"Dr Jeff Colyer, the former governor of Kansas who is a practicing physician, reported Sunday in the Wall Street Journal that the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin is continuing to show "promising" results in coronavirus patients.
From The Wall Street Journal:
In the fight against Covid-19 though we might look forward in doom, one day we will look backward in awe. In an article last week, I discussed a promising drug combination to treat the disease. There is now new data supporting this treatment. Since then, Kansas City area physicians, including Joe Brewer, Dan Hinthorn and me, continue to treat many patients, and some have shown improvement. Major medical centers including the University of Washington and Mass General have added hydroxychloroquine to treatment options. […]
Physicians are using two drugs in combination—hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, which I’ll abbreviate HC and AZ—to treat patients with advanced Covid-19 symptoms. We use a regimen reported in a recent open-label trial in Marseille, France, which was updated March 26, and which doctors may modify in any given case.
[…] Clinical information has also emerged from Covid treatment. During the initial Chinese outbreak, Wuhan doctors observed that patients with lupus—a disease for which HC is a common treatment—did not seem to develop Covid-19. Of 178 hospital patients who tested positive, none had lupus and none were on HC. None of this Wuhan hospital’s dermatology department’s 80 lupus patients were infected with the novel coronavirus. The Wuhan doctors hypothesized that this may be due to long-term use of HC. They treated 20 Covid-19 patients with HC. Their result: “Clinical symptoms improve significantly in 1 to 2 days. After five days of chest CT examination, 19 cases showed significant absorption improvement.”
Second, consider AZ—the antibiotic marketed as Z-Pak—combined with HC. The French study showed that 57% of 14 Covid-19 patients receiving HC without AZ tested negative for the virus on a nasal swab on day six. But 100% of the six patients who received both HC and AZ tested negative on day six. Compare that with 16 infected patients at another hospital who didn’t receive either treatment: only 12% tested negative on day six. These are small samples, but significant.
The authors of the French study last week published the results of an additional 80 hospitalized patients receiving a combination of HC and AZ. By day eight of treatment, 93% showed a negative nasopharyngeal swab for the virus. “This allowed patients to rapidly be discharged from highly contagious wards with a mean length of stay of five days,” the authors write. “Other teams should urgently evaluate this cost-effective therapeutic strategy, to both avoid the spread of the disease and treat patients as soon as possible before severe respiratory irreversible complications take hold.” I agree." informationliberation
——————
Well, pilgrims? pl
We all hope that there is an effective treatment for COVID-19, we are all vulnerable and all want to resume our lives. But there is no news in that article.
First: The observation that” None of this Wuhan hospital’s dermatology department’s 80 lupus patients were infected with the novel coronavirus”. there are 1.3 billion person living in China only 80,000 have contracted the disease, even if the true number is four times that, still that leaves over a billion person in china and many many millions in Wuhan itself who did not get the disease, so 80 person with Lupus on HC that did not get the disease is like saying non of the Chinese people in Wuhan who owned a blue car got the disease, i am sure there are many more chances with blue cars in Wuhan who did not get the disease than these 80 patients.
Second: The French study “But 100% of the six patients who received both HC and AZ tested negative on day six.” Six patients got better on day 6. We don’t need a reminder that most patients with COVID 19 get better on their own with no treatment at all, these six french patients included.
So there is no news here, the trials are on their way and hopefully something will work, i am sure there is a cure out there, may not be HC – AZ.
Mortimer:
That’s not right! How can the price be going down?
Randolph:
Something’s wrong! Where’s Wilson?
Mortimer:
[sees Louis and Billy Ray] What are they doing here?
Randolph:
They’re selling, Mortimer!
Mortimer:
Why, that’s ridiculous! [Something occurs to him] Unless that crop report …
[They look at each other in shock and horror]
Randolph:
God help us!
