Health & Fitness

A new post-mortem study of patients who have died from COVID-19 found severe damage to the lungs and signs of blood clotting in major organs.

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A new health economics study warns that health information which offers specific advice tailored to individuals can inadvertently often backfire.

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Contract tracing apps used to reduce the spread of COVID-19 are unlikely to be effective without proper uptake and support from concurrent control measures, finds a new study by researchers in the United Kingdom. The systematic review shows that large-scale manual contact tracing alongside other public health control measures -- such as physical distancing and closure of indoor spaces such as pubs -- is likely to be required in conjunction with automated approaches.

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The airborne transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 via aerosol particles in indoor environment seems to be strongly influenced by relative humidity, concludes the analysis of 10 most relevant international studies on the subject. Therefore, they recommend controlling the indoor air in addition to the usual measures such as social distancing and masks. A relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent could reduce the spread of the viruses and their absorption through the nasal mucous membrane.

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Researchers provide critical data showing that children play a larger role in the community spread of COVID-19 than previously thought.

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New research has shown some of our least favorite vegetables could be the most beneficial when it comes to preventing advanced blood vessel disease.

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In a commentary, researchers demonstrate the stark differences in public health strategies from two democratic republics: South Korea and the United States, which have led to alarming differences in cases and deaths from COVID-19. After adjusting for the 6.5 fold differences in populations, the U.S. has suffered 47 times more cases and 79 times more deaths than South Korea.

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Scientists experimenting with a small number of human cell samples report that the 'hook' of cells used by SARS-CoV-2 to latch onto and infect cells is up to 700 times more prevalent in the olfactory supporting cells lining the inside of the upper part of the nose than in the lining cells of the rest of the nose and windpipe that leads to the lungs.

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Scientists have discovered a series of protein structures that are thought to be highly relevant to the onset of Parkinson's disease. It is hoped that further analysis of these structures will open up a new avenue for potential treatment for a disease that is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world, with no cure currently available.

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Materials scientists have invented a new type of surgical glue that can help join blood vessels and close wounds faster and may also serve as a platform to deliver pain relief drugs.

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A new study shows that individuals who react negatively to rules and recommendations and have lower trust in doctors more often use complementary and alternative medicine, that is, treatments or substances that are not included in the care offered or recommended by doctors.

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Children exposed to higher levels of fine particles in the air (known as PM2.5) are more likely to develop asthma and persistent wheezing than children who are not exposed, finds a new study.

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Preterm and early term delivery are independent risk factors for premature death in women up to 40 years later, finds a new study.

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New research has shown some of our least favorite vegetables could be the most beneficial when it comes to preventing advanced blood vessel disease.

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New research has shown some of our least favorite vegetables could be the most beneficial when it comes to preventing advanced blood vessel disease.

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Encouraging the public to see face masks as a social practice, which they can use to express their cultural background or their personality, could encourage more people to use them regularly, say researchers.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison caused a stir when he suggested a coronavirus vaccine could be mandatory for Australians. The medical community does not agree this is a good approach, though they acknowledge a vaccine is the only hope for a return to normalcy. 

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Swiss Policy Research (SPR), formerly known as Swiss Propaganda Research, which describes itself as “an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit research group investigating geopolitical propaganda in Swiss and international media,” has published numerous articles on COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.¹

While SPR’s critics² have accused it of promoting “unproven” theories, their work focuses on using published studies, case reports and actual physician testimonies for its reporting.

In regard to the pandemic, they have focused on the origin of COVID-19,³ the effectiveness of face masks,⁴ the lethality of an infection⁵ and misinformation from mainstream media sources.⁶ Most recently, SPR has released a summary of the scientific evidence they’ve found for treating COVID-19 with simple, safe and inexpensive ingredients.⁷

Zinc, quercetin, hydroxychloroquine, bromhexine, azithromycin and heparin are all treatments that scientific evidence or practical use by physicians have shown can be used successfully against COVID-19, SPR says. U.S. physicians, for example, using zinc, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin:

"… reported an 84% decrease in hospitalization rates, a 50% decrease in mortality rates among already hospitalized patients (if treated early), and an improvement in the condition of patients within 8 to 12 hours. Italian doctors reported a decrease in deaths of 66%."

Iranian doctors using bromhexine, a drug which breaks down mucus⁸ but is not available in the U.S., have:

"… reported in a study with 78 patients a decrease in intensive care treatments of 82%, a decrease in intubations of 89%, and a decrease in deaths of 100%. Chinese doctors reported a 50% reduction in intubations."

