David Craig, on April 10th, 2020(Friday blog)
I don’t have any ‘big story’ today. So if you haven’t already read it, I propose that you look at yesterday’s blog about the coming Chinese takeover of our economies as that’s quite an important story that hasn’t been mentioned on any mainstream media
Can simulating a fever help protect against the Chinese plague?
Given that we’ve all suddenly become medical experts, virologists and epidemiologists, I thought I’d air my own uninformed views.
We know that the body’s defence mechanism against viruses consists of two main functions – creating antibodies to fight the virus and raising the body’s core temperature – apparently the higher core body temperature makes it more difficult for the virus to replicate.
An early morning temperature higher than 37.2 °C (99.0 °F) or a late afternoon temperature higher than 37.7 °C (99.9 °F) is normally considered a fever, assuming that the temperature is elevated due to a change in the hypothalamus’s setpoint. Lower thresholds are sometimes appropriate for elderly people. The normal daily temperature variation is typically 0.5 °C (0.90 °F), but can be greater among people recovering from a fever.
Normally with a virus-related fever the core body temperature will increase from 37.8c to close to 39c. We also know that in a sauna one’s skin temperature will rise to around 40c to 41c. But one’s core body temperature will also increase by just over 1c to around 39c. Thus a sauna can simulate one of the body’s defence mechanisms against a virus – an increased core temperature.
We also know that during the first 5 or 6 days of a Chinese Covid-19 plague infection, most people are asymptomatic. Thus their body hasn’t yet started to raise its core temperature. Does this mean that anyone infected could theoretically slow down the virus’s replication rate during the asymptomatic first phase of infection and therefore seriousness of the later symptoms by taking say 2 to 3 very hot saunas a day?
Anyway, as my wife works in healthcare, I’m bound to catch the Chinese plague sooner or later. And as I usually take two saunas a day after exercise in the morning and afternoon, I’ll soon be able to test my own great theory.
Comparing Coronavirus deaths to other epidemics
Here’s a rather jolly simulation comparing deaths from the Chinese Covid-19 plague to deaths from other major diseases (click on the headline below to launch the simulation):
Coronavirus Deaths vs Other Epidemics From Day of First Death (Since 2000) [OC] from dataisbeautiful
Media’s demented hatred of Trump
And finally, the first 3 to 4 minutes of this video give yet more examples of the US progressive media’s totally deranged hatred of President Donald Trump:
Category: 
Missing from the simulation are the large numbers of deaths from seasonal flu. Something the media does not want to talk about either.
There was a controlled trial of a Parkinson’s treatment shown on TV a while ago. Many of the participants claimed an improvement, but analysis of the trial showed that there was no statistical significance. In my view experiments are being conducted on seriously ill patients by using hydroxychloroquine. The claims for this drug are just speculation without a controlled trial. This is not the way to make progress. It should only be used on patients if they have been told that the treatment is experimental and they agree to the treatment on that basis and understand that it could cause them harm.
Actually, Alex Brummer in the Mail yesterday came out with much the same view: “How sickening that China will now exploit the fallout of virus it gave to the West.”
One gets the impression here that no one in authority has a clue as to the best policy, it could well be that the first instinct to let it run its course (herd immunity) would have got it over with a darn sight quicker.
Meanwhile, a colleague who has a ’thing’ about such matters, e-mail me this:
So, poor old Boris Johnson has really got a dose of ‘the virus’ and is clearly incapacitated for some time. Therefore a temporary leader had to be appointed. This anointed one had to come from one of the three major Cabinet positions: Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary or Chancellor of the Exchequer. It’s interesting that none of the current occupants – and probably future ones well – is a True Brit. By far the closest is the current Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab whose mother is British but whose father was a Jew from Czechoslovakia. The other two are Indian. A bit like Ireland’s PM. Isn’t it extraordinary – or is it, really – that nobody of traditional British stock is up to the job? And. whatever about Raab, what feeling or empathy can Patel or Sunak have for the people they lead? Well here’s what prominent “British” journalist Ash Sarkar, wrote a few weeks ago: ‘The white British population has decreased by 600,000, while the minority population has increased by 1.2million. So yes, lads, we’re winning!’. And this by the way from a woman who claims to be driven by ‘anti-racism’.
Britain’s in safe hands.
Ash Sakar – known for saying to Piers Morgan “I’m a communist, you idiot.”
There is a Spectator article about ventilators, “Ventilators aren’t a panacea for a pandemic like coronavirus”. Here is a link, but it may be behind a pay wall.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/Ventilators-aren-t-a-panacea-for-a-pandemic-like-coronavirus?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BOCH%20%2020200409%20%20GC&utm_content=BOCH%20%2020200409%20%20GC+CID_e56628a9c93f67dcca94bad7d36f8e6c&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_term=Ventilators%20arent%20a%20panacea%20for%20a%20pandemic%20like%20coronavirus
This extract sums up the message: “There has never been a placebo randomised control trial of putting people on ventilators versus letting them struggle on. We therefore do not, strictly-speaking, know whether those who survive their time on ventilator may have survived anyway, or whether some would-be survivors died because they were committed to a ventilator.”
It is just the same as experiments with drugs. The health services really do not have a clue how to treat this virus.