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Created on Friday, 28 January 2022 06:13

Warily, I want to share with you an article by Dr. Chris Masterjohn. I say “warily” because he has a PhD in Nutritional Science, a real one, and he is very learned. However, I understand that he is very much a Weston Price person, an advocate for low-carb and heavy animal food consumption. And, as you probably know, I think that is wrong. I don’t know how far he takes it. Some go all the way and want you to avoid carbs completely. But, the truth is: you can’t avoid carbs. If you don’t eat them, your body will make them; out of protein (18 of the 20 amino acids can be converted into glucose) fat (the glycerol portion) and also out of lactate, pyruvate, and other precursors.

So, let’s say you have one person who is eating unrefined plant foods, including high carb ones, but also low-carb ones like green and yellow vegetables, and also low-carb ones that are high in fat, such as nuts, oil-seeds, and avocadoes. And you also have someone who is eating low-carb, through and through, by loading up on animal foods which have no carbs.

Whose blood sugar is going to be better? Whose blood sugar will be lower early in the morning and at night? Even if it’s true that the person who avoids carbs also avoids having any sugar spikes, while the person who includes carbs does get some degree of post-prandial rise in blood sugar, you can’t look at that in isolation. That’s because if the spike reduction is accomplished by eating things that are going to produce other harms, then it may not be worth it. Since I consider it normal to eat some carbs, perhaps getting mild spikes is perfectly normal.  

It was just yesterday that I pointed out that a lot of biological conversions tend to fall off as we age. However, creating glucose from other sources is one conversion that holds up very well with age. In fact, it may increase with age.

The fact is: we need calories. We’re living active lives, aren’t we? You and I? So, we need fuel. But, it makes no sense to burn protein as fuel. That’s like burning the furniture. You want to eat just enough protein to meet your structural and functional needs. You don’t want to burn it. And as far as fats go, I’m not opposed to eating some wholesome plant fats, but the same people who want you to avoid carbs want you to load up on animal fats. And that’s crazy.

Anyway, the point is that I want to share this article by Dr. Masterjohn, but don’t take it as an endorsement of his nutritional advice to eat a lot of animal foods.

But now, getting to his article, the gist of it is that, according to the CDC, 94% of vaccinated people who went to the hospital for suspected Covid or Covid-like illness, tested negative for Covid. They seemed to have Covid, but they tested negative for it.

He makes a very good point that if the vaccine makes you test negative for Covid even though you seem to have it, that’s no great prize. How much difference does it make if you are in respiratory failure from Covid or something else?

All together, 79% of patients hospitalized for Covid-like illness tested negative for Covid, which included the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. It was pretty evenly split, but slightly more among the vaccinated.

But, if that’s true, how can they keep saying that there is a pandemic of the unvaccinated?

This desire to distinguish between Covid and non-Covid syndromes leads to some pretty zany conclusions. It certainly is true that when it comes to acute respiratory illnesses, that people in the same household often tend to come down with them in close proximity to each other. I can remember, for instance, a time when I was a teenager, that my brother and I both came down with the flu at the same time.  And just yesterday, I was told about a family of 4 here in Austin, in which the mother and younger boy have both gotten sick, while so far, the father and older boy have not. I was told that the mother and younger boy both have Covid. I think the rapid test showed it. But, what if one had tested positive and the other negative? Symptomatically, they are the same. So, if that had happened, then the medically correct explanation would be, “I know it seems like you have the same illness, but you don’t. You have very different illnesses. One of you has Covid. The other has the flu or something else. But, make no mistake: you have different diseases.”

However, there is another way to play it, and I’ve seen it played. I saw it played by a female doctor. She was interviewed for an online doctor’s journal because she and her husband are both physicians at an Atlanta hospital where they both work on the Covid ward. They didn’t catch Covid there. But, they took a skiing vacation to Colorado, and it was on their way home, that they both started to feel sick. So, they took Covid tests, and she was positive, while he was negative. The interviewer asked her how she interprets that, and she said that they assume that his negative is a false negative. But, in that case, you would keep testing him to see if he turns positive, right? She said they were going to do that, but the interview ended, and they didn’t have her back. So, did he go on to test positive or not? I can’t answer that. But, if he never tested positive for Covid, how did they spin it after that? Again, I can’t tell you.

