Remnant's Guide to Enjoying the Holidays
With all eyes on Scariants, I thought it would be nice to review all the precautions one can take to enjoy a wonderful holiday with loved ones, sans hysteria. No masks. No testing. No gene therapy.
It’s beginning to look a lot like…
Think what you will, but I love the holiday season. I love Christmas and New Year celebrations. With the propaganda machine turnt to 11, it can be very hard to block out all the noise and remember what the holidays are about.
Celebrating the turning of the season, and the arrival of a new year. A fresh start.
Spending time with loved ones, sharing stories, and exchanging the gifts you put so much thought and effort in obtaining. Emphasis on effort, supply chain, inflation and all that…
Taking a break from the mayhem, and enjoying a fresh layering of eerily quiet and serene snowfall.
Don’t let the fear-mongers take this time from you
Do not worry about COVID. Do not worry about Omnicron. Or whatever scariant is being pushed through the propaganda machine.
Coronarviruses have been with us forever, and they will continue to do so. We have dealt with them just fine, and this year will be no different.
Enjoy your time with loved ones. They will give you joy, strength, and motivation to keep up the good fight.
Remnant’s Approach to a Happy Holiday
Fortify Your Body
Stay active: whatever you like to do - weights, running, biking, swimming
Avoid Alcohol unless at parties and gathering
Corollary: Stay Hydrated - especially when drinking
Take your Vitamins
Vitamin C
Vitamin D (particularly important in cold dark months)
Zinc
Magnesium
Whatever else you like
Cold Water Therapy - for the adventurous type: Take cold showers, go outside in the cold for a brief period…
Easy Preventative Measures
I know what you’re thinking: “but Remnant, what about testing before the party!?”
These will probably come as a shock to many of you, but I don’t recommend it.
This is what I will be doing:
If you feel sick stay at home. Take some cold medicine of choice, and refer to tried and true home therapies, like Chicken Broth - which works as well as Tamiflu for curbing seasonal flu.
Don’t get a PCR or Rapid Test.
Don’t start contact tracing.
Don’t panic. It makes illness far worse.
Wash Your Hands With Soap & Hot Water. Regularly.
You would be SHOCKED at how many people do not do this properly. Even in the Hospital. You read that correctly. The Hospital.
Cover your sneeze - just not with your hands. You use those for touching things & other people (hopefully, with consent).
Use Protection - I mean condoms. Not masks.
Do not binge-drink. Sorry, I mean…try not to binge-drink.
ONLY IF YOUR ARE HIGH-RISK: Get some prophylactic medications in your cabinet - Fluvoxamine, Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin. They work. Really, really well. Use them if you feel sick.
That’s it.
No masks - they provide low-to-moderate effect when used properly (they almost never are), and only when they are N95s (they almost never are).
No testing - if you are not symptomatic, the tests are useless. Without symptoms, the probability that a positive test is a true positive is between 1-5% depending on the test.
An aside on “seasonal variation” of viral infections
When we talk about seasonal variation we get the sense that the cold months are when all the Influenza-like Illness causing viruses congregate and say “Alright, now’s are chance to get’em!”
I don’t know who thinks this, but I would like to present an alternative perspective on seasonal illnesses.
It’s late October, and the weather is getting colder. Halloween is coming up, and in some places it’s already below zero. You go out in your costume, dead-set on not ruining the look with a winter parka. You binge-drink, and party.
Then, it’s almost thanksgiving.
Before you know it, it’s December and the festivities are beginning. Work parties. Friends getting together. Then Christmas, New Years. You see?
I believe that a large proportion of seasonal variation observed with these “colds” is self-inflicted. Let us count the ways:
Darker days → lower vitamin D
Cold → less activity → more sedentary life
Parties → Alcohol consumption → weakened immunity
Gluttonnes behavior
Dancing, swapping saliva and doing naughty things with many more people, especially on New Years Eve.
Whatever natural, evolutionary account of seasonal variation you would like to assert here is beyond the point. There are things we do that make it worse.
And, there are things we can do to make it better.
Happy Holidays,