PART 3: MASKS

If you’re one of those people who, for whatever reason, feels the need to deny the reality of COVID, call it a hoax or a conspiracy, and publicly carry on about how it’s no worse than the flu even though you secretly fear the virus, at least you can get the vaccine in private.  That’s what millions of Americans, some of whom still deny the truth about the virus in public, have done.  Many have snuck into neighboring states to get the vaccine, asking that their friends back home not be told, lest it tarnish their anti-vaccine reputation among their hardcore comrades.

I could make an analogy here to rabid anti-abortion extremists who quietly sneak their daughters out of state for an abortion when they get pregnant, but I’ll leave that comparison up to the reader.

But the issue of masks is different.  For many, the issue of wearing a mask has taken on a political meaning far removed from science, evidence, or even reality.  It means you’re weak, it means you’re afraid, it means you’re on the other team.  And if you’re one of those people who denies the reality of COVID, it’s a stark reminder that there are a lot more people out there who disagree with you than agree.

But let’s get something straight from the outset.  Masks aren’t so much to protect you, but to protect us all.  We’ll get to that in a minute.

When COVID first arrived, it was soon known that an N-95 mask was the most effective protection for the wearer.  N-95s started selling like hotcakes.  But I can tell you from personal experience that they’re hot, and no fun to wear.  Unless, of course, you’re in direct contact with a patient who has the disease.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) initially advised that mask wearing was unnecessary, so long as we maintained “social distancing,” that is, stand 6 feet apart.  Later, when they recommended mask wearing, anti-science zealots claimed this was proof that COVID was a hoax, and that the CDC couldn’t be trusted.

Which, of course, is ridiculous.  The reason for the no masks/masks recommendation change was simple.  Early in the pandemic, evidence showed that the virus was carried on droplets, but not on aerosol. 

Why was this important?  Because droplets are relatively heavy, and fall to the ground shortly after coming out of your mouth.  Aerosols are much lighter and float through the air.  So if the droplets fell to the ground, so did the virus.

Here’s the best way to think of it.  You’re facing someone and listening as they speak. Suddenly they sneeze.  That wet stuff from the sneeze that covers your face?  That’s droplets.

But if you’re standing across the room from that person who sneezes, you won’t feel a thing.  Why?  Because those droplets have fallen to the ground before they ever hit your face.  In other words, without realizing it, when it comes to this person’s sneeze, you’re actually protected by social distancing.

But when research revealed that the virus could also travel on aerosol, social distancing wasn’t enough.  Though not perfect, a mask was shown to slow the spread of aerosols, and thus the virus.  That’s when the CDC recommended mask wearing.

Remember, outside of a cell (and our body) the virus is basically dead.  It doesn’t have little arms and legs, and doesn’t swim around on its own.  The only way it can get into your body is to be carried by a droplet or an aerosol.

Masks don’t protect you.  Let me say it again, they don’t protect you.  But by slowing the person-to-person transmission, masks can reduce disease incidence, and buy time to get the vaccine.

When the vaccine arrived, we thought that anyone who was vaccinated couldn’t get the disease, and therefore couldn’t transmit the disease to someone else.  Hence, they didn’t need a mask.

Then along came the Delta variant.  And with a substantial number of unvaccinated people, the variant spread quickly, mutating at every turn.  Cases of the virus rose dramatically. And if you had been vaccinated?  You might still get infected with Delta—and pass it on.

How to prevent such transmission, even among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated?  Going back to masks is about the best approach we have at present.

Such a recommendation, of course, isn’t met with agreement by many.  Instead, it’s “you’re lying to us again!”  “Don’t trust the science!  Don’t trust the scientists!  Don’t trust Fauci!”

Fine.  But what you had better trust is this:  wearing a mask will make it less likely, if you have a mild case of Delta and don’t know it, that you’ll transmit the virus to someone who’s more vulnerable than you, and enable the virus to go on mutating into deadlier forms.

Many people understand this, and choose to wear a mask indoors.  I applaud them.  Many others also understand this, but still refuse to wear a mask because of political, religious, or just a “screw you, you can’t make me do it” attitude.  If you’re one of these people, you need to think long and hard about what you are doing. 

People have come up with all kinds of goofy reasons not to wear a mask.  No, it doesn’t act as a disease magnet, somehow magically pulling a virus out of the sky and infecting you.  No, it doesn’t damage your health by making you rebreathe your own germs (your body actually couldn’t care less).  No, it doesn’t dangerously raise your carbon dioxide levels (I love it when people who smoke say that).

