PROTECTING YOUR LUNGS DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW

We have a hard time believing in the scourge
When it falls onto our heads.
Albert Camus – The Plague

We live in a health emergency situation. This is unprecedented. An invisible being threatens humanity. It threatens our respiratory tract.

The five continents are now on lockdown. Every day, we hear new statistics. After China, now Europe and more recently America are in the eye of the storm. Assumedly, soon Africa also will be…  “Biological war”, in the figurative sense, has become reality.

It does (or should) make us question the shape in which modern science is with regard to its capacity to achieve disease prevention. Where does globalization lead us? Will it transform us into a suffering brotherhood, instead of fulfilling its promise of happiness? Is the breath of life about to die?

Will our planet stop spinning? Where can we find a little bit of optimism?

We need to know, to understand. Healthcare workers are body and soul devoted to patients. They risk their lives like soldiers in combat. They die for the health of all: physicians, PAs, nurses, medical care-takers, as well as all the administrative staff in private practices, private and public hospitals.

Specialists, as usual, disagree. Politicians, always thinking of their political future, argue in public while now is not the time.

Some information labelled “fake news” on Monday will be called “truth” on Wednesday! Scientific journalists and mainstream press agencies compete for the first place in providing us with more contradictory and increasingly stressful information.

There is one single watchword: social distancing, isolation. Nothing else.

Conmen, hidden under fake names are coming up with solutions, provided you buy their miracle magazine and order a few supplements that will change nothing.

In such conditions, it is difficult to tell truth from lies, well-meaning from malicious information. But our braincells are meant just to sort this.

First coronaviruses were identified in birds in 1937. In 1946, hey were observed in bats, which are the natural reservoir for such viruses. They were found in humans after transmission by animals; by bats in 1965 and most recently by pangolins in 2019.

These large viruses are wreath-shaped and display a rough surface. In the case of Covid-19, a powerful RNA is surrounded by proteins on its outer layer. These proteins are called S (for “spike”), M, E and N. All of them, and especially S proteins, are capable of penetrating the cells of the respiratory system.

Transmission between different species is called “zoonosis” or “zoonotic infection”.

In us humans, these viruses have a respiratory tropism, i.e. they are attracted to the respiratory pathways. For this reason, we call it a pneumo-virus (pneumo is for lungs), affecting the upper or the lower zones or our respiratory system.

There was a first serious alert over Coronavirus in China in 2002-2003.

During this alert, coronavirus affected 8000 persons, 800 of whom (i.e. 10%) had died of extremely serious respiratory complications. This virus and disease were labelled ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) due to the Corona Virus, nowadays known as Covid-1.

According to Professor Olivier Schwartz, scientific director of Institut Pasteur in Paris, a vaccine was developed for this disease. Additionally, an invention declaration and a patent were filed for this vaccine in 2004. But it was too late. This candidate vaccine had no time to be tested on humans because by then, Asia had control over its epidemic.

Did research stop? What results on animals? A vaccine is a healthcare product that must first be tested on animal models. It was 16 years ago. But there was no emergency.

A few days ago, one colleague at Collège de France gave a conference on the following topic: “Covid-19, Chronic of a Predictable (Out) Break”. That makes me wonder: what have we been doing in the last 16 years?

Wouldn’t this vaccine candidate that is “using the measles platform” be useful against Covid-19? We now live in time of emergency.

Olivier Schwartz made sure to unpack conspiracy theories going around on the internet, which reveal deep-seated concerns. He stated that coronavirus is not a man-made virus.

He explained that lab P4 in Wuhan, China, was working on very dangerous viruses. Lab P4 is a Franco-Chinese site built in 2011. Its operations were launched in cooperation with France in February of 2017: “Ultra secure, it is embedded in the context of a French-Chinese contract [of cooperation] in the fields of disease prevention and of the fight against emerging infectious diseases. This contract was signed in Beijing on October 9th, 2004. It was placed under the authority of a French-Chinese pilot committee led by a Chinese director.” (https://twitter.com/MinSoliSante/status/1240239777925881856)

Second Coronavirus alert occurred in the Middle-East, in Saudi Arabia, in 2014.

