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There has been a host of potential Covid-19 cures that have been suggested by politicians, faith healers and crackpots. One of the first ones to spring up was to inject patients with disinfectants such as bleach. Thankfully, medical experts suppressed that concept before an inordinate number of people died. Outside of the United States, there have been a significant number of prescriptions offered by a variety of Asian locations that come at a time when universities, research institutes and pharmaceutical companies are attempting to develop vaccines and treatments.
Recently, the Nikkei Asian Review published an article entitled Cow Urine and Gasoline: Asia’s Curious COVID Cure Claims. In India, members of the ruling BJP party maintain that consuming cow urine and dung can help cure coronavirus. Many Hindus worship cows and believe drinking their urine will provide healing medical benefits. Cow urine drinking parties are somewhat akin to Napa Valley virtual wine tastings. However, I doubt the lady shown below will sniff the beverage to capture the bouquet and follow that by swirls in the mouth before drinking it.
Also in India, an Indian yoga guru put on sale an Ayurvedic Indian medical kit that allegedly controls and cures Covid-19. The Indian government interceded given the extensive claims but did allow it to be sold as an immunity booster rather than a cure-all. The yoga guru, Ramdev, strikes a pose below on the banks of the river Ganges. He seems to be suppressing a smile as he is selling 100,000 of his medical kits per day at a price of $6.70 per kit.
The Agricultural Minister of Indonesia launched a eucalyptus necklace cure but skepticism from public health experts forced an admission that it could improve the disease symptoms such a shortness of breath through aromatherapy. The Health Minister defended the product telling the media that people who wear the necklace may feel confident, thereby boosting their immune system.
In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte is likely best known for his policy of shoot all suspected drug dealers on sight and thereby eliminate the drug scourge and improve lawfulness in his country. Another radical concept of his was, in the absence of alcohol, to sanitize face masks by soaking them in gasoline or diesel. Like others closer to home, he says these things with a straight face.
Malaysia’s Health Minister, Adham Baba, claimed that drinking warm water can “flush” the virus down to the stomach where digestive acids will then destroy it. He said the coronavirus cannot tolerate heat and thus will die in the stomach. It is a bit unclear how the warm water would have any impact on the virus which finds its way to the lungs. Moreover, like others who maintained that the virus would dissipate when warm weather appeared, they have been proven wrong by the disaster of the second pandemic wave that has occurred this summer. It seems that no nation has a corner on the market of stupidity and disinformation.
There are a host of other “feel good” but harmless suggestions but injecting disinfectants and washing masks in gasoline do not fall into that category. Obviously, the only real cure to eliminate the pandemic is to develop an effective vaccine. In that regard, in a recent article in The Economist entitled A Bigger Dose, the article observed that some $10 billion has been committed to frantic attempts to develop a life-saving vaccine.
Sadly, it is most unlikely that all of the vaccines being developed will be effective in all cases or even approved by the regulatory bodies. Therefore, when discounted back to reality, the likelihood of a secret sauce being developed in time for world-wide delivery this winter is remote. Moreover, even if funding for vaccine development were increased ten-fold to $100 billion, the expenditure pales in comparison to the $7 trillion which governments across the world have spent or pledged since the pandemic began to preserve incomes and jobs. Accordingly, the new norm for life may well be with us or certainly less-developed countries for years to come.
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