Covid-19 News

Navid - google is your friend :

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/1…ent-he-has-ever-made.html

Gates says the $10 billion his foundation has put into the three organizations has created an estimated $200 billion in social and economic benefits. (The estimate is from the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank that estimates cost analysis to global problems.)

“Suppose that our foundation hadn’t invested in Gavi, the Global Fund and GPEI and had instead put that $10 billion into the S&P 500, promising to give the balance to developing countries 18 years later. As of last week, those countries would have received about $12 billion, adjusted for inflation, or $17 billion if we factor in reinvested dividends,” Gates says describing the estimates from the Copenhagen Consensus Center.

https://www.copenhagenconsensu…nt-i%E2%80%99ve-ever-made

https://www.copenhagenconsensu…ne-worlds-top-think-tanks

Extraordinary that this should be spun into profits for Gates (or his foundation).

Quote from Curbina

cross reactivity from T-cell recognition sites for other common Coronaviruses,

Very speculative..

the only vaguely definite thing that I got out of the paper was that preexposure to 'cold' coronas

probably did not impair the Tcell response.to Covid. with an original sin.

The contra hypothesis that it improved the Tcell response was not discussed AFAIK

Comprehensive and balanced article on "Are vacines profitable?".

it seems they did not used to be, but due to market forces now are, though no-one is quite sure how much because development costs are difficult to estimate.

As development costs reduce, enormously, with tech developments you'd expect the market to correct this with more entrants. Although those phase 3 trials are still expensive I guess.

https://www.theatlantic.com/bu…rofitable-so-what/385214/

So while the vaccine industry is likely more profitable now than in the 1970s or 1980s, this is the result of global market forces, not a reason to skip a child's vaccinations: Pharmaceutical companies need incentives to keep producing vaccines, because regardless of profits the economic and social benefits of vaccination are huge—in lives and the billions of dollars saved. A study released last year estimated that fully immunizing babies resulted in $10 saved for every dollar spent, about $69 billion total. "Vaccines are one of the most cost-effective interventions we have," says Halsey.

In the U.S., a study looking at the benefits of vaccination between 1994 and 2013 estimated a net savings of $295 billion in direct costs and $1.38 trillion in total societal costs. Looking at the last 50 years of the vaccine market, it's absurd to think profits could have ever been the sole motivation of vaccine production. In fact, 83 percent of Americans believe that the MMR vaccine is safe. Profits from vaccine production aren't a valid argument against vaccinations—the most important question is whether vaccines are safe and effective, and the answer is unambiguously yes.

Quote from JedRothwell

Here is what the reporter was talking about: confirmed deaths per day, per capita. THe U.S. leads the world in that. I think only Brazil and a few other places are worse:

What annoys me is that any measure that is not proportional to population will mean large countries leading the world - but so what?

deaths per million pop, or (much less reliable) cases per million pop, are the relavnt measures. Frankly, cases per million is so variable that only deaths per million - after a peak so that you have most of the relevant deaths, is a good comparator.

On that: the US is middling. Better than the UK by a long way - but then the UK is an outlier worst of any normal large country.

Quote from Mark U

You should realize that the Gates Foundation does not simply donate money to various organizations. It has an investment arm, which includes investments into vaccine manufacturing among many other things.

You should realize that Bill Gates does not make money when his foundation invests and makes a profit. For the same reason William Clay Ford does not make any money from Ford Foundation investments. It's a foundation. It keeps the money. The money no longer belongs to Bill Gates, any more than my money belongs to me after I give it to the Red Cross.

This should be obvious . . .

A critical care doctor discusses problems with small hospitals. They do not have the equipment or the staff to treat critically ill coronavirus patients.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0…ovid-rural-hospitals.html

QUOTE:

. . . Since the beginning of this crisis, conversations about death from Covid-19 have revolved around patient characteristics — men are more likely to die than women, as are people who are older or obese, or those with co-morbidities. But we now know that the hospital matters, too.

In a large study that was recently published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, a team of researchers examined hospital mortality rates in more than 2,200 critically ill coronavirus patients in 65 hospitals throughout the country. Their findings? Patients admitted to hospitals with fewer than 50 I.C.U. beds — smaller hospitals — were more than three times more likely to die than patients admitted to larger hospitals.

