New Covid-19 Thread

[shiny!]

Re: French Study on Early Treatment with HCQ+AZ

fwiw hydroxychlorogquine is first line in yale's current algorithm for hospitalized covid-19 patients. they do not recommend it for outpatients.

at harvard's mgh they're starting prophylactic anticoagulants, remdesivir for a defined subset of patients. they're using acitominophen as a preferred anti-pyretic. they say to "consider" hcq. they also discuss choices of antibiotics [1st is doxycycline] but it's not clear to me if this is only with evidence of bacterial pneumonia on top of the viral pneumonia.

as the disease increases in severity, or in the case of special condition [e.g. pregnancy, cytokine release syndrome, immunocompromised post-transplant, etc] both algorithms get more complicated from what i've written above

I was under the impression that Hydroxychloroquine is considered a relatively safe drug. Not without risk of side effects (no drug is) but with a long track record of general safety. It is routinely prescribed for people with malaria and rheumatoid arthritis.

Is it being given at a higher dosage than normal for Covid-19? The French doctors are recommending it for early treatment before severe complications from the virus set in. Are the Singapore doctors using it at the same early point in the disease as the French doctors?

Perhaps when treatment is delayed until people are very sick, they give it at a higher dose which causes problems for the heart? Or perhaps people in Singapore have a tendency towards lower levels of selenium, putting them at higher risk of developing heart complications in the presence of a virus?

There is just so much we don't know yet.

[jk]

Re: French Study on Early Treatment with HCQ+AZ

fwiw hydroxychlorogquine is first line in yale's current algorithm for hospitalized covid-19 patients. they do not recommend it for outpatients.

at harvard's mgh they're starting prophylactic anticoagulants, remdesivir for a defined subset of patients. they're using acitominophen as a preferred anti-pyretic. they say to "consider" hcq. they also discuss choices of antibiotics [1st is doxycycline] but it's not clear to me if this is only with evidence of bacterial pneumonia on top of the viral pneumonia.

as the disease increases in severity, or in the case of special condition [e.g. pregnancy, cytokine release syndrome, immunocompromised post-transplant, etc] both algorithms get more complicated from what i've written above

[lakedaemonian]

Re: French Study on Early Treatment with HCQ+AZ

From Science Direct. A French study showing that when used early before complications occur, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin is safe and effective.

Safe, effective and cheap, so the U.S. pans it and bans it.

Directly from a classmate who is an MD/researcher on the frontline response in Singapore, and a senior admin guy, HCQ/AZ has some quite serious cardiac toxicity side effects.

And that’s for non smoking Asians with better diet/cardiac health than Caucasians.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: French Study on Early Treatment with HCQ+AZ

From Science Direct. A French study showing that when used early before complications occur, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin is safe and effective.

Safe, effective and cheap, so the U.S. pans it and bans it.

Directly from a classmate who is an MD/researcher on the frontline response in Singapore, and a senior admin guy, HCQ/AZ has some quite serious cardiac toxicity side effects.

And that’s for non smoking Asians with better diet/cardiac health than Caucasians.

[touhy]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Amen Woodsman.

[shiny!]

Gallup, NM Extreme Lockdown, Again

The shutdown of Gallup, NM just made the AP. They keep doing this on payday. Those poor people up there:

Extreme lockdown shows divide in hard-hit Navajo border town


By MORGAN LEE23 minutes ago



1 of 15
New Mexico state police officers screen cars for compliance with an emergency lockdown order that bans nonessential visitors and limits vehicle passengers to two people as they enter Gallup, N.M., Thursday, May 7, 2020. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham renewed the lockdown order amid concerns about the rapid transmission of COVID-19 in the area. Gallup and surrounding McKinley County are one of the worst rural hot spots for coronavirus infections in the U.S. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)


GALLUP, N.M. (AP) — Like clockwork, payday arrives and tens of thousands of people from the Navajo reservation and other rural stretches along the New Mexico-Arizona border flood into Gallup, a freewheeling desert oasis of just 22,000 that can quickly quadruple in size with all the visitors.

Not now.