The Suggested Treatment Protocol

Reminding readers to be sure to check with their doctors before beginning any treatment, SPR chose the following protocols for early treatment of COVID-19 over a five- to seven-day regimen of:⁹

Zinc — 50 milligrams [mg] to 100 mg per day	Hydroxychloroquine — 400 mg per day
Quercetin — 500 mg to 1,000 mg per day	Bromhexine — 50 mg to 100 mg per day
Azithromycin — up to 500 mg per day	Heparin — usual dosage

The rational for the protocols is backed by data from prior research involving treatments that SPR said was found to be effective:¹⁰

"The efficacy of HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] against SARS coronaviruses was established in 2005 in the wake of the SARS-1 epidemic. The efficacy of zinc in blocking RNA replication of coronaviruses was discovered in 2010 by world-leading SARS virologist Ralph Baric.

The efficacy of HCQ in supporting the cellular uptake of zinc was discovered in 2014 as part of cancer research. The efficacy of the flavonoid quercetin in supporting the cellular uptake of zinc was also discovered in 2014. The efficacy of bromhexine in blocking cell entry of coronaviruses was established in 2017.”

The goal of treating COVID-19 with the six suggested supplements and medications is to nip the virus in the bud and avoid hospitalization, says the organization.¹¹ Starting the protocol as soon as symptoms emerge may prevent progression of the illness.

Data Show Hydroxychloroquine Is Effective, SPR Found

Many people have heard about hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 and much of what they’ve heard recently in mainstream news is negative. That's because the media have focused on negative outcomes from selected studies and subsequent warnings from the FDA.¹²

SPR contends, however, that those studies were marred by a delay in administering the drug, excessive doses of the drug, skewed data and contraindications that were ignored.¹³

According to notes which accompany the protocol, hydroxychloroquine and quercetin (which can be substituted for hydroxychloroquine) "support the cellular absorption of zinc and have additional anti-viral properties."

In treating COVID-19, the use of hydroxychloroquine and other common medications and supplements has become so politicized, patients may end up being denied inexpensive and effective treatments which have been studied and found to be effective in multiple investigations from around the world.

Even The Lancet, a well-respected medical journal, found itself embroiled in COVID-19 misinformation — possibly partisan — and had to retract research that claimed hydroxychloroquine had no benefit.

Still, top doctors have not been afraid to speak out about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients who contract the virus. In an op-ed in Newsweek magazine, Dr. Harvey A. Risch from the Yale School of Public Health, wrote:¹⁴

"When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.

On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) entitled, 'Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis.'

That article, published in the world's leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety."

In his op-ed, Risch cites hydroxychloroquine studies in U.S. nursing homes and clinics, and trials in Brazil and France that had positive outcomes with few to no deaths.¹⁵

Zinc Is an Important Part of the COVID-19 Fight

Zinc plays a vital role in immunity as well as in blood clotting,¹⁶ cell division,¹⁷ thyroid health,¹⁸ smell and taste,¹⁹ vision²⁰ and wound healing.²¹ It can effectively inhibit the replication of viruses in a cell, but it needs "ionophores"²² to shuttle it into the cell where it puts up its fight. You may also need to take zinc daily because the body does not store it.²³

Luckily, both hydroxychloroquine and quercetin are ionophores that usher zinc into the cells where it is needed. Zinc is so basic to fighting infections, some research suggests that it is zinc rather than hydroxychloroquine or quercetin that does the "heavy lifting" of inhibiting viral replication when they are given together.

In research published in the International Journal for Infectious Diseases, both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were effective and "associated with reduction in COVID-19 associated mortality."²⁴ In a study of 2,541 patients with an average age of 64 and who spent an average of six days in the hospital, Michigan scientists found:²⁵

"In this multi-hospital assessment, when controlling for COVID-19 risk factors, treatment with hydroxychloroquine alone and in combination with azithromycin was associated with reduction in COVID-19 associated mortality."

However, zinc was not included in this trial and most doctors fail to add zinc and an antibiotic for secondary bacterial infections in their hydroxycholoroquine regimens. Despite FDA warnings about hydroxychloroquine-related heart rhythm problems,²⁶ the researchers in this study report that:²⁷

"A review of our COVID-19 mortality data demonstrated no major cardiac arrhythmias … observed with hydroxychloroquine treatment."

In addition to strengthening your immune system through activating your body's T cells,²⁸ zinc has cognitive²⁹ and mood effects.³⁰ It protects your hippocampus, which is involved in depression, emotion, memory and learning.³¹ It also helps your brain release brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which counteracts brain inflammation and depression. 

Signs that your zinc levels are low³² include loss of appetite, impaired immune system, sluggish metabolism and thinning hair.