It killed 35% of the 2500 affected persons. This virus was called Mers-Cov, and transmitted from bats to camels, and from camel’s raw milk to humans.

These two alerts didn’t suffice to teach useful lessons to China, nor to Europe, where the headquarters of the vaccine specialist Institut Pasteur are located, nor again – and this is even worse – to the WHO (World Health Organization).

The current disaster, Covid-19 or Cov-2, originates in China.

This virus is thousand times more contagious than the previous Cov. It is as dangerous to our respiratory tract.

A huge city like Wuhan, where live no less than 12 million people, and its province Hubei, 58.5 million inhabitants, were locked down late, but efficiently.

Everything started at the Wuhan’s animal market on December 8th, and the epidemic seems to have been contained on March 19, i.e. within 3.5 months.

According to Journalists from review Science et Vie, 60% of cases exported through China went unnoticed. Today, China refuses any entry into its territory because of the risks of a new outbreak among people that weren’t naturally immunized against this virus.

The virus could affect half of the world’s population. It could be responsible for flu-type respiratory complications in the upper respiratory tract. It could also affect the lower respiratory tract, which is associated with risks of severe pneumonia in 15% of cases.

The benign form of affection, called S, affects upper breathing passages in 30% of patients. The L form can affect 70% of patients who have much more severe complications.

The basic transmission rate of Covid-19 is like the one of the Spanish Flu (1918-19), i.e. about 2.3. This means one person can infect almost 3 people. Comparatively, for tuberculosis, this rate is 10, and for the measles, 12 to 18 people.
The incubation time in an individual is about 5 to 6 days, and the contagiousness goes as long as 4 to 7 days.

When affected with the severe form of Covid-19, individuals need to be hospitalized at least 4 days and up to 11 days.

If it is proven that this world epidemic stemmed from one single wild animal, we certainly hope that the Chinese dictatorship will forbid wild animal markets for good, on its whole territory.

China and Taïwan reacted first. In 2014-15, 37 people out of 23 million inhabitants had died of SRAS-Cov.

Located 200 km away from China, Taïwan does trust neither her large neighbor Popular Republic of China nor, and this is more serious – the WHO. For this reason, Taïwan took preventative measures very early on. To this day, the country officially detected less than 60 cases of Covid-19, with only one dead patient.

South Korea has 51.1 million inhabitants. The country also doesn’t trust the “popular republics” of China and North Korea. The country also efficiently anticipated and protected its population with the help of 250,000 tests, 8,000 cases were detected and only 75 deaths recorded.

Singapore has 5.6 million inhabitants. “On March 2020, 155 patients were reported as cured out of the 558 Covid-19 cases. [The country] mourns two deaths”.

Unfortunately, Europe and the WHO headquartered in Switzerland woke at the last moment. On March 11, 2020 we are facing an extremely serious PANDEMIC.

It is more devastating, in terms of number of deaths, than all these senseless wars waged across nations that keep spending astronomical amounts of money on military equipment.

Cause of the delay are the very divergent scientific opinions among hyperspecialized scientists (immunologists, virologists, infectious disease specialists, pneumologists, epidemiologists and public health specialists) who invaded TV platforms and made political leaders hesitate and delay political decisions, in France and all over Europe.

Viruses are infinitesimally small living organisms, ultra-microscopic. They are very useful to nature, especially in oceans. They need to penetrate the cell to feed from it and multiply.

Among about 4,000 species of virus, about a hundred are reported to be toxic to humans. Each of them has its tropism, i.e. is attracted to specific cell locations in the body.

For example, HIV/AIDS is a virus that destroys the immune system. HPV (Human Papillomavirus), attacks cervical cells and cells of the ENT zone (ears, nose and throat) in men and women. Polio enterovirus tackles the nervous system. Measles aim at skin cells, rubella (also called the German Measles) attack cells of the brain, and mumps the salivary glands and hormonal glands. The flu attacks upper respiratory pathways. Finally, Coronavirus attacks all respiratory pathways.

