Thread by @amorvincitomnia

1/20 🧵
Do you recall the worlds remotest people? The Sentinalese on North Sentinel island, 500 miles east of India. There’s a suspicious article that Forbes published in March 2021 archive.ph/WxCX3

2/ Its thesis is classic imperialism arguing “isolation weakens the human body precisely because it limits the exposure to the myriad human-spread viruses that paradoxically strengthen the immune system.” This is right before introducing Sunetra Gupta, one author of The GBD.

3/ Sunetra, “has long argued that globalization’s genius has been understated. It’s not just that the division of labor has enabled relentless specialization among the world’s workers, it’s not just that people ‘bumping into each other’ have spread

4/ ideas and processes that have driven even greater economic advancement that has easily been the greatest foe of disease and death, globalization has also fostered a great deal of physical, in-person interaction among productive,

5/ specialized people increasingly possessing the means to see the globe. 

As a consequence they haven’t just seen the world. In a health sense, they’ve spread viruses around the world. With more and more of the world’s inhabitants moving around the globe, so have viruses.

6/ The spreading hasn’t weakened the global population, rather it’s strengthened it. Immunity is most notably achieved naturally, and it’s achieved much more quickly when people are constantly interacting with other people.”

Absolute trash. The article goes on,

7/ “The North Sentinelese haven’t been so lucky. Wholly isolated, the island’s inhabitants have long been separated from the crucial human interaction that fosters immunity. That they must kill outsiders who approach them is a reminder

8/ that viruses don’t go to sleep, get bored, or run away; rather they’re a forever concept.”

Except for the 3 we did remove from forever: SARS1, Smallpox & Rinderpest. Or the 4 nearing elimination: polio, yaws, Guinea worm, & malaria.

All of whom had or have animal reservoirs

9/ With an additional 5 nearing eradication: measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) and cysticercosis (pork tapeworm) The highlights are here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradicati…

10/ But those are facts 🤷‍♀️ Sunetra Gupta & John Tammy (author of this article) don’t peddle in those.

Oh. And viruses completely go to sleep. Until humans intervene that is. We can remove them from this world, and we can bring ‘em back like w/ Pithovirus: nature.com/articles/natur…

11/ Back to the March 2021 Forbes article… “It’s not just that lockdowns and other forced isolation destroyed so many jobs, so many businesses, and that they drove all sorts of other human tragedies of the alcohol, drug,

12/ and suicidal variety [editors note: Increased suicidality is demonstrably false 😤 See quote tweet]

https://twitter.com/tylerblack32/status/1513547452871323657

13/ as discussed in my new book releasing today, [Editors note: Book title removed]. Lockdowns furthered the rather backwards notion that our health is improved if we’re separated from one another. Not at all.

14/ Isolated people aren’t saved from what threatens their health as much the inevitable infection from the threat is delayed. Worse is what the isolation means over the longer term.

15/ The North Sentinelese are a very real reminder of how cruelly bankrupt the run-and-hide strategy is as a broad form of virus mitigation.” ~end~

Frankly I think the Sentinalese have the right idea. Fight to protect oneself. Fight would-be conquers both human & viri alike.

16/ And fight for the world you want be it big or small.

Why would they be so hostile? Well- there is some evidence the Sentinalese had contact with the East India Trading Company starting sometime around the 1770’s. history.howstuffworks.com/world-history/…

17/ If ever there was a good reason to fight hard against invasion be sure the East India Company provided it in dividends soaked in blood and fortified with misery iheart.com/podcast/105-be…

18/ The rich know a clean environment is best suited for wellbeing. Clean air away from factories, clean ground away from oil drilling, fresh water away from industrial runoff.

They simply would rather us acclimate to an otherwise intolerable normalcy jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/its-not-cool…

19/ Paying off a newly invented debt levied against our future as if we didn’t have enough of that already: …terdisinformationproject.substack.com/p/immunity-deb…

20/20 We’d do well to keep the Sentinalese example in the back of our minds cuz the world we want ~where public health addresses the needs of our communities; where public health is a tool to ensure all live the healthiest lives possible~ is worth fighting for.

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