Tim Jones (Jones)

I'm taking the COVID-19 virus outbreak seriously. Luckily I live in a rural area and there are at the moment, no cases down here in Pacific county. Nonetheless, I'm being careful where I travel.  Would like to make at least one Costco run to stock up just in case there is a quarantine at some point.

At least two family members didn't survive the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. My dad's younger brother, Melvin, born and died in 1918 and my mom's youngest sister, Marcella, also born and died in 1918. 

I haven't seen anything like this in my 74 years, Italy in lockdown. Cruise ships not allowed to dock.  Unprecedented in my lifetime. So I'm going to lie low except on St Patt's Day. Well, I am the last of the 20th Century Hell-raisers!

Hope you all get through this unscathed. 

Tim

Ken Becker

Hey Tim,

If your Costco has toilet paper on the Shelf, Pacific County might be the ideal place to ride out the Coronavirus pandemic.  

Good luck,

Ken 

Al Peffley

Isn't it ironic that the first thing people hoard is toilet paper?  Retailers "just-in-time purchasing" habits makes the run on TP more severe I guess. I was told at a PNWER-hosted pandemic exercise in 2009 that Kroeger stores (like Safeway) normally keep a 72-hour supply of popular products on hand in their regional warehouses. COSTCO has had riots in California and New York over product shortages (aren't you glad you don't live in a Progressive urban haven like that?)

Make sure you buy a well-documented (do some customer reviews research) brand of cleaning wipes with a high content of alcohol. Some brands do not contain alcohol. Some people are reporting that they bought wipe packets that are not fully sealed, and the wipes inside are dry. Some wipes can be rejuvinated if you have some bottled alcohol and distilled water. We had that dried-out problem happen when we purchased some old stock Zeiss wipes for eye glasses cleaning. Look for a date of manufacture on the box. Shelf life is usually not long.

Alcohol, even stored in a thick plastic container, looses its strength when stored for over a month's time. I learned that while boat racing with methanol-fueled motors. Tightly-sealed glass or coated metal containers increase shelf life of all fast-evaporating solvents like alcohol (and camping stove white gas.) I do not know what the shelf life is for household hydrogen peroxide solutions.

Gregg Wilson

If you do contract the coronavirus, you were at the wuhan place at the wuhan time.

Al Peffley

It took me a minute to get the Wuhan joke, Gregg. Don't you know that using the ground zero location name in association with the virus name is now labeled as racist?  LOL!!!

Tom Chavez

From a friend in India, an anti-virus diet from ayurvedic practitioner Gajanand Agrawal, supposed to counter all viruses 🦠 and strengthen one’s immune system. He is not a western medical authority. I have not tried this, but I have fasted many times while visiting India. Reasonable fasting is always helpful in my experience.

My friend wrote: I have been for a week with thick mucus deep in my chest, fever and persistent headache. Two days ago, when I read his diet I thought to try it. This is a 3 days diet and today I’m on my third day and I have to say that IT WORKS PERFECTLY.

Gajanand Argawal: I gave this diet formula to many Chinese friends and their families affected from corona Virus and it’s working, they recovered very fast.

Before you start this diet, know your exact body weight. Eat/drink only the following diet plan. This diet is perfect to boost your immune system against corona or any other viruses.

Day 1 Fluid Diet

1. citrus juice 2% of your total weight and

2. coconut water 2% of your total weight. Nothing else. (See below if you have no coconut water.)

For example: if you weigh 50 kgs then you have to drink 1 litre citrus juice and 1 litre coconut water. Caution: Please don’t eat pulp of coconut or drink coconut water after 4.00 pm

Day 2 Fluid Diet

1. citrus juice 1% of your total weight

2. coconut water 1% of your total weight plus

3. Tomato juice without seeds 0.5% of your body weight

4. Cucumber juice 0.5% of your body weight

Caution: Please don’t drink cucumber and tomato juice after 3pm and don’t mix them together, drink separately.

For example: You weigh 50 kgs then drink 500ml citrus juice, 500ml coconut water, 250 grams of tomato juice without seeds plus 250 grams of cucumber juice.

