Once upon a time, there was a coronavirus.  Actually, there were several coronaviruses.  The CDC lists 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1.  It goes on to note that they are generally mild respiratory viruses that rarely cause serious illnesses.  They are...drum roll, please...common cold viruses.

Over the last twenty years, we've been threatened with panic porn about three other coronaviruses: MERS, SARS, and COVID-19.  MERS and SARS appeared to be really bad actors, but instead of the infectious holocaust the Feds predicted, they bombed out.  SARS killed 11% of its victims but is known to have infected only 8,649 people.  MERS was a bit worse, killing 35% of its victims, but as of 2021, there were only 2,600 total cases.  At this point, our attention might wander to Zika and Ebola.  Wild-eyed acolytes of the CDC shouted that these new plagues would destroy civilization as we knew it.  Instead, they made profits for Anthony Fauci as he rented out his patent on Remdesivir.  But it didn't work on Ebola.

Then, the story goes, Fauci used our tax money to pay for the Wuhan Institute of Virology to make a bigger, badder coronavirus.  This one could not be allowed to be a nothing.  It had to be catastrophic so that his medicine would be prescribed for everyone.  And a vaccine constructed with his help would also be pleasantly beneficial for his wallet.

We know the rest of the story.  COVID-19 exploded around the world.  And almost as fast as it appeared, physicians found that two ancient drugs worked beautifully against it.  But that story could not be allowed.  How were drug companies and Fauci supposed to make multi-millions on another seasonal flu?  So lies were broadcast about HCQ and ivermectin.  Doctors lost their jobs if they prescribed them.  And the disease was hyped to be deadly if you got near a sick person without a mask and a sore arm from an mRNA shot and maybe even a booster.  Those would keep you from getting sick or spreading the bug.

The drum beat continued, with pictures of freezer trucks for the dead and tickers of all the cases running across the bottom of every news broadcast.  Politicians exclaimed that a million Americans had died from COVID.

None of it was true.  The risk of dying from COVID turned out to be 0.3%, about the same as seasonal flu, and kids were virtually unaffected.  The mRNA jab didn't protect you from getting or spreading COVID, but it killed kids with myocarditis.  And Remdesivir killed kidneys and the people where those kidneys were located.

Along the way, COVID-19 changed.

The first big change was the Delta variant.  It had four mutations in the spike protein.  That's not much, and the rest of the picture was pretty much the same.  Then came Omicron, or as one friend put it, the "Omi-Yawn" variant.  It had fifty-three mutations on its spike, suggesting that it got them during a key party in a patient who also had a different coronavirus.  After all, viruses swap genetic material as long as they're in the same family.

Omicron was far more infectious, leading all the newsies to shout that it was more "contagious!"  At the same time, Omicron just wasn't as harmful.  It was following a principle known as "Muller's Ratchet."  For a virus to survive, it has to have hosts.  The best way for that to happen is to learn how to better infect without killing the host.  That means more potential hosts can be exposed.  Rinse, repeat.  In fact, this is what's happening now.  We have so many variants that we can't keep track of them.  And the news is breathlessly shouting about the "new variant of COVID-19," as if this new strain will wipe out humanity.

The "COVID-19" we have today is as much like the original strain as today's Ford Mustang is like the original 1965 pony car.  There are a few constants, like four wheels, gas and brake pedals, and a steering wheel.  Beyond that, fugeddaboutit.  The original had a three-speed stick shift, skinny tires, and drum brakes.  The engine had a carburetor, breaker points, and a mechanical distributor to get the spark to each cylinder on time.  Its only solid state electronics were transistors in the AM radio.  Today's Mustang looks "sort of" like the original, but the name badge is about where the commonality ends.  Most of the other details are radically different.

This is a pretty good description of the comparison between the COVID-19 that led to so much havoc in 2020 and the variants that exist today.  Muller's Ratchet has been hard at work, mutating the virus so much that it's easy to catch but difficult to die from.  Our "news" media and government are trotting out serial liar Anthony Fauci again to tell us to mask up and get shot.  But the bug simply isn't any more dangerous than the common cold, which is what it has actually become.  It may wear the "COVID" name badge on its trunk lid, but the disease that was used to create so much fear simply does not exist outside a laboratory.  Masks don't stop it, and neither do shots.

Yet the COVIDiots persist.  It's time to tell them to go to Helsinki.  Alice (COVID) doesn't live here anymore.

Ted Noel, M.D. is a retired anesthesiologist/intensivist who podcasts and posts on social media as DoctorTed and @vidzette.  His Doctor Ted's Prescription podcasts are available on many podcast channels.

Image: qimono via Pixabay, Pixabay License.