Coronavirus

[unclevlad]

6 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

Anyway - Looks like France did indeed sanction the use of hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin.

 

Registered there, read the full article you linked.  I don't see any evidence that the use was sanctioned, tho.  Unless there are more stories from that site?  They talked about a test in progress, for HCQ alone...not HCQ+AZ.  And that's far less than a full sanction for use, even in the trial-approval sense granted today by the FDA.

[ScottishFox]

20 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Registered there, read the full article you linked.  I don't see any evidence that the use was sanctioned, tho.  Unless there are more stories from that site?  They talked about a test in progress, for HCQ alone...not HCQ+AZ.  And that's far less than a full sanction for use, even in the trial-approval sense granted today by the FDA.

 

From page 3 on the article references it:

 

However, just a week ago, access to this drug (and others with market approval that have been on the market for several years) was blocked in hospital central pharmacies, while we are the medical specialists with the authorization! It was unacceptable.  It was sorted out 48 hours ago: hydroxychloroquine is now available in the hospital, and to my knowledge, we no longer have a problem obtaining it.

Found a reference to it on International Business News (Newsguard rating 82.5) as well:  https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-treatment-france-officially-sanctions-drug-after-975-patients-recovered-2949364

[Old Man]

An in-depth review of the HCQ+Az experiment and the doctor publishing it

 

 

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.

 

...

 

On day 2, 10 patients now showed a negative nasal swab test (70 patients still positive). Now, according to the paper’s Table 2, 49 patients started therapy on Day 0, and 26 on Day 1. So this apparently means that 10 out of the 49 got to a completely negative nasal swab reading overnight? That seems hard to believe, unless they were already close to the cutoff, but here’s a big problem with the preprint: we do not have individual patient data.

 

I want to believe, but Dr. Raoult is not helping his cause by performing bad science.

[Old Man]

[Cancer]

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

Cancer...?

 

 

I think you'd have to say "Since 1900" or so.  

 

The major observatories were in capital cities: Royal Observatory Greenwich is in London; Paris Observatory; Pulkovo Observatory in St Petersburg; Vatican Observatory in Rome; US Naval Observatory in Washington DC; and so on.

 

In the 19th Century significant observatories spread out some.  Harvard Observatory was in Cambridge Mass, but sprouted a remote station in Chile.  Cape Town Observatory was created.  Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria BC.  In the Gilded Age, private benefactors established their own sites to suit their whims: Yerkes Observatory outside Chicago,  Mt Wilson Observatory right outside Los Angeles; Lick Observatory broke the mold by being set up outside what was at the time a little fruit-growing town of San Jose.

 

As lights and smoke grew in the big urban centers, astronomers found themselves needing to go to dark sites, and the ability to find and develop those came into economic reach.  Really, that started early in the 20th Century.

 

Roughly 1990, though, advancing control technology -- and the realization that the 500-watt heater that was a living human body contributed enough irregularities in the airflow through the dome that a person on the observing floor was a notable detriment to the data you could take -- made it possible, as well as desirable, to operate telescopes remotely.  This is now the norm for most major telescopes: maybe you go there once to get vetted on the instrument, but otherwise you operate your telescope over the internet (there is a local operator present in the control room to keep things going smoothly, and to force dome closure to protect the instruments from sometimes rapidly changing weather conditions).

 

Kind of sad, really.  I liked being on the telescope by myself.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, ScottishFox said:

 

From page 3 on the article references it:

 

However, just a week ago, access to this drug (and others with market approval that have been on the market for several years) was blocked in hospital central pharmacies, while we are the medical specialists with the authorization! It was unacceptable.  It was sorted out 48 hours ago: hydroxychloroquine is now available in the hospital, and to my knowledge, we no longer have a problem obtaining it.

 

 

The link above had it.  That's good enough for me.  Also, I think I see why it wasn't showing up Sunday...because this was Thursday, the 26th.  The link you cite is from the 27th, but the decree
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000041755775&categorieLien=id

was issued on the 25th.  I didn't go back that far.  I looked for confirmation *Sunday*.

 

What bites, to me, is the need IMO to be this anal with regard to confirmation.  So thanks for your patience and diligence finding it.

 

Let us keep our fingers crossed.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

An in-depth review of the HCQ+Az experiment and the doctor publishing it

 

 

 

 

I want to believe, but Dr. Raoult is not helping his cause by performing bad science.

 

Agreed, the study is seriously flawed.  There's a fundamental conflict tho...if things are SO bad that lockdowns are required, then isn't it ethical to pursue what has a reasonable appearance of effectiveness?  NOT stopping there, NOT ignoring doing more rigorous testing, and I damn sure hope ALWAYS discussing the potential problems *in depth* with anyone whose symptoms aren't that severe.  (Let's face it, severe cases will grasp at straws, so the notion of informed consent is largely a non-starter.)

 

And we have to be honest:  this is not purely a medical question, but a public policy question...and therefore a political one.  It's very easy to argue these approvals are based more on the political calculus than the medical.

[unclevlad]

Spain passed China...at least in terms of officially reported cases...to take the #3 slot in number of cases.  They've been #2 in deaths, only behind Italy, for several days now.

 

Number of cases per million people, for the world as a whole, broke 100.  It was a touch under 93 yesterday.  Number of deaths per million people will break 5 tomorrow easily...went from 4.4 to 4.8 today.

