The latest reports on the Covid-19 spread suggest that 60 to 70% of the US population will get the infection before it is over sometime in the next 2 years. The current belief is that once enough people have gotten the infection and built up a natural immunity, only then will the spread be stopped. It was hoped that the oncoming warm weather (summer) would slow it down, but the spread of the virus in hot tropical regions is showing that heat does not seem to bother it. From what I am reading, the story in the fight of the virus is not about whether you will get it, but when. The challenge is to slow down the spread enough that we do not overwhelm the hospitals with severe cases. Although 80% of the cases of this infection can be easily managed at home, that still leaves 20% that end up needing more intense hospital care (40 to 60 million patients). We simply do not have enough hospital beds in the whole country to handle more than about 1% of the population likely to need hospital care if we all got sick tomorrow.
America has 792,417 community hospital beds. At the current time, the average stay in the hospital is 11 days for those with the coronavirus. That is why the government is trying to slow down the spread with the “stay at home” and “social distancing” protocols. We don’t have the ability to care for the sick if more than 1% of the population gets sick every 11 days. If we can manage to do this effectively, then 33% of the population could get sick over a year and hence the approximation of 2 years before this is all over is an ideal scenario. So don’t look for this virus to just blow over in a few weeks. That could happen if the government just let it spread naturally. We could all get sick over the next couple weeks, like any seasonal flu, then 80% of us would recover. The problem is the 20%; the 40 to 60 million Americans that would get the corona viral pneumonia and not be able to get hospital care. In that case, the death toll would be scarily high. With hospital care, the government estimates we will lose 1.2 million people. Without care, that number could easily be 10 to 20 million. That is a lot of dead loved ones.
Those are some ugly numbers, but math is math. That is why it is imperative we slow the spread of this virus. From my perspective, that means we have to boost our immune system enough to make us resistant to picking up this infection. Or if we do pick it up, we need to not be part of the problem by needing hospital care. We want to be part of the 80% that recover easily at home. So what can we do ourselves to boost our immunity? The first layer of immunity comes from our actions – avoiding picking up the virus in the first place. How to do this is all over the news – washing our hands with soap regularly, avoiding contact with those who have the virus, employing sanitary measures to clean everything often. Fortunately, this bug is easily killed on surfaces. Its outer protein coat is easily disrupted with soap. I am using a spray of ethyl alcohol, thymol, colloidal silver , and essential oils on my adjusting table between each patient. The alcohol is what the government says will kill the virus, while the other ingredients all have various studies showing they have virus-killing abilities. These are our tools for keeping the virus away from the outside. What can we do to make our bodies more resistant to viral attacks?
Our bodies have an absolutely amazing defense system – our immune system. Our first line of defense is our skin. Coating our skin is a layer of good guy bacteria, just like in our guts, that produce molecules that destroy pathogenic bacteria and viruses. This is why when we are washing our hands we want to use ordinary soap and not antibacterial soap. We want the good guy bacteria there to do their job of protecting us. Killing them off with antibacterial soap and hand sanitizers makes us more susceptible to bad bacteria and viruses. You can’t kill a virus, because it is not alive to begin with. It is only a genetic packet of informational code that tells our cells to manufacture more of these packets. They function exactly the same way as stuff that goes viral on the internet or in your computer. Just wash them away and let the good guys kill off the few that are left.
Viruses tend to become airborne and can be inhaled or get into our eyes or nose where we don’t have skin defenses. Our mucus is supposed to trap such invaders and carry them away. But one of the aspects of the coronavirus is a dry cough, indicating that it is not triggering mucus production. So we have to depend on our inside immune system – immune cells – white blood cells. What is the first and most important nutrient for our immune cell system – vitamin D3. Vitamin D is the first nutrient I would take to build my immune system – 5000 IU per day. Number two is vitamin A, which strengthens the lung defense system and modulates the immune system. Number three is the mineral zinc. Zinc is crucial for over 300 different processes in the body, many of them immune-related. Number four is vitamin C, obviously. These are really basic, but most people don’t get enough of these each day.
Studies have shown that when one particular part of our immune system is strong, the NK killer cells, you don’t get the flu. Many herbs increase NK killer cell production. Two big ones are cardamom and black pepper. It can’t hurt to get more cardamom and black pepper into our diets. Do we know this will help with Covid-19? Of course not. Nobody knows anything about Covid-19. It is too new. It has not been studied for what helps at all. Lots of work is suddenly starting now, but that takes time. There are no drugs or protocols that are known to help with this virus. A personal annoyance I have is all the government and hospital big wigs going out of their way to proclaim that there are no health foods, supplements, herbs, or anything natural that has been shown to help with this virus. Well duh, nothing from any arena has been shown to help. Why are they singling out natural cures to beat down? Especially when I can find dozens of references in the published scientific material showing that these substances have been shown to help with viruses in general and SARS-like viruses specifically. Covid-19 is a SARS type virus.
One specific herb that helps with SARS type viruses is Sambuca, also known as Elderberry. That is why elderberry throat lozenges are found in the grocery store pharmacy.
The last nutrient I want to look at is quercetin. Quercetin inhibits viral infection, inhibits the ability of the viruses to replicate, decreases tumor necrosis factor-alpha which creates much of the negative symptoms of the virus, inhibits pro-inflammatory cytokines, and boosts the immune system in many ways. It can be used both for the prevention and treatment of viral infections. Will it work for Covid-19? We don’t know, but the chances are very good it will.
There are many immune-boosting products available at your local health food store with traditional immune boosters like echinacea, astragalus, and andrographis, plus a dozen more. These all do a good job of boosting immune functionality. I wanted to cover the basics and mention a couple not generally thought of as fighting viruses with this article.
I hope you are staying well.
Take care
David