Best Preventive or Screening Method to Adopt for Covid-19 Pandemic in Crowded Places

The blogger’s Note:

 

A short comment on the above subject is recently written by a friend who insisted not to be named (but my regular blog readers would surely know who he is) and “naughtily” suggested that I treat it as my own writing (as his Christmas and New Year present for me), which I vehemently declined. Anyway, here it goes:  

 

Crowd is back during Christmas 2020 !

I have always wondered taking body temperature for Covid-19 in a crowded place may be the fastest and easiest screening method. No doubt about this. But to me this is useless. 

 

A fever may not necessarily be the first response of the body to any infection as it takes time for the body to respond. 

 

A person may already be infected with the virus but his body may not show any fever.

 

He is a febrile or even entirely asymptomatic. 

 

If there is going to be a fever, this may take a few days. We call this the incubation period.

 

Furthermore, a fever does not necessarily mean Covid. It is just a body response to any infection or any kind of chemical pyrogen including drugs as side effects. 

 

It may also be due to an endocrinal disorder such as hyperthyroidism, or something physical such as coming in directly from the hot sun outside, or just after a steam bath before the thermo regulatory mechanisms of the body can adjust.

 

Hence I feel taking body temperature may not be a reliable screening indicator. 

 

Rapid screening tests such as ELISA may or may not be reliable either in specificity or sensitivity, if the viral load is initially not heavy or sensitive enough before the virus begins to start multiplying in the body.

 

The best alternative approach is the use of:

Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). 

 

But this is a very expensive test that takes 5 to 6 hours to perform. 

 

Hence you can't use RT- PCR for screening in a crowded place like in the shopping mall or in a bus or railway station.

 

But in full bloom of a Covid infection, the detection of immunoglobulins produced by our own body is ultimately the best diagnostic test without any other invasive procedure. 

 

So the only way to stay safe is just to stay at home, whether for Christmas, New Year, any kind of festivals, or even our own birthday celebration. 

Shifting Parameters of Covid-19 Mutations: Not Unexpected

The blogger is pleased to post with permission granted the following article written by Dr. Lim Ju Boo emailed on Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 7:05 PM:

News that this Covid-19 is now mutating very rapidly into multiple strains till no scientist currently is able to catch up or trying to defeat with all kinds of vaccines whatsoever is not surprising to me.

 

This is not new to us as molecular and evolutionary biologists. Such a mutagenic scenario has been occurring not this year, not last year, not 10 years ago, not 100 years previously, not even a 1000 years since, or 1 million years in the past, but countless multiple mutations have been going over the eons among viruses, bacteria, unicellular organisms until the rise of complex multi-cellular life.

 

This has been going on naturally on their own till various life forms evolved over the last 4 billion (4,000 million) years since the first RNA molecule and pre-life was implanted on this Planet.

 

What’s even more impressive is the simpler the life or pre-life form the faster they mutate - within hours to just a few days. The rate at which these viruses including bacteria mutate depends on their sequences.

 

Sequence in DNA or RNA chemistry means the order in which the four chemical blocks ("bases") that formulate the DNA / RNA molecular structure arrange themselves in the chain.

 

The sequence tells us the kind of genetic information that is carried in a particular DNA segment. These are stored as cellular signatures.

 

The shorter and simpler the sequence, the faster and easier the rate of their mutagenic scenarios.

 

It is to my mind such a biological law of Nature programmed into all life given by an Intelligent Designer that no scientist on this entire Planet Earth shall or can alter.  

 

An Unbending Decree:

 

This Decree by an Intelligent Designer is a pitiless biological law no scientist can or shall alter with whatever vaccine or drugs, he or she obstinately wish to treacherously create.

 

It is His sword of pestilence, famine plagues and disease and His verdict on Earth.  This is prescribed in over 100 verses in the Bible. It is His uncompromising Decree scientists need to understand.

 

A Natural DNA Program:

 

In my postdoctoral dissertation to the University of Cambridge last year, I wrote out the mechanism how even bacteria can easily change from one strain to a better and hardier strain for their protected and continued existence, and nothing, nothing at all can change that instrument - not even the most powerful combination antibiotics, vaccine whatsoever can alter.

 

Pandemics that Come and Vanish Naturally:

 

It is the same Intelligent Designer who promise He will thrust and withdraw His Sword off and on periodically as we can clearly see with waves of pandemic and epidemics from malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, smallpox, SARS, HIV, etc sweeping across the globe since the time of the Greek civilization in 430 BC at a time when we have not even heard about vaccine. Yet, waves after waves of these scourges come and go naturally without vaccines.

