Nadia Ackerman, IS A GIFTED ARTIST from New York City better known as “Natchi,” I’m 45 years old and originally from Australia, but I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, with my boyfriend. I work as a singer-songwriter, illustrator, and entrepreneur. I also have my own business called Natchie, where I sell whimsical illustrations of my lyrics, animals, and more. When I’m not writing or sketching, you can find me working out. I consider myself a pretty health-conscious individual; I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, ‘I” Am vegan and knows the importance of living at the cell.
I also exercise five days a week, alternating between hour-long vinyasa yoga and CrossFit sessions. I’ve even hiked the Himalayan mountains. I’m definitely considered “the healthy one” among my friend group. My lifestyle didn’t protect me from the novel coronavirus like I thought it would, though. I spent 22 days battling COVID-19 after going to a large dinner party in March—an event I wish I’d never attended, in retrospect. What follows is a diary of the last month. I hope everyone will learn from my experience with novel coronavirus—and take the precautions that I wish I’d started putting into place earlier.
March 10: I attended a benefit dinner where I now suspect I got the virus. About 100 people had been invited to a thank you dinner by the Australian consulate. (Earlier this year, I put on a benefit concert with three other friends to raise money in response to the Australian bushfires and donated it to the Red Cross.) Now, I realize that this dinner was probably the worst possible environment to be in. It took place in small restaurant, where we had cocktails in a crowded area, then moved upstairs to dinner where everything was served as shared plates and passed around the table. I thought twice about going to the dinner, but at the time I figured I was overreacting because no one was really taking the virus that seriously yet.
So I went — but I now regret putting myself in that situation. All nine people at their table that night fell ill within days, and three have taken coronavirus tests that gave way to positive results. “It felt like someone was punching me on the inside— like I had been kicked by a horse,” the 45-year-old says of her coughing attacks, ongoing fever, scratchy sore throat, extreme malaise, and exhaustion. “Then nausea hit me hard on day four. I have zero appetite, and I lost my sense of taste and then smell. I still don’t have them back.” The headaches come and go relentlessly, and Ackerman describes them as “a million times worse than a migraine.” After several days of battling coronavirus on her own, she made the decision to call for help. “I spent four days in bed thinking it would pass soon. Everyone was telling me I was young and strong and I’ll be fine. I wasn’t fine,” she says. “The fifth day, I woke up to take a sip of water that was immediately met by vomiting and diarrhea. I called 911 and an ambulance took me to the emergency room, where I was treated for severe dehydration, nausea, and headache as a result of the coronavirus.”
She wants people to know that even the healthiest 45-year-old person, who does yoga and leads a vegan lifestyle with no preexisting health condition and educated attitudes about health, can easily contract and suffer from coronavirus. “The thing about this virus is that it comes and goes in waves,” she explains. “Stay home. It’s not only about ourselves but [for] other people, and we should have acted earlier.”
March 12: I started showing symptoms of novel coronavirus. Thursday morning, I had a really weird coughing attack. It was strange. You know when you cough so hard, it feels like you’re going to vomit? It was that kind of cough—hard & aggressive. It lasted about 10 minutes, and it was enough to make my eyes water. At first, I chalked it up to spring allergies. By 5 p.m., I was hit with a fever of 100 degrees, scratchy throat, and sore chest. It felt like a horse had kicked me in the ribs—or like someone was punching me or had punched me in the lungs. My boyfriend had to take care of me, and I stayed on the couch, alternating between burying myself in blankets and throwing them off of me to deal with my fever. I lay there all evening, never making it upstairs to my bedroom.
March 13: I woke up the next morning feeling just as bad, if not worse— so I went to urgent care. At this point, everyone was talking about COVID-19, and I just knew I had it. This wasn’t a flu. It felt different. I hadn’t felt this sick in 22 years, since I first moved to New York and caught pneumonia. I didn’t call ahead or put on a mask and gloves. The only thing I could think was, “I feel sick. I’m going in.” When I walked into the urgent care clinic, things seemed calm. There were only 3 people in the waiting room at the time, and no one behind the front desk was wearing masks or gloves. But when I approached the desk and told them that I thought I had novel coronavirus, they put them on straight away and gave me a mask, too. I sat in the waiting room for about 40 minutes before I was let into one of the exam rooms. When the doctor came in to see me, he wasn’t wearing anything protective. I was shocked because I was sitting there thinking, “I know I’ve got it.” He checked my temperature, and it was 100 degrees. He told me that 103 was the benchmark they were using to decide whether or not someone should be tested for COVID-19. I had been in contact with someone else who was waiting for her test results, but when I told the doctor that, he still said that he couldn’t give me a test; he encouraged to come back if my friend’s results ended up being positive. “You’ve probably got it, but I can’t test you,” he said. Honestly, I was really disappointed. I felt like maybe I was overreacting, but at the same time, I knew I was really sick and that I likely had the virus. It was really confusing. I said to the doctor, “Oh, so there are probably tons of people walking around with this right now, infected and positive, but who haven’t been tested?” And he said, “Absolutely.”
After urgent care sent me home without a test, my symptoms evolved. The cough lingered, but my fever went away—which at first made me think I was getting better. Then came the extreme exhaustion, the kind where you can’t lift your head off the pillow. Next came the headaches. I’m a migraine sufferer, so I can really handle headaches. But I would gladly take a migraine over the headaches I was getting. They were relentless. And nothing worked. Not Tylenol. Nothing touched it. It was almost like my brain was boiling or like someone was like squeezing it inside my head. It was unbearable. I also began experiencing nausea and loss of appetite. And on March 16, my boyfriend became sick. He went down the same way that I did: severe fever; freezing cold, then extremely hot. His fever was up to 102.5. So I got up and rallied. I thought, “I need to take care of him.” I tried to just not think about how sick I was.
March 18-21: I took my boyfriend to the ER, where he was admitted immediately. Meanwhile, I was at home alone, vomiting and too weak to even shower. On March 18, I took John to the hospital, where he was admitted and tested positive for COVID-19. After I dropped him off, I went home alone, got in bed, and stayed there for four days. I became sicker and sicker and sicker. My biggest problem at this point, though, was that I had no appetite. Then I lost my sense of taste and smell. And it wasn’t like a cold, when you lose taste and smell and you’re stuffy. I had no trace of either of those senses. You could have served me rotten eggs, and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Then came the diarrhea. At this point, I actually felt like I was going to die. It felt like there was nothing left of me. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t shower. I couldn’t even lift my head off of the pillow. I was too weak. My boyfriend was still in the hospital, so no one was there to help me.
March 22: I went to the hospital and was finally tested for COVID-19. I was texting my boyfriend about my symptoms, and he mentioned them to his doctor, who suggested, I call an ambulance right away. When the ambulance arrived at my house, the EMTs would not come inside. They knocked on my door and waited for me to answer. They looked scared and were hesitant to even come near me. They walked me to the ambulance and strapped me into a seat. I felt a sense of relief knowing I was on my way to get help. As soon as I went through the doors of the ER, a nurse came running up to me with a mask and said, “Quick, put this on immediately.” She also gave me a bag for vomiting because I was dry retching as I came in. Eventually, I was given a bed and taken into a sick bay where patients were separated by curtains. No one came to see me for about an hour and a half. The first person I saw was the nurse. She took my temperature and blood pressure and said I was extremely dehydrated—so she hooked up to an IV for fluids. When the doctor came in, I told him immediately that my boyfriend had tested positive for novel coronavirus while he was in the hospital. If I hadn’t brought this up, I don’t think they would have tested me because I didn’t have a fever at the time. But because I had been in direct contact with someone who’d tested positive and had every other symptom on list, the doctor gave me the test. And it was not fun. It’s a swab that goes really high up your nose. It was painful, uncomfortable, and I had a little bit of a bloody nose afterward. It’s not nice. After being tested for COVID-19, I was also given a few blood tests and chest x-rays to check my oxygen and lungs. Twelve hours later, I was released from the hospital and told I would get my test results in a few days. I was instructed to come back if I couldn’t breathe. Otherwise, I was given a printout on self isolation best practices and told I needed to quarantine for two weeks and three days. My boyfriend had been released from the hospital earlier that same day, so I went to home to him and we continued taking care of each other.
March 24: I posted to Instagram about my COVID-19 journey. By this point, some of my symptoms had subsided and I didn’t feel completely horrible, so I decided to tell others about my experience. Strangers from the Australian relief dinner started reaching out to me and saying, “Oh, I was at this table, and I got sick, too,” or “You don’t know me, but I was at that dinner and I tested positive.” Everybody started coming out of the woodwork.
March 27: I got a call from the hospital confirming I’d tested positive for novel coronavirus. When my phone rang that day, I knew it was the hospital. I picked up immediately, and a nurse told me that I’d tested positive for COVID-19 and to continue doing what I was already doing—isolating. When she gave me the results, I finally felt validated. Even though I’d known deep down that I had the virus, it felt good to finally have an answer—even if there was no treatment.
April 2: I finally felt like myself again. The days leading up to April 2, my nausea went away and I was finally able to start eating again. I couldn’t fully taste or smell anything yet, but I was hungry. My boyfriend and I started off with the BRAT diet: bread, rice, applesauce, and toast. That’s all we could hold down. But at least we had our appetites back. Finally, I started having the energy to do things like shower or start drawing again. I took a walk outside, keeping a safe distance from others, and I even began gardening.
On April 7, after my isolation period was over. I went out for a grocery store run. (Up until then, our neighbors had been leaving food at the door.) I put my mask and gloves on and walked to the closest market. I was shocked to see so many people in the store who weren’t distancing themselves and weren’t vigilant about sanitizing their hands. I hope people read my story and take it seriously. I know my family and friends are more cautious than ever, now that they’ve seen what the virus can do. Anyone can be affected, and you can turn a corner for the worst very quickly. I should know since it happened to both me and my boyfriend.
GOD GAVE ME STRENGTH This is About Surviving & Thriving Past Life Experience!!! Nadia Ackerman Born in Melbourne, Australia to Afrikaan parents and growing up in Allambie Heights. Which is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 17.5 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Northern Beaches Council. It is part of the Northern beaches region. Allambie is an Aboriginal word that means “peaceful place. From a very early age her desire to be heard was apparent. Nadia began singing at the age of three in her crib. She would wake up her parents at 4 a.m. while serenad- ing her parents with √♥ Don’t Cry For Me Argentina √ and The Mull of Kintyre with perfect pitch and a lisp. This wasn’t surprising given her pedigree – her mother, Tess, was a lead soprano opera singer in Cape Town, while her late father Peter had an extraordinary ear for harmony and could play any instrument he turned his hand to. It was her father who first recognized and nurtured Nadia’s his 3rd child of 4 to an ex- ceptional talent. It was Peter who realized the musical talent in Nadia. While all of the other kids were surfing at the beach. Nadia would be in her bedroom singing harmonies to all of the Beatles albums053: You Can’t Do Thatas well as the Carpenters and Simon and Garfunkel…to name a few. Nadia was extremely artistic. At age 15 Nadia’s love of song became more than a hobby. She announced her intention to become a professional singer. Her focus was strong, and her progress was rapid. In Australia, Nadia was featured with several different musical touring companies, including The Fabulous Blues Brothers Band, and The Stars Of The Future. She toured all of Australia and New Zealand and appeared on numerous TV broadcasts.
The Women Behind The Art of Psychotherapy!!! After the loss of her father when she was 17 her tenacity, talent and drive took her from Australia to Asia, Canada and New York City… where she now resides. Since graduating from high school, Nadia thought she had to make a decision. She chose music and left the art behind. and has worked her way around the world with performances on morning broadcasts in Australia and hotel contracts in Asia to singing backing vocals at Carnegie Hall with likes of Sting, Billy Joel, Shirley Bassey, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, James Taylor and Ken Webb…She has been on quite the Human Experience. (just to name a few). https://kenwebbsite.com/album/glue-of-you/ https://kenwebb.bandcamp.com/album/let-love-grow In Early 1998 at 23 years old, Nadia decided to pack her suitcase and move from her native Sydney, Australia to New York City to pursue her dream of being a jazz singer in the big apple. After spending a summer in New York, she sensed there was no going home. What she didn’t realize is that she had brought a dark part of her past with her on the journey, and it wasn’t until years later that she came to terms with what had sent her running in the first place. And mid-2006ish her own songs started to pop into her head. Since then, Nadia hasn’t looked back. Today she has a catalogue of well over 300 compositions ready and waiting, while more are being jotted down almost daily. Join Nadia and her New York City Band on her journey from Allambie Heights to New York City (which she calls home and creates classical music).
