HELLO COVID-19 pleased to meet you

Microparasites, bacteria and viruses have been with us throughout our evolution. Seeking to survive, these organisms attach themselves to more complex life forms. This often results in symptoms which can shorten (in some cases dramatically) the life span of the host beings.

Eventually, over many generations, the host organism and the parasite come to a genetic arrangement, under which both can survive and reproduce. Any other outcome would be suicide for all involved.

Overtime, as humans have pushed the limits of our environment, we have come into contact with microparasites living in other creatures without dire consequences. As is the nature of life, these microparasites try to recruit humans as hosts in their struggle for survival.

These encounters are often catastrophic for humans, with these microparasites causing disease and death. Human history has been heavily influenced by these encounters, with epidemics wiping out great numbers of people, destroying armies, crippling cities and ending civilisations. Eventually, an adjustment occurs between parasite and human which allows both to exist, each with a certain immunity to the other.

The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas introduced a number of microparasites into the environment, which destroyed the local civilisations. The Spanish through violence and overwork killed a great many native people, but the epidemics they unwittingly unleashed reduced the Amerindians to a memory.

With the circumnavigation of the world came a new situation for disease: the pandemic, as a new microparasite entering the human population now had the opportunity to go worldwide. In 1796 Edward Jenner pioneered modern vaccination techniques and in a few years a smallpox vaccine was introduced. Eventually, smallpox was eradicated (1976) and most other infectious diseases were controlled.

The notable exceptions are the common cold and influenza (flu). The cold remains the most common disease on the planet and is a gateway infection, depressing the immune system and allowing other viral and bacteriological infections. I am not aware of any vaccine against the cold. Many flu vaccines exist, but the infection persists probably due to its ease of transmission, tremendous reservoirs of the virus in the population, and the speed with which it mutates.

As we deal with the COVID-19 pandemic there are some lessons from history we ignore at our peril. Respiratory viral infections are really difficult to control as vaccines are hard to develop and limited by mutations. The ‘pandemic’ means it will always exist somewhere, biding its time, waiting for its chance.

We are going to have to come to an accommodation with COVID-19. We are going to have to live together. We need to improve our immune system function through natural means so we reduce the incidence, severity, and duration of infection. If we do not manage this, then our civilisation will change fundamentally.

Listen to the Science.