RISKS and MITIGATION STRATEGIES

   

I am often asked about risks. As an Oncologist, one has to understand the potential risks of how many ways cancer can manifest and the associated management with all its various interactions with the human body. The riddle is a complex one. It oozes with a myriad of signs and symptoms that need a solution. So, Risk management becomes a big part of cancer care. And the oft-repeated Hippocratic injunction which was actually mentioned and should be attributed to an English physician Thomas Sydenham In, 1860 reminds us, and remains the guardrail of protection for the patient, “Primum Non-Nocere!” (Above All Do No Harm).

Overall mortality increases with time

RISK

Risk, therefore, is nothing more than a manifestation of a known and unknown hazard. In our daily lives, we encounter hazards that we consciously and unconsciously avoid. Mostly these are known, and always from the lens of our view, filtered possibilities. If an AI chip was embedded in the human cortex or one was wearing a virtual display, the probabilities of such risks based on computed hazards would constantly be displayed in the field of view. But then we would be cyborgs, all of us. For instance, a 0-1% chance of tripping on a low table while negotiating a room in daylight increases to a probability to 90% in the dark. The only mitigation strategy is the known layout of the room and the frequency of negotiating that room, which reduces the risk. So, a known hazard can be mitigated better through knowledge and understanding. Our brains are such marvelous organs that subconsciously plot out the probabilities and the net result from the behind the eyeball calculations comes up with “nah not going there, too risky.”

SMOKING

Allow me to dwell on a few risky things that humans are wont to. Smoking for instance is a well-known risk to cause disease. The manifestation of that disease can be in the form of emphysema and heart disease all the way to the development of Cancer. The risks increase with the number of cigarettes and the number of years smoked. For instance, it is a known axiom that a 20-pack year history of smoking (1-pack smoked per day for 20 years or 2 -packs for 10 years) has a much higher risk of developing lung cancer than a non-smoker. On the obverse side, 80-90% of lung cancer deaths have smoking as the main causal factor. Male smokers are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer, while women are 13-times more likely, compared to never-smokers. Genes are at play in that variance.

Why the risk in smoking, one might ask? The answer is in the 7000 chemicals contained in the cigarette smoke. Almost 69 Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs (aromatic amines, benzene and the like) and their reactive intermediates are implicated in the cancer development process. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK294309/ From a basic science point of view, these aromatic amines and their carbo-carbons have an affinity for the nucleophilic sites present on the DNA. These DNA adducts once gaining the piggy-backed ride are critical in causing mutation and damage to the protective mismatch repair enzymes (these enzymes rewrite the wrong of the DNA sequence during replication). A study by Ding et. al found 1,013 nonsynonymous somatic mutations in 163 of the 188 tumors were identified, including 915 point mutations, 12 dinucleotide mutations, 29 insertions, and 57 deletions due to smoking. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19064552/ A more recent study found after analyzing the entire Exome of 188 smoking related lung cancer cases that there was a 12.0 events per megabase! (So much harm from a puff of smoke). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3557932/

So, the data from this smoking hazard is brutally strong, yet people still smoke! Their rationale is based on a self-served motive of “let me enjoy a smoke.” Unfortunately, the “later” happens as the future becomes the present in most enjoying that smoke. Risk mitigation should always be balanced when thrill-seeking or immediate desire fulfillment, in the present with some concern for the future.

Why do people ignore warnings is because of “Risk Appetite” and “Risk Tolerance?” In the business world, the definitions are quite simple, and they bleed well into our daily realities too:

RISK APPETITE AND TOLERANCE in Business & Life

 

Risk appetite is the level of risk that an organization is willing to accept while pursuing its objectives, and before any action is determined to be necessary in order to reduce the risk.

 

Risk tolerance on the other hand, reflects the acceptable variation in outcomes related to specific performance measures linked to objectives the person seeks to achieve.

 

People make choices with an asymmetry of information and thus lack the ability to process and manage decisions properly.  Risk appetite is where one is willing to reach the maximum limit of their personal level of tolerance and Risk tolerance is where one is willing to accept a certain level of harm from potential hazards in lieu of maximizing the potential of benefit. Between appetite and tolerance, there are a set of guardrails in the decision-making process. These guardrails guide an individual between the lanes of harm and the potential of reward. Between failure and success, between error and trial and between riding a bicycle and watching with desire and between what might have been to what is, lies the path of life. Similarly, when it comes to business innovations the risks are always being closely scrutinized to minimize harm while maximizing the potential future benefits. In simplistic terms, a mountain is a known hazard, and flying into it is mission failure and thus a risk. The problem of an unknown or unquantified hazard gives us all shivers and makes those ills appear unsurmountable until someone brave enough ventures further than the mind’s eye into the thicket and proceeds to create new guardrails for success. Thus, is born the term Risk Arbitrage in investment deals where an investor may profit from the difference in the trading price of the target stock, and the acquirer’s valuation of the stock. Although this seems as a win-win situation, the caveat is when the deals falls short or the valuation is negotiated down below the valuation price. A savvy investor might buy a stock for its price appreciation but hedge his bets with a put option to protect on the downside should the stock price go south. Essentially trading stocks is a chess game much like in life but more as a high roller derby, prying to maximize profits and minimize losses.

