quote
“Give advice; if people don't listen, let adversity teach them.”
— Ethiopian proverb

Two of the greatest fears are aging and dying. This page will minimize those concerns by helping delay both.

There is no upside to infection. No mother or doctor ever said, “Oh good, you're sick!” You knew it's good to avoid infections; you just didn't know how good. Now you will. Scientists have more evidence that infections, even common ones, trigger accelerated aging, premature cognitive decline, and increase the risk for early death. Here it is:

Research reported that immunoglobulin G (IgG), levels of which rise with infections, “accumulates in multiple tissues and organs during aging in humans and mice, suggesting that IgG levels could serve as a new biomarker for aging. Moreover, IgG was found to directly induce aging in human and mouse macrophages and microglia, releasing inflammatory factors. Intriguingly, injecting IgG into young mice induced aging in multiple tissues and organs, demonstrating its potent aging effects.” Hence nothing to sneeze at.

Summarizing this: ↑ IgG → ↑ aging

I will return to this topic with more corroboration in the text and videos below.

Now let's turn our attention to a new way to minimize infections, not with an overpriced wonder drug, but something that works even better: reducing airborne germ transmission, the missing link to better health. The COVID-19 pandemic should have taught us this lesson, but scoundrels intent on profiting from you had other ideas. Bad ones. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

Why did Bill Gates and other brainiacs cheerlead for vaccines that didn't reliably block infection? Why did they snub something that does? Why was our government and prominent institutions fine with masks that didn't work?

As the COVID-19 pandemic commonly fades from memory, these questions remain relevant because they underscore a fatal flaw in our culture: the best ideas often don't bubble to the top whereas dysfunctional ones frequently do. Because too many leaders are enamored with second-rate ideas, your life will almost certainly be more difficult, shorter, and filled with needless health problems making you look, feel, and perform worse. Consequently, you and everyone else have a vested interest in understanding this societal pathology.

To highlight its ubiquity, let's begin with some common examples. Say you want to clear leaves from your lawn in the least possible time. Big-box stores have plenty of second-rate options — rakes, leaf blowers, lawn vacuums, and lawn sweepers — but not two of the best ones: a device that amplifies the efficiency of leaf blowers, and another that leaves them in the dust by removing leaves much faster than any leaf blower without using an engine or motor, and hence with virtually no noise, pollution, vibration, or dust.

We have no shortage of exercise equipment except for small devices providing better workouts in less time, including a way to transform walking into the only exercise you need to get in shape and stay that way without spending one minute in gyms.

If you want the most attractive, happiest, and cooperative children brimming with intelligence and creativity paving a path to success, surely the steep health insurance, taxes, and tuition you pay buys you the best advice — right? Wrong.

Stopping your car in the shortest possible distance on any surface, including wet, snowy, or ice-covered roads — brakes are the best way to stop vehicles, right? Don't bet your life on it.

Guns are the best way to protect you from home invasions, right? Their limitations were highlighted in the October 7th invasion in Israel. To stop terrorists, school shooters, and countless other criminals in the blink of an eye and so easily that even young children could do it, we can continue to pretend that guns are the best solution, or look for ones markedly better.

Almost everywhere you look, you are being screwed by one second-rate idea after another but our world is filled with so many of them that their inferiority is camouflaged as we are inured to expect nothing better, and often cannot imagine superior alternatives. I created better ways to achieve all of the above and much more, but now let's focus on one of my methods to block airborne germ transmission that is relevant to everyone who breathes even if infections don't bother them: as you will soon see, the hazard of airborne germs isn't limited to infections.

What teachers forgot to mention, you should never forget

Even if you somehow had lifetime immunity to every airborne germ, reading this page could give you a better and longer life. Class is now in session. Tune in while I fill in some of the many blanks ignored by most educators and physicians.

Face masks seemed like a good idea but researchers found “possible toxicity of chronic carbon dioxide exposure associated with face mask use,” including increased anxiety, impaired learning and memory, less activity, neuron destruction, testicular toxicity, teratogenicity (birth defects) with irreversible neuron damage, and “reduced spatial learning caused by brainstem neuron apoptosis and reduced circulating levels of the insulin-like growth factor-1.” This may be one factor helping explain why “girls’ brains aged unusually rapidly during the covid-19 pandemic,” as scientists reported.

Despite the lessons learned during this pandemic, 181 disease detectives at a CDC gathering in April 2023 were infected with COVID-19 even though almost all attendees were vaccinated.

People commonly trivialize the common cold, influenza, and other infections by saying “you'll get over it.” Perhaps not; there is evidence that certain infections result in potentially lifelong mental illness. Discussing the communicability of psychiatric disorders, researchers wrote, “We present evidence of the communicability of psychiatric disorders through three major pathways: infectious and ecological …” Jacqueline A. Hobbs, MD, PhD said “… viruses … can infect the brain … [and] other organs … that can infect the brain …”

Viruses spread between people, so it shouldn't be surprising that infectious diseases are a potential trigger of mental illness. However, this raises a harrowing possibility: that proximity to others — such as in classrooms, offices, restaurants, and mass transportation — may result in chronic problems much worse than colds. Some of those are devastating, with the potential to indelibly affect lives. There is more evidence that this is possible than impossible, so prudent people would take appropriate precautions. In addition to routine measures to limit disease transmission, we should finally acknowledge how incredibly risky it is to routinely breathe the air and germs recently exhaled by others.

We put a man on the moon last century, but we still breathe such contaminated air. We wouldn't tolerate acquiring sexually-transmitted diseases if they were spread by talking to others or briefly being near them, but we've prematurely acquiesced to airborne pathogens as if there is no practical way to reliably block their transmission, but there is. I developed a solution years before this pandemic after witnessing television hosts infect co-workers. That method works for everyone almost everywhere.

I don't know anyone who wants to spend their life muzzled by masks that don't work very well or feels safe relying on vaccines that don't dependably block infection. COVID-19 is largely transmitted inside homes and other buildings, but they need not endanger us: with my technology, we can be much safer indoors than outdoors.

My system also safeguards against airborne dust, hence is great for woodworking and other activities generating dust, such as cutting or grinding natural and especially engineered stone, which has even higher concentrations of silica (often triggering fatal silicosis).

Before we delve into the science, let me personalize this. I haven't cried many times as a doctor:

But tears came to my eyes after seeing what long Covid did to Dianna Cowern and her newlywed husband. She is a MIT grad and gifted science communicator famous as the Physics Girl. Her husband probably felt like the luckiest man in the world after marrying such a brainy, beautiful, talented, and vibrant young woman whose life was shattered (1, 2, 3) by the virus many trivialize as no worse than a bad cold. Reflecting on tens of thousands of patients with me saving 100% of those with infections and 0% with immediate sequelae, I knew this minimization of SARS-CoV-2 wasn't based on science but emotion and wishful thinking. On July 29, 2020, Dianna — then healthy — posted a video mentioning how an asymptomatic Chinese superspreader transmitted “COVID-19 to 71 people in a single elevator trip,” so she was well aware of how readily SARS-CoV-2 spreads.

If Dianna recovers, will she still be the Physics Girl?

EXHIBIT A: People who had severe covid-19 show cognitive decline years later: An analysis of people who were hospitalised with covid-19 in the first wave of the pandemic has revealed that the ongoing decline in their cognitive abilities is the equivalent to losing 10 IQ points.

EXHIBIT B: Study of 18 million people finds increased mental illnesses incidence following severe COVID-19, especially in unvaccinated people.

According to the New York Times, long Covid affects 400 million people with a global economic cost of about $1 trillion per year. My technology could have therefore prevented the staggering economic and human costs of this pandemic as well as inevitable ones in the future.

Another COVID-19 victim: Dawn Wells, best known as Mary Ann in the Gilligan's Island sitcom, who died of it at age 82 days after she recorded this poignant video, then very much alive.

The vaccine's gravest danger

Decades ago, as an ER doctor I'd worked thirteen 12-hour shifts in a row with another dozen to go with one day off between them to cook, clean, shop, do laundry, pay bills, and catch up on sleep — important because those “12-hour” shifts often included overtime (sometimes three hours per day) and half of the shifts were at a hospital 2½ hours away. In the middle of trying to squeeze everything into that day off, my then-girlfriend Cindy — a nursing home head nurse — called and insisted I see her that day. She wasn't willing to come to my place so I could do at least some of the things I needed to get done; she repeatedly demanded that I drive to her home, which would have taken hours out of my day — time I simply didn't have. I tried to explain this, but she wasn't in the mood for listening. This devolved into an argument — our first — that culminated with her threatening to end our relationship unless I caved in, which I couldn't do because of my responsibilities.

Bonus lesson of the day: Discard trash, not people. End relationships for good reasons (infidelity, abuse, neglecting children, etc.), not because someone must do things so he could work and take care of patients. Any relationship can survive good times; good relationships survive bad times because life isn't always smooth sailing. When a temporary problem arises, such as being super-busy, make allowances for that instead of issuing ultimatums. Cindy likely acknowledged the mistake, judging by the thoughtful gift package she sent years later.

We'd had no prior conflict, so this abrupt breakup gave me no chance to say goodbye to her children, Eric and Monica. Curious about what they did with their impressive minds, I recently found them mentioned in the obituary of a man who'd been the love of their mother for 13 years until he died from COVID-19 in 2022. What struck me about his obituary was how it implored people to get the COVID-19 vaccine and stay up-to-date on its boosters. Mark was vaccinated but not (fully?) boosted, seemingly suggesting that if he were, he might still be alive.

The obituary also stressed testing and repeat testing as well as antivirals it deemed effective if starting early. According to Google's Bard/Gemini AI July 20, 2024, “Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir) “is currently considered the most effective antiviral medication for COVID-19,” but it was better at generating hype than protection as evidenced by a long list of articles. Among them: Paxlovid treatment does not reduce risk of long COVID, study finds: Researchers also find higher than expected COVID rebound after treatment with Paxlovid and Joe Biden is taking Paxlovid, even though doctors know it doesn't really work.

The gravest danger of the vaccine is a lulling people into a false sense of security. Because it does not reliably block transmission nor the development of infection sequelae, those who don't understand how feeble and ephemeral its protection is are more likely to behave as if they have some sort of a magical shield and thereby not take adequate precautions, which include several things not mentioned in that obituary, the most important of which is: DON'T BREATHE AIR AND GERMS RECENTLY EXHALED BY OTHERS.

Mark sounded like a really good guy who loved life and Cindy, so it's a shame he probably lost a decade or two of life, perhaps more, because of misinformation and a lack of information. The foremost lesson conveyed by medical school professors boils down to this: the path to health is paved with pharmaceuticals and surgery. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, those seeking immense pharmaceutical profits used their shills and dupes to hoodwink the masses into believing their snake oil was more important than, say, not inhaling germs. With the Internet and so much of the world revolving around the almighty dollar and the pursuit of it, truth often takes a backseat to reality, and Mark joined millions of others in going to their graves prematurely.

Cindy's daughter Monica, now a children's book author and illustrator, might use her talents to convey crucial aspects of health that are commonly neglected by everyone from ordinary folks to medical school professors who grossly underestimate how countless real-world factors impact health, with collective effects overshadowing the ability of pharmaceuticals and surgery to undo them.

This underscores the imperative to belatedly address this missing link to health, which I am doing in an upcoming book that is now 4500 pages and growing daily, thus thousands of times longer than what the average attention span will tolerate. Perhaps a children's book author will do better. If she succeeds, she deserves a Nobel Prize in Medicine because it's not that some people die prematurely but rather that almost everyone does, falsely reassured they do enough by focusing on a few preventive factors while missing over 99% of them: math that just doesn't add up to optimal health. Instead, people usually slog through life, thinking that life is inevitably filled with problems, oblivious to how many of them can be mitigated or avoided, which is virtually impossible when they are ignored. Ignorance isn't bliss; it's deadly.

The #1 job of every parent is to maximally prepare children for their futures. My father didn't do that, instead abandoning us so we suffered in many ways, including going without critically needed healthcare and sometimes without food or utilities. I therefore get a kick out of helping people, but when I knew Cindy, I had much to learn about health even though I was an Alpha Omega Alpha medical school graduate. Since then, I've acquired a mountain of information I figuratively would have given my right arm to know then. Had Cindy and I stayed together or at least kept in touch, I would have shared what I learned with Eric and Monica, who would have benefited along with countless others, including Mark.

Life is about many things. Paramount among them: relationships and not dying. Relationships are often tarnished by petty squabbles and lives are almost universally diminished because educators poorly prioritize information by omitting what we need to know, instead wasting years yapping about soon-forgotten fluff such as mythology and history that is usually taught pointlessly with a litany of facts but not take-home lessons drawn from them. Knowledge of the Habsburg dynasty benefited you, how? Better than tips to amplify intelligence and creativity? Your focus and mental energy? Or your mood, which could be markedly better with you on Cloud Nine rather than tormenting yourself with anxiety or depression. Or would you prefer to learn about the bourgeoisie or Renaissance art?

Literally years of my life were pointlessly flushed down the drain, not to help me nor my future patients but instead to serve as excuses to give paychecks to teachers and professors who do more for themselves than others and evidently revel in their collective power to prioritize themselves over Mark and the rest of us.

My medical school professors crammed a staggering amount of information into four years, roughly equivalent to 12 years of college. In spite of all that, little was said about health and how to optimize it, instead tacitly brainwashing medical students into believing that the absence of disease equates with health. And if your car isn't sputtering, it is destined to win the Indy 500. Disney movies are more realistic.

The best part of relationships is companionship. I can't imagine suddenly ending a friendship because my partner was busy that day, but as a doctor and graduate of The School of Hard Knocks, I understand where such behavior originates. Before Cindy booted me from her life, erasing our bond, I pulled in her driveway one day to see her last boyfriend, a handsome but visibly older anesthesiologist, clearly distraught after likely pleading for a second chance. The primary lesson of history is that it repeats itself in relationships, events, and tragedies as pollyannaish people — me among them — too often presume “it won't happen to me or my loved ones” even though it always does.

Progress?

Lamentably, we are now almost as susceptible to airborne germ transmission as humans were during the Stone Age. Illustrating our national inability to solve big problems, on March 11, 2024 NPR published an article (Wrestling with my husband's fear of getting COVID again) suggesting the best solution is to compromise on risk. A vastly better approach is to markedly reduce risk by using my technology to make airborne pathogen transmission rare as opposed to what it is now: as common as breathing. Few people — sadly, that includes most physicians — fully understand how common infections erode physical and mental health, as I discuss later in this page. Ignorant of that and emboldened by Dunning-Kruger effect false reassurance, people commonly play Russian roulette with their health with almost everyone losing that game. The Physics Girl is just one of the many victims (March 15, 2024: ‘Alarming’ rise in Americans with long Covid symptoms: CDC data shows nearly 18m people could be living with long Covid …). Someone gave her COVID-19 that triggered a domino effect of destruction hobbling a once sparkling young woman.

As an ER doctor, I met countless people who belatedly discovered that the “it won't happen to me or any of my loved ones” reassurance was also based on wishful thinking. Bad things don't happen to some people; they happen to everyone. We are all ticking time bombs. No one knows when their luck will run out, but it always will. We all have expiration dates. My job as a doctor is to save as many people as possible. I previously did that with pharmaceuticals and surgery but eventually concluded it is a fantasy to believe the path to optimal health is paved with drugs and scalpels. Sometimes they work, too often they don't.

The Big Lie in medicine is failing to disabuse people of the misconception that doctors can undo most of the damage incurred throughout life. In reality, much of it cannot be fully reversed; the best solution is prevention, not treatment, but prevention is largely ignored, poorly reimbursed, and too often a frigging mystery to physicians unable to conceive creative ways to dodge common problems. Airborne infections are one of them. Ironically in the heartbreaking case of Dianna Cowern, they can often be prevented by applied physics. I spent years developing various solutions; this site gives a snapshot into one of them.

Introducing AirPixel™ technology: Active intelligent air vectoring to control airborne pathogen propagation

First, why? Researchers discovered that COVID-19 can “trigger self-attacking antibodies … even among people who had mild symptoms or no symptoms at all.” This is one of the many reasons why it is a colossal mistake to trivialize this pandemic and to not do everything possible to quickly control it. Just as school shooters damage people and property, autoantibodies damage cells and tissues throughout your body, affecting your brain, heart, and elsewhere. As discussed in the text and videos below, scientists have evidence that this lowers IQ and sparks multiple problems that result in reduced lifespan. Another alarming outcome that develops in a surprising percentage of COVID-19 patients: “the coronavirus may cause fat cells to miscommunicate, leading to diabetes.” And possibly erectile dysfunction (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). WebMD put it bluntly: “Coronavirus lingers in penis and could cause impotence.”

“Respiratory infections are a major cause of disease worldwide, impose enormous societal and public health costs, and are a leading cause of death in young children [*] …” (source)
Comment: Thus they should be targeted, not accepted as inevitable. Problems need solutions, not acquiescence.
* One example: Babies Exposed to COVID in the Womb Are More Likely to Suffer Breathing Problems
Excerpt: “… three times more likely to develop serious breathing problems …”
Another example: Bacterial meningitis injures one in three children for life
And another: Recurrent wheezing in children linked to 'silent' viral infections
And another: How measles can do long-lasting damage to children's immune systems
And another: Common viruses trigger most cases of intussusception in children
Excerpt: “… common respiratory diseases such as colds, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) … were behind a significant proportion of intussusception cases.”
Related: Signs of multiple sclerosis show up in blood years before symptoms
Excerpt: “Autoimmune diseases like MS are believed to result, in part, from rare immune reactions to common infections.”
And another: When the Body Attacks the Mind: A physiological theory of mental illness.
Excerpt: “… some infections might, by activating the immune system, contribute to psychiatric conditions.”
And another: Fetal brain impacted when mom fights severe flu: New mouse study explains how
Excerpt: “A bad case of the flu during pregnancy can increase the risk for fetal neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. But it's not the virus itself doing the damage; it's the mother's immune response.”
Comment: What I've said for many years.
And another: A 25-year-effort uncovers clues to unexplained deaths in children: Seizures during sleep appear to play a role in these mysterious deaths
Excerpt: “One clue that emerged from the project was an association between SUDC [sudden unexplained death in childhood] and seizures that are due to fevers. … close to 30 percent of children with unexplained death have a history of febrile seizures.”
Comment: Avoid the infection, avoid the fever, avoid the seizure, avoid the death: all possible with my technology to block airborne germ transmission. Permitting pathogens to randomly float through the air is great for them — it helps them spread — but so risky that we shouldn't tolerate it. Now we don't have to.

Scientists reported that SARS-CoV-2 spike protein activates human endogenous retroviruses that “are now known to be responsible for many human diseases.” Connect that dot with this: “All current vaccines that are authorized for general use and for which clinical efficacy data have been published rely on the viral spike protein (S) as an immunogen …”

And this: Coronavirus spike protein activated natural immune response, damaged heart muscle cells, study finds.

And this: How Repeat Covid Infections Can Harm Your Health: They might push up your risk for diabetes and other chronic problems.

And this: SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences circulate in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination.

And this: Young women had 3.5 times higher risk of death from heart issues after AstraZeneca jab.

And this from Time magazine: Getting COVID-19 Could Weaken Your Immune System.

And this: IgG4 Antibodies Induced by Repeated Vaccination May Generate Immune Tolerance to the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein.

And this: “… the COVID-19 virus can trigger the production of 'abzymes' — antibodies that act like enzymes — which may explain why long COVID symptoms persist even after the infection is cleared.”

And this: Encephalitis After COVID-19 Vaccine Administration: Perspectives.

And this from Scientific American: COVID-19 Leaves Its Mark on the Brain. Significant Drops in IQ Scores Are Noted: Research shows that even mild COVID-19 can lead to the equivalent of seven years of brain aging. Related: Virus and Accelerated Brain Aging and Scientists Link Inflammation and Repeated Infections to Reduced Intelligence.

And this: An entirely new COVID-related syndrome (MDA5-autoimmunity and Interstitial Pneumonitis Contemporaneous with COVID-19: MIP-C): “… some of these patients are progressing rapidly to death.”

And this: vaccines have side effects, even in others. For example, “giving children the nasal flu vaccine is linked to more pneumonia-causing bacteria in their noses, which they may pass on.” This is so typical of modern medicine: treat one problem, create another — or two. In contrast, my technology strongly minimizes airborne germ transmission without side effects.

And this: scientists reported that “those not ‘up-to-date’ on COVID-19 vaccination had a lower risk of COVID-19 than those ‘up-to-date’.” Yet they call it a vaccine?

Researchers announced that COVID-19 causes mitochondrial dysfunction in the heart and other organs and “may cause new onset hypertension.” High blood pressure can and often does trigger heart disease, strokes, and other medical problems as well as increasing the cost of healthcare and robbing people of time as they spend it in doctor's offices and hospitals instead of enjoying their lives. Distressingly, “a large proportion of people with long COVID have reported experiencing post-exertional malaise … — a worsening of symptoms such as fatigue, difficulty regulating body temperature and cognitive dysfunction, after even light exercise.”Just a bad cold? Scientist explains ‘indelible mark’ of COVID brain fog. Indelible = permanent, lasting, enduring; very difficult or impossible to erase, remove, or wash away. Also indelible: researchers reported that ancient viral DNA in the human genome is linked with major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and psychosis. Mental disorders can also result from infections in you or your mother.

January 14, 2024: ‘All My Children’ actor Alec Musser dead at 50, fiancée suspects COVID contributed: Musser had been suffering from ‘a severe case of Covid’. Of the countless patients I treated, not one died of a bad cold or any other infection, but millions have died from COVID-19.

Scott Davison, CEO of OneAmerica insurance company, said the insurance industry is witnessing an “uptick” in disability claims and an unprecedented upsurge in death rates, 40% greater than they were pre-pandemic. He said “a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic. So, 40% is just unheard of …” Paralleling that in the United Kingdom in 2024, Britain faces worst sickness crisis since 1990s as millions quit workforce: ‘Legacy of pandemic’ blamed as illness-related inactivity climbs to 2.7 million.

Charlie Kirk said “nobody knows” why this is happening, but the preceding paragraphs present educated guesses and highlight the imperative to quickly solve this mystery. Occam's razor (a.k.a. the principle of parsimony) says it is — directly or indirectly — COVID-19 or its spike protein (ironic that the spike in deaths results from the spike protein). If so, that will require rethinking how we manage this pandemic, such as by using my technology to block airborne pathogen transmission. Kirk added that “everyone missed this” spike in death rates, including insurance industry actuaries, but I predicted it much earlier in the pandemic, basing that projection on past research linking infections to accelerated aging and reduced lifespan (example), some of which I discussed in the 63-minute video posted below.

