Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread VI (Don't Read Post 1 & FAQ)

[Stillwater]

Wow - Cuomo just said 80% of people who go on ventilators die

If that continues to be the case it means ventilator shortages are very far from the most important issue.

right , until some type of antibodies get consistent results proving useful in reversal of the deep lower respiratory impact this is having on anyone they will want to put them on ventilators , but the odds are most people who actually need ventilators to survive will only be for the sole purposes of scientific sampling and studying those patients to help develop a vaccine with even more than 80% dying.
I got the impression that if you need a ventilator your pretty much one foot in the grave sadly

[Cowbulls]

My personal experience with the Virus. Don't know if my information will be helpful or not but here goes.

I have a link living in the heart of the supposed out break in China. He's been sending me updates & video from the outbreak to ghost lockdown to supposed down turn so I had a bit of a heads up. He basically said it had to run it's course, containment limits the damage.

During China's initial outbreak. I had 2 kids visiting me here in my country before we supposedly had the virus, both came "sick". From that, I started to get a headache & hot throat for roughly 3 days. Didn't think much of the mild symptoms especially with my countries leaders lying that we had no cases. Didn't help that those symptoms died down after about 3-4 days.

I don't know if I was re-infected or if it was dormant.

That headache & hot throat that seemed to have gone away, turned into slight shortness of breath & unusual fatigue but I would not have known I had anything significant if not for finding out that a doctor I rent space to had come in contact with someone that had the virus, unknowingly.

When countries were refusing Cruise ships to dock, our country remained open to them as if they were inviting trouble. I have a business & rentals in the same building, where I rent space to a private doctor. A woman from one of the landed Cruise ships went to him sick (now tested positive) & failed to mention that fact. The doctor gave her antibiotics, sent her home & like I said, my interest & family, is in the same contaminated space.

I'm fine now with no symptoms & I have seem to have built a resistance to it, even in added exposure because the nurses have asked me to keep my business open. Our country is now on a 2 week lockdown where only business of necessity remain open.

Here's what I did when sick -

- Took in Sun, IMO was the most helpful in drying/sweating it out.
- Took extended Rest/sleep
- Drank hot water, especially if there was any constriction in the chest. (Usually occurred in the evening)
- No air condition, no matter how hot the nights got.
- Changed my sheets & pillow cases often, cleaned the entire house 3 times for the weak. Where my symptoms lasted roughly 2 weeks.

Though I was unsure if I originally had it from the 2 kids, I self isolated & shared minimal contact, even from those living with me. My Mom is 76 & has Fibrosis. When I found out about the Woman from the Cruise ship. My symptoms were more or less gone for several days.

My last paragraph is for those that that think they're the only people that matter. A little consideration goes a long way. The only way to really fight this is for people to move more responsibly, whether you think you have it or not.

Hope this post was somewhat helpful.

Damn I'm glad you're doing better. Would you say that the country you live in didn't include you in the statistic of "recovered"? Or did you have to call someone and say you got it and recovered?

[Sgt Major]

About our corner of the world.
Latvia has 446 cases from 15810 tested (2.8% positive), 27 in hospitals, still 3 critical, 0 deaths.
Estonia 779/14353 (5.4% positive, but have tested more per capita),15 critical, 5 deaths
Lithuania 581/12574 (4.6% positive), 11 critical, 8 deaths.

In Latvia we had largest spike of cases (+46) and two more clusters besides previous (funeral service). One is night shelter by the church (for homeless people). One of the usual inhabitants became sick, was tested and then they discovered that many more of the inhabitants and staff are positive (27), of them just one is hospitalized, the rest are quarantined and the army provided tent where they put those who were negative.
The most ironic cluster are 5 people who work in a call center ... for the statewide ER. They are highly experienced people to deal with all the emergencies, mainly to sort out who is really in need in ER brigade and who can wait until the morning and talk with their usual doctor. Recently they are of course quite overwhelmed by all the people who think they might have coronavirus (which is absolutely normal, because who does not have some kind of cold or flu during the winter? only now we pay attention to every cough or sneeze and wonder...) So these two ladies went to work sick and thought that they have angina, but because of so much work just kept working. They have no contact with sick people whatsoever, so it is not clear how they got it. And now the call center is in a big trouble because they must train someone very quickly.