Quercetin Helps Fight COVID-19

Quercetin is a natural antihistamine and anti-inflammatory plant pigment that boosts your immune system and may work to control viral replication, according to some research.³³ It allows zinc to exert its proven antiviral properties; in treating COVID-19, quercetin may also lower inflammation, help clear mucus, prevent ventilator-induced damage and support immunity.

According to the research, quercetin has been shown to help fight obesity, Type 2 diabetes, circulatory dysfunction, chronic inflammation and mood disorders.³⁴ It has even been found to help lower blood pressure.³⁵

Researchers have found that quercetin can trigger tumor regression and begin the process of apoptosis.³⁶ This is programmed cell death, without which cells can grow uninterrupted and develop into cancerous growths.

Protect Yourself With Facts From Sources Such as SPR

Operation Warp Speed, the fast-tracking of a COVID-19 vaccine to licensure and subsequent widespread use, is now in full operation. What we must remember here is that vaccine manufacturers are not liable for any damage their vaccines do. Since 2011, drug companies making and selling vaccines are even shielded from design defect lawsuits, which means they have absolutely no incentive for reducing the risks associated with the use of their products.

Vaccine makers and the health care practitioners who administer vaccines do not face any liability whatsoever if a new coronavirus vaccine turns out to be a catastrophe.

Worse, when a COVID-19 vaccine is ready to be marketed to the public, there likely will be little or no information about its long- and short-term side effects, because it will be so new and because it will lack the test of time for determining its efficacy and safety. Operation Warp Speed and fast-tracked vaccines may be largely unnecessary, as SPR writes:³⁷

"It is conceivable that the above treatment protocol, which is simple, safe and inexpensive, could render more complex medications, vaccinations, and other measures largely obsolete."

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Four months ago, in early April 2020, Minnesota state senator and family physician Scott Jensen came out with a strong critique against the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance for how doctors were to certify COVID-19 fatalities on the death certificate.¹

Jensen called the guidelines “ridiculous,” saying they could easily lead to unwarranted fear as it would make the disease appear deadlier than it actually is. According to the CDC guidelines:

"In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID cannot be made but is suspected or likely (e.g. the circumstances are compelling with a reasonable degree of certainty) it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as 'probable' or 'presumed.'"

Indeed, reporting deaths as COVID-19 deaths, without factual proof that the patient was in fact infected and actually died of the illness, is a clear manipulation of the statistics that drive up the perceived death rate.

Death Statistics Are Clearly Unreliable

In his April interview with Laura Ingraham, Jensen said:²

"The idea that we are going to allow people to massage and sort of game the numbers is a real issue because we are going to undermine the [public] trust. And right now, as we see politicians doing things that aren’t necessarily motivated on fact and science, their trust in politicians is already wearing thin."

In that interview, Jensen pointed out that according to CDC guidelines, a patient dying after being hit by a bus, who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 after death, would be reported as a COVID-19 death, regardless of the injuries sustained in the accident, and regardless of whether symptoms of COVID-19 had even been present to begin with.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. We recently saw a near-identical example of this nonsensical practice in Florida, where a motorcycle accident claimed the life of a 20-something man who was subsequently listed as a COVID-19 death.³

Ditto for a Florida man who died of a gunshot wound to the head, and a 77-year-old who died of Parkinson’s disease.⁴ According to a July 24, 2020, Washington Examiner report,⁵ only 169 of 581 COVID-19 deaths in Florida have COVID-19 listed as the sole contributing factor on the death certificate.

That same week, it was reported⁶ that the CDC website listed more than 3,700 COVID-19 deaths that also involved “intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning and other adverse events,” and in Texas, the death toll was reduced by more than 3,000, as they were never actually tested.

Financial Incentives Can Have Significant Influence

At that time in April, Dr. Anthony Fauci brushed off questions about COVID-19 deaths being “padded” as yet another “conspiracy theory” that should be ignored.⁷ A host of mainstream media reports also claimed suspicions that hospitals were overreporting positive cases and deaths in order to charge more money were pure conspiracy theory that lacked a basis in reality.

The fake arbiter of hoaxes, Snopes, also gave a “False” rating to Jensen’s claim that CDC guidelines for listing COVID-19 on death certificates in the absence of a test are resulting in an overcount.⁸ At the time, Jensen reacted to Fauci’s dismissal saying:⁹

"Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you’ll get paid $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000; three times as much. Nobody can tell me, after 35 years in the world of medicine, that sometimes those kinds of things [have] impact on what we do.”

Indeed, if we are to believe the first-hand testimony of nurse Erin Olszewski, these financial incentives were indeed at the heart of the routine overdiagnosis and mistreatment of patients at Elmhurst Hospital Center, a public hospital in Queens, New York, which was “the epicenter of the epicenter" of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.

