I try to give an insight in my own life and dealings with rosacea. I also try to gather information that might be useful for everyone with rosacea, especially subtype 1 with burning, flushing and skin redness. I happen to be a bit unfortunate in that I have this condition for a long time already, and unlike many others, I haven't been able to get it into remission. I know it is more uplifting to read about someone who has beaten rosacea, but I like to write about the struggles that come for those who haven't achieved this. I also blabber here about everyday life topics.
September 19th 2021
Rosacea wise, I think I have successfully tested and discovered what is really going on with those on and off again rashes on the temples of my cheeks. I saw my German dermatologist for this a few months ago and despite saying that I suspected this was a heat rash flip version of my cold urticaria in winter (same locations, same characteristics in large, again having to do with extreme temperatures), his opinion was that this was a classic rosacea subtype 2 flare. Ok, that is also possible of course, considering my 20+ year battle with rosacea and advancing age. Perhaps my rosacea has been progressing. But the rozex cream and vitamin A cream, given for spot treatment, did nothing but making the rashes far worse and more painful. So I noticed that without any treatment (as I stopped using the creams at some point, they clearly weren't helping), that once the outside temperature dropped, my rashes disappeared. For months I had been taking skin photos every day to document these strange break outs. And just like that, everything was back to normal, with clear skin and 'just' the flushing and skin burning issue, as I have had for decades now. I even stopped taking skin photos, because it looked the same every day again; spot free. Then I had a long day of traveling, with the mandatory face mask on for many, many hours. Low and behold, I came home, threw the mask in a corner and.... had my cheeks covered again with these same rashes! Again on the same areas, the apples of my cheeks and stretching towards the ear-side of my cheeks. I was pretty certain by then that these are immune-related heat-induced heat rashes. I cooled my face through the night as I usually do, with a fan and now had the aircon switched on too. The next morning? All rashes gone again. See the photos below (before, during and after, all within the space of 3 days.. insane, right??):
My heat rash skin outbreak after travel
So well.. a friend of mine finally went to visit a dermatologist for his IPL-induced rosacea damage, and the derm didn't listen, didn't want to prescribe anti-flushing medication and just threw ivermectin cream at him. Even though he has no p&p's. It is just so very difficult for us rosaceans to find a good dermatologist. Mine is excellent, really free thinking, very outside the box in many ways. But even he can see something, these rashes in my case, and instantly link this to previous patients of him, being convinced it is this or that, despite me suspecting a link with temperatures and immune responses. Often we have to start using a cream of sorts or even a drug to test out certain hypotheses, and come back if the experiment fails. Looking back, I think that this heat rash thing has been behind previous summer skin outbreaks as well. It's silly because I get hives and urticaria on my chest in summer as well and with that the doctor also says it looks like eczema and gives steroid cream. No, in fact it's just a heat rash that goes away by itself when I stay cool... I get them on my arms as well sometimes. Something is clearly not going all right with my mast cells and immune system, when it gets very hot or cold throughout the year.
My summer skin outbreaks in 2018 plus urticaria on chest that lasted days
Other than that, I've been having some frustrating internet issues over here. The live box keeps switching to red/offline, at random it seems. Sometimes restarting the thing helps but sometimes not. Somehow ended up in a Kafkaesque story, where the store worker of the internet provider is obliged to send you home and pick up the phone to work through the issue with a teleworker, while the teleworker says that 'computer says fine' and that there seems nothing wrong with the box. Have given in, in sheer exasperation, after three tours back and forth. Going to another provider is futile as this is the 3rd contract in ten years, and the other two are even worse. I may soon go all Bill Foster on the store worker.
Then back to my topic of interest lately. For those interested in a scientific look into the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, I like to link you to an interesting video. Shake off prejudices and listen with an open approach to this video that is at the very least interesting, and that provides a ton of sources for claims. It is very long and you should probably skip the short pastor intro as religion has no place in this debate, but this professor is knowledgeable, fearless and transparent in how he explains things. It covers everything from the specifics of PCR tests to the origins of this SARS-CoV-2 virus, to Gain of Function research and US money streams, to the statistics that were used to get emergency green light for the roll-out of the vaccinations, and more. The mRNA vaccines have been rushed into use by governments under emergency measures, and as such they aren't fully tested and experimental (the trial won't end until the supposed sign off, sometime in 2023). Governments have therefore removed all liability from those who administer these mRNA vaccines, just as the manufacturers demanded (and received) indemnity. If you have the time and patience for it, have a listen. I find it all fascinating but there is also a sinister element to everyday life in general actually, right now. As I see it, at least.. My parents for instance will make statements or express opinions that come straight from their favorite news show or newspaper, of which I know that they are not true or only part of the truth. I try to tell them, but then they act disinterested, or say that they are not interested in all that extra information. Fair enough, not everyone is interested in the details, that's understandable. But it sometimes causes this feeling of frustration, that nobody seems to read the fine print, or wants to dig deeper behind the headlines. Lately the whole 'Ivermectin is a horse drug / will make you a horse-drug' nonsense for instance. I know it is a lie to state that this is solely a veterinary drug. Just as it is a lie to state that no scientific evidence exists that proves that it helps alleviate covid19 symptoms. There is a small mountain of evidence for this. There was an Australian minister speaking up about Ivermectin and that a Melbourne university got very good results from it last year (not long after the virus broke). He kept getting shut down by the opposition party and the fuckwits used Fauci as their source to discredit it. Of course this minister has been smeared relentlessly by the media. As that Prof. Fleming puts it: since when are the pharmaceutical industry and politicians and lying Fauci dictating the medical professionals how to perform their craft?But my mum prefers to link me to now debunked fake news about some American hospital supposedly treating a ward full of ivermectin overdose patients. The end of the article even provided a rectification already back then, of hospital staff declaring that the person who 'broke' the story, not even actively working in that hospital, and also confirming that they did not have a ward full of ivermectin overdose patients. But it is almost like that is no longer of interest for readers. The headline is great enough as it is and it makes people feel smugly content with themselves to be able to believe that the 'others' are deranged uninformed conspiracy idiots, now paying the price for their ignorance. That they are believing a bullshit headline is of no further consequence. A very strange polarized world view is being pushed onto us all. And the facts are trumped by feelings, just as has been the case for the past years (I couldn't help but rant about this at times on this blog..). And in a way I feel that you can't blame people.. My parents for instance are Boomers and they firmly believe in the science they see discussed in their morning paper. I finished that super long video I linked you to in the intro here (frankly, the last hour of it was the least interesting to me as a non-American as it had more of an activist message), but if even half of what is discussed there is true, it leaves you so utterly flabbergasted about that sick shit that has been conducted right under our noses. Gain of Function experiments in labs, where all sorts of viruses are combined and upgraded to the worst infectants for humans, just because it can make for great bio-weapons one day. I also saw this staggering clip in that long docu, this is Bill Gates in 2005, smacking to Josef Mengele almost, if you ask me:
While people were mostly preoccupied with their next Apple device or their next music festival tickets, scientists have just been conducting horrible stuff. On our planet, risking our health but without asking the opinion of the people. There are no referendums for this stuff. Science does as science wants to do, and technological advancements and profit margins dictate the course of science throughout history. Only in rare cases does politics interfere, such as it was the case with cloning rights. But scientists will always find a back door, a way to continue to explore. That is often fine, curiosity is what propels us forward in terms of scientific discoveries. But when you have a lab in Wuhan, renowned for years already as the best when it comes to Gain of Function viral research, you are potentially exposing a whole town (and as it appeared now, the whole world) to the consequences of your experiments, in case things go wrong. This lab wasn't built in some desolate desert. And you know it will only get worse in the future. My parents, people in their 70's, have an interest in technology and the future, but they also want to believe in the good of everyone; from scientists to journalists to news channels to politicians. It would rock their world if they actually believed what is being claimed in that video. I understand that, and I also understand the natural urge to demonize people like that Professor Fleming, although he is far from the only scientist who has spoken out like this, and isn't even the most prestigious among his colleagues. But my parents' sense of right and wrong and good and bad perhaps cannot handle that sort of dark take on the covid19 pandemic (or, of course, there is always also the possibility that that entire video is BS.. I try to keep an open mind). It rocks their world view and sense of morality and logic too much. And that is fine, I am not exactly getting more cheerful from this whole topic. I found that it is also pointless to tell them about the difference between this new covid19 vaccine and the old vaccination principle as they know it. They don't want to know. If the government and media say that it is fine, then it is fine. Because it is a domino effect. If they have been lied to, or given only half the truth, then that would in effect mean that the national newsreader is lying, that their favourite newspaper is lying, that the doctors are lying, as well as the politicians they like. People do not want to even contemplate that possibility as it is unnerving and destabilizing. And thus scientists who speak out, people who are skeptical or critical, are all thrown on one convenient pile; the conspiracy theorists. That solves the problem of nagging doubts in one sweep. Even though calling them 'the uninformed' is sometimes entirely besides the truth and the opposite of reality. Goebbels said that you can brainwash any population, with fear and the blackmail of patriotism. During the Nuremberg trials, an American said optimistically to him that in the USA they had democracy and that it wouldn't work there. Goebbels had a good hearty laugh about that, before committing suicide. I do fear that Goebbels was right. Not to compare this situation with the horrors of World War two, but it takes a specific type of emergency situation to bring these things out in people.
I am re-reading George Orwell's book 1984 at the moment and although the storyline itself doesn't make for the best book I've ever read, the concepts he introduced, over 70 years ago, are rather chilling and still applicable to the modern times. Concepts like 'thoughtcrime' (woke! Cancel-culture!), 'thought police' (social media censoring! Fake fake-news stamps!), 'big brother' (this turned out to be not so much a dictator but overhanging large social/media corporations). And of course, the currently very popular 'doublethink', or today's gaslighting, which, when applied to an opponent, means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Our world is full of this, with 'big brother' (elites and media giants like google, facebook and twitter) imposing their truths on us, and censoring other, unwanted truths and facts. With the use of a very eager woke audience, out to censor opposing ideas and whomever comes with those opposing ideas. In fact, there is utter madness in our times, reminiscent of the Macarthy witch-hunt in the 50's, there was also no shortage of actors prepared to betray their friends and colleagues. Now you have the Harry Potter stars stabbing JK Rowling in the back, and other people on all sorts of payrolls, willing to go along with the woke madness, feelings over facts and reversed racism, just to appear on the good side of things (I'd say they are exactly on the wrong side of history.. well you know my stance in all this). It means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline (these days the polarized political side you identify with and want to belong to) demands this. You not only have to have the ability to believe that black is white, but to convince yourself of the conviction that black is white, and even more; to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past (unwanted info is these days scrubbed from the internet), made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known as doublethink. I wonder how George Orwell would have judged today's media reality. I bet he wouldn't be kind about it. Front page on the Northern Dutch newspaper last week, quite brave, an opinion piece of a writer who defends not being vaccinated and says she finds it abominable that the pharmaceutical industry cannot be held accountable for side effects. That her healthy beautiful sister had the Astra Zenica jab and ever since has been in and out of hospitals. Couldn't use her arms and legs for months, now has ongoing constant shooting headaches, tinnitus, reduced eyesight and more. But nobody takes her serious and everyone waves it away as 1 in a million type of bad luck. But she says: if you were offered a bowl of M&M's and you'd know that a couple of them were highly toxic, would you still eat one? That professor in the video links it to other vaccines, how sometimes as little as 25 deaths meant the end of the vaccine roll out. In the west we have many thousands of official vaccine deaths, some sites claim hundreds of thousands already, also depending on the parameters of what is 'considered' a vaccine death. But nobody is supposed to make this a topic. It is for the greater good. Even though the efficiency of these vaccines is not that great. So many ppl are depressed right now, in the Netherlands 25% of people under 30 are feeling down and depressed according to research, shared in the media.
It's no wonder. We live in a strange world where some dictates make no scientific sense, and where feelings often trump facts. The pressure from the media, from social media, from the people around us, can be relentless. I trust science but I no longer trust all scientists. And now we are at the stage where almost 90% of the Dutch are vaccinated, and it is still not enough. The Netherlands have also introduced the dreaded health pass, the QR code obligation to enter a bar or a restaurant, a cinema or a museum, among other places of leisure. This has nothing to do with science and logic, because it is proven by now that the vaccinated still get sick, still carry even more than normal viral load when they do, but with lesser symptoms, so they become the super spreaders. So letting the vaccinated roam free without any restrictions, while restricting the non-vaccinated regardless if they are sick or have symptoms or not, is just another ploy to push more people towards vaccination. The French did it with a vaccination total of 50%, the Dutch now join the geese parade at a point in time when it makes no longer even a little bit of scientific sense. Besides, if you're vaccinated and believe that it makes you invincible, why be afraid of the unvaccinated? They are healthy until proven otherwise. They will be more prone to testing than the vaccinated; more prone to watching symptoms than the vaccinated. They want to exclude the unvaccinated from the economy purely for histrionic value. A vaccine we are supposedly free to choose. By all means, do what you want to do, feel free to get vaccinated, or not. I myself don't want to risk adverse reactions, which many vaccinated people did not experience, but they are not me and neither have my specific immune issues / allergies and body reactivity. Side-effects are rare but they happen, and I've got enough chronic health issues as it is right now, I feel. So far I never caught covid as far as I know and I take my own chances with having ivermectin pills in the house, in case I do ever develop covid19. We never know in advance how or what; perhaps this is the wrong decision, but the cruelty of life is that we sometimes don't realize we made the wrong decision, until it is irreversible. Think of my horrible IPL experience, making me locked to a ventilator for life. Horrible covid vaccine side-effects happen; I have littered these texts with highlighted links to documentation of them. They contrast with the widespread open media reporting of people dying from covid, which does get reported on in the media, especially when it involves unvaccinated patients. But those people who have been injured or who died from the vaccine, they have a right to have their stories told as well. Suddenly, after years and years of widespread attention for the underdogs, for the fragile who got maimed in life, suddenly we now cannot mention these people. Or we're compared with conspiracy theorists. A very insane and manipulative development I think. - We have no crystal ball. And by all means, get vaccinated if you have gathered enough information and feel comfortable about it. But people should not lose interest in the world around them and in the one-sidedness of the media narrative. An interesting interview for those interested in the current state of the vaccination process, and how pharmaceuticals are dictating physicians how to practice their art. Dore and Malone* also set the record straight on ivermectin, indirectly backing up my previous posts and evidence providing regarding ivermectin. The other video is a snippet of the Dr Fleming super long video i have been linking to in this post; 20 minutes in which he explains the Pfizer/Moderna/Janssen test results that allowed them to get a permit for their vaccinations, and what meager results they really handed in, when you look at it more closely. *Notice btw how this inventor of the mRNA technique, Dr Robert Malone who opposes these specific vaccines, has been entirely cancelled since and even had his name completely scrubbed from the mRNA wiki page. They only still have to remove his science papers from the net.
August 11th 2021
I saw my dermatologist here two weeks ago. The German older man with a lot of rosacea knowledge. He is an older man so I really hope he stays working. He is the only dermatologist I have left. He says he will continue to work till he drops, so that is reassuring in an odd way :) He has one day a week when he still works for his old patients (takes no more new patients in, a very sweet man) and the rest of the week he does things like gardening and other relaxing stuff. He looked at the small breakouts on my skin and said they are classical rosacea type 2 breakouts. Depressing.. I never get those papulas normally, only very rarely and ever so slightly in summer. Never like this though. I hope it is limited to this specific summer weather: humid, warm then cold then warm again, cold indoor air from the airco. It's not great for my skin. I also noticed that whatever side of my face I sleep on (that touches the pillow) nowadays can have breakouts the next day, so I now use a pillow that is used in the plane; the type that wraps arpound your neckonly supporting your neck. Anyway, the doctor prescribed me rozex cream and a vitamin A derivative type of cream. Which has perfume in it, grand... For spot treatment. I usually put some zinc ointment on these spots, which dries them out and also masks these redness. Zinc may also have some sort of anti-inflammatory effect. But it takes ages to have them gone that way. And if I am unlucky, new ones have shown up in the meantime. I feel like a teenager all over again, blehhh. I also eat super healthy again now, I dropped the dairy (I did like to use cream and dairy in my polenta for a while), dropped the chocolate (with exception of a few bites of dark chocolate now and then), no more gluten because they also seem to make my skin less pale/clear. Basically I am back to fruits, vegetables, brown rice products, potatoes and meat. I don't have much hunger anymore either on this menu. Perhaps because there are less spikes in blood sugar now. Anyway, skin is clearing up a bit again. But it is just terribly depressing to wake up with red dots on your face... Am not really used to that as I normally only have the flushing and redness and burning issue. I still suspect that these rashes could be linked to my mast cell issue, as the regions where they appear are more or less the same as where I get cold urticaria in winter. I looked up 'heat rash' and 'prickly heat' and I think it could also be that. Hopefully the summer is over soon!
The derm and I also discussed that we will try to experiment with estrogen tablets once I get menopausal hot flashes in the future. He agreed it is a good thing to try by then, as estrogen hormones can calm down rosacea (as opposed to progesterone which can worsen it). I have usually much better calmer skin in the first two weeks of my cycle also, when there is high estrogen and low progesterone. He found it an interesting suggestion and said that because I have no cancers in both sides of my family, there is little chance that I carry a certain gene that increases the chances of breast cancer. But that estrogen hormone therapy can increase those risks, especially in women carrying that gene. So that we will have to do a test by the time, to rule out that I carry that gene. But with no family members I know of having had cancer in their lifetime, knock on wood, he deemed it an unlikely risk in my case. But agreed that estrogen therapy (in pill form as it is the most reliable way to keep a steady level he said) could help perhaps with my flushing issues as well as with future hot flashes. Yeah! Happy to hear that this could be used further down the line, if necessary.
Methotrexate is another possibility we discussed. Dr. Chu (I miss him, such a shame he retired) also used it for his worst patients he said at the time. It lowers the immune system and with my auto-immune issues and overactive immune system, it could potentially reduce the immune-generated inflammation as well. He had some success with it, but only used it for his worst patients he said, because one of the side-effects is an increased risk of infections. And in extreme cases even of cancers I later read, because a strong immune system is a good barrier defender for wrong mutations in the body. So that made me weary of it at the time, and still to be honest. But my German doctor now says that he uses it regularly for psoriasis patients for instance, and barely anyone has any side effects at all. It is a safe and old medicine with a long state of service, so to speak. But now with covid still roaming around, I do not want to reduce my immune system's force just yet.
He agreed that a vaccination may be a risk for me with all my allergies, mastocytosis-like reactions and overactive immune system. Advised me to look for data on how these vaccinations do so far with people with auto-immune issues like me, for instance those with mastocytosis. Although he was aware that reliable data like this may still be lacking at this point in time. I told him that a hepatits A vaccination seemed to have kicked off my more severe rosacea but he understandibly and logically said that it may have been a coincidence and not really linked to that vaccine. I do have metal allergies and that could be an issue. He said that the worst ingredient in his opinion would be the preservative used in the vaccine. I will think it over some more, aware of the potential risks of this. But I'm careful not to catch it and am weary of vaccinated people anyway, since more and more statistics are coming out that show that even in countries with high levels of vaccination, the doubly vaccinated do risk catching covid and passing it on. And they do risk getting it bad enough to end up in hospital or even die from. The statistical chance of that is looking to be lower when you are vaccinated, but already Israel says that after a couple of months, they deem a vaccine like Pfizer for instance less than 40% effective anymore against covid. So, boosters will be on the program for most. Oh and the Mayo Clinic now investigated it as well and have stated that Pfizer are 42% effective against the delta varient. 
I also had a bit of a scare. Am always cautious about checking for ticks as the cats are out in the long grass during the day. Low and behold, I had one behind my ear two weeks ago! It had already attached to the back of my ear, aiaiai... Removed it and when pushed flat, there was no blood inside yet. It may not have been there for very long. I called the doctor's phone number for the weekend service and had all my old antibiotics in front of me as I liked to take some precaution antibiotics. But she said that only doxycycline would do, and mine was too far over date (had expired in 2013...). She said that since my tick seemingly hadn't been feeding on blood yet, there is only a small chance of Lyme or any other virus or bacteria they can pass on. Advised me to do nothing but look for possible future symptoms (red rash ring, fever, headaches) and that it would be soon enough then to start antibiotics. Blood tests won't detect anything until after 6 weeks. So ever since I have been slightly nervous. Don't want bloody Lyme disease on top of everything. I found one pubmed article about what they call prophylaxis; a one day doxy dose to reduce the chances of catching lyme, but then it has to be taken within 72 hours and it is a one off small scale test. Doc on the phone deemed it needless but I did wonder afterwards if I should ask for it at a doctor's or at the pharmacy anyway the next day? But chose against it. So far no red rash and no fever. Will see if I can do one of those Elisa tests I think they are called in a month from now. A photo is added of the little bugger. My friend wrote me about it that the major issue is if the tick has imbedded itself and had grown. And since there was no or little blood, it means I probably got it very early. If it had been big and fat, different story and I should have a lot of concern he said, but if it is small, I will most likely be fine.I'm probably getting old for liking this video + French citizens boycott vaccination passports by eating right in front of almost empty, vaxx-only bars and restaurants
Covid wise I am following the news and may be one of the few in my circle of friends and family who is sincerely keeping an eagle eye out on all these health pass freedom limitationsIn countries like France and Germany and quite a few others, the two-tier control society is in full swing. It seems to me that the virus is used politically, to implement this division within society and use of digital entrance papers. I understand that most people think that it comes from a place of caring and common sense within the different governments. But I fail to see the scientific logic at the moment, in allowing vaccinated people free reign in the restaurants, museums, theatres, hospitals and such without anymore covid testing. And in France they don't even have to wear facemasks anymore if they are vaccinated, or keep to the 1,5 meter distance rule. It seems political and cynical to me, when you see in all the latest stats that being vaccinated does not render you immune to covid and neither 'safe' for the people around you, who you can still infect. Only because the vaccinated feel holy and cleansed, they may not even be inclined to test themselves and then isolate themselves.