  1. December 12, 2023: Opinion: This is bigger than COVID: Why are so many Americans dying early?
    Excerpt: “Actuarial reports — used by insurers to inform decisions — show deaths occurring disproportionately among young working-age people.”
  2. March 23, 2023: Study: SARS-CoV-2 can alter genome structure of our cells
    Based on: SARS-CoV-2 restructures host chromatin architecture
    Related: March 29, 2023: COVID-19 causes chaos in infected cells' RNA, finds study
    Comment: Just a bad cold?
  3. August 15, 2023: Heart attacks at record level after pandemic
  4. October 9, 2024: COVID-19 infection appeared to increase risk of heart attack and stroke up to 3 years later: The risk was also higher among people with A, B or AB blood types, compared to type O, finds new study
  5. March 8, 2024: COVID-19 virus can stay in the body more than a year after infection
  6. The New York Times November 22, 2023: How Viral Infections Cause Long-Term Health Problems: In a few patients, the immune system becomes misdirected, attacking the body instead of the virus.
  7. March 8, 2023: Respiratory disease in early childhood linked to higher risk of early death in adulthood
    Based on: Early childhood lower respiratory tract infection and premature adult death from respiratory disease in Great Britain: a national birth cohort study
  8. March 1, 2023: We're starting to understand how viruses trigger chronic conditions: Widespread cases of long covid have shone a spotlight on the role viral infections play in previously neglected conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia
    Related:
  9. November 2, 2023: At least 14 percent of Americans have had long COVID, study finds
  10. The Washington Post November 29, 2023: New CDC life expectancy data shows painfully slow rebound from covid
  11. October 6, 2023: Scientists discover 'long colds' may exist, as well as long Covid
  12. August 10, 2023: Long COVID symptoms can emerge months after infection
  13. March 1, 2023: Long-neglected chronic conditions finally come into the spotlight: Growing evidence that long-term conditions like myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia are caused, wholly or in part, by viral infections …
  14. November 13, 2023: Pain, fatigue, fuzzy thinking: How long COVID disrupts the brain
  15. Scientific American November 21, 2022: Why Life Expectancy Keeps Dropping in the U.S. as Other Countries Bounce Back: COVID cut average life spans short in many high-income countries, but the U.S. decline has been steeper and longer than most
  16. December 29, 2022: US life expectancy reaches 25 year low
  17. February 16, 2023: The Global Life Expectancy Keeps Dropping. This Is Now a 'Mega Event.'
  18. Scientific American February 2023 issue: How the U.S. Lost Years of Life: Many countries saw drops in life expectancy during the pandemic, but some populations have suffered more than others
  19. March 16, 2023: Maternal mortality rate in the US rose drastically in 2021
  20. September 25, 2023: COVID vaccines linked to unexpected menstrual bleeding: A large cohort study measured how frequently women reported bleeding after receiving COVID-19 jabs.
  21. February 18, 2024: Largest Covid Vaccine Study Yet Finds Links to Health Conditions
  22. December 26, 2022: COVID isn't just infecting you—it could be reactivating viruses that have been dormant in your body for years
  23. October 5, 2022: SARS-CoV-2 disrupts host epigenetic regulation via histone mimicry
  24. June 28, 2022: Covid-19: What are the risks of catching the virus multiple times? A study suggests people who catch covid-19 at least twice have double the risk of dying from any cause and are three times as likely to be hospitalised in the next six months, compared with people who test positive just once
    Based on: Outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection
    Related:
  25. May 3, 2023: Why doctors fear Covid could be causing diabetes in otherwise healthy patients: Doctors have long reported a link between the two diseases, which is now being backed up by large-scale observational studies
  26. Time magazine March 4, 2022: COVID-19 May Be Linked to Spontaneous Psychosis. Researchers Are Trying to Figure Out Why
  27. March 7, 2022: SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank
  28. January 3, 2023: Brain scans suggest the pandemic prematurely aged teens’ brains
  29. November 2, 2023: Brain health in over 50s deteriorated more rapidly during the pandemic, study finds
  30. March 7, 2022: Even mild COVID-19 can damage the brain, affecting a person's ability to perform complex tasks, study finds
  31. March 8, 2022: Brain changes after COVID revealed by imaging: Imaging before and after infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus reveals substantial changes in the brain after infection.
  32. March 10, 2022: COVID ups risks of dementia, cognitive impairment, and decline in older survivors: The study, which followed survivors for a year, suggests dementia could rise worldwide.
  33. April 1, 2022: Study shows COVID-19's lingering impacts on the brain: Researchers found severe brain inflammation and injury consistent with reduced blood flow or oxygen to the brain, including neuron damage and death
  34. April 19, 2022: COVID-19 pneumonia increases dementia risk: Study examined nearly 10,500 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia
  35. May 3, 2022: Covid-19 news: Cognitive impairment equivalent to 20 years of ageing
    Excerpt: “People hospitalised with covid-19 may lose 10 IQ points, equivalent to the natural cognitive decline that occurs between 50 and 70 years old … Covid-19 can cause lasting cognitive and mental health issues …”
  36. May 4, 2022: Nearly 13 percent of COVID-19 hospitalized patients had serious neurologic symptoms, study finds
    Based on: Neurologic Manifestations of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection in Hospitalized Patients During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic
  37. May 18, 2022: Viral infections during pregnancy affect maternal care behavior
    Excerpt: “Viral infections during pregnancy affect the mother's brain and her postpartum care behavior.”
    Based on: Gestational immune activation disrupts hypothalamic neurocircuits of maternal care behavior
  38. May 24, 2022: Brain fog, other long Covid symptoms can last more than a year, study finds
  39. August 18, 2022: Large-scale study finds COVID patients at higher risk of brain fog and psychosis after two years compared with other respiratory illnesses
  40. Time magazine August 18, 2022: COVID-19 May Have Long-Term Effects on the Brain
    Excerpt: “… conditions such as brain fog, psychosis, seizures, and dementia.”
  41. August 10, 2022: Children infected with a mild case of COVID-19 can still develop long COVID symptoms
  42. June 4, 2022: Long COVID symptoms: What we know—and don't know—about the mysterious illness that could affect up to 80% of COVID survivors
  43. June 6, 2022: COVID-19 increases risk of psychiatric diagnoses in the months after infection, study finds
    Based on: Risk of new-onset psychiatric sequelae of COVID-19 in the early and late post-acute phase
  44. January 3, 2024: Severe covid-19 infections linked to increased risk of schizophrenia
  45. June 8, 2022: New study shows how having had COVID-19 may negatively impact your performance at work
  46. June 9, 2022: Covid-19 in pregnancy linked to delays in babies reaching milestones
  47. June 15, 2022: COVID-19 on the brain: Neurological symptoms persist in majority of long-haulers
  48. July 5, 2022: How immune response triggered by COVID-19 may damage the brain: Findings could give insight into long-term neurological symptoms of COVID-19
    Based on: Neurovascular injury with complement activation and inflammation in COVID-19
  49. April 23, 2023: Possible links between Covid shots and tinnitus emerge: People who have developed life-altering ringing in their ears following a Covid vaccine demand deeper investigation into this potential side effect.
  50. July 13, 2022: Long COVID has a significant impact on UK workforce, study finds
  51. Scientific American April 5, 2023: We Need an Operation Warp Speed for Long COVID: With millions of people affected and at least $1 trillion of economic value at stake, long COVID is our next national health emergency
  52. August 17, 2022: How the modern tragedy of long COVID is affecting our lives and our economy
  53. August 29, 2022: Long Covid's ‘Shocking’ Toll on Workforce: $168B in Lost Pay, 2M–4M Out of Work
  54. December 15, 2022: 2022 was the year long COVID couldn't be ignored
    Excerpt: “‘We are in the middle of a mass disabling event,’ physician Talya Fleming of the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison, N.J., told Science News (SN: 11/5/22, p. 22). A recent estimate suggests that over 18 million people in the United States have long COVID.”
    Comment: Corroborating what OneAmerica CEO Scott Davison said, discussed above.
  55. January 5, 2023: Long COVID stemmed from mild cases of COVID-19 in most people: 90% of people living with long COVID initially experienced only mild illness.
  56. July 14, 2022: Professional soccer players fought fatigue for six weeks after COVID infection, study finds
  57. July 20, 2022: Coronavirus may enter the brain by building tiny tunnels from the nose: How the virus behind covid-19 enters the brain was somewhat of a mystery, but new evidence hints it may build tiny tubes from nose cells to brain cells that it can shuttle through
  58. July 25, 2022: SARS-CoV-2 hijacks nanotubes between neurons to infect them
  59. July 31, 2022: Loss of smell is a warning sign of Alzheimer's. What if you lose your sense of smell from Covid? New findings suggest there might be a connection between Covid-related loss of smell and cognitive impairment, but experts say more research is needed.
    Excerpt: “Previous research has found that some Covid patients go on to develop cognitive impairment after their infection. In the new study … researchers … found that loss of smell during Covid may be a stronger predictor of cognitive decline, regardless of severity of disease.”
  60. December 14, 2022: Olfactory viral inflammation associated with accelerated onset of Alzheimer's disease: CU Anschutz researchers suspect it disrupts the olfactory tract, impacting the hippocampus which controls memory and learning
  61. August 17, 2022: COVID Can Disturb Mental and Brain Health Even Two Years After Infection
  62. September 13, 2022: Risk factor for developing Alzheimer's disease increases by 50–80% in older adults who caught COVID-19
    Based on: Association of COVID-19 with New-Onset Alzheimer's Disease
  63. September 22, 2022: COVID raises risk of long-term brain injury, large U.S. study finds
    Excerpt: “… people infected with COVID had a 77% higher risk of developing memory problems … 50% more likely to have an ischemic stroke … 80% more likely to have seizures, 43% more likely to have mental health issues … 35% more likely to have headaches and 42% more likely to suffer movement disorders …”
    Comment #1: Just a bad cold?
    Comment #2: COVID-19 vaccines obviously aren't doing nearly enough to protect people from COVID-19. Ditto for masks and social distancing.
  64. October 12, 2022: ACT test scores drop to lowest in 30 years in pandemic slide
  65. October 24, 2022: Test scores show historic COVID setbacks for kids across US
  66. June 21, 2023: US school test scores haven't recovered since pandemic
  67. October 28, 2022: Massive learning setbacks show COVID's sweeping toll on kids
  68. December 5, 2023: Students around the world suffered huge learning setbacks during the pandemic, study finds
  69. February 1, 2023: Almost half of young people with long COVID report lost learning
  70. February 28, 2024 : Does getting even mild covid-19 affect our cognitive skills? A large UK study suggests people who had been infected with covid-19 experienced some cognitive decline, but the findings are far from definitive
  71. February 1, 2024: California agrees to $2 billion settlement over Covid pandemic learning loss for struggling students
  72. April 25, 2024: Impact of COVID-19 'will affect exam results well into the 2030s,' says study
  73. November 1, 2022: 'A silent killer' -- COVID-19 shown to trigger inflammation in the brain
  74. November 14, 2022: How COVID-19 causes neurological damage
    Comment: Mmm, just like a bad cold?
  75. November 16, 2022: Risk of seizures is higher after COVID-19 than after influenza, study finds
    Based on: Incidence of Epilepsy and Seizures Over the First 6 Months After a COVID-19 Diagnosis: A Retrospective Cohort Study
  76. January 25, 2023: The covid-19 virus gets into the brain – what does it do there? We now know that covid-19 can cause neurological symptoms, ranging from brain fog and headaches to strokes. Research is beginning to reveal how this happens and hint at better treatments
  77. Increased Blindness Associated with mRNA Vaccines
  78. Olga Khazan in The Atlantic March 30, 2022: Why People Are Acting So Weird: Crime, “unruly passenger” incidents, and other types of strange behavior have all soared recently. Why?
    Comment: See above.
  79. February 16, 2022: Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore: Influenza, polio and more have shown that infections can change lives even decades later. Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19?
  80. Time magazine September 19, 2022: Long COVID Experts and Advocates Say the Government Is Ignoring 'the Greatest Mass-Disabling Event in Human History'
  81. Be aware of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein: There is more than meets the eye
    Excerpt: “… the spike protein by itself (without being part of the corona virus) can damage endothelial cells and disrupt the blood-brain barrier. These findings may be even more relevant to the pathogenesis of long-COVID syndrome that may affect as many as 50% of those infected with SARS-CoV-2.”
  82. The novel coronavirus' spike protein plays additional key role in illness: Salk researchers and collaborators show how the protein damages cells, confirming COVID-19 as a primarily vascular disease
    Based on: SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2
  83. Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2 Virus Alone Can Cause Damage to Lungs
  84. March 17, 2022: How coronavirus triggers immune response in brain
    Excerpt: “A new study describes how the spike protein used by the coronavirus to enter human cells can have a similar effect on the brain's immune cells as it does with the rest of the body.”
  85. SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro
  86. An evidence that SARS-Cov-2/COVID-19 spike protein (SP) damages hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in the mechanism of pyroptosis in Nlrp3 inflammasome-dependent manner
  87. SARS-CoV-2 Spike Proteins Disrupt the Blood-Brain Barrier, Potentially Raising Risk of Neurological Damage in COVID-19 Patients
  88. New research: Besides initiating infection, coronavirus spike protein has key role in illness
  89. Research finds Covid-19 spike protein binds to cells in the heart and could help to explain some effects of severe infection
  90. December 12, 2022: POTS, a debilitating heart condition, is linked to Covid and, to a lesser degree, vaccines
    Comment: POTS = postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
  91. November 7, 2022: How a SARS-CoV-2 virus protein damages the heart
  92. August 2, 2022: Heart disease after COVID: what the data say: Some studies suggest that the risk of cardiovascular problems, such as a heart attack or stroke, remains high even many months after a SARS-CoV-2 infection clears up. Researchers are starting to pin down the frequency of these issues and what is causing the damage.
    Excerpt: “… researchers … found that people who had had the disease faced substantially increased risks for 20 cardiovascular conditions — including potentially catastrophic problems such as heart attacks and strokes — in the year after infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Researchers say that these complications can happen even in people who seem to have completely recovered from a mild infection.”
  93. The SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein disrupts human cardiac pericytes function through CD147 receptor-mediated signalling: a potential non-infective mechanism of COVID-19 microvascular disease
  94. February 9, 2022: Risk of new heart problems jumps after COVID …
    Excerpt: “Risk of new heart problems much higher after COVID recovery … An average of one year after their recovery from the acute phase of the infection, the COVID-19 survivors had a 63% higher risk for heart attack, a 69% higher risk for problematic irregular heart rhythm, a 52% higher risk of stroke, a 72% higher risk of heart failure, and a nearly three times higher risk of a potentially fatal blood clot in the lungs …”
    Based on: Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19
    Excerpt: “We show that, beyond the first 30 d after infection, individuals with COVID-19 are at increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease spanning several categories, including cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmias, ischemic and non-ischemic heart disease, pericarditis, myocarditis, heart failure and thromboembolic disease. These risks and burdens were evident even among individuals who were not hospitalized during the acute phase of the infection …”
  95. February 20, 2023: Covid can cause heart problems. Here's how the virus may do its damage.: Scientists who studied human hearts found that infection appeared to make it harder for them to beat properly.
    Excerpt: “… the infection damaged the way cells in the heart regulate levels of calcium … This flood of calcium … can decrease heart function and even cause fatal arrhythmias, or irregular heartbeats. … In a study published in 2021 …, the team found the same cellular damage to calcium ion channels in autopsied brain tissue of people who had been infected with Covid. These changes, [Dr. Andrew] Marks noted, had long been seen in people with Alzheimer's disease.”
    Comment: Just a bad cold?
    Related:
  96. August 18, 2022: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths gripping Britain is only tip of the iceberg
  97. February 22, 2022: Are pandemic-related stressors impacting uninfected people's brain health?
    Excerpt: “A new study reveals that living through the COVID-19 pandemic may trigger brain inflammation that contributes to fatigue, concentration difficulties, and depression.”
  98. February 24, 2023: Brain inflammation likely cause of long COVID symptoms, UW Medicine study finds
  99. COVID-19 and Depression
  100. February 25, 2022: Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line
    Article discussing this: Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine Goes Into Liver Cells and Is Converted to DNA: Study
  101. March 1, 2022: SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals could have different variants hidden in different parts of the body: New research shows virus plays ultimate game of ‘hide and seek’ with immune system
    Excerpt: “… this may make complete clearance of the virus from the body of an infected person, by their own antibodies, or by therapeutic antibody treatments, much more difficult.”
  102. The Atlantic March 11, 2022: The Pandemic After the Pandemic: Long COVID isn't going away, and we still do not have a way to fully prevent it, cure it, or really to quantify it.
  103. March 15, 2022: Elevated inflammation persists in immune cells months after mild COVID-19
  104. March 16, 2022: Even Mild COVID Can Increase the Risk of Heart Problems: Scientists are just starting to unravel the disease's long-term cardiac effects
  105. July 28, 2022: Even mild COVID cases can result in symptoms that persist for 2 years, NJ study finds
  106. March 21, 2022: COVID-19 Increases risk of type 2 diabetes, study finds
  107. February 16, 2023: Risk of diabetes rises 58% after COVID, even amid omicron, study finds: This is the latest study finding COVID infections can spur the development of diabetes.
    Comment: Just a bad cold?
  108. February 22, 2023: COVID-19 linked to 40% increase in autoimmune disease risk in huge study
    Comment: Just a bad cold?
  109. December 6, 2023: One in four who had Pfizer Covid jabs experienced unintended immune response
    Excerpt: “More than a quarter of people injected with mRNA Covid jabs suffered an unintended immune response created by a glitch in the way the vaccine was read by the body … sometimes led to nonsense proteins being made instead of the desired Covid ‘spike’ …”
  110. March 31, 2022: Diabetes risk rises after COVID, massive study finds: Even mild SARS-CoV-2 infections can amplify a person's chance of developing diabetes, especially for those already susceptible to the disease.
  111. April 1, 2022: Are COVID-19-linked arrhythmias caused by viral damage to the heart's pacemaker cells?
    Excerpt: “The SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect specialized pacemaker cells that maintain the heart's rhythmic beat, setting off a self-destruction process within the cells …”
  112. The Washington Post February 27, 2023: A condition called POTS rose after covid, but patients can't find care: Covid is causing a sharp rise in cases of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a disorder of the autonomic nervous system that causes rapid heart rate, fainting and dizziness.
  113. April 7, 2022: Covid-19 news: Severe blood clot risk rises 33-fold after infection
  114. April 19, 2022: About 30 percent of COVID patients develop 'Long COVID,' research finds
  115. April 20, 2022: U.S. rise in alcohol deaths reflects 'hidden tolls of the pandemic,' study finds
  116. April 21, 2022: COVID-19 can directly infect and damage human kidney cells
  117. April 22, 2022: What experts told me to do after my positive COVID-19 at-home test: It gets complicated to figure out how to report results and when you're no longer contagious
    Excerpt: “… at-home testing will make underreporting even more prevalent. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's data show that only an estimated 7 percent of all U.S. COVID-19 cases are being reported …”
    Related:
  118. April 24, 2022: Shanghai installs metal barriers and fences around people's homes to stop them from going out, in its latest brutal measure to battle Covid
  119. April 25, 2022: Covid-19 news: Hospitalised people don't fully recover after a year
  120. May 6, 2022: Obesity may weaken vaccine protection
  121. May 8, 2022: Surviving the pandemic is only half the battle: ‘Long COVID’ could affect a billion in just a few years
  122. January 16, 2023: ‘We're all vulnerable’: One in 10 people will end up with long COVID, new study says
    Based on: Long COVID: major findings, mechanisms and recommendations
    Excerpt: “Long COVID is an often debilitating illness that occurs in at least 10% of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections.”
  123. May 16, 2022: Coronavirus may be linked to cases of severe hepatitis in children
  124. The New York Times May 16, 2022: How Often Can You Be Infected With the Coronavirus? The spread of the Omicron variant has given scientists an unsettling answer: repeatedly, sometimes within months.
  125. May 16, 2022: Deaths from alcohol use disorder surged during pandemic, study finds: Researchers found alcohol use disorder mortality rates were 25% higher than projected in 2020, 22% higher in 2021
  126. May 17, 2022: Pressure to conform to social norms may explain risky COVID-19 decisions: A trip to Disney World reveals how quickly “normal” can change
    Comment: In Michigan, Florida, and elsewhere, there is now strong social pressure to not wear a mask — and if you do, people may stare as if what you're doing is odd because most folks think with their emotions, not logically. Regardless of what the coronavirus does, in their minds the pandemic is over. They have an emotional need to pressure others into believing that. So no matter how much Bill Gates thinks that masks are great (see my review of his book), masks not worn are utterly worthless. We need technology that strongly protects people from all airborne pathogens (not only SARS-CoV-2) whether or not they believe in science. The technology I developed is considerably more effective than masks, social distancing, vaccines, and therapeutics combined.
    Related: February 17, 2023: Thousands of Disney employees push back on mandate to work in person four days a week
    Comment: Their reluctance is likely attributable in part to fear of breathing air recently exhaled by others, along with germs they emitted. This problem has plagued humans forever, but we no longer must rely on Stone Age luck to stay healthy. Parenthetically, it's ironic when a multibillion dollar corporation renowned for its creativity can't think of creative ways to dodge airborne germs.
  127. May 18, 2022: The pandemic's true health cost: how much of our lives has COVID stolen? Researchers are trying to calculate how many years have been lost to disability and death.
  128. Time magazine May 18, 2022: As the Virus Evolves, COVID-19 Reinfections Are Going to Keep Happening
  129. June 29, 2022: A viral reprise: When COVID-19 strikes again and again
    Excerpt: “… medical experts warn that repeat infections are getting more likely as the pandemic drags on and the virus evolves — and some people are bound to get hit more than twice. Emerging research suggests that could put them at higher risk for health problems.”
  130. May 19, 2022: Covid-19 news: World as vulnerable to pandemics as pre-coronavirus
  131. May 25, 2022: Pfizer CEO predicts 'constant waves' of COVID-19 because of complacency about the coronavirus and politicization of the pandemic
  132. May 25, 2022: Long COVID risk falls only slightly after vaccination, huge study shows: Results suggest that vaccines offer less protection against lingering symptoms than expected.
  133. July 25, 2022: Long covid symptoms may include hair loss and ejaculation difficulties
  134. July 25, 2022: Hair and libido loss join fatigue and brain fog among wider list of Long COVID symptoms
  135. Scientific American May 12, 2023: The ‘Brain Fog’ of Long COVID Is a Serious Medical Issue That Needs More Attention
  136. October 12, 2022: Will you get long COVID? Study breaks down the odds of recovery months after infection
    Excerpt: “… 48% of study participants still had COVID-19 symptoms between six and 18 months after a recorded, symptomatic COVID-19 infection … Of the group, 42% reported only partially recovering and 6% … reported they had not recovered at all.”
    Comment: Just a bad cold?
  137. May 5, 2023: Video: Spike Protein Accumulates in Brain and Skull and Causes Damage. Brand New Study
  138. March 8, 2023: COVID survivors at increased risk of long-term gastrointestinal conditions: Although people with severe COVID had highest risk, mild cases also upped risks.
    Comment: Just a bad cold?
  139. May 25, 2022: Viruses that were on hiatus during Covid are back — and behaving in unexpected ways
  140. The Atlantic May 27, 2022: You Are Going to Get COVID Again … And Again … And Again
  141. June 1, 2022: Covid-19 news: Record 2 million people in UK have long covid
  142. June 5, 2022: Adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines and measures to prevent them
    Excerpt: “Recently, The Lancet published a study on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and the waning of immunity with time. The study showed that immune function among vaccinated individuals 8 months after the administration of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine was lower than that among the unvaccinated individuals. According to European Medicines Agency recommendations, frequent COVID-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible. … the spike proteins do not immediately decay following the administration of mRNA vaccines. The spike proteins present on exosomes circulate throughout the body for more than 4 months. … The original antigenic sin, that is, the residual immune memory of the Wuhan-type vaccine may prevent the vaccine from being sufficiently effective against variant strains. … Some studies suggest a link between COVID-19 vaccines and reactivation of the virus that causes shingles. This condition is sometimes referred to as vaccine-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. … It has been hypothesized that there will be an increase in cardiovascular diseases, especially acute coronary syndromes, caused by the spike proteins in genetic vaccines.”
    Based on: Risk of infection, hospitalisation, and death up to 9 months after a second dose of COVID-19 vaccine: a retrospective, total population cohort study in Sweden
    Comment: I previously discussed that possibility (see below).
  143. June 6, 2022: COVID-19 accounted for 62% of duty-related law enforcement deaths in 2020, study finds
  144. The Atlantic June 10, 2022: A Negative COVID Test Has Never Been So Meaningless: A string of negatives can still presage a clear-as-day positive.
  145. June 30, 2022: Life expectancy of Native American peoples falls 4.7 years since 2019: Amid the pandemic, the life expectancy of American Indian or Alaska Native people is thought to have fallen by nearly five years from 2019 to 2021, the biggest decline of any ethnic group in the US
  146. July 5, 2022: COVID was the leading cause of death in Americans aged 45–54 in 2021: About 1 in 8 US deaths were from COVID-19 between March 2020 and October 2021.
  147. July 9, 2022: Move over, measles: Dominant Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 could be the most infectious viruses known to man
    Based on: Australia is heading for its third Omicron wave. Here's what to expect from BA.4 and BA.5 (by Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South Australia)
  148. July 15, 2022: COVID-19 has become 'too clever for us' and can 'break past' our protection, WHO official says
    Based on: Doctor warns COVID becoming 'too clever' and 'breaking past immune defences'
    Excerpt: “Dr. Nabarro … [said] ‘This virus is capable of constantly evolving and changing. … It can break past our immune defences, and that's why the numbers are going up.’”
    Comment: As epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm said on CNBC April 6, 2022: “We're not gonna be able to boost our way out of this.”
    Related:
  149. July 20, 2022: Covid cases are skyrocketing again. States have no new plans.
    Comment: I do. They don't: July 22, 2022: COVID-19 'is going to be with us forever,' White House says
  150. July 25, 2022: SARS-CoV-2 variants have developed resistance to human interferons, study finds
  151. July 30, 2022: More people are getting reinfected with COVID-19
  152. August 7, 2022: Scientists Fear We're Not Ready for Nightmare New COVID Variant
  153. August 23, 2022: Significant boost in rates of type 2 diabetes among children during COVID-19 pandemic: Researchers say 'environmental changes due to pandemic' may be why
  154. August 31, 2022: SARS-CoV-2 can trigger chronic fatigue syndrome, study finds
    Based on: A prospective observational study of post-COVID-19 chronic fatigue syndrome following the first pandemic wave in Germany and biomarkers associated with symptom severity
  155. September 1, 2022: Reading, math scores fell sharply during pandemic, data show
  156. September 2, 2022: COVID-19: U.S. life expectancy continued to decrease in 2021, study finds: Despite vaccination rollout, 2021 reductions in life expectancy appear to exceed those in 2020, and racial disparities have persisted, say researchers
  157. September 6, 2022: High cholesterol, overweight and reduced physical stamina are long COVID sequelae in young adults
    Excerpt: “Healthy young people with just a mild COVID infection … may be more likely to develop metabolic disorders and cardiovascular complications in the long term.”
  158. September 6, 2022: Yet Another Curveball in the COVID Mutation Nightmare: The virus is mutating in new ways. Here's what to expect.
  159. Scientific American September 7, 2022: The Number of Children Orphaned by COVID Keeps Rising
  160. September 8, 2022: Human development set back 5 years by COVID, other crises: UN report
    Comment: Businesses thrive on certainty. This pandemic and its ramifications created a tsunami of multifaceted uncertainty. People can bury their heads in the sand and pretend that COVID-19 is no worse than a bad cold or the flu, but the reality is that SARS-CoV-2 undermines both short-term and long-term health in so many ways that only scientifically illiterate people remain Pollyannaish. Even if we overlook the staggering human cost, what the pandemic did to our supply chains and economy in general is utterly devastating.
    Related: January 27, 2023: US hospitals are facing critically low supplies of liquid ibuprofen: In response to a shortage of liquid ibuprofen, the US Food and Drug Administration is temporarily allowing manufacturers to produce and distribute non-FDA approved drugs for relieving fever and pain
  161. September 8, 2022: How the COVID-19 pandemic may leave a long-term imprint on our health: The toll the pandemic has taken on society may be felt for years to come
  162. September 9, 2022: Significant risk of sensory loss in long COVID, study finds
  163. February 14, 2023: Long COVID Now Looks like a Neurological Disease, Helping Doctors to Focus Treatments: The causes of long COVID, which disables millions, may come together in the brain and nervous system
    Excerpt: “… which disables millions …”
  164. September 14, 2022: Here's What May Be Happening Every Time You Get COVID: “Getting hit with a baseball bat once is better than getting hit five times,” one expert said.
    Excerpt: “Researchers … found that repeat COVID infections (with a mixture of the Delta and Omicron variants) may have a cumulative effect, each positive test bringing greater risks of serious health consequences such as heart, kidney, gastrointestinal, and neurological disorders. … It's an idea called the ‘multiple hit hypothesis,’ …”
    Related:
  165. September 16, 2022: COVID deaths: more than 10 million children lost a parent or carer
  166. Damage In The Cornea Could Be A Sign Of Long COVID: Study
    Related:
  167. September 17, 2022: Covid-19 pandemic linked to early onset of puberty in some girls: Several studies suggest that the number of girls starting puberty early has more than doubled amid the coronavirus outbreak – and experts are unsure exactly why
  168. September 20, 2022: COVID-19 to remain a leading cause of death indefinitely, experts say
  169. September 21, 2022: Long COVID might be a lot more common than we think, as symptoms linger 2 years later for 20% of survivors, new study finds
    Based on: Two-Year Health Outcomes in Hospitalized COVID-19 Survivors in China
  170. September 22, 2022: The ‘End’ of COVID Is Still Far Worse Than We Imagined: Even now, the coronavirus is killing three times as many people as the flu.
  171. September 23, 2022: COVID-19 associated with increase in new diagnoses of type 1 diabetes in youth, by as much as 72 percent, study finds
    Based on: Association of SARS-CoV-2 Infection With New-Onset Type 1 Diabetes Among Pediatric Patients From 2020 to 2021
  172. September 8, 2023: Covid-19 linked to elevated risk of type 1 diabetes in young children
  173. September 28, 2022: The pandemic may be stunting young adults’ personality development: Adults younger than 30 have become more neurotic and less conscientious since 2020, a study finds
    Related: The New York Times October 22, 2022: Did the Pandemic Change Your Personality? Possibly.: For more than two years, Covid disrupted social rituals and rites of passage. Now a recent study suggests we have become less extroverted, creative, agreeable and conscientious. The declines in some traits were sharper among young people.
  174. The Washington Post October 8, 2022: Pregnancy complications spiked during the pandemic. No one knows exactly why.: How much is the coronavirus to blame?
  175. October 10, 2022: 40% of Americans not honest about COVID-19, use of precautions, survey says
    Comment: Complying with the precautions day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year is simply not compatible with a normal life. In contrast, my innovations offer much better protection without restricting their freedom or requiring them to do anything.
  176. October 11, 2022: Medium COVID Could Be the Most Dangerous COVID: After you're infected, the first few months may pose the greatest risks.
  177. The Washington Post October 12, 2022: ‘We Are in Trouble’: Study Raises Alarm About Impacts of Long Covid
  178. The Washington Post October 13, 2022: Long covid may set you back a decade in exercise gains
    Based on: Use of Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing to Evaluate Long COVID-19 Symptoms in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
  179. The Washington Post December 14, 2022: Long covid can be deadly, CDC study finds
  180. December 16, 2022: CDC reports 3,500 deaths from long COVID. That's only 'scratching the surface,' experts say.
  181. October 19, 2022: Former Arizona lawmaker Sylvia Laughter dies after 10-month battle with COVID-19
  182. Time magazine October 20, 2022: Our Third COVID Winter Is Coming. America Isn't Ready.
  183. October 21, 2022: Scientists think covid might trigger diabetes in children: Kids who have had covid might be up to 77% more likely to develop diabetes
  184. May 3, 2023: How lockdowns turned us into antisocial goblins – and why it matters: A rise in antisocial behaviour indicates covid-19 lockdowns disrupted our cultural evolution, says Jonathan R. Goodman

Sharing air = sharing germs

Children understand why sharing drinking glasses and toothbrushes are risky, but experts ignore the risk of sharing air: when inside buildings with others, you inevitably inhale air and germs they exhaled. This simple fact explains our susceptibility to COVID-19, influenza, and many other diseases caused by airborne pathogens.

Obvious, huh? Then why do infectious disease and other experts act as if masks, social distancing, travel restrictions, vaccines, and therapeutics are the only solutions possible? Because it seems impossible to stop airborne germs from diffusing. It is actually easy, if you know how.

If.

As told in a History Channel documentary (The Toys That Built America: Masters of Invention S1 Ep1), after making a fortune on prior products, Wham-O co-founders Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin looked for their next big idea, wisely realizing it could come from anyone (a kindred spirit: Master Lock co-founder Harry Soref). Commenting on that, Laurie Schacht, Chief Toy Officer for The Toy Insider, insightfully noted:

“Melin and Knerr didn't think that they were the only ones who could invent something fabulous, and they had this amazing open-door policy: it didn't matter who you were; if you had an idea, they were going to listen.”

Unfortunately, receptiveness to new ideas is less common than being wedded to old ones. Albert Einstein once was a patent clerk working in obscurity and so frustrated with the difficulty of gaining traction for his ideas that he considered giving up and becoming an insurance salesman.

Einstein.

Max Planck, 1918 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, observed that:

“A new scientific truth does not generally triumph by persuading its opponents and getting them to admit their errors, but rather by its opponents gradually dying out and giving way to a new generation that is raised on it.”

This reality, commonly paraphrased as “science advances one funeral at a time,” is ultimately based on intellectual rigidity — hardheadedness. Paradoxically, it is less likely to affect ordinary folks than prominent thinkers impressed with their minds, perhaps because “Big egos have little ears,” as Robert Schuller famously pointed out. Progress in science, business, and politics is stymied as individuals who don't know 99.99999% of people in the world fool themselves into believing that the tiny fraction they do know includes everyone they need to know — that somehow the best ideas come from only them.

This preposterous self-aggrandizing prejudice can be deadly. In regard to this pandemic, there are major problems with masks and social distancing as well as current therapeutics and vaccines that collectively leave us desperate for something more effective. But the more things change, the more they don't:

“In the 1950s, people welcomed big plans and asked whether they would work. Today a grand plan coming from [someone not already a well-known expert] would be dismissed as crankery, and a long-range vision coming from anyone more powerful would be derided as hubris.”
— Peter Thiel

On November 20, 2021, The New York Times asked, “When can the Covid masks finally come off?” Answer: When the world utilizes my technology to safeguard air.

  1. January 19, 2022: Where are you most likely to catch COVID? New study highlights high risk locations
    Based on: Practical Indicators for Risk of Airborne Transmission in Shared Indoor Environments and Their Application to COVID-19 Outbreaks
    Excerpt: “We urgently need to improve the safety of the air that we breathe across a range of environments …”
    Comment: My technology is the best way to do that.
  2. July 20, 2020: U.S. companies fear workplace coronavirus precautions do not address airborne risk
    Comment: Exactly! When Bill Clinton's strategist James Carville famously said, “it's the economy, stupid,” it wasn't just the economy, but the economy was the primary issue. What I realized very early in the pandemic — and what has since been corroborated by science — is that the primary route of COVID-19 transmission is via the air. Ergo, it's the air, stupid.
  3. March 7, 2023: Indoor air is full of flu and COVID viruses. Will countries clean it up? The current pandemic has focused attention to the importance of healthy indoor air and could spur lasting improvements to the air we breathe.
    Excerpt #1: “Researchers are still working to pin down how best to ventilate indoor spaces to prevent infections from spreading, and what alternative technologies might replace or enhance mechanical ventilation systems.”
    Comment: I solved that puzzle years ago.
    Excerpt #2: “Joseph Allen, a building hygienist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health … recommended that schools … should deliver four to six air changes per hour to their classrooms — changes in which the entire volume of air in the room is replaced. That amounts to a ventilation rate of 10–14 litres per second per person.”

The problem

You cannot design and build your own car brakes. That would be foolish because your life and the lives of others depend on them — but you can make your own mask and wear it however you choose.

The six-foot social distancing guideline originated from a Trump political appointee who clearly didn't understand science. Substantiation: Fauci to Congress: 6-Foot Social Distancing Guidance Likely Not Based on Data.

Lockdowns proved better at killing the economy than the virus, which predictably rebounded in a flash.

Vaccines sometimes work but often don't. If you are vaccinated, you can choose one that is substantially less effective and ignore various factors that affect your natural immunity as well as your response to vaccines.

Contrary to what some people assume, N95 respirators are not 95% effective. The CDC reported that regular use of N95 or KN95 respirators reduced the risk of COVID-19 infection by 83%. In other words, they were 17% ineffective. To put that into perspective, it is about as risky as playing Russian roulette (one bullet in six chambers = 16.6% risk). When your life is on the line, a one in six risk is simply not good enough.

However, the research discussed by the CDC was conducted before the emergence of the hyper-transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 lineages of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. Until then, measles was the most infectious viral disease known; its basic reproduction number (R0) is usually reported as 12–18 whereas BA.4/5 appear to have an R0 of 18.6. Consequently, N95 and KN95 respirators are now likely much less protective.

