Metallic weapons against Covid-19

Three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse have reached our shores.  Pestilence is in the vanguard, cutting a swath through our cities and villages and byways. In his wake rides War and Death. 

Malaria kills nearly a half a million people every year. Over 90 percent of these deaths are in Africa and two out of every three deaths are children under five years old. Chloroquine has been used to treat malaria since its discovery by Hans Andersag at Bayer in 1934. I took Chloroquine when I first went to West Africa in 1990. Luckily I only once got malaria and that was in Obuasi in Ghana in April of that year.

It turns out that Covid-19 really does not like zinc. When the virus invades our cells it takes up  residence in membrane-bound vesicles. in the cytoplasm. These vesicles are called endosomes. Without endosomes the virus is homeless and ceases to thrive and divide. Now the link to Chloroquine. It is a zinc ionophore. This means that it is able to transport zinc ions across a lipid membrane in a cell. and into an endosome. So Chloroquine disrupts endosomes if it has a source of zinc in the body. It is not enough just to have boost zinc in your body with supplements. You also need Chloroquine to boost zinc within  the endosome. The endosome is the house; Covid-19 is the squatter. Combining Chloroquine with zinc to suppress Covid-19 has a sound microbiological rationale but more testing is required to prove that all this works. This is a key research goal. We have also to get the dose right. A dose that is good for malaria may not be the right dose to make Covid-19 homeless.

Copper is another metallic weapon. Copper’s antimicrobial properties have been known for centuries. In China, it was called  “qi,” the symbol for health. In Egypt the name was “ankh,” the symbol for eternal life

When coronaviruses like Covid-19 land on most hard surfaces like glass or nearly all metals they can live in some cases for four or five days.  

 But when they land on copper they blow apart within minutes. Microbes cannot survive for very long on copper . That includes the superbug MRSA which can be deadly for those with an impaired immune system. The microbes died within 90 minutes of coming into contact with copper. For this reason some hospitals have resorted to replacing metal fittings such as door handles, bath taps, toilet handles, rails with copper versions in an effort to reduce deaths from MRSA infection.

The Spanish flu lasted from January 1918 until December 1920.  We have to cut the transmission.  Recent numbers coming out of China give us hope we can telescope the battle-time. The power is in our hands.  Act as if you carry the virus. Stay in your homes while we have no natural immunity or vaccines.  Maybe time now for you to read the classics, I am reading Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and James Joyce, a biography by Richard Ellmann. Let the knights clad in zinc and copper metal ride out to meet the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Stay safe and keep your distance like the local residents in Malpas Place in the Dublin Liberties.

……In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while.  And yet amongst the cracked cloudline of an evening’s cast I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better tomorrow. – Scott Fitzgerald, South of France, 1920.  A letter written to Rosemary.