The Color Grey. Here she shares her journey, through music, becoming a songwriter, then an illustrator, a shop owner and brand developer. While ultimately confronting the abuse that she suffered as a child in Australia (and that she had completely blocked for most of her life), until it was impossible to avoid any longer). First the flashback—something terrible that happened when she was six had to go. What would help her to eventually overcome that part of her life….was Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Which is a fairly new, nontraditional type of psychotherapy. It’s growing in popularity, particularly for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD often occurs after experiences such as military combat, physical assault, rape, or car accidents. https://awomensthing.org/blog/ artist-sexual-abuse-survivor- nadia-ackerman-uses-creativity-heal/
TIME TO LIVE AGAIN 14:29 min Once Nadia regain her life: Then suddenly, in early 2006ish she began to write songs, every day, clocking in at 9 in the morning and out at dinner time, She’d hurry his business as best she could and return to her work as quickly as she could. The songs were not “jazz” but they spoke of and to her singing talent to such a degree she has now undertaken the much more daunting endeavor of performing her own material in some indefinable genre. “It’s pop!” “It’s alternative!” “It’s jazzy alternative pop!” “It’s folky pop alternative !” “It’s a new jazz inflected alternative pop idiom heretofore never written or spoken of!” It’s Nadia! And that’s why I guess ‘I’ am here to create music Nadia spent years studying and performing jazz. Nancy Wilson, Carmen MacRae and Betty Carter became her teachers. Out of the blue, mid June 2006 Nadia began hearing songs in her head. Lyrics, Melodies, Harmony and Phrasing. The songs arrived in a complete form and more often than not she was writing two songs a day. Having never written a song in her life she was a little perplexed as to what to do with it.
However, this South African-born, Aussie-raised and now New York-based singer/songwriter Nadia Ackerman is unlikely to remain a relatively anonymous figure for much longer,, The Ocean Master, Named after her father’s fish & chip shop, it’s a record heavily inspired by a childhood spent by the sea on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Also which bravely tackles her more painful experiences in among the rose-tinted slices of nostalgia. Indeed, lead single, “Mary Jane,” is something of a red herring, its jaunty sea shanty melodies based on a nursery rhyme she wrote as an infant (“Mary Jane went to Spain/in a chocolate airplane”) one of the few times the album attempts to quicken the rather solemn pace. Luckily, the other uptempo numbers are less self-consciously kooky, sitting somewhere between the breezy organic acoustic folk of Yael Naim – “Le’ Live” to Laura Nyro and the disjointed jazz-pop of Regina SpektorThe Light (“Lighthouse”). But it’s on the more stripped-back efforts where Ackerman‘s haunting lyrics and gorgeously melancholic tones truly work their magic, whether it’s the steel-laden wistful alt-country of “Risk It All,” the subtle cello-driven “Underground,” which recalls Sheryl Crow at her most understated, Nobody’s Business & Best of Times or the Sigur Rós-esque choral backing vocals which are layered throughout the hymn-like “The Middle of the Sea,” and the haunting banshee balladry of “My Ship.” An unflinchingly honest trip down memory lane, The Ocean Master suggests singing about package delivery companies should be a thing of the past.
Who is Natchie? There is a bit of Natchie in her music. In 2012, Nadia began to see her songs as images and felt an overwhelming desire to draw her music. Out of that desire she became the owner and artist behind Natchie Art ( from the nickname her dad gave to her when she was 13. ) And each piece of art comes with lyrics and a free download code to own the song. In addition to her first retail store in DUMBO, Nadia Ackerman doesn’t just write songs, she channels them. ‘They just happen to me,’ says the Australian-born, New York-based singer, songwriter and artist. ‘I can be doing anything and I’ll be hit with one. They stick to me until I can sit down at the piano and download them. And when the songs come out, they’re fully formed – words, tunes, arrangements, everything.’ Nadia’s short film Time To Live Again was been nominated for a 2017 Daytime Emmy Award by Healthination, produced & directed by Jacquelyn Lobel!! The switch to an Indie pop sound seems to suit her, though–a switch she found inevitable when she began writing songs of her own at a very prodigious rate.
“The Circus Is Back In Town”, Nadia’s first release in the Indie pop mode and her first full-length album, showed a lot of potential and generated a little buzz. From those past experiences of backing vocalist for the likes of Billy Joel, Sting, and Lady Gaga they helped me become who ‘I” am today, Nadia had appearance on Jimmy Fallon which perhaps helped her obtain singing gigs and ad jungle a.k.a. (2010) #UPS“We love #♥ That’s logistics” (that’s what Brown could do for her) to the tune That’s Amore and in (2012) IAMS Dog Food advertising publicité that helps her pay bills. In Some of Nadia’s Past work: it would be remiss for me to write and a shame if her Christmas single, possibly the best recording on Nadia’s young resume, were to slip away unnoticed. Nadia’s lament about a Christmas apart comes across as entirely genuine in it’s emotion, and the instrumentation more than does its part in establishing a melancholy holiday feel. Nadia’s no Rickie Lee Jones, but that is the first singer “What Is Christmas?” called to mind for me, followed by thoughts of Leigh Nash, Norah Jones and Ingrid Michaelson.
Some Other Time = March 30, 2006 With her poignant but simple lyrics in The Circus Is back in Town in place on a variety of different melodies, With also from “Where Are You Headed Now” with a bright and breezy beat about the day to day trials & tribulations and being lonely…to “Live Again” which is a dreamy tune that has a 60’s sound to it for me and “Underground” with a syncopated melody and “Leigh” to “Hulpit” (one of her new tunes) that has a haunting melody! I feel the pain of her life and the love the lyrics within your songs The Well | Clockwork Man | The Mourningtown
HOW DANGEROUS IS CORONAVIRUS? The immediate health risk posed by the Wuhan coronavirus is low in America. Doctors believe the disease originated with an animal source, as many of the confirmed early cases were linked to a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan. Some person-to-person spread has occurred in those who were in close contact with an infected patient, however. A new study published Wednesday found that the infection may have originated in snakes. “Taken together, our results suggest that homologous recombination within the spike glycoprotein may contribute to cross‐species transmission from snake to humans,” a group of Chinese scientists wrote in a study published in the Journal of Medical Virology. The two specific types of snake cited were the Chinese cobra and Chinese krait
Increases of Carbon Dioxide and Bicarbonates Lead to Increased Oxygen The most important factor in creating proper pH is increasing oxygen because no wastes or toxins can leave the body without first combining. with oxygen. The more alkaline you are, the more oxygen your fluids can hold and keep. Oxygen also buffers/oxidizes metabolic waste acids helping to keep you more alkaline. “The Secret of Life is both to feed and nourish the cells and let them flush their waste and toxins”, according to Dr. Alexis Carrell, Nobel Prize recipient in 1912. Dr. Otto Warburg, also a Nobel Prize recipient, in 1931 & 1944, said, “If our internal environment was changed from an acidic oxygen deprived environment to an alkaline environment full of oxygen, viruses, bacteria and fungus cannot live.” The position of the oxygen disassociation curve (ODC) is influenced directly by pH, core body temperature and carbon dioxide pressure. According to Warburg, it is the increased amounts of carcinogens, toxicity and pollution that cause cells to be unable to uptake oxygen efficiently. This is connected with over-acidity, which itself is created principally under low oxygen conditions. According to Annelie Pompe, a prominent mountaineer and world-champion free diver, alkaline tissues can hold up to 20 times more oxygen than acidic ones. When our body cells and tissues are acidic (below pH of 6.5-7.0), they lose their ability to exchange oxygen, and cancer cells love that.
Special Note: This is not the only way to skin the cat (virus). Directly supporting the immune system through a number of natural means and replenishing Vitamin C faster than Ebola strips it from the body creating lightening Scurvy and massive hemorrhage is another. Hitting the body hard with Glutathione and selenium is yet another potent and intelligent avenue of treatment that is not being pursued by the western medical establishment that prefers to complain there is no treatment. Dr. Volney S. Cheney reported that, “A number of cases of colds of varying severity were carefully studied in the laboratory. Observation was made as to the degree of acidity of the urine; the CO2, combining power of the blood as an indicator of the alkaline reserve; tests were also made to determine the calcium content of the blood, the sugar content; non-protein nitrogen and the basal metabolism. The urine invariably carried a higher degree of acidity than the normal-in some cases as high as 800 (normal 350); the CO2 combining power of the blood in all cases was low, the highest being 52 per cent; the sugar content of the blood was generally decreased (below 100 mg. per 100 c.c.); the metabolic rate was always on the minus side.
(These cases were carefully selected because of their lack of any symptoms of disturbed thyroid activity.) There is a change in the blood chemistry and, consequently, there must be a change in the tissues supplied by the blood. There is a decrease in the bicarbonates or reserve bases contained in the blood plasma and the tissues. These findings seem to point the way to the conclusion that a cold is a disturbance of the alkaline balance or reserve, in other words, a mild acidosis, or perhaps better stated, a lessening of the “buffer” action of the blood plasma through a decrease in its bicarbonate content.” Sodium bicarbonate is the important medicine because it gives more carbon dioxide to the body and especially the blood in the form of bicarbonates. Bicarbonate in the blood is easily turned into carbon dioxide (CO2) and the reverse is true in biochemical reactions that happen almost at the speed of light. The bottom line to what happens when one takes sodium bicarbonate orally is that it turns to CO2 in the stomach driving bicarbonates into the blood, which helps more blood and oxygen delivery to the cells.
The Importance of using Sodium Bicarbomate Against a virus. After doing his experiments, Dr. Cheney reported: “I have been able to induce all the symptoms of a cold, in varying degree from a simple coryza to that of la grippe and the “flu,” by the induction of an artificial acidosis through the administration of ammonium and calcium chlorides. The degree of severity of the symptoms was in direct ratio to the degree of acidosis induced. In the more severe degree of acidosis, all the classical symptoms of the “flu” were present, even including a low degree of fever. The symptoms rapidly subsided upon the administration of sodium bicarbonate in large doses by mouth and by rectum. Sodium Bicarbonate is one of the most flexible medicinal in terms of methods and modes of administration. It can be injected in emergency room situations, taken orally, nebulized, used transversally as a lotion or paste, put in enemas and in larger quantities in therapeutic baths. Just dissolve it in water or when treating cancer it can also be mixed with Blackstrap Molasses, maple syrup, or a good honey as well as with lemon or mix with citric acid for use in baths or when making your own bath bombs. There is no question that plasma bicarbonate concentrations are shown to increase after oral ingestion. The most important effect of bicarbonate ingestion is the change in acid-base balance in biological fluids. In Europe, spa-goers drink bicarbonate-rich water to heal ulcers, colitis and other gastric disorders. Ingesting bicarbonate by way of bathing stimulates circulation, possibly benefiting those with high blood pressure and moderate atherosclerosis. It would be highly negligent to exclude it from Ebola treatments.
Protecting Yourself Against Coronavirus Baking Soda Cures Posted on March 14, 2020 by Dr. D
This section was copied from here >>. The flu, a cold, Influenza, any and all version of those need an acid environment to thrive or survive. That same acid condition is what allows cancer to finally form in the body as well. The following has shown absolute results not by fighting the flu but by alkalizing the body. This allows the body’s own miraculous potential to kick in with full force and cure you! And Works every time … During the first day take six doses of half teaspoonful of Bob’s Red Mill baking soda in glass of cool water, at about two hour intervals. Make sure it is aluminum free soda. During the second day take four doses of half teaspoonful of Bob’s Red Mill baking soda in glass of cool water, at the same intervals. During the third day take two doses of half teaspoonful of Bob’s Red Mill baking soda in glass of cool water morning and evening, and thereafter half teaspoonful in glass of cool water each morning until the cold is cured.
A nurse checking on a patient at the Walter Reed Hospital Flu Ward during the Spanish influenza pandemic, circa 1918.
The first strain of the Spanish flu wasn’t particularly deadly. Then it came back in the fall with a vengeance.
Why the Second Wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu Was So Deadly? The horrific scale of the 1918 influenza pandemic—known as the “Spanish flu”—is hard to fathom. The virus infected 500 million people worldwide and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims— that’s more than all of the soldiers and civilians killed during World War I combined.
While the global pandemic lasted for two years, the vast majority of deaths were packed into three especially cruel months in the fall of 1918. Historians now believe that the fatal severity of the Spanish flu’s “second wave” was caused by a mutated virus spread by wartime troop movements. READ MORE: Pandemics that Changed History When the Spanish flu first appeared in early March 1918, it had all the hallmarks of a seasonal flu, albeit a highly contagious and virulent strain. One of the first registered cases was Albert Gitchell, a U.S. Army cook at Camp Funston in Kansas, who was hospitalized with a 104-degree fever. The virus spread quickly through the Army installation, home to 54,000 troops. By the end of the month, 1,100 troops had been hospitalized and 38 had died after developing pneumonia. HISTORY This Week podcast: The Deadliest Pandemic in Modern History As U.S. troops deployed en masse for the war effort in Europe, they carried the 1918 Spanish flu with them. Throughout April and May of 1918, the virus spread like wildfire through England, France, Spain and Italy. An estimated three-quarters of the French military was infected in the spring of 1918 and as many as half of British troops. Luckily, the first wave of the virus wasn’t particularly deadly, with symptoms like high fever and malaise usually lasting only three days, and mortality rates were similar to seasonal flu.
How the Spanish Flu Got Its Name. Interestingly, it was during this time that the Spanish flu earned its misnomer. Spain was neutral during World War I and unlike its European neighbors, it didn’t impose wartime censorship on its press. In France, England and the United States, newspapers weren’t allowed to report on anything that could harm the war effort, including news that a crippling virus was sweeping through troops. Since Spanish journalists were some of the only ones reporting on a widespread flu outbreak in the spring of 1918, the pandemic became known as the “Spanish flu.” Reported cases of Spanish flu dropped off over the summer of 1918, and there was hope at the beginning of August that the virus had run its course. In retrospect, it was only the calm before the storm. Somewhere in Europe, a mutated strain of the Spanish flu virus had emerged that had the power to kill a perfectly healthy young man or woman within 24 hours of showing the first signs of infection. In late August 1918, military ships departed the English port city of Plymouth carrying troops unknowingly infected with this new, far deadlier strain of Spanish flu. As these ships arrived in cities like Brest in France, Boston in the United States and Freetown in west Africa, the second wave of the global pandemic began. “The rapid movement of soldiers around the globe was a major spreader of the disease,” says James Harris, a historian at Ohio State University who studies both infectious disease and World War I. “The entire military industrial complex of moving lots of men and material in crowded conditions was certainly a huge contributing factor in the ways the pandemic spread.”
