Humanity’s Pyrrhic Victory over the Coronavirus.

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Dynamic Factors:

The genesis of SarsCov2 has its causative roots in late 2018. When the African swine fever virus wreaked havoc all over the world and especially China. I know, because I was there, living and working there since the mid 2000’s. Countless millions of pigs have been culled and that drove the prices up, the availability, and quality down. That had the curious effect in that other meats obviously became similarly priced. If you have to pay 40Kuai for Pork, why not treat yourself and try something out of the ordinary? It doesn't cost much more, perhaps even less. So why not?

This meant that the trade and consumption of exotic foods spiked. The animals' final destination was often a wet market. A large enclosed area with countless storefronts. Selling produce of any kind really. Often superior in quality and price as compared to supermarket alternatives. Cages with different animals, wild or otherwise unusual were stacked on top of each other. It's perhaps not often that someone is going to buy a pangolin or a snake. These are not common foods by any means. But the people have been more willing to experiment as of late and sales do happen from time to time. If anything it's an eyecatcher that brings in customers and as such they fulfill their purpose as a loss leader.

One of these animals was sick though. It's hard to know if it was infected before coming to the market, or if a stray bat or other animal wandered into the market and dynamic factors lead to the greatest viral pandemic in modern history. These different species of animals were a wonderful incubator to create a zoonosis. For days, weeks and perhaps months it radiated viral particles, of every second of every day, with every breath it took or every poop it made. Air currents carried that virus to other animals. This kind of thing happens today millions of times. Whenever another animal is in contact with a different species, there is an opportunity. But this special location was different in that these conditions favored the origin of a zoonotic infection by orders of magnitude. It would be exactly what one used to do in simple gain of function experiments. Have a sick animal, physically separated and continuously challenge it over a distance. In this way, at one point in time, a virus that may not be able to transmit through the air will perhaps create a mutant that can do that and is replication competent in that other animal. Then with this airborne variant it is just a matter of time when it can make the species jump. Im wildly simplifying what happened, but this happened in Wuhan China. At one point in time, a person got sick. Samples prove that in the HuanAn Market there were 2 distinct variants going about. A and B. And up until this point in the story, I and I think many others really can't blame anyone. It's a “shit happens” kind of situation. It could have happened in millions of other places in the world. A set of unfortunate circumstances really that only offer a learning opportunity with the benefit of hindsight, even though the risks of having these live animal markets was known and strictly speaking, China could be blamed for it. But so could i. As I was a customer of these markets and as I and others knew the risks. Many of us were wearing masks when shopping there. But shopping there we did.

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The age of stupid:

Still, from there our story gets embarrassing. It's hard, if not impossible to know who the first Patient Zero was. As we now know, the first human infected with what was SarsCov2 may have been infected and infectious but remained asymptomatic. Able to walk around and spread the virus. Perhaps they were symptomatic and just didn't care. Had this person formed a habit of wearing a Mask. Which was common courtesy back then in China. The world would unquestionably be a better place. But this didn't happen. Whoever you are. You are living proof that the actions of one person can have an incredible effect. Truly xinghuo liaoyuan (A small spark can light a field aflame). As much from this point is unknown and purely speculative I will recap briefly what we know. It was at one point realized that a new kind of “flu” was making the rounds. China’s hospitals are well equipped and regularly do testing. So it was figured out that this wasn’t influenza. It was Sars. It was back! Oh fuck!

And here, the coverups and lies started. Who gave what orders at the time, I doubt we will ever know. We just know that it was kept a secret on a local level at first. That quickly became impossible and hundreds, and then thousands got sick. Here humanity firmly reaped the current zeitgeist and truly embraced the “age of stupid” that had been ushered in a few years prior, primarily fueled by russian disinformation warfare against western nations. It also had an effect on China, one with terrible consequences. As thousands got sick, in quick succession. It was argued for weeks that the virus cannot jump from people to people. I was at this time in Germany and once I read an outbreak. I went to my local pharmacy shortly after new years and bought 3 big packs of masks. In China I used to have them. Any of my former students can confirm that during the flu season I put a big box of masks on the table and when students were sick or had the sniffles. I would request them to leave or wear a mask and sit in the back rows far apart from the other students. But I was in Germany and primarily bought them for myself and my family. As I knew back then already, if its Sars and considering that the spread does indeed not only strongly favors human to human transmission, but had to also include an airborne component to some degree.? As it was spreading much faster than flu it made sense as my living mantra is better to have, than to need. There was another reason I used my at the time very limited financial ability to buy it. So if the working theory is that human to human transmission is not possible, then no measures will be taken to curb the spread. The timing couldn't possibly be worse. Spring festival was around the corner, hundreds of millions of people would be traveling and rumor in China, especially if Sars is concerned, is proof that superluminal communication is indeed possible. A greater outbreak was very likely under these sets of circumstances.