Anyway, here is the article by Dr. Masterjohn, and it is very disturbing.

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/2022/01/27/the-pandemic-of-pcr-negative-c-word-like-illness

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Created on Thursday, 27 January 2022 17:52

Taurine is a functional amino acid. It is not built into proteins. It is not part of any structure in your body. But, it does good things for you. For example, taurine is the most abundant free amino acid in your heart where it helps it maintain its normal rhythm. I have seen it happen that people who have irregular heartbeats, such as premature contractions, improve from doing a course of taurine. In some cases, the arrythmia went away completely. 

In the brain, taurine supports the inhibitory axis that helps you relax. That’s why it’s often recommended as a sleep aid. However, it doesn’t make you sleepy. You could take it during the day and drive or operate heavy equipment. They even add it to energy drinks because taurine helps with brain signaling, the communication between neurons. But, at night, when you’re lying there in bed, and it’s dark, and everything else is conducive to sleep, it may help you dose off.

Taurine is also the most abundant free amino acid in the retina, where it helps prevent degeneration. The retinal ganglioin cells need taurine to survive. High levels of taurine are also found in the anterior part of the eyes, and it's believed that taurine helps to prevent cataracts

The heart, the brain and the eyes are the big three, but taurine has also been linked to other benefits, such as improving mitochondrial function, fighting metabolic syndrome, improving liver health, enhancing immune function, elevating mood, and more. 

Taurine does not occur in plants. So, anyone who is eating a plant-based diet, strictly, is entirely dependent on internal production of it. The body can make taurine from other sulfur-containing amino acids, such as methionine and cysteine. But, the question is: how well does it do it? Can you get an optimal amount that way? It’s known that vegans who don’t supplement with taurine have lower levels of serum taurine than omnivores.

And it’s not just vegans who are at risk because the best sources of taurine are organ meats, rather than muscle meats. Fish is also a rich source, but a lot of people don’t eat it regularly or at all.  

And when it comes to internal synthesis, we know that all these biological conversions tend to fall off as we age. For instance, people don’t convert ALA to EPA and DHA as well- or at all- when they get older.  They don’t convert the inactive form of Vitamin D to the active form as well. They often don’t convert T4 to T3 as well. And they don’t make Coenzyme Q10 as well either.

I realize that people can’t take every supplement that could potentially help them, not only because it would be too expensive, but also because it would be  too cumbersome. But, taurine is one that I think should make the cut, especially if you eat a mostly or wholly plant-based diet. A subtle taurine deficiency is probably extremely common- affecting millions, and I suspect that it contributes, mightily, to the decrepitude of old age.

So, I take 1000 milligrams of taurine every night before bed. I take it then because it may improve sleep. Since I’m eating a plant-based diet, I don’t get any taurine from my diet, and I do not want to depend on internal synthesis. But, unless you are eating a lot of fish or organ meats, I would recommend taking at least 500 mgs, especially if you are older. Ours is pharmaceutical grade and very pure.  

https://klaire.com/tau-taurine

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Created on Sunday, 23 January 2022 03:42

I had my eyes checked by an optometrist, most recently about a year and a half ago. He said I don’t have the slightest bit of macular degeneration or glaucoma. But, he said I do have some mild cataracts, but nowhere near the operable stage. And it came as no surprise because it’s one of those things that is pretty much universal. 

At this point, I am not experiencing any cloudiness, blurriness, or any obstructions in my visual field. The only thing I am experiencing that may be related to the cataracts is that I don’t see as well at night to drive. I am not as comfortable driving at night as I used to be.

Looking ahead, I accept that it’s likely to get worse, but I am fighting it. For one thing, I have the kind of prescription glasses that turn into sunglasses when I’m out in the sun. And if I am going for a hike and it’s sunny, I will wear regular sunglasses. Ultraviolet damage from the sun is what makes cataracts so common.  

Also, I take 500 mgs of Carnosine every morning. Carnosine is a di-peptide, consisting of two amino acids linked together: beta-alanine and histidine. It is a powerful antioxidant and an anti-glycation agent, and the damage to the lens is thought to be related to “advanced glycation end-products” in which glucose reacts with proteins detrimentally. But, Carnosine deters it, and there are even Carnosine eye drops.

There is Carnosine in meats but not in any plant foods. The body can make Carnosine, but such biological conversions tend to fall off as we age.   

