Tai Chi Among Smarter Cures to Combat COVID-19 and Future Pathogens

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April 25, 2021 - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has made a profound impact on emergency responding and policy-making in a public health crisis. Classical solutions for controlling the virus, such as travel restrictions, lockdowns, repurposed drugs and vaccines, are socially unpopular and medically limited by the fast mutation and adaptation of the virus. This is exacerbated by microbial resistance to therapeutic drugs and the slowness of vaccine development. In other words, microbial pathogens are somehow "smarter" and faster than us, thus calling for more intelligent cures to combat future pandemics.

In a review published in April 2021 by an American journal, Environmental chemistry letters, scientists from China and France compare therapeutics for COVID-19 such as synthetic drugs, vaccines, antibodies and phages. They present the strength and limitations of antibiotic and antiviral drugs, vaccines, and antibody-based therapeutics. They describe smarter, cheaper and preventive cures such as bacteriophages, food medicine using probiotics and prebiotics, sports, healthy diet, music, yoga, Tai Chi, dance, reading, knitting, cooking and outdoor activities.