There are different strains. I would not like the political fallout, but what if they let areas with the milder strain spread for herd immunity?...... but kept the lockdowns in the areas where the strain is more lethal? - or at least isolated the it risk people in those areas? That would be a tough call but perhaps give better long range stats.
Just thinking out loud.
The U.S. government has contributed more to fundamental technology and science than any other institution or corporation on earth.
There is truth to this sentiment. I think the guy making the video and Shane would probably be talking about secret groups of financiers who control certain elite parts of the government, or are supra-quasi-governmental. Rogue forces are the ones stealing from us to bailout the rich, fighting trillion dollar boondoggles, and letting private payers (Gates/Vaccine co's/Pharma but many others) get to the front of the line.
Somebody is definitely paying-to-play!
Where does that statement come from?
Look at the link I provided. It is the data supplied by New York. It breaks down the "case" fatalities by age groups in 10 year increments. 0-9, 10-19, 20-29 and on up. Nothing significant until reaching the 40's. Even then it is low.
Those #s are based on reported cases. Once they randomly test enough around the city to establish an IFR, it will go down even more. For instance, last week, NYC tested ~215 pregnant women checking into labor and delivery. 33 (15%) tested positive, 29 were asymptomatic.
I think the guy making the video and Shane would probably be talking about secret groups of financiers who control certain elite parts of the government, or are supra-quasi-governmental.
Now wait a second! My video was from a well known comedian (Tom Hawkins). He pokes fun at everyone. In this one case "big government", and how ridiculous it can be. Watch it, it is hilarious. That is a time honored US tradition making fun of wasteful government spending. Something even the libs used to enjoy before they lost their sense of humor. I am not even sure if Hawkins is conservative.
Anyway, nothing in there about all this other stuff you mention.
Now wait a second! My video was from a well known comedian (Tom Hawkins). He pokes fun at everyone. In this one case "big government", and how ridiculous it can be. Watch it, it is hilarious. That is a time honored US tradition making fun of wasteful government spending. Something even the libs used to enjoy before they lost their sense of humor. I am not even sure if Hawkins is conservative.
Anyway, nothing in there about all this other stuff you mention.
I did like the video. I was defending you as later down they took your seriously about pinning the tail on the govt donkey.
Look at the link I provided. It is the data supplied by New York. It breaks down the "case" fatalities by age groups in 10 year increments. 0-9, 10-19, 20-29 and on up. Nothing significant until reaching the 40's. Even then it is low.
Those #s are based on reported cases. Once they randomly test enough around the city to establish an IFR, it will go down even more. For instance, last week, NYC tested ~215 pregnant women checking into labor and delivery. 33 (15%) tested positive, 29 were asymptomatic.
That data is for those without underlying illness:
Underlying illnesses include Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney
Disease, GI/Liver Disease, and Obesity.
Obesity alone covers 39% - 23% (depending on state) of US population, and 20.6% of children aged 12-19, and 18.4% of children aged 6-11.
Are you OK with 20% of US children (those likley to die from COVID) being removed from the statistics because they are obese. I sort of agree that obesity is a problem not properly recognised - I detest the fact it is become normalised. But killing the obese? Can you live with that?
Either you are ok performing a mass cull of those who are obese or have other illnesses, or you need to make decisions based on whole population statistics.
I am more on your side here than most because I agree there will be many many extra deaths due to lockdown. But you need to own the consequences of what you advocate, not hide behind misleading statistics.
On the positive side: good to know that death rates are so low for those who are healthy.
As Jed says New York, at 27.6% obesity, is near the most healthy end of this scale. Missouri and W Virginia not so lucky at 39.5%.
My plan: lockdown and implement a draconian state-mandated weight loss program for 2 months!
THH
NYC tested ~215 pregnant women checking into labor and delivery. 33 (15%) tested positive, 29 were asymptomatic.
Right, but that does not imply a large number of completely asymptomatic cases in the population.
Rather, the 4 non-asymptomatic ones here are those who turn up for labour not having previously recognised they have COVID. You will have a lot more who did realise this and are not counted here.
Wait for the big well conducted seroprevalence studies - then we will know.
Or just unlock anywhere. Unless asymptomatic rate is much higher than current data indicates continuing infections will, over a few months, prove the matter. At a terrible cost in lives.
More information (some new) on the latest seroprevalence surveys.
There is still a big unanswered question exactly what is the COVID IFR. Very low figures don't fit data we already have, however those really optimistic might hope for variation and some strains of the virus to be much less lethal - in which case we have a sort of natural (though very unsafe) vaccine.
