COVID-19 GETTING BACK TO BASICS

Governments and people around the world are focused on getting more masks. ‘The supply is running out’.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52015486

We’ve become dependent on ‘them’ to do for us and make and supply us with masks.

Yet, they are so easy to make (BTW … if you don’t have a bandana then just use any cloth, newspaper, paper towel)

But that’s not what I want to talk to you about … masks, it’s about having simple skills IF and WHEN you feel sick (perhaps with this virus).

There’s no ‘proof’ that masks works. Wearing a mask does not CURE, ELIMINATE OR NECESSARILY PREVENT you from getting this virus or getting sick … nor do these simple skills but they fall under ‘every little bit helps’

Let me say these things:

1. The medical profession does not know how to stop the spread, cure this virus or even deal with the symptoms … it’s new and unknown
2. The ‘official advice to prevent contagion’ is: wash hands, keep a distance, cough/sneeze into elbow and self isolate if you’re sick and stay with your ‘bubble’
3. The ‘official advice if you feel unwell’ is: go home, don’t go to hospital and call your doctor
4. If you’re lucky to get tested, it takes 1-7 days for results
5. There’s a HUGE missing middle step … called ’self-help’ and ‘every little thing helps’
6. Let’s look at self-help (every little bit helps) and ‘wait until it’s proven’ … what exactly is the medical profession waiting for? They/Government are trying to flatten the curve and prevent/reduce the spread and stop people who are sick from getting sicker or die. They are taking the approach ‘wait until it’s proven’ and that is disastrous.
7. Which brings us back to self-help in the age of a virus no one knows anything about and the innate tension between ‘every little bit helps’ and ‘wait until it’s proven’

What do we know?

1. That people feel unwell for a few days before they get sick, sicker or eventually die. Why not have some simple skills to ‘reduce the viral load’ in your body if possible which also reduces the viral load you are spreading?
2. If people had some ‘official advice’ as to what simple skills they could use … perhaps they don’t work or perhaps they do work. Is it better to wait until it’s proven or does every little bit help?
3. What could be the simple skills? (The below is both what doctors, nurses and dentists have told us in the past and what the Chinese doctors from Wuhan tried and felt worked)

Why not try these things? Do we honestly believe we should go home, do nothing, wait for days for a test result or should MOH and Government be encouraging us to do ‘every little bit helps’

Doing the below will NOT cure NOR eliminate this virus. However, doing these things MAY reduce the viral load, MAY give people more confidence in dealing with feeling unwell and MAY change the course of this virus in ways yet unknown.

1. Start gargling 3-5x/day with gargle of choice: warm/slightly salty water; dilute lemon juice, mouth wash, over-the-counter
2. Clean the inside of nose with slightly salted water either with Neti pot or snorting 2 drops/nostril 3-5/day
3. Only warming foods and drink. Sip warm water every 20-1 hour if mouth is dry
4. Drink 3 liters of home-made oral rehydration: a little salty/a little sweet (whatever you want to use). Drink more if mouth is dry
5. Suck herbal lozenges when needed
6. Fresh ginger warm drinks
7. If chilled use hot water bottle or glass bottle filled with hot water wrapped in towel
8. If you have zinc take that daily
9. Hot shower every evening
10. Any signs of oppression in chest with shortness of breath put a small amount of Vicks up your nose, block one nostril and breathe into that side of lung until you feel that strong odour has penetrated. Do the other side. My experience is that this virus does not like strong odours. I felt much better after doing that and my breathing improved (yes, I have had this virus)
11. Of course add anything else you want on top of those things.