Related:
  1. Cochrane Review January 30, 2023: Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses?
    Excerpt: “We identified 78 relevant studies. … We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.”
  2. February 13, 2023: Face masks made ‘little to no difference’ in preventing spread of COVID, scientific review finds: Research suggests CDC's claims of mask effectiveness may have been exaggerated
  3. April 12, 2023: No evidence face masks protected vulnerable from Covid, health officials admit
  4. February 14, 2023: Parents now question whether COVID mask mandates did more harm than good: Effectiveness of masks during COVID's early days is questioned by new review of past studies
  5. July 23, 2022: Biden was likely sickened with BA.5 subvariant of Omicron, White House says
  6. July 24, 2022: The great COVID disconnect: BA.5 is on the rampage, but most Americans believe the pandemic is over
  7. August 27, 2023: Mask study published by NIH suggests N95 Covid masks may expose wearers to dangerous level of toxic compounds linked to seizures and cancer
  8. September 27, 2023: How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick? Exposure to a virus isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. The concept of “infectious dose” suggests ways to keep ourselves safer from harm.
    Excerpt: “Observational studies in humans … suggest that the infectious dose may be around 100 to 400 PFU [plaque-forming units] on average … A recent preprint shows that infected patients can exhale up to 800 viral RNA copies per minute for about eight days after their symptoms began. … it's theoretically possible to get a dose large enough to start an infection in just a minute of close contact.”
    Comment: While my system can reduce airborne pathogen transmission to zero in some cases, it can still prevent infection in less perfect situations by reducing the exposure, which may also reduce the severity of infection, if one develops (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).
    Related: September 12, 2020: Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggest: Mask wearing might also be reducing the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic
    Comment: Discusses mask-wearing as a form of variolation.
  9. Doctors, nurses contracting coronavirus at alarming rate (associated video)
    Excerpt: “At least 140 employees at one hospital alone, Brigham and Women's in Boston, tested positive for coronavirus …”
    Comment: Inadequate PPE (personal protective equipment) →↑ infectious dose →↑ risk and severity of disease.
  10. October 5, 2023: After COVID killed off a flu strain, annual flu shots are in for a redesign
    Excerpt: “[FDA] vaccine advisers … voted unanimously … to remove … a component of annual flu shots that targets a strain of the virus that appears to have gone extinct amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”
    Comment: This suggests that the halfhearted attempts at masking and social distancing blocked transmission of a less transmissible virus, apparently causing it to go extinct. SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible and hence more difficult to extinguish, but it could have been wiped off the face of the Earth if China promptly instituted my technology.
    Excerpt: “Between 2010 and 2023, seasonal flu vaccine efficacy has ranged from a dismal 19 percent to 60 percent …”
    Comment: Additional proof that we need more protection from airborne viruses than what vaccines provide. My technology delivers the missing link shielding us not only from airborne pathogens but also particulates and other elements of air pollution that reduce average lifespan by a few years and accelerate aging as well as increase the risk of mental health problems.
    Related: Air pollution linked to nearly 2,000 child deaths a day: Report
    Related: Air pollution and decreased bone mineral density among Women's Health Initiative participants
    Related: Breathing Easy for Better Bones: The Undervalued Role of Air Quality in Bone Health
    Related: How Air Pollution Damages the Brain: The new science of "exposomics" shows how air pollution contributes to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, bipolar disorder and other brain diseases

Is it any wonder why the pandemic is so poorly controlled?

But as Henry Ford advised, “Don't find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain.” As a physician trained in science, I listen to other scientists, including ones who found that even mild COVID-19 can damage the brain and trigger many other devastating effects. So I did something about it, creating novel ways to safeguard us from the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens.

The solution: how to quickly end the pandemic

COVID-19 protection infographic
Summarizing one of the operational principles

Video length: 2 min 47 sec

A better summary (10 min 0 sec):

The primary reason why the pandemic is so difficult to control is because we permit exhaled aerosols and the germs they carry to diffuse around rooms. I realized that when air spreads germs, air is the problem AND the solution, so I developed technology to rapidly move exhaled droplets and aerosols in a safe direction, thereby protecting people more than masks, social distancing, and even vaccines that I recommend yet don't reliably block infection. Irony: OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) regulates workplace safety yet doesn't address the missing link in sanitation: breathing air/germs exhaled by others.

These videos summarize one of the operational principles that is more fully explained in the 63-minute video below that demonstrates two prototypes in use.

My tech Masks Social distancing Vaccines
protects equally well while eating
no loss of efficacy over time
no increase exposure to PFAS & other toxins, unlike masks
can strongly protect everyone, thus reducing stress
reliably blocks all current and future SARS-CoV-2 variants
superb protection from all airborne infectious diseases and air pollution
no risk of side effects
not potentially divisive
protects those unwilling or unable to cooperate
immune to fakery (e.g., counterfeit masks and vaccine cards)
enables people to safely congregate
can instantly simulate herd immunity
could realistically prevent pandemics
a valuable example of quickly solving a major problem
acceptable long-term

Additionally, masks trap heat and moisture, so it isn't surprising that they also collect and culture the growth of bacteria and fungi.

Blocking airborne germ transmission

I developed methods to safeguard air to reduce the risk of acquiring airborne infectious diseases by over 99%. I advocate vaccines and other common-sense precautions but the COVID-19 resurgence after a year of vaccinations (and acquisition of natural immunity via infection) proves that controlling the highly transmissible Delta variant requires additional mitigation methods.

The authors of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant replication and immune evasion corroborated that by writing:

“The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant … is 6-fold less sensitive to serum neutralising antibodies from recovered individuals, and 8-fold less sensitive to vaccine-elicited antibodies as compared to wild type(WT) Wuhan-1 bearing D614G. … Compromised vaccine efficacy against the highly fit and immune evasive B.1.617.2 Delta variant warrants continued infection control measures in the post-vaccination era.”

Want a second opinion?

“We have no technology to stop the spread of COVID. Lockdowns do not stop the spread of COVID, they cause devastating harms; the vaccines — they can protect you against severe disease, but they will not stop the spread of COVID. No matter how many boosters you do, we do not have the technology that will stop the spread of COVID.”
— Stanford University Professor of Medicine Jayanta Bhattacharya, MD, PhD (on television August 30, 2021)

“We have no technology to stop it. The vaccine doesn't stop people from getting it.”
— Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya (on television May 9, 2022)
Comment: His last point is true; his first statement is not because we do have technology to stop it: the technology I developed. This website presents one of my many relevant innovations.

“After the emergence of the variant Omicron BA.1, neutralization data for our antibody showed a 100-fold loss in potency. I cried on the floor of my office. Fast forward a month, and clinical data showed it was efficacious against Omicron. There was so much excitement. Then down came the roller coaster again. The subsequent, dominant BA.2 variant completely knocked out our activity. We had spent two years killing ourselves for a drug that would never see the light of day.”
— Laura Walker, PhD, as quoted in No drug for COVID: ‘the most successful failure in my life’ (June 28, 2023)
Comment: Pharmaceutical scientists pursue drugs to better prevent and treat COVID-19 but considering the totality of what they've done, it still leaves us far short of what we need to reliably protect ourselves from infection and the devastating consequences thereof. But when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and with drugs being so incredibly profitable, it isn't surprising that pharmaceutical scientists head down the wrong path.
As smart as they are, they are easily outwitted by germs without brains that are remarkably adept at generating variants endlessly. Even if they could wave a magic wand and provide 100% protection against every germ that now threatens us, tomorrow might very well be a different story — potentially one that marks the end of humanity or delivers a knockout blow to our supply chains and economy as well as billions of people individually. Life is too precious to put so much reliance on drugs when they have repeatedly proven to be so disappointing.

SARS-CoV-2 generates variants faster than we can develop, manufacture, distribute, and administer vaccines. Some experts fear the emergence of a COVID-19 doomsday variant. Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm said the next variant “could be Delta on steroids.” If so, that could mean our economy on life support and a shocking surge in morbidity and mortality. The United Kingdom's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies said it was a “realistic possibility” that a variant could emerge that “evades current vaccines” and “likely” that a drug-resistant variant will evolve. They also warned that a future variant could kill up to one in three people. Dr. Anthony Fauci echoed that, cautioning that a possible “monster variant” more deadly than Delta may develop.

  1. September 14, 2021: A Leading Virologist Reveals His Two 'Nightmare' Viruses
  2. October 17, 2022: Boston University researchers claim to have developed new, more lethal COVID strain in lab: Researchers at Boston University added a spike protein from the Omicron variant with the original Wuhan strain, which has an 80% kill rate
  3. December 20, 2021: ‘Nobody was expecting omicron — this one really was a curveball’: Francis Collins, National Institutes of Health's outgoing director, issues warning to Americans
    Comment: Wrong: several experts and I predicted the emergence of more worrisome variants. SARS-CoV-2 is prone to mutate. As bad as omicron is, it won't be the last knockout blow delivered to humanity. Unfortunately, its devastation is aided and abetted by those who fool themselves into believing that the pandemic is overblown or that current control measures are good enough in spite of evidence conclusively proving that they are not.
    Related:
  4. March 1, 2022: Mutations in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein receptor-binding domains may result in escape variants resistant to therapeutics and vaccines
  5. January 5, 2023: Meet the ‘Kraken’ COVID variant—the dominant new Omicron ‘escape strain’ experts say is the most transmissible yet
  6. December 23, 2021: 'Drug cocktail' may be needed as COVID variants attack immune system on multiple fronts
    Excerpt: [quoting William A. Haseltine, Ph.D., former professor at Harvard Medical School acclaimed for groundbreaking research on HIV/AIDS and the human genome] “People are asking, ‘Will it get weaker?’ They should be asking how much more dangerous it can get, and the answer is much more.”
    Related:
  7. Harvard epidemiologist William Hanage December 21, 2021: The best-case scenario with omicron will still be bad: Don't be too reassured yet by the thought that the variant mostly causes mild cases
    Excerpt #1: “Hope is not an effective strategy for dealing with a pandemic. … there has been a steady tide of coverage and commentary suggesting that omicron causes mostly mild disease – the implication being that it's not much to worry about, that if we only stay the course we can ride this one out, too. But that's premature. Let me be clear: I'm not stating definitively that omicron has some grim future in store for us. I'm saying that there are red flashing warning signs, that we underestimate this virus at our peril and that even the best-case scenario is still bad. … a ‘mild’ case of covid-19 can still make you miserable … There's also the risk of long covid, which can cause physical and cognitive issues for many weeks and months after recovery from the acute phase of illness … Omicron's very existence reminds us that this virus will keep mutating and will continue to pose grave threats for years to come. … it is past time to develop proactive strategies for living in a world where the coronavirus is continually circulating and we work to minimize its toll.”
    Comment #1: That is exactly what I've done by developing a spectrum of technologies to combat airborne and contact infectious disease transmission, a small percentage of which is presented in this website.
    Excerpt #2: “… the virus … is just moving more quickly than anyone could have imagined – and more quickly than any of us can pivot to respond to it.”
    Comment #2: It is indisputably true that the coronavirus from Hell generates variants faster than we can develop, manufacture, distribute, and administer vaccines, but my technology puts us in a very advantageous position: instead of constantly trying to play catch-up, it is ready to neutralize the threat of future variants before they evolve.
  8. January 22, 2022: Our war with natural selection: Omicron may not necessarily be the last punishing wave
    Excerpt: “Understandably, many people have embraced the comforting belief that SARS-CoV-2 must evolve to cause milder disease. It's just not true, virologists say. Smallpox did not grow milder over time, nor did polio, HIV/AIDS, or Ebola.”
  9. May 22, 2022: The Massive Screwup That Could Let COVID Bypass Our Vaccines: Global attention is no longer focused on vaccine innovation, leaving open the nightmare scenario that fast mutating COVID will bypass our immunity.
  10. December 23, 2021: Is Omicron a New Wave or a Parallel Pandemic?
    Comment: This raises a harrowing possibility: that this pandemic may splinter into multiple ones with vaccines and immune protection from one type doing little to protect from others. This could continue to evolve until we have too many variants to feasibly handle. My technology obviates that concern because it protects equally well from all airborne infectious diseases no matter how they mutate.
    Related:
  11. February 3, 2022: Highly virulent HIV variant found circulating in Europe
    Excerpt: “The findings … also serve as a reminder that viruses do not always evolve to become less virulent over time.”
    Related: October 6, 2022: Rabbit virus has evolved to become more deadly, new research finds
    Excerpt: “A common misconception is that viruses become milder over time as they become endemic within a population.”
  12. January 28, 2021: SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines and the Growing Threat of Viral Variants
  13. February 18, 2021: Multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants escape neutralization by vaccine-induced humoral immunity
  14. February 10, 2022: Researchers identify SARS-CoV-2 variants with potential to escape cellular immune response
  15. December 27, 2021: Massive New Bird Flu Outbreak Could Be 2022's Deadly Pandemic
    Excerpt: “… scientists warn [that it] could become a ‘mass disaster’ for humans. … The virus can be deadly if it infects people. The World Health Organization says more than half of the confirmed 863 human cases it has tracked since 2003 proved fatal.”
  16. January 4, 2022: New COVID variant ‘IHU’ with 46 mutations detected in France
  17. January 5, 2022: The Next Big COVID Variant Could Be a Triple Whammy Nightmare: Future variants could combine the most dangerous traits of older COVID lineages—to devastating effect.
  18. January 6, 2022: Preparing for the Next Plague: SARS-CoV-2 adds impetus to the race for broad-spectrum countermeasures against future global infectious scourges
    Excerpt: “… the success of the present vaccines [limited as they are, unable to reliably block infection] was also somewhat serendipitous, as coronaviruses have a particularly easy target in their spike (S) protein, not to mention having been the subject of more than a decade of research after the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in 2002 and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015. In the next pandemic, the world may not be so lucky.”
    Comment: Experts forecast that a future pandemic could kill billions of people. No current or foreseeable biotechnology can ensure our safety, but my innovations can (for diseases transmitted via the air) by blocking airborne germ transmission.
  19. January 15, 2022: Expect more worrisome variants after omicron, scientists say
    Comment: Future variants are virtually inevitable. Parenthetically, the picture accompanying this article shows what I've seen in countless other lines of people crammed like sardines waiting for COVID-19 tests with few or none of them wearing N95 or better masks. If they didn't have COVID-19 before, they likely will after such exposure. This illustrates yet another aspect of how our national response to this pandemic has been exasperatingly idiotic. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could think of a much better way to handle such testing.
  20. January 24, 2022: COVID's Turbo-Mutation Is Killing This Vax Dream, So What's Next? The aspiration to tackle new variants with specific vaccines is falling apart because the dominant strain changes so quickly. The good news is that there might be a better plan.
    Excerpt: “A ‘pan-coronavirus’ vaccine is the holy grail of public health.”
    Comment: That isn't yet available, and may never be. In contrast, my technology is even more effective, and it is available now.
  21. January 26, 2022: How much more contagious could the coronavirus get? The coronavirus is evolving to become more transmissible, and eventually it could even overtake measles, the most contagious virus we know of
  22. January 26, 2022: Two thirds of people who catch omicron have already had Covid, study finds: Variant's ability to dodge immune system means reinfections have gone from a miniscule proportion of all infections to a sizeable chunk
  23. February 25, 2022: Bird flu sweeping through poultry in eastern US
    Excerpt: “The virus—called Eurasian H5N1 … doesn't spread efficiently among humans, but when it does it has a death rate of 60% … it can decimate a country's poultry industry. … Farmers say they have been stunned by how efficiently the virus kills, with animals dying hours after the initial infection …”
  24. MedCram February 18, 2023: Largest H5N1 Outbreak in US History - Inching Closer to Human Transmissibility
  25. February 24, 2023: Bird flu may now be spreading between humans, WHO fears
  26. February 24, 2023: Bird flu kills school girl and infects father – 11 others under observation: Cambodian authorities test close-contacts for H5N1 after child's death. The possibility of human-to-human transmission has sparked alarm
    Comment: If the next pandemic begins before the current one ends, wise people will bitterly regret not implementing my technology to block germ transmission, with this website introducing one of my methods.
  27. Scientific American April 6, 2023: Bird Flu Is Surging. Dialing Back Its Pandemic Risk Starts with Prevention: Bird flu outbreaks are a numbers game, and the numbers are turning against us
  28. March 21, 2023: Bird flu may be making foxes and other animals behave in unusual ways: Analysis of wild mammals infected with H5N1 bird flu in the US found that many had brain infections and neurological symptoms, including lack of fear of people
  29. May 26, 2022: Dominant Coronavirus Mutant Contains Ghost of Pandemic Past: The coronavirus mutant that is now dominant in the United States spreads faster than its omicron predecessors, is adept at escaping immunity and might possibly cause more serious disease.
    Excerpt: “Why? Because it combines properties of both omicron and delta …”
  30. Time magazine June 7, 2022: Bill Gates Says the World Got Lucky With COVID-19: ‘It Could Have Been Way More Fatal’
    Comment: Indeed.
  31. June 20, 2022: This May Be the COVID Variant Scientists Are Dreading: A brand new subvariant is starting to surge, and there are signs this one can dodge our immunity.
    Excerpt: “There are also some suggestions that the new subvariants [BA.4 and BA.5] have evolved to target the lungs—unlike Omicron …”
  32. The New York Times July 7, 2022: The pandemic has eroded Americans' trust in experts and elected leaders alike, a survey finds

“This virus is replicating at a high capacity in humans, and as a consequence the risk for variant evolution is extremely high. We dealt with the UK variant — everyone thought that was pretty bad; it was twice as infectious but lo and behold three, four months later we have the Delta variant, and now it is the dominant variant in the United States. Sadly, I'm going to predict that within two, three, four months we're going to have another variant, and that variant is going to be more infectious than the Delta variant.”
— Robert R. Redfield, MD, then Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, August 9, 2020 (on television)

“Anything said in advance of a pandemic seems alarmist. After a pandemic begins, anything one has said or done is inadequate.”
— Michael O. Leavitt, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services 2005 – 2009 (source)

The coronavirus is primarily transmitted through the air and “may be evolving to become more airborne,” hence more easily transmitted over longer distances.

Is this the doomsday variant?

A national news broadcast on Thanksgiving Day 2021 began with the announcer saying somberly, “Just what the world doesn't need” before she described a heavily mutated coronavirus variant from South Africa that is spreading quickly (related: Fauci: We did not anticipate extent of omicron's mutations). Scientists don't yet know if this variant has heightened infectivity, greater morbidity and mortality, or evades control by natural immunity or vaccines. Thus it is too early to know if this is a doomsday variant, but if it isn't, it should reacquaint us with the reality that we are never more than a few mutations away from a devastating resurgence of this pandemic or the emergence of future ones that could kill billions of people. If you play with fire, you eventually will get burned.

Days before, the World Health Organization said vaccines reduce COVID-19 transmission by only 40%, warning that they are not enough to control COVID spread. My technology can reduce transmission of all airborne pathogens by over 99%.

The false sense of security regarding vaccines that Dr. Tedros mentioned is lulling many Americans into complacency along with most corporate, academic, and government leaders. That feeble 40% effectiveness helps explain why more Americans have died from COVID-19 in 2021 than in 2020 despite the fact that mass vaccination did not begin until mid-December 2020 and 196,000,000 Americans have now been fully vaccinated.

On December 14, 2020, The New York Times optimistically reported that vaccines will be “the weapon that will end the war.” Wrong. My technology is currently the only practical way to reliably and quickly end this pandemic. I've heard rosy prognostications of the effectiveness of many therapeutics that work better on paper than in the real world (example: molnupiravir once was touted as a wonder drug, then reality set in, then the truth came out: molnupiravir “drives viral mutations,” thus “might be spurring the evolution of new SARS-CoV-2 variants” (1, 2, 3) — the last thing we need). Pharmaceutical hype is great for temporarily boosting drug company stock prices but it creates false hope that distracts from the technology I developed to safeguard us from all airborne pathogens.

