The COVID-19 Pandemic Has A Kill Switch. Let's Use It, Yesterday!

DISCLAIMER:  The following article references third-party sources and is intended for general information only, and is NOT intended to provide medical advice or otherwise diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, including (but not limited to) COVID-19.  Consult a qualified physician before beginning any sort of treatment or prophylactic regimen and/or if you know or suspect that you currently have COVID-19.  Anyone who takes or does anything mentioned (or alluded to) in this or any other TSAP article does so entirely at their own risk and liability.  The TSAP thus makes absolutely no warranties, express or implied, and is not liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from any act or omission on the part of the reader(s) or others.  Caveat lector.

What if there was a way to end the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic quickly and harmlessly, within a matter of a few weeks at most, without resorting to lockdowns or shutdowns of any kind, and without the need for any sort of vaccine?  Eradication of this soon-to-be-endemic virus is of course practically impossible since that train has left the station long ago, but it can be quite easily reduced to a mere nuisance like the common cold or seasonal flu going forward.  

Of course, in the long run, both "herd immunity" and attenuation (weakening) of the virus itself will do the trick, as an inevitable result of mass natural infection, and we're already pretty damn close, but what do we do in the meantime to make this a far less risky proposition since the virus is, you know, rather nasty and even deadly for some people?  Enter antiviral prophylaxis of some sort.  According to a very good model originally designed for pandemic influenza, this will not only "flatten the curve", but actually CRUSH the curve down hard, more so and faster than even the very best vaccines ever could, as the latter take too much time to roll out en masse and kick in.  And a solution couldn't come soon enough.

So what would this prophylaxis be?  Here is our "kill switch" to sharply reduce not only bad outcomes such as deaths, but also viral transmission as well:

• Vitamin D, first and foremost.
• Vitamin C (preferably liposomal)
• Zinc (including lozenges)
• Quercetin (a zinc ionophore)
• Niacin (Vitamin B3) 
• Thiamine (Vitamin B1)
• Inositol (Vitamin B8)
• Vitamin A (use with caution)
• Melatonin (at night)
• And last but not least, a multivitamin containing selenium, magnesium, copper, and Vitamin E

Really?  Sounds too easy, right?  We thought so too at first, but the evidence just keeps on piling up.  These things all enhance the immune system, tone down the body's harmful overreactions, and/or directly neutralize the virus itself.  And they are safe enough to recommend to the general population, not only those who are designated as "high risk" or "high exposure" (though certainly a fortiori for such folks). And they, among other things, all featured quite prominently in a previous article we wrote about treatment and prophylaxis for COVID-19.  And of course, they also work for many other viruses in general as well.  It is amazing how many people are deficient in many of these nutrients, and also how many of the various symptoms and after-effects thought to be linked to the virus itself may actually be the result of such deficiencies at least in part.

That alone should keep the vast, vast majority of COVID patients out of the hospital.  And for any severe cases that still occur, we already know how to easily treat the most likely complications of secondary bacterial infections, cytokine storms, and blood clots, using antibiotics, corticosteroids, and blood thinners.  And we also know now that ventilators kill more people than they save, and that less invasive means of oxygen therapy work quite well in fact, especially if you don't lay the patients on their backs.  In other words, this is actually a very manageable disease, and the specious idea that it is somehow unmanageable is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy driven by panic and misinformation (if not outright disinformation).

For example, check out the recently updated MATH+ protocol (for hospitalized patients) and the new I-MASK+ protocol (for early treatment and prophylaxis) both from the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC).  And see also the recently updated protocol by the Swiss Doctor as well.

To further out-ninja this virus, redirect it away from vulnerable people, and reduce the herd immunity threshold and overshoot, we should take some lessons from the countries that had very low death rates without (or independently of) lockdowns:

• Wash your hands, don't touch your face, cover coughs and sneezes, stay home if sick, avoid people who are currently sick, and all that jazz. Vulnerable people should avoid crowds as much as possible.  You know, common sense, basically.
• Clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces frequently, including your phone.
• Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate indoor spaces as much as possible.
• Do temperature checks to enter public buildings and workplaces, and perhaps for public transportation as well.
• When doing contact tracing, do backward rather than forward tracing.  That works much better given the stochastic nature of this virus.
• When it comes to gatherings of any kind, remember that SIZE MATTERS, as the risk of virus exposure and spread increases exponentially with the number of people present.  This is especially true in enclosed spaces for prolonged periods of time.
• Use face masks judiciously, not superstitiously.  They are filters, not barriers.  Change/clean them as frequently as possible so they don't backfire and become fomites (germ carriers).
• And most importantly, take the proper precautions to stop the nosocomial spread of the virus within hospitals and nursing homes, which account for the lion's share of deaths in many countries, but some countries managed to solve nonetheless.

