Submitted by SirFuzzy
Will the MOEd [Ministry of Education] be forced to consider having a staggered teaching arrangement if the covid-19 induced realities still swamp us at the beginning of a new academic year in September 2020″?
I believe that secondary school may adapt to the stay-at-home- distance education model far easier as you have young school children that can “fend for themselves” far better than the 5 – to ten-year-old age group found in the primary school.
I guess many of us are praying for a quick vaccine. To return us to the “bad normal” we called acceptable pre-covid19. Now, I have not been to the primary school classroom in aeons. I know that when I was in a primary school in the 1970’s the seating arrangement(s) did not allow for the 2M/6ft distance that is mandated now. So if we are to stick to that social distancing requirement, the average primary school will have far less classroom capacity.
I don’t see the government being able to build new primary schools any time soon, therefore, maybe we can make use of some of the disused government buildings to provide schooling? The abandoned secondary school building(s) in White Park road will be a good candidate; of course after a thorough industrial cleaning occurs.
That campus may absorb some of the pupils that can no longer fit into the classrooms island wide. However, using widely distributed disused gov’t buildings may present a transportation issue for some parents. So let keep the pupils in the same school that they were assigned and the parents know how to get to them etc.
IMO, the better solution is to have a shift system that allows for the primary school to have some pupils starting school at different times. This staggered approach should allow the classroom size to be smaller as few pupils should be on the campus. This will require a lot of planning and also consultation with the teachers’ union, but I think it a step worth exploring. If it is feasible and doable at the primary school level where I think it is most necessary, then some consideration can be given to it happening at the secondary school level at the specific school(s) that it fits best.
Discuss for 100 marks.
I want my Mia Mottley back!
The new, bad Corona outbreak would never have happened with Mia. Without her, we are doomed.
If some of you do not have anything to say that is constructive to the Barbados cause why permit a blog that started out with an interesting view to descend into nothingness? Are we so immature and ignorant that during a pandemic we do not see the need to share viewed that will help? Then again the politicians who some of you constantly criticize are from among us so what else can we expect.
Wasn’t the Eductech project ‘designed’ to cater for this kind of event?
Unless the State is prepared to underwrite the cost of ensuring all children have access to the Internet and provided with the basic tools to facilitate on-line learning in a digitally safe environment then the present educational apartheid system will continue to prevail in Bim.
It’s time black people stop seeing ICT only through the eyes of clowns performing on the social media platform.
It’s a relatively objective avenue to realise their dreams of achievement encoded in their constant calls for equal opportunity and affirmative action to right the wrongs of their past without having the fear of discrimination based on the colour of their skin instead of the contents of their intellectual hearts aka brains.
@Miller
Forget EDUTEC, COVID requires a mindset shift. If the traditional classroom is not possible what choice will yoy have?
@David, u said the above with frustration or maybe mild anger but the fact is that it’s bluntly true… they act like is and we like them because we are all cut from similar cloth.
For all the crazy, stupid and spotlight craving motives that drove POTUS’ ingest bleach remarks the absolute shocking thing is that reports say that over 100 people have ACTUALLY called govt hotlines asking about that as a remedy.
Yes, there are lots of utterly ignorant (corrupt etc etc) people in the world and thus we also elect lots of absurdly crazy people ( corrupt ) too.
Alas.
@Dee Word
Yes, frustration.
This would also require parents input
The shifts systems seems doable except the problem of parents work shifts might be problematic
Most parents who are working can easily adjust to a morning shift but if the shifts when divided means a splitting up of time periods whereby parents cannot provide transportation for the child then there is where loud vocal noises would be heard
@ David,
Government should employ people to clean and sanitize all the school buildings in Barbados.
After Covid 19 we should all practise higher levels of hygeine.
I am hoping that covid 19 is controlled and we get back to ” normal ” and children can be back in classrooms.
@Hants
We have to plan for worse case scenario and certainly in the short term I.e. rest of the school year.
>
Here is my 2 cents worth.
