Covid-19 News

Quote from Dr Richard

oldguyI wouldn't worry too much about India, they seem to have the common sense to use anti virus treatment when the scientific/clinical/biochemical evidence suggests it. Unlike the 'developed nations'. So this advisory was issued 22 March? Lets see how the statistics develop from then on. (my suspicion is there was already widespread use in India unofficially before this because of widespread availabilty for malaria treatment-accounting for 0.2 deaths per million)

I don't share your unfounded optimism. India is very poor and very crowded. By now, it is clear that the drugs are no panacea. The situation for India and Pakistan is terrifying.

Quote from Dr Richard

Time for Mass Drug Administration (MDA)? Still worried about 1 in 100,000 fatal heart attacks when the 100,000 will die of COVD-19.?

Where are the data for that? It's silly. The people who need the medication most, those with pre-existing conditions and the elderly are the most vulnerable to dangerous side effects of hydroxychloroquine and possible azithromycin as well. What is the incidence of seizures? GI bleeds or other GI issues? Do the drugs really work? Could they, in some instances, make things worse? You have absolutely no idea. You have nothing but hot air.

Abbott announces a 5-minute on-site coronavirus test.

https://www.abbott.com/corpnew…-little-as-5-minutes.html

It looks automated to me. Easier to use than the machines now being used at hospitals that I have seen in videos.

Quote from THHuxleynew

There are two separate issues here: the science and the politics.

The major sub issue in the US and maybe the world is testing. We will not learn enough about how this virus works until we can test rapidly and easily for both live virus shedding and immune antibodies (if those actually protect). It is odd that this country has decided (under it's current highly questionable leadership) to spend trillions of dollars for economic aid, much of which will go to the rich people, while the spending for research, and especially for testing is a mere pittance. That is just wrong-- ask any epidemiologist or virologist.

Quote from Navid

At what level of mortality from this disease do we give up our rights and stop our country from a bad flu?

At no level. We have not given up any rights. We are not doing anything that Americans did not do throughout the history of the U.S., including colonial times. On the contrary, we are surrendering fewer rights than people did in the 19th century and during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. In the 19th century, public health officials in most states and cities were given absolute power to take any property for the duration of an epidemic, and to order any group of people or company to do, make, or stop making anything. They were given far more power than any modern leaders or law enforcement agencies. In 1918 they quickly shut down all places of business in most major cities, and ordered everyone to wear masks.

You need to read history.

This is what any sane nation must do in the face of a serious epidemic. If we had not shut down the entire country, we would have hundreds of thousands of new cases a day, and millions of deaths by the end of the year. Without a vaccine, shutting down and quarantine are the only way to stop -- or slow down -- an epidemic. This has been known for all of recorded history. It is as true today as it was in the 15th century.

Scientist promotes Vitamins

Starting at 32 minute mark.

DR says fear feeds the fire.

Low Cost Ventilators.

The Lunar 11 Quarantine.

Quote from Shane D.

Most of who had serious underlying health issues, and would have died within a year or two anyway.

Simply untrue and a vicious lie. Or, instead of just parroting some slimy crap you got off the internet, how about some data? So what percentage of people dying of COVID-19 are below the age of 60 and have no underlying conditions? You should have that information and the related evidence and documentation before you make silly statements like the above. And also, how many have been permanently injured even though they survived? And how many person-years of life have been cut off?

Quote

I see more and more older people like myself, publicly saying "don't shut down the economy for my sake. I will deal with the risk. Let the young people get back to work"

Nonsense and ignorance. Until we have widespread and nearly universal testing, both for live virus and for antibodies, we have nothing to go on. The tests are here and distribution will come soon enough. Impatience is lethal in an epidemic. And not just for the old or those with underlying conditions. With proper medical care, it is indeed those people who bear the brunt of the deaths. But even with good care, those who don't die often incur permanent organ damage and lifelong high costs and misery. And that is not to mention the torture they endure to get well. But with poor care or overwhelmed medical centers, even the young and healthy die in droves. You just do not seem to understand what a pandemic is. Or what this particular virus does in some people. Take a lesson from China and S. Korea and even they are by no means done with the disease. The eventual solutions will be adequate testing, an effective medicine or medicines and finally a vaccine. Until then, returning to business as usual will create more havoc and more shutdowns.

