Our Position
Our current understanding is that Covid-19 is a disease that can cause one’s blood to clot in a wide variety of places throughout the body, leading to a wide variety of symptoms that can potentially result in death. Such symptoms include breathing difficulties, headaches, fever, fatigue, and circulatory problems. Covid-19 appears to be spread through a coronavirus that does not rely on mucus and whose matching chemical receptors are located in the lungs. Although washing and disinfecting surfaces is likely to have no discernible effect on the spread of Covid-19, general cleanliness can reduce the amount of bacteria and viruses one encounters and make it easier for a person’s immune system to overcome the virus.
A virus is a set of instructions that repurposes the processes of a host to survive and spread at the host’s expense. This is true for every type of virus, from computer viruses to colds and beyond. The coronavirus that spreads Covid-19 appears to rely on the infection of lung cells to generate numerous copies of itself that are then distributed in the water vapor of one’s exhalations. This is why masks and thorough ventilation reduce the likelihood of the virus being transmitted from the lungs of an infected person to the lungs of an uninfected person. As with other viruses, the viral load, or number of copies of the virus that are present, is important in determining how much a person’s immune system needs to work to fend off the virus. Reducing the viral load reduces the likelihood of a person becoming infected as well as the severity of any associated illness.
It appears to be common for people infected with low levels of the coronavirus to be asymptomatic (lacking symptoms) and subsequently unaware of their ability to infect others with the virus. For those people who do show symptoms of Covid-19, they appear to be able to spread the virus up to 3 days prior to the onset of symptoms. Anyone with symptoms should immediately self-quarantine and get tested to see if they are infected with the coronavirus. Anyone testing positive for the virus should then self-quarantine for 2 weeks to ensure that they are no longer contagious.
Because the virus spreads through the water vapor of exhalations, masks should be worn when less than 10 feet / 3 meters away from someone with whom one is not in frequent close contact. However, masks should not be worn by asymptomatic persons when further than that same distance. The reason for this is that an asymptomatic person infected with the virus could be increasing their viral load by unnecessarily exhaling and inhaling through a mask, making them more likely to infect others and increasing the severity of any potential illness.
The large-scale shutdowns, to limit the spread of Covid-19 that began this past March, have severely limited the education of America’s children. High quality schooling benefits not only the students themselves but also their families, communities, and society at large. The efforts that have been made to engage in remote learning are worthwhile but insufficient to address children’s needs for experiential learning in social contexts in order to grow into healthy adults. As a result, continued school closures are causing harm to children, families, communities, and our society.
We believe that it is possible to reopen schools without notably increasing the spread of Covid-19. We believe this can be done through added health safety measures such as the wearing of masks, temperature screening, outdoor learning, and increased, filtered ventilation in classrooms. Although the potential for transmission of the virus may still exist as a possibility, it is a certainty that continued school closures are harming our nation. We trust that school staff and teachers care for not only their own well-being but also the well-being of their students. We trust that inviting schools to put in place health safety measures as needed is always more appropriate than putting in place mandates to either open all schools or close all schools.
We believe that government mandates are only acceptable as very temporary measures to allow governments to create stability in chaotic situations resulting from real emergencies. Efforts to create emergencies and extend them in order to increase government control go directly against the principle of Liberty that our country was founded on. Our government is entirely responsible for the effects of any lockdowns and shutdowns it mandates. It is responsible for the negative effects it has had on businesses, which should be reopened with special care and consideration given to maintaining public health.
Mandating restricted opening hours for businesses is counterproductive, as doing so concentrates customers in time and space, making transmission of the coronavirus more likely. Mandating restricted occupancy at businesses is also problematic, in that the economics of businesses such as restaurants do not allow substantially reduced occupancy without substantially increasing prices and/or incurring unsustainable financial losses.
While many vaccines for the coronavirus are currently under development and have begun the process of testing, vaccines need to be both safe and effective. While it is relatively simple to verify that a vaccine is effective, if a vaccine causes harmful effects then its use may be more dangerous than the coronavirus itself, given that the vaccine would need to be received by over 60% of the population to provide herd immunity. In comparison, the coronavirus is currently known to have infected less than 3% of the population. Although the death rate among those with confirmed infections is higher than from the flu, deaths due to Covid-19 appear to primarily be among people in poor health, either tied to advanced age or pre-existing medical conditions. This suggests that Covid-19 is hastening death among people who were already more likely to die, such that death rates could turn substantially lower after the pandemic is over than before the pandemic began and result in a near neutral net rate of change in the country’s death rate.
A more useful response to Covid-19 is to focus on individual preventive health measures. From what we’ve seen, it appears that preventing and mitigating the symptoms of Covid-19 involves facilitating healthy blood flow. As a result, it is advisable to intermittently fast for at least 12 hours a day, supplement your body with Vitamin D, and drink plenty of warm or hot water.
Intermittent fasting encourages your body to metabolize nutrient-poor waste when there's no more nutrient-rich food to metabolize. Since excessive blood coagulants are waste products in the body needing to be removed, intermittent fasting facilitates the removal of such waste materials from your body. If you're new to daily intermittent fasting, you can start by setting a timer for 12 hours after you finish dinner. Then, wait to eat until the timer goes off the next day. After your second dinner, add 10 minutes to the timer and wait to eat until the timer goes off the next day. Keep adding 10 minutes to your timer in this way until you reach a duration of fasting that you can maintain while still feeling good in your body.
Vitamin D is a hormone that your body creates through sun exposure which facilitates the processing of calcium and appears to support healthy blood flow. Since most people alternate between low amounts of sun exposure and high amounts of sun exposure, Vitamin D supplementation can compensate for periods of low sunlight exposure. Recommended doses of Vitamin D supplements vary based on your existing intake. So, it may be helpful to check with your doctor. As a rule of thumb, though, evidence of excessive Vitamin D has appeared only after prolonged use of supplements containing more than 4,000 IUs of Vitamin D per day.
Drinking plenty of warm or hot water makes it easier for your body to process your blood and remove wastes from your body. Drinking cold water isn't as helpful because your body loses heat to the cold, which can slow down metabolic processes. Be sure to drink slowly and gradually throughout the day rather than downing a large mug in one go. If you're a tea drinker, you may wish to look into the wide variety of herbal teas (tisanes). Some herbal teas are known to facilitate blood flow, such as teas containing licorice. Green and black teas contain differing amounts of mild stimulants that can also facilitate blood flow, including caffeine, theobromine, theophylline, and L-theanine.
By taking steps to facilitate healthy blood flow, each of us is able to help our immune systems to fend off the coronavirus and stop its spread as a result.
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