As the modern-day trading post reels under a coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 1,450 people and killed at least three dozen in the city and surrounding rural county — overrunning a patchwork health care system — Gallup has gone into extreme lockdown. Barricades are manned by state police and the National Guard, keeping out anyone who doesn’t live there or face an emergency.

That has sent thousands of people scrambling for options other than the city’s coin-operated bulk water station and monthly shopping runs to Walmart and Tractor Supply Co. Up to one-third of homes on remote stretches of the Navajo Nation lack full plumbing, and grocery stores are mostly tiny and limited.

The roads into Gallup may open up Friday evening, but the rules allowing only essential shopping will remain, and the reservation has its own lockdown that prevents people from leaving on evenings and weekends. Navajo police patrol for people breaking the rules.
On Thursday, hundreds of cars idled at a roadblock in hopes of entering town, just before the lockdown was extended for three more days under the state Riot Control Act.

The effectiveness of the lockdown, enacted by the governor and endorsed by Gallup’s fledgling mayor, is up for debate. Infections are still mounting in town, with about 240 confirmed cases within one ZIP code, and more than 2,650 across the Navajo Nation that extends into portions of Arizona and Utah. If the Navajo Nation were its own state, it’d have the second highest per capita rate of positive coronavirus cases in the country, behind only New York.

The dividing line traced by roadblocks also is tugging on sensitivities about birthrights and inequities, as Native American visitors worry about the social stigma of being locked out because of the contagion.

The outbreak on the huge Navajo reservation, the nation’s largest with 175,000 people, has made people in Gallup nervous. Many see hints of the racism that has divided people in the town for centuries.

“They targeted the people around here. They’re going to be coming to Gallup to shop, so they put a stop to that,” said Johnnie Henry, adding that two of his relatives from the Navajo Nation were apparently infected with COVID-19 while working at a Gallup hospital. “We kind of look at each other and say, are we the ones bringing it? No, it’s all over.

“There’s a lot of people who want to go back into Gallup, but they’re afraid that they’re going to call us names ... say that we are the carriers,” Henry said.

In Gallup, the streets are empty, with downtown thoroughfares largely free of cars. The lockdown idled pawn shops, halted informal jewelry sales by walking vendors, and thinned out crowds at grocery stores and Walmart.

“The lockdown has been awesome, you don’t have to worry about any crowds,” Andrew Sandoval, a delivery worker for Home Depot, said as he ducked into a grocery store to buy his wife a cup of coffee.

At Gallup’s main hospital, Rehoboth McKinley Christian, the battle against the virus has taken a toll, with 32 infections among employees. The hospital’s sole pulmonologist left Wednesday without a replacement, and patients with serious respiratory conditions are being flown to Albuquerque, Chief Medical Officer Val Wangler said.

For most, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

The trajectory of the pandemic could hinge on Gallup’s homeless population — many who left the Navajo Nation and struggle with alcoholism.

Infections raced through a detox center in early April. Now, free room and board are offered at four local motels — including the famous El Rancho hotel visited by legendary actor John Wayne and President Ronald Reagan — to about 140 homeless patients who are quarantined. They are tested repeatedly before being cleared with a certification card that can let them back into shelters.

Beyond Gallup, New Mexico’s stay-at-home restrictions expire May 15, and there’s uncertainty about what’s next.

“I’m so confused. What is going to really work if this doesn’t?” state Sen. George Munoz of Gallup said of the community lockdown. He has taken to buying giant pallets of bottled water for indigenous communities with campaign funds. “I don’t know the answer.”

At a motel, Dr. Caleb Lauber opens a conversation with a coronavirus-positive patient in the Navajo language before administering a nasal swab test to see if the infection persists.

“There’s more than one benefit from doing this,” he said. “It allows us the opportunity to ensure that the community is protected.”
But the program is financially unsustainable, Lauber said.

South of Gallup in Zuni Pueblo, a tribal community of 800 residents set amid red rock mesas, Lt. Gov. Carleton Bowekaty supports extending the Gallup lockdown, noting that it keeps more pueblo members safely at home. He said the tribe has stockpiled food and water to help support members who have to quarantine after being exposed to the virus.

He said a COVID-19 outbreak in the pueblo is far from contained, with about 55 confirmed infections and two deaths amid intensive testing, evening curfews and a daytime roadblock aimed at discouraging nonessential travel.

