There follows a guest post by Lockdown Sceptics’ regular Guy de la Bédoyère.
Just when you thought the Covid madness couldn’t take any more twists, here comes another one but you’d better brace yourself. The BBC’s Science Correspondent James Gallagher has a startling revelation that the common cold (the rhinovirus) can suppress COVID-19 because it’s so tough the SARS-CoV-2 virus gets pushed out of the way to make room for it. The news comes from the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Here’s the summary:
Human rhinovirus triggers an innate immune response that blocks SARS-CoV-2 replication within the human respiratory epithelium. Given the high prevalence of human rhinovirus, this interference effect might cause a population-wide reduction in the number of new COVID-19 infections.
From a host’s perspective, HRV [Human Rhinovirus] infections, which are usually associated with mild disease, stimulate an antiviral response that prevents infections by more severe (and sometimes lethal) viruses such as SARS-CoV-2.
Fancy that? So, by suppressing COVID-19 we might have successfully suppressed the very virus that might have helped protect against it. Brilliant. Not only that, but also by suppressing all these viruses it’s apparently become far harder to work out where SARS-CoV-2 virus sits in the ruthless world of virus hierarchies. That’s why it’s taken so long for this revelation to emerge.
If that sounds like modest good news, forget it. Thanks to suppressing everything else, natural immunity to those normal diseases has plunged so the ‘experts’ are already lining up to warn of an apocalyptic consequence. We’re all going to get ill from diseases that might usually have not been so bad.
James Gallagher continues:
Dr Susan Hopkins, from Public Health England has already warned of a “hard winter” ahead as a result.
“We could see surges in flu. We could see surges in other respiratory viruses and other respiratory pathogens,” she said.
Spiffing. As Basil Fawlty once said.
I can see the headlines already: “Britain Clocks Cold Lockdown after Covid Cock-up.”
Forgive me for being so arrogant as to express something approaching a scientific opinion, but doesn’t this illustrate perfectly the stupidity of operating overwhelming knee-jerk reactions against a single threat without considering the consequences? Hasn’t that been the hallmark of this crisis from Day One?
Perhaps some of the expert epidemiologists who have ruled our lives for the last year could dust off their Physics GCSEs and read Newton’s Laws of Motion, particularly the third one: every force has an equal and opposite reaction. I’m sure that could be usefully reworked into the study of controlling infectious diseases.
At the heart of this seems to be the hubristic belief that we can control nature because we’re so clever. That we might already be immersed in an immensely complex web of virus interactions does not seem to have occurred to some of the experts so routinely wheeled out to pronounce on how we should live our lives. Nor does the ingenious ‘modelling’ seem to have taken any of this into account either.
It all reminds me of the line from Spinal Tap when David St Hubbins says, “There’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”
Maybe the piece in the Journal of Infectious Diseases has got it all wrong. But somehow the article has the ominous ring of truth, and an obvious one at that, about it.
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Except, it’s just more wives’ tales care of the Ministry of Truth to cause greater confusion. “Covid-19”, with its r-numbers, and capacity to spread, is a fraud. Covid-19 – the real stuff, aka the so rare its thought to be dead SARS – probably involves already resident pathogen reacting to new conditions in the health terrain (i.e. increased levels of ACE2).
Covid-19 Is Not Flu
Far Easern countries do not use ACE inhibitors which increase the levels of ACE2. One of the main reasons they did not suffer from this ‘illness’ in anything like the amount of western countries ploughing ACE inhibitors and Statins into anything that moves.
If there is a hierarchy of virus’s then maybe a lot of the time corona virus can out compete flu. This could mean that in East Asia corona virus was the main form of respiratory disease, meaning that there was a very high level of immunity and countries in the region have very low death rates. On the other hand if until last year flu was dominant in Europe and the America’s we would have had much lower immunity to Covid, which being a new type of virus manged to out compete flu, and hence a higher death rate. If this is true then it could mean that Covid will continue to be dominant form of respiratory disease, at least until a new type of flu evolves which could be this year or could be in 20+ years time. This would mean that claims about a hard winter next year are likely to be wrong, and there may be a small uptick in Covid cases but no excess deaths as most of the population will have been vaccinated and/or have natural immunity.