 

Closer to home...yesterday, total # of deaths was Italy, Spain, China, Iran, France, USA.  Today, it's Italy, Spain, China, USA.  We passed France...despite the fact that over 400 people died today there.

 

A large part of the reason why France is willing to try the HCQ-AZ treatment is, discounting Andorra and San Marino where the sample sizes are too small for the death rates to be meaningful (that said, wow, San Marino is getting *hammered*....230 cases and 25 deaths out of a population of 33,000)...among the larger countries, France has the 4th highest mortality rate in the world.  Italy and Spain are suffering the worst by a huge margin;  Netherlands is 50 per M, France is at 46.  

 

EDIT:  sorry!  Rephrase...I *think* a large part.  I stated as fact, it's not.  It's opinion, and not informed by anything but the numbers.  Lots of dead bodies means lots of pressure to respond *somehow.*

[Old Man]

[Old Man]

[Old Man]

[Pattern Ghost]

I just hope I keep making my CON rolls . . . hospital security is interesting these days.

[Old Man]

47 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

I just hope I keep making my CON rolls . . . hospital security is interesting these days.

 

Please elaborate.  And stay healthy.

[Pattern Ghost]

18 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Please elaborate.  And stay healthy.

 

I can only elaborate in general terms. We're involved heavily in the handling of patients who  are high risk behavioral concerns. A typical briefing may include the words, "He's on all the drugs," and the person would be speaking literally. Many of these people are suicidal and/or homicidal. This isn't a population who's really got a firm grasp on concepts related to infectious disease control, such as social distancing and keeping your bodily fluids to yourself.

 

So, toss in Covid-19 and the fact that I'm a bit fat and a bit asthmatic, and over 50 . . . so, lucky me!

[unclevlad]

For the first time, the US broke 20,000 new cases today.  I don't believe China ever did...not counting the Feb. 12th data which was a reporting backlog.  Massive number of cases just got assigned that date;.

 

If the trends hold, the US case count will exceed the total of Italy and Spain *combined* by probably Thursday.

[unclevlad]

2 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I can only elaborate in general terms. We're involved heavily in the handling of patients who  are high risk behavioral concerns. A typical briefing may include the words, "He's on all the drugs," and the person would be speaking literally. Many of these people are suicidal and/or homicidal. This isn't a population who's really got a firm grasp on concepts related to infectious disease control, such as social distancing and keeping your bodily fluids to yourself.

 

So, toss in Covid-19 and the fact that I'm a bit fat and a bit asthmatic, and over 50 . . . so, lucky me!

 

Good luck to you, sir.
Oh, and yeah, speaking of bodily fluids, FDA has warned that CV has been found in stool samples.  Risk is unknown, and generally small most of the time...but here......

 

Good luck again.

[unclevlad]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00154-w

 

Headlines:

 

31 March 03:00 GMT — Lockdowns might have averted tens of thousands of deaths in Europe already

per modeling at the Imperial College, London.  20,000 to 120,000 deaths may have been averted so far.

 

27 March 15:00 GMT — Virus could have killed 40 million without global response

if no mitigation measures had been taken...a 90% infection rate was possible by this point.  This might've been a worst-case estimate, but still...even if it was only half that.....

[Michael Hopcroft]

Being stuck here for another 31 days is an unpleasant prospect. I thought I'd be OK with the isolation, but it's starting to get to me. I'm not hallucinating yet, and I do get to see a care assistant four hours a day which is a hell of a lot more than almost everyone else gets in terms of personal contact. But things look grim otherwise.

 

The problem on the front of my mind is that I have a delivery scheduled Wednesday 4/1 with Insttacart, Unfortunately, Instacart shoppers and Amazon delivery drivers are apparently about to go out on strike, leaving me with what exactly? I'm not going to starve without this delivery, but I can easily see a time when I will need those deliveries to go on and they won't be there. because who knows how long I'll be cooped up here.

 

Mind you, I don't blame them. They are not paid nearly enough to be on the front line of this battle. And I've been given conflicting advice on whether to go to grocery stores as the crisis continues. A friend on another forum told a terrifying story about a woman who tried to buy a second gallon of milk and Hulked Out when told the limit was one.. It ended with the store having a knocked-down wine display, the other customers terrified, and the customer being escorted out by police without any milk at all. No word on whether anyone bought the milk she left behind (and why they would want to I'm not entirely certain).

 

If the Nature article is correct, then we as a species have dodged an artillery shell. Now the question is how long our resolve holds to continue the fight.

 

 

[Badger]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

For the first time, the US broke 20,000 new cases today.  I don't believe China ever did...not counting the Feb. 12th data which was a reporting backlog.  Massive number of cases just got assigned that date;.

 

If the trends hold, the US case count will exceed the total of Italy and Spain *combined* by probably Thursday.

 

Good news is, we have the population of Italy and Spain combined times 3.   

 

Bad news seems to be NY by itself seems to be determined to be #1.

[Lord Liaden]

Nature has been showing us with increasing frequency in recent years, that our civilization isn't eternal and invulnerable, but actually very fragile. Many of us have taken that message to heart, and that may fuel positive change in future. Probably not enough to prevent major bad stuff from happening, but perhaps enough to ameliorate it.

[Bazza]

10 hours ago, Pariah said:

Cancer...?

 

 

Monks have been doing that for centuries.  😛 

[Bazza]

[Bazza]

[Bazza]

[Bazza]