I'm occasionally looking at data from Latvia as here in Hungary the no. of infected were very close from the beginning.

We have like 525 cases but our death rate is much higher - we have 20 deaths - w/ similar test statistics (we performed ~13 000 tests). We don't know why: Either our health care is much worse or our testing is biased and we test the same group of people way more times than others. Or our government is playing w/ the data… All 3 are possible.

Luckily lockdowns are implemented. Though I don't get what kind of lockdown is this when you can go out for a walk without a mask whenever you want or visit places like banks, furniture shops etc... w/ almost standard opening hrs. But I believe this is standard in other parts of Europe, right?

To me it sounds like you're facing the same thing as we in Serbia do.

Testing is the problem, a few people here weren't tested on time and were said to stay home only to later be determined that they already had pneumonia and they were eventually rushed to the hospitals in critical condition when they had to be put on ventilators immediately, but they didn't pull it through. One of them was the father of three, 41-year-old.

So far, only one lab has been doing the tests, but a few others will join that task, if they haven't already today or yesterday.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Read on Twitter

?s=20

[LKN]

I'll have to stop ripping on Florida. Apparently my state (NC) is also basically not testing and producing fake numbers

Read on Twitter

?s=20

[Sgt Major]

Chinese county goes into coronavirus lockdown as country tries to get back to work amid fear of second wave

- Authorities order residents of Jia county to stay home after reports of cases linked to the area’s hospital
- All but a few essential businesses and services shut temporarily, according to government notice

Henan province in central China has taken the drastic measure of putting a mid-sized county in total lockdown as authorities try to fend off a second coronavirus wave in the midst of a push to revive the economy.

Curfew-like measures came into effect on Tuesday in Jia county, near the city of Pingdingshan, with the area’s roughly 600,000 residents told to stay home, according to a notice on the country’s official microblog account.

Special approval was required for all movement outside the home, it said.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3078010/chinese-county-goes-coronavirus-lockdown-country-tries-get-back


Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

[MrGrim]

Read on Twitter

?s=20

F##

[AdagioPace]

Wow - Cuomo just said 80% of people who go on ventilators die

If that continues to be the case it means ventilator shortages are very far from the most important issue.

right , until some type of antibodies get consistent results proving useful in reversal of the deep lower respiratory impact this is having on anyone they will want to put them on ventilators , but the odds are most people who actually need ventilators to survive will only be for the sole purposes of scientific sampling and studying those patients to help develop a vaccine with even more than 80% dying.
I got the impression that if you need a ventilator your pretty much one foot in the grave sadly

trials are ongoing around the world (USA, Italy etc..) with Tocilizumab. But this is an antibody used like a drug, currently produced by Hoffmann-La Roche used on patients at a late stage of "respiratory degradation" to avoid the K.O. brought by the cytokine storm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome. Some studies are also trying to prove its efficacy on patients very early before things take a bad turn with pneumonia.

Feeling-good stories of emancipation from ventilators are welcomed. I've read some, not only about young people. Even though needing a ventilator might look like a "sentence" it gives doctors some time to "manage" the patient. Hopefully in the near future this interval of time between life and death will be useful to "treat" the patient.

[Whole Truth]

My personal experience with the Virus. Don't know if my information will be helpful or not but here goes.

I have a link living in the heart of the supposed out break in China. He's been sending me updates & video from the outbreak to ghost lockdown to supposed down turn so I had a bit of a heads up. He basically said it had to run it's course, containment limits the damage.

During China's initial outbreak. I had 2 kids visiting me here in my country before we supposedly had the virus, both came "sick". From that, I started to get a headache & hot throat for roughly 3 days. Didn't think much of the mild symptoms especially with my countries leaders lying that we had no cases. Didn't help that those symptoms died down after about 3-4 days.