The Jerusalem post for instance published last Friday the details of 250 people in intensive care ("serious conditions") in Israel. They structured the statistics by age:
5 patients are under 40 (2%)
20 patients are under 50 (8%)
40 patients under 60 (16%) 86 under 70 (34%)
164 patients over 70 (66%)
- Out of the total of 250: 35% were unvaccinated and 65% were fully vaccinated
- In the group of patients over 40 and under 60 years of age, 30 were unvaccinated (75%), 10 vaccinated (25%)
- In the group of patients over 60 years old, out of 210 patients there were 57 unvaccinated (27%) and 153 patients were fully vaccinated (73%) )
-In the group of patients over 70 years old: there were 37 unvaccinated (22.5%) and 127 patients fully vaccinated (77.5%)
**Conclusion: Only 16% of the patients in hospital needing intensive care were younger than 60 years old, Two thirds of the total of 250 patients were fully vaccinated.
**Conclusion: Only 16% of the patients in hospital needing intensive care were younger than 60 years old, Two thirds of the total of 250 patients were fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile Doctor Kobi Haviv, director of the Herzog hospital in Jerusalem, declared on an Israeli television channel on August 5th that in his hospital 95% of patients hospitalized for a severe form of Covid-19 are fully vaccinated (see video above, just press the play icon a couple of times for the video to start). In addition, he indicates that "85 to 90% of hospitalized people are fully vaccinated". He concludes his intervention by noting that the duration of the vaccine's protection over time is much shorter than promised and hoped for. Findings that are confirmed by Sharon Alroy-Preis, director of the public health services of Israel on CBSnews on 1/8, indicating that people fully vaccinated in January are twice as likely as people fully vaccinated in March to be infected with the covid, adding that infected and vaccinated people aged 60 and over were more severely affected than others. This difference in the number of infections depending on the age of the vaccination, illustrates according to them the rapid decline in the efficacy of the vaccine, as observed by the director of the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem. In addition, still according to her, half of those infected in Israel concern fully vaccinated people and on these bases, the effectiveness of the vaccine is believed to be around 40%. And the Times of Israel reported that last Monday more than 6,000 people tested positive for covid19: a daily figure that had not been recorded in this country since the beginning of February. The number of serious cases stands at nearly 400, as the government continues to examine a series of new measures, despite mass vaccination. Of the 130,669 screening tests that were performed on Monday, 6,275 returned positive, with a positivity rate of 4.84% - an unprecedented percentage since the beginning of March. As of Tuesday morning, 648 people were hospitalized with complications from COVID-19. 394 are in serious condition and 64 people are currently on ventilators. Update - As for all of Israel's hospitals combined, “There are so many breakthrough infections [in Israel in August of 2021] that they dominate and most of the hospitalized patients are actually vaccinated,” says Uri Shalit, a bioinformatician at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) who has consulted on COVID-19 for the government. As of 15 August 2021, 514 Israelis were overall hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19, a 31% increase from just 4 days earlier. Of the 514, 59% of all these hospitalized Israeli's were fully vaccinated. Of the vaccinated, 87% were 60 or older. “One of the big stories from Israel [is]: ‘Vaccines work, but not well enough." To try to tame the hospital surge, Israel has now turned to booster shots. Yet boosters are unlikely to tame a Delta surge on their own, says Dvir Aran, a biomedical data scientist at Technion. In Israel, the current surge is so steep that “even if you get two-thirds of those 60-plus boosted, it’s just gonna give us another week, maybe 2 weeks until our hospitals are flooded.” Aran also gave a grim message: “Do not think that the boosters are the solution.” A return to masking and social distancing is to be expected again in Israel.
And the CDC reported that 74% of covid19 infected patients in Massachusetts were fully vaccinated. It may have been a 'cluster' of cases. "Three-quarters of the 469 COVID-19 cases associated with summer events and large public gatherings this month in Barnstable County, Mass., were in people fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 90% of 133 patients tested had the delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Five patients were hospitalized, including four who had been vaccinated; the unvaccinated patient and two of the vaccinated patients had underlying medical conditions".
And the CDC reported that 74% of covid19 infected patients in Massachusetts were fully vaccinated. It may have been a 'cluster' of cases. "Three-quarters of the 469 COVID-19 cases associated with summer events and large public gatherings this month in Barnstable County, Mass., were in people fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 90% of 133 patients tested had the delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Five patients were hospitalized, including four who had been vaccinated; the unvaccinated patient and two of the vaccinated patients had underlying medical conditions".
COVID MEDICATION TREATMENT
This site shows you where in the world people use ivermectin in the treatment of covid19. And it had dropped 75% after 45 days in those over 60 years old." In Japan it is also working according to one doctor (source). Unfortunately there has been a massive media offensive lately, trying to demonize ivermectin, stating it is a cow's/horse drug only, that it isn't supposed to be taken by humans and that there is no evidence of its effectiveness in controlling covid. All lies. Ivermectin is by now an incredible tool in controlling the p&p's of subtype 2 rosacea, it also has been SAFELY prescribed for humans for many decades. Ivermectin is widely used to treat parasite infestations. including head lice, scabies, river blindness, strongyloidiasis, trichuriasis, ascariasis, and lymphatic filariasis. It is also (!) used in veterinary medicine, to prevent and treat heartworm and acariasis, among other indications. It can be taken by mouth or applied to the skin for external infestations. - The story of how ivermectin was discovered is quite incredible. In the early 1970s, Satoshi ÅŒmura, a microbiologist at Tokyo’s Kitasako Institute, was hunting for new antibacterial compounds and started to collect thousands of soil samples from around Japan. He cultured bacteria from the samples, screened the cultures for medicinal potential, and sent them 10,000 km away to Merck Research Labs in New Jersey, where his collaborator, William Campbell, tested their effect against parasitic worms affecting livestock and other animals. One culture, derived from a soil sample collected near a golf course southwest of Tokyo, was remarkably effective against worms. The bacterium in the culture was a new species, and was baptised Streptomyces avermictilis. The active component, named avermectin, was chemically modified to increase its activity and its safety. The new compound, called ivermectin, was commercialised as a product for animal health in 1981 and soon became a top-selling veterinary drug in the world. Remarkably, despite decades of searching, S. avermictilis remains the only source of avermectin ever found. So Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981 (it is also FDA approved). And in 2015, Campbell and ÅŒmura won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for ivermectins discovery and applications. In 2018, it was the 420th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than one hundred thousand prescriptions.
DOSE
As a covid treatment, you have to make sure of course to inform yourself of the right dose. We are talking oral ivermectin tablets here, made for human consumption; not ivermectin horse paste. In these varied scientific tests, various different doses have been tested. A standard safe dose is 12 mg once daily for five days for adults with normal body weight (can be extended to 7 days). Another covid-related dose that is often mentioned in scientific testing is 0.2–0.4 mg/kg per dose (take with or after meals) — one dose daily, take for 5 days or until recovered. In another test they found a statistical improvement of covid symptoms on 6 mg every 84 hrs for 2 weeks, or 12 mg every 84 hrs for 2 weeks. And successful another test used 12mg at 0, 12, and 24 hours, so a total of 3 doses. Make sure to never use more than 400 mcg/kg (which comes down to 16 to 32 mg per day for me). A recent systematic review of ivermectin use among people with parasitic infections suggests that ivermectin administered at the usual doses (0.2mg/kg or 0.4mg/kg) is safe. - I see that wikipedia has now changed it's propaganda info that there is no scientific evidence for ivermectin's effectiveness as a covid treatment, into there being no "credible" scientific evidence. Notice how they added a highly subjective terminology here. Who is wikipedia to decide that dozens of clinical randomized controlled trials (with the 'wrong' outcome) are not 'credible'?!
SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES ABOUT SUCCESSFUL IVERMECTIN USE FOR COVID19
-Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines
Conclusions: "Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease".
-Evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of adding ivermectin to treatment in severe COVID-19 patients
Conclusions: "According to the findings obtained, ivermectin can provide an increase in clinical recovery, improvement in prognostic laboratory parameters and a decrease in mortality rates even when used in patients with severe COVID-19. Consequently, ivermectin should be considered as an alternative drug that can be used in the treatment of COVID-19 disease or as an additional option to existing protocols".
-Prophylactic Role of Ivermectin in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection Among Healthcare Workers
PFIZER IS DEVELOPING MEDICATION TO FIGHT COVID TOO BY NOW, LINKING TO IVERMECTIN
Pfizer is creating an Ivermectin type pill now. On their website they write:
"Advancing Our Protease Inhibitors. Defeating COVID-19 likely requires both vaccination and targeted treatment for those who contract the virus. At Pfizer, we are evaluating two antiviral protease inhibitors – one orally administered candidate and one intravenously administered candidate – both of which have demonstrated potent antiviral activity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), as well as other known coronaviruses, in both in vitro and in vivo studies. We believe that, if successful and authorized or approved, these investigational therapies could provide end-to-end treatment options for COVID-19 patients, including those exposed to the virus, those with diagnosed infections treated in the outpatient setting, and those hospitalized with moderate to severe infection."
Protease inhibitors. By textbook definitions, HCQ (Hydroxychloroquine) and Ivermectin aren't classed as protease inhibitors, and the protease inhibitors I think Pfizer are referring to are probably modeled on earlier protease inhibitors, which interfered with the post-translational cleavage of what is called the Gag-Pol polyprotein in HIV and NS3/4A inhibitors in Hep C, which again targeted post-translational mechanisms. But it is very well possible that Pfizer is working on a pill very similar to ivermectin. Since Ivermectin is a strong inhibitor of replicase (RdRp), both proteases, the N-protein, and the Spike protein. As this research article confirms: "Ivermectin majorly acts by interfering with the viral entry through inhibiting the function of spike protein and protease. These studies also indicate that ivermectin may also target human ACE2 and TMPRSS2 for exerting its inhibitory action over SARS-CoV-2." Ivermectin is a semisynthetic lactose derived from Streptomyces avermitilis B1a and B1b. It works by apparently paralyzing nematodes and arthropods by intensifying GABA-mediated transmission of signals in peripheral nerves. - Hydroxychloroquine has been tested for efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 and it has been reported to inhibit the function of spike protein via binding with the sialic acid residue of membrane ganglioside. HCQ is an antimalarial aminoquinolone phosphate salt and immunosuppressant. As an antimalarial drug it is a blood schizonticide which interferes with parasite metabolism through uptake in the parasite's food vacuole, which inhibits heme polymerization and causes the lysis of cell membranes. As an immunosuppressant, it is thought to suppress intracellular antigen processing and loading of peptides onto MHC II molecules by increasing the pH of lysosomal and endosomal compartments, suppressing T-cell activation. Other proposed mechanisms for the immunosuppressive aspects of the medication have to do with inhibition of leukocyte chemotaxis, inhibition of DNA and RNA synthesis, and the trapping of free radicals, among others. HCQ has been found effective in the treatment of covid as well in scientific trials.
SO..
So if Pfizer gets their new treatments through the test phases, you can be certain that the media will start hailing their antiviral pill and stop focusing solely and entirely on vaccines, as they do at the moment. After the vaccines which are not as effective or long lasting as hoped, it only makes sense of course to start focusing more, finally, on other treatment options. Because Covid19 is not going anywhere. What irks me is the mass propaganda and misinformation about drugs like ivermectin. Some people think for instance that there is only one single medical research article about the use of ivermectin for SARS-CoV-2. And that it was so flawed that it cannot be taken seriously. But a simple pubmed search will show you dozens of research papers which mostly all prove the effectiveness of ivermectin when it comes to treating covid19 or being of prophylactic value. It is baffling to me how the media has succeeded in convincing scores of people that ivermectin is a dangerous poisonous horse medicine, when it is simply not true. The warnings about the risks of ivermectin were also interesting considering it is widely given to every man, woman and child in
poor countries with incidences of parasitic infections. The discovery of ivermectin won a Nobel prize in 2015 and THIS Lancet article singing its praises was published as late as January 1st of 2020: "Ivermectin is one of the most important antibiotics discovered. It is recognised as a landmark drug by the American Chemical Society and its discoverers received the Nobel Prize in 2015. Additionally, ivermectin is one of the most widely used anti-parasitic drugs for animals and humans. Since 1987, about 3·7 billion treatments have been given worldwide primarily for mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns for onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis in sub-Saharan Africa. Ivermectin is also highly effective against strongyloides, scabies, and ticks, and it has recently been shown to be an effective endectocide that kills feeding mosquitoes with the potential to reduce malaria transmission. The use of ivermectin will expand. For example, findings showed that ivermectin combined with diethylcarbamazine and albendazole is more effective than diethylcarbamazine plus albendazole as part of an MDA campaign for the treatment of lymphatic filariasis, resulting in greatly expanded use of ivermectin in MDA programmes worldwide." But a few months later, the "horse paste" (no this is an unfair qualification as you should take the ivermectin pills, intended for humans, not the horse paste) was going to kill us all... I think what the media are also doing is focusing on the folks who eat horse paste cream, instead of getting the ivermectin pills which are fabricated for human use and of course, eating horse paste can more easily lead to unwanted overdoses. Reason being that the price of ivermectin has skyrocketed, since large portions of the world now also use it for covid. Merck's patent on ivermectin expired long ago, in 1996 already. Anyone can make it now, hence why ivermectin was always very cheap until recently. But now demand is high and so is the price. Only the horse paste is still affordable, but this is not meant to be used orally by humans. And with doctors being hesitant often to prescribe ivermectin, people do sometimes resort to eating the paste (don't!). Another very undesirable side-effect of this global hunting for ivermectin, is that the rosacea patients who successfully use ivermectin topically (many successfully use this horse paste topically for rosacea subtype 2), are now facing difficulties in buying their "HP". - And would you believe btw that Pfizer had the power to block countries from donating their COVID-19 vaccines to other countries? Check out the insane power play these pharmaceutical companies stick to, in times of global pandemics. Well, as long as we ourselves get our hands on their product, right.
By the way, the U.S. National Institutes of Health have changed their position on Ivermectin from recommending against, to a neutral position, as of January 14th, 2021. This change is likely due to the intervention of FLCCC Alliance asking NIH to change their position. They stated: "NIH treatment guidelines established six months ago should be reexamined in light of compelling new research, says a group of physicians and researchers — and our author agrees". Dr. Pierre Kory M.D., a pulmonary and critical care specialist who is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at St. Luke’s Aurora Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is president of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), and their success in treating patients with COVID has been so dramatic, that he referred to ivermectin as a “miracle drug.” He pleaded with members of Congress to have the NIH, CDC, and FDA look at the “mountains” of data that he and his colleagues have gathered on the drug Ivermectin, which is already approved by the FDA as an anti-parasitic drug, and their success in treating COVID patients. He states: “If you take it, you will not get sick.” And in this article, things are put even more straightforwardly: "Twenty countries are using Ivermectin to treat Covid-19. They include Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Nigeria, and Egypt. In South Africa doctors are allowed to prescribe Ivermectin, but it is not being rolled out everywhere and in hospitals and clinics. According to Jackie Stone, a doctor in Zimbabwe, since January – when Ivermectin began to be used – it has cut COVID hospital admissions and deaths over 70%. “The death rate rose sharply in January and peaked on the 25th at 70 deaths per day. Official authorisation for the use of Ivermectin was granted on 26th January. Just one month later, on 26th February, the COVID death rate had fallen to zero”. A meta-analysis gold standard review of 24 randomised trials conducted in 15 countries among more than 3400 people worldwide of clinical trials – just released by the BIRD group in the UK – showed that deaths are dramatically reduced when Ivermectin is administered. Published in the American Journal of Therapeutics the most rigorous statistical standards were applied by world-leading biostatistician, Mr Andrew Bryant, and medical doctor and researcher Dr Tess Lawrie. The results concluded that Ivermectin has an over 70% success in preventing deaths in hospitalised patients. Mexico City authorities created a home-treatment-kit, including Ivermectin, for its 22 million-strong population in December 2020 and cut hospitalisations by over 70%. Besides cutting hospitalisations and deaths Ivermectin can also be used as a preventative. In Argentina, 788 health workers took Ivermectin weekly and 407 did not. After ten weeks, 58% of those not taking Ivermectin had become sick – but not one of those who took it became sick. The use of Ivermectin has been restricted because the WHO* says that further clinical trials are needed before they can recommend it. When asked about this, Dr Stone replied, “I find it very hard to understand how they can say that there is not sufficient evidence. There are three thousand patients plus in, I think, twenty-four trials where they demonstrate an over 75% reduction in mortality. Those figures fit exactly with what we have seen.” Dr Tess Lawrie, one of the meta-analysis authors, in an interview with Dr. Mobeen speculated that the WHO and other regulatory agencies – which up to recently have had good reputations – may have been influenced by the lobbying of the pharmaceutical industry which is one of their chief sources of funding and which offers employment opportunities to the personnel who work in these agencies. The Emergency Use Authorisation of vaccines in the US and EU required that there was no alternative treatment available. If Ivermectin had been approved it would have been a problem to authorise the vaccines without proper trials. The Indian Bar Association (IBA) sued WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan on May 25, accusing her – in a 71-point brief – of causing the deaths of Indian citizens because of their misinformation about Ivermectin. The legal notice of June 13, 2021 against her states that her “misleading tweet on May 10, 2021, against the use of Ivermectin had the effect of the State of Tamil Nadu withdrawing Ivermectin from the protocol on May 11, 2021 – just a day after the Tamil Nadu government had indicated the same for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.” In Tamil Nadu – which withdrew their plans to use Ivermectin because of Dr. Soumya Swaminathan’s tweet – deaths rose ten-fold from April 20 to May 27 in contrast to the states in India which did use Ivermectin and where hospitalisations and death rates plummeted."
*Mind you, the WHO is not a democratically chosen organization, The WHO was established from different nations, to help the world health situation. But there are many philanthropic organizations and people with a lot of money in this WHO, who help sponsor it. Bill Gates for instance funds 25% of the WHO budgets. It would be naive to think there are no geo-political interests woven into the fabric here.
OTHER PROMISING DRUGS
Remdesivir has also come out as another choice of drug for treating severe corona-patients andreported to inhibit replication of SARS-CoV-2 via direct binding with the viral RDRP. However, in other tests remdesivir proved to be fairly useless as a covid treatment, and it also comes with a toxicity warning. Pasteur is also testing another old but hopefully promising molecule against Covid, Clofoctol. The FDA also approved sotrovimab at the moment for emergency use. Recently the European Commission also approved it's use. Sotrovimab is a monoclonal antibody that is specifically directed against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and is designed to block the virus’ attachment and entry into human cells. “With the authorization of this monoclonal antibody treatment, we are providing another option to help keep high-risk patients with COVID-19 out of the hospital,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “It is important to expand the arsenal of monoclonal antibody therapies that are expected to retain activity against the circulating variants of COVID-19." And Merck has an anti-viral pill Molnupiravir wrapping up clinical trials on August 10th. Clinical Trial of Molnupiravir Merck has to get paid since it lost out with its vaccine. Another company, Romark has an anti-viral pill called NT-300 that is using Niazoxanide that was originally developed for treating intestinal protozoan infections (parasites). Romarks Phase 3 clinical trial was completed in April 2021 but no word on EUA. Romark announced initial results of phase 3 clinical trial of NT-300 tablets for the treatment of Covid-19. And even vitamin C or Zinc supplements may have a beneficial effect on covid19 infection, although more research is welcome.
And although vaccination is said to be the shortest and most reliable way to protect yourself against covid19, it is still a shame that so little mass research and discussion takes place of treatment options other than vaccines.
I still believe that it is deleterious that early phase treatments (Hydroxychloroquine, AZY, ZN, Monoclonal antibodies, Ivermectin) have not been further tested in large randomized trials. It's not like there hasn't been time to look into drug treatment of covid. But everything is focused on vaccines, which are still stuck in trial phase 3, are proven by now to not fully protect you against covid, which also still enable you to pass covid on (in fact, positive vaccinated people are having higher viral load than non-vaccinated covid patients new research found) and on top of all that, the vaccines can for a small percentage of people cause serious side-effects including death - which is completely overlooked and ignored in the media - and their effectiveness decreases with time. Nothing against vaccines, but with such statistics and boosters already in the making, there really should ALSO be much more energy put into covid treatments other than vaccines. But doctors doing so are sometimes threatened or obstructed. Strange.