People quickly realized, “GET OUT OF WUHAN NOW!” as rumors of a lockdown were on everyone's mind. So they did and so the virus got out of Wuhan. What followed was expected, the city got cut off from access to the outside world. Not a full lockdown by any means. But a city under quarantine.

Meanwhile in the western world, we did nothing. We still believed for a very long time the nonsensical notion that the virus couldn't be transmitted from person to person, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I in the meanwhile called for travel restrictions from China. And despite my overwhelmingly positive experience in China and my opinion about the Chinese people, culture and especially cuisine (yes it's fantastic!!!). I was predictably called a racist by my family, friends as well as online where i voiced my concerns. The sheer hubris to assume that we could deal with whatever would come from China because we were “More advanced” and had better “medicine” was one of the dumbest things i have ever heard (up until that point. It got much dumber) As i experienced what happened during the Swine Flu, how competently they were in regards to testing and isolation. My argument that if China cant deal with this virus, we will be absolutely screwed was falling on deaf ears and people generally preferred to believe in their delusion of superiority. They were no preparations made, in the meanwhile China understandably started to buy up any supplies of masks and ppe they could get their hands on. The west still thought “Overreaction!” and blamed China for the lockdown imposed on more and more cities and counties.

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The blame game had already started then. Instead of owning up to what really happened. Two Conspiracy theories gained fertile ground. One that allowed China to keep face. By blaming the outbreak on an imported case, perhaps even a biological terrorist attack of athletes that competed in the Military games that were held prior to the outbreak. Then another, that it was imported from the west via...and it comes...frozen fish. They were not man or woman enough to simply accept that “Shit happens” instead their convoluted conspiracies were taken as gospel. Which means that no lessons will be learned and no measures can be taken to reduce the risk of it in the first place. Not taking responsibility and buck passing is as common in China as it is over here.

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Our western nutters meanwhile focussed on the BSL4 Laboratory in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Another crazy theory that ignored the reality of what really happened, for which no evidence at the time was available and no evidence exists now was that it was an escaped biological weapon. We all heard it and it's a popular theory because it fits the expectation that something like this “just can't appear”. The truth is, it's always just a matter of time.

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Expect the best, because the worst is difficult and expensive.

The expected outbreak then happened in Italy, Germany, America and so forth. Meanwhile, we woke up. The governments realized that they needed masks, gloves and other PPE’s but not much was left or available, so in order for the hospitals to have enough masks, pundits and politicians did a horrendously irresponsible thing, one that was directly responsible for the deaths of countless millions. They argued that masks don't work. For a few weeks it was argued that the virus couldnt transmit via the airborne route. By law, that was an accurate thing to say, as there had been no studies on this particular virus done that supported an airborne spread. That it did was clear to anyone who knew the basics of virology, which at the time. Were not many people. Still, they didn't want the “peasants” to buy up all the masks. That was simply it because of the misguided assumption that we would control the spread really well because…uhm we are better? Yeah, that birthed anti maskers. Then after weeks upon weeks of calling China inhumane for their lockdowns. Of really promoting that talking point, guess what? We had a lockdown. It was half heartedly enforced and thus kind of pointless. But we all did our part. We didn't sequester sick patients from their families, allowing the virus to continue to spread within a household, being able to survive for weeks in a confined area. Especially as the notion of asymptomatic carriers was dismissed. Despite evidence that it must be possible and despite knowing that many viruses in humans create asymptomatic carriers to varying degrees. It was dismissed because it was an inconvenient reality that meant that the lockdown had to be enforced much harder and the separation of family members was a line they didn't want to cross. Funnily enough we also decided for some asinine reason that children couldnt get sick. If it is one thing children are known for it is their ability to never get sick and never infect other children and to have an incredible sense for biosafety. True geniuses were guiding us through this pandemic.