 

RISK IN AVIATION

 

In the aviation world where many of us travelers partake in, we all realize the risky nature of flying in a large aluminum tube filled with hundreds of fellow human beings, but we are willing to use the option because it is the fastest way from here to there, by suspending the disbelief of potential harm. Aviation is a risky enterprise to some extent. Managing an aircraft especially with dependence on automation has some risks. Several harrowing airline disasters litter the historical landscape: from the Tenerife disaster between KLM and PanAm Airways to Japan Airline 123 to Air India flight 182 and more recently the Malasian Airlines flight 17,  wherein each disaster hundreds perished due to human error. Although these disaster claim headlines, the risks of such occurrences are miniscule in the scheme of things.  The United States Aviation Regulations Part 121 (governs Commercial Airlines) shows that from 1983 -2000 the fatality rate was 0.03 per 100,000 flight hours. And this risk has declined to 0.006 accidents per 100,000 flight hours. That is equivalent to ONE fatal accident for every 16,300,000 flight hours based on the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In comparison, the General Aviation Aircraft fatality rate is much higher at 0.84/100,000 flight hours. Consider that risk against driving a car. The fatality risk is 23 per 100,000 hours of driving. So, it is more dangerous to drive to the airport than to take the flight to one’s destination. Risks are everywhere where the eye can see. We walk through a field of risks each day and through each night. We negotiate the path of observing and quantifying the myriads of risks consciously or unconsciously in our passage through time. Humans have the gift of such wondrous abilities. Animals too have such potential: A deer knows the risk from an approaching lion in the wild as a duck does from a steely-eyed alligator in the lake. The flight from risk and towards safety is every life’s reach.

RISK IN COVID times & the March to Madness

 

And that brings me to the current debacle that has unfolded across the world. SARS COV2 or COVID19 as it is called has the attention of 7.3 billion people on it. Answers come in a slow drip as the steeled doors are locked and the key has gone missing. Many theories abound about this 80-140 nanometer (0.00003937 inches) virus. We find an inordinate amount of human intervention as mitigation strategies. Shutdown and lockdowns and Restricted Outdoor activity and restaurant closures and bar closures including other forms of commerce that feed the household each day. There is a plethora of graphs of the increasing cases on a daily basis. Not to mention that the case largesse (called “Casedemic” by some) is based on flawed scientific methodology. The vaunted PCR test, it turns out gives false-positive results at an alarming rate when the thermal Cycle threshold is raised above 27. And yet most tests are being performed at 35 as they finger the non-infectious RNA remanents and falsely posit them as True COVID cases. The real numbers remain cloaked in mystery as the mountain of erroneous data gets compiled and disseminated for consumption. The mortality numbers below give a vivid picture of reality.

 

The other side of this midnight, however, shows a different viewpoint. Infection fatality rates have ranged from 0.00% to 1.63% and corrected values ranged from 0.00% to 1.31%.

When reviewed across 32 different locations, the median infection fatality rate (IFR) was 0.27% (corrected 0.24%). Most studies were done in pandemic epicenters with high death tolls. Median corrected IFR was 0.10% in locations with COVID-19 population mortality rate less than the global average (<73 deaths per million as of July 12, 2020), 0.27% in locations with 73-500 COVID-19 deaths per million, and 0.90% in locations exceeding 500 COVID-19 deaths per million. Among people <70 years old, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.57% ( or up to 99.43% risk) with median of 0.05% (or 99.95% risk) across the different locations (corrected median of 0.04%). When one looks at the excess mortality on an average year and compares with the past years, it was an increased blip. That blip, however, has to be taken with a grain of salt, since all deaths occurring, whether, Heart failure, COPD, Diabetes, Cancer, Accidents on the road or at home and those related to Opioid abuse and other vicissitudes of life during this period of such heightened alertness are being recorded as COVID deaths.

The true Death Rate is somewhat circumspect, at best as well. Knowing the foregoing it brings us to the question of real risk. It is unfortunate that the term “science” is being used to propel one’s career through fear-mongering. Given the tumult of politics for advantage, a chance of tenure as a professor, or gaining a governmental position of power, or increasing one’s own heightened narcissistic recognition by the peers, the projected asymmetry of information is loathed, to give us real risks that can be comprehended and easily used by the populace for risk mitigation. In spite of the fraction of fractions of the risks from death from this virus, the drama continues to unfold on television and social media as an Armageddon and a “Dark Winter.” There are calls for “The Great Reset” and for a “New Normal” on a daily basis. And each of these terms has widely nefarious interests of the few against the many. “Wear a mask,” “Stay home,” “Don’t question the science’” are the clarion calls of the day. One wonders as to the motive and reasoning and reminded of Feynman’s words that “science is (and has always been) a culture of doubt.” But then questioning any of the unfolding quasi-science is considered tantamount to heresy. The harm from shutdowns and lockdowns is in thousands of lives that the “experts” and Governors of some states refuse to acknowledge. There is this new-found sickly power and control over others that would have Tantalus lusting.

 

COVID Protections?

Let us look at some issues as dictated under the guise of “evidence’ by “experts” and their collaborators: The Media. Stay Indoors and Wear masks. On the former , there are ample data sets that prove that most transmissions occur in an enclosed environment. This is attributable to limited air movement and poor ventilation. The aerosolized viral particles, after the fluid medium of transmission, dries out, are free to find another human refuge through contact (and by contact, I mean hand to mouth or nostrils or eyes) or direct inhalation in the vicinity. How far do the aerosolized particles go is dependent on the breath, the sneeze, or a cough, where the expulsive force can be as much as 60 miles per hour at the exit point. So, to force indoor activity is tantamount to a forced infection among the household. This was confirmed when Governors of five States sent convalescing COVID patients into Nursing Homes and caused the harm of thousands of deaths among the vulnerable population (all of these politicians still evade the harm they caused and point fingers at others. On the subject of masks, there are more questions. The current scientific data suggests, COVID19 has a 80-140 nanometer size and the N95 mask protects against particulate matter in the 300-nanometer range 95% of the time. So, for all practical reasons, the 140nm particle is free to glide through the N95 mask with impunity. The Surgical mask however restricts particles of 100nm size. But reuse of such masks is not recommended since degradation from use (saliva, breath, sneeze, cough) is common and these masks are not meant to be used for hours at an end for protection. Doing so causes the exhaled breath biological particulate matter to stagnate on the inside and touching the masks as most people do will do the same on the outside of the mask. Meanwhile,  the colorful cloth masks whether from Rodeo Drive or Walmart are absolutely useless to prevent transmission of the virus, period.

WHAT TO DO?