From “Trading Places” I hope for everyone it is true. I also hope for my wife with Lupus she can get her usual supply
What’s most striking is the ineffectiveness of whatever the standard treatment the French were using as controls. This is the graph from the study: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0924857920300996-gr2_lrg.jpg
$20 of HC + $20 of AZ for a week. No wonder Big Pharma’s screaming like their hair is on fire. The small number of patients that might be at risk from this specific treatment are easily screened out as ineligible by doctors using well-known criteria.
The last-ditch effort by Big Pharma was to push the FDA to only approve this combination for use in the most severely-ill patients. In a surprising flash of morality, the FDA rejected that citing the French doctors recommendation that it be given as *early* as possible as a treatment.
Very encouraging news.
I read a French doctor’s report that promptly administering the HC/AZ combo allowed the treatment of 500 COVID-19 patients without hospital admission at all. Improving the throughput rate in ICU’s will help, but the real breakthrough ought to come when widespread testing & immediate self-medication becomes possible – people can then start to go about their business again. That is how to flatten the curve without destroying the economy.
And guess where Trump’s approval ratings are at today:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-approval-rating-at-all-time-high-poll
I had an anaphlaxic reaction to azithromycin. Any treatment is hopeful, but it is still very early in the pandemic.
Looters and profiteers during a pandemic should be jailed.
Sam
Well, bless you! Perhaps you will feel differently about relying on the medico techno dweebs driven “by data” when someone close to you dies who could have been saved for a few dollars worth of pills.
Even if for some reason this HC/AZ combo does not prove to be the golden bullet for Covid19, both drugs are still widely used and useful. It won’t go to waste. Trump should use his authorities to gear up production now, expand use for critically ill and then expand to milder cases. He hung back on doing anything for the mask and ventilator shortage because he was loathe to insert the government into the free market’s quest for profit. He could then spare Africa, south Asia and the ME from Covid19 disasters by offering HC/AZ to those in need. If he does this right, this is what will be remembered.
Terrance,
Nice movie involving insider trading, just like four senators are accused of.
Col.,
Very promising and shows just how much regulations can hinder effective responses in a crisis and just how capable a capitalist system is compared to Xi’s communist China.
TTG,
“He hung back on doing anything for the mask and ventilator shortage because he was loathe to insert the government into the free market’s quest for profit. ”
How did you determine that? When did he first talk to GM/Ford etc on making either?
Doctor Vladimir Zelenko, who practices in a Hasidic neighborhood of New York, has modified the French protocol to include Zinc. He now reports 100% cure, within 5 days, for 699 patients at $20 per patient worth of Hydroxy-chloroquine + AZ + Zinc. (See link provided by Paul Craig Roberts.)
Seems that the Hydroxy-chloroquine provides an avenue into the cell for the Zinc and that the Zinc is the ingredient which disrupts virus duplication. Since the virus damages lung cells, the antibiotic functions to fight opportunistic bacterial infections feasting on the damaged cells.
Presumably, those with a negative reaction to AZ, like Upstater, might ask for an alternative antibiotic and avoid the hazard of Pneumonia.
petrel
So the magic is hydrochlorican+Zpac+zinc. But that is too simple for the dweebs.
TTG
“Trump should use his authorities to gear up production now,” You are not listening to his briefings, or not hearing. He said today that they have bought a lot of this stuff (probably over the advice of the medico dweebs).
The establishment (Dr. Fauci, FDA, etc.) keep playing down the HC/AZ treatment:
“Needs to go through controlled testing” which will take months.
All the FDA testing does is to airbrush a new drug and prove that it’s not dangerous TO the sample.
Zero risk is test every drug on every human.
Since that’s not possible, all they can do is test for acceptable risk.
Since HC/AZ have been around a long time, the potential danger (risk) is not a question, so that leaves effectiveness.
Well, if this the is crisis all these “experts” keep claiming, use this protocol.
If they insist on waiting for a months-long test, then it’s not a crisis.
