Coronavirus and Its Historical Parallel
By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D. March 27, 2020
It seems that political leaders are more concerned about “ratcheting” up power and government debt than really keeping Americans healthy. With the emergence of the coronavirus, the government has responded with unconstitutional large scale quarantines of those who are not contagious, yet the number of cases continues to increase. There is a historical parallel here.
Dr. Richard Hobday, researcher for infection control and public health, notes that isolation was the same approach taken for the 1918 flu pandemic of the ‘Spanish flu, one of the deadliest epidemics in human history which infected 500 million -- 25 percent of the world population at that time. Some of the most seriously ill were in badly ventilated, overcrowded military barracks and troop-ships. A State Guard hospital was set up in Boston to treat the sailors on ships in the Boston harbour. Hobday writes,
“The hospital’s medical officer had noticed the most seriously ill sailors had been in badly-ventilated spaces. So he gave them as much fresh air as possible by putting them in tents. And in good weather they were taken out of their tents and put in the sun...
“Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff. There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu virus and other harmful germs. Equally, sunlight is germicidal and there is now evidence it can kill the flu virus.”
During World War I, it was a common practice by military surgeons to use sunlight to heal infected wounds.
According to Hobday, research shows that low Vitamin D levels are now linked to respiratory infections and may increase susceptibility to influenza. Sunlight plays an important in synthesizing the vitamin D in our skins.
Dr Stefan Baral, an associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, said, “As we move into warmer weather and people are more out in the open, I expect there to be a natural decrease, similar and consistent with the decrease with other upper respiratory tract infections.”
Thomas Jaenisch, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Colorado School of Public Health, said that not only warmer weather but drier weather is important in stopping the spread of the virus. Places with humid summer climate such as Boston can pose a problem.
In addition to fresh air and sun, vitamin C and high dosage intravenous (IV) vitamin C also have been found to be highly effective.
A hospital in Shanghai, China has just released data showing the effectiveness of intravenous vitamin C therapies in treating the coronavirus. Based upon the Chinese report, New York State’s largest hospital system is giving high dose intravenous vitamin C treatments to coronavirus patients.
Despite scientific research and advice of the medical profession, fearmongering nanny state minded political leaders are using bully tactics to herd the people into closed spaces and out of the fresh air and sun. Their actions will serve only to prolong the coronavirus. Fox News reports,
“Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is warning residents not to go on long runs or bike rides in the city’s latest effort to crack down over the spread of coronavirus, even cautioning that residents could be arrested should they break the rules….”
“Not only will our police be deployed to shut them down if you are not abiding by these orders, we will be forced to shut down the parks and lakefront…”
“You cannot go on long bike rides. Playgrounds are shut down...You must abide by the order. Outside is for a brief respite, not for 5Ks…”
“I can’t emphasize enough that we abide [by] the rules…”
"We’re going to give you an admonition. And if you don’t turn right away and head home then you’re going to get a citation. And if worse, yeah, we will take you into custody…”
"I hope that it doesn’t come to that, I hope that I don’t have to shut down the lake front, shut down all the parks, but I will."
Instead of creating paralyzing fear with dire predictions of millions of American deaths and placing sweeping government restrictions on our unalienable and Constitutionally protected rights, politicians need to use scientifically proven, holistic methods of keeping the people safe.