The COVID Advisor

Before the COVID pandemic, Dr. Paul Marik became well-known for his development of a highly effective   sepsis protocol   using intravenous vitamin C, which resulted in a dramatic reduction in mortality rates. Then, in 2020, he cofounded the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and subsequently published one of the most comprehensive and effective protocols for treating COVID-19. Despite a stellar career up to that point, the sin of insisting on early treatment for COVID-19, and sharing that information with the public, resulted in him being vilified, discredited and ultimately forced to resign. I'm a veteran of this too, so much so that the first two times I attempted to interview Marik, he turned down the invitation, in part because of how I was being portrayed by the media. "I was still digesting what was happening and I was unsure," Marik says. "I didn't realize how important you are in telling the truth and ...

If you didn’t have sleep issues before COVID, you just might after—particularly if the virus hospitalized you. That’s according to a new study published in The Lancet , which found that sleep disturbances were common among those who had been admitted because of the disease. Such disturbances, found in 62% of study participants, were likely to last at least a year, the United Kingdom–based researchers noted after meeting with nearly 2,500 COVID patients hospitalized during the pandemic’s first two years. Some required critical care in the hospital, while others did not. The study was the first to highlight the association between sleep disruption, a  commonly reported symptom in long COVID , and breathlessness, another long COVID symptom. Anxiety and reduced muscle function also seemed to play a role in post-COVID sleep issues, and both have been linked to long COVID, the researchers noted. Sleep disturbance is a common complaint among those who’ve been hospitalized for a variety of...

The debate over masks’ effectiveness in fighting the spread of the coronavirus intensified recently when a respected scientific nonprofit said its review of studies assessing measures to impede the spread of viral illnesses found it was “uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.” Now the organization, Cochrane, says that the way it summarized the review was unclear and imprecise, and that the way some people interpreted it was wrong. “Many commentators have claimed that a recently updated Cochrane review shows that ‘masks don’t work,’ which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation,” Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor in chief of the Cochrane Library, said in a statement. “The review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses,” Soares-Weiser said, adding, “Given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question ...

The Cochrane Review’s editor-in-chief on March 10 issued an unusual statement claiming that a recent paper published by the review does not show masks don’t work. That interpretation of the paper is “inaccurate and misleading,” Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor-in-chief, said in  a statement . The January review found that, based on the current evidence, masks were not effective in reducing the spread of respiratory viruses. Pooled results from the randomized, controlled trials analyzed for the review “did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks,” the authors said, though several factors, including a high risk of bias in the trials, “hampers drawing firm conclusions,” they added. “It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive,” Soares-Weiser said on Friday. “Given the limitations in ...

The imposition of mask mandates among school children during the pandemic did not affect the incidence of COVID-19 infection, according to research conducted in Finland. The study , published in the journal BMC Public Health on April 21, was conducted in three Finnish cities—Helsinki, Turku, and Tampere. These cities had similar baseline incidences of COVID-19 between August and September 2021. At the time, the federal government had recommended using masks in schools for children aged 12 years and above. In Helsinki and Tampere, the national recommendation was imposed as mandates at schools while in Turku, the mandate was levied on kids aged 10 and above. The research team looked at the effects of masks on two groups of children—those between seven and nine years and those between 10 and 12. While the seven to 10-year-olds were not subject to mask mandates, 10-12 years olds had to wear masks. “According to our analysis, no additional effect was gained from mandating masks, based on co...