Right in the centre - Are solutions being ignored?

Details

Published on Friday, December 10, 2021

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

Last week, I asked Dr. Roussin in a press conference about what treatments were being used for treating COVID-19 patients in Manitoba. I asked about at-home, in-hospital and in-ICU treatments. The answer was disappointingly vague. He referred me to Manitoba Health for an answer.

I also asked about his knowledge of studies about Vitamin D. He was vague again, saying that they review lots of studies and depend on peer reviews by doctors and researchers. He quickly passed over the Vitamin D issues and he wouldn’t even utter the words “Vitamin D,” covering it with more vagueness by stating that getting the vaccine is the best defence against C-19.

Dr. Roussin suggested I contact Manitoba Health, so I did. The email bounced back, so I tried another route. That contact didn’t get back to me for several days. I eventually got an answer back in a couple more days, saying they were working on an answer. Here it is:

“You can attribute the following to a Shared Health spokesperson.

Treatment of confirmed COVID-19 can vary according to the specific needs of an individual patient.

Health Canada does provide some information that might be of interest to you on the most common treatments at https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/covid19-industry/drugs-vaccines-treatments/treatments.html.

With respect to your inquiry related to Vitamin D, please find information from Manitoba Public Health on their Myths & Facts page.

We continue to encourage all Manitobans to get vaccinated, get tested if they have symptoms of COVID-19 and stay home when they are ill. Individuals in need of medical care are encouraged to see their primary care provider, or, if symptoms are severe, to call 911 or go to their closest emergency department.”

I appreciate Manitoba Health getting back to me. The first website link shown above says the following treatments are approved in Canada– Remdesivir, Bamlanivimab, Casirivimab and imdevimab and Sotrovimab

The Myths and Facts web page suggests that Vitamin D is of no proven value to protect against C-19 and their explanation is illogical, but check it out and decide for yourself. Overall, health dynamics are key to one’s ability to avoid serious issues with C-19. Vitamin D levels are proven to aid in overall health, so then it stands to reason that Vitamin D, while it may not be a treatment for C-19, most certainly affects one’s ability to fight diseases, including C-19.

Also, I just got a press release stating that, “Merck has entered into an agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific to manufacture Molnupiravir, Merck’s investigational oral antiviral medicine for the treatment of COVID-19.”

Slowly, very slowly, treatments are being tried and talked about. It’s only about 15 months too late.

Statistics would seem to show that Dr. Roussin’s “get the vaccine” answer is valid, but not the whole answer. As long as we ignore the treatments and preventions, we prolong our agony.

Doctors tell me that you can’t treat C-19, only the symptoms. It seems the actual C-19 treatments are few and far between. They will remain few and far between as long as the health system and media continue to buy into the idea that there are no other solutions except vaccination, dying or recovering. It is quite disturbing that double vaccinated people are getting sick and some are dying.

Last week, a prominent Canadian columnist was waxing eloquent about how C-19 affairs were going in Florida, saying they were doing as well as Ontario. Could there be one glaring difference between Ontario in the winter and Florida in the winter? Florida is a lot warmer, people are outside more, on the beaches even, and are getting a lot more sunshine than Ontario. Funny thing how that might work? Less indoor living and more Vitamin D from the abundant Florida sunshine could well be part of the difference. It amazes me that doctors, even Dr. Roussin, don’t seem to acknowledge the most common idea that Vitamin D may well be a deterrent to C-19. Even if it isn’t helpful, it can do no harm.

I just listened to a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell, a famous author and speaker. He points out that three major health conditions lead to C-19 deaths, namely hypertension, diabetes and obesity. He says that if we currently had the much lower levels of those three conditions that we had in 1990, we would not have nearly as large a C-19 death rate as we have in 2020-21. Apparently, we have more hypertension, are fatter and more diabetic than experienced in 1990.

With 152,000 back logged surgery and test cases, we are going to lose a lot more people from the backlog than we ever lost from C-19.

It’s time to change how we do this pandemic thing.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the Banner & Press staff.