In other words, take the same precautions you would if you found out that there was a flu outbreak and/or a norovirus outbreak in your neighborhood, community, or workplace.  Because the way it spreads is similar to both types of viruses--and like the latter one, don't neglect the fecal-oral route of transmission.

Of course, thus far we are referring to the actual pandemic, that is, the one that actually produces significant excess deaths.  We haven't discussed how to also quash the massive testing "casedemic" that has been superimposed on top of it.  Here's how to tackle that one going forward as well:

• Reduce the cycle threshold for PCR testing to 30 for standard sensitivity, and perhaps 35 for high sensitivity testing.
• Confirm all positives with a retest before reporting results, especially positives with a cycle threshold >25.
• Test sensitivity is rather overrated, apparently, at least in terms of a tradeoff with speed and frequency.
• Do not include positive antigen (i.e. rapid) tests in reported "cases" unless also confirmed by PCR.
• Do not mix in positive antibody test results as new "cases", as that is comparing apples and oranges.
• Do not count multiple positive tests of the same individual as separate "cases", unless they are at least several months apart.
• Consider restricting virus testing to symptomatic individuals only, except in very sensitive environments such as hospitals and nursing homes.
• Report COVID hospitalizations as such only if the patients are there because of the virus (think CLI, ILI, shortness of breath, and/or pneumonia), not just because they tested positive after being admitted for something unrelated.
• Make sure all deaths designated as COVID deaths really are from COVID. That is, no motor vehicle accidents, gunshot wounds, alligator attacks, deaths of despair, etc. with merely incidental positive tests.
• Report cases by specimen date and deaths by date of death.

And just like that, goodbye pandemic!  And by ending lockdowns and other restrictions and going back to true normal sooner rather than later, we will also prevent any further collateral damage that is the actual root cause of so many excess deaths and so much misery we have seen so far this year.

And there you have it.  Consider this our silver bullet, and golden ticket out of this horrible nightmare for good.  Yesterday is not soon enough.  So what are we waiting for?  Let the real healing begin!

UPDATE:  After perusing some of the links in this article, the reader may wonder why we did not list bromhexine as a treatment and prophylaxis despite it looking rather promising.  The reason is simply because it is unfortunately still not available in the USA, despite it being safe and readily available OTC in almost every country in the world.  And this article is written primarily for an American audience.

One can also add resveratrol to the list as well, as it helps normalize the immune system, and was also found to show effectiveness against a far deadlier member of the coronavirus family, namely MERS.

As for long-haulers (those suffering from longer-term COVID after-effects), many of the reported symptoms sound a lot like those of deficiencies in several of the aforementioned key nutrients, particularly Vitamin D (in general), Vitamin B1 (dysautonomia and recurring fevers), and zinc (loss of smell and taste).  Correcting these deficiencies would likely work very well to promote healing.  And according to Dr. Dmitry Kats, there is also at least anecdotal evidence as well that Niacin (Vitamin B3) can be beneficial as well in healing from remnant COVID damage, which is not really surprising given how well it works to treat acute COVID (as he discovered in his RCT study).  Apparently, a good chunk of Long COVID can be considered a virus-induced form or offshoot of pellagra (niacin or NAD+ deficiency), and many of the symptoms of both match up, thus curable with niacin.

As for prophylactic nasal sprays, some are in development as we speak, though not yet commercially available.  Until then, fortunately there is already one that is likely to block the virus while yielding additional health benefits in the meantime.  It is called Xlear, a natural, drug-free saline nasal spray with xylitol and grapefruit seed extract.

See also "A Rational Path Forward" by the folks at Rational Ground as well.