Colonel: What is you response to this dissenting point in the piece you cited?
Novartis has donated 30 million doses hydroxychloroquine to HHS and Bayer another 1 million. They also are speeding up production.
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/03/29/hhs-accepts-donations-of-medicine-to-strategic-national-stockpile-as-possible-treatments-for-covid-19-patients.html
The virus can can live up to 5 weeks in the body after infection, in a symptomatic patient the median time is 20 days after he has recovered. Sure makes the combined HQ/AZ patients testing negative after 6 days look promising. Since this is a health emergency we need to go with
the preponderance of the evidence and–as the article says–give to the infected as soon as possible. Maybe all the patients in the studies had blue cars though.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/coronavirus-can-live-in-patients-for-five-weeks-after-contagion
Unfortunately Oregon is ruled by morons. The Oregon State Board of Pharmacy only allows the prescribing of hydroxychloroquine to the Covid-19 infected if they are in a study or hospital.
https://www.oregon.gov/pharmacy/Pages/index.aspx
Look what happened to Laura Ingraham when she posted concerning this on Twitter. Instructive, no?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/twitter-pulls-down-laura-ingrahams-coronavirus-tweet-violating-policy-1287441
What a sh-tshow these TDS-infested social media companies are. Who do they have on legal retainer, Lawfare? What a bunch of pissants. Looking for ANY excuse to downplay a potentially crucial therapeutic procedure out of naked political spite.
As I understand it, having Twitter mess with your posts, and even delete your account if you are associated with a conservative point of view has come to be seen as their standard operating procedure. Include in this bunch YouTube; espexially there as deplatforming or shadow-banning have he effect of depriving posters of access to a share of advertising revenue as well as shutting down their expression of their points of view. One giant thumb in the pan, that. (YouTube is part of Google [Remember? Don’t be evil…You’ll have to do that remembering for them, as they seem to have forgotten their own professed principles]).
TTG,
I don’t think Trump is going to win the soft power contest for this pandemic. Russian and China have been sending planeloads of supplies and doctors to numerous countries – including the USA! They are learning how to do soft power, and Trump is an isolationist. (I’m not a Trump basher – I am just saying he isnt big on doing soft power.)
Rod
A professional deformation in favor of group think.
Fred,
Trump didn’t invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) until 17 March. On 18 March he tweeted, “I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future. Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!”
On 22 March Jake Tapper asked FEMA Administrator Gaynor, “Has the president, as of now … ordered any companies to make more of any of these critical supplies?” Gaynor replied, “No, we haven’t yet.” The Defense Production Act “really is leverage to demonstrate that we can use it, the president can use it any time.” Gaynor told Tapper that companies are now mobilizing to produce needed equipment, so forcing them to act isn’t necessary. “It’s happening without using that lever. If it comes to a point and we have to pull that lever, we will.” That’s not a bad strategy if it was coupled with strong, clear national direction.
On 17 March GM started working with Ventec in retooling to make ventilators, very likely in response to Trumps invoking of the DPA. It wasn’t until 27 March, 10 days later, that Trump orders GM to make them. About time!
Trump lost close to two months with his policy of denial and downplaying. He and his administration had January to get their bearing and form a plan. The IC was sounding the alarm. Trump chose to believe Xi. IMO he should have invoked the DPA no later than the end of January and then moved swiftly to coordinate private industry cooperation and apply the DPA where necessary for test kits, masks, gloves, gowns, face shields, respirators and anything else potentially needed. Manage these resources on a national level rather than leaving the states to fend for themselves and bid amongst themselves.
If Trump pushed social distancing measures sooner rather than convincing his believers that it was all a deep state hoax, we may have lessened the damage of covid19. In that case, whatever excess resources produced in preparation for the worse case would be stored as national reserves.
