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Masks & Vaccines; Still More Pain to Come:
Covid-19 will be with us for the foreseeable future. Vaccinations have begun. Let’s put aside the health benefit argument or even whether vaccines will protect against all future mutations of the coronavirus. Let’s just analyse the numbers. The fact is there are more people wearing masks than at any other period in human history, yet world infection rates continue to rise.
PPE, once reserved for the medical world is now common place amongst common people. Again, let’s avoid the mask efficacy argument, but it’s clear PPE is not enough. Furthermore, we lower our guard when we are around the people, we love the most. At the end of a long day when the PPE comes off, we stand the greatest risk of infecting or being infected by those closest to us. How many husbands infected their wives and how many children their parents?
The Numbers are Telling:
The world has been turned upside down for 12 months and still counting. 95M of the world’s 7.8bln total population, or 1.2%, have been infected by coronavirus. Drug Companies acknowledge that 5.5% of those vaccinated may still catch the virus. Let’s assume the best-case scenario. Tomorrow everyone is vaccinated. The 1.2% infected, will pale in comparison to the 5.5% unfortunates that won’t be protected. That’s more than 4 times the pain and suffering we have seen to date. Furthermore, no one knows if you or I will be a part of that 5.5%.
Realistically Speaking:
The world won’t be entirely vaccinated by tomorrow, and 3bln or 45% of surveyed persons globally stated they would not take the vaccine for one reason or another. To our credit we have instituted social distancing, hand sanitization, lockdowns, PPE, and yet sadly global infection rates continue to trend higher and mutations from all over the world are springing forward. Covid-19 will be with us for the foreseeable future.
Hygiene Prevention Has Stopped Nearly Every Other Pandemic!:
Global health organizations have encouraged us to be vigilant about; social distancing, washing our hands, and covering our mouth and nose with masks. Oddly enough the one hygiene practice they haven’t encouraged, and according to Murphy, is the one most likely to be effective. Oral and nasal hygiene-care. Hygiene has played a major role in ending nearly every other pandemic. Think about it. You wash your hands EVERY time you go to the bathroom. It took a pandemic to make that change in our hygiene routine.
Safe Soap For the Mouth and Nose:
SARs-COV2, like its predecessors wants entry to our nose and mouth. There, it latches on to the ACE2 receptor cells and attempts to hijack them. That’s the place where viral replication begins. A number of companies are developing oral and nasal rinses to address this gaping oversite. There is research on a few rinses from grapefruit seed extract to 6% wine vinegar to povidone iodine (PVP-I). However, there is one iodine rinse I read about that addresses equally, safety and efficacy. AQUARA, is a patent pending formula by a company called Bio Simplx LLC. AQUARA is an iodine-based formula that maintains the Food and Nutrition Board’s (FNB) guidance on Iodine. This stands in contrast to PVP-I that is intended as a topical wound treatment. Iodine is anti-infective and we have been using it to disinfect microbes for 200 years. Iodide is naturally found in our bodies. Iodine is a micro-nutrient and intentionally added to salt for good reason. BioSimplx LLC says it plans to produce lollipops, lozenges, and produce spray to address every hygienic need in a safe and effective manner. I am a buyer. If I was an; airline, health-center, sporting arena, mall, or university, I would want to know about AQUARA. Can you imagine a single use spray available on the plane or at the Malls? We have entered a new normal and it may require us to rinse our nose and mouth and not just our hands. The sooner we accept that, the sooner this will be over. This history of pandemics is our professor and class is in session.
Judith Shmerc RN
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