Corona Placebo?

The placebo effect is real, even though it is still not understood exactly how it works. But the mere fact that people can be given a sugar pill or some fake treatment, or even fake surgery (yes that's been tested), and come out feeling better, is a sure indication of the power of mind over body.

People have described on many occasions how even just a walk to the doctor's practice cured them even before they got there; it's something to do with the almost certain belief, the conviction that the doctor, or the pill or the treatment, will make things better. Placebo is how new drugs are tested for effectiveness: one group is given the real medicine and another group gets a fake drug that they think is real, and if both groups react in the same way, than the drug is deemed unsuccessful. In one study done with migraine patients they even gave one group pills that were labeled "placebo", and even that was 50% as effective as the real drug:

A 2014 study led by Kaptchuk and published in Science Translational Medicine explored this by testing how people reacted to migraine pain medication. One group took a migraine drug labeled with the drug's name, another took a placebo labeled "placebo," and a third group took nothing. The researchers discovered that the placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug to reduce pain after a migraine attack.

The researchers speculated that a driving force beyond this reaction was the simple act of taking a pill. "People associate the ritual of taking medicine as a positive healing effect," says Kaptchuk. "Even if they know it's not medicine, the action itself can stimulate the brain into thinking the body is being healed."
_{source: Harvard Medical School}

Isn't that amazing, a simple ritual, action or fake drug having an effect like that? The power of mind over body is much more commonly known about in the other direction; in our modern society with the constant pressures associated with the 24 hour economy, we know all too well about the modern diseases caused by mental stress. This is all nothing new, but what struck me today is this: in this corona pandemic we are all participating in one giant social ritual all over the world... if "the simple act of taking a pill" can already affect the well-being of a migraine patient, I have to wonder what effect the complex series of actions taken by us all in this pandemic can have on our mental and physical well-being. Can the mere belief of being infected with the virus convince individuals of the belief that they've contracted a deadly disease? And could the mind then have enough power over the body to make it literally die? How many of the reported infections are really placebo's? How many of the deaths? One thing is certain; it can not be that this world-wide reaction, not the virus or disease itself but the world-wide ritual we all are compelled to take part in, has no effect at all on our mental and physical well-being. It's something to consider for sure, and it never will be by our official media or politicians.

This pandemic is, for me, like 9/11; it's an inside job, meaning it has been deliberately planted by powerful elites who benefit from its aftermath, or it's simply exploited so that they benefit from its aftermath. Like with 9/11 everything is kept obscure, information is inconsistent, as are the reported statistics, and many in power seem more concerned with creating enemies (China or the other political party) than they are with finding real solutions. "Keep the problem going so the money keeps flowing" is what every disaster-capitalist always says. And there's no question whatsoever about how this pandemic is being exploited by the insanely rich to make themselves even richer, as shown in the below linked video. I'd like to take this opportunity to call your attention to the many contributors on the Steemit and Hive blogs in the Deep Dives community who have a lot of information about the shady practices concerning this pandemic, like @krnel, @jasonliberty, @lighteye, @richq11 and many more. They are far better informed than I am on this topic, so please pay them a visit as well. These are sad and infuriating times; professor Richard Wolff recently described corona and capitalism as "overlapping sicknesses", and he's right...

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