https://www.newsweek.com/swedi…d-19-side-effects-1496368

SOME SWEDISH HOSPITALS HAVE STOPPED USING CHLOROQUINE TO TREAT COVID-19 AFTER REPORTS OF SEVERE SIDE EFFECTS

Longer term HCQ use would have negative effects on the immune system. But if Dr Oz is correct maybe there is some adaptation of the immune system to the lower doses used for Lupus and RA. Same may be true of cardiac issues as @sot has mentioned. Hydroxychloroquine is certainly prophylactic against malaria due to intracellular concentration in lysosomes, endoplasmic reticulum etc. with a weekly dose of 500 mg. and is thought to kill the Plasmodium parasites in red blood cells by blocking haem polymerization enzymes inside its digestive vacuole. Clever protozoa has developed resistance to CQ by synthesizing a new protein (PfCRT?) which prevents this CQ accumulation so haem levels no longer rise enough to be toxic and kill the damn parasite! But yes, great if the intracellular level of HCQ concentrates to 10 uM sufficient to block corona virus RNA polymerase (mediated by a rise in Zn or other mechanisms?). Would be consistent with epidemiological evidence I've shown correlating malaria prophylaxis with remarkably low COVID-19 cases in Africa etc.The Swedish study is silly, CQ has been used safely since 1945.

Quote from oldguy

I like this paper:

http://web.archive.org/web/202…d-its-secret-91182386efcb

O2 not ventilators and Hydroxychloroquine....

It is a good read, very interesting, but has a low likelihood of being correct.

from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22803280

I tried googling the author's username and found this:

https://thedonald.win/p/4FWoXTT/so-why-are-we-being-whipped-...

"It escaped the Wuhan BL4 facility and was likely a bug/bio weapon Chinese were working on in that facility using our tax & trade deficit dollars"

Seems a reliable source!

EDIT: Also from the user's post history:

"I'm not an academic so fuck all that citation waste of time"

From the same comment thread, https://chemrxiv.org/articles/…ing_to_Porphyrin/11938173

This is a Chinese scientific paper (no overt politics) proposing the heme attack mechanism, and suggesting that HCQ (and favipiravir) can act by blocking this.

It is very highly speculative. The evidence on which it rests comes from molecular docking studies (theoretical, looking at how specific molecules bind together). There is a big gap going from these studies to what actually happens.

So this is definitely an avenue worth pursuing, but there are 100s of such avenues owrth pursuing and we don't yet know which are significant.

We do know that HCQ is not a miracle drug - there is too much not great evidence - this paper thinks it might deactivate one pathway for heme destruction but not others. And it is all highly speculative.

So the independent things to watch here are:

(1) evidence that heme destruction and consequent oxidative damage and O2 transport loss is specifcally significant clinically in severe COVID 2 pneumonia

(2) evidence that HCQ prevents this.

The evidence for (1) is stronger than for (2), I think, though both are speculative.

Note that this is quite separate from the HCQ +Zn anecdotal comment from an ER doctor, which would be doing something different. I don't trust that comment much but at least it is easily checked, if HCQ + Zn really is a miracle cure for severe COVID you can be sure we will get confirmation pretty soon!

Quote from Toffoli

Early epidemiological assessment of the transmission potential and virulence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan City:

China, January-February, 2020

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022434v2

"In media stat virus?"

Dr. Shiva opinion on "Corona virus propaganda" #FireFauci

Dr.SHIVA LIVE: We are at War. #FireFauci. End the Shutdown.

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Note: Dr Shiva opinion is interesting but does not necessarily reflect my personal one

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There are sensible people who in the past (less so now) have argued IFR could be very low. As you can tell from this link, this guy is not evaluating science, he is evaluating his view of politics, and then trying (unsuccessfully) to make science fit his weird paranoia.

You get people everywhere claiming that due to larger than most think number of asymptomatic cases the epidemic, left to run freely, will be OK, with a low IFR so that it naturally self-limits before anything too bad happens.