Though they were not able to study factors like staffing and hospital strain, these likely contributed. In fact, a recent investigative piece in The Times examined mortality data for hospitals in New York City — and found that at the peak of the pandemic, patients at some community hospitals (with lower staffing and worse equipment) were three times more likely to die as patients in medical centers in the wealthiest areas.

Knowing firsthand what it requires to keep critically ill Covid-19 patients alive, this does not surprise me. Though the public has largely focused on new treatments — with excitement and controversy swirling around remdesivir and dexamethasone and convalescent plasma — none of these are any use without the people and systems to deliver critical care, a laborious and resource-intensive process. . . .

Quote from THHuxleynew

What annoys me is that any measure that is not proportional to population will mean large countries leading the world - but so what?

deaths per million pop, or (much less reliable) cases per million pop, are the relavnt measures. Frankly, cases per million is so variable that only deaths per million - after a peak so that you have most of the relevant deaths, is a good comparator.

On that: the US is middling. Better than the UK by a long way - but then the UK is an outlier worst of any normal large country.

No comparing US with UK is miss-leading. It looks like chance had a lot to do with the outcome in the starting phase of the pandemic in Europe and USA and a lot of factors how busy the airports are in the area at critical dates. This means that a larger federation of countries like USA is getting a mean number response. One should compare states in USA with states in Europe. Then UK is not that extreme. Actually a lot of care need to be taken to be able to compare countries and simple deaths/capita comparisons will lead to the wrong conclusions. As an example experts in Sweden that is critical to the Swedish approach cites a 10x difference in total mortality per capita between Norway and Sweden and use that to say that any idiot can see that the Swedish lock down was a failure, but if you think about it 10x is way too much for the difference of lock down approach that is actually the silly thing. The high value we got was partly due to bad luck a really difficult start and the rest of the process is very similar. Actually if you look at the progression of many death curves you will not see a exponential decay more triangular. So then fitting A h**2 to the data with h max deaths / capita then A will be amazingly similar between the nordic countries Sweden Denmark and Norway. So it all looks like the main response that controls the pandemic in the first phase is how it all starts. Now we have a second phase because countries opens up and that's another issue. Sweden never opens up, we will keep our kind of lockdown way into autumn, that's the essense of our choice, to be able to cope for a very long time. Currently 80% of the population follows the recommendations. People have been a bit more lax though, but authorites is on the edge. Even more so in Norway that sits on a corona bomb. To me it looks like we are platauing and I think we will see case numbers going up, especially in the young group now, which will probably spread to the elderly in the coming weeks.

Quote from THHuxleynew

On that [per capita deaths]: the US is middling. Better than the UK by a long way - but then the UK is an outlier worst of any normal large country.

The U.S. was middling, but now on a weekly basis it is far worse than the U.K. or any other developed country. Cumulatively, the UK may still be worse, but if the trend continues, the U.S. will pass by it soon.

Along the same lines -- for the same reasons -- the State of New York has by far the largest numbers of deaths: 32,798. But for new daily deaths in recent weeks, New York has ~10 deaths per day, whereas Florida has ~175. The cumulative total in Florida is 5,446. So it is 27,352 behind New York. It is catching up at the rate of ~165 per day, so if this continues for 166 more days, it will have the same number of dead as New York.

I say "for the same reasons" because the UK, the EU and New York all reduced the number of cases and deaths using similar techniques. They all did what the W.H.O. urged them to do in February: case tracking, warning contacts and quarantining sick patients. If Florida would do this, their daily cases and deaths will fall the same way the EU and New York's did. They refuse to do this, so the numbers will probably stay high and thousands of people will probably die in vain. Maybe not; it seems people in Florida are beginning to take precautions and the numbers are falling. The government was doing nothing when I last checked. The government in Georgia appears to be doing nothing, but no one knows. It is a state secret. They have refused to answer any of the 40-odd recent questions from the Atlanta Journal and other media.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/

BMJ analysis 30th July

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2980

Treatment (not prophylaxis) for Covid19...

.Analysis does not differentiate well btw early and late..probably due to the data limitations.

