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Granit Concern, a Russian developer of anti-COVID solutions and manufacturer of high tech products in the fields of ecology, telecommunication and data base management systems, in the beginning of 2020 proposed a technology for suppressing coronavirus that was subsequently implemented in two types of electromagnetic devices: personal one and designed for a large number of people at a time; it was named TOR. The concern claims that the installation of such devices can be an effective way to harness COVID-19. Igor Turkanov, head of the Research Center of Granit Concern, shared more details regarding the device.
RESTRAINING AND RENDERING HARMLESS
How did the idea to create a technology to suppress coronavirus emerge and when did this work begin?
Handling radio waves is one of the traditional domains for our company as a well-known manufacturer of communications equipment. In February 2020, when China published a model of the COVID-19 pathogen and its structure and approximate dimensions became clear, the idea of looking for a method to impact with an electromagnetic wave emerged as we have some experience in it. Jumping ahead, I would say that recently the media have published materials about the electromagnetic developments of a group of scientists from Israel that have produced a ripple effect. Colleagues confirmed the effective neutralization of the pathogen when exposed to millimeter electric waves which are used for instant surface disinfection applications. We have a common approach, that is the use of an electromagnetic non-ionizing method. As early as in spring of 2020, we suggested that should a current-conducting causative agent of the disease be exposed to an electromagnetic impact which at the same time would be safe for humans, its ability to reproduce could be suppressed in a living organism.
The fact is that the human immune system builds up a defense against an enemy that it has not met before for seven days, and in case of COVID-19, it takes event longer – up to ten days judging by doctors’ scientific publications.
The insidiousness of SARS-CoV-2 consists in the fact that by the time the immune response is generated, the pathogen has had enough time to cause numerous disruptions in the body. Slowing down its replication process allows time for the immune system to develop an adequate response.
We, therefore, focused our efforts on finding a way to suppress reproduction involving the selection of adequate characteristics for the electromagnetic field. This was the most difficult task to deal with since modern medicine has no tool that would allow observing the historical behavior of the COVID-19 pathogen.
How did you find the parameters of such a field?
We used our own equipment to record the parameters of the electromagnetic spectrum. When the first cases of COVID-19 appeared in our country – and as you probably remember there were cases imported from other countries – we managed to record a difference in the electromagnetic status of a healthy person compared to a COVID-19 confirmed case.
Were there any risks to humans in the course of your experimental searches?
The work was carried out within safe thresholds. The energy levels we used then and use now have long been rated as safe; in simple terms, it is one twentieth the power of an electric kettle. From the very beginning, our experiments were not exposed to high energies, since we did not have a goal to kill or rupture the virus itself; we purposefully were looking for a method that would reduce the rate of its reproduction. We worked to find help for immunity since it is known that it is the immune cells that destroy SARS-CoV-2 and other disease-causing particles of the viral type with there still being no medicine capable of destroying the virus itself. So we worked with equipment that had minimal power, so as not to create stress for the living cells of the organism itself.
ONE PER TEN THOUSAND SQUARE METERS
When did you start working directly on the device which is now called TOR?
The first prototype was made in May 2020. The device is unique in that it can convey a weak electromagnetic field to a considerable distance – several hundred meters. Initially, we designed it so that it could be used on a large scale: in large areas, at transport hubs, in crowded places. By that time, the development was already supervised by the Security Council of the Russian Federation as part of efforts aimed at implementing the head of state’s message.
What is the maximum area the device can cover?
10 ten thousand square meters.
A source: Youtube-channel «Concern GRANIT JSC» Who funded the development?
The scientific and design phases, all stages of statutory expert valuations and the manufacturing process were covered by the forces and at the expense of the Group. There was no government financing or foreign investment. This is a purely domestic proactive development which is independent of foreign component.
The device was approved with an EEU certificate as an air purification unit. How and who established its effectiveness in suppressing the virus in patients with COVID-19?
