The year 2021 sofar seems preoccupied with the ongoing Covid-19 Lockdowns in most countries and certainly the US, where the new administration chose to re-up the mask mandate, just at a time when the evidence that masks are a dubious proposition was piling up.
However, looked at from the positive side, we might note some good points, such as the idea that in spite of all the attempts to politicize the issue, which has complicated rational solutions, some good came of it too.
Lockdown vs. Open states or cities are not a purely partisan issue. While two Republican states, FL and SD are leaders in the Open camp, and the two leading Lockdown states are probably the Democratic states CA and NY, still it is a mixed bag, for there are Republican states that are in the Lockdown camp as well. Clearly, the virus does not obey stop signs, regardless of who put them up, and while we openly avow reliance on something called “the science,” which nobody knows what that is, the evidence is piling up that lockdowns do nothing against the spread of the virus either.
This mixture of reactions has made for some strange bedfellows here and there, who discover that some people they never thought they wanted to talk to are more reasonable than they had imagined, while on the other hand some good friends are becoming alienated because of the cultish overtones in the lockdown support camp. Zero Covid is the watchword of the very cultish lockdown crowd, and it seems this contingent is oblivious to the simple fact that if you want zero risk, it was not such a great idea to be born in the first place. Aside from that, the human immune system needs exercise, so you want to pick your battles carefully, and not waste your powder on non-problems.
As has been stated repeatedly, by most prominently perhaps the German academic Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, at 99.95% survival rate for infected people under seventy who are otherwise healthy, it is simply not even possible to prove to a point of statistical significance that a vaccine reduces risk. And for feeble people above 70, with multiple comorbidities there is hardly enough testing to assure the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. So it is unclear why anybody would want it. It is not like Tetanus where clearly 90% die without the vaccination and the risk of a dog bite or getting wounded on a rusty nail is not too far fetched, so it is pretty much an open and shut case that you want that vaccine. Covid is not such an open and shut case, and for now it is an experimental medicine, and under the Nuremberg code, nobody can force you to take it. Hence the attemtps at vaccine passports etc., are hopefully a dead end.
I looked a little into the business end of it in a blog post on Seeking Alpha, exactly where that goes will be interesting, for the pharma companies have offtake agreements with governments and zero liability, nonetheless if the adverse events keep mounting it will end up affecting their business results, not to mention that if they have overplayed their hand, this will haunt them for a long time to come. For the US, you can track them in the VAERS system.
Hope amidst Despair
The story of the many errors involved in the lockdown decision, starting with 10x overstatement of mortality, is now well known, and in a way the recent letter to the intelligence agencies, FBI and others internationally, is a wonderful summary. For better or for worse the path that was chosen in the US in particular, but in many countries, was of focusing entirely on the development of a vaccine, and accepting without analysis the collateral damage that might result. If initially the point of lockdowns seemed to be for a temporary break, in particular for hospital admissions, we are now into a situation that the government does not seem to know how to get out of. Mission creep is the word of the day. Most dangerously, the dialog seems to have become focused around a biological impossibility of Zero Covid and that means there is no end in sight for the collateral damage, which already far exceeds the direct damage from the virus. It seems inevitable that all of these issues will land in court, which is already happening. Eventually there may even be criminal prosecutions for human rights abuses. However, for now I want to focus on some very positive developments.
I mentioned above the issue of strange bedfellows, which is very exciting. In general the resulting dialog has brought together people across the spectrum in quite unexpected ways. One of my favorites is Dr. Peter Breggin, the famous psychiatrist whose expertise about psychopharmaca has prompted him to help tons of people get weaned off such drugs that often do more harm than good, and also to become an expert witness in this area, testifying successfully against the pharmaceutical industry.
He has chosen to speak up about the issues around Coronavirus, including in written reports and on his radioshow. The Coronavirus Resource Center on his website is a helpful resource. He has also interviewed a number of medical professionals on his radioshow, the Dr. Peter Breggin hour, and I want to draw your attention to one recent episode, an interview with Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko, which is particularly memorable and relevant well beyond the Covid situation alone. In particular, while the initial focus of Covid-care was on intubating the worst cases in ICU, which resulted in 80% death rates, Dr. Zelenko and a few others were focused on a protocol for early treatment and keeping people out of hospitals in the first place. Fauci c.s. were working on Remdesvir ($3,200 for a course of treatment) and the vaccine, which amounted to lots of money for pharma, but treatment protocols with existing, cheap, drugs like Zelenko’s HCQ + Zinc protocol were $20-30 for a course of treatment.