At this point, I am just taking the 1 capsule of Carnosine a day. However, if I become more concerned about it, I’ll bump it up to two a day in divided doses.

https://klaire.com/car-lcarnosine

And I just might start using the Carnosine eye-drops too.

My hope is that I can live out the rest of my life and NEVER have to get cataract surgery. And don’t get me wrong: I think it’s one of the best things they do in Medicine. But still, I’d like to avoid it if I can and for two reasons. The first is that even though there are a lot of good eye surgeons who produce consistently good results, cataract surgery can, and sometimes does, go wrong. I have a good friend who underwent it, and it went wrong for him. His surgery had to be repeated, and to this day, he writes to me in large print, and I respond to him the same way. If I were going to have it done, I would consult with my good friend, Dr. David Peters, who is a qualified Texas optometrist (which is higher than most), and I would let him refer me to a competent surgeon. He knows the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And speaking of Dr. Peters, he recommends acerola cherries because of their very high Vitamin C content, including all the co-factors, and he urged me to buy them frozen at Trader Joe’s, and I have started doing it. They are quite delicious too.

But, the second reason I’d love to finish my life without having to get cataract surgery is because I am angry with Medicine over Covid. I think they are responsible for a lot of deaths. For instance:   

If someone is unconscious and not breathing, then you have to ventilate them. But, if they are conscious, and if their respiratory mechanism is working, where they have good movement, good excursion, you don’t knock them out, and paralyze their muscles, and jam a tube down their throat to force air into their lungs.  You might give them a nasal canula of oxygen, but you don’t ventilate them. But, doctors did it, even knowing how high the death rate was. They even persuaded conscious patients who were not in respiratory distress to be ventilated, and that’s a crime in my book. In New York, 97% of ventilated patients over the age of 65 died. And even younger patients died at a horrendous rate. 76% of those who between 18 and 64 died. 

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-ventilator-deaths-new-york.html

Is it necessary for me to state that you don't do a medical procedure that kills 97%? Perhaps they are still doing it. Then, there are the bogus Covid tests and the bogus, harmful, and sometimes deadly Covid vaccines, all endorsed by Medicine.  

So, I am disgusted with the medical profession, and I don’t want to support them, financially, and the less I have to do with them the better. And that’s another reason why I’d like to avoid cataract surgery if I can.  

Now, as I said at the beginning, the only thing I notice so far is that I don’t see as well at night, particularly to drive. And let’s say that that gets worse, but I don’t suffer any other major repercussions from the cataracts. Well, I’ll just stop driving at night completely. If I have to go somewhere at night, I’ll just Uber there.  I’ll gladly put up with that inconvenience if it enables me to avoid cataract surgery.

But, I don’t know the future. Maybe at some point, I’ll have to bite the bullet and do it. But, if I do, it will only be because I absolutely have to.

So, wish me luck with that, and I wish the same to you.

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Created on Saturday, 22 January 2022 09:55

When they dig deep into the nasal cavity and withdraw exudate, they claim to find, not whole, live virus, but rather, very small pieces of its RNA. Previously, a decision was made as to what what small pieces of its presumed RNA should be targeted for duplication. And if they duplicate, that is considered a positive test. How does that prove that there is whole, live virus in a person’s expired air?

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Created on Saturday, 22 January 2022 03:00

Covid, supposedly, spreads from person to person, but how? Through droplets from sneezing and coughing. That may seem to make sense, but it really doesn’t.

First, most people who test positive for Covid don’t know how they got it. They just assume that on some outing they made in public- perhaps to a store, restaurant, or church- somebody who had it gave it to them. But, how many people report having been around someone who was coughing, sneezing, or showing other visible signs of illness?

I go shopping for food often, practically every day. Since the Covid crisis began, I can’t remember a single instance in which someone was coughing and sneezing around me.  

So, if they told me that I had Covid and asked me if I was around someone who was visibly ill, I would have to say no. And I think most people would say no. The number of people who would say, “Oh yeah, I was in Publix the other day, and this guy was coughing and hacking” is so small, it’s probably close to zero. They can’t sell the pandemic that way. That is definitely NOT how it happened.