An end to the Gallup lockdown would likely mean stricter restrictions in the pueblo, where Bowekaty says tribal members are struggling with social distancing in ceremonial life, including burials.

Thoughts have turned to preserving oral traditions that might be lost with more coronavirus casualties.

“How do we capture their knowledge if they pass on?” he asked.
___
Associated Press data editor Meghan Hoyer contributed to this report.

[jk]

Re: French Study on Early Treatment with HCQ+AZ

kaletra may also work if given early, but only if given early.

[shiny!]

French Study on Early Treatment with HCQ+AZ

From Science Direct. A French study showing that when used early before complications occur, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin is safe and effective.

Safe, effective and cheap, so the U.S. pans it and bans it.

Early treatment of COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin: A retrospective analysis of 1061 cases in Marseille, France

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...77893920302179

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.101738

Abstract

Background:
In France, the combination hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZ) is used in the treatment of COVID-19.

Methods:
We retrospectively report on 1061 SARS-CoV-2 positive tested patients treated with HCQ (200 mg three times daily for ten days) + AZ (500 mg on day 1 followed by 250 mg daily for the next four days) for at least three days. Outcomes were death, clinical worsening (transfer to ICU, and >10 day hospitalization) and viral shedding persistence (>10 days).

Results:
A total of 1061 patients were included in this analysis (46.4% male, mean age 43.6 years – range 14–95 years). Good clinical outcome and virological cure were obtained in 973 patients within 10 days (91.7%). Prolonged viral carriage was observed in 47 patients (4.4%) and was associated to a higher viral load at diagnosis (p < .001) but viral culture was negative at day 10. All but one, were PCR-cleared at day 15. A poor clinical outcome (PClinO) was observed for 46 patients (4.3%) and 8 died (0.75%) (74–95 years old). All deaths resulted from respiratory failure and not from cardiac toxicity. Five patients are still hospitalized (98.7% of patients cured so far). PClinO was associated with older age (OR 1.11), severity at admission (OR 10.05) and low HCQ serum concentration. PClinO was independently associated with the use of selective beta-blocking agents and angiotensin II receptor blockers (p < .05). A total of 2.3% of patients reported mild adverse events (gastrointestinal or skin symptoms, headache, insomnia and transient blurred vision).

Conclusion:
Administration of the HCQ+AZ combination before COVID-19 complications occur is safe and associated with very low fatality rate in patients.

[Woodsman]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

I have to interject here, though I can't adequately argue with her, she's way smarter than I, but from what I've seen her work has been retracted by both Science and Nature and it appears that her work was not repeatable in numerous trials. It's rare enough that they even tried to replicate, but the fact that they couldn't calls into question her credentials off the bat.

If you believe the conspiracy websites and poorly produced and sourced Youtube clips more than peer-reviewed retractions and mea culpas of Science and Nature, then you're at a level of fringe where I don't doubt you can be convinced of anything, frankly.

Your mind is made up, and it's made up of garbage.

You admit that you have no argument, making your case entirely on appeals to authority and ad-hominem attacks, and yet insist that I'm the one incapable of considering the available evidence and that my mind is filled with garbage.

That's an interesting perspective, bpr. Almost charming in its child-like attachment to authority figures and lacking a scintilla of self-awareness, but interesting.

Update: Did anyone notice the censors deleted the video in question? I have to wonder, if its mere fringe, why bother censoring it? Why not let the truth or falsehood of it stand on its own?

I'm old enough to remember a time when those of us of a liberal mindset who considered themselves committed to free inquiry held the view that the best way to expose spurious argumentation was to air the information openly, understanding that the truth would out and required nothing more than a fair hearing. Now it seems that's not the case. Someone in authority has decided which ideas we get to contemplate and which ones we won't, which institutions and figures are open to criticism and which ones are to be protected from it. All in the name of science and free speech, of course.

