Category Archives: Covid-19 Vaccines.

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR A VIRUS TO MUTATE.

07 Friday Jan 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., COVID-19, Covid-19 Vaccines.

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( Seven-minute read) 


As we know with the flu, figuring out the mutations of viruses takes years. The Coronavirus is no different, it will and is (as we are seeing) mutating into more versions, that will either be more aggressive or less aggressive strains. image of vaccine vials with COVID-19 labels

Should we be worried?

The word mutates naturally conjures up fears of the unexpected. 

It might be a one in a million chance that a mutation will be advantageous to the virus, however, if you let the virus replicate itself 900,000 times, odds are that an advantageous mutation will occur.

Mutations happen by chance, and the rate at which they occur depends on the virus.

For a virus to become more severe or transmit more easily multiple genes have to mutate and once a vaccine has arrived the virus must adapt to it.

We don’t know what those mutations might be doing.

So before we start reading that birds are falling out of the sky, cows getting mad covid, fish jumping out of the sea and we all becoming Hollywood Zombies variants of mass destruction, let’s look at what we truly know.  

                                   ————

Is social media a spreader of the virus? 

Yes and No. Social media is a double-edged sword.

The COVID-19 pandemic is at a scale that we have never seen in the age of social media. And it’s critical to use social media to understand what kind of information is being shared and what people believe in order to ensure an effective policy.

The problem is that, just as social media has been really effective at sharing positive messages, it is conducive to people sharing rumors and misinformation that can spread easily.

People are increasingly turning to social media to understand the virus, receive updates, and learn what can be done to stay safe.

Social media is used to boost an individual’s self-esteem as many use social media to depict the highlights of their life, completely neglecting to post the negatives.

Some of its benefits include increasing interactions with others, having more accessible information, social support, and having the potential to influence many policies related to health but it is not completely without faults.

At one end of the spectrum are people just being uninformed and sharing incorrect information that they think is correct and helpful.

Toward the other end of the spectrum, people share actively harmful misinformation that is reinforced by their preexisting beliefs.

The end result is that many now and in the future will rely on the Internet, for the latest news and updates in the world and social media has started to evolve into sharing information about important current events. However, the spread of misinformation can easily result in mass hysteria about current events.

Those who, during the pandemic, learned how to use all types of video platform services are more likely to continue doing so even when lockdown restrictions are lifted.

                                ————

What is true is this.

While world economies are shut and open, at the moment we don’t know everything about what’s changed with the delta virus to become the Omicron Varient making it more transmissible and it is now finding ways to get around the immunity that we’re generating in the population through vaccination. 

Quarantines may or may not reduce their ability to spread and in doing so reduce the virus’s ability to mutate, however, if the mutations are not beneficial to the virus they will be eliminated by natural selection and the mechanism of evolution so the virus will adapt their environment. 

                                      ———

Is there a limit to how much a virus can mutate or does it just continue to evolve indefinitely? 

There is a limit but we don’t know what it is, because the possible genetic mutations that the virus could undergo are greater than all the atoms in the visible universe. ( There are 4^135 atoms in the visible universe.) 

Therefore it is not possible to predict what new mutations could emerge. But the rate of mutations is important because the faster a virus mutates, the quicker it changes behavior.

It will not matter which mutations the virus has. It’s not a good virus either way. 

The question then becomes, are those changes significant to us?

                        ———————-

According to the (WHO), the current Pandemic could be over by the end of 2022 if the vaccines were shared equitably.  With the current inequalities that already exist in the world, this is pie in the sky. 

The vaccine prevents disease, but it doesn’t necessarily prevent infection.

It’s the transmission of the virus that has to be stoped. Lifting restrictions and allowing as many people as possible to contract the virus is a recipe for mutations to develop. If we pretend like there’s no pandemic, we’re looking at millions of people dying before 85% of any country achieves herd immunity through natural infection.

The truth is that billions of doses worldwide need to be given before we can start returning to normal life.

We won’t be able to prevent new variants completely but we can reduce the risk by ensuring everyone, everywhere is able to be vaccinated.

How long does immunity last?

We don’t know how the vaccines work in real-time.

The jury is still out on Omicron, as the Virus in whatever variant spreads fast, far, and wide, more than any virus in history, cases have been doubling every two days in some places.

The burnout may take several years. Before it happens, havoc reigns because the virus now circulating almost exclusively among those who are unvaccinated is a potential threat to everyone.  

What is a booster?

Is its composition different than its former doses, or identical?

Currently, we are all being encouraged to get a Booster jab as the original vaccine protection wanes after six months.

