"Luke MacLean-McMahon didn't really believe in Covid-19 until the Cook Islander contracted the virus in March 2020 while living in London."
Each week, there are stories like these, further alarming an already traumatised and exhausted population. They captivate our precious attention into a negative narrative and this is not good for our mental and physical health. In addition, they make us feel unnecessarily helpless.
Before we succumb to fear, let's consider some of the risk factors so we better understand what is going on. There's a lot we can do to reduce our personal risks.
Vitamin D: As you can see in the article's photos, Luke, who may be related to my Cook Islands Maori children, is olive-skinned. He was living in London when he allegedly caught COVID, which happened to be during the depths of the Northern Winter. So unless he was taking a vitamin D supplement or had been holidaying in the South of Spain, we can assume he was deficient in Vitamin D, a significant risk factor for suffering severe COVID symptoms. So, my first question is this: was he lacking in Vitamin D?
Zinc: People who exercise require zinc for tissue repair and growth. Severe zinc deficiency is widespread when the diet is high in depleted foods such as rice and chicken. The immune system uses zinc to slow or prevent viral replication within infected cells. My second question is this: was he lacking zinc?
Side Effects Risk: There is no mention of his vaccination status. So my third and fourth questions are: Did Luke get the jab before catching COVID in London in March last year? And/or did he have the jab within the months or weeks before returning to New Zealand and collapsing while in MIQ? I ask these questions because heart inflammation and scarring may be a side-effect of the jab. It appears fit young men are at most risk of heart inflammation. https://www.garymoller.com/post/why-young-men-die-from-covid-and-from-the-vaccine
Treatment Risks: My sixth question is what treatment did he receive on falling ill for the first and second times? This information is important because the treatments, including toxic drugs and mechanical ventilation, can cause damage to the lungs and other organs such as the liver and kidneys.
Ongoing Treatment and Rehabilitation: My final question is this: what medical treatment, if anything, is Luke receiving today, including physical therapy and medications for Long COVID? The treatments themselves may be contributing to his ongoing symptoms, and we need to know if they identified the root causes and have effective, rather than symptomatic remedies in place.
Luke's racial ethnicity would be irrelevant for this story if it were not for the fact that Maori and Pasifika are, as a group, vulnerable to COVID. Reasons for these communities being more vulnerable include preventable factors such as poverty, sub-standard and crowded housing, malnutrition, obesity, diabetes and vitamin D deficiency.
I've argued before that "Long COVID" is not new: it is best described as a subset of "Post-Viral Syndrome". I've written about this here:
and here:
Singling out Long COVID for attention is misplaced: the more significant concern is all causes of Post-Viral Syndrome, including Glandular Fever, caused by the Epstein-Barr Virus which harms thousands of young Kiwis.
The underlying theme here is the need to invest in health, rather than constantly fighting disease and all of the cost of the complications that come with this rearguard strategy.