These researchers recommend the ways to disinfect face masks is
“70 C / 158 F heating in a kitchen-type of oven for 30 min, or hot water vapor from boiling water for 10 min, are additional effective decontamination methods.”
https://www.livescience.com/sanitizing-medical-masks-for-reuse-coronavirus.html
Microwaves can melt masks.
TTG
“IMO he should have invoked the DPA no later than the end of January and then moved swiftly to coordinate private industry cooperation and apply the DPA where necessary for test kits, masks, gloves, gowns, face shields, respirators and anything else potentially needed. Manage these resources on a national level rather than leaving the states to fend for themselves and bid amongst themselves.” I didn’t realize that you are opposed to the federal system of government.
The French mainstream press – and especially the “reference” (sic) daily Le Monde – is leading a vicious press campaign against Pr Didier RAOULT, the head of Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire (IHU) Méditerranée Infection in Marseilles. Among the various sophisms used in the purpose of destroying the reputation of Pr Raoult, the accusation of being the “guru” of conspirationnists : for those who can read french :
https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2020/03/28/comment-didier-raoult-est-devenu-la-nouvelle-egerie-des-complotistes_6034761_4408996.html
Nevertheless, more and more medical practionners are using the IHU protocol in France and in the world.
And the general public is trusting Pr Raoult, and in Marseilles, thousands of people are queueing to benefit mass testing and treatments proposed by Raoult team :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-KdTLdoobU
I thought the Cov19 team handled the “why didn’t you act earlier?” question very well. What evidence was there in mid January that this was going to have the impact it has? We still don’t know what is going to happen. In January there was sfa evidence. Forensic serology will flesh out the answers.
However, can anyone imagine the #$@#storm that would have erupted if President Trump had attempted to lock down New York in January? We have to work with the best quality information from reliable sources that we have at the time of the decision. That does not include the numerous chicken littles, nutcases and conspiracy theorists.
President Trumps actions today look sensible and measured according to the evidence available TODAY.
Col. Lang may have more to say on decision making with incomplete information.
TTG,
You know, if President Trump and his administration had not been subjected to one after the other, after the other, after the other…I’ve lost count how many…Deep State hoaxes, you might have a leg to stand on when complaining about Trump seeing this as another Deep State hoax.
Well, all is not lost; you can complain about his twitchiness in seeing another Deep State hoax, you’ve got him coming or going.
TTG,
” then moved swiftly to coordinate private industry cooperation”
You mean you do not understand that Mary Berra at General Motors and Mr. Kipple at Ventec appear to be leading the only companies in America that were refusing to provide industry cooperation.
What was Jake Tapper’s response to the Trump executive order banning travel from China in January?How about Pelosi and the Mayor of NYC? “Trump chose to believe Xi. ” I don’t think that is correct. What was the WHO saying about the virus and what were the career professionals at FDA and CDC saying? Fauci only recently got on board with using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin without a years’ long study. ABC is still using the old Fauci clip on the nightly news, it was on the Sarasota local affiliates broadcast yesterday, 3/31.
Do you recall what Jake Tapper said just days ago about using a quarantine to prevent New Yorkers from leaving the city and spreading the virus to other cities in the Republic? How about suggesting thefts of masks were occuring from hosiptals in the NYC area? On the latter it appears the FBI actually made an arrest.
https://abc7ny.com/man-coughs-on-fbi-coronavirus-nyc-new-york-news/6063707/
“Trump chose to believe Xi.”
They cooperated from early on? OK, that may have escaped me.
If so, I am back on boat. Trump, Putin and Xi may able to first deal with Corona, enabling Trump to deal with the deep state/Borg/blot longterm? Helping him to Drain the Swamp?
Trump, Putin and Xi may able to first deal with Corona …
may have been/were able to …
But it all escaped me?
turcopolier
I am not saying don’t try it, i am not saying don’t test it. I am saying fingers crossed, but the info so far is nowhere near a slam dunk or anywhere near that. I am a physician and i agree with Rod’s earlier comment, as to how rare silver bullets are in medicine.
