PART II: Through the mediator
COVID-19 has put as in the waiting list of the messiah, listening under the name of a vaccine. The information package that we receive from the media explicitly focuses on an upcoming vaccine. The vaccine seems to be driving the pandemic, as statements like “seizing of the lockdown can only take place after the vaccine is found”, do circulate. Not to be forgotten though, vaccines take many months (or even years) to develop and be tested properly. Given these timelines such statements, which often come from irrelevant but famous/powerfull people, are extremely dangerous and do not take into account, either out of ignorance or out plan, the consequences of long-term lockdowns. Consequences that are also entirely unknown.
My viewpoint is before we start playing this information like a spotify playlist and leave the house only to stand in line demanding to be the first one vaccinated, it is not a bad idea to take a step back and reflect.
As already argued in PART I humans are inhabiting and being a part of an ecosystem. A thing humanity tends to forget during our short existence as we often separate ourselves from nature. In this ecosystems the humans are sharing with and being the house of, among others, many viruses. We, regardless of which “we”, come in constant contact with these microscopic creatures and everyone will have a few viruses kicking around in their system at any time. A big load is needed to get us sick and in the meanwhile, a whole play of chemical reactions is fired as an entrance fee, setting the immune system on.
There are 2.1 billions mentions of the current coronavirus and yet, there is no substantial discussion regarding the immune system. At least not in the mainstream media. When suddenly we feel so much tampered and taken seriously, still nothing is said about the responsibilities of our health. Maybe because it is a common responsibility? Maybe because this discussion would point many fingers, more than we can have and handle, to people on the podium of this theatre of the absurd. We suddenly seem to have been thrown helplessly to this planet, we have survived out of a miracle until now that we have to stay home to escape the virus. And it makes sense actually, when in the meantime, we simply listen like a kid or a retarded adult to the “loving” words flowing to us that overwrites any criticism tendency.
WHO and CDC have insisted that the only way to “save lives” is by preventing disease and not treating the host. Such a myopic, tunnel vision will continue costing thousands of lives in the long run like in the past. An immune system is shaped by the lifestyle, the quality of the water we drink, the air we breath, the food we eat and the chemicals we put into our systems. A host is responsible to take care of it making the healthiest choices. But this availability of any healthy choices leads also back to the given options. And behind these options stand lawyers, politicians, leaders, multinationals, big Pharmas, lobbies, etc. If the essence of an immune system is in the front line of defence against any virus, this should have been already the case accordingly in the frontline of the media, politics, health system, etc before any pandemic ever stroke.
When the food is a medicine the food sector where additives, pesticides, antibiotic, hormones are main ingredients would have to disappear. Large industry units who litter the sea and the air would slowly decrease in numbers when forced to face the consequences. A rat-race life promoted all the way from the commercials up to your university and your employer would change with time.
Again, all these if the immune system and really the health of the people was a priority. But does this occur? It can be assumed, that such an approach would definitely tackle problems of the basic conditions of life that impair the immune system but also would entail an immense change in the default order. It would put a lock on various giant businesses and even more importantly could demolish complete regimes. So, it doesn’t occur.
Cause imagine people, a step back before this utopia. There will be the ones -shh…they are here already- who easily accept and prefer a complete lockdown to, let’s say, the ban of their favourite cigarette brand. Not daring to mention a limited consumption of cigarettes for each. I can assume that this would then be categorised as a policing that has nothing to do with actual citizen responsibility and where the state itself does not trust the citizens. The candy of “individual responsibility speech” would suddenly appear. However the very same mentality is now rotting and banned during quarantine times. Interesting world, isn’t it?
So, yes it makes no sense to focus on boosting the host now. Especially when that information would have to come from the same source, the same parent it is schooling humanity differently for some time. On all screens.
So for now we stick to this scheme and mindset, in which the number of vulnerable people is consequently rising, which in turn is dying from the new virus and which keeps the numbers moving, which in turn is driving the tactics.
Since you are still here and keep reading, in this present media however I will keep insisting to the protagonists role of the host as I regard another major thing that this “caring and proactive system” would focus on. Guess which one? A health care system. Yes, flabbergasted. Who would have thought?
Photo by Valia Gkeredaki 
Photo by Valia Gkeredaki
While the media is conditioning people to demand to be vaccinated, neither the topic of the maintenance of a good host nor the fundamental care of the diseased ones is looked upon.