Interesting hypothesis, but it wouldn’t it be reasonably easy to check by checking how many Covid hospital patients were on ACE inhibitors or statins, relative to the average member of their age cohort?
Incidentally isn’t the far lower usage of ACE inhibitors in East Asia closely correlated with the lack of obesity there?
“the common cold (the rhinovirus) can suppress COVID-19″
actually covid-19 is a common cold.
“The common cold is an infection of the upper respiratory tract which can be caused by many different viruses. The most commonly implicated is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes.[30] Other commonly implicated viruses include human coronaviruses (≈ 15%),[31][32] influenza viruses (10–15%),[33][34][35] adenoviruses (5%),[33] human respiratory syncytial virus (orthopneumovirus), enteroviruses other than rhinoviruses, human parainfluenza viruses, and human metapneumovirus.[36] Frequently more than one virus is present.[37] In total, more than 200 viral types are associated with colds.[4]”
nasty for the frail, harmless for most – like all colds
Spot on. Whilst many ‘common colds’ are caused by rhinoviruses, some of them – maybe a third or so of them – are actually caused by coronaviruses, such as OCE43, or HKU-1 and a few more. I think the records associated with this are a bit sketchy, as it’s never been the norm to report them, or even to take time off sick on account of them (probably not popular now!). It could be that there is a degree of cross-immunity (As Alex B says) after having dealt with some of them, against the SARs-Cov-2 one, but the available documentation about this is also sketchy.
In effect, Covid-19 is yet another coronavirus caused infection in us. They have never tried to classify all the different ‘common colds’ in the same fashion, just one generic name. Not sure how well known it is, but the term ‘coronavirus’ was actually invented by the Common Cold Unit in Salisbury (UK) in 1966/67, on account if it’s imagery under electron microscopy.
Some virologists have suggested that the “Russian flu” pandemic of 1889-1891 was actually caused by the OC43 coronavirus, which had just crossed over to humans at the time.
Cor blimey where have these guys been for 13 months! This sort of thing was discussed ( and agreed by experienced virologists) back then. Bit late now putting heads above the parapet after all those lovely injections have gone in.
Cross immunity from the ‘common cold’ was being discussed months ago, I think even Michael Levitt touched upon it due to the fact that many people seemed to already possess immunity to SARS-COV-2.
Back then I even suggested to my partner, partly in jest, that they should just give everyone a dose of the cold!
And then there’s this from the CDC. It does seem like Covid19 IS last seasons flu rebranded for maximum panic. Further the argument about mutations becoming more virulent is not supported by science.
And due to the lack of contact over the last year (a) our immune systems are shot and (b) we can’t catch colds which would save us.
And isn’t it exactly what sunetra Gupta said way back. We need to mix with each other to keep our immune systems in good order.
Which news the BBC announced to an astonished world two months ago when starting to discuss care homes resuming family visits for residents whose
‘immune systems may have been compromised by being kept in social isolation for up to twelve months’.
Yet the only way to protect your self is with experimental vaccines.
Obviously not.
Strong immune system in any healthy under 60yr old will handle covid with ease.
I had a cold the week before last. It somehow felt good having it haha.
There are also therapeutic measures for people who have covid. So many answers and more to come.
END LOCKDOWN NOW! Get some Societal immunity in between now and Autumn when it will kick off.
This is exactly what the two Kern County doctors warned of last summer, in their press conference which was subsequently banned.
This is an interesting article to read this morning since one week before I took a vaccine, I got a wonderful head cold. I say wonderful because it made me feel normal. I was glad to have sniffles and sneezing, especially those 12 in a row body blows that incapacitate you for minutes till they are finished. I wondered what effect the cold might have and still do in light of taking the vaccine so soon after it all subsided.
Good to see this kind of data coming out
Sadly it’s only after a year of restricted immune exposure that the importance of it will be clear
Perhaps that’s even behind the ‘3rd wave’ in some European centres?
Except rhinovirus levels have not been suppressed. They’re normal.
Er, not an expert, but my reading of this is that the flu creates an immunity to Covid19. the opposite of what cash-for-comment experts and vaccine proponents have denied all along.
Also proves that Covid19 isn’t a “novel” coronavirus.