COVID-19: Self Defense Tips

Edition: 2021-02-04 (and overdue for a major update)

Unlike SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, aka COVID-19, looks like it’s going to be a problem for some time yet, so I plan to use this thread to track the top advice for choosing to not become a casualty data point in the ACM statistics. (ACM? site abbreviations) And dealing with this sort of epidemic is a problem that needs an effective, non-suicidal strategy. The next one could be a lot more virulent.

If anyone had given you the impression that this would be a prompt transient epidemic, or even killed off in summer by seasonality, do cautiously assess any further predictions from said experts. Given what’s been happening with mink ranches, I’m also wondering if persistent natural reservoirs are being created world-wide.

My personal strategy? Be virus resilient, and there are a number of things that empower that, and to a non-trivial extent. Following the Undoctored (or WB 2014+) diet and lifestyle covers many of them automatically. For anyone who sailed into this article from somewhere else, still on a standard diet, and weighing more than they would like, act to reduce your risk factors. COVID+obesity can easily put you in the ICU or beyond.

Ad hom: I’m supposedly in a high-risk group (but only due to age). I adopted Wheat Belly in Fall 2011. I also stopped getting annual flu shots about that time. I have only had one infectious ailment in the 9+ years since; including zero colds. I’ve had many instances of feeling like I would be ill the next day, and the next day, it’s gone. It took a while to notice, because humans are not reliable at detecting when the unexpected doesn’t happen. This insight is often reported by people doing low net carb, low-carb paleo and other enlightened ancestral diets. There are some simple things that really matter here.

And the one infection? Late October 2019, 3-day flu-like. No treatment needed or sought. This was in the wake of attending two large events in another state (KY), both with international crowds, perhaps totaling 40,000 people. Could this have been COVID-19 that early? According to Harvard, and now Reuters, yes. An Abbott IgG in 2020-06 was negative.

Two Interdependent Problems At Large

1. Biology: Novel Viral Epidemic
   (and "novel" has multiple meanings)
2. Politics: Policy Pandemic
   (which is currently failing to optimize progress on #1.)

Biology is welcome on this site. Politics is generally unwelcome on this site (that’s what the whole rest of the internet is for), except insofar as how to dodge being victimized by destructive national nanny nutritional advice, and the universal regimented and rationed sickcare that fails to manage the consequences. The science|policy overlap, for this issue, might represent a new peak. Discuss with care.

Program Resources

This is now a Sticky in the General forum: Taxonomy Realm Viria

For anyone immunocompetent and metabolically healthy,
COVID-19 isn’t much more severe than flu.
The problem: this describes too few modern settlers.

That, and what follows is my opinion. This is a general overview of the whole context. Expect updates as new data emerges. My posture might be summarized as:

1. Protect the vulnerable,
   which includes all those who might otherwise have died of flu or colds, events previously not national news.
2. Make sure you (or anyone who will listen) aren’t in group a,
   and the majority of people, not on an enlightened ancestral diet, are in group a.
3. Depart group a as possible — be resilient to viral infections.

Table of Contents

Context: Novel Viral Epidemic

• N: What does novel mean?
• V: Why does viral matter?
• E: Epi- vs. Pan-

Remain Calm and Carry On

• Risk factors
• The only reliable number may be ACM

Strategies

• Avoiding exposure (and retransmission)
• Fending off infection
• Minimizing severity
• Vaccine prospects
• Keep your eyes on the real science
• Pundits worth a ponder

Context

What Does Novel Mean?

• Novel means no humans had native immunity to the virus. Whether or not persistent immunity (“herd” or otherwise) develops or otherwise can be generated, remains to be seen. Policies need to anticipate that neither may happen, and so far they don’t.
   
• Novel also implies that the virus, to a material extent, is unlike any heretofore widespread in the human population. The concern there is that the generals are prepared to re-fight the last war, and may make incorrect presumptions about this one.
   