I think by now even the kids in kindergarten know the curve and have evolved the desire to flatten it. And while the curve takes all the light, the bar blurs in the background. Therefore, no one has the desire to raise it and of course ΝΟΤ to wonder why it is so low in most countries around the world.
Throughout the last years, states had been cutting back on funding of anything that doesn’t benefit private power and wealth, leaving, besides a raped educational system, and a health care system lacking anything close to the number of hospital beds, ventilators and personal protective equipment that we need. As everything obviously runs on a business model, spare capacity with the forethought it brings was out of the question. In some countries, the number of hospitals has still to be minimised. The backing idea is less hospitals, better quality. It is in small letter that the patient is regarded as potential profit. Never is it the case of a more social finding, better quality of humans. Thus we find ourselves with overloaded hospitals, overworked personnel while highly knowledgeable people are staying unemployed and immigrating to other countries. Clapping every day at 20:00 does not solve the problem.
Well, the brain needs its fix now with so much talking. And it might come sooner than later.
Talking about the drug companies which, following the normal capitalistic logic, do their best to result to a vaccine. And take care of the world. However, here is where another bar appears, because the antibiotics have been already evaluated as not profitable enough by them, abandoning the development of new ones.
Going on a ride with the time machine, Bush revealed the creation of Project BioShield after the anthrax and other terrorist attacks of 2001. This project comprised an authorised emergency: fast track provisions for the release of treatments—drugs and vaccines— still waiting for approval by the FDA in the event of an emergency. The claimed mentality was to create a partnership between the government and private corporations by rapidly developing effective medical drugs and vaccines to protect the United States from deliberate, accidental, and natural incidents involving biological pathogens. The followed PREP Act providing complete immunity from liability for any loss relating to or resulting from, any product used to prevent or treat illness during a public health emergency. Laws launched “legally”, to protect the Pharmaceuticals from their deliberate, accidental, and natural actions.
So…it is already long ago that the new ethics arose. The new ethics of giving an unprecedented immunity for drug companies for emergency products. The minimisation of possible harm is completely erased. Somehow contradicting to the Nurnberg code, no?
That is the thing to do when the new ethic is the dollar bill. And let’s acknowledge it, 7 billions of vaccines is a huge money-maker.
These ethic games are also played by those who talk about global health and then put their money in the pharmaceutical industry to get vaccines and save and earn new money. You might be thinking of big tech giants now. Excuse me, they are attributed as philanthropists. Interestingly, the etymology of the word philanthropist leads to a person being the friend of the human kind. In this word there seems no space for financial relations though.
Of course an improved immune system and health care system, as such, will not destroy the existence of the virus and do not get me wrong, measures to each situation do have to be taken in the times of pandemics.
But my main concern here is why there is no approach by taking a step back to see how things actually ended up in these extreme world quarantine times. Every now has a history and history can only teach, as pandemics will happen again. Contrarily, it seems at the moment that any tendency to shift the discussion to topics like boosting the immune system (with the responsibilities and their discomfort it brings along) and stopping the defunding of health-related elements by the government seems to bump to the Stockholm syndrome of society. Extreme measures to protect the vulnerable people are self-evident while the idea of caring so that these groups are not created in the first place, seems extraterrestrial.
So the production of the vulnerable groups must go on.
The words the world hears are often emotional talk, tampering, while the critical thinking is being blocked. The media is explicitly promoting specific future proceedings and silencing others, navigating the future quoting and allowing big tech guys, while pharmas are being set free from any responsibilities. And all this for the sake of health. And when everything is focused and depends on the vaccine, does the individual opinion and consent evaporate? What seems to me a sane, logical, and an ethical remedy and path keeps being ignored. Suddenly they care and I should trust them blindly as if we were two old friends getting together.
Seems like a business model running in the background that does not want to be interrupted. A business model in which parties have been taking advantage and profiting from this unprecedented situation. I am wondering in which business model we are shifting now? Right now when the world seems willing to accept major constitutional restrictions without a dialogue. But didn’t the world actually arrive here after a chain of blind acceptance?
And somehow like this, a further number of divisions can be observed again, of who is in it, behind it, ahead of it. Ηow you react or take advantage of the new situation deepening who you are. Actions, are re-creating thus who you are. Vicious circle, dear reader.
