Creating Microbial Monsters To Terrorize Ourselves

There is a claim, said to be made by a prominent “neocon” in the Trump administration, that “Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes have both been named as possible domestic terrorists”. Some inconstant incontinent only-online kid and an avuncular somewhat-credulous (typical) journalist are “possible domestic terrorists”. I’ll say it again: “possible domestic terrorists”. Terrorists.

I have no idea of the veracity of the claim, and doubt it. But true or not, it proves—and we did not need more proof—that in their absence we must needs invent monsters to chase us.

We cannot be happy and must terrorize ourselves with threats, imaginary and exaggerated. It is our nature. Nothing seems to quell our innate desire to fret. In politics it is a constant. Enemies are discovered everywhere, and their powers exaggerated. Which makes real enemies, for they of course do exist, hard to distinguish from our fictions. At the least, much effort is wasted. At worst, well, you know the worst.

If this is expected in politics, and thus easy to deal with, it is downright dreary in our obsession over health.

Turn Your Mind Off and Cough

You would think that after three-plus years of outrageous idiot crazed immoral painful harmful panic that we would not be anxious to repeat these mistakes. You would be wrong.

The usual suspects tried their level best to juice hantavirus into another Global Event. Journalists because they are twisted people who love the stink of death, Experts so that can feel important again, rulers so they can gain power.

A few representative headlines:

• “The world was warned about hatanvirus before” (sic; link)
• “The Minnesota Department of Health said it’s monitoring the condition of a person who “may have briefly been exposed overseas” to another person who tested positive for hantavirus after being on board the MV Hondius” (link)
• “Health experts warn hantavirus may be “more contagious than thought” (link),
• “A total of 11 hantavirus cases have been confirmed, with global health officials warning that the number could rise” (link)

Do you know what the last one means? The toll may soon soar to 12!

The CDC says there are 20-50 diagnosed infections each year in the States. How many times did you hear about these “deadly waves!” in previous years? Even the WHO, well known for discovering reasons for “concern”, says there are 10,000 to 100,000 infections every year worldwide. The numbers being reported are somewhat below these totals.

Infections are associated with vermin, a species of journalist, one supposes, which is why they are so keen on reporting the latest numbers. And journalists did try their best to induce mania. One vague insinuating headline after another, all seeming to say it was bad and getting worse, but in the end, like in the examples, saying nothing at all: “may have been briefly exposed”. What are these airy indefinite words? Propaganda, that’s what.

There was the odd voter taken in by the hype, as expected. Some of them were, yes, doctors. One was saying he wasn’t panicking yet, but boy was he ready. Remember: Panic is effeminate. Panic kills. Panic is ignorance.

Not a few returned to the ritual of screaming at others to “mask up”. Masks do not work in stopping the spread of respiratory viruses, so they certainly can do nothing about rat infestations.

Still, in spite of terrific effort, the mini-panic seems to be dying down. It had a two-week run, but since there was a disappointing lack of corpses, it was hard for journalists to maintain enthusiasm. Which means they will be on safari to find other “threats” the can terrorize readers with.

And they will find their quarry. By what cannot be a coincidence, as I was writing this I opened Twitter and this was the second tweet I saw: “For The First Time, H5N1 Bird Flu Has Been Documented Jumping From Pet Cat To Human”. It will be hard to peel felines off feminists, so this one is not likely to gain traction.

But they do try. And have tried. They are trying continuously. And we love it. We need to know death lurks. We want to be afraid. If we didn’t, those “news” organizations would have long ago went out of business.

Like Dave Barry said: “we’re lucky to be living in a modern era when medical science is constantly discovering new diseases for us to suspect that we might have.”

Sponge Bathed

Last week another “research shows” paper emerged form the muck and chatter, this one shouting that kitchens sponges are going to kill you, that they are worse than “poop”, and loaded with deadly bacteria:

The research behind this is wild. Your kitchen sponge has the same density of bacteria as human stool. German scientists found 54 billion bacterial cells per cubic centimeter inside used sponges in 2017. Yours is sitting right next to your sink.

My immediate reaction was “Accepting the bacteria load stated here, and knowing the ubiquity of sponges, and the lack of people dropping dead from kitchen infections, they (bacteria+sponge combo) must not be that bad for you.” An MD was incensed about my lackadaisical attitude and fretted about not wanting poop on his hand.

I recalled (to him, and now to you) there were many similar “research shows” papers discovering Death On Doorknobs, Death of Dishcloths, Death on Everything. It turns out that everywhere man goes, so do germs. Here is a brief list of papers, picked from hundreds of such examples. You don’t need to read all of it: scanning is sufficient. But I wanted to provided a full account to answer any criticisms that I listed only “isolated” cases.