So, what to do? It goes back to the time tested hygienic preventative measures. If you are sick isolate yourself in the interest of others or till you have recovered. Wash hands before eating. Do not put fingers in your mouth, nostrils or touch your eyes and go outdoors where the breezes and sun act as natural disinfectants. Improve your overall health by exercising and eating a better diet, not smoking and reduced drinking also help. Besides better therapeutics against the COVID are available to prevent harm to us humans against this virus. Stay tuned for success.

Perhaps we as scientists must seek the truth rather than strive for the next richer rung of the ladder. Perhaps we should stick to facts and the truth rather than made up pseudoscientific talking points. And perhaps, this ask is a bridge too far. The journalists continue the farce of asking the meaningless non-science questions to pursue a narrative that fits in the 10-second television segment and their intent, and continues to evade ones that are on everyone else’s lips. Stifled by the “Woke” and the politically correct crowd, the pre-determined pursuit of falsehoods continues, and the gyre widens and widens, while the center teeters on losing control. What is left, is critical thinking and reason, logic and understanding, to bring us back from the abyss of this wild and risky ride. What we should fight for is real science, our cherished liberties, and freedoms and the way of life now being actively usurped by the virtue signaling, snake oil-carpetbaggers littering the landscape.

It is time to get REAL…!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK294309/

2020 - The Year the Music Died

 

The promise of a new decade began in earnest. On December 31st, 2019, the bells were ringing, the crystal ball slowly dropped ready to crown the year in perfect unison to the cheer of the crowd as the countdown pulled it down to its vaunted perch. The glow and excitement, the singing, hollering, crowd infused, and drunk with the hope of a brighter future to come were filled with hope and dreams. What innovations may evolve, what dreams may come true, what happiness and loves would flourish, what friendships would evolve, all thoughts were buried in that one moment of joyous celebration.

 

But that was many moons ago.

 

An 80-160 nanometer RNA monster cloaked in a protein shell was dreamt up in the confines of four walls, glass partitions, and a bright white sterile confines of the Wuhan laboratory in China. Perhaps the escape from this “Alcatraz” was an unfortunate hiss of the loss of a positive pressure environment of a Biosafety lab, or perhaps it was inadvertent contamination, and a minor infraction led to the runaway uncontained debacle.

 

The physical drama would soon be broadcast across the globe.

 

Soon began the dance and drama of containment. It first sparked in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. All of China was immediately cut off from the Province. Containment processes ensued and video information of forced encampment of citizenry spread far and wide. Street spraying, a 10-day make-shift-hospital, and images of overrun hospital emergency rooms started happening in that far away land from the western shores. Amused by the goings-on in these distant shores, a cadre of pontiffs began to swell here and elsewhere. These self-appointed experts in the western lands began to sing. The song was initially quite conciliatory and harmonizing evoking feelings of nothing can hurt us. Some false prophets claimed to keep the borders open to all travelers from China. No, they cried, this is paranoia, nothing can harm us. All were in a state of a temporary kumbaya.

 

Then the change came. The psyche preprogrammed from the earlier visuals began to play…

 

A spark in the state of Washington ignited the fuel of concern. The monster was here! Soon the spread would come. And it came. Another spark ignited in the densely populated skyscraping land on the eastern shores of the United States and all hell broke loose.

 

In that sinister spread, something else emerged.

 

The call for a strict discipline to conform to the call of “Science.” Sprouting in the midst were a few who took that call seriously and started invoking the term at every street corner of the social media where a gathering of eyeballs was glued to their feed. Charts and Graphs were everywhere. The exponential rise of the infections was teased statistically and the exponent kept on getting higher to make the graphs worse and worse. Amid these trying times images of inundated tired and overworked doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers gowned and masked emerged and broadcast across the world. Italians, Spaniards, French, Danish, and Americans.

 

The deluge of the suddenly ill grew.

 

A make-shift hospital in New York (The Jacob Javits Center) was built, while a large Navy ship coasted and anchored near Manhattan to take on any excess patients sickened from the virus. But no ambulances of the ill came around to fill those excess beds. Yet the calls from the political leaders grew, claiming lack of this and that. Meanwhile some politicians exacerbated the deaths in their states by sending virus-infected idviduals into the Nursing Homes where the vulnerable population of the aged was resident. Men and women dressed in white coats appeared on television to new-found fame advocating for more of everything in packages and less of everything related to liberty and freedom. Whereas protecting the elderly and vulnerable was need, mandates for all to acquiesce to the mandates was the want.

 

The organ of innovation resolved to create.

The Public-Private enterprise emerged, and all the levers moved, the gears switched, and the mechanics of the newly crafted Rube-Goldberg machine produced. Innovation occurred at the whoosh of the breeze. Mountains of innovations were suddenly at hand to be deployed and used.

 

The carpetbaggers were never too far behind.

The newly appointed tele-evangelical scientists clamored for more. More masks, more gowns, more of everything. And more was created in a short flash of time. In that whole drama was a desire to create more testing. Machines were built and logistics created to distribute the emergent technology across the country and thence to the rest of the world. 

 

Testing was the new norm. People lined up in their cars to get a swab inserted in their nostrils to discover if the virus had entered their body’s realm. Many were proclaimed positive through the magic of the Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests. The positive tests grew and call for a shutdown and lockdowns from the ignorant leaders who relied on their pseudo-scientific health advisors (some with degrees in sociology, others in social service, and yet others in computer science). In all this drama a white knight emerged. He took on the mantle as a spokesperson with his impeccable credentials in bureaucracy. He seemed to waffle a bit, initially taking his cue from a non-physician head of the World Health Organization. He first implied that there was no risk to the United States from the virus, and then changed it to a serious threat. He also maintained the mask-wearing was useless as a protective mechanism against the virus in line with the WHO and then suggested that masks should be worn at all times. He then stated that vaccines would put an end to the “pandemic” and then stated that even after the vaccination distancing and masks should continue to be worn. The cases grew as the PCR machines chugged along falsely giving positive results as they churned out 35-40 thermal-cycles determining non-infectious fragments of the viral RNA.

The decline of the laughter and joy became evident.

