Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 191

[ecosophia]

We are now in the fourth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary more than three years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health are anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; public health authorities government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before:

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.

5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The original covid sometimes caused rashes and just about anything else in some people, but I and the large majority of people I know have had Omicron and nobody groused about a significant rash, much less one with pustules like smallpox (or chickenpox, or cowpox). In theory Omicron's reduced virulence could be reversed, but there's no reason it would look then like smallpox; probably it would look more like SARS, a much deadlier coronavirus respiratory infection.

[(Anonymous)]

As one data point, I had both Delta and Omicron and did not have rashes either time. However, I did have long covid (serious fatigue, digestive issues, some brain fog). As I used natto and ozone therapy to recover, I did have minor skin eruptions but nothing significantly uncomfortable except for the Herxing which felt like a mild flu that lasted about a day.

[anonymoose_canadian]

I don't exepct this to happen overnight. Evolution is usually quite slow, even when there is a very strong selective pressure, so even if this is troubling possibility does emerge, it would unfold over the course of years or decades. In the short term, I think you're right: any increase in virulence is likely to merely cause a worse respiratory infection. It's the longer term I'm worried about here.

The concern I have is that it looks like it might be under intense selective pressure to extend the ability it already has to infect some immune cells, at which point it would be able to use the lymph nodes to spread everywhere in the body, and once that's done one of the best ways to spread is through causing a rash and spreading as tiny bits of infected skin flake off. The fact it can cause rashes means it can already infect the skin, and so it has one fewer trick to learn to move in the general direction of smallpox.

It's also possible I'm being too literal minded, and the outcome will not be smallpox 2.0. If it is actually learning the trick of infecting immune cells though, I'd be astonished if it did not become one of the worst diseases to afflict human beings.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, as an example of that kind of disease we already have measles, which infects immune cells - both B and T cells - with the result being a couple years of weakened immunity to other diseases following infection. It can be a very bad disease, but in non-virgin populations the death and permanent disability rates are orders of magnitude smaller than smallpox. What makes it such a problem at the public-health level is its extreme spreadability.

Measles does cause a rash and is airborne, but I believe it spreads mostly through the breath. It is reportedly contagious before the rash begins to show. You would expect transmission by breath to get into the air circulation much better than shedding off the skin anyway, since you huff your breath out some distance, several feet off the ground, whereas skin cells just fall off, they aren't propelled.

As for Omicron, I don't see why it will be pressured to invade lymph nodes. The development of Omicron was towards more superficial infection of the upper respiratory system and it's doing very well for itself there.