Take care of yourself and your immune system will take care of you.

I am not the only one who thinks it is better to strengthen the immune system that to force social isolation. On March 10, 2020, Steven Hotze, M. D., posted an article that also questioned the current Corona Virus hysteria. Here is a quote from his article:

“Take a deep breath. Think accurately and rationally. Use common sense. There have been numerous strains over the years of the corona virus (CoV). Some corona viruses simply cause the common cold, while others cause more serious illnesses. This is not the first time a strain of the corona virus has caused a health scare. The SARS-CoV corona virus was the cause of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002. The MERS-CoV corona virus caused the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012. Remember the Bird flu in 2005 and the Swine flu pandemic in 2009? During each of these infectious disease outbreaks, the media put on their “Chicken Little” costumes and cried out, “The sky is falling!”

“That is what is happening again. The current corona virus, COVID-19, pales in significance compared to the annual influenza epidemic. Let’s look at the facts and put this current corona virus strain in perspective. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that so far in the United States this flu season, from October 2019 through February 22, 2020, there have been 45 million cases of the flu in the US. More than one in ten people got the flu this year. There have been 560,000 flu-related hospitalizations and 46,000 flu deaths in America in the past five months. There is no specific treatment for the corona virus other than supportive care.

You have been exposed to millions of viruses and bacteria daily since you were born. You have an immune system that makes antibodies to fight off these infectious organisms.”

“To build a healthy immune system, I recommend an “ABCDZ program” to my patients, consisting of high doses of Vitamin A and B complex, Vitamin C and Vitamin D3, and Zinc. This will help prevent them from getting the flu, corona virus, or any other viral or bacterial infection. Use common-sense hygiene, like washing your hands. “
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/coronavirus-mass-hysteria

I too have recommended that folks take Vitamin C and D3 as well as a multi-vitamin which has the other vitamins and minerals noted above. There is strong scientific research supporting the claim that these vitamins can improve your immune system. They not only protect you from the corona virus – they also protect you from the normal flu and a host of other illnesses.  Low vitamin D levels are linked to respiratory infections and increase susceptibility to influenza. Exercise and going outdoors is also good. Staying indoors and hiding under your blanket is not good for you or for the economy.

Evidence Our Immune System Fights The Corona Virus
On March 16, 2020, researchers in Australia announced in Nature Medicine that they had mapped the body's immune response to the Corona virus. "We saw a really robust immune response that preceded clinical recovery." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51921403

With the help of our immune system, people recover from the corona virus in the same way that people recover from the seasonal flu. Thus, the key to reducing fatalities is not so much preventing folks from getting the virus but in strengthening our natural immune system response to the virus. Patrick Porter PhD stated:

“First, you have an innate built-in immune system, the one you were born with. Mom, Dad and generations before them helped you get a leg up on what you might face in the world after birth. Your second system is called the adaptive immune system, and this is the one you can best control.”

Many people have figured out the connection between their immune system and resisting viruses even without the help of a scientific study. As news escalated about the corona virus, online searches for ways to bolster the immune system have surged. Here are some of the questions people are asking in online searches:

Are there foods to boost my immune system? (yes)

Will vitamins help? (yes)

If my immune system is deficient, how do I fix it?  (exercise, lose weight, eat well, quit smoking).

While eating healthy, exercising, and taking vitamin supplements for deficiencies, such as Vitamins C and D, can all help strengthen your immune system, there is one additional factor that many people are not aware of. That factor is stress also known as fear or your body’s fight and flight response – triggered by Mass Hysteria Media coverage of the corona virus.

Why are you so fearful, you of little faith?
Book of Matthew, Chapter 8 Verse 26

We humans are exposed to millions of bacteria and viruses every day. Yet somehow we have managed to survive – whether we use social distancing or not. How do we survive all of these constant attacks?

One answer is that we actually have deadly viruses inside of us all the time. For example, in 2014 researchers from Washington University in St. Louis found that our bodies are home to an average of five virus families responsible for numerous illnesses. The researchers identified adenoviruses – responsible for viral pneumonia and the common cold – in the majority of samples. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282751

So the notion that we “catch” the flu or “catch” a cold from someone else is not entirely accurate. It is likely that we already have bad viruses inside of us. But most of the time our immune system is able to fight these viruses off. So when we do get sick, it could just as easily be because our immune system was not working as well as it was the day before.

How does our immune system fight the corona virus?
It is likely that many more people are exposed to the corona virus that the official cases. But their immune system is able to fight it off due to some past experience with a similar virus.

Here is a diagram showing how our immune system learns how to fight viruses by being exposed to viruses:

Exposure to viruses = More T Cells
Exercise for your Immune System

Exposure to viruses stimulates the immune system and makes it stronger. Exposure is like exercise for your immune system.

Social Isolation = Fewer T Cells =
Letting your Immune System Get Flabby

Social isolation prevents your immune system from working properly. It is like when you sit on the couch too much watching TV, it is not good for your body because your body was made to exercise. Your body falls apart if you do not do some exercise from time to time. In the same way, if you do not expose your immune system, it also will fall apart.

500 Years of Flu Epidemics
The truth is that human immune systems have been fighting off viruses for thousands of years. As the following table shows, there are new flu outbreaks about every 10 years for the past 500 years.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285860845_Influenza_Historical

This pattern of rising and falling in the US (and in China) is nearly the same pattern experienced by flu outbreaks for the past 500 years – whether people are isolated or not. Severe Flu Pandemics occurred in 1510, 1580, 1781, 1831, 1890 and 1918 or about every 100 years. The word “severe” seems to mean that the flu was so wide spread that it affected every family with about 20% of the population getting the flu and up to one percent of the population dying from the flu. The reason flu viruses infect only 25% of the population - even though the entire population is exposed to it – is because 75% of the population has some sort of immunity to it. This was true even during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Most people exposed to that flu did not get sick at all - or they had very mild symptoms. The reason social isolation laws do not work is because they fail to understand how viruses are transmitted and fail to understand the role of the human immune system in protecting us from viruses.