IVERMECTIN
Currently Oxford tests ivermectin (2). Luckily the reputable L'institut Pasteur has also started testing ivermectin as a covid19 treatment ("Pasteur have shown that ivermectin, a drug used commercially as an antiparasitic treatment, offers protection from COVID-19 symptoms in an animal model. The scientists observed that taking ivermectin was associated with reduced inflammation in the respiratory tract and an alleviation of the related symptoms"). Here are many more scientific articles on ivermectin proving that randomized trials do show that ivermectin is improving covid patients and their symptoms. Here is another pubmed article on ivermectin's efficiency statistics in the treatment of covid19. And in this pubmed research article it is concluded that "A five-day course of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 may reduce the duration of illness". Countries like Peru, Mexico, Japan and African countries have this past year successfully introduced ivermectin as a covid treatment, and seen their numbers of patients dying go down. For instance, In the 24 Peruvian states that adopted early use of ivermectin treatment, excess deaths plummeted on average by 59% just 30 days after the peak death rate. [Update: Pasteur Institute concluded that ivermectin should be used in the EU on a therapeutic basis, for the treatment of covid19].
I still believe that it is deleterious that early phase treatments (Hydroxychloroquine, AZY, ZN, Monoclonal antibodies, Ivermectin) have not been further tested in large randomized trials. It's not like there hasn't been time to look into drug treatment of covid. But everything is focused on vaccines, which are still stuck in trial phase 3, are proven by now to not fully protect you against covid, which also still enable you to pass covid on (in fact, positive vaccinated people are having higher viral load than non-vaccinated covid patients new research found) and on top of all that, the vaccines can for a small percentage of people cause serious side-effects including death - which is completely overlooked and ignored in the media - and their effectiveness decreases with time. Nothing against vaccines, but with such statistics and boosters already in the making, there really should ALSO be much more energy put into covid treatments other than vaccines. But doctors doing so are sometimes threatened or obstructed. Strange. 
Currently Oxford tests ivermectin (2). Luckily the reputable L'institut Pasteur has also started testing ivermectin as a covid19 treatment ("Pasteur have shown that ivermectin, a drug used commercially as an antiparasitic treatment, offers protection from COVID-19 symptoms in an animal model. The scientists observed that taking ivermectin was associated with reduced inflammation in the respiratory tract and an alleviation of the related symptoms"). Here are many more scientific articles on ivermectin proving that randomized trials do show that ivermectin is improving covid patients and their symptoms. Here is another pubmed article on ivermectin's efficiency statistics in the treatment of covid19. And in this pubmed research article it is concluded that "A five-day course of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 may reduce the duration of illness". Countries like Peru, Mexico, Japan and African countries have this past year successfully introduced ivermectin as a covid treatment, and seen their numbers of patients dying go down. For instance, In the 24 Peruvian states that adopted early use of ivermectin treatment, excess deaths plummeted on average by 59% just 30 days after the peak death rate. [Update: Pasteur Institute concluded that ivermectin should be used in the EU on a therapeutic basis, for the treatment of covid19].
This site shows you where in the world people use ivermectin in the treatment of covid19. And it had dropped 75% after 45 days in those over 60 years old." In Japan it is also working according to one doctor (source). Unfortunately there has been a massive media offensive lately, trying to demonize ivermectin, stating it is a cow's/horse drug only, that it isn't supposed to be taken by humans and that there is no evidence of its effectiveness in controlling covid. All lies. Ivermectin is by now an incredible tool in controlling the p&p's of subtype 2 rosacea, it also has been SAFELY prescribed for humans for many decades. Ivermectin is widely used to treat parasite infestations. including head lice, scabies, river blindness, strongyloidiasis, trichuriasis, ascariasis, and lymphatic filariasis. It is also (!) used in veterinary medicine, to prevent and treat heartworm and acariasis, among other indications. It can be taken by mouth or applied to the skin for external infestations. - The story of how ivermectin was discovered is quite incredible. In the early 1970s, Satoshi ÅŒmura, a microbiologist at Tokyo’s Kitasako Institute, was hunting for new antibacterial compounds and started to collect thousands of soil samples from around Japan. He cultured bacteria from the samples, screened the cultures for medicinal potential, and sent them 10,000 km away to Merck Research Labs in New Jersey, where his collaborator, William Campbell, tested their effect against parasitic worms affecting livestock and other animals. One culture, derived from a soil sample collected near a golf course southwest of Tokyo, was remarkably effective against worms. The bacterium in the culture was a new species, and was baptised Streptomyces avermictilis. The active component, named avermectin, was chemically modified to increase its activity and its safety. The new compound, called ivermectin, was commercialised as a product for animal health in 1981 and soon became a top-selling veterinary drug in the world. Remarkably, despite decades of searching, S. avermictilis remains the only source of avermectin ever found. So Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981 (it is also FDA approved). And in 2015, Campbell and ÅŒmura won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for ivermectins discovery and applications. In 2018, it was the 420th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than one hundred thousand prescriptions.
DOSEAs a covid treatment, you have to make sure of course to inform yourself of the right dose. We are talking oral ivermectin tablets here, made for human consumption; not ivermectin horse paste. In these varied scientific tests, various different doses have been tested. A standard safe dose is 12 mg once daily for five days for adults with normal body weight (can be extended to 7 days). Another covid-related dose that is often mentioned in scientific testing is 0.2–0.4 mg/kg per dose (take with or after meals) — one dose daily, take for 5 days or until recovered. In another test they found a statistical improvement of covid symptoms on 6 mg every 84 hrs for 2 weeks, or 12 mg every 84 hrs for 2 weeks. And successful another test used 12mg at 0, 12, and 24 hours, so a total of 3 doses. Make sure to never use more than 400 mcg/kg (which comes down to 16 to 32 mg per day for me). A recent systematic review of ivermectin use among people with parasitic infections suggests that ivermectin administered at the usual doses (0.2mg/kg or 0.4mg/kg) is safe. - I see that wikipedia has now changed it's propaganda info that there is no scientific evidence for ivermectin's effectiveness as a covid treatment, into there being no "credible" scientific evidence. Notice how they added a highly subjective terminology here. Who is wikipedia to decide that dozens of clinical randomized controlled trials (with the 'wrong' outcome) are not 'credible'?!
SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES ABOUT SUCCESSFUL IVERMECTIN USE FOR COVID19-Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines
Conclusions: "Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease".
-Evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of adding ivermectin to treatment in severe COVID-19 patients
Conclusions: "According to the findings obtained, ivermectin can provide an increase in clinical recovery, improvement in prognostic laboratory parameters and a decrease in mortality rates even when used in patients with severe COVID-19. Consequently, ivermectin should be considered as an alternative drug that can be used in the treatment of COVID-19 disease or as an additional option to existing protocols".
Conclusions: "Virological clearance was earlier in the 5-day ivermectin treatment arm when compared to the placebo group, but this was not the case for the ivermectin + doxycycline arm. There were no severe adverse drug events recorded in the study. A 5-day course of ivermectin was found to be safe and effective in treating adult patients with mild COVID-19."
-Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Conclusions: "These findings suggest low to moderate-certainty evidence showing a survival benefit without harm of ivermectin for treatment against covid-19. Low certainty evidence on improvement and deterioration support the possibility of clinical benefit with ivermectin. Low certainty evidence also suggests it could be a useful prophylaxis. Overall, therefore, the evidence suggests that early use of ivermectin may reduce morbidity and mortality from covid-19, based on reductions in covid-19 infections when ivermectin was used as post-exposure prophylaxis, more favourable point estimates for mild to moderate disease compared with severe disease for death due to any cause, and on the evidence demonstrating reductions in the number of patients deteriorating. The evidence on severe adverse events in this review was graded as low certainty, partly because there were too few events to reach statistical significance. However, evidence from a recent systematic review of ivermectin use among people with parasitic infections suggests that ivermectin administered at the usual doses (0.2mg/kg or 0.4mg/kg) is safe and could be safe at higher doses.7,112 A recent World Health Organization document on ivermectin use for scabies found that adverse events with ivermectin were primarily minor and transient."-Prophylactic Role of Ivermectin in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection Among Healthcare Workers
Conclusion: "Two doses of oral ivermectin (300 μg/kg/dose given 72 hours apart) as chemoprophylaxis among HCWs reduced the risk of COVID-19 infection by 83% in the following month. Safe, effective, and low-cost chemoprophylaxis has relevance in the containment of pandemic alongside vaccine".
-Medical Safety of Ivermectin– comprehensive review of safety
Conclusion: “Ivermectin human toxicity cannot be claimed to be a serious cause for concern.”
Conclusion: “Ivermectin human toxicity cannot be claimed to be a serious cause for concern.”
Conclusions: "Meta analysis using the most serious outcome reported shows 69% [54‑79%] and 86% [75‑92%] improvement for early treatment and prophylaxis, with similar results after exclusion based sensitivity analysis and restriction to peer-reviewed studies or Randomized Controlled Trials. Statistically significant improvements are seen for mortality, hospitalization, recovery, cases, and viral clearance. 29 studies show statistically significant improvements in isolation".
Conclusions: "The present study depicts comparative binding efficacy of a promising FDA-approved drug, ivermectin, against major pathogenic proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and their human counterparts involved in host–pathogen interaction. Herein, our in silico data have indicated that ivermectin efficiently utilizes viral spike protein, main protease, replicase and human TMPRSS2 receptors as the most possible targets for executing its antiviral efficiency. Therefore, ivermectin exploits protein targets from both virus and human, which could be the reason behind its excellent in vitro efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 as reported by Caly et al. In this context, ivermectin could be an effective option as well. Considering all these facts, the present study explores the therapeutic targets of ivermectin against SARS-CoV-2 and enlightens the possibility of using this drug in COVID-19 clinical trials shortly".
-The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro
-The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro
Conclusions: The results showed that this drug is a potent inhibitor of SARS-Cov-2. Ivermectin causes 5000x reduction in viral RNA during two days, which requires future clinical investigation in humans
"We report here that Ivermectin, an FDA-approved anti-parasitic previously shown to have broad-spectrum anti-viral activity in vitro, is an inhibitor of the causative virus (SARS-CoV-2), with a single addition to Vero-hSLAM cells 2 h post infection with SARS-CoV-2 able to effect ~5000-fold reduction in viral RNA at 48 h. Ivermectin therefore warrants further investigation for possible benefits in humans".
-The mechanisms of action of Ivermectin against SARS-CoV-2: An evidence-based clinical review article
Conclusions: "Considering the urgency of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, simultaneous detection of various new mutant strains and future potential re-emergence of novel coronaviruses, repurposing of approved drugs such as Ivermectin could be worthy of attention".
-Ivermectin alleviates covid-19 symptoms in an animal model
Conclusions: " The authors of the study demonstrated that taking standard doses of ivermectin reduces the symptoms and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection in an animal model. "We chose to study ivermectin because it is an allosteric modulator of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR). This choice was based on the theory that the nAChR receptor plays a critical role in the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection and could therefore represent a target for preventing and controlling infection," explains Guilherme Dias de Melo, a scientist in the Lyssavirus Epidemiology and Neuropathology Unit and first author of the study. The findings of the study reveal that ivermectin modulates the immune response in animal models infected with SARS-CoV-2, lessening inflammation in the respiratory tract. This immunomodulatory effect helps reduce the emergence of symptoms of the disease. Our results reveal that ivermectin has an immunomodulatory effect rather than an antiviral effect," "Our results represent a significant breakthrough, demonstrating that ivermectin belongs to a new category of COVID-19 drugs in an animal model. This research opens up new avenues for the development of more effective COVID-19 treatments in humans," concludes Hervé Bourhy, Head of the Lyssavirus Epidemiology and Neuropathology Unit and last author of the study.
Conclusions: " The authors of the study demonstrated that taking standard doses of ivermectin reduces the symptoms and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection in an animal model. "We chose to study ivermectin because it is an allosteric modulator of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR). This choice was based on the theory that the nAChR receptor plays a critical role in the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection and could therefore represent a target for preventing and controlling infection," explains Guilherme Dias de Melo, a scientist in the Lyssavirus Epidemiology and Neuropathology Unit and first author of the study. The findings of the study reveal that ivermectin modulates the immune response in animal models infected with SARS-CoV-2, lessening inflammation in the respiratory tract. This immunomodulatory effect helps reduce the emergence of symptoms of the disease. Our results reveal that ivermectin has an immunomodulatory effect rather than an antiviral effect," "Our results represent a significant breakthrough, demonstrating that ivermectin belongs to a new category of COVID-19 drugs in an animal model. This research opens up new avenues for the development of more effective COVID-19 treatments in humans," concludes Hervé Bourhy, Head of the Lyssavirus Epidemiology and Neuropathology Unit and last author of the study.
-Molecular Docking Reveals Ivermectin and Remdesivir as Potential Repurposed Drugs Against SARS-CoV-2
Conclusions: "In conclusion, both ivermectin and remdesivir could be considered potential drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. Ivermectin efficiently binds to the viral S protein as well as the human cell surface receptors ACE-2 and TMPRSS2; therefore, it might be involved in inhibiting the entry of the virus into the host cell. It also binds to Mpro and PLpro of SARS-CoV-2; therefore, it might play a role in preventing the post-translational processing of viral polyproteins. The highly efficient binding of ivermectin to the viral N phosphoprotein and nsp14 is suggestive of its role in inhibiting viral replication and assembly. Remdesivir may be involved in inhibiting post-entry mechanisms as it shows high binding affinity to N and M proteins, PLpro, Mpro, RdRp, and nsp14. Although the results of clinical trials for remdesivir are promising (Beigel et al., 2020; Wang Y. et al., 2020), similar clinical trials for ivermectin are recommended. Both these drugs exhibit multidisciplinary inhibitory effects at both viral entry and post-entry stages."
Conclusion: "We believe that the evidence to date supports the worldwide extension of IVM treatments for COVID-19, complementary to immunizations. The indicated biological mechanism of IVM, competitive binding with SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, is likely non-epitope specific, as reviewed [8], possibly yielding full efficacy against emerging viral mutant strains. IVM has been safely used in 3.7 billion doses since 1987, well tolerated even at much greater than standard doses [34,35] and used without serious AEs in the three high-dose COVID-19 treatment studies noted above [34,36,37]. In the current international emergency of COVID-19, with mutant viral strains, vaccination refusals and potentially waning immunities over months presenting new challenges, IVM can be an effective component of the mix of therapeutics deployed against this pandemic."
Conclusions: "A new study has shown that an anti-parasitic drug already available around the world can kill the virus within 48 hours in cell culture. Scientists showed that a single dose of the drug, Ivermectin, could stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus growing in cell culture. The next steps are to determine the correct human dosage -- ensuring the doses shown to effectively treat the virus in vitro are safe for humans."
(2)
--WHO-sponsored review of ivermectin trials indicates 83% reduction in covid mortality.Find more information about ivermectin use for covid HERE.
Interesting, those people who have never conducted a scientific trial in their life and who vow by 'science', but who trash not one, not two, but a hill of scientific evidence in favour of this well-known and long-used ivermectin drug. Science is also subjected to subjective politics.
PFIZER IS DEVELOPING MEDICATION TO FIGHT COVID TOO BY NOW, LINKING TO IVERMECTIN Pfizer is creating an Ivermectin type pill now. On their website they write:
"Advancing Our Protease Inhibitors. Defeating COVID-19 likely requires both vaccination and targeted treatment for those who contract the virus. At Pfizer, we are evaluating two antiviral protease inhibitors – one orally administered candidate and one intravenously administered candidate – both of which have demonstrated potent antiviral activity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), as well as other known coronaviruses, in both in vitro and in vivo studies. We believe that, if successful and authorized or approved, these investigational therapies could provide end-to-end treatment options for COVID-19 patients, including those exposed to the virus, those with diagnosed infections treated in the outpatient setting, and those hospitalized with moderate to severe infection."
Protease inhibitors. By textbook definitions, HCQ (Hydroxychloroquine) and Ivermectin aren't classed as protease inhibitors, and the protease inhibitors I think Pfizer are referring to are probably modeled on earlier protease inhibitors, which interfered with the post-translational cleavage of what is called the Gag-Pol polyprotein in HIV and NS3/4A inhibitors in Hep C, which again targeted post-translational mechanisms. But it is very well possible that Pfizer is working on a pill very similar to ivermectin. Since Ivermectin is a strong inhibitor of replicase (RdRp), both proteases, the N-protein, and the Spike protein. As this research article confirms: "Ivermectin majorly acts by interfering with the viral entry through inhibiting the function of spike protein and protease. These studies also indicate that ivermectin may also target human ACE2 and TMPRSS2 for exerting its inhibitory action over SARS-CoV-2." Ivermectin is a semisynthetic lactose derived from Streptomyces avermitilis B1a and B1b. It works by apparently paralyzing nematodes and arthropods by intensifying GABA-mediated transmission of signals in peripheral nerves. - Hydroxychloroquine has been tested for efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 and it has been reported to inhibit the function of spike protein via binding with the sialic acid residue of membrane ganglioside. HCQ is an antimalarial aminoquinolone phosphate salt and immunosuppressant. As an antimalarial drug it is a blood schizonticide which interferes with parasite metabolism through uptake in the parasite's food vacuole, which inhibits heme polymerization and causes the lysis of cell membranes. As an immunosuppressant, it is thought to suppress intracellular antigen processing and loading of peptides onto MHC II molecules by increasing the pH of lysosomal and endosomal compartments, suppressing T-cell activation. Other proposed mechanisms for the immunosuppressive aspects of the medication have to do with inhibition of leukocyte chemotaxis, inhibition of DNA and RNA synthesis, and the trapping of free radicals, among others. HCQ has been found effective in the treatment of covid as well in scientific trials.
SO..
So if Pfizer gets their new treatments through the test phases, you can be certain that the media will start hailing their antiviral pill and stop focusing solely and entirely on vaccines, as they do at the moment. After the vaccines which are not as effective or long lasting as hoped, it only makes sense of course to start focusing more, finally, on other treatment options. Because Covid19 is not going anywhere. What irks me is the mass propaganda and misinformation about drugs like ivermectin. Some people think for instance that there is only one single medical research article about the use of ivermectin for SARS-CoV-2. And that it was so flawed that it cannot be taken seriously. But a simple pubmed search will show you dozens of research papers which mostly all prove the effectiveness of ivermectin when it comes to treating covid19 or being of prophylactic value. It is baffling to me how the media has succeeded in convincing scores of people that ivermectin is a dangerous poisonous horse medicine, when it is simply not true. The warnings about the risks of ivermectin were also interesting considering it is widely given to every man, woman and child in
*Mind you, the WHO is not a democratically chosen organization, The WHO was established from different nations, to help the world health situation. But there are many philanthropic organizations and people with a lot of money in this WHO, who help sponsor it. Bill Gates for instance funds 25% of the WHO budgets. It would be naive to think there are no geo-political interests woven into the fabric here.
Governments have given the virologists initially full responsibility for the covid approach. But they started to divert from the science itself after four months, focusing on the WHO guidelines by then. So initially the virologists for instance explained on TV and in the press that face masks would be as good as useless, because the covid particles are airborne and can slip through every little opening. But after 4 months, the WHO dictated that no, in fact facemasks were effective and everyone followed suit. This was probably a good move, but other things also started to shift. First getting herd immunity was the goal but then suddenly mass vaccination became the mantra. Without further judgement, it is at least good to be aware of this, I think.
OTHER PROMISING DRUGSRemdesivir has also come out as another choice of drug for treating severe corona-patients andreported to inhibit replication of SARS-CoV-2 via direct binding with the viral RDRP. However, in other tests remdesivir proved to be fairly useless as a covid treatment, and it also comes with a toxicity warning. Pasteur is also testing another old but hopefully promising molecule against Covid, Clofoctol. The FDA also approved sotrovimab at the moment for emergency use. Recently the European Commission also approved it's use. Sotrovimab is a monoclonal antibody that is specifically directed against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and is designed to block the virus’ attachment and entry into human cells. “With the authorization of this monoclonal antibody treatment, we are providing another option to help keep high-risk patients with COVID-19 out of the hospital,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “It is important to expand the arsenal of monoclonal antibody therapies that are expected to retain activity against the circulating variants of COVID-19." And Merck has an anti-viral pill Molnupiravir wrapping up clinical trials on August 10th. Clinical Trial of Molnupiravir Merck has to get paid since it lost out with its vaccine. Another company, Romark has an anti-viral pill called NT-300 that is using Niazoxanide that was originally developed for treating intestinal protozoan infections (parasites). Romarks Phase 3 clinical trial was completed in April 2021 but no word on EUA. Romark announced initial results of phase 3 clinical trial of NT-300 tablets for the treatment of Covid-19. And even vitamin C or Zinc supplements may have a beneficial effect on covid19 infection, although more research is welcome.