Meanwhile, where once children played in the yards, swirled around in merry-go-rounds, swung from the swings, swished down the playground slides were silent at homes, tied to the outside world through the medium of social media. The creators of the social media were hard at work broadcasting pseudo-science and virtue signaling, warping the young and flourishing minds with their version of the “new norm.”

 

Children more susceptible to such subtle and nuanced broadcasts without the link of companionship to other children started a new and sustained epidemic within society. Depression. Teen and adult suicides increased. The fragmentation of the family unit began to show deeper cracks as the finances took a hit.

 

The toll on commerce grew exponentially.

Companies were shut down since workers needed to be “protected” and adults lost their jobs since companies could no longer bring in the revenues from unsold products that filled their inventories.  Adults could not bring in the paycheck to pay for their family’s needs. A disruption of the cohesive family networks suddenly started fragmenting the fabric of society had a loose thread that slowly began to unravel. The politicians meanwhile jockeyed for position to control and used the “pandemic” to their advantage. The floodgates of the sham however would soon open. The deluge would soon follow. And all of the worlds would dearly pay.

A few groups started rioting and destroying commercial and private properties to send political messages across the land. These were considered "peaceful protests" as homes and property burnt to the ground. Something sinister was at play.

 

Masks became the in thing.

The cloth and surgical masks, it turned out, do not, and never did protect against viral infections. The former has a 90+% chance of failure and the latter about 45+% of failing to protect. The N95 masks do help but if used for more than 2 hours at a time, harm the individual wearing it from a whole host of harm of rebreathing exhaled air, acidity in the mouth, periodontal disease, and the consequences resulting from that; coronary artery disease, intestinal illnesses, and change in the microbiome of the mouth and the GI tract resulting in a decline in the robustness of the immune system. 

 

Where once was joy, depression ensued. Where once was music, a daily broadcast of “cases” and “death counts” played, plucking the detuned strings of society. Dissonance followed. Further jarring the fragile mental framework of a society teetering on the edge of its stable psychological limits. 

 

11 months later, cars still drive on roads, albeit much fewer. Aircraft still dot the skies but are few and far between. The car industry and the airline industry are in shambles. Their Earnings per share declining faster than a lead bullet speeding down a well. Malls are shuttering as brick and mortar retail shops have few to none consumers strolling around looking for things to buy to warm up their families with joy and some happiness. Meanwhile, a few mega-companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, etc. capturing personal data of the citizens are selling information to evaluate and control the habit of the population at large while making large sums of money for themselves, earning billions of dollars an hour from the decimated smaller businesses that lie flailing for their last breaths.

 

The once glorious, happy, and harmonious world has become a shell of its past. The music seems to have died in the soul of this and other nations. The schools are forcibly closed by governmental mandates for absolutely no reason, yet the term "Science" is proclaimed to be behind all such decrees. Experts are clamoring for placing more restrictions on citizens, made to socially distance to limit interaction, and mask-wearing is enforced to further limiting any and all social human interaction. Some are being bullied by authorities, others handcuffed and processed. This goes on as the same politicians enforcing the mandates are also releasing convicted criminals from the prisons under the guise of the virus.

 

A plague is upon us and it is not the virus!

 

UNMASKING - A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

 Unmasking a Thought Experiment...with your help.

 

Always before the sun has gotten up on the saddle to march its way over the sky, a thought punctures the quiet. The quiet is solemn, yet thinking, conjuring, manipulating various events around me. But this thought might have some veracity and a sharp prick to boot.

 

Consider a person wearing a mask.

See the upward vertical plume of exhaled breath

 

Having considered that in your mind’s eye, allow me to divulge the fluid dynamics of the aerosolized breath that this person exhales. The normal vector is mostly straight ahead with the heavier aerosolized wet particles falling closer and the tinier ones floating in the breeze a bit longer. Okay now that you have the picture in your head, let us plan on keeping this individual in a calm wind environment to keep the variables limited. Now imagine him coughing. Those same vectorized particles have more momentum to go a longer distance, don’t they? Indeed, they do.

 

So, having established the basic principles of fluid dynamics now comes the thought experiment: Place a mask on him. Ah, you say we have captured most of his exhaled and coughed up particles within the confines of the mask. Voila! Science works! Indeed, it does.

 

But then in that sphere of excellence of thought, commit to yourself the following variable: The individual is infected with a Virus. “Good” you say, we have successfully shut down most of the transmission with the multi-layered surgical mask. Yes, we might have done so although science is still in the hypothetical phase, but fluid dynamics suggest that the expression of the aerosolized droplets do decrease substantially and thus any person not in the immediate vicinity will probably not catch the virus at all. Perhaps the minimal viral load transmission even if you are near will be negated by a normal immune response, to ward off the infection.

 

But what of the masked “bandit?”

 

Now here is where this gets interesting. The mask wearing “bandit” with the virus might be an elderly person in the early phase of his viral illness. He is wearing the mask and rebreathing his own exhaled breath. For every breath 80-90% is rebreathed. So, the expressed virus is being rebreathed. Stay for a focused second and take that in. Perhaps the gentleman or lady (no longer a “bandit” has the virus mostly in the nasopharyngeal tract, but now with the rebreathing his or her own breath is breathing the virus directly into his or her lungs. Two situations now potentially exist:

1.     If the individual has a weak Immune system, then the virus multiplies geometrically and overwhelms the immunity.  That means a progressive increase in the viral load and limited support from the barrier against the virus, the Immune system.  The progression of fever, chills, sweats and pneumonia beckons a tough road to hoe.

2.     If the immune system is robust in this individual and triggers a hyperimmune response which as in COVID creates a Cytokine Storm of inflammation in the cardiovascular, (Heart and blood vessels) and pulmonary (Bronchial tree and the lungs) system.  Medicine is still grappling with the most righteous course to follow in the late stages of the infection. Ventilators have been out for a while and ECMO is in along with everything we have to throw against the virus and the inflammatory response along with a prayer and hope.