How does our immune system get better?
Ironically, too much cleanliness is actually bad for our immune system. This may seem hard to understand but recent research has found evidence that too much cleanliness is linked with poorer immune systems. Called the hygiene hypothesis, living in more sterile environments can lead to higher rates of illness as our bodies become less familiar with everyday grime. For instance, scientists in Germany found children exposed to farm animals (and the associated bacteria and other microbes hiding out there) were about half as likely as other children to develop the autoimmune illness Crohn's disease. https://www.livescience.com/16787-germs-everyday-surfaces-infographic.html

A study published in 2009 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, found that exposing kids to common everyday bacteria and microbes may play a helpful role in the development of the body's inflammatory systems, which plays a crucial role in the immune system's fight against infection.

More to the point, studies of the 1918 Spanish Flu found that cities who engaged in social distancing often succeeded in delaying the number of flu infections and deaths – only to see a second spike two months later after the social restrictions were lifted. The reason for the second spike in cities that mandated extreme social isolation was that people did not get immunity to the flu the first time around. I am going on record right now to predict that the same double spike will occur here in Washington state because the government shutdown of schools and businesses is preventing people from developing their natural immunity. If we really wanted to help people, instead of isolating them and shutting down schools and businesses, the state should offer everyone some free Vitamin C and D supplements.

Viruses are the most abundant biological entity on the planet. There are not only millions of them in the air around us – there are millions of them inside of us – even when we feel well.

Viruses are extremely small organisms – about 100 times smaller than a small bacteria. Bacteria in turn are small primitive one celled organisms that do not even have a nucleus. Here is a picture of a colony of bacteria:

Viruses are very hard to study because they are much smaller than bacteria. Viruses are a very small piece of genetic material covered by a coat of protein molecules. Here is a picture of the corona virus:

The crown around the shell is why this is called the corona virus.

There are at least 7 strains of the corona virus including the 2002 SARS virus, the 2012 MERS virus and the 2019 COV-2 virus we are currently dealing with. So the claim that the corona virus is something new that humans have never seen before is simply not true. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html

What is the Corona virus?
The Corona virus is a single molecule with a single strand of RiboNucleic Acid (RNA). The Corona virus RNA strand has about 30,000 bases containing 15 genes, including the S gene which codes for a protein located on the surface of the viral envelope. The human genome by comparison is in the form of a double helix of DNA consisting of about 3 billion bases and containing about 30,000 genes. https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/20/covid-19-genome-analysis-suggests-2-viruses-may-have-combined/

Viruses are Everywhere. We can not avoid them. This is one reason social distancing does not help.
One of the first studies that was able to measure air-born concentrations of viruses was published in 2015. Here is the link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4515362/

An innate antiviral pathway acting before interferons at epithelial surfaces. Nature Immunology.

Here are some quotes from this study: “Studies examining airborne virus concentrations have been limited due to technical challenges and underappreciated importance…. The specific objectives of this study were to determine concentrations of virus-like particles (VLPs) and bacteria-like particle (BLPs) in both indoor and outdoor air. We collected samples in a classroom, a daycare center, a dining facility, a health center, three houses, an office, and outdoors. Using fluorescent microscopy, we quantified the number of VLPs and BLPs collected and calculated particle concentrations in the air. We collected air samples during September and October of 2014 at nine locations in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. We found an average of 500,000 viruses per cubic meter… Based on the VLP concentrations measured in this study, we estimate that the total number of VLPs inhaled daily by humans is approximately 6 million. Pneumococcus bacteria and influenza virus have been shown to interact with each other.”

The study also concluded that humans inhale about 6 million bacteria per day and that there is a complex relationship between bacteria and viruses that requires further study. In short, every time you inhale, you inhale some viruses and bacteria – even if you wash your hands 100 times a day and even if you never go near another person! In short, we humans are literally swimming in an ocean of viruses and bacteria that are in the air as well as on nearly every surface we touch. Viruses can even “piggy back” on bacteria!

Next is a 2014 study confirming that viruses can spread rapidly in buildings – even when people are 6 feet apart. Here is the link: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282219

"Our study fundamentally alters our understanding of how the body begins its defense against viruses. This can help to explain how we can be constantly exposed to the viruses and bacteria that always surround us, without activating the entire immune system every time, something that would lead to more frequent influenza-like symptoms," says Soren Riis Paludan, professor at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University.

So how long does the corona virus survive in the air? Here is a link to a recent NPR report on a new study by researchers at UCLA and Princeton confirming that the corona virus can live three hours in the air. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/preliminary-research-suggests-new-virus-may-live-on-some-surfaces-for-up-to-3-days

There is also emerging research showing that many people who are infected with the corona virus have no systems at all. Here is one of these studies:

In a COVID-19 outbreak on a cruise ship where nearly all passengers and staff were screened for SARS-CoV-2, approximately 17 percent of the population on board tested positive as of February 20; about half of the 619 confirmed COVID-19 cases were asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis. https://www.niid.go.jp/niid/en/2019-ncov-e/9417-covid-dp-fe-02.html

It therefore does no good to isolate people with symptoms and leave thousands of other people walking around the streets with symptom-less corona virus. Social distancing is just a terribly ill-informed and ridiculous policy. Given the ability of viruses to hide inside of apparently normal people and then migrate through the air for up to three hours, the real question is why aren’t we all dead by now? The answer is our immune system. So let’s take a look at that next.