  1. September 26, 2023: Anti-viral drug backfires: COVID drug linked to viral mutations that spread: Merck's small-molecule molnupiravir linked to mutated viruses that spread in people.
  2. November 25, 2021: 'Another holiday season of COVID': Experts ‘really concerned’ about rise in case numbers (also posted on Yahoo)
  3. November 25, 2021: Vermont Is a Vaccination Star. Why Cases Are Rising There …
    Comment: Because the vaccines don't work very well.
  4. November 25, 2021: A flood of covid patients causes ‘almost unmanageable’ strain in Michigan as cases rise nationwide
  5. November 24, 2021: Whitmer, Michigan lawmakers must agree on how to spend billions in federal aid
    Comment: The best use would be to implement my technology to safeguard air.
  6. November 30, 2021: Womp, womp: Efficacy of Merck’s Thor-inspired COVID pill crumbles, vexing experts
    Excerpt: “For the final analysis, Merck combined the two batches, concluding that molnupiravir was 30 percent effective overall at preventing hospitalization and death. … Members of the FDA panel summarized the efficacy data as ‘not overwhelmingly good’ and ‘modest at best.’ … FDA reviewers agonized over unknowns about the drug's possible mutagenic effects.”
    Comment: Whatever happened to the “first do no harm” principle?
    Related: December 13, 2021: Merck's COVID pill loses its lustre: what that means for the pandemic: Molnupiravir was initially heralded by public-health officials as a game-changer for COVID-19, but full clinical-trial data showed lower-than-expected efficacy.
    Comment: One of many COVID-19 drugs that didn't pan out.
  7. November 28, 2021: The Omicron variant has a 'record' number of mutations that may hinder vaccine effectiveness, NIH director says
  8. November 30, 2021: ‘This is not going to be good’: Moderna CEO on what scientists are telling him about the omicron coronavirus variant
    Excerpt: “Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel … [said] there's no world where current vaccines are as effective as they have been against the delta variant [as poor as that is]. And he suggested the drop-off could be significant.”
  9. November 30, 2021: Can omicron-specific vaccines arrive fast enough to make a difference? Vaccine makers are already adapting vaccines to fight the omicron coronavirus variant, but it will probably already have swept the world by the time these arrive
    Comment: Vaccines simply are not good weapons to fight rapidly evolving pandemics such as this one; their availability lags behind when they are needed. In contrast, my technology protects against all airborne pathogens, including ones that have not yet evolved.
    Related: July 28, 2022: Fauci calls BA.5 a ‘moving target’ that may subside by the time Omicron boosters are ready. Scientists are pushing for a universal COVID vaccine instead
    Comment: But can one be developed — and when?
  10. December 1, 2021: If the vaccine works so well, why is COVID-19 surging again in Pennsylvania?
    Excerpt: “As of Thanksgiving week, the daily case count and number hospitalized was similar to a year earlier, when no one was vaccinated.”
    Comment: During a radio interview on November 30, 2021, Senator (and Dr.) Rand Paul suggested that vaccines haven't been updated for the delta variant possibly because the United States paid for a huge stockpile of vaccines targeting the original strain and didn't want to waste that investment for updated vaccines that might not be significantly more effective.
    Related:
  11. December 3, 2021: Omicron coronavirus variant three times more likely to cause reinfection than delta, S. Africa study says
  12. December 3, 2021: Friends who attended anime convention with man who contracted omicron have tested positive for coronavirus, health official says
    Comment: About half of the 35 tested positive.
  13. December 6, 2021: The Omicron variant appeared to spread between two fully vaccinated people in separate hotel rooms in Hong Kong, early research suggests
  14. December 7, 2021: Omicron variant may make Christmas party infection risk much higher: A series of extraordinary superspreader events at festive celebrations across Europe suggests the omicron coronavirus variant dramatically increases the risk of being infected at social events
    Excerpt: “One of the events was a party at a restaurant in Oslo, Norway. Around 70 of the 120 people who attended the party were infected, as were another 50 people at the restaurant.”
    Comment: Another article discussing that said “only vaccinated staff had been admitted to the party, and everyone had tested negative for the coronavirus before the event.”
  15. December 7, 2021: Study suggests Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine only partially protects against Omicron
    Excerpt: “… they observed a 41-fold decline in levels of neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant.”
  16. December 7, 2021: Beyond Omicron: what's next for COVID's viral evolution: The rapid spread of new variants offers clues to how SARS-CoV-2 is adapting and how the pandemic will play out over the next several months.
    Excerpt: “The results were striking … suggesting that the virus [coronavirus 229E] was evolving to evade immunity.”
    Comment: As the article indicates, the same thing appears to be happening with SARS-CoV-2 . This means that vaccinations will not be a good long-term strategy.
  17. Time magazine December 7, 2021: What Actually Worries U.S. Doctors About Omicron
    Excerpt: “But for those of us engaged in clinical care and public health — we're an emergency physician and trauma surgeon — there's a different fear: with almost every part of our system already overtaxed, we are on the verge of a collapse that will leave us unable to provide even a basic standard of care. Even if Omicron ends up being mild, it could well be the straw that breaks our back.”
    Comment: I worked for years in a chronically understaffed high-acuity emergency department in which I sometimes ran up to three codes simultaneously. At that time, the success rate in resuscitating outpatients in cardiac arrest was only 5%, so the chance of saving all three was vanishingly small (0.000125). That worked out well but countless other experiences underscored the reality that patients suffer and die when staff are stretched too thin. This has already happened with this pandemic, and it will get worse. Much worse.
  18. December 7, 2021: Why the good news about the Omicron variant's reduced severity may be a mirage
    Excerpt: “… Leonhardt writes[:] ‘One worrisome postscript is that even seemingly mild COVID infections can prove deadly for vulnerable people, like the elderly. The flu kills large numbers of elderly people for the same reason.’ And any reduction in severity could be canceled out by the spike in cases it produces, for a net increase in hospitalizations and deaths, [said] World Health Organization COVID expert Dr. Maria van Kerkhove …”
  19. December 7, 2021: Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron that may be harder to track: Variant lacks feature that allows probable cases to be distinguished among positive PCR tests
    Comment: Already mutating before the ink was dry on this section.
  20. December 8, 2021: WHO Warns Of Omicron Surge: “If Countries Wait Until Their Hospitals Start To Fill Up, It's Too Late”
  21. December 9, 2021: We failed to prevent omicron – can we stop future variants evolving?
    Excerpt: “… we need to do all we can to keep transmission as low as possible.”
    Comment: My technology blocks transmission better than masks, social distancing, and vaccines combined.
  22. December 13, 2021: 15 sobering stats that tell the tale of the coronavirus in the U.S.
  23. The New York Times December 13, 2021: Across the World, Covid Anxiety and Depression Take Hold
  24. December 14, 2021: Omicron Is a Dress Rehearsal for the Next Pandemic
    Comment: No nation is adequately prepared for the next pandemic. My technology could help solve that problem (what I disclosed in this website is part of my spectrum of innovations to block airborne and contact germ transmission).
  25. December 14, 2021: Cornell partially shuts down its campus due to nearly 500 COVID-19 cases in possible omicron outbreak
  26. December 14, 2021: Biden official warns: COVID explosion imminent
  27. December 14, 2021: More learning disruption could be on the way as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in schools
  28. December 15, 2021: In 2021, COVID-19 vaccines were put to the test. Here's what we learned: Although the shots proved effective, they can't single-handedly end the pandemic
    Comment: This is sugarcoating the problem, which is that while vaccines are effective, they are not nearly effective enough and realistically have no chance of ending or adequately controlling this pandemic as well as others that will surely develop.
    Defining what became known as the law of the instrument, in 1966 Abraham Maslow said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
    I am a medical doctor and strongly believe in vaccines and therapeutics, but their efficacy in controlling this pandemic is disappointing.
    Related: “The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched at Davos 2017 as the result of a consensus that a coordinated, international, and intergovernmental plan was needed to develop and deploy new vaccines to prevent future epidemics.” (source)
    Comment: Excellent idea — we should look over the horizon, but it is a monumental mistake to not consider other preventive efforts, such as my innovations to block airborne germ transmission and others to limit contact transmission.
  29. December 15, 2021: ‘Virtually every’ COVID omicron case at NY college was in fully vaccinated, official says
  30. December 15, 2021: Colleges go back to drawing board — again — to fight COVID
  31. December 15, 2021: ‘Dropping Like Flies’: Omicron Brings Fresh COVID Hell to Cornell
  32. December 15, 2021: Public is 'shell-shocked' by the latest turn of the pandemic
  33. Scientific American December 16, 2021: The Risk of Vaccinated COVID Transmission Is Not Low: After my son got sick, I dived into the data, and it turns out vaccinated people can and do spread COVID
    Excerpt: “And yet many vaccinated people are walking around this holiday season thinking their immunizations are force fields that not only protect them, but also shield vulnerable loved ones. They are not.”
    Comment: My technology is the closest thing we have to a force field protecting us from all airborne germs. Some of my devices have impressive (> 99%) effectiveness, unlike vaccines that cannot reliably block transmission.
  34. December 16, 2021: COVID-19 hospitalizations jump in Southern California as Omicron alarms grow
    Excerpt: “A rise in COVID-19 due to Omicron could result in a ‘perfect storm for overwhelming our hospital system,’ a Southern California health official says.”
  35. December 16, 2021: Columbia University study shows omicron ‘markedly resistant’ to COVID vaccines, booster shots
  36. The Atlantic December 16, 2021: America Is Not Ready for Omicron: The new variant poses a far graver threat at the collective level than the individual one—the kind of test that the U.S. has repeatedly failed.
  37. The New York Times December 17, 2021: Offices Shut and Holiday Parties Dim as a Familiar Feeling Sinks In: Employers mandate boosters, postpone return dates and brace for an Omicron surge.
  38. December 17, 2021: Omicron more likely to reinfect than Delta, no milder -study
    Excerpt: “Omicron was associated with a 5.4-fold higher risk of reinfection compared with Delta … The researchers found a significantly increased risk of developing a symptomatic Omicron case compared to Delta for those who were two or more weeks past their second vaccine dose, and two or more weeks past their booster dose. … [now quoting Professor Neil Ferguson] ‘This level of immune evasion means that Omicron poses a major, imminent threat to public health.’”
  39. December 17, 2021: New York Records Highest Number Of Daily Covid Cases Ever; “The Surge Is Here. It's Going To Get Worse,” Says Gov. Hochul
  40. December 17, 2021: ‘We've Never Seen This Before’: New York Plunged Back Into COVID Panic
  41. December 17, 2021: Dr. Fauci warns NYC's omicron surge is sign of nationwide COVID wave
  42. December 17, 2021: New Los Angeles Covid Cases Skyrocket 48%, Up Over 1,000 in 24 Hours; Highest Count Since Mid-August
  43. December 17, 2021: UM COVID cases surge after Thanksgiving break, finals pivot online, grad parties canceled
  44. December 17, 2021: Prince George's students return to virtual learning amid ‘stark rise’ in covid cases
  45. December 17, 2021: We Know A Lot More About Omicron Now. It's Not Good News.: “The capacity for superspreading events is really extraordinary,” one expert said.
    Related:
  46. December 17, 2021: Arrival of omicron variant could be a disaster for already overwhelmed Fox Valley hospitals, health care leaders say
  47. December 17, 2021: U.S. braces for imminent "viral blizzard" as Omicron hits
  48. December 18, 2021: Michigan can't meet demand for COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatments
  49. December 18, 2021: Harvard University returns to remote learning amid COVID spike
  50. The Washington Post December 18, 2021: Highly vaccinated countries thought they were over the worst. Denmark says the pandemic's toughest month is just beginning.
  51. December 19, 2021: Hits 'keep coming': Hospitals struggle as COVID beds fill
  52. December 19, 2021: U.S. could see 1 million COVID cases a day, warns retiring NIH director
  53. December 19, 2021: Omicron Suddenly Upends the World's Return to the Office
  54. December 19, 2021: COVID is Canceling Christmas—Again
  55. December 19, 2021: Fauci: Record coronavirus deaths in US from omicron likely
  56. December 19, 2021: Fauci says omicron variant is `just raging around the world'
  57. The New York Times December 19, 2021: Most of the World's Vaccines Likely Won't Prevent Infection From Omicron
  58. December 20, 2021: Royal Caribbean says 48 passengers test positive for Omicron variant on ship
  59. December 20, 2021: ER doctors say this COVID wave is forcing them to deny treatment to other patients, who are dying as a result: 'Every shift is like the worst shift of my career.'
  60. December 20, 2021: Omicron infections appear no less severe than Delta; COVID-19 lowers sperm count, motility
  61. December 20, 2021: WRAPUP 8-UK says COVID surge 'extremely difficult' as Omicron grips Europe
  62. December 20, 2021: New York COVID cases surge 66% as omicron variant spreads rapidly.
  63. December 20, 2021: Omicron sweeps across nation, now 73% of new US COVID cases
  64. December 21, 2021: Burnt-out school teachers say they are having to 'beg, borrow, and steal' to cover for missing staff as Omicron spreads
  65. December 21, 2021: The omicron variant is surging. Here's what we've learned so far
    Excerpt: “… omicron is likely to worsen the surge that is unfolding across the United States. … people exposed to omicron may get sick faster — and therefore be able to spread the virus sooner — than people exposed to other variants. … Omicron may also replicate particularly well in bronchial cells — … [hence] symptoms like coughing could release a lot of viruses into the air. … A study from the United Kingdom found that so far there is no indication that omicron might cause milder, or more severe, COVID-19 than delta … Even if omicron is ultimately linked to milder disease, that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. More infections overall mean more hospitalizations and more deaths, even if the severe outcomes are a smaller proportion of overall omicron cases than with delta. In the United States, where delta dominated until recently, the two variants are colliding — and that's raising fears of this latest wave turning into a tsunami in some places. … Omicron can evade some antibodies … among people vaccinated with two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, levels of immune proteins called neutralizing antibodies that stop the virus from infecting new cells were 41 times lower compared with antibodies against an older version of the virus that rose to prevalence in mid-2020 … What's more, omicron's spike mutations may make treatments using lab-designed antibodies, called monoclonal antibodies, less effective … Omicron seems more likely to cause reinfections than delta …”
    Related:
  66. December 21, 2021: Omicron overpowers key COVID antibody treatments in early tests: Nearly all of the monoclonal antibodies used to prevent severe disease fail to stand up to the new variant, laboratory assays show.
  67. December 21, 2021: America tunes out Omicron news despite ominous threat
  68. December 21, 2021: COVID-19: Omicron variant is 'second-most contagious virus on the planet'
  69. December 21, 2021: Bill Gates says he's canceled his holiday plans due to Omicron, but he believes the wave will be over by March
    Related: September 28, 2021: Former FDA chief predicts the Delta variant could be the last major COVID-19 surge in the US and be over by Thanksgiving
    Comment: In September, I knew that Dr. Scott Gottlieb's prediction wasn't realistic. Delta is hardly gone and Omicron appeared. It won't be the last variant.
  70. December 21, 2021: New York breaks daily COVID-19 case record for fourth straight day
  71. December 21, 2021: Highly vaccinated UAE reports most virus cases in months
    Excerpt: “The UAE boasts one of the world's highest vaccination rates, with authorities reporting that over 99% of eligible residents have received at least one dose.”
  72. December 22, 2021: Israel is rolling out a 4th dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for healthcare workers and people 60 and older, as it faces the Omicron variant
    Comment: Evidently three doses weren't good enough. Neither will four adequately control the pandemic.
  73. December 22, 2021: No country can boost its way out of pandemic: WHO chief
  74. December 22, 2021: Cloth masks are useless in fight against Omicron, expert warns: ‘Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There's no place for them in light of Omicron,’ doctor says (CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen)
    Comment: To those who still use them despite their waning effectiveness, most masks are essentially a security blanket giving a false sense of security. Ditto for social distancing and vaccines that are increasingly ineffective against new SARS-CoV-2 variants.
    Related:
  75. December 22, 2021: 'Staggeringly fast rise' in L.A. County coronavirus cases triggers alarm
  76. December 22, 2021: 'Tidal wave' hitting northern Ohio hospitals
  77. December 22, 2021: Munson 'stressed to capacity' braces for omicron
  78. The New York Times December 22, 2021: Omicron Is Just Beginning and Americans Are Already Tired: A sense of dread about the variant's rapid spread is growing even in places that had experienced a virus lull.
  79. December 22, 2021: 'Enormous spread of omicron' may bring 140M new COVID infections to US in the next two months, model predicts
  80. Professor Monica Gandhi in Time magazine December 22, 2021: We Can't Just Impose Restrictions Whenever COVID-19 Surges. Here's a Better Plan for 2022
    Excerpt #1: “ The arrival of the Delta variant forced us to abandon our goal of ‘herd immunity.’”
    Comment #1: Dr. Gandhi is enthusiastic about Paxlovid® (nirmatrelvir + ritonavir) but it “is not authorized for the pre-exposure or post-exposure prevention of COVID-19 or for initiation of treatment in those requiring hospitalization due to severe or critical COVID-19.” Furthermore, initial supplies will be very limited because its production “can take six to eight months because of to the ‘complex chemistry’ involved in synthesizing the medication's active ingredients.”
    Excerpt #2: “… perpetual masking of entire populations is not sustainable …”
    Comment #2: I agree. Their limited effectiveness, noxiousness, and other drawbacks (such as carbon dioxide retention, discussed below) underscores the need for my technology that is more effective than masks, social distancing, and vaccines combined.
    Related:
  81. December 23, 2021: UK report suggests booster effectiveness against symptomatic omicron decreases within 10 weeks
    Based on: SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England: Technical briefing 33
    Excerpt: “Among those who received an AstraZeneca primary course, vaccine effectiveness was around 60% 2 to 4 weeks after either a Pfizer or Moderna booster, then dropped to 35% with a Pfizer booster and 45% with a Moderna booster by 10 weeks after the booster.”
    Comment: Because “the final analysis included 147,597 Delta and 68,489 Omicron cases” and “in all periods, effectiveness was lower for Omicron compared to Delta,” the dismal effectiveness will drop even more as omicron displaces the delta variant. Corroborating this, see Striking antibody evasion manifested by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 (excerpted below), which suggests that current vaccines and natural immunity do not offer adequate protection from omicron.
  82. December 23, 2021: Biden Omicron measures too little, too late for fast-moving virus -experts
  83. December 23, 2021: Pharmacists say an 'absolute tidal wave' of demand for COVID tests is causing chaos, crowding, and nonstop ringing phones
  84. December 23, 2021: Omicron puts restaurants back in 'dire' straits as cancellations mount, traffic drops
    Related: January 4, 2022: Nearly a quarter of Los Angeles fast-food workers have gotten COVID-19 …
  85. December 23, 2021: Striking antibody evasion manifested by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2
    Excerpt: “We found B.1.1.529 [the Omicron variant] to be markedly resistant to neutralization by serum not only from convalescent patients, but also from individuals vaccinated with one of the four widely used COVID-19 vaccines. Even serum from persons vaccinated and boosted with mRNA-based vaccines exhibited substantially diminished neutralizing activity against B.1.1.529. By evaluating a panel of monoclonal antibodies to all known epitope clusters on the spike protein, we noted that the activity of 17 of the 19 antibodies tested were either abolished or impaired, including ones currently authorized or approved for use in patients. In addition, we also identified four new spike mutations … that confer greater antibody resistance to B.1.1.529. The Omicron variant presents a serious threat to many existing COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, compelling the development of new interventions that anticipate the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2.”
    Comment: My technology is the only practical way to “anticipate the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2” and other airborne pathogens; their evolution is too unpredictable to anticipate in advance.
  86. December 23, 2021: Fauci: Large holiday gatherings are unsafe, even with COVID booster
  87. December 23, 2021: NJ COVID cases surge to 15K - by far the highest single day total in the pandemic
  88. December 23, 2021: Return to office paused (again) as COVID rages: Will we ever go back? (also posted on Yahoo)
  89. December 24, 2021: A shortage 'never seen before': Health care unions push for safe staffing standards
  90. December 24, 2021: 3rd Florida-based ship has outbreak, state cases hit record: A COVID-19 outbreak has taken place on a South Florida-based cruise ship for the third time this week
  91. December 24, 2021: Maryland health officials conserve monoclonal antibodies after omicron renders much of supply ineffective
  92. December 24, 2021: The year of coronavirus variants: How evolution tormented us in 2021: A year ago, many were hoping the pandemic would soon be over – but then came alpha, delta and omicron
  93. December 24, 2021: Microsoft joins Google, GM in not attending CES tech conference in person over Omicron surge
  94. The Washington Post December 24, 2021: The pandemic has caused nearly two years of collective trauma. Many people are near a breaking point.
  95. December 25, 2021: Italy reports third consecutive record of coronavirus cases
  96. December 26, 2021: More than 1,600 flights delayed or cancelled Sunday; Fauci expects daily infections to rise 'much higher': Live COVID-19 updates
  97. December 26, 2021: Airlines cancel more than 6,000 holiday flights due to Omicron surge
  98. December 26, 2021: Travel nurses say the current healthcare system is 'unsustainable' as COVID-19 infections surge again. Some say the pay is the only thing keeping them on the frontlines.
  99. December 26, 2021: Fauci warns against complacency, says omicron will drive COVID cases ‘much higher’
  100. December 27, 2021: COVID surge in Florida: Cases rise 332.9% in one week, state among fastest-spreading in US
  101. December 27, 2021: D.C., Maryland and Virginia emerge from Christmas weekend with record coronavirus case numbers
  102. December 27, 2021: Study of fully vaccinated patients with cancer who had breakthrough COVID-19 shows 13 percent mortality rate
  103. December 27, 2021: Study suggests coronavirus lingers in organs for months
    Excerpt: “The study found that the virus had replicated across multiple organ systems even among patients with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19. The virus was detected in all 44 cases and across 79 of 85 anatomical locations and body fluids sampled.”
    Based on: SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence throughout the human body and brain
  104. December 28, 2021: FDA says rapid Covid antigen tests may be less sensitive in detecting omicron
    Comment: One of the many ways people are falsely reassured, thus luring them into spreading COVID-19.
    Related: The Washington Post December 29, 2021: Coronavirus risk calculations get harder as a study suggests rapid tests may be less effective at detecting omicron
  105. December 28, 2021: Daily U.S. Covid Cases Hit All-Time High As Omicron Fuels Winter Wave Of Virus
  106. December 28, 2021: Omicron could force many workers who test positive to quarantine under federal mandate, intensifying labor shortages
    Comment: The virus without a brain is currently more powerful than the President of United States, who cannot stop it using current methods. This would compel thinking people to ponder, “Are we missing anything? Might there be a better approach?”
  107. December 29, 2021: WHO: global COVID cases up 11% last week, omicron risk high
  108. December 29, 2021: Spooked ER Doc Faces Terrifying ‘Tidal Wave’ of Omicron Kids
  109. December 29, 2021: WHO's Tedros concerned about 'tsunami of cases' from COVID-19 variants
  110. December 29, 2021: World Health Organization says 'tsunami' of Omicron cases will pressure hospital systems on the 'brink of collapse'
  111. December 29, 2021: Omicron smashes US case records as experts are still trying to understand it: The mildness of omicron and the use of rapid tests are still in question.
    Excerpt: “… ultratransmissible …”
  112. December 29, 2021: US shatters COVID case records, as experts predict infection rates will continue to grow: The nation is now reporting more than 277,000 new cases a day.
  113. December 29, 2021: The omicron effect? New daily COVID-19 cases smash record in Michigan
  114. December 29, 2021: COVID-19 monoclonal antibody therapy gets even harder to find in Michigan
  115. December 29, 2021: German COVID incidence rate 2-3 times higher than reported - minister
  116. December 29, 2021: NY tallies more than 67,000 daily COVID-19 cases, obliterating record
  117. December 30, 2021: US children hospitalized with COVID in near-record numbers
  118. December 30, 2021: Children’s hospitals are filling nationwide amid tidal wave of omicron
  119. December 30, 2021: Omicron 'blizzard' to disrupt U.S. for next month: experts
  120. December 31, 2021: U.S. Covid Cases Hit Nearly 500,000 in New Daily Record
  121. The Washington Post December 31, 2021: Omicron surge brings U.S. its highest rate of new coronavirus cases since start of pandemic
    Related: January 1, 2022: Disease Expert's Ominous Warning: Omicron Could Shutter Schools, 'Everyday Life'
  122. December 31, 2021: Activity of convalescent and vaccine serum against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron
    Excerpt: “Neutralizing activity of sera from convalescent and double vaccinated participants was undetectable to very low against B.1.1.529 [the Omicron variant] while neutralizing activity of sera from individuals who had been exposed to spike three or four times was maintained, albeit at significantly reduced levels. Binding to the B.1.1.529 receptor-binding domain (RBD) and N-terminal domain (NTD) was reduced in convalescent not vaccinated individuals, but was mostly retained in vaccinated individuals.”
    Excerpt from the PDF: “Importantly, our data add to the growing body of evidence suggesting that Omicron specific vaccines are urgently needed.”
    Comment: We hear claims that “new COVID-19 vaccines could be developed within weeks to protect against a new variant,” but we don't have them, nor do we have Delta vaccines despite that urgent need; we are still vaccinating for the original strain of SARS-CoV-2.
    We are in an arms race but are losing because our scientists, as brilliant as they are, cannot keep up with the brainless coronavirus. If it accurately described itself in a social media profile, it would state that it “loves to mutate.” That propensity is giving us nightmares along with giving thinkers good reason to believe that vaccines are not the best strategy to defeat the coronavirus.
  123. January 3, 2022: How will pandemic end? Omicron clouds forecasts for endgame
    Excerpt: “… [Omicron] is a warning about what will continue to happen ‘unless we really get serious about the endgame,’ said Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist at the Yale School of Public Health.”
  124. January 4, 2022: US sets global record with over 1 million COVID cases in one day: Monday's high likely includes backlog, but more cases missed with at-home tests.
  125. January 5, 2022: Every U.S. cruise with passengers has coronavirus cases on board: The CDC has opened investigations into 92 ships
  126. January 5, 2022: Indiana sets new record for COVID-19 cases as omicron surges
  127. January 6, 2022: Covid-19 news: Omicron cases hit record highs in Europe
  128. January 6, 2022: 'We are really at a breaking point,' Beaumont Health doctor says of COVID-19 surge
  129. January 6, 2022: The latest COVID-19 testing worry? A rapid test that can't detect omicron in the early days of an infection
  130. January 6, 2022: Rapid nasal COVID tests feared to be returning false negatives
    Comment: While testing a friend with Abbott's BinaxNOW™, I was struck by how its design and instructions will contribute to false negatives. Abbott should hire someone with a flair for usability, or at least someone with enough common sense to spot obvious ways to improve that test.
    When you can easily figure something out, you wonder why others don't get it, too. I think the same thing about this pandemic and my innovations to quickly control it by safeguarding air. I wonder why others don't immediately realize that my method works. To help them grasp it, I built prototypes that visually demonstrate its efficacy (see the 10-minute video for a brief intro and the 63-minute video for more demonstrations) as well as providing incontrovertible evidence that my prototypes (tested with smoke, aerosols, and bubbles as proxies for infectious aerosols) will protect people from SARS-CoV-2. While some people may not understand new innovations because of a lack of intelligence, the most common cause is intellectual rigidity as evidenced in the observation by Job E. Hodges: “Lots of people know a good thing the minute the other fellow sees it first.”
    Related: The Washington Post January 17, 2022: They relied on rapid coronavirus tests to gather safely. Some wish they hadn't.: False negative results have caused frustration and even heartache for some people who later got back positive PCR results and now fear they may have infected others
  131. January 6, 2022: Omicron may be less severe in young and old, but not 'mild' - WHO
  132. January 6, 2022: Omicron is not mild and is crushing health care systems worldwide, WHO warns: "Just like previous variants, omicron is hospitalizing people, and it is killing people."
    Related:
  133. January 6, 2022: COVID-positive nurses say they're being pressured to work while sick, and they're petrified of infecting patients
  134. January 6, 2022: Covid-19: More than 100 test positive on an Italy-India flight
    Excerpt: “… 125 … [of the] 179 passengers.”
  135. The New York Times January 6, 2022: Lifesaving Covid Treatments Face Rationing as Virus Surges Again: Scarce supplies and surging Covid cases have caused health officials, hospitals, doctors and patients to scramble for pills and infusions.
  136. January 7, 2022: Covid-19 news: India's death toll may be six times higher than thought
  137. January 7, 2022: Florida reports almost 400,000 new COVID infections, skyrocketing hospitalizations
  138. January 7, 2022: Moderna CEO Says Fourth Covid Vaccine Dose Likely Necessary
    Comment: It won't stop at four, five, or six vaccines because SARS-CoV-2 won't stop mutating.
  139. January 7, 2022: Hospitals Are in Serious Trouble: Omicron is inundating a health-care system that was already buckling under the cumulative toll of every previous surge.
    Excerpt: “Nurses might be so swamped that they can't check whether a patient has their pain medications or if a ventilator is working correctly. People who would've been fine will get sicker. Eventually, people who would have lived will die. This is not conjecture; it is happening now, across the United States.”
  140. January 8, 2022: As NJ COVID hospitalizations continue to rise, the number on ventilators has jumped 50%
  141. January 8, 2022: Michigan hospital uses heated tent for ER space amid COVID surge
  142. January 8, 2022: Staffs of Maryland hospitals, stressed and sickened with COVID-19, know ‘cavalry’ isn't coming
  143. January 9, 2022: Colorado EMS staff have been instructed to only transport individuals with the most severe cases of COVID-19
  144. January 10, 2022: Doctors fear health care collapse amid omicron surge: Many hospitals across the country are in crisis as cases surge and staffing is at critical lows.
  145. January 10, 2022: A quarter of US hospitals are critically short of staff because of omicron
  146. January 10, 2022: Other countries struck by Omicron kept their death tolls low. The US is looking different.
  147. January 10, 2022: Bellingham hospital sees omicron's ‘severity is very similar to what delta was causing’
  148. January 10, 2022: Health care workers are panicked as desperate hospitals ask infected staff to return
    Comment: Desperation.
  149. January 10, 2022: Boris Johnson: Number of people catching Covid in hospital is ‘unacceptable’
    Comment: My technology could prevent that.
    Related: January 16, 2022: More patients are getting COVID-19 during hospital stays. Experts worry it's because infected healthcare workers are sick on the job.
  150. January 11, 2022: Omicron forces us to rethink COVID-19 testing and treatments
    Excerpt: “‘This population was 100 percent vaccinated. … And they were highly boosted, so they were doing all the right things,’ [epidemiologist Blythe] Adamson says. Yet employees were still getting infected and spreading the virus.”
  151. January 11, 2022: U.S. reports 1.35 million COVID-19 cases in a day, shattering global record
  152. January 11, 2022: More Americans are in hospital with COVID-19 than in last winter peak, and WHO warns more than half of Europe could be infected by omicron within weeks
  153. January 11, 2022: FDA head: Omicron is a “natural disaster… most people are gonna get COVID”: Acting FDA commissioner offers sobering perspective of the next few weeks.
  154. January 11, 2022: Omicron can make you contagious before you test positive, allowing for rapid spread
  155. January 11, 2022: World can't boost its way out of the pandemic using existing vaccines, WHO experts say
    Related: January 12, 2022: Boosters are over
  156. Bloomberg January 11, 2022: EU Warns Repeat Boosters Could Weaken Immune System
    Related: January 12, 2022: A Booster Vaccine Red Flag: Getting Too Many Could Backfire
  157. January 12, 2022: Explainer: Why you should still try to avoid catching Omicron (also posted here)
    Excerpt: “[One reason:] OMICRON'S LONG-TERM EFFECTS ARE UNKNOWN … Infections with earlier variants of the coronavirus, including mild infections and "breakthrough" cases after vaccination, sometimes caused the lingering, debilitating long-haul COVID syndrome. ‘We have no data yet on what proportion of infections with Omicron … end up with Long COVID,’ [Professor Akiko] Iwasaki said. ‘People who underestimate Omicron as 'mild' are putting themselves at risk of debilitating disease that can linger for months or years.’”
    Comment: Akiko Iwasaki at Yale School of Medicine is the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Professor of Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology; and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Very brilliant, in other words.
  158. The Atlantic February 13, 2023: The Future of Long COVID: This emergency is not about to end.
  159. The New York Times January 12, 2022: The Army of Millions Who Enforce China's Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs: As the troubled lockdown in Xi'an has shown, many Chinese people remain willing to work diligently toward the government's goal of eliminating the virus, no matter the consequences.
    Comment: Their draconian measures haven't vanquished the virus. My technology could hammer SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens while not burdening people.
  160. January 13, 2022: Omicron thwarts some of the world's most-used COVID vaccines
  161. January 14, 2022: ‘We will not beat this pandemic until we stop the spread of the virus at work’: Backlash against Supreme Court's decision to block Biden's vaccine mandate
    Comment: The effectiveness of current vaccines is so limited that they cannot reliably block infections at work (or elsewhere) even if everyone were vaccinated, thus the effectiveness of vaccine mandates is limited by scientific reality, not only law. My technology can solve this problem, reliably protecting people at work, school, dining in restaurants, the dentist, working out at the gym, and elsewhere with almost complete safety and with no loss of efficacy over time, unlike vaccines.
  162. January 14, 2022: Students don't want to learn in a 'COVID petri dish.' They're walking out to prove their point.
    Comment: After hearing a local school superintendent discuss mask mandates and other COVID-related problems, I flipped off my radio (sorry, Ron!), turned on my computer, and sent an e-mail to him on October 25, 2021. Still (January 14, 2022) no reply even though he was recently on the radio complaining of the need to cancel school because of a lack of teachers — something he feared would affect the next day, too.
    This is nuts because it is not that the problem can't be solved but instead that those in power refuse to listen to good ideas. In this case, I have more than good ideas; I have several fully-functioning prototypes I've built and thoroughly tested, proving that my methods are highly effective.
    This is yet another example of what I term the Starbucks phenomenon. In Pour Your Heart Into It, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote:
    “Living in the same city as Microsoft, I'm only too aware that, even in low-technology businesses like coffee, the Next Big Thing could knock the dominant player into second place tomorrow. I keep pushing to make sure that Starbucks thinks of the Next Big Thing before it has even crossed anybody else's mind.”
    That isn't realistic; the 0.002% of the population that works for Starbucks cannot possibly outthink the 99.998% who don't. The Next Big Thing rarely originates within a company or network: a fact that is immediately obvious to everyone with at least a rudimentary grasp of statistics and a smidgen of common sense.
    Coincidentally, I also recently hear my state representative rhapsodizing on the radio about local sports broadcasting. If he has time for that, I wondered, why doesn't he have time to respond to the message I sent long ago in which I discussed my solution to better control this pandemic by safeguarding people from airborne pathogens?
  163. January 14, 2022: Omicron: Rise in U.S. hospitalizations 'quite frightening,' doctor says
  164. The Washington Post January 15, 2022: As nations decide to live with the virus, some disease experts warn of surrendering too soon
  165. January 16, 2022: I was the poster child for COVID-19 safety. Eventually, it got me.: For nearly two years, I have followed all the guidelines. I still caught COVID-19. Unfortunately, we still lack the resources for proper recovery.
    Comment: The problem isn't a lack of resources but a lack of willingness to listen to me explain and demonstrate my methods of blocking airborne germ transmission with an efficacy >99%, which is considerably greater than what is provided by vaccines, masks, and social distancing.
  166. January 16, 2022: Israel study: 4th vaccine shows limited results with omicron
    Excerpt: “… a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine provides only limited defense against the omicron variant that is raging around the world.”
    Comment: As the World Health Organization said, we can't boost our way out of this pandemic. While the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines is poor, the risk of repeated vaccines is real, as discussed elsewhere in this website and elsewhere.
    Related:
  167. January 16, 2022: Column: An inability to understand numbers may be why COVID continues to spread
  168. January 16, 2022: America struggles to keep schools open
  169. The Atlantic IDEAS January 17, 2022: The COVID-Risk Social Contract Is Under Negotiation: Is it okay to walk into a bar if you might sicken someone who might need hospital care?
    Comment: The risk doesn't end at hospital care but instead extends to the possibility of premature death or induction of severe physical and/or mental problems, such as triggering psychosis or diminution of intelligence.
    Related: March 2, 2022: Scientists find coronavirus increases risk of developing mental health issues
  170. January 18, 2022: Why Omicron Is More Likely to Kill Americans
  171. January 18, 2022: Australia suffers deadliest day of pandemic as Omicron drives up hospital cases
    Comment: More proof that the world needs my technology. Australia has implemented COVID-19 restrictions that many Americans view as extreme and unacceptable, but even they have not sufficed to control the pandemic even though their vaccination rate is considerably above the world's average.
  172. January 18, 2022: Report: Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch refuses to wear mask in the courtroom, despite request from Roberts
    Comment: My technology obviates the need for masks because it is markedly more effective than they are and has none of their many drawbacks.
  173. January 19, 2022: How does Omicron spread so fast? A high viral load isn't the answer: Data on viral levels point to immune evasion as a cause of the variant's transmissibility.
  174. January 20, 2022: Schools can expect a year of disruption: Seven ways to support the well-being of students and staff
    Comment: The best way would be to widely implement my technology, which would effectively end the pandemic at that time, not maybe a year from now. Forecasting another year of disruption is just optimistic guesswork on their part; 2021 was supposed to be the year of recovery, but after almost 10 billion doses of vaccine, the end to the pandemic is nowhere in sight and in many areas it is worse than ever before.
    Related:
  175. January 20, 2022: ‘Your great-great-great-grandchildren will still be getting immunized against coronavirus’: This Mayo Clinic doctor says it's too late to eradicate COVID-19
    Comment: A lifetime of boosters (that don't work very well), or my technology that virtually eliminates transmission? It's a no-brainer!
  176. January 20, 2022: South Africa study shows boosters failed to block omicron, bolstering case for face masks, distancing and hand washing
    Comment: Most masks are almost useless. The best ones are too uncomfortable for most people to wear for long. Social distancing isn't practical or effective. Because COVID-19 is overwhelmingly spread via the air, handwashing does almost nothing to curb transmission. Consequently, these recommendations are analogous to duck and cover drills that students practiced during the 1960s, as if kneeling on the ground with interlaced fingers over your neck could somehow protect you from a nuclear bomb vastly more powerful than the ones that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, when people are terrified and there is no good defense, authorities reluctant to admit that — fearing mass panic — issue recommendations to mitigate fear even though they are too feeble to offer significant protection.
    I have a better idea: instead of playing this “let's fool the people” game, implement my technology that will obviate the need for masks, social distancing, and vaccines that collectively are permitting this pandemic to run wild.
  177. January 20, 2022: Schools Are Asking Parents to Work as Substitutes amid Teacher Shortage: 'It Is So Bad': Many school districts have been hit by staffing shortages due to teachers either becoming sick with the virus or outright leaving the profession due to concerns
    Comment: The world is falling apart precisely because masks aren't working, social distancing isn't working, and vaccines aren't working nearly good enough. The world clearly needs my technology.
  178. January 21, 2022: Coronavirus tally: U.S. averaging more than 2,000 COVID deaths a day …
  179. January 21, 2022: Terrifying Post-COVID Syndrome Makes Comeback in South Carolina Kids
    Excerpt: “The new highly contagious Omicron variant filled Shawn Jenkins and many other hospitals with a record number of pediatric COVID patients. But the doctors had hoped that Omicron would act like Delta and not trigger MIS-C [multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children].”
  180. January 21, 2022: Local COVID hospitalizations “going straight up,” not peaking, as KU Med breaks record
  181. January 21, 2022: Omicron Changed The Pandemic. What Happens Next? “I think in many ways, we are just as flabbergasted as the rest of society about how Omicron has seemingly come from nowhere,” one scientist said.
    Comment: Future and sometimes nastier variants are virtually inevitable.
  182. January 21, 2022: 'The system HAS failed already': Ontarians demand answers on postponed surgeries as COVID-19 restrictions on businesses lift
  183. January 21, 2022: With constant COVID closures, parents with kids in day care are at their wit's end: ‘I honestly don't know how we keep doing this.’
    Comment: Again quoting what English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon said in 1625: “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.”
  184. January 21, 2022: ‘Take care of yourselves.’ Ky. reports new records for coronavirus cases, positivity rate.
  185. January 22, 2022: Pfizer CEO says frequent boosters 'not a good scenario,' hopes for yearly vaccine
    Comment: Based on the current rate of SARS-CoV-2 mutation, yearly vaccines won't keep up with viral evolution. As we are now discovering the hard way, vaccinating for prior variants generates poor results. My technology makes this a moot point; no matter how airborne pathogens evolve, my innovations strongly safeguard people.
  186. January 22, 2022: 700 percent increase in hospitalizations prompts King County hospitals to plead for help
  187. January 24, 2022: COVID-19: endemic doesn't mean harmless
  188. January 24, 2022: Sars-CoV-2 spike protein activates human endogenous retroviruses in blood cells
    Based on: SARS-CoV-2 induces human endogenous retrovirus type W envelope protein expression in blood lymphocytes and in tissues of COVID-19 patients
  189. January 24, 2022: Pandemic causing 'nearly insurmountable' education losses globally: UNICEF
  190. January 24, 2022: Companies Are Desperate for Workers. Why Aren't They Doing the One Thing That Will Attract Them?
    Comment: Better pay and benefits, sure. How about safe air?
  191. January 24, 2022: New Omicron Offshoot BA.2 Arrives In U.S. After Spreading In U.K., Denmark, India
  192. January 25, 2022: WHO warns of potential for more variants as omicron subvariant found in US
  193. The Washington Post January 25, 2022: CDC study finds shorter hospital stays during omicron wave, even as infections and death toll mount: Despite omicron's lesser severity, its rapid spread has led to large numbers of hospitalizations and more than 2,200 deaths daily
  194. January 26, 2022: Omicron's wave is at least 386% taller than delta's—and it's crushing hospitals: Omicron wave's hospital admissions are 76% higher than delta's, CDC reports.
    Comment: Mild?
  195. January 26, 2022: Covid-19 news: Infections in England remain at ‘extremely high’ level
  196. January 28, 2022: New Mutant Omicron Feared to Be the Most Contagious Variant Yet: Just when it looked like Omicron had peaked, a stealthy new variant is starting to surge and experts are warning it's even “more contagious.”
  197. January 28, 2022: Omicron drives US deaths higher than in fall's delta wave
  198. Scientific American January 31, 2022: How Many COVID Vaccine Boosters Will We Need? Endless boosting might not be a practical or sustainable strategy, scientists say
  199. February 2, 2022: What the Omicron wave is revealing about human immunity
    Excerpt: “Initial data suggest that existing vaccines, designed around the original SARS-CoV-2, do not provide much protection from becoming infected with the variant …”
  200. Scientific American February 3, 2022: Long-Haul COVID Cases Could Spike after Latest Wave
  201. The New York Times February 3, 2022: In New York City Sewage, a Mysterious Coronavirus Signal
  202. February 3, 2022: More people got reinfected during the Omicron wave in UK than before it emerged, data shows. It means people who've had COVID-19 could get sick again.
  203. February 3, 2022: COVID-19 survivor: 'Most sick I have ever been in my life'
    Comment: 25-year-old Brianna Worthington “was [fully] vaccinated against COVID-19 when she suffered a breakthrough infection.”
  204. February 4, 2022: The enduring nightmare of being a COVID ‘long-hauler’ nearly 2 years — and 27 doctors — in
  205. February 11, 2022: FDA, Pfizer abandon 2-shot COVID vaccine in kids under 5, citing new data
  206. February 14, 2022: Omicron-targeted vaccines do no better than original jabs in early tests
  207. February 14, 2022: Hong Kong "overwhelmed" as COVID infections hit record
  208. February 16, 2022: In warning to U.S., COVID rates soar after Denmark lifts all restrictions
  209. February 23, 2022: Fourth dose of COVID vaccine offers only slight boost against Omicron infection: Israeli trial shows a fourth vaccination raises antibody levels but provides little extra protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection.
  210. February 23, 2022: The new Omicron Subvariant is More Transmissible. Is the Economy Ready to Reopen?
  211. March 3, 2022: Vaccine and antibody treatment effectiveness blunted by all three Omicron subvariants
  212. March 8, 2022: As virus cases go from 1 to 24,000, New Zealand changes tack
  213. March 17, 2022: WHO says global rise in COVID cases is 'tip of the iceberg'
  214. March 17, 2022: Is Europe's new COVID surge coming to America next?
  215. March 17, 2022: Pandemic mood: Much worse than a bad Monday
  216. March 17, 2022: A new COVID wave might be coming. Somehow we're not prepared.
  217. March 18, 2022: Murky case for fourth doses now with FDA as protection wanes, BA.2 looms
  218. March 18, 2022: Vaccines protect against infection from Omicron subvariant — but not for long
  219. March 22, 2022: Another global wave of covid-19 is beginning before the last one ended
  220. March 28, 2022: Covid-19 news: UK infections approaching a record high
  221. March 28, 2022: ‘Out of control’ Omicron threatens China
  222. March 31, 2022: Covid-19 news: Omicron's reinfection risk 10 times higher than delta's
  223. April 4, 2022: 38,000 health workers dispatched to Shanghai as COVID outbreak worsens
  224. April 11, 2022: DC's Gridiron COVID outbreak tally hits 72 as cases tick up nationwide: Washington's wave shows how BA.2 is exploiting relaxed health measures.
    Excerpt: “At least 72 of the over 600 people who attended the mostly maskless [April 2nd] Gridiron Dinner—an exclusive annual event frequented by high-profile Washington, DC, elites—have since tested positive for COVID-19.”
  225. April 19, 2022: A new version of omicron is gaining a foothold in the U.S., CDC finds: The new strain, called BA.2.12.1, makes up about a fifth of all new Covid-19 cases, according to the agency.
  226. April 19, 2022: ‘It's probably worse than Wuhan’: Experts warn China's COVID-19 lockdowns will once again cripple global supply chains
  227. April 21, 2022: Can you catch COVID-19 twice in 20 days? A Spanish health care worker did, suggesting previous infections offer little protection against Omicron
  228. April 21, 2022: Covid Whiplash: Now-Dominant BA.2 Variant Being Quickly Overtaken Across The U.S. By Yet Another Faster-Growing Omicron Offshoot, Says CDC
  229. April 27, 2022: Fauci drops out of D.C. gala amid America's strange pandemic moment
    Excerpt: “Dr. Anthony Fauci was slated to attend the WHCA [White House Correspondents' Association] dinner but said on Tuesday that he would not do so. CNN reported he made the decision after ‘an individual assessment of his own risk.’ He may also have wanted to avoid the kind of scrutiny he faced after attending the Gridiron Gala, after which scores of attendees tested positive for COVID-19. Dr. Jerome Adams, the former surgeon general, called the Gridiron ‘a public health disaster.’”
    Comment: More proof that vaccines leave people vulnerable to infection — and fear of it.
    Related:
  230. April 28, 2022: South Africa is being hit hard by COVID again. What that means for the U.S., if anything, remains unclear.: It's too soon to know whether the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants will take off in the U.S. as they are in South Africa. But some experts are anxious.
  231. The Washington Post April 29, 2022: Covid deaths no longer overwhelmingly among unvaccinated as toll on elderly grows
  232. The New York Times April 29, 2022: Cases are rising in nearly every corner of the United States
  233. April 30, 2022: BA.4 and BA.5, two new Omicron variants sweeping South Africa, detected in U.S.
  234. May 1, 2022: COVID's new Omicron sub-lineages can dodge immunity from past infection, study says
  235. The Washington Post May 1, 2022: Virus mutations aren't slowing down. New omicron subvariant proves it.
    Comment: Because the risk of a doomsday variant evolving isn't zero, only Pollyannaish blind faith comforts those who substitute wishful thinking for scientific reality and planning accordingly. We are in a fight for our lives. Those who pull the wool over their eyes are blind to the threat we face, and hence are more likely to succumb to it. In some ways, we have already lost as our freedom to travel and associate has been curtailed — except by those who ignore the threats but cannot magically erase them, hence gambling their lives and risking their health.
  236. May 3, 2022: New coronavirus variants emerge: BA.4, BA.5 likely reinfecting Omicron survivors
  237. May 3, 2022: BA.2.12.1 poised to become dominant in US, raising concern for future vaccines: Omicron subvariants are evading vaccines and infection-derived protections.
  238. May 6, 2022: White House preps for cold-weather wave of 100M COVID infections
    Related: May 9, 2022: Officials Say There May Be 100 Million New COVID Infections This Fall and Winter (in Americans)
  239. May 6, 2022: Indoor masking once again ‘strongly recommended’ in Chicago as COVID-19 numbers increase
  240. May 16, 2022: Coronavirus tally: U.S. cases at highest levels since last November and in Northeast and Midwest are above last summer's peak
  241. May 16, 2022: New York City is 'approaching' a COVID alert level of 'high' and people should again wear face masks indoors
  242. May 16, 2022: Dr. Peter Hotez warns of nation's hidden COVID wave that's ‘almost like omicron’
  243. May 17, 2022: What to Know Now About COVID as It Surges Again: 'These Case Numbers Are a Severe Undercount'
  244. May 20, 2022: All PA counties except 4 at high levels of COVID transmission, latest CDC data show
  245. May 22, 2022: The U.S. is in a sixth COVID wave—but it doesn't look like it on a new CDC map
  246. The Washington Post May 28, 2022: Covid was vanishing last Memorial Day. Cases are five times higher now.
  247. June 6, 2022: BA.4, BA.5 gain ground in US, pose higher risk of breakthrough infections: New data suggests BA.4, BA.5 are better at evading immune responses than BA.2.12.1.
  248. June 7, 2022: New study unravels why COVID-19 antibody treatments aren't as effective for new variants
    Based on: Convergent Evolution of Multiple Mutations Improves the Viral Fitness of SARS-CoV-2 Variants by Balancing Positive and Negative Selection
  249. June 11, 2022: Beijing warns of 'explosive' COVID outbreak as Shanghai begins mass testing
  250. June 13, 2022: BA.4, BA.5 rise in Europe; officials sound alarm of COVID-19 surge to come
  251. June 14, 2022: Move over, ‘stealth Omicron.’ A new COVID subvariant appears to be taking over in the U.S.
    Based on: CDC's Monitoring Variant Proportions
  252. June 17, 2022: BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 escape antibodies elicited by Omicron infection
  253. June 23, 2022: New Omicron subvariant swamping the U.S. escapes immunity from vaccination and previous infections, new studies say
  254. July 5, 2022: Antibody evasion by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4, & BA.5
  255. July 5, 2022: The omicron subvariant now dominating the U.S. is ‘the worst version of the virus that we've seen’
  256. July 6, 2022: How Omicron dodges the immune system
    Excerpt: “… researchers have revealed the exceptional capacity of Omicron to evade our immunity.”
  257. July 7, 2022: You can now get COVID again within 4 weeks due to the new Omicron BA.5 variant, health expert says
  258. July 7, 2022: Meet ‘Centaurus,’ the new ‘stealth Omicron.’ It was just found in the U.S. and may escape immunity more than any other COVID strain
  259. July 8, 2022: ‘Several hundred thousand’ new COVID cases a day aren't being reported as hospitalizations keep climbing
  260. July 9, 2022: Your COVID protection outside isn't what it was in 2020. Here's why it's time to think more critically about outdoor gatherings
    Excerpt: “… the latest dominant COVID subvariants have a reproductive rate of around 18.6, tying or surpassing measles, the world's most infectious viral disease, according to Esterman. Greater transmissibility means greater transmissibility in any setting, indoors or outdoors—even if outside is still safer, Maimuna Majumder, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a computational epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital, recently told NPR.”
  261. July 11, 2022: New coronavirus mutant raises concerns in India and beyond
    Excerpt: “Scientists say the variant — called BA.2.75 — may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection.”
  262. July 12, 2022: The rise of a new ‘Deltacron’? BA.5 combines the worst traits of Omicron with the potential for severity reminiscent of Delta, experts say
  263. July 22, 2022: New Zealand COVID death rate at record levels
  264. October 5, 2022: Fall COVID surge begins in Europe—and US outlook already looks rough: With subvariant soup simmering, OG BA.5 kicks off fall COVID surge.
  265. December 13, 2022: With COVID cases rising fast, critics ask why there's no push for masks in indoor settings
  266. February 21, 2023: Merck's COVID pill fails to prevent infection among household members
    Comment: Another flop.

