Known Knowns and Known Unknowns

On May 27, 2022 , we heard the simplest possible explanation of what Covid does to our bodies and how to prevent the spread, but we gave a finger to that information in favour of business as usual. Change is hard. 

Between the time the CDC told people to unmask and Biden declared the pandemic over, and just a couple months after mask mandates were removed from the schools in Ontario, transplant surgeon and bioscientist (and LA Times owner and billionaire) Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong explained what was definitely known about Covid (h/t Jesse International - transcript abridged a bit further down):

Interviewer: "Not everybody suffered from Long Covid, did they."

Soon-Shion: "I don't know if we know."

I: "I've written about this. I will suddenly become extremely confused. I will have a mental fog that will just descend upon me, and it might last a day. It might last a week. Is that what you're talking about? Or are you talking about a physiological disease that might be afflicting us?"

S: "The latter, unfortunately. Now's not the time to create fear or concern, but the science we are looking at . . . autopsies, what we're finding now is 7, 10, 15 months after infection . . . that the virus resides in the body, in every vital organ, brain, gut, pancreas, lung for months and months and months. A virus that persists . . . has known long-term consequences, which at a later time we should discuss." 

Hold the phone! Why isn't now the time to create at least a concern about the longterm effects of Covid?? If not now, then when??

I: "What I immediately think of, of course, is HIV, which lives in, goodness knows, lives in so many cells inside the body, which is why it's almost impossible to eradicate." 

S: "Exactly. It's now being shown that this virus goes into monocytes deep into the bone marrow." 

  

I: "Are we moving into a situation in which life looks normal - except for China - but we just don't know the long term ramifications of this virus?"

S: "There are a few people who do know." 

I: "What would you like us to do? Do you think we should go back to where we're all wearing masks more frequently than we are?"

S: "Completely."

And here's another important bit:

S: "It's very clear people are getting infected even after vaccination, getting infected after having been infected. . . . There's a patient in the hospital in New York that's getting infected with multiple mutations in real time in this person's body. So to wear a mask around is not only good for you, but good for all of us." 

What else will it take to convince people to wear a mask to avoid a virus that has a similar trajectory to HIV?? 

Here's Dr. Soon-Shiong last week at Unstoppable Africa, next to an unmasked Tedros, who should know better!

ETA (Jan 1, 2024): From John Johnstoned:

"On the 30th January 2020 @GlobaNursesU urged Tedros to ensure WHO advised AIRBORNE precautions to protect healthcare workers. Interested to know his response and why they wouldn't have advised a precautionary approach." 

From their letter to Tedros:

"WHO's interim guidance on 'Infection prevention and control during health care when novel coronavirus (nCoV) infections is suspected' falls short in ways that endanger the health and safety of the nurses and other healthcare workers. . . . WHO should call for airborne precautions to be implemented when healthcare workers are caring for patients with possible or known 2019-nCoV infections. . . . The WHO's recommendation that only droplet and contact precautions be used for patients with possible 2019-nCoV infections is irresponsible and may endanger healthcare workers. The WHO interim guidance neglects the precautionary principle, which states that we should not wait until we know for certain that something is harmful before we take action to protect people's health." 

ETA (Oct 3, 2023): Lots of fuss about the reality that Tedros and the WHO knew the virus was airborne back in January 2020. Remember that time in February 2020 when Tedros said so, then was shown a piece of paper by Michael Ryan, executive director, and quickly backtracked that he mistakenly used a "military" word, "airborne", and in fact the virus is spread through droplets?

Here's the receipt that the WHO was aware of airborne transmission:

On Feb. 11, 2020, Tedros said "Covid is airborne. It's more dangerous and contagious than Ebola." Six weeks later, the WHO tweeted the lie that killed millions:

ETA: More from Maarten De Cock:

On January 30, 2020, Global Nurses United wrote Tedros a letter demanding WHO call for, 

"airborne precautions to be implemented when health care workers are caring for patients with possible or known 2019-nCoV infections." They were ignored. 

"WHO's recommendation that only droplet and contact precautions be used for patients with possible 2019-nCoV infections is irresponsible and may endanger healthcare workers. The WHO . . . neglects the precautionary principle."

Then on June 2021, Tedros tweeted: "Health and care workers . . . on the frontline of the Covid 19 pandemic . . . are often under-protected and over-exposed. . . . WHO estimates at least 115,000 health and care workers have lost their lives during Covid 19."