"

Three drugs might reduce symptom duration compared with standard care:

hydroxychloroquine (mean difference −4.5 days, low certainty),

remdesivir (−2.6 days, moderate certainty),

and lopinavir-ritonavir (−1.2 days, low certainty).

Hydroxychloroquine might increase the risk of adverse events compared with the other interventions,

and remdesivir probably does not substantially increase the risk of adverse effects leading to drug discontinuation.

" Industry sponsored trials such as those for remdesivir and other patented drugs could be particularly at risk of publication bias,

and positive results for these drugs might require more cautious interpretation

than generic drugs tested in randomised controlled trials independent of industry influence.

. No other interventions included enough patients to meaningfully interpret adverse effects leading to drug discontinuation.

Conclusion Glucocorticoids probably reduce mortality and mechanical ventilation in patients with covid-19 compared with standard care.

The effectiveness of most interventions is uncertain because most of the randomised controlled trials so far have been small and have important study limitations..

NOTE: Does anyone know when the full data for the Gilead trial is going to be released

Quote from RobertBryant

NOTE: Does anyone know when the full data for the Gilead trial isgoing to be released

Latest when some hundred people join for a lawsuit for pre-death torturing of their relatives. Then Gilead has to publish how many excess days the people had to suffer and how much extra load it did produce for ICU's.

From the Kaletra (that works very similar) data we expect 10 extra death row days, what causes at least 50'000$ extra cost/death. ($$ remdesivir Gilead crap not included!)

Quote from JedRothwell

No one makes money from mass market vaccines. They are one of the few drugs that produce almost no profit.

You are a romancer! The papilloma vaccination is sold up to 2'000$. A big cash cow! Same for most others due to negligible production costs. Only chemo is 1000x more profitable due to virtual no production costs/dose (way below 1$ for most standards).

Quote from Wyttenbach

The papilloma vaccination is sold up to 2'000$. A big cash cow!

As soon as it gets out of patent it will be mass produced by many companies at a low cost. Maybe not in the U.S., but in the rest of the world it will be. The thing is, once you invent a vaccine for a specific disease, you probably do not need to invent another one. Drugs such as blood pressure meds can be improved, and each improvement may be patentable, bringing in new profits. But, a vaccine probably cannot be improved. The ones that have been around for a while are the same formula as they used to be. That's what I read, anyway.

Financing Vaccines in the 21st Century: Assuring Access and Availability.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221811/

Vaccine Supply Vaccines have eradicated smallpox and polio and prevented deadly and disabling diseases in thousands of Americans. Given their historically low cost and important benefits, vaccines represent one of the outstanding bargains in health care. Nonetheless, the vaccine supply today is surprisingly fragile. Just how fragile it is was brought to national attention by severe vaccine shortages in 2001 and 2002, which affected 8 of the 11 routine childhood vaccines.
..
Vaccines are a very small enterprise relative to the pharmaceutical industry overall: vaccine revenues constitute only about 1.5 percent of global pharmaceutical sales (Batson, 2001). ...
In just three decades, the number of firms supplying routine vaccines to the United States dwindled to 5 companies that today produce all of the routinely recommended childhood and adult vaccines.
Large, multinational producers sell vaccines through a two-tiered pricing system. Prices in developed countries are high—current prices in western Europe and the United States are comparable—while a large volume of vaccines is sold to the developing world at significantly lower, essentially marginal-cost prices.
...
Many prescription drugs are taken by patients for years; most vaccines are administered between one and four times over a lifetime. Furthermore, vaccine production costs do not necessarily decline over time. A key factor that contributes to higher production costs is the rigid batch inspection process, which makes it difficult for companies to achieve more efficiency through a learning curve and to enjoy cost reductions related to process improvements

USA ...Hydroxy battleground

1,CNN attempts to bully Dr Risch in a well prepared ambush

2.The tactical analysis at the war room

TM 30.10

why would cnn take the time out you know days and days probably

..to set up a segment that was specifically anti-hydroxychloroquine

that was intended to try and skewer dr harvey risch live on air

now they didn't succeed of course and he kept this cool but that's what

john berman and cnn's intent was on air this morning

that was abundantly clear to anybody watching...

