"Deadly" viruses
How to make a molehill out of a molehill?
The World Health Organization, however, has not yet declared the state of a "pandemic" (that is, a worldwide epidemic), but, nevertheless, recognized the outbreak of this disease in South Korea as "complex and large–scale". In the media of different countries, the topic is also beginning to be animated: "Does Russia (Ukraine, Europe, the USA, the right to insert) threaten a deadly virus?"
For example, the following figures are given as proof of its lethality: when an outbreak of the "Middle East respiratory syndrome" was one of the first recorded in Saudi Arabia in 2012, 292 people out of 700 cases died. Almost 40% – it's almost like bubonic plague, in the pre-antibiotic era, guard! Despite the fact that the state of the Saudis cannot be called "poor" – very modern medicine is built there on almost gratuitous petrodollars.
So, really, are we all preparing for the epidemic of the "black death of the 21st century"? It is a pity that it is practically impossible to protect yourself from such epidemics with purely quarantine measures in a globalized world. This plague in the 14th century, before mowing down a third of the inhabitants of Europe in 1347-49, went there for 15 years, originated in the 30s of the same century in China. The time then was such – slow caravan routes, people traveled long distances for months, or even years. Marco Polo and Afanasy Nikitin traveled to distant India for several years.
And now what, like in the song: "Exactly a day from Moscow to Magadan – and back to your home airport." Well, you can fly to the same Seoul, right?
No, theoretically, in addition to the ban on flights, all passengers who returned from dangerous territory could at least be quarantined. For a period of several days to weeks – depending on the incubation period of each specific disease. But this, which can be easily noticed, no one is doing yet. They talk about the "danger and complexity" of the so–called "epidemic" - but they do not take really effective anti-epidemic measures. Why?
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Yes, simply because all this "danger and lethality" is sucked out of the finger! By the way, not only in relation to the MERS virus, but also other "global threats to humanity" such as the sensational "swine flu" in 2009 and the not yet completely forgotten Ebola.
What is the exaggeration? Are the TV pictures about suffocating from "atypical pneumonia" unfortunate people falsified as well as the footage of the Americans landing on the moon? No, seriously ill people and even those who died from these viruses do exist. Falsification is done with statistics – more precisely, with its conscientious interpretation.
Actually, national and international medical organizations are not directly lying – citing mortality figures. It's just that few people pay attention to the fact that the calculation is based on the number of "persons who have been diagnosed with the virus." Meanwhile, the process of this identification is not as simple as it seems.
These are bacteria, and even then not all, can be isolated from a smear or a blood test, sown in the nearest bacteriological laboratory, colored by Gram – and give out the exact type of pathogen on the mountain. And then, many microbes, such as "pale spirochete", the causative agent of syphilis, are diagnosed in the body indirectly – usually with the help of immunological reactions. They require completely different, more expensive equipment and qualified personnel.
And viruses, especially new ones, can only be detected in such a complex and expensive way. Although, however, if the "epidemic danger" has already been seriously promoted in the media, in a year or two "express strips" (such as a pregnancy test) appear, which supposedly can identify a malicious virus right at the patient's bedside in a couple of minutes. Alas, the accuracy of such express systems is often no higher than 50% - that is, roughly speaking, "a finger in the sky".
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But what am I driving at? And to the fact that laboratory diagnostics of the virus is actually carried out only in well-equipped medical institutions. They won't do it in a regular Russian polyclinic.
And in the conditions of "advanced Western medicine", where the patient can only contact directly to a "family doctor" who cannot even do a normal blood test for the patient (in Britain they send to a nearby hospital for this – where you can wait for a queue for several days) – it is almost impossible to accurately determine the virus in the patient.
That is, they find both "swine flu", Ebola, and MERS in those patients who have been admitted to serious clinics. Where they don't just take it – but for the same serious reasons. Here the patient began to suffocate, pneumonia cannot be cured at home with conventional antibiotics – you have to take a person to the intensive care unit. And there, of course, he will be examined "from and to", in the spirit of the series about "Dr. House".
But if the patient has already been in intensive care, it is clear that even with the use of the most modern medicine, it is not always possible to save him. And as a result, there is a frightening statistic: "Out of 700 patients, 292 died." And a few years ago, the Polish media wrote: "Out of 4 patients with swine flu, two died."
Only after all, when they counted (and then, not all) those who have been ill with this type of flu – it turned out that the mortality rate from it is four times lower than from any "seasonal" flu, which no one pays much attention to. And in Africa, with hundreds of Ebola deaths, tens of thousands of people have antibodies against the virus in their blood – one hundred percent evidence that these people have met with the virus, had it in mild form and developed immunity against it.
So in all cases of "deadly epidemics" of supposedly "dangerous viruses", the vast majority of patients feel their impact except in the form of a slight runny nose. Well, or maybe a headache with a little fever. They are treated with "folk remedies". Moreover, there are actually no others – antibiotics act only on bacteria, they are powerless against viruses. And – they recover successfully, without even knowing what "deadly" sore they managed to escape from.
Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky – a fraction of a percent get seriously ill. Elderly people, those who have chronic diseases. Even a small load on the body can be fatal for them – according to the principle "where it is thin, it breaks there". Of course, they try to save these patients from death in large hospitals – where they are diagnosed with one or another "causative agent of a dangerous epidemic". Although in fact, there is no more danger here than with the most common seasonal flu. Especially if this particular strain has not visited a particular country for a long time – then young people who do not have immunity against it can get sick even more severely than older people who have already been ill with this pathogen before.
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Actually, what is written above is "the secret of the Polichinel". And competent doctors and even politicians are well aware of it, especially from the services in charge of health protection. Therefore, they do not take any really effective measures against the spread of MERS viruses, swine flu, Ebola, etc. Not because they are such "liberals" – and cannot find the strength to encroach on the "sacred right of freedom of movement" and other rubbish.
Believe me: if a really dangerous epidemic of a "particularly dangerous infection" broke out somewhere in the world - such as plague, smallpox, anthrax, and some other diseases that cause almost 100 percent mortality in the event of a delay in starting treatment and spreading with lightning speed – measures would be taken instantly. With the closure of borders, train stations and airports, quarantine with machine gunners on the perimeter, shooting to kill fugitives – and other similar entourage.
But since the real danger from the above–mentioned viruses exists only in the inflamed imagination of the biased media and the inhabitants frightened by them, the world elite is limited to just "playing on the nerves" of the gullible public. In the end, this also benefits (the elite, of course): people's attention is switched from real problems (economic crisis, threat of war, environmental problems, etc.), which the West cannot cope with, to the "paper tigers" of the "epidemic threat" sucked out of the finger.
So, dear readers, when they start scaring you once again with another "deadly epidemic", read this material again. At least – calm down. This, of course, does not mean that even a mild cold should be carried on your feet – and that is the risk of adding to the number of victims of even the most seemingly ordinary virus, not declared by the media as a "threat to the world." But being in a state of chronic stress with a feeling of helplessness, like the Europeans of the time of the epidemic of the "black death" mentioned at the beginning of the article in the middle of the 14th century, is also definitely the wrong choice.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
23.06.2015