Scrap school for the rest of the school year and have every child repeat this entire school year starting in September. In other words, if your child in Infants A now, they in Infants A again come September. If your child in 5th form getting ready for CXCs, no CXCs for them til next year, they starting 5th form again come September.
Stop this foolish scrambling trying to get tablets, computer, internet and a whole bunch of nonsense to every last child trying to salvage this school year. Face facts, all schools and universities done for at least the next few months. Anything less than school fully starting back and operating like normal will only severely disadvantage the poor children that need the education the most.
What the ministry can focus on is getting the teachers that home sitting down doing nothing while still drawing a salary to prepare content for the subjects and year levels they currently teach for publishing to an e-learning platform freely accessible to all students.
While they are at it, they should also create their own e-learning platform which they might be even able to license to other countries in the coming years. We don’t need to be giving all our limited foreign exchange and student’s information to make Google richer.
@David April 25, 2020 4:37 PM
That’s the very point being made!
“EDUTEC” was merely the first failed vaccine in the trials required to the eventual digitization of Education, in general, a candidate now ripe for control by AI.
Covid is just the first wave of the many modern viral agents of societal disruption- using the fast speed vehicles of international air and sea travel- which humans have to undergo in paying the cost of trying to rearrange Nature to suit their creature-comforts lifestyle e.g. GM farming to feed an ever growing overpopulated world of human parasites and polluting the very precious air required every second for breathing and remaining alive.
The pandemic collapse of the populations of Mother Nature’s pollinators should be seen as an early warning signal to the future as mankind pays the price for so-called technological advancement.
The games played by Man’s technological ‘innovations’ to overcome the limitations placed on him by Mother Nature always end in a zero sum cul-de-sac.
Covid-19 is just one of the coming modern teachers sent to put mankind in his place in the grand scheme of universal things.
Let him crawl and take care of his garden before he can fly to live on the Moon.
Now there goes down the drain the price of crude oil as the ‘value’ of potable water springs to the surface!
@Miller: “It’s time black people stop seeing ICT only through the eyes of clowns performing on the social media platform.
This is not a racially constrained problem. ICT is “scary” to many people. It’s sad how many people think Fakebook is the “Internet”… (Let’s not even get into the fact the “Web”, also, is not the Internet…)
With regard to remote learning, I’d like to point out that the infrastructure can be achieved relatively inexpensively. Last meter (read: to the home) connectivity is critical, of course. But a full-blown, more than capable, computer workstation can be built for less than $200 or so BDS.
Start with a Rasberry Pi 4 ( https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/ ), add a keyboard, mouse, and screen (and a 32GB microSD card for the OS), and you have a full-blown (and reasonably powerful) workstation for each student.
No, it won’t run WinBlows… But the Linux GUI environment provided is more than good enough (in some ways better) for students.
FWIW. Ignore if there’s not enough profit (cynical voice).
Teachers were involved in online training sessions and planning how to meet the needs of the students in the future. We do have to re-invent the wheel. Google and Microsoft are available with great tools.
The tools in google suite such as google classroom and google meet will allow teachers to teach in the virtual space. The problem is the students having the devices and connectivity to enter that space. The Chinese government had donated thousands of tablets to the Ministry of Education, therefore reassigned them to the most vulnerable and loan to families with more than one child and not enough devices.
It would be good gesture if during the curfew that Barbadians within communities unlock their modems to allow for a large Barbados virtual space. The service providers can also be involved and so households would not incur any extra charges. The service providers can also give free data for all the children identified by the Ministry during this trying time.
This pandemic therefore may have push us to accept the changes that would allow our children to start to complete in this digital world. The students are mostly visual and so would enjoy all of the wonderful tools available in the teaching learning process online.
Any major changes in education that are reactive to a situation rather than proactively planned with a purpose are doomed to eventually fail. Especially so in a country/society still stuck in a 90’s thinking mindset searching for that next new shiny toy, rather than truly inspiring and empowering young people.
Add the fact that the current leadership in education is neither able nor ready to make comprehensive progressive decisions to take the sector where it needs to go.