As such we went from trying to eradicate the virus to slowing its spread, a vaccine at the time was still far out, even though I had hopes that a young and scrappy company called moderna was working on a promising candidate using a new and revolutionary new vaccine technology.

Meanwhile a friend of mine in China had their factory converted to producing masks. The lockdown was hard, but it was successful, the virus seemed to be annihilated ... .from China and life returned to normal. Having by then a vast overproduction of Masks they were now looking to export to the world. My friend made me an offer of a substantial shipment that could be sold to Germany if the price was right. At a time when we were being scalped left right and center. It was originally due to be sold to Iran. I made a few calls to our local government but was completely and shut down. The whole town could have been supplied for months with good quality masks. I remember that I was threatened to never try this again because I didn't possess the necessary licenses to sell medical equipment. I told my friend and the masks were indeed shipped to Iran instead and we were left with…well nothing really, except of course the scalpers who made a killing both figuratively and literally on the misery of billions. Crimes against humanity that to this day have not been persecuted btw.

This in addition to what politicians and media have been shouting from the rooftops months prior but try their very best to deny now, created a movement against not only Masks, but they also denied that the Coronavirus was dangerous to begin with. That it was just a teeny tiny flu. Not worth the overreaction. They didn't want to wear masks, they didn't want to stay at home, they even engaged in behavior that was more risky. As they said 95% would be “fine”. Which is true, but a virus that kills 5% of those who they infect is a very bad freaking virus and these people didn't understand math all that well. Many of them now thanks to long covid understand it even less and a whole bunch of them don't have to worry about understanding anything at all anymore because they are dead. But they had assumed one thing that most of the world shared at the time, a belief that would come to haunt all of us later.

One and done:

I and many other people were convinced that if a person managed to get over an infection. They would build up long lasting immunity to protect them against future infection. I also believed this because of two reasons. Patients who were previously infected with Sars1, still after over a decade showed that they had antibodies against it. Secondly due to ExoN, the Exonuclease complex that is responsible for a feature unique in the RNA world. A mechanism of proofreading what its RNA dependent RNA polymerase was doing. Its genome was quite large precisely because it had this mechanism. This Protein complex was the reason i was interested in Coronaviruses years prior to the pandemic and soaked up every new paper that i could, giving me in regards to this pandemic somewhat of an head start. Which were not much as even dedicated Virology textbooks generally talked about Coronaviruses on half a page and then moved on. I hoped for more, be careful what you wish for i guess.? It was generally agreed upon that the virus was mutating rather slowly, more in line to DNA viruses. This meant that if a person was reinfected with SarsCov2, chances were high that it would be essentially the same virus and thus once infected, sterilizing immunity was likely. This was a good assumption if the number of cases were low. But they were not. The number of infected started to climb and two very concerning facts emerged.

Reinfection was possible and it did not necessarily protect against severe outcomes. That was a shock and meant that the virus was considerably harder to deal with.

The second bit of concerning news were reports that a concerningly large percentage of patients who recovered from a severe SarsCov2 infection showed signs that resemble ME/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Years prior I had a deep dive into the topic when it was assumed that XMRV (a mouse virus) was responsible for ME/CFS, so being familiar with the symptoms they matched quite well. Today we call this Long Covid or Post Covid Syndrome.

These two things made a bad pandemic into a cataclysmic event. CFS is extremely debilitating and there is no known cure or even treatment for it. So we have an Airborne virus, that kills easily and those that it didn't kill, it can cripple for the rest of their lives. We have no vaccine, our measures are half hearted and failing thanks to those working for the Coronavirus. Ultracharged by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his continued efforts in destroying the west. Boosted by stable genius Donald Trump who famously suggested drinking bleach and putting UV lamps up our bums. So doing the math in this situation, we have 8 Billion people, all susceptible, there is no sterilizing immunity and even prior infection does not exclude repeated infection and only minor protection against a severe outcome (newest research suggest that the odds of a severe outcome actually increases) this virus would not end our species. But it could severely harm human civilization. As Long covid does harm the mind. On average people lose 6 IQ points, its effects on mood and aggression have not been researched well, but considering how the world has changed since, it probably didn't help. I wasn't by any means the only one that noticed this very concerning math, but at this point it seemed out of control.?