There appears to be little information as to what is a booster, what it contains, how long it lasts, should it be the same vaccine as you got in the first place, the same amount, or different. 

The truth is that further work will be required to generate data at three months and one year after people have received their boosters, which will provide insights into their impact on long-term protection and immunological memory.

So we are still facing hurdles in getting people vaccinated, let alone boosted.

Millions of people will receive a different jab when they show up for their third appointment. Does this mean your booster dose may be different from the vaccines you had for your 1st and 2nd doses?

If you are on your first jab or second jab is there a different requirement with the booster?  

Why the AstraZeneca vaccine won’t be offered as a booster jab? 

One thing that can often help break through this roadblock, is proper information on each vaccine.

This is hard to unearth.

The ability for providers to not only address questions and misunderstandings about vaccines is so utterly important for general health, but especially during a pandemic.

As such, more efforts should be made to ensure that we understand that giving Covid booster jabs to people every six months is not “sustainable”   

Apparently, there isn’t a need for a new, variant-specific vaccine – at least not yet. It’s not that the vaccine isn’t as good as you were told, it’s that we’re fighting a different variant of the virus now.

The third dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines- Pfizer and Moderna- is identical to its first two doses.

If you get the Moderna booster, you will receive half of the original Moderna dose. Please be sure to confirm this with the person giving you the shot.

Like the flu, with regular vaccinations and antiviral pills (COVID-19 isn’t ever going to go away completely ), it will run out the food sooner.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. 

At the start of the pandemic, a key mantra was that we needed the game changer of antibody data to understand who had been infected and how many were protected.

As we have learned more about this challenging infection, it is time to admit that we really need the T cell data too. More research needs to be done to fully understand the relationship between our T cells and immunity to COVID-19.

Early findings suggest that they may provide us with long-term protection against the disease by genetically engineering the T-cell.  

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS : WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU ? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM ? WHERE ARE YOU GOING ?

03 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Artificial Intelligence., COVID-19, Covid-19 Vaccines., Dehumanization., Evolution., Genetic engineering, Genetics., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Post-Covid-19, Purpose of life., Reality., Technology v Humanity, The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions.

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(Twenty-minute read)

Here we are at the start of another year and we are truly living in a very unique time in the history of our civilization, facing several simultaneous challenges and converging crises:

A deteriorating environment, very unequal distribution of dwindling resources, widespread poverty, wars, climate change, oppression of many peoples, and dissatisfaction with life even in those countries with a surplus of material wealth.

For the most part, these crises we humans have brought upon ourselves over the course of many centuries by our attitudes towards each other and towards nature, and by the concepts, we have developed regarding who we are and the very purpose of our being here — in other words, Our worldview.

Who are we?

Where do we come from?

What is our purpose?

Where are we going?

All of these questions are fundamental to how we individually and collectively make meaning. As such they are questions asked by all spiritual traditions and since the very beginning of our species. Even the first cave paintings suggest that as soon as we were human, we started to ask these kinds of questions.

                               ————–

The only evidence you have that you exist as a self-aware being is your conscious experience of thinking about your existence.

Beyond that, you’re on your own.

You cannot access anyone else’s conscious thoughts, so you will never know if they are self-aware. Nonexistence is the absence of existence, by definition. Therefore there is no such thing as nonexistence.

To say that something does not exist thus seems to be a fallacy since NOTHING does exist.

How are you?

By far the biggest constituent of you is emptiness are atoms, and since all atoms are 99.9% empty space, technically, you’re made of nothing.

We call ourselves humans. We think we behave intelligently but we humans are animals! defined less by rationality and more by stupidity.

At the basic level, you are made of just four types of particles, which have been around for the majority of the lifetime of the Universe.

Atoms make up your body, 12 kg of bones, 33 kg of muscles, and 15 kg of fat. More than half of those cells aren’t exactly your own. They’re bacterial cells that weigh around 2 kg. Your body contains at least 60 chemical elements. For the most part, it’s oxygen and hydrogen forming H2O or water. 99% of the mass of your body is made up of just 6 elements. Of that, 65% is oxygen.

If you wanted to be more poetic, you could say you are made of stardust. All the elements you’re made of were once cooked up in the stars.

By the way, in case you wondered, the uncoiled DNA from all the cells in your body would stretch from here to Pluto and back. 

What are you?

Mentally, humanity was created as a rational, volitional agent.

According to the Bible, you are a god. ( God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26) but God does not have a body so your physical being is nowhere near a god.

Physiologically and anatomically you are an animal struggling for survival on the basis of evolution. 

