How vitamin C can protect against the risk of coronavirus

Few weeks ago Italy went into government-imposed lockdown as the coronavirus epidemic finally – and inevitably, perhaps – hit European shores.

The World Health Organisation has warned governments around the world to step up preparations to deal with a full-blown pandemic – preparations which, it claimed this week, fell short of where it expected them to be, given the severity of an outbreak that at the time of writing has left more than 2,700 people dead.

Understandably, with Britons now among those having been diagnosed with the virus, there is a lot of concern among the public at large about how best to protect themselves against contracting and spreading it.

Virulent as it is – and its spread has certainly been explosively fast since the first outbreaks were reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan – research and evidence down the years suggests the answer is actually already well known to us.

In a recent article, the president of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, Dr Damien Downing, cites 28 proven references that show the spread of coronavirus can be dramatically slowed, and even stopped, with the immediate and widespread use of high doses of Vitamin C.

And if that sounds familiar, or overly simplistic, that’s because we’ve known for decades now that research study after research study, carried out by a long and illustrious list of highly regarded doctors, has proven the powerful antiviral properties of Vitamin C.

It’s why generations of mothers have forced their children to drink endless glasses of orange juice and to eat dark green vegetables in high quantities.

Vitamin C has long been nature’s line of defence against everything from the common cold to influenza and beyond.

And yet, at the time when health policymakers should be directing practitioners in the UK and beyond to adopt an almost weaponised use of Vitamin C in the war on coronavirus, there has been zero publicity, media coverage or awareness about the very simple steps people can take at home to protect themselves from the disease.