Why isn’t it working?

Governments around the world have had at their disposal unlimited money, unlimited human resources, and unlimited legal authority and yet have not been able to protect the people from the pandemic. Is it a matter of incompetence, a hidden and sinister agenda, or something else?

To start with, believing that we have a genuine picture of what is truly going on is foolish. For example, note firstly that the official name for the virus that causes Covid-19 is “SARS- COV-2.” Secondly, “SARS” stands for “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome,” the key word being respiratory.

According to reports, Singapore is only counting as death from Covid-19 those patients that die from pneumonia and does not include non-pneumonia fatalities in its records. The United States includes just about anyone who ever tested positive for Covid-19 as a pandemic death. These have included as Covid deaths the anomalies of a man who committed suicide, one who died in a motorcycle accident, and another who was murdered because sometime before or after death, they tested positive.

Another consideration is that there is no common policy for success of failure. Vietnam pursued a policy of “hamletization,” a Vietnam War era term of totally isolating small areas when a Covid case was discovered. Sweden did not close bars, restaurants, or higher education institutions, and cautioned senior citizens to be careful and take extra care for their health. Belgium has the second highest per capita deaths after Peru and implemented total lockdown about the same time as the Philippines.

The virus is neither playing favorites among regions nor considering wealth among nations. Argentina’s economy was a “basket case” before the illness and this past two weeks has marched into number nine globally for total cases and number 19 for total deaths. Its population is 60 million.

Rich or poor, lockdown or open, and “populist” or “traditional” government (regardless of what some local political experts say), all are affected, and some catastrophically within those categories. You might have a better argument on female versus male heads of government as long as you ignore Belgium’s Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès, Bolivia’s President Jeanine Áñez, and Finland Prime Minister Sanna Marin, all with per capita numbers much worse than the Philippines and the global average.

However, new research may provide a critical clue. Interferons are a group of signaling proteins made and released by host cells in response to the presence of viruses. In a typical scenario, a virusinfected cell will release interferons, causing nearby cells to heighten their anti-viral defenses.

Two brothers go critical from Covid-19 around the same time in March. Both are in their early 30s and healthy. One dies; the other lives. Two weeks later, a second pair of Covid-stricken brothers, both in their 20s, appeared in the Netherlands and geneticists were called in to investigate.

What they found was a potential genetic “variation.” Two studies published last week in the journal Science showed that insufficient interferon may prowl at a dangerous turning point in SARS- COV-2 infections. If your genetic make-up is designed to immediately respond with a load of interferon early in the illness, you are less likely to have a severe case.

Interferon therapy has been used to treat and control multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disorder. Shakespeare’s Cassius, a Roman nobleman, said, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.” In this case, “our government” and “our genes.”