A STATE OF WARBy E.P. Unum

A STATE OF WAR By E.P. Unum

February 21, 2021

           No sane person relishes the thought of War. War is the greatest scourge of mankind and anyone who has been to war will tell you that. But make no mistake, America is at war today. The guns are silent in this conflict but our nation has been paralyzed by fear from largely an unknown and invisible invader known as COVID-19. It was unleashed on the world by China who seized upon an opportunity to launch a virus manufactured in a lab in Wuhan, China, and that virus, is a weapon of mass destruction equally as potent as any cyber or nuclear attack. We were caught asleep at the wheel as were 188 countries around the world. We have responded with typical American resilience, tenacity, dedication, ingenuity, and resolve. But what if it happens again? Do we have the stamina, the will to achieve victory?

The other day while picking up a prescription from my pharmacy, I asked a very bright pharmacist how he would re-open America. Well, I wish I had a camcorder to record his emotional, justified tirade. “John, I just don’t have the facts, and it seems that neither does anyone else. I turn to one source for information and they say one thing. I turn to another and they say something different. There are the “openers” and there are the “status quo” advocates looking at the same available information like economists and coming up with different conclusions. People are increasingly afraid – big time – and no one seems to be able to explain the true story to them because they are confused themselves. I’m frustrated as hell and give up on trying to figure things out. Frequently, the patients ask me for my opinion and I feel like I let them down for I have none.”

 

 So, this essay is an attempt to help clarify what is the broader message of the Wuhan Virus and, in addition, suggestions on how to begin to open America, alleviate fear and focus attention on the things we can do to address this crisis. But first, we need to set the record straight and cite some incontrovertible facts:                                   

 

THE TRUE UNTOLD COVID-19 STORY

 

This relatively benign virus, as far viruses can go, arrived like a thief in the night, and all we had as a defense against it were questionably effective masks, gloves, social distancing, and ventilators for when patients were in crisis.  Our nation’s military has satellite imagery capable of viewing a gnat on the ass of an elephant from hundreds of miles in space, sophisticated radar able to track missiles and aircraft, but none of these modern military technologies were capable of identifying this invader! And, puzzlingly, few asked why we had no other weapons. But, more importantly, we have been lulled into incorrectly believing that a vaccine is the solution to this national continuing catastrophe. It is not! Not by a long shot. Let me explain.

 

There are few vaccines that are totally effective against viruses and bacteria. Regarding viruses, to develop a single vaccine – to my knowledge, no one has proposed administering two different types of vaccines together – requires an enormous effort, time and costs. Even if successful, it won’t be 100% effective as well as not lasting a lifetime. That is the nature of vaccines. Just think about the flu vaccine…people still get the flu and die from the flu…and we have a vaccine for it!

Succinctly put, the Wuhan Virus will not disappear but become dormant and will remain with us. That is a clinical fact. The vaccines that have been developed and are now being distributed to the public are not vaccines. They have not undergone rigorous human clinical trials. They are biological agents. There is a profound difference between biological agents and vaccines. More importantly, you should know that when you receive the agent you are required to indemnify the company and the government from any claims should something go wrong. You are bearing great risk. Equally, you should know that being injected with this agent will not prevent you from spreading the virus.

 

So, we now have two and possibly three injectable agents available to the public. The next task is how we go about insuring everyone in America receives the injection? The hard-nosed answer is we cannot. 

There are people who will refuse the vaccine based on the fact that they feel it cannot be safe and because democrats and their media twits will say “Trump forced this into the market too fast.” Then there are those who will refuse vaccination for themselves and their children because they read someplace that vaccines cause autism. I have no doubt the machinery is in place to effectively distribute the vaccine but getting people to accept it is entirely a different subject. 