Virus Killed the Young, Old and In-Between. From September through November of 1918, the death rate from the Spanish flu skyrocketed. In the United States alone, 195,000 Americans died from the Spanish flu in just the month of October. And unlike a normal seasonal flu, which mostly claims victims among the very young and very old, the second wave of the Spanish flu exhibited what’s called a “W curve”—high numbers of deaths among the young and old, but also a huge spike in the middle composed of otherwise healthy 25- to 35-year-olds in the prime of their life. “That really freaked out the medical establishment, that there was this atypical spike in the middle of the War,” says Harris. READ MORE: How Florence Nightingale’s Hygiene Crusade Saved Millions Not only, was it shocking that healthy young men and women were dying by the millions worldwide, but it was also how they were dying. Struck with blistering fevers, nasal hemorrhaging and pneumonia, the patients would drown in their own fluid-filled lungs.
Only decades later were scientists able explain the phenomenon now known as “cytokine explosion.” When the human body is being attacked by a virus, the immune system sends messenger proteins called cytokines to promote helpful inflammation. But some strains of the flu, particularly the H1N1 strain responsible for the Spanish flu outbreak, can trigger a dangerous immune overreaction in healthy individuals. In those cases, the body is overloaded with cytokines leading to severe inflammation and the fatal buildup of fluid in the lungs.
British military doctors conducting autopsies on soldiers killed by this second wave of the Spanish flu described the heavy damage to the lungs as akin to the effects of chemical warfare. Lack of Quarantines Allowed Flu to Spread and Grow. Harris believes that the rapid spread of Spanish flu in the fall of 1918 was at least partially to blame on public health officials unwilling to impose quarantines during wartime. In Britain, for example, a government official named Arthur Newsholme knew full well that a strict civilian lock down was the best way to fight the spread of the highly contagious disease. But he wouldn’t risk crippling the war effort by keeping munitions factory workers and other civilians home. According to Harris’s research, Newsholme concluded that “the relentless needs of warfare justified incurring [the] risk of spreading infection” and encouraged Britons to simply “carry on” during the pandemic. The public health response to the crisis in the United States was further hampered by a severe nursing shortage as thousands of nurses had been deployed to military camps and the front lines. The shortage was worsened by the American Red Cross’s refusal to use trained African American nurses until the worst of the pandemic had already passed.
Medical Science Didn’t Have the Tools. But one of the chief reasons that the Spanish flu claimed so many lives in 1918 was that science simply didn’t have the tools to develop a vaccine for the virus. Microscopes couldn’t even see something as incredibly small as a virus until the 1930s. Instead, top medical professionals in 1918 were convinced that the flu was caused by a bacterium nicknamed “Pfeiffer’s bacillus.” After a global flu outbreak in 1890, a German physician named Richard Pfeiffer found that all of his infected patients carried a particular strain of bacteria he called H. influenzae. When the Spanish flu pandemic hit, scientists were intent on finding a cure for Pfeiffer’s bacillus. Millions of dollars were invested in state-of-the-art labs to develop techniques for testing for and treating H. influenzae, all of it for naught. “This was a huge distraction for medical science,” says Harris. PHOTOS: Innovative Ways People Tried to Protect Themselves From the Flu By December 1918, the deadly second wave of the Spanish flu had finally passed, but the pandemic was far from over. A third wave erupted in Australia in January 1919 and eventually worked its way back to Europe and the United States. It’s believed that President Woodrow Wilson contracted the Spanish flu during the World War I peace negotiations in Paris in April 1919 The mortality rate of the third wave was just as high as the second wave, but the end of the war in November 1918 removed the conditions that allowed the disease to spread so far and so quickly. Global deaths from the third wave, while still in the millions, paled in comparison to the apocalyptic losses during the second wave. Source:https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence
As The World Governments Try To Figure Out Ways To Treat Coronavirus? I am searching for clever ways to prevent people from getting it and go on living a normal life.
As I research one important piece of the puzzle. The coronavirus death toll in Illinois is at least 597 as of Saturday morning, with more than 17,000 known cases of COVID-19 in the state and over 6,600 cases in Chicago, according to state officials. Coronavirus is disproportionately killing the black community. Here’s what experts say can be done about it African Americans have been dying from the coronavirus at a higher rate than other racial demographics, according to several states’ analysis of data and that same is true in Chicago. Some 58% of deaths from COVID-19 in Illinois’ Cook County were black though the population is 23% black, and 72% of Chicago deaths were black patients though the city is 32% black. “Just this week we talked about the disproportionate burden that black Chicago is facing with infections and deaths related to COVID-19,” she said.
This leads me to believe being that blacks are known to have lower levels of Vitamin D. Could there be a relationship between vitamin D deficiency and an increase chance of getting coronavirus? Many times when it comes to different health issues the so called experts don’t agree on anything. Besides having low vitamin D levels that quite possibly caused the coronavirus to replicate in your body.
Dr. Michael Holick, a professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at the Boston University Medical Campus, is a long-time proponent of what he calls sensible sun exposure. However, “you should never, ever get a sunburn,” he says – that’s what increases the risk for melanoma and other skin cancers. If you decide to get limited, unprotected sun exposure for the sake of vitamin D, he suggests the following rules of thumb:
1. Always protect your face and top of your ears at the beach, because those are the most sun-exposed and sun-damaged skin areas. 2. Allow 10 to 15 minutes or so of unprotected sun exposure to your arms, legs, abdomen and back. After that, follow up with good sun protection, like a 30-SPF or higher sunblock. 3. Choose the right time of day. “If your shadow is longer than your body height, you can’t make any vitamin D,” Holick says. Between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. is the usual window for significant sun exposure, he says. He’s helped develop the dminder app, which uses multiple factors – time of day, location and skin type – to recommend optimal sun exposure and provide sun-safety warnings. “You cannot get an adequate amount of vitamin D from your diet,” Holick says, even with fortified foods. He recommends vitamin D supplements in appropriate doses for adults and children.
Another important aspect may also be alkalinity and given the variant opinions you have about the aluminum impurities of baking soda and or brands of alkaline water and taking to much can have an adverse health affect. The Survivor of The 1918 Influenza Pandemic Virus that took the lives of 50 Million People was Edna Register Boone.
PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SHE SAYS AT 2:22 AND AT 4:38 IN THE VIDEO.
This is SO VERY IMPORTANT! IT COULD VERY WELL, SAVE YOUR LIFE! After the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919 that infected 500 million people around the world, the US Public Health Service made an observation that people who had been alkalized by Sodium Bicarbonate (same chemical compound of baking soda) rare contracted the disease and those who did, had mild symptoms. The mechanism for bicarbonate is that it RAISES the pH (not lowers). And that’s what Bob’s Red Mill’s Baking Soda is pure, water-extracted sodium bicarbonate. No harsh chemicals, no-aluminum-added and no gluten and.does (raises the pH) You can fight viral infections by neutralizing the pH (the acidity in your cells) and decreasing the environment that promotes viral infections from spreading with this simple ingredient you probably have around the house!
Can baking soda help protect you from the Coronavirus? This video is looking at blood pH, not skin pH. Thanks for watching. In case you are curious, you can mix the baking soda with water directly for the most effectiveness, then with fresh lemon or fresh lime or canned lemon or lime with baking soda and water. I have read people like to mix the baking soda with black strap molasses and maple syrup Raphaela Laurean
The mechanism for bicarbonate is that it RAISES the pH (not lowers). And that’s what Baking Soda does (raises the pH) I was trying to get this out quickly, apologies folks. You can fight viral infections by neutralizing the ph (the acidity in your cells) and decreasing the environment that promotes viral infections from spreading with this simple ingredient you probably have around the house! After the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919 that infected 500 million people around the world, the US Public Health Service made an observation that people who had been alkalized by Sodium Bicarbonate (same chemical compound of baking soda) rarely contracted the disease and those who did, had mild symptoms. This is huge watch the video here. ~ William Seeds MD Read the full articles and sources here: https://seeds.md/make-your- immune-system-fight-viral-infections/
Sometimes people will say, I don’t like the taste of baking soda water and that they’re concerned about the balance between Sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate that are key components of body tissue that helps to regulate the body’s acid/aklaine base balance.† This formula of pure, buffered mineral compounds can assist in reestablishing the acid/base balance when the body’s own bicarbonate reserves are depleted as a result of metabolic acidosis caused by reactions to food or other environmental exposures.† You may be advised to take it in capsule form https://klaire.com/v033-25-bicarb-formula. Remember this tip is not a cure for coronavirus but may prevent having an occurrence with this dreadful virus causing a global pandemic.
UNWAVERING FAITH, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND ETERNAL LIFE – JESUS BY AKIANE KRAMAIRK
In the movie Heaven Is for Real, which was based on the New York Times best-seller. Follows the story of a 4-year-old boy named Colton Burpo. Colton claims to have visited heaven during a near death experience. He shares his story about heaven with his curious father Todd Burpo. With the portrayal and understanding through the child’s innocence, Colton’s family is not sure what to think of his story and his visit to heaven. https://art-soulworks.com/pages/heaven-is-for-real-painting
Throughout the film, Todd tries to have Colton identify Jesus through a varying number of images and photos he has on hand, but without any success. It is not until the end of the film, that Colton identifies the face of Jesus on Todd Burpo’s laptop. A character in the film referred to as the “young Lithuanian girl” paints the image of Jesus, but her name and the name of her Jesus painting is never revealed. Many who have seen the movie are left wondering who “the young Lithuanian girl” painting Jesus is and the connection between her, the movie and Colton.
The “little Lithuanian girl” portrayed in the movie is famed child artist Akiane Kramarik. At age 4, Akiane painted her vision of Jesus Christ, which is replicated in the film. Born in 1994, in Mount Morris, Illinois, to two Atheist parents, Akiane was seeing visions of God, Jesus and heaven. What first began as pencil drawings, Akiane kept replicating these visions into beautiful expressions of art and moved to pastels. By 6 years of age, Akiane switched to acrylic paint and then oils. To date, she has produced over 200 published art pieces and 800 literary creations along with two bestselling books.
Akiane has shared her experience and artistic talent on television shows such as CNN and the Oprah Winfrey Show. Akiane’s image, titled The Prince of Peace, is not only featured in the film Heaven is for Real, but also her life experience is replicated and told through Colton.
Both children share similarities in their experience such as: both being 4 years old when first having their noted heavenly experiences, agreeing on the possibility of an afterlife, agreeing on the existence of God, Jesus and heaven, and more. The two met for the first time in 2012 on the Katie Couric show and say they have more to share, but are waiting on God’s perfect timing.
Summary: The image of Jesus painted by the “young Lithuanian girl” in the film ‘Heaven is for Real’ has sparked major media attention. Now revealed, is the girl’s name, the name of her artwork and the heavenly connection she shares with Colton, the main character in the film.
Jesus, Akiane Kramarik’s new painting of Christ, now revealed. Read the highlights from the short documentary titled, “Painting The Impossible”. A moving video of Akiane Kramarik’s story about her personal journey beginning with the painting, Prince of Peace, (as seen in Heaven is for Real) through the completion of her newest portrait of Christ, titled, JESUS.
Secrets of Akiane Kramarik’s Spiritual Journey Revealed Witness the dramatic story of Akiane Kramarik’s spiritual journey and some of the rarely discussed spiritual battles in her lifelong quest to fulfill the divine commissions and painting the real face of Jesus. Observe the surprising revelations of Akiane Kramarik’s 19-year journey of overcoming darkness as she struggles to be light and bring love into the world through painting her visions of Jesus Christ. Akiane Kramarik describes her purpose in life as God’s Divine Commissions – visions given to her to painting.
God bless you for your obedience to his commission. It is not easy, but he always makes a way where there seems to be no way, Akiane Kramarik is a gifted, visionary journalist who has been reporting her visions and messages from heaven since she was eight years old by using a paintbrush and canvas instead of paper and pen – Breaking News and messages from above.
Original Akiane Painting of Jesus – Stolen? Did you know that the original portrait of Prince of Peace, her most beloved painting of Jesus was stolen about a year before Oprah Winfrey introduces Akiane Kramarik and her Jesus painting to the world at age ten? The theft of Akiane Kramarik’s original masterpiece, the “Prince of Peace” painting of Jesus has continued to grieve her.
God bless you for your obedience to his commission. It is not easy, but he always makes a way where there seems to be no way.
Yes, Akiane Kramarik’s original painting of Christ was stolen by a trusted art agent who sold the Akiane Kramarik’s masterpiece – it was never recovered! As fate would have it while living in Australia Akiane Kramarik discovered the owner and location of her original painting of the Prince of Peace-lay hidden–locked in a vault for over 12 years. Akiane Kramarik offered to buy the painting of Jesus, but the owner was not willing to sell it to anyone.
