Here are some interesting statistics, from before the COVID era: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21310306/
On average 41% of Americans are Vitamin D deficient. DOUBLE that–82%–of black Americans are deficient.
These statistics are from 2011. There have been no public health campaigns I have heard of to change this, so those numbers still likely hold.
To my mind, given the many benefits we know about with respect to D, and the many unnecessary ailments that deficiency carries with it, this should have been treated TEN YEARS AGO as a matter of high national urgency.
Why wasn’t it? I don’t know, any more than I can even hazard an intelligent guess as to why even the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration had nothing to say about D and zinc (and magnesium).
And it does not differentiate, in the part I can read, between winter and summer. Vitamin D deficiency is known to be a seasonal problem above a certain line of latitude that runs somewhere through America, and includes just about all States north of Kansas or so. Obviously it gets worse the farther north you are, and conversely, deficiency at any time in Florida is likely rare, so the rates must be REALLY bad up north.
In, say, Chicago, rates among black folks might approach 100% in the winter time. Given that D is also a mood regulator, could that not have social effects? I think so, and think I have argued that here.
And as I have mentioned, but will mention again: D deficiency among black folks is more common because their skin does not absorb it as well as paler skin. The rate is also much higher among Hispanics [by the way, would the Latinx thing not be better solved just by alternating Latino and Latina, as smarter folks alternate he and her when talking in the abstract about when “one” does something or other? Or hell, use Latina exclusively for a time if it floats your boat.]
And here is an analogy that occurred to me: Vitamin D is like having sprinklers in a building. If you have a fire, it helps put those fires out. It is a hormonal regulator that affects the immune system.
If there is a Vitamin D deficiency, as it touches COVID, it is unable to stop the cytokine storm we all read so much about a year ago. It is unable to put out the fire, which burns uncontrollably. By actual measurement (where I cannot recall and will not look up now, but I think it was Spain), 80% of people in the hospital for COVID were Vitamin D deficient.
Zinc would be water pressure. If you are zinc deficient, your immune system is already compromised. You might get water out, but not enough. Enough zinc at the outset, bolstered by regular intake of zinc while ill, creates even and sufficient water flow, which is to say a nutritionally optimized immune system.
Zinc is consumed by the immune system. If you are not taking it while you are sick, it may suck it all up. As I have no doubt said, this is most likely why people wind up losing their sense of smell and taste: both are dependent on zinc. What is enough zinc when you are not sick (I won’t pretend to know what that is, but I don’t think it is very much) is not even remotely enough when you ARE sick.
As I have said, I take 30 mg of zinc a day. That is likely significantly more than I need, but less than what it seems to me is even remotely likely to be unhealthy. And when I may or may not have had COVID a month or so ago, I took 100 mg the first day, and 50 mg a day thereafter until I had full remission of symptoms, which took 4 days or so.
My symptoms, by the way, were excessive fatigue and achiness, a chill in my back, and a mild dry cough that lasted 3 days. I couldn’t decide if I was sick, since I was working hard, but the chill decided me. I never took any medicine but my vitamins (I think I’ve got some Advil or something around, but I literally go years, and the plural is accurate, without taking pain killers) and it was nothing more than a mild annoyance. I stayed home until I had been symptom free for three days, but it was nothing.
The only reason I think it may have been COVID is a guy on my job site tested positive, and I had been working near him; and I also DON’T EVER GET SICK with anything. Ever. I don’t get colds. I have only had the flu once in my life, and have never had a flu shot. So whatever it was must have been a bit more potent than the usual stuff floating around.
And as I’ve shared, my life changed as little as possible in the past year. I’ve been hanging out in crowded bars since they reopened last summer, and most of the places I work nobody gives a shit in any way. No masks, no distancing, no weird paranoid femboy crap. A lot of the guys have had it, but it wasn’t much for any of them. I’ve heard by now dozens of stories, at least. The existence of this disease changed nothing.
So I’ve been exposed. That much is certain. I’m either immune, or I’ve had it, and it wasn’t anything to worry about. It really doesn’t matter either way. I feel exactly zero anxiety about this fucking thing. It’s my government that keeps me awake at night. Actually, that’s not quite true. I’m sleeping pretty well these days. And having some interesting dreams that will not be shared here.
But every day I am asking: what the hell is REALLY going on? I don’t know, and if you are honest, neither do you, unless you are in the small elite that either is controlling it, or thinks it is controlling it.