because they believed the President of the United States/their Republican governor/Fox News which told them "It is a hoax. No worse than the flu. Wearing masks is for tree hugging/gun control liberals.

All lives are precious and the mourning of their loved ones should be respected.

I heard about this from my son in college.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gatech/comments/hms88u/petition_for_universities_to_create_a_onecredit/



Young people these days are so creative.

We have a country in the middle of a COVID epidemic due to a failure of leadership by Trump. We have an economy in the tank due to a failure of leadership by Trump. We have the worst income disparity between the richest Americans and the rest of us that we have seen since the Great Depression--blame Trump and the GOP Congress for that (tax cuts for the rich anyone?) We have COVID economic relief being diverted to the securely wealthy.

The working class does not know how the rent will be paid or where the next meal is coming from or even if they will still be alive next month. And yet, rather than blaming the lack of leadership in Washington, they seek to blame...

Those who have the least economic power. Those are the most likely to be disenfranchised. Those who are scapegoated as the cause of all the country's ills. This is German/Italian style WWII jack booted/goose stepping FASCISM.

Those people who think that they are being "mavericks" for refusing to wear a mask? They are fascist foot soldiers. Those who show up at peaceful protests waving around assault rifles--they are also fascist foot soldiers. Those who hurl racist insults at little girls and old ladies are the worst kind of cowardly fascist foot soldiers.

I use the word cowardly deliberately. The fascist foot soldiers do not do what they do because they are brave and bold.They do what they do because they are scared shitless. Their world is crumbling around them. And yet, they dare not bite the hand that is holding their leash. So they lash out at those that they think cannot fight back. They create a fantasy world for themselves in which COVID would go away, and they would have their dream job and their dream house if only America was white again!

Here is Paxton's definition of fascism:



Remind you of anyone?

and impotence and inability to get done the things his corporate sponsors and Russian overlords are paying him to do. Do not focus on his criminal acts--his base wants him to flout the law. They think that Jim Crow laws were good and the U.S. Constitution was written by a bunch of commies. The kind of political attacks that will drive a wedge between him and his base are ones that portray him as ineffective. Scared. Infantile. Weak.

The lack of Vietnamese deaths from COVID could a testament to a better public health system and better disease control efforts. But what if COVID 19 originated in Vietnamese pangolins and therefore the population of that country was mostly exposed when they were young and resistant?

Here is a link to an article about Vietnam's involvement in the pangolin trade.

https://www.pangolinreports.com/vietnam/

And here is one about pangolins being a possible COVID vector (since China imports them)

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/endangered-pangolin-a-possible-link-in-spread-of-covid-19/2286449/

If true, Vietnam might be a source for plasma with anti-COVID antibodies that could be used to treat active cases.

Just a thought.

Who are staying at home, safe from COVID. They want the workers back at work and the consumers back consuming, so they want to see COVID spread like wildfire through the working class, culling the "weak" and allowing everyone else to get back to the all important business of making the 1% even richer than they already are. And once 5% of Americans are dead and COVID has died down, the very wealthy will come out of hiding.

From the Washington Post:

"The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/25/fox-news-hannity-coronavirus-misinformation/

Everyone knows what "neuropathy" is. It is that sense of tingling/numbness/pins and needles that diabetics get in their feet. But there are other types of neuropathy, some of which are much more dangerous.

First, a little biology. The vagus nerve is a major player in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system. This is the system that helps us relax, chill and digest our food. There is a parallel autonomic nervous system that is called the sympathetic which is more commonly known as the "fight or flight" nervous system which speeds up our heart and breathing and cuts down blood flow to "unnecessary" organs (like the digestive tract) in times of stress and increases our inflammatory response to threats such as infectious disease.

The vagus nerve is actually a pair of cranial nerves (meaning they emerge directly from the brain via holes in the skull rather than from the spine) These nerves are very long, reaching all the way from the brain to the abdomen and they are very important.

Vagal neuropathy can occur in diabetics, alcoholics, in those with vitamin deficiencies--and after some viral upper respiratory infections. The vagus nerve controls 1) heart rate (slows it down) 2) inflammation (suppresses it) 3) swallowing (keeps you from choking or aspirating food and liquids which can lead to pneumonia 4) speech (via the recurrent laryngeal nerve that controls the larynx or voice box and the palatoglossal muscle of the tongue which is necessary for swallowing and for fluent speech 5) digestion (stomach acid production, gallbladder contractions, colon peristalsis--except for the rectum that is controlled by the sacral parasympathetics) 6) sweating which regulates temperature.