Pro athletes are young, healthy, and in great shape, yet still vulnerable to COVID-19. Senator Elizabeth Warren, “vaccinated & boosted,” contracted a breakthrough case of COVID-19. Ditto for Senator Cory Booker, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his wife, New York Health Commissioner Mary Bassett, and several other prominent people, including Queen Elizabeth II and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's husband, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and fully vaccinated and boosted Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box, who tested positive for COVID-19 again, as did U.S. Senator Roger Wicker and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. And billionaire Richard Branson and other family members. And broadcast journalist Hoda Kotb (& co-anchor Savannah Guthrie). And The Late Late Show host James Corden. And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And Senator Mitt Romney. And Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. “Fully vaccinated” U.S. Representative Nancy Mace “contracted COVID-19 for a second time.” COVID-positive West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice felt “extremely unwell” despite being fully vaccinated and boosted. And United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy along with his whole family. And Barack Obama. And Ashley Biden, the president's daughter. And California Governor Gavin Newsom, 10 days after his second booster. And U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg along with at least 14 others who attended the Mackinac Policy Conference. And Dr. Anthony Fauci. And Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. And the CEO of COVID-19 vaccine-maker Pfizer. And First Lady Jill Biden — twice. And actress Jamie Lee Curtis. And the Mexican President, who tested positive three times. And President Joe Biden, again and again.

Plan B for the pandemic

What will it take to control this pandemic? Masks that don't work very well and people are increasingly fed up with? Social distancing that flopped (example)? If vaccines could give us our old lives back, the FDA vaccine advisory panel would not have voted 16–2 to reject the widespread use of booster shots. Furthermore, masks block facial expression, an important aspect of communication.

  1. December 21, 2021: POLITICO Playbook: The search for a Plan B begins
  2. December 27, 2021: Alain Pinel: Vaccine opponents won't change their minds, so let's find a Plan B
    Excerpt: “After long and grueling months of a failed strategy, it's about time to work on a Plan B … [by] trying to reduce the risks of getting COVID …”
    Comment: What I began doing before the pandemic struck the United States.

We unquestionably need something much more effective and reliable, offering protection so dependable it obviates the need for masks and social distancing that doesn't work because the virus is airborne and can float much further than people can feasibly separate. My technology can provide this protection better than masks, social distancing, and even vaccines that were designed to target the original SARS-CoV-2 strain, not the Delta variant that “has quickly become the dominant strain in the U.S., and … appears to spread even among fully vaccinated people” (source).

  1. October 3, 2021: Virus surge hits New England despite high vaccination rates
  2. August 22, 2021: Will Vaccines Be Updated for Delta?
  3. Infection Control Today August 17, 2021: COVID-19 Booster Shots Alone Might Not Stop Delta and Other Variants
  4. August 13, 2021: Expert shares equation that shows even a 100% vaccination rate is not enough to stop Delta variant
    Excerpt: “A professor of epidemiology at Boston University recently tweeted equations that explain why Delta has made it mathematically impossible to beat the virus now with just the vaccine …”
    Based on: Dr. Ellie Murray, ScD (@EpiEllie): THINK LIKE AN EPIDEMIOLOGIST
  5. The Washington Post August 12, 2021: Booster shots won't stop the delta variant. Here's the math to prove it.
  6. August 10, 2021: Delta variant renders herd immunity from Covid ‘mythical’
  7. September 8, 2020: It Will Take More Than a Vaccine to Beat COVID-19
  8. July 24, 2020: What's the backup plan if there's no COVID-19 vaccine? Analysis: Recent news from vaccine trials has been promising, but some experts worry that the U.S. needs a Plan B.
    Excerpt: “‘I think we absolutely have to have a backup plan in place,’ Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington, said. ‘It's something that's not talked about enough.’”
    Comment: Wise words: the vaccines initially seemed promising but they don't reliably block infection (1, 2).
  9. March 20, 2023: WATCH IT: Fauci, DC Mayor Bowser rejected as they sell COVID vaccine door-to-door
    Excerpt: [quoting Dr. Anthony Fauci] “On the very, very, very rare chance that you do get it [COVID-19] even if you're vaccinated, it's a very — you don't even feel sick. It's like you don't even know you got infected. It's very, very good at protecting you.”
    Comment: No, it isn't. One function of the Federal Trade Commission is to protect consumers from wildly exaggerated claims. This is a wildly exaggerated claim.
  10. March 20, 2023: People vaccinated against COVID after infection still at risk, study says. Here's why

Not surprisingly, COVID-19 has killed over 900,000 Americans — more than the entire population of South Dakota and more than the number who died in combat during World War I (53,402), World War II (291,557), and the Civil War (214,938). And over 300 times more Americans than died on 9/11. And more than the number of Americans who died during the 1918 influenza pandemic. And more “in less than two years than the approximately 700,000 who have died in the U.S. in the four decades of the AIDS pandemic.” As alarming as the official U.S. COVID death toll is, “the true number is likely much higher” (1, 2) — “countries have reported some five million COVID-19 deaths in two years, but global excess deaths are estimated at double or even quadruple that figure.”

  1. Scientific American February 10, 2022: There Is Nothing Normal about One Million People Dead from COVID: Mass media and policy makers are pushing for a return to pre-COVID times while trying to normalize a staggering death toll
  2. March 10, 2022: COVID's true death toll: far higher than official records: Modelling suggests that by the end of 2021, some 18 million people had died because of the pandemic.
  3. May 5, 2022: COVID led to 15 million deaths globally, not the 5 million reported - WHO
  4. March 23, 2022: Morgue data hint at COVID's true toll in Africa: Around 90% of deceased people tested at a Lusaka facility during coronavirus surges were positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting flaws in the idea of an ‘African paradox’.
  5. March 26, 2022: What a Single Metric Tells Us About the Pandemic
    Comment: Excess mortality rate.
  6. March 29, 2022: What One Million COVID Dead Mean for the U.S.'s Future: The country is about to reach an unthinkably grim milestone. Nearly 200,000 children have lost parents, many more elderly have been killed, and family well-being has been ripped apart
  7. May 10, 2022: The ‘five pandemics’ driving 1 million U.S. Covid deaths

The specter of original antigenic sin

Original antigenic sin (OAS), also called antigenic imprinting or the Hoskins effect, may render COVID-19 boosters less effective. OAS occurs when the immune system becomes essentially locked in after the initial exposure to a pathogen (or vaccine for it), preventing it from optimally responding to subsequent exposures (infection or vaccination) to similar but not identical antigens, such as from one of the current SARS-CoV-2 variants (e.g., Delta) as opposed to the original strain for which current vaccines were developed and many people were infected.

OAS occurs in influenza (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and dengue fever (1, 2, 3) but researchers don't yet know if it will reduce immunological effectiveness as the coronavirus evolves new variants (update January 2023: just as I feared years ago, antigenic imprinting is indeed hobbling the response to boosters, which are proving to be deeply disappointing). Because of OAS and other reasons, it isn't wise to presume that boosters will be sufficiently effective or will remain that way. With our lives and the economy on the line, assuming that boosters will save us may prove to be a reckless gamble.

  1. January 3, 2023: Impact of antigenic evolution and original antigenic sin on SARS-CoV-2 immunity
    Comment: Superb article. Its concluding remarks section includes various methods to possibly circumvent or mitigate original antigenic sin.
  2. January 18, 2023: How your first brush with COVID warps your immunity: The immune system responds more strongly to the strain of a virus that it first met, weakening response to other strains. Can this ‘imprinting’ be overcome?
    Excerpt: “… even exposure to Omicron itself doesn't seem to help update the imprinted response of people previously infected with an older strain, which might explain why they can be reinfected. It's now relatively easy to update mRNA vaccines to match a new strain, but imprinting suggests that these tailored vaccines might not significantly improve protection against infection. … although they are clearly able to prevent serious illness, this puts a dampener on the hope that variant-tailored boosters will markedly reduce transmission of the virus. … Boosters introduced in Europe last September targeted the original strain and the BA.1 Omicron variant; the United States has rolled out boosters aimed at the BA.5 Omicron variant. The vaccines certainly boost antibody levels, but the antibodies produced are not Omicron specific and are unlikely to offer significantly increased protection against Omicron infection.”
    Comment: More evidence that we cannot boost our way out of this pandemic.
  3. April 16, 2021: Next-generation Covid-19 vaccines are supposed to be better. Some experts worry they could be worse
  4. June 9, 2021: Evidence for Deleterious Antigenic Imprinting in SARS-CoV-2 Immune Response
  5. March 10, 2021: Original Antigenic Sin: the Downside of Immunological Memory and Implications for COVID-19
  6. May 13, 2022: The CDC says to think again before getting a second COVID booster. Is it rationing vaccines?
    Excerpt: “The government wants you to wait on getting that fourth vaccine shot, and it won’t say exactly why.”
    Comment: He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing.
  7. March 28, 2023: Healthy adults don't need annual COVID boosters, WHO advisors say
  8. October 23, 2020: Should you get the first coronavirus vaccine available? A 60-year-old scientific doctrine may have the answer
    Excerpt: “Dr. Jay Levy, a professor of medicine at UCSF, said the doctrine [of Original Antigenic Sin] suggests that a person inoculated with a vaccine for COVID-19 might develop an immunological memory to that specific vaccine, which would prevent him or her from benefiting from stronger vaccines produced later.”
    Comment: This raises an interesting philosophical and practical question: is it ethical and wise to now compel COVID-19 vaccinations? Current vaccines target the original SARS-CoV-2 strain but the United States is currently plagued by the Delta variant and very likely others to follow. Vaccinating for the original strain, in effect teaching our immune systems to fight yesterday's battle, may make us less able to fight future battles as this coronavirus mutates, generating different antigenic epitopes. The technology introduced in this website provides a solution to this quandary because it is immune (no pun intended) to antigenic imprinting/OAS.
  9. May 5, 2021: Why Vaccine Boosters May Not Solve the Mutating Coronavirus Problem
  10. July 9, 2021: SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in the context of original antigenic sin
    Excerpt: “Hence, the extremely high levels of specific anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies achieved by vaccination, which — as indicated by the most recent data — tend to persist for months post-vaccination, should serve as a warning sign.”
  11. May 3, 2021: “Original antigenic sin”: A potential threat beyond the development of booster vaccination against novel SARS-CoV-2 variants
  12. August 10, 2020: A Novel Hypothesis for Original Antigenic Sin in the Severe Disease of SARS-CoV-2 Infection
  13. June 5, 2020: Antibody Dependent Enhancement Due to Original Antigenic Sin and the Development of SARS
    Excerpt: “The worst scenario would be when such cross-reactive memory antibodies to related coronaviruses would not only be non-protective but even enhance infection and the clinical course. Such a phenomenon of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) has already been described in several viral infections. Thus, the development of IgG [immunoglobulin G] against SARS-CoV-2 in the course of COVID-19 might not be a simple sign of viral clearance and developing protection against the virus. On the contrary, due to cross-reaction to related coronavirus strains from earlier infections, in certain patients IgG might enhance clinical progression due to ADE.”
    Related: Is COVID-19 receiving ADE from other coronaviruses?
  14. May 7, 2020: What about the original antigenic sin of the humans versus SARS-CoV-2?
  15. January 15, 2019: Original Antigenic Sin: How First Exposure Shapes Lifelong Anti-Influenza Virus Immune Responses
  16. July 30, 1998: Original antigenic sin impairs cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses to viruses bearing variant epitopes
  17. Original antigenic sin: A comprehensive review
  18. August 31, 2021: The resurgence risk of COVID-19 in the presence of immunity waning and ADE effect: a mathematical modelling study
    Excerpt: “The findings reveal that integrated effects of multiple factors, including immunity waning, ADE [antibody-dependent enhancement], relaxed interventions, and higher transmission ability of variants, make the control of COVID-19 much more difficult. We should get ready for a long struggle with COVID-19, and should not totally rely on COVID-19 vaccine. … the existence of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) in the infection of SARS-CoV-2 has been reported recently. … ADE phenomenon is well documented between different dengue serotypes and Zika virus, and the infection of other corona viruses, including MERS and SARS. In a recent publication, Liu et al. showed that COVID-19 patients can not only produce antibodies against the RBD of the spike protein to block the SARS-CoV-2 infections, but also produce the anti-spike antibodies enhancing ACE2 binding, consequently enhancing the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. This supports the existence of the ADE in SARS-CoV-2 infections.”
    Related:
  19. September 15, 2021: Immune imprinting and SARS-CoV-2 vaccine design
    Excerpt: “Reformulating … SARS-CoV-2 … vaccines … may be suboptimal due to immune imprinting from earlier vaccination or infection with the original SARS-CoV-2 strain.”
  20. November 18, 2021: Face masks and distancing are most effective measures in reducing COVID-19 spread, study finds, as experts clamor for U.S. to expand booster program
    Comment: Neither face masks nor social distancing work very well. Stating they are the “most effective measures in reducing COVID-19 spread” is saying vaccines don't work very well, and since they don't effectively block SARS-CoV-2 transmission, boosters will temporarily restore immunity but their protective value will also diminish in time.
  21. February 7, 2022: Moderna's omicron booster was only as good as current vaccine in monkey study: Boosting with an omicron-specific vaccine didn't offer more protection against omicron.
    Comment: In other words, it didn't work very well.
    Excerpt: “… the finding falls in line with the concept of "original antigenic sin" (aka antigenic imprinting). … And, while the current booster also spurred responses that were specific only to the old virus, the omicron booster didn't seem to spur any omicron-specific B cell responses.”
    Comment: When I wrote about original antigenic sin last year, I suggested that this problem might also plague our response to SARS-CoV-2, and indeed this appears to be happening.
  22. Time magazine August 26, 2022: Omicron Boosters Are Coming, But They Weren't Tested on People. Here's What You Need to Know
  23. The Washington Post August 23, 2022: Your first brush with coronavirus could affect how a fall booster works: As omicron-specific boosters near, scientists debate how ‘original antigenic sin’ will influence immune responses
  24. November 3, 2022: COVID booster may lower protection against omicron reinfection, study finds. Here's why
    Excerpt: “‘If you got infected with Omicron at any time, a third vaccine dose actually doubles your risk of reinfection compared to 2 doses only,’ Dr. Daniele Focosi … wrote on Twitter in response to the findings. ‘Amazing immune imprinting at work.’”
    Based on: COVID-19 primary series and booster vaccination and immune imprinting

We put our eggs in the vaccine basket but are already witnessing troubling signs of that becoming a painful lesson from the School of Hard Knocks, such as a journalist attending a family reunion where everyone was fully vaccinated yet every adult contracted COVID-19. The vaccines were once hyped as being anywhere from 95 – 99.96% effective. If that were anywhere near true, it would be virtually impossible for them to fail as often as they do unless their efficacy against the Delta variant is markedly lower than their effectiveness against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain. Antigenic imprinting/OAS may help explain why, and to the extent that is true, it doesn't bode well for the future.

The solution

When masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and vaccines leave us desperate for better protection, the trillion-dollar question is: what else can we do? My epiphany was realizing that when air spreads germs, air is the problem and the solution.

Every physical object that travels in air is affected by its movement. This applies to single atoms and molecules as well as leaves, dust, snow, rain, baseballs, bullets, and even massive artillery projectiles. Another example is how microbursts (a.k.a. downbursts or downdrafts) can slam large aircraft to the ground, such as the microburst that downed Delta Air Lines Flight 191, killing 137 people, including Don Estridge, known as the father of the IBM PC.

Flight 191
Flight 191

Experts agree that microbursts are the most likely explanation for the startling number of air crashes (roughly 2000) in the Nevada Triangle, whose vertices span from Fresno, California to Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) attributed the death of famed aviator Steve Fossett, the Nevada Triangle's most prominent victim, to a downdraft.

Nevada triangle map

While heavy airborne objects are susceptible to air motion, air currents especially affect lightweight objects such as respiratory droplets and aerosols emitted when people speak, sneeze, cough, or just breathe. Consequently, even slight wind or other air currents can substantially affect translocation of respiratory plumes that may contain viruses or other infectious agents.

Experts commonly advise increasing ventilation but even if you open every window or constantly run your HVAC blower, the fact that the resulting indoor air currents are substantially horizontal increases the risk of helping the coronavirus and other pathogens spread from infected individuals to those downwind.

Air movement is primarily horizontal in typical forced-air HVAC systems
Illustrating how as air moves from air emitters to collectors, it progresses horizontally, which helps spread germs from infected people to others.

Substantiating this, Penn State researchers reported that “… aerosols traveled farther and more quickly in rooms with displacement ventilation, where fresh air continuously flows from the floor and pushes old air to an exhaust vent near the ceiling. This is the type of ventilation system installed in most residential homes, and it can result in a human breathing zone concentration of viral aerosols seven times higher than mixed-mode ventilation systems. Many commercial buildings use mixed-mode systems, which incorporate outside air to dilute the indoor air …”

Yet indoor transmission remains a significant problem even in commercial buildings. This has devastated Las Vegas (1, 2), meat and poultry processing plants (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and multiple other industries that collectively have wreaked havoc on global supply chains (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and instilled an understandable fear of returning to the office (1, 2, 3), affecting half of American professionals and triggering unrelenting dread that “Delta is tempting us to trade lives for freedoms, a choice it seemed we wouldn't have to make.”

  1. May 5, 2022: How mechanical ventilation affects the trajectories of aerosols that may carry viral particles
    Excerpt: “The models show that mixing-flow ventilation is the most effective form of ventilation for reducing the risk of the virus spreading between people sharing an indoor space. This form of ventilation finds the aerosol particles pulled along by the ventilation airstream and expelled to the outside through the system's ducting with much less chance of them being inhaled by another person in the room. This is not the case with the other types of ventilation where the air is essentially recirculated within the indoor space to large degree and so virus-laden aerosols might be inhaled by other people.” (emphasis added)
    Based on: Modelling of aerosol trajectories in a mechanically-ventilated study room using computational fluid dynamics in light of the COVID-19 pandemic

Thus, traditional HVAC systems cannot reliably safeguard us because vulnerable people are often downwind from infected individuals. To put it bluntly, it isn't wise to move air without considering if its direction follows the ideal path. This isn't speculation; the medical literature documented examples of existing HVAC systems helping transmit COVID-19 to people considerably further apart than 6 feet.

Early in the pandemic, I realized that we needed a better approach in which air is directed in a direction known to be safe. The optimal direction is usually vertical, typically best directed from ceiling to floor but occasionally the opposite and sometimes horizontally when that is identified as the known safe direction, not moving it laterally without thinking, as traditional HVAC systems do.

A vector is a quantity specified by a magnitude and a direction. Physicists and engineers often speak of force vectors, such as applying 20 pounds of force to lift a log straight up. Another example is driving your car at 65 mph heading north.

When air moves, whether because of wind or HVAC blowers, it also has a speed and direction. However, in commercial and residential buildings, that speed and direction are almost never ideal — or anywhere close to it — in terms of reducing the risk of germ transmission. Instead, air generally moves laterally when forced-air HVAC systems are on and otherwise randomly diffuses around the room.

If you've seen sunlight streaming in highlighting airborne dust, you noticed that it isn't stationary even when the room has no discernible air currents but instead moves constantly, carrying other airborne objects, such as respiratory aerosols emitted from room occupants. If one or more of them are infected with COVID-19, their droplets and aerosols float through the air and too often land in the eyes, nose, or mouth of others, infecting them.

This is the primary route of COVID-19 transmission. To block it, we need to realize that:

  • Whether at home or in public settings, people are usually separated horizontally; that is, no one hovers over you — one of the few exceptions is during dental treatment.
  • Therefore, moving air laterally risks transferring germs from infected people to those downwind. This can be almost entirely prevented by moving air vertically, such as from the ceiling to floor.

One of the proprietary parts of my system makes that practical. Without it, air would deflect off the floor and move laterally. That is what we want to AVOID, and my system can achieve that, as I can demonstrate to manufacturers and contractors interested in commercializing this technology.

I used that principle to develop other devices achieving around-the-clock, anywhere you go protection that, if widely implemented, would enable us to resume normal lives even better than the ones we had pre-pandemic.

Adding another layer of protection

Appearing on television September 9, 2021, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy spoke of layers of protection against COVID-19. In the United States, masks, social distancing, lockdowns, vaccines, and therapeutics have been emphasized while others have been largely neglected. These include nutrition, exercise (by enhancing immunity and increasing the response to vaccines), and smoke exposure as well as other factors, including those encompassed within the exposome that crucially influences health yet is unfortunately given short shrift. Collectively these factors help account for the highly variable presentation of COVID-19, ranging from infected individuals experiencing no symptoms to others who die as a result. Case studies of identical twins suggest that those factors contribute to the markedly different outcomes, indicating that they hinge on more than genes.

For example, researchers found that people in the highest quartile of diet scores have a “41% lower risk of developing severe COVID-19.” That protective value would be even greater in those consuming truly healthy diets because “ultra-processed foods account for 58% of total energy in the average U.S. diet” and comprise two-thirds of calories ingested by children and teens. Thus, someone can be in the top quartile of diet quality and still consume plenty of junk. Avoiding that would enable them to be even healthier.

People pay a steep price for their addiction to tasty and convenient food. There appears to be no way to wean them off it, but I developed a way to provide convenient food that is equally or more tasty and vastly healthier yet substantially less expensive. Highly processed foods are sabotaging our physical and mental health. Investors: according to Forbes, food is the world's biggest industry, and I have a way to fundamentally disrupt it.

