We don’t operate on how you feel. We operate on what evidence is, and data is…

Anthony Fauci, MD April 3, 2020

So here it is, my take on what Covid – 19 otherwise known as Corona virus (or just “‘Rohna” by those of us on “the inside” of those hospitals you hear about on TV), is about as of this writing. I fully anticipate that in the future we’ll all look back on these Covid blog posts and rightly say “well that was bullshit”.

To our knowledge, the Corona virus which is in the family of viruses that include the common cold and SARS, started in or around Wuhan China. I don’t know (nor care) whether a guy ate a bat, 5 G towers for your cell phones caused it, a secret CIA research facility released it, or some guy from Massachussetts sold it to the Chinese for pocket money. Most of that is all garbage and, other than adding to the general mis-information around the disease, does nothing but fill your Facebook feed with click-bait fake articles.

It is clear that this virus started some time in late October and the extent of this spread was somehow suppressed until the Chinese government took the extraordinary step of closing down the city of Wuhan and the surrounding area (everybody noticed it then). The spread proceeded from China through traditional routes around the world to the Middle East, across the Mediterranean to Europe, to Britain, to South Amenica, to the West Coast of US and (because of international travel) to New York City. Once it got to NYC all bets are off and now it’s everywhere.

I want to emphaze, that this was NOT an attack on the US by any means but rather a predictable spread of a virus from its origins in Asia and spread throughout the world much in the same manner as the yearly influenza. So comparisons to Flu, in this VERY LIMITED sense, are valid. However, so was the predictability of it’s spread (we knew this was coming).

What makes Covid – 19 dangerous is that it is a “Novel Coronavirus” meaning that people have never been exposed to it before and therefore have no natural herd immunity (everyone else being immune gives you protection – kind of like not getting wet in the rain because everyone around you has very tall umbrellas). So, because of this, this little booger does what all viruses do, it hijacks the mechanisms in the cells of your body for the express sole purpose of reproducing copies of itself and spreading them around. This one in particular seems to like the cells in the lungs and kidneys (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme receptors).

So How Does Rohna Get You and How Do We Treat It?

The problem comes mainly with the body’s response to attack. The immune system is set up in two layers, an immediate army of soldiers (white blood cells that engulf and destroy foreign bodies) and the second line of immune cells designed to make antibodies (magic bullets) against viruses. If you’ve had exposure to a virus (or one similar) in the past your body has a template for the the virus, looks it up on “body – google” and manufactures the antibodies that destroy the virus.

If it has never seen it before, it goes into “oh my god what are we going to do?!” mode and begins to unleash primitive methods to kill proteins such as turning up the heat (fever), making cells “leaky” so that all the immune cells can take a shot at the virus (massive swelling and lung damage), and releasing all kinds of toxic chemicals to try to kill the virus (cytokine storm).

Unfortunately, this has the nasty side effect of killing the person.

So the main way to treat this Novel Coronavirus is supportive, we keep the breathing going, we keep the kidneys going, and we try whatever we can to reduce the inflammation while trying to outwait the virus and allow the body to heal.

Chloroquine is an anti-malarial drug that is sometimes used to treat immune disorders (as a second or third line drug) and has hellacious side effects. No one who has ever taken it, likes it. It has been used to try to prevent some of the early viral shedding and to slow down some of the immune response. There are NO STUDIES ABOUT THIS!!! this is all heresay reports from the Chinese (suspect), the Italians and the French (both groups desparate to do something) and unfortunately, the Italians and French stopped giving it to people when they got “too sick” so we don’t know how it works on sick people.

Azithromycin is a nice friendly antibiotic that the Doc gives you when you get a bad bronchitis or sinus infection. It is usually for 5 days and is related to erythromicin (without the nasty stomach upset). It is good to attack any bacterial infections that happen when Covid patient begin to get worse, and it may have some (very little) ability to reduce inflammation.

These are used in combination. However, they both have the nasty effect of increasing the QT interval on the EKG, which means that these two drugs do some slap-dash re-wiring of the conduction systen of the heart that could potentially cause irreversable sudden cardiac death.

So what can we do?

Stay inside among those who you are exposed to all the time. You can be pretty sure that if you’re all together for more than a week, you are either negative or all of you are positive and didn’t even notice it (yeah that can happen). WASH YA DAMN HANDS! and do it well like on all those interminable TV demonstrations. THIS WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Don’t go out in large groups for now until my guy Tony Fauci (not Dr. Oz) says it’s ok. Wear a personal facemask that covers mouth and nose when in a position that you will be around other people (yuk). If you are by yourself on a run or a walk, then don’t (I carry mine in a pocket when I go running- ya never know). Wear gloves (this is my thing), not necessarily medical gloves (geez don’t throw them on the ground that is disgusting), but regular gloves when you are touching high frequency items outside like doorknobs and such (who knew formal gloves would make a comeback?).

Take a good multi-vitamin with Vitamin C, Zinc, eat right, exercise , and keep up your spirits. Just be a good, healthy adult human.

It’s all going to be OK one day.