 

Bot event have deadlier consequences if you think about it.

 

Confined within the mask with escape

So, what to do?

 

Empirical remains at present. But no one seems to want to go there…yet. The basic question then is do masked infected people cause harm to themselves? Your guess at this juncture is as good as mine.

 

Remembering this is a thought experiment, chime in and express yourself. After all Science is better serves with critique and contrary point of view. Go ahead and make your day and mine!

Here are some references:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7205645/

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/scientific-brief-sars-cov-2.html

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20027375/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2905057/

THE PACE OF FEAR

 The Pace of Fear

 

The pace of our fears quickens with every breath. The volume of information doubles each day. The call for isolation is louder every hour. The demand to mask your thoughts is ripe for the taking. The need for isolation from others is great but gravely reticent and embellished as euphemisms in every written word in yesterday’s newspaper: floating on the winds of this change. The Mountains of graphics propound the end of the world. The world is ending. Indeed, the world we knew is being forced out of our minds and into darkness. That world, where the joy of living, communicating, happiness, liberty, and freedom to discuss was the norm, seems eerily fogged into a distant memory, receding as it does by the hour. A vague memory.

 

Now all is sad. All is a waiting room before the final hour of life. Step out of the confines established and in place and you flirt with the grim reaper. Not only that, you flirt with the idea of causing the death of another. How dare you? Speak not your thoughts for they can anger another. How dare you? Write not your desire to wrench another’s. How dare you? Express not your frustration for rattling another’s nerves. How dare you?

 

What is this plague of mind control that has so overtaken us that builds and builds and pushes us further into the vaults of our own minds? What is this virus that clips the identity of our own frontal cortex of thought and action? What is this virus that deafens us and blinds us from ourselves?

 

Experts abound, expressly, expressing their demands of, do this or that, but oh no don’t do what comes naturally to you. These experts feed us with the daily dose of potential deaths and the dread of the loss of our own, counting each infection with a relish of a carpetbagger. They concoct mechanisms and extrapolations to iron out more dreadful potentials as the previous one fades from the limelight. They are experts after all and must be worshipped. They are directors and professors after all and know more about what you should think rather than what you actually think. They are all-knowing, for they have spent their entire lives under the aegis of other people’s money living comfortable lives with handmaidens and chauffer driven vehicles, contemplating forever, a vision of a dystopian life for the plebians. They are so impressed with their thoughts that they present themselves almost every day on the news network of easily persuaded television anchors. They want a change to your way of thinking so they can get more powerful.

 

Among these few masters of control and command are those that have built fortunes on the fears of the many. These few merry men and women of leisure with vast fortunes gained through the manipulation of the many minds have minions monitoring any differences of opinion. When one innocent arrives expressing the converse he or she is immediately filtered out of the realm of general discussion and targeted by a plethora of their virtual harassing goons.

 

In real life armies of black hooded characters roam freely disturbing the peace of others, relentless and unpursued by authorities. Causing havoc in their wake. Destroying others’ lives and throwing them into the vortex of ruin.

 

The virus, oh yes, the virus. What about that damn virus? It seems the virus was a perfect stepping-stone for the mighty to project heir might. That damn virus planted as a revenge of sorts to cripple a happily functioning and thriving society seemed to have caused a thousand million thorns to grow where once colorful flowers bloomed. That damn virus is now our daily bread and butter of thought and action. Stand here until you are called. Sit here and recite but don’t think. Wait here for your turn. And at all times hide your face, lest your emotions or frustrations show.

 

That damn virus has infected and killed as most viruses will do. The projected deaths were supposed to be in the millions. The real figure is much less a tenth of the official number. Yet there too, misdeeds of a few has swelled it by confining the vulnerable with those convalescing from the viral illness. If that was not enough these experts have conflated the numbers by calling any and all deaths during the ensuing pandemic as the virus being the only proximate cause of death, even if that death was a suicide, homicide an accident of a failing life from other morbidities. Even the millions of infections cast wide onto the unsuspecting populace, needed to be cajoled for the sake of making the heartbeats, beat faster. Using diagnostics that pick fragments of non-infectious material as infections, or other false positive mechanisms that inflate the numbers have been employed lest the fear lessens and people are reminded that life is to be lived in a free and open world and ideas expressed and discussed and thoughts volunteered to be reviewed and understood.

 

Ah, we have arrived at the crossroads of living itself. Stand there and live or if you walk and talk and express your opinion be shunned from society and be as good as dead. Unauthorized words have terrible meaning and are hurtful. Other than those sanctioned, all other words must be disdained and censored for fear of harming another’s sensitive soul!

 

New Hampshire’s license plate comes to mind; “Live Free or Die.” They missed one word in that motto, the last word after “Die” should be “Fighting.”

 

The gyre is fully established. The vortex threatens to pull the roots of our society and shred it to pieces. The vortex grows, but it is still only the expert’s projections in our minds. Live Free or Die Fighting to rid this travesty against Liberty and Freedom.

 

Bless you, for reading this and soldier on with your own thoughts…

A Short, Short History of a Bad, Bad Time

 A Short, Short History of a Bad, Bad Time

 

In the scheme of things, this year; 2020 will be a blip in history, when all the paroxysms of human emotions and desires are collated. The intensity of emotions driven more by the inherent flaws in their ideologies, than by the actual realities that paraded on the ground. History for some is a source of learning. Things happened and how did they turn out? So, every opportunity for those that avail themselves with clear eyes and open minds cradle the source of the past. It is the crucible with the elixir that propels us into the future. So, I begin by asking myself that same question, what did I learn from this whole COVID pandemic?

 

To start at the beginning is a very good place to start. Mind you that start is based solely on what is known to us as average individuals going about our simple or complexified lives.

