Covid-19 News

    Quote from Navid

    First of all the person was talking about the flu vaccines - we weren't talking about those rare diseases. His clinical insight is probably on track, and I'm sure if you spend the time looking you'll find the same.


    Completely wrong. Flu vaccines are not 15% effective. They are close to 100% effective for the strains they target. They are roughly 60% effective for a given year because there are so many strains, and the vaccine can only target 3 or 4 of them. However, even when they miss a strain, they often cause the disease to be much milder than it would be with no vaccine.

    Quote from Bob#2

    My stance is that Jed and your total "lock down" is the ONLY means to fight it and I disagree with that.


    On the contrary, I said there are much better methods, but we are not using them. There was no lockdown in Korea, and hardly any in Japan. They didn't need them, because they used better methods.


    Quote from Bob#2

    I also state that Jed's assertion that if "we only did what Korea did" we would not be in this situation.


    So, you think that methods that worked in China, Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Alaska will not work elsewhere? Why not?


    Quote from Bob#2

    Well, that is just like Jed's response to MIzuno's reactor...... if you follow exactly what he did, you will see great success....


    I never said anything REMOTELY like that!!! On the contrary, I said that Mizuno followed his own methods and it did not work, on numerous occasions, including the most recent set of tests.


    You put words in my mouth. You claim that I said the extreme opposite of what I actually said. You are probably not fooling anyone, so I suggest you cut the crap.

    Quote from Dr Richard

    Gosh I was right about doxycycline! That was a shot in the dark, it's cardio and renal protective unlike azithromycin, so much better to give with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine too. When I have time I'll write this all up as a table etc with a complete formulation of Anti Bat.:)

    Dr. Richard,


    Also, is it time dependent based on how long you have been infected?

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Completely wrong.


    Dr. Google doesn't treat patients. I will trust an internist who is highly respected and credentialed (and who I know). He has less reason to lower the number, since he probably makes money off vaccines! Dr. Google has no actual clinical experience and is backed by data from the CDC (which is the industry).


    There are plenty of data-points that suggest the physicians are on to something but you have to dig for them (e.g. this article and this article)

    Quote from Bob#2

    Yet a lockdown will?


    You're suggesting a selective lockdown to protect elderly, all those with diabetes, hypertension, COPD, chronic liver or kidney disease, autoimmune diseases, etc. etc. etc,? That's nuts. Most of people like this live with families. They have neighbors. They need groceries, medical care, funds, and so on. Sure, wealthy elderly can be segregate from their families but the susceptible persons with usual or less than usual incomes can not. They couldn't live. There is no way to separate them and keep them safe. As said before: social distancing, wearing masks, keeping hands as clean as possible and widespread testing for both antibody and antigen. If you don't do those, and you turn the society loose, like we seem to be doing in the US, there is essentially no limit to the misery and death. And eventually, that will screw the economy even worse than lockdowns. But hey, no need to speculate -- the experiment is being done. Wait and see how it works out. So far, it's worked out to 90,000+ deaths in the US, growing at least linearly (maybe a bit faster than that) at what now? 2000 deaths per day? More? Yeah. We're doing just great.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    Dr Richard- Well deduced! When you do your table, could you give some details of dosage and drug function?

    Really? IMO, we don't need more risky and dangerous (and mostly futile) presumptions and speculations. What would help is double blind controlled matched studies. Have any of those for your proposed drugs? Safety and efficacy studies?


    Not to mention that "Dr" Richard's baseless recommendations, for the most part, can not be implemented by individuals anyway because they involve prescription medications. And these are medications that no self-respecting licensed medical professional would prescribe on present evidence. India used to provide meds without prescriptions but my last orders from India for HCQ were shipped and registered with India Post but never got to USPS where they were supposed to end up for delivery. That's about $500 I will never see again, I suspect.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    seven_of_twenty


    The Guardian ( the UK's most sensible newspaper) reported on Saturday the the UK government spent £20M ($25M) around 6 weeks ago buying up all the HCQ they could lay their hands on. Write to 'Boris Johnson 10 Downing St. London W1 and ask for your money back, because that's probably where your order went.


    I would have to. It was cheap, and might become important.


    Does that mean they know something we don't - no.


    Does that mean they know it will work - no.


    In the last 6 weeks the evidence has not been great on HCQ - on the other hand we do not have much high quality evidence, so the jury is still out.

    A conjecture that doxycycline may prevent COVID-19 ---


    A Proposed Randomized, Double Blind, Placebo Controlled Study Evaluating Doxycycline for the Prevention of COVID-19 Infection and Disease In Healthcare Workers with Ongoing High Risk Exposure to COVID-19

    https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…101/2020.05.11.20098525v1


    They propose 20 mg of doxycycline twice a day. (This is available as the drug Periostat which fights periodontal disease - a prescription easy to get from most dentists.)


