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The Catholic Church may have been the single biggest beneficiary of the U.S. Paycheck Protection Program during the COVID-19 crisis, raking in a reported $3 billion in taxpayer-funded business relief. The staggering figure comes from an analysis of the payouts from the Associated Press, which states that $3 billion has been dished out to the nation's dioceses and other Catholic institutions. That money came in despite many dioceses being in good financial health—for example, the Diocese of Charlotte requested $8 million in aid despite having a reported $100 million of their own cash and short-term investments in the bank last spring, when the pandemic hit. Those assets were valued at $110 million by the summer'
https://www.thedaily...report?ref=home
Of course, religious institutions in the US are also exempt from paying taxes. (Wonder how far that tax money would go towards funding health care and college or job training....)
'lab used artificial intelligence to search for hidden clues in the structure of the virus to predict how it invaded human cells, and what might stop it. One observation stood out: The virus could potentially be blocked by melatonin.
[...] After he published his research, though, Cheng heard from scientists around the world who thought there might be something to it. They noted that, in addition to melatonin's well-known effects on sleep, it plays a part in calibrating the immune system. Essentially, it acts as a moderator to help keep our self-protective responses from going haywire—which happens to be the basic problem that can quickly turn a mild case of COVID-19 into a life-threatening scenario.
[...] Cheng decided to dig deeper. For months, he and colleagues pieced together the data from thousands of patients who were seen at his medical center. In results published last month, melatonin continued to stand out. People taking it had significantly lower odds of developing COVID-19, much less dying of it. Other researchers noticed similar patterns. In October, a study at Columbia University found that intubated patients had better rates of survival if they received melatonin.
Eight clinical trials are currently ongoing, around the world, to see if these melatonin correlations bear out. Few other treatments are receiving so much research attention. If melatonin actually proves to help people, it would be the cheapest and most readily accessible medicine to counter COVID-19. Unlike experimental drugs such as remdesivir and antibody cocktails, melatonin is widely available in the United States as an over-the-counter dietary supplement. People could start taking it immediately.
Yet Cheng emphasizes that he's not recommending that. Like any substance capable of slowing the central nervous system, melatonin is not a trifling addition to the body's chemistry. Its apparent benefit to COVID-19 patients could simply be a spurious correlation—or, perhaps, a signal alerting us to something else that is actually improving people's outcomes. [...] the real issue at play may not be melatonin at all, but the function it most famously controls: sleep.
[...] several mysteries of how COVID-19 works converge on the question of how the disease affects our sleep, and how our sleep affects the disease. The virus is capable of altering the delicate processes within our nervous system, in many cases in unpredictable ways, sometimes creating long-term symptoms.
[...] Many people's sleep continues to be disrupted by predictable pandemic anxieties. But more perplexing symptoms have been arising specifically among people who have recovered from COVID-19. "We're seeing referrals from doctors because the disease itself affects the nervous system," she says. After recovering, people report changes in attention, debilitating headaches, brain fog, muscular weakness, and, perhaps most commonly, insomnia. Many don't seem anxious or preoccupied with pandemic-related concerns—at least not to a degree that could itself explain their newfound inability to sleep. Rather it is sometimes part of what the medical community has begun to refer to as "long COVID," where symptoms persist indefinitely after the virus has left a person. When it comes to sleep disturbances, Salas worries, "I expect this is just the beginning of long-term effects we're going to see for years to come."
[...] the leading theory to explain how a virus can cause such a wide variety of neurologic symptoms over a variety of timescales comes down to haphazard inflammation—less a targeted attack than an indiscriminate brawl. This effect is seen in a condition known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, sometimes called chronic fatigue syndrome. The diagnosis encompasses myriad potential symptoms, and likely involves multiple types of cellular injury or miscommunication. [...]
[...] some reassurance in what the doctors are not seeing. When nerves are invaded and killed, the damage can be permanent. When nerves are miscommunicating—in ways that come and go—that process can be treated, modulated, prevented, and quite possibly cured. Although sleep cycles can be disturbed and damaged by the post-infectious inflammatory process, radiologists and neurologists aren't seeing evidence that this is irreversible. And among the arsenal of ways to attempt to reverse it are basic measures such as sleep itself. Adequate sleep also plays a part in minimizing the likelihood of ever entering into this whole nasty, uncertain process.
A central function of sleep is maintaining proper channels of cellular communication in the brain. Sleep is sometimes likened to a sort of anti-inflammatory cleansing process; it removes waste products that accumulate during a day of firing. Without sleep, those by-products accumulate and impair communication (just as seems to be happening in some people with post-COVID-19 encephalomyelitis). "In the early stages of COVID-19, you feel extremely tired," [...] Essentially, your body is telling you it needs sleep. But as the infection goes on[...] people find that they often can't sleep, and the problems with communication compound one another.
The goal, then, is breaking out of this cycle, or preventing it altogether. Here the benefits of sleep extend throughout the body. "Sleep is important for effective immune function, and it also helps to regulate metabolism, including glucose and mechanisms controlling appetite and weight gain," Miller says. All of these bear directly on COVID-19, as risk factors for severe cases include diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea. Even in the short term, getting enough deep, slow-wave sleep will optimize your metabolism and make you maximally prepared should you fall ill. [...]
[...] On weekends, wake up and go to bed at the same time as you do other days. Take scheduled walks. Get sunlight early in the day. Reduce blue light for an hour before bed.
[...] Even small daily rituals can help, [...] Light a candle. Have a cup of tea in a specific place at a certain time. [...]
[...] The most effective way to improve sleep is to ensure that people have a calm and quiet place to rest each night, free of concerns about basic needs such as food security. The pandemic has brought the opposite assurances, exacerbating the uncertainties at the root of already-stark disparities. [...]
[...] Fitton is one of a number of hypnotherapists who have spent the pandemic creating YouTube videos and podcasts meant to help put people to sleep. Fitton's sessions involve 30 minutes of him saying empowering things to listeners in his pleasant, semi-whispered voice. He tells me he is now getting more than 1 million listens a month.
Hypnotherapy is meant to slow down the rapid firing of our nerves. Similar to guided meditation or deep breathing, the intent is to stop people from overthinking and allow sleep to happen naturally. As you listen to Fitton saying banal things about the muscles in your back or asking you to envision a specific tree in a specific place, "the aim is to get into a relaxed, trancelike state, where your subconscious is open to more suggestion," he says. Then, when he tells you to sleep, your brain is less likely to argue with him about how you're too busy, or how you need to worry more about why someone read your text message but didn't reply.
Focusing involves practice; the trancelike state rarely happens easily, and no single way works for everyone. Some experimentation is usually needed. Apparently it still is for me. While listening to one of Fitton's recordings, I couldn't fully escape the image of him in his home office speaking softly into his microphone[...]
But regardless of whom you trust to help relieve you of consciousness, now seems like an ideal time to get serious about the practice. Draw boundaries for yourself, and sleep like your life depends on it. Hopefully it won't.'
https://www.theatlan...ic-zzzz/617454/
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 February 2021 - 02:43 PM
