|
|
Covid 19: random thoughts and parallels
What does the virus do (What are the symptoms of Covid19 infection)?
Wikipedia:
Common symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, breathing difficulties, and loss of smell and taste. While most people have mild symptoms, some people develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which can be precipitated by cytokine storms, multi-organ failure, septic shock, and blood clots. Longer-term damage to organs (in particular, the lungs and heart) has been observed, and there is concern about a significant number of patients who have recovered from the acute phase of the disease but continue to experience a range of effects—known as long COVID—for months afterwards, including severe fatigue, memory loss and other cognitive issues, low grade fever, muscle weakness, and breathlessness.
COVID-19 can affect the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, and throat) and the lower respiratory tract (windpipe and lungs). SARS-CoV-2 may also cause respiratory failure through affecting the brain stem. The virus also affects gastrointestinal organs. The virus can cause acute myocardial injury and chronic damage to the cardiovascular system. A high incidence of thrombosis and venous thromboembolism have been found in ICU patients with COVID-19 infections. Infection appears to set off a chain of vasoconstrictive responses within the body, constriction of blood vessels within the pulmonary circulation has also been posited as a mechanism in which oxygenation decreases alongside the presentation of viral pneumonia. Another common cause of death is complications related to the kidneys. Autopsies of people who died of COVID-19 have found diffuse alveolar damage (DAD), and lymphocyte-containing inflammatory infiltrates within the lung.
It seems that a percentage of cases(some sources say as high as 80%) will experience mild to moderate symptoms. This means that although you might feel very unwell (severe weakness for example) your symptoms wont lead to severe complications and/or hospitalisation. But for some the infection can be very severe, attacking virtually any organ, leading to very dangerous symptoms and quite possibly death. We know that older people are especially vulnerable here.
But the one thing that stands out, whether in mild or severe cases, is that breathing and the lungs are often affected.
www.healthline.com:
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 31 to 40 percent of people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 have experienced shortness of breath.
The occurrence of other symptoms is as follows:
fever: 83 to 99 percent
cough: 59 to 82 percent
fatigue: 44 to 70 percent
loss of appetite: 40 to 84 percent
sputum production: 28 to 33 percent
muscle, body aches: 11 to 35 percent
Another CDC study of confirmed cases in the United States found that shortness of breath occurred in about 43 percent of symptomatic adults and 13 percent of symptomatic children.
Persistent or worsening shortness of breath can lead to a critical health condition known as hypoxia.
When you can’t breathe properly, it can cause your oxygen saturation levels to drop below 90 percent. This can deprive your brain of oxygen. When this happens, confusion, lethargy, and other mental disruptions may occur.
In severe cases, if oxygen levels dip to around 80 percent or lower, there’s an increased risk of damage to vital organs.
Ongoing shortness of breath is a symptom of pneumonia, which can progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This is a progressive type of lung failure in which fluid fills up the air sacs in your lungs.
With ARDS, breathing becomes increasingly difficult as stiff, fluid-filled lungs have a harder time expanding and contracting. In some cases, help breathing with mechanical ventilation is needed.
Wikipedia:
Because of the high expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in type II alveolar cells, the lungs are susceptible to infections by some coronaviruses including the viruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Whether respiratory symptoms are due to changes in the lungs, circulatory system or nervous system, the outcome is the same. There is mild to severe difficulty in breathing. The sufferer might say: I cannot get enough air.
Not enough air. Is there a parallel with some climate research findings by climate scientists?
www.weather.com/science/nature/news/earth-atmosphere-losing-oxygen :
Researchers studying the ice core in the Antarctic and Greenland say Earth is steadily losing oxygen.The pace seems to have accelerated over the past century and is being blamed on fossil fuels.
Oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere are on a downward spiral, but it's nothing to panic over just yet, researchers say.
In a study published in the journal Science, a team of scientists, led by researchers from Princeton University in New Jersey, tested the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere and found that levels have dropped by almost 0.7 percent over the past 800,000 years…
More disturbing, the rate seems to have sped up over the past century, dropping by a further 0.1 percent.
Although oxygen levels do seem to be decreasing faster, the decrease is nothing to panic over, the researchers say.