Within just the past 12,000 years, your species, Homo sapiens, made the transition to producing food and changing our surroundings. We have been so successful that we have inadvertently created a turning point in the history of life on Earth.

We have altered the world in ways that benefit us greatly. But this transformation has unintended consequences for other species as well as for ourselves, creating new survival challenges, with our megacity incubators of viruses such as the flu and now Covid. 

Where are we going?

Will our species go extinct?

The short answer is yes, replaced by Artificial Intelligence, but not life.

Why?

Because mankind will control life through its varied reproductive activities manipulating life, whether it be by cloning, gene splicing, genetic breeding, etc.

Life in its simplest form, a single-celled organism, has microbial intelligence and can learn and adapt behavior to its environment. However, everything starts with something already alive. Only life begets life and intelligence doesn’t come from non-intelligent sources. 

Even the most simple of life forms is beyond our ability to create from non-living sources.

Life is created and is not the result of abiogenesis it controls and regulates the physical processes within each cell.

So since there is no evidence or logical consideration to believe that life is the result of a physical process, we can dismiss the concept of Artificial life as impossible. It isn’t just a gap in our understanding it is a physical impossibility.

However, there may well be life, with or without consciousness, interfacing with the physical components that support life created by an outside intelligence.

This is probably the most pressing and interesting question for the future.  How much of life will be controlled by AI?

                                 —————-

The current Covid pandemic is being fought against by a new form of vacation that instructs our immune systems to operate in a particular way rather than the immune system reacting. A step in evolutionary development towards part AI life.  

Where is this interpretation of behavior taking place?

What part of the cell decides one food-foraging pattern is preferable to another?

Where is the information stored while it’s being coded into an arrangement of molecules and atoms?

The nucleus of a living cell is often referred to as the “brain” of the cell because it controls cellular processes and functions. However, the nucleus is not capable of conscious levels of intelligence. In fact, we can’t point to any cell part and say, that’s where the intelligence has to be coming from.

Signals received by cells must be transmitted effectively into the cell to ensure an appropriate response. This step is initiated by cell-surface receptors.

How do conscious levels of intelligence now suddenly originate or emerge from unconscious atoms and molecules?

We have to bear in mind that in an evolutionary sense, nothing can influence where we wind up biologically unless it affects individual success in passing along genes. When a new behavior is written to the DNA, the information has to be assigned to an arrangement of atoms that advocate that consciousness exists at the microbial level. 

If so, that creates even greater problems, and without going into all of them, the chief problem is that survival sets a pretty low bar.

The question isn’t so much whether humans survive the next three or three hundred thousand years, but whether we can do more than just survive.

The current virus pandemic highlights this problem. The virus hasn’t yet committed to any direction.

However, it is as with all viruses an evolving entity, subject to the same processes of evolution.

With the new mRNA vaccines, we have a choice to make!

Why?

Because it is inevitable that Genome editing is going to be the future. 

Because now being alive is not a prerequisite for experiencing, evolution. 

We either move into a new phase in the evolution of consciousness and a new era of life on the planet, or we will witness the unraveling of the web of life and the immature end of our species and much of the community of life with us. 

The time to make this choice is now!

It starts with a fundamental shift in our dominant worldview.

It is time to grow up! and for us to respect all life. 

What is our purpose? 

This is explained in the following story.

“In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense,” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover, if there is life, then why has no one ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery, there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? Do you actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her, this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. JUST WHAT IS AN mRNA VACCINE IN LAYMAN TERMS?

14 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Civilization., Covid-19 Vaccines., Genetic engineering, Humanity., Life., mRNA vaccine and a traditional vaccine., Pandemic, POST COVID-19., Survival., Technologically Enabled Genetics., Technology v Humanity, The Obvious., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., Unanswered Questions., Vaccines., What Needs to change in the World

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(Five-minute read) 


Now before I start trying to answer this question I wish to make it crystal clear that I am no doctor, scientist, or professor of Epidemiology.


Over my life, I have visited countries that have to require one to be vaccinated for everything from Yellow fever to you name it.

The one thing that is stopping some people from getting vaccinated is not understanding how mRNA technology works and its long term effects ( Yet to be seen)

So I am going to try to explain in layman terms the difference between an mRNA vaccine and a traditional vaccine.

There are three sorts of vaccines.   

Live, attenuated vaccines are the closest to a natural infection. They contain a weakened version of a living virus or bacteria

Subunit vaccines contain only parts of a virus or bacteria instead of a whole pathogen.

Inactivated vaccines contain an inactivated or dead version of a virus or pathogen.