The device was certified by EEU in November 2020; at the same time, it was also approved for use in any premises, industrial facilities and open spaces and by the Russian consumer health watchdog (Rospotrebnadzor) as a sanitary device designed for air purification. Its clinical efficacy was established later when the device underwent clinical trials at the Samara State Medical University of the Russian Ministry of Health in January–August 2021. Their results confirmed its action, that is accelerating the elimination of SARS-CoV-2 in the nasopharynx.
The trials involved patients with moderate severity of COVID-19 based on the ‘gold standard’, that is blind, randomized, placebo-controlled test, all in strict accordance with the permits of the Federal Supervisory Agency for Healthcare (Roszdravnadzor) in a hospital. 236 patients participated in the clinical trials. It was established that 87 per cent of patients who were remotely exposed to TOR had a negative PCR test on the fifth day with 13 per cent having positive test results. In the placebo and control groups, tests of 57% and 64% of patients remained positive, respectively. Thus, the viral load proved to be decreased. The risk of transition to a severe form decreased significantly in the exposure group in terms of statistics and the indicators of the frequency of respiratory movements, blood oxygen saturation and biochemical parameters of blood also improved. Based on the results of a thorough audit, including an on-site audit involving the analysis of the primary research documents in Samara, Roszdravnadzor issued a registration certificate for TOR as a medical device accelerating the suppression of SARS-CoV-2 on September 23, 2021.
In the course of the reporting conference held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade at the Microelectronics-2021 Forum, the device was unveiled by Vasily Shpak (In early October, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Vasily Shpak announced at the Microelectronics-2021 Forum that a registration certificate had been issued in respect of TOR.). News agencies spread the news, we responded to the criticism that was rather harsh after a while since representatives of the media were reluctant to request any documents or explanations before publishing their critical comments (up to statements that the device was not tested). Test documents and other information were presented by the Concern during a special press conference on October 14.
OPPOSING PARTY
How can you explain that criticism?
It was a basic rejection of innovation. Lack of special knowledge. Some believe that Russian scientists are unable to do something useful at this stage. Many believe that if the device were effective, the pandemic would have been completely restrained long ago. Such opinion is illogical since the expert valuation and approval process is bureaucratized in the first place, which is natural for new technology, and the time it takes for a new technology to get approved by authorities to reach the medical level cannot be short.
As for criticism voiced by the pseudo science commission, its very existence in our country at the current development stage makes it difficult to move innovative projects forward. I’m not sure if there is such an institution somewhere else in civilized economies.
We respond to criticism calmly basing our movement on scientific approaches to the pathogen as an electrical and dynamic (when damaging a cell) object, which, due to the combination of such characteristics, has its own electromagnetic field affected by our method when trying to damage a cell or, more precisely, our method interferes with that process reducing virulence.
Do you think that pharmaceutical lobbying can resist the implementation of your invention?” Perhaps they are afraid that when the effectiveness of TOR is realized and it begins to be used on a large scale, their products will no longer be needed?
I don’t know. We, however, have repeatedly emphasized that our method was additional and did not in any way cancel affected the need for either protocol treatment or vaccination. We are not an alternative, but an addition, which is absolutely safe by all means. The fact that the device is safe has been confirmed based on all assessment criteria that are applicable in Russia, for the EEU countries; there is also a report confirming that TOR is safe for humans in terms of the entire range of assessment parameters set by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (Republic of India, established in 1942, chaired by the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi).
In this situation, the entire range of available and proven means could be used.
Even if there was no evidence attesting to the effectiveness of our device, it could be applied simply as a fairly safe unit to be implemented and verified in practice. But the evidence is there. And it comes not only from the clinical trials or approbations in medical institutions.
We maintain extensive statistics of the TOR-method ourselves. There are a lot of examples attesting to its effectiveness, especially when the disease starts to develop, once the first symptoms emerge. I am referring to thousands of people who had mild case symptoms with literally several cases of hospitalizations and no fatalities at all. The so-called post-COVID-19 syndrome also practically does not occur.
Why don’t they have it?
When using a method that inhibits the development of the disease, the body generates an immune response in a regular way, not in a panic mode. In clinical trials, it was also noted that people who were exposed to the action of TOR felt better in terms of objective and subjective indicators even on the 28th day of the monitoring process. A peculiarity of this disease is that it is very rapid. And it is the speed of its development that our device affects.