And I understand the political reasons.  Wearing a mask is an outward, visible admission that the virus is not a hoax, contrary to what certain politicians told us.  The fact is, they were wrong—very wrong.  And if we believed them, we were wrong.  Nobody likes to admit they were wrong, or worse yet, voted for someone who was wrong, and for many people, that’s exactly what wearing a mask means.

But it’s probably the religious reasons that baffle me most. Wearing a mask, according to some, separates you from God. 

Really?  A mask?

Others say it contradicts the notion that man was made in God’s image, because wearing a mask is hiding the image of God.  Thus, a mask is blasphemy. 

Hmm.  I don’t recall any biblical reference only to man’s face—just to man in general.  If you are one of those who takes scripture literally, then the rest of the body is in God’s image, too.  Are wearing clothes also blasphemy?

But the strangest is the notion that wearing a mask is a demonstration of a lack of faith, because God wants you to trust him (or her) and not a mask.

To those who would say this, let me remind you again.  A mask doesn’t protect you.  It decreases the spread of the virus, and may save the lives of others.

And if you can honestly say that the lives of others aren’t as important to you as the “right” not to wear a mask, maybe you should ask yourself what your faith is really all about.

Two things are certain.  As this virus pings around the globe and continues to mutate, recommendations regarding mask wearing will continue to evolve.

And second, each time this happens, anti-mask, anti-science zealots will continue to come up with innumerable rationalizations as to why they shouldn’t “have” to wear a mask.

But what happens when people simply refuse to take steps to protect themselves and their fellow citizens through masks, social distancing, vaccinations, and other common-sense measures?  When should the government—state, federal, or local—step in? 

This is the question that, for many people, triggers a response that is far more visceral than thoughtful.  And there are plenty of less-than-honest people out there who are working to manipulate this response to their own personal, political, and financial advantage.  And they’re doing it increasingly often.

More on that next time.

“There’s no vaccine against stupidity.”–Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

PART 2: THE VACCINE

Vaccine denial, anti-vaccine hesitancy, or outright anti-science belief, whatever you want to call it, is nothing new.

Way before the COVID vaccine, even before polio, there was Smallpox.  The disease was horrible.

The skin broke out in pus-filled blisters, the body shook with fever, and over 30% of those infected died (well, a lot more than 30%, if we’re talking about children).  And if you survived?  There was still a high likelihood you’d end up blind.  The disease was known and feared the world over.

Well, not entirely the world over.  Most indigenous peoples on this side of the Atlantic had never been exposed.  Once Smallpox hit native American tribes, it slaughtered them by the thousands.

In 1721, as Boston, Massachusetts braced for an approaching outbreak, the preacher Cotton Mather was startled by the news he heard from a slave.

We also have this disease in Africa, the slave told him.  But it’s not nearly as deadly.  We take a small knife and make a shallow cut into the arm of a healthy person.  Then we rub some of the pus from an infected person into the wound.  The person with the cut experiences swelling and the formation of pustules, but only on the arm.  The pustules heal, and the person never gets infected with the disease itself, even if others around him are dying.

Yes, sorry to disappoint any white supremacists out there, but the first successful vaccination was pioneered in Africa.  Today, we also know that similar procedures were also practiced in India and China.

Years later the British physician Edward Jenner discovered that women who worked milking cows would frequently contract “Cowpox,” a similar but much milder disease than Smallpox.  Reasoning that a procedure to introduce Cowpox into the skin would be less painful, but still prevent the dreaded full-blown Smallpox, Jenner began vaccinating his patients with Cowpox.

Over the next 200 years, his vaccine saved millions of lives and wiped Smallpox off the face of the earth.

But it wasn’t easy.

The notion of a vaccine was initially met with shock, scorn, and outrage.  Preachers thundered that  introducing something of animal origin into the human body was an affront to God!  The vaccine will turn you into a cow, others said!  Well, maybe not a cow specifically, but it will make you grow horns and start producing milk by the gallon, if you’re a woman.

The political cartoon from an English publication (pictured above) pretty much says it all.

Jenner and others were threatened with death.  But eventually, they persevered.  Within 50 years, Smallpox vaccines were mandatory for children in England.  Smallpox rates plummeted. 

Over the ensuing years, other vaccines were developed, primarily for children, making it much more likely for young people to survive to adulthood. Polio, pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria (which killed my Mother’s sister at age 9), and tetanus vaccines followed.  Others came later.  And through it all, anti-vaccine zealots fumed.  But with each successive vaccine, death rates declined.

