Covid-19 News

    German study finds no evidence coronavirus spreads in schools See also:

    versus

    These studies are apparently controversial and their result may depend on how children are accustomed to hygiene (Germans are notoriously germaphobic and they maintain personal space) and wearing of face masks in schools (German children are also disciplined)

    Quote from Zephir_AWT

    These studies are apparently controversial and their result may depend on how children are accustomed to hygiene (Germans are notoriously germaphobic and

    We so far we had 3 school lockdowns. But I so far did not read of cases where children did infect adults/grandparents. We anyway had no death below age 49 so far except an "imported" deadly sick baby.

    Nevertheless 10..15% of the teachers belong to a risk group and we primarily have to protect them

    Quote from Bob#2

    So here it states that Quercetin "may have benefit for some airway infections",

    Quercetin has been used in Switzerland since day one instead of HCQ as a prevention. So it's a low/entry level drug taht improves your help. As said 0.5 liter of orange juice (Hesperidin) work the same. There are tons of phytophenoles that are interesting too. But best is avoid croded places and carefully watch people and if you can't avoid it then wear a mask.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Japan seems to be having a second wave.


    600 cases overall is very low compared to the rest of of the world. Only Tokyo is a bit elevated https://www.japantimes.co.jp/n…80-new-coronavirus-cases/ moist likely due to night live still open. Don't forget the traveling super spreaders from the US military base in Okinawa!

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    So doctors generally reckon stuffing yourself full of cocktails of drugs is unhelpful

    DR THH rhetoric is generally unhelpful blather.. who is stuffing themselves with a cocktail of drugs like pizzas?


    quercetin + zinc = 2 .. vit D3 is failrly common in the older set anyway...

    I recommended all 3 for my 92 year old Dad. in NZ as a precaution..

    his Covid mortality risk is 10% even with masks and social distancing, hand hygiene

    and there is nothing available on prescription from his daughter...the local physician

    .or any physician

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Bob - it is not crazy because there are 100s of chemicals that "may have some benefit". Quercetin is certainly one, and somone in Canada was trying to do a trial using it but I think ran out of patients. The point is that none of these things are likely to actually work and they all have (some) possible side effects etc. And "working" for any of tehse drugs is likely to be some small benefit rather than completely knocking out the virus. The ones that are active may turn out to be active in a way that makes COVID worse - we can't tell. So doctors generally reckon stuffing yourself full of cocktails of drugs is unhelpful.


    There is no conspiracy amongst doctors to stop anti-viral agents. Just it is not easy to find them.


    THH,

    I understand... but do you acknowledge....


    The same WebMD site that states do not use HCQ, Ivermectin and now Quercetin states that :


    "The anti-viral medication remdesivir has been given emergency use authorization to help fight SARS-CoV 2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Preliminary data shows hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement recovered faster after receiving remdesivir."


    It does NOT say do not use it or to use the non-existent "standard care", but gives it quite the thumbs up!


    Dexamethasone is listed but Covid is not even mentioned in the entry! And yet it is certainly being talked about. Yet WebMD does not say "do not use"!


    Now even you have stated that remdesivir has little to support it and has very bad side effects. Yet look at the great differences in how these are being presented to the public. Not a mention of side effects for remedisvir and yet outright "do not use" for these others.


    Is this an organized conspiracy? Probably not. I am not a tin foil hatter! However, group think is extremely strong and there is no doubt that only the medicinal / procedural "solutions" being pushed by a very few are thus being promoted. And seemingly from a political bias at that.


    A large amount of observational support for several drugs from around the world, by front line medical people that are not connected (giving support of evidence of non-biased replication of results) should not be so easily dismissed. You seem to think lack of formal RCT should automatically dismiss any other evidence. In my opinion that is simply incorrect. One should look at the evidence / facts available, analyze quality, quantity (yes indeed) and source.


    One or two reports by fringe, non-practicing theorists probably should be ignored. Many reports from valid, practicing, experienced medical people, across the globe, should not be so easily dismssed. Lack of RCT's have nothing to do with the available information.....


    So it is hard to ignore that there certainly is a bias towards these options..... to the point that some have effectively been banned while others promoted and there being very little difference in the available RCT data and yet a HUGE difference in educated, experienced, field reporting of observational support.


    You deny this?


    RB - may I suggest that the words THH rhetoric in your posts do no more than show your bias?


    I have zinc + Quercetin on my list of might use food supplements. Quercetin is not without some side effects, and of questionable merit, but highly unlikely to do harm. Just be careful about known contraindicated reactions with other prescribed drugs.