I would recommend trying it on 1000 patients in a reputable institution and see what happens. Hopefully it is as effective as shown in these few patients.
Remember most patients get better by themselves without any treatment what so ever.
walrus et al
Yes, people who are not responsible for making decisions in evolving situations pretty much always want to believe that knowledge was perfect from the beginning.
Give the drug combo a try. I can’t hurt and, if it works, we’re all set – this time around anyhow.
sam
It is my understanding that the test you want is underway in NY. Surely you would not let people die who might be saved by a combination of drugs not yet tested to the satisfaction of Fauci and Birx?
Fred,
BLUF: Trump was warned about the virus. He chose to downplay the risk until reality slapped the orange off his face. Why? The booming economy was the centerpiece of his reelection strategy. He did not want to jeopardize that.
CDC issued an advisory about a pneumonia inducing virus from Wuhan on 8 January and dispatched over 100 staffers to three airports to begin screening arrivals from China for Covid19. Trump did declare a public health emergency on 31 January. But as late as during Trump’s trip to India, he whined about the CDC and HHS reports on the virus because they were spooking investors. HHS moved to replenish strategic stockpile of masks, respirators, etc. on 26 February when there were 60 cases of Covid19 in the US. CDC was predicting wide community spread by that time. HHS anticipated a need for up to 500 million masks. That would have been the time to invoke the DPA as a club to induce private industry to cooperate fully, not two months later .
The CIA was warning the Trump administration in January and February that Xi was downplaying the severity of Covid19. They briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee at least once. On 27 February Senator Burr was telling his private Tar Heel Circle that Covid19 was going to clobber the US like the 1918 Spanish Flu after unloading his stocks on 13 February. He believed the CIA and knew something about pandemic response since he helped write the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act.
I think Trump should have issued travel bans back on 8 January and expanded those bans a lot sooner than what he did. Of course his critics would scream bloody murder. So what. He’s the President, not them. All he had to do was publicize the dire warnings of the CDC, HHS and IC rather than claiming it was all a hoax and that it would soon miraculously disappear on its own. Our initial cases were in people returning from China, Italy, Egypt and other places. Identifying any returning travelers and closing international ports and airports early may have prevented further viral spread and further economic disruptions. All those dire predictions may have been avoided if Trump took such bold and prescient actions. That would have made his critics looked foolish and guaranteed his November reelection no matter what hit our economy took .
I never thought Trump’s call for quarantining NY was all that wrong. He could have approached it from a travel limitation point of view like no unnecessary interstate travel in harder hit regions or at least talked with Cuomo about it first. Actually, I’m surprised Cuomo didn’t excoriate those NYC and Westchester County jackasses about their fleeing to the Catskills and upstate.
I think Trump keeps Fauci and Birx around to humiliate them, I sure hope so anyway.
Yes, people who are not responsible for making decisions in evolving situations pretty much always want to believe that knowledge was perfect from the beginning.
Posted by: turcopolier | 01 April 2020 at 10:41 AM
Obviously. But this nugget was from a briefing last Friday.
… This whatever they want to call it. You call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus. You know, you can call it many different names. I’m not sure anybody even knows what it is, but the children do very well.
So if “they” don’t know what it is, either? Are they making it up to confuse us with all those different terms? If so, what prevents us from simply going to the pharmacy and getting this combination wonder drug? The Borg? The Medical Industrial Complex?
TTG,
Trump was correct to not want to damage the economy, whether it be for re-election reasons or to protect from the massive harm that the damage will cause, or both. Was he supposed to trust Chinese figures? Blindly trust “The Scientists” (aka the guys who say we will all be dead in 12 years because global warming)?