There was no realistic way of containing the virus with what we did. Even if we closed down our borders, strictly enforced a China style hard as tungsten lockdown, it wouldn't do anything if the freaking Americans were having millions of cases every day. As a zoonotic infection I was also quite concerned about a spill back into animals and considering how far it spread, this had indeed happened. So no matter what, the virus could no longer be defeated. The war was lost at this point.

Moderna delivered and Russian Lies.

The first trials of the Moderna and Biontech vaccine were incredibly promising, achieving an above 90% efficacy against severe disease was phenomenal. It was initially assumed that getting the vaccine could end the pandemic. I too was hopeful, but I was also concerned that there had not been any trials in regards to replication. As we now know, the vaccine indeed protected against severe disease and it was inferred and again, hoped that it would also eliminate replication. It didnt, but the timespan in which a person is infectious is dramatically reduced perhaps even enough to get that damned R0 under 1.

The mRNA approach was revolutionary but there was also another. Using an Adenovirus Vector. Long since a mainstay in gene therapy together with Adeno Associated Virus (AAV). We had Jannsen, Astrazeneca and Sputnik. From all these DNA based vaccines Sputnik V had the best overall approach, as it used two different vectors in 2 separate doses. The thing with Adenovirus vectors is that they exist in nature and thus if a patient had already been infected with one and created antibodies, there would be a immune response targeted towards the Vector and not the desired immunogenic product of the vector, making the vaccination considerably less effective and in some cases a dud in certain patients. Using two different types of vectors would ensure that this would likely not happen. A good overall approach and if the numbers are not fudged, a decent efficacy of what I remember to be in the high 80% 's protection against severe outcomes. Astrazeneka had 2 doses of the same vector and thus ran the risk of an undesired immune response towards the vector. Two doses though we're better than one. Which brings us to the J&J vaccine. The only saving grace of it was that it was cheap. In order to have a leg up in sales it was marketed as a “one and done” and I knew that this was unscientific marketing BS. It was more shelf stable then most of the others but the low efficacy should have been a dealbreaker. But it apparently wasn't. So all is well right? Everybody got their vaccine and live con….yeah we are talking about a tale of a people of incredible incompetence and viciousness. There ain't no happy ending here.

What happened was a Russian disinformation firestorm against mRNA vaccines. In order to promote their own one. They created and amplified absolutely insane lies. Such as that these vaccines change your DNA, which they cant as they are RNA vaccines, that they contain little microchips put there by bill gates, to make women infertile, to destroy the white race, it got really really crazy and funnily enough, lots of people bought this nonsense hook line and sinker. The Anti Vax movement was fringe and almost forgotten, but the Russians have resurrected it with a vengeance. The lies and insanities are still being propagated today and the mistake we make is to think that this kind of thinking is rare.

It's not. It is so widespread and has become somewhat mainstream. They keep telling us that we're gonna drop any second now…yup debilitated by long covid, sneezing and coughing with snot in their mouths gasping for air to their broken lungs and their countless dead relatives, it's us vaccinated folks that will die any second now, im still waiting, perhaps i will die one day, who knows?

Many of them still whine and squeal like the little traitorous piglets that they were “Forcefully vaccinated/violated” to this day. They didn't want their DNA to be changed, so they chose to be vaccinated with….a freaking Adeonovirus based DNA vector. One that on occasion has the habit of continuously producing their payload in certain cell types, effectively changing the transcriptome. And one that is known to sometimes cause blot clots and that was the reason why the Astrazeneca vaccine has not been in use for ages.

This is beyond parody, beyond normal crazy. We have at that point entered the age of “advanced stupid”. But they didn't want to be wrong, so they continue to dig in their heels to this day.?