If only Trump would endorse LENR..

Tom Frieden NEJM 2017

"Beyond the Randomized, Controlled Trials

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1614394

"For much, and perhaps most, of modern medical practice,

RCT-based data are lacking and no RCT is being planned or is likely to be completed to provide evidence for action

. This “dark matter” of clinical medicine leaves practitioners with large information gaps for most conditions and increases reliance on past practices and clinical lore. Elevating RCTs at the expense of other potentially highly valuable sources of data is counterproductive"

Successful Ivermectin treatment in Australia --

Podcast -- Ivermectin clinical trial: The Facts V’s The Fiction

https://www.2hd.com.au/2020/08…the-facts-vs-the-fiction/

Well-Respected Australian Researcher: Consider Triple Therapy (Ivermectin, Zinc, Doxycycline) for COVID-19

https://www.trialsitenews.com/…doxycycline-for-covid-19/

New Peak Prosperity video

Covid-19 Lockdowns Doing Much More Harm Than Good?

- The lockdowns appear to have spread Covid's prevalence over time,

but did not diminish number of infections. Some nation-to-nation

variation may be due to circulating Covid strain variations.

- Lockdowns inflicted severe economic and social damage

- WHO recommendations continue to be misinformation

- Herd immunity may be approaching more quickly than predicted

- Mortality is predictable and low

- But, hospitalization may result in long-term disabilities + increased future cost

A promising, but too cheap, non-vaccine Covid treatment --

Bromhexine For COVID-19: A Trial Showing Decreased Mortality, ICU Admission, And Mech Ventilation!

Another promising, but too cheap, non-vaccine Covid treatment/prophylactic --

A Concerned Doctor: Is Aviptadil (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) the Silver Bullet for COVID-19?

Quote from Lou Pagnucco

Consider Triple Therapy (Ivermectin, Zinc, Doxycycline)

Radio interview 2GB

https://20943.mc.tritondigital.com/OMNY_THECHRISSMITHSHOW_P/media-session/06d067d0-3ee4-4772-a368-008948d4fa6d/d/clips/88b564ea-a9a6-4751-910a-a5d800019396/317aaded-6649-4b6e-b646-a61e000d9c45/65671361-d446-4690-82ba-ac0a002267c8/audio/direct/t1596247702/A_potential_treatment_for_coronavirus.mp3?t=1596247702

Dr Borody is specialist repurposed meds for gastro infections.

collaboration in US, on Covid patients

IVM + DOX +Zn

90%...100% effective in under 6 days

as measured by swabs negative

80, 60, 174 patients in smalll trials

the triple combo makes the most difference

in ICU ward.? 48% reduction in mortality

But the best use is early on..

Need to create rapid response teams to treat +ve patients + contacts

to break the infection cycle

Federal authorities looking at it in Oz

no one will make money so no BIGpharma lobby to push it

2$ a tablet

aim: to create rapid response teams for +ve patients + contacts

to break the infection cycle and stop patients going to hospitals

Quote from RobertBryant

If only Trump would endorse LENR..

Really? One thing - whether it led to more or less money going into the field it would be a recipe for bad communication where every single research result was chewed over as a political bone. if you think that stuff is bad now within just the scientific community - it would be 100 X worse!

Quote from Lou Pagnucco

Successful Ivermectin treatment in Australia --

Podcast -- Ivermectin clinical trial: The Facts V’s The Fiction

https://www.2hd.com.au/2020/08…the-facts-vs-the-fiction/

Well-Respected Australian Researcher: Consider Triple Therapy (Ivermectin, Zinc, Doxycycline) for COVID-19

https://www.trialsitenews.com/…doxycycline-for-covid-19/

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I can see both sides of this one, and mainly I just wish we had a better more widely used procedure for lightweight multi-armed trials randomised that could try stuff like this on a low cost low evidence basis, with winners given quickly more careful attention.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/…doxycycline-for-covid-19/

Professor Borody is an internationally regarded physician with 4 FDA approved drugs on the US and Australian markets, who is famous for developing the triple therapy that cured peptic ulcerssaving more than 18,000 lives just in Australia and millions internationally.

