I’ve been using Zicam to
ward off colds for years, and its efficacy is stunning, especially if you use
it at the first indication of a cold. I tell everyone about it. The
conversation usually runs something like. “You really should use Zicam – it’s
amazing.” Typical response: “OK.” To which I reply, “No – dude – it’s like you
didn’t even catch a cold.”
Bill Sardi suggests zinc
lozenges. Maybe I didn’t take the right kind, but the results after several
attempts were: bupkus. My chemical engineering
perspective suggests to me it’s all about the transport mechanism. If taken
orally, the transport path (for any substance) is much more slow and
inefficient than introducing it directly into the bloodstream. (I note
that one COVID-19 treatment is IV Vitamin C.) Absorption into
the mucous membranes is essentially that.
I use the oral mist
because I believe the nasal variety no longer contains zinc. (Some users were
complaining of loss of olfactory function.) Further chemical engineering
instruction: After spraying it under your tongue, take your (clean) finger and
wipe it all around the mucous membranes of your mouth (this increases the mass
transfer film coefficient – trust me), including the gums (I saw someone in a
movie do this with cocaine). Zicam instructions say to swallow it – I spit
it out, because it upsets my stomach (they mention that as a possibility), and
I don’t believe it’s effective orally anyway. Do follow the other
instructions. Since I live with an
89YO, I take extra caution, and essentially use Zicam as a prophylactic.
I find all of the
government interventions into COVID-19 threat absolutely ridiculous. If
as a child, your mother took your temperature and learned that you had the flu,
what would she tell you to do? Stay at home. But today we've got
the government mothering the American citizen, but instead of telling "its
children" to stay home, the government commands "Shelter in
Place." The difference is that your mother actually cared for you,
whereas the government wants to control you, they want to dictate to you what
you can do, how close you can get to someone, what type of protective gear you
should be using. In effect, the government wants to dispossess you of
personal sovereignty and executive decision-making of your own life, including
your own survival skills. They don't care for you. Nor do they have
any regard for your private exchange of relevant information with your
doctor. The government wants to override too many aspects of your own
survival skills. Further, the flu has a specific duration: it runs
between 3 to 7 days. Government edicts, on the other hand, can last a
lifetime and longer.
And let's grant the
government edicts some level of practicality. Let's say that wearing a mask works to protect you from airborne viruses, including protects other
people; in this sense, then there is some level of ethics being applied by
mask-wearers. It's nice. Is it urgent? Is it required, I
mean, say beyond what is required for the ordinary seasonal flu that occurs
during the flu season? Not really. But I like the effort, I like
the intention. I don't like that these American puppets are wearing a
mask, keeping 6-feet from you in line at the grocery store, and talking to the
cashier behind an Adhoc plexiglass pane hanging above a checkout counter. And
no one questions the wisdom of what the government does, whether what they do works or doesn't work, who it effects, how much it costs . . . well, they never count the cost of anything. Even this latest $2,000,000,000,000 stimulus package where adults are promised $1,200, the government refuses to count the cost because they don't pay the cost. Tax-payers bear the cost, not the government. In fact, the government is calculating the next 10 different programs on which to charge the American taxpayer.
Folks have gotten lost. We used to know that the country was different from the government. Not today. Not as far as I can see. Jacob Hornberger recently wrote
Actually, the government and the country are two separate and distinct entities. That phenomenon is reflected by the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the country from the government.
Note the language of the Constitution. It provides protection from the government; it doesn't say that the United States IS the government.
My point in this post is to say that folks have lost their good sense. Call it overload in the age of information. Call it being overwhelmed. Call it illiteracy. I don't know what I can point to to account for it, but folks have lost their good sense. Here, Professor Eduardo Allegri comments on the global social discipline governments looking for more power have wrought on the backs of COVID-19, for which any failures occur they can always point to people not following orders. Here are my highlights of his comments:
I don’t care about coronavirus.
I don’t care about the hysteria.
I don’t care about it as a topic of
conversation.
I don’t care particularly about it as a cause of
death.
I don’t care about it as producing panic and
terror.
He continues . . .
A COSMIC LABORATORY OF
SOCIAL DISCIPLINE
Cowed by hysteria and terror, men move like a shoal, like a
flock, in unison, Allegri writes. They have suspended judgment, conscience, and
common sense. They are obliterating these on the altar of global discipline.
Allegri calls this a cosmic, massive laboratory of social discipline the likes
of which has never been seen before. He adds, “I don't care if this is by
design or if it was a fluke.”
TOGETHER IN ISOLATION
Everybody has been isolated from each other. Quote, “A sneeze
scares, a cough demolishes friendship, a little fever condemns to ostracism.”
Allegri stresses that out of 7.7 billion men on the globe 0.0020% have been
directly affected by the situation. The rest is moving in packs and shoals, not
together but separated, isolated, far from each other.