Most vaccines up to now work by presenting your body with a weakened or dead version of a virus or some of the proteins found on the surface of the virus.

By showing the virus or parts of the virus to your immune system, the vaccine teaches your body to recognize the pathogen and turns on the production of antibodies, which are proteins that attach to the virus and allow killer immune cells to gobble it up.

In other words, traditional vaccines teach the immune system to make memory cells.

So if you are exposed to a virus at a future date, the immune system has the ability to rev up the production of antibodies rapidly and fight off the pathogen again.

                                              —————

The coronavirus pandemic infected millions of people in a matter of months and vaccines usually take years, and sometimes even decades, to develop, test, and approved for public use. 

For example: 

Smallpox – several centuries.

Plague – to date no vaccine.

Typhoid – around thirty years.

Yellow Fever – around thirty years.

Influenza –   around thirty years – ineffective today because of seasonal changes.

Measles/ Mumps –  around eleven years.

Anthrax  – around 58 years

Polo-  around sixty years. 

Chicken Pox – around thirty year

Shingles – around forty years. 

Hepatitis B –  around twenty-four years.

mRNA vaccines have existed for more than 10 years and have been used with the Ebola and Zika viruses. What is new is in terms of how widely it’s being used on the market.

When the COVID-19 epidemic arrived, never before in modern history, has the entire world and all of the governments in the world banded together to get a vaccine to market so quickly.

Researchers worldwide sprang into action to identify and insert the correct genetic code into the mRNA platform.

                              ——————————

This of course raised questions. 

How a vaccine can get put together in such a short time? 

Were corners cut?  

Is the trial period too short? 

Will there be side effects in years to come? 

These are questions that can not fully answer.  Time will tell. 

In layman’s terms, the technologies already existed, and with vast amounts of money made available to produce a vaccine, it happened in months not years. 

The result was mRNA vaccines which use what is called RNAi research that is widely used by researchers to silence genes in order to learn something about their function.

The result is siRNAs that can be designed to match any gene, can be manufactured cheaply, and can be readily administered to cells.

In other words, a cellular mechanism that uses the gene’s own DNA sequence of the gene to turn it off.

However, RNAi is much more than a research tool that encompasses an array of ancient and sophisticated cellular mechanisms that regulate a variety of biological functions. 

The advantage of RNAi is the ability to design precisely targeted medicines for almost any gene, regardless of the function of the gene.

So each different vaccine aims to use a slightly different approach to prepare your immune system to recognize and fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

                                              —————–

Think of your DNA  as the “instruction manuals” in genes that tell a living thing—what to do.  

The mRNA helps cells to read those instructions. It is synthetic there is no COVID virus in this vaccine.

You can not get COVID-19 from the vaccine as mRNA vaccines never enter the nucleus of the cell, where our DNA is stored. Rather than presenting your body with the dead virus or parts of the virus, mRNA vaccines show your body the blueprint needed to make a viral protein.

The difference with mRNA vaccines is that it gives a recipe to our immune system. 

Your body uses this blueprint to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins without including any part of the virus itself.

However, unlike less virulent or killed vaccines, the person is not infected with a virus, not even one that’s been weakened or killed.

mRNA is a small fragile fragment of genetic information that’s rapidly broken down within the bloodstream and within cells.

                                      ———————-

Finally, the world will need several different vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic as the virus mutates.

Of course in the short term, there are billions to be made by not sharing. But in the long term, it is taxpayers’ money that has helped the development of the vaccine.  

At the moment we have a handful of drugmakers dominating the global coronavirus vaccine race. 

To fight a global pandemic these companies must be made to share or waiver any patents, along with sharing the manufacturing process worldwide.

The Data from all Vaccines must be shared.  

While world governments must remove any trade barriers blocking the production of the vaccine. 

So far 75% of the world’s Covid -19 vaccines have been distributed in just 10 countries. 

It is a glaring fact that we are not going to end this pandemic anywhere until we do it everywhere. 

It is also a glaring fact while the virus spreads Covid mutants will evolve to trick our immune systems.

It is also a glaring fact that unless Inequality is tackled on a world basis we humans will struggle with any future pandemics that are coming with climate change.  

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS; DOES DEMOCRACY DEPEND UPON SOME PEOPLE BEING NON-CONFORMISTS?

15 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Covid - Passports., Covid-19 Vaccines., Post-Covid-19, Privatization

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(Six-minute read) 

THANKS TO TRACK AN TRACE millions of bits of information about each of us circulate through the internet, but our freedom and democracy don’t seem to have been substantially impacted as yet. 