At respiratory level, coronaviruses invade the mucous cells that lines the whole the respiratory system, at the level of the nose, the trachea, bronchial tubes, bronchioles, all the way down to the 600 million air sacs (alveoli).

What is particularly dangerous is the possible rapid destruction of the alveolar capillary membrane. This could spread to no-longer-renewing air sacks, or even to the blood capillaries, which role consists in capturing the oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide.

This would be associated with storm-like release of inflammatory molecules, cytokines and chemokines, responsible for fever and generalized inflammation.

Naturally, antiviral medications were prescribed in affected patients, but specialists wonder if they didn’t actually heal by themselves, especially since Chinese studies concluded after testing that these treatments are inefficient.

The Chinese also recalled healed patients to use their plasma antibodies and give it to some of the most seriously affected patients. According to them, they saw quick improvements.

The proposal and the study on chloroquine accomplished by professor Didier Raoult, who was infamously called a “quack”, is very important. Still, it was downplayed by a few Paris-elite-centered physicians and by some self-proclaimed “scientific” journalists who called “fake news” the proposals of Marseille-located (but non-Parisian) physician.

It is the professor Zhong Nanshan, one of the most brilliant of his Chinese colleagues, who talked about chloroquine efficiency during a press conference on February 17^th.

Didier Raoult is a high-level university researcher, independent from political pressure or from the pharmaceutical industry. Based on his large research experience and first-hand knowledge of malaria treatments, he trusted his international colleagues’ publications in the field. He finally obtained the green light of the French FDA counterpart, ANSM (National authority for medication security) to test the efficiency of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of Covid-19.

His results are positive, as were results of Chinese researchers. “Six days after the intake of Plaquenil started, the virus had disappeared in three quarters of treated patients”. This specialist does not fear to explain his research to the wider public, eager to know and understand this disease.

Such treatment, whether it is associated or not with antibiotics, should be prescribed to patients at the earliest onset of respiratory distress. Obviously, it should be prescribed by specialists in order to avoid that patients not needing it suffer unpleasant side-effects. These include vision loss, nausea and vomiting or diarrhea, itching, headaches, and heart arrhythmia, which could be prevented with ECG monitoring before administration of a treatment.

Raoult knew he had to combine the treatments with antibiotics, Azothromycine, since respiratory pathway mucus could infect if not evacuated.

Neither the WHO nor the French High Authority of Health (HAS), the French National Authority for Medications Security (ANSM) nor the General Director for Health; no scientific committee has that competence. All are too far removed, to distant from the reality-loaded field of day-to-day of patient treatment, and consequently, none can give the most pertinent recommendation.

Let us trust Professor Raoult with accurately defining indications for such a treatment in cases the diagnosis is certain, and before worrisome signs respiratory distress appear.

Today, there is no doubt that social distance, confinement, and personal hygiene are vital. Our new border is the house door.

Until the generalization of testing, with results telling you within a few hours whether or not you are a healthy carrier of the virus, we all need to be aware of all the first signs of contamination by Covid-19.

Spotting the first signs of Covid-19

Now that the flu epidemic is almost finished, a few signs should make us consider and suspect a viral infection with Covid-19:

– An unusual headache (migraine).

– An abnormal low-grade fever (you would feel feverish). Here it is vital to be rigorous and to monitor the evolution of your temperature, mornings and evenings.

Professor André Lwoff, Nobel Prize for 1965, demonstrated this fact in the case of polio. Letting the temperature rise to 39°C or 102.2°F could kill the virus naturally, relying on our immune defenses. Dropping the temperature, for example with the help of fever-reducing medication, could actually help the virus develop further. Let us not forget that fever is a positive immune response.

For this reason, anti-fever medication should not be prescribed: neither ibuprofen (ever) nor acetaminophen or Tylenol, unless minimally to avoid that the temperature rise above 40.5°C or 104°F.

– A sore throat, with a repetitive and very tiring dry cough.

– New and persistent soreness.

