On BACTERIA and VIRUSES

Readers: Seguey insist to guest write once more in this blog.  I leave it to you if It makes sense.

 Report, Seguey, Sector 3rd Planet from Medium Stellar Mass, Constellation Cassiopeia

I report presently on what earthlings consider the most potent threat to both their existence and way of life.  They do distinguish that there is a difference between the two. I harbor a different opinion - that there is none - but that is  perhaps because I do not fully understand the human psyche just as I am not able to relate with human emotion and the complexities that go  with it. 

The present threat, widely considered an existential one, is a virus.

What I am going to chronicle here is that unbeknownst to the human population in general and to their scientists in particular is that there are far more humans that were and will continue to be exposed to this virus, dubbed Covid-19, than test results and actual infection and mortality numbers indicate.  Not only do so many show no symptoms  confirmed through the test results, there are many more whose physiology simply do not even react, including those whose tests were negative. And there is the phenomenon that does not seem to get much emphasis - the almost 100% survival rate of  children and  young persons from the ravages of the virus. I will use the word impervious applied to certain human physiology although no earthling scientist will dare.  But because of my origin, I am quite familiar with the near invisible, hidden world of these organisms. After all, I and trillions of cloned microorganisms like me were sent out in probes traveling through space millions of years ago to explore the entire galaxy.  We, I and all the trillion others, were each able to adapt along with the first microorganism we encountered in whatever environment wherever life developed. 

Throughout the 500 years of my conscious existence in this adopted planet, I witnessed many epidemics (localized areas or regions) and global pandemics such as the flu pandemic of 1917-18. I had to pour over every research material available on the Black Death - the plague that ravaged Europe because it occurred 700 hundred years ago, long before my conscious existence, not counting, of course, the thousands of years of my own evolution since settling on this planet. 

Black Death, also known as Bubonic plague was caused by the bacterium known as Yassine pestis and two or three strains of it that showed up between the years 1346 to about 1351. It started in the Mongolian capital of Sarai.  The epidemic would have remained localized if not for the trades that went on between Italian traders and that region.  It was exacerbated when Italian merchants fled in a hurry after a dispute between them and the local Muslims. Ships became the conduit of the disease across the sea when they were used to ferry men into armed conflict that ensued, first in nearby regions but by 1347 it spread into Greece to Southern Egypt and quickly crept into Eastern Europe, Germany and France and across the English channel into London by 1348 and by the following year into Finland and Denmark and surrounding areas across the North Sea.  

It was not until 1353 that the disease disappeared but not completely because it does recur from time to time. What is ignored or at least not considered from one point of view is the fact that human population can be subjected to such widespread physiological attack but not succumb to total annihilation by such a deadly disease even in areas when and where  sanitation and personal hygiene were severely compromised.

In other words, human physiology proved capable of surviving such an extreme rate of infection.  I even venture to conclude that micro organisms had always coexisted with humans and other larger organisms and that the former had in many ways helped the latter cope with future outbreaks and actually strengthened  their ability to resist or develop complete immunity. 

I might seem to ignore the hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result of the pandemics.  In reality I do tend to ignore, again perhaps as I mentioned earlier that I am not laden with any emotional reaction in the first place, and secondly, I focus mainly on those who survived, why and how, and I will even conclude that these virulent micro organisms do have a function in the development of the "larger" lifeforms, as a general rule of survival and co-existence.  Then there are microorganisms that are absolutely necessary for life.  If they are removed completely all life forms that depend on their presence inside the organisms' guts the organism will die. I am still learning.

I digressed and I must continue with the real purpose of this chronicle. I was after all given the task that my primary mission is to send reports about my observations from whatever region in space my journey took me. In my study of the data I am compelled to consider the following:

1. The Black Death at the very least ushered the end of lifetime of servitude by generations upon generations of the lower class of humans imposed upon them by landowning lords and fiefdoms that were made up exclusively by the ruling royal class in Europe. Reason: So much death that obviously came mostly from the poor and indentured masses caused a very precipitous drop in availability of labor.  Loss of a generation of farm workers caused such a severe shortage that landowners were forced to actually pay in multiples of wages past, which were close to nothing.  At most the plague ended slavery in much of Europe and forced landowners to pay decent living wages to those who toiled in their lands and in their households. It even caused many landowners to give up some of their lands that allowed widespread transfer of land ownership to the ordinary masses from which emerged generations of farmers and the birth of effective farming and animal husbandry. 

2. Sanitation and publicly mandated regimen of personal  and family hygiene and sewage infrastructure and garbage collection were recognized as first line of defense against future outbreaks. It was the early beginning of institutionalized human health care.

3. The flu pandemic of 1917 brought about the first truly organized national response, reliable predictions of later outbreaks, tracking of the mutation and identification of the various strains and the development of the appropriate vaccines later on.  Although today's "national response" is seriously diluted with questionable edicts from local leaders who singularly redefined to an even darker hue the meaning of hypocrisy - constantly preaching what they consistently violate themselves. 

I am reporting also what I for the moment consider counter intuitive suppositions which are at this point very theoretical indeed, albeit more hopeful, if not wishful, for humanity's sake.

A. Epidemics and pandemics have contributed to strengthening the human species and perhaps even those of all animal species.  For example, while rabies and distemper are both devastating to many species of mammals, the surviving generations that follow seem to be better off at facing later outbreaks and in general the subsequent species were better adapted to their environments.  Human life expectancy throughout Europe from 1500 to 1800 was estimated at  an average of between 30 and 40 years but by today the industrialized countries in Europe and North America are at 75 years.

B. This is perhaps my boldest theory yet. Since bacteria and viruses are part of the natural environment, or that they have only natural origins, their evolution is not only part of the natural processes, they are integrally a necessary component of earth's eco system. Is that really true?  Can it even be validated? 

Or, did bacteria and viruses come here from extra-solar origins, no different from how I and clones like me came, but purposed only to shape and direct the evolution of all living things here.  I have no way of knowing that at this point of my own evolutionary track.  I also have no knowledge if any of the trillions that I came with survived the voyage and are themselves sending out their own reports.  What I know is that I did begin by attaching myself to any microorganism I first encountered eons ago (could be millions or just many thousand years)  and co-evolved with it until this point when I have taken on the form with the capability to communicate back and perhaps further down I may even know what other purpose I am ultimately designated to do. 

Today ships were replaced by airplanes that account for a more rapid spread of the infection except that the disease agent is now a virus instead of bacteria in Bubonic plague. The difference too is that humans had developed antibiotics against bacteria but which does not work with viruses.  The virus spread could have been prevented from spreading from its origins in Lohan, China although there is a long narrative about who to blame.

As a footnote, along the way in Europe, as early as then, there was a rise in anti Semitism as merchant Jews were blamed for the plague and at one time 2000 of them were killed in one incident.  "As early as then" needs emphasis because somehow human conflict had been a regular occurrence that culminated in two major wars in that part of the world and such human conflict continues today, somewhere around the globe, in one form or another. In other words, humans are the main cause of far more deaths from fighting among and between themselves, including genocide in the millions visited upon several ethnic groups, than all deaths combined from pandemics.  I do not include in those the deaths that were caused by heart disease and other organ failures and natural causes like old age and famine (the latter still a major cause even in today's modern era).

I will continue my reports as I gather more information.  Until then.

I leave the readers with this:

Bacteria can only be viewed through a standard microscope.  A virus, 1,000 times smaller than a bacteria, can only be seen with an electron microscope. I wonder if masks, other than surgical ones, are really effective at screening them out.