Day 3 Fluid plus Solid Diet

1. citrus juice 0.7% of your total weight

2. coconut water 0.7% of your total weight

3. Tomato juice without seeds 0.5% of your body weight

4. Cucumber juice 0.5% of your body weight

5. plus cooked food as per hunger (suggested millet, quinoa, buckwheat etc - it's important to soak them over night before cooking). Don’t use rice and wheat.

Important Notes:

1. Take all items out of refrigerator 24 hours before consuming

2. Please don’t peel cucumber

3. Do not drink juices and coconut water after 4pm

4. The last meal should be 45 minutes before sunset

5. If coconut water is not available, substitute with mix of carrot and beetroot juice (80% carrot + 20% beetroot)

6. All juices should be freshly squeezed and consumed within 10 min of preparation.

Robert Bramel

According to the Johns Hopkins University data, there were 116 known cases in King County yesterday, and a quick logarithmic regression shows that the number of known cases is growing proportional to e^0.246 in King County. Extending that out you’d expect the number of *known* cases in King County to reach 64000 iby April 5th. That’s in King County alone, and that’s not counting how many unknown cases there likely are. Contrast that with the total United States testing since the beginning is less than 10,000.

Contrast that with South Korea, where they have the ability to test up to 20,000 people PER DAY. How have our politicians allowed this to have happened?!!

Tom Chavez

Global coronavirus infections could increase tenfold every 19 days
—South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) Mar 7

The number of coronavirus cases outside China will increase tenfold every 19 days if no drastic measures are taken to contain its spread, according to a study by a team of Chinese scientists, headed by leading geneticist Jin Li at Fudan University in Shanghai. Jin is known as China’s “DNA hunter” and is the vice-president of Fudan University, one of China’s most prestigious academic institutions. He and his team used cutting-edge genetic analysis to help police catch one of the nation’s most notorious serial killers.

The research paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, was published on Monday on Medrxiv.org – a preprint server for health sciences – and was based on data collected until the end of February.

While Jin’s forecast might seem gloomy, the World Health Organisation on Thursday reported 14,768 confirmed cases outside China, or more than 21 times the 683 it reported on February 16.

Without strong intervention measures, “the number of confirmed patients outside China will increase tenfold in every 19 days”, the researchers said.

A study published in medical journal The Lancet in January predicted that the number of confirmed cases in China would surpass 160,000 by early February. As of Saturday morning, the total was less than 81,000.

Beijing has been praised for its efforts to contain the spread of the virus in China, which included locking down the whole of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital and which has a population similar to that of France.

China has been shifting its focus away from containment to preventing foreign cases entering the country. It recently introduced a number of travel restrictions for visitors from high-risk countries, including South Korea and Italy.

Today President Trump announced that all travel from Europe (excluding Britain) will be suspended for thirty days.

Linda Pompeo (Worden)

If unable to get hand sanitizer or rubbing alcohol, why not just buy tequila, or another spirit, with high alchol content and use to make hand sanitizer?

Gregg Wilson

I like the way you are thinking, Linda

Then do you suck on your fingers and thumb?

Tim Jones (Jones)

Yes, Linda,  I will be spraying Irish whisky all over the house this weekend. Top O' the Mornin' to ya'all. 

Robert Bramel

Please consider extremely carefully any proposals for dietary cures or prevention of the corona virus. There are no validated studies to show that diet affects the outcome of viral infections; the idea of stopping viral activity through diet is highly unlikely. As doctors have repeatedly told all of us, even antibiotics injected directly into the bloodstream, agents specifically designed to fight non-viral infections, have no effect on a viral infection. As with all viruses, this virus is just a DNA "hack" that reprograms cellular DNA to stop doing normal cellular activity and start making more virus. Outside of the cell the virus is inert and not subject to attack, so any antiviral attack must occur at or within the cell, a location that variations in diet are unlikely to affect.

Robert Bramel

Germany is apparently predicting that 60-70% of the German population will become infected with the corona virus. Since Germany is doing at least as much as we are to slow the spread, it seems plausible we may have 200 million Americans infected with this virus. There are only one million hospital beds in the US and in normal times three quarters of them are in use at any one time. If only five percent of the 200 million need hospitalization (ten million) our "fantastic" healthcare system may well collapse (as many medical experts are now prediciting).

