Covid-19 News

No point in being over pessimistic about the economy, people are optimistic because things were going so well before this virus struck. Getting back to that high level of secure employment is the problem. The welfare support system has to be drastically expanded to help the unemployed until their jobs come back online and the economy picks up, reverse the recent punitive changes in retirement age (life expectancy justification for it has just been reversed!), free medicine similar to the NHS in the US.. Not a favourite policy of right wing politics unfortunately.

Quote from RobertBryant

Pseudo-Science behind the Assault on Hydroxychloroquine

Leo Goldstein on wuwt..

• HCQ-based treatments are effective in treating COVID-19, unless started too late.
• Studies, cited in opposition, have been misinterpreted, invalid, or worse.
• HCQ and AZ are some of the most tested and safest prescription drugs.
• Severe COVID-19 frequently causes cardiac effects, including heart arrhythmia. QTc prolonging drugs might amplify this tendency.

Millions of people regularly take drugs having strong QTc prolongation effect, and neither FDA nor CDC bother to warn them. HCQ+AZ combination, probably has a mild QTc prolongation effect. Concerns over its negative effects, however minor, can be addressed by respecting contra-indications.

• Effectiveness of HCQ-based treatment for COVID-19 is hampered by conditions that are presented as precautions, delaying the onset of treatment. For examples, some states require that COVID-19 patients be treated with HCQ exclusively in hospital settings.

• The COVID-19 Treatment Panel of NIH evaded disclosure of the massive financial links of its members to Gilead Sciences,

the manufacturer of a competing drug remdesivir. Among those who failed to disclose such links are 2 out of 3 of its co-chairs.

• Despite all the attempts by certain authorities to prevent COVID-19 treatment with HCQ and HCQ+AZ, both components are approved by FDA, and doctors can prescribe them for COVID-19

https://wattsupwiththat.com/20…lt-on-hydroxychloroquine/

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WUWT is one of my least favourite sites for science, it is sensationalist and highly opinionated, often having opinion pieces containing shoddy or incorrect science.

However dealing with this paper on its merits, it starts off with (the 1st, most significant) conclusion:

HCQ-based treatments are effective in treating COVID-19, unless started too late.

I then looked through the text of the paper looking for evidence to support this. Nowhere could I find it! Please somone help me, perhaps i missed it?

The paper does criticise a lot of the evidence presented against HCQ.

Some of this criticism is fair, much of it is non-scientific "this person should not be taken seriously because he has links with people i do not like".

Science is on the basis of correctness of arguments, which can be argued independently of the identity of the arguer.

Compare this badly written opinion-piece with the well written and neutral FSAB paper I posted. Nowhere does this personalise the argument. Nor does it state that the case for effectiveness of HCQ is known (positive or negative) at this early stage when the evidence is low quality. It points out that with at the moment no good positive evidence, and poor positive evidence cancelled out by equally poor negative evidence, taking a drug with powerful but unclear effects in COVID should be done with great caution.

Also, the FSAB paper points out the issues to do with timing and possible good and bad effects (on basis of known possible mechanisms) that trials of HCQ need to consider.

The argument goes:

(1) if clearly positive don't worry, give it. But the sum of evidence so far is not clearly positive and cancels out. There is as yet no high quality evidence positive or negative.

(2) HCQ is active in ways that might help, or hinder, patients with COVID. Because it is immunologically active you cannot say "give it a go, it might help" because equally it might specifically harm COVID patients. The COVID immune reaction is atypical of other diseases so we cannot say an active drug will do no harm.

(3) Therefore investigate it very carefully, don't just give it randomly.

Please could somone post the positive evidence they think is in favour of HCQ (and Dr. R note we disagree about ecological arguments as my funny "The closer to the EU headquarters, the higher the risk of COVID" paper points out!) Correlation is not causation.

Whereas the FSAD paper authors all seem to be serious (and top) hospital medics with no obvious political stance, Leo Goldstein has very clear politics:

https://defyccc.com/sources-on…ked-russian-interference/

https://defyccc.com/climatist-science-eugenics/

Basically, he is strongly pro-Trump (in that his dislike of the educated elite coincides with Trump's) anti-educated elite.