Now some seem entirely at ease with this consistent and accelerating pattern of powerful plutocratic institutions collaborating with the centralized government to control what ideas people around the world are permitted to share with each other. These people seem to believe that authoritarian control over the ideas people are allowed to discuss is somehow less dangerous than the ideas themselves. Instead of asking calmly if something works, or if a response has merit, or questioning certain assumptions about institutions and its leaders, or that they might be off track or oriented toward a particularly sub-optimal outcome, we denounce the questions and the questioner as infamous. Now questions of reliability and authoritativeness are important, certainly. And if one examines which content is always considered “authoritative”, you’ll find a bunch of elite media, corporate, and government outlets who have consistently lied to the world about such items of import as war, peace, wealth, health, and liberty.

It seems that this has become the dividing line between free men and mere subjects, the smart and the dull. But does a free being in possession of a healthy intellect really need an alliance of plutocrats and government agencies to protect their mind from dangerous ideas? Should a person of intellect, committed to free inquiry, want an alliance of plutocrats and government agencies to exert control over what ideas they are permitted to share and what thoughts they are permitted to think? Is it smart to encourage a paradigm where human communication (and thereby thought) is controlled by vast unaccountable power structures which benefit from the absence of dissent? And is this widespread decline in respect for “experts” among the mass society a problem with the masses or with the experts themselves?

The vast majority of unlettered laypeople seem smart enough to understand that experts get things wrong for reasons that are innocent (they’ve all been taught the same incorrect thing in school) and less innocent (they have a financial or professional interest in denying the truth). Despite lacking credentials, they have studied the behavior and work products of "authorities” long enough to recognize some important patterns. The mass of people have come to appreciate the untrustworthy nature of authorities, that they have an interest in denying some truths, that insular communities of subject matter experts tend to coalesce around orthodoxies that make them blind, and that as such, they often try to define truth as being whatever they say it is. Maybe it was Vietnam or the WMD fiasco, where experts of military rank and titles presented us false argument and false evidence that led to decades of pointless war? Maybe it was Russiagate, a story fueled by intelligence experts with grand titles who are now proven to have been wrong to a spectacular degree, if not actually criminally liable in pushing a fraud? Maybe it was the Tuskegee Experiment, or Thalidomide, or Vioxx? And maybe the response to COVID-19 was the last straw?

But the functional impact of censorship enforced by social scolding and finger-wagging of the sort bpr exhibited is to stamp out discussion of things that do actually need to be discussed, like the capture of regulatory and scientific institutions by corporate and financial interests, or institutional figures with lingering questions over their ethics and financial/professional incentives, or when the damage to the economy becomes as significant a threat to the public as the pandemic. We do actually have to talk about this. We can’t not talk about it out of fear of being censored, or because we’re confusing real harm with political harm, or because we fear people who enforce orthodoxy by name calling, insults, and the threat of social isolation.

[bpr]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Kinda puts it all into perspective, don't it? Dr. Judy Mikovits said she cooperated with the FBI during an investigation of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Health, alleging Fauci was a workplace tyrant who was under investigation for swiping scientific research, covering up tainted vaccines, doling out lucrative federal grants to feckless cronies and much more. Mikovits said eventually her widespread allegations of fraud and abuse by Fauci helped spark an investigation by the FBI. She cooperated with federal law enforcement up through 2014. What happened to the probe? Turns out the FBI and Justice Department of a massive cover up to protect Fauci and his associates. Another FBI scandal. Another Justice Department scandal. Oh, and by the way, that was James Comey’s FBI and Eric Holder’s Justice Department. During the White House administration of Barack Obama. Mikovits said Fauci helped imprison her after stealing her proprietary research not once, but twice and her allegations against the White House’s coronavirus top medical advisor and his government cronies paint a disturbing portrait of widespread institutional corruption. And greed. But hey, maybe Mikovits is just a crazy cat lady? And anyway, who the heck is she compared to the éminence grise Fauci? Why just a nobody. A little person to whom the rules and the presumption of truth does not apply. She's not rich. She has no power. That's only for the bigs, right?

I have to interject here, though I can't adequately argue with her, she's way smarter than I, but from what I've seen her work has been retracted by both Science and Nature and it appears that her work was not repeatable in numerous trials. It's rare enough that they even tried to replicate, but the fact that they couldn't calls into question her credentials off the bat.

If you believe the conspiracy websites and poorly produced and sourced Youtube clips more than peer-reviewed retractions and mea culpas of Science and Nature, then you're at a level of fringe where I don't doubt you can be convinced of anything, frankly.