What happens when your vagus nerve stops working? Depends. If only one of the two nerves crashes you will have trouble swallowing and speaking and a hoarse voice and maybe a nagging cough and aspiration. If both nerves fail at the same time, you will have unchecked sympathetic autonomic nervous system activity--which means racing heart, shakiness, insomnia, migraine headache exacerbation (if you suffer from migraines), dry mouth, loss of sweating and temperature regulation, increased inflammation throughout your body and especially in your lungs, fatigue since your heart is racing even when your are sedentary, poor perfusion in your extremities making your muscles feel weak and anxiety(which your doctor may write off as a bad case of "the nerves" not realizing exactly what "nerve" is acting up).

Now, I am going to get personal. I had a virus--actually four of them. Three bouts with influenza, the last a really bad case with two weeks of cough/fever/weakness and then another nasty little bug called metapneumonia virus--all in the space of four months. Every time I got one of these bugs, my mouth would get a little bit drier, my speech would become a little less fluent and my voice would become a little more hoarse. Each time I got over the influenza these symptoms would begin to get better---only to return with the next bout of flu (and yes, I had a flu vaccine, but they just do not work the way they used to maybe because we grow the virus in Tamiflu laden chicken eggs) Until the final virus, when I began to choke (aspirate) anything I ate, my resting pulse shot up to 120-140, my arms up to the elbows and legs up to knees and the anterior half of my tongue felt like blocks of ice. I also stopped sweating and having hot flashes, my seasonal allergies suddenly went away (the only good part of vagal neuropathy), I could not have a bowel movement even with laxatives. Finally, on day eight of the metapneumonia virus, my oxygen saturation dropped and I had pneumonia. Oh, and did I mention that I also lost my sense of smell? Since I did not know what I had I assumed the worst and went to the hospital where I was admitted and placed on the Covid Death Watch. However, I was lucky. I did not have COVID. I had metapneumonia virus. Which acts an awful lot like COVID in its symptoms but which does not (usually) have COVID's lethality.

The metapneumonia virus is long gone. Two months have passed. Buy my vagus nerves still have not returned to full function. Occasionally I can sweat and occasionally I have a hot flash. Sometimes my voice is not a frog croak and sometimes I can swallow liquids without choking. My pulse is kept at a nice steady 80 by beta blockers, prescription medications. I am doing exercise, external vagal stimulation, vagal breathing, mediation and imagery in an attempt to heal my vagus nerves. I use medical nicotine (I have never been a smoker but I have found that a combo of 7 mg nicotine patches supplemented with small doses of lozenges relieve the ice cold extremities and improve my muscle strength and digestion, and also, surprisingly my oxygen saturation which used to be 99% and then fell to 94-95% post metapneumonia virus but now is back to a nice healthy 98% possibly from the anti-inflammatory effects of nicotine which is a vagal agonist meaning it boosts the vagal nervous system). I have added Vit E and zinc to my usual regimen since they help with nerve growth. And I have found that extra potassium is a must--probably because unchecked adrenaline lowers blood potassium levels.

Why is understanding the vagus nerve important in time of COVID? The current best hypothesis about why COVID suddenly turns lethal in some people is that it weakens the vagus nerve (as some respiratory viruses can) which causes sudden increase in lung inflammation and fluid accumulation and stiffness and finally death. In experiments on rodents, if you sever both vagal nerves at the level of the neck, the animals quickly die from pulmonary inflammation and edema, even if the animals are not exposed to any respiratory pathogens. If you severe the nerves above the abdomen they develop inflammatory peritonitis and die. If you preload them with nicotine, they don't get the inflammatory peritonitis. (The last journal article was the reason I decided to try medical nicotine for myself)

What does this mean for folks out there who have not had COVID yet? Treasure your vagal nerves! Pamper them! Exercise every day (it boosts vagal tone). Practice yoga/meditation/vagal breathing (quick inhalation filling up the entire lung meaning the abdomen should swell followed by prolonged, slow, smooth exhalation.) If you have sleep apnea, make sure that it is controlled---nothing suppresses the vagal system and boosts the sympathetic system like having multiple spells of low oxygen and high adrenaline at night while you sleep. Control your diabetes. Don't drink to excess. Eat a balanced diet and if you have pernicious anemia (impaired ability to absorb Vitamin B12) take your supplements.

Oh, and of course practice social distancing, wear an effective mask (plus or minus a face shield depending upon your job), wash your hands. Because the best treatment for COVID is still prevention.

At work, standing in the hall waiting for the bathroom listening to the television program playing inside the nearby employee break room. The topic of discussion--George Floyd. An employee--white, female---says "Does anyone mind if I change the channel? I'm tired of all this negativity." She is answered with silence. Since I am in the hall, not technically in the break room, I say nothing. She quickly switches the channel. And another employee--Black, male--quickly leaves the break room, his expression unreadable since we are all wearing face masks.

My emotions are in turmoil. I am reminded of a poem by the Sufi mystic, Rumi (reprinted in excerpts below)




Peace, Shalom, Namaste, Salaam

For going out onto the streets( rather than hiding in a bunker) to listen to the fears and hopes of your fellow Americans.

"There is no fear in love."