So, forget about coughing and sneezing. Their Covid paradigm requires, like a life preserver, that mere breathing and talking, by a seemingly normal person, can spread the virus. They have got to have that. But, some virologists still insist that Covid can only spread when a person coughs or sneezes producing respiratory droplets that carry the virus. However, the more rational and mature among these charlatans realize that they have to make it that mere breathing and talking is sufficient to spread Covid, because without it, the whole thing collapses because there isn't enough coughing and sneezing going on in public.  

But, when you read what they write about it, it’s all couched with disclaimers. They say that “maybe” it can spread just from breathing or “possibly” it can. There’s usually a disclaimer. You’d think that they were coached by lawyers.  Here’s an example from Science News:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-breathing-talking-enough-spread-airborne

But that was written back in 2020. I went to the CDC website, and they actually start with expiration.

 COVID-19 is spread in three main ways:

• Breathing in air when close to an infected person who is exhaling small droplets and particles that contain the virus.
• Having these small droplets and particles that contain virus land on the eyes, nose, or mouth, especially through splashes and sprays like a cough or sneeze.
• Touching eyes, nose, or mouth with hands that have the virus on them.

So, they start with mere breathing, because they know they need it. Then, they move on to the coughing and sneezing. Then, they finish with hand transfer.

But, notice that they applied the word “droplets” to both exhaling and coughing/sneezing. But obviously, there is a big difference. Yes, coughing and sneezing can produce mucho droplets, but can calm exhaling?

I found a source that said that if a person breathes normally for 5 minutes that, in all that time, “a few” droplets will be produced. But, if you cough (and presumably just once) a few hundred to a few thousand will be produced. And if you sneeze (presumably just once) a few hundred thousand to a few million will be produced.

But, in public, say, at a supermarket, people don’t breathe on each other. How often do you feel someone’s breath on you in the supermarket? They are exhaling over half the time, since expiration is longer than inspiration, but not on you.  And immediately, it disperses. Expired air is a gas, and that’s what gases do. The idea that you, five feet away, are going to be struck by a meaningful amount of virus is pretty farfetched. But, when you add to it that both of you are masked, it makes it even more doubtful. And yet, that is essential too because there are millions of people who have tested positive for Covid who swear that they always wore a mask and were never around anyone who wasn’t masked.

Even if it were certain that the person’s expired air contained whole, live Covid viruses, it would still have to be proven that the ordinary and customary way that strangers interact in public is sufficient to cause transmission. And since masks are presumably protective, how could there be any transmission at all between masked people in public? Either the masks are effective, or they are not. 

But wait. It’s even worse than that because they have never even demonstrated the presence of live, Covid virus in anyone’s expired air. 

I have a massage therapist. Not for me personally, but she comes to treat guests at my health retreat. And she puts the mask on before she gets out of her car and wears it the whole time.  She requires that the guests wear masks. I got her to accept them not wearing the mask while their head is pressed down into the headpiece of the massage table and they are exhaling towards the floor.  And it took a lot to get her to go along with that. She wanted them to wear it even then, but I told her that I will not have my guests wear a mask while they are laying face-down on the table. I told her I want them to have unobstructed breathing, and it’s a must. She very much wants the gig because most places she works at make her divide the fee she charges, where the house gets some of it, and she gets the rest. But, I told her she can have it all, but she’s got to let them breathe normally during the massage.

So, that’s where it stands with her, but to this day, she won’t treat anyone who arrived by plane. She will only treat guests who drove in.

To me, it’s all crazy. The whole Covid narrative is beyond credibility except as a rigid dogma of belief that is accepted just because “experts” say it- again and again and again.   

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Created on Friday, 21 January 2022 18:28

Few people are rich enough to have a running track in their backyard, but I'm one of them. This was me earlier this morning running laps in my backyard. You can see the fence in back, which gives you an idea how big the yard is.

And although you can barely see it, along the right edge, there is a raised-bed vegetable garden which was full of greens until we got hit with a hard freeze earlier this month.

But, I like running back there because it feels good and because with the grass, it's a soft surface and therefore easy on my nearly 71 year old joints. Like Dylan Thomas, I am not going gently into that good night; rather, rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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Created on Friday, 21 January 2022 17:27

You should read this article about a young man with long Covid, but the most important part is the first paragraph, in which he says that back in October 2020 he had mild cold-like symptoms (a stuffy nose and a cough) that lasted only a few days.