• Just how novel is yet another meaning of the word, and one that needs to be addressed at some point (assuming anyone can be trusted to do so honestly). Was this just the long-expected novel zoonotic making a jump due to lax animal stewardship, or something more sinister, whether due to negligence or malice?

 Return to ToC

Why Does Viral Matter?

COVID-19 is also known as SARS-CoV-2: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus #2^*. The coronavirus family has been around for a very long time. It includes the common cold, and prior to late 2020, there were no vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Prevention and treatment options for viral infections had been very limited, compared to bacterial infections (for which antibiotics may work). Vaccines can be an option for stable virii. In a sense, the world has yet to recover from the success of the polio and smallpox vaccines, and people expect that any novel virus is a similar problem with a straightforward solution.

* SARS-CoV[-1], by the way, appeared in 2003, and there is no vaccine for it yet. Return to ToC

Why Epidemic

This outbreak had an epicenter — a single point of origin. Every case could theoretically be traced back down the tree to either the index case, or the same infectious source. It might have been contained there, but it wasn’t — and doing so isn’t getting easier for future risks — microbes now get frequent-flier-miles just like everyone else.

A pandemic is everywhere at once (like metsyn⇒T2D). Those preferring to call COVID–19 a pandemic may or may not have an agenda having nothing to do with your health (such as mere unwillingness to admit the root cause source, lest it raise questions of where). But yes, the policies broke out everywhere nearly simultaneously, although they vary wildly. They fit the definition of pandemic. They are also causing some number of needless deaths, which of course will be put down to COVID.

If this epidemic was unintentional, it’s something that has happened before (e.g. SARS-CoV[–1]), and will happen again, without some policy attention to the conditions that enable it, and population susceptibility. The current policy pandemic appears to include zero attention to preventing/confining future outbreaks at the sources, nor empowering resilient populations.

Further, if this epidemic is in fact not much more severe than flu, the over-reaction may be creating a policy context in which risk of ordinary flu is no longer considered acceptable.

 Return to ToC

Remain Calm and Carry On

Fear-mongering is rampant in this epidemic. Pay the least attention to those trying to frighten you, and little attention to those not presenting a message of effective self-empowerment in reducing your risk. This virus does appear to be a bit more dangerous than annual flu, and presents as “long-haul” symptoms in some cases.

Anyone following the Undoctored or 2014+ Wheat Belly program already has already engaged a critical mass of things that enhance immunity and minimize severity. For anyone else, who otherwise considers themselves “healthy”, be aware that simply weighing more than you would like is a major risk factor, and perhaps the top thing to address.

A significant fraction of settler populations today would fail one or more of these example {non-medicated} metabolic markers:
• HbA1c 5.3% or lower (program target is actually 4.0-5.0%)
• Fasting BG of 100 mg/dL or lower (program target is 60-90)
• Fasting insulin of 5.0 µIU/mL or lower (target 0-4)
• Triglycerides 90 mg/dL or lower (target 30-60)
• BMI 25 or lower (target 18.5 to 24.5 kg/m²)
Being on a government-recommended diet can easily put you way above those caps.

Risk Factors

Here’s a list of official risk factors, recently gleaned from various CDC pages for known and suspected factors. They didn’t appear to be listing them so as to tell you how to mitigate any, although many can be mitigated. Some of these link to specific strategies on this page or other program pages. Others just have hovertext remarks. Having multiple risk factors appears to raise the long-haul risk.

Note that they did not mention risk factors now emerging in research, such as:

Keep in mind that this epidemic isn’t just about you. Yes, there’s a lot you can do to minimize your risk, but you are apt to be around people with higher or unknown risk factors, and people unwilling to address their risk factors. Until such time as you have immunity, take effective precautions as circumstances suggest.

 Return to ToC

All-Cause Mortality

The only reported statistic we can actually rely on is ACM, and maybe “excess deaths”.