Update: Our prayers were answered, the original Prince of Peace painting by Akiane has been sold and is now in a private collection.
God Takes Akiane Kramarik On A 12-Year Journey Akiane Kramarik shares with us that over these same 12 years God has taken her on an extraordinary journey – spiritual, physically and emotionally – traveling around the world as a reporter – of sorts. Akiane Kramarik often describes herself as a visionary journalist, charged with painting true life stories. Sharing the deep life lessons from people of many cultures – visual teachings – messages from heaven, rich in metaphoric meaning, spiritual lessons. These profound visual allegories speak directly to the heart – soul of seekers around the globe.
Now Revealed – A New Chapter in the Akiane Kramarik Story. Now, back to Akiane Kramarik’s painting simply titled “JESUS” (as seen above) and the most recent chapter of Akiane Kramarik’s mysterious walk with the Lord which began late in 2016, just after Akiane and family returned to the United States from an extended tour in Europe. At age 22 Akiane Kramairk and her family returned to the United States and settled on a small farm in the countryside in Illinois. Soon she was offered a project not yet made public. To complete the request, Akiane Kramarik was asked to create a line drawing of Prince of Peace. Akiane Kramarik says, “it was an awkward assignment, especially since the original was gone,” yet she felt compelled to accept the unusual request. Recreating the real face of Jesus originally painted at age into a simple line drawing – was not simple at all!
As you will see while watching the “Painting The Impossible” (documentary below.) As the project progressed, Akiane Kramarik became overwhelmed with the incredible detail that was being revealed to her! “I was hearing a new message,” Akiane said. “I prayed about what to do next, and was blown away by the unexpected answer! Despite all my doubts I took out a linen canvas and began painting my vision …” A labor of obedience and love took a strange turn when, with over 1,000 hours invested in the new painting, Akiane began sensing that completing the Jesus painting in her most recent vision – was impossible!
Was this Akiane Kramarik’s Dark Night of the Soul? On Christmas, Eve 2016, dark forces invaded Akiane Kramarik’s sleep … a sinister nightmare unfolded. Akiane saw her portrait of Jesus destroyed. Akiane rushed to her studio. The painting was still there, but the image of Jesus appeared veiled and lifeless! Over the next weeks, as hard as Akiane tried, she could not fix this painting of Jesus! Many, more weeks passed with no progress … Akiane was devastated. This had never happened before. Akiane knew the Lord had commissioned her to do this painting of Jesus. Where was God? – What was happening? Akiane Kramarik began to realize that all of her efforts were not good enough – she began to lose hope. Darkness persisted. For the first time in her life, Akiane was ready to quit, give up and abandon God’s Divine Commission to present this new portrait of Christ to the world.
We were all very, very concerned! In nearly 15 years of working with Akiane Kramarik, I had never seen her in this type of deep despair. We all continued to pray. Her parents, brothers, family, and trusted friends persisted – – – finally, a breakthrough occurred! For a brief time, Akiane Kramarik was shown the full vision of Jesus. Once revealed she quickly returned to her studio. On July 9th, 1992: Akiane Kramarik’s 23rd birthday she excitedly shared her new painting with the world – a beautiful testimony of endurance and a give of great love and light that contains a message to all. Looking back on this mysterious, sometimes dark spiritual drama Akiane Kramarik says, All these years God was waiting for me to grow so I could paint the most powerful message to mankind; A Message of Unwavering Faith, Unconditional love and Eternal life – JESUS. Click below to watch Akiane Kramarik’s story of heartbreak to victory!
A priest peers from a window in the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a place where Christians believe Jesus Christ was buried. We all know about the COVID-19 pandemic and most of us are living under new restrictions it has brought with it and a vast distraction from Easter this year. There is much fear and panic happening, from stockpiling common household items to rushing to the doctor asking to be tested. The world watched as China suffered from its onslaught, yet we as a country did little to prepare for its arrival on our shores. Our first biggest failure is the lack of test kits being available. These should have been readily on hand in order to test contacts of those infected. By doing this, those contacts could be quarantined and tested, thereby, limiting the spread of this disease. Unfortunately, we missed this chance to contain the contagion. COVID-19 has been unleased and is now spread through community acquired transmission. Though we now have more tests available, it is too late to coral this pandemic by tracking contacts alone. People who are coming down with symptoms this week were probably infected last week when there was no way to test them. Now, to continue to offer testing to asymptomatic people or those with mild symptoms, is wasting supplies that is needed in hospitals for critically ill patients. It also putting more people to be at risk by being around others, even if just traveling to the testing site. While most states now have stay at home orders from state governors, it only happened when the number of cases sky-rocketed. This means that there are many more people infected before these measures were put into place. We have no idea how many at this point because many people have mild, or even no, signs or symptoms. Yes, these regulations are completely necessary to save lives, but it should have happened sooner. Panic buying wiped out many medical supplies that healthcare workers on the front lines are now running out of. These workers are face-to-face with the pathogen on a daily basis. Everyone heard of the dire shortage of N95 masks, the only ones that are effective in blocking transmission of the virus. Even exam gloves are now a hard commodity to find. When people started depleting the supplies, there was no increased production for those battling this disease. Governors are now begging the federal government for PPE (personal protective equipment) for their healthcare workers. And the answers they receive are slow in coming. Again, these supplies should have been redistributed to the battle zones weeks ago. Hospitals are now in dire straits, running out of ICU beds and ventilators. Will we wait until we have to let patients die before initiating a respond to these pleas? We are already weeks behind where we should be. We need to set up field hospitals and get vents to the hardest hit areas, like NYC. We are approaching maximum capacity and still have weeks to maybe months to endure this pandemic. Non-essential workers have been ordered home, not knowing how they’re going to able to afford to live. Many have been instructed to file for unemployment, but how long will this take? People need these funds now. Will this be another failure of the system? The POTUS claims he wants America to reopen by May. Yet, most medical experts say it will be months until this should happens. Other countries are now making tough decisions about who they can give life saving treatments to and who they need to leave just die because there are not enough resources available. For example, in Italy, although deaths are on the decline -doctors are no longer ventilating anyone over 60 years of age.
Do we want to be forced to make the same tough choices here? The US healthcare system, as well as our political leaders, have failed to prepare for this pandemic that we witnessed played out in other countries before reaching our shores. We had several weeks heads-up to know what COVID-19 is and what it can potentially do. Yet, it reached us unprepared and we’ve been struggling to catch up ever since. We are still weeks behind where we should be in this war. Can we catch up? Our system will tolerate no more failures; this is our breaking point.
So, why did this happen?
The main reason is our inexperience. In the United States, we have never had to deal with Coronavirus. These healthcare workers were thrust into a position of treating something we are just learning about. There were no protocols in place at that time so these healthcare workers were not adequately protected. To be fair, we are facing a new threat that guidelines have had to be developed retrospectively. Casting blame is not going to help us reach a solution to this rising spread of a disease that many of us never expected would show up within our borders. We all need to come together and discuss the faults in the system and ensure this never happens again and Trust in Jesus Christ our Savior and remember the sacrifice he made for us on that cross.
Remembering Jesus This Easter Weekend.
What year was Jesus Christ born? The Bible does not explicitly teach the exact day or even the exact year in which Jesus was born. It does, however, provide many historical details that can help determine a specific time period during which He was born.
Both Matthew and Luke describe the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus. Matthew 2:1 states Jesus was born during the days of Herod the king. This Herod died in the spring of 4 BC, indicating the latest time at which Jesus could have been born on earth. Further, Matthew 2:16 notes Herod commanded all male children two years old and younger to be put to death in his attempt to kill Jesus. This would further provide details that place the birth of Jesus to around 6-4 BC.
Luke’s account provides many additional details. Luke 2:1-2 states, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.” Caesar Augustus reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD. Quirinius required one known census in 6-7 AD, though the census mentioned in Luke seems to be unmentioned in existing literature. The use of the Greek term protos (translated “first”) could also be translated “before” and may have referred to the time period before the census of Quirinius. Another option is that Quirinius served two times as leader in this area and ordered a census during his first reign. In either case, Jesus’ birth between 6-4 BC still agrees.
In Luke 3:23, we are also told Jesus began His public ministry at “about thirty years of age.” The details provided in Luke 3:1-2 limit the start of His ministry to between about 27-29 AD, also fitting a birth between 6-4 BC.
Further defining the window during which Jesus was born becomes more difficult based on the available evidence. Because Jews were required to travel to their ancestral towns for a census, it is unlikely that this census took place during the planting or harvest seasons (spring or fall). The most likely time period would have been following the harvest when residents had income to pay taxes and were not involved in the harvest, indicating a time period from late September to the end of the year, likely late 5 BC to early 4 BC.
The later connection of December 25 as the date of Christ’s birth was developed long after the New Testament period. While it serves as the day Christians have chosen to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the exact date of His birth is unknown.
Others have attempted to use the priestly cycles of the Old Testament to date the birth of John the Baptist and therefore Jesus to the autumn of 5 BC. This is possible, but impossible to determine for certain. Others have focused on the “star” spotted by the wise men from the east in an attempt to more specifically date the birth of Christ. However, the fact that these men visited Jesus in a “house” rather than the manger and arrived days or weeks after His birth make any chronology impossible to determine with certainty. Others even seek to calculate the birth of Jesus based on the “70 Weeks” in Daniel 9, but a variety of factors make these findings uncertain. Still others argue a summer birth due to sheep in the field at night (Though sheep are actually outside year-round in the Middle East.).
While the birth of Christ in the last half of 5 BC is most likely, the evidence can only be given to support 6 to early 4 BC as the window of time for the birth of Christ. Yet the birth of Christ is of utmost importance and worthy of celebration on Christmas and every day. He came to live, die, and rise again to prove Himself as the Messiah, God’s One and only Son (John 3:16).
When Did Jesus Die? The Year, Day & Time!! Doug Bookman, New Testament professor at Shepherds Theological Seminary, explains the consensus among biblical scholars about the year Jesus died. “It comes down to this. We can discern quite narrowly that Pilate was prefect in Judea Samaria 26 A.D. – 36 A.D. So that’s our window. The next question becomes: On what day did Passover fall in the year Jesus died? In the minds of most, it fell on Thursday/Friday. It started on sundown on Thursday and went through sundown on Friday. Given all of that, most scholars will agree it drives you to one of two conclusions:” Theory 1: Jesus died in 30 A.D. Theory 2: Jesus died in 33 A.D. Bookman says at this point, “the argument becomes quite technical.” He also says, “With regard to every one of the chronological questions, there is a case to be built on both. I am persuaded of 33 A.D. It’s within that construct that I teach the life of Jesus.” 3 Significant Events Shortly After Jesus’ Death Matthew 27: 51-54, “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” 1. The temple curtain was torn in two. This curtain separated worshippers in the temple from the Ark of the Covenant and it’s top – the Mercy seat, where God would meet only the High Priest only once a year with an atonement sacrifice. We know from Old Testament regulations that entering God’s presence was serious. After two men died attempting it incorrectly, the Lord gave Moses specific instructions in Leviticus 16 on how to approach him without dying. The fact that this curtain was destroyed symbolized Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross that removed the barrier between sinful mankind and holy God by becoming the ultimate High Priest and the ultimate sacrifice. Further, the fact that the curtain was torn “from top to bottom” symbolized that it was torn by God himself, not by effort of any man. 2. An earthquake opened tombs, and dead saints were raised to life. According to John Gill’s commentary, “this was a proof of Christ’s power over death and the grave.” As Jesus raised himself to life on the third day after he died, he defeated the power of death and the permanency of the grave. Gill went on: “These saints, I apprehend, continued on earth until our Lord’s ascension, and then joining the retinue of angels, went triumphantly with him to heaven, as trophies of his victory over sin, Satan, death, and the grave.” This event is significant not only because of its bold claims, but also because it is a story foreshadowing Christ’s second coming to gather all the rest of his people. This event reported in Matthew also fulfills a prophecy in Isaiah 26:19, “But your dead will live, LORD; their bodies will rise— let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy— your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.” 3. Jesus is resurrected from the grave. This passage in Matthew glosses over such an astonishing event, but Christ’s resurrection is recounted with more detail in Matthew 28 (as well as in Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20).
JERUSALEM (AP) — Christians are commemorating Jesus’ crucifixion without the solemn church services or emotional processions of past years, marking Good Friday in a world locked down by the coronavirus pandemic. A small group of clerics are to hold a closed-door service in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead. They will then walk the Via Dolorosa, the ancient route where he is believed to have carried the cross before his execution at the hands of the Romans. In ordinary times, tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world retrace Jesus’ steps in the Holy Week leading up to Easter. But this year, flights are grounded and religious sites in the Holy Land are closed as authorities try to prevent the spread of the virus. The new virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most patients, who recover within a few weeks. But it is highly contagious and can be spread by those showing no symptoms. It can cause severe illness and death in some patients, particularly the old and infirm. In Rome, the torch-lit Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum is a highlight of Holy Week, drawing large crowds of pilgrims, tourists and locals. It’s been cancelled this year, along with all other public gatherings in Italy, which is battling one of the worst outbreaks.