But then after that, he started developing chronic symptoms: fatigue, nerve pain, brain fog, and blood pressure fluctuations.  It wasn’t immediately assumed he had long Covid. Doctors came to that conclusion after testing him and treating him for other things and coming up empty.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lingering-pandemic-long-covid-patients-102705958.html

Long Covid is a default diagnosis. There is no test for it.

Is there a test for long Covid?

No, there is no single test to diagnose Long Covid. It's a condition that isn’t fully understood, and the usual definition of long Covid is “lasting symptoms after a Covid-19 infection, which can’t be explained by anything else.”

So, that’s the key: chronic symptoms that can’t be explained by anything else. What symptoms? Any symptoms. But, don’t assume that people with Long Covid continue to test positive for Covid. That is not the case. It is not a requirement. They are more than willing to make the diagnose of Long Covid even if you test negative.  

Here is an article about people who test negative for Covid, yet doctors are still calling what they have Long Covid. The first patient did test positive for Covid when she was acutely sick, but that was 7 months ago. She hasn’t tested positive for Covid in 7 months. Yet, they are sure that “remnants of the virus” are behind her problems.

But wait. It gets worse. Even people who NEVER tested positive for Covid, not when they were acutely ill and not when their chronic symptoms appeared, yet, doctors are more than willing to assume that what they have is Long Covid.

Some of these people have tested negative for Covid all along, that in spite of numerous attempts to garner a positive test result, they never, ever got one. Yet, their doctors are still willing to say that what they have is Long Covid, on the assumption that their negative tests were false negatives.

 https://khn.org/news/article/they-tested-negative-for-covid-still-they-have-long-covid-symptoms/

Keep in mind that I don’t put stock in any of the Covid tests: not the PCR test, not the antigen test, not the rapid tests. I think they are all bogus. Still, I marvel at their willingness to extend the Covid umbrella by being willing to recognize ANY symptom as Covid, and being willing to call something Covid without even the confirmation of their bogus tests.   

Now, the Social Security Administration has announced that people with Long Covid can apply for long-time disability benefits. In other words, they are going to get to retire.

What if you knew that the overwhelming majority of these sufferers never had a positive antigen test to indicate present COVID infection or an antibody test to show past infection? What if you knew that just as hospitals were paid bonuses to declare cases as COVID rather than any number of other potential causes of death, the U.S. government is paying a bounty to researchers to pontificate on “Long COVID”?

What if you also knew that those “Long COVID” demographics, even according to those who insist this is definitely COVID-related, happen to match those of previous somatoform diseases (even if it’s become not just un-PC but a career-killer to say so) such as “multiple chemical sensitivity” and “fibromyalgia encephalitis/chronic fatigue syndrome” and that indeed even these syndromes appear to have been identified well over a century ago?

Finally, what if you knew that far from doing sufferers a favor by misclassifying their symptoms we’re actually dooming them to perhaps a lifetime of suffering because just as there’s no cure to the above somatoform diseases there will never be a cure to “Long COVID,” leaving these people forever in despair sometimes, as with Dawson’s Creek writer Heidi Ferrer who took her own life in May after what her husband called “an unremitting battle with Long Covid.” She was 50 years old.

The largest study so far of “long-haulers,” published by researchers at University College London in July, comprised nearly 4,000 subjects from over 56 countries. The researchers acknowledged merely in passing that in the study a mere 27% of these “COVID long-haulers” had evidence of exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That’s whether antigen or antibody. The only connection to COVID was the attestation of the sufferers. They “felt” they had COVID, regardless of evidence.

That was actually from the Kaiser Health News, and here is the link:

https://khn.org/news/article/they-tested-negative-for-covid-still-they-have-long-covid-symptoms/

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Created on Thursday, 20 January 2022 18:57

He qualified that by adding “this year” which tells me that he has no doubt that more shots will be needed next year and beyond and probably forever. Then, Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic said today that “your great-great-great-great grandchildren will be getting immunized against Covid” that it will never be eradicated.

I am now convinced that there is no Covid virus. They have never found a whole Covid virus. What they have found are tiny scraps of RNA in people’s mucus, and then using a computer program, they have abstractly linked these scraps together and let the software generate hypothetical parts that are missing until they have what they claim to be the genome of the virus. Then, to prove that it exists, they do cytopathic tests in which they add a sample from a Covid patient to cells, along with a lot of other stuff such as antibiotics, and then when the cells sicken, they assume that it’s from the virus. Then, amazingly, they apply the word “isolation” to that. They have the audacity to claim that the things they did to make a cell culture sick amounts to isolation of a virus.

