Rational CoViD-19 Discussion Thread: Science vs. Politics

[infection]

According to a Sermo study (I'll post it later) 75% of the doctors in Spain are treating with Hydroxychorloquine. By far the most in any country. And their morality rate is neck and neck with Italy for the worst in the world.

Tough to determine. I have no idea what the rate is of hydroxychloroquine use is in the US, but based on informal discussion I'm seeing in the community of treating physicians, I'd be led to believe that most are using this inpatient. Variables for a high death rate in places like Spain and Italy are difficult to determine the cause, as I had mentioned back a couple weeks ago when people said we were on a trajectory like Italy (we are having far less fatalities per capita than Italy was 11 days ago) was that Italy had a population that's median age is 10 years older, smokes 50% more, and has 1/3 the amount of critical care beds that we have. As far as Spain, their median age is 7 years older, smoking rate is nearly twice as high, and they have even less critical care beds per capita than Italy.

 

[candrew]

How long have they been using Hydroxychorloquine? Spain has started to flatten out regarding both infected and and deaths.

Doesn't say.

https://www.sermo.com/press-release...atment-patterns-and-puts-pandemic-in-context/

Interestingly enough Germany had the smallest percentage of usage and about the lowest death rate. Maybe they didn't have enough serious cases.

 

[infection]

Doesn't say.

https://www.sermo.com/press-release...atment-patterns-and-puts-pandemic-in-context/

Interestingly enough Germany had the smallest percentage of usage and about the lowest death rate. Maybe they didn't have enough serious cases.

Germany has roughly as many critical care beds per capita as we do.

Obviously a few years old but should give some relative idea of proportion.

 

[One Brow]

Each flu vaccine is different. So while they're not "chuck[ing] a bunching of random stuff" into it [also hard to argue that one medication already on the market qualifies as "a bunch of random stuff"], the actual vaccine that gets approved hasn't been tested on any kind of population to determine its actual effectiveness against the flu. It's assumed by antibodies. But even that's not a perfect correlation. The point I'm making is that we don't have any outcome on the flu vaccine before it hits the market.

Right, we don't have an experimental outcome. Instead, it's based on known, tested principals with a relatively well-understood mechanism, aka science.

How many are you talking to?

I've read a few tweet streams.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Since babe now believes China and is rumors... Lol


Rumors are that
Immunoglobulin therapy
is what killed the Chinese eye doctor who was the whistle blower. He posted on his WeChat that he thought it was a cure but not prescribed yet. He got it from a friend and had a bad reaction along with many others after some anecdotal evidence showed it was working.

 

[babe]

Since babe now believes China and is rumors... Lol


Rumors are that
Immunoglobulin therapy
is what killed the Chinese eye doctor who was the whistle blower. He posted on his WeChat that he thought it was a cure but not prescribed yet. He got it from a friend and had a bad reaction along with many others after some anecdotal evidence showed it was working.

Thanks for this bit about immunoglobulin therapy.

IT is a presumptuous sort of superstitious/magical thinking exercise whose basic axiom is that if we get milk or plasma from something that has immunity to our disease, it will include the working antibodies that can trigger our own immune system..... as good as having a vaccination, lets say.

Some of the assumptions can be untrue in real case scenarios, plus some of those zillions of antibodies from a cow or a pig might do harm.

However, lacking any kind of evidence to the contrary, it is as likely that this IT therapy "cause of death" is just another "rumor". I mean, did they actually do anything to determine the cause of death????

also, I like your humor about me believing China and its rumors.....just putting them in the range of possibilities is not "belief".

 

[babe]

^^^ Exactly what I expect when I open a thread promising "rational discussion"

you should expect me to take exception to sources like CNN, and maybe our federal bureaucrats as well. Political elements rise to the surface in the "news".

 

[babe]

That isn't part of what this thread is for?

arguably, yes. But I like to consider things one issue at a time.



What are the politics of my sources here? For that matter, what are my sources?

I'd consider the CDC, leadership in various federal agencies "political" because they cannot reasonably be expected to act in a vacuum of pressures and traditions that are influenced by the politics. But I was assuming you were reading pretty much the DumpTrump Press and believing the crap there as absolutely reliable.



I don't know what effect stopping the subways would have on New York. Do you? How many police officers and fire fighters don't even own a car? Grocery clerks?

I have not been in NYC, but I bet shutting down the subs could still permit some runs for essential workers, with six feet of dead air between them. And gloves and sanitary wipes and get stations.....



