RESUMEN
Outbreaks of COVID-19 in passengers and crew in ships at sea continue to pose a problem for conventional epidemiology. In one instance the crew of an Argentinian fishing trawler, who were quarantined and tested negative before sailing, contracted the disease after 35 days at sea. In another instance a livestock ship had crew that was isolated and confined becoming sick with presumed COVID-19 whilst sailing in mid-ocean. © 2022 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
RESUMEN
As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is nearing its eventual end we focus on what we believe are two key omissions from the mainstream scientific literature and which have significant implications for how mankind manages the next global pandemic. We therefore review data, observations, analyses and conclusions from our series of papers published through 2020 and 2021 on its likely cometary origin and global spread. We also revisit our long held understanding of the superior effectiveness of intra-nasal vaccines against respiratory tract pathogens that involve induction of dimeric secretory IgA antibodies. While these two oversights seem disparate, together they provide us with new insights into our collective awareness of how we might view and address the next global pandemic. We begin with our hypothesis of the likely cometary origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus via a bolide strike in the stratosphere on the night of October 11 2019 on the 40o N line over Jilin in NE China. Further global spread most likely occurred via prevailing wind systems transporting both the pristine cometary virus followed by continuing strikes from the same primary source as well as prior human-passaged virus transmitted by person to person spread and through contaminated dust in global wind systems. We also include a discussion of our prior work on data relating to vaccine protective efficacy. Finally we review the totality of evidence concerning the likely origin and global spread of the predominant variants of the virus ‘Omicron' (+Delta mix?) from early to mid-December 2021 and extending into the first week January 2022. We describe the striking data showing the large numbers of infectious cases per day and outline the scale of what appears to be a global pandemic phenomenon, the causes of which are unclear and not completely understood. Firstly, these essentially simultaneous and sudden global-wide epidemic COVID-19 out breaks, appear to be largely correlated with events external to the Earth, probably causing globally correlated precipitation events. They appear related broadly to "Space Weather” events that render the Earth vulnerable to cosmic pandemic pathogen attack particularly during times of the minima of the Sunspot Solar Cycle which we are now currently passing through. Secondly, we argue that these sudden global-wide epidemic outbreaks of COVID-19 are specifically largely influenced by global wind transport and deposition mechanisms, the physics of which we need to further explore and comprehend. We conclude on an optimistic note for mankind. Given our prior knowledge of the effectiveness against respiratory tract pathogens of mucosal immunity involving induction of dimeric secretory IgA antibodies, we consider that the recently published intra-nasal vaccine data from laboratories based at the University of California, San Francisco and, independently at Yale University. These latter studies hold out great promise for the future development of both panspecific and specific immunity against future pandemics caused by suddenly emergent respiratory pathogens, whether viral, bacterial or fungal. © 2022 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
RESUMEN
The pattern of the SARS-CoV-2 incidence concentrated in the 30-50N latitude zone suggests dust carrying the virus is spread by a circum-global jet-stream, specifically the northern sub-tropical jet-stream that blows in the high-altitude troposphere over northern China in early spring-time. It is known that the agent of the Kawasaki disease is carried by long-range winds to Japan and California from north-east China. We hypothesize that dust carrying the virus SARS-CoV-2 was similarly transported from the huge virus reservoir generated in Wuhan province to southern USA, thence across the Atlantic to Portugal and further states to the east. On this model the primary in fall of the dust/virus-carrier depends on the jet-stream interaction with regional weather systems, causing incidence of SARS-CoV-2 cases in various countries/states along this latitude belt. The notable case of Brazil on 31 March 2020-exceptionally outside the 30-50N belt-is proposed to be due to the Azores cyclonic system entraining part of the jet-stream west of Portugal into the south-westerly trade winds, when these winds penetrate to Brazil during spring-time. © 2022 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.