Overall death rates, week-by-week, are, for the latest data I’ve been able to find, actually trending lower in 2020 than in the same weeks of 2019 and 2018. The data is also following the same seasonality as flu (perhaps being sold to you as Second Wave™ or similar). This suggests that, although the etiology is materially different, COVID–19 represents an overall mortality threat similar to annual flu, and there are many things that you can do to avoid being killed by flu (and the list never used to include destroying the global economy).

If the hair-on-fire press and various political parties are giving you the impression that COVID–19 is like ebola or A/H1N1-1918 — we’re-all-gonna-die — all over again, you are being spun. ACM is the only unambiguous number we can use for any insight. Just take steps to ensure it doesn’t include you.

Finding comparative ACM data is not easy, as it doesn’t support policy agendas. In searching, you can find cherry-picked “excess mortality” charts for locales and periods where policy failed to focus on the needs of at-risk populations.

Ivor Cummins (TheFatEmperor) has been following the numbers in great detail. His YouTube page appears to be more up-to-date than his blog. An emerging theme is that at this point, excess deaths due to lockdowns are out-pacing actual deaths due to COVID, and literal starvation looms in significant portions of the world.

COVID Test Rate
data is simply meaningless, as it only reflects the highly variable amount of testing being done.

COVID Positive Test Rate
data is useless, even when reported as fraction of test rate, due to serious testing issues. Case reporting duplicity appears to be widespread. I’ve seen multiple reports of people getting a positive results report for a draw never performed, as they had failed to show up for it. For some reason, the expression “follow the money” comes to mind.

Specificity, sensistivity, PCR cycle counts: these aspects of the testing matter. In the case of 40-cycle PCR, for example, the false positive rate is high enough that you’d think COVID rampant even if it had completely vanished. How long after infection are IgG tests reliable? Is that even known yet?

COVID Case Rate
data is useless, unless the data set is strictly based on diagnoses that include multiple tests, and presentation elements beyond mere +test result. Also, case rate needs to be expressed as a percentage of test rate. It’s easy to inflate the raw case rate number by expanding testing to more of the population.

In another possibly instructional anecdote, one acquaintance who clearly contracted COVID (confirmed by symptoms & testing) is a local retired {consensus practioner} doctor. Although no longer a care provider, he was practicing strict protection protocols, and managed to contract it anyway. Another works in law enforcement, at a county jail, and contracted it despite even stronger protocols. My sense is that this is really telling us why ordinary viral infections (e.g. flu) are so pervasive, just how effective masks are, and why trying to turn the world into a P4 lab would be a fool’s errand.

COVID Death
data is useless, because actual
¤ died-OF is confounded with
¤ died-WITH, as well as with
¤ died-well-after-recovering-from, as well as with
¤ died without having been actually sick-with
¤ (or perhaps ever having been infected at all).
The funding models are encouraging CoD recording that is easily flat out false (no COVID testing actually performed and/or proximate CoD included no COVID symptoms or complications). If the reporting entity gets paid for, or paid more for a COVID CoD determination, follow the money.

IFR (Infection Fatality Rate): when Malcolm Kendrick looked at this in late Oct.2020, he came up with an IFR number of 0.15-0.20% (1 in 667-500) for all populations, and 0.04% (1 in 2500) for just those under age 70. Compare this to typical flu IFR of 0.1% (1 in 1000), and somewhere around 4.3% (1 in 23) for 1918 H1N1 influenza A virus. Reports of COVID IFR in the 5% range (1 in 20) are simply not credible.

Where a death is unambiguously linked with COVID, see if you can find any report of risk factors and co-morbidities in the case. These are frequently not reported (even age), both because it doesn’t advance agendas, and the usual journalistic incompetence of modern media. Also consider your circle of acquaintances. I personally know people who have had COVID (perhaps even me), but I don’t know anyone who has died of COVID, and this is not uncommon. I have known many people who died of cancer, T2D complications, heart disease, trauma, sepsis and the various CoDs that eventually prevail in nursing homes.

COVID Recovery
data is entirely useless because it’s only being very casually tracked.

