I’ve avoided a sweeping pandemic write-up because I feel like it’s so well-covered on all sides. But this weekend, the world seemed to be back in a frenzy over new Omicron variant surges. All sorts of countries, businesses, and institutions are imposing new lockdowns, new closures, new mandates.
I’ve been living my life normally since the original 2020 lockdown ended, and I hope that you have, too. Other than some plane rides that required a mask, no one else has ever forced me to, my kids’ school is exceptionally reasonable, and my excellent self-employment boss hasn’t imposed any mandates on me. I’m not at particular risk from the virus, none of my close contacts are either, so we have lived on. Obviously the rest of the fear-mongered world has not been able to get that comfortable, so I decided I’d chime in.
Last week, I listened to the Joe Rogan / Peter McCullough interview. I’d recommend you listen to it for yourself, but I figured my notes might be helpful if a 3-hour commitment seems too heavy. I’ll try my best to differentiate my own interjections from Dr. McCullough’s, but if I re-state any of his comments incorrectly, it’s because I’m a CPA and not a doctor 🙂 So feel free to listen for yourself or seek out the data covered in here. I haven’t authenticated any of it, just found it interesting and believable.
Dr. McCullough covered his qualifications at great length, from both his practice (personal treatment of COVID patients) and medical research experience. I recognize (from Twitter) that his views are considered “fringe,” but you certainly don’t get that vibe listening to him. He’s thoughtful, knowledgeable, and inquisitive like you’d hope any research physician would be.
This was not an anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-lockdown interview. Dr. McCullough was primarily concerned with how unusual and unnecessary it has been that the government ONLY wants to focus on vaccines as a pandemic response plan (and purposely censors / suppresses any other approach to further vax pressure, which it has direct interest in), when medicine 101 calls for a multiple prong approach, just as focused on other preventions and treatments.
Here’s some sciency covid-19 virus detail from the doctor that I’m likely to butcher up, but nonetheless my summary of what happens in severe/dangerous covid infections: The body’s response to covid infection can create a cytokine storm, which is a severe immune reaction and inflammatory response that shuts down the organs. It is particularly bad in obese people because there is a specific cytokine, called Interleukin-6, that is the main cytokine storm driver unique to this virus. Obese people are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 because Interleukin-6 is primarily created by (or stored in, I forget) fat cells. So the more fat cells you have in your body, the worse the cytokine storm.
Accordingly, this danger is directly proportional to how fat you are, which is why people who are morbidly obese, say 100 or 150 pounds of fat, have incredibly high risk if they don’t get the virus treated very early before cytokine storm destroys them.
My interjection: Learning about WHY the virus is scientifically dangerous to people with high fat was not only fascinating to me, but it’s also good news, because you should certainly be aware of your own body composition. The more fat you have, the more aware you need to be of a potentially severe case, and so logically, you should take greater precaution and have a greater aversion to being infected in the first place. You should most certainly take that into account in how you live, interact, whether you get vaccinated, etc., not to mention, this could be a good motivation to work on reducing your body fat. This is not particularly different than if you are elderly or have other well-understood risk factors.
More good news…back to the doctor: Povidone iodine (even diluted to 0.1%) kills the virus on contact… So if you have been around someone who is coughing or sneezing, or has a headache, or if you have been in a public restroom that is poorly ventilated… Risky things like that… Basically, you can go home and use a neti pot with 0.1% diluted iodine, and gargle it, and it kills the virus before it ever develops in your system. When you first breathe in Covid, it sits in your nose and mouth for 2 to 3 days while the virus replicates, before it attaches to ace receptors making you sick. During this time period, you are in control to kill it, but if you aren’t actively doing anything simply because you don’t have symptoms yet, it’s replicating in your nose and preparing to infect you. He called this iodine rinsing Oronasal decontamination. The virus is either eliminated, or replication is so diminished that you will either be not infected, asymptomatic, or mildly ill.
My interjection: You can buy 10% povidine iodione over the counter anywhere, super cheap. Dilute it with saline solution, pour it up your nose, gargle it, spit it out. Every four hours. After you’ve been in crowds, poorly ventilated areas, or in close contact with someone who was sick or who tells you they tested positive right after you were with them.
Typically, povidone iodine is used topically on cuts and surgical wounds to prevent infection. There is a potential side effect of doing the iodine oronasal decontamination. While you’re doing it, your thyroid can stop functioning. Thyroid resumes function as soon as you stop the treatment. So I’d get a lot more professional advice before doing this if you have known thyroid issues or your body can’t handle a temporary thyroid pause. Don’t use this specific oronasal hygiene method compulsively, just do it for 2-3 days at a time once you’ve experienced a specific risk. Dr. McCullough said you can achieve the same thing with diluted hydrogen peroxide, but he didn’t talk about how much to dilute it or go into other great detail. This might be a good thing to research, especially if you have aversion to the potential thyroid side effects of povidone iodine. That said, there are prescription iodine nasal sprays too, so this is nothing new. (My note: A quick Google search shows that you can buy iodine nasal sprays from all sorts of places online. I have no idea how reputable any of them are or what is actually inside of the bottles, regardless of their ingredients list. I spent less than $20 buying my own glass nasal spray containers, 10% povidone iodine, and made my own saline solution)
Dr. McCullough claims that in Bangladesh, the people are very disciplined about post-public oronasal hygiene, and that they are down to basically no Covid cases now (just as much of the rest of the world is reporting surges).
Based on all of the above, you start to understand how bizarre it is that the government pressure is so solely vaccine-focused. Why not pressure people people to burn fat and have better oronasal hygiene? Or at least educate them on this so that they can consider these as safe alternatives to the vaccine approach? Some people would rather just get jabbed, and good on them. Let the people decide how to manage their own risk.
