Steam kept her from colds, flu
I am incredibly frustrated every time I read about people like Josh Green becoming COVID-positive.
For many years I have been doing one simple action in order to not get colds or the flu. The action was based on information in a CDC document on cold and flu viruses (during the time avian flu began in humans). It said that both cold and flu viruses were 1) susceptible to heat (I later learned at least 170 degrees F), and 2) they incubated in nasal mucosa 24 hours.
So I have been breathing steam from freshly boiled water once a day since then. As long as I have done that I have not had either colds or flu, while people around me kept suffering. (I did catch a cold once during that time when I was flying home from the Canary Islands and had no way to boil water until I got home.) Now I read that the COVID-19 virus behaves the same way and is inactivated by heat.
I wrote to Dr. Berreman about it. She said it sounds intriguing but does not have the weight of science behind it. Apparently the CDC is not heavy enough?
True, no one has done studies to compare, but it is certainly based on scientific facts. I believe that people in situations such as Dr. Josh Green has been in, surrounded by people who might have the virus, would have benefited. I don’t know if the body still makes antibodies if the virus is inactivated.
The beautiful thing about breathing steam is that it is a healthy thing to do. Obviously, the person has to be careful with steam. I tell people to take a quick whiff. When it feels comfortable, breathe it. (I recommend 10 slow, deep breaths, but that is just to be sure that the steam can reach deep into the throat — that is not based on any scientific study.)
But how to get the message out? Because it could work on COVID-19, it seems to me worth doing just as much as wearing a mask. Any suggestions?
Ruta Jordans, Kapa‘a
Stick to the real issues
This week, the newspaper included a letter that surprised me. In this tense political era when so many false stories are spread in the media to the point where we see Twitter, Facebook, Instagram alerting readers to false stories or even block them, I was dismayed to see the letter describing the wildfires as arson attacks by the leftists (BLM, Antifa, etc.).
It does not serve the purpose of democracy and its fair elections to allow such unsupported stories to be printed. Given the thousands of lightning strikes, high winds, and dry conditions, it defies logic to suggest the hundreds of fires were started simultaneously by groups. People could say that sounds like a Russian message to scare people and change the subject from the pandemic.
Please, for the sake of fair elections, reconsider publishing such baseless comments. Yes, it generates reader response, but it just adds to the distraction from the real issues.
Judith Fernandez, Kapa‘a
Editor’s note: The letter in question was submitted by a reader and it ran on the Forum page. It was an opinion piece not an article.