Your mind is made up, and it's made up of garbage.

[Mega]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

[Mega]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

"persona in the eyes of the public"
Let me assure you that is changing RAPIDLY

[lakedaemonian]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Kind of ironic, isn't it? First Neil f*cks the entire world with his silly models, only to wind up f*cking himself by f*cking a married woman and getting caught.

His Red Army Frau’s background reads like a Generation 1 Baader Meinhoff co-founder, back when they were beloved student protestors.

Why go kinetical/violent when non kinetic means can achieve far more while also maintaining the Robin Hood persona in the eyes of the public.

[Woodsman]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Kinda puts it all into perspective, don't it? Dr. Judy Mikovits said she cooperated with the FBI during an investigation of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Health, alleging Fauci was a workplace tyrant who was under investigation for swiping scientific research, covering up tainted vaccines, doling out lucrative federal grants to feckless cronies and much more. Mikovits said eventually her widespread allegations of fraud and abuse by Fauci helped spark an investigation by the FBI. She cooperated with federal law enforcement up through 2014. What happened to the probe? Turns out the FBI and Justice Department of a massive cover up to protect Fauci and his associates. Another FBI scandal. Another Justice Department scandal. Oh, and by the way, that was James Comey’s FBI and Eric Holder’s Justice Department. During the White House administration of Barack Obama. Mikovits said Fauci helped imprison her after stealing her proprietary research not once, but twice and her allegations against the White House’s coronavirus top medical advisor and his government cronies paint a disturbing portrait of widespread institutional corruption. And greed. But hey, maybe Mikovits is just a crazy cat lady? And anyway, who the heck is she compared to the éminence grise Fauci? Why just a nobody. A little person to whom the rules and the presumption of truth does not apply. She's not rich. She has no power. That's only for the bigs, right?

Gilead Covid-19 Drug May Exceed $2 Billion Sales, Piper Says
By Cristin Flanagan, Bloomberg.com
May 4, 2020, 8:56 AM EDT Updated on May 4, 2020, 2:35 PM EDT

At $4,500 for a round of treatment for Covid-19, remdesivir, Gilead Sciences Inc.’s new medicine could be reasonably priced and still generate over $2 billion in revenue for the biotech, according to analysts at Piper Sandler.

That’s the maximum price that the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review recommended for a 10-day treatment of Gilead’s remdesivir, which received emergency approval from U.S. regulators on Friday. Gilead has so far been quiet on its pricing plans and didn’t immediately respond to e-mailed requests for comment.

When you are talking about saving a life, that $4,500 “seems really reasonable,” Piper Sandler’s Tyler Van Buren said in a phone call. Even after a promise to give away the first 1.5 million vials, the drug could generate more than $2 billion in sales by the end of the year based on that price tag, Van Buren said. He doesn’t expect Gilead to disclose pricing until after the donated supply has been used up. And “several billion in sales are easily achievable” with the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients remaining high for the foreseeable future...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...y?srnd=premium

...Gilead gets what they want. No one will want to be in a control arm in further trials and they will argue all future trials must be noninferiority. Before we have the answer whether this drug actually changes anyone’s destiny, it’s going to become the gold standard therapy. We will likely now never know if (the unlikely possibility) it changes mortality.

Absolute genius. You have to salute them. On the day a negative trial of their drug is reported, based on a press release they took over the news cycle, and with some midstream edits to their endpoints their now “positive” trial wins them FDA approval and a halted trial..."

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...015063042.html

...And neither does the dismissal of Hydroxychloroquine by the medical/pharma cartels as a dangerous and untested drug (despite its decades of safe use) versus their seemingly unanimous consent on the Remdesivir's safety and efficacy despite it being brand new and its fast-tracked approval. We're not supposed to notice that HCQ seems to work well in every country that's tried it, except the United States. That HCQ sells for about a buck a dose versus an expected $1000 a dose for Remdesivir isn't something we proles should concern ourselves with, either. Neither does the financial relationships between Remdesivir manufacturer Gilead Sciences and the NIH panel charged with setting its treatment guidelines. Because conspiracy theory.

[Mega]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Leaders don't get it right....ever!