So anyway, I am not against vaccinations. Not at all. People should get vaccinated if they wish to. But this media onslaught of one-sided stories and the at times flat out incorrect portrait painted by politicians who are behind with the current statistics, demonizing drugs like ivermectin in the most unscientific of ways and falsely promising that vaccination renders you safe from covid (Joe Biden for instance, just last week) is just a thorn in my eye. Just as the way in which a large group of people without a second thought gives up the basic rights of the minority, just because they happen to be vaccinated and ready to enjoy some more normal life again. Reasonable people who are neither fiercely pro- or anti-vaccine can legitimately be disturbed by the inconsistent decisions of our rulers. After having said that the masks were useless (because we did not have them) and then encouraging us to wear them, constantly warning us about the variants but putting the maps on 'yellow' because of the holidays and economical needs of the European countries, now the last incongruity in France for instance is to not make it mandatory for police and gendarmerie to be vaccinated. While many professions, including the fire fighters, are being forced to vaccinate themselves or they won't get paid. And while French citizens will be controlled about their vaccination status and health pass by ... these same police, representatives of the Law, who themselves won't be... vaccinated? Isn't that the same as having your driver's license checked by police officers on motorcycles who don't have a license to drive? The reason is of course that Macron and his government have little to fear of rioting fire fighters, and everything to fear of rebellious police and army factions. All political regimes have the police and the army as their last bulwark. It is clear that Macron does not want to irk them, calculating the risk of them abandoning or turning against their rulers. History often repeats itself in this sense.
Germany is changing the law as well, taking away basic human rights for this virus with less than 1% mortality overall. Unvaccinated people will soon no longer be able to go to the hairdresser, to the cinema or to restaurants. And covid tests will no longer be free of charge! Those same tests which everyone was ushered to have regularly, to keep track of covid infections and isolate them from society? Now suddenly this important station is being politicized as well, to force people to get vaccinated. It is really appalling I think, especially when you realise the stats are pushed and misrepresented, to justify political decisions. France is doing the same and I wouldn't be surprised if the prima donna's of the EU, Macron and Merkel, will try to push a similar uniform approach on other EU member states. And why not everyone is up in arms surprises me even more when we remember ourselves about the blatant lying that is involved. In France for instance, Emmanuel Macron declared in April this year, while his Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beauneon, declared it again on May 12th, that "we will not have a daily health pass installed for cafes or restaurants, in France". Such a device would be "excessive" and likely to create "a two-tier society". Macron had said a month earlier: “The health pass will never be a right of access that differentiates the French. It could never be compulsory to access places of everyday life, such as restaurants, theaters and cinemas, or to go to friends." - Three months later, and the health pass is now essential in the daily life of the French to go to restaurants, cafes, sports halls, cinemas or even long-distance transport. Even hospitals cannot be entered without it, unless it is life or death emergency help. There used to be safeguards in social law to prevent this type of excessive state ruling, but they were shattered with these exceptional 'emergency' measures. Hopefully they will not push this pass further and further and further... In theory, three types of so-called 'totem' activities can never be subject to the health pass: political, trade union and religious activities. But who knows how they will abuse this 'emergency situation' further. Or whether or not this health pass will ever become a thing of the past again.
I particularly am wary of the 'law of the majority', which is being used at the moment by many leaders to divide the population and push through their extreme and scientifically illogical measures, solely to force the people to get vaccinated. A minority can be viscerally opposed here while being actually vaccinated themselves, because they are for instance attached to democratic values. The law of the majority is not always automatically good. The majority were not exactly reliable ethically in Germany of the 1930's and '40's, to name one example. In 1940 it was also the minority in the shape of resistance fighters, who took up arms. The majority would more likely have sold them to the occupier, if they had something to lose from not doing so. Does that make the majority right? - A friend wrote me: "The Germans at the time used emergency measures to get away with authoritarian control, following the Reichstag fire. The fire was started by a Dutch commie but it was a propaganda gift for the Nazis and the whole Third Reich was ushered in under these 'emergency powers' ... which were not lifted. We learnt in school about Marinus van der Lubbe. Not all that bright, apparently. But politicians are opportunists and here they used that fortunate incident to pin a ton of new rules and restrictions on Germans. In 1931 Theodor Heuss wrote 'Hitler's Way' and he explained the phenomenon as having a duality, basically hysterical emotion, mass psychosis and the personality cult, and on the other hand this brutal, ruthless and efficient bureaucracy or party machinery chewing its way through all obstacles. Regarding 'law of the majority' Heuss wrote; "Today legality means being formed or confirmed by the will of the majority. The man who mocks democracy subjects himself, vowing legality, to its methods and its very idea. In so doing, he suggests to his followers that this is not the result of a change of heart, but the manifestation of a period of adjustment, an attempt to win time that requires patience. The goal is to gain the majority of votes tomorrow or the day after tomorrow - and the majority means power". Or as George Orwell put it:"Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad".
This is a great short video of a class of professor Jordan Peterson, where he warns against totalitarian states and their ways of conduct. I see some parallels, for instance their 'disgust sensitivity'. Currently aimed at "anti-vaxxers", who are made to look like scapegoats. Especially when he explains how this obsession with the prevalence of infectious diseases led to total totalitarianism in Germany, I cannot help but think at how covid is currently used as well as the pretext for quite extreme (and some will say totalitarian) reduction of basic human rights, ensured by the law (normally). And I get very sad about the division in society. The one thing we could take from the beginning of the pandemic was how people pulled together. I hate the division covid and now the jabs are causing, currently.
People in a democracy have the right to doubt, have the right to refuse medical treatments. It is not like there are no risks involved when taking these vaccines, no matter how statistically minor (although some investigators deem this specific risk even rather significant). That the government encourages taking this vaccination is not a problem. But the turn that has now been taken is in my opinion excessive and the health pass is unacceptable, especially in light of the latest statistics on vaccinated people getting covid, passing covid on and being also hospitalized for covid. It is therefore legitimate that part of the population does not want a compulsory vaccination, nor a health pass for everyday activities. Of course we want to preserve hospital services from an overflow of patients, but in the name of the deprivation of liberty of the majority? Are there no other solutions? Governments should simply have installed regular free testing and kept the social distancing rules in place.Most here were horrified upon discovering the "social credit" system in China. Their use of a pass to allow or deny people access to public places, to public transport., to amenities, leisure and even employment, under the guise of following (or not) to the letter the measures and rules of the government, while requiring companies to control customers/employees under penalty of being punished. And yet, today this same thing is happening in multiple European countries: a pass linked to a disease of which we know that the vaccine prevents neither from being contaminated, nor from being contagious. Iceland also proves this, with its 93% vaccinated population (those above age 16), but whose daily contamination rate is one of the highest of this continent, to the point that the Icelandic government having had to put an end to the vaccination campaign. They have given up the vaccination obligation, except for the so-called "fragile" people. Vaccination, as it now turns out slowly but surely, does not make you bulletproof when it comes to covid. Not only do we probably have to live with this virus for the unforeseeable future without a wartime mentality (and remember ourselves that Covid infection figures are largely without teeth if they do not translate into rising hospitalisations and deaths). But without wanting to sound like a lunatic, we also have to be aware of the fact that covid19 seems to have the potential to be used as a great excuse for some governments to set up the foundations of a social credit system with the registration and monitoring of its citizens/businesses and deprivation of freedoms. Under the guise of common law, under the (scientifically flawed) pretext that the people can live serenely again, without fear. These are exactly the same type of arguments used by China when they introduced their social credit system. The terms are different, but the facts are the same.
July 31st 2021. “Health pass: does the situation really justify a suspension of freedoms?”
By Chantal Delsol
"TRIBUNE - For the philosopher, a government can demand sacrifices from its population in the event of an exceptional situation. But the Covid epidemic no longer meets these criteria, argues our columnist. She sees in the extension of the sanitary pass the mark of a society which makes "naked life" its only reference point.
The measures announced on July 12 by Emmanuel Macron threaten to provoke revolts. From the beginning of August, it will be impossible to go to a public place without the health pass. It is clearly a backdoor way to make the vaccination compulsory. Something which the leaders had always sworn to leave optional. In addition, it is often difficult to access the vaccination (the "Doctolib in two clicks" is nonsense and a denial of reality, you just have to get started yourself to see it), which makes the measure, in fact, retroactive (and therefore unconstitutional). Children between 12 and 17 years old who will not be vaccinated at the start of the school year will be deprived, in fact, of any sport and any leisure. Many parents refuse to vaccinate their 12-year-old children, who risk nothing but a mild flu, in order to protect a small percentage of elderly or at-risk people who did not want to be vaccinated. It is a brutal law, which is installed during a long-awaited summer holiday period and on a population that is traumatized by the lies and multiple contradictions heard for months and months. The entire population, from restaurant owners to cinema openers, is now invited to track down the unvaccinated, who therefore speak of dictatorship. Family tables ignite.
The question of the health pass and the compulsory vaccine is part of the general political question of the exceptional situation. We know that Western societies, from their pre-republican and pre-democratic origins, grasped the reality and the demands of a situation of peril, during which free institutions were required to arrogate to themselves more power than in ordinary times. At the very end of the VIth century BC, the Roman Republic established the dictatorship as Judicial exception, with special powers capable of responding to crises, namely the war, and at the same time as limited judiciary in time.
Because it was not necessary that the depositary of the load take advantage of full powers to become a tyrant, refusing to give up his prerogatives once the situation has been cleaned up. This thousand-year-old conflict between the need to obey in times of crisis, and the fear of obeying too much or obeying too long, is a purely Western conflict since elsewhere power was waged absolute everywhere and always. It is a conflict typical of free societies, that has pursued us since our nation's historical birth. And this is still where we are today.
"After more than eighteen months of health crisis, now that the health pass is installed, the situation has nothing to do with that of the beginnings"
When, at the start of the crisis, President Macron said: "We are at war", he thereby establishes the evidence of an exceptional situation, during which, consequently, the French will be faced with governmental demands to which they would not be required in normal times. To begin with, there were confinements. We are today at a point where we can seriously question, without desire for controversy, the very existence of an exceptional situation. That is to say: question whether there is still a dangerous crisis for society. After more than eighteen months of health crisis, now that the health pass is installed, the situation has nothing to do with that of the beginnings. Most of the population at risk is vaccinated, making the overloading of hospitals, which was the government's main fear, unlikely. The new variant spreads quickly, but due to vaccine dynamics its effects are lessened.. And yet the discourse of the authorities, institutions and media involved, remains at the same level as during the height of the pandemic, in the beginning. When we were still wondering if the virus was not going to decimate our children or kill 20% of the population. Today, the question is less how we have to protect ourselves from Covid, and more about understanding by what sly panic, by what contagion of terror our rulers claim to extend - and strengthen - the measures of the exceptional situation. In other words, they claim to keep us in step more and more and with more and more ardor, while the reasons for this seem less and less convincing.
Today, the question is less how we have to protect ourselves from Covid, and more about understanding by what sly panic, by what contagion of terror our rulers claim to extend - and strengthen - the measures of the exceptional situation.
It is first necessary to understand that the 'situation of great risk', said to be exceptional, remains subjective. It does not suffer debate in case of imminent great danger: when Hitler's Germany bombed London, the population obeyed without shuddering with the imposition of the blackout and other coercive measures. But, generally, the concept of great danger varies and is debated. At present, things have gone so far that for Westerners with a heightened sensitivity, the risk of a virus that kills only minimally and mostly the elderly who are already suffering from underlying health issues, is as terrifying as the plague of the sixteenth century which took away a third of the population. We must take into account the spirit of the times. The drastic measures put in place to preserve health respond to a postmodern ideology, 'hygienism', and mark a new chapter in contemporary biopolitics. We considered it normal to decree the exceptional situation in times of war, and today we consider it legitimate to decree it in times of Covid. This is the simple sign of a shift in the dominant value. The government is only given full powers when the essentials are in danger. The main thing today is "bare life". The government therefore deems itself authorized to debate the epidemic in Defense Councils, and to constantly renew the state of emergency, which says a lot about the mixing of genres and the perversion of concepts. However, one should never forget the permanent pitfall of the 'exceptional situation': a government always aspires to gain more power, and if it can find a good reason to bring society in line, it will do so wholeheartedly. It is enough to see with what joyful ease our rulers are ready, in this matter of vaccines, to regard those who resist vaccination as uncivil rebels against the established order who should be condemned. Human beings love to tyrannize. Humans do it with great pleasure, unless you prevent them to. Mankind does it triumphantly when legality allows it. So there comes a time when a part of society wonders about the validity of 'the exceptional situation'.
"Is perfect health worth the end of freedoms?"
Today the question arises if perfect health is worth the end of our freedoms? Do I want to risk an illness in order to be able to go to the theater, play sports or see my children? Do I want to see my grandmother lose a year of her remaining life so that she won't be alone in her room for all the time she has left? In other words: it is the hygienist ideology itself which is questioned by the crititcal people within society, who are described immediately as a bunch of idiots, while our rulers are anchored in 'hygienism' as if it were second nature for them. The conflict between the two is violent, because the 'antihygienist' currents are deprived of thinking elites, and are therefore thought crude; and because 'hygienists' tend to belong to the elite, and are often intolerant and contemptuous. In France, this conflict is exacerbated due to the generalized mistrust among a large part of the population. This mistrust has been so well described by Cahuc and Algan: the anti-pass health workers do not believe in any figure that is given by the government (and it must be said that the government have previously told so much nonsense, for example about the uselessness of masks - a government cannot play with its population with impunity).What we call today "the dangerous electorate" and what was called in the nineteenth century the "dangerous classes", are people capable of extremism and violence because they have been too often deceived. But they have all the same the right not to be 'hygienic' in the same way as the elites: there are legitimate reasons even outside the "circle of reason" (a shameful expression which rejects all adversaries in the bed of infantile emotions). In the old Roman sense, the dictatorship of the exceptional situation is nothing to worry about, and it even helps to protect free institutions, if it is contained and reduced to the present crisis. What is questionable here is not the "health dictatorship", because it is logical that citizens support draconian measures in the event of common peril. What is questionable is the hygienist ideology which elevates sanitation to the rank of supreme and absolute value."
French protests about the health pass discrimination
Italian parliamentary uproad about the health pass law + the evil Dr on the inability of vaccines to prevent contagiousness
July 24th 2021Sorry for the lack of writing on here. I think we're all a bit covid-tired by now, despite a year long fear for this virus and the ongoing roller-coaster of media news hitting us every day with new numbers, graphics and risk assessments. I realized while browsing through this page just yet, that I have gone all over the place myself in the past year. Being petrified of covid, then getting tired of the Angst onslaught, hammering on us all the time. Going from thinking Millennials are selfish for not wanting to skip a party (or two), all the way to now being beaten numb with the constant changing of the rules. One step forward, one step back, one step sideways. And by now I am still very cautious, within limits, when it comes to avoiding infection. But I also think by now, after well over a year of lockdowns and heavy consequences for many other patients who have been unwantedly neglected sometimes in the hospitals and major effects on mental wellbeing of the younger generations, that the weaker in society should protect themselves as good as possible, with the help of the state. Meaning free vaccinations for those who want to use them (as we have), good health care (as we have). A society taking precautions that are within the limits of reason, such as wearing a face mask in crowded indoor places or public transport and being more vigilant about hand santizing. But that is where things should end in my (current) opinion, in order to restore some balance now that the majority of people have had the chance to be vaccinated. Countries and the young and healthy have been paralyzed for long over a year, and counting. I also do not believe in mandatory vaccination. Although it is good if people want to get vaccinated, I believe in absolute freedom when it comes to this particular vaccination.
It is terrible if you are among those cassualties, which percentage-vs-numbers wise does amount to a lot of people all in all. But the flu has similar casualty numbers each normal winter. Of course the flu and covid19 are not the same illnesses and covid is a very serious illness if you get it bad (something I am petrified of ever getting!), but when you look at the group of people who has overall the highest risk of dying of covid, it is the same group of elderly, immunocompromised which is also most at risk during flu outbreaks in the fall and winter. In the Netherlands, an average flu year takes up to 10.000 lives. So far over the past 16 months the Dutch have less than 18.000 officially registered covid deaths. 17.829 currently. Yet for the flu we do not lock down the entire country and economy, but for covid we do. It is of course mostly because covid19 is a novel virus with a dangerous outlook for those who end up hospitalized with it. But lockdowns also became a necessity because there were not enough IC beds. And because the hospitals could not cope during the past covid waves. But 1,5 years have passed by now and yet the number of intensive care beds has not been increased in countries like the Netherlands and France, despite the hospital situation having been the justification for confinement. A confinement which so far has had astronomical (mental) health, psychological, economic and financial repercussions. It may be time to accept that we do what we can within the limits of reasonability.. Horrible individual stories and personal fears to catch covid aside, entire countries cannot be put through lockdown every other month, or for long periods of the year for an illness that does not come close to the plague for instance, which killed anywhere between 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa in the Middle Ages. The Black Death plague killed between 30% to 60% of the European population in a couple of years, between 1347-1351. That is either one-in-three, or two-in-every-three people in Europe...
So I am liberal in the sense that I believe people should decide for themselves if they want to be vaccinated or not, for a virus that over 99% of us recover from by the power of our natural immune system. Of course it is a risk to trust on that, but on the other hand I do understand the 'other side' of the discours. The vaccines are not yet through test phase 3 (so neither got through test phase 4) and are 'emergency approved', which is not the same as having gone through rigorous, decade long testing. They used a new technology for these drugs also, they are not the same as the old and tested traditional vaccines. And they can come with signifcant side effects; blood clotting issues, immune response issues, neurovascular problems. Myocarditis, blindness, Guillain Barre disease, tremors. Recently it was admitted that a small percentage of female users have menstrual disturbances, of which nobody yet knows if there will be long term effects, linked to this. Luckily this only happens to a very small percentage of people, but nevertheless - and just like what applies to the low percentage covid death numbers -; what if it happens to you or your loved ones. And also not unimportant: many of these are side effects were discovered áfter the vaccines were put on the market. Because they are only allowed as 'emergency' treatment, and they are still stuck in phase 3 testing (of which the end is currently planned for 2022/2023). It is a dazzling demonstration, in that respect, that these products have not undergone all the rigorous testing they should have, and that no one can say with certainty if there will be long term unwanted side-effects or not. Because this wasn't tested. Just like it has come as a bit of a surprise that the effectivity of the vaccines is dropping significantly after the six month mark (just like we were surprised by the high transmission of the virus between vaccinated people and their high viral load when infected). Just like we had to find out áfter the global launch of these vaccines, that the vaccine and the spike proteins do not in fact stay isolated in the arm muscle, as intended, but travel throughout the body in over 75% of patients. The effects of this are not known, because not researched yet. Who knows if this is the cause of blood clots (not registered as an official vaccine side-effect, 1,5 years after they were launched). Blood clots can lead to thrombosis, embolisms, heart damage and failures, strokes, you name it. There are more and more specialists showing concern about the vaccines possible ability to reactivate cancers., for instance (still unproven though), as well long covid now being blamed on the vaccine reactivating a dormant Epstein-Barr virus. Fortunately, for the great majority of people, the body takes care of these clots, but not everyone is so lucky. It looks a lot like Russian roulette. Painful also for victims, is that unless there is an undeniable causability (think of side-effects taking place within 15 minutes after the jab, when the nurse is still around), they will often be waved away as unrelated incidents.. Women who report or complain about menstrual issues after vaccination, are either told it is most likely unrelated, or unimportant. A return of the good old hysteria of women. So while I have been vaccinated for all the regular diseases as a kid, I do understand the fear for not only covid, but also for these potential side-effects. And there is a lot of interesting stuff out there by scientists risking their careers over being critical of these vaccines. Some will talk nonsense, others are interesting to at least listen to. But I am honestly tired and too tired in fact, to deal with the constant allegations of being a 'conspiracy theorist', a 'wappie' as we call them in the Netherlands, simply by looking closer into the way these vaccines work, and wanting to highlight the minority, who have fallen ill or worse from the vaccines. That is constantly overlooked or ignored, which feels unfair to me.