    Other preprints indicate that doxycycline may interfere with Covid in several ways. Also, they are getting excellent results in Bangladesh using doxycycline + ivermectin (but probably too cheap to get approval from Fauci, NIH, CDC, FDA, AMA)


    Medical team in Bangladesh suggests combination of Ivermectin and Doxycycline for COVID-19 treatment

    https://www.firstpost.com/heal…19-treatment-8380171.html


    Doxycycline And Ivermectin Combo May Be New Effective Covid 19 Treatment

    https://medicaldialogues.in/me…-covid-19-treatment-65868

    My "chess friends" in Brazil are saying that the favelas around San Paulo are being hit especially hard and food is becoming hard to get. The numbers from there may be totally off since they have little communication or doctors. The hospitals are having to turn people away.

    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    You're suggesting a selective lockdown to protect elderly, all those with diabetes, hypertension, COPD, chronic liver or kidney disease, autoimmune diseases, etc. etc. etc,? That's nuts. Most of people like this live with families. They have neighbors. They need groceries, medical care, funds, and so on. Sure, wealthy elderly can be segregate from their families but the susceptible persons with usual or less than usual incomes can not. They couldn't live. There is no way to separate them and keep them safe.


    Exactly! I agree!


    However, we can ask these people to be extra careful, and maybe we can reduce the likelihood of infection a little. For example, the grocery stores and Target here in Atlanta now have two mornings a week with an hour reserved for "vulnerable" people such as people over 65 and pregnant women. Maybe that helps. I hope so.


    When Georgia ended the lockdown, I feared there would be resurgence in cases. There has not been so far. It has been about a week. We'll see in another week. Maybe social distancing and masks are having an effect. The R0 is close to 1, so things are not getting better.


    As I have said many times, a lockdown should only be considered a short-term, last-ditch defense to be used while better methods such as case tracking and more testing are prepared. That should have been done, but it was not.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    The Guardian ( the UK's most sensible newspaper) reported on Saturday the the UK government spent £20M ($25M) around 6 weeks ago buying up all the HCQ they could lay their hands on. Write to 'Boris Johnson 10 Downing St. London W1 and ask for your money back, because that's probably where your order went.

    That is certainly of considerable interest - it could turn out to be wonderful prescience or a waste of £20M which these days ain't that much. But my order was trackable via India Post which seems to have it together pretty well. My first order was for chloroquine (not HCQ) and that got through fine. In about ten days and fully trackable through India Post and then through USPS. Later orders for hydroxychloroquine, however, tracked from India Post (where the tracking said they were dispatched via air) to the first step at USPS and then nothing. I have to look into that though I have not taken the time because I was able to get enough HCQ ( a reasonable but not excessive quantity) from a Canadian Pharmacy I linked before. They required a prescription but that was no problem. Anyway, I am pretty sure it was not Boris who got my HCQ. It could have been stolen from the air freight company or possible held in customs God-knows-where because shipping from India to the US seems to be heavily disrupted and often is no longer direct but goes through many other countries, some of them not first world.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    However, we can ask these people to be extra careful, and maybe we can reduce the likelihood of infection a little. For example, the grocery stores and Target here in Atlanta now have two mornings a week with an hour reserved for "vulnerable" people such as people over 65 and pregnant women. Maybe that helps. I hope so.


    It is a bad idea for highly susceptible persons to go into store where every item has been handled and you have no way to decontaminate them. Much better and not all that much more costly is to use a delivery service (there are long lists of these) to pick up the items and deliver them to your door. Then, there are many published schemes on Youtube for artfully decontaminating the items. Choice of methods depends on how perishable the items are. This does require germicidal wipes or alcohol and paper towels but at least where I live, and on eBay and other merchants, these are becoming somewhat more available.


    I do not allow my part time assistant to go into stores on my behalf any more and she doesn't do it for herself and her family either. She lives with two teenagers and an overweight and hypertensive husband (a typical US configuration). The compromise she usually chooses is to order on line and then have the store drop the goods into the trunk of her car. She wears mask and gloves to retrieve it and immediately decontaminates the items before storing them or lets them sit long enough to be reasonably sure they are safe. So far, enough decontamination supplies, some at inflated prices on eBay, have been available.

    HHS Sec. Azar made infuriating comments on CNN. He criticized the Japanese for "not doing enough tests." He claimed they might have undiscovered cases because they are not doing enough tests. He said, correctly, that the U.S. is doing more tests per capita. I think he also said the Japanese have strict limits on who can be tested. Those statements are wrong, in many ways, on many levels. It is grossly irresponsible for a high government official to spread such misinformation. Problems --


    The Japanese do not need to do thousands more tests because they have only ~25 new cases a day. The U.S. needs a thousand times more tests because we have 25,000 new cases a day.


    There cannot be many hidden cases in Japan because nearly every new case now has been traced back to another, known case. If there were many hidden cases, including patients who did not realize they were sick, there would be more new cases popping up that could not be traced to an existing case.


    They are doing more than enough tests to be sure there are only a few hidden cases, or undiscovered cases, or asymptomatic ones. For example, when one infected person in a company is found, everyone in the building is tested, and they are all asked to self-quarantine for two weeks. As much as possible, everyone that person has come in contact with is warned, and politely requested to come in for a test.


    There are no limits to testing, as far as I know, watching NHK. Anyone who wants to be checked, can be checked, without doctor's orders. They have plenty of test kits.


    Testing alone is not very useful unless it is part of a larger program to reduce the epidemic with case tracking. What good does it do to know there are thousands of sick people, when the government has no plans to reduce that number or control the virus?

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