    Zn is obviously a good idea if Zn deficient - but my diet (and that of my father) is not Zn deficient - far from it. Note also that you CAN OD on Zn, though it is not that likely. One problem with food supplement Zn is very variable absorption rate - a common problem when taking any of these supplements as opposed to getting it in food (e.g. apples for quercetin). Quercetin has been used at much higher concentrations than you can reasonably get eating apples of course.


    And Vit D is the one supplement that nearly all of us should be taking anyway.


    THH

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    - may I suggest that the words THH rhetoric


    You may suggest this


    but I would suggest you get rid of the rhetoric and the hyperbole


    the expression " full oneself with a cocktail of drugs "is unhelpful hyperbolic rhetoric..


    like "without prejudice... join the dots"


    outstanding magic bullet etc etc..


    which suggest that THH has no sensible argument or perhaps is attention seeking? "batty as it sounds"

    Quote from oldguy

    Scientists Say Cholesterol Drug Could Clear COVID-19 From Lungs in Days

    https://www.newsmax.com/health…rug/2020/07/16/id/977607/


    cholesterol-lowering drug, fenofibrate, also known as Tricor, starved the virus from its fat sources until it almost disappeared within five days.


    Yes, another inexpensive and existing drug (i.e. could be approved much faster as it has already been through human trials) that according to this study, would be a significant tool to fight covid. The research team stated it would downgrade Covid to no more than a common cold. (Of course this needs to be proved)


    So lets see if this drug gets support or gets immediately on the "do not use", it is dangerous to your life list! I understand that proper testing needs to be done to prove it works, but if it goes immediately to the "do not use it will kill you list" then it is another piece of evidence that there is systematic resistance to low cost, currently available, possibly life saving medicine!


    If so... what/who is behind it?


    If it gets support to at least test and investigate, then great..... but I have a feeling that this will not happen. :/

    Peak Prosperity's latest video (July 16) --


    An alternative to traditional vaccines via induction of T-cell immunity?

    (Doubtful, since it would not provide big profits)


    Excerpt:

    Speaking of people who seem to be resistant to Covid-19 , likely through T-cells due to

    exposure to more benign corona common cold viruses, the video continues [video time = 16:08]


    "... well then great! if those people also have very mild clinical cases, - now we have an angle we

    can go down, and say 'Ah,Ok' how would we get more of these T-cell responses - you know what,

    it might be that we expose people to other betacorona viruses, that aren't SAR-COV-2 that don't

    cause Covid or any other significant disease. Maybe - who knows? It might be that the people

    want to get the common cold, and get a good old case of it cause your T-cells are all geared

    against corona viruses, if that turns out to make you more resistant to SARS-COV-2 ..."


    Your T-Cells Determine Your Covid-19 Risk

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Quote from Bob#2

    Yes, another inexpensive and existing drug (i.e. could be approved much faster as it has already been through human trials) that according to this study, would be a significant tool to fight covid. The research team stated it would downgrade Covid to no more than a common cold. (Of course this needs to be proved)


    Wiki says this: "It [Fenofibrate] was patented in 1969, and came into medical use in 1975.[5] It is available as a generic medication.[3] In 2017, it was the 70th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States with more than eleven million prescriptions."


    That's a lot of prescriptions, although something like 1/20th that of statins. I would be nice to see a retrospective study comparing the Covid-19 outcomes in those already taking fenofibrate, to those taking statins instead. Both are prescribed to lower cholesterol.

    Quote from RobertBryant

    which suggest that THH has no sensible argument or perhaps is attention seeking? "batty as it sounds"


    RB - you are master of the somewhat hysterical rhetorical phrase: repeating words as needed to convey your message that others are talking nonsense. You have great talent in posting videos or other PR exercises promoting unproven SARS-CoV2 treatments , highlighting certain positive phrases in bold or even color.


    May I suggest (and you are very welcome to repeat the word suggest, as many times as you think will strengthen your argument) that you engage with the factual content here and exercise good judgement.


    The following facts are particularly relevant to any good judgement of SARS-CoV2 tretaments at the moment:


    (1) Many, many already used chemicals show in vivo activity against COVID, quite a few at IC50 levels below that known to be safely obtainable.


    (2) Only RCTs have been reliable in determining which treatments work against viruses: in vivo activity is a very rough initial filter.


    (3) Observational evidence is unreliable because observed differences are often due to uncontrolled correlations, demographics, etc


    (4) COVID is particularly susceptible to such confounding because of the extremely nonlinear (in fact close to exponential) correlation of mortality with age. It is (AFAIK) unique amongst diseases in having this particular problem, and therefore uniquely likely to suffer from unreliable observational studies, both too positive and too negative.