I suggest this site for a more comprehensive analysis of oxygen depletion:
www.i-sis.org.uk/O2DroppingFasterThanCO2Rising.php
In this article’s concluding paragraph we find:
Change in land use, and increased oxidation of nitrogen could explain the long term steady decline in atmospheric O2, and may well also account for the sharp acceleration of the downward trend since 2002 and 2003.
These years happen to coincide with record rates of deforestation. In Brazil, 10 000 square miles were lost mainly to pasture land, soybean plantations and illegal logging, a 40 percent rise over the previous year. Massive deforestation has continued in the Amazon and elsewhere, spurred by the biofuels boom; it is estimated that nearly 40,000 ha of the world’s forests are vanishing every day.
The crucial role of forests and phytoplankton in oxygenating the earth shows how urgent it is to take oxygen accounting seriously in climate policies. Reductionist accounting for CO2 alone is insufficient, and even grossly misleading and dangerous.
We’re all familiar with the dramatic rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gases. But oxygen has decreased 0.7% in 800,000 years and 0.1% in the last 100 years (at the previous rate it would decrease by 0.1% in something like 100,000 years).
Industry, deforestation and vast out of control forest fires; I think we might expect accelerating oxygen depletion.
How sensitive are human organisms (as well of course all other organisms) to such changes ?
I suspect most scientists would say that the decrease of oxygen levels would be too small to effect the human organism. But would they be right?
Could it be that organisms, including the human, are in fact so sensitive, that they can detect even slight changes in oxygen levels? It seems that zooplankton, at least, can.
In ScienceDaily:
Oceanographers at the University of Rhode Island have found that even slight levels of ocean oxygen loss, or deoxygenation, have big consequences for tiny marine organisms called zooplankton.
Read the article here:
www.sciencedaily.com
If this were true then it could suggest that all organisms requiring oxygen are having to adapt.
Is it possible that organisms including the human are already registering and attempting to adapt to these small changes in the composition of earth’s atmosphere? I’m not here talking about high pollution zones where adverse effects on health are obvious and well documented. I’m suggesting here a more universal and subtle change that might be effecting all of us.
If this were true then organisms are having to adapt. The human family is having to adapt. However, many of it’s members are already coping (or not coping) with so much stress, that they can’t adapt, or only with great difficulty.
So, an already compromised species and a rogue virus looking to exploit the situation. (Of course that’s a rather anthropocentric way of looking at a virus. But viruses will, just like other micro-organisms, thrive in a suitable soil. A healthy organism is better able to keep them out or mount an effective immune response.) Are we that different to the zooplankton already pushed to their survival limits in a degraded (by human activity) environment?
From a homeopathic perspective we can say that failure to adapt is an important aspect of disease. In the case of an individual we might see an acute illness with fever as a crisis in which there’s an attempt on the part of the whole organism to adapt, regulate itself and re-establish homeostasis. In such acute illnesses (childhood infections for example), there’s the opportunity to mount an immune response, which if successful allows the mind/body to reset.
Of course we cannot be casual or careless when it comes to any form of acute infection. Well-handled acute infections might be of benefit to human organisms, giving an opportunity for self-regulation, re-balancing and clearing-out. On the other hand micro-organisms often get the better of individuals and populations with disastrous consequences. Modern medicine attempts to remedy this situation with mass vaccination programs. The vaccination issue is huge and complex so I’m not going to try to get into it here. But at the very least I don’t think it’s as straightforward as modern medicine would have us believe. Quite apart from the question of the vaccinations themselves (safety, toxicity etc.), it sidesteps such questions as the possible value of acute illness, and the chronic factors (spiritual, psychological, social, environmental, physical, dietary) that undermine health, and general well-being.
With a little bit of imagination we might see an epidemic or pandemic as an acute crisis for the whole species, for all of us.
Of course all this opens up big questions that are beyond the scope of this article.
In this bigger perspective environmental degradation is not the cause of the problem, but the symptom. Why have humans degraded their environment so? Any answer to this would be complex and multi-dimensional. Basic questions concerning survival needs, access to education, and cultural contexts of ethical and spiritual values would be important factors. There would be others. Eventually this line of inquiry might lead to deeper considerations of the possible wellsprings of disease and suffering. The Buddha pretty much condensed it down to ignorance, desire and aversion. Here we come upon fundamental questions relating to meaning, purpose, belonging and identity. Here, at the centre of human experience, we might encounter our sense of separation – our belief in ourselves as separate entities. Or our experience of separation from ourselves, from nature and all creatures, and from God (whatever name you give to the ultimate mystery). Then we might ask what way of life, what attitudes and what activities arise from these beliefs?
