DR DEEPAK RANADE attempts to investigate the mystery of Covid infections and its inexplicable response in different individuals that whips up a Cytokine Storm in some, while blowing away like a harmless breeze over others
Mankind is in the grip of an epidemic that has acutely made the human race aware of its fragility and vulnerability. This mayhem that could potentially result in a genocide has been engineered by a microscopic single strand of amino acids with a protein coat. It is a virus, a nano particle that has unleashed a reign of panic, terror and destruction and has made mockery of man’s technological progress, shaken the foundations of his ego and belief of being omnipotent.
The modus operandi of this nemesis that has plagued mankind is truly intriguing.
The virus infects the host by gaining entry into the host’s cell by combining with receptors on the surface of the cell. It then hijacks and corrupts the nucleus and its DNA-manufacturing machinery to make copies of itself. It thus replicates and propagates using the resources and infrastructure of the host to eventually overwhelm the host’s resistance and immune system.
But that’s just part of the story. The real damage is caused by a rather inappropriate response by the host’s immune system.
For reasons yet unknown, there is an unprecedented response in some hosts – an uncontrolled cascade of events in an attempt to neutralise this attack by the virus, the so-called Cytokine Storm. It’s analogous to summoning the entire police force, including the armed forces to neutralise a prowler. This disproportionate immune reaction sets the cat among the pigeons. There is an outpouring of white cells, inflammatory exudates, and other proteins that trigger thrombosis (clot formation). This intensely hyper response by the host chokes the lungs, rendering them ineffective to supply life-sustaining oxygen to the host, leading to the requirement of supplemental oxygen. This Cytokine response is almost as if there is a traitor within that teams up with the adversary to destroy the host.
What and who decides such a response? What really happens? It is evidently like an intelligence failure of the immune system. Could this virus attack the mind rather than the body? Could it corrupt the Psycho-neuro-humoral axis, which is the connection that exists between the mind (psycho), the nervous system (neuro) and the chemicals and proteins that are released in response to this (humoral).
This Cytokine Storm, and its intemperate machinations obviously indicates an intelligence failure of the immune response. It is almost as if the commander of the armed forces is being misinformed of a minor intrusion being a full scale attack by the enemy, that results in him deploying Nukes in response. The Cytokinetic (cell activating) trigger that unleashes the Cytokinetic storm has to be rationalised, instead.
Why does it get activated in certain individuals, still remains a very big mystery. The antidote to this panic-mongering immune storm, that releases the cat among the pigeons will have to be a reassuring Cytostatic (cell stabilizing) “All is well” signal.
The cure to this viral attack might lie in debugging the malware that corrupts the innate instinctive intelligence that’s programmed to ensure Homeostasis (the integrity of all adaptive and survival responses). The cure lies in that crucial instruction to restrain rather than attack with all guns blazing.
The solution to this scourge lies in modulating and reigning in the hyperimmune response that wrongly forces the finger to press the ‘Self-Destruct’ button.
This cascading sequence of events has to be aborted, perhaps by a signal, an instruction, to the host’s intelligence to temper down its response. It is a question of reinventing Descartes “mind matter” duality. We need instead a vaccine for the mind that bestows and blesses it with a sort of discretionary epiphany. What we need is a cryptic programme that debugs the viral malware and tells the mind ‘Do not panic. Relax, it doesn’t matter.’
What we need is a jab that awakens the intelligence to realize that the conjured virtual reality of a full-scale invasion is just a minor trespass. A timely dose of realisation, that resets the alarm button to a far more discretionary set point. A set point that would never get triggered by a false alarm. A dose that would restore sanity and serenity to a mind tormented with angst, apprehension and false assumptions.
Pune-based Dr Deepak Ranade is a consultant neurosurgeon with a great desire to unravel the mysteries of the universe. He is also the author of The Inner Universe, a collection of spiritual writings published in the Speaking Tree.
Featured Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay