Originally Posted by
PedroDaGr8
Well said Darrell! You and I are very much in alignment when it comes to vaccination. There are a lot worse things than death both in life and with this virus.
That being said, I’ll get on a soapbox (without getting political)!
As you state, we all weigh our risks. Nothing (at least in this physical realm) is perfect. For example, seatbelts aren’t perfect at preventing death in an accident, but they do dramatically reduce your risk of injury and death in an accident. At this point, I doubt anyone still believes that not wearing them is better than wearing them for almost all normal situations encountered in a vehicle. Similarly, double layer cloth masks are not perfectly effective at preventing infection, but they do a good job of dramatically reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and even greater job at preventing severe infections. This virus spreads almost entirely via airborne droplet dispersion with very small percentages of infection occurring via surface contact and/or true airborne (non-droplet) infection. Because almost all of the viral spread occurs via droplet dispersion, a standard double layer cotton cloth mask reduces your risk of infection by around 70%-80%.
I also understand that human beings (as a whole) are social creatures. For most of us, it is extremely difficult to do without face-to-face social interaction; not meeting with others carries its own risks of mental impacts. As such, mitigate your risks: wear a mask when you are outside your home, clean your mask regularly, keep your distance from others, keep meetings with others truly outdoors if possible (ideally two walls maximum on a tent, a heater is fine), and limit the numbers of DIFFERENT people you meet over a two-week period (the fewer branches a node has the slower the virus spreads).
Quick aside about N95 masks: Most people assume that an N95 mask is the only option because it is the gold standard. The truth is that real N95 masks can be VERY uncomfortable to wear long term (10x worse than a cloth mask). Additionally, most of the public has never been properly fitted for an N95 mask nor knows how to wear/remove them properly. Because of this, they end up compromising the effectiveness of the mask, rendering them AT BEST only as good as a double layer cloth mask and often times much worse (despite being way less comfortable).
*Steps off soapbox*
I wanted to give some context to this statement:
These chemicals are called cytokines and aren't neurotoxins per se; they are molecules which the immune system uses to induce inflammation. On their own cytokines and the inflammation they induce are highly beneficial. For example, when you have an active infection in one part of the body, you want this inflammation to bring immune cells from around the body to come fight this infection and swelling to restrict blood flow away from the site to prevent it from spreading. Cytokines only become a problem when the amount produced becomes so large (as with an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection) that they spread throughout the body in high amounts. This triggers a broad scale inflammation responses throughout the entire body. Something which your body (especially your brain) isn't designed to handle. These wide spread inflammation response can wreak havoc with all sorts of biological pathways. Even worse, these molecules can actually preclude some of the other immunological pathways from functioning properly, preventing the immune system from properly fighting the virus.
Oddly enough, this cytokine response is the reason for the random occasional news stories about Vitamin D and COVID-19. Interestingly, one of the functions of Vitamin D is to down regulate the production of cytokines (via a complex immunological pathway). We have seen some statistically significant data indicating that patients with low serum Vitamin D levels are significantly more likely to become infected and to experience a severe case of the disease. There is still a lot of research to be done on this topic, as low Vitamin D levels are not uncommon, but it does appear likely that increased Vitamin D levels do provide at least some protective benefit.
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