Speaking of Vaccine safety:
Dr. McCullough says that the vaccine does in fact work, to reduce serious illness and hospitalization and death. (Note: actual vaccines are supposed to prevent infection, and none of these do that, like they had hoped) But it also has risks. Here is the summary info he provided, from VAERS data, which he said is underreported, but not nearly to the extent as other/previous vaccines, since everyone is so hyper-focused on this pandemic and this particular vaccine. I believe he also said that this data is 85% provided by clinical staff / practitioners and 15% by patients, refuting claims that the data is all junked up with fake claims.
– 182 confirmed deaths in first 27 million vaxes (Every single other study, he claims, is immediately shut down, no matter what, if there are 50 deaths, regardless of the number adinistered, but not the case with this one.)
– 1,200 confirmed deaths in first 60 million vaxes
Currently, there are:
– 18,000 confirmed deaths now
-50% of deaths happen within 48 hrs of the jab, 80% within 1 week.
-30,000 permanently disabled
-250,000 ER visits, etc. which are primarily heart attacks, blood clots, myocarditis
Vax risk demographic is almost identical to covid risk demographic (elderly, obese, comorbidities). 99% handle it fine, 1% struggle with it. The vax delivers a much larger dose of the spike protein than the virus does, and some people’s bodies can’t handle it.
Young boys / men up to 50 are the only demographic disproportionately injured by vax, specifically their hearts. With myocarditis, the heart size sometimes doubles…especially after the 2nd shot.
Myocarditis, pericarditis …. there are 13,000 confirmed hospitalized cases among young men in a time period when a typical number should have been no higher than 600. Treatment is zero physical activity/exertion for 3-6 months (also listed various medications). Physical activity with myocarditis can trigger sudden death (in case you’ve heard about sudden influx of soccer player collapses, he finds it interesting, but doesn’t know why there hasn’t been similar increases in NBA, NHL, NFL, etc. if it’s only vax-related, although I’d argue soccer is about the most cardio-intensive sport out there).
Historically 13% of people who had mycarditis (from all reasons) developed chronic heart disease. It’s not known yet if that will be higher or different from sudden acute myocarditis from vax. Would certainly be bad to have this prognosis from a childhood vax. (My note: so why take that risk with healthy young men who aren’t obese?)
Also the vax efficacy diminishes to less than 20% after 6 months. Starts somewhere between 70 & 95% efficacy at the beginning, depending which vax…. moderna highest…. but they all diminish similarly quickly. So if you’re relying on the vax as your prevention, you must keep boostering.
Dr. McCullough thinks that a recovered virus infection is one and done. Once you get it and recover from it, you won’t get again. Any cases you hear otherwise are not true or were false positives or were people who “think” they got it again. (My note: I follow plenty of other physicians who also take holistic/conservative approaches to the virus who do not agree with this).
If you do get covid despite your prevention efforts, it’s not a death sentence. It would be wise and practical to take an anticoagulant (aspirin) to reduce the risk of blood clots, take ivermectin to prevent escalation/hospitalization, take prednisone, and if it gets worse, GET THE monoclonal antibodies.
Monoclonal antibody treatment is ridiculously effective (better than Remdesivir, which can damage kidneys). There have been known issues with receiving them, when needed, especially once admitted to the hospital. Insist on them, no matter what, if your case is severe. They’ll prevent death. Find a doctor who will get them / insist on them for you.
If everyone got that treatment, 50-90% of the 800k covid deaths would have been prevented.
Random / interesting notes:
Delta was 5x more transmissible than alpha and hard to treat.
Omicron is 2x more transmissible than alpha, but also is a substantial deviation (37 mutations to spike protein), and it strongly prefers (80%) vaccinated people.
In Conclusion (from me, not the doctor)…
Similarly to the covid infection, the short-term risks of the vaccine are extremely serious, but also extremely rare. Longer-term, no one knows yet. I can think of two great reasons to get vaccinated:
1) You want to trust what you’re being told and do your part to prevent infections of the most vulnerable. I respect this. I don’t personally identify with this, but I know that some people do… passionately.
2) You (or a close contact) are at high risk of a complicated case (because of weight, age, or comorbidities), you don’t want to die from it, and you don’t want to have to make any other lifestyle changes. I’d argue that you’d be better off losing weight and being disciplined with your oronasal hygiene, but understand that approach isn’t for everyone.
For every other person who doesn’t fit into one of those reasons, that is…
you’re not comfortable with the risks of the vaccine, and/or
you aren’t at high risk for a complicated case of covid, and/or
you’re simply willing to take healthy precautions, and/or
you’re entirely indifferent
…then you simply don’t need the vaccine. It doesn’t stop infection or transmissibility, only prevents serious illness and death, and most of you aren’t going to have serious illness or death from covid, anyway.
Lose weight if you need to so that your risk is low. Prevent infection on front end with oronasal decontamination and by keeping vitamin D levels high (especially if you’re overweight or elderly or have comorbidities).
If you get infected, be prepared so that you can get treatment.
Have Ivermectin on hand. For 100kg (220 lbs) person, 0.4mg per kg of body weight is 40mg per day. But that’s only after a positive test.
Know who/where you’ll get your monoclonal antibodies if your case escalates to that level.
Be smart, and be safe. Covid has killed a lot of people. People that you and I know or love. People who should have gotten better treatment or people who were so vulnerable that they couldn’t overcome it. Still, Covid doesn’t have to be so scary, despite the best efforts from China, our government, our media, and the social media mobs. Live your life. 🙂
Conservatively Jennifer 