Al Peffley

Our politicians and community leaders were warned at regional pandemic exercises in the 2006-2010 time frame (after the SARS outbreak and before the MERS pandemic occured in 2012.) Federal, Regional coalition, and WA State emergency management organizations warned local and county agencies about the documented health impacts of the 1917-18 Spanish Flu, and also the predicted impacts of greater global travel accessability for average people who might spread pandemic pathogens. We modeled and trained for economic disruption and recovery options in large groups. Unfortunately, many community and government leaders who participated in the pandemic exercises retired or left their organization without educating their successors. The 2019nCoV outbreak is proving not to be a stable endemic desease of global proportion with traditional treatment and abatement remedies.

I met with one of my county DHHS supervisors last week and she did not know what a MSA Millenium protection mask system was or how it is used for mass biological and chemical events responce protection in incident Level II operations conditions. Experienced medical personnel have died after being improperly protected against being infected by this potent virus. Some lung residual damage is irreversable, even with "recovered" patients. There is only one recovery reported in Washington State on the Johns Hopkins CSSE pandemic digital dashboard. We have one reported confirmed case now in Cowlitz County that has not been verified by DHHS.

Community leaders and citizens have been warned about large area catastrophic incident disasters (natural or man-made) and supplies preparation for several decades now. My children ignored my suggestions, stories about disaster experiences in the US, and the need for in-place emergency supplies.

The probaility of this happening is higher than many adults are willing to accept because many think the government will fix everything when society is confronted with a pandemic. There are not enough response practitioners to help everyone with a pathogens threat and public panic. Managers aren't equipped to perform detailed response tasks. We are top-heavy with executive decision-makers and short on medical response practitioners and equipment. Those huge cruise ships with a damp enclosed environment are big biological culture containers for focused virus growth and spread.

History repeats itself. The blame is on a short-sighted and overly optimistic public education system and a public lulled by years of widespread pandemic absence in America. We should heve a better system of pre-positioned supplies, but we choose to spend the money on HOV lanes and expensive studies of large infrastructure projects that never materialize. It's like installing an alarm system in your house after it has been robbed and totally stripped of all of your valued possessions. Hindsight is usually 20-20, as some say. It's easy to not understand threats and situations that we have not personally experienced. We often don't pay attention to the harsh lessons of history because we think that technology and our knowledgebase will solve anything quickly. There will be nothing "quick" about this pandemic recovery, in my view. This will be a stark reality check for many people across the earth.

Gregg Wilson

The 1918 flu began in army camps in Kansas. They were burning cow manure to stay warm.

It is called the Spanish flu because Spain was the only country to report it in newspapers, etc. Every other country kept a lid on it because they were in the Great War.

Tom Chavez

Bob, your reductionistic focus on virus–cell interaction is simplistic. You write, “Outside of the cell the virus is inert and not subject to attack, so any antiviral attack must occur at or within the cell” and therefore diet is “unlikely to affect”.

A more holistic view sees the body as a vast complex of interacting systems.

To defend against viruses, the immune system has an arsenal of weapons including killer cells, antibodies and messenger molecules. Some of these defenses do not have to be triggered, but are continuously active, like a standing army. An army travels on its stomach, so diet is very important.

Recently, researchers, from ETH Zurich and the University of Bern, have discovered a new form of innate immune defense which acts against viruses such as SARS (with single-stranded, positive-sense RNA), similar to coronavirus. The body is amazing. We actually know very little.

The body's many lines of defense, both active and latent, need to be in good condition as a whole to fight disease. Diet is extremely important. Correlations between good diet and health, as well as poor diet and disease, are well documented.

You are right that specific suggestions for diet are not ‘validated’ by double blind studies. But that is not the only source of evidence and knowledge. If others have good experience with fasting or diets, we can learn from them and experiment for ourselves. We can also learn from scientists, but we are not exclusively dependent upon them.

Every individual is different. Every one of us can fine-tune our own diet by personal experience to optimize peak performance. Personally, I would encourage everyone to cut out junk food and denaturalized components like refined sugar, oil and flour. Enjoy a healthy balance of veggies, fruits, whole grains and other natural wholesome foods. Avoid all intoxicants including alcohol, tobacco, 'dope', and heavier drugs.