He said Ivermectin has a good safety profile and in fact the WHO says in a report ‘Mass treatment with ivermectin: an underutilised public health strategy’… “It is time to capitalise on the full public health potential of ivermectin” as an anti-parasitic.

The Journal of Antibiotics a 12 June 2020 report on Ivermectin says “Several studies reported antiviral effects of ivermectin on RNA viruses such as Zika, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, Hendra, Newcastle, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, chikungunya, Semliki Forest, Sindbis, Avian influenza A, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, Human immunodeficiency virus type 1, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.”

Professor Borody says his research has led him to a triple therapy of Ivermectin, zinc and an antibiotic – which are all TGA and FDA approved – which could be the fastest and safest way to stop the Victorian outbreak within 6-8 weeks.

He said he knows of medical professionals already using it as a preventative therapy themselves.

Professor Borody said “When State and Federal governments are saying they will do whatever it takes then I believe this is a potential life-saver right now.”

“These 3 medications are already approved. They do not need pre-clinical or clinical trials nor additional TGA approvals unless the aim is to combine in a single capsule, for example. Patient treatment programs have been done in the US and elsewhere which indicate it can work within 4-6 days.”

Professor Borody has reviewed the key antiviral scientific research literature and identified the combination of 3 drugs that are in chemists right now and can be prescribed by doctors immediately. The tablets can be taken at home as a preventive treatment by high risk individuals, or by those who test positive to minimise need for hospitalisation at the higher curative dose.

The problem with Ivermectin - as with the very many anti-viral agents out there - is that in-vitro antiviral activity does not transform directly into in vivo. You need, at a minimum before being interested, evidence on whether the plasma concentration from doses known safe is larger than the anti-viral active in vitro concentration. I followed the link above for Borody's research but did not find it. What i'd expect is a COVID preprint looking seriously at evidence for IVM plasma levels and relating then to known in vitro IC-50 concentration. if we can speculate about this surely a professional can do it and write it up?

Then for all these "cheap and safe" agents like IVM, HCQ you have a whole load of people doing unscientific uncontrolled tests and some of them v impressed by the results and telling everyone so. You can see that just by chance that would happen with a placebo. And because most patients recover, and how many do so depends on many demographics and other factors, it is difficult to know whether your local rate is good or bad.

There are observational retrospective trials like this:

https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…101/2020.06.06.20124461v2

But as with HCQ there is not much value because of problems matching patients and the fact that it bis easy to get good results by altering trial conditions - just through file drawer effect. For retrospectives like this there are any number of possible studies, and any result is possible as we know from HCQ.

So - how about somone find the (missing?) Borody analysis of whether in vitro activity for IVM will work at doses deemed safe?

There are a few people who have looked comparatively at in vitro activity of a whole range of anti-virals - trying to find the best candidates for this sort of thing. That is surely a better bet than choosing one at random - I'd hope Borody would have looked at this work in which case his suggestions would be valuable.

THH

Quote from RobertBryant

Tom Frieden NEJM 2017

"Beyond the Randomized, Controlled Trials

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1614394

"For much, and perhaps most, of modern medical practice,

RCT-based data are lacking and no RCT is being planned or is likely to be completed to provide evidence for action

. This “dark matter” of clinical medicine leaves practitioners with large information gaps for most conditions and increases reliance on past practices and clinical lore. Elevating RCTs at the expense of other potentially highly valuable sources of data is counterproductive"

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Anyone who's tried to do a RCT on any complex system knows - the real world is extremely complex. Go do an RCT on a user interface with two similar user interfaces - almost impossible. It is only FUD dispensers on message boards like this one and Fauci (and the gang CNN etc) who are using RCT to dismiss evidence out of hand. When national health systems are using HCQ - it takes a supreme level of wickedness to even contemplate demanding a large RCT. Even more comical is that they obviously are being closed -- in the midst of a severe crisis. You would think that a CDC/FDA/NIH syndicate would immediately unleash a swat team of researchers to a major hospital group to get the study done in record time, but they aren't?

Isn't that what would be required in a crisis?

The truth is obvious.

If COVID Fatalities Were 90.2% Lower, How Would You Feel About Schools Reopening?

Although this is from a paper published by a political advocacy group, it is logical and thorough.