– Sudden loss of taste and smell (common to people having the flu), which can already have occurred among the elderly. Let us remind our elder loved-ones that regular stimulation of their senses of taste and smell is essential, since the weakening of these senses are the first signs of neuro-degenerative diseases.

Friendly reminder: Mouth taste buds renew every 10 days, while olfactory cells require more time, i.e. approximately three months.

Test your breathing capacity:

– Every morning, breathe deeply and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds. If you finish this test successfully and without a cough, without discomfort, chocking or oppression, etc., it proves that you don’t have fibrosis (so you have good elasticity) in the lungs. Shortly, this means that you don’t have an infection.

– Count the number of your respiratory cycles per minute (you should normally have 12 to 20 per minute as an adult). Your left hand should follow the seconds on the watch, while your right hand lays on the chest. Count how many times the chest fills up while breathing in.  

– Regularly have a hot drink: coffee, tea, hot chocolate. The goal is not to kill the virus if it is already in your throat, but to help it go down to the esophagus and the stomach rather than keeping it in the throat. Through this passage, the stomach and the digestive tract will reduce the virus, which won’t travel through the respiratory pathways.

If you must go out grocery shopping or to work, protect yourself and protect others:

– Protect your face and others by wearing a professional mask you can change at least twice a day.

If you don’t have a mask, you can make one. You can use an old t-shirt, lay it down flat, cut the shirt below the arms line, that way separating the arms and collar from the rest. Keep only the tube-like part of the shirt to put on and fold up to wear doubled like a tight infinity scarf, rolled up twice around the neck. To wear as a mask, pull up this double-thickness onto your nose and mouth, and don’t forget to wash it every day at very high temperature (60°C or 140°F). To be safe, have two of such masks with you.

When you come back home, change and put your clothes outside in the sun, front and back, for an hour.

– Wear disposable gloves, that you will change twice a day.

– Wash your hands and wrists like a surgeon, at least 30 times a day, and don’t raise them to the mouth. In 80% of cases, transmission occurs through the hands.

First, you can replay our free webinar from of March 23^rd ( in French) from my website: “Maintenir et stimuler vos défenses immunitaires face au Coronavirus.”

Here are a few suggestions to boost your immune system:

– Anti-oxidizing molecules protecting against inflammation

Melatonin 

You can verify this information in the recent publication authored by the great scientific journalist Doris Loh. She provides solid scientific sources confirming that experimental evidence demonstrates the benefit of melatonin in respiratory disorders.

It is difficult to extrapolate such finding to humans without a clinical trial completed in a specialized facility in accordance with scientific criteria.

Thankfully, melatonin is a food supplement available over the counter. Besides, we already know that taking 3mg orally one hour before bedtime is useful as a neuronal anti-inflammatory for the central nervous system.

We now have to demonstrate that it could be useful to the innervation of respiratory pathways infested by the current pneumovirus.

The article below explains how and why healthy children affected by Covid-19 do not get the respiratory infection.

https://www.evolutamente.it/covid-19-pneumonia-inflammasomes-the-melatonin-connection/?fbclid=IwAR2g51DSt35sKiNFQbaDh2b3AOA_O1_ZyrVXNlyiqtJ1V3p7B7ueeBMRCxw

The following curb demonstrates the evolution of melatonin levels in our blood throughout our lives, and specifically the high levels of melatonin in the child’s blood until the age of 12. It was scientifically demonstrated that restorative sleep is indeed essential to keep our immune defenses their best level.

Certainly, the first results obtained using patches containing the two hormones of wakening and sleep that were accomplished in Poitiers – and made so much noise in the press last September – should induce the French Medications Safety Authority ANSM to officially authorize an official study. Many people are anxiously awaiting it.

It is all the more urgent to help solve sleep issues that they are increasingly frequent in these times of imposed lockdown and serious stress related with the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fat soluble vitamins, A, D, E, K

As a preventative measure, you won’t need to strengthen your immune defenses thanks to costly supplements, which are not always efficient because they are not truly natural and insufficiently bioavailable.