Now, if you think giving Governors' and Mayors' power over people in their states and cities works think about this: How about new rules which say restaurants cannot serve patrons who have not been vaccinated! So, all of a sudden you will need a card from a physician or clinic indicating you have been vaccinated in order to go out to eat. What about school? Can you imagine children being turned away from school because they have not had the magical Wuhan injection? What about travel and vacations? How long will it be before rules are enacted that prohibit people from flying to other states, staying in hotels, etc without proof of receiving the Wuhan Injection? 

The list is endless and puts power into the hands of the wrong people who have demonstrated time and time again that they do not have a clue about leadership and that they are woefully inept during this crisis. I give you Andrew Cuomo Governor of New York, Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey, and Gavin Newsom of California. Frankly, I wouldn’t put these bozos in charge of cleaning horse dung from stables.

Now, just imagine if another different coronavirus is “accidentally” released into our country. I am not trying to create unnecessary fear but such an occurrence is not very difficult to imagine and must be viewed as likely to happen. When and if that happens, the entire lengthy vaccine process must begin anew with virtually zero probability of success for the total eradication of the infection. These are just the facts and Anthony Fauci, MD, the new Hollywood darling of TV and the people at the NIH and CDC know it full well.

 

WHAT CAN BE DONE

 Modern inexpensive, relatively easy to perform technology such as CRISP and gain-in-action experiments make it possible to create new, highly infectious, and lethal microorganisms even in a hidden small rogue controlled laboratory. For example, the bacterium which causes the bubonic plague that historically has killed multimillions of people and changed the course of history is still with us. Fortunately, current antibiotics are effective clinical treatments against this lethal bug. But with modern bioengineering technology, however, the genome may be modified to make it resistant to such antibiotics.

The unequivocal message of THE Wuhan Virus is that biological warfare, in addition to conventional, nuclear, and cyberspace warfare, has arrived, and we are woefully unprepared to fight potential enemy microorganisms, a daunting challenge to any President regardless of political party or affiliation. Yes, we have the Biological Weapons Convention which prohibits the creation of lethal microorganisms and the dismantling of existing ones, but it is generally ignored and also impossible to regulate or enforce.

 

Because of the power of our competitive, pervasive modern information-misinformation system, and a mainstream media who long ago scrapped the disciplines of journalistic integrity, the public and even our leaders have been lulled into believing that a Wuhan Injection is the answer to our problem. It clearly is not. Yes, we should continue to develop a vaccine but let’s not be fooled. What then, you ask is the answer?

 

It is to develop pharmaceuticals or drugs like penicillin and insulin or biologicals which, for example, contain mixtures of immunological substances that will effectively treat and cure viral and bacterial infections.

Unlike vaccines which require thousands of patients and long periods of time for testing of efficacy and safety, treatment remedies can be rapidly and inexpensively clinically evaluated to determine their effectiveness in a small number of patients within months. But, of course, continued research and development of vaccines must also continue for there is the possibility of discovering treatment vaccines however remote and, also because the scientific knowledge gained is invaluable.

Equally, the use of cocktails including Hydroxyhloriquine, Zinc, and Azithomyacin have indeed proven effective as an initial treatment regimen early in the diagnosis of the Wuhan Virus, but a corrupt media, in an ongoing effort to demean President Trump spread falsehoods and misinformation about this simple remedy.

 

Though treatment therapies are clearly the answer, this solution is generally ignored and decried by the media and, therefore the public is generally unaware of it. For example, physician and former Commissioner of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal emphasizing that treatment therapies such as pharmaceuticals or drugs are the best answer. To date, however, I have seen no media follow-up on this critical message which is a message unto itself regarding our information system and understanding what we are dealing with. Fortunately, I do know that President Trump and the NIH have authorized ongoing research into therapeutics but that one salient fact is largely unknown because the media hasn’t publicized it.

 

RESEARCH-WHERE ARE WE

 That brings us to the next question of what exactly is going on with research?