 

When the story broke with a bang and there were Lysol spraying in the streets and healthcare and other workers were garbed in hazmat suits. Things in the city of Wuhan, China seemed quite desperate. The daily death toll was broadcast and a hospital with over 1000 beds was made in 10 days for the world to see. Things were going terrifyingly smoothly. Meanwhile the Chinese and the World Health Organization stated that there was little risk to humans across the world. Meanwhile, the city of Wuhan where the Level IV Biotech laboratory existed was quarantined from the rest of China, as they faced the virus, which would ultimately be named COVID-19. The trains, planes, and automobiles from Wuhan to the rest of the world continued unabated. Recently a dissident Chinese Virologist (Scientist) Dr. Li-Meng Yan who studied the virus has stated publicly on a National TV that the virus was manufactured in the (Wuhan) laboratory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFlqXPl_hZQ&feature=youtu.be. The veracity of that statement lies in the article she wrote: https://zenodo.org/record/4028830#.X3Ddpi2z0Y0

 

As the virus burrowed itself into humanity’s weaknesses, the infection quickly followed by a gruesome lonely death for the individual. Italy bore the brunt of the spread as the former Wuhan citizens that had emigrated to Lombardi, Italy brought with them the unpleasant visitor. From Italy, Europe’s borderless roads took it far and wide into the Union.

 

Meanwhile, the travelers from Wuhan had made a beeline to the State of Washington in the United States. Immediately following that travelers from China alighted in New York and the country got slapped by the bookends. The infection spread to a nursing home and claimed the lives of all of the elderly inhabitants and then traveled unabated through the rest of the country. 

 

The theater of disinfection and healthcare overburdened images in China was a perfect backdrop for every nation in the world. Soon all began to follow the script to contain the microbe. 

 

The world hesitated at first given the dubious statements from China and the WHO. But human fears forced the US to impose a travel ban from China in spite of WHO’s reasoning that there was little danger of spread within humans and later as the scourge spread to Europe, the Eu was added to the travel ban. Politicians tried to minimize the potential of spread by parading in the streets, but the microbe was not easily fooled. It marched on.  Then as if by the sheer magic of mathematical manipulation, from the collective statistical genius of the IHME came a very dire prophecy that millions of people would die from the virus. The world shivered and hunkered down.

 

The sound of the screeching halt of the economies of the world reverberated like gravitational waves forcing the citizens to cower under their blankets. “Flattening the Curve” was the order of the day. 14 days of the shutdown was ordered as infections rose and hospitals filled to capacity. Alerts went out for the need of PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment) and ventilators and more hospital beds. Comfort and Mercy arrived on the East/West shores of the United States and make-shift hospital beds were built in record time. The private sector went into overdrive manufacturing went into full-tilt with millions of PPEs and thousands of Ventilators became available in record time. The alarm bells hospital bed utility stopped ringing and the thousands of beds remained vacant as the victims of the infection never arrived at these makeshift facilities. Meanwhile, some authorities in several states decided to house the convalescing COVID patients in the Nursing Homes in order to free up the hospital beds. That seemingly “well-intentioned” policy caused thousands of frail and vulnerable elderly beings to forfeit their lives. The exact number of deaths from such a policy Is estimated by some to have harmed 60,000+. Humans had once again over-reacted and under-appreciated the problem at hand.

 

Some high-brow experts started posting daily graphics of the infections and the deaths proclaiming Armageddon was upon us. And they proclaimed that the only way to harness this virus was to do widespread testing across the country and follow that with contact tracing to prevent the spread. Unfortunately, the cat was out of the bag, and with limited resources of human capital, the contact tracing was a fool’s errand. Yet with the capital committed to resources millions of tests were conducted daily and lo and behold the infection rate skyrocketed, both the real and the false positives. This furthered the cause of the experts and confirmed their biases of the potential rise in the deaths and the future tragedy that would purportedly be unfolding. 

 

Two interesting scientific thoughts emerged about the testing and soon circulated across the wires: 1. The antibody testing was a past event and 2. The PCR testing due to the 30+ thermal cycle amplification may have been detecting fragments of coronaviruses other than COVID. Even if it wasn’t  COVID, the scientists reasoned, it was most probably a past or asymptomatic case. So once heralded truths of the PCR and Antibody tests were called into question.

 

PCR and Thermal Cycle Amplification and Negative cultures

What to believe? 

 

By now in September 2020, claims of 6 million infected cases were called into question by some. And it was revealed that some of the deaths attributed to COVID were correlated and not necessarily causal in nature (previously posted). Some truthful states have begun dismantling the total numbers by virtue of the mirror of reality. One institution reviewed 67 Autopsies and found only 2 actually confirmed as COVID related.  In other words, questions arose if contact between the deceased with an infected source was considered causal. All deaths occurring in the hospitals were reported as COVID-related. Part of the problem was the lucrative incentive to the hospitals for each COVID death was worth several thousand dollars, earmarked by the Federal Government. So now we had a perfect storm of an inflated infection rate and an inflated death rate from this COVID virus.

 

States that lodged a thousand deaths with sending convalescing patient into Nursing Homes

Meanwhile, it was well known by then that those at risk were mostly elderly individuals with comorbid conditions of Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, and altered Immune states. The young were relatively protected. When infected they were mostly asymptomatic and posed little risk. 

As the spikes dove to their respective surfaces, crashing in a parabolic arc, the hyper-concerned individuals and those charmed to the ideas of constant fear began laying the groundwork for continuous testing of all citizens, so they could contact trace them and prevent further spread? With nary a few thousand “contact tracers” at hand that was projected to solve the dilemma of this scourge? Needless to say, a million tests a day were being done, and lo and behold to the delight of the modelers and the statisticians and some self-proclaimed experts, infected cases began to rise again. A few stalwarts looking into that reality figured that this time more than 50% of those tested were in the ages between 18-40 years. Hmm, one wondered why should that be? Apparently, according to the experts, the peaceful protests that had devolved into looting and vandalism were not to blame. The fingers pointed straight to the early opening of commerce. Great pains, they took to cajole and combine and collate the data to fit their narrative. The only saving grace for the average human who paid attention to these developments was that hospital admissions did not escalate and in fact, the death rate continued to decline and flat-lined in spite of efforts to gin it up. Most of the spikes in certain states earlier on were the direct result of the Governor’s policies of inserting convalescent patients recovering from the COVID infection into nursing homes. Those policies, it is thought to have caused over 63,000 deaths alone sadly. Power inflates the mind of the powerful in his or her capacity, which may be sorely lacking in reality.

