The Christian Chiropractor Commentary

Divide and Conquer – The Unhidden Talent of SARS-Cov-2

Divide and conquer is an age-old strategy of war.  It is also a technique that has been used historically by those in power to control those they are in power of.  On a more personal level, when I first started practice the office manager of the place in which I rented space was one of those people that appeared to care, that appeared to be a good listener, that appeared to be worthy of confiding in, and then would use these confidences to sew seeds of discontent between her co-workers.  We all know one or two of these people.  In 2020 there has emerged a new enemy of unity, a force that has become so very successful at utilizing this strategy of divide and conquer, not only between and within nations, not only within the office place, but even within families and friends.  It is masterful at its craft.  It is pervasive literally being everywhere.  And yet it is completely mindless.  No, it is not Donald Trump or Joe Biden.  It is the SARS-Cov-2 virus. 

              To understand just how good the SARS-Cov-2 virus is at this let us contrast it with another virus, Ebola.  In 2014 there was a largescale multi-continent epidemic of Ebola.  It started in a small village in west Africa, a place where Ebola had never been seen.  It started with a toddler playing in a naturally hollowed out tree in which fruit bats lived, dropping their guano on the ground.  This tree would eventually be burned down by the villagers as a symbol of their rage.  The child would soon die but before he did he be patient zero in the largest Ebola epidemic in the disease’s short history, only dating back to the mid 1970’s.  Ebola is a virus that causes an illness that may be best described as having the flu for two weeks, and then having cholera for the next two.  Its victims die mostly from dehydration.  Ebola is spread not by droplets or aerosols, but by direct contact with infected bodily fluids, so it is harder to transmit than SARS-Cov-2.  Depending upon the strain, it kills rather quickly and efficiently a majority of its victims, unlike SARS-Cov-2.  Its victims are quite obviously sick, and therefore relatively easy to avoid, particularly those that show signs of the most notorious Ebola symptom, bleeding.  Ebola is not a divide and conquer virus.  It is a brute force bully coming at you with club in hand that if you react quickly enough you can easily run away from.  SARS-Cov-2 is just the opposite.

              It spreads by droplets and aerosols, things you can’t see.  It is very contagious, orders of magnitude more so than seasonal flu.  It takes up to 2 weeks to incubate and while it’s incubating its victims will start shedding viral particles 2-3 days before they have symptoms, if indeed they ever get any at all.  Silent typhoid Marys (Boy what a miserable life she led, but that’s a different story).  Most that do get sick will get over it without consequence.  But there are many who will not be so lucky, the “long haulers.”  They will have symptoms for weeks or months or years or perhaps forever; things such as cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, foggy thinking, and a variety of other vague to serious complaints and complications.  A few will be on oxygen for the rest of their life.  And about 2% will die.  It is through this wide variety of bodily responses to the little bugger that it is able to divide us so adoitly.  Let me explain what I mean by divide. 

              Let’s pretend that you and I are part of a community in which Ebola has broken out.  We have seen the images of the sick and dying, blood oozing from their orifices (something that actually happens much less often that you might think).  Government agencies, doctors, and scientists all tell us not to touch sick people and to minimize the sharing of bodily fluids with people outside our bubble.  You don’t have to tell me twice, we all think.  We are under attack by a scary deadly germ and what the experts say goes. 

              Enter SARS-Cov-2.  We don’t see images of the sick and dying.  Most people don’t know anyone who’s died and the ones they know who have been sick have recovered, seem fine, and are probably immune.  Lucky them.  Most of us have never walked through the COVID ward at a hospital to see the sick and dying.  Most of us have never been in an ICU, let along seen someone on a ventilator in the ICU.  And if we have seen the sick and dying, they don’t have blood coming out of their orifices so the optics aren’t nearly as shocking.  Doubts creep in.  Questions begin.  The ones dying were old and had other health problems in the first place so did they really die of COVID19 or from their other health problems?  Is it true that the hospitals get paid more if they put COVID19 on the death certificate?  Confusion begins to reign.  In the beginning the experts didn’t even agree on what exactly we should be doing in the first place.  Experts were first saying don’t wear masks, and then later they said wear masks.  Some countries locked down, others were less strict,  and a few, or one, Sweden, said let’s just see how this herd immunity thing works out (btw it didn’t).  There has been chaos from the beginning.  Afterall, no one had ever seen COVID19 before.  We haven’t had a real serious widespread global pandemic like this since before viruses were discovered. 

              It doesn’t help that the SARS-Cov-2 virus appears to be designed for so well for humans.  Genetic studies have shown that it is a better match for the human ACE2 receptor, the door it uses to enter our cells, than for any other mammal yet tested, including the bat and pangolin, which are the creatures it is thought to have spread from (link to zoonotic viruses).  Because it looks designed and because we love a good conspiracy, we look for someone to blame for its design and release, even though no serious scientists believe it was designed in a lab.  Social media churns out evil doers to blame such as the Chinese and Bill Gates, maybe even political parties.  More distrust.  Then let’s put a period at the end of the sentence by having high profile political leaders disputing and scorning their own experts’ advice, and the seeds of distrust expand into large thorny hedges, dividing families, friends, work places, communities, states, countries, and very oddly to me political parties.  Science has been lost as the SARS-Cov-2 virus has done what it is so very good at, making more of itself. 

              Where does this leave us?  That I don’t know, but I know my own mind.  SARS-Cov-2 is the perfect storm of a viral pandemic.  The only everyday tools we have to slow its spread are masks, social distancing, and sanitizing.  Despite out best efforts, it is a slippery fish and sometimes will just find its way into our lives.  It would take years to achieve natural herd immunity and therefore cost a whole generation of old people and the other most at-risk.  To get out of this, to take off my mask in front of my mom-in-law and grandchildren, to eat inside a restaurant, to get everyone back to work, to stop the division between all of us, to return to discussing anything else in the world, anything other than COVID19 in a reasonably short period of time will require two additional tools.  First is widespread, massive, inexpensive testing with nearly instantaneous results.  Second is a vaccine taken by 75%+ of the entire world’s population.  The WHO eradicated small pox, another viral zoonotic disease, using vaccines.  We do not need to eradicate COVID19, we just need to reduce its spread rate to a value below 1, meaning that for each person who contracts the virus he/she will spread it to fewer than one other person. 

              One final point.  Vaccination.  To me it’s a simple risk/benefit analysis.  What are the risks of COVID19?  2% die.  My mom-in-law would be one of those for certain.  My dad already was one.  40% never know they have it.  The other 58% fall into a large bucket of all kinds of reactions.  On that note, I found out about a 30-something woman in a late-term pregnancy who is on a ventilator at the writing of this.  I am told that they are weighing the necessity of performing a C-Section to save the child.  So the argument that it’s a disease only of skilled nursing facilities falls flat.  The risks of a COVID19 infection are serious.  The vaccine?  I will write my next article on how mRNA vaccines work.  Let me just say I am very impressed with the tech.  With regard to the risks, I’ve read the reports and I know that no medical intervention is without risk.  As a chiropractor I’ve spent my career cautioning against the risks of medical intervention.  In this case, in my opinion the risks of the shot are like a candle compared to the million watts of COVID19.  The benefits are obvious.  I have a civic duty to let them put the needle in my arm to help to protect my family, my friends, and all of you, from the only person I have any control over, me.

Thanks for reading and sharing.