The other big question relates to obesity. It would be interesting to see what proportion of deaths are actually attributable to this (or its side effect, type 2 diabetes). Why, because with a lot of support most of those now obese due to modern lifestyles can be cured, and fairly quickly. There are programs (e.g. low carb high fibre diets) that do this fairly easily. I'm not saying people would be able to do this based on exhortation but massive programs, with virtual support groups and free dietary support (good food costs more than junk food) could surely achieve this.
What we get:
Excellent discussion of the current evidence linking obesity (independently of other conditions) with COVID mortality. A lot of preprints linked for those who want to get teeth into real data.
As always, the early data coming in is low quality and difficult to analyse. There is certainly a positive effect, but how large?
From Factors associated with hospital admission and critical illness
Strongest hospitalization risks were age ≥75 years (OR 66.8, 95% CI, 44.7-102.6), age 65-74 (OR 10.9, 95% CI, 8.35-14.34), BMI>40 (OR 6.2, 95% CI, 4.2-9.3), and heart failure (OR 4.3 95% CI, 1.9-11.2).
This paper is giving logistic regression analysis of data, not very reliable, but indicates morbid obesity quite highly correlated, though less so than age > 65. That limits the effect, not a magic bullet, it seems, but maybe v significant for younger people.
THH
Costa Rica's response to Covid
Rapid.. through necessity
Tonic water has reappeared on our supermarket shelves after a recent run on it (due to the presence of quinine 20 mg/litre). From the pharmacokinetics of HCQ paper therapeutic serum levels of 2mg/L are only achieved 2-3 days after giving even high initial doses of 800 mg/day. Part of this will be due to excretion by the kidneys, conversion to metabolites desethyl HCQ (also thought to be active) by the liver but also a large fraction would be due to the 1000-fold concentration into intracellular compartments. By taking a low prophylactic dose of quinine supplied by consuming a litre of tonic water per day there would be some saturation particularly of the intracellular concentration from nM serum levels to uM intracellular levels. Against such a background level, a high therapeutic serum level of HCQ on the appearance of COVID19 fever symptoms could occur much more rapidly, or even better with a low prophylactic dose of HCQ if available (malarial dose of 400 mg once a week then 400 mg per day on first fever symptoms). This long time lag before HCQ can reach therapeutic levels may well account for the poor results in some of the ICU studies particularly the veterans and the Brazilian papers, in which it is used at a late stage in the illness which would effectively be running its course untreated for 2-3 more days until plasma levels reach the therapeutic target of 2 mg/L after giving even a high dose (600 mg). There also appears to be a time lag in Raoult's results of 48 hours before any reduction in viral load occurs with his HCQ alone treatment, whilst the azithromycin probably has therapeutic effect reaching high plasma levels within an hour or so. Similarly for Zn in Zelenko's case. So carry on drinking tonic water (Gin too according to Eric Swartz's alcoholic ideas) - it used to work out in India!
Costa Rica has malaria so only 6 deaths so far. Highest malaria cases in the swampy east of the country with very few COVID 19 cases, again correlates well with taking ant-malaria meds. As in all other malaria infested regions worldwide.
Same applies to the only EU country which has recently had a malaria outbreak, Greece. Very few cases/deaths compared to Italy
Malaria/COVID-19 maps update from wiki:
Deaths due to malaria per million persons in 2012 0–0
1–2
3–54
55–325
326–679
680–949
950–1,358
Past and current malaria prevalence in 2009
Map of confirmed cases of COVID-19 per capita (as of 23 April 2020): > 2000 cases per million inhabitants
500–2000 cases per million inhabitants
200–500 cases per million inhabitants
50–200 cases per million inhabitants
>0–50 cases per million inhabitants
No reported cases, no population, or no data available
Total confirmed cases of COVID-19 by country and territory (as of 23 April 2020): 100,000+ confirmed cases
10,000–99,999 confirmed cases
1,000–9,999 confirmed cases
100–999 confirmed cases
10–99 confirmed cases
1–9 confirmed cases
No confirmed cases or no data
Total confirmed deaths per million of COVID-19 by country and territory (as of 23 April 2020): 100+ deaths per million inhabitants
10–100 deaths per million inhabitants
1–10 deaths per million inhabitants
0.1–1 deaths per million inhabitants
0.01–0.1 deaths per million inhabitants
No deaths or no data
This article provides a general overview and documents the status of locations by continents and conveyance of the world affected by the coronavirus responsible for the ongoing 2019–20 pandemic originating in Wuhan, Hubei, China. It may not include all the most up-to-date major responses and measures by individual countries and territories.
Costa Rica has malaria
The malaria connection is weak for Costa Rica... it has had very little malaria for at least the last 15 years..
what has kept the infection and deaths down is the rapid response of the government
as the youtube relates... Honduras does have malaria and there are more deaths,, the difference is in the government response
Still, given the choice of taking anti-malaria medicine on developing fever surely most people would take it given the option? That is the point whether outbreaks of malaria are recent or not probably doesn't matter-its the cultural memory of having had a dose of malaria - the symptoms could not be distinguished from early symptoms of COVID-19. The Government response obviously is also important in limiting the spread.