 

The spike in the infections was too much for the powerful managers of some states and draconian measures were taken to shut-down any potential source of infection. New Zealand that had regaled in zero infection rate for a few weeks had 4 cases and the long arm of the law came down hard on her citizens. Meanwhile, another wannabe totalitarian politician in Australia decried the same mantra, and “thought-police” was added to the “mask-police” and began issuing summons and arresting the innocent citizens for their opinions. These draconian and seemingly unnecessary measures sparked a worldwide protest against the loss of liberty and freedom in other countries. Meanwhile, in the United States, the window-glass breaking and store looting continued unabated as the police were told not to interact with the rioters as they were only “expressing their rights to protest.” Small businesses belonging to minorities and others were ransacked and forced to close. Generations of work in those businesses lost overnight to the dark cloud that governed the state of mind of humanity. Gyms were closed so no one could exercise, while the governors and congress-people had fully stocked gyms ready for use. Restaurants were closed except if you happen to be the governor. Hair salons too had the same fate except if you happen to be powerful and called the shots. The whole system of the consent of the governed had been upended in one short period of time. The neighbor was encouraged to report the neighbor for any misdeed. Social media decided it would get in on the act and use censorship, because they were private, and they could with impunity, being protected from prosecution under the aegis of Section 320. Anything that did not fit their narrative was considered “bad for society,” and censored. They became the arbiters of their version of the truth. 

 

Frustration and anger spilled into a rage on either side of the argument when things were forced. The bedlam needed an open valve to release the pressure. Where was that valve?

 

Was it the vaccine still in its late phases of discovery? Or was it the real science affording glimpses of therapeutics yet to come? Small molecule antibodies that destroyed the virus on contact tested in animal models or the ubiquitous Heparin itself that might afford an insight into the workings of the virus? Humans being who they are, were hard at work deciphering the code of survival of this virus. Several lessons had been learned; no ventilators, immune-related cytokine damage to organs, and the rage within the blood vessels. All could be and were quelled through the ingenuity of the human mind in short order. Yet the “experts” continued their drumbeat. “It isn’t over! It isn’t over!”

 

To that drumbeat, some science-less, senselessness pervaded into previously reasonable minds. Shutdowns when refracted through the prism of reality seemed not to have done anything to stem the tide. The virus did what it had to do: gain access to humans to propagate and in doing so, it challenged the immune system. If it found a solid immune system, it was stifled, if it found weaknesses, such as infirmity of age, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure or pre-existing heart diseases it conquered and decimated. The young ones were mostly spared the wrath with almost asymptomatic infection, that they barely noticed, the older ones hunkered down in their homes. 

 

And truly as the sun rises every morning along the eastern shores, a new mandate arose; “Wear the mask!” What was interesting was that several studies prior to the pandemic, about masks, had failed to show any benefit. Yet the mantra continued, and cartoon Gifs began to appear on social media about the need and relevance of the mask. The question arose if “asymptomatic” infected individuals did not drive the pandemic then why should they wear the mask? The question hung like a dewdrop on a leaf teetering on the edge threatening to fall and never seem to alight on the mental synapses of those in power, drowned out by the loud voices. So much so that as things went on, any contrary opinion was considered a hateful event and worthy of reprimand and censorship. The antimaskers were added to the antivaxers to form according to the experts the “ignorant collective.” Yet when it was made aware that a Vaccine against the COVID would be available soon, the “Vaxxers” turned into “anti-Vaxxers” themselves! The Gulag had arrived and seemed wanting to enter every home and business. A strange wild tuber of confused stupidity was growing in the mindset.

 

The well-established science of the Long-term immunity through T-cell lymphocytes was offered as a potential cross-reactive immunity of a large population previously infected by other coronaviruses and hence the possibility of herd immunity was cast at a much lower percentage of 30%, than previously thought at 80%. Soon that was discarded by the “expert” because the populace was getting too comfortable with the idea of a release from the draconian measures. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac and once enjoyed is magnetized by repetition. The parade of the experts continued their daily Television appearances and Op-Eds in various newspapers. The Armageddon was upon us and we must not let our guard down, they said.

 

Only one type of commerce seemed destined to grow and flourish: the internet kind. That business was considered essential and raked in billions of dollars because people had to live on food and things. The brick and mortar smaller ones, however, were starved out of their soul.

 

Politics eroded the sanctity of medicine and studies purporting this and that conjured up via correlation were served on the platter as causal facts. The world was a mess. The rage of the destroyers however remained unabated and soon the halls pf power decided that they needed to defund the police, because they figured, had started this whole messy rioting process in the first place. But, as all things forced and lacking any thought, unintended consequences showed their ugly heads. When the citizens need arose and there was no police force to take care of those needs since most had resigned, the politicians seemed taken aback. How could this be? 

Yet as the saying goes, people deserve the government they choose. And some states in the US learned that lesson the hard way: ransacked and in economic despair!

 

The drama has continued and yet some minds have been alerted to the false prophets of doom. The day of reckoning it seems will come soon. Life is not meant to be subjected to such blanket impositions of denials of liberty. Life is meant to be celebrated through Liberty. When all is said and done, this pandemic will go down as the single worst case of human hubris and human greed. It will have unnecessarily caused thousands of avoidable deaths from the infection, the economic despair, from opioid abuse, and suicides. The fault line is squarely on the self-proclaimed experts and the Governors and Managers of various states, where their powers exceeded their capacity to understand science or common sense. For they exercised power with little regard for human life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of their citizens.

PS:

All information contained within is verified by scientific data and by relevant facts reported in the News.