What about homeopathy? The beauty of homeopathy is this. I say to you “tell me your suffering.” You describe to me your experience of dis-ease in soul, mind and body. Homeopaths call this the totality of symptoms. In this description of your totality of symptoms all outwards manifestations of disorder are important (physical symptoms and diseases), but the most important thing is your subjective state. How do we experience ourselves, others and the world. In the homeopathic perspective the genesis of disease is to be found here. Things move from the centre to the periphery. Delusion and error in the interior show up as dysfunction in the exterior.
What happens next in the homeopathic procedure is what is so extraordinary, and to many, unbelievable. Find a substance – more often than not something from nature such as a mineral, plant or animal product (a mammalian milk or a snake venom for example ) – that is known, through a homeopathic trial in human test subjects using a special preparation of such a substance, to produce a similar state of suffering and dysfunction (totality of symptoms) to the state that you already described. You receive a “homeopathic dose” of the remedy based on its similarity with your condition
The homeopathic approach is to go towards, not against. It says your symptoms and your state are the very best your beloved wholeness can do to self-regulate and find balance in the face of physical, psychological or environmental stress. You and your symptoms are to be held and embraced. It’s as though the remedy (through its similarity) gently says “let me show you the nature of your trouble, you’re suffering, so that you might be free from it.” Like can be cured by like. But to see things really as they are is the first vital step.
However well-intentioned, and with all the love with which it is given, the standard medical approach will drive things back into the darkness – things that want to be seen, known, accepted. The standard approach pushes back rather than passes through, in the sense of closing the door rather than passing through it. Go towards what cries out to be seen, felt, heard. And of course at times of crisis it may be right to push back and leave going towards for another day when things are easier. Often we have to firefight, and try to make things better for people in their lives, or in our own lives. But the homeopathic approach will always try to ask “what’s really going on here?” Will seek to open up rather than close down.
What a challenge for all of us at this critical point in human development – as we seek to find the deep acceptance of ourselves and others that is necessary if we are to continue to unfold as a species.
Julian
What does the virus do (What are the symptoms of Covid19 infection)?
Wikipedia:
Common symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, breathing difficulties, and loss of smell and taste. While most people have mild symptoms, some people develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which can be precipitated by cytokine storms, multi-organ failure, septic shock, and blood clots. Longer-term damage to organs (in particular, the lungs and heart) has been observed, and there is concern about a significant number of patients who have recovered from the acute phase of the disease but continue to experience a range of effects—known as long COVID—for months afterwards, including severe fatigue, memory loss and other cognitive issues, low grade fever, muscle weakness, and breathlessness.
COVID-19 can affect the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, and throat) and the lower respiratory tract (windpipe and lungs). SARS-CoV-2 may also cause respiratory failure through affecting the brain stem. The virus also affects gastrointestinal organs. The virus can cause acute myocardial injury and chronic damage to the cardiovascular system. A high incidence of thrombosis and venous thromboembolism have been found in ICU patients with COVID-19 infections. Infection appears to set off a chain of vasoconstrictive responses within the body, constriction of blood vessels within the pulmonary circulation has also been posited as a mechanism in which oxygenation decreases alongside the presentation of viral pneumonia. Another common cause of death is complications related to the kidneys. Autopsies of people who died of COVID-19 have found diffuse alveolar damage (DAD), and lymphocyte-containing inflammatory infiltrates within the lung.
It seems that a percentage of cases(some sources say as high as 80%) will experience mild to moderate symptoms. This means that although you might feel very unwell (severe weakness for example) your symptoms wont lead to severe complications and/or hospitalisation. But for some the infection can be very severe, attacking virtually any organ, leading to very dangerous symptoms and quite possibly death. We know that older people are especially vulnerable here.
But the one thing that stands out, whether in mild or severe cases, is that breathing and the lungs are often affected.
www.healthline.com:
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 31 to 40 percent of people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 have experienced shortness of breath.
The occurrence of other symptoms is as follows:
fever: 83 to 99 percent
cough: 59 to 82 percent
fatigue: 44 to 70 percent
loss of appetite: 40 to 84 percent
sputum production: 28 to 33 percent
muscle, body aches: 11 to 35 percent
Another CDC study of confirmed cases in the United States found that shortness of breath occurred in about 43 percent of symptomatic adults and 13 percent of symptomatic children.