I still say this virus – media hype and statistically ignorant consumers of the media hype aside – is nothing worse than anything we’ve experienced before – like H1N1 or the Hong Kong Flu in 1968. We didn’t shut the economy down for any of that and we shouldn’t have shut it down now either. The S. Koreans did not elect to destroy their economy over this flu. I think Trump wanted to follow a more conservative model, like the S Koreans. He was correct, IMO. Then he got pressured into draconian measures by the socialist/lets-remake-the-economy-through-govt-power Obama holdovers in the CDC, the globalist/socialist WHO and other agencies and by the media. And by all of the opportunists who have an interest in keeping the virus apocalypse story alive.
We should try the drugs (or whatever within reason) to help the vulnerable and the sick. But the doomsday scenario just isn’t there and the rate of serious infections and deaths simply does not justify the damage to the economy and to the Constitution. Are we going to this again in a year or two or three when the next bad new flu comes through? Some other excuse?
Evidence available that high doses of intravenous Vit C, used in China extensively, and also in some NYC hospitals now, may be even better in terms of outcomes and side effects.
TTG,
“HHS moved to replenish strategic stockpile of masks, respirators, etc. on 26 February”
When did Trump talk to the heads of private industry? Is that available from your current intel sources or just what is written in the WAPO/CNN press? You left out Senator Feinstein and a couple of others on the insider trading issue, which is irrelevant to the President’s decision making.
What were the other political leaders of the Republic of the United States of American doing?
Pelosi -January 31:
“The Trump Admin’s expansion of its un-American travel ban is a threat to our security, our values and the rule of law. Barring more than 350 million people from predominantly African countries from traveling to the US, this rule is discrimination disguised as policy.” Sounds like she is really on board with helping keep America safe and suports a travel ban.
https://www.wcbm.com/2020/03/31/flashback-january-31-2020-nancy-pelosi-called-trump-travel-ban-bigoted/
Where O’Where is the NO BAN ACT now? “the President has doubled down on his cruelty…”
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/13120-2
Pelosi- Febraury 25 ‘I’m here.’ We feel safe and sound, so many of us coming here.”(https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/nancy-pelosi-visits-san-franciscos-chinatown/2240247/) Sounds like she is really on board with helping keep America safe.
“I’m surprised Cuomo didn’t excoriate those NYC and Westchester County jackasses about their fleeing to the Catskills and upstate.”
You left out all the Floridians who are going to die because of New Yorker’s showing thier true worth and fleeing here. Cuomo didn’t “excoriate” any of them and he’s the reason there is NO quarinine of NYC.
“Identifying any returning travelers and closing international ports and airports early may have …”
Identify them with what and based on what legal authority at the time? Feel free to find what was available to CDC, oh, yeah, the CIA said China was lying, so what the heck were we to test for and with what?
Fred,
On 5 February Azar asked the White House for $2 billion to replenish federal stockpiles of emergency medical supplies. Trump nixed that amount and only submitted a request for $500 million on 24 February. I doubt Trump spoke to industry about this until later since he told the CDC to stop talking about community spread and disruption the next day. He still wasn’t a believer that the virus would have any effect on us.
Who cares that Pelosi, Cuomo, Biden and all Trump’s other critics didn’t like his half-assed China travel ban. None of those people are president. Trump still should have issued a temporary total travel ban into the US at the end of January by EO and back it up with WHO, CDC and IC data. Relax it only as effective testing and isolation procedures were put in place. The Democrats and the Press would go crazy. So would the airlines and travel industry. As president, Trump is uniquely charged with protecting our national security and this virus poses a unique foreign threat to our people and our national security. I would think such an action would be defensible before the Supreme Court. It probably would have done far less damage to our economy than what is about to happen. Unfortunately, Trump didn’t become a believer in Covid19 as a threat to the US until quite recently.
There’s no evidence that any other president would have done this any better. It was a systemic failure, not just a Trump failure. But Trump did screw the pooch early and often on this one. I hope he can do much better from this point on.
BTW Fred, I enjoy our little back and forth conversations. I think they bring out some worthwhile points.
TTG:
If you recall, January and half of February was all impeachment all the time.