So serious as this health crisis still is, I am opposed to the new health pass restrictions in several countries, most notably in France, where president Macron has gone a bit overboard with his covid rules (in my opinion). Macron wants all of France vaccinated and has introduced a 'pass sanitaire' (a health pass) for basically every outside activity, short of going to the supermarket. Either you show your pass sanitaire with a QR code that you have been doubly vaccinated, or you need to show a recent negative covid test costing €50 a test now for foreigners (and soon also for the natives). That is a lot of money, to be able to drink a cup of coffee on a terrace outside. Frankly: dystopian situations for a virus. But most French shrug their shoulders and mumble 'just get vaccinated then'. Can you imagine a surprise police check in a restaurant? As in the days of the militia. Ausweiss, schnell, schnell. It is not for restaurateurs to control the private papers of their customers. They don't even have the right to ask for identity papers for identification. The state better put a policeman at the door of every restaurant or bar and organize their checks themselves. There were massive protests in all major cities last Saturday and more to come. But according to surveys conducted by the pro-government main media stations, the majority of people there simply support the pass sanitaire, and in effect that 1/3rd of the population will be structurally discriminated against. France is the only country in the world to impose this rigorous a health pass at the moment, needed to take the train, go to the cinema, to the hospital, the mall, a restaurant, museum or simply to sit outside on a pub terrace. Even China has banned governors from taking these kinds of draconian measures. Yes, it is too liberticidal even for the Chinese! Not only can the holy QR code that allows entrance technically be that of your lookalike friend or sibling, as the staff aren't allowed to ask for ID, they will also certainly not be too zealous to find out if that QR code is really yours, as they simply want customers. Macron is not even able to enforce the basics of the highway code for kids on scooters, yet some people imagine that he will be able to terrorize every peaceful customer on the terrace or in a bar. But it is about the principle of course, it's medical Apartheid in the eyes of quite a few people. France also makes it mandatory for people in certain professions to get vaccinated. If you are a nurse, or work in a pensioner's home, or take care of people in any other way, you risk not getting paid for your work, or being suspended if you don't get vaccinated before mid-September. That to me seems to cross the general European agreement that these vaccinations will not become mandatory. The French government will say however that they are exploring the boundaries of these agreements... People like Macron are dividing the population into 2/3 of socitety which can do things again as normal, and 1/3 which is excluded. These do not only consist of straight out jab refusers. They also include people who have medical reasons/advise not to get vaccinated. But for this small group there is literally no attention. Nothing, they are not mentioned by politicians, there are no exception rules for them. People like us have sat at home for a year, give or take, to help the hospitals cope, to help protect the old and weakest of society. But now we are treated like lepers by some people. Banned from everyday normal life enjoyment, unless you pay €50 every other day and travel back and forth to get tested every other day. Who can afford that sort of expense?
Health is also "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and is not only the absence of disease or infirmity." (WHO)
By now, cinemas have grabbed and argued the freedom to allow less than 50 people (so make that 49) to watch a movie without the need to show the health pas. This is because Macron and aides had uttered on TV that as a general rule, groups over 50 had to be subject to the health pass. So now they have to stick to their word and allow fast-thinking cinema owners to allow only 49 people into every cinema hall. Give it some time before owners of swimming pools, restaurants and terraces will start seeking the same exemption if they stick to 49 customer max. What a cacophony. What a delirium. And what's more: Macron appeared on live TV to announce the new rules while the national senate still had to approve these plans. France has a president who unilaterally announces televised bans, while they have neither been discussed nor voted for in the National Assembly, nor in the Senate. They have not even been targeted by the Constitutional Council. Isn't this the wrong order of things? Is this still the democratic way? Macron perhaps announced these new rules prematurely, to already reign over the millions of people who freaked out right after the airing and booked themselves a vaccination appointment. Three million of them, according to the government. This health pass could well be an announced economic, (mental) health and social disaster. Because a lot of French are exasperated. New rules every bloody month. New restrictions, one step forward, one step back. Then one step sideways. It's like Macron is giving tango lessons. His government does not know where it is going. Is it looking for the revolution? That country is completely divided right now (even though the vaccinated people are the majority) and the government helps to create a polarized society, where one group of people have much more rights than others. And several other European countries watch and learn. When the virus was roaming free last year, everyone, also the healthy and the young and the strong, had to be confined to their houses to protect the weak. And now you have a group of people who cannot or will not get vaccinated, and they are excluded from society. One moment we all clap for the doctors and nurses, the next they are attacked for not wanting to get vaccinated and they should all be fired, according to the man in the street. From hero to villain, from professional to quack in 90 seconds. Even people who are pro-vaccination but against mandatory vaccinations are... branded an 'anti-vaxxer'. But it's all ideal for politicians is when the citizens don't attack their policies and tango-like measurements, but instead attack each other.
What is important in this regard, is that even on a scientific level, this new ruling makes no sense. Because it's already mainstream news by now that yes, vaccinated people still catch covid and pass it on. They in fact by now make up the majority of covid cases in some European countries (at Leiden University Medical Center 85% of all currently confirmed positive employees have been fully vaccinated) and in a country like Israel for instance. Israel's health ministry has now released figures showing that Pfizer and BioNtech's vaccine will now only protect 39% against infection. The United States again recommends the wearing of the mask indoors for the vaccinated. People may be vaccinated and have less chance to end up in hospital, but they still are infectious and have very high viral load when they have covid and are in the contagious phase. Dr Fauci officially stated the other day: “When you look at the level of viral load in the nasopharynx of a vaccinated person who contracts the Delta variant, it is exactly the same level of viral load as in an unvaccinated person who is infected.” So, despite the initial promise that vaccination would protect up to 95% against catching covid and would make vaccinated people unable to transmit covid, to pass it on; it has now become clear that this is not the reality. Now CNN is already saying "vaccination creates new variants" and we need more lockdowns and masks instead: "Vaccination alone won't stop the rise of new variants and in fact could push the evolution of strains that evade their protection, researchers warned Friday." And the Washington Post published data from scientific studies, confirmed by the CDC, the main health agency in the United States, stating that infected people seem to transmit covid19 as much as unvaccinated people. The CDC had said earlier this year that fully vaccinated people are very safe from infection and can take off their masks in most situations. But by now, it says even fully vaccinated people can catch the virus and if they catch the Delta variant, they are just as likely to infect someone else as an unvaccinated person would be. The CDC now advises everyone in areas of high or sustained virus transmission to wear masks when around others, also vaccinated people. If vaccinated people are as contaminative as non-vaccinated people, why separate and divide the two groups, as the health pass intends? This new data in itself should completely invalidate the relevance of the health pass. Oh no, that law is mainly installed to blackmail people into getting vaccinated above all and to heavily restrict their everyday life if they do not comply.
Another new risks could be that vaccinated people can believe that they are 'safe' and meanwhile infect others without realizing it. In France and many other countries, there are no more requirements to be tested for the vaccinated and when they have a mild case of covid, they may not even realize that they are positive. Welcome to Absurdiland. Where politicians are allowing doubly vaccinated people (despite them being as contageous as the non-vaccinated people if they have covid and despite them ending up in hospital just as much already in several countries) to get in and out of planes, trains, into pubs and restaurants without a single test. Where people who already had covid and who already developed strong, long immunity do not get a health pass, but doubly vaccinated people who often do not develop equally strong and long-lived antibodies and who can contaminate and be contaminated, they can go everywhere without testing.. The Israeli Ministry of Health for instance announced that Pfizer is 97% effective 15 days after the 2nd injection, but that this number drops to 64% already after six months. And the latest estimation of Israel, today on the radio, is that Pfizer is only 39% effective overall. The vaccine does not stop a person from getting the virus. It lessens the symptoms. Making it actually harder to spot the ill and prevent them from contaminating others. There is even talk ánd scientific research backing up the risk of Antibody dependent enhancement for those vaccinated. Nature also published about this 'ADE' phenomenon more recently, in relation to both SARS-CoV-2 and the covid vaccines. The vaccine produces specific antibodies whereas your own immune system provides a broad immune response. With new variants there may come a need in the future for more vaccine boosters. And the return of testing and showing test results, also for the vaccinated. The Washington Post also wrote that the new data shows that the vaccine will not provide herd immunity and that it is especially important to vaccinate those at risk. Here more issues are described. 
And will governments push for extensions or continuation of these health passes beyond 'a state of emergency'? Are these passes even still about covid, knowing that the vaccinated are not 'safe' at all in terms of getting covid andpassing it on, or is it just a pretext to push us in the Free World towards China's social credit system, to name something extreme here? As you can probably tell, I think all people should just get a test done (free of charge) and show it before going to events with larger groups of people. Or develop more effective self-tests and provide them to the people. Unprecedented times. What was unthinkable a year ago is becoming mainstream reality: containment, curfews, masks, mandatory vaccines, health passes for access to basic places. When people are scattered around in the open air, it may all be a bit too strict now. The superb clean orders of the prefects in France were: there is a mask obligation outside in the open air in the countryside, within a space of 100 ha for 20 onlookers, because there are 2 people in intensive care throughout the department. That is getting ridiculous. Most people take the vaccination to just protect themselves and in their conviction others as well. Some people take the vaccination because they are scared of the government, not of Corona. Afraid not to be able to go on holiday, or be allowed to shop. 'It is because I fear what the government will do to me or prevent me from doing.' And that is fine, that is also freedom. But that freedom should work both ways. Taking a vaccine should be a personal choice, just as accepting the consequences and risks of not doing so. Not saying that there should be no pressure to get vaccinated. But this is a very specific situation, which cannot be compared really to the polio situation many decades ago here in Europe. The proportions of this pass and all it entails are disproportionate. It is rough but there is something to say for building up herd immunity among the young(er) and healthy population. Instead of locking everyone (or by now the unlucky and disobedient 33%) in their houses again, for the Xth time and paralyzing society again and again. And with the knowledge now that vaccination does not provide the golden way out; why are politicians so dead-set to have 100% of the population vaccinated anyway? And are we ever going to get rid of these 'emergency state' health and ID checks? Or will they come here to stay? No certainties there either. They are massive impediments of our freedom of movement and identity privacy. Perhaps there are still millions of doses of vaccines waiting which were bought in bulk. Governing through fear, division and discrimination is not the way. Not even during a coronavirus wave. Because let's face it: a year ago no one would have accepted these types of laws. And how is the situation more serious now than last year, now that the majority of people here in Europe and those at risk are vaccinated? If you believe in the vaccine, then there is no need to take these disproportionate and demagogic measures and if you are vaccinated and believe you are immune now, you don't have to fear the unvaccinated; These type of passes and rights to fire people over vaccinations has no place in a free world. In this case it is politically used, giving a carrot to those who only got vaccinated to gain access to certain places. The establishment of a segregationist system that macronists so desire is another. Kafkaesque situations tend to end badly.
Among French 20-30 year olds, there is now a desire reported to get the health pass without being vaccinated (of which they are weary), by looking to be infected with covid, on purpose. See the Figaro news article about this. So that they get the green QR code, in this case a Certificate of Recovery from Covid-19, the moment they have recovered and can show it with a negative test result. Settled for at least 6 months then, with the desirable green access code for pubs, restaurants and everything else that makes life interesting again. They rather catch the virus than that they get the vaccination with what some believe experimental new genetic coding. They fear potential long term side effects we may not yet be aware of. A small percentage of younger people have also suffered from serious side effects and sudden death after being vaccinated, and the fact that these stories are pushed out of mainstream media, makes some people weary. I guess that is the risk when putting the knife on people's throats and pushing, pushing, pushing, taking all their normal life activities away from them unless...unless! Meanwhile in the Netherlands there is no threatening at all, no different laws for the subhumans who do not want to be vaccinated and voila, we have over 80% of people vaccinated. The government actually contemplates the effects of threatening people or cutting them off in ways, stating that that in itself would push more people away from vaccinations, as they do not like to be told by the government what to do. Here you hear a health official ignoring the reasonable question why last year, with nobody vaccinated, the covid numbers were better in every respect than this summer, with at least 56% of the population vaccinated (spoiler; he won't answer that question directly): 
For those interested in this topic, here are some links I found interesting. But keep in mind that this is the 'anti' argumentation. We all know the pro story, as that is the mainstream story:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4zIpgXgLp8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyPjAfNNA-U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbWJ4xIPAkA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZxiNxYLpc
https://www.sciencealert.com/mounting-evidence-suggests-many-covid-19-long-haulers-are-co-infected-with-epstein-barr
Skin wise my face is back to normal now, but when it was very hot and humid and I had to wear the facemask all the time when outside, I did develop some nasty rashes. I am not sure if it was acne or just my usual allergy-prone skin breaking out. I get cold urticaria in winter from cold air. And lately I seem to get heat rash, basically, from hot and humid weather. Mine stays for a week easily (only on my face where rosacea kind of ruined my normal skin barrier), and it is not the type that goes away within a day. I will see my dermatologist next week and will ask about it. I put some zinc ointment on the spots and that seems to eventually make them go away, although I am honestly not sure if they speed up the natural healing process, yes or no. They kind of cover the redness up though :) During and after rashes went away again. I try to stay cool, as usual. Fans on, air-conditioning on. No overheating with many blankets when sleeping. Still taking all my anti-flushing medication (clonidine, propranolol, mirtazapine and xyzal). It has been a very depressing year to be honest. I mainly get through it by staying busy, staying in touch with friends and family and trying to enjoy small things like cooking, movies, music. The generic stuff, basically.
March 24th 2021It has been a dreary winter here, cold, miserable, locked in. I have had worse cold urticaria than ever. Last week it was suddenly cold again, although already spring and after a spell of more moderate weather. My face lit up once more and developed all these small swollen hives again, hot burning and itchy. I have now started a course of Singulair, some sort of mast cell inhibitor. I had it prescribed by an internist doctor in hospital already back in 2019 but I had only half-heartedly tried it for my face flushing. But now I am giving it a good go and so far the hives are disappearing and the flushing hasn't gotten worse either. I hope that with the spring pollen in the air, it will help curb those horrible allergy-fueled flare-ups I often get in spring. The past months had been red skin and flushing every evening. I already take a 4 double dose of Xyzal antihistamine daily, for years. Misery. (Photos first with a filter then without on a very pale skin moment, rest of the day I am pink as usual). Hopefully some warmer weather is ahead. But this is a newer development I feel with my skin. I always had relief from my rosacea with cold packs and cold air. But now when temperatures come under.. well say 8 degrees, and I have my ventilator on, aimed at my face.. I seem to get this skin reaction nowadays with the cold urticaria. Only on my face though. It must be linked to the fan use and the shitty skin barrier function.
Covid wise I wonder if in a way, the restricted lifestyle has probably come more easy to u all? I can only speak for myself of course, but I know from a few other people with rosacea that they all also live a more restricted homely lifestyle, mostly to avoid skin flaring and burning. So notwithstanding the general mood of grump, worry and despair, it has been mostly business as usual for us, despite the misery on tv. I do look for the boundaries I noticed. In terms of going out, shopping, traveling. As long as it isn't downright banned, I keep doing it, in order to make this year+ long covid restriction period less difficult. The mask wearing gives me a bit of skin irritation where the edges meet the skin for a long time and start to rub, but I have sown my own soft cloth around these edges of my N95 masks and in a way I love wearing them tbh, as a mask covers my rosacea redness completely now. Even when flushed I no longer feel self conscious about shopping at the farmers market now, for instance. Am also very careful with it all. I am not really in the high risk group and also have never had a positive covid test yet. But overall, hospitalization would be a rosacea hell for all of us I reckon. It is always warm inside hospitals, not getting enough air is a nightmare of course already. They work with corticosteroids to treat matters (contraindicated for certain cases of rosacea). Better try to be safe than sorry.
Politics wise I am still reeling from the madness of cancel culture culture, feelings over facts and more Millennial bullshit. But will keep all that grumping for emails with friends for now, or it will take over from the rosacea topic of this blog..
January 19th 2021
I am feeling bad about not having updated here for so long. I never like it myself when the handful of people I follow online suddenly stop posting. But in my case there just wasn't much to report on, I felt. I haven't caught covid19 yet, knock on wood. I have been travelling around a little bit, but always wearing a face mask. I have some faith in my strong (or actually too strong an) immune system, but the thought of perhaps having to be treated with a corticosteroid drug is already making me worried when I think about it. This because a steroid cream is what started this whole rosacea nightmare for me, 22 years ago. Somehow I respond very badly to steroids, even steroid nasal inhalers. But I don't try to avoid covid to the point where I would refuse to go out the door to see some friends and family. Or to stop traveling entirely. But now that it is 2021, covid is still among us and vaccinations are around the corner. I asked my immunologist and doctor about whether or not to get vaccinated. They cannot say, of course, if I risk an adverse reaction. Although the immunologist thinks that anything that triggers the immune system in my case is a risk of making matters worse. He diagnosed me with an overactive immune system, which causes all sorts of unwanted inflammation in my body (inflamed skin, inflammatory bowel and joint issues, urticaria etc). I had a hepatitis vaccination before going to Turkey one time (I already had rosacea back then, but it was in remission). It triggered terrible flushing and in the long run triggered the next stage of my rosacea, shooting from remission to moderate. Of course, looking back you never know with 100% certainty if this vaccination was the sole trigger, but it looked like it. So I am still unsure about getting vaccinated or not. I don't want to go back to the severe debilitating non-stop flushing I had before. Chances may be small that a jab would trigger that, but my immunologist advised me against getting pregnant (!) in a sincere and non-pc admission, because he believes it will trigger another immune response and with that more auto-immune conditions in my specific case. I feel that I need to think carefully about this, therefore....
The problem is always that nobody will be able to tell you with certainty how or if you will react badly to something. And once you do, if things will calm down again or not. And if not, it is my own experience that the doctors will for the most part raise their hands in the air and say that they cannot do anything more for you. 'Strange condition', 'unusually strong symptoms', 'never seen such flushing before'. I had an incident back in 2003 with a Dutch ob/gyn who ensured me that the Mirena coil would be no different from the copper coil I wanted to have fitted. "There is so little hormone in a Mirena that it won't even make it to your blood stream. It will all remain locally". Wrong... Had the worst acne and ongoing flushing ever since the Mirena was in. It had to be taken out again and of course the doctor said that she had never seen anything like this before. Was sent home with a burning face, because nobody knew what to do about that. Good luck with it all, we couldn't have known this would happen either. Same thing happened with the disastrous IPL treatment I had with Dr Patterson in the UK. I travelled all the way there for a test-patch, but was sent home with the message that he didn't do test patches and that they weren't necessary either, because he never made anyone worse. Silly young me, I should have stood my ground, but of course I didn't and trusted him and ended up with permanent blood vessel damage all over my face.. It is heartbreaking to be unable to turn back time and undo the treatment. Not to get a second chance, making up for some earlier mistakes or bad decision.. Why is there no general repetition for life, I sometimes wonder? I would most definitely have stayed very clear from IPL a second time around. And steroid creams. I even tried IPL more than once, but for some reason both the strong and mild settings all set me off badly. I sometimes receive uplifting messages from people who found relief and success with IPL or laser, and I thank you for sharing your successes but I honestly can't bring up the power and bravery to start with IPL all over again. Laser may perhaps work better for me, but considering how poor I reacted to IPL and my several test-spot laser trials, I just forget about it now. It's all very sad but I am at the point where I can't risk making matters worse. Even though I would LOVE to make things a bit better. And I also have lost that burning drive of my 20's, where things had to be fixed and they had to be fixed right now! Or else I could not start the rest of my life. That is the thing with ageing, perhaps; you just roll into 'the rest of your life' and you find your own modus operandi, even if that means needing a ventilator often to keep your skin cool. Finding out that there are people who will still be your friend if you show up with a red face. People who will still love you (if you are lucky, I am aware of that) when you need adjustments or don't always look wonderful and normal. But when life still has to start for you, it is very tempting to believe in a big and quick fix. And for a lot of people IPL is just that and very effective. It just comes with it's own set of risks.
Right now, I have that horrible cold urticaria again, the hives on my cheeks and they make those spots burn and really hot to the touch (Any skin condition that causes inflammation of the skin and underlying tissues can leave the skin feeling warm to the touch in the affected area.). It flares up my flushing, unfortunately. These hives things stay for days and days and they get so hot and swollen and itchy from inflammation that they set my whole face alight with flushing and burning. Clearly has a histamine and allergy component to it with me. I already take four times the standard dose of antihistamine pills (Xyzal) but they don't seem to help with this cold urticaria. I seem to do best all round when I keep the temperature around 16 degrees, maybe 17 degrees if I feel particularly chilly. Any warmer and I get flushed and burnt up, any lower than, say, 10 degrees and I get cold urticaria when using the fan. It is worst in winter, I actually only get this when it is very cold outside. So it is difficult now; I need to wrap my face up with a scarf and hat and all that to prevent more cold rash, when I go outside in the snow or the chilly wind. But at the same time I need the cooler air to keep my face from flushing. I still exercise most days, long walks. I am normally ok with exercise in the fall and winter, rosacea wise. I just need to walk relaxed. So no jogging or running because that will dilate my blood vessels in the face too much and set off a flush.
In terms of tv series, I am really really enjoying the Netflix series Dark. Best see the German version (the original one) with English subs. It is incredible, I am almost done with season 3 now which is the last season. Really intelligently made and enthralling and thought-provoking. I love it, haven't enjoyed a series as much as this one in a long time. The trailer doesn't do it justice really.