My technology adds another layer of protection. Because it can block over 99% of airborne pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, it can be even more effective than the other layers that together are now not adequately controlling the pandemic. We should take a more comprehensive approach to consider every factor influencing COVID-19 acquisition and severity, including nutrition, exercise, smoke and other exposome determinants.

Because COVID-19 is primarily transmitted via the air, substantially blocking that path — as my technology does — could achieve markedly better results and ones that are not limited to this coronavirus but include other airborne pathogens and air pollution.

As discussed in the video below, people usually assume that if they survive an infection, they fully recover without lingering adverse effects (sequelae in medspeak). Researchers are accumulating increasing evidence this isn't true, instead discovering that infections slowly chip away at health and accelerate aging. Laymen often blame passing time for problems associated with aging, but time is certainly not the only factor. Broader recognition of this would better highlight the importance of prevention.

  1. April 20, 2023: Common infections linked to poorer cognitive performance in middle-aged and older adults: Findings, based on an analysis of 575 study participants, support the hypothesis that infections may negatively affect brain health
    Based on: Association of common infections with cognitive performance in the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area study follow-up
    Comment: More corroboration of what I've said for years. It is not “just another cold,” it's another nail in your coffin. The irony: as infections slowly erode brainpower, they diminish the ability to recognize threats to it, even when they are spelled out in black and white, as I've done.
  2. December 1, 2021: Psychiatrists are uncovering connections between viruses and mental health. They're surprising.: Immune responses to viruses like SARS-CoV-2 may affect mental health, and vice versa. Doctors are uncovering exactly how.
  3. January 7, 2022: Outbreak reported at Rhode Island hospital after Covid-positive, asymptomatic staff asked to work
  4. June 22, 2022: No 'safest spot' to minimize risk of COVID-19 transmission on trains
    Comment: My technology can make any spot the safest spot.
  5. November 29, 2022: There's no such thing as a good cold: “Immunity debt” can explain this year's eye-popping cold and flu season — but it can also be dangerously misinterpreted.
    Based on: Pediatric Infectious Disease Group (GPIP) position paper on the immune debt of the COVID-19 pandemic in childhood, how can we fill the immunity gap?
  6. December 5, 2022: Severe COVID could cause markers of old age in the brain: Key genes that are active in the brains of older people are also active in the brains of people who developed serious COVID-19.
  7. November 4, 2020: Are infections seeding some cases of Alzheimer’s disease?
  8. January 23, 2023: Massive health-record review links viral illnesses to brain disease
    Excerpt: “An analysis of about 450,000 electronic health records has found a link between infections from influenza and other common viruses and an elevated risk of having a neurodegenerative condition such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease later in life.”
    Based on:

Illustrating how some damage is difficult or impossible to fully reverse, COVID-19 infection can result in long-lasting problems. One of them, discussed in the video below, is intellectual deterioration. Learning about the many others would inculcate the reality that COVID-19 should not be trivialized as being like influenza or “colds.”

“So if you just come in and cough all over each other and push through — I mean, that's the way to work.”
— Fox News host Martha MacCallum on The Five February 3, 2023, speaking rapidly and somewhat slurring her words with others talking over her, making it difficult to discern exactly what she said: perhaps “that's the way we work.”

Regardless, this sentiment may have been appropriate during the Stone Age but not in the 21st century. The point of progress is to solve problems, not being needlessly mired in old ones. However, one of the greatest impediments to progress is clinging to old ways of doing things, in this case permitting germs without brains to outwit us, to fool us into being foolish and permitting them to wreak havoc.

MacCallum has plenty of company, even amongst educated people: I belong to a website open only to physicians, a shocking number of whom believe germs and specifically this pandemic are no big deal, but science conclusively proves otherwise.

Years before MacCallum made that flip comment, I mentally noted how television hosts with obvious respiratory infections would transmit them to co-workers, so I conceived a way to block airborne germ transmission permitting ill people (on television, boardrooms, checkout aisles, schools, virtually anywhere) to stand or sit next to others without infecting them. That's what we should do: spot problems and solve them before they turn into major disasters.

Related:

This page summarizes some of the points made in the video below that also discusses how pharmaceuticals and surgery — the foundations of mainstream medicine — cannot fully reverse all damage resulting from neglected prevention. Prevention is commonly given lip service but rarely the attention it deserves because over 99% of possible preventive measures, including some major ones, are overlooked.

This is relevant to the disastrous problem we are now experiencing with the coronavirus pandemic. No prior recommendation has addressed the fundamental reason why this calamity is poorly controlled: because germs emitted by people are permitted to randomly disperse through the air, commonly infecting others.

Importantly, my innovations have nothing to do with ultraviolet, ionization, or bipolar ionization. I haven't seen any evidence that they are safe and effective for occupied rooms; ultraviolet undoubtedly kills germs (and may harm people: Germicidal UV lights could be producing indoor air pollutants, study finds), but it cannot neutralize the coronavirus at safe and practical power levels, and it is susceptible to shadowing. Moreover, they “could also transform airborne compounds into potentially harmful substances,” hence impairing indoor air quality by generating “a range of gases and small particles that, when inhaled, are harmful to human health.” Beyond their possible safety risks is the fact that they cannot inactivate SARS-CoV-2 quickly enough. In contrast, my devices rapidly mitigate that risk with complete safety.

It isn't fair to blame individuals, organizations, schools, companies, and politicians for not implementing technology they don't know about, but now that I publicly disclosed what I developed and provided strong evidence in the video for its effectiveness, there is no valid excuse for not utilizing this additional layer of protection. My spectrum of innovation includes ways to safeguard people at little or no cost to introduce and operate the devices, thus enabling protection even for those in economically disadvantaged nations.

A famous person too polarizing to be named in this nonpartisan discussion recently said something no knowledgeable person would quibble with, observing:

“How to keep COVID from happening again is the biggest story of our lives.”

Masks, social distancing, vaccines, and therapeutics are no match for the Delta variant that may very well be eclipsed by others even more nightmarish. The coronavirus from hell is still in the driver seat. My technology can quickly stop it, liberating us from the omnipresent threat of airborne infectious diseases.

The main (63-minute) video

  1. How Einstein and Edison would solve this pandemic: by thinking logically and creatively, bounded by science but not shackled by its frequent pessimism and lack of vision. Relevant quote:

    “We are drowning in a sea of data and starving for knowledge.”
    — Nobel Prize laureate Sydney Brenner, quoted in Biology must generate ideas as well as data. Excerpt: “Researchers seem reluctant to come to biological conclusions or present new ideas.”

    Fear of being wrong has cowered scientists into generating mountains of data but not connecting the dots to propose novel real-world solutions. Predictably, the response to this pandemic is largely based on vaccines, masks (utilized during the 1918 influenza pandemic), and social distancing, which was practiced in antiquity (1, 2, 3).

    “If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.”
    — Charles F. Kettering, inventor, engineer, co-founder of Delco and head of research at General Motors from 1920–1947

    Fear of being wrong also discouraged scientists from addressing racism even though researchers documented evidence of a rapid way to extinguish it. Similarly, medical researchers found tangible evidence that self-censoring (what they term “self-silencing”) damages us physically and mentally yet remains a ubiquitous response to dealing with the cancel culture. Consequently, that information remains siloed in medical journals. Alas, we pay for the research but don't benefit from it. Related: Science needs to address its imagination problem – lives depend on it.
  2. Multiple static and video demonstrations of the efficacy of my technology. Every logical person who watches the video will realize “This is it — this is how we can quickly control the pandemic.”
  3. SARS-CoV-2 has no ability to move on its own; its transmission depends on it being transported through the air. Because air is invisible, most people don't adequately understand how it moves and how that contributes to COVID-19 transmission. By making air motion visible, as I do in the video, this problem becomes obvious, even incontrovertible, as does the efficacy of my system that can markedly safeguard people from the coronavirus and other airborne infectious diseases. “Airborne diseases caused by viruses, bacteria and fungi can spread over distances ranging from a few feet up to hundreds of miles” and “lung infections are the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide,” so my innovations could substantially reduce the global disease burden.
  4. COVID-19 cases termed “mild” can produce agonizing symptoms and persistent, sometimes life-altering problems. One example: “This ‘mild’ covid is the sickest I've ever been.”
  5. Examples illustrating breakthrough infections in a startling number of fully vaccinated individuals, and their alarming consequences.
  6. Eyes are a potential route of SARS-CoV-2 exposure; my technology protects your eyes, nose, and mouth.
  7. Published research documents that 6 feet is not adequate social distancing.
  8. In recent decades, investors have generously funded the digital world but largely ignored many pressing problems in the real world — and we pay a steep price for their misfocus. This pandemic is unfortunately just one of many examples.
  9. The “it won't happen to me” conviction is so firmly embedded in most people that they won't perceive the need for safe air even if they watch this video repeatedly and explore the many references cited. Therefore, they need more than health functionality to tempt them, so my patent-pending system includes ways to make it more diversely useful and fun.
  10. Another pandemic is inevitable, and will likely happen sooner than you think. With the world being increasingly interconnected, it is imperative that we take steps to safeguard air, which can be achieved by my devices that protect you wherever you go.
    Related: December 5, 2024: How worried should we be about Disease X?
  11. Some of this protection should be integrated into vehicles and buildings. We keep hearing about infrastructure; this is the infrastructure we need most.
  12. The coronavirus has several features making it easy to spread, but my technology neutralizes all of them.
  13. Even with masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and vaccines, considerably too many people are now being infected with COVID-19. We need better protection; my system delivers it.
  14. Experts are sometimes the last ones to spot the usefulness of breakthroughs.
  15. Having a solution often truncates the search for better ones.
  16. Infections have been implicated in triggering mental illness, Alzheimer's disease, and obesity.
  17. My technology has numerous secondary benefits. Two that I didn't mention in the video include minimizing exposure to airborne allergens and household dust that may seem innocuous but isn't because researchers documented that dust is often contaminated with chemicals that adversely affect our bodies and minds (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).
  18. Human physiology is too complex for it to be optimized by pharmaceuticals that rarely deliver vibrant physical and mental health. For proof, look at the number of overweight and unhappy doctors: there is an epidemic of burnout, depression, and suicide afflicting the medical profession.
  19. Our collective affinity for quick fixes made us want to believe that vaccines would save the day, but they won't. Analogy: if you had bodyguards equally unable to fully protect you, you'd be looking for additional help. My innovations provide the missing links to better control this pandemic.

October 12, 2021: When breezy, wear masks outdoors to prevent coronavirus exposure
Excerpt: “… researchers … found when a person coughs outdoors, wind flowing in the same direction can propagate the virus faster over longer distances than in calm conditions. ‘The study is significant in that it points to the increased infection risk that coughing in the same direction as the wind could bring about,’ co-author Amit Agrawal said. ‘Based on the results, we recommend wearing masks outdoors, particularly in breezy conditions.’”
Comment: My video made that obvious.
Based on: Effect of co-flow on fluid dynamics of a cough jet with implications in spread of COVID-19

January 4, 2022: Coughing downward reduces spread of respiratory droplets: study
Comment: Pretty obvious, huh? Coughing emits both air and droplets that of course can be propelled more quickly downward by coughing downward, but the effectiveness of that is limited because coughing (as well as sneezing, talking, and breathing) also emits aerosols that can be propelled downward but don't stay there, instead diffusing around rooms unless my technology is used to block that.

Video length: 63 min 28 sec

YouTube did a superb job converting my massive video file into a format suitable for viewing on the Web. The video quality is stellar; the fluctuating audio quality resulted from my second-rate microphone, but my voice is always intelligible. Occasional sounds of my stomach growling (borborygmi) resulted from me skipping meals to complete this project. :-)

My goal was to make the world safe to live in again. The video visually demonstrates how I can achieve that goal, providing substantially better protection than masks, social distancing, and vaccines.
The COVID-safe office (classroom, restaurant/bar, commercial gym, store, doctor's office, nursing home, child care center) doesn't exist
Throughout the pandemic, a spate of ads from a well-known business supply company attempted to deceive people into believing that sanitizing surfaces safeguards them (the hygiene theater distortion), but as the CDC reported (page archive), COVID-19 infections rarely result from touch but instead breathing contaminated air.
  1. Joseph Allen, associate professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, in The Atlantic October 3, 2021: Employers Have Been Offering the Wrong Office Amenities: Workplaces need fresh air, not foosball tables and coffee bars.
    Excerpt: “… about 3 percent of the air you breathed in recently came out of the lungs of the people in the room with you right now.”
  2. Joseph Allen, et al. September 9, 2021: Associations between acute exposures to PM2.5 and carbon dioxide indoors and cognitive function in office workers: a multicountry longitudinal prospective observational study
    Comment: Better air, better thinking.
  3. July 19, 2022: Fewer workers want to be in office full-time than ever, but bosses are winning the back-to-work battle
    Comment: Utilizing my technology could permit employees to return to work safely.
  4. April 26, 2024: Scientists discover higher levels of CO2; increase survival of viruses in the air and transmission risk
    Based on: Ambient carbon dioxide concentration correlates with SARS-CoV-2 aerostability and infection risk

The innovator explains why masks, social distancing, and vaccines won't be enough

Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and United States Secretary of State, is one of the many fully vaccinated people who died of COVID-19 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Since the pandemic began, five times as many police officers died from COVID-19 as from guns despite masks, vaccines, and everything else. We obviously need a better way to more reliably protect people from airborne infectious diseases.

Very early in the pandemic, as various experts emphasized handwashing and trivialized the utility of masks or even strongly discouraged their use, the local hospital exasperated me by instructing employees to NOT wear masks because they “might alarm the patients.”

“Masks do not work. We now have hundreds and hundreds of studies that show it's not an effective practice … The best thing you can do … — nothing's changed — is to go wash your hands, just wash your hands, people. That is the most effective thing that you can do if you don't want to spread the Covid virus.”
— Governor Kristi Noem, September 7, 2023

The masks that most people use don't do nearly enough to minimize COVID-19, but that is also true of handwashing, which does little to stop SARS-CoV-2, which is largely transmitted via the air.

I knew that masks have drawbacks but COVID-19 was obviously a greater risk, so I did my best to persuade them to utilize good masks (not the make-believe cloth masks or surgical masks) but met unfathomable resistance from people who were trained in health but evidently not adequately educated in science.

With that as a preface, it is clear that I am not anti-mask but — because I can think scientifically and logically — I acknowledge their drawbacks that mask proponents attempt to camouflage by cherry-picking data and using strawman fallacies, such as by claiming that “wearing a mask doesn't cause CO2 poisoning” and saying “the public should not believe that masks kill.”

Eating a pound of sugar per day for months won't likely poison or kill you, but that doesn't mean sugar is harmless. While masks don't kill, they indisputably have drawbacks. For example, researchers found that elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels can trigger anxiety and panic as well as impair cognition, especially more complex thinking (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

Example: “Relative to 600 ppm, at 1,000 ppm CO2, moderate and statistically significant decrements occurred in six of nine scales of decision-making performance. At 2,500 ppm, large and statistically significant reductions occurred in seven scales of decision-making performance …”

Other scientists reported that “Human experimental studies have suggested that short-term CO2 exposure beginning at 1000 ppm affects cognitive performances including decision making and problem resolution.” (emphasis added)

During the pandemic, we've witnessed numerous examples of previously normal people doing crazy things, such as outbursts and even violent behavior on commercial airline flights. This has commonly been attributed to pandemic stress yet mask-induced elevations in CO2 may have contributed to poor judgment.

Studies found that “student performance suffers and people have trouble making decisions as carbon dioxide levels rise.” Professor Jose-Luis Jimenez, an aerosol scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder who earned his Ph.D. at MIT, said “We get dumber when there is high CO2.” He added that “ideally, indoor air shouldn't get much above 700 parts per million of CO2.” (Outside air contains about 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide.) More corroboration: “… research has shown that when concentrations exceed 1,000 p.p.m., CO2 can cause drowsiness and can impair cognitive performance on decision-making and problem-solving tasks.”

Scientists reported that “use of face masks (KN95 and valved-respirator) resulted in significant increases in CO2 concentrations,” such as a “10-fold increase in CO2 with KN95 respirator and valved-respirator or 24,000–26,000 PPM at the nasolabial fold, which is greater than the NIOSH 8-h TLV-REL of 5000 PPM.”

It's surprising that anyone questions whether masks promote carbon dioxide retention because it is well-known that masks trap some of the exhaled air and therefore can be used to warm inhaled air. In fact, 3M marketed a mask specifically for that purpose, announced in the December 1974 issue of Popular Science magazine (page 67). Warmed by the airway, exhaled gases include a significant amount of carbon dioxide; the body has no way to inhale recently exhaled nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases while selectively excluding carbon dioxide, so it is indeed inhaled along with the others and contributes to the warming effect.

Carbon dioxide levels averaged 417 parts per million in 2022, a 50% increase from pre-industrial levels. This progressive escalation of CO2 concentration reduces the safety margin above which adverse physiological effects result.

Related:
  1. Possible toxicity of chronic carbon dioxide exposure associated with face mask use, particularly in pregnant women, children and adolescents – A scoping review
  2. The relationships between classroom air quality and children's performance in school
  3. December 6, 2022: Chess study shows masks can put cognitive performance in check
    Excerpt: “… wearing a mask substantially reduced the average quality of player decisions.”
    Based on: The effect of masks on cognitive performance
  4. Yale Climate Connections July 27, 2016: Indoor CO2: Dumb and dumber?
    Excerpt: “Three recent studies of people breathing indoors have documented subtle declines in thinking ability when carbon dioxide increases to 1,000 ppm … There were ‘moderate’ declines in decision making performance at 1,000 ppm compared to 600 ppm. At 2,500 ppm, the drop in mental capacity was ‘astonishingly large.’ [Other researchers] measured a 15 percent decline of cognitive ability scores at 950 ppm and 50 percent declines at 1,400 ppm.”
  5. The Atlantic December 20, 2019: The Human Brain Evolved When Carbon Dioxide Was Lower: There is substantial but inconsistent evidence that as carbon-dioxide levels rise, they could affect human cognition.
    Comment: Just something to ponder: if so, might cognition improve with inhaled CO2 concentrations less than the current atmospheric level of 400 ppm?
  6. May 11, 2022: Inhaled CO2 concentration while wearing face masks: a pilot study using capnography
    Excerpt: “The mean CO2 concentration was 4965±1047 ppm with surgical masks, and 9396±2254 ppm with FFP2 respirators. The proportion of the sample showing a CO2 concentration higher than the 5000 ppm acceptable exposure threshold recommended for workers was 40.2% while wearing surgical masks, 99.0% while wearing FFP2 respirators. … the inhaled air CO2 concentration significantly increased with increasing respiratory rate (with a mean of 10,143±2782 ppm among the participants taking 18 or more breaths per minute, while wearing FFP2 respirators), and was higher among the minors, who showed a mean CO2 concentration of 12,847±2898 ppm, while wearing FFP2 respirators.”
    Comment: From the Wikipedia: “FFP2 masks have similar performance requirements to N95 masks in the United States and KN95 filters of China.”
  7. October 26, 2015: Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments
    Excerpt: “Cognitive function scores were significantly better under Green+ building conditions than in the Conventional building conditions for all nine functional domains. These findings have wide-ranging implications because this study was designed to reflect conditions that are commonly encountered every day in many indoor environments.”
  8. April 21, 2020: Atmospheric CO2 levels can cause cognitive impairment
    Excerpt: “… urban areas typically have around 100 ppm CO2 higher … at 1400 ppm, CO2 concentrations may cut our basic decision-making ability by 25 percent, and complex strategic thinking by around 50 percent …”
  9. May 24, 2021: Study links classroom ventilation, air quality with academic performance
  10. August 23, 2021: N95 respirator mask breathing leads to excessive carbon dioxide inhalation and reduced heat transfer in a human nasal cavity
  11. 2013: Carbon dioxide rebreathing in respiratory protective devices: influence of speech and work rate in full-face masks
  12. April 14, 2021: Poor air quality in classrooms detrimental to wellbeing and learning
    Excerpt: “Previous research conducted by UNSW Professor Mat Santamouris found CO2 levels of up to 4000ppm in classrooms, more than four times the recommended threshold. ‘Under these conditions, both the teacher and the students are sleepy and tired, and their learning capacity is reduced tremendously,’ Professor Santamouris said.”
  13. January 19, 2022: How the COVID-19 pandemic might age us: Infectious disease, loneliness and stress can affect cellular ageing, making us less healthy and shortening lifespans.
  14. January 19, 2022: I'm an ER nurse who's comforted panicked COVID-19 patients as they beg to live. Too often, they die anyway.
    Excerpt: “Upon arrival I … don an N95 mask topped by a surgical mask … Within minutes …, I find it hard to breathe.”
  15. February 1, 2022: Masks and other pandemic measures are needed at school, but can make it harder to hear in classrooms
  16. February 21, 2022: Face masks found to impair nonverbal communication between individuals
    Comment: The extraordinary expressivity of human faces evolved because that is critical to communication. Masking that with masks substantially impairs this key component to civilization.
  17. March 1, 2022: Cloth masks inferior for protection against airborne viral spread
  18. June 12, 2022: I took a CO2 detector on a flight: It showed me when I was most likely exposed to COVID (also posted on Yahoo)
  19. June 17, 2022: Tackling air quality and COVID-19 in the classroom
  20. February 9, 2023: 'National conversation' needed to address air pollution in classrooms, according to researchers
  21. June 20, 2023: Scientists discover critical factors that determine the survival of airborne viruses
    Excerpt: “Opening a window may be more important than originally thought as fresh air with lower carbon dioxide, reduces acid content in the atmosphere and means the virus dies significantly quicker.”

So 4000 ppm is detrimental and 24,000 is not? Only in the minds of those who ignore what various scientists have reported: that elevated carbon dioxide levels indeed have negative effects.

Yet I still believe that COVID-19 poses a greater risk than masks for most individuals. However, that doesn't mean people are forced to choose between masks and nothing because my technology can reduce SARS-CoV-2 exposure much better than masks and can markedly reduce indoor CO2 concentration as well as minimizing exposure to air pollution that has numerous adverse physical and mental effects. Notably, even good-quality masks worn by most healthcare personnel do little to shield from air pollution.

However, there is more in exhaled breath than carbon dioxide; it also contains many VOCs (volatile organic compounds), and it is likely better to dissipate them than to rebreathe them, as would happen if masks retain them.

Do they? To test this, I donned a 3M 8511 N95 mask (which includes an exhalation valve, therefore traps less exhaled gases than other N95 masks) and inserted an electronic VOC sensor into the air space between my face and the mask. I watched in amazement as the readings quickly skyrocketed from roughly 100 – 150 ppb (ambient air) to well over 10,000 ppb. In contrast, holding the sensor roughly one inch in front of my nostrils while quietly breathing resulted in readings of approximately 2000 ppb. I wouldn't draw many conclusions from that until I factor in temperature and humidity (raw sensor readings are susceptible to both), but this rough test suggests that masks partially retain some exhaled gases, not surprisingly.

  1. October 25, 2021: Particle leakage through the exhalation valve on a face mask under flow conditions mimicking human breathing: A critical assessment
    Excerpt: “… we find solid evidence and mechanisms of particle leakage across the valve … Since the inevitable limitations resulting from the basic structure of an exhalation valve with a flapping motion have been confirmed, it is necessary to develop a better exhalation valve to promote both safety and convenience.”
  2. The micro-environmental impact of volatile organic compound emissions from large-scale assemblies of people in a confined space
  3. Volatile Organic Compounds In Normal Human Exhaled Breath: A Long Neglected Pollutant Source
  4. Human Breathomics Database

One of the hallmarks of intelligence is not just knowing something but how quickly it is mentally grasped. Schoolchildren now know that E = mc2, but it took Albert Einstein to initially realize the equivalence of mass and energy. This pandemic is providing a real-world IQ test revealing how swiftly people comprehend crucial information and how rapidly they spot the usefulness of innovations that provide better results than existing alternatives such as masks that reduce SARS-CoV-2 exposure but usually not enough.

Ditto for the six-foot social distancing guideline that was based on politics, not science. Ditto for vaccines that permit too many infections, such as how “70% of fully vaccinated prisoners caught COVID-19 in a Texas Delta outbreak” or “This 900-person delta cluster in Mass. has CDC freaked out—74% are vaccinated.” Numerous other examples corroborate how COVID-19 infections often result in spite of vaccination. Consequently, smart people realize that vaccines won't be enough:

  1. New York Times January 24, 2021: Why Vaccines Alone Will Not End the Pandemic
  2. January 26, 2021: Vaccines alone will not end the pandemic, Columbia University model shows
  3. January 4, 2021: Opinion: There is only a slim chance that the vaccine will stop the COVID pandemic this year
  4. February 7, 2021: Top WHO official says vaccines alone "not enough" to defeat COVID-19
  5. Scientific American February 7, 2021: Vaccines Alone Are Not Enough to Beat COVID: It could take years to immunize everyone, so we need to work on discovering new treatments as well—and fast
  6. March 10, 2021: COVID herd immunity may be unlikely—winter surges could “become the norm”
  7. August 13, 2021: Covid-19: Why we can't count on herd immunity for protection
    Comment: Why we can't count on vaccines: Another compelling reason to not make vaccines our primary preventive strategy: while pandemics threaten us individually, they also strategically imperil nations. If Adolf Hitler could have engineered a very deadly virus and developed an effective vaccine for it, he could have ruled the world without firing a shot by immunizing Germans before unleashing the pathogen. Unfortunately, some current rulers are just as diabolical as Hitler. If they weren't previously considering biological warfare, this pandemic surely planted that possibility in their minds.
  8. Stating the obvious: March 10, 2021: Vaccination isn't the quick coronavirus solution many of us hoped for
  9. March 18, 2021: Nature: Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible: Even with vaccination efforts in full force, the theoretical threshold for vanquishing COVID-19 looks to be out of reach.
  10. March 18, 2021: Georgetown University Medical Center: Vaccines alone may not be enough to end pandemic
  11. The New York Times May 3, 2021: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe: Widely circulating coronavirus variants and persistent hesitancy about vaccines will keep the goal out of reach. The virus is here to stay, but vaccinating the most vulnerable may be enough to restore normalcy.
  12. May 12, 2021: World's Most Vaccinated Nation Is Spooked by Covid Spike: Seychelles has seen a surge in coronavirus cases even though much of its population was inoculated with China's Sinopharm vaccine.
  13. June 13, 2021: The Doctor Who Eliminated Smallpox Says COVID-19 Is Here to Stay: Dr. Larry Brilliant spoke with Harry Siegel about why it's too late to hope for herd immunity despite the “magic” of vaccines, and much more.
  14. June 22, 2021: Israel faces Covid surge as virus circulates even among vaccinated: Delta variant blamed after clusters identified around schools …
  15. June 26, 2021: WHO says fully vaccinated people should continue to wear masks because of Delta variant spread
  16. July 6, 2021: 800 people claimed they were 'COVID-free' or vaccinated for a dance party in the Netherlands. Now 180 people have tested positive.
  17. July 13, 2021: Covid outbreak among vaccinated Vegas hospital workers underscores Delta risks
  18. July 15, 2021: 964 people got COVID-19 after an outdoor music festival, despite compulsory negative tests, vaccines, or other proof of immunity
  19. July 20, 2021: Delta goes to Washington, infects vaccinated Capitol staffers
  20. July 21, 2021: The New COVID Panic: What vaccinated people should really know about their risk from the delta variant.
    Comment: A journalist who believed that breakthrough cases were rare and mild attended a family reunion in which everyone was fully vaccinated yet every adult there contracted COVID-19, which made him miserable. He worries that “vaccinated people are not quite as in the clear as many of us seem to think we are.”
  21. July 31, 2021: 2 major San Francisco hospitals reported that 233 staff members tested positive for COVID-19
    Excerpt: “Most of those staff members were vaccinated …”
  22. August 21, 2021: Former Kentucky lawmaker dies of COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated
  23. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine epidemiologist Allan Massie August 3, 2021: I went to a party with 14 other vaccinated people; 11 of us got COVID
    Excerpt: “… I can tell you that even a ‘mild’ case of COVID-19 is pretty miserable. I've had fever, chills and muscle aches, and I've been weak enough that I can barely get out of bed. … The CDC announced in May that it was only going to collect data on breakthrough infections that led to hospitalization or death … But that means that outbreaks like ours will fly under the radar. Any of us could infect others, apparently including other vaccinated people. … But apparently, whether because of variants or fading immunity, being ‘fully vaccinated’ doesn't necessarily mean you're immune.”
    Comment: FULLY VACCINATED DOESN'T MEAN FULLY PROTECTED.
  24. August 4, 2021: Research shows many with mild COVID-19 infections still experience long-term symptoms
    Based on: Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 in a non-hospitalized cohort: Results from the Arizona CoVHORT
  25. August 8, 2021: What Iceland's rising Covid-19 case count tells us about vaccine efficacy
    Excerpt: “In Iceland, 96% of females and 90% of males 16 years or older have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Its vaccination rate … [is] one of the highest in the world … Yet tests show an alarming number of domestic Covid-19 infections are still happening with the onset of the delta variant. In the US, where vaccination rates are lower, officials have described the virus's ongoing spread as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” But given the lopsided numbers of vaccinated versus unvaccinated people in Iceland, the island country is currently seeing more cases of Covid-19 among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.”
  26. August 13, 2021: I was a breakthrough case. Here's what ‘mild COVID’ was like for me.
    Comment: Dreadful.
  27. The Washington Post: They're called mild cases. But people with breakthrough covid can still feel pretty sick.
  28. September 1, 2021: NEJM: Resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Highly Vaccinated Health System Workforce
    Related: NPR September 12, 2021: I Got A 'Mild' Breakthrough Case. Here's What I Wish I'd Known
    Excerpt: “In the U.S., a study published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine concluded that vaccine effectiveness ‘against any symptomatic disease is considerably lower against the delta variant,’ dropping from over 90% earlier in the year before delta was the predominant strain to only about 65% in July. Research on breakthrough infections over the summer in New York found the vaccines were still overall about 80% effective against any infection. Each study has its limits.”
  29. July 27, 2021: CDC: The coronavirus could be 'just a few mutations' away from evading vaccines
  30. August 1, 2021: Coronavirus transmission among vaccinated people could raise the risk of an even more dangerous variant
  31. August 4, 2021: As the more contagious delta variant circulates, public health experts say herd immunity has become an even more distant goal: Experts are now saying up to 85% or 90% of the population will need to be immune to the virus for herd immunity to take hold
  32. August 11, 2021: New data on coronavirus vaccine effectiveness may be "a wakeup call"
    Excerpt: “Moderna was 76% effective against infection, and Pfizer was only 42% effective.”
    Based on: Comparison of two highly-effective mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 during periods of Alpha and Delta variant prevalence
  33. August 11, 2021: The developer of the AstraZeneca shot says the Delta variant has made herd immunity impossible because vaccinated people can still transmit the virus
  34. August 14, 2021: I'm An Infectious Disease Doctor Yet I Couldn't Protect My Family From The Delta Variant
  35. August 16, 2021: As Covid Cases Spread, Vaccines Won't Be Enough
  36. August 17, 2021: Covid-19: Lockdown not enough to stop Australia's delta variant crisis
  37. August 24, 2021: Ultra-Vaxxed Israel's Crisis Is a Dire Warning to America
  38. August 24, 2021: New Zealand locked down after a single COVID-19 case. Now 148 people are infected, and experts are worried
  39. Transmission event of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant reveals multiple vaccine breakthrough infections
  40. CDC: Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Infections, Including COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections, Associated with Large Public Gatherings – Barnstable County, Massachusetts, July 2021
  41. September 6, 2021: Peter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine: The Latest COVID-19 Surge Is Just the Start of a New Nightmare
  42. September 7, 2021: U.S. COVID-19 case tally tops 40 million, and hospitalizations over Labor Day holiday were more than double last year's
  43. September 3, 2021: U.S. heads into Labor Day with Covid vaccines but a substantially worse outbreak than this time last year
  44. August 26, 2021: U.S. COVID summer surge worse than last year with average of 140,000 daily infections
  45. August 26, 2021: Despite Increase in Vaccinations, COVID-19 Continues to Surge in US
  46. September 7, 2021: COVID cases up more than 3 times vs. one year ago
  47. August 12, 2021: US in ‘much worse situation’ with COVID-19 pandemic than expected, experts say
  48. September 9, 2021: U.S. averaging 1,500 COVID deaths a day for first time since March
  49. September 13, 2021: The Covid spike in highly vaccinated Israel holds grim omens for other economies
  50. September 14, 2021: Fauci warns of possible 'monster' variant of COVID if pandemic isn't stamped out with vaccinations
  51. September 8, 2021: COVID-19 surge in the US: The summer of hope ends in gloom
  52. September 21, 2021: Vermont Covid Stats Could Tell Us Where We're Going
    Excerpt: “Vermont has 88% of adults and 99% of everyone over 65 at least partially vaccinated … [so it is] the most vaccinated state in the United States … [yet] right now they have broken through the levels that existed during the fall and spring surges …”