Should have listened to the IC?
LMAO.
Given their track record of dishonesty and incompetence, why would he do that?
“The French study showed that 57% of 14 Covid-19 patients receiving HC without AZ tested negative for the virus on a nasal swab on day six. But 100% of the six patients who received both HC and AZ tested negative on day six. Compare that with 16 infected patients at another hospital who didn’t receive either treatment: only 12% tested negative on day six. These are small samples, but significant.”
The French study had a flawed design, therefore, the studiy does not tell anything, esp. not that the malaria drug works.
Do youself a favour and try to get a translation of the podcasts of Prof Christian Drosten (Charite Berlin), he is a leading expert for Corona virusses and is able to assess studies.
Last week he explained in detail the issues of the French study performed by people who did not know what actually to measure and how to pick groups of patients. The studies tells you nothing.
Sorry, forgot the link:
https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Coronavirus-Update-Die-Podcast-Folgen-als-Skript,podcastcoronavirus102.html
ATM the best you can get.
Israel’s Health Minister and his wife positive for Covid.
Mossad’s chief now in quarantine.
We are using HC-AZ on all of our ICU pts and hospitalized patients not in the ICU. While our N is only about 80, still growing, for our ICU pts, most on vents, there is no noticeable effect. No obvious effect yet for other inpatients but we are still pretty early in our stage of the outbreak, maybe 10 days. It is being prescribed to outpatients. Have no idea if is having effects for them. Of note our inpatient population is just bit older than expected.
TTG
In my experience the process of going to war is quite messy, especially when the attack (Black Swan) is unexpected. Prior policies and priorities are hard to abandon in reaction to incomplete and often incorrect information. IMO neither Trump nor any other president would have been likely to anticipate a plague like this. It takes the “vision thing” at the genius level to provide effective warning in a transition to unanticipated war. If you want villains look at the epidemiologists. They want “herd immunity” and don’t really care about a few hundred thousand deaths along the way to getting there so long as their “science” is in control. If it were up to them there would be little attention paid to therapies. Vaccines yes, but not therapeutics.
Terrance
Kaiser Permanente has contacted their customers with Lupus to tell the they will stop filling their prescriptions as they are diverting supplies to COVID patients. This is very bad news as the effect on COVID is mild and largely unproven where for Lupus it is known to work very well. All the other drugs being tested exist because they work in some other disease and production is based on that need. None of them have been shown to have any obvious effect on COVID most are in large clinical trials which will show if there reproducible measurable benefits. Only then can we make an informed decision as to whether our limited supplies should be used for HIV, Lupus etc. or COVID. The bottom line is nothing that has been tried works to the extent patients given them clearly do better than those that don’t, any benefits are marginal.
Ulenspiegel
The only really useful studies underway are the WHO solidarity trials which about 70 countries have signed up for. If drug X works you need to understand by how much and on whom. This needs very large controlled trials at multiple sites where the drug is given to all age groups at all stages of disease progression. Then you can answer questions like when to administer it, at what dosage and for how long. One trial with a dozen patients and no control group can not answer this or tell you anything you should base a public health decision on. There is a bigger and better study from Wuhan but it to is flawed as they were also using a whole load of other treatments at the same time. Even taking the two together does not help much as there is no consistent protocol between trials.
TTG,
“Who cares that Pelosi, Cuomo, Biden and all Trump’s other critics didn’t like his half-assed China travel ban.”
Yes, we certainly wouldn’t want a racist! travel ban to inconvenience people spreading the virus around, expecially citizens of communist China or residents of NYC. As multiple other commentators pointed out, there was an impeachment going on January 16th through Febraury 5th. I’m sure a natoinal lockdown would not have influenced that at all. The anti-Trumpers can take solice in knowing that there’s another call from Schiff for yet another investigation.