@sirfuzzy
your shift system (and any other good idea) will run into a brick wall called teachers’ unions.
Just Observing
@Observing
A powerful comment.
In a cash strapped country, we have to seriously consider suggestion that can save the taxpayers money.
The suggestion of Chris should be given serious consideration.
She is just another stand in crook for MiaVirass,Trump on all their boxseas.
Executive Order 13818 of December 20, 2017 Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emer-gencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Public Law 114–328) (the ‘‘Act’’), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)) (INA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the prevalence and severity of human rights abuse and corruption that have their source, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, such as those committed or directed by persons listed in the Annex to this order, have reached such scope and gravity that they threaten the stability of international political and economic systems. Human rights abuse and corruption undermine the values that form an essential foundation of stable, secure, and functioning societies; have devastating impacts on individuals; weaken democratic institutions; degrade the rule of law; perpet-uate violent conflicts; facilitate the activities of dangerous persons; and undermine economic markets. The United States seeks to impose tangible and significant consequences on those who commit serious human rights abuse or engage in corruption, as well as to protect the financial system of the United States from abuse by these same persons. I therefore determine that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat. I hereby determine and order: Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: (i) the persons listed in the Annex to this order; (ii) any foreign person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Attorney General: (A) to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse; (B) to be a current or former government official, or a person acting for or on behalf of such an official, who is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in: (1) corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the ex-propriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery; or (2) the transfer or the facilitation of the transfer of the proceeds of corruption; (C) to be or have been a leader or official of: VerDate Sep2014 22:44 Dec 22, 2017 Jkt 244250 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 4790 S
Went for a “nature” walk one evening on the coastal track from Bath to Martin’s Bay. I was with an adult friend who brought along a younger 12 year old friend who had only agreed to come on the walk with us if she could bring her cell phone along as well. It was clear that she couldn’t bear to be parted from the device for the hour or so we planned to be away on the walk. The whole entire walk almost, she had her eyes fixed on the phone, selecting music to play in her headphones, texting/messaging this body and the next body, and occasionally taking a picture or two. It seemed to me that to her the natural setting surrounding us were little more than a distraction from her cell phone. After all she did have to look up from the phone occasionally to cross a muddy stream, or clamber over some natural obstacle that presented itself along the path.
Inside a tech-free school (where tech executives send their own children).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apt.15777
Low population mortality from COVID19 in countries south of 35 degrees north supports vitamin D as a factor determining severity
@Simple Simon
Very interesting.
We should hold classrooms outdoors?
@Silly Woman April 26, 2020 11:28 AM
And from where do you get free doses of the same Vitamin D?
Why do you think the poorest of African children- when pitifully displayed on Western TV- can still flash their beautiful well formed pearly whites despite having only tattered clothes on their backs or even one dentist in the village?
Q And from where do you get free doses of the same Vitamin D?
MORON: THE SUN CONVERTS CHOLESTEROL IN ONE’S SKIN TO VITAMIN D.
IF YOU SPEND TIME IN THE SUN YOU DO NOT NEED TO IMBIBE VITAMIN D
Interesting to learn there are teachers who do not own a computer to support the effort to implement online classrooms.
@ GP April 26, 2020 12:24 PM
Sometimes you ought to stop your maddening CAPITAL shouting and look into the mirror to see the real moron who, when it comes to commonsense, cannot spell ADA backwards.
You might be rather sharp at making yourself look like a bleeding fool (remember your refutation of the relevance of the “compromised immune system” thesis to the Covid-19 ‘infestation’?) when responding to your homemade soliloquies,
But spare yourself the luxury of sarcasm.
The SUN, my ignoramus ‘friend’, is the source of all life (and death) on the planet; Not your desert god Yahweh.
Everything on this planet, dead and alive, has its genesis in the Sun.
Even your skin has its colour because of Sunlight.
You ought to be proud of that instead of trying to peddle the bullshit fairy tales about a pale skin Adam & Eve from whom you claim your Davidian-brand ancestry.
Please spare the lecture of Yahweh ‘bringing’ the sun into being on the first day of your puerile story of Creation.