Unlike typical infections from which you fully recover — or think you do, as I discussed in the videos — COVID-19 can inflict various types of long-term damage, including that affecting the brain:

  1. January 13, 2022: Blood markers of brain cell damage higher over short term in COVID-19 patients than in Alzheimer's patients, study finds
  2. April 8, 2021: Experts alarmed by number of COVID survivors with brain disorders
  3. January 18, 2022: Mild COVID cases still lead to attention and memory issues – study
  4. January 6, 2022: Pandemic may affect infants' brain development; coronavirus can trigger kidney scarring
    Related:
  5. January 12, 2022: The COVID generation: how is the pandemic affecting kids’ brains?
    Excerpt: “… infants born during the pandemic scored lower … on tests of gross motor, fine motor and communication skills compared with those born before it … It didn't matter whether their birth parent had been infected with the virus or not; there seemed to be something about the environment of the pandemic itself. [Pediatrician Dr. Dani] Dumitriu was stunned. ‘We were like, oh, my God,’ she recalled. ‘We're talking about hundreds of millions of babies.’”
  6. July 29, 2021: Covid-19 could lead to cognitive decline, especially among older adults, new research suggests
  7. October 23, 2021: People who've had COVID-19 are facing memory problems months after contracting the disease, new study says: 'They can't think'
  8. July 30, 2021: CDC report shows mounting evidence about dangerous delta variant; researchers study possible link between virus, dementia …
    Excerpt: “[The report] shows that those who are vaccinated are three times less likely to get COVID-19 than those who are unvaccinated. Once infected, though, vaccinated people are just as contagious as someone without that protection — meaning they need to wear a mask and keep their distance to avoid passing on the virus.”
  9. A 15-year-old described what it's like to have long COVID, from forgetting the previous day's schoolwork to sitting in the shower to avoid fainting
  10. April 20, 2023: The NIH has poured $1 billion into long Covid research — with little to show for it
    Comment: Prevention is the best medicine.
  11. Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19
    Excerpt: “People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits … [even in] non-hospitalised cases … the 0.47 SD [standard deviation] global composite score reduction for the hospitalized with ventilator sub-group … equates to a 7-point difference in IQ.”
  12. Will COVID-19 have long-term effects on the brain?
    Excerpt: “An exhaustive review of scientific papers … reveals ‘convincing evidence’ that SARS-CoV-2 can … contribute to the development — or worsening — of Alzheimer's disease …”
  13. February 3, 2022: Small study finds Alzheimer's-like changes in some COVID patients' brains
  14. Cognitive neuroscientist Jessica Bernard, Associate Professor, Texas A&M University: September 24, 2021: Preliminary research finds that even mild cases of COVID-19 leave a mark on the brain – but it's not yet clear how long it lasts
    Comment: Significant anatomical and functional changes were seen in COVID-19 survivors, alarmingly with equal damage resulting in people with “mild” infections as well as those with serious disease requiring hospitalization.
  15. November 10, 2021: How COVID Might Sow Chaos in the Brain: SARS-CoV-2 appears to travel widely across the cerebral cortex
    Excerpt: “One study showed that more than 80 percent of COVID patients encountered neurological complications. … Electroencephalography measurements … revealed that even mild COVID cases can lead to altered brain activity. … A composite measure of brainwave strength was lower in the COVID group than in the control participants when assessed, on average, four months later. Some of the aberrant signaling had resolved at eight months in those who had tested positive for COVID. But that group as a whole still had lower readings for some measurements; the combination of COVID and social distancing may have had lingering consequences. ‘The direct effect COVID seems to have on EEG power is analogous to effects that we see when people are diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, which can develop into Alzheimer's disease and related dementias,’ says Allison B. Sekuler, senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute.”
    Comment: A relative who trivialized COVID-19 developed it, which triggered a delirium in which she lost bowel and bladder control, forgot her name and address, forgot to eat, and for several days didn't realize she was hospitalized. After discharge, she was unable to work and had to relearn how to use her phone.
  16. What doesn't kill you makes you dumber: Strengthening the link between infectious disease, intelligence and personality

According to Massachusetts General Hospital researchers, SARS-CoV-2 increases the risk of stillbirth. In the decades to come, we will discover more of what it does to children who survive.

COVID-19 has infected multiple animal species. They won't wear masks, practice social distancing, or be coerced into vaccinations and booster shots, but they will generate new variants that may spread back into humans and give us yet another nightmare by being more transmissible and deadly. The technology I developed is the only feasible way to reliably protect us from all future variants and the ever-present threat of the next pandemic.

People are not wired for nonstop uncertainty, but the pandemic delivered endless risk, with any of the hundreds of people you encounter daily potentially able to infect you — even if you and they are vaccinated. That risk can be ignored or trivialized but not eliminated by anything except my technology.

Transportation evolved from walking to riding horses then trains, cars, and planes. The advantages of some innovations are readily apparent and hence quickly adopted whereas in others, having solutions undermines the incentive to search for better ones. Because masks, social distancing, vaccines, and even lockdowns failed to adequately control the pandemic, thinking they will now is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and expecting a better outcome. We need more reliable ways to safeguard us from all airborne infectious diseases, so I developed them.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

With masks, social distancing, and vaccines failing to do enough, thinking people should welcome my technology that adds a crucial layer of protection, essentially giving room occupants their own personal airspace.

The American Hospital Association advised that “masks are still needed in hospitals and other health care settings” even “if you are fully vaccinated.” Unfortunately, the noxiousness of wearing a mask 8 to 12 hours per day contributes to the burnout nurses are experiencing at my local hospital, and likely yours, too. With nurses at the breaking point (1, 2, 3, 4), expecting them to wear masks indefinitely isn't realistic.

Related November 3, 2021: Trust Us: Nurses Are at the Breaking Point: The pandemic has brought the nursing profession into crisis; the solution is in the public's hands. You think it's bad when restaurants are short-staffed? Imagine what would happen if nurses fed up with being treated like second-class citizens walked off the job: patients would suffer and die, and administrators might regret viciously resisting wage increases enabling nurses to keep up with inflation. They might also regret not doing more to address some of the many problems nurses face daily.

The next section, on my experiences with respiratory gas alterations, is crucially relevant to YOU and making the world a better place by following advice from Thomas Edison, who excelled in solving problems.

Respiratory gas alterations

My experiences with respiratory gas alterations

I enjoy performing surgery but chose another specialty because wearing surgical masks adversely affected my thinking, perhaps because I paid for college and medical school by working in a job that damaged my lungs, diminishing their reserve capacity.

To protect my lungs, I routinely wear an N95 or better mask while mowing with a large (30-inch wide), heavy mower up and down hills so steep it would slide downhill if I followed the usual advice to sidehill while cutting on slopes. That Toro® mower is self-propelled but slips while ascending hills, compelling me to apply significant force.

Initially, it's not too bad, but when I begin huffing and puffing with the mask visibly crumpling with every inhalation, I feel anxious and sometimes even panicky, as if I can't get enough air and can't wait to rip the mask off my face. Then it gets worse when the mask is soaked with sweat.

Then I wonder how much worse it must be for people in hot, humid areas. Then I wonder about what Thomas Edison said: that there must be a better way: and there is: my method to safeguard air can protect people anywhere, including while mowing. Or eating, working, walking, in school, visiting the dentist, etc.

Thinking of research linking respiratory gas (e.g., carbon dioxide) alteration with impaired judgment reminds me of the mistakes I made during the many months I spent in Class IV heart failure, constantly short of breath, even at rest. Our judgmental culture is eager to lambaste people for blunders — and now, with the Internet, to never forget. The assumption by people not trained in medicine is: “that is you.” In reality, that can be just another manifestation of a physical problem — in this case, not getting enough oxygen to my brain for it to function normally.

Working as an ER doctor, I had a ringside seat witnessing similar behavioral alterations affecting everyone from prominent businessmen and celebrities to ordinary folks of all ages. None of this is a surprise to people who understand neuroscience and neurology. By digging deep into them and spending many years scouring the medical literature, I discovered some intriguing information and connected the dots to understand, for example, why a historically disadvantaged group is plagued by increased criminal propensity, lower IQ, and substantially lower average income. In my book, problems are just problems to be solved, and I think I can in this case by understanding their roots, which highlights their solutions as being obvious.

Obvious — that is, obvious to those who can connect the dots but evidently not “experts” who have equal access to the medical literature yet are too complacent to fully avail themselves of it. And as they rest on their laurels, human potential is needlessly wasted. I intend to correct that.

One possible impediment is not biological but social with the cancel culture making some people sacrosanct, as if difficulties statistically associated with them cannot be publicly discussed even if that is motivated by a sincere desire to help, not criticize. This is but one of many harms stemming from the cancel culture, which has everyone walking on eggshells and censoring themselves, which — as scientists documented — damages us physically and mentally, including by impairing cognition. Conceivably, this might help explain why the Flynn effect is plateauing and even regressing (1, 2, 3).

The cancel culture may seem to be an unstoppable cultural plague but I conceived a way to neutralize them and restore free speech, which is the ultimate foundation of other freedoms.

Notably, Flynn effect regression isn't limited to those in the bottom half of the IQ bell curve.* During the pandemic, for example, we've witnessed prominent experts make shockingly egregious mistakes, such as discouraging mask utilization after which they were pressured into recommending DIY masks but stupidly advised using some of the worst possible fabrics.

What they should have done is what I did early in the pandemic: make a device that scientifically analyzed fabric filtering performance in single and multiple layers to find those most able to help overcome the filter media shortage. Interestingly, researchers later found that certain combinations of common fabrics sometimes outperform N95 masks.

*Relevant to that:
  1. Professor Robert J. Sternberg (fascinating man!): Why Real-World Problems Go Unresolved and What We Can Do about It: Inferences from a Limited-Resource Model of Successful Intelligence
    Excerpt: “… despite worldwide increases in IQ since the beginning of the 20th century, there are so many unresolved and dramatic problems in the world.”
  2. Robert J. Sternberg: Speculations on the Role of Successful Intelligence in Solving Contemporary World Problems
  3. Robert J. Sternberg: A Theory of Adaptive Intelligence and Its Relation to General Intelligence
  4. Robert J. Sternberg: Rethinking what we mean by intelligence
  5. Robert J. Sternberg: COVID-19 Has Taught Us What Intelligence Really Is
  6. Diane F. Halpern and Dana S. Dunn: Critical Thinking: A Model of Intelligence for Solving Real-World Problems
    Excerpt: “Most theories of intelligence do not directly address the question of whether people with high intelligence can successfully solve real world problems.”
  7. James Kaufman: Creativity as a Stepping Stone toward a Brighter Future
    Excerpt: “If IQs continue to rise over generation, why has the world been unable to solve basic recurrent problems? This paper argues that creativity, which is overlooked in IQ tests and showing no signs of a similar increase, may be part of the reason of why the Flynn Effect has not led to a better world.”
    Comment: The trillion-dollar question that Ivy League universities and Stanford cannot answer is where creativity comes from and specifically how to foster it. This ability is latent in everyone but usually suppressed by educational and occupational systems that prioritize obedience and mimicry: doing what others say and do — or else. Our society gives lip service to celebrating creativity but “the pioneers take the most arrows.”
    Related:
  8. July 21, 2022: Doctors are concerned about the risk of hospital-acquired covid-19: People who go to hospital for non-covid treatment are at higher risk of the virus compared with the general public, which is why high levels of hospital-acquired covid-19 in England are worrying some doctors
    Comment: Implementing my technology could prevent this ongoing risk.

“Creativity is the most powerful competitive advantage a business can have. Companies need to fizz with new ideas and fresh thinking. But there's a problem — there just aren't enough fizzy people around.”
— Tham Khai Meng, co-chairman and worldwide chief creative officer of Ogilvy & Mather (source)

Relevant to that, I aced college and the MCAT exam, doing so well I was the one person accepted into my medical school class of 256 students with just three years of college. I graduated at the very top of my class in medical school, yet even though I dearly wanted to innovate, I lacked the creativity to do that, going decade after decade generating nothing more than trivial solutions to small problems. Then I serendipitously discovered catalysts to amplify creativity, flooding me with thousands of ideas to solve problems, including some of the most pressing ones in the world. The bottom line is that I am now very creative but previously wasn't.

By helping others unlock their creative potential, we could solve one of the world's most fundamental problems: there is no shortage of intellectual wattage but rarely do brilliant people generate novel ideas to solve big problems. Instead, even small problems often go unsolved as the overall list of problems has grown into a mountain of difficulties plaguing everyday life.

In the United States, this has evolved into a national sport of attacking other Americans as if they are the problem, yet as we become increasingly adept at hammering others, no problems are solved other than giving our enemies cause for celebration. United we stand, divided we fall.

Now another way in which all of this is relevant to you: decades after teetering on the edge of death with Class IV heart failure — when most class IV heart failure patients would have died even with the supposedly best treatment (1, 2) — I am in better shape than most people one-third my age and transcended my prior baseline, now able to outwork many teenagers and perform hard physical work all day long, loving every minute — except while wearing a mask.

Crucially, I achieved that recovery on my own without modern medicine that is simultaneously wonderful yet woefully unable to help most people with common problems overcome them, whether they are physical difficulties or emotional/cognitive limitations.

What doctors and other healthcare practitioners can do for patients is both a godsend and very disappointing in that they can't do more for more folks, with one example being the inability of the medical profession to solve the epidemic of burnout, depression, and suicide plaguing doctors. I know many of them, and few are happy, most doing their best to camouflage their angst, which necessitates self-censoring to present a palatably professional veneer to the world even though that self-silencing process damages them physically and mentally.

They can't help themselves in this and many other ways (such as being overweight), but they can help you? Does. Not. Compute.

As Edison suggested, there is a better way. He said, “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

He was partially wrong in that medicines will still be needed, but mostly correct in highlighting how prevention can obviate the need for most medical care and the misery associated with it as people prematurely succumb to countless preventable problems.

Edison was not familiar with the word “exposome” that continues to be a mystery to most people and even physicians who fail to grasp how ignoring over 99% of possible preventive measures inevitably results in many physical and mental problems that cannot be fully reversed with pharmaceuticals or surgery. I will prove that beyond any reasonable doubt in an upcoming book that is now thousands of pages long and growing every day, filled with numerous real-world examples of how people doom themselves by failing to dodge avoidable problems. Edison was correct: there is a better way.

The air you breathe is part of your exposome. The primary approaches to this pandemic — masks, inadequate social distancing, and iffy vaccines — are premised on the hope that they can somehow prevent infections resulting from breathing contaminated air. As I mentioned in the introductory video near the top of this page, that is a very stupid approach.

Instead, it makes much more sense to breathe clean air free of not only the coronavirus but also other airborne pathogens and air pollution that, as I hinted throughout this website and the videos, damages us physically and mentally in numerous ways that the medical profession has yet to fully grasp even though the medical literature superbly documents the imperative to better address the ultimate roots of those problems.

Doctors now strapped for time don't have time to learn everything they should know about the exposome, so I am endeavoring to encapsulate that information in a new medical specialty and to distill it into technological solutions so that anyone can function as the “doctor of the future” as Edison imagined, helping them achieve better physical and mental health than they can by thinking that pharmaceuticals and surgery are sufficient foundations of health.

New ways to prevent and treat infectious diseases

We need new approaches to prevent and treat infectious diseases. Everyone knows of the ongoing problem with antimicrobial resistance and doctors realize that some infections don't respond well to conventional medical therapy, such as drugs and occasionally surgery to drain abscesses.

I had such a problem many years ago and repeatedly tried oral and topical antibiotics as well as surgical drainage, which left me so frustrated I developed a new approach that evolved into a device forming the basis of my first patent. Its effects stem from two principles, one of which is rapidly stimulating natural immunity, which is crucially important because the outcome of infections can hinge on how quickly the immune system responds: too slowly, and germs get the upper hand.

This battle goes on every minute of your life. Natural immunity is so effective that people require antibiotics (and other antimicrobials) for only a very small percentage of their pathogen exposures. Nevertheless, such drugs are frequently used and often expensive as well as fraught with side effects and not uncommonly disappointing efficacy.

I wanted something better, so I developed it and after years of testing, it has never failed to quickly eradicate the infection. The cost per treatment is negligible (less than one penny) and the device itself could be inexpensive and very portable. I use mine — currently the only one in the world; more about that in a minute — to treat infections and prevent them, such as on cuts or scrapes, especially when they are contaminated with yucky stuff, to put it colloquially. Again, its batting average is still 100%.

My device can also accelerate healing because immunity is integral to that process (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). As Harvard Medical School's Christopher Garris put it, “immune cells are chief orchestrators of healing.” It can also strongly modulate itching and pain. When I itch, I no longer reach for some topical goop or Benadryl® (diphenhydramine) because my device works better, faster, and doesn't have side effects such as dry mouth or sleepiness, plus it is cheaper and I never run out.

I'm not satisfied with that, though, so I designed something that utilizes the same operational principles (hence it will work equally well) but is — well, I haven't yet filed for a patent on it so I won't divulge any secrets, but it is Star Trek cool, bound to cause jaws to drop in amazement.

Having thought of that many years ago, why haven't I done anything with it? My first patent was paid for by an innovation think tank that devoted so little money to marketing it predictably fizzled. Before that happened, it spun off many of its innovations to what strike me as shell corporations, including the one that owns most of the rights to my patent, with me owning the remainder. If that were my only idea I would have marketed it promptly, but I have countless other projects, including several focused on blocking airborne pathogen transmission.

Last fall, well over a decade after I first conceived the idea leading to my first patent, I spotted an article in which researchers revealed how the operative principle I used indeed boosted the speed and degree of the early immune response, thus further corroborating that my seemingly crazy idea has merit.

My ultimate boss at that innovation think tank was fond of saying that crazy ideas sometimes work. Indeed they do, and every major advance begins with a seemingly crazy idea that others missed.

I have a long list of others. One of them is a nifty way to quickly switch off appetite — not permanently, of course, but for up to a few hours, long enough so you could skip a meal and eventually lose weight without being tormented by hunger. I know all about that, because I once was alarmingly overweight, so addicted to yummy food I couldn't resist stuffing myself several times per day. Aided by innovation, I quickly lost that weight and have effortlessly kept it off for decades, maintaining what is usually a 31-inch waistline without drugs, herbs, or dieting, something I refuse to do, cognizant that I lack sufficient willpower.

At the beginning of this page I mentioned how foolish it would be if people designed and built their own car brakes. While that is true for almost everyone, it wasn't for me because I had a crazy idea that I could markedly improve automotive steering and braking on everything from dry pavement to the most challenging conditions, such as wet glare ice. Not just a bit better, but stopping in a small fraction of the usual distance.

I had that idea bouncing around inside my head for years when I heard about a local teenager killed when the driver — her date — turned in front of an oncoming vehicle as they headed for the County Fair. This angered me enough that I put aside other projects and built various prototypes, testing them over the next few years on paved and unpaved surfaces in all conditions: dry, wet, snowy, slushy, and icy.

Amazed by the results, I made a short video documenting the performance but never did anything with it, discouraged by hearing one too many stories that automakers are not interested in ideas generated by outsiders, or at least not interested in paying for them — tragically, because as Marina Bolotnikova reported in America's car crash epidemic, “driving is the most dangerous thing most Americans do every day” (wrong; breathing is), killing tens of thousands of people and severely injuring millions more, creating a public health crisis manifesting the need for a much better way to control automotive steering and braking. Automakers have no giant breakthroughs in those departments, but I do and have the evidence to prove it.

Because that technology could help prevent most automotive fatalities, whatever I hear of one, I think of how needless it was. But our innovation system is broken, lavishly funding trivial ideas such as more messaging apps we don't need while neglecting innovators such as myself who generate meritorious ideas that collect dust. As Edison said, there must be a better way.

ProgressSHACK.com
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Failing to prepare: a titanic mistake

  1. By The Atlantic superstar Ed Yong September 29, 2021: We're Already Barreling Toward the Next Pandemic: This one is far from over, but the window to prepare for future threats is closing fast.
    Excerpt: “With every new pathogen—cholera in the 1830s, HIV in the 1980s—Americans rediscover the weaknesses in the country's health system, briefly attempt to address the problem, and then ‘let our interest lapse when the immediate crisis seems to be over,’ Fee and Brown wrote.”
  2. Elizabeth Fee and Theodore M. Brown November/December 2002: The Unfulfilled Promise Of Public Health: Déjà Vu All Over Again
    Excerpt: “We have failed to sustain [public health] progress in any coherent manner. If we do not wish to repeat past mistakes, we should learn lessons from the past to guide us in the future.”
  3. World Health Organization October 1, 2021: The best time to prevent the next pandemic is now: countries join voices for better emergency preparedness
  4. March 11, 2021: ‘Never again’: the race to prevent the next pandemic: Another pandemic is inevitable. But there are things that can be done to lessen its impact – and we must start now, experts say
  5. By Tom Frieden (CDC Director 2009 – 2017) February 12, 2021: Will We Be Ready for the Next Pandemic? The world must move urgently in 2021 to develop strategies and systems for fighting diseases that could be even deadlier than Covid-19
  6. Wired magazine May 5, 2021: It's Already Time to Stop the Next Pandemic. Can a Prize Help?
    Comment: Yes. I have no shortage of ideas, but no more money to further develop them. Ideas on paper or prototypes in my garage can't prevent disease and save lives; commercializing innovations requires money and hence people willing to invest it to solve big problems that will inevitably otherwise haunt us.
  7. November 8, 2021: The US was not prepared for a pandemic. Free market capitalism and government deregulation may be to blame
    Excerpt: “It's unclear when the pandemic will come to an end. What may be an even more important question is whether the U.S. will be prepared for the next one. The past year and a half suggests that the answer may be no.”
    Comment: The Biden administration initially proposed $30 billion to address pandemic preparedness but slashed that to $2.7 billion with “roughly half of that sum is dedicated to modernizing CDC laboratories, a vital endeavor, but not a core component of the administration's preparedness agenda.” In contrast, his budget deal includes $555 billion for climate measures (1, 2) — 205 times as much.
    Related:

Stephen Colbert joked about a crew member on the sinking Titanic announcing he would “look out for icebergs now.” Unfortunately, this mindset permeates our culture as people respond to disasters instead of preventing them.

Heeding the “always be prepared” motto is wise. Bill Gates gave a TED talk in March of 2015 warning that we weren't prepared for the next outbreak. We heard his words, but the world didn't get the message. As a result, the greatest potentially preventable disaster in history was not prevented.

Even if vaccines eventually end the COVID-19 crisis, they will do nothing to prevent the next pandemic and subsequent ones. Scientists will scramble to develop vaccines and other drugs but after many decades of trying, we have no good pharmaceutical approaches to prevent or treat many airborne infectious diseases. Sooner or later, one will emerge that is highly infectious and so lethal it could kill billions of people.

My technology could prevent that, but we don't need to learn that painful lesson before we get serious about infectious disease prevention. We already have plenty of good reasons, beginning with influenza and “colds” and ending with the stark reality that infections trigger countless problems, including birth defects, impaired cognition, accelerated aging, and reduced lifespan. The videos posted on this page provide more examples of the price we pay for trivializing prevention.

  1. February 1, 2022: First virus infection linked with infections later in life
    Excerpt: “Asymptomatic viral infections in the first days and weeks of a baby's life are associated with an increased risk of respiratory infections later in life, research suggests.”
    Comment: If it spreads by air, my technology can prevent it.
  2. November 7, 2022: Study unveils the compositions and origins of global airborne bacteria on Earth
    Excerpt: “Their findings … shows that humans and animals are among the primary sources of global airborne bacteria.”

My upcoming book focusing on the exposome and other aspects of prevention is already about 18 times longer than an average book because we neglect or trivialize most preventable problems, then belatedly discover that pharmaceuticals and surgery usually cannot fully reverse all of the damage. As a result, most deaths are premature, lopping years to decades off our lives yet with few realizing this because others make the same mistakes, reducing average lifespan and sometimes radically shortening it, such as a friend who graduated from Notre Dame, became an engineer, married, had children and a storybook life until she died at age 30 from an infection transmitted via the air.

COVID-19 can affect the central nervous system producing damage that manifests in various ways, including stroke and new-onset psychosis (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). History tidbit: “Past pandemics have demonstrated that diverse types of neuropsychiatric symptoms, such as encephalopathy, mood changes, psychosis, neuromuscular dysfunction, or demyelinating processes, may accompany acute viral infection, or may follow infection by weeks, months, or longer in recovered patients.”

That germs affect the body is so obvious it is surprising why there isn't wider recognition of their effects on the mind, which include heightened risk of depression, anxiety, crime, impaired scholastic achievement, and slowed reaction time increasing the risk of traffic accidents (1, 2, 3) and less success in certain sports.

  1. Book: Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness
  2. January 1, 2013: Guns, Germs, and Stealing: Exploring the Link between Infectious Disease and Crime
  3. June 22, 2020: Does the Punishment Fit the Crime (and Immune System)? A Potential Role for the Immune System in Regulating Punishment Sensitivity
    Excerpt: “Together, these results provide evidence of a link between the activities of the immune system and punishment sensitivity, which may have implications for criminal justice outcomes.”
  4. Sex Differences in the Effect of Inflammation on Subjective Social Status: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Endotoxin in Healthy Young Adults
  5. June 23, 2020: A brewing storm: The neuropsychological sequelae of hyperinflammation due to COVID-19

Much more often than we realize, problems with our spouses, children, other family, co-workers, bosses, neighbors, and others ultimately result from infectious diseases but even doctors (half of whom graduated in the bottom 50% of their class) usually don't fully grasp this reality. There is no need to wait for additional evidence because we already have plenty indicating that we dearly need a more universal way to reduce the risk of all infectious diseases, not just the latest one hogging our attention. This site introduces you to some of my innovations to minimize infectious disease risk, but I have many others.

As social media came to dominate the United States, we selected for leaders who were politically correct as opposed to correct, leaving us with medical experts who initially advised Americans to avoid masks, then utilize ones made from some of the worst possible materials — then pretending as if perfunctory utilization was fine, then that six feet was enough when it clearly wasn't, then acting as if all COVID-19 vaccines are worth recommending, with all of that following many months of them ignoring several ways to reduce the incidence and severity of COVID-19 infection, including the ultimate way: innovations to block airborne germ transmission. Yes, Mr. Edison, there is a better way.

Repeating the admonition by Francis Bacon in 1625: “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.”

Easiest pop quiz ever:

Which is correct?
(a) It is better to permit airborne germs to diffuse as they now do and infect people.
(b) It is better to block airborne pathogen transmission so they don't infect people.

I rest my case. Unfortunately, too many experts rest on their laurels, too complacent to burn the midnight oil and generate innovative solutions. Instead, they want us to rely on vaccines we can't rely on. I want much better results.

You?

The need for fresh approaches motivated me years ago to develop a way to jumpstart the early immune response; that technology led to my first patent. The need for fresh approaches incentivized me to develop an alternative to handwashing and hand sanitizers, both of which are fraught with drawbacks. The need for fresh approaches inspired me to develop innovations solving one of the most insurmountable infectious disease challenges: how to avoid inhaling germs recently exhaled by others.