    (5) Practically, it is very difficult for any doctor to know whether a treatment they are giving consistently is better than no treatment, because levels of mortality vary so much with local variable factors (age, race, initial dose, who seeks help)


    (6) The medical profession (those who have more experience than individual local doctors) are very reluctant to jump on drugs that have mixed results in trials and poor RCT evidence, for good reasons, because of what happened during SARS.

    https://www.nature.com/news/2006/060911/full/060911-1.html


    (7) There is no global conspiracy by the medical profession to deny patients the best care possible.


    I, too, am frustrated by the lack of decent testing of treatments. What a missed opportunity! Proper international cooperation, and coordinated thought about what trials are actually helpful, would have allowed by now maybe 10 or 15 candidate drugs to be properly tested instead of 100s of replicated tests, most too small to be helpful, and a heavy concentration on just one treatment (HCQ).


    Jumping on certain politicised treatments which looked initially promising, which have never at any time had good RCT evidence, and where the RCT evidence so far is negative, is counterfactual. Publicising the people who for political or other reasons are 100% convinced these treatments work, on the basis of personal experience (unreliable because of 2,3,4,5), without strong caveats, is unbalanced. You have consistently been doing this. I've been pointing this out, as here, and suggesting that more balanced reporting would serve everyone better.


    THH

    Quote from Mark U

    Wiki says this: "It [Fenofibrate] was patented in 1969, and came into medical use in 1975.[5] It is available as a generic medication.[3] In 2017, it was the 70th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States with more than eleven million prescriptions."


    That's a lot of prescriptions, although something like 1/20th that of statins. I would be nice to see a retrospective study comparing the Covid-19 outcomes in those already taking fenofibrate, to those taking statins instead. Both are prescribed to lower cholesterol.


    Fenofibrate has different effect from statins and will be consistently prescribed to patients with different clinical presentation. That most likely correlates with COVID susceptibility, so getting rid of any confounding effect would be difficult. Still it could be done with an attempt to match populations on multiple clinical indicators - the large number of statin takers making that easy.


    Lou, "Peak Prosperity" has a particular strongly presented and subjective slant on world events and therefore I'd be careful with its content, whether I was naturally sympathetic with it or no:


    https://www.businessinsider.co…or/adam-taggart?r=US&IR=T

    [Adam Taggart, president peak prosperity] is now devoted to building awareness of the coming economic reckoning brought on by flawed policy and depletion of key resources - and providing solutions to help concerned individuals prepare themselves in advance.



    It is only responsible (in case such ideas cause people here to rush out and organise non-COVID coronavirus parties) to note that the medical evidence is still out on this. There are two known plausible effects of existing CV infection, one positive, one negative, and we don't know which wins:


    Positive: other CVs could increase T-cell response to COVID

    Negative: other CVs could generate "near miss" antibodies that prevent the generation of more accurate COVID antibodies.


    Here is the positive case proposed as a hypothesis that so-called "cross-immunity" is beneficial

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7326438/


    Reactions to this:

    https://www.sciencemediacentre…or-asymptomatic-covid-19/


    And why T-cell immunity works less well as we age

    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6501/256


    And why arguably the best advice to reduce COVID mortality amongst older people is for them to get (much) more exercise:

    https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/509216


    The key thing we know is that older people suffer much more from COVID, to an extent that dwarfs all other effects. When we understand this we will be in a better position to know what will or won't help.

    Japan good news: Nafamostat is a drug used to fight pancreas inflammation. It's a specific anti anticoagulant and thus multi-functional.


    It has been used in late stage ICU patient with great success.


    https://ccforum.biomedcentral.…0.1186/s13054-020-03078-z


    A correction: Avigan - Japanese study was just inconclusive due to not enough really sick patients. But the trend was positive as expected.


    Germany FAZ newspaper about the fatal coupling of immune response that causes an expression of 2-3x ACE2 receptors :


    Early morning free now pay-walled: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wi…urch-corona-16859687.html

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Jumping on certain politicised treatments which looked initially promising, which have never at any time had good RCT evidence, and where the RCT evidence so far is negative, is counterfactual. Publicising the people who for political or other reasons are 100% convinced these treatments work, on the basis of personal experience (unreliable because of 2,3,4,5), without strong caveats

    , is unbalanced. You have consistently been doing this.

    THH as ever makes a twisted narrative ..with rhetoric...

    "jumping on" ?... so the publlcation of these articles on this thread is "jumping on"!!!!!

    I guess this publication constitutes jumping   bias unless done without Dr THH "caveats" whatever they may be..