The virus has killed nearly 19,000 people in Italy and over 102,000 worldwide. Instead of presiding over the Way of the Cross procession, Pope Francis will lead a Good Friday ceremony in St. Peter’s Square without the public. Ten people — five from the Vatican’s health office and five from a prison in Padua, in northern Italy, where infections are particularly widespread — will participate in the procession, which will circle several times around the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square. On display in the square will be a wooden crucifix, famed for being carried in a procession during the plague that ravaged Rome in the early 16th century. The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, nearly destroyed by fire a year ago, is holding a special Good Friday ceremony in the charred, gutted interior of the medieval landmark. But the event is closed to the public for two reasons: France’s strict virus confinement measures forbid religious or any other gatherings, and the cathedral remains too structurally unstable to let parishioners inside. “We wanted to send a message of hope” through the ceremony, Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit told reporters this week.
“The message of hope is especially important for our compatriots at a time when we are particularly affected by the coronavirus, which is sowing anguish and death,” he said. In the Philippines, Asia’s bastion of Catholicism, masses and other solemn gatherings have been put on hold, including folk rituals that feature real-life crucifixions and usually draw thousands of tourists and penitents. The annual procession of the “Black Nazarene,” a centuries-old statue of Jesus, through downtown Manila, has also been canceled. Churchgoers have been told to stay home and remember Jesus’ suffering through family prayers, fasting and by watching masses and religious shows on TV or online. Related Truth:
The pandemic triggered a wave of good deeds as Canadians pitch in to inspire others 🙂 By Vivien Fellegi | April 8, 2020
Teiya Kasahara leans over their balcony in Toronto, with her diamond-strong voice slicing through the cold breeze to reach neighbors across the street. The opera singer and multidisciplinary performer raises their arms in supplication asthey sing Ave Maria, accompanied by pianist Andrea Grant two floors down. Summoned by the serenade, condo dwellers venture onto their balconies, and joggers stop in their tracks and look up. Kasahara waves. Their performance that March day was the first of 19 shows; the total number of performances is inspired by the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. “I wanted to do something positive in this panic,” who uses the pronoun “they.” Kasahara’s compassion has helped them cope with the shock of lost gigs and income due to COVID-19. Though the performer battled icy blasts and faulty acoustics outdoors, the audience’s response made the effort worthwhile; strangers refueled the singer with surprised smiles, rapt attention and honking horns. This interplay of intimacy continued long past each show, as videos of the concerts went viral on social media, and Kasahara was inundated with muffins, chocolates and grateful emails from new fans. “It’s heartwarming and powerful to know that we can still connect on something as simple as a …song,” they say.
BARCELONA, April 10 – The coronavirus death toll curve in Spain flattened further on Friday as the government discussed different strategies to start phasing out one of the world’s strictest lock downs. Spaniards have been off the streets since mid-March, but a slowdown of the COVID-19 disease’s spread and its death toll has enabled officials to start discussing a gradual easing. “Any step towards de-escalation of such an intense lock down must be done with extreme caution,” Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias told local TV channel TVE.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said the formal lock down will probably continue into May, however, some restrictions may be lifted as early as Monday to breathe life into a paralysed economy. Two weeks ago, the government banned all non-essential workers from the streets, effectively shutting down most businesses. From Monday, though, some job categories such as construction workers will be allowed out of their homes again. Though many people were to return to work, social distancing should be maintained, Maria Jose Sierra, the deputy head of health emergencies, said at a virtual news conference. “We will give a series of recommendations: The most important is if there is a person who shows the slightest symptom, they should contact the health system and remain in self-isolation,” she said. The number of daily deaths fell again on Friday to 605, the lowest figure since March 24, the health ministry said. The rate of increase has dropped to 4% down from 20% two weeks ago. “We are seeing the curves are on the decline, even though there are still many cases,” Sierra added.
Science Behind Virus: Potential treatments for coronavirus The virus typically causes respiratory illnesses like the common cold. A new study found the virus may have originated in bats and then spread to humans via a snake or pangolin. Then eventually from Humans to Tigers. Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, said in an interview with The Washington Post: “Based on the virus genome and properties, there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.” The Washington Post reported most countries have abandoned their bioweapons programs after years of work did not yield satisfactory results. The Scripps Research Institute released a study that rejects the notion that the virus was man-made. Researchers concluded that if the virus were engineered, its genome sequence would more closely resemble earlier and more serious versions of the coronavirus. “If someone were seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness,” the report said. “But the scientists found that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins then into humans and tigers.” A statement in the Lancet, a medical journal, written by public health officials who have been following the progression of the virus also asserted that animals are the likely source: “Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife.” The statement referenced multiple academic and government sources that supported the Lancet article’s conclusion. These sources include the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Nature; U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine; the New England Journal of Medicine; the Chinese Medical Journal; and the medical journal Infection,
The origin of the Wuhan virus has been a hotly debated topic, with initial theories ranging from bats to bio-labs.
China ‘appoints its top military bio-warfare expert to take over secretive virus lab in Wuhan’, sparking conspiracy theories that coronavirus outbreak is linked to Beijing’s army. The truth is, all we really know is that it began in China and I have little desire to speculate beyond that until we get more information. With that said, Sen. Tom Cotton was asking for answers very early on about the origin, wondering why China was seemingly lying about everything and whether Wuhan hosting China’s largest bio-lab had anything to do with it. Cotton was roundly savaged for even suggesting we look into what happened.
(This is what we know.) A documentary showing a Chinese virologist catching wild bats in mountains have fueled a conspiracy theory, which suggests that the novel coronavirus may have originated in Wuhan’s disease control authority. The seven-minute film features the centre’s researcher Tian Junhua, who has visited dozens of caves in Hubei province to capture the flying mammal. It has sparked a fresh round of speculation over the origin of the coronavirus, with some people again suggesting that pandemic could be a man-made crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLwG2ekEEw0
EXCLUSIVE: Coronavirus Expert Says Virus Could Have Leaked From Wuhan Lab!!! By Andrew Kerr A molecular biologist who has been quoted as a coronavirus expert by The Washington Post and MSNBC said Thursday in no uncertain terms that the novel coronavirus could have been unleashed due to a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. China’s top virologist on bat-borne viruses, Shi Zhengli, has sworn on her life that the virus did not leak from her Wuhan lab, saying that its spread was “nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits.” The “Bat Lady” work gave a head start to the scientific research community’s understanding of the origin of the new coronavirus? And while Shi now tells those who question whether her lab could be connected to the release of the coronavirus to “shut their stinking mouths,” she previously said she lost sleep worrying about the possibility that her lab in Wuhan could have been responsible for the virus’s release. Shi, known by her colleagues as the “bat woman” because of the 16 years she has spent hunting for viruses in bat caves, told Scientific American in March that she frantically searched for any evidence that her laboratory’s records were mishandled upon learning of the virus’s outbreak in Wuhan in late December.
“Could they have come from our lab?” Shi recalled thinking. “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China,” she noted, saying that her studies had shown that southern China posed the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping from animals to humans. Shi said she breathed a sigh of relief when results came back showing that the sequences of the coronavirus did not match the viruses she and her team had sampled from bat caves. “That really took a load off my mind,” Shi said. “I had not slept a wink for days.” Shi and her colleagues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology reported in early 2017 that after five years of surveying they had discovered 11 new strains of SARS-related viruses in horseshoe bats from China’s Yunnan Province. The virologist said at the time that the 11 strains contained all the genes to make a SARS coronavirus similar to that of the 2003 outbreak. Shi contributed to a study published in February reporting that the novel coronavirus is 96.2% identical to a viral strain that was detected in horseshoe bats from the Yunnan Province.
However, two Chinese researchers noted in a separate paper in February that the horseshoe bats that are known to carry the nearly-identical viral strain live 600 miles away from Wuhan. The researchers also cited testimonies from nearly 60 people who lived in or visited Wuhan saying that the bat “was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market.” “The killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan,” the two Chinese researchers noted in their paper, which was uploaded to Research Gate on Feb. 6. The paper was removed from Research Gate on Feb. 14 or 15, according to internet archives. “The content was uploaded to ResearchGate by a user who later removed it from the platform. Beyond this, we cannot disclose information about individuals who use our platform,” Research Gate spokesman Dan Noyes told the DCNF. The paper’s lead researcher, Botao Xiao, didn’t return the DCNF’s emails on Thursday seeking comment. Ebright, the Rutgers University molecular biologist, told Beijing-based news outlet Caixin Global in February that while there is “no basis to suspect the virus was engineered,” the available data indicates that the virus’s introduction into human populations could be attributed to either natural causes or to a laboratory mishap. The Washington Post and MSNBC have quoted Ebright saying that theories about the virus being a bio-weapon should be “firmly excluded,” but neither outlet included his belief that the possibility that the virus entered the human population through a lab accident “cannot–and should not–be dismissed.” Shi has furiously denied that the novel coronavirus could have leaked from her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “The novel 2019 coronavirus is nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits. I, Shi Zhengli, swear on my life that it has nothing to do with our laboratory,” she wrote on a Chinese social messaging app in early February, according to Caixin Global. Deadly viruses have a history of escaping from Chinese laboratories. The SARS virus escaped twice from the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing in 2004, one year after the virus was initially contained. The Chinese government has been widely criticized for misleading the world about the novel coronavirus outbreak from its earliest stages. One of the first doctors in Wuhan to raise the alarm about the spread of a SARS-like virus in the city was detained by police in December and told to “stop making false comments.” That doctor, Li Wenliang, died from coronavirus in February.
Another Chinese doctor, Ai Fen, claimed she was silenced by her bosses when she tried to warn about the virus during its early stages. Dr. Ai Fen, the courageous Chinese doctor credited with being one of the first persons to reveal to the world the existence in Wuhan of the killer disease now called COVID-19, has gone missing in China. Ai’s whereabouts as of Sunday are currently unknown, according to 60 Minutes Australia, sparking fears that she has been detained.
And on Wednesday a top Chinese health official announced that the country will begin counting coronavirus cases from patients that show no symptoms, a tactic acknowledgment that Beijing had under reported its official tally of known coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic. (RELATED: Chinese Government Finally Acknowledges Underreporting Coronavirus Cases) Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas told the DCNF on Wednesday it is wholly appropriate to question whether the coronavirus outbreak originated from labs in Wuhan that were studying coronaviruses. “The reason I have raised these questions from the very beginning is because of China’s statements and their actions,” Cotton told the DCNF. “After concealing the virus for many weeks in December and then minimizing its severity for most of January, they then peddle an origin story about the food market in Wuhan.” “Given their dishonesty and the proximity of these labs, which we know were working with coronaviruses, it is only reasonable and responsible for us to ask the question and demand the answers.” With criticism I always offer up some treatment information…. unlike double talking politicians that point fingers? Dr Danny Pulido a Pulmonary & Critical Care Specialist at Baptist Medical Center Beaches ….Dr. Pulido says he successfully treated a COVID 19 patient using a similar drug called Plaquenil… you posted this outcome to facebook this weekend and so far it’s been shared more than 6 thousand times….this is giving people some hope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSd6vRFtz3w
University of Alberta materials engineering professor, Hyo-Jick Choi, has come up with an innovative solution that turns the masks into virus killers. Existing masks and respirators may trap virus-laden droplets but the virus is still infectious on the mask. Choi took on the challenge of improving the masks, using a simple weapon: salt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8EgAOoY4Gg
Edgy Edge — Hope everyone is safe during this coronavirus pandemic! A lot is going on daily, but I thought to make this video on this potential coronavirus treatment/medication regimen. Although currently, there is no FDA approved treatment for coronavirus (Covid-19), there are a handful of medications that researchers and sceinetists are hopeful. In this video, I talk about Zinc and Chloroquine and how these 2 medications have potential to treat and manage patients infected with the coronavirus. These 2 medications have not gone through a randomized control study/trial, however they show merit to be considered for further study. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKSR_SHZmY
In this video Minh D. Ta will examine carefully the clinical evidence concerning the usage of hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc in the treatment of Covid-19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FbEwpj1vJw
In this video, Dean Willis, Lecturer in Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology at University College London about ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory drugs and their effect on our body. To contact The Physiological Society: pressoffice@physoc.org Transcript: Stories have been circulating online about the use of ibuprofen in the treatment of coronavirus. But what is ibuprofen and how does it work? Ibuprofen is a class of what’s known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories.
These are drugs that help to reduce inflammation. Inflammation is the body’s immune system’s response to an irritant, such as a virus or bacteria. And ibuprofen acts to block your body’s production of certain natural substances that cause inflammation, which in turn can help to relieve pain. To learn more about inflammation and what happens when it does wrong, we spoke to Dean Willis, Lecturer in Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology at University College London Inflammation is absolutely required for the continued well-being of an individual. We require an optimal immune reaction, both innate and adaptive and an optimal inflammatory response.
The problem is, is inflammation itself can also cause damage when inappropriate. And we see this characterised in many inflammatory-type diseases, a classical example is things like rheumatoid arthritis, where we see inflammation associated with the joints initially, in asthma, where it’s in places like the lung. So for most people inflammation is a process our body uses to deal with infection, or injury, but for some people, inflammation can cause problems.