 

It was not until Dr. Edward Jenner, the English physician and scientist in 1798 who first coined this word ‘vaccine and vaccination’ derived from Variolae vaccinae (smallpox of the cow) when he noticed milkmaids who were already exposed to cowpox did not contact smallpox after that. This is a very illustrative case of natural vaccination or natural medicine.  

 

Since then vaccination started, even though natural immunity against small pox passed on from cows into humans was a clear-cut case of herd immunity, social, shared, cooperative, combined immunity, zoonotic immunity… whatever we like to label it.  

 

We scientists still have not learned this lesson, and insist on using artificially created vaccines of all types including novel mRNA vaccine when we can clearly see all past and ancient pandemics do fizzle out naturally by themselves as our Intelligent Designer promised us in over 100 verses in the Bible.

 

But we have nothing else to do but try to alter or get rid of a Decree by an Intelligent Designer with all types of drugs and vaccines.

 

It is just the stubbornness and folly of us scientists.

 

That’s it. And thank you for your “new” information.

 

jb lim 

On Emergence of New Strains of Covid-19 Viruses

The Blogger’s Note: 

It was reported on 14 December, 2020 that a new variant of the coronavirus that may be associated with faster spread has been identified in southeast England, UK. Over 1000 cases involving this variant have been identified in the UK. 

For further reading: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9052077/Matt-Hancock-blames-new-strain-coronavirus-surging-cases-London-South-East.html 

My most learned e-buddy Dr. Lim Ju Boo commented as follows:

 

Thank you for this info from England where several new strains of Covid 19 viruses have emerged and more deaths resulted.  

I am not surprised from the way we try to prevent it from spreading since not only us but this virus too needs to adapt and survive against all odds and adversities. It's just part of Nature.

Read my further feelings about this in Ir. TO Lau’s blog here: 

https://taionn.blogspot.com/2020/10/list-of-dr-jb-lims-articles-inside-this.html?m=1 

Especially articles No. 136 on “2020 War of the Worlds. Earthlings vs the Coronavirus”and article no. 138 on “The Mystery of Life on Earth: The Origin of Coronavirus”. 

Ever since the first pre-biotic chemistry started 4,000 million years ago and the first RNA world and evidence of chemical fossils were discovered 3,800 million years ago, followed down through natural history especially during the Cambrian Explosion of all life beginning from 542 to 488 million years ago, every life being already evolved will try to adapt and survive through adverse challenges till today.  

For instance, mosquitoes first appeared 226 million years ago and they have been vectors of diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya, West Nile, dengue fever, filariasis, Zika and other arboviruses.

 

Until today we have not been able to defeat the mosquitoes or any of the disease they transmit. Scientists have not been able to develop any effective vaccine against them. 

Neither have we been successful with any other diseases carried by other insects or parasites. 

There is even a Malaysian scientist by the name of Dr Betty Sim (pic. right) who was my colleague at IMR but now settled down in the US, who is trying to develop the malaria vaccine, now in Phase 3 of clinical trial. But i have not followed up with her since I met her again 2 years ago.

By transmitting these diseases, mosquitoes have caused the deaths of more than 800,000 people a year, more than any other animal taxon each year, and more than Covid 19 deaths. 

What I am trying to explain here is, we can never defeat Covid-19 no matter how hard our medical scientists try. 

Our only choice is to let this disease fizzle out naturally by itself by natural selection like all other pandemics since ancient history of plagues and pestilences have clearly demonstrated.

Whatever kind of vaccine we try to develop, whether traditional or novel, this virus will mutate for its own survival when challenged whether inside or outside the human body.  

This is how all life were evolved and protected their existence once emerged.

I hope other scientists understand this natural biological law, maybe not, unless and until they study evolutionary biology just like I did for my postdoctoral at the University of Cambridge in 2019 just before this Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. 

Somehow an unseen Hand guided me there so that I will not be blind in understanding how He is going to work. 

I think we are all fighting a vain battle against Nature, including using an artificially created vaccine against this virus, both will then combine and rise up against us. 