I don't know if I was re-infected or if it was dormant.

That headache & hot throat that seemed to have gone away, turned into slight shortness of breath & unusual fatigue but I would not have known I had anything significant if not for finding out that a doctor I rent space to had come in contact with someone that had the virus, unknowingly.

When countries were refusing Cruise ships to dock, our country remained open to them as if they were inviting trouble. I have a business & rentals in the same building, where I rent space to a private doctor. A woman from one of the landed Cruise ships went to him sick (now tested positive) & failed to mention that fact. The doctor gave her antibiotics, sent her home & like I said, my interest & family, is in the same contaminated space.

I'm fine now with no symptoms & I have seem to have built a resistance to it, even in added exposure because the nurses have asked me to keep my business open. Our country is now on a 2 week lockdown where only business of necessity remain open.

Here's what I did when sick -

- Took in Sun, IMO was the most helpful in drying/sweating it out.
- Took extended Rest/sleep
- Drank hot water, especially if there was any constriction in the chest. (Usually occurred in the evening)
- No air condition, no matter how hot the nights got.
- Changed my sheets & pillow cases often, cleaned the entire house 3 times for the weak. Where my symptoms lasted roughly 2 weeks.

Though I was unsure if I originally had it from the 2 kids, I self isolated & shared minimal contact, even from those living with me. My Mom is 76 & has Fibrosis. When I found out about the Woman from the Cruise ship. My symptoms were more or less gone for several days.

My last paragraph is for those that that think they're the only people that matter. A little consideration goes a long way. The only way to really fight this is for people to move more responsibly, whether you think you have it or not.

Hope this post was somewhat helpful.

Damn I'm glad you're doing better. Would you say that the country you live in didn't include you in the statistic of "recovered"? Or did you have to call someone and say you got it and recovered?

Not included. Wouldn't have known I had it if I didn't find out about the Woman from the Cruise ship. Called no one & with our country on a 2 week lock down, I'm still Isolated, so if there's anything lingering, it will be for the incubation period. I won't be unknowingly spreading it.

Our Country is lying about their numbers as well. We were infected long before the first reported case. The woman from the Cruise ship that tested positive not to long now had it before we held Carnival. How many people she had contact with, unreported, not recorded.

[Stillwater]

Wow - Cuomo just said 80% of people who go on ventilators die

If that continues to be the case it means ventilator shortages are very far from the most important issue.

right , until some type of antibodies get consistent results proving useful in reversal of the deep lower respiratory impact this is having on anyone they will want to put them on ventilators , but the odds are most people who actually need ventilators to survive will only be for the sole purposes of scientific sampling and studying those patients to help develop a vaccine with even more than 80% dying.
I got the impression that if you need a ventilator your pretty much one foot in the grave sadly

trials are ongoing around the world (USA, Italy etc..) with Tocilizumab. But this is an antibody used like a drug, currently produced by Hoffmann-La Roche used on patients at a late stage of "respiratory degradation" to avoid the K.O. brought by the cytokine storm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome. Some studies are also trying to prove its efficacy on patients very early before things take a bad turn with pneumonia.

Feeling-good stories of emancipation from ventilators are welcomed. I've read some, not only about young people. Even though needing a ventilator might look like a "sentence" it gives doctors some time to "manage" the patient. Hopefully in the near future this interval of time between life and death will be useful to "treat" the patient.

It is useful for science not for treatment other than comforting to some degree and most ventilator covid-19 positive patients are palliative barring rare occurrences.
None of the antibodies out there including the ones you mention are past the experimental stage regarding covid-19 but they do offer some hope for fast tracked development if at all useful once utilized on the people who are willing to donate to science

[Cowbulls]

My personal experience with the Virus. Don't know if my information will be helpful or not but here goes.

I have a link living in the heart of the supposed out break in China. He's been sending me updates & video from the outbreak to ghost lockdown to supposed down turn so I had a bit of a heads up. He basically said it had to run it's course, containment limits the damage.

