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Hi, I'm Dr. Rita Elethorpe. I'm a member with FirstWorks Baptist Church here in Los Angeles area. And as a doctor, I'm a medical doctor who practices in Tustin, California. I've been there 20 years, practicing totally about 40 years, including about nine years of active duty as a military emergency room physician. And I'm quite familiar with the seasonal flu and cold viruses. And I thought I would take a minute to share some of my experience and my estimation of what I think the COVID-19 virus is and may give you some good suggestions about how to improve your immune system and stay well. But I'd like to begin by giving you a little bit of statistics. Every year we have the flu virus. That officially begins October 1st and it goes through mid-March of every year. And the flu season for the year 2019 to 2020 has been documented at cdc.gov. And you can look these numbers up yourself as well. I do this every year. And what we find is anywhere between roughly 25 million to about 60 million people are exposed to the annual flu virus. And I'm going to say those numbers again. 21, 25 million to about 60 million people are exposed. And out of that exposure to the flu every year, there's roughly about 500,000 hospitalizations, some years a little less, some years a little more. And of that, the deaths from the flu complications is somewhere in the realm of around 60, 55,000 deaths pretty much every year. And so in that perspective, when I look at today, I looked at John Hopkins' coronavirus active map. And on that, the data actually showed this morning that in the United States, there were 2,952 cases identified, 57 deaths and 12 recoveries so far. And so in that light, I need you to get a perspective about viral illnesses. The fact is that the vast majority, 80 plus percent, are over 80 years old that succumb to this, but far more to the common flu that we have every year. The vaccine last year, even at cdc.gov, estimated that the flu vaccine last year was about 47% effective, which means it really wasn't very effective. And so I need you to understand that healthy personal responsibility for your lifestyle, your diet, your immune system, your social interactions, the concern for your family, your elderly seniors, this is more important every year than a guesstimation, their best estimates to develop a flu vaccine, in my opinion, as a doctor practicing 40 years. Now, what are those things? Well, I also do research. And in research and publication, we have found that vitamin D, supplementation vitamin D3, vitamin D3, is found to actually impact and reduce the illness incidence, the complication and death rate of people with viral upper respiratory illnesses. This is not a question. You can go to the British Journal of Medicine from September 2017, and you'll see vitamin D reduction in the viral illnesses, upper respiratory viral illnesses. This is being referenced all the time. There is a good YouTube program you can follow, and it's called the MedCram, spelled M-E-D-C-R-A-M, MedCram by Dr. Saluth, who is a pulmonologist and infectious disease. Well, I think he's an intensivist. He works with the very ill in the ICUs. And so he sees the acute respiratory distress failures and syndromes that occur from the seasonal flu and possibly COVID, but he hasn't seen one yet. He puts out a daily Monday through Friday video on looking at John Hopkins coronavirus mapping the incidence in the United States, and he is pulling up articles referencing the British Journal of Medicine on vitamin D in 2017, and these statistics are fantastic, okay, as far as helping maybe prevent you getting a viral illness of any sort or reducing the severity if you get it and greatly and significantly reducing the death rate. Number two, that virus has to penetrate through your cell membranes. One of the things that that virus does is it needs to replicate its RNA inside of you to make more virus. One of the things we found, and God is so wonderful the way he does this, zinc, good old-fashioned, the healthy mineral and nutrient zinc has been found to stop the RNA dependent RNA polymerase enzyme that replicates the coronaviruses. Now this is established research science. We've known this since 2010 after SARS-2 and again in 2014. They have looked at studies about just good zinc levels. Now as a practicing physician who does food research, I have found that the general populations coming to me, even the healthy young man, I do mineral assays, I do vitamin D assays. They're typically all low, very low. I would say if you ask me for an estimate, I would say 90% of all Americans are low, even the healthy young men. I would also say I do mineral assays and they're low on magnesium often and zinc. And why is this? Because of our cheap processed food lazy type of eating that's too high in carbs and you know sugars, even fruit sugars in a glass of orange juice will suppress your immune system, the ability of it to reach out and phagocytize or eat up bacteria or other things. And so you have, if you're concerned about the coronavirus, you must take personal responsibility to not have a high carbohydrate diet and orange juice is not a good choice. Eat an orange versus drinking a glass that had 10 oranges squeezed into it with all that sugar of the fruit sugar in it that suppresses your immune system. The other thing is meat is a rich source of zinc. I would of course recommend grass fed. Fish and the highest natural source of zinc are oysters. So egg yolks, eggs, meat, fish, these are tremendous sources of natural existing zinc. It does exist in seeds and legumes. But legumes have a terrible thing associated