The Australian Government has given up on covid vaccination and is conducting a staged retreat. It is now recommending booster shots only for those over 50, the same as Denmark.  Those under 30 will not be approved for further doses due to the risk of myocarditis. Myocarditis?  What does that remind us of? It reminds us that Ralph Baric, the evil genius behind covid, wrote a paper in 1992 with this title:

An Experimental Model for Myocarditis and Congestive Heart Failure after Rabbit Coronavirus Infection

To be clear, that research wasn’t directed at protecting rabbits from myocarditis. It was to make a spike protein that caused myocarditis – in another species. To quote a wit on Twitter: “The best thing about being a conspiracy theorist is not having myocarditis.”

As the slight protection from vaccination only lasts a few months at best before going negative, this is effectively the end of vaccination in attempting to control the disease.

And we do want to control the disease. A doctor on the east coast has reported:

I’m dealing with up to two or three long covid cases per day.  People’s lives are often crushed – even some young people.  They sit in my surgery, crying their eyes out because they are so breathless and fatigued. 

The chest X-rays of my patients who have had covid are alarmingly similar with what’s referred to as “glass opacity” appearance. I don’t know if their lungs will recover but plenty of my patients have had to give up work, they’re so fatigued. Nasty business. 50% of those infected with covid don’t even know they’ve had it. For them, I suppose, covid is a damp squib but for the ones badly “long” affected, it’s a really big deal.

The healing from the vaccination period can begin, literally. That is evident in the hospitalisation rates in NSW by vaccination cohort (https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Pages/weekly-reports.aspx):

The covid hospitalisation rates for the one, two and three dose cohorts have merged but the four dose enthusiasts are still being whacked much harder. Perhaps four doses was one too many insults to the immune system.

Vaccination has failed as predicted so what does that leave us with? It leaves us with non-pharmaceutical interventions and pharmaceuticals. The non-pharmaceutical interventions are masks and 222 nm UV lamps. To be effective, masks have to be N95 grade or better and fit well to be effective. As discussed in this German study. The surgical masks that most people wear are next to useless.

If we had to rely upon mask-wearing to protect us from covid, our species would be doomed. Fortunately there is another system that will protect us from all airborne pathogens: UV lamps at 222 nm. UV lamps have been used for disinfection for decades but at the 254 nm wavelength which causes skin and eye damage. UV at 222 nm avoids that while being more efficient at killing bacteria and viruses. From a Boeing report on the technology:

All cell walls are made from protein and Far-UV wavelengths between 200 and 230 nm interact strongly with proteins. Multiple university studies have demonstrated that 222 nm light typically will not penetrate deeper than three microns into the surface of a cell wall. In the case of pathogen microbes, their diameter is typically 0.1 to 1 micron. Thus, they are fully penetrated and destroyed.

Human cells, in contrast, are generally more than 40 microns in diameter and are not fully penetrated by 222 nm UV light. These studies have shown that the outer layer of the skin and the tear layer of the eyes form a protein shield for the cells beneath.

This graphic from a lamp manufacturer shows the time versus distance relationship for full sterilisation using 20 watt power consumption:

(image from Luxglo)

At two metres it will take six minutes for full sterilisation of the air. Surface disinfection takes about 60% longer. Eventually a good part of our waking lives will be spent under such lamps.

A good assessment of the current state of anti-covid pharmaceuticals is this page. Quercetin is rated as the most effective among the prophylactics with a 93% reduction in incidence. That’s not surprising because quercetin is a zinc ionophore, forcing extracellular zinc into cells (zinc is antiviral) and, amongst other things, is a vitamin D receptor activator. Vitamin D is strongly antiviral. Early in the pandemic it was noted that covid incidence correlated with the serum vitamin D level:

Level of Vitamin D               Covid Incidence

<20 ng/mL                           12.5%

30-34 ng/ml                         8.1%

 ≥ 55 ng/mL                           5.9%

Some viruses have evolved to turn off vitamin D receptors on the external membrane of cells and these remain inactivated after viral clearance. So a vitamin D receptor activator is needed from the diet for re-activation.

Ivermectin isn’t far behind at an 83% reduction in incidence. Vitamin D comes in at a 29% reduction in incidence but the dosing level in those trials may have been unnecessarily low. Ivermectin is the best of the prophylactics at stopping death by covid. Ivermectin is still banned in Australia and continues to be seized by Customs from international visitors. It seems that there just hasn’t been enough pain yet to overcome the stupidity.

Drugs sold for management of HIV infection have shown promise in treating covid. This includes Truvada which is a combination of emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate. The Chicoms have found an anti-HIV drug called azvudine also works against covid. Azvudine concentrates in the thymus. T cells originate in the bone marrow and mature in the thymus. In the thymus, T cells multiply and differentiate into helper, regulatory, or cytotoxic T cells or become memory T cells.

This explains Nigella sativa’s efficacy of 87% in early treatment preventing death. Thymoquinone, the main molecule in Nigella sativa, also concentrates in the thymus and increases the levels of CD4 and CD8 cells. It also increases natural killer T cell activity.

It has taken a couple of lost years but the ‘vaccination as salvation’ period is over, long covid is starting to bite hard, excess deaths are running at 17% of the normal rate but only whispers are being heard on covid’s effect on fertility. 

Australia needs to run at least three concurrent trials on AMH levels which will show the effect of covid on female fertility. Then the pain may be enough for ivermectin to be approved. Ivermectin, quercetin, Nigella sativa etc. are not silver bullets in themselves, just as none of the individual HIV drugs were, but we need to optimise what we have.

 David Archibald is the author of The Anticancer Garden in Australia