For Vitamin A, you can eat one lightly poached egg with the yolk remained runny every morning. If you can, buy it organic, like the rest of your food, and have a diet containing 70% of vegetable sources, and 30% of animal products. This would be ideal.

For Vitamin D, nothing compares to the sun, if your kidneys, your liver and your gut all work well. Note that the consumption of massive doses of vitamin D can be toxic if your levels of vitamin D are normal.

For Vitamin E, chose a quality extra virgin (non-refined) olive oil or colza oil (cold pressed rapeseed oil, i.e. not canola oil, which is refined). You can also eat a handful of walnuts, hazelnuts, or almonds. They will provide you with the essential. Do not forget that you minimally need to eat 4 to 6 fresh fruits per day, thoroughly chewed (i.e. not juiced: keep the fibers!)

Finally, vitamin K serves blood coagulation. You can find it in many greens including broccoli, asparagus, spinach, dark leafy greens like lettuce. You can also find it in animal products, such as dark red meat: liver (preferably organic since liver is a filter). However, prefer vegetable sources, as the fibers are needed to assist the bacteria located in the right side of the colon to manufacture vitamin K. That way you won’t need supplements.

Beware of overcooking! Cooking at length at above-boiling temperature ( 100°C/212°F), i.e. too long and too hot, tends to destroy not only vitamins but also fibers. And fibers are critical to the proper nourishment of gut bacteria of the microbiome, and so, to a good immunity.

Products from the beehive

All products derived from the beehive boost immunity. However, people undergoing a cancer treatment should keep away from royal jelly.

Chose a non-heated honey, for they are rich in the essential oils of the plant chosen by our bees (thyme, rosemary, lavender, pine…). Such honeys are most likely found locally, at the farmers’ markets. If possible, find them from an organic source. You can also eat bee pollen (frozen if possible as it keeps nutrients better). Bee propolis can be found in many forms, gummies, powders, or capsules (see the French shop www.propolia.com).

According to pharmacist Isabelle Guglielmi, essential oils (EO) boost immunity

EO can boost immunity, decrease stress and foster sleep. Different essential oils like true lavender (lavandula officinalis or lavendula angustifolia) – careful with allergies – roman chamomile (which is expensive), marjoram (origanum majorana), geranium, sweet orange, and many others have been shown to have calming, even sedating effects.
More information (in French) at https://www.univers-aroma.com/ateliers-aromatherapie-univers-aroma/atelier-stress-insomnie/

Among immune-stimulant essential oils, you will find lavender, tea tree, ravintsara, eucalyptus globulus, black incense, and perhaps sweet orange. Combining them may amplify their effects.
For more information see (in French) https://www.univers-aroma.com/ateliers-aromatherapie-univers-aroma/atelier-univers-aroma-hiver/ 

Be aware that there is no clinical study concerning the use of essential oils against Covid-19. Robert Tisserand warned us about this in his article. ( https://tisserandinstitute.org/essential-oils-coronavirus/ ).

How to use essential oils: Put 1 drop (no more!) diluted in oil on each wrist, morning and evening. It will circulate throughout your body through the lymphatic pathways under the skin. Also, use one drop on your mask every morning and evening, especially if you imperatively have to go out. For these uses, chose ravintsara, tea tree, pine or ceylan cinnamon essential oils.

You must follow a few precautions: Do not diffuse continuously, especially in the presence of children, pregnant women or people with asthma. Do not apply an essential oil pure onto your skin. Oral administration is not the primary way to use an essential oil. For the two recommended of use above, the olfactory and the skin application (one DROP on the wrist) are the best use of essential oils.

Here is the safest current information, which you can safely share with all your friends.

Protect yourselves, and protect others, especially all the healthcare professionals we have sure dire need of.

Professeur Henri Joyeux

Professor Henri Joyeux regularly organises live webinar on health topics.

These health recommendations are provided free of charge by this organization and cannot be considered a personal medical advice. No treatment should be initiated solely on the basis of this content. It is strongly advised to consult a properly licensed health professional to seek responses with regard to one’s health and well-being. No information or product mentioned on this website is meant to diagnose, treat, atone or cure a disease.

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