During China's initial outbreak. I had 2 kids visiting me here in my country before we supposedly had the virus, both came "sick". From that, I started to get a headache & hot throat for roughly 3 days. Didn't think much of the mild symptoms especially with my countries leaders lying that we had no cases. Didn't help that those symptoms died down after about 3-4 days.

I don't know if I was re-infected or if it was dormant.

That headache & hot throat that seemed to have gone away, turned into slight shortness of breath & unusual fatigue but I would not have known I had anything significant if not for finding out that a doctor I rent space to had come in contact with someone that had the virus, unknowingly.

When countries were refusing Cruise ships to dock, our country remained open to them as if they were inviting trouble. I have a business & rentals in the same building, where I rent space to a private doctor. A woman from one of the landed Cruise ships went to him sick (now tested positive) & failed to mention that fact. The doctor gave her antibiotics, sent her home & like I said, my interest & family, is in the same contaminated space.

I'm fine now with no symptoms & I have seem to have built a resistance to it, even in added exposure because the nurses have asked me to keep my business open. Our country is now on a 2 week lockdown where only business of necessity remain open.

Here's what I did when sick -

- Took in Sun, IMO was the most helpful in drying/sweating it out.
- Took extended Rest/sleep
- Drank hot water, especially if there was any constriction in the chest. (Usually occurred in the evening)
- No air condition, no matter how hot the nights got.
- Changed my sheets & pillow cases often, cleaned the entire house 3 times for the weak. Where my symptoms lasted roughly 2 weeks.

Though I was unsure if I originally had it from the 2 kids, I self isolated & shared minimal contact, even from those living with me. My Mom is 76 & has Fibrosis. When I found out about the Woman from the Cruise ship. My symptoms were more or less gone for several days.

My last paragraph is for those that that think they're the only people that matter. A little consideration goes a long way. The only way to really fight this is for people to move more responsibly, whether you think you have it or not.

Hope this post was somewhat helpful.

Damn I'm glad you're doing better. Would you say that the country you live in didn't include you in the statistic of "recovered"? Or did you have to call someone and say you got it and recovered?

Not included. Wouldn't have known I had it if I didn't find out about the Woman from the Cruise ship. Called no one & with our country on a 2 week lock down, I'm still Isolated, so if there's anything lingering, it will be for the incubation period. I won't be unknowingly spreading it.

Our Country is lying about their numbers as well. We were infected long before the first reported case. The woman from the Cruise ship that tested positive not to long now had it before we held Carnival. How many people she had contact with, unreported, not recorded.

You are absolutely correct and I've been trying to ease people's mind with examples of people exactly like you. You can't fully blame the countries right now though, as they are fighting to cure the people who aren't as fortunate as you were. We can both agree though that had you passed from this you would of been included into the Coronavirus death statistic. If you and many people similiar to you were included in these recovered reports, I believe we would have a lot more optimism towards this virus right now. Thanks for sharing man.

[madmaxmedia]

Paywall, but headline is the key here.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-reported-11585767179

Looks like Italy's numbers are understated. And combine with with China (which is less surprising) and this is getting frustrating as the numbers that were already blurry seem to be even more so.

I will just trust the Italians here. They also have media. Who ask daily questions and report 24x7. There are Italian users here who hopefully may be able to write something in depth and clarify what is their national feeling about it.

They have the highest death rate in the world. And this hit the richest region in the country. They're doing a really bad job at masking things tbh.

Even if you grant that some people who died weren't tested, it likely isn't enough to skew the numbers bad enough to generate this clickbait headline "Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported".

Just reading the intro of the article, feels like they're re-writing this. Put this on google translate
https://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/03/26/news/coronavirus_38_morti_nella_casa_di_riposo_di_lodi_fare_i_tamponi_alpiu_presto_-252412213/

Basically, sounds like some people have died (older) and weren't tested. It doesn't really change much in the sense of changing what we know. On the other hand, I have the feeling that Italians have been generous attributing the cause of death to covid19. Official numbers --- 51% of those that died had over 3 underlying conditions.