Quote from JedRothwell

Abbott announces a 5-minute on-site coronavirus test.

https://www.abbott.com/corpnew…-little-as-5-minutes.html

It looks automated to me. Easier to use than the machines now being used at hospitals that I have seen in videos.

This machine has been around for quite a few years. What's new is the COVID-19 test kit. I briefly tried to find out costs for the machine and the kits but couldn't. At the moment, you have to go through convolutions with their reps to get that, I think. It's very slick, very complex and well designed molecular biology stuff but the human interface is, as you said, simple. You open a vial of fluid and swish the patient's nasal swab in it for a short time. Then you insert the vial into the machine, press a button and that's it. 5 minutes to get a positive test and 15 minutes to verify a negative. The device isolates the viral RNA and then performs PCR amplification followed by detection, all by automation. What genius!! We need tons of those and so does the world-- not necessarily from Abbott though they deserve credit for the development.

Quote from Shane D.

These are freedoms that will be hard to regain once this is over, as it establishes newly expanded boundaries for Big Brother to control our lives in the future. That is not who we are.

Nonsense. This is exactly who we are, and always have been. It is what every western nation as been since the beginning of modern medicine, and especially after the Pasteur discovered the germ theory. We have always given public health officials broad power in the face of epidemics. We have always taken that power back after the epidemic is over. We also give them broad power to regulate food, water purity, sewers and much else.

Your whole notion that we are less free, or more controlled by the government than in the past is a-historic nonsense. You have not read history. You do not realize what life was like in the past -- before 1960 for most people. Read any history of civil rights and you will see they were a dead letter for most of U.S. history.

Generally speaking, the U.S. is now the most free it has ever been. The government has far less intrusive control over people lives than it ever had, and far less regulatory control over most business. To give a few examples, the government no longer prohibits contraceptives or homosexuality. It no longer imprisons people indefinitely when they are judged mentally ill. Due process and a lawyer are now provided. In colonial time up to the mid-19th century, the government regulated the cost of all hotels, and the content of the food they served. Up until the 1960s it regulated telephones, trucking and airlines, and prohibited advertising of legal services, and it interfered in business in thousands of ways that are no longer acceptable. In colonial and early U.S. history, when people did not teach their children how to read or take them to church, local officials were authorized to take the children away from them in Massachusetts. See:

https://www.constitution.org/p…ources/schoollaw1642.html

Home schooling was prohibited until the 1970s. It is not only allowed today, it isn't even regulated now, in most states. This would have been unthinkable when I was growing up. I think it goes too far.

Freedom of the press was much less broad before the internet. Not only pornography, but a wide range of other writing was effectively prohibited. Religion was restricted and persecuted, especially the Mormon religion.

Furthermore, when people outside the government violated people's rights, the government often did nothing to prevent it. The most extreme example was the KKK and lynching, but there were many others. To give a strange example, in the 1840s before beards became fashionable, in many cities and town, a man with a beard would be beat up and forcibly shaved.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

What's new is the COVID-19 test kit.

They developed the kit quickly, didn't they? It has been given emergency authorization from the FDA.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

You open a vial of fluid and swish the patient's nasal swab in it for a short time. Then you insert the vial into the machine, press a button and that's it.

That is how the flu test at my doctor's office works.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

We need tons of those and so does the world--

If it is a new kit for an existing device, maybe there are many already installed.

I have not had time to read all the comments yet but the article is an interesting discussion of what we know right now about treating COVID-19 with HCQ+Azi.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/p…quine-data-as-of-april-11

Quote from JedRothwell

They developed the kit quickly, didn't they? It has been given emergency authorization from the FDA.

They sure did. It's not too difficult to understand how these things work but to actually design the kit for an existing machine in a short time and have it work right is absolutely amazing.

@sot - we will have to agree to disagree yet again - but mark my words well this treatment will be arriving soon and will save at least 100,000 lives.

https://www.newsweek.com/spain…19-health-workers-1497277

This will be a study of prevention rather than treatment... and certainly side effects as well. Sorry if a repost, it's hard to keep up.

Quote from Alan Smith

As somebody who almost got arrested for taking a morning walk in an LA suburb early one morning I can vouch for that.

Can you say more about that? Was it related to the epidemic or before it? Also, which suburb probably matters.