What I really wanted to comment on is government incompetence. I know it's a cliche, there are a million of them. "Government is the employer of last resort." Nothing so permanent as a temporary government program." Then I saw this headline:
CDC:
Japanese Data Show Indoor Coronavirus Transmission 18.7 Times Likelier, as
Garcetti Moves L.A. Homeless to Rec Centers
Tom Woods like to refer to government bureaucrats as our "Overlords," which sure they'd like to be and pretend to be. But there is nothing about them that we can admire. We don't like their power, number one. We don't like their enforcement arm of fines, jail/prison, or worse. The only wisdom in their plans tends toward evil. Take the above headline. Garcetti wants to house the homeless in the backyards of middle-class, suburban residents in recreation centers, a service now that will requisition more tax dollars. So one government agency, the CDC, publicizes information showing that indoor transmission is 18.7% likelier only to learn that LA Mayor, Eric Garcetti, wants to house the homeless into two places--recreation centers across the San Gabriel Valley and the LA Convention Center downtown.
Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti
Here is his order to use the Convention Center as a Federal Medical Station to, according to the tweet, help relieve our nearby hospitals. Really? There are so many Coronavirus outbreaks that you need to convert the LA Convention Center into a virus relief station? From the different nurses that I talk to, they see very few, if any, COVID-19 patients come through their doors.
We are utilizing every resource to confront the COVID-19 crisis: @ConventionLA will now become a federal medical station, led by @HHSGov and @USNationalGuard to help relieve our nearby hospitals.
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti is moving hundreds of homeless people
into recreation centers in residential areas—a policy that is receiving
increasing scrutiny and criticism from residents and the media.
I'd like to know where. If you're at all worried about the flu or the cold or the COVID-19, then take extra vitamin D, vitamin C, and zinc. Problem solved. These vitamins help directly with your innate immunity. They make you stronger. A mask doesn't do that. A distance of 6-feet doesn't do that. All that these gestures prove is that you're very obedient to Uncle Sam or Uncle Donald or Uncle Barry, one or the other.
Turns out that masks
that cover the mouth and nose actually are effective at deterring airborne
respiratory diseases. The mask they recommend? The mask in question is the N95
Respirator Mask.
Hopkins Medicine compares the number of deaths from the seasonal flu versus the COVID-19:
COVID-19: Approximately 19,625 deaths reported
worldwide; 802 deaths in the U.S., as of Mar. 25, 2020.*
Flu: 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide; 12,000 to 61,000
deaths in the U.S. per year.
I don't want to say "Let that sink in," but at least think about this comparison and then tell me what is more dangerous to the U.S.: 802 or 12,000? If you're reading this at all it does mean that you're not reacting to fear as much as the rest of the population is. And when a large enough group of folks get scared and start reacting irrationally, like too many at the stores are doing, then we have a problem, and I don't like where it is leading to. Hopefully, businesses will re-open and get back to business and all governments will get out of the way.
Scientific American has an article out comparing the Coronavirus, COVID-19 with the seasonal flu. Its headline reads
The flu has already caused about 12,000 deaths this season in the U.S. alone.
And yet you're not afraid of this. Huh.
But tell people that one novel virus, a respiratory flu virus, has killed a few hundred, and you're ready to lay down and hand to the government your complete individual sovereignty? Huh.
As of today, Wednesday, March 25, 2020, Statist.com shows that the number of deaths worldwide from the coronavirus, or deaths as a cofactor, is 18,906.
Italy is the country with the most recorded deaths by country with 6,820. There are a lot of factors as to why so many deaths are occurring in Italy. Check this out for five of those factors.
Jim Ostrowskibreaks down the numbers as a percentage of a population segment:
DAILY
REPORT ON US DEATH RATE
March 25
CASES--------DEATHS------DEATHS
PER 1000
54,963---------784-------------14.26
March 25---DEATHS PER 1000-----14.26
March 24---DEATHS PER 1000-----12.60
This is a significant increase over yesterday.
The virus as we all know strikes people over 70 hardest--global
death rate for over 80 is 14.8%.
For those under 40, it's 0.2% or double the flu (With incomplete
data).
The illness hits men harder than women.
The number one problem essentially causing all the others is
that the government has artificially reduced the supply of tests below what a
free market would have supplied. This is why the government goes to plan B,
imprisoning you in your home and wrecking the economy.
In other words, progressivism is murdering us and imprisoning
us.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Over 70 or with health issues, wear a mask in public. It's
cool, we get it.
2. Exercise
3. Get 30 minutes of sun per day.
4. Take vitamins--C and D and zinc.
5. Any symptoms, avoid contact with others.
It may be time for all Americans to wear masks in public. (I
made sure that we had ONE for each member of the family back in January when
the MSM and Democrats were busy impeaching Trump for exercising obvious Article
II powers.)
I wore leather gloves outside yesterday. Will that help?
Back to being imprisoned for the crime of living under an incompetent big-government that is killing us.
Will these be my last words, "Where's my test kit?"
The JAMA Network provides us with some valuable numbers. Whereas most people have been instructed by the government authorities to fear their own shadow--to shelter in place (limit activity and reduce your vitamin D absorption), to wash your hands incessantly, and self-quarantine all out of fear from a virus that has either directly or as a cofactor killed over a span of 6 months less than 20,000 worldwide, the JAMA Network provides us with numbers that puts the deaths, the virus and the panic in perspective,
Lost in the discussion about
COVID-19 is the fact that the US is experiencing a severe influenza season that
has already resulted in more than 16000 deaths. This JAMA Infographic compares prevalence and
number of deaths for the 2 diseases.