The paper quoted here gives IFR = 0.12 and is weak, some 5X lower than everyone else's best calculations, because it tries to infer IFR only from indirect China data. There is much more data available now, from that Cruise ship, from the Italian village that was locked down and 100% tested, etc. Still it is not certain, you could reasonably have +100% - 50% tolerance on the current best guess IFR of 0.66%. (good recent paper linked here a while ago said that). But anything in that range means v large number of people die, and health systems are overwhelmed, with no lockdown

In addition, data from localities where infections are particularly intense show that IFR cannot be as low as Shiva claims.

This type of blatant disregard for the complete most recent science picture is unfortunate.

One of the saddest things about the US now is that a large strand of political opinion (Shiva above one example) takes the view that experts, and scientists, are essentially liars or fools and working to (or victims of) a political agenda, so the consensus cannot be trusted.

The problem is that then we can trust nothing, and we have two or more contradictory political views that hate each other. All facts are fake facts.

You see this wrt AGW, as here COVID, evolutionary theory, and almost anything now related to the POTUS.

I'm not saying that scientists are always right over these issues, but the evidence for conclusions is published, debated, all strands of opinion get argued. Much more better than any of the political slants where there is incredibly selective reference to the literature and a high politics / science ratio. Thus we are asked to disbelieve opponents because they vote the wrong way, or have the wrong friends.

THH

Quote from THHuxleynew

One of the saddest things about the US now is that a large strand of political opinion (Shiva above one example) takes the view that experts, and scientists, are essentially liars or fools and working to (or victims of) a political agenda, so the consensus cannot be trusted.

The problem is that then we can trust nothing, and we have two or more contradictory political views that hate each other. All facts are fake facts.

You see this wrt AGW, as here COVID, evolutionary theory, and almost anything now related to the POTUS.

I'm not saying that scientists are always right over these issues, but the evidence for conclusions is published, debated, all strands of opinion get argued. Much more better than any of the political slants where there is incredibly selective reference to the literature and a high politics / science ratio. Thus we are asked to disbelieve opponents because they vote the wrong way, or have the wrong friends.

THH

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I agree a lot of good scientists and researchers get demonized or ostracized by certain communities because they happen to fit there pet conspiracies. Maybe unknowingly trapped in more of a psycho-social or cultural box than deliberate spreaders of political agendas. Without some trust collective scientific and personal progress is crippled. That said a lot of specialization in science based on manmade categories constructed to easily serve only existing industries will slow the unveiling of fundamental opening of glorious paradigm shifts.

LeBob which is why our LF is such a good place to pick up interesting ideas and discuss them in a scientific way without any political or academic bias.

Quote from Shane D.

Notice that he says "especially from the heart", and "we cannot rule out serious side effects". Well duh. That is after the patient claims he had a horrible headache, and a loss of peripheral vision. Sounds like one of my hangovers!

Then, as if on cue, the article drags Trump/HCQ into the story. Not a sincere piece.

Exactly. And what the heck. Symptoms of infection include severe headache and a variety of ocular issues. Don't need chloroquine to produce those effects.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/p…oquine-update-for-april-6

Hydroxychloroquine Update For April 6

To reiterate a combo of metformin and hydroxychgloroquine could be more effective against COVID-19. The above update is a load of old self-opinionated BS.

Despite an unprecedented 2 decades of success, the combat against malaria — the mosquito-transmitted disease caused by Plasmodium parasites — is no longer progressing. Efforts toward eradication are threatened by the lack of an effective vaccine and a rise in antiparasite drug resistance. Alternative approaches are urgently needed. Repurposing of available, approved drugs with distinct modes of action are being considered as viable and immediate adjuncts to standard antimicrobial treatment. Such strategies may be well suited to the obligatory and clinically silent first phase of Plasmodium infection, where massive parasite replication occurs within hepatocytes in the liver. Here, we report that the widely used antidiabetic drug, metformin, impairs parasite liver stage development of both rodent-infecting Plasmodium berghei and human-infecting P. falciparum parasites. Prophylactic treatment with metformin curtails parasite intracellular growth in vitro. An additional effect was observed in mice with a decrease in the numbers of infected hepatocytes. Moreover, metformin provided in combination with conventional liver- or blood-acting antimalarial drugs further reduced the total burden of P. berghei infection and substantially lessened disease severity in mice. Together, our findings indicate that repurposing of metformin in a prophylactic regimen could be considered for malaria chemoprevention.