Let him first create himself; even before the billions of galaxies.
@David
Interesting to learn there are teachers who do not own a computer to support the effort to implement online classrooms
++++++++++++++
Interesting indeed, isn’t that more of a subtle resistance to change? If I say I am not in favour it comes across as not being supportive of the students but if I say that I don’t have the tools it will be looked at in a different light.
@Sargeant
The revelation has haunted the blogmaster ever since it was made public by a member of the profession.
re Everything on this planet, dead and alive, has its genesis in the Sun.
AND THE SUN CREATED ITSELF RIGHT?
THE SUN JUST TURNED UP ONE DAY AND TOOK OVER RIGHT?
THE SUN SOMEHOW ALSO DESIGNED & DIRECTS THE INTRICATE BIOCHEMICAL REACTIONS OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS, I WOULD IMAGINE
David, lets get some perspective here. Currently many people have been working from home and of course you need a login to your host system to do so…. I am aware of folks who did NOT have a device at their home to do that and thus had to be issued a company laptop/tablet .
In that vein, why pray tell was it a “revelation” that some local teachers did not have a PC… what is so absolutely strange about that???
Let me put it another way… the absolute debacle of the Cliinton’s use and misuse of her BB/Smart phone and apparently co-mingling her personal and govt business was RIDICULOUS for any of us who used those things regularly for business and personal… but yet she – a very experienced practitioner – effed it up.
So again I ask why do you find it so ‘revealing’ that there are folks who are ‘novices’ to tech or do not own a computing device (or maybe an up-to-date one)…. From my perch there is nothing to it…
Also consider this… having a PC at home was NEVER a condition of employment to the teaching service as far as I am aware. If you now change the conditions and require such then should I foot the cost of that device or should you issue me one on loan for use for my tenure of work or sell one to me (small deductions from salary monthly) ? Has that been considered?
These are real issues and cannot or should not be overlooked
@Dee Word
You do not appreciate a tablet or laptop should be tools of the teaching profession to compare with hammer and nails for a carpenter in 2020? What if it is personal equivalent, we are operating in a pandemic for crissakes.
@ David,
It would be interesting to know the ages of these teachers. Hopefully they are a year or two from retirement.
@Hants
True, for a teacher earning should be an ongoing endeavour.
There was a time when a teacher did more…
The policeman did more…
The nurse did more…
All of us did more…
If the above is an example of DLP thinking on formal school education during this crisis, not only was the electorate right to kick them out of office, they should not come back for a long time.
@DLP plse go away and learn to think, you silly people.
@Hal,
in another year and a half, if all goes well, the DLP messaging will be v different. trust me.
@ Greene
Who advises Verla? I know someone who told me he tried to offer advice but she ignored him. I am not sure how true that is, but from public statements I can believe it.
This time in opposition is time for the party to regroup, from top to bottom, so far they are not doing very well.
@Hal,
whoever it is, needs firing. but politicians tend not to listen to people who are not insiders
@ Greene
Combermere started slipping when Stanton Gittens became head. The Combermere we celebrate are the values and vision of Major Noot.
@ David,
The MOE can purchase computers and loan them to teachers who need them.
Government will have money to spend even if they have to print it.
Hopefully they will also start begging some of Barbados’ ” friends of all ” to ease the covid 19 pain.
@Hants
Agree a,do the unions can adapt and adopt a new role in the current environment and even beyond.
>
Scary scenario but it is possible the economy may have to be ” restarted ” before a vaccine or treatment is found.
There is no bottomless pit of money.
I am with Chris Halsall on this. For secondary, internet learning, with only specific day visits, say two days per week, to the school premises, are the future.
The children will learn how to use critical, for the future, information technology. They will learn to produce work, not the current attend and do not do anything for the day, then spend every evening at lessons.
For those who say that the poor will be disadvantaged, not if resources are provided. Too, how many actually leave school with certificates now anyway? The schools are underperforming.
Some children leave school at the end of fifth form and cannot read nor write. Is that success?? Stupse.