The ACM numbers are of course a bit ambiguous as well, due to the massive cultural disruption. Transportation-related deaths are likely lower than normal. Suicides and (under-treated) medical deaths are up. Flu deaths {data} are way off, due to mis-characterized CoDs, and perhaps because COVID is claiming those who would have died of flu during this epidemic.

 Return to ToC

Strategies

This article presumes to some extent that someone is following the Undoctored or 2014+ Wheat Belly program, including full attention to gut flora. Program core automatically covers these suggestions below:
• being Vitamin D₃ replete,
• having a robust immune system,
• having consistently ideal blood sugar (and naturally so), which provides
• prompt remediation of metabolic syndrome & its progression
• assessing for, and addressing any SIBO or SIFO.
The exploratory not-really-yogurts are not program core, but they are quite likely to further boost immunity.

Pay some attention to the published risk factors (particularly if you are still on a standard diet). Just having an elevated or high BMI is a serious risk factor (24.5 or above). Stop provoking BG (which can be done overnight). Lose the edema (often happens in under 2 weeks on the program — it’s why early weight loss can be impressive). Weight can’t be made optimal promptly, but what makes it risky can be mitigated promptly.

Avoiding Exposure

Obviously, if you never get exposed to this virus, none of the remaining steps are necessary. However, lock-down is unsustainable indefinitely, and even being on an ISS expedition, nuclear sub cruise, or Antarctic assignment cannot be expected outlast this virus. Expect to encounter it eventually unless you take nearly extreme measures.

If you have a risk factor/co-morbidity that cannot be effectively remediated, avoidance for as long as possible might still be the top strategy. This could include those with organ transplants, other immunodeficiencies, or generally marginal health status. Where specific risk factor(s) cannot be remediated, keep an eye on vaccine developments.

Face masks work, to varying degrees — and degree matters — if you merely cut down vapor particle size, the severity of any infection is reduced. Face masks are of course 100% effective for virtue signalling to cultural nannies and hysteria victims, so you might as well wear as circumstances suggest.

Respirators are even more effective, although typically only for the person wearing it. They usually don’t filter the exhaled air at all. Most hysteria victims won’t notice, but some activists will. If you are a particularly high-risk person by all means get an N/P/R95, N/P/R99 or N/P100 respirator, with, as needed, some N95 or HEPA material applied to the exhale port. My household has P100s available for high-risk situations. These were originally bought leading up to the ebola scare, and not needed then, and worn early in the COVID epoch, before the actual hazard level became apparent.

If you are relying on an effective form of face protection, don’t sabotage it. Observe effective hygiene. Consider disposable gloves for higher-risk environments. Wash hands before touching face after removing protection worn during any potential exposure scenario. If using an actually effective UVC light source to disinfect, use serious eye protection and avoid running the source at night (due to circadian disruption).

 Return to ToC

Fending Off Infection

In addition to the program core, some additional mineral and micronutrient supplements have been identified as effective.

Age: try to not be elderly.
That’s a joke, but an instructive one. That sentiment was coined by a metabolism researcher who quickly decided the advice wasn’t needed, as what makes being elderly risky on this is a collection of things, many of which you can do something about.

One age-related risk factor is age-related atrophy of the thymus, and in addition to its other benefits, the L.reuteri not-a-yogurt might actually arrest or even reverse that process. I’ve been making the various progurts since that exploration began here.

Another correctable risk factor is melatonin deficiency. Anyone over age 45, or with certain genetics, or of any age and not observing strict circadian discipline (which is most settled populations today), will have low/no pineal production of melatonin at night. Being deficient has material consequences for both chronic and acute ailments. There are suggestions of benefit for severity management.

Melatonin is a contingent supplement in the Undoctored program. Working up to 12 mg per day might be a valid prophylactic dose. Most melatonin researchers are reportedly taking 100mg or more per day, and that was before a role in COVID prevention/treatment arose. Retail products usually max out at 20 mg.