Medical Establishments

• Bacterial counts from hospital doctors’ ties are higher than those from shirts. “Doctor ties are often contaminated with bacteria, and it has been suggested that they should not be worn.”
• Understanding the significance of microbiota recovered from health care surfaces. “Manikins, bed rails, and workstations-on-wheels were the most contaminated surfaces with the largest variety of bacteria isolated from manikins and bed rails. A total of 60 different types of pathogens were isolated, 18 of which were well-known pathogens…”
• Hospital Physicians’ Stethoscopes: Bacterial Contamination After a Simple Cleaning Protocol. “Hospital providers’ stethoscopes had a high probability of bacterial contamination at baseline and after examining one patient.”
• Bacterial contamination of health care workers’ white coats. “Among the 149 grand rounds attendees’ white coats, 34 (23%) were contaminated with S aureus, of which 6 (18%) were MRSA.”
• Review of mobile communication devices as potential reservoirs of nosocomial pathogens. “…recent studies reporting bacterial contamination of MCDs, most demonstrating that 9–25% of MCDs are contaminated with pathogenic bacteria.”
• Bacterial contamination of inanimate surfaces and equipment in the intensive care unit. INANIMATE! “A number of equipment items and commonly used objects in ICU carry bacteria which, in most cases, show the same antibiotic susceptibility profiles of those isolated from patients.”
• Inanimate Surfaces as a Source of Hospital Infections Caused by Fungi, Bacteria and Viruses with Particular Emphasis on SARS-CoV-2. “Visually clean inanimate surfaces are an important source of pathogens.”
• Elevator buttons as unrecognized sources of bacterial colonization in hospitals. “The prevalence of colonization of elevator buttons was 61% (95% confidence interval 52%–70%).”

Around the Home

• Microbiome analysis and confocal microscopy of used kitchen sponges reveal massive colonization by Acinetobacter, Moraxella and Chryseobacterium species. “Five of the ten most abundant OTUs were closely related to risk group 2 (RG2) species, previously detected in the BE and kitchen microbiome.” NOTE: this is from 2017. Many such cases.
• Bacterial Occurrence in Kitchen Hand Towels. “Coliform bacteria were detected in 89.0% and E. coli in 25.6% of towels.”
• The kitchen dishcloth as a source of and vehicle for foodborne pathogens in a domestic setting. “These results demonstrate that the kitchen dishcloth may be contaminated with high levels of bacteria and are able to transfer these organisms onto food preparation surfaces.”

Every Damned Place

• Longitudinal analysis of microbial interaction between humans and the indoor environment. “Draft genomes of potential human pathogens observed on a kitchen counter could be matched to the hands of occupants. After a house move, the microbial community in the new house rapidly converged on the microbial community of the occupants’ former house, suggesting rapid colonization by the family’s microbiota.”
• Microbial Exchange via Fomites and Implications for Human Health. “Fomites are inanimate objects that become colonized with microbes…growing body of research has established that microbial communities on surfaces include substantial diversity, with considerable dynamics.”
• Show Me the Science: Surface Contamination: How long do viruses and bacteria remain infectious?. Bibliography with dozens of studies.
• Should we leave the paper currency? A microbiological examination. “This can be considered as an indication that banknotes may contribute to the spread of pathogens and antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, we may need to start using alternative products instead of banknotes.”
• Bacterial Contamination of Shopping Carts and Approaches to Control. “The total numbers of heterotrophic bacteria were as great as 1.1 × 10^7 on the handle and seat. Coliforms were detected on 72% (62) of the carts. E. coli was identified on 18 of 35 carts…”
• Everyday objects and places where bacterial load is higher. Their list: Mattresses & pillows, Computer Keyboard, Mobile phones, Remote controls, Restaurant menus, Supermarket cart, ATM, Lift buttons & public transport handles, Scouring pads & cleaning cloths, Condiment dispensers.

They’re Everywhere

In short, there is nowhere that is “safe”. Every thing man touches is contaminated. This (as we already know) means it is impossible to put “Safety First!” But it also means that we can freak ourselves out about everything. There is an endless supply of ready-made headlines over which can gibber and wring our hands and blubber “What about the children!”

Yet here is a curiosity. Since it is true that deadly killer plagues coat everything we touch, and since it is also true that man abides, it must mean either the germs are not as deadly as advertised or that we are much better at shrugging them off than Experts claim.

Here is the entire Abstract of a study I quoted innumerable times in the covid panic in a futile and vain effort to quiet minds addled by endless propaganda. The paper is “Is a mask necessary in the operating theatre?” by Orr in the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

No masks were worn in one operating theatre for 6 months. There was no increase in the incidence of wound infection.

Which is to say, infections rates remained the same whether the surgical team wore masks or they did not. It is sure the apparatuses used to slice patients open were sterilized. But there was no way to sterilize the air. And there remains no way to purify the air we must all breathe.

Those with their innards exposed to air do suffer when the probes thrust into them are dirty. That is a uniquely vulnerable position, your insides free to be molested by the outsides.

The rest of the time, no. There are infections. People get colds. They get nasty stomach bugs. People die. But not most. Not anywhere near most. Our bodies, especially when not laden with layers of unnecessary fat, do well for themselves, even when the air is chock full of microbial nasties. Which must be an obvious truth or, at this late date, or none of us would be here to discuss it. Masks were because of that always ridiculous.

There are, from time to time, real plagues. Actual frightening attacks which are obvious even to non-Experts. Obvious because it doesn’t require specialized equipment whose operations are known only by a few, and thus difficult to critique. In real plagues the bodies lie in the streets. In artificial panics, we hear about mysterious “test results.” If you have to wait to be told that something terrible is happening, and cannot see it yourself, nor really understand the criterion for what makes it terrible, and are merely being told to be frightened, the proper attitude is suspicion. Not compliance.

Yet we chose fear. The more we indulge the feminine instinct to protect, the more like we choose fear.

How we deal with this evidence (again not a coincidence) plays into our second post later this week on how “climate change” causes UFOs.

Video

https://youtu.be/mQcaPvl_XLM

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