Italian here. I'm just chiming in to say that for as many flows as Italy has (and they are lot for sure) I'm pretty certain we're not hiding thing on purpose. Actually, we've been one of the most transparent countries from the beginning, with "Protezione Civile" (the entity in charge of the emergency) reporting numbers and holding a press conference every single day. So I'm somewhat pissed that from many parts I've seen people pointing at us like we're behaving like China when there is plenty of evidence this is just not true. With that being said, the death toll is far higher than it's being reported.
Just in the sole city of Bergamo (Lombardy), it is believed that the deaths are in the order of 4000 more that reported. The cities that have been hit the hardest simply didn't have the capacity to hospitalise all the positive people so many died at home, especially the elders.
The testing policy was not the one I would have chosen to spot the outbreaks, but hindsight is useless right now. Still, no one here that I know of thinks we're underreporting the cases, we're trying to do the best we can with our limited powers.

I've said this before, but given what your country is going through I don't think there are resources to go and test all the dead outside of hospitals for COVID-19, it's hard enough just trying to save lives right now.

I can't read the WSJ article, but it appears to be referencing the same issue of lack of testing those who die outside of hospitals (which is not of course restricted to Italy anyways.)

Cheers and best wishes

[madmaxmedia]

:noway:

This has to make you think. What is the purpose of preventing healthcare workers from trying to protect themselves? Why is PPE offensive to so many administrators? Where is the directive to prevent people from protecting themselves coming from? What is really going on? At some point does the possibility exist that this isn't mere ignorance? Mere incompetence?

It's like the airlines, they don't want to scare away customers, because of the terrible messaging that only sick people should wear masks. Most American hospitals are businesses after all, acd scaring away patients ends up leading to job cuts and pay cuts.

SO effing stupid.

Yes, we are in the worst virus pandemic in over 100 years, and someone is going to get "scared" because they see a guy with a mask on in the hall?

This is basically middle-management types with no self-awareness who are worried more about their own jobs, than the lives of patients and medical staff. They see unsafe conditions and worry about the perception of their hospital and how it affects them, rather than focusing on trying to help people.

[Doug_12]

The WSJ is not beyond clickbait, but in a world of .001% being so meaningful, I'd pause before dismissing them either. But I've not found a way around the paywall yet either ('ll figure that out).

If you're bored, put that article I linked you on google translate, you'll get a decent idea of what the WSJ may be talking about. There was an article from the NYT recently about it as well, discussed here: Subject: Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread VI (Don't Read Post 1 & FAQ)

The title is clickbait "far higher" seems a bit much. I'd be surprised if they actually made a compelling case that lead you to believe "it's far higher". They'll just say that in "this nursing home, there were 3x more people dead this year than average. In that other nursing home, the same.

I'll just let some Italian users explain us what their sentiment is on the ground. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Italian media have covered all of this and asked all the questions. So they are in prime position to give us that info.

I'm occasionally looking at data from Latvia as here in Hungary the no. of infected were very close from the beginning.

We have like 525 cases but our death rate is much higher - we have 20 deaths - w/ similar test statistics (we performed ~13 000 tests). We don't know why: Either our health care is much worse or our testing is biased and we test the same group of people way more times than others. Or our government is playing w/ the data… All 3 are possible.

Luckily lockdowns are implemented. Though I don't get what kind of lockdown is this when you can go out for a walk without a mask whenever you want or visit places like banks, furniture shops etc... w/ almost standard opening hrs. But I believe this is standard in other parts of Europe, right?

This is the value of RealGM.

Hungarian user.

He could give us some insight into what's going down there...

Spoiler:

Read on Twitter

One of the most fascinating things about this whole surreal period we are going through is how willingly people were to give up their freedoms. Some countries looked like the population forced their governments to declare the "state of emergency".

None like Hungary though.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/01/viktor-orban-pandemic-power-grab-hungary

What's your perspective from Hungary and Hungarian people on this?