Did you have an idea to involve third party (not engaged) experts or physicists, for example?
The Concern’s research center cooperates with many scientists from the leading schools of the country. Such cooperation covers the TOR technology as well. Scientific articles about the method that reveal its operating principles are co-authored by scientists from the Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, University of Nizhny Novgorod named after Lobachevsky and Moscow Technical University named after Bauman. A series of articles are being published in Polymers, an international peer-reviewed scientific magazine.
APPLICATION EXAMPLES
Are there examples of using TOR in medical institutions?
Yes, here is one being the most significant for us. Since November 2020, once the device was approved as a sanitary one, one TOR was installed in the COVID-19 clinic of Vladivostok Clinical Hospital No. 4. The results are as follows: the historical statistics of discharges show recovery in 8 days which is down 3.5–5 days versus the average number of inpatient days relating to COVID-19 in the region and other constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The institution which has now been using our device for a year hosts 25 to 30 per cent of all COVID-19 cases of the entire Primorye Territory while it has only 10 per cent of the total regional hospital capacity allocated for the treatment of COVID-19.
Does the device only help recover faster or not get infected too?
The effectiveness of using TOR in the hospital was assessed using PCR tests as a classic marker. It was the significant difference of 4.5-5 times between the groups exposed to TOR-therapy and the study population on the fifth day that allowed us to confirm that we already knew from our own statistics of using the device: the virus is eliminated in the nasopharynx with the nasopharynx being its main entrance gate because the virus is an aerosol-transmitted one. It uses the nasopharynx to penetrate into the lungs being the target organ and into other tissues of the human body. It is natural to assume a prophylactic effect from such an established effect of the device.
How long a day do you need to be near the device for preventive treatment?
15 minutes suffice. There are no contraindications for a longer stay.
Can you share examples of how the device has already proved itself in the places where it is installed?
There are many examples. We receive letters of thanks from the heads of various entities and facilities ranging from the Russian volleyball team to the construction site of the Amur Gas Processing Plant. Its area of about 600 hectares hosts 30 thousand workers. Up to 40 percent of the staff suffered from COVID-19. 300 employees of the Service Gasification Unit work as inspectors there. And none of them got infected. Can you imagine that? Why? Because a TOR device was installed in their canteen.
There is an example showing that a building hosting about 900 employees recorded 443 sick days two months before the installation of one TOR near the entrance. 2.5 months after the installation of the device which was the peak of the new wave of the pandemic, the number of sick days dropped to 225.
The example of the Vladivostok hospital testifies to the fact that the use of the device can be important in solving the problem of a shortage of beds in hospitals and, as you know, in many respects it is this shortage that necessitates stay-at-home restrictions that hurts the country’s economy so painfully.
HAVING AN OWN TOR MAKES MORE SENSE
About individual use. There is a TOR-M, an analogue of TOR. Can you tell us a little more about it?
Many people use it already. This is a mini-TOR» which is certified by Rospotrebnadzor in the same way as a large device but not covered by separate clinical trials. However, it operates based on the same principle. The technical parameters of TOR device which was originally created for large-scale applications make it possible to effectively use only one device, as exemplified by Vladivostok, for one large (400–600 beds) COVID-19 hospital. It operates with an energy consumption of 80 watts at temperatures ranging from minus 20 to plus 40 degrees Celsius. It is simple to use and reliable in service. We are working on the creation of a more massive and economical version of TOR-M and other individual means based on TOR-protection technique.
How does the portable device work? Should you carry it in your pocket?
In a bracelet or on the neck. It must be in contact with the body. The Concern’s affiliates have 1,169 employees. Over two years of the pandemics, about 6% got infected with most of them being those who worked remotely. Only one ended up hospitalized. Our offices feature installed TOR devices. Most of our employees have TOR-M.
Does it need to be charged from the electric mains?
No, it needs 1.5 volts which matches a person’s own electrical energy and is enough for an impulse that activates the TOR-M.
Rumor has it that officers in the government entities of the country wear such a device.
No comment.