The folly of mankind,

 

Jb lim 

(Written and posted on December 15, 2020 @ 1.30pm in a WhatsApp Chat Group) 

----------------------------------

Feedback from Dr. JB Lim on December 16, 2020 @ 6.19pm in WhasApp group:

 

Dear Sifu Lau,

 

Thanks for the post on the Covid-19 vaccine and my opinion on this issue.  I notice in your blog you posted a photo of Dr. Betty Sim, the Malaysian inventor-scientist of the malarial vaccine, in white lab. coat in her research laboratory in the United States. 

https://magazine.scientificmalaysian.com/issue-12-2016/ama-session-dr-betty-kim-lee-sim/

I have a better photo of her taken together with me at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya and also together with Professor Dr. Lau Yee Ling, Professor and Head of the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, where I was sandwiched timidly as a “beast” in between these two beauties and their brilliant scientific brains 

 

The photos were taken two years ago when Dr. Betty came back to Malaysia to explain to members of our medical society how she developed her vaccine against malaria.  Dr Betty Sim was my colleague at the IMR in the in 1980's - 1990s. Here are the two photos among many with Dr. Betty.

 

Cheers!

 

jb lim 

Pic. from left: Dr. Betty Sim Kim Lee, Dr. JB Lim, Prof. Dr. Lau Yee Ling 

Dr. JB Lim with Prof. Dr. Lau Yee Ling

The blogger's comment:  

Dr. JB Lim humbly mentioned that he was the "beast" with two beauties in the above photo.  But according to the fairy tale and musical romantic fantasy film of "Beauty and the Beast", the beast is actually an enchanted prince who has been cursed. 

And we are sure that Dr. Lim is a "prince" all right in the fields of science and medicine.

---------------

Further feedback from Dr. JB Lim on December 17, 2020 at 2.19am via WhatsApp chat group: 

 

Wow! My dear Sifu Ir. TO Lau, 

 

You really caught me by surprise that I was actually a prince-in-disguise when I mentioned I was a beast sandwiched timidly and humbly between two highly brilliant medical-scientific brains and their beauties. 

 

I never even have the faintest idea that the beast in the mythology was actually a prince, whether charming or not?

 

But one thing is very certain.

 

Dr. JB Lim and Mrs. Sally Lim (Photo by courtesy of Dr. Lim), the beauty and her prince-charming

The “beauty” (wife) in my own house has always asked me to practice water and civil engineering in her house. When I protested as I have no license to practice any kind of engineering whether inside or on the top of my house, she told me as a beast in the house it is okay to practice it quietly without being qualified to save professional engineer’s consultant fees. 

 

There goes another example I have always been a beast of burden in my own, or rather her house, till I die in harness, far from being a“prince charming”. 

 

This is a true story not taken from the fairy tale of “The Beauty and the Beast”. 

 

I am just a Bogus Engineer and a“Prince Charming”in my own house. 

 

Jb lim     

 -----------------------

 

The Blogger’s conclusion:

 

The subject of this post is about the mutation of Covid-19 viruses and interestingly it has somehow extended to the “mutation of a prince” into “the beast” humbly assumed by the Great Sifu, Dr. JB Lim.  

The princehood in Dr. Lim manifests that he is truly a “prince charming” for being a “Jack of All Trades”, excelling in not only the fields of medicine, science but also engineering, a talent first discovered a long time ago by his sister’s classmate when he managed to fix a faulty home radio as a kid. (Refer to: https://taionn.blogspot.com/2020/06/dr-jb-lims-brief-introduction-of.html)

Dr. JB Lim In Action In YouTube

This serves to share with interested readers the few short video clips recorded by me during my attendance at Dr. JB Lim's talks on 3 occasions and posted into YouTube in the past. 

I used my small mobile phone to do the recording from my seat and hence the images and angles were not quite satisfactory, but Dr. Lim's voice and the audiences’ laughter are loud and clear enough.

 

Just go to YouTube and type "Dr JB Lim" in the "Search" box.

1. Dr. JB Lim in action (Clip 1 to 3) Evening talk on "The Meaning & Measurement Of Health" organized by MINDS on 24/10/2012.

https://youtu.be/ZKIvFFeI8ec

https://youtu.be/p3xQHYXivpk

https://youtu.be/4t30otvUQ9Y

2. Dr. JB Lim in action (Part 1 & 2) Talk on "Nutrition & Cancer: New Lamp For Old" organized by CanSurvive Centre Malaysia on 23/05/2015.

https://youtu.be/rm0a8yevYOI

https://youtu.be/DhvaefWvZDs

3. Dr. JB Lim's talk on "Cancer: The Past, Present And Into The Future" at the 7th International Conference For Holistic Healing In Cancer (5 parts) on 19/08/2017. Note that he was suffering from leg ulcer then and was wheel-chaired to the conference hall. But he insisted to stand up and speak throughout the duration of his talk.

https://youtu.be/LPWg3gZv5Hg

https://youtu.be/5gmK94IrA7I

https://youtu.be/Xb-m9QJmCy0

https://youtu.be/_x8_QG9Lew0

https://youtu.be/l3j1a8s1N7c