Covid-19 News

Just got this via facebook (I have not checked it but....)

Quote from Wyttenbach

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.

We are here arguing research papers. Not whether 80% of those >80 die anyway so should perhaps not be given ventilators (that is an entirely separate argument, with many ethical dimensions, of interest).

What I claim is stronger evidence:

https://www.thelancet.com/jour…-3099(20)30243-7/fulltext

IFR = 0.66% (in line with people's guesses before it could sensibly be calculated)

What I claim is weaker evidence:

https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…101/2020.02.12.20022434v2

IFR = 0.12%

And Shiva uses the difference between this and the WHO CFR of 4% (early) 2% (later) as evidence of nefarious WHO scientists.

The quoted WHO CFR is neither here nor there. It is easier to estimate, and a more accurate figure, but cannot be used to extrapolate death rates in a different country since it depends on how many infections are caught as cases.

THH

https://www.newsweek.com/hydro…nce-heart-cardiac-1496810

FRENCH HOSPITAL STOPS HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE TREATMENT FOR COVID-19 PATIENT OVER MAJOR CARDIAC RISK

Quote from oldguy

Just got this via facebook (I have not checked it but....)

https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch…669-coronavirus-patients/

Were this dramatic good set of results true I'd expect to see continued updates, and much more data, by now, even though it would all still be anecdotal.

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Yes, raise the Zn levels to block the corona virus RNA polymerase! We did suggest 15 mg but in an acute treatment for several days higher levels would be more effective. Supplement with iron tablets to prevent Zn toxicity.

some articles try to tell you that the antibacterial Azithromycin couldn't possible help or is just for secondary infections since it is a not an anti viral. But such writers haven't done their homework -Azithromycin effects HUMAN bronchial cells and causes them to release interferons which then protect.

https://techstartups.com/2020/…llowing-protocol-exclusi/

So here is an update.

700 patients vs 1 death sounds good but:

Not enough time for followup. We know that COVID can take a long time, and people seem OK till they get severe symptoms later.

We just don't know who is included in the 700 patient set. Did they all have COVID?

From 0.66% IFR you would expect 4 deaths. You could go +100% - 50% based on different demographic profile. These are primary care patients, not patients going to hospital.

So this is encouraging evidence but not miracle evidence unless we have more information about how the patients presented.

Let us hope it is real.

axil Never been a problem in 75 years of malaria treatment or prophylaxis. There are plenty of drugs that could be used to block these cardiac side effects. Has anybody actually died of cardiac complications during hospital treatment with HCQ? I don't think so. A lot of people have atrial fibrillation from a heavy drinking session, or over-abuse of cannabis but do you hear them complaining about it? It's a temporary, trivial side effect blown out of all proportion and looking more and more like anti-Trump propaganda. They are even cooking up false scientific papers to justify their position. Do they realise people are dying without this medicine?

Quote from Shane D.

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,

Some policies might do that, if they are applied mindlessly by idiots. The polities employed in China and Japan did not hurt them much. Because, in addition shutting down a large fraction of the GOP, they included support for individuals, such as 70% unemployment insurance, food subsidies, food that would normally be used in school lunches distributed to families with children instead, monitoring of elderly people, food deliveries, and so on. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should be forced into poverty by the mass shutdowns and the stay-at-home orders, as long as those orders are coupled with commonsense policies to prevent that. As I said, in the U.S. nearly all of the civilian economy was turned off during WWII, but no one suffered. Rationing and other methods prevented this.

Shutting down the economy and then paying everyone to stay at home will work, and it will cause no economic harm, as long as the government collects taxes to make up for the money it now spends. It has to collect taxes from rich people, for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: because that's where the money is. Rich people will "suffer" by losing some of their income. They'll be fine. Don't worry about them. They were okay financially during and after WWII even though some tax rates were at 90%.