with it and that is they have phytates. These are plant chemicals that bind zinc, grains, even rice. If you give rice to a human being in a study that you also gave zinc, you will literally pull down that zinc absorption by at least say 70 percent. So there's a problem with being a vegetarian and getting enough zinc and so I warn my patients who are vegan vegetarians that the phytates and all these grains and legumes will fight their mineral sufficiency. Another thing, there is wonderful research now even being published that vitamin C intravenously has been given to the people in China. There's three studies going on about high-dose vitamin C intravenously. They've done this in South Korea and having great results. These results are not being published but the verbal results we're getting back from the Chinese doctors are, it's very beneficial. I will tell you that in the United States there exist studies even from Virginia as well as Oklahoma, studies showing high-dose intravenous vitamin C had as much as 50 percent, 46 percent reduction of mortality in severe upper respiratory distress syndrome which is causing the deaths in the COVID-19 virus and all of our respiratory illnesses that are fatal. Another thing is there are medicines like chloroquine. Chloroquine has been given to missionaries for years when they go in mosquito infested regions that carry malaria and malaria has been treated with chloroquine for years and we found that hydroxychloroquine actually enhances zinc transmission into the cell and we believe that is why they're able to fight off the malaria pathogen but we found that hydroxychloroquine also brings in zinc to stop the replication of the coronavirus. This is established science. This isn't conjecture. Another thing is macrolides. What are these? Have you ever had a z-pack or been given a zithromycin? These antibiotics are well-known carriers that help transmit zinc into the cell. It isn't so much that it is the killing agent, these antibiotics, but it is allowing the natural zinc to come through and do its job. So when I study the Bible, when I study medicine, when I look at the statistics, I see the hand of God using his wonderful creation all the time and so remember lower your carbohydrates. Eat a low carb lifestyle diet. Number two, drink plenty of water. Don't go for juices. It's full of sugar. Number three, get a good night's sleep. We have research that also shows a healthy full seven hours of sleep is very immune-enhancing. Number four, I would also encourage you to follow all the standard hygienic, you know, a cough into a handkerchief or into your elbow, social distancing. If you're ill, stay home. If your child's ill, please keep your child home. Be very careful about washing off commonly touched surfaces, your refrigerator handles in the house, your door handles, etc, etc. Drink plenty of water and then I would encourage you to look at getting a diet rich in zinc rich foods. If you were to become ill, we would encourage you if you have a fever, you are coughing and you feel concerned about your ease of breathing, call your doctor or call the emergency room rather than just showing up in advance. They can help triage you. That's what I'm personally doing with my patients and I put out my video to my own patients so that our doctors, we work with five in my clinic, we triage and we help them. Once you practice medicine many years, you can hear over the phone how things are going and we can ask questions whether or not we really think you need to come in or whether you can just do healthy, simple flu, viral management skills from the home. I would encourage you to get vitamin D3, vitamin D3 and at least 5,000 international units and take that every day. I would encourage you to do that all year long and just remember it is in the winter seasons that the sun angle and the light of the ultraviolet light to hit our skin that helps us make vitamin D is diminished and that's when the flu season always hits. So I would definitely start every September and carry it through every to April every year taking your vitamin D5,000 D3. Zinc is in the food but you can get it in a over the counter and that what should be as a chelate. Don't get zinc oxides and don't go for high dose zinc. I would say a good zinc supplementation if you do buy it over the counter. Five milligrams is good enough. Get it as zinc sulfate, zinc glycinate, zinc aurorotate. These are amino acid chelated joined together with the mineral to the amino acid not zinc oxides or zinc picolinate. That's a another story for another biochemical day but just look for that if you want to do that and I will tell you one more thing. They found quercetin. Quercetin is a natural occurring herb that we get from the plant kingdom. It's over the counter as well just like zinc and vitamin D3. Quercetin works as an antihistamine but quercetin is what we call something that helps get zinc into the cell to fight viral replication. Quercetin, how much do you need? I take a gram every day. I'm B positive blood type. I have bad allergies so I take quercetin every day but I also know that it is protecting me every time I see a patient. I would also ask you to pray for the health care providers. We aren't staying home. We are showing up every day to do our job to help our patients and field the phone calls and all so pray for us and pray that God protects us. Well thank you for watching this and we from First Works Baptist Church here in Los Angeles and Pastor Mejia, I want to encourage you to stay in the Word. That's your best health insurance and follow these helpful measures I hope to keep you and your family safe. God bless. you