Now that is quite a common view nowadays, personally I find it poisonous and leading to great harm and populist anti-scientific thinking. That is my political reaction. But the point is that it is a profoundly political stance, so Leo Goldstein will not be an unbiassed judge of any matter where the "educated elite" have a view. That fact will predispose him to take the opposite view.

I'm not saying this judgement of who Leo Goldstein is politically should have high weight, as I've pointed out I prefer to judge content not personality. It does however explain his strong views.

A nice article by liberal Matt Taibbi on The Media's politicization of Coronavirus --

"The Inevitable Coronavirus Censorship Crisis is Here"

As the Covid-19 crisis progresses, censorship programs advance, amid calls for China-style control of the Internet

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/…ry-coronavirus-censorship

Also, the view on HCQ in Australia --

THHuxleynew this is certainly an enjoyable debate but rea!ly all it comes down to is the Trump side supported by WUWT are thick, stupid uneducated morons who are enthusiastically supporting the President because he is actually right from his own instinctively correct narcissistic intuition (the biochemical evidence is irrefutable). The opposition are the opposite, clever, highly educated, experts in their fields who unfortunately are writing in depth analyses of all the clinical evidence and trying desperately to prove that either it does not work or has such dangerous side effects immunologically it's not worth the risk taking. They write very intelligent interesting summaries of the underlying mechanisms but cannot see the wood for the trees and end up with completely garbage conclusions with a high level of self questioning, hubris and inconsistencies. The biochemical evidence says it works, a compete idiot Trump can see it works so is excitedly like a narcissistic little child expounding its virtues. Let's see who wins this ridiculous dilemma, my money is on Trump because the powerful usually win (rightly in this case even though he's probably wrong about everything else). Trump winning will see a good range of antiviral medicines being made available to the US public. His other policies of inflaming relations in a blame game with China will, at the same time result in WW3. So whatever, nobody wins.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The argument goes:

(1) if clearly positive don't worry, give it. But the sum of evidence so far is not clearly positive and cancels out. There is as yet no high quality evidence positive or negative.

You missed the latest Wuhan paper that Robert linked. HCQ is highly significant working also for ICU cases.

May be you missed the news in February. China did order some 3 mio. doses of HCQ in Taiwan. Novartis did spend > 100 mio. dose to USA some weeks ago. The only problem is the health mafia (Leader of the pack is Giliead) that block the hospital doctors from using it. I hope one day enough people will find together to sue the pack.

But really I do not think that you ever had the intention to analyze the rhetoric & facts of any HCQ dilution paper paid/written by Gillead agents.

Gillead is the outmost greedy pharma company on the planet as it sells the Hepatitis C cure for 40'000 bucks. This is 1000x above costs and at least 10..1000x above a similarly rated cure with other live critical medication. if we would use the Gillead arguments for Antibiotics, then we all - with an income less than 100'000k/year - would die.

Quote from Alan Smith

Ends up in Senegal where they are using CLQ with top results,

Senegal HCQ preliminaire plus CLQ

http://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/2…3%A9-l-hydroxychloroquine

le Sénégal n'a pas besoin du baume de Gilead

Quote from THHuxleynew

Please could somone post the positive evidence they think is in favour of HCQ (

Read the posts that you are com......ment......ing on .. more closely THH.

https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…04.27.20073379v1.full.pdf

Good on you cobber Clive! Can someone kick Boris in his backside to initiate the same common sense approach? Oh no let's just carry on patiently waiting for a vaccine whilst thousands more die a desperately painful, totally preventable death! I've been saying this since February . When it is finally realised that most UK and US deaths might have been avoided by swift appropriate use of antivirals like HCQ there will be outrage and uproar against this government's abject negligence. They can't say they didn't know. Every other European state is using it. Is this another casualty of the economic failure called Brexit?

I have read every report on the subject and maintain a private site on the subject. The FASB report is slippery to downright a hit piece - you can't understand what they did unless you read deeply point by point. It misses the 4 most important studies.

HCQ works across the world. It is as close to a cure a we will ever have. There is no perfection on the earth, someone with 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease who is 70 years old will always be susceptible to disease.