No mass administration of HCQ in Costa Rica, but there is adminstration to most confirmed and suspected patients
"
We decided to ask for help from those who have gone through this. The experts from Shanghai and Wuhan gave us recommendations for patient management.
We were told that it is key that a mild or moderate patient does not become severe.
They explained that they used hydroxychloroquine for this, but never azithromycin due to the associated cardiac complications,” Ruiz said.
In the group of 88 patients recovered up to Friday, April 17, the use of this drug has allowed covid-19 control tests to be negative, he added.
Marjorie Obando confirmed that up to Thursday, April 16, hydroxychloroquine treatment had been given to 1,361 people,
including cases suspected of being infected. Of these, 498 corresponded to confirmed patients.
The average age of those who have received this treatment is 38.8 years; 7% are under 18 years of age, 10% over 60 and 54% are women.
“The prescription must be carried out as part of the medical record, individually for each patient, considering the benefit-risk ratio, pre-existing health conditions, medications they take and the possible drug interactions, that is why it is not given to all patients,” said the director of Pharmacoepidemiology.
Diseases like diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cancer, and asthma are not contraindications to giving treatment,
she added. However, she warned, each case must be assessed individually.
Ruiz explained: “Hydroxychloroquine has specific specifications and doses.
Thanks to the help that Chinese scientists gave us and a manual of therapeutic care, we are using this treatment at the established doses.”
Because of recent declining malaria transmission in Latin America, some authorities have recommended against chemoprophylaxis for most travelers to this region. However, the predominant parasite species in Latin America, Plasmodium vivax, can form hypnozoites sequestered in the liver, causing malaria relapses. Additionally, new evidence shows the potential severity of vivax infections, warranting continued consideration of prophylaxis for travel to Latin America. Individualized travel risk assessments are recommended and should consider travel locations, type, length, and season, as well as probability of itinerary changes. Travel recommendations might include no precautions, mosquito avoidance only, or mosquito avoidance and chemoprophylaxis. There are a range of good options for chemoprophylaxis in Latin America, including atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline, mefloquine, and—in selected areas—chloroquine. Primaquine should be strongly considered for nonpregnant, G6PD-nondeficient patients traveling to vivax-endemic areas of Latin America, and it has the added benefit of being the only drug to protect against malaria relapses.
All these anti-malarial drugs have been restricted since the coronavirus outbreak - urgent testing of all CQ analogues in use today should be done against COVID-19. Or just ask Elon Musk for his opinion after surviving a dose of malaria.
Doxycycline instead of Azithromycin maybe? A cardioprotective antibiotic also used as an anti malarial:
Doxycycline to Protect Heart Muscle After Heart Attacks - Full ...
clinicaltrials.gov › show › NCT03508232
25 Apr 2018 - The participants in this study showed no adverse effects of using ... Doxycycline decreases intracellular proteolysis, improves cardiac function, ...
Costa Rica has a far more progressive attitude and is successfully treating the pandemic. Unrestrained by EU US WHO thinking. Makes me ashamed that the UK is so backward.
“We are not adopting a protocol from another country just for the sake of it. We are responsible and we verify that what they present is true and convincing. Their experience is valid. The studies published are international, but on the other side, we have a life-threatening infection.
“Therefore, it is necessary to approach the patient with decisions based on the best scientific evidence that exists in a situation such as the current one in order to make a public health decision,” Obando said.
Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are “first cousins,” explained Olga Arguedas, who is a specialist in immunology. Both drugs have chemical compositions and medical uses that are not exactly the same.
“They are old acquaintances. They are registered in Costa Rica and are produced locally. This was taken into account as an important point in the decision to give hydroxychloroquine as treatment. They are known because they have antiviral mechanisms. Hydroxychloroquine was used in Shanghai as the first line of treatment,” said Arguedas.
The specialist in immunology explained the drug has been used in Brazil and France and the Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública summarized all the treatments that are being published for covid-19. Those in more advanced stages (with more scientific information) are those where hydroxychloroquine has been used.
“We still cannot be sure because there is no scientific evidence. However, in the very particular case of Costa Rica, this could be one of the elements that is influencing the good results of the country so far,” added Arguedas.
She emphasized that the purpose pursued with the use of hydroxychloroquine is to mitigate the progression of the disease.
So Costa Rica is effectively adopting Mass Fever Treatment with hydroxychloroquine but not the less targeted Mass Drug Adminitration approach. Good for them, hope the WHO will recommend this soon to limit the pandemic worldwide.
