What can we do about COVID?

COVID is a bitch, and it’s not going away any time soon, so what can we do about it?

For a start, make sure you’re vaccinated and keep your booster shots up to date.

When it comes to COVID, it’s important to realize it is NOT a cold or a flu (which most people catch only once or twice a decade, not several times a year). COVID causes far more devastating cellular damage than the flu, and that damage accumulates from one infection to another, meaning it gets worse for your body, not better.

The biggest problem when it comes to COVID is disinformation and misinformation. An example of disinformation is governments downplaying the significance of COVID for the sake of their economies. An example of misinformation would be falsely promoting Ivermectin as a remedy or overstating vaccine-related health problems (as though catching COVID is somehow better). That’s not to say some people don’t have adverse reactions, but that it’s a fraction of vaccinated people and far less severe than COVID itself. When it comes to Ivermectin, the FDA said it best…

Masks

Masks work. They’re incredibly effective against ALL variants of COVID, but not all masks are created equal. The blue surgical masks you often see worn by doctors and nurses are designed to catch bacteria being breathed OUT and so keep patients safe during surgery. They operate like a kitchen sieve, catching rice while allowing water to run through. The problem is SARS-CoV-2 is too small to be caught like the rice and passes through with the water.

N95 masks are different. They’re clever. N95 masks use electrostatic repulsion to repel viruses in the air, much like a party trick you can try out at home using styrofoam plates. Gases like oxygen flow freely while viruses are repelled. N95 masks are brilliant!

Nasal Sprays

Saline nasal sprays don’t do much, but there is considerable evidence that anti-viral nasal sprays help reduce the number of times someone catches COVID. For those who are infected with COVID or RSV, they can reduce the symptoms and recovery time by reducing how much the virus replicates in the nasal passages and throat.

And they’re cheap, safe and well-proven! You don’t need a doctor’s prescription! You can find them at the pharmacy, but be sure to check they contain compounds like carrageenan, as there are a lot of saline-only sprays on the shelves.

Here in Australia, carrageenan is found in Flo Travel Nasal Spray. If you’re off to a Christmas party or think you might have been exposed to COVID, this is a good way to reduce your risk of disease.

Probiotics

Probiotics hold a lot of promise in combatting COVID, especially for kids.

Scientists are awesome. They will literally test anything and everything to see what works—but more than that, they ask, “Why does this work?” And sometimes, answers to complex problems come from unusual sources. In this case, a chewable probiotic that has shown anti-viral properties in the past turned out to be effective against COVID. This is particularly important for kids who are packed into classrooms and potentially exposed to COVID far more than adults.

Streptococcus salivarius K12 (BLIS K12) is a probiotic that is already known to reduce the incidence of tonsillitis and scarlet fever in kindergarteners by 80%. Realizing this, scientists wondered if it could be used to help hospitalized COVID patients and found it improved survival rates by a factor of three!

A randomized and controlled trial in Italy followed 128 children at school over 90 days (64 children took the K12 probiotic, while the other 64 children didn’t, acting as a control group). At the end of the trial, none of the children consuming K12 had caught COVID, while 24 children in the control group tested positive for COVID.

In a research paper entitled, Probiotic Effects against Virus Infections: New Weapons for an Old War, scientists note that “probiotic supplementation improved both barrier and biochemical immune responses, [and] decreased susceptibility to viral infections.“

Further research has shown that a healthy microbiome in the throat can multiply the effectiveness of antibodies (which result from vaccination or from fighting off a previous infection)

Probiotics aren’t appropriate for babies, but as children develop and begin mixing in high-risk viral areas like kindergarten and school, probiotics can provide an effective way to reduce a child’s risk of respiratory diseases like COVID and RSV.

And, again, like with the nasal sprays, these probiotics are available from a pharmacy without a prescription. Products like Bionaze are available from Amazon.

Disclaimer

I am not a medical doctor. This article is intended to help provide alternatives to the disinformation that is so prevalent on the internet and contains links to the underlying scientific research, but it should not be considered medical advice. As we each have our own unique medical history, you should discuss options like these with your doctor and seek their recommendations.