Books wise I am getting through Prousts In Search of Lost Time. I listen to the audiobook version. His story and descriptions are incredibly slow and detailed, but by now I can appreciate it, for the most part. I first tried reading it in my early 20s and had to quit... It just seemed to have no real plot and needing a few dozen pages to describe the sensation of waking up...? Next! One segment I read today which really amused me, as it is so correct still for those isolated villages that exist still today, is the following. Proust describes his old aunt, who spends most of her time in bed and who lives for his little tales of his own walks in the afternoon. But she has a clear idea of everyone who lives in that village and get's particularly nervous when she hears about someone walking through the village who is unknown to the protagonist:
"At Combray a person whom one 'didn't know at all' was as incredible a being as any mythological deity, and it was apt to be forgotten that after each occasion on which there had appeared in the Rue du Saint-Esprit or in the Square one of these bewildering phenomena, careful and exhaustive researches had invariably reduced the fabulous monster to the proportions of a person whom one 'did know,' either personally or in the abstract, in his or her civil status as being more or less closely related to some family in Combray. It would turn out to be Mme. Sauton's son discharged from the army, or the Abbé Perdreau's niece come home from her convent, or the Curé's brother, a tax-collector at Châteaudun, who had just retired on a pension or had come over to Combray for the holidays. On first noticing them you have been impressed by the thought that there might be in Combray people whom you 'didn't know at all,' simply because, you had failed to recognise or identify them at once. And yet long beforehand Mme. Sauton and the Curé had given warning that they expected their 'strangers.' In the evening, when I came in and went upstairs to tell my aunt the incidents of our walk, if I was rash enough to say to her that we had passed, near the Pont-Vieux, a man whom my grandfather didn't know:
"A man grandfather didn't know at all!" she would exclaim. "That's a likely story." None the less, she would be a little disturbed by the news, she would wish to have the details correctly, and so my grandfather would be summoned. "Who can it have been that you passed near the Pont-Vieux, uncle? A man you didn't know at all?"
"Why, of course I did," my grandfather would answer; "it was Prosper, Mme. Bouilleboeuf's gardener's brother."
"Ah, well!" my aunt would say, calm again but slightly flushed still; "and the boy told me that you had passed a man you didn't know at all!" After which I would be warned to be more careful of what I said, and not to upset my aunt so by thoughtless remarks. Everyone was so well known in Combray, animals as well as people, that if my aunt had happened to see a dog go by which she 'didn't know at all' she would think about it incessantly, devoting to the solution of the incomprehensible problem all her inductive talent and her leisure hours.
"That will be Mme. Sazerat's dog," Françoise would suggest, without any real conviction, but in the hope of peace, and so that my aunt should not 'split her head.'
"As if I didn't know Mme. Sazerat's dog!"—for my aunt's critical mind would not so easily admit any fresh fact.
"Ah, but that will be the new dog M. Galopin has brought her from Lisieux."
"Oh, if that's what it is!"
"It seems, it's a most engaging animal," Françoise would go on, having got the story from Théodore, "as clever as a Christian, always in a good temper, always friendly, always everything that's nice. It's not often you see an animal so well-behaved at that age. Mme. Octave, it's high time I left you; I can't afford to stay here amusing myself; look, it's nearly ten o'clock and my fire not lighted yet, and I've still to dress the asparagus."
"What, Françoise, more asparagus! It's a regular disease of asparagus you have got this year: you will make our Parisians sick of it."
"No, no, Madame Octave, they like it well enough. They'll be coming back from church soon as hungry as hunters, and they won't eat it out of the back of their spoons, you'll see."
"Church! why, they must be there now; you'd better not lose any time. Go and look after your luncheon.
Rosacea, treating it with diet changes. German doctors give advice. Translated by me into English:
October 22nd 2020My friend from Australia sent me some interesting information about a drug called Xolair (Omalizumab) for the treatment of allergy related skin issues such as Morbihan syndrome or articaria. Morbihan syndrome is a rare condition that can be a late-stage complication of rosacea. People who have this syndrome suffer from bad swelling of the eyes and the upper cheeks (oedema), as well as redness (erythema) sometimes. They can also have visible blood vessels (telangiectasias) and occasionally papules, pustules and nodules. This issue is related to substances in the body which also play a role in allergies; an abundance of mast cells which make the blood vessels dilate as well as substances which increase inflammation; cathelicidins such as Cath-37, which also seem to play a role in rosacea. Scientists found that Omalizumab can not only help patients with allergy-related asthma and urticaria, but also can help suppress the symptoms of this Morbihan syndrome. It binds the circulating IgE antibodies and may stabilise mast cells. There are some similarities between rosacea subtype 1 and Morbihan syndrome and urticaria: the facial flushing which rosacea can give work through the same pathways as the temporary red swellings observed in urticaria and angioedema. Scientists believe that omalizumab helps stabilize mast cells and reduces the temporary swelling, but that it can also help rosacea subtype 1 by reducing blood vessel dilation and potentially also reducing inflammation. Another drug that is linked to suppressing mast cell activity, ketotifen, shows also beneficial outcome in the treatment of rosacea in studies.
CASE REPORT
"A 56-year-old woman, with moderate erythematous rosacea, developed persistent and prominent erythematous (red) oedema of the face, lasting for one year. Firm swelling of the eyelids, impairing vision, accompanied oedema of the cheeks and forehead. Neither itching nor scaling was observed. Pronounced swelling was seen after exposure to hot, cold and windy weather, and to a lesser extent to stress, sunlight and spicy food. The patient could not work or participate in the social events, due to her symptoms. She was diagnosed with Morbihan disease after excluding allergies, various connective tissue diseases such as dermatomyositis and superior vena cava syndrome. The patient was tested with a normal skin prick test, tryptase, antinuclear antibodies, thyroid function test, full blood count and X-ray of the lungs and mediastinum. Skin punch biopsy demonstrated non-specific inflammation consistent with rosacea. - MS was treated with lymecycline 300 mg twice daily for 3 months and later isotretinoin 10–20 mg daily for 4 months, but there was no effect on the swelling or erythema. Because of the temporary swelling caused by physical stimuli, in addition to the permanent oedema, we initiated a trial treatment with omalizumab 450 mg subcutaneously. A dramatic reduction in the swelling was seen 1–2 weeks post-treatment (Fig. 1B) and the patient subsequently became tolerant to the physical stimuli. The MS cleared completely after 5 months of monthly omalizumab injections, an initial dose of 450 mg and consecutive doses of 300 mg (Fig. 1C). Maintenance treatment was given for a further two months, every 4–6 weeks, and was then discontinued successfully without clinical relapse, 6 months later. The quality of life was markedly improved after omalizumab injections and the patient was able to resume working, instead of being on sick leave. Her photos show first a pre-treatment photo of prominent and persistent erythematous edema of the face. Firm swelling of the eyelids impairing vision. Then a photo showing the reduction of the edema as observed two weeks after the first subcutaneous injection with the monoclonal antibody - omalizumab 450 mg. The patient tolerated windy and cold weather and noticed less tenderness. Last photo: the patient is in her normal condition after monthly injections of omalizumab for five months. Her quality of life was substantially improved, and she was able resume normal life, including returning to work. A written permission from the patient to publish these photos was obtained." Source
A dermatology specialist wrote here: "We offer Xolair as an option to treat chronic hives which don’t respond well to antihistamines. Our office is one of only a handful of dermatologists in New Jersey who use Xolair. Xolair is an injectable prescription medicine used to treat patients with chronic hives that don’t have a known cause and are not controlled by H1 antihistamine treatment. Xolair is given in one or more injections under the skin for four weeks by our doctor."
More links:
On The Rosacea Forum, Lookout wrote on February 6th, 2009 about Xolair (=omalizumab): "Xolair.....is used for asthma (allgery based).I would want to try Xolair......I think the research for rosacea needs to include these types of meds since steroids make our condition worse or even brings it on! Xolair.....from what I understand would be safe for long term use.....that's why I picked it as my "drug" of choice! LOL. I figured most of us here do have allergies but this med is only used for allergery induced asthma.....but in my mind why not try it on rosacea patients? If it is effective in reducing inflammation then it just may reduce rosacea symptoms...not cure but give us a pill that really address that inflammation! I would have to go back to my ENT.....and get tested and try to sell him on my theroy to let me try it and see.....I have to do more reading about it....I guess I am feeling fustrated that there is nothing coming out for rosacea and for some reason most still don't recognize that a flare is an inflammatory response IMO....wish they would do clinical trials with this med for rosacea....maybe I should write the company about it....like they would listen to me LOL!"Lamarr replied on February 7th, 2009: "Most anti inflammatories over time well help rosacea, IF they target the correct cytokines/inflammatory pathway. Cyclosporin works very well for rosacea, but like already said has some serious side effects. These drugs can be used in different ways though, Dr Chu has used cyclosporin for rosacea, you just take the drug every other day. Instead of everyday in RA/organ transplant etc. I am using the perfect anti inflammatory for rosacea, an anti milarial."
Lookout replied on February 6th, 2009: "They say you must first be tested to actually have allergies and then the person with asthma may be put on it......lot's of med's are effective for other conditions but it's almost an accident that we find this out many yrs later!"
Nansa replied on February 25th, 2019: "I have been on high dose fexofenadine for 2 - 2,5 years most of the time along with montolukast, tranexamic acid and Xolair (omalizumab) to control chronic urticaria (insanely itching and painful) and angiooedema. In it-self fexofenadine had little to no effect on itching, but... It might very well help others. It is a bit complicated as I have chronic idiopathic urticaria and angiooedema (and of course asthma and allergy) - I get xolair injections to modulate the immunesystem (at hospital at the immunology dept). The angiooedema is "different in nature" from time to time - (in the throat, on the jaw, around/on the ears, and at least two types of swelling around the eyes). The dermatologist consulted suggested that at least some of it was morbihans (also because I have suffered from rosacea, incl occular, for years). Whether morbihans is worse than the other angiooedema types I do not know... I do NOT like any of it :-)
And Laser_cat Nansa wrote on April 15th, 2019: "In the US - my experience is that most derms will not be able to offer much more than PCP. I began by asking PCP to trial medications mentioned here or in literature (clonidine, beta blockers). Eventually I landed on 2 derms who have an interest in neurovascular rosacea, but even they realize a large part comes down to trial and error per patient. My therapist had an "in" at my local teaching hospital and asked around for doctors who would specialize in flushing (how I found one of my derms). I found my other derm by looking up authors of rosacea publications. What I am able to get from these 2 derms I am not able to get from PCP or myself - how long to trial a given medication before I give up, why I wouldn't be a candidate for laser, how to titrate medications, medications that aren't typically "thought of" (calcium channel blockers, Xolair, birth control, IVIG, baclofen, ..), pathophysiology behind my symptoms and similar patients. There are derms who are very interested in neurovascular stuff and who realize that flushing conditions can be anywhere from mild to disabling, but these derms are far and few between I think, most derms will try to rx soolantra, antibiotics etc."
A patient with severe postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) received immunotherapy with low-dose naltrexone (LDN) and intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) and antibiotic therapy for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).
And this woman with crippling POTS that gave her face flushing as well, improved on ultra low dose naltrexone, ivig and sibo treatment. It pretty much reversed eighteen years of crippling pots, mcas, and sibo for this woman. She even had blue hands. Poor woman. Her facial flushing reduced quite quickly.Be kind to others
Be careful when out hiking in natureAlso, a friend of mine who I hiked with in the past had a scary experience. I read up often about hikers who tumble and get injured in nature reserves. It happens more often than you'd think. Now this friend has a new passion for desolate nature reserves. beautiful places, but he is not the youngest anymore and had a few brushes with fate already recently, getting lost in a national park, not getting out until midnight, almost falling. Now he managed to get in bigger trouble. He went to the beautiful Dévoluy massif, with three peaks over 2700 m. He had already previously climbed two of those peaks, but still had to climb to the top of Grand Ferrand [2758 m]. So he went out there with his car and bad omens hit him right away as he got stuck in the mud twice along the route, needing help from passers by to tow the car out of the mud. Content that he could drive on again, he started his hike late, around 13:00 pm. It was already too late to be able to climb all the way to the top, given the very technical and difficult course. There was a scree that had to be passed, loose rocks and stones covering the slope of the mountain. So he stopped at the foot of the scree, having still 600 m of vertical drop to go and promised himself to come back for the last part of the trail. He found a hut but then found it impossible to find a marked path. He went back to the hut and contacted a friend to ask if she could look up the description of the hike on the Internet and this way he found some sort of trail that wasn't well marked. He no longer had phone connection with his friend either on this track. After walking down the newfound trail, he soon ended up in terrain where the trail blended in with the countryside, until it disappeared altogether. He had to climb some ridges but was hardly reassured and the climb cost him a lot of energy. He then arrived at a very large scree at the foot of a pass and decided to sit down to eat something. Scanning the horizon, he overlooked some sort of valley with a dry riverbed. He managed to walk through some gorges towards this valley, but at one point he got stuck between the high rocks and water. He wanted to climb the mountainside to see if he could find another passage from the heights.
And there, he slipped and fell 40 meters on stones, 'bouncing like a ping pong ball'. He thought he was going to live his last seconds. He ended up with a wound on the palm of the hand and with bruises all over his body. The camera he was carrying in one of the pockets of his North Face jacket was slung out. He searched for it and found it back, but the screen was cracked. It was 5.30 pm by now, and he was really stuck! What to do? Retrace his steps and find another passage? He got very afraid. He made up his mind and called for help by dialing 112. An hour later, a helicopter picked him up and dropped him off at his car. He got hoisted, in order to get into the helicopter from the rocks of the gorges. He received a little reprimand for not carrying a proper map of the area, and for making a silly decision by going off trail. Luckily no fractures, only a deep wound on the hand and a lot of bruises and pain. But now he is having flashbacks and nightmares, in which he tumbles down head first and does not make it out. "In any case, that will serve as a lesson for me for future hikes! Never walk off the path alone!"I always tell him to be careful with these things. I wrote about two missing Dutch girls in Panama and read up all the time about missing hikers. He could have easily ended up in a spot where there is no cell phone reception and if you fall down then, you wont be able to call for help.. I gave him a checklist:
1. Always let someone know where exactly you go for a hike and how long you plan to stay
2. Update this person if you decide to go off track
3. Bring an extra (fully charged) phone battery, just in case, as well as proper clothing/food/water
4. Do not get feverish over finding the summit; don't go off the beaten tracks....
5. Next time they MAY charge you for the rescue operation which will be expensive :)
Anyway I'm glad he survived it. Some beautiful photos of the national park.
October 18th 2020
Once covid struck, I was happy to have 5 such N95 masks already in the house. So the good thing is; it leaves some room for breathing and it isn't a mask that sticks to all of your facial skin. My skin is extremely sensitive and doesn't tolerate any topical creams or potions or lotions, so a mask rubbing over it also irritates. With this mask I just have the edges to worry about and Ihave sown some very soft, clean fabric around the edges. the fabric has the same colour as the mask and I am a messy person but tried to to a semi-decent job here sowing it neatly, so it looks pretty professional, if I may say. Not something people look twice at, at least. So as long as I don't wear this mask for hours and hours on end, I seem to do OK. I wore normal face masks too in the past, but they make my face so hot and flushed... This N95 mask has an exhalation valve. From what I read, it provides the same level of covid protection to me as a mask that does not have a valve. The valve reduces exhalation resistance and makes it easier to breathe or exhale. It keeps the face cooler and reduces moisture build up inside the facepiece. However, the exhalation valve allows unfiltered exhaled air to go out. So... it is a bit of a SELFISH mask! "An N95 mask offers more protection than a surgical mask does because it can filter out both large and small particles when the wearer inhales. As the name indicates, the mask is designed to block 95% of very small particles. Some N95 masks have valves that make them easier to breathe through. But because the valve releases unfiltered air when the wearer breathes out, this type of mask doesn't prevent the wearer from spreading the virus. For this reason, some places have banned them."
Again now in the Netherlands we're in semi lockdown and not only are all cafe's, restaurants and clubs closed, normal hospital care is starting to being cancelled again also. People who had to wait in the spring already for surgeries are now cancelled again, because the hospitals cannot handle the 1000 or so covid patients. All these extreme measures are, again, as to not overload the hospitals. My dad (72 years old) said the other day that he thinks frail elderly people shouldn't go on holiday right now and shouldn't meet all their family members and such, because he believes it are they who are most at risk and that they should protect themselves at this time. But because we do not discriminate on age, all of society is locked down again, including young people, students, kids, who cannot get their normal education, who cannot go to a pub or restaurant as everything has been shut down again this week. Who are burdened with a monster recession when all this is behind us. While they hardly get sick from this virus. The psychological effects on them are probably significant. Cancer screanings have been put on the back burner this year, as hospitals and labs are overwhelmed with covid. There are increasing numbers of patients waiting to start treatment or to even get a diagnosis for cancer since March. In the UK alone the latest number over 55,000. Covid has a 99.95% survival rate in under 75's published this week. And how many people are affected, physically, psychologically, because all the health system can handle is covid? It are mostly the people over 70 years old or with obesity or underlying health diseases who are most at risk, but when you see the 8 o'clock news, we're only hearing about how many new positive test results they had that day and how many people are in hospital. Not what age they are, if they had underlying illness. Is it ethical to have young people die of cancer because a small percentage of mostly elderly people are taking up the hospital beds and system? I don't think such a morality discussion is taking place within society. It is a difficult dillemma.. You don't want anyone to die unnecessary. And if my parents would get sick I would be devastated. But I understand where my dad is coming from.But you just want to take care of everybody, ultimately, covid patients, cancer patients, all patients, full stop. In the UK they built special tent-like covid hospitals so the normal hospitals could work as usual. But because they can't staff them, they turned into useless white elephants. Too many suits and not enough ground floor staff and equipment within the NHS. In the Netherlands we have only 1000 IC beds and already people are being shipped off to Germany again, so early within this supposed second wave, where they have a well oiled machinery in place as usual. Helps that the German people for the most part do obediently as they are ordered to do... Meanwhile in the Netherlands.. It basically comes down to the healthcare system having been privatized in the past decades, and managers leaving very little margin for catastrophes and surprises. When the flu season hit us in the past, there was the same issue of hospitals not being able to cope. Because they aim for patients being as shortly as possible in hospital, because time = money. It's despicable, I hate market forces causing such cheapskates in vital systems such as the health care system.
Some art to calm down the senses again, these are modern
bronzes statues and the last one is a few centuries older.
Music clips of the day
July 30th 2020
For those of you not sure what to watch in your free time during this lockdown summer, we love watching nature documentaries and the best of the best are BBC and David Attenboroughs'. Just finished watching 'Seven worlds, One Planet' last night and it's just marvelous. As good as their previous series. Hard not to get emotional, watching even the trailers.
July 20th 2020Summer times. Trying to go out now and then for some normal living, avoiding direct sun or too much heat of the later morning and afternoon. Some silly footage from the beach, in the early evening. For those interesting in cold crime cases, I also added another case to my crime blog, you can read the mysterious death of Mike Mansholt in Malta here. I am also working on a book, which has not too much to do with rosacea and nothing with crime, a fictional tale, although I cannot help to let one of the protagonists struggle with mild rosacea. Hope I will finish it some day, have been trying to work on it for some time already, next to regular writing work/uni research job, and next to trying to have some sort of a social life, and being generally quickly tired and of course the ongoing 24/7 care for that horrible skin of mine. Oh and one of my cats had his tongue torn, I have no idea what happened but it was a serious gash. When I took him to the veterinary asap, part of the loose 'flap' of tongue, shall we say, was already necrotic. AAArrrghhhh. Luckily the vet could remove the damage and stitch the tongue up beautifully. Igor was stoned and groggy all the rest of the day, but getting back to his old self. I'm not sure if he can ward off infection of the wound though, I've got to call the vet about it tomorrow and will try to take a photo of the tongue, before dragging the poor cat back to the clinic again. They have an extra note attached to his file: Igor is very difficult to deal with and needs sedation just to get a basic check done. This vet is very calm and super professional, but last year another younger female vet tried to look at him (for a simple urinary tract infection) and was literally chasing him down the room, trying to grab him, while he was hissing and roaring like a wild mountain lion. She got a big scratch also, right through her workman's glove. I felt like a terrible cat parent haha. Below some photos of the handsome furry, sedated still in his carrier, then stoned out in the house.