  1. November 18, 2021: Disease control chief: "All of Germany is one big outbreak"
    Excerpt: “Germany has entered a ‘nationwide state of emergency’ because of surging coronavirus infections … regular medical care cannot be guaranteed anymore in some parts of the country because hospitals and intensive care wards are overstretched.”
  2. November 19, 2021: With COVID cases spiking, no end in sight
  3. November 19, 2021: Axios: We're still not taking the pandemic seriously
    Excerpt: “… institutional inflexibility has left us at risk of further COVID waves and disruption and unprepared for the inevitable next pandemic. … The bottom line: The nearly 800,000 Americans who've died so far from COVID-19 are proof we've lost this pandemic, but if the U.S. finally exits it without fundamental change, it'll be set up to lose the next one.”
    Comment: The whack-a-mole approach to infectious diseases is leaving a trail of personal and economic destruction that prompted me to develop new ways to block pathogen transmission via contact as well as the air, as disclosed above. I also developed a device capable of augmenting the early immune response. It works very well for skin and other superficial infections. I suspect that its operative principle could be applied to some deeper infections, but I haven't tested it for that application.
  4. December 5, 2021: Gottlieb: Variant-specific vaccines 'may not work'
    Comment: More evidence that the whack-a-mole approach doesn't work well, and that vaccines in general are a poor tool to control this pandemic.
  5. December 6, 2021: Next pandemic could be more lethal than COVID, vaccine creator says
  6. Frank Contacessa November 29, 2021: Time to think beyond the vax? Reflections from a COVID-stricken doc
    Excerpt: “Maybe we've put too much faith in the notion that we'd be able to vaccinate our way out of this mess. … There is one more approach that I've heard few people talk about. The one risk factor that has led to more complications and death from COVID is obesity. This has not been talked about enough.”
    Comment: Based on the current SARS-CoV-2 variants and vaccines, they will never succeed in giving us our old lives back. My technology could achieve that and slash the rate of other airborne infectious diseases, but America is mired in another epidemic: one of stupidity. Everyone trained in science who can think logically can look at the technology disclosed in this website and realize that it would be highly effective in safeguarding people from airborne pathogens, but so far everyone continues to put their faith in what isn't working well, such as vaccines only 40% effective in blocking transmission, rather than my technology that can block over 99% of airborne pathogens.
    I previously developed some nifty solutions to obesity, but the world so blind at spotting good ideas again prefers to focus on what isn't working. Perhaps the root problem isn't stupidity but pessimism making people think that breakthroughs are no longer possible.
  7. November 20, 2021: Michigan shatters peak COVID-19 case rate. 1 in 10 cases in US are from the state
  8. December 3, 2021: West Michigan hospitals are full, reporting record numbers of COVID-19 patients
    Comment: Masks, social distancing, and vaccines are adding up to a disaster that is bound to get worse. It's high time for Plan B — and I had it available soon after the pandemic began.
  9. December 3, 2021: ‘We're paralyzed’: Wisconsin hospitals struggle to transfer and place new patients
  10. December 6, 2021: ‘The picture is getting pretty dark’: NH hospitals buckle under weight of COVID surge
    Comment: And it's only the beginning of winter! Hopefully this will help end the myth that masks, social distancing, and vaccines can sufficiently control this pandemic.
  11. December 6, 2021: Wayne County declares state of emergency as COVID-19 cases spike
  12. December 7, 2021: A doctor's call to arms: 'Rejoin us on the front line' as pandemic worsens in Michigan
  13. December 10, 2021: South Korea reports its worst virus surge since pandemic
  14. December 10, 2021: Vermont college switching to virtual learning due to COVID-19 surge
  15. December 10, 2021: Psaki: It's OK to let children eat lunch in the cold 'to keep kids safe'
    Comment: Why not protect them with my system?
    Excerpt: “White House press secretary Jen Psaki suggested Friday that it is OK for kids to eat their lunches outside in cold temperatures in an effort to maintain safety amid the COVID-19 pandemic. … Psaki claimed the 'vast majority of parents appreciate' measures schools are taking to combat COVID-19 …”
    Comment: Eating outside in cold weather is a Stone Age solution. I have a 21st century solution.
  16. December 16, 2021: Health official: Northern Michigan remains hot spot for COVID-19 activity
  17. January 3, 2022: Michigan schools, flights, businesses grapple with latest COVID-19 surge
  18. January 19, 2022: COVID and schools: Australia is about to feel the full brunt of its teacher shortage
  19. November 16, 2021: Georgetown medical professor and immunologist predicts there will be a fully vaccine-resistant COVID variant by the spring: “Sadly, every coronavirus prediction I've made has pretty much come true. I hope I'm wrong this time," the Enochian BioSciences CEO told Fortune.
  20. November 23, 2021: Coronavirus: former heads of pandemic review panel warn 'the world is losing time'
    Excerpt: “Governments are not moving fast enough to end the pandemic or to prevent another one, warned the former heads of an independent body tasked with grading the world on its response to Covid-19.”
  21. December 8, 2021: Germany records highest daily COVID deaths since February
  22. December 26, 2021: Iowan dies after a 15-day wait for a medical center bed. His survivors blame the COVID surge
    Comment: A Michigan relative recently waited days for a hospital room, then received second-rate care. However, it is difficult to blame staff for problems that originate in the fact that our medical system, as expensive as it is, is not adequately funded to optimally deliver care in good times and is woefully underfunded to deal with crises such as this pandemic.
    The ultimate solution is not to throw money at the problem but to better address the root causes of the diseases and conditions that plague us. Prevention is the only viable option, but we live in a world of 8-second attention spans. Few people read about health and hardly any focus on the exposome, which causes or contributes to most health problems. In my upcoming 4000-page mega-book, I make health and even the exposome interesting by sugarcoating it with creative writing and spotlighting topics that interest people, such as sex, brainpower, mood, and appearance because almost everything good for them is conducive to health.
  23. May 3, 2021: The Doctor Is In, but Scared to See You: Some health care providers, even those already vaccinated, have developed patient hesitancy and are reluctant to leave the comfort of telehealth.
    Comment: The fear is understandable yet it is profoundly disappointing that so many physicians haven't yet grasped the ultimate root of this pandemic as well as other airborne diseases: that we inhale air recently exhaled by others. COVID-19 vaccines reduce transmission but not nearly enough. Pretending that those vaccines adequately safeguard us is akin to sprinkling a highly selective antibiotic into your toilet bowl and thinking that the water is safe to drink. Killing one pathogen doesn't protect you from the others — obvious in that example, yet strangely not with this pandemic that is (in late November 2021) again rebounding even in highly vaccinated areas.
    Physician fear metastasizes into second-rate care (telemedicine cannot fully substitute for seeing patients in person) yet the fallout isn't limited to that. For example, whenever staff at my local hospital (and likely yours) enter a COVID patient's room, they must first don (apply) protective clothing from head to foot and afterward doff (remove) it, wasting precious time and creating a mountain of waste and expenses. My technology could obviate that need so nurses could zip in and out as quickly as they once did.
  24. The New York Times November 23, 2021: Despite Vaccines, the U.S. Has Lost More Lives to COVID This Year Than Last
  25. November 24, 2021: 'False sense of security' around vaccines as Europe again COVID epicentre - WHO
    Excerpt: “Europe is once again the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic amid a "false sense of security" over the protection offered by vaccines, World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said …”
  26. November 24, 2021: Vaccines alone are not enough to control COVID spread, WHO warns
    Excerpt: “WHO says vaccines reduce COVID-19 transmission by 40%”
    Comment: Not nearly good enough. In contrast, my technology can reduce airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens by over 99%.
    Related: December 28, 2022: Why we probably won't get new covid-19 vaccines in 2023
    Comment: Repeating what I said, current vaccines are not nearly good enough. Vaccine cheerleaders like to tout the efficacy of vaccines in reducing the risk of hospitalization and death, which they do for COVID-19. However, despite their disappointing effectiveness in blocking infection (something my technology does superbly, for this and other airborne pathogens), vaccine proponents overlook how other factors affect disease outcomes substantially more than vaccines. I analyzed some of those factors (not all are yet known) in my other COVID-19 site that, if printed, would likely stretch to 1000 pages.
    Vaccines have been one of the greatest success stories in the history of medicine that markedly benefited humans (improved sanitation was another). However, while COVID-19 vaccines proved more effective than I originally assumed (coronaviruses are not easily controlled), current vaccines and those on the horizon have no hope of ending or adequately controlling this pandemic. My technology could rapidly achieve that and deliver other benefits, such as preventing ordinary infections (that trigger considerably more damage than most people suspect) and future pandemics.
  27. January 5, 2022 by Trisha Miller, Chief Innovation and Development Officer at Elevate: Op-Ed: I have COVID – again. Here's what I've learned about getting through the virus.
  28. December 22, 2021: T-Mobile, Amazon, and others are backing out of CES 2022 amid COVID resurgence: T-Mobile, Nvidia, Amazon, and others are canceling their plans or going virtual.
    Comment: Ironic that I have technology the tech giants don't.
  29. June 22, 2021: The total number and mass of SARS-CoV-2 virions
    Excerpt: “Although each infected person carries an estimated 1 billion to 100 billion virions during peak infection, their total mass is no more than 0.1 mg. This curiously implies that all SARS-CoV-2 virions currently in all human hosts have a mass of between 100 g and 10 kg.”
    Comment: Ironic that such a small mass has shackled and devastated humanity.
Sharing air:
  • ↑ risk of COVID-19 + many other diseases (and consequences of them, such as infections triggering mental illness)
  • accelerates aging inside and out
  • ↑ risk of birth defects
  • impairs mood and mental clarity
  • contributes to premature cognitive deterioration
My technology minimizes those risks plus:
  • saves time: less or no need to vacuum your home
  • turns any room into a multi-function gym with zero footprint for equipment
  • introduces a new way to have fun
  • protects from air pollution
  • minimizes CO2 exposure → better thinking
  • can safeguard from home intruders (one of countless examples: if news anchor/actress Anne Pressly had this technology, she would still be alive)

Federal government planning for the pandemic to go on for years

During the final presidential debate on October 22, 2020, Joe Biden promised to “shut down the virus.” It is easy to promise but hard to deliver — so hard that he basically gave up by admitting on December 27, 2021 that “there is no federal solution” to the pandemic, and no foreseeable end to it, as evidenced by the federal government awarding on December 29, 2021 a $136.7 million contract to MilliporeSigma to increase domestic production capacity of nitrocellulose membranes: “a critical material used in manufacturing SARS-CoV-2 rapid point-of-care tests.” However, “the finished product is not scheduled to roll off assembly lines before late 2024.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on October 22, 2021 that it also invested over $560 million “to boost manufacturing of [other] key products needed to increase domestic testing supply.”

These investments signal that the federal government expects the pandemic to drag on for years, reflecting how even multiple vaccines per year will not suffice to free us from the threat of COVID-19.

  1. December 29, 2021: Our Relationship With COVID Vaccines Is Just Getting Started
    Comment: You are about to be turned into a human pincushion, after which even multiple vaccines per year will not suffice to free you from the threat of COVID-19.
  2. January 22, 2021: COVID-19 will likely be with us forever. Here's how we'll live with it.
  3. October 27, 2021: How Will We Live if Covid Is Here to Stay?
  4. January 14, 2022: Video: Chinese COVID-19 patients confined to metal boxes in quarantine camps
    Comment: Even these draconian measures cannot stop this pandemic. My technology could if it were widely implemented.
  5. July 6, 2020: Study of an Air Curtain in the Context of Individual Protection from Exposure to Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Contained in Cough-Generated Fluid Particles (PDF)
  6. January 15, 2022: Effectiveness of personalized air curtain in reducing exposure to airborne cough droplets
  7. April 27, 2022: A Study on Flow Field Characteristics and Air Purifier with Barrier Effects (PDF)
  8. May 17, 2022: Desktop air curtain system prevents spread of COVID-19 in hospital settings: Device suitable for use in hospital wards, blood labs, reception counters
    Excerpt: “Researchers have developed a desktop air curtain system that blocks all incoming aerosol particles. An air curtain, or air door, is a fan-powered ventilation system that creates an air seal over an entryway, but one challenge in developing smaller air curtains is fully blocking emitted aerosol particles over time because it is difficult to maintain the air wall over a long distance.”
    Comment: No it isn't. Beginning early in 2020, I developed several such systems. Some protect people throughout every square/cubic foot of buildings, and others provide portable protection wherever you go. Initially, it seemed as if the ones providing protection throughout buildings would consume staggering amounts of energy to move the air, as well as otherwise being expensive, but I solved those problems and can, for example, move huge amounts of air at little or no cost. I also developed many innovations and offshoots beyond those described in this article submitted on January 27, 2022 and published online May 17, 2022.
    Based on: Blocking effect of desktop air curtain on aerosols in exhaled breath

Clearly, vaccines and other current control measures cannot restore the lives we want, free from disease, fear, and restrictions. But my technology can, and do that very rapidly: flip it on, and seconds later you are protected, not with the 40% efficacy of vaccines but almost complete (> 99%) protection that if widely implemented would instantly result in effective herd immunity and hence a quick end to this disastrous pandemic.

On January 7, 2022, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said (1, 2, 3, 4, 5):

“This is a pandemic in which nearly a million people have died. It is by far the greatest public health danger that this country has faced in the last century. More and more people are dying every day. More and more people are getting sick every day. … And this [vaccination] is the policy that is most geared to stopping all this. There is nothing else that will perform that function better than incentivizing people strongly to vaccinate themselves.”

That isn't true because the efficacy of vaccination is much less than that of my technology.

What will a lifetime of vaccinations and COVID-19 do to people?

The question few ask is: what will a lifetime of vaccinations and COVID-19 do to people? During the Omicron phase, I was infected (in spite of prior vaccinations) and was utterly miserable, with the pain, coughing, and loss of sleep so intolerable I wondered how much longer I could endure the misery. In contrast, a prior infection very early in the pandemic was distinctly different than any “cold” I previously had yet was easily tolerated. During it, I was able to work almost as normal, in contrast with the Omicron phase nightmare that crippled my ability to work, think, and speak. Yet because I wasn't hospitalized, it was considered a “mild” case. Ha!

Benefits of vaccinations (visible in population studies) usually neglect the drawbacks. One of them is shoulder injection site pain so severe it disrupts sleep for a few days in side-sleepers. When I heard people complaining of that, I couldn't believe the discomfort was that objectionable until I experienced it myself. If I were boosted as often as I should be to maintain optimal protection, that would result in a significant loss of sleep, which can trigger other problems.

While we are better off with vaccinations, having them should not undermine efforts to find better ways to prevent infections — something current vaccines do poorly. Fortunately, we already have the technology: my innovations that can almost completely block airborne germ transmission. Unfortunately, the myopic fixation on vaccines has prevented our leaders from focusing on a better solution.

  1. May 22, 2022: Not taking precautions? Be prepared to get COVID once a year, modeling shows
    Comment: And prepare for shorter and more miserable lives with less happiness and prosperity.
  2. Scientific American June 8, 2022: We Need to Improve Indoor Air Quality: Here's How and Why: Upgrading buildings' ventilation, filtration and other factors would not only decrease COVID transmission but also improve health and cognitive performance in general
    Excerpt: “In the past 40 years or so, engineers have designed buildings to have tighter ‘envelopes’—meaning they allow less air exchange with the outside—in order to improve energy efficiency, according to [Professor Joseph] Allen. But the upshot of this is that many of our buildings are now optimized germ factories.”
  3. March 6, 2024: Airflow dynamics scrub classroom air
    Excerpt: “‘During the COVID-19 pandemic, the advice was often just to increase ventilation to the maximum,’ says Mojtaba Zabihi, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering and a lead researcher in the UBC Airborne Disease Transmission Research Cluster. ‘But the new findings show that understanding the airflow pattern is as important, as the amount of air changed per hour. This insight could potentially lead to safer buildings and significant energy savings.’”
    Comment: I realized this in the last century.
    Based on: Influence of indoor airflow on airborne disease transmission in a classroom
  4. The Atlantic September 7, 2021: The Plan to Stop Every Respiratory Virus at Once: The benefits of ventilation reach far beyond the coronavirus. What if we stop taking colds and flus for granted, too?
    Excerpt: “We don't drink contaminated water. Why do we tolerate breathing contaminated air?”
    Comment: I wondered the same thing years ago, but did something about it, making it safe to share indoor spaces without sharing recently exhaled air and germs in it.
  5. June 14, 2022: Severe covid-19 symptoms linked to more than 1300 genetic variants
    Comment: You can't change your genes but you can protect yourself with the technology I invented (some of which is presented in this website), which could safeguard everyone.
  6. September 22, 2022: This Is What Life's Like in the World's Strictest Covid Zero City
    Comment: Bleak.
  7. August 22, 2022: Once again, Apple calls workers back to the office—once again, workers fight back
    Comment: Almost every corporation could afford my technology. Especially Apple.
  8. November 29, 2022: Apple iPhone demand could be hammered by China's COVID situation: analyst
  9. October 5, 2022: New research identifies lack of appropriate control tools for many major infectious diseases of animals
    Comment: Just as with humans, it is much better to prevent disease than treat it. Treatments often fail, have noxious or dangerous side effects, are costly and sometimes time-consuming, and not uncommonly cannot undo all of the damage. The technology I developed to prevent airborne germ transmission is equally effective in animals.
  10. The Atlantic July 28, 2022: How Long Can the Coronavirus Keep Reinfecting Us? No one knows exactly what this will look like—only that it's guaranteed to keep happening.
    Comment: My technology could quickly control this pandemic, but without it, SARS-CoV-2 will continue to plague us indefinitely.
  11. Ed Yong in The Atlantic: October 6, 2022: The Pandemic's Legacy Is Already Clear: All of this will happen again.
    Comment: Needlessly.
  12. The Atlantic October 13, 2022: The Masks We'll Wear in the Next Pandemic: N95s are good. Some scientists want to do much better.
    Excerpt: “To guard against future pandemics, what we should focus on, some experts say, is attacking viruses where they're most vulnerable, before pharmaceutical interventions are even necessary. Specifically, they argue, we should be focusing on the air we breathe.”
    Based in part on: Better Respiratory Equipment Using Advanced Technologies for Healthcare Employees (PROJECT B.R.E.A.T.H.E.): An Interagency Working Group of the U.S. Federal Government
    Comment: In my area, virtually no one wears masks in public, nor will they resume doing that unless many people drop dead in front of them. Every dentist I've contacted is doing less than what they should have done pre-pandemic. “We're following CDC guidelines,” they might contend as their patients are exposed with their mouths gaping open.
    When I visited my dentist a few days ago, a middle-aged woman in the waiting room was singing loudly and an elderly man was coughing every few seconds, but they still welcomed him in for treatment: a perfect recipe for transmitting his germs to staff and potentially to future patients.
    Yesterday my hygienist called, saying she was sick, so I canceled the two-hour procedure I had scheduled for today. CDC guidelines are crafted by politicians or bureaucrats succumbing to pressure from them. Those guidelines are ultimately influenced by politicians doing what most of the public wants done. Currently, that's pretending the pandemic is over, and hence pretending it is now safe to inhale air recently exhaled by others. Thus following CDC recommendations is tantamount to putting your life into the hands of others who don't know or care about you. Not wise.
  13. November 11, 2022: Southeast US has hit the roof of CDC’s respiratory illness level scale
    Comment: It's not just COVID-19.
  14. November 14, 2022: Pandemic terrorism risk is being overlooked, warns leading geneticist: Kevin Esvelt, who created the first artificial gene drive capable of wiping out an entire species, says the threat of a deliberately released virus causing a pandemic is being overlooked
  15. November 16, 2022: Record number of parents miss work as respiratory illnesses spike in kids
  16. December 16, 2022: World Cup 2022: More France players battling 'flu-like symptoms' ahead of final vs. Argentina
  17. The Washington Post December 15, 2022: How a viral siege is making some people sick for weeks, even months: It's like ‘a big bomb of viruses went off,’ says a pediatrician treating kids with flu, RSV, strep and covid
    Comment: Common denominator: all spread via the air; my technology can block their transmission as well as that from many other airborne diseases.
  18. The Washington Post December 21, 2022: First came a viral storm. Now, we have puzzling superinfections.
  19. January 16, 2023: Several celebrities test positive for COVID after Golden Globes: Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Pfeiffer were among those who fell ill.
  20. January 19, 2023: ‘So much pain’: KC-area woman who spent 322 days on a ventilator with COVID dies
  21. February 14, 2023: It's not just ‘The Last of Us.’ Fungal infections really are a ‘major threat’ to public health, the WHO says
    Comment: Got your vaccine for them?
  22. March 3, 2023: Measles exposure at massive religious event in Kentucky spurs CDC alert
    Comment: “Measles is an airborne disease which spreads easily from one person to the next through the coughs and sneezes of infected people.”
  23. December 14, 2022: “Impossible” to track: China gives up on COVID case count amid explosive outbreak
    Related: Comment: Repeating what Francis Bacon wrote in 1625: “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.”
  24. Time magazine March 17, 2023: Don't Put COVID-19 in the Rearview Mirror. Now We Need to Prepare for the Next Pandemic
  25. April 6, 2023: Physicians should be on alert for group A strep as cases experience historic rise, study finds
  26. April 24, 2023: Study finds early RSV infection linked to significantly increased risk of asthma in children
  27. April 26, 2023: The next pandemic could be ‘as infectious as this one but far more lethal’—and make COVID look like a cakewalk, expert warns
  28. June 7, 2023: Coronavirus only needs to bind to a single receptor, shows study
    Comment: Daunting.
  29. June 24, 2023: A COVID-like virus recently leaped from animals to humans—and ‘we can expect more spillover,’ scientists say. Will ‘Langya’ cause the next pandemic?
  30. March 20, 2023: Bill Gates says the world must create ‘a fire department for pandemics’ to avoid the next catastrophic outbreak
  31. Wired April 13, 2023: Diseases Didn't Just Shape History, They Control the Future: A new book explores the far-reaching impact of germs and viruses on human society.
    Comment: Humanity's most catastrophic mistake is to continue spending trillions on big homes, fancy cars, entertainment, messaging apps, and countless other things we don't need while neglecting what we do: a reliable way to block airborne germ transmission. Without it, sooner or later pathogens will evolve and wipe out a significant fraction of the human population, just as the UK's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies warned, as discussed above. Then, as people die by the billions and everyone worries they may be next, people will rue the day they failed to invest in what they need most. Germs never stop mutating. Consequently, it's only a matter of time until they perfect their secret sauce for infection, disease, and death.
  32. June 14, 2023: Can COVID and wildfires spark a revolution in indoor air safety?
    Excerpt: “Late last year, the Biden administration held a summit on indoor air quality, bringing together experts in health, ventilation, business and education to discuss ways to improve indoor air quality to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Then in May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the first federal recommendations for how often air in a room should be circulated to stem the spread of disease — five times an hour.”
    Comment: They should have invited me to that summit. Circulating room air five times per hour is good but nowhere near sufficient to reliably block airborne germ transmission. An acid test: can you sit next to someone eight hours per day, five days per week year after year without ever contracting an infection from them? Five air exchanges per hour can't adequately safeguard you for five minutes, but my technology could make five infection-free years a realistic possibility.
    This website outlines one of my ideas to block airborne germ transmission but I have many others to control our exposure not only to airborne pathogens but also air pollution that accelerates aging and reduces average lifespan by a few years and sometimes much more.
  33. July 28, 2023: Coronavirus is back, but how worried should you be? Parts of the country are seeing an uptick, and hospitalizations are rising nationwide
  34. August 15, 2023: Lots of Swifties Are Saying They Got COVID After the LA Eras Tour Shows
    Comment: As Yogi Berra said, “It ain't over till it's over.”
  35. August 23, 2023: Kentucky school district cancels classes less than two weeks into year due to Covid, flu and strep outbreaks: Attendance in the Lee County School District dropped to 81% just nine days after the first day of school.
  36. October 31, 2023: How cruise ships can steer clear of viral spread: More ventilation does not mean safer cabin conditions
    Excerpt: “… high rates of air exchange … can be inefficient in terms of energy consumption, can compromise passenger comfort as it generates strong air drafts, and most importantly, can spread saliva droplets up to five times more when passengers cough.”
    Based on: Virus spreading in cruiser cabin
    Comment: The key is to move air in a specific, intelligently programmed direction (that may be static or dynamically adaptable). My system provided that years ago; others are still trying to figure this out.
  37. November 1, 2023: HEPA filters cut covid-19 sick days but we've been slow proving this: Covid-19 sick days were 20 per cent lower in schools with air-cleaning HEPA filter machines, researchers on an eagerly-awaited study have found. But why has it taken so long to discover how well they work, asks Clare Wilson
    Comment: My tech works even better.
  38. CNN Travel November 10, 2023: Beyond suites: Where does business class innovate next?
    Comment: What business (& other) travelers dearly need: personal air spaces so they arrive healthy, not infected from other airline passengers.
  39. November 13, 2023: Daycare TB case exposes over 500 babies, children; emergency declared
  40. November 22, 2023: Another Pandemic? Mystery Pneumonia Sweeps Through Chinese Schools: In Beijing and Liaoning, hospitals are struggling with an influx of sick children, while both students and teachers are affected.
  41. December 31, 2023: No break for Quebec hospitals as ERs surge past 100% capacity
    Excerpt: “… many Quebecers are coming down with respiratory viruses …”
  42. March 18, 2024: Germ aversion found to have impacted 2020 election voting behavior
    Comment: One of many places that people should be protected from airborne germ transmission.
  43. April 3, 2024: Bird flu jumped to cows, then to a human. Should we be worried? The rare human case of bird flu raises new concerns about the risks to public health.
    Related: June 5, 2024: Elephant seal outbreak marks first transnational spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza in mammals
  44. Scientific American May 7, 2024: A Fight About Viruses in the Air Is Finally Over. Now It's Time for Healthy Venting: WHO now admits the COVID virus and other germs spread “through the air.” This plain language may help improve research and action to fight disease
  45. July 30, 2024: Paris Olympics: Multiple swimmers, including two Americans, test positive for COVID but aren't sent home
  46. September 26, 2024: What pathogen might spark the next pandemic? How scientists are preparing for ‘disease X’

A traveling nurse in Michigan told a sad story: while working downstate in another hospital, a PA died from COVID-19. She said he was cocky and dismissive about the threat of this pandemic. Overblown, nothing to worry about — or so he thought. With his mask pulled down, he entered the room of a COVID-19 patient in the ICU on a ventilator, was infected, and died from it. Many others, including some famous people, have also died after downplaying the risk of COVID-19. But as devastating as this pandemic was and is, a future pandemic could and likely will be significantly more lethal, indelibly changing the world:

March 10, 2023: Microbes can create a more peaceful world: Scientists issue call to action

Based on: Weaponising microbes for peace

Comment: Microbes will surely be weaponized, but not for peace. If this wasn't clear before the current pandemic, it certainly is now: the recipe to dominate the world is simple: bioengineer a highly transmissible and very lethal virus along with an effective vaccine for it (not feeble ones, such as current COVID-19 vaccines), secretly administering it to your population and its allies. Once they are sufficiently immunized, unleash the pathogen on the world. No need for bombs or to destroy infrastructure the attacking nation can surely utilize once it takes over the countries it devastates.

To deflect blame and perhaps retaliation, the new pandemic could be disguised to appear as a result of nature (“a bat did it!”/“a pangolin did it!”) or an innocent accident, such as a lab leak. World domination made easy with none of the drawbacks of nuclear or conventional war.

If China did this to the United States, we wouldn't be able to develop a vaccine in time. If the virus were airborne, masks that have proven unreliable would not save us. One thing could: my technology. This is a critical issue of national security but our politicians do the bidding of pharmaceutical companies that develop lucrative vaccines; our leaders don't listen to garage inventors working on a shoestring budget.

July 28, 2023: Officials bust illegal lab containing 20 infectious agents, hundreds of lab mice: "I've never seen anything like this."
Excerpt: “… what seems to be an illegal medical lab hidden in a California warehouse that contained nearly 1,000 laboratory mice, hundreds of unknown chemicals … vials of biohazardous materials, including blood, incubators, and at least 20 infectious agents, including SARS-CoV-2, HIV, and a herpes virus. … The tenant of the warehouse is listed as Prestige Biotech. … the company's president, Xiuquin Yao, was not forthcoming with information.”

The Wall Street Journal July 6, 2023: World War III Will Be Fought With Viruses: A two-front biological and cyber attack could lead to a U.S. defeat before we know what hit us.

The Neanderthal demise is commonly attributed to them being less intelligent than Homo sapiens (in spite of recent evidence of accomplishments outclassing many modern humans), but DNA evidence now indicates that infectious diseases finished them off. Science can protect us from many but not all transmissible diseases, so it is just a matter of time until one evolves that spreads like wildfire and is very deadly. Over 99.9% of species that ever lived are now extinct. Humans are not immune to this reality, yet we commonly act as if we are, which undermines incentives to better protect us.

Wise advice from a silly sitcom

During the first season of Bewitched (a sitcom that debuted September 1964), a child with a cold (Marshall Burns) visited Samantha Stephens. His mother soon tracked him down and sternly lectured, “I told you to stay in your room! You have a cold, and if you're too young to realize how dangerous it is to run around with a cold, I should think at least an adult would recognize it.”

Adults commonly trivialize colds and most other infections, unaware of the damage they inflict. Ordinary germs killed Calvin Coolidge Jr., the 16-year-old son of President Coolidge, after neglecting to wear socks while playing tennis with his brother on the White House tennis court; a blister led to sepsis, then his death at Walter Reed Hospital.

During an appearance at the Manistee National Forest Festival, an ill-fitting ankle brace triggered an infection that soon killed 22-year-old Robert Wadlow, the tallest person in recorded history. Ordinary germs killed Henry Ford II, the Dodge Brothers, Nell Arthur (wife of Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States), the first girlfriend of my best friend (who died soon after graduating from college and starting a family), and an endlessly long list of others, including his brother-in-law who retired in his early forties with a $75 million dollar fortune. He was permanently separated from his beautiful wife and young children when a seemingly trivial foot wound unleashed an infection that gave him an agonizing death alone in an emergency department.

If germs aren't the root of all evil, they are darn close to it with diverse sequelae causing mental illness, cognitive deterioration, and a wide spectrum of problems, including some that seemingly have nothing to do with germs (such as intussusception, as discussed above). In future years, researchers will continue connecting the dots between infections and human misery, so Mrs. Burns was wise to insist that her son not expose others to his germs.

Decades later, people commonly gallivant around their towns and the world, helping germs do their dirty work. If everyone fully grasped the risk, they wouldn't be so cavalier. The current trajectory of scientific acquisition suggests that people are not interested in what scientists say, so the best approach is to implement technology to protect them wherever they go and whatever they believe. If widely implemented, my innovations could substantially achieve that objective. Don't hold your breath waiting for that. On second thought, perhaps you should.

A 1977 PSA for the UNCF declared that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste,” but most folks squander their intellectual potential, spellbound by social media showcased on glowing screens. Starved for science, they don't realize how microorganisms (not all “bugs” are bad) can potentially boost mood and general health. Such a pity.

April 17, 2024: Tom Selleck Took a 3-Year Break from Acting After Daughter Was Hospitalized with ‘Viral Pneumonia’ as a Toddler

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Businesses

Standing out from the crowd can be difficult. My technology can give you a competitive advantage by drawing customers afraid of risking their lives in businesses lacking reliably safe air.

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Investors

“I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.”
— Thomas Edison

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Educators

My technology can make attending school safer than ever before.

Abraham Lincoln, exemplifying leadership
Politicians and regulators

Masks, social distancing, and vaccines failed to stop SARS-CoV-2. My technology can rapidly achieve control, permitting people to resume normal lives and our economy to fully rebound.

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Everyone else

Happy with the way things are going?

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Mask and vaccine mandates

Why not mandate or at least recommend something more effective? This essay also discusses how I quickly spotted the need for this technology and developed innovations to achieve it. Read this section if you care about solving problems and wonder why we often cannot.

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