Post Reply - pandemic strategies (or lack of it !)

As we drown in endless waves of Covid that generate millions of infections and thousands of deaths per week, our leaders have effectively stripped away every tool we have. They prefer a society that sacrifices themselves for short-term economic and political gains and then becomes ripe clientele for the pharmaceutical industry.

 They collude with the media to push out a daily barrage of misinformation aimed exclusively at ensuring we continue to work, shop, and vacation, because that's what they care about. Meanwhile, they do absolutely nothing about pandemics on the way as dozens of diseases spread out of control, at levels 10 times worse than normal. 

As the World Health Organization sounds alarms, telling us "we have arrived in the post-antibiotic era," and that we faced a future pandemic up to 20 times worse than Covid, our leaders focus on vibes.

 That last part should get our attention. 

Yes, we are here. 

We have arrived in the time when superbugs aren't responding to antibiotics. 

If that weren't bad enough, they're preying on our weakened immune systems.

And bird flu has likely gone human to human.

But it's not hopeless.

Four years ago, we looked to plants to protect us from pathogens because vaccines and treatments weren't coming anytime soon. The minute those vaccines and antivirals came out, most people forgot all about plants. They reverted to their old assumptions that plants were for hippies.

Well, here we are again.

Our vaccines and treatments are failing, and when they work they're often in short supply, or we can't even get access to them. Moms and dads are rolling out the NyQuil in little cutesie Facebook posts, along with all the pills that treat the symptoms but leave the disease itself to roam free all over your body.

We can do better.

As we mask while demanding clean air and better medicine, it's time to revisit those plants and see what they can do.

Do they even work?

Yeah, they do.

A 2024 review of studies in Viruses identified 10 different plant compounds with broad antiviral properties and effectiveness specific to Covid (and in many cases several other viruses). As they write, "plat-derived molecules can tackle viruses by acting on different aspects of their infection process" and "inhibit coronavirus/host protein pathways" by blocking them. The authors initially identified 45 different compounds and then narrowed them to the 10 most effective.

Plants work because they contain terpenoids, flavonoids, phenols, and alkaloids that all demonstrate "high anti-viral potential against SARS-CoV-2 particles" as well as other viruses. They do this in a variety of ways that work across variants because they block virus entry while also tamping down replication and essentially "stopping its life cycle."

Sounds good to me...