In the U.S., today's number is 1.6. As I said, I hope that is the result of more testing, but I wouldn't know.
before we can compare numbers for different locales they had to be normalized in relation to test coverage and test bias and other differences.
Even two days of test in the same country can be different as you can see in US.
Four casual observations:
1) I saw Dr. Anthony Fauci a few minutes ago on a CNN (or MSNBC, not sure) talk segment. He talked vaguely about Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine but did not mention the French study with Dr. Didier Raoulta which seemed to show improved results with the addition of azithromycin. Maybe someone should email him. Like he has time to read his emails, LOL.
2) I am struck by the temporary similarity of the hydroxychloroquine/azythromycin study to (yes) the Mizuno papers. We see a very good idea, followed by mostly believable but not replicated data in favor of the idea and we are still waiting for proof the data are valid. Now, I admit I have not followed the Mizuno replication effort but had it succeeded in a convincing manner, I think I would have found some news service accounts.
3) The same people, more or less, who make way out (some would say crazy) claims for LENR without proper evidence and replication are doing the same for COVID-19 therapies. I won't name them. I can think of at least 3. Easily.
4) Listening to and watching the leaders of two large countries talk about COVID-19 is simply revolting and embarrassing. Their ignorance of science and scientific method is insane. And they often fail to listen to their own experts or surround themselves with the wrong people for the job. For the next year, we could all be f*ck*d and a good bit of it will be due to those people. Of course, it's just my opinion. But one of those leaders was proud of the fact he saved a few million dollars by defunding the pandemic response force! And that same leader cut the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But he wanted a new $92 million dollar military parade in his honor on the US Independence Day.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/1…-more-than-estimated.html
QuoteThe NSC directorate for global health and security and bio-defense survived the transition from President Barack Obama to Trump in 2017. Trump’s elimination of the office suggested, along with his proposed budget cuts for the CDC, that he did not see the threat of pandemics in the same way that many experts in the field did. “One year later I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like COVID-19,” Beth Cameron, the first director of the unit, wrote in an op-ed Friday in The Washington Post. She said the directorate was set up to be the “smoke alarm” and get ahead of emergencies and sound a warning at the earliest sign of fire — “all with the goal of avoiding a six-alarm fire.”
How are you all finding life right now?
Its a lazy autumn afternoon 28C.. in Sydney suburbia.
At 7.oo am we visited the supermarket
Had to show a seniors card to get in for the early hour
shelves were well stocked.. except for pasta..could buy toilet paper.
The music playing was retro.. senior.."come fly with me.. don't tell your Mama
'by Frank Sinatra
There were silver haired humans squinting at the self service machines
At 8.00 am when we left .. there was a queue of 30 or so younger customers.(less than 60 yrs olds
Australia still has the luxury of a low population of 25 million..
Things are going slow..but are orderly
After all.. no one has a plane to catch..
California, with 40 million residents, is shut down. Projections are for half the population to be infected within 2 months. Holy Molley! I'm going to have to reach my bookie by email. I hope they don't shut down the liquor store!
@sot Sorry but I think you are totally wrong - all the evidence suggests effective treatment with antivirals - we should agree to disagree I guess. I'm not going to reiterate all the evidence but it is this sceptical attitude that is preventing making available such treatment. The WHO is still against it. But let's see how this pans out - I'll put my money on quinine related compounds having some unknown prophylactic action. Can we really afford to wait for WHO approval while we watch all these people die?
@sot Sorry but I think you are totally wrong - all the evidence suggests effective treatment with antivirals - we should agree to disagree I guess. I'm not going to reiterate all the evidence but it is this sceptical attitude that is preventing making available such treatment. The WHO is still against it. But let's see how this pans out - I'll put my money on quinine related compounds having some unknown prophylactic action. Can we really afford to wait for WHO approval while we watch all these people die?
It is possible to be positive about possibilities while maintaining skepticism about claims. Rather like LENR as SOT has said.
In this case there is a good chance that hydroxychloroquine (maybe with azithromycin) will help. Even if there was a 10% chance they could help then quickly doing randomised trials (preferably also double-blind) is of utmost importance.
No-one - not I'm sure SOT - disagrees.
Where we disagree is you go one step further and in absence of strong evidence say you are sure these drugs will help. We are not there yet because all the data comes from anecdote or (one small) poorly conducted experiment. Both are well known to show what people hope/want rather than what is actually true.
In a situation with a very ill patient you might want to try these drugs anyway, since there is a decent chance that they work and nothing to lose. Alas, at the moment there is also a decent chance that the Marseille study results mean nothing, due to different patient selection methods, and the rumours from China that possibly have no more validity than claims for Chinese medicine.
I'm not saying I'm sure these drugs will help - just that the evidence suggests it. That is all. So further testing is required but meanwhile low doses could be distributed - 100 mg would have little serious side effects compared to the 600 mg doses Prof Raoult used.. There would be a gradual build up of hydroxychloroquine to hopefully preventative prophylactic levels because of its very long half-life in blood plasma. There's remarkably still very few cases in sub-Saharan Africa apart from S Africa which no longer has widespread malaria. But maybe they are screening in S. Africa but not elsewhere. Regardless, quinine derivatives are universally taken in poorer regions for general fever conditions because of the association with malarial fever. How could they distinguish between malarial-, COVID 19-, or even HIV/hepatitis induced fevers? To survive they would take any medicine they could find regardless of WHO directives.
