CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, March 30, 2020

Slow the virus: Some steps we can take

During the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of GIs took a weekly, anti-malaria tablet called: primaquine-chloraquine. The most widely experienced side effect was a one-day episode of diarrhea.

Primaquine-chloraquine stimulates the immune system. An effect that could be very helpful with regard to the Red Chinese Coronavirus. (Note: the term Red China is used to differentiate between the Republic of China (onTaiwan) and the Overseas Chinese.) Primaquine is also used in the treatment of pneumonia, often the cause of death brought on by the Red Chinese Coronavirus.

If primaquine-chloraquine had any serious, long-lasting side effects, hundreds of thousands of Vietnam veterans would have demanded that the Veterans Administration (VA) accord them disability status and expedited treatment. That has not happened.

Today, showing some promise of warding off or reducing the harmful effects of the Red Chinese Coronavirus, is hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), another anti-malaria medication. HCQ is also used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. First approved for use in humans in 1955, the World Health Organization (WHO) lists HCQ as one of the safest medications.

But, unlike malaria which is carried from malaria-infected human to malaria-infected human by the female anopheles mosquito, the Red Chinese Coronavirus is a zoonotic disease that stems from the human consumption of animals such as wild pigs, wild ducks, monkey brains, Civet Cats, bats, snakes, and pangolins -- a rare form of anteater. Such animals are sold for human consumption in Red Chinese "wet-markets."

Despite almost world-wide condemnation of zoonotic wet-markets, Red China refuses to shut them down and it is believed that the Red Chinese Coronavirus stemmed from the wet-market in Wuhan Province.

Whether the starving eat wild animals to stay alive or the zoonotics are prepared as delicacies for the wealthy is not clear. Nevertheless, eating bats, snakes, Civet Cats, pangolins, rodents, monkey brains, exotic birds, wild swine and ducks is done at enormous cost to the rest of humankind.

While we cannot command Red China to close its wet markets, we can make Red Chinese pay for some of the damage its wet-markets have inflicted upon the world. Via treasury bills and other instruments, Red China has loaned us billions of dollars. We can recoup some of our losses by refusing to make interest and principal payments to the Red Chinese government. We can place a special Red Chinese Coronavirus tariff on incoming Red Chinese goods. We can provide favorable tax treatment to American companies that shut down their factories in Red China and reopen those factories here in the USA.

If those relatively benign measures do not cause Red China to cease and desist in what is, in effect, bio-terrorism against the free world, we can apply more stringent measures. Recall, to force the Soviet Union to withdraw its nuclear missiles from communist Cuba, President Kennedy imposed a naval "quarantine" on Soviet shipping into Cuba.

Red China relies on oil from the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Malacca would be a good place for the navies of the Red Chinese Coronavirus-impacted nations to stop and "safety-inspect" oil tankers that are en route to Red China. To borrow from a best-selling novel of 1933, that would dim the "lamps of China."

©2020. William Hamilton.

William Hamilton is a laureate of the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame. Dr. Hamilton’s latest book: Formula for Failure in Vietnam: The Folly of Limited Warfare can be ordered toll free at: (800) 253-2187 Or, go to Amazon.com.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com