Despite this, vaccine opponents still didn’t let up.  In the United Kingdom (UK) in the early 1970s, they zeroed in on the triple-valent diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus (DPT) shot.  Allegations that the DPT vaccine caused neurological disorders in children began to make the rounds.  Parents started suing vaccine manufactures.  No study ever showed a link between DPT and such disorders.  But the lawsuits caused vaccine prices to skyrocket. 

However, the continued protests took their toll.  By 1974, DPT administration in the UK had fallen 78%.  No surprise, then, when 5 years later, the biggest pertussis epidemic in 20 years slammed Britain. 

And during the time of decreased vaccine use?  There was no decrease in the incidence of neurological disorders the vaccine supposedly caused.

Administration of DPT in the UK and around the world began to rise once again, despite the sentiments of anti-vaccination zealots.  Preventable diseases fell.    

Then along came Andrew Wakefield.

A relatively unknown British surgeon, Dr. Andrew Wakefield shook the world in 1998 when he published his study of 12 children in the renowned medical journal, The Lancet. The widely used measles vaccine MMR, Wakefield claimed, caused autism.

Autism is a heartbreaking condition that begins early in life.  In its more severe form, it robs a child of its ability to communicate verbally with the outside world.  Even in milder forms, it distorts relationships and makes everyday activities into obstacles.

The article and its ensuing publicity carried a horrifying message.  Give your child an MMR shot and you could be giving them autism.  MMR vaccine refusal went through the ceiling.

Immediately, other researchers tried to confirm Wakefield’s finding.  None of them could.

It turned out, after years of investigation, that Wakefield’s paper was fraudulent.  He ignored data that didn’t support his thesis, and fabricated data to make his case.

In blunt terms, he lied.  Further investigation also showed that a group suing vaccine manufactures had  paid Wakefield over a half million dollars two years before his paper was even published.

The Lancet retracted the article, and Wakefield had his medical license revoked.  He moved to the U.S., and went on the payroll of anti-vaccination campaigners here.

In over twenty years, despite enormous research, no one has found a credible link between MMR and autism.

But Wakefield had an impact.  MMR administration has never returned to its pre-1998 levels. Measles epidemics on college campuses among unvaccinated students have cause colleges to suspend classes.  And internationally, 144,000 children die of the disease each year.

Which brings us to COVID.  When scientists understood that the disease was a member of the coronavirus family, they immediately were concerned.  Although years of research had produced anti-viral medications that can diminish (but not cure) HIV, herpes, and a few others, no treatment had ever been developed that could actually eliminate a virus.  And for coronaviruses, nothing was even on the drawing board.

As soon as the infectivity of the virus became apparent, everyone understood there was going to be no miracle cure, and that our best hope was to get to a vaccine as quickly as possible.  In the meantime, we would have to use common sense initiatives like masks and distancing to bob and weave while the virus punched away at us.

To say that our nation-wide response to COVID was pretty half-assed would be an understatement.  I’ll talk more about that in upcoming posts, but suffice it to say that false information from America’s highest leader caused the virus to spread far more rapidly than it ever should have.  By the time the first vaccine was released in the U.S., 375,000 Americans were already dead.

A rapid dissemination of the vaccine, similar to the release of the polio vaccine in the 1950’s, should have slowed transmission to a crawl.  Of course, that didn’t happen.

Why?  Enter once again the anti-vaxxers.

The number of allegations that have been made against the COVID vaccine could fill a book, so I’ll just hit some of the more common misconceptions.  The vaccine alters your DNA.  It turns you into a magnet.  It implants a microchip somewhere in your body (I had a patient once tell me that I must have a microchip somewhere in my own body because I had smallpox vaccine when I was younger.  I tried to explain microchips weren’t even invented then, but it didn’t seem to do much good).  It poisons your immune system.  It causes massive inflammation.

First, let’s talk about how the vaccine works.  A shot of RNA enters your body, and travels to your cells.  It does not enter the important nucleus of the cell (where your DNA is stored) but it remains in the cell’s outer region and causes the cell to do one thing and one thing only.  Make spike protein.

Why is this important?  Because the surface of a COVID virus is covered with spike protein.  It’s what allows the virus to attach to a human cell, inject its own genetic material into the cell, and cause the human cells to reproduce the virus like mad.  The body’s immune system, having never seen the virus before, is caught off guard.  By the time it responds effectively, the patient may already be dead.