“back it up with WHO, CDC and IC data. Relax it only as effective testing and isolation procedures were put in place. ”
That’s the 17 intelligence agencies that condluded that Russia interfered in the election the Hilary lost? Does that include the FBI with recently published information from the IG show followed FISA procedures 7% of the time? Did anyone notice we still haven’t jailed any of those corrrupt bastards?
” Trump is uniquely charged with protecting our national security and this virus poses a unique foreign threat to our people and our national security. ”
I agree. That viral enemy was released into the world, intentionally or not, by China. China has repeatedly and consistently lied to everyone including the WHO, whose career professionals still won’t even mention “Taiwan” because of communist chinese influence. They are engaged in an ongoing anti-American and anti-Western propaganda campaign with every tool at their disposal included paid agents, useful idiots and the I’m certain are loyal to the USA not China H1B visa holders, student visa holders, green card holders and opportunists of every stripe.
JJackson,
Did they also call the rheumatoid arthritis sufferers? How fast does Lupus kill somebody, Covid appears to do it in less than 14 days. How about arthritis?
Fred
My wife is an unusual case with Lupus as her pituitary was damaged also. Without plaquenil before the Lupus diagnosis we had 15 or so visits to the ER without a firm reason why she was so ill. I believe it was due to adrenal crises as she is not manufacturing her own cortisol. For some reason she manages ordinary infections much better now.
I would imagine both arthritis and lupus patients will have more need for admission to the hospital without the medicine.
Terence,
I’ll pray for your wife. I don’t think arthritis is an immediate threat to life and have never heard of anyone dying from it.
In some European studies elderberry reduces shortens the duration of cold and flu. The following is from the Cleveland Clinic.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/elderberry-a-natural-way-to-boost-immunity-during-cold-and-flu-season/
Fred
Osteoarthritis while quite debilitating is quite different than Rheumatoid arthritis. I work as physical therapy assistant and was treating a gentleman whose wife with RA would get very quick onset pneumonia.
“RA is known to be associated with an increased risk of serious infection. Even more than 50 years ago, observational studies showed a greater than 2-fold increased risk of serious infection in RA. This was reinforced by various subsequent cohort studies. The elevated susceptibility of patients with RA can be explained by the pathobiology of the disease itself, the impact of chronic comorbid conditions, as well as sequelae of immunosuppressive treatment. It has been suggested that premature ageing of the immune system in RA contributes to weakened protection against infectious organisms. In addition, chronic comorbid conditions such as diabetes or chronic lung or kidney disease, disease-related functional disability, as well as lifestyle factors such as smoking, increase the risk in individual patients. For a long time glucocorticoids (GCs) have been used as potent immunosuppressive drugs in RA. There is evidence that they increase the risk of serious infections up to 4-fold in a dose-dependent manner. TNF-α inhibitors increase the serious infection risk up to 2-fold. They have, however, the potential to outweigh their risk when higher GC doses can be tapered down. If patients need higher dosages of GCs in addition to treatment with biologic agents, their risk of infection is substantial. This combination should be used carefully and, if possible, avoided in patients with additional risk factors such as older age or comorbid conditions.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23192911
Fred
Sorry that was worked as in past tense. I also should have been more clear in my original post as regard to RA. Since we were discussing Plaquenil my background would suggest RA as a given
JJackson,
It appears they are digging into exactly how this virus kills, and according to this it’s the victim’s own immune system that’s the enemy in a lot of cases, particularly the younger ones. About 15% of the population carries traits that makes them suceptable to a cytokine storm reaction. This accounts for those who get sick, seem to get better, and suddenly fail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/health/coronavirus-cytokine-storm-immune-system.html
The good news is suppressing the immune system is fairly old-hat. The caveat: Not a simple matter for people to prescribe for themselves.
Sound plausible?
My confirmation bias is going ape with it. We may be close to effective therapeutics. Whole ‘nother game if so.
Dang. All the world health agencies missed it and Z-pac too. Are we the smartest dudes on earth or what?