Coronavirus - What Are The Implications?

A lot of things are weird about the entire chain of events from when news broke from China at the end of last year and their incredible ability to test, erect hospitals in 14 days and limited territory. So better to just leave this here now for whatever it’s not worth .... or? Deleting it from the LD virus thread.

 

This is the French clinical trial that Tucker mentioned in the video. https://www.mediterranee-infection....2020/03/Hydroxychloroquine_final_DOI_IJAA.pdf

The most interesting part of the PDF is this portion. "For ethical reasons and because our first results are so significant and evident we decide to share our findings with the medical community, given the urgent need for an effective drug against SARS-CoV-2 in the current pandemic context. "

 

This part is also interesting:
Our study has some limitations including a small sample size, limited long-term outcome follow-up, and dropout of six patients from the study, however in the current context, we believe that our results should be shared with the scientific community.

And here is an article questioning the validity of the study: https://forbetterscience.com/2020/0...idier-raoult-to-save-the-world-from-covid-19/

To be clear, I’m not disputing the findings. Don’t come back and say “I told you so” if this drug ends up working. I would probably bet on it panning out. But this isn’t something to gamble on.

I just don’t think we have enough information yet to say that it is definitively safe and effective, to the point where we can already use it as a basis to remove lockdown restrictions. In fact far from that. Not sure how you can use a sample of 16 people to dictate a national policy, especially considering the nation the study is from is still in heavy lockdowns. But sure, let’s accelerate the testing and find out.

Another factor is that many people already have a validated need for this drug. My aunt has lupus and this is a godsend for her. If there were suddenly shortages that affected her due to supply going towards coronavirus on a mass scale, and THEN it was discovered that there was a substantial portion of coronavirus patients that suffered bad side effects such that it had to be pulled, that would just suck.

I will say there are people who almost seem to be rooting for this to fail just because Trump touted it as an option. Some even pointed to the guy in Arizona who died this week as evidence that this won’t work, and blamed Trump for it. That is all very dumb. The guy did not have the medicinal form of hydrochloroquine but a derivative of it used for aquariums. Taking stuff meant for aquariums without any medical guidance just because you heard a similar chemical mentioned on the news as a possible treatment qualifies you for the Darwin awards.

 

Clinical trials are being conducted in New York. We'll know soon enough.

 

I feel like I'm showing early symptoms, and wish I was joking. Next 48 hours may say a lot.

the odds are we may lose loved ones to this, and that sucks. I’d usually dismiss a sore throat or light cough, but this kind of changes things.

 

Noooooo!!

 

Definitely worth a shot, I stocked up on Zinc for the same reason. It works amazingly for me with colds. Start taking at the beginning of symptoms and what would be a major cold for 3 days becomes something minor that is mostly gone after a day or so.

From what I understand, it coats viruses and makes your immune system more effective in targeting them. No harm in trying it for Corona.

Hope you start feeling better sirron and that it turns out to be something else.

I think this is bringing out some paranoia for a lot of us. My household has mostly been at home since the lockdowns started, but about two weeks ago my parents were in the hospital for several hours, waiting as my dad had a minor operation. The night before they both went to a work party. Those were pretty much their last outing, but I wonder if they caught something.

My mom developed a persistent dry cough a few days later that is still around, but no other symptoms. Nobody else in my family has shown symptoms, so I imagine if my mom had Corona then all the coughing would have spread to someone else by now or it would have developed into more symptoms for her. But I have noticed a feeling in my chest sometimes when I’m breathing. I can’t really describe it, it’s not pain but feels like a very slight disruption in the flow through my airways. Very minor and intermittent. It’s so minor that I wouldn’t give it a second thought a few months ago, but now it’s gotten in my head that it might be the virus taking it’s roots.

I was also actually in the hospital in late January for a few days with the worst flu like symptoms I’ve ever had. High fever, fatigue, high heart rate, out of it mentally. They ran a bunch of tests, and did specifically rule out the flu. But couldn’t really pinpoint what the problem was. Kept me to monitor for a few days giving me IV fluids and Tylenol and then sent me home saying “it was probably some sort of virus”.

