COVID 19 Risks - a Personal Message.
First published on April 9, 2020
URGENT UPDATE May 7th, 2020: Please read this article and all the links (and come back and read my story and more) COVID 19 A Personal Message Postscript
Complete research here: The Best Laid Plans COVID-19
The Best Laid Plans COVID-19This is deeply private and personal but I've reached the point in trying to address this where the only way I might be able to make the point is to share the following. This isn't about me. Or you. It's about us all.
As some of you will know, I have been to hospital too many times due to pre-existing conditions. My wife, Karen, who would normally accompany me, would now not be allowed into the hospital, leaving me without a much-needed advocate. I can't talk and can barely catch a breath on bad days due to a lack of lung function. My o2 saturation levels crash. I exhibit classic signs that are attributed to COVID 19 today. These common symptoms used to be attributed to several possible maladies and treated accordingly. But now the world has only one disease - COVID 19.
CDC Guidance for Certifying COVID 19 Deaths March 4, 2020 [Link].
“COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.”
Four months ago, I would receive pain medication and oxygen (as needed) through a cannula (nasal tube). I would have x-rays and antibiotics and be back with my family in a day or less. I know, because I have been successfully treated this way for the last decade, including this Christmas. Anyone else's family have a bad flu season this year? I can NEVER be put on intubated ventilation because that would quite literally end my life.
Anything that impacts my lungs (a cold, flu, pneumonia and now COVID 19) could be a death sentence. It is a fear my family lives with constantly.
Other than a fear of coughing in public (simply me catching my breath when I walk!) and being reported to authorities, my life has not changed in the face of this novel virus.
Since the first reported case of COVID 19, the CDC has changed its direction on how I and others presenting with COVID 19 type symptoms are being treated, no matter the underlying cause. The following is now standard practice. Note: this is not due to any fault of anyone of the front line. Those in health care are simply following the protocols they believe are required in this crisis.
Today, I, in Canada, I would 'maybe' given a maximum of 5l cannula delivered o2.
Current Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society (CAS) guidelines for COVID 19 [Link].
"Nasal cannula at 5l per minute or less maybe used to provide supplemental oxygen to the COVID-19 patient in respiratory distress."
This would not be enough for anyone on respiratory distress, as in every previous experience I have been on a minimum of 9l of o2 just to stabilize my o2 stats when not in distress.
The next step, as per the Canadian Guidelines, would be to intubate me causing VAP (Ventilator Associated Pneumonia)*.
"High flow nasal cannula (HFNC) or non-invasive positive pressure ventilation (NIV) should be avoided due to the possibility of increasing aerosolization."
However, anyone following the CDC guidelines (most of the world from the US to Italy), would go directly to intubated ventilation.
I would then drown as my lungs filled up due to the pressure induced VAP [Link]. How do I know? Some years ago, I suffered a 75% bi-lateral intubation-initiated pneumonia that has left me with my current issues. I survived because the hospital took me off a ventilator and put me on oxygen as my lungs filled. Like almost every COVID 19 patient today, I could breathe. I needed oxygen, not assistance breathing. This I know from a few enlightened specialists and clinicians who have educated and worked with me to carefully manage my condition and give me quality of life.
Based on the new CDC guidelines, no one would even bother testing me for COVID 19. I would die on a ventilator. I would just be another one in the daily count. The same body count that is instilling so much fear and panic and is keeping people isolated in their homes.
You know what terrifies me? Not COVID 19, that is treatable with $20 of decades old medication used on both SARS (2003) and MERS (2015). I'll take my chances with that. Thousands already have and survived.
What is truly terrifying is the reaction to this that is slowly killing us all.
To all those insisting everyone should be forced to wear a mask "for everyone's safety".
One question. Did you wear a mask during every flu season you have been through?
Flu is potentially deadly to me and many others like me. Flu kills 100's of thousands every year, including healthy people without co-morbidities. Is this not a serious concern?
Did we ever insist you wear masks all the time to protect us? Did we call you murderers for not conforming to our masters' voice?
The answer is no. We have evolved and are educated enough to know to cough into our hand, sleeve, hanky (or whatever the latest fad is... that isn't a mask).
These masks that are now 'mandatory' in many places, do nothing if you take a look at the way this disease spreads. You are likely to suffer from much worse with long term inappropriate use of an inappropriate (home made or other) mask. There is a reason there were (and are) rigid, tested protocols for different types of masks before COVID 19 threw away all common sense.
I have a doctors exemption note for this very reason. Be careful when you judge those who wear (or do not wear) a mask. You do not know their circumstances.
So stop with the MASK Charade and do some research before you dance to the latest government marching orders.
This is not medical advice, but don't believe me, do some research and speak to someone qualified to provide the appropriate advice.
Here is some information with links to sources I have gathered through my journey since COVID 19.
However, this is just my story. There are so many others like me. Please don't just believe or ignore me though. Turn of the TV and go and do your own research on drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin. Read the CDC guidelines and check their numbers. It is all there for anyone to find.
Please just take a moment to gather the facts. No-one should have to die due to of a lack of knowledge in the information age.
Before I go (hopefully not), we must now ask; What about the avoidable deaths that the lockdowns are causing. Do these lives not matter in the world where only COVID 19 appears to exist? Suicides, heart attacks, diabetes, depression, strokes, blood clots (caused by a 'new normal' sedentary life), delayed cancer screenings and so much more.
If we can report the daily deaths of COVID 19 we must be able to do the same with all causes of death. So please call on all the talking heads on TV and social media everyday to tell us the truth about who is truly dying and suffering unnecessarily.
The Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) guidelines state that COVID 19 has an overall mortality rate in tested positive cases as 0.1% (1 in 1000). CMAJ quote this low mortality rate as a reason not to use any proven safe, cheap and effective medications for the treatment of mild to moderate cases.
We need to start asking questions about what the Lockdown is doing to society.
Please continue to: COVID 19 - A Personal Message Postscript
Now back to your regularly scheduled 'programming' update. Welcome to Stepford, 1984 style. How a to program a population to accept the 'new normal'.
Remember to eat your Soylent Greens.
*VAP - Ventilator Associated Pneumonia.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/06/covid19-are-ventilators-killing-people/
"Invasive ventilation is fundamentally bad for patients. Even if the ventilator is optimally adjusted and the care is perfect, the treatment brings with it many complications. The lungs are sensitive to two things: excess pressure and excessive oxygen concentration in the air supplied.
You also have to sedate the patient during ventilation - you take him out of the world. He can no longer eat, drink and breathe on his own. So I take total control over the organism. I can only get air into my lungs with excess pressure. The opposite happens during spontaneous breathing, the air gets into the lungs through negative pressure. The terminal failure of the lungs is often caused by too high pressure and too much oxygen.
[Only] 20-50% of the ventilated Covid-19 patients have so far survived. If this is the case, we have to ask: Is this due to the severity and course of the disease itself or maybe the preferred method of treatment?
When we read the first studies and reports from China and Italy, we immediately asked ourselves why intubation was so common there. This contradicted our clinical experience with viral pneumonia."
German Pulmonologust Dr Thomas Voshaar, chairman of Association of Pneumological Clinics