As everyone knows, the race is on to find a vaccine or some type of cure for Covid-19. The USA has even boarded the starship Enterprise and is going at warp speed, which means traveling 117 trillion kilometers in just a few minutes. (At least that is what happens in Star Trek.) The drugs that are currently being tested range from repurposed flu treatments to failed Ebola drugs, to malaria treatments that were first developed decades ago.
Whoever manages to find the magic bullet is going to win the big jackpot, healthwise and moneywise. They will become international heroes (as well as millionaires). In the same way as other countries, Spain is offering substantial funding to public universities and institutes.
So, the University of Granada has also jumped on the bandwagon and is promoting Covid-19 research projects. Research groups in Science, Pharmacy, and Medicine are vying with each other to participate in coronavirus-related research initiatives.
Sadly, those of us in Translation and Linguistics are excluded, probably because there is no known case of a disease that has ever been lost in translation. Despite such obstacles, I decided to design my own research project and thus make a modest contribution to the coronavirus research effort. Perhaps I would be the first to find a way to translate Covid-19 out of existence.
Since my research proposal was very economical, it was instantly approved. The project team consisted of one person (myself); the project duration was 1 day; and the funding requested was 0 euros. As for the materials and instruments required, even though I did not have access to a laboratory with sophisticated equipment, I had the next best thing: Google.
The first phase of the project involved data gathering. Given the veritable avalanche of information on Internet, there had to be some product lurking in the social network jungle, waiting to be discovered (by me, of course). I resolved to leave no byte unturned.
When all the data were compiled, I found that the cures on Google fell into the following two conceptual categories: (1) Totally Wacko; (2) Marginally Less Wacko.
In the Totally Wacko group, the most salient remedy was a device promoted by a celebrity chef in Australia. For the modest price of $14,990, the coronavirus could be eradicated with a BioCharger NG Subtle Energy Platform, which supposedly helps to open the airways of coronavirus victims by reducing the inflammation in the lungs.
Still another interesting remedy was a mattress, which is not only anti-fungal, anti-allergic, dustproof, and waterproof, but also able to fight the coronavirus. (Who can ask for more than that?)
Finally, if one has gone into bankruptcy because of the economic crisis, it is only necessary to touch the television screen to be ‘vaccinated by proxy’ by televangelist Kenneth Copeland. On at least three occasions, Reverend Copeland has also exorcised Covid-19 by summoning "the wind of God" to destroy the virus throughout the world. We are still hopefully awaiting the results.
After discarding the Totally Wacko options, I then turned my attention to coronavirus cures in the Marginally Less Wacko group. The first subdivision in this category was for traditional natural remedies.
Since the pandemic began in Wuhan, I first examined Chinese remedies. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is based on theories about qi, a vital energy that helps the body to maintain health. Within this frame, severe cases of coronavirus are attributed to a “noxious dampness,” which can cause qi to stagnate. TCM specialists recommend injections of Xuebijing, a concoction of five herbal extracts that detoxifies and removes blood stagnation. When combined with standard medicines, these injections supposedly reduce the mortality rate of Covid-19 patients by 8.8%. Though perhaps useful in some limited way, Xuebiging cannot be regarded as a cure.
Still another herbal cure can be found in Madagascar. Made from the Artemisia Annua plant (sweet wormwood), Covid Organics (CVO) is marketed as an herbal potion that can prevent and cure coronavirus. Even though it has not as yet been clinically tested, Madagascar is currently shipping this product to various African countries, such as Tanzania, Nigeria, and Chad, as a cure for coronavirus. They cannot reveal the exact composition of CVO or give testing data, but they know that it works because of their past experience. Given its growing popularity, the WHO has even begun clinical studies. So who knows? Perhaps Madagascar will become the Mecca for coronavirus remedies. The jury is still out.
Since the pandemic, traditional healers throughout Africa are also working overtime because herbal potions are now in great demand. In Cameroon, one healer complains that he has received at least 800 people in the last month. The demand for herbal medicine is so high that he could not treat some patients because he ran short of the potions made from plants that he harvests from the forest. Unfortunately, he refused to reveal the composition of his products. So, no luck there.
If we journey to India, we find a quite different approach. At least two Indian politicians advocate drinking cow urine and applying cow dung on the body to cure coronavirus (though only Indian cows should be used). In the same line, certain countries in the Middle East believe that drinking camel urine is the way to go. Another specialist in Islamic medicine says that Covid-19 should be treated by applying a cotton ball soaked in violet oil to the anus.
These are all remedies that are still untested by the WHO, perhaps because of the difficulty of finding volunteers for the clinical studies.
The second subdivision in this Marginally Less Wacko category consists of Non-traditional Artificial Coronavirus Remedies (which no one in their right mind should ever try). In this category, the brightest star is MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution) marketed by the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing as a cure-all for 98% of all known illnesses, including cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, autism and, now, the novel coronavirus. Genesis was founded by Jim Humble, "a former Scientologist who claims to be a billion-year-old god from the Andromeda galaxy (no, I am not kidding).
If anyone is courageous enough to try this remedy, it comes in a kit available on Internet for $28.90. The kit typically includes a bottle of sodium chlorite and a bottle of an “activator” such as citric acid. When the two chemicals are mixed together, they make chlorine dioxide, a common industrial bleach used in the production of paper products.
According to the FDA, there is no scientific evidence supporting either the safety or effectiveness of the product – on the contrary, when imbibed it can cause severe vomiting, diarrhea and potentially fatal low blood pressure arising from dehydration.
However, Genesis II advertising seems to be quite persuasive. For example, a church in Australia was recently fined US$ 98,000 for repeatedly promoting MMS during services. The ingestion of this product was subsequently responsible for various hospitalizations.
The US leader of the church, Archbishop Mark Grenon, claimed that he even wrote to President Donald Trump about MMS before the press conference in which the president suggested injecting disinfectant as a potential coronavirus cure. This prompted health experts to issue warnings advising the public not to attempt it. Mr. Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic, but by then various people in the USA had already ingested bleach.
So, for now, my research results are only preliminary because there was not sufficient time to process all of the data. Although my categories must still be investigated in greater depth, for now the herbal tea from Madagascar is in the lead with bleach and camel urine trailing far behind.