But what if the body’s immune system is already primed against the spike proteins, and when the virus strikes, immediately attacks the virus before it’s had a chance to infect a critical number of cells?  The virus is stopped in its tracks.

In a nutshell, that’s how the most basic COVID vaccines work.  Inject some RNA that makes spike proteins and thus prime the immune system to destroy the spike protein-covered COVID virus as soon as it hits your bloodstream.

And with a second exposure to the spike protein?  The immune response may strengthen even further.  Hence, the concept of booster shots.

But wait.  What happens to that RNA that was injected, and what about all those spike proteins?

The vaccine’s RNA strand doesn’t replicate itself.  It just makes some spike protein and then falls apart, like everything else in our bodies that doesn’t replicate.  Remember, the RNA is just a strand of bases—it isn’t even alive.

And ditto the spike proteins.  They’re just a strand of amino acids, and get disassembled like every other protein that’s metabolized in the body.   They aren’t alive, either.  And they certainly aren’t magic, despite what some people would have you believe.

The spike protein part is important, because it seems to be at the heart of the most recent conspiracy theories making the rounds.  Previous claims that the vaccine causes cancer, Alzheimer’s, infertility, altered DNA, is made from aborted human fetal cells, and causes COVID virus to be shed from the body of the vaccine recipient (remember, the vaccine doesn’t even contain the virus) have previously been shown to be total B.S.

That leaves the spike protein as about the only scapegoat left, if you’re desperate to find anything to discredit the vaccine’s use.  And anti-vaxxers have seized on a scientific paper that proposes that spike proteins in large enough quantities could be harmful.

But here’s the part of the paper they ignore.  The quantities produced by a COVID vaccine aren’t nearly large enough to cause the side effects the paper proposes.

Is the quantity important?  Sure.  Do you take vitamin A?  Of course you do.  It’s in our food—whether you take vitamin supplements or not.

But in large enough doses, Vitamin A can be lethal.  So should you therefore avoid all foods that contain Vitamin A?  No, because without it, human life wouldn’t be possible.

No study has shown that spike protein induced at the level of a COVID vaccine is harmful.  Plenty of studies have shown that the COVID virus very well might kill you. If it’s the spike protein you’re worried about, and not the virus, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

So get the vaccine.  It’s safe, and it works.  It won’t give you cancer, alter your genome, make your hair turn green, cause your teeth to rot out, cause your boobs to shrink, or make your penis fall off (if you’re one of those people who worry about that sort of thing).

But at this point some may say, “wait a minute.  All this science stuff is fine.  But you can’t MAKE me get this!  All this mandate stuff is dictatorship and un-American!  And you haven’t even mentioned masks!  Why do I need them?  And why should I have to wear one!”

Important questions and we’re out of space.  But trust me, I’ll have plenty to say about all of that in my next post.  See you then.

In the meantime, any thoughts or questions, feel free to contact me.

“A lie gets halfway around the world before truth has time to pull its boots on.”—commonly attributed to Mark Twain

“They used to say ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ but that isn’t true.  Whatever doesn’t kill you mutates, then comes back and tries again.”—Author unknown

Up until then, it had been a routine visit.  A check up for a new mother and her two-month-old baby.  Both were doing well.  Barely a year out of my residency training, I ticked off the do’s and don’ts for new babies, scheduled a follow-up appointment, then mentioned the immunizations the child would receive.

The new mother’s expression changed.  “I don’t want him to get any shots,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” I responded, assuming she was concerned because the shots might be painful.  “It’s really quick and it’ll be over before he knows it.  A lot of babies don’t cry a peep.”

“It’s not that,” she said, with a bit of hesitation.  “I don’t want my faith to be weak.  I’m trusting God to take care of him.”

I was so stunned, my response leaped out of my mouth before I even had time to think.

Maybe a little explanation is in order.  My approach to vaccines and infectious diseases has been shaped not only by my medical training, but also my personal experiences.  In 1953, at age 18 months, our small-town family doctor examined me and found a rigid neck and a temperature of 105.  He dropped everything, and personally dashed me down to the Kansas University Medical Center in his own car, saving my life.  With a lot of luck—as well as ten days of antibiotic injections every six hours into my spinal fluid—I somehow managed to survive pneumococcal meningitis.

Three years later, my mother was the first person that same family doctor contacted when he received his initial shipment of polio vaccine.  She had me into his office in less than an hour.