Zinc is not program core, but has been shown to inhibit viral replication, and also reduce case severity. Be cautious with higher doses. Too much zinc (above 40 mg/day, for adults) can be a hazard, due to interference with copper absorption. Personally, I routinely get 25 mg/day of Zn in a multi-vitamin, but for the duration of this epidemic have added Jarrow Zinc Balance® which is another 25 mg Zn (50 total), plus 1 mg Cu. In a curious coincidence, zinc overdose can cause a symptom that also often appears in COVID: anosmia, loss of sense of smell.

 Return to ToC

Minimizing Severity

Low net carb:
Diabetes is a major risk factor/co-morbidity in COVID severity and mortality. This also shows up in the stats as an over-weight or BMI risk factor, but that’s likely really the same underlying etiology: a full-time moderate to high glycemic diet (e.g. USDA MyPlateOfMetabolicSyndrome).

Having the ApoE4 genotype elevates COVID outcome risk, likely due to both carb response and heightened response to inflammation generally.

Several reports list the components of the BMI risk as being: (a) high insulin, (b) inflammation, (c) impaired immunity, and (d) that fat cells have SARS-C0V-2 receptors. The weight(d) can’t be changed very quickly, but the blood glucose (a. and thus insulin) provocation can be changed overnight, the inflammation(b) in weeks, and metabolic impairment of immunity likely also resolves steadily.

Indeed, the program target for daily net carb intake reduces blood glucose so fast that any diabetes medication dose may need prompt adjustment. T2D and GD can usually be completely unwound. T1D and LADA can at least be managed primarily by diet.

It is widely remarked by ancestral eating/low carb enthusiasts that they don’t get sick, even those just doing relatively low-carb — not even fully grain-free, nor attending to key modern deficiencies or gut flora. Carbs clearly matter.

D₃:
Dr. Fauci admitted in September 2020 that he takes 6000 IU/day. I’m not sure he knows why this matters in COVID, but that’s an excellent ballpark dose, for multiple reasons, only one being for COVID severity. There are at least two RCTs in now showing dramatic reductions in severity and mortality for people with 25OH-D3 levels of just 35 ng/mL. The average person is D₃ deficient on even SoC guidance. Program target here is 60-70 ng/mL (150-180 nmol/L), and a typical starting supplement level to get near that is 6000 IU, oil-based gelcap. Hmmm.

Eliminate D₃ deficiency risk now, as there is also at least one RCT suggesting that if you wait until you hit the ICU, the benefit may be nil.

Microbiome
"High fiber" is already a widely conjectured exploit to improve immunity. However, ordinary researchers probably don’t have the full picture (SEED, FEED, WEED, HEED). If you are doing the Undoctored or WB 2014+ program for gut flora cultivation, no action needed: you have this covered. As linked above, making a yogurt with L.casei (Shirota) augments immune response.

Fish oil (ω3 DHA&EPA)
A number of trials are underway, focused on reducing coagulopathy and reduction of inflammation. Standard program intake is already above trial doses, so: again no action needed on this.

Inflammation
Don’t have needless inflammation. In addition to low net carb, program avoidance of grains is a huge help on this, as is being very deliberate about adverse fats, principally ω6LA, which thoroughly contaminates standard diets.

Although weight loss is rarely as prompt as we might like, early weight loss can be startling, because it’s collapse of edema, which is inflammatory. So get started on weight loss sooner than later.

Selenium
Se is not program core, but is often suggested when addressing an AI thyroid condition (as a simple matter of one Brazil nut a day). It has also been studied for reducing the severity of general viral infections, and there’s one paper (Chinese) for such use in COVID. Do not overdo Se. Selenium toxicity occurs. 100-200mcg/day might be optimal. Don’t exceed 400. There is advice to take it separated in time from any supplemental Vitamin C.

Vitamin C
C is not program core, and specific benefit in COVID is unclear (other than avoiding frank deficiency). C is an essential human micronutrient, in that we cannot synthesize it, and must obtain it from food. Supplementing to a modest multiple of RDA might suffice. I get 1000mg daily. There are timing considerations.