But this interview is important because of Dr. Zelenko’s story about his cancer diagnosis and treatment and his deep spiritual experience, which doubtlessly enabled him to deal with the fallout from the publicity around his involvement with Covid. He describes how in an autobiographical note he wrote of his gratitude for his cancer, for in the process he discovered that he became totally calm and lucid, living one day at a time and totally fearlessly, for there was no point to worrying any more. In the meantime he got zero cooperation because there is no money in an old, cheap drug. In short, the story is an interesting comment on the institutional corruption of our healthcare system, but its real importance lies in Dr. Zelenko’s ability to experience gratitude for his disease because it became his opportunity to heal and actually enabled him to get through the crazy mess that followed the publicity around his Covid-protocol. What is also worthy of consideration is how the type of complete fearlessness that Dr. Zelenko describes is naturally also a condition that is a natural support for the immune system.
Continuing for a moment with the issue of cancer and quality of life for cancer patients, I want to connect from Dr. Zev’s comments above to a series of interviews by Gabrielle Ilie, a researcher who works in the area of quality of life for cancer patients, for it ties in beautifully. Gabrielle interviewed Cindy Lora-Renard about her books on healing and then also Gary Renard. Here they are in sequence:
In the last interview, Gary also connects back again to the consideration of our immune system, and its foundation in the mind, and how all the fear messages about Covid-19 have tended to be very immuno-depressive in and of themselves. What we need to think of also is that there is some deep truth in the insight that a disease in general is an opportunity to heal. In some way, to catch a viral infection is because your immune system has blown a fuse. We might also be reminded that in the vast majority of cases, this is really a story about comorbidities and those we can do something about, for they are typically preventable or reversible with nutrition and lifestyle – again, something we can do for ourselves.
Jung stated it this way:
A man is ill, but the illness is nature’s attempt to heal him.
Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 361
This is the experience I hear in Dr. Zev Zelenko’s comments about his gratitude for his cancer for he found in it a way of focusing the mind to a point of clarity, where pretty much nothing could bother him anymore, not even all the outrageous experiences he had with the news about his protocol for Covid.
And finally, to come full circle again, it pays to reflect on the fact that once people are in the grip of fear, pretty much nothing helps and unfortunately, the government and the media have been fanning the flames of pandemic panic, whereas if you analyze it rationally, you would notice that:
- 80% or more of people who do become infected remain asymptomatic, so that immunity is progressing at least 4x and possibly as much as 10x faster than observable symptomatic cases.
- The survival rate for healthy people under 70 is 99.95%, so crossing the street is pretty much more dangerous than the risk of dying from Covid. And, as Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi has observed, it is pretty much impossible to prove if a vaccine would reduce your risk. in other words, it might not be worth it.
- All of the familiar Lifestyle Medicine resources are things we can do for ourselves, and therefore they are pscyhologically supportive of a healthy immune system also. And all of the components matter, including becoming spiritually centered.
- Moreover, the extensive early treatment protocols that are now available may render a vaccine moot in the first place, as Dr. Zelenko also points out.
The fear of Covid is a choice. Going by the numbers, there is not much of a problem, except it was made into one by the politicians. As such it is an invitation to do our own inner work around this issue and try to be as helpful as we can for our fellow man and not fan the flames of fear.
A postscript 2/9/21
An article from Israel dated 2/7/21 announces potentially one or two therapeutics that appear to address the specific complications of Covid-19, with a high rate of success. in other words, if this works out the whole vaccination campaign is moot, just at a time with the reports of possible vaccine complications and deaths are growing. But, we will have learned nothing about the fact that all of the comorbidities for Covid-19 are preventable and reversible conditions that are the result of diet and lifestyle, but our food industry is now increasingly becoming the new tobacco, doing all it can to keep the consumer confused, with the help of the government to keep meet and dairy part of a presumably “healthy” diet, but PCRM is now suing over some of that misinformation which is seriously misleading consumers.
Brilliantly interesting