Spoiler:

I don't believe here we are willingly give up our freedom or at least not the majority of the people and not in Budapest. The fact that the Parliament gave emergency rights to Orban are not representing the view of the majority of the people. I'm tempted to say that it does not even reflect the minority of them.

Orban's party has 2/3 of the votes in the Parliament while supported by like 30% of the population. That's due to a special voting system that his party introduced a few years ago, which heavily favours the party with the biggest support even in the case when the majority of the people would vote against it. Plus due to the fact that among the 4 free country wide accessible TV channels 3 are controlled by him, 100% of the urban news papers and the majority of other newspapers.

Regarding this law: Our constitution is designed in a way that a lot of laws can be enacted if 67% of the Parliament supports that so they managed to do this without the consent of the opposition. All of the opposing parties voted nay for that emergency law. Previously there were lots of protest against his regime, but he is still in power - I think mostly because a lot of people (especially in rural areas) don't have access to all the news and are using only the official hungarian news channels, which are not very objective if I can put it that way.

In the national radio for example the News you were posting about e.g. Orban's party is technically suspending the Parliament was interpreted in the following way: "Although the opposition tried to stop our Government from effectively fighting against COVID, Fidesz managed to solve the situation. It's a shame that people (in the opposing parties - added by me) prioritize their own political interest first and don't care about people's lives." Or something very similar.

What's happening here is very similar to what happened in Russia or Turkey. There were even reports stating that lot of techniques that Orban is using were used in Russia earlier.

[madmaxmedia]

Was searching for news on chloroquine testing and found this:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/more-on-cloroquine-azithromycin-and-on-dr-raoult

Dr. Didier Raoult of Marseilles and his co-workers have published another preprint on clinical results with the chloroquine/azithromycin combination that their earlier work has made famous. And I still don’t know what to think of it.

This is going to be a long post on the whole issue, so if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, here’s the summary: these new results are still not from randomized patients and still do not have any sort of control group for comparison. The sample is larger, but it’s still not possible to judge what’s going on. And on further reading, I have doubts about Dr. Raoult’s general approach to science and doubts about Dr. Raoult himself. Despite this second publication, I am actually less hopeful than I was before. Now the details.

And another:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-versus-covid-19/

Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin versus COVID-19: Grift, conspiracy theories, and another bad study by Didier Raoult
On Friday, Prof. Didier Raoult posted another study of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine used against COVID-19. It is a single arm observational study of patients with mostly mild (or even asymptomatic) disease that is painfully uninformative with respect to the question of this treatment’s effectiveness. That didn’t stop America’s Quack Dr. Oz and other grifters from touting Raoult’s study, as well as a handful of “miracle cure” testimonials, to promote the treatment as a cure and attack the FDA.
...
Basically, this is a nothingburger of a paper. It studied patients with low severity or even asymptomatic COVID-19 disease, the vast majority of whom would likely have cleared the virus just as fast without the medications. Again, this is such a useless paper, even as an observational paper, that it tells us, in essence, nothing new.
...
I fear that, when all is said and done, the COVID-19 pandemic will be the single greatest opportunity for grifters and snake oil salesmen I’ve seen in my lifetime. Until a vaccine and/or effective treatment is developed, the grift will continue.

In the meantime, we wait the results of clinical trials and for science to do what it always does, as I find myself living in one of the hottest COVID-19 hotspots in the US.

Regardless of whether you agree with the conclusions, these seem to be detailed analyses from experienced researchers. Their general point is not that chloroquine is not potentially a drug to fight COVID-19, but that's it's impossible to tell from the study this French doctor has done.

[zimpy27]

Was searching for news on chloroquine testing and found this:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/more-on-cloroquine-azithromycin-and-on-dr-raoult

Dr. Didier Raoult of Marseilles and his co-workers have published another preprint on clinical results with the chloroquine/azithromycin combination that their earlier work has made famous. And I still don’t know what to think of it.

