Coronavirus? Through analogy, tango has made your cat healthy--so much so, that you may as well call your cat "Tango." In today's world with a modern pandemic from COVID-19 you have to keep your cat at home for a while, but it's not forever. In reality tango feeds your cat. This means that ample physical social contact before an epidemic makes you and your microbiome more resilient during epidemics. Tango is also psychologically powerful to bolster your immune system. Your cat is more like your microbiome. Cats cannot live on tango alone. They need good food to keep the gut bacteria balanced and healthy. They need pure water, probiotics, fresh air and sun. They need lots of sleep. They need to avoid psychologically toxic relationships. It's not just tango, but that's a big part of your biological and psychological resiliency. Even if you were to have had an awesome, strong cat, during the Black Plague, you would not have gone out shaking everyone's hand just because you had power-cat! You'd stay in. So it is with tango. Stay in during a pandemic!!!
Not only your mind but your body wants you to return to the milonga.
Microbiologists are unequivocally showing us that practicing social distancing, even social isolation, during times of pandemic could be a life-and-death matter for many--if not you, then someone you could possibly infect. However, during healthy times before and after an epidemic, physical social contact bolsters our immune system. Meeting, touching and hugging people (also called "tango") increases the diversity of the microbiome in your body and you are stronger for it. Tango is the perfect medicine for the general public's over-sanitized lifestyles. More and more people sit behind computers, communicate, chat, date and even have virtual sex. This is a problem for the "sanitized" microbiome which needs to have more social contact in order to be robust. Then this same socially isolated person who already lacks a diversified microbiome, let's say, gets a viral infection, runs to his doctor and further damages his microbiome with a round of antibiotics. Think PRObiotics and not antibiotics, unless it is a serious infection. Antibiotics, by the way, have NO effect on viruses.
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| Read this book! More than 90% of your body is your microbiome. Really. |
Your enemy was never bacteria, viruses, and fungi. The majority of these microbes, viruses, and fungi work in your body to keep you healthy or are harmless when kept in balance. Without a good balance of diverse bacteria, people become depressed, anxious and physically sick. (So eat probiotic foods.) The recipe for good health requires a balance in your microbiome. Little is known about how they do it, but all three are mostly our friends. Yes, certain viruses, like HIV, are seriously not good. And Candida Fungi are not good when out of balance. Yersinia Pestis (bubonic plague) are extremely dangerous bacteria. But don't kill all the cats! Most are good. Tango cats especially. One day soon we will all need to get back to embracing one another. Long-term survival is the real issue at hand. For the time being while not dancing so much, stay home, and take good care of your Tango Cat.
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Photoshop credit: Thanks, Benjamin Word, for your knowledge in International Advertising and the manipulation of Internet cat pictures.
Photo credits:
Kitten with yarn (before photoshop): https://kittentoob.com/20-toys-never-let-cat-play/
Coronavirus: https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus-resource-center
Footnotes: How is it that the rodents didn't get sick from the fleas that they carried? Well, to this day they carry a virus that would keep them from dying from the Bubonic Plague if it were to come back. (In the 1990's the US had 10 cases. So it has come back but has been controlled. Is it not interesting that humans and rats have certain viruses that protect us! It's just that they can carry a virus that helps them but not homo sapiens.
Even though the bubonic Plague would not be as deadly as it was in the 1300s, it is because we have other things that protect us: Sewers, less malnutrition and better overall hygiene, more cats and fewer rodents. In 1340, the population was hit with a mini-ice age and was weakened with malnutrition. Cities were dirty and full of rodents. Killing the cats, who officials believed were carrying the disease, was the absolute worse thing to do.
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