We might still feel free to do as we please but will the introduction of Covid-19 passports turn us all into Dalits? ( Better known as Untouchables)

These people in the Hindu religion face discrimination and even violence from members of higher castes, or traditional social classes, particularly in terms of access to jobs, education, and marriage partners.

The concept of vaccine passports is no longer theoretical.

The premise for such passports (whether digital or otherwise) will indicate whether individuals have received A COVID-19 VACCINATION OR BEEN TESTED RECENTLY.

Are those that are not vaccinated to be marked with a yellow star.

There are also many privacy concerns to be addressed with vaccine passports that will result in benefits been distributed unequally, not removing them but perpetuating them.

We all know that data in the form of knowledge is the manner born to the digital age of algorithms.  

These days we are constantly asked by pop-ups to agree to the website’s privacy policy – us of one’s data and so on in order to personalize your experience and share your data. ( We value your privacy offers a choice – I accept or change consent – manage your choices) 

Why is this happening? 

Because the General Data Protection Regulations ( GDPR) have come into force with fines up to 20 million Euros.

How can such a privacy policy be legal?

They claim to value my privacy and I can review what they mean by that in the policy. However, at the same time, they do not commit to keeping it like that and might not “value my privacy” at any later point in time.

Now think this further.

If this clause is in fact legal, we could set up a website with a volatile privacy policy. That would be a privacy policy that changes on every visit to the website.

As an example, on the first visit, we happily tell the visitor that we do not collect any information, do not use personal information, and of course, also do not sell any kinds of data to advertising networks. However, as soon as the visitor accepted this policy (of course they are privacy-aware and read the policy), it will suddenly change to the opposite. The visitor will never be informed or even asked for consent again.

Clearly, we all place some value on privacy, but why?

We’ve seen how we use privacy as a commodity, if we can give out some of our private information and receive a bargain at the store then we call that a fair trade. 

If we use our privacy as a commodity, then we ought to think about how much we should ask for in return for our privacy. In setting that price, it would be a good idea to think about what sort of value our privacy has.

What if the situation with Covid Passports becomes considerable direr – Stigmatised for life – Contaminated from birth.

Democracy is a social good, and privacy is instrumental to that social good but we ought to think about how much we should ask for in return for our privacy. 

                                  ———————–

The non-conformist can take unpopular stances on government policy that might shine a light on issues that others hadn’t thought of. They’re the ones who get meaningful conversations going in public.

Now most of us are perfectly happy for our lives to be an open book even if there is a price to be paid.  

In setting that price, with the arrival of Covid-19 passports it would be a good idea to think about what sort of value our privacy has.

The argument for Covid -19 passports draws on the concept that people who are being watched will behave differently than people who aren’t being watched.

We don’t do things when we think it’s possible that someone is watching.

Security cameras serve this function even when they aren’t being monitored because the possibility of being watched is often enough to alter our behavior.

There is more at stake here than our preference to maintain sole control of our information. Privacy also serves as a social good.

We can use privacy to delineate our relationships with other people and we can make use of our private information in order to get those things that we want and need.

Now, it might seem like our loss of privacy is necessary to save lives but the flu kills around 650.000 of us a year. 

One thing however remains constant throughout this pandemic and the history of the world. 

WE ALL HAVE TO DIE SOMETIME. SADLY STATISTICALLY YOU ARE STILL YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY. 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHY IS IT THAT WE ARE UNABLE TO KILL A VIRUS?

04 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., COVID-19, Covid-19 Vaccines., Unanswered Questions., Viruses.

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(Twelve-minute read) 

 

Humans have been killing for thousands and thousands of years. Not just each other but almost every living thing, so why are we unable to kill viruses?

First, to kill a virus we must know what we are trying to kill.

Bacteria are not the most abundant microbes that live in and on our bodies.

That award goes to viruses.

If you think you don’t have viruses, think again.

To put it simply, when it comes to where viruses live in the human body, figuring out where they don’t live is a far better question than asking where they do.

It has been estimated that there are over 380 trillion viruses inhabiting us, a community is collectively known as the human virome.

Here’s where viruses come in.

They’ve already figured out how to kill bacteria. It’s all they live for.

Viruses are the most common biological entities on Earth.

Experts estimate there are around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them, and if they were all lined up they would stretch from one side of the galaxy to the other.

So it’s clear that there’s a war being fought on our body surfaces every minute of every day, and we haven’t a clue who’s winning or what the consequences of this war might be.

The name Virus is from a Latin word meaning “slimy liquid” or “poison.”

They are microorganisms smaller than a bacterium that cannot grow or reproduce apart from a living cell.

