Ozone therapy is working well in Italy. They are now using it in 17 hospitals. It was not used initially but when they did a trial on 36 patients who were about to be intubated, 35 who were given ozone treatments improved. Only one needed to be intubated. They used ozone autohemotherapy where they removed about 7/8 cup of blood into a sterilized glass container and then bubbled in ozone gas for about 10" or so. Then, the blood was injected back into the patient. They did this several times. Because ozone gas is so unstable, it breaks down quickly into oxygen but a small amount of ozone remains. Often it's a mixture of 95-98% oxygen and 5-2% ozone. Provided it's not breathed in, it's very safe. It's an old treatment that was used before antibiotics. Here is a translated article from Italy's La Repubblica: https://www.repubblica.it/salute/medicina-e-ricerca/2020/04/06/news/coronavirus_l_ozonoterapia_evita_la_terapia_intensiva-253290022/?refresh_ce Coronavirus, ozone therapy avoids intensive therapy By Luana de Francisco April 6 2020 Experimentation in Udine: out of 36 patients with pneumonia and respiratory difficulties only one was intubated. Treatment, associated with antivirals, reduces lung damage and slows inflammation. Describes the Amato De Monte protocol, the Englaro case doctor. The most effective clinical response could come from ozone therapy in patients who have contracted Covid-19 and struggle to avoid hospitalization in intensive care. Proof of this are the results obtained from the trial launched at the Udine hospital, where out of 36 patients with pneumonia and breathing difficulties, only one was intubated: the others have all improved and some have even been discharged from the hospital. The development of the protocol and the request to AIFA The intuition to take advantage of the ozone therapy against coronavirus bears the signature of the director of the Department of Anesthesia and Resuscitation of the "Central Friuli" University Health Authority, Amato De Monte. The same who, in 2009, accompanied Eluana Englaro, in a vegetative coma for 17 years, on the path of gradual suspension of nutrition and hydration. Together with the infectious disease specialist Carlo Tascini, who directs the infectious diseases clinic, and a team of colleagues, he has developed a protocol that could revolutionize the approach to treatment and which, not surprisingly, has already attracted the interest of specialists all over Italy. It is precisely from the data obtained so far that the request for authorization from the Italian Medicines Agency and the Ethics Committee of the Spallanzani Institute in Rome started to proceed with a study on 200 Covid-19 patients. In order to aim at its recognition from the methodological point of view at the level of the international scientific community. How the procedure works The treatment of patients with ozone therapy associated with antiviral drugs has therefore shown a slowing of inflammation and a reduction of lung damage. The procedure requires 200 milliliters of blood to be taken from the patient, allowed to interact with the ozone for about ten minutes and then re-injected. So three or four times at most. In other words, the infusion of ozone helps to strengthen the body's response in the fight against the effects of the infection in progress. Ozone therapy, moreover, in the Friuli hospitals of Udine and Tolmezzo is by no means a novelty. And in Italy, among those who practice and teach it for some time, not surprisingly, there is De Monte. "To be exact, since 1996," explains the primary, who is also a teacher at the ozone therapy course organized at the University of Siena by Professor Emma Borrelli, a student of Professor Velio Bocci, the first to bring the practice to our country. "Before the coronavirus broke out - reports De Monte - a study had already been approved at the hospital in Udine to use it on patients with vascular problems in the lower limbs. I know that in other hospitals it is being used in ICU. We too had started from there, but wrongly, because we realized that at that point it was too late for the importance of the damage caused to the lungs. It is so - he continues - that, together with colleague Tascini, we decided to see how it worked if applied early, on patients who risked being intubated, because with impaired breathing and already in ventilation with a helmet or CPAP ". Improvements in three sessions The result is there for all to see. "After only three sessions - continues De Monte - we have seen sensational improvements, with a decisive reduction in the need for oxygen support". In short, it is difficult to imagine that, in the face of these findings, the same cannot be obtained even on a wider audience of patients. In any case, in the worst case scenario the therapy does not work: there are no side effects. At this point, therefore, the difference could be the time factor. "The hope is to get an answer as soon as possible - concludes De Monte - because the more immediate its use, the greater the help we will be able to give."

Not a movie, but the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion discusses mob mentality. Robert Cialdini is the author. You can find some YouTube videos of him as well as articles and interviews.

Vaccine development has changed quite a bit in the past decade or so. Using inactivated or weakened viruses is considered an old approach. According to what I’ve been reading, it will very likely (almost certainly) not be used for the Covid vaccine.