Persistent or worsening shortness of breath can lead to a critical health condition known as hypoxia.
When you can’t breathe properly, it can cause your oxygen saturation levels to drop below 90 percent. This can deprive your brain of oxygen. When this happens, confusion, lethargy, and other mental disruptions may occur.
In severe cases, if oxygen levels dip to around 80 percent or lower, there’s an increased risk of damage to vital organs.
Ongoing shortness of breath is a symptom of pneumonia, which can progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This is a progressive type of lung failure in which fluid fills up the air sacs in your lungs.
With ARDS, breathing becomes increasingly difficult as stiff, fluid-filled lungs have a harder time expanding and contracting. In some cases, help breathing with mechanical ventilation is needed.
Wikipedia:
Because of the high expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in type II alveolar cells, the lungs are susceptible to infections by some coronaviruses including the viruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Whether respiratory symptoms are due to changes in the lungs, circulatory system or nervous system, the outcome is the same. There is mild to severe difficulty in breathing. The sufferer might say: I cannot get enough air.
Not enough air. Is there a parallel with some climate research findings by climate scientists?
www.weather.com/science/nature/news/earth-atmosphere-losing-oxygen :
Researchers studying the ice core in the Antarctic and Greenland say Earth is steadily losing oxygen.The pace seems to have accelerated over the past century and is being blamed on fossil fuels.
Oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere are on a downward spiral, but it's nothing to panic over just yet, researchers say.
In a study published in the journal Science, a team of scientists, led by researchers from Princeton University in New Jersey, tested the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere and found that levels have dropped by almost 0.7 percent over the past 800,000 years…
More disturbing, the rate seems to have sped up over the past century, dropping by a further 0.1 percent.
Although oxygen levels do seem to be decreasing faster, the decrease is nothing to panic over, the researchers say.
I suggest this site for a more comprehensive analysis of oxygen depletion:
www.i-sis.org.uk/O2DroppingFasterThanCO2Rising.php
In this article’s concluding paragraph we find:
Change in land use, and increased oxidation of nitrogen could explain the long term steady decline in atmospheric O2, and may well also account for the sharp acceleration of the downward trend since 2002 and 2003.
These years happen to coincide with record rates of deforestation. In Brazil, 10 000 square miles were lost mainly to pasture land, soybean plantations and illegal logging, a 40 percent rise over the previous year. Massive deforestation has continued in the Amazon and elsewhere, spurred by the biofuels boom; it is estimated that nearly 40,000 ha of the world’s forests are vanishing every day.
The crucial role of forests and phytoplankton in oxygenating the earth shows how urgent it is to take oxygen accounting seriously in climate policies. Reductionist accounting for CO2 alone is insufficient, and even grossly misleading and dangerous.
We’re all familiar with the dramatic rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gases. But oxygen has decreased 0.7% in 800,000 years and 0.1% in the last 100 years (at the previous rate it would decrease by 0.1% in something like 100,000 years).
Industry, deforestation and vast out of control forest fires; I think we might expect accelerating oxygen depletion.
How sensitive are human organisms (as well of course all other organisms) to such changes ?
I suspect most scientists would say that the decrease of oxygen levels would be too small to effect the human organism. But would they be right?
Could it be that organisms, including the human, are in fact so sensitive, that they can detect even slight changes in oxygen levels? It seems that zooplankton, at least, can.
In ScienceDaily:
Oceanographers at the University of Rhode Island have found that even slight levels of ocean oxygen loss, or deoxygenation, have big consequences for tiny marine organisms called zooplankton.
Read the article here:
www.sciencedaily.com
If this were true then it could suggest that all organisms requiring oxygen are having to adapt.
Is it possible that organisms including the human are already registering and attempting to adapt to these small changes in the composition of earth’s atmosphere? I’m not here talking about high pollution zones where adverse effects on health are obvious and well documented. I’m suggesting here a more universal and subtle change that might be effecting all of us.
If this were true then organisms are having to adapt. The human family is having to adapt. However, many of it’s members are already coping (or not coping) with so much stress, that they can’t adapt, or only with great difficulty.
