First India, now the US?

When governments keep jumping the gun on the pandemic, they may very well end up shooting themselves and their people in the foot. But first, a surprising breakthrough on how we can ‘breathe’!

LAST week, a news item that left me gobsmacked was this: it is possible for mammals to absorb oxygen via the anus!

Tokyo Medical and Dental University researchers successfully delivered oxygen in gas form and as an enema in the rectums of oxygen-deprived mice, rats and pigs.

As the Japan Times reported, the procedure “normalised the animals’ behaviour and prolonged their survival”.

This is possible because, according to lead researcher Ryo Okabe, “The rectum has a mesh of fine blood vessels just beneath the surface of its lining, which means that drugs administered through the anus are readily absorbed into the bloodstream”.

This surprising finding couldn’t have come at a better time. As the researchers say, delivering oxygen this way could “also apply to humans who are in respiratory distress when ventilators are not available or inadequate”.

All this time, I assumed we can only breathe through the openings on our head. Who would have thought that the opening at the other end of the body that expels waste matter and gas also has the potential to suck in oxygen?

I must say this finding has given rise to a newfound respect for my faecal storage holder at the end of my large intestine.

Of course, much more research and human clinical trials need to be done before the method can be approved for use on gasping Covid-19 patients. But with the pandemic overwhelming India’s hospitals and resurging in several other countries, including ours, who knows what desperate measures we will resort to?

That frightening rise of infections and deaths is probably the key reason why Malaysians who had been slow in signing up for vaccinations are finally galvanised into doing so.

Not only that, the fear factor has led to people seriously looking for alternative methods to boost their immunity and to treat the disease. I must confess I have as well.

Among the Chinese community, even before MPs Lim Kit Siang and Teresa Kok urged the government to consider including traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in treating Covid-19 patients, people have been emptying Chinese medical shops of the three TCM products approved by the Chinese government on April 15 as standard therapy for the disease.I bought three boxes of one of the products too, driven by, I must admit, the just-in-case mentality. The advice is to pop the pills the moment there are any Covid-19 or flu-like symptoms.

Others are calling for the use of the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin in treatment therapy but the Health Ministry says there is insufficient data to prove its effectiveness as yet. It does plan to conduct a randomised clinical trial to evaluate its efficacy and safety in high-risk Covid-19 patients.

There is a certain degree of irony here. While the health authorities do not want to approve any treatment without sufficient clinical data, and we are repeatedly told we must follow the science, we have seen how political expediency has outweighed scientific and medical considerations all over the world. Case in point being India’s catastrophic second wave.

We have also seen how two science-based bodies, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), got it so wrong on the use of masks early in the pandemic, insisting that only those who are sick, or their caregivers, should wear masks.

But in Asia, health experts knew better. Their data showed proper mask wearing was one of the best defences against a virus spread by respiratory droplets.

By the time the WHO and CDC reversed their stand, the United States was in the throes of the pandemic, fanned by its irresponsible president then, Donald Trump.

And now, under President Joe Biden, the CDC has declared fully vaccinated people need not wear masks at any kind of group gathering – big or small, indoors or outdoors, no matter who is present.

The announcement has created much confusion on the ground, much like our government’s U-turns on the SOP and their relaxations.

CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky, in making the announcement, called for people “to be honest” and ditch their masks only if they were fully vaccinated.

This is exactly what experts like Dr Leana Wen, emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, worry about.

She told US National Public Radio that the move increases the risk for people who cannot be vaccinated, like the immune-compromised and young children, because it makes it easy for people who never wanted to get vaccinated or wear masks to now enter stores or other public premises without face coverings.

Over in Britain, lockdown rules have eased in England, Wales and most of Scotland, allowing people to socialise indoors in limited numbers and visit pubs and restaurants. The ban on foreign travel has also been lifted.

The British Medical Association, however, describes the move as “a real worry” because the Indian variant of the virus is spreading in Britain and many younger people have not been vaccinated.

Over and over again, governments eager to lift restrictions to please pandemic-fatigued voters act prematurely only to see the infection rates soar again.

My hope is that we don’t emulate the West even after we manage to vaccinate a significant portion of the population.

Dr Wen said she was stunned “because the CDC seems to have gone from one extreme of over-caution to another of basically throwing caution out the window”.

What the CDC should have done, she said, was to lay out a roadmap of small steps towards the ultimate destination of returning society to normalcy.

A better strategy would be to first allow only fully vaccinated people to gather in formal settings, like in offices and in conference rooms.

“(That) paves the way for restaurants, theatres to say if there’s proof of vaccination, we can be here at full capacity. And then the CDC could say once we achieve a societal level of vaccination... we can remove indoor masking mandates and social distancing. That would have been something for people to look forward to. That would have added an incentive.

“It also would have been less abrupt, because this was so sudden that businesses, local health officials are really reeling because what the CDC essentially did was to eliminate masking and social distancing for everyone and to make it optional. And I really worry about the consequences, especially to those who are not yet vaccinated, ” she said.

Dr Wen intends to keep her mask on and so will I, even after I am vaccinated because there is still a chance I can be infected.

The real deal about being vaccinated is that if I do catch the coronavirus, I would only be mildly ill and not be in such a critical state that I would be willing to be oxygenated through my bum. That thought sure makes me breathe easier.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.