Instead of learning nonsense and going to school to face violence, how about putting the emphasis where it needs to be, In the 21st century.
Primary school is more difficult. Children need to be taught HOW TO LEARN, not rote rubbish.
Make sure they can read and write properly and that they can think for themselves, how to study and how to use information technology.
That should be the role of primary school.
Move into the next century.
If you do not have ready access to a computer, whether your own or not, you should not be a teacher.
The internet now is the encyclopedia of the old days, but much, much better. I wish it was around when I was a teenager and that I had access.
Massive information (yes, we know that you have to be critical in assessing what to accept etc etc).
A teacher not having such now, shows a total lack of interest and lack of ability to keep up with the times.
Like it or limp it, that is what is.
@Hants
“There is no bottomless pit of money.”
I trust you have made your comments known to Justin, Dougie et al
@ NorthernObserver,
Justin, Dougie et al is a problem for rich capitalist like you.
Sharing is caring.
@Hants
You always play the pols like Ali did to Foreman in ’74.
@ NorthernObserver, Focus.
Bottom left corner. lol
lol…i saw Glennis….she looks like that cbc reporter Kapelos in that video. She blows well?
@ NorthernObserver,
The only item on my bucket list is to see a Glennis show in Amsterdam.
@David April 26, 2020 11:36 AM :@Simple Simon. Very interesting. We should hold classrooms outdoors?
Why not? At least sometimes. Back in the day if we were restless at elementary school the teachers had us bring our little benches and chairs outside and conducted classes for a while under the tree.
Also access to sunshine is traditionally why schools had a built in recess period, and also a games/P.E. period so that children could play in the sun everyday. At secondary school if we tried to stay indoors after eating our lunches the teachers would “chase” us outside. Yup girls got sweaty too. Sweaty is good.
If lack of vitamin D/sunshine is related to severe COVID19 outcomes than I am a little worried that so many people especially little children are shut inside. But since people are permitted outside as long as they stay within their curtilage i think that all parents should shortly be permitted to take their children for a walk around the black, or up and down the gap.
Tomorrow is my “parole” day and even though I don’t need to do any shopping I think that I will mask up and take a walk around the block. I won’t go into any stores or other crowded places, just “stretch my foot” a bit.
I am still doing a little gardening at home, but none on the “plantation” accourding to my friend whitehil, and truthfully I really miss spending 6 to 9 hours each week in what people call “the hot broiling sun”
I miss the hot broiling sun.
I trust that the latest rounds of testing wil be mostly negative and that people will be permitted to enjoy solitary exercise, or that families who live in the same house can exercise together.
I also miss playing “football” on the pasture with the grands.
Although somehow they always “win.” Lolll!!!
My own question for our acting PM
Dear Ms. Bradshaw, Please watch the two videos linked below and after consulting with your Minister of Health and the BAMP answer the following:
If a 70 year old patient with a heart condition (for example) were to be infected with Coronavirus and knowing that aged patient with heart disease patient stood a substantially increased risk of death from the Coronavirus would our local doctors, at the patient’s or next of kin’s request (were the patient not be in a position to give consent), be allowed to request our local doctors try alternative, non-pharmaceutical approaches to treat the patient like high-dose Vitamin C by IV or Ozone Therapy as recommended by integrative medical practitioners? If not, why not?
(I understand that the drug Choloroquine which has received some favourable reports as a treatment for Covid-19 is not recommended for patients with heart disease related complications as it presents a very high risk of severe side effects.)
A panel of Doctors report from Thailand, US, and China on clinical trials and treatments of COVID-19
A panel of international integrative physicians reporting from Thailand, US, and China on clinical trials and treatments of COVID-19 with high doses IV vitamin C.