Lately I’ve been wondering if that was actually Corona. Which would now give me a bit more peace of mind... but if it wasn’t Corona and some other random benign virus, then that whole ordeal has made me realize my immune system isn’t as strong as I thought. Had also gone to urgent care a few months prior to that with shortness of breath and they were concerned with my high blood pressure, and chalked the shortness of breath up to the high heart rate and said maybe I had too much coffee that day.

So although I’m only 27, I think I’ve had a wake up call that I really haven’t done a great job at maintaining my health so I think there is a decent chance that if I got coronavirus it could do some damage.

 

@sirronstuff @Helljumper Best wishes to you both.

 

Yeah, I’m pretty sure anything I’m feeling right now is just anxiety too. It’s also allergy season and my sinuses have been flaring up lately too, so anything I feel in my chest could be related. Was actually supposed to get surgery for my sinuses last week but had to cancel with all this going on.

If I had respiratory issues with my ordeal in January, I’d be more confident in retroactively chalking it up to coronavirus, but I still think there’s a decent chance. For example Doris Burke just announced she tested positive and said she didn’t have any sort of cough or shortness of breath. If I recall, I started feeling symptoms on a Thursday night but was actually working from home that entire week and didn’t leave the house. The prior weekend though I drove out of town for a family party where people flew in from different states and countries. That must have been the only opportunity for me to catch something, and so getting symptoms about 5 days later lines up with the coronavirus incubation period (and from what I understand that is relatively unique from other viruses/flus).

 

Hopefully it’s nothing, but it’s still an interesting mental exercise to go through.

 

New, bigger trial is out in France with the two common drug cocktail. Sounds like really great results. This is a synopsis I found on line that is probably much easier to read than the technical language in the accompanying link in the 5th paragraph.



"The new study is out on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin with 80 hospitalized COVID patients shows it is extremely effective. In fact apparently more effective that antibiotics are overall (The treatment failure rate for antibiotics for bacterial infections rose from 13.9% in 1991 to 15.4% in 2012 www.mdedge.com/...



Coronavirus cure: French researchers completed new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19
MARCH 27, 2020


On March 19, we published a story about a trial study conducted by French researchers which showed a combination of Hydroxychloroquine (brand name Plaquenil) and Azithromycin to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The study, which was led by renowned Didier Raoult M.D/Ph.D in Marseille, France, showed that 100% of patients that received a combination of the two anti-malaria drugs tested negative and were virologically cured within 6 days of treatment.


The first preliminary trial involved a total of 36 COVID-19 patients. However, U.S. health agencies like FDA and CDA, are still very cautious about the effectiveness and safety of the two drugs due to small trial size and lack of sufficient data.


Today, Prof. Didier Raoult and his team published results of their new study www.mediterranee-infection.com/...
The study was supported by the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire (IHU) Méditerranée Infection. Unlike the previous small study trial, the new observation study has a larger sample size of 80 COVID-19 patients. The objective of the study was to find an effective treatment to cure COVID-19 patients and to decrease the virus carriage duration.


In 80 in-patients receiving a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, the team found a clinical improvement in all but one 86 year-old patient who died, and one 74-year old patient still in intensive care unit. The team also found that, by administering hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, they were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form, who was over the age of 86, and in whom the evolution was irreversible, according to a new paper published today in IHU Méditerranée Infection.


“For all other patients in the cohort of 80 people, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin resulted in a clinical improvement that appeared significant when compared to the natural evolution in patients with a definite outcome, as described in the literature. In a cohort of 191 Chinese inpatients, of whom 95% received antibiotics and 21% received an association of lopinavir and ritonavir, the median duration of fever was 12 days and that of cough 19 days in survivors, with a 28% case-fatality rate (18),” the research team said.