This is a psychological war. Fear induces compliance. They want to vaccinate every man woman and child and ID them so they can exercise instant control. Control looks like China - social credit scores. total tracking (your cell phone is already that). You go to the beach when they don't want, they ticket you - cause they know who you are, where you are and you put your digital dollars in their digital Currency system. Right now they are showing force to teach compliance. Later, it is just part of life - don't do what they don't want you to do. The underlying mechanism of control is money. Do you think they want e-Cats or Suncells in every home? Don't mistake your modest wealth as proof you are free - you could be far wealthier, and the nation far stronger.

They don't care about your health. No vaccine has ever undergone a double blind study to prove it works, in fact not even a "1000 people" with "1000 people without" and measure outcomes. Vaccine companies can't be sued in the US. This is mega-business. You are peons to their business model. They want you quibbling about why the media did this or that. Like a theatre of their own creation. Newsweek(CIA) tells you that Fauci built this in a lab, doing "gain of function research" that 200 scientists said should be stopped, so he took it to Wuhan anyway - you dissociate an argue that can't be. Vaccines were unleashed due to regulation changes mostly in 1989 - the year tons of injuries started ADD, Autism, ADHD...and are highly suspected in soft tissue cancer. The science is unequivocal these things are dangerous. Here is a set of studies. The CDC itself admits that most improvements to health in the century from diseases didn't come from vaccines, but from improvements in sanitation, nutrition (vitamin D alone is huge) etc. There are millions of viruses, how much toxic stuff are going to inject in our body. If you disagree with what I said, it is because of your mythology and stories not science.

The only nation able to fight this is America. But Americans are under mass delusion - they are constantly wanting security instead of freedom. If you care about LENR, you care about what I said.

Find me counter-evidence to what I said, not argument. Otherwise case closed.

<footnote: Don't let your kids wish they could move to Senegal, where because they are left alone -- they developed $1 tests, $60 3d printed ventillators, Choloriquine, and as a result only 9 deaths - 3rd best recovery rate in the world>

You're possibly right but there is a severe dislocation from the European view which is open minded and willing to test new possibilties versus a suppressive constipated 'ban it before we are sure it works' approach here in the UK. Fed by a predatory capitalist pharma industry obsessed with making a quick profit from its own medicines like remdesivir. Propped up by not only fake news but also by politically/pharma distorted scientific reports. Call it weird science?

Navid So nobody use the apps because their only function is really agents of social control? Should we mobilize a socialist momentum revolution to overthrow our democratically elected governments? What is your solution to the threat of the deep state (whatever that is?) Or is any action we take going to be because that was always what they always wanted us to do, whoever 'they' is? This begins to border on paranoid delusional thinking, but I'm interested in what solutions you propose.

Quote from Dr Richard

Yes, I agree that would be possible in an ideal world approached by how S.Koreans and Japanese people have dealt with this pandemic. Even Germany has done well relatively. To do it in the US and UK we have to drastically change our lifestyle, diet, education and cultural habits. Until that perfect regimented, ordered society emerges maybe in hundreds of years time we have no other alternative to research for antivirals and vaccines

Are you suggesting that S. Korea and Japan are "perfect regimented" or "ordered"? If that is what you are saying, you do not know the first thing about these countries. They are not even slightly regimented or ordered, and they never have been.

Look at what they have actually done, and you will see that Americans will be perfectly willing to do similar things. What we have done so far, with stay-home orders, has been much more regimented, strict and rigorous than any steps taken in Korea or Japan. Their "stay-at-home" policy is more of a suggestion, or a joke. Their bars close at 9 p.m. instead of after midnight. That's supposed to be a restriction? Do they think the virus will not infect people before 9 p.m.? Their shopping district traffic is down by 60%. Our shopping malls have been closed for month.

The difference is, they are taking effective steps using the internet and big data capabilities, and they are tracing cases and following up. We could do that too, with no loss of freedom. Most people wouldn't even realize it is being done. Why don't we? Because our government leaders are idiots. That's the only reason. They will soon be doing this in New York and Massachusettes, but not in Georgia, and not at a Federal level. What will be the result? The Trump administration now predicts there will be 200,000 new cases per day by June 1, and 3,000 deaths. In other words, they are not even going to try to control the epidemic. See:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0…pdates.html#link-7b42d0f5

The Trump administration projects about 3,000 daily deaths by early June.