The healthdata model has been updated. Actual data through today has been added. The model now estimates 60,000 deaths, which is considerably fewer than it estimated last week.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

Quote from JedRothwell

The healthdata model has been updated. Actual data through today has been added. The model now estimates 60,000 deaths, which is considerably fewer than it estimated last week.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

Some dim sunshine 🙏🏽.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The problem is that then we can trust nothing, and we have two or more contradictory political views that hate each other. All facts are fake facts.

The problem is that the directory of WHO is formed by "unskilled in the art" puppets of the big Pharma interest groups. The nonsense these people did spread over the last 20 years would cost any business manager his head. Just one thing: Swine flue --> big income for big Pharma 10x less deaths that regular flue...

The problem is that most decision makers have preconditions and need to be locked in. That's why they obstruct to order the most natural solution of the crisis.

Just to repeat it once more: 80% of the ventilator ICU cases with age >80 just are going to die and block the space for the much currently fewer younger that will need it if we put in place the lock in of the vulnerable.

Quote from Shane D.

That is too generalized. The side you are pointing your finger at has tremendous respect for scientists, but are suspicious of those sciences where human input is necessary in creating, say, a model, social algorithm, poll, etc. Once humans are in the chain, it has been shown time and time again, that personal biases, opinions, and bad data can be introduced, making the output suspect, or useless. Mostly due error, ignorance, but at times with a political goal in mind, or even acting out on a personal vendetta.

Sticking to the topic; with the pandemic policies being driven by Models that have led to the shutting down of 20% world GDP, forcing tens of millions into poverty, we better be damn certain they are giving us solid, unbiased, objective info, and not something else. Don't you think? With so much on the line, is it OK that these models themselves, and those behind them, be held up to scrutiny?

Shane, my specific comment was motivated by toffoli's link. If you listen it you will see that there is no respect for scientists nor science. there is somone who selectively (in a way no scientist would think appropriate) picks one obviously deficient paper - obviously deficien because it uses very limited data, rather than better more recent studies. the better studies are absolutely in line with mainstream models. To argue against this you need:

(a) to falsify models, or selectively pick incomplete data

(b) to believe that the large number of epidemiologists, internationally, with broadly similar projections, are 99% wrong all in the same directIon. (I should point out also that the 1% disagreeing strongly do so on the basis of assumptions, not facts or attempt to estimate facts). They are not technically wrong, just not looking at all the existing available data).

The detail just does not bear out what you say on this issue. Similarly on AGW (where there is a similar political alignment). I'm not saying that a specific political view necessitates having this contemptuous view of science and scientists - just noting that at the moment in the US it seems common.

Now, the political decisions about do you let the pandemic rip or do you shut down the economy are not here what I'm arguing. Nor are the epidemiologists making that decision, they just make models. More political figures may do so, and doctors, horrified at their position with so many deaths, also may do so. However those who argue the models are wrong are almost uniformly animated by political bias.

If you don't agree that is your priviledge. I'll make an observation. Your stance is often to look at science from the outside, and without considering details, reckon that when there are strongly argued opposing viewpoints the correct answer must always be in between these two points, or perhaps must always be something that is guesswork, because with such opposed arguments science cannot give a strong answer. That is just not true. Some scientific arguments, looked at with care, are strong. Others are weak (for example, as in this one, they rely on limited facts and very tendentious extrapolations to make models rather than incorporating additional more directly relevant facts). We could look at the details here comparing a weak paper with a stronger one if you like.