In my humble opinion and experience, vegetarian diet is best. Protein is available in legumes, tofu, milk products, nuts, etc. Corona and other dangerous viruses seem to come from the animal markets into human society. I call that 'karma.'

Keep active with regular aerobic exercise, and practice a spiritual discipline such as prayer or meditation. Studies have shown a strong link between spiritual practices and positive health outcomes. Regular fasting, to give the digestive system a little rest and relaxation, is purifying and healthy, even more so if done as a spiritual practice.

Amen, brothers and sisters. Om tat sat.

Linda Pompeo (Worden)

Have you hosed down your houses  with rum or whatever yet?

Actually...I just had this thought  (I try not to have too many of them)..  In a worst case no hand sanitizer scenario, would this work or does it have to be rubbing alcohol?  I am relying on the brains of the class of 64 to enlighten me!

Al Peffley

Linda, you want to look for Isopropyl Alcohol, not rubbing alcohol. Rubbbing alcohol is less than 60% solution of ethanol, whereas isopropyl alcohol (used as a medial antiseptic in clinics) can be purchased in drug stores in a 90-91% solution. Household hydrogen peroxide (3%, or even better at 6%) works as well or better than >60% ethanol solutions to kill most viruses on material surfaces around the house. The virus also is eliminated with UV rays and no moisture/oil surface film to host it.

Drink a little water about every 15 minutes. The water will keep your saliva flowing in order to wash any virus that may exist in your mouth washed down to your stomach acids. I read Japanese doctors are now advising more water drinking based on treating infected novel coronavirus patients. You can drink up to two liters a day which eliminates oxcilates in the kidneys and keeps you hydrated if you get any type of virus infection.

Linda Pompeo (Worden)

Thanks for the response.  My rubbing alcohol does say 70% isoproply so I am ok there.  I actually had a case of it because I use it to spray for bugs in the greenhouse.  Works well for that and is not toxic to the vegies. Good to know about the hydrogen peroxide.  Didn't know about that.  I had just been wondering what people who did not have the alcohol could do.....so I came up with the spirit alcohol.

Good to have all of the input for everyone.  I pray that all will be well and this to will pass.

Take care and be safe .

Tim Jones (Jones)

I came across this piece from Doctor Norvell in Dallas Texas, on the front lines in the coming COVID-19 pandemic. The US Medical Industrial Complex has been short sighted in anticipating and preparing for such an event and now it is here.  What is next? A bit long, but worth the read......

 

Cara Norvell

March 11 at 1:38 PM

I know I’ve been uncharacteristically silent about the coronavirus, but I’ve had enough at this point. The number of people who call this “media hysteria” or a “political hoax” or want to point out the mortality rates of the flu, cancer, or obesity...do you want to come work my shifts? Do you want to expose yourself to patients in respiratory failure day after day? When we run out of ICU beds and vents, do you want the responsibility of telling your mom, dad, aunts, uncles, friends, and family that I can’t intubate them because we just don’t have the resources? Do you want to tell the kids of 30 and 40 year old patients that their parent is going to die and we can’t do anything to stop it? Do you want to look at the parents of a 20 something year old and tell them their previously healthy son or daughter might not survive? Because these are REAL possibilities. This is ACTUALLY what is happening around the world.

This American superiority complex of “it’s just not going to affect me the same way” is gross. There have been multiple projections that this could infect 40-70% of the population. While it’s hard to extrapolate accurate predictions, that should concern you. It shouldn’t make you hysterical and run to doomsday prep, but it should make you want to be a part of the solution in decreasing the spread. Because kids aren’t dying I think people feel protected. Kids less than 10 aren’t dying. People in their 20s and 30s are in respiratory failure and ARE dying. These are not elderly people with lots of medical problems that have had the chance to live full lives. These are young and previously healthy people. Yes, the elderly are more likely. But the young and healthy ARE NOT IMMUNE.

