Everything COVID-19

[MightyGiants]

Here's a case made by a very-well established Yale epidemiologist for use of hydroxychloroquine in combination with certain other medications.

https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

Bob,

Good science/medicine is generally not found in opinion pieces in Newsweek.

I was less than comfortable with the misleading why this doctor presented his credentials.    They sounded as impressive as hell when he gave them for his article.   Only it "slipped his mind" that his specialty and expertise is not in infectious disease but rather cancer

Harvey A. Risch. A: I am primarily interested in the etiology of cancer as can be determined through epidemiological research. This has mostly involved work on cancers of the pancreas and ovary, though I have also done studies of lung, gastric, esophageal, and other cancers.


Bob,  the way you go about this topic of always looking for claims that support your political agenda is not how we do things in science

[MightyGiants]

For those interested in studies rather than the opinions of a cancer specialist

What is the Recovery trial and why are its findings thought to be so important?

Recovery, based at Oxford University, is the biggest randomised controlled trial of drugs against Covid-19 in the world, thanks in no small part to the NHS. Almost all acute hospitals across the whole of the UK

[MightyGiants]

To counter the flood of right-wing posts on their forum and to offer up the valuable perspective of outsiders who don't have a stake in US politics, I thought this is worth posting and discussing


Our expert panel includes:

    Dr. Anna Banerji, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto
    Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious disease specialist at Dalhousie University in Halifax
    Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease specialist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.
    Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, an infectious disease specialist based in Mississauga, Ont.
    Dr. Brian Conway, president and medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre
    Dr. Ronald St. John, the first director-general of the Public Health Agency of Canada's Centre for Emergency Preparedness
    Ashleigh Tuite, an epidemiology professor at the University of Toronto

Common criticisms of the American approach included the politicization of public health advice such as mask-wearing, and decisions to reopen businesses before virus activity had tampered down enough to make doing so safe.

The greatest scorn, though, was reserved for what many of the experts described as a clear lack of federal leadership. Unlike in Canada, where provincial and local authorities have generally followed the federal handbook, mixed messages have abounded.

"There's been conflicting messaging and communication and an overall anti-science feel to national response," Tuite said July 21 in an email.

Tuite actually gave the U.S. the highest grade of anyone we asked

[Ron in NJ]

Emirates to become first airline to offer global COVID-19 insurance

Passengers can claim up to 150,000 euros ($174,000) for medical expenses and quarantine costs of 100 euros ($116) per day for 14 days. Funeral costs and repatriation assistance may be covered as well.


https://thepointsguy.com/news/emirates-airline-global-covid-insurance/

Wonder if domestic carriers would dare follow suit?

[MightyGiants]

Emirates to become first airline to offer global COVID-19 insurance

Passengers can claim up to 150,000 euros ($174,000) for medical expenses and quarantine costs of 100 euros ($116) per day for 14 days. Funeral costs and repatriation assistance may be covered as well.


https://thepointsguy.com/news/emirates-airline-global-covid-insurance/

Wonder if domestic carriers would dare follow suit?

This is a wise business move on the part of Emirates, in my opinion.   Flying is a risky proposition and this offer most likely doesn't cost that much (I assume they are paying an insurance carrier) and the increased business will hopefully (for them) cover the cost.

[katkavage]

Starting to see plateaus in Arizona and Texas. The patterns on all the surge states are similar to what happened in New York and Michigan. But when those states got hit, there was no preparedness. Florida, Texas and Arizona didn't have to happen as badly as it did. They just didn't want to do the work. Florida, I believe will plateau next week and all those states will slowly begin to see declines in the next month.

[MightyGiants]

Starting to see plateaus in Arizona and Texas. The patterns on all the surge states are similar to what happened in New York and Michigan. But when those states got hit, there was no preparedness. Florida, Texas and Arizona didn't have to happen as badly as it did. They just didn't want to do the work. Florida, I believe will plateau next week and all those states will slowly begin to see declines in the next month.

Kat,

When NY and NJ got hit, we didn't even have tests to ID the disease.   Even worse there was no PPE (you couldn't even buy a surgical mask that didn't have one or two stars) on Amazon, there was no hand sanitizer, we knew so little about the disease then compared to what we know now, and the only treatment we had when we got hit was supportive care.     Saying it didn't have to happen as it did in FL, TX, and AZ is an understatement.


I think a good comparison is upstate NY.  Upstate NY never got hit like the city did and even when NY started opening up they never saw the spikes that those other states did.   The other states should have been like upstate NY.

[MightyGiants]

Two new studies from Germany paint a sobering picture of the toll that Covid-19 takes on the heart, raising the specter of long-term damage after people recover, even if their illness was not severe enough to require hospitalization.

One study examined the cardiac MRIs of 100 people who had recovered from Covid-19 and compared them to heart images from 100 people who were similar but not infected with the virus. Their average age was 49 and two-thirds of the patients had recovered at home. More than two months later, infected patients were more likely to have troubling cardiac signs than people in the control group: 78 patients showed structural changes to their hearts, 76 had evidence of a biomarker signaling cardiac injury typically found after a heart attack, and 60 had signs of inflammation.

These were relatively young, healthy patients who fell ill in the spring, Valentina Puntmann, who led the MRI study, pointed out in an interview. Many of them had just returned from ski vacations. None of them thought they had anything wrong with their hearts.

[MightyGiants]

Texans Are Now Dying Every Six Minutes From COVID-19

https://www.newsweek.com/texans-are-now-dying-every-six-minutes-covid-19-1521337

[H-Town G-Fan]

Texans Are Now Dying Every Six Minutes From COVID-19

https://www.newsweek.com/texans-are-now-dying-every-six-minutes-covid-19-1521337

If you saw how people down here have been behaving since Memorial Day, you wouldn't be surprised. My office was set to fully reopen on July 1 and is now indefinitely at 10%. They have had to send multiple emails about conduct and observing precautions in this time to people who are supposed to be professionals. We may be plateauing, but I don't know that we'll come down any time soon.

[MightyGiants]

If you saw how people down here have been behaving since Memorial Day, you wouldn't be surprised. My office was set to fully reopen on July 1 and is now indefinitely at 10%. They have had to send multiple emails about conduct and observing precautions in this time to people who are supposed to be professionals. We may be plateauing, but I don't know that we'll come down any time soon.

Texans as a group don't believe safety regulations apply to them.   It wasn't an accident that the healthcare worker who caught Ebola worked in Texas

[MightyGiants]

[T200]

I wonder what these hydroxychloroquine supporters would say to their own doctor's if he/she said to NOT use it for COVID-19. 

[MightyGiants]

I wonder what these hydroxychloroquine supporters would say to their own doctor's if he/she said to NOT use it for COVID-19. 

The woman on the screen with Tucker Carlson is a doctor.  She has been promoted by Trump (as well as FOX "news"

Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.

She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by

[T200]

The woman on the screen with Tucker Carlson is a doctor.  She has been promoted by Trump (as well as FOX "news"


https://www.thedailybeast.com/stella-immanuel-trumps-new-covid-doctor-believes-in-alien-dna-demon-sperm-and-hydroxychloroquine

Yeah, they're a group of doctors pushing it. And by extension, since Trump is supporting it, odds are his supporters are too. Hence my statement.