The Death Of Critical Thinking In This COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic

We are, in today's modern society, bombarded by a barrage of news and media reports from all around the world.

Whether we're looking at factual accuracy or not doesn't really matter.

It depends on whose voice is the loudest, and whose platform is the biggest... isn't it? And there'll always be a tug-of-war between different groups and factions who want to impose their will on others, much like a bully does at a playground.

The supporters of the various groups and factions then tend to rally behind their cause, and are extremely vocal about it. To the extent that they're more passionate about the cause than why they're involved in the first place.

For example, let's look at abortion. We have the various pro-life and pro-choice groups out there lobbying over whether abortion is legal/ethical/morally correct whatever. An imposition of their will is done on people who step out of line. Abort a baby for whatever reason, valid or not, and the pro-life groups will make that person a social pariah. Speak out against abortion, and the pro-choice groups...

And in all that chaos... does anyone of them even stop to consider how to support the people who have genuine discomfort and confusion about whether abortion is the right decision for them, or not?

And therein lies the problem.

We get so fixated on the minor details of the how, that we forget about the why. Therein lies a departure of one's critical thinking ability.

As it is mentioned on SkillsYouNeed.com,

In essence, critical thinking requires you to use your ability to reason. It is about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.

Critical thinkers rigorously question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. They will always seek to determine whether the ideas, arguments and findings represent the entire picture and are open to finding that they do not.

Critical thinkers will identify, analyse and solve problems systematically rather than by intuition or instinct.

We do need these skills, desperately.

People are endangering their own lives out there, especially in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic. We do know that wearing masks can help to reduce the spread of any potential infectious droplets that we breathe out. We do know that social distancing to keep ourselves at safe distances from others to limit the spread of any potential infectious droplets are key too.

And yet, in Melbourne, Australia, where a second lockdown has been imposed because of an increasing spike in infections, and where it has also become a law that one must have a mask on when outdoors, people still refuse to comply, as it can be seen in this video below:

In the face of all this information that masks can help to reduce the potential of the virus spreading, some people are still adamant that this COVID-19 pandemic is not that serious of a problem.

They have the "right" to not wear a mask!

They have the "right" to attend COVID parties!

And of course, they have the "right" to get infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus at the COVID party and die as a result of it, aged just 30.

While the information is out there, there is a ton of misinformation out there too. The 30 year old who died of the COVID infection "thought the disease was a hoax. He thought he was young and invincible and wouldn't get affected by the disease".

And that's the biggest fallacious assumption that one can make. They might end up paying a steep price for it - with their lives.

Where does critical thinking come in?

We do need to understand how the virus spreads and how it replicates in the body. As I have written in 5 Things For Consideration In Addressing Viral Infections, viral infections are a sequential process in the body:

1. The virus gains entry into the body.

2. The virus infects a cell and reprogrammes it to only produce copies of the virus RNA/DNA strands. These virus copies can then proceed to infect other healthy cells and amplify the effects of virus multiplication exponentially.

3. Infected cells continue producing virus copies, until antibodies tag the infected cells as infected and programme them to commit suicide via apoptosis.

4. These dead cells send out signals to phagocyte cells so that the phagocytes can find them, engulf them and digest them up. This process is known as phagocytosis. The digested RNA/DNA strands are broken back down into their constituent nucleic acids so that new cells can be synthesised to replace the dead ones.

5. Signals in the form of pro-inflammatory cytokines can also be sent out to kill these infected cells by force if the rate of phagocytosis is less than the rate of infection. Too many infected or apoptotic cells aren’t good for our health.

The virus may gain entry to our body via different channels, and it can then gain access to our cells and control them (albeit hypnotically) to do nothing but churn out copies of the virus particles that can then proceed to take over other cells. (Stages 1-3)

But as I did outline in The Delicate Balance Of A Steady State To Maintain A Healthy Body, the body does have a way to maintain a dynamic equilibrium.

A healthy immune system will not let the infection spread out of hand.

We have antibodies that the immune system will generate to tag the infected cells and command them to commit suicide via apoptosis. (Stage 3)

We have phagocyte cells (which are mainly the macrophages) that swarm the dead apoptotic cells and digest them up (Stage 4).

Antibody support is key, but in the final analysis, dead apoptotic cells that aren’t cleared by phagocytosis quickly enough will be producing pro-inflammatory signals when they turn necrotic.

It’s essentially the same thing as food waste. Food waste that is left in a rubbish bin for a long while decomposes and gives off a bad smell. However, if waste removal services are clearing the bin regularly, the accumulation of the decomposition and the bad smell will be much less.

When the clearance rates from Stages 3 or 4 aren't performing up to speed to match the infection rate of Stages 1 and 2, something's got to give somewhere. Higher order cells have to be called upon with different biochemical signals, some of which can bring about more drastic symptoms.

If phagocytosis cannot eliminate all the virus particles or infected/apoptotic cells efficiently enough, other immune cells such as the natural killer cells (NKCs) or the dendritic cells (DCs) are called on to aid the elimination process. The NKCs and DCs are signalled by the complex pro-inflammatory cytokine signalling cascades that the macrophages can present, and proceed to produce their own cytokine signallers.

Interferon alpha (IFN-α), for instance, is a cytokine that is produced mainly by the DCs. In large amounts, IFN-α is pro-inflammatory and pyrogenic — it can cause body temperatures to rise, as it is in the case of a fever. (If one does develop a fever as a result of the common flu virus, for instance, it would mean that their macrophages aren't effective enough at virus clearance and that their immune system is calling upon the DCs and the NKCs to clear the virus).

Adding to the pro-inflammatory IFN-α signal would be the pro-inflammatory cytokines that are released from apoptotic cells turning necrotic, especially when they cannot be digested down by the phagocytes efficiently.

The macrophage cytokine signals can also signal a violent cell death via pyroptosis, which releases even more pro-inflammatory cytokines into the mix of an already complicated pro-inflammatory signalling cascade.

As such, all these signalling cascades, if not properly regulated, can contribute to the development of the dreaded cytokine storm, which can eventually lead into human death, or permanent organ damage even.

So now the questions remain...

Why do we want to keep safe distances from other people?

Why is it wiser to wear a mask when outdoors?

It's precisely because we don't want to go down the path of a premature death!

Even if I'm supporting an optimal function of my immune system by feeding it the right nutrients!

For example, the body’s production of the immuoglobulin A (IgA) antibody also helps in preventing infection, as it is said here that:

In fact, IgA has long been known to be able to act as a mucosal barrier to infection by preventing attachment of viruses to epithelial cells, and experimental studies in vivo have demonstrated that virus-specific IgA antibodies can protect the host from infection and resolve chronic infection.

Certain strains of probiotic bacteria, such as Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG), may promote the production of IgA in the body.

I could be ingesting billions of LGG bacteria each day, but even that doesn't make me exempt from developing a COVID-19 infection.

It's not a time to be complacent about our health.

It's the time to think critically and make the right decisions that allow us to lead out the best quality of life that we can achieve out of this crisis!

Joel Yong, PhD, is a biochemical engineer/scientist, an educator and a writer. He has authored 1 ebook (which is available on Amazon.com in Kindle format) and co-authored 6 journal articles in internationally peer-reviewed scientific journals. His main focus is on finding out the fundamentals of biochemical mechanisms in the body that the doctors don’t educate the lay people about, and will then proceed to deconstruct them for your understanding — as an educator should. Do visit his website here to connect.