They are not plants, animals, or prokaryotic bacteria (single-cell organisms without defined nuclei), and they are generally placed in their own kingdom.

In fact, viruses should not even be considered organisms, in the strictest sense, because they are not free-living—i.e., they cannot reproduce and carry on metabolic processes without a host cell.

Viruses must rely on a host for energy production, reproduction, and survival. It can remain inside the host for extended periods of time without causing any apparent changes in the host cell.

Viruses are quintessential parasites. They derive energy, as well as all other metabolic functions, from the host cell.

Most viruses vary in diameter from 20 nanometres (nm; 0.0000008 inches) to 250–400 nm; the largest, however, measure about 500 nm in diameter and are about 700–1,000 nm in length.

It is still traditional to divide viruses into three categories: those that infect animals, plants, or bacteria.

Antibiotics are not effective against viruses because viruses are entirely devoid of the machinery for life processes.

If you want to learn more follow the link below.  

                          https://www.britannica.com/science/virus

                                               —————————–

The resilience of viruses is what has made them such a menace throughout history remaining to this day the biggest and minuscule threats to humanity.

They don’t have to play by the same rules that living things play by.

They don’t really do anything — they’re effectively inert until they come into contact with a host cell, existing like freeloading zombies — not quite dead, yet certainly not alive.

“Viruses can be present in many locations – they can lurk in people, they can lurk in materials that are stored in freezers, they can lurk in wildlife and domestic animals – it’s really impossible to say if a virus has gone extinct.

It appears they take advantage of our bodies because our bodies are governed by our brains, which are unable to remember if they fought with a particular virus or not. So they mutate and hoodwink the immune system because our immune system is out of commission.  

So the only way to drive a virus to extinction is to eliminate it in the wild, which is an impossible task.

Regardless of whether there is a single person or animal not infected anywhere on the planet, we have to live with the virus. 

                                       —————————–

The last naturally occurring case of smallpox was reported in 1977.

Measles, smallpox, anthrax, and tuberculosis were all gifts from our farmed animals.

In 1980, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated. Currently, there is no evidence of naturally occurring smallpox transmission anywhere in the world.

Although a worldwide immunization program eradicated smallpox disease decades ago, small quantities of smallpox virus officially still exist in two research laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, and Russia.

But what occurs at the end of a virus’s existence is only just starting to gather interest.

Why do some viruses disappear? And what happens to them?

In a nutshell, we get lucky. 

Sars was driven to extinction by a combination of sophisticated contact-tracing and the quirks of the virus itself. Other than Sars, only two other viruses have ever been driven to extinction on purpose – smallpox, and rinderpest, which affects cattle.

The war against these two viruses was won using vaccines, which are also set to eliminate polio – cases have decreased by 99% since the 1980s – and possibly eventually measles, though recently these efforts have been set back by war, the anti-vaxxer movement.

With Covid-19 the virus can’t break into just any cell in the body. Instead, one of its proteins will bind to another protein. Once the invasion takes place, the cell, in essence, is transformed into a factory that churns out hundreds and hundreds of copies of the virus making it difficult to distinguish a healthy cell from an infected one.

.  Viruses pick up errors in their genetic code as they spread, so in some cases it is possible to simply wait them out (Credit: Reuters)

We are left with speeding up viral evolution artificially with drugs that could bring some benefits.

At the heart of the plan is the biology of “RNA viruses” – a group that includes many of humanity’s most intractable pathogens, including HIV, the flu, coronaviruses, and Ebola. Their genetic material is made of RNA as opposed to DNA, which means that when they hijack their host’s machinery to copy themselves, they don’t include a “proofreading” step where they check for mistakes.

But this staggering rate of mutation is a double-edged sword.

Above a certain rate, mutations become harmful, leading to virus strains that are burdened with genetic faults that hinder their spread.

This is usually thought of as a bad thing for humans, because these mutations mean that there’s an extraordinary amount of genetic diversity among RNA viruses, allowing them to evolve rapidly – so any vaccines or drugs that target them quickly become obsolete.

However eventually, this could lead to their extinction or ours.

In the meantime, one remedy for this Catch 22 is to make a conscious effort to remind ourselves about the world before vaccines.

Here are a few to remember. 

Smallpox – HIV – Influenza – Rofavirus – Marburg – Measles – Ebola – Rabies – Hib – Hantavirus – Dengue – Sars-Cov – Sars- Coc2 – Mers -Cov – Swine Flu – Avian Flue – Whooping Cough – Mumps – Chickenpox – Diptheria – Rubella.  (Cancer is neither a bacteria nor a virus however it is known that some viruses lead to cancer or help to kill cancer.) 

