Richard Trudgen, Djiniyini Gondarra and Dr Kerry Mills continue the conversation about how the virus can be floating in little droplets of mucus in the air. Djiniyini asks, “How do these viruses enter the body”?

Dr Kerry Mills explains that these little droplets are floating in the air and if you breathe them in, they will go right down into the lungs.

Once they’re in the lungs, the viruses make a home in the bottom of the lungs. From there, in the lining of the lungs, they create a pneumonia-type condition. They can get very sick and won’t be able to breathe properly.

Story No. 1 explains why Covid-19 is a real problem for older people and people who have chronic disease. This first part of the podcast works through the names of all the conditions that may pose a heightened risk of bad health complications if you also get sick with the virus.

In Story No. 2, Wamut Richard asked Dr Mills to tell everybody about the story where, in China, most of the people who died from the virus were men. Doctors thought it was something about men that made them die, but then they discovered that in that country, many more men were smokers than women. This program works through why it was the smoking that affected the men. Dr Mills points out how the virus really likes the lungs of smokers.

Story No. 3 talks about how the virus is affecting smokers. Is it affecting other people? Dr Mills talks about how, if somebody smokes inside, then other people in the house will have the same problem. They go on to explain about passive smoking and also the effects of smoking on unborn children, in relation to the Covid-19 virus.

In Story No. 4 Richard asks questions about why it was that a lot more of the men who were smokers were dying compared to women in China. Dr Mills explained that, for the virus to make home in the lungs, it has to be able to find a special place to stick to the lungs called an ACE2 receptor. Dr Mills goes on to explain how this virus is very happy to inhabit that place in the lungs and to start breeding there. The nicotine in cigarettes creates a situation where the body makes a lot more of these special ACE2 receptors in the body, so the smokers have a lot more of these special homes where the virus can stay. When the virus stays, setting up homes in these special places, it produces thousands of small viruses.

When they reproduce in these special homes they also destroy their homes and that’s what makes people very sick. This is what makes it very hard for people to breathe because, in effect, the virus is destroying the lungs.

There are 4 Stories in this podcast. Please see time stamps below:

• Story No. 1 Make a home in your Lung 0:00
• Story No. 2 Smoking and the Virus 11:16
• Story No. 3 Why were men Dying 18:48
• Story No. 4 Breeding in the Lungs 29:50