For those like me open minded and interested in all the anecdotal HCQ+AZT+Zn works info, and specifically Dr. Zelenko's claims, here is a great thread on his claims:

https://www.theyeshivaworld.co…/topic/hydroxychloroquine

You have to read all of it, and it is quite long. But here is a key part:

https://www.theyeshivaworld.co…ychloroquine#post-1847970

Basically, if you read the whole thing, there are real questions about the demographics here which are not typical. No miracle yet from these anecdotal figures.

Median age 15 (VZ's population) is very very young. The at risk 65+ cohort is 40X smaller than in neighbouring Lakeview with which his figures were compared.

So we expect a MUCH lower IFR from VZ's population than typical, and his 0.1% IFR looks reasonable.

The point is, we can make use of large-scale anecdotal data, but only if it is properly documented. Otherwise issues like this demographic bias can completely skew the results. And there are other potential issues as well, selection bias etc, which is why sensible people are cautious in making inferences from anecdotal information.

Quote from Shane D.

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.

That is not even slightly true. Evidently you are not familiar with demography, statistics, or the social sciences. As I mentioned, my mother was a leading expert in these fields, in the Public Opinion Research Section at the Census Bureau. (Where the motto was: "ours is not to do or die, ours is but to question why.") She and her colleagues were skilled as identifying and reducing the effects of personal bias, and weeding out bad data. Opinions are not eliminated; they are grist for the mill. The whole point of Public Opinion Research is to measure, quantify, and pin Opinion to the board. Bad data and confusion are as much a part of social science as muck and fertilizer are part of plant breeding. * You have to know how to deal with them. As she said, "we can tell when you are lying on the census form." (She didn't care -- she thought it was hilarious.) Dealing with people is no different from dealing with other primates and other animals. Any species has a level of irreducible complexity and unpredictability. If they did not, predators would wipe out the species in no time. Even guppies have free will and they are unpredictable as individuals, but you can draw statistically valid conclusions about their behavior.

Census Bureau data is not suspect or useless, because those people know how to deal with it. It is extremely useful, and accurate to an uncanny extent when predicting or modeling some behavior and some trends. (Not all, but these people know what they know, and what they don't know.) Granted, my mother called demography and social science, "the hot air sciences." But they are still scientific.

Long after my mother left the field, modern analyses of human opinions and emotions began on a massive scale with the internet. These are astounding. They are conducted by brilliant social scientists. These people are so good they can tell that a customer at Target is pregnant before she herself knows it, or at least, before she admits it to her dad. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/k…-father-did/#44cb27306668) Some of them have tackled one of the most difficult areas of human behavior and emotion: love. Christian Rudder, the founder of OKCupid, may know more about your libido than you yourself know. As he says, his job is to make the ineffable 'effable.

For that matter, bias, opinions and bad data cause problems in all branches of science, even physics and chemistry, which are supposedly the most objective.

* Plant breeding and statistics is where my mother began, in agriculture school. She was good at working with actual muck, fertilizer and manure, not to mention bullshit in the more modern sense.

Quote from THHuxleynew

https://techstartups.com/2020/…llowing-protocol-exclusi/

...

We just don't know who is included in the 700 patient set. Did they all have COVID?

From 0.66% IFR you would expect 4 deaths. You could go +100% - 50% based on different demographic profile. These are primary care patients, not patients going to hospital.

As I recall from his previous updates on his study, the patients presented symptoms of covid but were not confirmed with covid by PCR.

So Dr. Zelenko was proactive, good for him. A doctor bucking the trend.

This has little to to with IFR, which includes asymptomatic people. Zelenko's patients were all symptomatic.

HCQ +Azithromycin use steadily increasing

Sermo survey of prescribers. n=1662 April 2

https://public-cdn.sermo.com/c…id-19-global-analysis.pdf

Quote from Mark U

As I recall from his previous updates on his study, the patients presented symptoms of covid but were not confirmed with covid by PCR.

So Dr. Zelenko was proactive, good for him. A doctor bucking the trend.

This has little to to with IFR, which includes asymptomatic people. Zelenko's patients were all symptomatic.