Regarding the plasma antibody treatment, I think Mayo is coordinating and overseeing the places that will be using it, but the identification of the antibodies that work on Covid, I believe, is the result of Regeneron’s work. It’s no small feat what Regeneron has done. https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/regeneron-s-r-d-war-room-sleepless-nights-and-esprit-de-corps-hunt-for-covid-19-therapy It will be interesting to see how well this works because antibodies have trouble “sticking” to this virus. It’s a sneaky virus for sure. Another problem is treating cytokine storm. We should approve the CytoSorb device to do this. It’s been used in many countries already and is proving to be helpful in Italy and China. It’s a game changer.

For some reason, I cannot quote people without getting logged out. Regarding potassium, most people in the US do not get enough. Only about 2% in the US get enough potassium. The minimum daily requirement is 4700 mg. It is best to get this from food sources. Supplements should be taken while being supervised by someone knowledgeable about them. Like Pen said, it's not good to take too much. https://nutritionfacts.org/2013/05/23/98-of-american-diets-potassium-deficient/ A lot of people in the US also do not get enough magnesium which is needed to metabolize Vitamin D among many other things. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180226122548.htm Vitamin D can't be metabolized without sufficient magnesium levels, meaning Vitamin D remains stored and inactive for as many as 50 percent of Americans. In addition, Vitamin D supplements can increase a person's calcium and phosphate levels even while they remain Vitamin D deficient. People may suffer from vascular calcification if their magnesium levels aren't high enough to prevent the complication.

Small chest freezer. Small fridge. When China started sending drones outside to disinfect, I suspected the virus was lingering in the air. So, we bought an IQ Air air purifier from Switzerland to help reduce the numbers of viruses in the air if any of us might be shedding it. Also bought 12 pounds of broccoli seeds for sprouting but I needed to get more anyway.

If you’re in menopause or thereabouts, hormonal changes cause tissue thinning and then you can begin to have incontinence, dryness, bacterial infections, droopy labia. lol TMI but who wants to deal with any of that as you get older? Photobiomodulation (in this case red light) and heat can thicken up the tissue that’s thinning without causing cancer. You can buy devices that will do this. Vfit made by JoyLux is one of them. https://joylux.com/pages/real-results https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/photob.2019.4618

Yeah, looks bad and could be true. I’m on another forum that’s discussing Covid. Areas prone to Dengue are seeing increases which might be Covid and not Dengue. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30158-4/fulltext I’ll ask if anyone knows more about Ecuador.

The Sicilians and other southern regions eat some garlic but not so much the northern regions. You’d have to check how the south is doing. Northern regions like Lombardy eat risotto, polenta, cheese, butter, beef, pork. More like Austria and Switzerland.

Antibiotic resistance in Italy is the highest in all of Europe and is probably making it difficult to treat secondary bacterial infections from Covid. Iceland is the lowest. Germany is quite low, too. https://www.oecd.org/italy/Stemming-the-Superbug-Tide-in-Italy.pdf https://www.statista.com/chart/16012/median-number-of-deaths-due-to-antibiotic-resistance-bacteria/

Vaccine development has improved tremendously recently. I think they’ll have a vaccine and more anti-viral treatments.

The genetic mutation in any one of the 10 or so proteins that influences the perforin pathway and can lead to cytokine storm is found in 10-15% of people, not Asians. (You might be thinking of ACE2 receptors. The greater numbers of ACE2 receptors seen in some Asians might actually be caused more by the high rates of smoking in males in China.) Children who are dying from Covid might have an undiagnosed heart problem or some other undiagnosed medical problem. Some might also have a genetic mutation causing cytokine storm. Most will probably be fine. It seems that the ratio of neutrophils to lymphocytes is giving a good indication as to how a person will be affected if they get infected. I’m going to be reading more about this but iirc, a ratio of 3 or less is very good and those people are symptomatic or have very mild symptoms. 20 is not good. I have to read more about this though. The virus might also mutate so that it’s less deadly (and possibly more infectious, hard to say). A strain was found in some Singapore cases that showed this but I think it was only found there (maybe Belgium too but not sure). SARS mutated to have a similar deletion and Covid might do the same eventually.