 

Well, that’s difficult to precisely answer for we, with certain exceptions regarding controversial drugs, are inundated by information solely regarding vaccines. But the good news is that expanding technology such as Artificial Intelligence coupled with our superb men and women scientists and research-oriented medical doctors are now in full gear.

Stephen DeFelice, MD, a close friend, and colleague, is now retired from a lifetime of medical research which included a time at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr. DeFelice, among many other things, introduced a drug into the United States that saved the lives of thousands of children and adults with mitochondrial myopathy, a devastating often fatal condition in children and adults. Steve has been heavily involved with medical discovery and clinical research for over half a century. He tells me that our capacity to discover new therapies is now breathtaking and he would not be surprised if some major medical breakthrough of some type comes soon. 

It’s marvelous to observe how our private pharmaceutical and biotech industries have, with never before experienced speed, teamed-up together with the government to meet the Wuhan challenge, orchestrated by the swift action and leadership of President Trump. For example, because of growing antibiotic resistance and increasing deaths due to septicemia, particularly in the hospitalized elderly, private pharmaceutical companies have teamed up in a novel type of joint venture to conquer these stubborn superbugs, the discoveries of which can be applied to bacterial warfare.

Regarding research, efforts on pharmaceuticals and biologicals, though with surprising little media coverage, continues unabated, a very good thing for America.

 

Now the gripping question is what do we do in the meantime?

 

WHY AND HOW TO OPEN AMERICA

Thanks to a corrupt and undisciplined media and ineffective leadership of Congress, our country is in a phase of turmoil, fear, and social unrest, much of it fueled by the Wuhan threat, but a great deal of it driven by well- funded Marxist and Communist groups who have seized upon the upheavals in our society to throw gasoline on the fire. And, if truth be told, much of this is encouraged by liberal/ progressive democrats who want to use this and any other means at their disposal to denigrate Trump and keep him out of the political arena in 2024. They simply fear him because they know he has been right. 

In this climate of hate and fruitless division, our domestic and international adversaries, and they are more than a few beginning with China, are observing how this relatively benign virus is paralyzing our country and wondering about how an “accidental release” of another coronavirus or other type would play out. Make no mistake about it, we are at war with this virus, and need a battle plan to defeat it. That plan should also be helpful in responding to future microorganism attacks.

  

A DECLARATION OF WAR

The first step is for Congress to declare war on this virus; to justifiably label the Wuhan bug as an enemy of war similar to those of World War II where lives were both risked and lost in order to defeat the enemy. The famous Prussian general, Carl von Clausewitz, wrote, “War is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.”

Is there any doubt that COVID-19 is forcing us to bend to its will? It has permeated every aspect of American life from economic stability to children confined to their homes instead of school. A long- time friend and colleague of mine, whose career has been exclusively dedicated to helping parents of children with disabilities and disease, told me how this virus is depriving children with disabilities and special health care needs, such as children with autism, of receiving critical therapies as well as causing familial turmoil among their parents and siblings. This exists for other conditions as well such as cerebral palsy, neuromuscular disorders, epilepsy, Tourettes, etc.

In America, that cannot continue. There are 6.0 million families in America caring for children with disabilities and special health care needs….conditions that medicine cannot cure. We cannot abandon them. Now, I do not hold out much hope for Congress to take such action but if they do not, the President should clearly call for it and act as if we are indeed at war. And, as General Douglas MacArthur so ably reminded us, in war there can be no substitute for victory.

 

CONCLUSION

The logical and compelling conclusion is to immediately have a strategy to re-open our country. And, to do so resolutely and with purpose. So let us take stock in what we have learned over this past year: What we have learned in dealing with the Wuhan scourge is that we have developed excellent treatment regimens and therapeutics to deal with serious cases of the infection so that a relatively minuscule number of people actually die from the disease. Indeed, we now know that only .003 of our population actually dies from this infection. We also know that the vast majority of serious level infections occur in the elderly, so we should be able to focus our attention on that segment of our population. And we must remember that the vast majority of people who do contract the infection recover quickly and completely.