Today, we have a vaccine for pneumococcal infections.  I think anyone who saw what I went through—a spinal tap every 6 hours—would want their child to get the shot. 

So it shouldn’t be surprising how I responded to that new mother who refused her child’s vaccines because she wanted to just trust God.

“Gee, lady,” I blurted out.  “You wouldn’t just leave your kid lying in a ditch somewhere and expect God to take care of him, would you?  Don’t you think God wants you to take a little responsibility for your child’s health, too?”

The young mother looked stunned, then mumbled something about going home and praying about it.  I never saw either of them again.

All of this was in 1982, long before the British medical journal The Lancet’s discredited article falsely linking vaccines to autism, long before a xeroxed letter that falsely claimed Proctor and Gamble was run by the Church of Satan had swept across the country and “gone viral” (before such a term was even invented), and long before the public availability of the internet.

Since then, it seems things have only gone downhill.

I won’t begin to touch on all of the falsehoods that have been spread by internet sites as well as an agenda-driven right-wing media.  I described some of these things in my last post “An Open Letter to The People of The United States of America.”  But suffice it to say these things have done more to destroy our credibility and damage America’s interests around the world than anything our adversaries could inflict.

So let’s not focus on phony election claims, environmental denial, or whether or not the world is secretly run by Lizard People.  There’ll be plenty of time for that in future posts.

Instead, let’s talk about something even more pressing—how anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-truth disinformation is killing Americans, and laying the groundwork for even more death when the next pandemic strikes.

But I’ll give you fair warning—to really understand all of this takes time.  You can’t just read a couple of inflammatory Facebook posts.   To truly confront this pandemic head-on means dropping our biases and looking at the big picture.  It means taking a realistic look at the disease, the vaccine, the issues of masks, mandates, and social distancing, as well as the wacko ideas that seem to arise daily.

Finally, it means taking a hard look at who we are as a nation, and how our response will impact our country’s future.

So if you’d rather just look at 30 second Facebook posts, and then scroll down to watch kitty-cat videos, no hard feelings, OK? But if you’re ready to bite the bullet and dive into the truth about all of this stuff, take a deep breath.  Here we go.

PART ONE:  THE VIRUS

First, the disease.  COVID-19 is a coronavirus (one of many) that attaches to the lining of the lungs and spreads rapidly.  It kills some people and not others.  We’re not completely sure why.

It spreads like wildfire, as quickly as varicella (chicken pox), the previous record holder for rapid transmission.  But it’s much more deadly and unpredictable.  One person can have symptoms no worse than a cold, give it to someone else, and they’ll be dead within a week.

No, most people who get it don’t die.  But plenty do—635,000 in this country, and 4.3 million around the world.  And everyone who’s looked critically at the data agrees that the actual numbers are higher.

Why? Because it’s fairly easy to track death rates from any cause (that is, a nation’s mortality rate) and calculate life expectancy.  And when deaths increase over the baseline, the life expectancy goes down.  In America, since the beginning of the COVID outbreak, deaths increased by over 800,000.  That’s 165,000 more than the official COVID count of 635,000.

And yes, not all of the deaths were directly due to COVID.  An increase in overdoses was a factor.  Almost certainly, some people died from heart attacks or other treatable conditions because they were afraid to go to the hospital for fear of contracting the virus.  But even in many of these cases, the virus played an indirect role.

What this means is that the average American now lives 1.5 fewer years than before the pandemic—the largest drop in life expectancy since World War II. 

Well, 1.5 fewer years if you’re white.  2.9 years fewer if you’re black.  And 3 years if you’re Hispanic.

There’s nothing magic about a virus.  It’s a cruelly efficient killer, a time bomb that just sits there doing nothing (because for all practical purposes it’s dead) until it contacts a living cell.  That’s when the zombie awakens.

The viral particle adheres to the cell, activates its surface proteins, then injects its genetic material (either a strand of DNA, or in the case of COVID, RNA) directly into the body of the cell.  The strand takes over, hijacking the cell’s machinery to make millions of copies of itself.  Eventually, the cell dies, the copies are released, and millions of other cells are targeted.  And if the virus emerges from cells in the lungs, the  particles will be exhaled into the surrounding air every time the infected person breathes.

That’s millions of cells, each producing millions of viral particles, being exhaled every second.  Do the math if you want, but you’d better use a calculator. 