Why is this such a big deal when we’ve already been seeing people with the flu? RESOURCES. Over the past few months we have already spent many days at capacity, boarding patients including ICU patients in the ER. We don’t suddenly have a bigger ER, more floors to admit patients to, or more staff to take care of this influx. We have the same resources now with a second deadly virus. For estimated 80% getting sick this is like a cold. For the other 20% they’re either significantly sick, or eventually dead. Yes, cancer kills more. Yes, obesity related illness kills more. When taking care of my obese patients I don’t have to worry I’m going to “catch diabetes” or that suddenly my coronaries will be blocked. Their BMI can’t be transmitted to me through the air. Lung cancer isn’t contagious. I’m not worried about catching lung cancer when intubating these patients in respiratory failure. I’m vaccinated against the flu, and I can protect myself from flu patients with a simple surgical mask.

Patients coming into the ER want the best, EVERYTHING to be done, and for it to happen quickly. And more often than not, we deliver on that. We’re going to have a different reality if we don’t have rapid containment. Everything is going to be far from an option for most patients, and I’m not looking forward to the potential ethically crushing choices we might have to make.

Italy SHUT DOWN THEIR COUNTRY. Italy isn’t drastically impacting their economy, tourism, education, and way of life because they care about our presidential election. They are doing it because their citizens are dying. This isn’t a hoax. This isn’t just the cold. And I don’t care if more people by the numbers have already died of the flu. (Actually I very much care-GET VACCINATED). This is a big fucking deal. Open your eyes and pay attention. Your American immune system is not equipped with special corona fighting antibodies that just skipped over other countries. And more importantly, your healthcare system that already didn’t have enough doctors doesn’t suddenly have a surplus of doctors.

While you have the option (THAT YOU SHOULD TAKE) to stay at home and decrease the likelihood of you being a vector, when you do get sick, guess who is still working? Your nurses, doctors, pharmacists, hospital support staff, EMS, police...we don’t have the option to stay at home and protect ourselves and our families. The consensus among myself and other docs is and expectation of not if, but when, we get sick. People that have no lung problems are developing respiratory and multi system organ failure, and dying. We know that could be us. And we aren’t just being exposed at the airport or the grocery store or at a concert venue...we are being DIRECTLY exposed to the sickest patients. And without the resources to protect ourselves. The public has stock piled N95 masks to an extent our masks are LOCKED away and we have to have approval to use them. Because we WILL run out. The protective recommendations by the CDC recently became more relaxed...and let’s be totally transparent. This is not because the transmission has slowed or COVID is less virulent. It’s because we cannot meet a higher standard. We cannot provide our healthcare workers with better protection because we simply don’t have it. And I’m so fortunate to work in a resource rich hospital with what I consider exceptional leadership. I see people busting ass to try to keep us safe and informed, but under the context of a rapidly evolving situation with not enough supplies, people, and space to manage the consequences. I’ve also heard the theories that the doctors that died in China were given amphetamines and worked days at a time. That exhaustion weakened their immunity. As we go through cycles of quarantine, who do you think is going to be on back up? Who do you think will be covering those extra shifts and putting in more hours? While we won’t be pumped full of amphetamines, someone will have to be there.

So if you’re one of the people that keeps laughing at the “hysteria,” keeps comparing it to more deadly disease, thinks that somehow you’re special and it’s going to skip over you...you’re not special and your immune system isn’t unique. Take the current pandemic seriously. Stay home and don’t be a walking vector. Find a hobby, read some books, spring clean your house, make some new recipes, clear your DVR. You don’t need to panic and build a bunker, but don’t be an asshole. Stop buying protective supplies that puts those of us on the front line at high risk. Stop buying all the toilet paper. Covid doesn’t cause massive diarrhea. Our water supply is not contaminated. You don’t need to stock pile bottled water. Don’t go to the ER “because you just wanted to be checked out” when you’re not actually sick. You risk exposing yourself and frankly, you’re pulling us away from the patients that actually need us. And realize that when this gets worse, we are working as hard as we can to do the best we possibly can. Be patient and kind to your first responders.

 

Gregg Wilson

After having more than one thousand deaths and total national lockdown, the Italians are coming to their balconies and windows and singing enmasse. Perhaps the best public response of all.