PANDEMONIUM

 

It dawned on me the other day that perhaps there was an ulterior motive behind all this pandemonium that we have encountered over the past few months. I mean, think about the issues we have faced together: Shutting down our lives, our commerce, our social interaction, our liberties, and our freedoms.

 

Now I guarantee, someone will run up the flagpole with the “public good” scenario and say how thoughtless of me to even conjure up such a vile thought. But questioning answers opens up the mind to additional possibilities and adds a potential confluence of even better than the hypotheticals used in the initial question. Or in other words, question the initial concept of cancer and associated therapies as disparate as radical surgeries, chemotherapy, monoclonal antibody treatment, stem cell transplants, bone marrow transplants, and immune-modulatory therapy that come to mind, and you realize that if not for questioning we would not be here today in 2020 in cancer management. The results from these therapeutics may not have been as stellar as one would want them to be, but as always, progress is made when questioning the current modus operandi, to make our future brighter, as we slowly march towards a larger cohort of cured individuals.

 

Going back to the pandemonium, we began with the forced migration of a virus manufactured in a Chinese Laboratory to the United States and Europe. This claim was made by the 2008 Nobel Laureate for the HIV discovery. (https://www.livemint.com/news/world/nobel-winning-scientist-claims-covid-19-virus-was-man-made-in-wuhan-lab-11587303649821.html) . From there it spread like wildfire onto the world. Media triumphed in bringing us daily visuals of the people infected and dying from the virus. After statements from the Chinese Authorities as well as the World Health Organization, regarding the transmissibility of the virus, it became obvious that those statements were falsehoods. 

( https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-transmission-coronavirus-tweet-was-to-appease-china-guardian-2020-4 ) 

(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/health/china-virus-who-emergency.html )

 

Needless to say, we shut down, hunkered, isolated, and found shelter in the yearning for a reduction in new infections and the death rates that were being broadcast hourly via dedicated websites, as inflammasomes for our minds. But as all things come to pass, the death rate did slow down and the light seemed to glow at the end of the tunnel. 

 

Or did it? The very next moment a case of police brutality against a citizen, sparked an outburst of protests that grew into violence, then looting, arson, and then killing! The leaders in some places paid heed to the protests and condoned them and even went on to say that looting was a way for some poor people to get “Bread” for their households ( https://youtu.be/AzlRVUJLOwo ). The protests continue to rage and simultaneously the force du jour of the “calamity” experts started singing the praises of the need for massive testing of the population. The death rate on the daily broadcasts seemed to be plunging precipitously and one wondered what the need for this new venture? An experiment worth billions of dollars to understand the numbers infected and the infection mortality rate or was it some other vital piece of scientific inquiry, needed for another hypothetical? ( https://youtu.be/3GqhApWmFtA ) But with 65 million tested in the United States as of August 10, 2020, you might question as to how strict isolation or contact tracing be accomplished, especially with only 100,000 contact tracers available? One might wonder? Yet the CDC Director reasserted that “you do not have to be sick to get tested.” ( https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/symptoms-tested-cdc-director-tells-abc-news/story?id=71594849 )

 

The testing started in earnest and soon millions were being tested a week. As questions began to arise about the validity of the tests themselves. The CDC had to admit that the tests were not contemporaneous nor were they accurate (high false positives and high false negatives) and these tests (especially the antibody test) even reflected past infection with COVID-19 as well as “other Coronavirus infections.” The majesty of truth had raised her staff.

 

The drumbeat, however, continued in full swing. The graphics of rising caseload was a social media and television's daily morsel of horror inflicted on the quiet and law-abiding crowd. 

 

But then some common-sense folk questioned the issue of the COVID-19 related deaths. And the doors reluctantly started to open. Truth seemed to disinfect. Many such states with that wisdom on their sides retracted thousands of deaths counted as COVID-induced were re-tagged as “from other causes.” While other states started to game the counting of all deaths during the period as a COVID-related death. There had to be some prize somewhere in there? It turned out to be a Federal bounty to a state for each COVID-related death to the tune of several thousand dollars. ( https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/state-by-state-breakdown-of-federal-aid-per-covid-19-case.html ) So, the charade intensified, especially in the cash-strapped states that had been fiscally mismanaged for many years. These states drummed up their fear-mongering via their “experts” who had newfound celebrity status and who did not want to give it up so easily, The politicians continued to enforce policies by restricting the liberties of their citizens with their new-found power. The play went on, uninterrupted and each one of these specific state celebrity experts played their vital part in keeping the narrative alive. Each one had his or her own verse to offer.

 

Then and perhaps more importantly graphics from other countries began to arrive which suggested the rise of new infections but there were no correlated lagging death rates associated with the rising infection rate? How could that be? Indeed, that was impossible because the celebrity experts had predicted the lag and were eagerly awaiting data to prove the dire circumstances of added deaths related to reopening the society and commerce. They ignored the protests and the riots in the context of the rising infection rates noted in the testing. One wondered why? Indeed, why were the thousands who clogged the streets not considered the source of the rise? When, in fact, the data, based on testing suggested that 20-40-year-olds represented >50% of the infected. But let us not get under the skin of the experts on that for now. There will be plenty of time for further evaluation, I hope.

 

We, therefore have a rising tide of infections in various countries based on testing but WITHOUT the lagging indicator of the rising death rate.  Ivor Cummins in this tweetorial shows us what might be going on. ( https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1293576086413103109?s=20 )

 Why did the United States start counting all deaths during the period as COVID deaths and violate all scientific rigor? Sometime in the future, someone will take these fear-mongering, false prophets of doom to the task. I certainly hope so. History, if we are allowed to question events in the present, although that seems destined to become an impossibility these days, will tell the truth in all its purest form.

 

Here are some graphics from Ivor Cummins video:

Perhaps, as we give up our hard-earned liberties and freedoms in this Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, and capitulate too easily to fear and fear-mongering, we should look to the Peoples of Hong Kong, who are being arrested for speaking and for searching for the truth as they fight the tyranny of totalitarianism to reclaim that which is being stolen from them: 

THEIR very LIVES!