So do we use anti-inflammatory drugs to treat these people? We can inhibit inflammation but the downside is that we always have some degree of increased susceptibility to infections and this is the major problem. So with something like COVID-19, you may want to increase the activity of the immune system, or anti-viral system to try and clear the virus, however at the same time, an over-activation of your immune system, leading to more inflammation, can actually be quite serious, and it’s a delicate balance which, to be honest, it’s difficult to address. For the time being, there is currently no strong evidence that ibuprofen can make coronavirus (COVID-19) worse. But until we have more information, the UK Government advise taking paracetamol to treat the symptoms of coronavirus, unless a doctor has said paracetamol is not suitable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vQfmZqSPp4
How you can strengthen your defence against Covid-19 with these easy-to-follow tips from an academic who’s studied the wonders of the human immune system for 20 years
Organic produce has a much more diverse bacteria population that can help Sunshine is also good for immunity and can significantly improve your health A bad night’s sleep can be terrible for the immune system so try and get rest Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor? If Dr Jenna Macciochi’s behaviour is a barometer of how wary we should be about the immediate threat of coronavirus, It’s natural, when in the grips of a global pandemic, to want to grasp onto things you can do in order to shield yourself from harm. Dr Jenna Maccioch, a lecturer in Immunology at the University of Sussex and author of new book Immunity: The Science Of Staying Well, understands why people are wanting to do all they can to protect themselves. “People are desperate,” she says on the latest episode of Women’s Health’s podcast, Going for Goal. “There is so much uncertainty – it’s completely understandable that people will cling to something that makes them feel as though they have some control in what is, ultimately, an uncontrollable situation.”
Can a strong immune system resist covid-19? Her take home message? Covid-19 – the name of the disease which is caused by the coronavirus – is too large and too new to be fought off by any one individual action, until a vaccine, currently in development, is made readily available. “The immune system is the most complex system in the body,” Dr Macciochi explains. “Try not to think of it as a binary ‘on-and-off’ switch, but rather as a whole series of switches that turn on and off to calm and control and clear up any damage that’s been done by an infection.” There are, some practical things you can do to build up your immune system’s strength. Dr Macciochi’s number one? Why sleep is essential for a strong immune system!!! “Sleep is the bedrock of your immunity, as lots of calibration happens when you’re sleeping that allows your immune system to work optimally,” Dr Macciochi explains. The time when you’re resting – and not really coming into contact with anyone – is when your immune system heals and repairs, ready for the challenges it will inevitably face when you’re up and about the next day. And, yes, even if the sum total of your outside-the-house activity is maintaining social distance on your daily park jog – you’ll be coming into contact with far more germs than you do whilst asleep. So, you don’t get enough good quality sleep, you’re essentially expecting your body to heal and repair its defences while stripping its resources with which to do so. If you’re feeling tired and lethargic, listen to the signals your body is sending you. “That’s your immune system doing its job,” says Dr. Macciochi. “When fighting an infection, it produces certain chemicals that act on our brains and direct us to change our behaviour that gives us the best possible chance of recovering.”
What are the symptoms of coronavirus? According to the NHS website, the primary symptoms of coronavirus are: A fever A new, consistent cough Other coronavirus symptoms that have been reported include: Tiredness or fatigue A headache Shortness of breath A loss of smell or taste Muscle pain
What should you do if you have symptoms of coronavirus? The bad news is that there is no magic pill or miracle broth that will ‘boost’ our immunity against coronavirus overnight. The good news is there are many ways we can give our immune system the best possible chance of operating at its optimum level. When it comes to maintaining good health, the immune system is our most precious asset. Yet we rarely appreciate our essential defences until something goes wrong. Most of the time our immune system works quietly away and we don’t even notice it. Deeply entwined with every aspect of our physical and mental health, it acts as a fortress and lays the foundations of our health and longevity. It is all that stands between us and 38,000,000,000,000 (that’s 38 trillion!) microbes in our body that threaten us constantly – although 99 per cent won’t hurt us. As our sixth sense, this system connects our health to our environment, feelings and emotions. When it comes to maintaining good health, the immune system is our most precious asset. Crucially, it’s as unique to each of us as our fingerprints – and with good reason, as this diversity helps sustain the human race: if our immune defence systems were identical, a single deadly disease could wipe us all out. That’s why we all know someone who ‘never gets a cold’. They may have an immune system that is perfect at dealing with the common cold, but they might fare worse when faced with a different germ. But while, broadly speaking, we are all different when it comes to immunity, there is evidence that nowhere is the difference greater than between the sexes. This suggests that men aren’t just being drama queens – man flu is real. Indeed, we know that significantly more men than women die from infections. The reasons are complex and only partially known, but one theory is that because women can pass bugs from mother to child during gestation, birth, or breastfeeding, they need a hardier immune defence against germs. Devastating outbreaks, such as infection epidemics like coronavirus, have all been caused by the smorgasbord of micro-organisms with which we share this planet.
Over the last decades, our fear of them has been realised, with outbreaks of swine flu, Zika, bird flu, ebola and many others – each outbreak prompting new concerns about infection protection. But from birth to death we are silently bombarded, minute by minute, with an untold number of potential infectious threats. And whether or not we get sick is decided by the integrity of our immune system. Thankfully, there are ways in which we can help train and maintain it. Searching ‘immunity’ online or among the aisles of health-food stores reveals an abundance of nutritional supplements, cold remedies and fortified foods all promising to ‘boost’ our immune system. But is there any scientific truth in these claims? The notion of the immune system as some kind of internal force-field that can be easily ramped up makes little sense scientifically and is one of the biggest misconceptions I come across in my work. True, researchers have looked at whether things such as echinacea, green tea, garlic and wheatgrass supplements can help see off germs. But evidence in support of a single immune-boosting nutrient or superfood is not strong. If you are looking to strengthen your immunity, the best way is through a combined approach – by adopting these science-backed lifestyle tweaks and changes. They are in no way prescriptive, nor a magic bullet to health, simply a gentle nudge in a better direction…
GO ORGANIC Organic produce has a significantly more diverse bacteria population, especially when eaten raw, since cooking would destroy these good bugs. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of many benefits from consuming fermented foods and drinks like kimchi, kombucha, kefir and sauerkraut which contain a natural synergy of many different types of yeasts and bacteria.
ENJOY SOME SUNSHINE Sunshine is good for immunity and bad for viruses. One reason that flu is a winter problem is because the influenza virus is transmitted best at cooler temperatures and low humidity. But there are other reasons for seeking sunshine. Research suggests it makes disease-fighting cells in the skin move faster and work more efficiently. Sunlight also helps our bodies to make Vitamin D. The World Health Organisation suggests five to 15 minutes of casual sun exposure a few times a week (between 10am and 2 pm) is more than sufficient to keep Vitamin D levels topped up. The vitamin’s crucial role in immunity is not fully understood but ample levels can help protect against a lengthy list of ailments, including multiple sclerosis, asthma, depression, heart disease and cancer. The World Health Organisation suggests five to 15 minutes of casual sun exposure a few times a week is more than sufficient to keep Vitamin D levels topped up. Public Health England advises that adults and children over the age of one should consider taking a daily supplement containing ten micrograms of Vitamin D, particularly during autumn and winter.
BRRR… COLD SHOWERS! There’s a growing – albeit still rather small – body of evidence that being cold can benefit our immunity. In the right doses, exposure to cold temperatures can help reduce stress, which can have a detrimental impact on immunity. It won’t happen straight away but over time, our body can improve its resistance to stress. Research shows that people who take regular cold showers are almost 30 per cent less likely to call in sick to work than others, due to the improvements in immunity. At the end of every shower, turn the water to the coldest setting and stand underneath for about 20 seconds. Build up to as long as you can tolerate.
TAKE THE COUNTRY AIR As well as getting microbes from our mothers and our diets, we get them from our environment. The air we breathe carries bacteria, which together with organisms that come mostly from soil and plants, are deposited in our mouths and airways as we breath and swallow. These are known to have potentially beneficial immunological effects. That’s great if you live in the countryside, but less so if you live in an urban environment that is low on microbial diversity. Urbanites are more susceptible to allergies and inflammatory disease, and there is also clear evidence that childhood exposure to outdoor microbes is linked to a more robust immune system. So city-dwellers should spend time in a garden, visit the countryside, go for a walk in the park, eat home-grown food or head to a local farmers’ market. Even just digging your fingers in the soil of a potted plant can improve your mood and nourish your immune system.
I’ve always found something about being in nature – whether it’s the sound of the sea, the scent of a forest or an impressive countryside vista – eases my stress and worry, and helps me to relax and think more clearly. Exposure to nature works primarily by lowering stress – immune-cell function improves after walking in a forest for a few hours each day. Nature, it seems, is particularly good for strengthening our main virus-fighting cells and cancer-surveillance system. Aromatic substances called phytoncides from trees and plants bring about these amazing health benefits. If you can’t get outdoors to decrease stress and assist with immune balance, you could put woody essential oils in a diffuser. Some of my favourites are sacred mountain, pine, cypress, Idaho balsam fir and palo santo.
TRY PROBIOTICS The official definition of a probiotic is: ‘a live micro-organism that when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit’. But few products meet this definition as it’s tricky to keep the organisms alive. Also, we don’t know if they are useful for everyone or which specific strains should be taken. In fact, most microbes from probiotics do not take up residence in our guts, but are transient, detectable only for a limited time during frequent consumption. This is not a reason to dismiss their health benefits though, as they can help improve the availability of nutrients from food and produce compounds that strengthen immunity. One interesting piece of research suggested that taking probiotic supplements is linked to a reduced likelihood of getting colds, and making them shorter in duration and less severe.
SLEEP ON IT One of our least valuable cliches is that we can sleep when we die. Much truer is: if we don’t sleep, we will die – sooner. While more sleep won’t necessarily make us invincible, lack of sleep almost immediately tips our immune system into imbalance, simultaneously dampening parts of it and empowering others. A single night of poor sleep leads to a decrease of up to 70 per cent of our natural killer cells – our first-line defence against viruses and potentially cancerous cells. Other research has shown that people who sleep for six hours a night or less are four times more likely to catch a cold when exposed to the virus, compared with those who spend more than seven hours a night asleep. No matter what your starting point to wellbeing is, I’d say sort out your sleep before anything else. (See Dr Michael Mosley’s guide to a good night’s sleep).
Ask the scientist: here’s what to do to boost your immune system!!! Another quick watch and listen to is Sharon Stills, NMD, who is a primary care health practitioner who provides therapeutic and diagnostic services to women. Dr. Stills is also a member of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, the Arizona Naturopathic Medical Association and the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Dr. Stills develops content and reviews articles for Women’s Health Network and is a sought-after lecturer and natural medicine consultant. Dr. Stills founded one of the largest and most successful Naturopathic Clinics in the country and now sees patients in a unique retreat setting where they receive specialized one-on-one care in Tucson, Arizona. She practices a comprehensive natural holistic healing system that promotes self-healing without the use of drugs. With conventional DEA pharmaceutical training & extensive experience compounding pharmacy prescriptions, Dr. Stills can help her patients with custom supplements, remedies and targeted formulations.
Coronavirus patient, 87, who was pictured watching the sunset with his doctor in viral image recovers from the deadly disease!!!
When Lauren Rowello, a New Jersey resident, developed a mild cough in early March, she didn’t think that it could be the coronavirus. It’s been about a month, and the mom of two – lives in the epicenter of the pandemic in the US – is still recovering from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Rowello regrets having not adequately prepared and outlined the things she wishes she had done differently.
Conrad Buchanan, died at 39 on March 26 after battling the coronavirus infection for nearly two weeks, with his wife Nicole Buchanan and their 12-year-old daughter, Skye. (Family photo)
Hundreds of young Americans have now been killed by the coronavirus, data shows. Two weeks after her husband died alone in an intensive care unit in Fort Myers, Fla., Nicole Buchanan is quarantined at the home they shared with their 12-year-old daughter, wrestling not only with grief but also with why and how the coronavirus could steal someone so young and healthy.
“My husband didn’t have diabetes, he didn’t have asthma, he didn’t have high cholesterol.” He didn’t have anything,” Buchanan said. “There’s just so much I’ll never know, that I’ll never get the answers to.” Conrad Buchanan, who died at 39 on March 26 after battling the infection for nearly two weeks, was creative and goofy. A professional DJ, he could entertain huge crowds with his music. But at home, he was fond of singing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” to his 12-year-old daughter, Skye. “He had an amazing sense of humor. He had a big laugh. He was so magnetic,” his 37-year-old widow said. “He was our universe.” He also was among at least 759 people under age 50 across the United States who have perished amid the deepening pandemic, according to a Washington Post analysis of state data. These deaths underscore the tragic fact that while the novel coronavirus might be most threatening to the old and compromised, no one is immune. For the very young — people under the age of 20 — death is extremely rare in the current pandemic. But it happens: The Post identified nine such cases. The risk appears to rise with every decade of age. The Post found at least 45 deaths among people in their 20’s. (It’s hard to give a precise number because of the divergent ways states present age groups: For instance, this figure does not include 15 deaths under the age of 30 in Louisiana and New Jersey.) As ages progress, The Post found at least 190 deaths among people in their 30’s, and at least 413 among people in their 40’s.
The true number of deaths among young people is probably even higher. Not all states provide data on coronavirus deaths sorted by age group. Some, like New Jersey and Texas, provided figures after being approached by The Post, while others, like California, did not. As a result, the figures above do not include data from some states, including several with sizable outbreaks. The percentage of younger deaths, which The Post has defined as people under the age of 50, varies widely among states. It is just 0.8 percent of all deaths in Massachusetts, but 8 percent in Louisiana and 9 percent in Illinois.