I reported her shocking story in “Nurse on the Frontlines of COVID-19 Shares Her Experience.” According to Olszewski, patients who tested negative for COVID-19 were routinely listed as positive and were quickly placed on ventilators — a largely inappropriate treatment that ended up killing virtually all of them.

CDC Director Agrees Hospitals Likely Inflated COVID Deaths

Now, CDC director Robert Redfield admits that financial policies may indeed have resulted in artificially elevated hospitalization rates and death toll statistics. As reported by the Washington Examiner, August 1, 2020:¹⁰

“… Redfield agreed that some hospitals have a monetary incentive to overcount coronavirus deaths … ‘I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes, too.

Really, in the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack but also have HIV — the hospital would prefer the [classification] for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement,’ Redfield said¹¹ during a House panel hearing … when asked by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer about potential ‘perverse incentives.’

Redfield continued: ‘So, I do think there’s some reality to that. When it comes to death reporting, though, ultimately, it’s how the physician defines it in the death certificate, and … we review all of those death certificates.

So I think, probably it is less operable in the cause of death, although I won’t say there are not some cases. I do think though [that] when it comes to hospital reimbursement issues or individuals that get discharged, there could be some play in that for sure.’”

Brett Giroir with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department also believes financial incentives have inflated COVID-19 fatalities. Giroir told lawmakers the statistics the HHS has been receiving from states “are over-inflated.”¹²

Medical Board Drops Case Against Jensen

Many medical professionals, scientists and researchers have been put through the wringer as a result of expressing views about the pandemic and its response that differ from the status quo put forth by the likes of Bill Gates and the World Health Organization.

Jensen, too, has been a fairly outspoken critic of several COVID-19 related issues over these past few months. In a July 6, 2020, video (above), Jensen told viewers he was under investigation and faced disciplinary action and, possibly, loss of his medical license after the Minnesota medical board received an anonymous complaint against him. The two-count allegation claimed he had:

1. Spread “misinformation” about how death certificates are categorized during the pandemic
2. Given “reckless advice” by comparing COVID-19 mortality to that of influenza

In his video, Jensen explained why neither of these accusations had any basis in fact. Copies of his response letters to the Minnesota Medical Board can be found on the Highwire website.¹³ July 28, 2020, Jensen announced¹⁴ the Medical Board had dismissed the allegations against him. In a press release, Jensen stated:

“We are all entitled to our own reasoning. In a nation built on free speech, this right must be protected. I was forced to respond to allegations from accusers I could not face. These people threatened to uproot my practice, my profession, and my life. But cancel culture didn’t win this time.”

String of ‘Errors’ Have Permanently Muddled Statistics

As reported in “Consistent Inaccuracies in COVID-19 Testing and Reporting” and “Common Cold May Trigger Positive COVID-19 Antibody Test,” the only consistent pattern in COVID-19 statistics is their inconsistency.

Faulty or contaminated tests have been used, labs have sporadically reported only positive test results,^15,16,17 and reporting guidelines for infected cases (positive tests), hospitalizations and deaths have been changed so many times, it’s now virtually impossible to determine the accuracy of these statistics.

Positive Test Result Is Not a COVID-19 Case

Perhaps the most egregious misrepresentation of reality, though, is the media’s conflating a positive test result with the actual disease, COVID-19. These tests only test for the virus directly (PCR tests) or antibodies to the virus. The fact that a person tests positive does NOT equate to actually having the disease.

They’re infected, yes, but “COVID-19” refers to a clinical diagnosis of someone who exhibits severe respiratory illness characterized by fever, coughing and shortness of breath. If you’re asymptomatic, you do not “have COVID-19.” The worst that could be said is that you’re infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but if you’re not actually ill, you do not have COVID-19.

The media is intentionally confusing a positive test result with COVID-19 to deliberately mislead the public into believing the disease is far more serious than it is. They know better but consciously choose this despicable practice. A recent example would be CNN’s article, “Florida Has More COVID-19 Than Most Countries in the World.”¹⁸

They refer to the positive test as a “case.” This is beyond stretching reality to suit their nefarious purposes. Again, a case is NOT a positive test result but, rather, a person that has a positive test result and is seriously ill. You would never know that by reading their article.

Further down in their fear-mongering article is a subhead, “Florida Has Surpassed Italy in COVID-19 Cases, Too.” But at the very end of the article they finally admit the truth: Even though Florida surpassed Italy in “cases,” they had nearly 90% FEWER deaths — the metric that really counts, unless your goal is to perpetuate needless fear into the population.

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