Remember what they are claiming. They are claiming that the emanations from a person’s mouth are traveling through the air from one person to another, and because those emanations contain whole, live viruses, and in large amounts, they are infecting others. But, also remember that people don’t go up and cough and sneeze on each other. Even before Covid, they didn’t do that. How many Covid sufferers report that someone coughed on them? That is so rare, it is practically nonexistent. Almost always, it is presumed to be incidental exposure, where there was nothing going on between the two people except proximity. Nobody coughed or sneezed on anyone or blew their expired air into another’s face. Supposedly, this is happening through the normal interface that occurs between people in public. For instance, you’re waiting on line at the supermarket, and the person in front of you or behind you has Covid, so they give you the virus. But again, even in that situation, he or she doesn’t violate your personal space, and they aren’t breathing on you or coughing or sneezing on you. As they exhale, their spent breath mixes right away with the ambient air, which dilutes any viruses it contains. By the time any elements from their breath gets to you (if it does at all) the viral load would be minimal and probably insignificant. And for sure, the viral load starting out would have to be extremely high in order for you, at say 5 feet away, to receive anything.

And that’s why I say that it should be possible to find whole, live viruses, and a lot of them, in people’s expired air. It should be possible to intercept those viruses when they are traveling from one person to another.

So, you have the person expire into a receptacle that traps their spent air which supposedly contains the virus. You could even have them cough into it.  Collect those droplets. Knock yourself out. And then you look for the virus. And that’s whole, live virus because it would have to be whole and live in order to infect another person.

But, they have never done this, and it’s because they can’t do it, and the reason they can’t do it is because there is no virus there.

What is happening now, especially with the fictitious Omicron, is that regular colds and flus are being called Covid. And keep in mind that there was “viral pneumonia” being diagnosed long before there was Covid. Bacterial pneumonia tends to very localized and usually limited to just one lung. So, if they find a more generalized pneumonia that affects both lungs, they tend to call it viral. But, the point is that there is nothing about “Covid” that truly distinguishes it from the pneumonias that came before. Fever, headaches, coughing, shortness of breath all can occur with regular pneumonias, and for that matter, so can loss of taste and smell. And frankly, much of the loss of taste is due to the anorexia, while the loss of smell is due to the inflammation in the nasal passages where the olfactory nerves reside. So, every bit of that can happen with regular, non-Covid pneumonia.

The same is true of the “ground glass opacity” which can be seen with other lung conditions besides Covid.  Many people show some ground glass opacity in their chest x-rays without being acutely ill at all.  You could just take people off the street and x-ray them and you may find it, especially if they are smokers or live in polluted places.

Now, they are trying to make hay out of the death of Hana Horkad, a popular Czech singer. She refused to be vaccinated- unlike her sons and husband who were. And even though they were vaccinated, they all got Covid. So, they got Covid, but she didn’t. But, she decided that she was not going to withdraw from them, that she was going to continue to live with them and interact with them normally as they recovered from their mild illnesses. But then she got sick similarly and went through it and seemed to recover.  And on the day she died, she was feeling fine and getting ready to go out for a walk. But then her back started hurting, so she decided to lie down. Then, as she was resting, she started choking and died.

That’s the story, but what was she choking on? She was 57 years old and overweight. So, who knows, she may have had a heart attack. People don’t just choke to death for no reason. At that point, she was NOT acutely ill with pneumonia.

So, there is no basis to believe that story, and there are many like it.

The Covid dogma is just a dogma and nothing more. People are getting sick for all the reasons they have always gotten sick, and the stresses of Covidism, including the vaccine, are adding to it. And remember that people with Covid are dying under medical care in the hospital. They are mostly dying in the hospital and not at home. 

It's been reported that, due to the pandemic, people have gained weight, which means they have been eating more and badly. They have increased their drinking and their drug use. Many have stopped exercising. There has been a rise in domestic turmoil and domestic violence. There has been a rise in clinical depression due to pressures and hardships arising from the pandemic. All of this is very stressful and debilitating, and it can easily trigger a flu-like illness.  That's why I'm not surprised that so many people are getting sick. You don't need a virus to explain it.