Co-enzyme Q10
significantly reduced odds for SARS-CoV-2 hospitalization. Anyone on a statin probably needs to be taking CoQ10 anyway, but anyone can supplement it. The ubiquinone form might be optimal. Dose somewhere in the 100-400 mg range.

Miscellaneous Supplements
Members will be able to see in the Replies below that there is some advocacy for astaxanthin, (prophylactic) quercetin, and Vitamin K{2}. I haven’t yet looked for any studies on these in the COVID context, but it appears to be the case that if you’re already supplementing any of these, there’s no need to stop, and possibly some risk escalation in stopping.

 Return to ToC

Vaccine Prospects

Regardless of what emerges here, approaches to treating viral infections are getting serious investment, and material progress is likely. I’m not waiting, thus the above strategies. And, I consider the above strategies to be more than sufficient for my personal case.

The US audience may only need to contemplate the first two (mRNA) vaccines, but there are at least six in development, with substantially variant approaches & considerations:

1. Pfizer/BioNTech (mRNA)
2. Moderna (mRNA)
3. Johnson & Johnson (adenovirus-based)
4. AstraZeneca/University of Oxford ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) adenovirus-based
5. Novavax NVX-CoV2373 (recombinant nanoparticle spike mimic)
6. Sanofi/GSK (recombinant protein-based, also working on an mRNA)
7. Merck V591 and V590 (viral vector vaccines,  both now abandoned)

If you’re going to consider one, make sure it actually delivers. The first Reply on this thread lays out a number of simple questions about these vaccines that I don’t know the answers to.

Re-infection, common in other coronavirii, has already been documented for COVID, so far evidently due to strain drift. This does not bode well for a vaccine that can be relied on to defeat all strains, nor provide persistent immunity, although a D614G Spike antibody might well work broadly, not to mention anything that enhances T-cell response.

Although a number of vaccines are in development, it will not be known if they are even near-term safe until well into 2021. As this article was being composed, two additional trials had already been paused due to what may have been adverse reactions (which is typical for any new drug trial, by the way). Here’s a typical safety concern:
BMJ: Could COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause autoimmune diseases?

How effective any resulting vaccines will be won’t be known until sometime in 2022, and we may never know if they reduce all-cause mortality, because that may not actually be an “end point” objective in any of the trial designs so far published (and those could not account for even longer-term outcomes in any case).

This massive uncertainty is not preventing the demagogues from insisting that unproven vaccines be mandatory. If history were still being taught, we might expect them to be aware that this sort of advocacy used to be considered a war crime.

When available to you, and if COVID is still a threat by then, and you actually have any choice, apply your usual decision criteria. For many people, this is going to be an important decision, and one based on incomplete information. The first two mRNA vaccines are at least preservative-free, and their adjuvants lack metal compounds.

Treatments

I’m not planning to dig into these to any great extent, other than in the Replies on this forum thread. What any specific person might want to consider in treatment options is going to be complicated by their health and diet history leading up to a symptomatic infection, and what options they have at that point.

Agents: do your own research. Expect search engine and social media site agendas to interfere with finding answers. This would include materials like bamlanivimab (monoclonal antibody), convalescent plasma, dexamethasone (or other corticosteroid), doxycycline, hydroxychloroquine (and/or chloroquine), interferon beta, ivermectin* (an anti-parasitic macrocyclic lactone), certain NSAIDs, quercetin (a flavonol), remdesivir, and tocilizumab. ICAM is also proposed, and by the way, includes Vitamin C and zinc. I have no position on these, as my strategy is to avoid needing them.
* Curiously, this is also a PI3K inhibitor, so being explored in cancer.

 Return to ToC

Much to be Learned

Pundits Worth a Ponder

In addition to our esteemed host, I’ve been following general science/med news sites (when they lead to actual papers), Peter Attia, Ivor Cummins and Malcolm Kendrick.
___________
Bob Niland [disclosures] [topics] [abbreviations]