using technologies that in the past have consistently given problems, are now being pushed out into the market.  And, not only that.  In the last week or so, our public health leaders, with no convincing evidence in support, no testing, no trialing, nothing at all, have advocated :

• Delaying the second dose so as to give twice as many people one dose – even though the major vaccine manufacturer, Pfizer, strongly says that should not be done, the second major manufacturer, Moderna, never tested/trialed that, and the new manufacturer, AstraZeneca, has such a mishmash of partial trials, mistakes, and results, as to have little or anything truly convincing, while having enough of everything to “prove” anything you might wish to advocate for (don’t ask me how it is that such a curious series of different trials resulted in their vaccine being approved).  Even WHO risked offending a major sponsor nation and said there is no evidence to support that strategy.
• Mixing and matching any vaccine with any other vaccine for the first and second doses, even though the vaccine manufacturers argue against that too, and with two totally different types of vaccines, it would be like mixing together oil-based and water-based paints, or petrol and diesel.
• Halving the vaccine dose, because a different vaccine for a different ailment also works at half strength, and, of course, if a different vaccine works for a different ailment at half strength, we’re then expected to believe that all vaccines work against all viruses at half strength  If indeed that were so, it begs the question, why are we always giving people twice as much vaccine as is needed?  (This recommendation seems to be fading away, thank goodness, and also the justification for it, this article for example has been rewritten to remove reference to a malaria vaccine which does not even exist working at half strength).

No part of any of these three suggestions makes sense nor are they supported by evidence, and it is terrifying that our public health leaders are eagerly advocating them, with no research and no testing.

Why are these concepts being promoted, while thoroughly tested and trialed anti-viral measures are out there but the same people, so desperate to change how we administer vaccines, refuse to consider them?

This glaring inconsistency astonishes me.

For the record, I’m not saying don’t get vaccinated.  But I am definitely proud to stand up and be counted and to go on the record as saying if you do choose to be vaccinated, make sure your two vaccine shots are of the same vaccine, at the recommended interval between shots, and at the recommended dose.

One more introductory item.  The issue of where the virus originated and came into being has been one of the most emotional of all, with China’s international “army” of well-paid supporters and shills rushing in to kill any suggestion that China had anything to do with the virus origination, and only reluctantly conceding that, purely by chance and an extraordinarily unlikely sequence of events, it may have naturally first appeared in China.  Our outgoing President’s eagerness to describe the virus as the China virus or the Wuhan virus put the final nail in the coffin of rational discussion on that, much as his citing hydroxychloroquine as a possible cure ensured that no Trump-hater would permit it to be considered, even going as far as to create fake data to “prove” that HCQ doesn’t work and is dangerous (yes, this actually happened and was published in Britain’s most prestigious medical journal, The Lancet).

But now, here is the best piece I’ve come across, examining the issue calmly and coolly and without rhetoric or bias, and gives a fair airing to both sides of the argument as to the virus’ origins.  The writer’s conclusions appear compelling and irrefutable.  It is a lengthy piece, but is well written and very important reading if you wish to understand more about this issue.

Current Numbers

In the US, Tennessee dropped two places and now is 49th worst.  ND and SD dropped off the worst part of the death list, and now CT and RI feature, instead.

Gibraltar has vaulted up three places and now is the second worst small country in terms of case rates.  The UK moved up a position on the major country list and shows every sign of moving further up, depending on how soon their new “total lockdown” kicks in.

On the death list, the UK moved up two places to fourth place, and the US moved up one place to sixth.  It seems likely both countries will move up another place in the next week.

US Best and Worst States

Top Case Rates Minor Countries (cases per million)

Top Case Rates Major Countries (cases per million)

Top Death Rate Major Countries (deaths per million)

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Items below include the low cost readily available drug that might reduce death rates by 80%, more about long-haul Covid sufferers, China won’t even let friendly “investigators” in to whitewash their role in the virus appearance, China shows how to keep virus cases down, another look at vaccine risks, the issues of new vaccines for new virus strains, will the new virus strain be deadlier as some headlines seem to be saying, and why does England need 2 1/2 months of lockdown?

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Please stay happy and healthy; all going well, I’ll be back again on Sunday.

Please click here for a listing of all our Covid-19 articles.