After Florida limited restaurant occupancy to 50%, I could see immediately that the measure was ineffective in accomplishing it's goal of social distancing. Because seating was limited, elbow to elbow crowds developed outside while awaiting their table. Just 1 infected patron would easily expose everyone, and that is before getting inside.
Once seated at a table, the needed distance to inhibit viral transmission is repeatedly violated. Even with the utmost care to stay away from others, the waitress acts as a convenient germ carrier between tables. Or the customer does as he gets up to go to the bathroom/toilet, and brushes by the next table. I think there is less person/person contact at a mud wrestling match.
Apparently the city noticed the same thing, and the Pensacola Mayor announced that this Monday, restaurants can only do take-out. No more eating inside.
Asking the spring-breakers to not congregate in large groups on the beach, seems to have been interpreted by the teenagers as "lets get in a large group, and party!". So now many of the beaches in Florida/Alabama (yes there are beaches in Alabama) are being closed. Pensacola Beach, where I live, is an exception...so far.
After Florida limited restaurant occupancy to 50%, I could see immediately that the measure was ineffective in accomplishing it's goal of social distancing.
They repeat the mistakes from Europe. Only closing out workers. But oops!, may be the older folks of Florida (50%) will have first to learn how to open a can and to switch on the stove...
This is a really interesting product - a thermometer that uploads your temperature to a database which is projected on a map. They are currently selling 10,000 per day. I would never have thought to look at something like this before now. It’s interesting here in the U.S. how many fevers are being shown in Florida. That’s where a lot of people go for Spring Break.
This is a really interesting product - a thermometer that uploads your temperature to a database which is projected on a map. They are currently selling 10,000 per day. I would never have thought to look at something like this before now. It’s interesting here in the U.S. how many fevers are being shown in Florida. That’s where a lot of people go for Spring Break.
Great idea. Like an early warning system. Wish I had bought their stock when going public.
This is a really interesting product - a thermometer that uploads your temperature to a database which is projected on a map. They are currently selling 10,000 per day. I would never have thought to look at something like this before now. It’s interesting here in the U.S. how many fevers are being shown in Florida. That’s where a lot of people go for Spring Break.
it is interesting but absolutely useless numbers
Quoteit is interesting but absolutely useless numbers
Why do you think that?
Quote@sot Sorry but I think you are totally wrong - all the evidence suggests effective treatment with antivirals - we should agree to disagree I guess. I'm not going to reiterate all the evidence but it is this sceptical attitude that is preventing making available such treatment. The WHO is still against it. But let's see how this pans out - I'll put my money on quinine related compounds having some unknown prophylactic action. Can we really afford to wait for WHO approval while we watch all these people die?
Where to start? I am totally wrong about what? I am the one who posted (or re-posted) the essential graph from Raoult et al's paper! What "all evidence?" "Sceptical" attitudes do not prevent people from availing themselves of treatments. Availability of products and data do.
The point about the Raoult study is that it must be repeated with vastly more rigor and a much larger sample size. That should be done ASAP. I have a contact high up at the Centers for Medicare and I have written this person about it for possible transmission to NIH Infectious Diseases.
As for chloroquine, yes. it could be good and hydroxychloroquine better and either with azithromycin best. But SERIOUS caution is advised. Both of the chloroquine compounds are cardiotoxic and absolutely contraindicated in some abnormalities of heart conduction and rhythm. Specifically "long Q-T syndrome". But also other conduction abnormalities. The risk / benefit ratio is very hard to evaluate because there is little data. The other problem, especially with chloroquine (hydroxychloroquine is a bit better) is that the therapeutic margin is narrow -- the difference between the recommended dose and the dose which can harm or kill is quite small. I just read (but didn't check out) that it is only 2:1 with chloroquine. One more thing about hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, the half life (you can look it up) in blood and tissues is very long. If you get an adverse reaction, stopping the drug won't help for a long time. Days or even weeks.
Finally, not only can the chloroquines be cardiotoxic but a small proportion of people receiving azithromycin develop serious and potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmias. One can only imagine, absent data, how risky the combination of the two plus pre-existing heart disease, could be.
So stop yammering about stuff you know nothing about. If you want to cite reliable refernces, that is appreciated. For me, your rank, obviously superficial and wrong speculation is dangerous and not welcome.
By the way, "Dr. Richard" -- does that "Dr" mean anything? Did you perhaps attend Kensington College? Trump University?
Why do you think that?
Numbers or series of numbers are rarely mean much alone. There is an old russian pilot joke:
first pilot: readings?
second pilot: 15!
first pilot: 15 what?
second pilot: what readings?
There is such an area of expertise as data analytics. We see it in action here quite often when comparing calibration runs to the experimental runs. That makes sense.
There are so many other factors that will be influencing the readings of those devices that before you can claim anything you will have to develop solid and completely new scientific theory on how to interpret it by either comparing to something or linking different data trends to certain outcomes.
Meanwhile general population will be happy looking at a flashy dashboard showing meaningless data.
I hope our friend Mitchell enjoyed the pop culture references from my last post.