That needs to be driven home often and with conviction because it is true. Two close personal friends, husband and wife, ages 77 and 78 were hospitalized in New Jersey back in February 2020 with COVID 19. They were in serious condition and on ventilators. They were treated with a cocktail of Hydroxychloriquie, AZT, and Zinc and recovered completely in one week’s time. Both are doing fine today.

 

Currently, there are two major paths regarding a national strategy:

(1) stay the course and continue our retreat until an unequivocal effective therapy is discovered, or,

(2) boldly move forward with the opening.

Regarding the latter, we need to stop the media’s attention to the rising level of those testing positive for the Wuhan virus because, in many respects, the testing we are doing is extremely sensitive and picks up traces of bacteria that are actually dormant and have little consequence in terms of manifesting serious illness. The likelihood that the infection will cause sickness in non-elderly patients with no co-morbidities is remote. We must stop the fear-mongering and dwelling on the number of deaths 24/7 because it has now been established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that only 6% of the recorded deaths actually were due from COVID-19 as opposed to dying with COVID-19. 

There is a huge difference in these terms! It is a major distinction. President Franklin D. Roosevelt calmly and directly in his famous “Fireside Chats”, told a nation in the depths of the depression that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. His words seem fitting today. We must stop seeing shadows, and put aside our fear, and get on with living our lives. We are not facing an existential threat to our existence. Stop worrying about dying and start enjoying living.

 

Our schools need to open and our teachers need to get back into the classroom because it is safe to do so, and because they owe it to those young girls and boys to provide them the best education possible. That is why they became teachers in the first place. 

Honor your commitment to education; it takes priority over your membership in a union. Again the preoccupation with the number of cases is essentially irrelevant. There is more harm to our population in terms of depression, anxiety, fear, drug addiction, and an inability to put food on the table and care for those in need by keeping our schools closed than by reopening. Ditto for small businesses, airlines, hotels, and restaurants.

 

Machiavelli wrote that “in threatening times people are highly receptive to trustworthy leaders and will, despite the real or potential spelled-out hardships, eagerly accept and follow their leadership.” Emmanuel Kant echoed this in his writings as well. 

President Trump demonstrated the skill, courage, and will to guide us through this crisis. The democrats would have you believe that his actions have been deficient but that is pure nonsense. He orchestrated a private sector/government partnership and quickly resolved the state deficiencies in PPE such as ventilators; ordered the retrofitting of two U.S. Navy Hospital Ships and deployed them in record time to New York and New Jersey and Los Angeles where they sat for over a month unused despite a 1,000-bed modern hospital/surgical rooms.

Trump used the Army Corps of Engineers to build massive 3,000-bed hospital facilities at the Javits Center in New York and Mosconi Center in San Francisco where they went essentially unused. He did the same in Central Park, NY. 

Trump launched a massive effort to conduct research into the development of a vaccine streamlining a process that typically takes 4-7 years before approval is given by the FDA to less than a year. And, at the same time, he authorized under “Operation Warp Speed” the simultaneous research into vaccines, biotherapeutics, and treatment regimens. All have yielded remarkable positive results. 

Had Trump not taken immediate action to restrict travel to the U.S. from China and Europe, we would have had millions dead.

 

But, if we are to be successful as a nation, the media needs to put aside its unproductive hatred of all things Trump, and start reducing fear, and emphasizing the courage of Americans. This is about our ability to survive and defeat an enemy, just as we did in World War II. It is time to show courage.

 

Speaking of courage, it was wise old Aristotle who rated courage as the highest virtue because of its quality to overcome fear in order to achieve goals and objectives and to help others. And it was his student, Alexander the Great, when asked what was one of the greatest qualities of his leadership answered, “Do not hesitate in times of crises.”

 

The time for bickering and posturing is over. We are at war. Act accordingly. 

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