July 5th 2020
Thank you to Gunther, who sent me a link to this German program about a woman with rosacea, who gets tips on how diet can help her skin become less red and inflamed. I realize that diet is not a rosacea trigger for everyone. I read often about people who have not identified dietary skin triggers, despite all sorts of elimination diets. This video and info is therefore not necessarily for everybody with rosacea. But I think diet can play a role sometimes in finding improvement. Maybe more so in subtype 2 rosacea, with background redness and skin outbreaks and pimples. But from own experience I can say that even in subtype 1 rosacea, with skin flushing, burning and redness, diet changes can sometimes give some improvement (not a cure for me though, not even close...). I notice a pretty significant improvement in my skin as well, like the woman in this video - although she sees bigger results than me - when I stay clear of sugar, wheat, dairy and any spices. In my case there is also an issue with histamine rich foods, which does include quite a long list of food items. But, when I eat lots of vegetables (except tomatoes, eggplant and a couple of other vegetables high in histamine), and stick to carbs like potatoes, as well as eating organic beef or chicken and foods like olives, unions and fruit, my skin is really less red and less inflamed. It also takes more for me to flush then. Although I still flush very easily, even then. But my skin has a base colour which is a bit more pale then. It is much easier to stay cool. My weaknesses are chocolate, bread and pastries, as well as some sugary things or pizza. I rarely give in to such foods, but when I do it's a good amount of sinning. Not just one square of chocolate :) 
The past weeks for instance, I stuck to the healthy diet and had nothing to sin with in the house; no chocolate, no bread, no sugary things. No crisps either. Then came that moment of boredom with the same safe foods day in and day out. I stuck it out some longer but by the time the new weekly shopping had to be done, I bought some chocolate, a chocolate pastry and some almonds covered in chocolate. I purposely bought small quantities, no large bars or anything, because I ate it all today. I guess it's supposed to be a reward for sticking to the low calorie, low carbohydrates, low on fun foods for as long as I did. But the 'reward' came in the shape of a flushed hot red face for most of the day and evening now. Dammit. And the effects are there right away, within half an hour. I always curse myself then and vow to never eat this crappy food again. Until the next time of course. Anyway, I just wanted to share this video with you, again thanks to Gunther for linking me to it. And I took the time to put English subtitles under the German video. To anyone German out there who may view it, please forgive me if I translated 1 or 2 muffled words incorrectly. I was poor at German in school..
Regarding the existing anti-inflammatory diets out there, many are slightly different. Some ask you to cut out fruits, while others say you should eat them, because many fruits are anti-inflammatory. The pure fruit of course, no canned nonsense with added sugar or preservatives. And some meats are considered pro-inflammatory, while other diets ask you to eat as much protein as possible. I visited a traditional Chinese doctor in the past and he also gave me a strict diet, basically an anti-inflammatory diet, although they consider products like garlic and unions and ginger and certain predatory fish also as 'inflammatory' for those with 'heat' producing skin conditions. I had to cut that out too. And of course alcohol and caffeine... (I never consume either). In the end it's also about which diet people can stick to. Which leaves some variety of foods to make you able to continue with the diet long term. Eating no sugar, wheat or milk once or twice a week is not going to cut it unfortunately, you need to stick with that diet continuously for a long time to see changes in your skin (for those for who it works, which isn't everyone with rosacea. I also read about fasting a lot lately. But further than one meal every 24 hours I have not come haha. Apparently a 3 day fast now and then is good for resetting your gut flora and immune functions... Maybe in the future.
Music clips of the day
June 29th 2020
My skin is so so. Sometimes I flush, especially when out and about or when stressed. I stick to cooling with a fan or air conditioning when it gets too warm. I think my skin has more base (background) redness in the winter cold than in the summer heat, but the more humid the warmth is, the worse I flush. So I just march on with the same lifestyle as always. Have been very social for a long period of time, seeing many friends and going out for meals and drinks and all that, which was lovely but also a bit tiring. Bu am feeling good as always, mentally. Nevertheless... someone wrote that I always look so depressed in the photos I share 😌. I completely understand that assumption, I do not really smile much in photos, but I never have. That's just.... me, I guess. A professional non-smiler in photos. I feel fine though, not depressed, so no worries. Oh and my friend E. sent me another article about the long term possible complications from covid:
"It's a lung condition first and foremost, but scientists are uncovering evidence coronavirus can also attack a patient's blood, liver, brain and kidneys. "We thought this was only a respiratory virus. Turns out, it goes after the pancreas. It goes after the heart. It goes after the liver, the brain, the kidneys and other organs. We didn't appreciate that in the beginning," said Dr Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California. In addition to respiratory distress, patients with COVID-19 can experience blood clotting disorders that can lead to strokes, and extreme inflammation that attacks multiple organ systems. The virus can also cause neurological complications that range from headache, dizziness and loss of taste or smell to seizures and confusion."I followed the news for a long time but I sincerely cannot watch more than 30 minutes of this madness a day anymore. Better focus on good books or those movies still allowed to be shown these days by the PC police. Oh and some uplifting news from the animal world: The last testament of Maurice the Rooster: "Cultivate your garden. That never disappoints." So, what has happened? Maurice, the most famous rooster in France, has died. Of old age. He left a goodbye letter which will touch even the most hardhearted animal hater among you. Maurice rose to fame after a wealthy snobby city couple dragged him to court last year. For making too much noise and waking them up every morning, while they had expected some peace and quiet during their holiday in Oléron, a small island off France’s western coast. What happened next has gripped the nation and made Maurice a national hero. The second-home neighbors wanted Maurice removed from the village. The judge who handled this court case was faced with some important decision making. Would he side with modern day tourism or old fashioned, rural and traditional village life ways? With globalization or French backlands? With holidaymakers or locals? With human 'rights' or animal rights?
“I am not a hero. That’s an overused word. I spoke my own truth. I did what came naturally to me. Many things change but the essential things do not. The sun sets. The sun rises. Shaking my wattles, raising my head, I had to greet the morning. I could never resist, and why should I have? I had to crow. This was my particular joy, my particular thing. Each of us has one. Honor it.
I am sorry to have caused a fuss. I never wanted to annoy anyone. Those neighbors from Limoges, with their busy city lives, I know they wanted their peace. They had been saving for their summer vacation. Perhaps what they missed is that a sound, like my crowing or a ship’s foghorn or a train whistle, may form part of the peace of a place.
A little more patience, a little less agitation, never did any harm. I never went anywhere, and I was happy. There’s more to a coop than meets the eye. There’s more to any place if you look long enough. I was content to have three hens as companions. They kept me busy. Contentment, for me, was being attuned to the rhythms and cycles of life. The chicken and the egg. Keep your eye on the sunrise. [..] Even if everything changes so that everything can stay the same. Cultivate your garden. That never disappoints.
I will miss Corinne. I will miss strutting about. I will miss puffing out my plumage and making heads turn (yes, I admit it, I noticed that). I will miss emptying my lungs in the dawn, such a perfect feeling. I will miss the little familiar sounds that offer comfort. I bequeath the 1,000 euros the judge awarded me to the establishment of an online audio museum of rural sounds. Lest this hectic world forget. May peace spread across the earth, but please do not confuse peace with silence.
Maurice the Rooster”
I also read a great book. Well, great, it depends a bit on your taste in books of course. This one is from the 1842, by Honoré de Balzac. I read the audiobook version, which you can download for free in English here. It is one of my preferred Balzac novels so far. Just like in Cousin Bette, Balzac paints the personalities and lives of a whole series of characters. who all are related or come into contact with one another. Some characters are beautiful but naive, others seem to have been dealt lesser cards in life, but try to work their way up in society. And then there are the true scheming scoundrels. More than two villains this book has and the plot is quite riveting in fact. The Black Sheep, or The Two Brothers as the book is also called at times, follows a family and dedicates most of its pages to the brothers Philippe and Joseph. The older makes a career in the army and is a true scoundrel, the younger becomes an artist and is the most gentle and ethical creature. The mother seems to grab beside the family fortune inheritance in favour of her older brother. But when the brother is ageing and ailing and has no children of his own, renewed interest goes his way. Especially when the family find out that the brother is living an unmarried life with a beautiful young mistress, Flore. But she has a scoundrel of a lover, Maxence, the equal of Philippe in terms of evil plotting and military background, who also has his eye on the family inheritance. As always with Balzac, gathering money and means in life is the driving force of most of the plot. But I highly enjoyed the contrast between the brothers, and the truly shocking tricks and shambolics Philippe resorts to, to get where he wants.
I won't spoil too much, but if you happen to have patience with books and like eloquent language, wit, history and elaborated character descriptions and plot lines, this may be something for you. I like that the author created very lifelike characters and does away with the impression that crime doesn't pay. In fact, in accordance with real life, murder, ruthless ambition, exploitation of vulnerable geezers and neglect of one's parents may pay off quite handsomely. Nice people finish last! Outer appearances also give people a head start in life in this book. The mother prefers her good looking, well-connected and at times successful scoundrel of a son over the mundane looking struggling artist with a heart of gold. Even though the latter gives her all the attention and devotion which the former withholds from her. So deep is this prejudice rooted, that even a loving mother confuses good looks and lust for money and power with virtue. She idolizes the Black Sheep of the family without bounds. There are many contrasts in this book, such as city life versus countryside life. But also the brothers form interesting contrasts, underlining their sibling rivalry. Phillipe is the rough, confident and brass embittered tall soldier with fair blue eyes and appealing features; Joseph the short, dark and humble selfless artist who time and time again is faced with conflicts of loyalty. Their mother firmly believes in Joseph’s mediocrity regardless of being told in no uncertain terms on more than one occasion that Joseph is talented, kind and loving. Both grow up without a father figure, as their dad dies at a young age, serving Napoleon as a civil servant. The impact of this growing up without a significant male role model to steer the Bridau family shows in both men, and Balzac also explicitly names it as a factor in the trouble unfolding. The preference from the mother for the handsome son is also an ongoing theme in the book.
The plot of this novel is unexpected with intrigue, surprising twists and turns and complex, because there are many characters involved, more than one villain and it is full of deceit, scheming, plotting and vice. The aim of almost everyone involved is money and self-advancement. But it is also a rich book which often deviates from the strict plot itself, explaining you a lot about post-Napoleonic France, the Bourbon Dynasty, social conduct in those days, arranged marriages, inheritance, as well as rural provincial culture versus Paris city life, upper class wealth versus working class poverty. And of course: the importance of money to support you through life, something which was a much more pressing matter back in the 19th century, without social welfare and other significant financial safety nets. One element that is woven throughout the story is that of addiction. Addiction to gambling predominantly, but also addiction to alcohol. One relative has a lifelong hope to win the lottery and spends vast sums of her savings on it, another struggles with civilian life once he comes out of the military and gets trapped in a life of debauchery. Because Balzac paints such lifelike characters, in such great detail, he does not need to write out and dictate the reader moral lessons. Instead he allows you to encounter situations as if you were there and makes you feel the emotions of his characters, who often represent the best and worst qualities in people (and everything in between); sometimes all combined into one person, so there are no archetypal 'all bad' or 'all good' characters. Although some are certainly more good than others... Women do not get off lightly with Balzac. You are faced with outer appearances of the characters yourself, as well as with the fleeting nature of success and the lengths at which people will go to get what they want.I was surprised that someone who wrote so extensively about the details of everything, managed to create such speed in his story. Especially once you got through the first chapters, I was gripped by the twists and turns. Balzac managed to give me some sympathy for the scoundrels in the story and some contempt for the good people. Quite a feat. He also switches perspective a lot and allows even the minor characters in the book to come to flourish, by providing you with their own backstory. I especially enjoyed Balzacs sense of humour, non-sentimentality and eye for detail.
Music clips of the day
June 8th 2020Hefty times.. Not just the coronavirus doing its rounds still, but also the violence and protests in the streets, which few people probably have missed by now. There is so much written about police violence and racism now, I don't think I am going to burn my fingers too much on the topic, because even with the best of intentions you can put one word 'wrong' and in today's caustic online climate that can result in getting your head bitten off. Orwellian style. Or see your argument turned inside out, the words picked apart, shaken in a bag and put back out in a different order, contorting what you were trying to say by twitter warfare and keypad revolutionaries, basically. But what I do like to say is that I wonder while seeing the news, why the overarching cause of inequality isn't being protested? As in: isn't the biggest cause of inequality for all of humanity the 1% owning most of the wealth and the subsequent disparity in income? With resulting poverty and crime, with resulting police force. Police brutality is obviously also an issue, more so overseas than where I'm from but still, killing unarmed people they are supposed to arrest should be heavily penalized when such persons were surrendering. But it does not stop at the borders of black communities. Police have statistically killed more white assailants and suspects than black ones, in the United States and also in places like the UK where violent protests also take place. Just check the actual research done on the matter, including by a black Harvard scientist. Every murder by police is one too many. But why do only black ones warrant media outrage? You don't hear the media about the many black and white deaths as a result of the violent protests. Aren't their lost lives important? It makes it seem like the media nitpick who's deaths are worth mentioning and who's aren't. And like cops are out to kill people only based on their skin colour, which is frankly not what the statistics are showing or supporting. Horrifying as this murder was, it seems symbolic politics to pretend all inequality will be resolved when the police force is dismantled. And why is black on black violence, which makes up the large majority of violent deaths for people of colour, not protested? Racism and prejudice in general also happens when people apply for a job, for instance. But protests are not going to change that. You need to look closer into the have's and have not's for that problem. But none of the rich sponsors are going to give money for SUCH a protest, as it challenges their own wealth.
Urgent as racism debates are, this is also a class fight. But it is much easier to divide the people using race. Because let's face it, spokespeople like Oprah Winfrey and her rich millionaire friends have no interest in protesters at their own doors, demanding a better dividing of wealth. THEIR wealth. And globalist-funded Antifa and their leaders behind the scenes are not going to make it their prime goal to make the poorest richer, at the expense of tax payers money, now are they? That is not in their own interest. So terrorism and destruction are OK when it's done by radical communists now. I don't think they'd get such a free pass if they tried to tear down the banks though and banking is what slavery was all about. I only hope the woke rich celebs, preaching from behind their gated billionaire communities are living on borrowed time in that respect. But maybe I am too old fashioned with those 20th century ideas about dividing wealth more equally, and building a better more just society through a welfare state. It did the United States a lot of good though, back in those 1950's, with a strong and resilient middle class, possessing half the countries wealth. Allowing one family member to provide for his wife and kids on one jobs paycheck, with affordable housing and all that stuff that seems to be lacking now. But let's not focus on the 1% owning the majority of the wealth now, in their enclaves, guarding the pot of gold for their own family only. 
I had a good laugh yesterday over some British humour. The media is all out on the subjective reporting again. Someone mocked the BBC's reports that the protests were "largely peacefully" (despite 27 police agents being injured with a female agent very badly injured, a police horse being attacked with missiles and statues being ruined and demolished) and compared it with wartime reporting. "A bit like Nazi Germany invading Poland 'largely peacefully' in 1939". Peaceful, apart from a few minor scuffles. "In fairness it was self defense, a Pole looked at a German.."BBC 1939: "Generally peaceful war has been declared by Britain and France on Germany."
Or about the Hindenburg in 1937: "BBC reports that 62 people arrived in New York after a largely successful airship journey"
BBC 1945: "A few Japanese people suffer minor cuts and bruises after the USA gently drop an atomic bomb'."
BBC 1943: "German defence of Stalingrad 'Largely Successful'. Only a handful of casualties reported."
Something else which made me think is this habit of attacking statues of past leaders or historical figures. Symbolic politics again. But why do some American friends of mine see no problem in destroying figures from the past, while I find it horrifying and an attempt of censorship of history? Which is not to say that some of those statues aren't controversial. Maybe it has to do with me being an old fashioned European and historian. I'll explain it in a bit.First what an American friend said about it: "The thing about the statues here is that they’re not kept in museums. They’re not historical oddities kept for nostalgia. They are in public parks, on street corners, and in public squares. They’ve mostly been erected in our parents’ lifetimes [not true here in Europe where these statues are hundreds of years old often]. These statues were a public demonstration of defiance against integration. “Fuck you, we’ll keep hatin’ us some blacks!” was the entire point of these statues. Once seen in the context of a cunty backlash against black people being treated as human in the 1960's, this becomes less about remembering history and more about telling 14% of America they’re hated. Those statues need to come down, or at the very least moved to museums. The only people that think we should keep a visible and proud memorial to slavery are the sort that think it was a mistake to put an end to slavery. They cling to these statues because they cannot accept that the days where white-meant-right are over. When being white is all you have going for you, it can feel like the earth is eroding beneath you. So they’re going to have to find a new source of pride." "George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. This means they were not good people. There are mitigating circumstances such as the zeitgeist at the time, the traditions and societal norms, etc. Yet can we accept and embrace that fundamentally, they were people that owned, bred, and sold other humans being for labor and profit. This is to be distanced from, accepted as an evil of the past that must be recognized and acknowledged as being evil. It doesn’t change that these men had an impact on American and world history that changed the fate of our species."
Although I agree that in today's time and world, they did bad things, I don't agree with angry mobs destroying statues that have stood in our cities for hundreds of years over here. The statue of 17th century politician Edward Colston in Bristol was torn down yesterday, demolished and dumped in the canal. Because he was a colonialist. But also a philanthropist who donated large sums of money to Bristol in particular. Hence, the statue, which had been in place since 1895. It had been a subject of controversy in recent years, with a petition to remove it garnering around 11,000 signatures. But why is an angry mob deciding what should and shouldn't be vandalized in the public space? Is this still a democracy, or does mob rule now have the biggest say? How about they also topple the hospitals, schools, etc that he was responsible for building? Colston gave all his money to charity after his death so if they really want to be true to their ideals they'll have to burn the whole of Bristol to the ground. Which goes for most of those statues of historical figures, certainly in England; they got their statues for spending their fortunes on building these cities. And where is the line here? The problem is, people only remember the 1st half of his life. How he got his money. The historical context and the widespread 'normalcy' (hard as that is to grasp for us modern day people) of this in the times when he lived, is not taken into account. This is called cherry-picking. Churchill is now also considered 'a confirmed racist'. "Mr Churchill only fought the Nazis to protect the protect the Commonwealth from invasion - he didn't do it for black people or for people of colour." But let's just forget about how he helped save most of Europe also from the Nazi's... Police were meanwhile too busy patrolling Twitter to stop these acts of vandalism. Slavery was a horrible thing and unfortunately it existed in the past, and still does in parts of the world although you wouldn't know it going by the First World protesters and feminists. Arab countries had it and Saudi Arabia (among other places) still has slavery. People fought to put a stop to it. It’s by now part of national history. Aside from the fact that the men who got these statues have been remembered for a lot more than just their role in slavery or colonialism, their statues are still standing because they are a reminder of our history. I understand why some statues are better removed, as some people did things which are no longer accepted in the modern day world. I also understand why people think such people do not deserve a statue any longer, in the public space, celebrating their life. But it's not up to a mob of looters, a small minority of society, to decide about this, or to unilaterally start demolishing them. Unless a democratic majority of the people want them removed, I'm having a problem with angry mobs deciding for us all and destroying them on their own accord. If everybody has their say and wants such a statue gone, then the memory of their part in history (a cautionary tale sometimes) can instead stay alive in books or museums. This is a democracy we live in, not a dictatorship. This is going to cause so many problems, if this government doesn't stamp out this mob culture now. 
In the Netherlands we have statues for seafarer Michiel de Ruyter for instance, and other 'colonial' occupational forces of the past. Because of their historical achievements on the whole for Dutch history. And when you let a triggered emotional mob decide on all this, then next we will see books being burned for not telling the right things. And that is dangerous territory. Just ask George Orwell. Europeans are also fundamentally different from people in the New World when it comes to us clutching at our history. Our national identity is closely tied to our history, in this part of the world. Without a history, a new country has no future for us Europeans. That is why young states do all they can to create a historical and nationalist narrative, erecting statues and art works to prove this. Therefore, a statue is not 'just' a statue for us. We want to have a past, above anything else. Unlike the American settlers, who shook off their old country's heritage and started fresh and anew. Even the native Americans had to go... The States wants to look at the future and are proud of their modern blinking skyscrapers. Same for many Chinese cities, where old neighborhoods are easily bulldozed in favour of metal and glass also. But Europeans hold onto the past for their national identity. Maybe because we also have a lot of tangible history. Maybe this sentiment is subconsciously playing a part in the negative comments in most European online newspapers about this statue destruction, done by mostly young people. And whether people like it or not, we can't change history. Those statues, for many people, act as an emblem of our past and of how far we have come in some ways. You shouldn't want to rewrite history with the morals and views of today. Nobody would dream of demolishing Auschwitz (or not yet at least!) because it is a permanent reminder of one of the worst racist atrocity's in history. What's next on the radicals (barbarians) hit list, the Pyramids in Egypt? Because they were built by slaves? And statues also remind us of our past, which is important in shaping the future. The past should not be wiped out or eradicated, but learnt from. Besides, those men who got these statues also did a lot of good usually, like fighting the nazi's, or using their wealth to build entire cities. You'd have to pretty much bombard all of Bristol to the ground if you want to undo the works of Edward Colston. You can't judge every part of history and its people by the standards of our time. Many were born in a world with its own set of habits and rules. Just like we all have been born in such a world, our own 'normal'. Many people did not question their reality of the day, with all its flaws and good parts. Only some people did and made changes, and we remember them for it. But to judge the past with today's coloured glasses on firmly... it is not quite fair. Or helpful. We don't want to enroll in a whirlwind of modern day iconoclasm, with Christian statues and art demolished because they 'trigger' and 'offend' people with different religions. Or statues of world leaders from the past thrown in the canals, because people found some less than savoury facts about them on wikipedia. By hiding your past and mistakes, people will never learn valuable lessons. If the younger generation want to make a mark, they should create and not destroy. And besides, aren't there more urgent pressing matters to tackle for feminists and activists? Slavery still exists in many countries, including in Saudi Arabia and Lybia. How about protesting that? Same for feminists. But the keypad revolutionaries won't touch evils like that, you never hear them about it. Too afraid it will offend Muslims, with all sorts of possible unwanted consequences? Better focus on weak minded Liberal societies and age old statues.. Well, many will disagree with me on all this, but that's ok.