The 1918 flu pandemic, which infected a third of the world’s population and killed 50 million. This strain of influenza has gone extinct along with every flu virus that existed in humans until about 120 years ago. However, every few decades, a new type of flu will evolve quietly accumulating mutations that were useless or even actively harmful to its own survival. 

In the meantime, please can we learn two obvious lessons?

First, let’s stop bringing wild animals into markets alive (if at all): viruses do not survive long in dead bodies, even if not refrigerated. It’s a cruel practice anyway.

And second, let’s keep our distance from bats. As long as there are bats, there will be zoonotic viruses. Definitely don’t eat them.

Your missions down the research rabbit hole might’ve even led you to other novel ways of killing germs: namely,  Steam and ultraviolet (UV) light.

I would say any claim that they do is false.

As for their ability to kill COVID-19, your guess is as good as anyone.

To kill a virus one must break its out shell, without harming the healthy cells around it.

Nither shaking or steaming or sticking your head in a microwave will kill a virus.

Make no mistake about it; the viruses that have evolved with us for so many years are not only part of our past but will play a significant role in the future of human health.

Get Vaccinated. 

 

The fight against Ebola in Africa has been complicated by the fact the virus continues to circulate in wild animals (Credit: Reuters)

 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS: FORWARD TO THE WORLD CLIMATE CHANGE GATERING IN SCOTLAND IN NOVEMBER 2021

31 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Covid-19 Vaccines., Disaster Capitalism., How to do it., Humanity., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Five-minute read) 



We are coming up to another god-wobbling Climate Change gathering in Scotland which by any account will be A ZOME GATHERING because of COVID-19 on the 1 – 12 November 2021.

This one is the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26).

A two-week showcase as to why the world is unable to come together to tackle the problems of climate change.  Remember that these conferences started in the 90th. 

chimney

 

This one is likely to include demonstrations of virtual reality technology; showcasing innovation helping to tackle global climate change and probably like the others will archive little or nothing. 

Why? 

Because they produce nonbinding promises without addressing the main problem of how or who is going to finance the changes needed.   

We live in an age in which intersecting crises are being lifted to a global scale, with unseen levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and climate destabilization, as well as new surges in populism, conflict, economic uncertainty, and mounting public health threats.

The coronavirus pandemic may lead to a deeper understanding of the ties that bind us on a global scale., and there are, to a certain degree, parallels that can be drawn between the current COVID-19 pandemic and some of the other contemporary crises our world is facing. All require a global-to-local response and long-term thinking.

All need to be guided by science and need to protect the most vulnerable among us, and all require the political will to make fundamental changes when faced with existential risks. They all need Money. 

It’s rational for an individual country not to drastically reduce greenhouse gases, given most economies are heavily based on energy resources that emit them. Yet, if all nations act that way — indeed, that’s what’s happening — most countries would eventually be worse off due to the cumulative impacts of all our emissions, not to mention the hoarding of covid-19 vaccines.  

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Covid -19 is real and that Climate Change will wreak havoc on the planet. BOTH ARE ALREADY DOING SO.

Covid-19 has brought the entire world economy to its knees in a matter of weeks during a pandemic that scientists warned us would come.

While enacting policies today to cut greenhouse gas emissions won’t have a discernible impact on global warming for decades, if not centuries. That’s because we have already locked in significant warming due to our historical emissions. Unlike other policies, climate change is cumulative. The longer we wait to address it, the bigger the problem it becomes and the harder it gets to solve, fueling a feedback loop that makes solutions ever more difficult.

Although global emissions were not as high as last year, they still amounted to about 39 billion tonnes of CO2.  Covid-19 has changed this narrative to one that involves avoiding a rebound in emissions. 

The bottom line: Big climate policy would have to offer concrete benefits outside of its impact on emissions — think jobs or energy security — to overcome this time disconnect.

The bottom line: We are the first generation of humans to start paying the price for a warmer world, and we are also the first to face costs as we try to address it.

We’re paying now and later.

  • Cost No. 1: Responding to flooding, heatwaves, and other extreme weather that climate change is often making worse.
  • Cost No. 2: Enacting policies to reduce emissions, which would come in the form of higher fossil-fuel costs today.
  • Cost No. 3 will continue for decades, if not centuries, even in addition to Cost No. 2.
  • This is because of the aforementioned time disconnect: the amount of warming locked in already has also locked in associated costs — which will come in the form of not just money, but also health, lives, and nature losses.