Well, COVID symptoms are not distinguishable easily from other respiratory illnesses, as you know. When he started one of the posters on that insightful thread noted that the COVID incidence was very low, but regardless of that, probably not relevant for the later patients. So let us agree that all these patients have COVID, they are not what is normally called cases, which are people admitted to hospital (in most countries). ZF was dealing with primary care patients almost none of whom went to hospital! The accepted proportion of infected patients with definite (perhaps mild) symptoms is around 50%, at least that is the proportion that comes out of the 0.66% IFR calculation, so whether true or false it is what we should use.

In that case we have a ZFR (Zelenko fatality rate) of 1.3%, or 10/700. BUT that assumes a normal demographic (median age 30 - 40). ZF's demographic is incredibly young from the info I posted above, median age 15! That of course means that his patients are much much less likely to have serious cases of COVID, even though it seems they are as likely to catch it and develop mild symptoms. I agree with the poster I linked, it is just impossible to say whether VZ statistics are good or bad until we have more precise demographic and case presentation information. They certainly don't obviously look better than expected, because young people are so much less likley to have serious COVID.

You can see why my guarded positivism changed after I discovered this demographic issue.

I also wish that others looking at this could be curious and interested in the data, rather than having some predefined position.

Possible new drugs are identified and their mechanism of action is explained.

Also blood efficiency reduction is debunked.

Quote from Shane D.

That is not to mean there will not be huge economic and social costs that will result from this fight with the virus.

Obviously there will be! It is unavoidable. But the costs would be far higher if we did not have stay-at-home and social distancing. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people would have died. The hospital bills alone would probably exceed the $2 trillion Congress is handing out.

If the administration had done what Korea and Japan did, it would have cost a small fraction of $2 trillion. It would be 10 to 100 times cheaper.

The social cost of letting millions of people die for no reason, simply out of stupidity, neglect and grotesque incompetence, would be that we become tantamount to Nazis. That is a price no civilized society should pay. Nazis killed people out of evil; we would kill them because we are idiots. The suffering and dead people wouldn't be any better off.

It is one thing to have 34,000 people a year die in automobile wrecks, or 20,000 die from seasonal flu. Those outcomes cannot be avoided. We must have transportation. We can't live without cars. We do the best we can to make cars safer. We will soon be able to make them far safer, with self driving cars -- and we should, of course. Most car accidents are caused by stupid people speeding, taking chances or being drunk. To some extent people choose to kill themselves in car accidents. (They kill others, unfortunately.) We do the best we can to make flu vaccines. Unfortunately, most adults do not get them. Again, people choose to take risks and kill themselves with flu. But in the case of the coronavirus, we could easily have reduced the deaths by a factor of 100, to the levels in Japan and Korea. We did not, because our leaders are idiots who don't know the first thing about science. It their fault, and our fault for electing them. There is plenty of blame to go around.

It is as if cars killed 200,000 people a year, and every expert knew how to reduce that down to 34,000, but no one did anything. That was more or less the situation before the first effective modern automobile regulations in 1968.

Quote from Shane D.

At some point our astronomical Federal national debt will come back and haunt us.

Only if we do not collect taxes to pay it down. We can easily fix this. Just return to the Clinton era tax rates and all will be well after while. People were not starving in those years. Grass was not growing on the streets of America. Rich people got a lot richer during those years.

There is no crisis in the Federal debt, because it can easily be paid down. Gradually, but easily. The only "crisis" is that the 1% does not want to pay taxes, so they end up paying maybe 15% of their income (the capital gains tax rate), or zero if they can hide the money in the Cayman Islands. The top 1% earns 13% of national wealth. The top 10% earns 39%. So they can easily afford to pay more taxes, at least until the debt is retired.

Quote from JedRothwell

if they can hide the money in the Cayman Islands...the 1% does not want to pay taxes

The directors of Carnival Corporation won't be available for taxing..

the recent billions they raised from the Saudis will be buried on Treasure Island somewhere safe..

https://www.law360.com/tax-aut…e-as-trump-floats-bailout

whether or not Trump can morph into Roosevelt remains to be seen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal