Hindsight is 20/20, so I'll cut the world a little slack & say I understand there is going to be chaos & confusion during the early days of a viral pandemic.
Brief lock-downs and social distancing while the world comes to grips with what is going on are understandable. Mask mandates were a bit hysterical, but what the heck, give them a try for a month or so to see if the Hail Mary tactics might help, even if only minimally effective.
What I can't forgive, and what must change, is the restriction on treatments. We saw right away lungs were clotting off. Do we know of anything that inhibits clotting that isn't too dangerous? Oh heck yeah... ASPIRIN! Did they recommend we take it for a few days if we fell I'll? NOPE! I'm not saying I know this would have worked... I'm saying WE SHOULD HAVE TRIED!
We've known BOTH Vitamin-D & Zinc are essential to proper immune function, and deficiencies of both are quite common. Diabetes, kidney disease, blood pressure meds and diuretics given for heart disease are all known to deplete zinc, and the conditions that deplete this essential mineral are notorious for severe COVID. Would it have killed that many people to recommend we supplement these essential nutrients until pharmaceuticals were found, or vaccines distributed? NOPE! Did they do this? NOPE!
We've seen cytokine storms associated with respiratory virus for decades now, and we know how to treat them. STEROIDS! Problem is, you've got to treat promptly. Cytokine storms are like forest fires. Fairly easy to manage when caught early, but let them rage out of control, and they will be just that... Out of control! Putting everyone who contracts the virus on Big Guns steroids would certainly be problematic in a pandemic, but we do have some kinder/gentler immune modulating drugs we know to be quite benign for short duration therapy. 70 million doses of HCQ were swiftly procured, but wound up languishing in stockpile, as government regulators froze like deer in headlights. There is even a localized inhaled steroid (budesonide) that can be applied directly to lung tissue for fast, short duration therapy.
SARS-CoV-2 wasn't our first run-in with SARS coronavirus, and research done after previous SARS / MERS coronavirus identified the chloroquine family of drugs as our go-to therapeutic, to try in the event of a future SARS coronavirus pandemic. Front line doctors, frantically treating patients at ground zero pandemic hot spots confirmed these meds were working. What happened next? Who could believe any and all outpatient treatment would be FRANTICALLY SUPPRESSED, and patients told to "isolate at home until they turned blue", whereupon they would be ambulanced off to a ventilator and remdesivir which would put them out of their misery. Outrageous!
Someone should be hanging by their heels in the town square till their bones have been pecked clean by crows!
We had "Right to Try" laws on the books, that should have facilitated a doctors right to prescribe, and a patient's right to try any or all of these, yet nothing was recommended for two long years, while frightened seniors died alone and afraid, in complete isolation. Even a placebo can be comforting to those in desperate situations. Don't just shake your head and slam the door in their faces.
If we've learned anything from this debacle, it must be you've got to let doctors treat patients, and try a few things, rather than wait YEARS for solutions from Big Pharma. Nuremberg style tribunals should be held, and examples made of those who threw sand in the treatment gears.
Nevermore should plague victims be abandoned to fend for themselves for YEARS at a time!
Edited by Dorian Grey, 14 March 2024 - 04:58 PM.