When people have other co-morbid health conditions and a weakened immune system, these initiating coronaviruses can lead to secondary infections, leading to complications and escalation to pneumonia. The escalation involves a lot of inflammation, which causes blockage of tubules, pain and lack of oxygen.
A virus isn’t even alive. By definition it’s, “an infective agent that typically consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat, is too small to be seen by light microscopy, and is able to multiply only within the living cells of a host.” (wikipedia). A virus is a simple code that attaches to other living organisms and in some way corrupts things. Symptoms occur depending on how much the viral code can interfere with the life form’s cellular functions. A virus may not even interfere with our cells directly, but may first attach to other pathogens in our internal microbial milieu, thereby increasing their potency to parasite on our cells.
All viruses can mutate, that is, change their coding so as to evade our immune system. Viruses are a common part of our invisible environment and are always having a go at testing the weakest areas of our immune defence. If the immune system has worked out how to block them, they can change their coding and will have another attempt at you or others whose defences may have dropped.
If a virus isn’t alive, then how come it changes its coding and morphs at all? It does sound like some kind of natural intelligence is involved. Maybe that intelligence comes from the cells of our own body and that we ‘attract’ it for a purpose. There is much still to discover about our biology and its interaction with the environment. Some theorists have speculated that viruses come around to ‘clean up’ cellular wastes and toxicity. In other words, they ‘test’ the immune system like training at the gym so that we become stronger after recovery.
By the time a new flu vaccine is released each year, chances are the original pathogen they worked with in the lab has already mutated and morphed on to another state, which does not respond to the vaccine anymore.
To make the whole vaccine game even more dicey, there are potentially hundreds of viruses and pathogens in the environment that could cause infection and illness each year, yet vaccines can only be developed to target a handful of them. So, researchers have to ‘guestimate’ and take a punt as to which ones may take hold in the population by the following year’s flu season.
The point is, we can never hope to counter the common cold by artificially creating one specific static antibody for every potential variation and future change. It’s a runaway train that you can never catch.
Good hygiene practices such as mask-wearing if you are sick and coughing, and washing your hands with soap after handling contaminated surfaces, are great ways help to curtail spread of infectious diseases, but what does Nature give us to build immunity if viruses have already taken hold? What can we do to strengthen our innate army of defences, which are genetically programmed to change and adapt as quickly as the pathogens?
The ‘panic-demic’
The recent run on toilet paper in supermarkets is funny, yes, but also quite tragic. Let me tell you honestly, having cupboards full of toilet paper will not save you from COVID-19. If there were empty supermarket shelves where vitamin C had been, I would understand the panic buying better.
The first thing to remember in any outbreak of infectious disease is not to panic. Fear and stress cause excessive magnesium loss, which weakens your immune system. Fear also restricts blood flow and information processing by the prefrontal cortex of the brain, and resources are shunted more towards the limbic primitive part of the brain getting ready for ‘fight or flight’ and quick action. In other words, if you allow yourself to succumb to fear and panic, worry and stress, you will be less able to reason and work out better solutions to problems.
Stressful conditions such as harsh winters can make us more magnesium deficient and vulnerable to viral infestations (such as COVID-19). Defending and strengthening the immune system relies on a number of nutritional protocols including rest, alkaline foods, vitamin C and other antioxidants such as turmeric, garlic, blueberries or acai berries, olive leaf extract and colloidal silver, etc. If you have access to other traditional antioxidant herbal remedies, use those as well.
Inhalation via diffuser of dissolved magnesium chloride flakes plus essential oils such as frankinsense, oregano and menthol (or tea tree and eucalyptus) have an excellent reputation (to name but a few of the powerful anti-microbial oils available). You can get more leverage from antioxidants when they work as a team. For instance, magnesium, vitamin C, zinc and vitamin Bs work very well together.
Sodium bicarbonate was used by many who survived the 1918 Spanish Flu, as it helped them restore alkaline balance in cells, weakening the microbial invaders and helping to restore oxygen supply to cells. Herbal teas are also great to help detox and support the liver.