This is going to be a long post on the whole issue, so if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, here’s the summary: these new results are still not from randomized patients and still do not have any sort of control group for comparison. The sample is larger, but it’s still not possible to judge what’s going on. And on further reading, I have doubts about Dr. Raoult’s general approach to science and doubts about Dr. Raoult himself. Despite this second publication, I am actually less hopeful than I was before. Now the details.

And another:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-versus-covid-19/

Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin versus COVID-19: Grift, conspiracy theories, and another bad study by Didier Raoult
On Friday, Prof. Didier Raoult posted another study of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine used against COVID-19. It is a single arm observational study of patients with mostly mild (or even asymptomatic) disease that is painfully uninformative with respect to the question of this treatment’s effectiveness. That didn’t stop America’s Quack Dr. Oz and other grifters from touting Raoult’s study, as well as a handful of “miracle cure” testimonials, to promote the treatment as a cure and attack the FDA.

Basically, this is a nothingburger of a paper. It studied patients with low severity or even asymptomatic COVID-19 disease, the vast majority of whom would likely have cleared the virus just as fast without the medications. Again, this is such a useless paper, even as an observational paper, that it tells us, in essence, nothing new.

Regardless of whether you agree with the conclusions, these seem to be detailed analyses from experienced researchers. Their general point is not that chloroquine is not potentially a drug to fight COVID-19, but that's it's impossible to tell from the study this French doctor has done.

Single-arm studies are a great way to boost statistical significance, they are also a ton cheaper and quicker than double-blinded placebo-controlled trials that people are hankering for. But they can be confounded with error.

I personally can't see how a placebo could be having such a massive effect here in such short periods of time but it still needs to be done. None of the trials individually have been impressive but the mass of them all pointing the same way is impressive, regardless of the study design.

The "miracle cure" stuff is frustrating though, that puts the medical community on edge because it would be tragic to be led down a path that leads to a poor treatment and pushing it through using marketing words rather than well-designed trials is an accident waiting to happen.. again.

[madmaxmedia]

Single-arm studies are a great way to boost statistical significance, they are also a ton cheaper and quicker than double-blinded placebo-controlled trials that people are hankering for. But they can be confounded with error.

I personally can't see how a placebo could be having such a massive effect here in such short periods of time but it still needs to be done. None of the trials individually have been impressive but the mass of them all pointing the same way is impressive, regardless of the study design.

The "miracle cure" stuff is frustrating though, that puts the medical community on edge because it would be tragic to be led down a path that leads to a poor treatment and pushing it through using marketing words rather than well-designed trials is an accident waiting to happen.. again.

Unfortunately we have absolutely all nuance in the country's (and world's) discussion about this drug. There is almost no discussion of the study itself, the scientist, etc. In any case we'll starting seeing results from both ongoing trials and emergency usage, let's hope for the best.

I mean it's possible to have an opinion that there is little scientific evidence yet that this drug will be effective, but still be in favor of emergency usage with proper disclosure (the drug itself can have significant side effects.)

[bwgood77]

It's like the airlines, they don't want to scare away customers, because of the terrible messaging that only sick people should wear masks. Most American hospitals are businesses after all, acd scaring away patients ends up leading to job cuts and pay cuts.

SO effing stupid.

Yes, we are in the worst virus pandemic in over 100 years, and someone is going to get "scared" because they see a guy with a mask on in the hall?

This is basically middle-management types with no self-awareness who are worried more about their own jobs, than the lives of patients and medical staff. They see unsafe conditions and worry about the perception of their hospital and how it affects them, rather than focusing on trying to help people.

I know...they are trying too hard to "fool" people. I mean even the majority of people, even if they don't know masks help prevent you from being infected, that they do prevent you from spreading, and any reasonable person should assume there is a good chance anyone working in a hospital has a very good chance of being infected, so wearing the mask would probably make most people feel better, not worse.

[LKN]

Over 1000 dead today.... So sad.... and that's with big states like FL still barely testing/tracking.

Stay safe everyone - the really rough part is starting

[Sgt Major]

Read on Twitter

Holy ****