BS-19 - Some Interesting Facts

Video Transcript:

A few months ago, scientists discovered that there was a new virus that was said to be very contagious, very deadly, and without treatment. The experts, or those experts that are governments trusted to be the best, predicted an outbreak with an enormous death toll and had never foreseen burden on hospitals and ICUs. We started testing a lot. And guess what? The more tests we made, the more cases we discovered. There was only one thing we could do to prevent the world from ending. Flatten the curve. Many countries took drastic measures trying to prevent the apocalypse, and did what humanity had never done before. Shut down the entire society, shut down a major part of the economy, and quarantine the healthy. We installed social distancing, new rules, new laws, a new normal, things that could only be lifted as soon as there would be a new vaccine that could save us all. But, plot twist, months later, independent scientists looked back, and they now see that those predictions were all astronomically wrong. Deaths had been orders of magnitude lower, they are, in fact, even comparable to other severe flu seasons. And yes, there were local variations in severity, as always, in every flu season. But, what was actually going on then? First things first, the world was not on the brink of an extreme outbreak of a highly deadly and highly contagious disease. Instead, we were already well underway in a pretty normal infection wave of a pretty normal mixture of flu viruses, in which, as every year, corona viruses were the last of the season. The exponential growth in cases that looked so frightening was nothing more than the direct result of the exponentially growing number of tests performed, showing positives on people that were already weeks or months before exposed to the virus. Every year when we lab test people with flu-like symptoms, we always find a mix of viruses. Rhinoviruses always come first, then influence a A and B up here, and finally, the corona viruses show up in the game. So, what was different this year? Actually, nothing. Let's have a look at the infection weights in all countries. There seems to be no correlation between lockdown or social distancing, and the run of the infection waves. Countries with strict or no measures did comparably well, or bad, in keeping the spread of the virus low. Actually, in most countries, social distancing was imposed well after the true infection wave, or our value peaked, indicating that lockdowns did not cause the cases to drop. So, if all social distancing and drastic measures did not make the outbreaks halt, what did instead? The outbreak halted in most countries because of the same reason it halts every flu season. Every year, atmospheric circumstances, like the weather, temperature, and humidity, and growing immunity that make it harder and harder for the virus to spread. But wait, didn't we learn that we were not even close to herd immunity? The world had to brace for a second wave and could only return back to normal if there was a corona vaccine? You know what? Why don't we first go back a bit and look at the corona killer virus again? The virus that was so terribly contagious, so terribly deadly, and had no vaccine. Well, turns out, independent science now shows it's even less contagious than influenza. It is about as deadly as a bad flu, and there is lots of scientific proof that there is an affordable, reliable, safe, and working medicine that can be taken in the early stages of the illness that will even prevent patients from getting hospitalized. So, all of this makes the danger of the corona virus, or COVID-19, actually comparable to that of a mild to severe flu seasons. And yes, corona kills, for sure, just like influenza does. But it's not as deadly as illnesses that we have been living with for hundreds and hundreds of years, without that much attention of the media. You might be wondering, those antibody tests only show 5 to 10% positives, and to be safe, we needed 70 to 80%, right? So we are not even close? Um, no. What you've been told is not really what reflects reality. Let's first have a look at the amazing thing that is our immune system, which is composed by the innate immune system, your skin, your saliva, gastric acids, come and solve flora, and much more. And your adaptive immune system, killer T cells, helper T cells, and antibodies. Pretty cool, huh? Turns out that for, like, influenza and other types of viruses, most of us have an innate immunity already, which is, for example, why 75% of the elderly that were exposed on the cruise ship Diamond Princess did not get the virus at all, even though they were drifting around as a perfect incubator for a month. This cross-immunity or background immunity is very well known in science, but whoever cared to tell us about that. Maybe it's time we start to rethink our actions. Maybe we need to question social distancing. Question the new normal. Question the corona vaccine. And question the entire crisis. Maybe, after all, it's a really good idea to just inform ourselves, embrace independent science, embrace discussion, and embrace common sense. We've survived a lot of things already. We can probably handle this one as well.