The team went on to say: “Thus, in addition to its direct therapeutic role, this association can play a role in controlling the disease epidemic by limiting the duration of virus shedding, which can last for several weeks in the absence of specific treatment. In our Institute, which contains 75 individual rooms for treating highly contagious patients, we currently have a turnover rate of 1/3 which allows us to receive a large number of these contagious patients with early discharge. Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are extremely well-known drugs which have already been prescribed to billions of people.” (note this may be typo no doubt many 10s of millions have used it but maybe not over 2 billion)


“In conclusion, we confirm the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine associated with azithromycin in the treatment of COVID-19 and its potential effectiveness in the early impairment of contagiousness. Given the urgent therapeutic need to manage this disease with effective and safe drugs and given the negligible cost of both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, we believe that other teams should urgently evaluate this therapeutic strategy both to avoid the spread of the disease and to treat patients before severe irreversible respiratory complications take hold,” the team concluded.


March 28 Update: In a Twitter post day, Prof. Raoult said: “Our study concerns 80 patients, without a control group because we offer our protocol to all patients with no contraindication. This is what the Hippocratic Oath that we have taken dictates to us.” techstartups.com/...


I guessed yesterday a 15% death rate for hospitalized patients without this treatment. This study does have a figure for that, a Chinese study of 191 hospitalized patients that put 95% on antibiotics and 21% on lopinavir and ritonavir and the death rate was 28%. The death rate in this new French study is 1.25% absolutely stunning efficacy. So in the French study 22 people should have died, but only one did and patients became virus negative much faster which reduces hospital time and the need for ventilators and reduces the spread of the disease. What Dr. Raoult says about Hippocratic Oath is in relation to the fact if he put 80 patients on nothing but std care likely he would have killed 21 of them.


Amazing results, and I have been praying for a good cure so thank you God!"

 

Really frustrating to see CNN continue this. You can tell the headline is totally politicized. “There is little scientific evidence that they are effective in treating Covid-19”. Clearly that is meant to put in the reader’s head that this is only moving forward because of Trump and has no merit. A more accurate headline would be “Results from small scale testing so far gives us reason to be optimistic.”

When Trump is going off the rails and so many are criticizing him for how he’s attacking the media during this crisis, why give him any ammunition? It’s so easy to win that battle. All you need to do is show some integrity and not live up to the fake news narrative he’s painted. Unsurprisingly, they just can’t help themselves.

I’m also not sure how we went from “the federal government needs to take a stronger stance and impose a national lockdown and domestic travel restrictions” to “Trump would be attacking state sovereignty if he put New York and other heavily affected states in a quarantine”.

 

On Tuesday morning, the controversial and experimental coronavirus treatment program being run by a Hasidic doctor who claimed he had kept more than 500 symptomatic patients out of the hospital was shut down. By afternoon, after intervention from the White House, it was up and running again.

The doctor, Vladimir Zelenko, has been in isolation because he is immunocompromised. But he is directing perhaps the world’s most extensive, unsanctioned medical experiment related to coronavirus — the use of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19, a something President Donald Trump has been touting for days as a “game changer” in the fight against the virus.

The experiment is controversial: Trump’s top medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has cautioned against use of the drug to treat the virus, calling evidence of its effectiveness “anecdotal.” On Monday evening, New York banned off-label use of the drug, which is also used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, outside state-approved clinical trials.

But on Tuesday afternoon Vice President Mike Pence announced on Fox News that the Food and Drug Administration was approving off-label use of the drug “right now.”

“Doctors can now prescribe chloroquine for that off-label purpose of dealing with the symptoms of coronavirus,” Pence said.

Zelenko said that he has been using a cocktail of drugs on his patients: hydroxychloroquine, in combination with azithromycin — an antibiotic to treat secondary infections — and zinc sulfate, which studies have suggested slows down virus replication in the body. He said he had been administering the cocktail to patients with shortness of breath of any age, and those over 60 years old or who are immunocompromised and exhibiting milder symptoms. He said he is not treating asymptomatic people under 60 who are healthy or low risk.

He acknowledged that his regimen was new and untested, and that it was too soon to assess its long-term effectiveness. But he said he thinks the rewards of implementing his treatment method are much greater than the risks of waiting to verify its efficacy, and he insisted that he is seeing only positive results from using hydroxychloroquine, in combination with two other drugs, on an outpatient basis for patients at higher risk of dying from the virus.

 

They approved the drugs

 

Here's the article. LINK

If true, then this is truly alarming.