(Nemos News Network – With John Michael Chambers, Lior Sher, Dr. Thomas Lodi, MD – Thailand, Dr. Nathan Goodyear, MD – US, and Dr. Richard Z. Cheng MD – China)
https://youtu.be/I7DjZU4M78c
Journal of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology
A Plausible “Penny” Costing Effective Treatment for Corona
Virus – Ozone Therapy.
clinmedjournals(DOT)org/articles/jide/journal-of-infectious-diseases-and-epidemiology-jide-6-113.php?jid=jide
Robert Jay Rowen, MD,* and Howard Robins, DPM
Rowen and Robins. J Infect Dis Epidemiol 2020, 6:113
DOI: 10.23937/2474-3658/1510113
Volume 6 | Issue 2
A very inexpensive, essentially 100% safe, and apparently Ebola effective therapy should tame coronavirus due to a common denominator in most viruses. Oxidize them, then they simply become inactive or even better – destroyed.
youtube(DOT)com/watch?v=JYIBFnGWeEM
Do we have post mortems on people who die from, or are suspected to have died from, coronavirus?
I really have not heard many persons talk about primary schools, and how we are to get them up and serving the primary school population if in September 2020 covid19 is still strong among us.
I accept that the unions will play a big part, but dire times may require dire solutions. The unions will know what they have to do if they want to be part of a solution.
@Sir Fuzzy
Has any of the teachers’ unions ever been “part of the solution?”
@Hal
agreed re. the DLP
@David
20 years ago a poorly conceptualized and politicized Eductech was in full swing with horrible implementation and zero strategy for continuity and long term sustainability
.
There have been minimal if any real lasting benefits from that project (400+ thousand dollars back in the day)
Now here we are here with no “opening date” no “online policies” no guidance, direction or specific announcements relating to education or schools all the while a bucketful of teachers, students and families are falling through the cracks or being left behind as a result. But hey, “we got dis”
Madame Bradshaw should NOT be holding the education portfolio at the same time as being Acting Prime Minister during this crisis. Complete dedicated attention is required in key areas (labour, education, health, welfare, economic affairs) if we are to come out of this with a society intact.
Just observing
@Observing
As usual horrific and terrific insight.
Stay safe!
>
“…What the ministry can focus on is getting the teachers that home sitting down doing nothing while still drawing a salary to prepare content for the subjects and year levels they currently teach for publishing to an e-learning platform freely accessible to all students…”
heheheheheheheheh
You definitely is a teacher!!!
Doan really matter all de fancy talk if dere is not curriculum Crapau smoke we pipe!!!
“16. Did anyone consider the risks and the legitimate objection of teachers to inviting students and parents into their homes and vice versa using the Google Meets platform?”
The platforms are invasive if
A.you let them be
B.you dont know what to do and
C.if your software and curriculum are not designed properly
Listening to the Mayor of Atlanta and a few others yesterday discussing plans to reopen the economy, he listed many of the same problems we have been discussing here about Barbados.
When is the BLP going to publish the commissioned report by Sir Keith Hunte on racial harmony in Barbados? It was written and published, so why has the press not got hold of a copy and published it? Was it too damning?
@ Hal
You can’t be serious! We don’t touch subjects such as race and labour exploitation in Barbados.
Why do you think that Barrow passed the Public Order Act in 1974?
Why do you think people hide behind pseudonyms?
I will tell you this straight up. I wrote a letter to the Nation about two or so years castigating Cow Williams. I received about thirty five calls; over a hundred emails , telling me how somebody needed to tell off Cow ever since. All of those people were living in Barbados. Not one took up their pen !
Right now on this blog, we all talking about post COVID-19 . We are all on what the government should and should not do. Nothing about the parasitical corporate sector. Ask yourself why.
Rihanna a “little poor black girl from down in the city “makes it big and starts serious philanthropic work. Ask yourself how come whites, Indians and others who have made billions out of this country don’t seriously give back unless there is a hurricane or such calamity and it has to be all over the papers.
Well my Brother if we do frighten to even put we names to something we write, you really think that we gine seriously discuss race relations or ask how in 2020 black workers making $125US per week.
Go figure.