As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths over the next several weeks. The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double the current number of about 1,750.

The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases a day currently.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Perhaps the pandemic will be over as such but most likely, even if herd immunity is reached, there may be genetic drift in the virus and incomplete vaccinations or responses in the population.

I wouldn't know, but experts quoted in the N. Y. Times and elsewhere say genetic drift is lower with the coronavirus than with many other infectious diseases. They express confidence that a vaccine will remain effective for a long time.

Quote from Shane D.

But the real fallout is now starting to hit, and reality setting in with major corporations just starting to announce their own cutbacks due the gloomy forecasts. So things will get much worse unfortunately. That is probably the main reason why some of these governors are opening their states before the Federal guidelines for re-opening are met.

Yes, that is what the governors say, in the South anyway. This is like pouring gasoline on a fire to put it out. Opening early will ensure that the latest Trump administration projections will be met. They say that by June there will be 200,000 new cases per day, and 3,000 deaths per day. This will paralyze the entire nation, and push the economy into the worst crisis since 1929.

Instead of doing that, they should have put in place adequate testing and case tracing. They should have 300,000 people doing that before the first state opens up. They could have, easily. Other countries did. But, apparently they did not see the need, or they did not want to spend the money. So now we will have a slow-motion holocaust instead. Future generations will never understand why. I don't understand why.

On a small scale, chicken meatpacking plants in Georgia are acting the same way. They are heading off a cliff. Anyone can see it happening. Anyone can predict the outcome. Most chicken is produced in Georgia, and in a few weeks the amount will fall by 20%, or 50% or maybe 100%, like beef and pork production. The factory owners say: "We are doing all that we can do." What they should say is: "We are doing all that we can do that does not cost any money or slow down present production. We are doing nothing to stop production from collapsing in a few weeks." They are taking workers' temperatures and putting up plexiglass shields, which is to say they are doing meaningless Kabuki steps, instead of actually addressing the problem. Here are few things they should do, and they would do, if they were not idiots:

First, you have to understand that many workers are illegal immigrants who live in overcrowded houses, with ~12 people. Social distancing is impossible. They are paid little, so they cannot stop going to work. They will come to work, well or sick. They resist testing, because it means they will be fired or deported.

So, you have to assure the workers that if they are tested positive, they will be kept on at full pay, and given a place to stay in a hotel or other quarantine facility with a nursing staff.

You have to test all workers, every week. Test all worker's family members and roommates, every week.

Trace all infections, and warn all contacts. Test all contacts.

That would slow down the spread of the disease among the workers. Anything less will have no effect, and the results are predictable. There will be no chicken in the stores, and the industry will lose billions of dollars, because it is unwilling to spend millions. Also because test kits are not available, which is the fault of the administration in Washington.

JedRothwell Wishful thinking? Hope they are right. Is 'genetic drift' the same as mutation rate or is this a term the NY times has just made up like a lot of other fake news? Giving people hope sells newspapers better than telling the truth unfortunately. At least 40 different mutation strains so far by various accounts. Know any other virus with such an amazing capacity for outwitting any vaccines we throw at it? Broad spectrum antivirals are looking more like a better option. In the Oxford Uni study, sure the monkeys infected with the same viral strain used to raise the vaccine was effective in blocking Covid illness caused by that particular strain, but what about the other 39 or more variants? We are totally in the dark here and the situation is made worse by trying to reassure people with a pack of lies that everything will be OK.

Quote from JedRothwell

They express confidence that a vaccine will remain effective for a long time.

Why do you believe a vaccine lasts longer than your own anti bodies ??

The rotary / free masons health system gang pursuing an anti people campaign are a bunch of cricket brains if the believe such nonsensical things.

I personally will not take a corona vaccination because I'm not yet affected by preconditions nor older than 85 years. Further I exactly know how to treat it, by more than two different sets of medication.

The problem in the US seems to be the health system gang that plays the hospital doctors jumping jack theatre.

There are three paths to guaranteed wealth: Leading hospital doctor, specialist lawyer, business manager. But only doctors kill for money.

Wyttenbach A trifle unfair. Pharma and misguided politics kill, not doctors. We try our best to save lives, as is working in Australia at least.