Viruses are not static. They can change genetically as they replicate. Usually they’re not consequential but every so often a significant change occurs which results in the virus affecting the host differently, usually for the better for the host. They are seeing some strains of sars-cov-2 from Singapore with genetic deletions that are similar to the deletions that were seen in the viruses that caused MERS and SARS as they became less virulent. At this point, nothing has been proven but it would not be unusual for a virus to do this. Here is the preprint (not peer reviewed yet). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.11.987222v1

An elderly woman from my complex of four buildings was just taken out to an ambulance. Suspected Covid case. Everyone was suited up. Suburb of Chicago. :(

... repeated, never mind

An infant diagnosed with Covid has died in Illinois. No word if the baby had underlying health issues. 😢

I sprout seeds from Food to Live and eat about 40-50 grams per day which is about 1 semi-compact cup. https://foodtolive.com/shop/broccoli-seeds/ Broccoli sprouts contain the most sulforaphane. If you eat frozen broccoli sprouts (not thawed, completely frozen), the sulforaphane is more bioavailable. Pregnant women should avoid sprouts but could take Avmocal, a reputable supplement used by Johns Hopkins in their studies of sulforaphane.

I just listened to an interview with David Sinclair and he said of the two main types of tests being used in the US: The PCR test (polymerase chain reaction) is 99.99% accurate. The blood antibody test is accurate for positives but only 90% accurate for negatives.

I have 12 pounds of broccoli seed which I’ll probably use entirely this year. We eat a lot of broccoli sprouts. Broccoli sprouts are easy to grow and only take about 5-6 days until they’re ready for eating. They’re incredibly healthy, and among other things, can protect your lungs from getting hammered if you get Covid by activating the nrf2 pathway which helps to prevent viral entry and replication. I’m reading a lot of medical researchers’ advice on Covid and many of them are discussing nrf2. Here’s an older article discussing flu and nrf2. There’s a lot of technical stuff but the takeaway is in the quote below. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3135631/ Rhonda Patrick and Wellness Mama have some articles about the importance of sulforaphane, too.

I just spoke with the lead scientist of one of the places developing a vaccine for Covid19 this morning. He said based on how SARS and MERS behaved, it’s unlikely the virus will mutate enough to need annual changes to the vaccine. In a few years, we will also have a universal flu vaccine roll out. It will work on most or all strains of influenza so you won’t need annual shots. Info about Flu-v in this article. https://www.contagionlive.com/news/universal-flu-vaccine-candidate-shows-protection-in-new-trial

For those of you dealing with people moving in and all their germy stuff, you can quarantine things that aren’t needed immediately. Let it sit in a garage, storage locker, shed, etc. Three to four days should do the trick. Our 23 year old is staying with us during the SIP, and about 1/2 his belongings that he brought along are sitting in our storage locker and will be available to him this Thursday. If you have the money, there’s a pretty good air purifier, a hyper hepa, you can buy for about $800 that can filter out the size of this virus. It’s made by IQAir, a Swiss company. It won’t get everything but could reduce the viruses. We have one and it works well.

In my area the college students from Asia have worn masks for years. It’s not that unusual to see. Anyhow, this might have been posted already, but the following article from Stanford Medicine discusses ways to sterilize an N95 mask so it can be used multiple times. (Keep in mind that it is not peer reviewed.) FWIW, they were not able to test sars-cov-2 and used E. coli instead. https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fstanfordmedicine.box.com%2Fv%2Fcovid19-PPE-1-1 The article also discusses what could be used to replace damaged elastic straps as well.

I’m in Illinois and think Pritzker is doing an excellent job keeping people informed and advocating for everyone as well. I think the major cities with numerous high rises could experience a lot of infections simply because residents have to share hallways, elevators, stairwells, laundry rooms, mail rooms, entrance ways, etc. On top of that, in some buildings the units’ air flow occurs around door molding as well as vents. This is how the 700 residential units in Chicago’s John Hancock building are set up. Air flows out of the latch holes in the metal door molding (it’s all metal). A lot of the residents are elderly and so there’s no easy way they can isolate if the virus is blowing from unit to unit. We moved our son from his building (12 stories, vintage) over to our place in the suburbs and noticed that the city was full of police cars patrolling the areas.

It can hold 9 plants. Aero Gardens are pricey but they sure make indoor gardening easy. Just fill the reservoir with water, add some fertilizer, pop in the pods and let them grow. The only thing to do is refill the water now and then and add fertilizer. They also sell a diy kit that allows you to use your own seeds or cuttings. I just put in a new garden 2-3 days ago and the lettuce is already sprouting. A kitchen window would probably work well, too. Our home doesn't get much sun but I'm going to try growing some arugula anyway. I bought some Ikea grow light bulbs on sale for $3 each which I might use if the arugula doesn't do well.

Absolutely! Buying lots here. I'm not about to go without my fresh veggies and fruit. I also stole one of my kid's AeroGarden's and am growing lettuce, kale, parsley and basil. We don't have an outside garden so is the next best thing. Love it. ETA: Broccoli sprouts are serious business in our house, too. I just bought a 12 pound bag for sprouting. That's a whole lotta sprouts.