Again, by itself the virus particle can do nothing.  It has to have a living cell to attach itself to.  It doesn’t have arms and legs and it can’t fly around on its own—it has to be carried by a tiny droplet or in an aerosol of vapor leaving the lungs of an infected person.

Ah, but we have immune systems, don’t we?  So if we survive COVID, as most people will, won’t we be immune to the disease in the future?

Partially and maybe.  Our immune system works well, but it’s not perfect.  Some patients will clearly become reinfected.  And the subsequent infections may even be worse. (There’s a well-known U.S. Senator, who also happens to be a physician, who seems totally clueless about this.  But we’ll get to him another time).

How does this happen?  Because viruses mutate.  And each mutation brings with it the chance for the virus to come back even stronger.

Each one of the millions of replications, in each of the millions of cells, in each of the millions of infected people, occurring millions of times each day, increases the possibility of a deadlier mutation.

How do you stop it?  Slowing the person-to-person transmission is the only way.

The only way.  No matter what you may hear, azithromycin, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, disinfectants, and powerful lights aint’ gonna cut it. 

All viruses can  mutate.  And this virus mutates in a way that is downright evil.

The Delta version spreads more rapidly than anything we’ve seen up to this point.  And with the way we’re currently headed with vaccine denial, we’re going to wind up with a lot more Greek letters before this is over.

And a lot more dead bodies.

Every cough, every sneeze, every breath from an infected person is one more chance for a mutant form to spread.  Morning in America may turn into Delta Dawn.

Let’s be blunt about our understanding.  There’s a lot about this virus we still don’t know.  But two years ago, we didn’t know this damned thing even existed.   We didn’t figure out small pox, polio, or cholera for decades.  Those who say “how come you scientists keep changing the story” about COVID don’t seem to realize we’re just now getting the story ourselves, as we try like hell to save lives while we track this beast down.

Yes, the virus can do a number on our lungs, not to mention our brains and nervous systems.  So-called Long COVID, where sufferers experience fatigue, confusion, imbalance and nerve dysfunction for months, maybe even years, is a real thing.  We don’t know why it happens to some people and not others.

And no, it’s not just old geezers like me.  Children are dying.  Marathon runners are dying.  People who swallow vitamins by the handful have died.  We don’t know why.

But besides the effect of the virus alone, another deadly complication is an uncontrolled response from our immune system.  When the body senses an infection, it starts a process that includes the release of cytokines, potent chemicals that attack the invader.  But sometimes the chemical response goes berserk, and the cytokines begin attacking every tissue in sight.  This psychotic frenzy can destroy lungs, the heart, and other organs.  For whatever reason, the immune system calls down an airstrike on itself.  It’s called cytokine storm.  We have no way of knowing who it will hit.

And guess what?  The virus really doesn’t care where it came from.  And if you get it, it won’t make any difference to you, either.  You’ll still have to fight it—maybe win, maybe lose.  The smart thing to do is prevent it.

A lot has been written about whether this virus jumped from the animal world to humans, as originally thought (like HIV and Ebola), or whether it escaped from a Chinese lab.  And if so, was it a virus that had been intentionally altered? 

We’ll probably never know.  The Chinese have never been ones to open themselves up to the world.  If it did escape a lab, it wouldn’t be the first time.  Anthrax has leaked from both American and Russian labs, and Great Britain experienced an escape of the small pox virus from one of its facilities.  What seems unlikely is that it was intentionally released.  Why release it in the middle of your own country? 

But could it have been an accident?  Who knows?

We’ve seen viruses crop up just about everywhere.  Marburg virus (similar in some ways to Ebola) was first seen in Germany.  COVID’s deadlier cousin, MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) was identified in central Asia, and despite what you may have learned in school, the “Spanish Flu” actually originated on a hog farm in Kansas (being from Missouri, I like to rub that in). 

The point is, a virus can come from anywhere.  All we can do is recognize that it’s here, that it’s dangerous, and that we need to be smart about how we deal with it. 

The more we politicize this process and ignore the science, the worse it will be for all of us, and the better for our competitors and adversaries—including the Chinese government.  Think about that for a moment.

We can be certain of one thing, though.  This will not be our last pandemic.  Future viral outbreaks will hit us, and they could well be much worse.  The only question is whether we have really learned anything from our current experience to guide us through the next round.

So what can we do about this COVID stuff in the meantime?     

In my next post, we’ll discuss all of that.  I’ll talk about vaccines, masks, mandates, and wackos.

OK, it may take more than one post.  See you then.