This just might be the world’s greatest collective action problem, which is when rational, self-interested decisions of individuals make the circumstances of the group worse, and vice versa

Imagine getting taxed before you put that money into your fund and then not living long enough to reap the payoffs of your fund. That’s happening with climate change, on a global scale.

Even though climate change presents a slower, more long-term health threat, an equally dramatic and sustained shift in behavior will be needed to prevent irreversible damage.

When we eventually overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, we can hopefully hold on to that sense of shared humanity in order to rebuild our social and economic systems to make them better, more resilient, and compassionate

Joe Biden’s climate plan promises net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Biden would be pushing 110 years old when he’d have to check (likely from the afterlife) on how his policy did. I’ll be 65. How old will you be?

Essentially all organisms use weather cues to guide their lives, and when these change and fracture everyone takes a hit.

As I have said in previous posts there is only one way to finance the changes.

That is by making a profit for profit sake pay, by placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all activities that are not sustainable. ( See previous posts.)  

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: LETS TRY AND CLEAR UP THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE VARIOUS VACCINES AGAINST COVID-19

29 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by in COVID-19, Covid-19 Vaccines., Uncategorized

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(Three-minute read) 



“You’re well within your right to know which vaccine you’re taking.

In this post, I am addressing the moral case for taking or not taking the Jab and I am no science or Medical guru. 

Everyone has a choice.   

When you get vaccinated, you should receive a card or printout telling you which COVID-19 vaccine you received, the date, and where you received it. You’ll also get a fact sheet listing the vaccine’s risks and benefits.

At the moment there are:  

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine- USA.

Pfizer’s vaccine – USA

Novavax -USA

and AstraZeneca. – Uk

CanSino – China.

Others in trial.   Valneva, GSK/Sanofi Pasteur, Janssen.

Vaccines and drugs often take years to go through trials and development before gaining approval and being used to treat patients. So with vaccines ready to be delivered within months of Covid-19’s emergence, it’s fair to ask how we can be sure they’re safe.

Could issues present themselves years down the line? No one knows. 100 percent safety can never be guaranteed. 

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses within 28 days. These vaccines don’t contain live viruses and will not give you COVID-19.

They are mRNA vaccines that use a strip of genetic material called mRNA. Once the mRNA enters a cell, it triggers the cell to build copies of the spike proteins. The immune system learns to recognize these spike proteins through the production of antibodies that block the virus from entering healthy cells. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines work this way.

The Pfizer vaccine needs to be kept at super-cold temperatures of -70 degrees Celsius, while the Moderna vaccine must be stored at -2 degrees Celsius and must be used within 12 hours once it reaches room temperature.

The Pfizer vaccine is approved for individuals 16 and older.

The Moderna’s has been approved for patients 18 and older.

The AstraZenecaViral vector vaccines rely on another virus, called an adenovirus.

There is nothing in either vaccine that could affect anyone’s genetic makeup.“There is no evidence at all that they have any effect on fertility

For many diseases, immunity acquired naturally often lasts longer than immunity from a vaccine. But that means you have to suffer, and survive, the disease,”  So what is called herd immunity might well be achievable but at the cost of millions more deaths and suffering.   

To debunked myth that has with the help of social media morphed into a conspiracy theory after Bill Gates suggested creating a digital certificate of vaccine records.

There is no microchip and no tracking device of any kind in either vaccine.

It’s almost hard to deny this stuff because it’s so stupid or strange that even

to repeat it gives it credibility. 

 

Unfortunately, it’s too early for anyone to knows whether any of the vaccines

will actually affect the virus spread with a new mutation or whether

symptomless vaccine takers could still infect others.

 

Everyone wants to see the back of Covid-19.

The truth at the moment is that there is a carnival of wild claims, distortions,

and flat-out lies about whichever jab you happen to get.

 

The pharmaceutical companies that developed these vaccines did so

against their own  Data.

We don’t know how long vaccine-induced immunity is going to last.

Will we all have to carry either a digital health card or some other government Pass?

More than likely. 

If we need a booster jab does it have to be the same vaccine or anyone of the others? 

What would happen if you had one on each? 

In the end, we have to hope that there are no unseen consequences from any of the available vaccines. 

Should you take a jab?

The vaccines’ effectiveness isn’t dependent on the scientists alone. It’s also dependent on us. So, what should we do and why? Here’s why I am going to get vaccinated.

Vaccines are something we do for each other as much as ourselves.

It depends on a personal basis on what value you place on your life but with society-wide consequences.

As much as viruses are scourges and will always be here, vaccines are our friends. Before the measles vaccine, that disease killed millions of kids every year. About that gift horse, we should not be looking at. 

It will show what we’re made of.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

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