Their latest study says otherwise.

I'll look into the study.

The FDA already approved chloroquine for treatment of COVID19, despite no evidence it works.

I know they approved off-label doctor prescription, and that they have initiated at least one large scientific study with I think 1100 patients.

 

[babe]

Germany has roughly as many critical care beds per capita as we do.

Obviously a few years old but should give some relative idea of proportion.

Probably the most relevant statistic is the available specific immunological or genotype diagnostic tests, and how they have been used.

Identify and isolate..... I think Germany is one of the countries that has done that better, along with South Korea and Singapore, I think. (rumors, all)

Identify.

Isolate.

Treat.

 

[One Brow]

Most of the people I read for medical wisdom don't wear their politics on their sleeves, and are just as dismissive of left-wing anti-science lunacy (e.g., Stein anit-vax positions and Paltrow's Goop) as of right-wing anti-science lunacy.

I agree that adding in more ways to sanitize would improve subway conditions, and you could add space between people by increasing the number of trains, as opposed to decreasing.

I look forward to the results of the 1100 patient study.

 

[babe]

So here is an excellent article.

I should have started the thread with this, I think.

I will pull the statement that Covid-19 is a RNA virus and the little comment on its chemical vulnerabilities.

(1)
Highly pathogenic RNA viruses belong to various virus families. These include the Arenaviridae (Lassa and Argentine hemorrhagic fever (AHF) viruses), the Bunyaviridae (Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus and hantaviruses), the Coronaviridae (severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus), the Filoviridae

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354208000247

(2)

. Like other CoVs, it is sensitive to ultraviolet rays and heat. Furthermore, these viruses can be effectively inactivated by lipid solvents including ether (75%), ethanol, chlorine-containing disinfectant, peroxyacetic acid and chloroform except for chlorhexidine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554776/

(3)

chloroquine was added as a recommended antiviral for treatment of COVID-19 in China [6]

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/therapeutic-options.html

Gao J, Tian Z, Yang X. Breakthrough: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies. Biosci Trends. 2020 Mar 16;14(1):72-73Gao J, Tian Z, Yang X. Breakthrough: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies. Biosci Trends. 2020 Mar 16;14(1):72-73

(4)

Hydroxychloroquine has been demonstrated in SARS and other RNA virus as having specific antiviral effects. Here is a discussion of just what those effects are.

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/jir.2014.0038

 

[babe]

Social Distancing/Isolation/Mass Public Health programs are now showing significant effective results....

As a gross world statistic, the new cases added to existing cases has been, for three days, about 6% increase daily, down from around 20% before. A significant number of "carriers" are either isolated or not moving around to infect others.

One question is how many of these are going non-infective day by day, meaning without ever being diagnosed, tested, or known, they are returning to the unaffected and non-infective population.

About the only way we can know for sure how many people have gone through the disease in whaterver mode, is by a test specific for the antibodies to Covid. Most quick assays are directed at antigen presence, not the antibody presence. The PCR genetic analysis, the most error-free analysis, is still being done, tens of thousands a day, but the more rapid and less expensive immunoassay is being done now at a rate of over 100,000/day.

Adding in all these positive tests is changing the ratio of non-patients tested/patients tested. This will drive most of our most inflammatory scare-mongers back into their holes.

Just pulling numbers outta my general observatory calculator, which works pretty good sometimes.....

If we have tested a million people now, vs 350,000 patients, we have about 357 million unaffected persons who have not been brought to the doctors....

And it looks like less than 10% of the unaffected nonpatients are showing up positive on the tests, and the case positive ranks are only going up 20k/d in the USA there must be 180k unaffected/negative tests, and probably most of the positives are walk-ins (not random statistics)….

so I'm still guessing 97% of us are unaffected, unexposed, vulnerable folks hunkered down, waiting for around 150K infective persons, to recover and become non-infective.

However, about 2% of those exposed will likely remain long-term infective carriers unknown to the doctors or the government or us.

So we need a prophylactic/curative agent like HCQ, available literally off the grocery store shelves.

And a vaccine.

well, actually, despite official denials about no effective antivirals, there are several.....

As things are, this week looks to me like the turning point. Most people like me don't do their work in public traffic, there' no reason to stay home if we can screen everyone with a good test.....and have a handy remedy....

So I think the political uses of this pandemic are almost run out. We'll be over-cautious about returning to normal, but we will recover economically and even accelerate beyond what we had.

But hey...… social distance whatever you do, and get a mask or shield, and wash everything often.