Hear from doctors and academics around the world on the success of Vitamin C for treating patients infected by the virus in this current pandemic. They explain when and how Vitamin C should be used in ICU units and why it is Vitamin C’s role in managing an immune response that is so key.
https://youtu.be/dhAjq-4At0g
PharmaNutrition
Volume 12, June 2020, 100190
Intravenous vitamin C for reduction of cytokines storm in acute respiratory distress syndrome
Author lAlbertoBoretti, Bimal KrishnaBanik
Received 31 March 2020, Revised 5 April 2020, Accepted 6 April 2020, Available online 21 April 2020.
Introduction.
(1st paragraph snipped for brevity)
In China, the death rate was peaked at 3% a few weeks ago but is now declined to 0.7 %. Good results are obtained using Interferon Alpha 2B (IFNrec) without any combination with Kaletra. The use of Intravenous (IV) Vitamin C (Vit-C) has shown promise in this area in China. The IV Vit-C (or Ascorbic acid) protocols are mentioned in clinicaltrials.gov, for Covid19 and other pathologies. Shanghai now utilizes IV Vit-C in the treatment for Covid-19. Many physicians in China have identified promising results using IV Vit-C against Covid19. Thus, there is a need to urgently review the uses of IV Vit-C, pre- and post-infection, and during different stages of the infection. IV Vit-C is helping to develop a stronger immune system response, reducing the cytokines storm, or increasing antiviral activities through other unknown mechanisms.
Perhaps, the reduction of the cytokines storm in the late stages of the Covid19 infection is the most significant application of IV Vit-C. Covid19 pneumonia is a complex medical disorder with high morbidity and mortality rate. This causes severe lung injury that results in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), a life-threatening lung disorder. This process prevents the necessary oxygen to enter into the lungs and ultimately causes death. Coronaviruses increase oxidative stress that promotes cellular malfunction and ultimately results in organ failure. It is believed that pulmonary failure (ARDS) is the principal cause of Covid19′s action on humans. This helps to increase oxidative stress considerably because of the generation of free radicals and cytokines. This process finally leads to serious cellular injury, organ failure and death. The administration of anti-oxidizing agents along with proven conventional supportive therapies is believed to have an important role in controlling these medical situations. Appropriate vaccines and antiviral drugs for the Covid19 epidemic are not available. IV Vitamin C and other antioxidants are extremely good agents for ARDS. These can be applied clinically. Importantly, high dose IV Vit-C is safe and effective. In this paper, we review the use of high-dose Vit-C as an efficient method of treatment for patients with cancers and infections.
The antiviral properties of Vit-C help to reduce symptoms and mortality in children and adults [[1], [2], [3], [4]]. The antiviral activities of ascorbic acid was known and it was published almost 80 years ago [[5], [6], [7], [8], [9]] when scientists were involved in work on poliomyelitis. Moreover, the use of ascorbic acid as a medicinally crucial agent against various diseases was also well established [[10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21]]. Applications of Vit-C are found in poliomyelitis [[22], [23], [24], [25], [26]]. Many other uses of Vit-C include hepatitis, herpes, chickenpox and measles, infectious mononucleosis, trichinosis, urethritis, Antabuse, arthritis, and cancer. Vit-C is also helpful for the treatment of elevated cholesterol and arteriosclerosis, [[27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32]], corneal ulcers, glaucoma, burns, heatstroke, sunburn, slipped disc, toxins, and heavy metal poisonings [[33], [34], [35]]. The appropriate clinically effective vaccines and specific antivirals may serve effectively if they are available. Considering the current situation, the use of Vit-C as an antiviral agent should also be considered. Notably, Vit-C can be used alone or in combination with other available medicines to exert positive synergistic effects. Here we review the principal mechanism of actions of IV Vit-C that helps to make the immune system stronger, reduces the cytokines storm and inhibits oxidative processes. Under the first criteria, literature knowledge on cancer treatment will be reviewed first. Then, the antiviral properties will be reviewed, with focusing on the reduction of the oxidative pathways typical of the Covid19 ARDS
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213434420300153?fbclid=IwAR1jOSLX-sgH5jbJCtMcRUCaBhEOkevGMsHfGp3oFEFXq5yANm9uRS9ZkCY