What's the point of freedom of speech, if we only can say what a small group wants to hear? And even then they'll find a way to be offended. Or does that no longer exist in this new "modern" world of Millennials? It's interesting how the people of a younger generation who say they hate bullying turn into the worst bullies ever known when someone dares to disagree with them. Has to stop, this PC madness. Complex questions of politics, race and identity have become sharply polarized, stripped of all nuance, simplified beyond all reason and presented as moral imperatives, a simple case of good versus evil, love versus hate, and yes, black versus white. The notion that all white people are privileged and racists and need to apologize for their very existence is completely ridiculous. But say that out loud, and you are typecast as not much better than the men who killed Floyd. Open debate and freedom of opinion are silenced and the (social) media are playing a huge part in it. You either support their view of the world or you are the enemy. It's mindbogglingly dumb, but there you have it. George Orwell thought this big danger would come from the Right, but he was wrong there*. Any deviation from the narrative of extreme political correctness, of Left wing ‘woke’ revisionism, is interpreted as a thought crime, a perversion, and shut down accordingly. Call me old fashioned (not old) but this is not the Liberalism I grew up with. I'll be the last to censor someone for having a different opinion. *For those not knowing George Orwell (tsk tsk tsk), here is a quote:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984
I understand that some people say that statues do not just remember, but 'honour and idolize' these historical figures. I don't agree with that. Statues are very rarely idolized. Most people have to look up who the statues represent, before they take offence. Statues are like the wallpaper of our streets. Hardly anyone knows their history, anyway. Statues are mostly used for pets to pee on or for the shade they offer in summer. Historians and modern day people need to be careful with 'improving' the past. Iconoclasms are moralistic judgement of the past, stripped of all its nuance, context and true knowledge of those times. It's really one sided to judge the past like that, in terms of good or bad, black or white, innocent or guilty. History cannot be changed and it's nonsense to think historical statues are out there because they are adored by people, or serve as an example of sorts. They are not. Not over here at least, in western Europe. But the past needs to be remembered, because it unites us and because we (well, most of us) strive to improve from it. Destroying everything and everyone who does not stand the strict scrutiny of today's morality is bordering on censorship. It's not yet that, but we're heading that way, for sure.
Anyway... I used to care (over here in Europe) as this American madness tends to spread like a bad stain to this part of the world. But honestly, this sh*t has been going on for close to a decade now, with Millennials interfering with university courses and which professors they do and do not 'condone' of. The writing has been on the wall for years, and these spoiled pampered middle class prats are given free range. Why is the silent majority, the center conservative mass of the USA not putting a stop to this hijacking? Out of fear of online mob vigilantes? Of being fired for not echoing the woke message du jour? This is all a problem of their own making. Raise your kids with participation prizes and thinking they are incredibly special, and this is the result. Stand up and do something about it if you want this cancel culture/woke/neo-marxist madness to change. Also annoying; celebs like Natalie Portman and that Teigen woman parroting how the police should be defunded and how police protection is also 'white privilege'. Hypocrites, with their crew of permanent private security officers around them. Of course they don't need police, so easy said. How about they part with half of their millions in the bank and do something that actually means something? Come on, give 'your white privilege' away to black communities. We all know they won't. Words are cheap after all. Time for BLM to challenge these clowns on their immense wealth which is the real privilege in this world. Go after their money and their real privilege, mobsters.Or as my friend wrote me: "Absolute madness over the world. We were supposed to remember the D-Day landings and instead social media bombards you with stories of 'peaceful protesters forcing much needed change' and Colin fucking Kaepernick. The poor, oppressed multi-millionaire that he is. Next to that, photos of empty beaches and a story of one old veteran who managed to make the trip alone. There's a photo of him standing forlornly on some cliffs. He won't see his remaining buddies, perhaps ever again and the article writer wrote, unbelievably ... 'at least the dead will always be there'. On top of that dumb-arse statement of the year and without a hint of irony ... something about how 'they put an end to fascism in Europe' perhaps??"
Salman Rushdy said on the matter: "Responding to the idea that authors should write only ‘what they know’ or risk being ‘cancelled’, the Booker Prize winner said he could not accept that ‘there are areas in which censorship is acceptable’. "I’ve always seen democracy as a public square in which everyone is arguing... The ability to have the argument is what I would call freedom because in countries that are authoritarian the first thing rulers try to do is to shut down that argument.’ The Anglo-Indian author has long been a staunch defender of free speech and his own life was under threat for many years after Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him in 1989, following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses.
A little reflection on the corona virus epidemic so far. The first month of this covid outbreak was not just frightening, but also interesting. My generation and younger ones had not yet undergone such a global health crisis first hand. On top of reading whatever I could, I felt this wave of 'consciousness', as Oprah would no doubt call it, where the whole world was concentrating on the same thing. We all applauded for our health workers. There was something inspiring about the selflessness we all had to showcase when it came to giving up our personal freedoms for the greater good. Which we always took more or less for granted. That first mass outburst of feeling and solidarity was interesting to experience. And difficult to resist. I guess that people also felt some sort of connectivity. Cities with millions of inhabitants; countries with 50 or 100 million inhabitants, or more, felt all that... well.. history was being made, in effect. The media was also quick to instill that notion in us; this moment would never return in history, this was unheard of in our modern lives where everything seems always under control (unless you get a deadly illness).. But going through such a crisis together, was seen as an extreme way of cleansing us of our egotism. Also class and status differences were suddenly seeming less important; everybody could catch covid19 and die from it, the rich and the poor alike. And when a multimillionaire such as Ellen Degeneres publicly whined from her villa compounds that the lockdown 'felt like prison' to her, she was widely criticized. This would be the time where we collectively renounced celebrity adoration. This crisis would make us realize who the real heroes were. As Banksy drew it so poignantly. Strangers who'd normally ignored one another were speaking with each other in the streets, from a safe distance. Some of us no longer felt the isolated human being we were before, but part of the whole, of the people. Who would all applaud at 8 o'clock for our real life heroes. Not just doctors, but also the nurses who normally felt unseen or insignificant, working morning to night, evening to morning, caring for the sick and the ailing, were now put on a pedestal. They were also suddenly and respectfully acknowledged as heroes. They felt the unknown power that was raising them above their ordinary lives. It was almost intoxicating, this solidarity shown by all, fired up by the fear of catching this retched and incurable virus ourselves. All differences were submerged in this one moment in time and this one feeling of trying to stay safe and ultimately beat this virus.
This great wave of fear and illness broke over the world so suddenly and with such violence, that as it foamed over the surface, it also brought up from the depths the dark subconscious primeval urges of us humans. A rejection of civilization. So self sacrifice went hand in hand with rebellion for some people. There were covidiots, illegal parties, youngsters fatalistically flouting their disregard for the new laws by organizing provocative beach parties or barbecues under the noses of those law abiding citizens. And of course there were also cracks showing, where people like myself included were starting to get angry about the why's and the how's of this occurrence. Who made errors and when? Are we the victims of fate and a chance virus mutation? Or are we the victims of either ordinary political folly or of the power of a malicious force such as China? But most people were firmly set on first surviving, then analyzing later on. And there is also covid-tiredness setting in now. The novelty has worn off. Even this new norm has become something most of us have grown accustomed to. We long for our old lives, NOW if possible, please?
Well, we are still bang in the middle of all of it now. Some lockdown extremes are being softened but we are still required to show the utmost caution when out in public. Face masks in public transport and supermarkets, no hand shaking or kissing (well that's a good one for me, I loathe the 2 or 3 mandatory cheek kisses with near strangers), no large public gatherings. And the omnipresent fear of a second wave of coronavirus, bloodier than the first one. We have the Spanish Flu in mind there, as some ominous sword of what could be in store. But, I am starting to change my mind about the whole covid approach.. Am starting to get the feeling that the governments have been overreacting perhaps, in retrospect. restricting everybody's freedom of movement, freedom to travel, freedom to walk the dog or go out for exercise, freedom to going to school... Considering that similar numbers of people die of the flu in a bad flu year like 2018/2019, it would perhaps be better by now to shield off the elderly and the vulnerable. Not keep the rest of the healthy population chained to their homes and stifle the economy for another half year, or more. Now that a lot of people are being tested, the infection rate is rising again, but this seems not the case with the hospitalization and mortality rate. Besides, most people who died appear to be in their 80's (not all, but statistically) and I do think they need to compare these numbers to an average year, because right now anyone who died and had a positive covid test, seems to have been counted as a covid victim. When in fact people may have died of very different causes, and old people die at some point anyway. I don't want to sound crude, but there is so little information shared, only these statistics, without a clear image of the ways in which things are measured. But what is becoming clear now, is that many thousands of people in the netherlands alone (they mention 50.000 people) have not received their cancer diagnosis during those covid confinement months, meaning many receive care too late. And many operations were postponed too, a lot of people died from that as well, not to mention the soaring depression and suicide rates. There is a dark side to this obsessive focusing on covid and covid alone.
Update:
I saw this movie last night, on the tele and it was very good. About Denmark right after the war, and young German soldiers being recruited (forced) to clean up the landmines on the Danish beaches. Historic thing, which really happened...
I saw another video the other night. About Australia's most famous disappearance case, of 3 young children, the Beaumont Children. A terrible disappearance case. It struck me, as most viewers (going by the comment section under the video) how in the 1960's young children were so free! Parents gave them some money to catch the bus to go to the beach and they were there all day, unattended, until sunset. And it was normal, and safe (mostly..). You read a lot in those comments that it was normal back then in Adelaide to just let the kids roam free like that. In Holland we were also free to go anywhere in and around the village, in the 80's. We'd take our bikes as kids of 6 or 7 years old and biked a few kilometres to a sand dune place where the trucks would come to pick up the sand. We'd sled off the sand all the time. Pretty dangerous when a hole collapsed with sand, and I think one boy did suffocate there. But kids did what they want back then and parents just gave along a warning to be careful. But now you have modern day parents responding to that video link, that 60's or not, it is WRONG to allow a 9 yr old and younger ones to take the bus to the beach alone. I understand that also, but they just can't imagine life as it was 60 yrs ago. And where we lived, at some point there was a child groomer in the village. Or so the story went. Mum told us not to accept sweets if a man offered it to us and off we went again. One day my sister and I were out in the middle of nowhere on our bikes along the canal and low and behold, there was a man there. Approaching us. The archetypal child groomer, I couldn't believe it was such a cliche: tall man, long overcoat, one of those 80's long beige raincoats. He stopped us, asked if we wanted some sweets, went with his hand to his pocket and we just screamed and took off on our bikes. Haha. It's almost like a dream now, I hadn't thought about it for ever until I saw this video..
April 21st 2020
InvitationIgor is proud to present his first performance minimal art works, named Scratchings I, Scratchings II and Scratchings III for his upcoming solo exhibition in Berlin. While living in Spain, his strong bond with Spanish native artists was discovered. These are Igors early expressions of his Catalonian childhood, emulating the excitement he felt when noticing repetition patterns in the cosmos around him and referring to the perceived action of our environment.
Gracias
Guardian: "One can clearly see in the spontaneous and natural touch of Igor that he may be a descendant of one of Picasso's cats"
Washington Post: "This intuitive artist makes some of the most refreshing and innovative art of the 21st century. Such rare materials. We smell the start of a new art movement."
New York Times: "The artist is without a doubt gifted with the right smug looks, exuding a certain je-ne-sais-quoi which wouldn't be out of place in artist hotspots such as SoHo or Berlins Prenzlauer Berg"
Daily Art Newspaper: "He's on a roll!"
Daily Mail: "We seriously wonder if anyone has informed Igor about the current shortage of toilet rolls. One can only hope that this avant-garde new kid on the block created his masterpieces in one go."
Man in the Street: "This is still better than what 99% of human 'artists' produce!
April 18th 2020Is the cure by now worse than the (covid) disease perhaps? For the majority of people? In India and developing countries, people die from the lockdown. They can't work anymore, they can't provide food anymore, staff is sent away. In my own family my stepdad is waiting and waiting for urgent cancer treatment. While the hospitals are full with elderly people who are kept for weeks, months, on ventilators. Which is horrible and they should get the best of care, of course. But should the economy at this point be destroyed and countries sent to years of austerity and recession? Numbers of people committing suicide are already higher than normal and the domestic violence numbers are said in some countries to have doubled or tripled. Cancer patients not being treated. Heart patients afraid to go to hospital even when they should. Even a portion of emergency patients are avoiding hospital these days. And I'm not even mentioning the many small companies and shops who are going bust and jobs vanishing, due to the extreme lockdown measurements. I have changed my mind about the total lockdown by now.. Maybe at some point, as soon as possible, the healthy, younger population - anyone but the elderly and the frail - should get back to work.. It's the only way to prevent a mega financial collapse. Sweden does this and so far have far less covid19 deaths, while they managed to keep their economy going and prevented the higher scores of death as a result of lockdown. And like this renowned scientist also says; we do not have reliable statistics even on the real mortality of this virus. Everyone who dies in hospital and tests positive for covid-19 is counted as a victim of it, with covid named the cause of death. This professor says that goes against textbook science and that the old with underlying illness may have died from other causes. He also notices that levels of pollution (and thus lung quality) in the countries of origin of most victims play a role.
It is not sure which percentage of the population even carries covid antibodies (also those without symptoms). Because not enough are tested. The 30.000+ flu victims each year are also gathered under covid-19 victims. In other words; he says that the real mortality and danger of this virus for the general population is not reliably studied. I must add here that the professor got slack in the German media for one of his videos, in which he was accused to downplay the real numbers of future German covid19 patients. But as long as you don't test everyone, the entire population, you can't calculate reliable percentages. If you only test people who are really sick once they go to the doctor or the hospital, then you do end up with very high percentages. But look at the current official figures for Germany here. Germany now has 144,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, of which 4,500 people died. That means that of the 83 million Germans, less than 0.5% of the population received serious enough covid19 infection that made them get a test. And of that 0.5% (144,000), just over 0.3% died. So those are very low percentages. Now Germany has an excellent track record anyway with this virus. But the professor seemed to be on the money with his predictions, in retrospect. And going by his arguments; how many of those 4500 people would have died in the space of those months anyway? (22,000 elderly people die every day on average in Germany). How many of them would have died of the flu in winter (in the Netherlands alone many thousands died each winter)? Yes, Covid is very contagious and despite there often not being detailed research in the exact cause of death, it is reasonable to assume that it was in fact covid19 that killed them. But ordinary flu also kills large sections of elderly and ailing people every winter. That's the point the professor seems to try to make. So this doesn't necessarily make covid19 more deadly than seasonal flu. Even though it may be more contagious. His stance is that you first need thorough research of a large section of society, before you can make such claims as they have been thrown around so far about covid19 being an all out killer virus, severe enough to paralyze most of society. Besides, it is starting to look like covid may have been wading around in December and even November already. And more data is coming out each day, suggesting that very large parts of western society has already been infected, unbeknownst to them. Many may have thought they had the common flu, or had no symptoms to speak of at all. But estimates about up to half of society having already developed antibodies are mounting.
It is frightening to see how powerless scientists and world leaders still seem, so many months down the line, in the face of this virus. With no treatment or virus known still, we're resorting to cowering like Medieval peasants in our houses.
Yet, draconian measurements are taken by world leaders, also taking away certain human rights. I do support that, did at least. But at some point things need to be managed in a different and less societal/financially destructive way than full lockdown I'm afraid. For instance: here they are developing tracking tabs on your smartphone, to trace anyone going out, just like the Chinese do. It's apparently so very important for reinstating normal life, that parliament in the Netherlands is bypassed to force down this new tracing app; not supposed to be voluntary. HUGE privacy issues. I don't even have a smartphone. Is the state now going to force everyone to have a smartphone and download this tracing app? Every new power the authorities are now installing, temporarily supposedly, may make them ultra greedy to hold onto it in the future. Huge changes are rammed down in record time thanks to this virus. And I heard from a friend today that Virgin Airlines Australia might go broke. Guess who is thinking about buying them? The Chinese. Ruin the western economy and then conveniently pick through the carcass of the dead bodies. [To anyone crying 'racism' now, I'd like to say: how do you think the world would have responded if, god forbid, such a virus would have originated in the United States? Do you think the Chinese and Russians would have handled the location of origin with tact and dignity? Of course not. Trump would have been slaughtered for it, internationally. But because the Chinese are culpable, they cannot be named, supposedly. If we aren't careful, 'racism', regardless of how realistic the claim, will become the new McCartyism. Feelings over facts]. And the solution here comes in the form of wonky ideas about a '1,5 meter distance society'. As if that will ever work. Trains, planes, restaurants, pubs.. nobody wants to go to a restaurant where you are obliged to wear face masks and stay meters away from everybody else. What are discotheques going to look like then? More space for those loving to do the robot dance? It almost looks like they want to hold onto these new liberties they get from the 'emergency state'.
It is all super well meant, and this may sound harsh, but I always have a bit of a laugh when the Dutch log behind the rest of the world. Not just when it comes to fashion, but also when implementing these 'original ideas', stolen from everybody else. So when Belgium had this lovely idea of asking everyone to go outside and write messages of (covid/quarantine) support on the ground when a drone was making its rounds, of course a week or so later the Dutch had to do the same. Presenting it as their own idea. And when Italy spontaneously and heartwarmingly started to applaud their health workers at 8 pm... low and behold, some Einstein came with the same idea in Holland a few weeks later. Everyone gets drummed up through social media. A friend of mine got a Stasi text from a neighbour, inquiring why he and his family weren't clapping for health care workers on the street??? Sounds almost Chinese (yeh there we go again), with their good old communist community committees, spying on everyone to see who walks out of line. I understand that some people do not understand why others are so petty as to not fit in with the current virtue signalling mode du jour and are not sticking with the neighbours. But this way any nice spontaneous initiative gets quickly hijacked by the morality police. As usual. Clapping vigilantes. Just like anyone not wearing the poppy around November in the UK gets publicly shamed. Here they also look at you weary for not hanging out of the window every evening at 8 to clap. I do sometimes, but I also forget it some evenings. 
Regarding an increase in suicides
I had a really rough year myself, back in 2005. My sister had just died; my rosacea was all over the place after a botched IPL treatment. I couldn't stop burning and flushing and no treatment seemed to help. I dragged myself through the days and nights, constantly cooling my face with coldpacks and fans, and nothing was helping; I couldn't bring the fire in my skin down. I got really depressed. By then I had battled rosacea for 6 years already and I didn't think the vascular damage done by Dr Patterson with his horrible IPL treatment, was up for repearing. I couldn't bring my anxiety down anymore. Every medication I tried made matters worse. I just couldn't go on, I felt. I had a block of flats in mind where I could jump from. It was some sort of possibility in the back of my mind; I always had that option left. But a good friend and my father were there for me day and night. I only had to call, and one or both of them would come round my house, watching a movie, or going for a bike ride with me on the back of the bike, getting some cool air on my skin. My father always said to me that no matter how dark life was; as long as I still enjoyed something for 15 minutes a day - may it be a movie, music, a book, anything really - it was worth going on. It really helped me back then. Eventually a good friend from England invited me over and took me to his dermatologist, prof. Tony Chu (sadly now retired) who really made the difference. The medication he prescribed gave me improvement, both skin wise and psychologically. For ever grateful for this! But I know first hand how bleak and desperate life can become. For some it is just impossible to plow on. However, I always try to tell my depressed friends that suicide should really be the very last bus stop.. I also forced myself at the time to exhaust every other avenue, before contemplating that last resort. So in my own case, I had to try every single medication and rosacea treatment first, I had told myself. And for those who do not have skin problems, I'd like to say to please try every other avenue as well. Including antidepressant therapy (not just one drug, but try many over time to be really sure there isn't one brand that fits you and works for you). Also first have therapy and try at least 2 councilors. Buy yourself a ticket to an exotic island, try volunteer work (helping animals or people in need) first. Try everything to get you out of your modus operandi first, before killing yourself. Some will believe they go to a better place if they die. It's all personal, but I'd always take into consideration the possibility that there will be nothing for eternity instead. And you can be dead for ever, for the rest of time and beyond. Life is only one drop on a hot plate anyway. You have the certainty of death, eventually, anyway. So try to find something to life for, for as short as it lasts..
Book
I read a couple of books from German writer Stefan Zweig lately. I like to recommend one short story of his, called Chess Story (also translated as The Royal Game). It is an amazing story, very memorable. It also touches on the topic of self-isolation by the way. I listened to this audiobook version, granted the guy who spoke in the story does not have the best voice or accent, but it is easy to get into nevertheless, as it is such a gripping short story. Maybe you will like it (it's really captivating and quite short). I also saw this lovely and heart wrenching movie, "The the light between oceans".
What's keeping me sane these days:
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