By far the largest number of such deaths have come in New York, which has the country’s biggest outbreak. As of Wednesday, six New York residents under the age of 20, 33 people in their 20’s, 118 in their 30’s and 265 in their 40’s had died. Even more young people are getting cases of serious, dangerous disease that require a hospital visit to beat. In Colorado — where the state health department reports age data for both hospitalizations and deaths — 247 people under 50 have been hospitalized. Of these patients, nine have died. Data on more than 1,400 hospitalizations released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that just over 25 percent of people hospitalized with covid-19 were under age 50. Most of these young people suffered from underlying conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension. But at least seven for whom the CDC had data had no outside health problems, underscoring that a small fraction of severe cases remain hard to explain.
Similarly, in New York, 64 percent of patients between the ages of 30 and 39 who died of the disease suffered from a preexisting condition, usually high blood pressure or diabetes. But that still leaves about a third of cases without such a possible contributing factor. Shawn Evans, attending emergency physician and director of resuscitation at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, said he and other doctors on the front lines of the epidemic have been “humbled” by how many young people have been hospitalized and ended up in the ICU during the outbreak. “This is nothing like we had predicted based on the data from these other countries,” Evans, who estimated roughly half the covid-19 patients in his ICU have been under 50, said in an interview. Evans said the vast majority of young people who contract the disease fare well and recover. But for a minority, it appears to cause a unique change in the blood’s oxygen-carrying hemoglobin cells. “Young people who are otherwise fit can tolerate this longer, but at the expense of their heart and their pulmonary functions,” said Evans, who likened some of the symptoms in younger people to prolonged carbon monoxide exposure. He said younger patients he has seen tend to come in later, after battling the disease at home for longer.
But for those who take a tragic turn, it often happens quickly. “When they do deteriorate, they do so much more dramatically,” he said. In those cases, Evans said, the lack of oxygen makes the right side of the heart work extra hard, which leads to pulmonary hypertension. “The lungs clamp down, they can’t get blood flow into the lungs.” What has profoundly struck Evans and his colleagues is the seeming randomness of the type of young people who are unable to fight off the disease. “A very fit 30-year-old triathlete is just as vulnerable as a chess-playing, 45-year-old who gets no exercise,” he said.
“We just don’t know who it is that this virus carries the master key to.” But he does have a message for any young people still under the impression that covid-19 is a disease that only seriously threatens the elderly and infirm. “Just because they are young doesn’t mean they aren’t vulnerable,” he said. “Nobody knows what immune protection they have at any given moment.” Jean-Laurent Casanova, an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and physician at Rockefeller University Hospital, suspects vulnerability to the virus among some young people may be partly encoded in their DNA. For more than two decades, Casanova has studied “inborn errors of immunity,” or genetic conditions that make people susceptible to certain diseases. These conditions — often caused by a single mutation in a single gene — can hinder the immune system’s response to a particular virus or bacteria, explaining why a subset of seemingly healthy young people get extremely sick. In 2015, his lab discovered a toddler with a life-threatening case of influenza had a mutation in the gene that codes for a specific type of immune protein that warns cells of an attack. When the researchers genetically engineered mice to have that same mutation, they found the mice were significantly more vulnerable to the virus. Now, Casanova is collecting genetic material from young people in more than 100 countries who have fallen severely ill with the coronavirus. His hope is that the genomes will reveal “candidate” mutations that might explain susceptibility to the virus. “Step one is to understand,” Casanova said. But if he can identify a mutation and test it in the lab, “step two is how can you prevent it, how can you fix it.” Illnesses caused by inborn errors of immunity are helpful for understanding the behavior of a virus, he said, because they are “clean cases,” uncomplicated by age or underlying conditions. And they can often provide clues in the search for a cure.
For example, Casanova has found people are more susceptible to tuberculosis when they have a pair of mutations that cause low levels of gamma interferon, a protein that fights the genus of bacteria that causes TB. Fortunately, he said, gamma interferon has been available as a drug for more than 30 years, making it a promising potential treatment for the disease. “That’s a very good example of what you can do once you understand a condition in patients with the genetic disorder,” he said. Back in Florida, Nicole Buchanan said she hopes her husband’s death hammers home to young people that the coronavirus can kill without exception. “All I can hope is that it opens up someone else’s eyes,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to have to go through the pain my daughter and I are in.” Buchanan said that each passing day gets harder as she settles into the realization that Conrad is not coming home. She still wrestles with her anger that he was initially denied testing for covid-19 because he was young and healthy and had not traveled overseas. She still struggles with the fact she was never able to see him again after dropping him at the emergency room and going to park the car.
Before she knew it, he was being treated and put on a ventilator, and no visitors were allowed given the outbreak. Even grieving is a lonely exercise. Her two brothers and their wives can’t come inside because of social distancing, she said, but they come during the day to her backyard to visit and offer support from a distance. There has been no memorial gathering for Conrad yet, even as he was cremated this week. For now, Buchanan keeps replaying the moment when a nurse held the phone to Conrad’s ear not long before he died, so that his wife and daughter could say their goodbyes. Together, they sang him Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”
Dr. Li Wenliang warned fellow doctors to wear protective clothing because of a new virus. A 55-year-old individual from Hubei province in China may have been the first person to have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus spreading across the globe. That case dates back to Nov. 17, 2019, according to the South Morning China Post. That’s more than a month earlier than doctors noted cases in Wuhan, China, which is in Hubei province, at the end of December 2019. At the time, authorities suspected the virus stemmed from something sold at a wet market in the city. However, it’s now clear that early in what is now a pandemic, some infected people had no connection to the market. That included one of the earliest cases from Dec. 1, 2019 in an individual who had no link to that seafood market, researchers reported Jan. 20 in the journal The Lancet. The first case of the coronavirus was reported in Wuhan in December, and is thought to have originated at the Huanan Seafood Market, a wet market that sold live animals next to seafood and meat. By late December, dozens of cases began emerging, but scientists knew only that the sickness involved viral pneumonia, and that patients were not responding to normal treatments. Chinese officials did not alert the public at this point. On December 31, they released a statement to the World Health Organization and said the virus was “preventable and controllable.”
The Huanan Seafood Market was closed on January 1. Chinese authorities began an official investigation into the disease in early January, after fear began spreading that this could be like SARS, another coronavirus that originated in China and killed 774 people in the early 2000’s. On January 7, Chinese authorities identified the illness to be a new type of coronavirus (called a novel coronavirus or nCoV). Four days later, on January 11, China recorded its first coronavirus death, a 61-year old man in Wuhan. On January 22, Chinese Health Officials held a press conference in Beijing to discuss what they knew about the outbreak. People were demanding answers. At this time, it was acknowledged that the virus could spread form human-to-human contact. During the early stages of the outbreak, people began wearing masks to protect themselves, even though, for the average person, wearing a mask is not as effective as hand-washing and avoiding infected people. China began to impose screening precautions in Wuhan and began checking people for the virus at transportation hubs. Passengers traveling to other parts of Asia from Wuhan were targeted for screening at airports. Medics wearing Hazmat suits were seen scanning passengers arriving from Wuhan in Beijing on January 22. As the death toll climbed to nine, the Chinese government urged people to avoid traveling to Wuhan and to stay away from public spaces — a warning that came just as millions of people were planning to migrate for the Lunar New Year. But according to the New York Times, an estimated 7 million people — thousands of them infected with the virus — traveled from Wuhan throughout the month of January. On January 23, the death toll grew to 17 and the city of Wuhan was put on official lock down. All transportation was stopped and wearing a protective mask became mandatory.
People in Wuhan stockpiled food and fuel. Streets in Wuhan were deserted. As panic began to spread throughout China, videos surfaced of infected people being shoved into plastic boxes and tubes as authorities tried to contain the virus. Shortly after Wuhan, two other Chinese cities, Huanggang and Ezhou, closed down their transportation, as well. At this point, 19 million people were put on lock down. But the virus continued to spread. On January 24, as cases in China rose over 1,000 and the death toll climbed to 41, the government expanded the lock down to include 13 cities. Now 36 million people were restricted. The virus had now spread to nine countries and authorities in Wuhan struggled to contain an influx of patients. One doctor in Wuhan said thousands of patients had been left waiting hours for treatment, and that doctors were advised not to work over fears they could become infected. Protective gear and test-kits had become so sparse in Wuhan that people reportedly likened their chances to receiving them as “winning the lottery”. On January 25, the Chinese government barred citizens from booking overseas flights, hotels, and tours. By January 28, the number of cities under quarantine grew to 16, and an estimated 50 million people were lock down in the Hubei Province. On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a “global emergency” as cases in China rose in the thousands and multiple countries — including the US — reported infections. As hospitals struggled to treat an influx of new patients, the Chinese government announced plans to build two new hospitals in Wuhan within days. Huoshenshan Hospital was completed 10 days later, on February 3, and is located on the outskirts of the city. It has an area of 270,000 square feet, and is equipped with 1,000 beds, and 1,400 military medics of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as staff. The second hospital, Leishenshan Hospital, was built in 15 days to provide 1,600 extra beds for the city. On January 31, the US government announced plans to bar foreign travelers from entering the US if they have traveled to China within 14 days. And the Pentagon has started preparing quarantine facilities that can hold up to 1,000 people entering the US, if necessary. By early February, Chinese authorities began using extreme measures to quell the outbreak in Wuhan, including door-to-door searches, excessive sanitation, and gathering sick people in quarantine centers. Patients in Wuhan began to be admitted into makeshift hospitals, including a sports stadium, an exhibition center, and a building complex. Three such facilities were prepared to add 3,400 new beds. By February 13, more than 14,000 new cases were documented in the Hubei province, bringing the total to 48,206. Nearly 2,000 new cases a day were reported around this time. To slow the outbreak, China postponed all non-urgent medical care and made many doctor’s visits remote. They also walled off entire medical wards to exclusively treat coronavirus patients.
On February 7, a Chinese doctor, who was silenced by authorities in January for sounding the alarm on the virus outbreak, died from contracting coronavirus and later honored as a martyr. By mid-February, hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers and volunteers were positioned around the country to restrict the movement of millions of people through blocking travel, and ensuring people stay in their homes. China also began tracking people exposed to the virus through a mobile technology surveillance system that was developed during the SARS outbreak. On March 11, the WHO declared the outbreak a pandemic and China’s cases appeared to be dropping. At this time the country had more than 80,000 reported cases. By March 19, China reported zero new local infections for the first time since the outbreak began.
On March 24, the government announced that the mandatory lock down in Wuhan would be lifted on April 8, with some traffic control measures being lifted on March 25. Two weeks later, at midnight on April 8, the lock down was officially lifted allowing traffic to funnel in and out of the city. Residents are now permitted to leave Wuhan, but only if they have a mandatory smartphone application that monitors their health and determines how far they are able to travel. China has officially reported 82,718 cases and 3,335 deaths as of April 7. But many believe the real numbers are much higher and suspect the Chinese government worked to conceal the actual statistics and give false information throughout the outbreak. Public health experts worry Wuhan’s reopening could trigger a second wave of infections in China. “This day does not mark the final victory,” the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily said in in editorial. “At this moment, we still need to remind ourselves that as Wuhan is unblocked, we can be pleased, but we must not relax.”
Viruses are pH Sensitive Published on March 4, 2020
Solar light is another important factor producing viral inactivation, through the action of UV radiation. Viruses survive better in the dark than when exposed to sunlight.
Much like vitamin D: the most overlooked aspect of the coronavirus pandemic is the fact that most viruses are pH sensitive. pH medicine offers us a key to treating viral infections that is easy, safe and inexpensive. Shifting a patients pH, combined with high dosages of vitamin C, is the appropriate foundation treatments for at home and hospital care. There are many additional treatments like vitamin D, glutathione, iodine and selenium, even hydrogen, but the first thing we should reach for is sodium bicarbonate, which offers us control of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the US have uncovered the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of most viruses which plague mankind are on target, there are vulnerabilities that can be exploited but what they are looking at is not practical or helpful in our fight against viral infections. The so-called ‘Achilles heel’ (or vulnerable point) of most viruses is pH, cell voltage and oxygen levels. pH is a measurement for voltage and oxygen saturation. Coronavirus needs a slightly acidic pH to penetrate the cell. The simple alkalinization of the blood reduces the cells susceptibility to the virus. The ability of influenza virus to release its genome under different acidic conditions is linked by medical science to the transmission of influenza virus. The threshold pH at which fusion is first observed can vary among different serotypes of membrane protein hemagglutinin (HA) and may correlate with virulence. The acid stability of HA has been linked to the successful transmission of virus between avian and human hosts. Coronavirus infectivity is actually exquisitely sensitive to pH. The MHV-A59 strain of coronavirus is quite stable at pH 6.0 (acidic) but becomes rapidly and irreversibly inactivated by brief treatment at pH 8.0 (alkaline). Human coronavirus strain 229E is maximally infective at pH 6.0. Infection of cells by coronavirus A59 at pH 6.0 (acidic) rather than pH 7.0 (neutral) yields a tenfold increase in the infectivity of the virus. Data suggests that the coronavirus IBV employs a direct, low-pH-dependent virus-cell fusion activation reaction. “Fusion of the coronavirus IBV with host cells does not occur at neutral pH and that fusion activation is a low-pH-dependent process, with a half-maximal rate of fusion at pH 5.5. Little or no fusion occurred above a pH of 6.0.” Raising pH (to an alkaline state) increases the immune system’s ability to kill bacteria, concludes The Royal Free Hospital and School of Medicine in London. The viruses and bacteria which cause bronchitis and colds thrive in an acidic environment. Keeping our pH in the slightly alkaline range of 6.8-7.2 can reduce the risk and lessen the severity of colds, sore throats and bouts of influenza. Conquering Cancer – A Course in Naturopathic Oncology by Dr. Sircus – Find Out » When we thoroughly add alkalinity we invariably have mild attacks of viral infections and the same is true for bacterial and fungus infections. There is significant decrease in median number of colony forming bacteria and fungi in the lungs of pneumonia patients when sodium bicarbonate is used compared to saline. Medical scientists have already concluded that a 8.4% solution of bicarbonate is safe inhibitory drug for respiratory bacterial, fungal, and mycobacterial growth. Slow infusions of NaHCO3 (bicarbonate) can also be used to treat non-anion gap metabolic acidosis and some forms of increased anion gap acidosis, a common enough problem in ICU patients with serious lung infections. Viruses infect host cells by fusion with cellular membranes at low pH. Thus they are classified as “pH-dependent viruses.” Drugs that increase intracellular pH (alkalinity within the cell) have been shown to decrease infectivity of pH-dependent viruses. Since such drugs can provoke negative side effects, the obvious answer are natural techniques that can produce the same results. There is no pharmaceutical that can compete with sodium bicarbonate for changing the pH of the bodies fluids. Fusion of viral and cellular membranes is pH dependent.