So, an already compromised species and a rogue virus looking to exploit the situation. (Of course that’s a rather anthropocentric way of looking at a virus. But viruses will, just like other micro-organisms, thrive in a suitable soil. A healthy organism is better able to keep them out or mount an effective immune response.) Are we that different to the zooplankton already pushed to their survival limits in a degraded (by human activity) environment?
From a homeopathic perspective we can say that failure to adapt is an important aspect of disease. In the case of an individual we might see an acute illness with fever as a crisis in which there’s an attempt on the part of the whole organism to adapt, regulate itself and re-establish homeostasis. In such acute illnesses (childhood infections for example), there’s the opportunity to mount an immune response, which if successful allows the mind/body to reset.
Of course we cannot be casual or careless when it comes to any form of acute infection. Well-handled acute infections might be of benefit to human organisms, giving an opportunity for self-regulation, re-balancing and clearing-out. On the other hand micro-organisms often get the better of individuals and populations with disastrous consequences. Modern medicine attempts to remedy this situation with mass vaccination programs. The vaccination issue is huge and complex so I’m not going to try to get into it here. But at the very least I don’t think it’s as straightforward as modern medicine would have us believe. Quite apart from the question of the vaccinations themselves (safety, toxicity etc.), it sidesteps such questions as the possible value of acute illness, and the chronic factors (spiritual, psychological, social, environmental, physical, dietary) that undermine health, and general well-being.
With a little bit of imagination we might see an epidemic or pandemic as an acute crisis for the whole species, for all of us.
Of course all this opens up big questions that are beyond the scope of this article.
In this bigger perspective environmental degradation is not the cause of the problem, but the symptom. Why have humans degraded their environment so? Any answer to this would be complex and multi-dimensional. Basic questions concerning survival needs, access to education, and cultural contexts of ethical and spiritual values would be important factors. There would be others. Eventually this line of inquiry might lead to deeper considerations of the possible wellsprings of disease and suffering. The Buddha pretty much condensed it down to ignorance, desire and aversion. Here we come upon fundamental questions relating to meaning, purpose, belonging and identity. Here, at the centre of human experience, we might encounter our sense of separation – our belief in ourselves as separate entities. Or our experience of separation from ourselves, from nature and all creatures, and from God (whatever name you give to the ultimate mystery). Then we might ask what way of life, what attitudes and what activities arise from these beliefs?
What about homeopathy? The beauty of homeopathy is this. I say to you “tell me your suffering.” You describe to me your experience of dis-ease in soul, mind and body. Homeopaths call this the totality of symptoms. In this description of your totality of symptoms all outwards manifestations of disorder are important (physical symptoms and diseases), but the most important thing is your subjective state. How do we experience ourselves, others and the world. In the homeopathic perspective the genesis of disease is to be found here. Things move from the centre to the periphery. Delusion and error in the interior show up as dysfunction in the exterior.
What happens next in the homeopathic procedure is what is so extraordinary, and to many, unbelievable. Find a substance – more often than not something from nature such as a mineral, plant or animal product (a mammalian milk or a snake venom for example ) – that is known, through a homeopathic trial in human test subjects using a special preparation of such a substance, to produce a similar state of suffering and dysfunction (totality of symptoms) to the state that you already described. You receive a “homeopathic dose” of the remedy based on its similarity with your condition
The homeopathic approach is to go towards, not against. It says your symptoms and your state are the very best your beloved wholeness can do to self-regulate and find balance in the face of physical, psychological or environmental stress. You and your symptoms are to be held and embraced. It’s as though the remedy (through its similarity) gently says “let me show you the nature of your trouble, you’re suffering, so that you might be free from it.” Like can be cured by like. But to see things really as they are is the first vital step.
However well-intentioned, and with all the love with which it is given, the standard medical approach will drive things back into the darkness – things that want to be seen, known, accepted. The standard approach pushes back rather than passes through, in the sense of closing the door rather than passing through it. Go towards what cries out to be seen, felt, heard. And of course at times of crisis it may be right to push back and leave going towards for another day when things are easier. Often we have to firefight, and try to make things better for people in their lives, or in our own lives. But the homeopathic approach will always try to ask “what’s really going on here?” Will seek to open up rather than close down.
What a challenge for all of us at this critical point in human development – as we seek to find the deep acceptance of ourselves and others that is necessary if we are to continue to unfold as a species.
Julian