The coronavirus causing COVID-19 now may have been circulating for years, with the possibility that it jumped from animals into humans long before it actually became a life-threatening disease to people, the South China Morning Post reports.
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The findings, compiled from data released by scientists around the world, were published in the March 17 issue of the scientific journal Natural Medicine. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, “ … said the study suggested a possible scenario in which the coronavirus crossed from animals into humans before it became capable of causing disease in people:”
“’Then, as a result of gradual evolutionary changes over years or perhaps decades, the virus eventually gained the ability to spread from human to human and cause serious, often life-threatening disease,’ he said in an article published on the institute’s website on Thursday.”
The Morning Post also noted that the current coronavirus is a mutation of other, known, coronaviruses that can produce an enzyme called furin, similar to what HIV and Ebola have, that can make it contagious.
What’s disconcerting about this news release is that most of the world will probably zone in on the statement “spreading in humans for years” while glazing over the words “suggested” and “possible.” In short, what this news release actually says is that the data collectors looked at “piles of data” and couldn’t pinpoint any real origin for the virus, other than there were indications that it “might have” jumped from animals to humans a long time ago.
Or, in other words, even though they had all this data in front of them, they couldn’t definitively say where the virus came from, so instead of admitting they still don’t know where it came from, they prefaced their report with “possible,” “suggested” and “might have” — and then published a “scientific” paper and sent press releases to news media on it.
The bottom line is we still don’t know where or how this virus originated, so any conversation on it is still pure speculation. But to publish news articles with qualifying words like “possible,” “suggested” and “might have” that people will mostly overlook is negligent on the media’s part.
It basically shuts down any other dialogue or analysis that might “suggest” other “possible” origins, for example, the possibility that this virus is a chimera — a combination of genetic components — of SARS, HIV and possibly flu.
According to Francis Boyle — whose background includes an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, a juris doctor (lawyer) degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science — another theory on how this virus evolved is that it could be a bioweapon that leaked out of the Wuhan lab.
Boyle is not just another commentator in the media. He was the one who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by George Bush Sr.
And, Boyle has carefully followed "mysterious outbreaks of disease in both humans and animals around the world" that have appeared since then, including COVID-19. Yet, it seems like the only discourse that world health leaders want to consider is that it “might have” jumped from animals to humans years ago.
While the debate continues, in the meantime you need to know how to best protect yourself against coronavirus with the latest information as it breaks. For example, President Trump has been talking about an exciting treatment possibility that uses a combination of hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin with amazing success.
Another type of treatment includes giving patients high-dose vitamin C, as well as vitamin D and quercetin. Scientists already know that vitamin C boosts immunity and reverses viral pneumonia, and that it has promise for curing sepsis when combined with thiamine (vitamin B1) and hydrocortisone.
"We have to get the word out to people that prevention is working; vitamin C is working and we haven't heard about it," Dr. Andrew Saul, editor-in-chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, said recently. For example, in Korea, where the death rate for the COVID-19 virus is below 1%, they've disseminated information about vitamin C.
So, part of your preventive measures is to educate yourself about simple measures you can take from the comfort of your own home. Resources where you can find more information include Saul's website, doctoryourself.com, which is free, noncommercial and peer-reviewed.
The original article is published on Nature Medicine March 17, 2020
Source:
South China Morning Post March 29, 2020