Al Peffley

I thought your post of the doctor's frank and truthful comments from an ER medical doctor's perspective was excellent, Tim. Thanks. Our medical system is in shambles. My young internalist doctor resigned from Kaiser last week. He was my fifth young doctor (primary or specialist) in five years to leave Kaiser for a private or government agency practice, and then this pandemic comes along to overstress the rapidly disappearing and once-admired American healthcare system. The elderly poor will suffer the most because our health system has been weakened and gutted by an inept and divided Congress (who have better health care services available to them than the legal citizen taxpayers they are suppose to serve.) Expensive imaging services should have been fully funded by the federal government in the ACA, but Congress directed funds to non-value added bureaucratic paperwork systems with more complex HIPAA restrictions and rules that unnecessarily burden all qualified medical care personnel when they try to treat us for serious physical illness reasons.

March 15th: We saw the video of Italians singing to each other from their patio balconies in Italy. Very cool!

I started thinking what most nursing homes might have in common besides an obviuosly vulnerable, at-risk population. The mobile residents at these homes all eat in the same cafeteria at most meal times. They may be served by foreign nationals who travel home to Asia to visit their relatives still living there. They may receive gifts often mailed in sealed containers from Asia. The food service hardware and expendable supplies like napkins used in the closed community facility's cafeteria are most likely made in China, as well as canned food like mushrooms or bagged sea food items like shrimp served at meals. Their disposable medical equipment and generic medicines were most likely also manufactured in China, and stored in air-tight packaging and hermetically-sealed shipping containers. Do you see where I am speculating why nursing homes seem to be ideal community epicenters for 2019nCoV? Visitors interact with the residents and spread the virus out in the community without knowing they have been exposed. We need to eliminate the virus on transfer items produced near the global center of initial infection, and focus more on sanitation measures in factories processing food, medicine, and disposble or reusable hardware. Kill it at the sources of distribution.

Gregg Wilson

The president has announced that we should not hoard food, etc. This a bit late. And this statement will backfire BADLY. Individual citizens save their lives by hoarding essentials. We are on our own.

Does anyone believe that the government will deliver food to you if the virus spread increases, where production of food and its distribution fail, due to massive sickness?????????

Tim Jones (Jones)

I went to Costco in Tumwater yesterday and Trader Joe's in west Olympia. Looked like the locust had been there before me.  Very little on the shelves. As my sister Connie stated recently, "we've entered the Twilight Zone".  Everyone is pretty much on their own.  I'm guessing mid June before things return to sort-of-normal. I hope we all survive it. Take care out there.......

Tom Chavez

Controversial International Perspective 

I got this from a financial newletter, Daily Pfennig, quoting from a different newsletter. What to think?!

After an unprecedented display of national unity, resolve and courage, China has essentially expelled COVID-19 from its territory. But the virus has traveled worldwide, invading other nations and wreaking extensive havoc. Given its leaders’ denial of the danger and its unpreparedness to deal with a major outbreak, the United States looks especially vulnerable, a disaster in waiting.

Just at this moment, Russia has detonated a nuclear weapon (tactical, if not strategic) in the global financial markets. Its refusal to cut oil production, in defiance of US and Saudi Arabian pressure, has devastated asset prices everywhere.

Like a chess grandmaster, Russian President Vladimir Putin has long put up with assaults from the American Empire, waiting for the right moment to strike back and inflict maximum damage. He has just done so, leaving Washington and its allies/vassals reeling from the shock.

Astute analysts have long speculated that the end of the US Empire might come not through war or politics, but some cataclysm in the financial markets. Is that watershed process now underway? With a plague, unrepayable and still-growing debt, a fragile and inflated economy, financial implosion, severe imperial overstretch, and too-obvious government incompetence, is the American Empire facing the perfect storm?

Like Russia, China has been putting up with relentless US hostility and persecution. Will Beijing, like Moscow, seize the moment to force payback time, especially on core Chinese interests?

Global instability is always a big concern for the Communist Party of China, so it will act cautiously. But along with the danger is a rare opportunity to downsize the US imperium and cut its capacity to continue preying in the world.

Success in doing so would benefit not only China, Russia, and other nations that Washington considers its enemies. It would also lead to a more stable, prosperous, and peaceful world, one driven by win-win cooperation instead of zero-sum competition and conflict.