“Fusion depends on the acidification of the endosomal compartment. Fusion at the endosome level is triggered by conformational changes in viral glycoproteins induced by the low pH of this cellular compartment.”[1] In membrane biology, fusion is the process by which two initially distinct lipid bilayers merge their hydrophobic cores, resulting in one interconnected structure. It has been suggested that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects host cells through a pH-dependent internalization mechanism. This HCVpp-mediated fusion was dependent on low pH, with a threshold of 6.3 and an optimum at about 5.5.[2] When pH drops to 6 or below, rapid fusion between the membranes of viruses and the liposomes occurs. Takeda Pharmaceutical is joining Gilead Sciences and AbbVie as the latest drugmaker to work on developing a coronavirus vaccine. The experimental drug would be derived from the blood of coronavirus patients who have recovered from the respiratory disease. “While we don’t know for sure that it will work, we think it’s definitely a relevant asset that could be of help here,” said Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda’s vaccines business. pH medicine will definitively work because viruses are pH dependent and sodium bicarbonate is available everywhere and costs almost next to nothing.
In hospitals bicarbonate is easily administered intravenously. Inhibition of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) replication in LB cells by interferon (IFN) is pH sensitive. Using sensitive intracellular pH (pHi) indicators, researchers found that IFN treatment significantly raised the pHi. The increase in pHi correlated with an enhancement of the antiviral activity of IFN by primary amines. These results indicated that the IFN-induced increase in pHi may be responsible for the accumulation of G in the TGN, thereby producing G-deficient virus particles with reduced infectivity. [3]
Understanding Cell Voltage, pH and Oxygen Levels Wherever the body has low voltage, the cells begin to have problems that get more serious the lower the voltage (pH) goes. The lower the voltage goes, the lower the pH goes, and the lower oxygen levels go, and that means CO2 levels are going south as well. Chronic disease is associated with loss of voltage, lower pH values (acid conditions), as well as low O2 and CO2 levels. This means that alkaline tissues have more oxygen in them. Wherever the body becomes acidic, voltage drops as does tissue oxygen levels. What is pH after all? It is ultimately a measure of redox potential. Redox potential is a measure of whether electrons are available in surplus (and thus are “electron donors”) or whether electrons are deficient (and thus are “electron stealers”). Electrons are necessary for life and are needed for health and in high quantities for healing and the growth of new cells.
Dr. David Brownstein wrote, “The human body is constantly removing old and injured cells and replacing them with healthy new cells. This process can only occur if the voltage of the cells is maintained at an optimal level. This process works more effectively when we are young as compared to when we are older. In the body (or in a solution), voltage is a direct reflection of pH, which is a measure of the degree of acidity or alkalinity of a solution, measured on a scale of 1 to 14. The human body’s pH level is a direct reflection of its voltage. A low pH reading (highly acidic) indicates a low voltage state.
Conversely, a high pH reading (highly alkaline) means a high voltage state.” The amount of oxygen in cells is determined by voltage. If a cell has adequate voltage, it will also have adequate oxygen. If cellular voltage is low, the amount of oxygen in the tissues will be low. This applies to metabolism as well. When voltage and oxygen are low, metabolism becomes anaerobic, which means that oxygen is unavailable. Baking Soda – Sodium Bicarbonate https://klaire.com/v033-25-bicarb-formula
I Believe A Face Mask Prevents Someone That Has It From Expelling The Virus?
Should You Wear a Face Mask for Outdoor Runs During the Coronavirus Pandemic? Renee Cherry 9 hrs. ago
Now that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends wearing face masks in public, people have been getting crafty and scouring the internet for options that won’t take months to ship out. Wearing a mask isn’t a huge hassle for the occasional grocery run, but if you’re running outside, the new recommendation presents a bigger inconvenience. If you want to do your part to help slow the spread of COVID-19, but also hate the thought of running with fabric on your face, here’s what you should know.
Should I wear a mask while exercising outdoors? First off, the CDC’s guidelines around coronavirus protection don’t call for avoiding outdoor exercise, assuming you’re not feeling sick. Don’t hit up your running buddy, though. The agency has been stressing that everyone should practice social distancing by avoiding group meetups and trying to stay at least six feet away from other people. If you decide to go on a socially-distanced run, whether or not you need to wear a face mask depends on where you’re at. The CDC’s stance is that masks are necessary “whenever people are in a community setting, especially in situations where you may be near people,” like “grocery stores and pharmacies.” So if you don’t tend to pass people on your runs, it sounds like you can still run without one. “The importance of the mask is to protect yourself [and others] in settings where people are around,” says microbiologist Dean Hart, O.D. “In a running setting, however, you are normally not running through crowds of people or in packed settings,” he explains. “It’s not necessary if you are running in desolate areas and maintaining social distance, but if you are going to be surrounded by people, I would suggest taking the precaution and wearing the proper mask.” (Related: Should You Start Making and Wearing DIY Masks to Protect Against the Coronavirus?)
Whatever you decide, don’t treat wearing a face mask as a substitute for social distancing. Keeping a physical distance from others is still the most important measure for slowing the spread of the coronavirus, Anthony Fauci, M.D. director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently clarified on Fox & Friends.
What are the best face masks for running? With its new stance on face masks, the CDC is recommending the type of cloth face mask that’s washable for everyday use. (FYI: Avoid buying up surgical masks or N-95s, which health care professionals need for adequate protection on the job.) The CDC also offers two sets of no-sew face mask instructions as well as a more advanced DIY option. Each one is fine to run in, says Alesha Courtney, C.P.T., personal trainer and nutritionist. Though running with a mask on can take some getting used to, since it can affect your breathing, she notes. “For beginner runners, this may be challenging and at-home workouts may be your best bet,” she explains. “Always listen to your body. If you find that you’re out of breath or cannot breathe easily, slow down, walk, or for right now stick to home workouts.” Certain gaiters and balaclavas (aka ski masks) might also work if they fit snuggly and cover your nose and mouth, as recommended by the CDC. Just note that the agency suggests using multiple layers of cotton fabric in its homemade mask instructions. Traditionally, gaiters are predominantly made of spandex because of its elasticity. But non-cotton materials, in general, aren’t ideal for homemade masks; they might make you sweat more, dampening the fabric and, in turn, making it more porous for pathogens like SARS-COV-2 to get in, Suzanne Willard, Ph.D., clinical professor and associate dean for global health at Rutgers School of Nursing, previously told Shape. If you want to buy cotton gaiters, there are a few options on Amazon and Etsy, like this 100% Cotton Knit Neck Scarf and this Cotton Face Mask.
If outdoor runs are the one thing that’s been saving you from cabin fever, rest assured that the new face mask update doesn’t mean you have to stop. Whether you should wear one boils down to how crowded your route gets. The information in this story is accurate as of press time. As updates about coronavirus COVID-19 continue to evolve, its possible that some information and recommendations in this story have changed since initial publication. We encourage you to check in regularly with resources such as the CDC, the WHO, and your local public health department for the most up-to-date data and recommendations.
John Kelly is director of data journalism for the ABC-owned television stations. An ABC News joint investigation with its owned television stations sheds new light on the likely flow of the coronavirus from global hotspots into the U.S. and provides a glimpse the toll the virus has taken on some of the first Americans to interact with international travelers: airport workers. From December through March, as the outbreak ravaged China, more than 3,200 flights left the Asian nation on direct routes to at least 20 cities across the U.S., according to an ABC News analysis of more than 20 million flight records obtained from the tracking service Flightradar-24.
Bing COVID-19 tracker: Latest numbers by country and state While it is unclear the precise number of passengers into the U.S. who were infected with the coronavirus, medical experts told ABC News such a huge pool of people virtually assures that a number had the highly contagious disease. “In the case of coronavirus, you have the interface of a virus that spreads this quickly,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and ABC News contributor said. Brownstein said that such massive travel meant that the flow of the virus into the U.S. and other countries probably came quickly after it began spreading quickly in China. “So our view is that even as early as January, we were seeing introductions of cases happening globally and specifically in the U.S.,” he said.
Disaster in motion: 3.4 million travelers poured into US as coronavirus pandemic eruptedAccording to travel data previously obtained by ABC News, those flights translate to more than 761,000 Chinese nationals entering the U.S. and Americans returning home from the People’s Republic during that critical period. The analysis of every individual flight record shows that more than 1,000 flights went to Los Angeles and nearly 500 each landed in San Francisco and New York – all three among the eventual hot spots of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. More than 100 flights from China arrived in each of six other American cities: Chicago, Seattle, Detroit, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Newark, N.J. The flow of these passengers into these key cities, offer a window on how the virus may have quickly spread across the U.S.Among the flights were 50 direct from Wuhan, the Chinese metropolis where the outbreak is believed to have started. Twenty-seven of those flights went to San Francisco and 23 to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. The last flights from Wuhan came in early February, when the Trump Administration imposed restrictions on flights from China to the U.S. But this new passenger and travel data obtained by ABC News revealed by the time the president took his action – which administration officials say saved lives – some of the damage had already been done.
The first coronavirus case in the U.S. was reported in Washington state in late January, before cases followed days later in Arizona and California. In each of those cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the infected individuals had been in Wuhan recently. But the spread of the virus person-to-person domestically since has made tracing the origin of particular outbreaks in many American cities more difficult. “The United States banned travel to China 12 days after the world heard there was an outbreak of severe pneumonia in Wuhan. … The problem was, it was too late,” said Dr. Todd Ellerin, chief of Infectious Disease at South Shore Health and an ABC News consultant. “Even though there had only been 12 confirmed cases in the U.S. on the day President Trump announces the travel ban, the reality was there were many more unconfirmed cases.”
The flights from China weren’t the only ones coming from airports in international hotspots for the COVID-19 outbreak. ABC News also analyzed thousands more flights during the period from Italy and Spain, which had the highest numbers of cases outside the U.S. by the end of March. From December through March 30, 353,000 foreign nationals and Americans entered the U.S. from Italy. Another 456,547 came from Spain. “Clearly, some portion of those were infected either with mild symptoms or asymptomatic. We were seeding this epidemic in many places, but flying blind because we weren’t doing the adequate testing that was needed,” Brownstein said. More than 1,400 direct flights from Italy landed in U.S. cities from December to March, including more than 500 in February and March as that country was becoming an international focal point for the worldwide pandemic. Another 2,255 flights from Spain landed in U.S. cities.
The federal government shut down most flights from Europe in mid-March, but by then hundreds of flights from Italy had gone into New York and Miami. Nearly 100 of the Italy-to-Miami flights happened over six weeks in February and early March before the U.S. imposed restrictions. March’s flights from Italy also went to large airports in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Newark, Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio. Also in March, more than 400 flights left Spain for 12 American cities. Close to half of those flights landed at two New York City region airports: JFK and Newark Liberty. More than 100 went to Miami. Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles each took in at least two dozen direct flights from Spain in March. The flights directly from China, Italy and Spain reached at least 15 states. Additionally, during the same period, the cities that took in at least 100 flights from China, Italy and Spain were the starting point for flights to every state in the country — potentially exasperating the domestic spread. And there is evidence that the travel flow may have had direct impact on the country’s airport personnel.
More than 320 Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Border Protection personnel have tested positive for coronavirus, according to data obtained by ABC News. The number of affected airport security workers corresponds with hotspots, though it’s unclear if the workers contracted the virus from their duties or from other person-to-person contact. Of the Customs and Border protection personnel that tested positive, 52, were from New York ports of entry, twenty were from Miami and Ft. Lauderdale airports and facilities, 10 from Los Angeles work sites and 10 from New Jersey. The analysis of international flights excluded more than 1,000 routes by cargo haulers and hundreds of additional flights into Alaska, where it could not be determined with certainty whether the flights – mostly from China – carried cargo, passengers or both.
