COVID in the Rear-View Mirror (Opinion)

At the conclusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the normal rhythm of live is restored, when we cease to view our neighbors next door and strangers on the street as potential harbingers of disease, each of us needs to do our own analysis of what went wrong with the handling of this “national crisis”.

This is the sort of backward glancing and retrospection that will, hopefully, make us wary of institutional experts and organizations with hidden agendas.

Perhaps the greatest problem with the COVID-19 scare was its politicization and prioritizing of profits over patients. Only now are certain facts coming to light that are causing people to doubt the competence and/or truthfulness of their leaders and the institutions they once respected.

Liberal comedian Bill Maher surprised his viewers earlier this year with a cynical monologue about the “scared straight” tactics used by the medical establishment, the media and the government to compel people to comply with their recommendations. “The more they can get you to stay inside and watch their panic porn … the higher their ratings”, Maher asserted. “Sunshine is the best disinfectant and Vitamin D is the key to a robust immune system”.

Maher continued his diatribe taking aim at the misinformation surrounding hospitalization rates, mortality rates among children and the paranoia surrounding the transmission of the disease by nondisinfected surfaces.
In addition, earlier this year, new research brought to light some interesting revelations. In the January, 2021 issue of The American Journal of Medicine, the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and zinc (a known inhibitor of coronavirus replication) was touted as an early treatment for COVID-19 that could both reduce hospitalizations and death.

HCQ is an inexpensive antimalarial drug with a long history of use for the treatment of Lupus and Rheumatoid arthritis but because it didn’t offer the same massive payouts to drug companies as the new antivirals and vaccines, it was largely ignored. This sort of deliberate neglect of existing, potentially life-saving treatments is, at the very least, a betrayal of the public trust.

According to Dr. Harvey A. Risch, professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, “Physicians who have been using these medications (HCQ, and azithromycin, a common antibiotic) during the pandemic in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic. They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk”.

The herculean struggles of four brilliant clinician-researchers, headed by Dr. Paul Marik and his protégé Dr. Pierre Kory, and their passionate advocacy for the use of Ivermectin, an inexpensive, FDA approved generic anti-parasitic drug as both an effective prophylaxis and successful treatment for COVID-19, has garnered praise from peer reviewers, doctors, nurses, scientists, health philanthropists and civil rights activists around the world. Not only did studies confirm that Ivermectin decimated the coronavirus in vitro within 48 hours, it was also demonstrated to be effective in human beings.

According to Dr. Kory, the data from 27 studies, 16 of them randomized controlled trials, demonstrated that people infected with COVID-19 were far more likely to recover quickly at home when administered Ivermectin. Despite the evidence of the efficacy of Ivermectin, its advocates were systematically censored and demonized on social media platforms. Dr. Hector Carvallo from Argentina, an expert in prophylactic studies, lamented to Marik and his colleagues that their campaign to mainstream this life-saving therapy for the treatment of COVID-19 had “affected the most sensitive organ on humans: the wallet…”

In a commentary dated November 18, 2020, Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet summaries the pivotal lessons learned from the pandemic – COVID-19 is not a death sentence for people without co-morbidities and early treatment with antivirals, vitamins, minerals, immune boosters, fresh air and sunshine at the first sign of symptoms is critical. According Dr. Vliet, “The failed Fauci model (of) telling patients to go home, self-quarantine, do nothing, and go to the ER if they get sicker – exacerbated by the FDA statements discouraging HCQ use (and other antivirals) - has caused the US COVID death rate to be in the world’s top ten”.

As free-thinking Americans, we must always maintain a healthy skepticism about the motives of big government and the corporations it enables. Due to the payments they receive from Big Pharma and vaccine manufacturers, significant financial conflicts exist with the National Institutes for Health, the CDC and the FDA. Their objectivity has been so compromised by the fallout from this crisis, it is hard to imagine how these institutions can ever fully regain the trust of the people they allegedly serve.