    Do LF readers really need Dr THH " caveats or "" Dr THH counterfactual" rhetoric to judge for themselves.?? "Batty as it sounds"


    So Dr Fareed 's evidence is to be dismissed by Dr THH because it is not RCT

    and it is for "political or other reasons",,

    What other reason would Dr Fareed have for publicizing except to save patient lives?

    and what other reason for saying that "by far the best tool " versus "remdesivir, dexamethasone, convalescent plasma replacement, etc."

    except his experience with patient treatment recovery?

    So at the risk of being accused of bias and jumping on I will do a triple jump and publicise this on LF again.

    of course Dr Fareed may have slightly more knowledge than' balanced' Dr THH


    but for the naive and unschooled reader . I defer to the learned Dr THH


    Caveat ".this is not an RCT and Dr Fareed is 100% convinced by "political or other reasons"



    ..............................................................................................................

    And neither is Dr Fareed from California going to back down.

    "Local doctor pushing proven treatment of COVID into national debate" https://www.thedesertreview.co…ea-8943-4f707d6ebc1a.html

    "My name is Dr. George Fareed. I am a physician in Imperial County, California,

    that has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.13143-5f0cc857cf6ec-image-1-jpg

    I take care of patients on both an outpatient and inpatient basis, as well as nursing home patients

    , the most vulnerable among us.

    In this letter, I am proposing a medical strategy that can help us not only through this current crisis

    , but also that will enable us to approach outbreaks of COVID-19 that may occur in the future.


    In my attempts to keep people alive, I have had an opportunity to use many different types of treatments

    — remdesivir, dexamethasone, convalescent plasma replacement, etc.

    Yet, by far the best tool beyond supportive care with oxygen

    has been the combination of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), with either azithromycin or doxycycline, and zinc.

    This "HCQ cocktail" (that costs less than $100) has enabled me to prevent patients from being admitted to the hospital

    , as well as help those patients that are hospitalized.

    The key is giving the HCQ cocktail early, within the first five days of the disease.


    Not only have I seen outstanding results with this approach, I have not seen any patient exhibit serious side-effects.

    To be clear — this drug has been used as an anti-malarial and to treat systemic lupus erythematosus as well as rheumatoid arthritis,

    and has over a 50-year track record for safety.

    It is shocking that it only now is being characterized as a dangerous drug

    _________________________________________




    Despite nowhere published results the Gilelad crap Remdesivir is still the only authorized - legally to be prescribed drug. Gilead already made a billion by buying Trumps OK for reserving 3 months production for national use...

    https://www.inquirer.com/healt…-how-useful-20200717.html


    But we know that the most severe side effect has be payed by the mourners of the Gilead victims as it is very likely that the victims do spend at least an additional week in ICU with costs of at least 5000$/day. This effect is already known form the similar drug Kaletra.


    That the Gilead drug reduces costs is an obvious lie as this only hold for the few lucky that can join the club round 3 days earlier...

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Despite nowhere published results the Gilelad crap Remdesivir

    Jumping on ... (I defer to THH rhetoric)

    the latest NIH publication https://www.covid19treatmentgu…viral-therapy/remdesivir/

    "

    "There are insufficient data for the Panel to recommend either for or against the use of remdesivir

    for the treatment of patients with mild or moderate COVID-19.


    In the preliminary analysis of ACTT, there was no observed benefit for remdesivir in people with mild or moderate COVID-19; however, the number of people in this category was relatively small. Remdesivir is being evaluated in another clinical trial for the treatment of patients with moderate COVID-19; complete data from this trial are expected soon. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for remdesivir limits its use to people with severe COVID-19


    "Remdesivir significantly reduced time to recovery compared to placebo (median time to recovery was 11 days vs. 15 days,

    respectively; recovery rate ratio 1.32; 95% CI, 1.12–1.55; P < 0.001).


    "The mortality estimate by Day 14 was lower in the remdesivir arm than in the placebo arm

    (7.1 % and 11.9% in the remdesivir/placebo arms, respectively)

    but the difference was not statistically significant (hazard ratio [HR] 0.70; 95% CI, 0.47–1.04"


    Caveat... although based on a RCT..."At the time of publication, the full dataset was not available for analysis."

    l

    I was wondering about the mortality for the length of the trial which I think was a bit longer than 14 days

    what happened to those patients at the end of the trial? how many on the Gilead Balm died on Day 15,16,17 ...and how died many on the placebo?


    why did they not continue the trial for 28 days?

    there was an earlier smaller trial with 28 days showing this


    "The 28-day mortality rate was similar for the two study arms

    (14% and 13% in the remdesivir/placebo arms, respectively)


    the full ACTT data set might show some longer term mortality rate ? is the full data set ready some time after May 22.. or July 18?

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