When you wish upon an Omicron:

All the above happened during Delta, the lockdowns were largely lifted. Now we had enough masks but most of us were to stupid to wear them correctly. Either having a chindiaper leaving the nose exposed or having it so loose on their face it wasn't a mask, more like a veil of sorts. Delta was still causing massive amounts of deaths and then something happened. In discussion with friends I sometimes joked that we needed an attenuated coronavirus making the rounds. One that is incredibly infectious but rarely causes disease. This would be the only opportunity to “get 'em all” as their own negligence and stupidity would be the vehicle to protect them. My desperate prayers were heard either by nature itself or some shadowy organization who maybe for once, did the right thing. It was first discovered in south africa and i immediately noticed after the first sequences where in that it massively changed. The Spike protein especially had changed substantially, other genes and proteins as well. I immediately looked for changes in ExoN and in NSP14 i found a substitution in its active site. To me this meant that the error correcting machinery was altered. I was very concerned because this could mean that the virus would be able to change rapidly and that even with mRNA technology, catching up to it would be an unwinnable game of whack-a-mole. That is true, fortunately my other fear, that this variant could potentially be a considerably more dangerous variant was not. It was, compared to Alpha, Beta and Delta, relatively mild. Mild being on the level of the Influenza virus and so so virulent. It spread so quickly and so easily, its incubation period was short, it created asymptomatic carriers and it evaded antigen tests like a champ. Only showing positives when 2-3 days of being infectious and perhaps even symptomatic had passed. Omicron is still going around, it's not harmless by any means. Many people still die from it, every single day. Most of them are preventable with regular vaccination and basic measures such as staying at home when one is sick. But it managed to push out Delta and become the only* variant in circulation.

In the end, we couldn't defeat the virus. The virus decided it had defeated us militarily and we now live under its occupation. We are its hosts and we exist to create more of it. Humanity had been figuratively subjugated by the invader.

Tens of millions are dead. Hundreds of millions are crippled, most of them until the day they die. Our economies are in shambles. Few rich people got infinitely richer and poverty has increased to sad levels worldwide. The Russian lead disinformation campaigns have shifted gears into supporting their violent invasion of Ukraine and the prospect of all out thermonuclear war with the Russians is a daily reality, that is likely to come to pass if they are not decisively defeated. It has driven millions (of idiots) to seek refuge in authoritarian rhetoric as they did embrace and nurture their crazy during the pandemic. The rights of women, children, the poor, LGBTQ+, religious minorities etc are under violent assault in western democracies. In many parts of the world they are non-existent now. Democracy itself will as a concept likely cease to exist in many nations.?

If another outbreak of a severe disease happened, the shellshocked idiots are in such great numbers now, they would dig in their heels and would never agree to even the most minimalist measures. Anti-Science ideology as an organized movement is doing active harm to humanity. Timid and wholly incompetent politicians in Germany are afraid of them and are continuously seen trying to placate to their madness. In many other countries it's the same story. Wearing a mask nowadays in Germany will net you mockery, and perhaps even a violent reaction. It doesn't matter that Covid is ramping up, together with Flu and RSV. It doesn't matter, they are afraid of the mask. I hear their comments everyday, because I work with them. And these are not uneducated fools. I mean they are fools, but many of them have studied in university, they have easy access to an incredible wealth of peer reviewed knowledge. But they decided that all that “science stuff” is fake and that they (scientists) are all in it for the money, and that they all lie and that it's all a big conspiracy of big pharma.?

At the beginning of the pandemic I was excited because this was an opportunity for the whole world to move closer together. To work together to fight this thing. A great success for humanity. It was a testrun as we as a species would soon face considerably more difficult challenges thrown at us due to the ravenous effects of climate change.

We miserably failed this test, we did not only learn nothing, we actually managed to be in a worse situation then we started out in, as such the likelihood of our extinction on Earth has a high degree of confidence. There is no way in hell we can surmount the challenges that we will face within our lifetime. Civilisation is already in a state of collapse.

To close out here is the Definition of “Pyrrhic Victory” from Wikipedia.

A Pyrrhic victory (/?p?r?k/ PIRR-ik) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.