People BUY the things that cause their poor health and their early death.

People typically lose TEN YEARS of good health this way.

My Lifestyle and "ME"

Each of us learns what feels right and wrong as we learn to walk. Our family and the community teaches us who we are. My family, my community, my friends, are like me, they are "good" by default. Mostly, that positive feeling of value and loyalty towards our own, serves us well.

But sometimes your group can be led into self destructive thinking and actions. This can be either encouraged or broken by whoever is recognised as the leader. Regarding Covid-19, in the USA, President Donald Trump was strongly focused on MAGA. Make America Great Again. He had previously identified China as a source of unfair trading competition. So Covid-19 became the China Virus, and with a positive thinking approach, there was no way a "China virus" was going the rob Americans of their way of life. That led to some unfortunate attitudes and eventually to many deaths.

The virus is invisible. Should the photo show it as red, or green, or transparent? You have to create Covid-19 in your imagination before you can change your behaviour so that you can protect yourself. If that means you can't attend dances, or be in a crowd at a football match, or can't go to the pub on a Friday night; you need to do these things to support the Public Health effort. That does stop you doing things that are "normal." That isn't an attack on you. It's a sensible action that you need to take, to protect yourself and your community, as best you can.

Ignoring the virus, saying things like; "I won't change my behaviour because of the virus, I'll choose what I do, and live like I always have." Or refusing to wear a mask, on public transport, isn't sensible or helpful. In the end each of us can be a super-spreader. Here in NZ, a long planned wedding with guests from distant places, became a super-spreader event. (About 70 attending.) None of the wedding guests expected that they would get infected, it was mid-March, but by this time they understood there was a risk. After the wedding they travelled home, and four days later the symptoms began to appear. Initially about 30 people. People self isolated and with good contact tracing there was limited spread. Eventually the number in this cluster rose to 98, with two people dying.

Getting Vaccinated - Everybody Should. [Update 11 October]

Here is a chart from an American hospital which shows that those who are unvaccinated are at much greater risk of getting a serious infection.

Hospital Cases Covid

When this page was written (March 2021) covid-19 vaccines were new, they were not available in New Zealand, and supply in the future seemed a long way off.

By October, 2021, while all of the comment below remains valid, the first thing you should do is get vaccinated. Vaccination is only partial protection, but it's a real advantage. You are less likely to get infected, and if you do become infected your immune system is already prepared, and has a head start in making the sickness less intense.

It's true, that you can still infect other people, but because your illness is less, that's also a reduced risk. Don't believe the nonsense about the vaccine not working. In most cases better than 97% protection, but depending on the country you are in and which vaccine you get, that might drop to 80%, and at some stage require a booster shot. [Update Ends]

Everyday Normal Health

Unhealthy at 50, his doctor refused
to operate.
Healthy at 51, operation not needed.

What is "normal health." When you have it you don't notice. The purpose of the Public Health program of your country is to create the environmental conditions where the good health that most people seek to have is common. Public Health requires that at least two conditions are met: "everyone knows how to be healthy," and that the social, economic and environmental features of society make that possible. In an ideal world "public health" should be almost invisible, and everyone would enjoy good health.

Contrast that with the medical solution to better health. First of all you need a diagnosis of some disorder. Then a "medical solution." That's important, because dietary change, and exercise or sleep are not medical solutions. Nor is anything you might label as "natural." The reason for this is historical.

Personal Metabolic Health

As time has gone on, it's also become clear that there are things people can do to improve their health outcomes when/if they do get Covid-19. Don't be obese, and take steps to reverse your pre-diabetes or diabetes. People continue the suffer from these problems because the "cure" isn't medical. The cure is dietary and is well known, just neglected because we keep looking in the wrong place. In addition older people tend to have low vitamin D status, and apparently vitamin D helps the immune system to cope with Covid-19. Get some sunshine, it's cheap and useful. It's also useful to exercise, particularly to increase your muscular strength and to improve your lung capacity and aerobic efficiency.

So to summarize, prevention is better than cure. At a community level Public Health preparation, is far more important than hospitals or medical care. Yet communities around the world fund what they can see; hospitals and medical care: neglecting Public Health. Public Health requires community action, you can't do it alone.

There are of course public health things you can do, when appropriate. Stay at home when you are sick. Wear a mask as appropriate. Assist other people who need help. Don't create tripping or falling hazards, follow safety instructions; were supposed to know this stuff. It may not be interesting but it is important.

There are also personal health maintenance things you can do. If you do them, and you do get Covid-19, you have a better chance of coping with the infection without too much distress. In the world most people in "New Zealand" live in, we suffer from the lifestyle "diseases" of our society. They are not really diseases at all, more disorders caused by poor public health advice and regulation. From the age of 30 most of my generation (I'm now retired), began to accumulate the problems we now call metabolic syndrome. By the age of 70, almost everyone was "sick" but most of us don't choose to notice. We call it old age, my fate, my bad genes. We look at other sick people all around us, and think; "I'm doing OK." There is much more each of us can do, once we STOP asking the doctor to cure something that is not really a medical problem.

Open Future Health has a whole website to help you with these problems.

Today things are even worse. Children at primary school are obese and have non-alcoholic fatty livers. These are metabolic disorders in children. By the time they are teenagers some have already developed type II diabetes. This is a FAILURE of Public Health. Too many of us believe that if we make ourselves sick, having fun, drinking too much (alcohol, fruit juice or soft drinks), eating badly (lack of quality protein), or failure to exercise, that some "doctor will fix me up." They are likely to have some difficult times ahead. Early death after 10 years of painfully getting there, isn't the end of life experience you should be planning for yourself.