ScottishFox

I find Fauci pretty believable and he's been there through 6 presidencies if I recall correctly.

It also showed up on Daily Wire. I'll try to find something less right-wingy. TrustNodes? https://www.trustnodes.com/2020/03/28/debate-ends-over-chloroquine-as-france-officially-sanctions-usage It's pretty breaking news, but skepticism - especially these days - seems warranted.

This is the guy that lead the research. You'll have to translate from French most likely. https://twitter.com/raoult_didier?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1243970152758214658&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Ffrance-officially-sanctions-drug-after-78-of-80-patients-recover-from-covid-19-within-five-days The French Government decision I located at:

More good news from France: French government just sanctioned use of hydroxychloroquine after an 80 person trial by Didier Raoult showed 78 out of 80 patients recovered within 5 days of treatment (instead of the usual 14 days). Fingers crossed this will be the winning Combined Attack.

Ooops, wrong forum!

More good news on the hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin meds from https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/988648/COVID-19-Drug-Therapy_Mar-2020.pdf. Some promising highlights: On day 6, 70% of hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were virologically cured compared to 12.5% in the untreated control group. And when combined with azithromycin: On day 6, all patients treated with the combination (hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin) were virologically cured compared to 57.1% of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone (n= 20). Hope they get this tested sufficiently for widespread use before my wife and I catch this crap.

We should clearly be adopting the high-tech Coronavirus combating methods of India (less than 1,000 cases) and Libya (only **3** cases!). Far too many countries are posting tiny, tiny numbers which make me pretty certain they are simply not testing for the virus with any regularity at all. Or, worse, they're lying about the numbers. Additionally, our purchase of Xena the German Pinscher got cancelled today as Kaufman county got their shelter-in-place order. Hopefully, that'll be the worst thing we experience with this mess as my wife and I are both in high-risk categories. In a bit of morbid curiosity I occasionally turn on my webcam at work and watch the unlit empty building on one monitor as I code.

So I ran through the John Hopkin's Interactive COVID Map and the only country I could find that has a fully flattened case line is: China. All other countries are showing a continuing rise in case count. Many, like the USA, are on an exponential upswing. China - only - is flat. Believability: 0

On the hopeful side of the spectrum the Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine trials with Azithromycin continue to kick out walloping good results. Clinical course (Table 3) The majority (65/80, 81.3%) of patients had favourable outcome and were discharged from our unit at the time of writing with low NEWS scores (61/65, 93.8%). Only 15% required oxygen therapy. Three patients were transferred to the ICU, of whom two improved and were then returned to the ID ward. One 74 year-old patient was still in ICU at the time of writing. Finally, one 86 year-old patient who was not transferred to the ICU, died in the ID ward (Supplementary Table 1). Full jargon rich article here: https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-IHU-2-1.pdf They might be shaving 80% or more off the expected mortality rate with these meds. Additionally, they are cycling patients through intensive care much faster on the medication. If I read this correctly most patients were rotated through in 5 days instead of multiple weeks.

A lot of the real plagues have been worse than this too. Smallpox and measles have a combined body count of 500,000,000.

We have more *reported* active cases. They (China) kicked off a pretty strict travel ban today after getting some imported cases. And yet their reported numbers are essentially flat for the entire month of March. Only 0.01% of their population got the virus? I call shenanigans. However, if the numbers are somehow accurate then we're totally ... winning?

The UK epidemiologist Neil Ferguson that originally predicted 500,000 deaths in the UK with mitigation measures now says it will probably be under 20,000 and many of those are so sick they would have died by the end of the year anyway. That's a hell of a reduction. Don't trust politicians! Trust the media. Don't trust the media! Trust the scientists. Don't trust the scientists?

Ah, the NTD News site had better information. They say at least 15 million of the missing 21 million users can be explained by low-end cash accounts that could have simply stopped being used during the economic downturn. They also point out that Chinese businesses can't re-open until they go 14 days with 0 cases so... that's what people are reporting despite locals reporting that they are still having new cases.

I believe it was originally from the Epoch Times though that is behind a pay wall. Breitbart also picked it up though I try not to get my news there. Also found a reasonably polished youtube channel that said the same thing and had a lot of other interesting bits and interviews with Chinese locals.

I've been marveling at the lack of Corona virus cases in China lately and then I saw this. https://abc14news.com/2020/03/24/21-million-chinese-cellphone-users-disappear-in-three-months/ The quantity of cellphone buyers decreased from 1.600957 billion to 1.579927 billion, a drop of 21.03 million. The amount of landline people reduced from 190.83 million to 189.99 million, a fall of 840,000. I really hope that's an economic downturn and not a huge number of virus victims being lied about.

Nevada just banned the use of Chloroquine and/or Hydroxycholorquine for treating Covid-19. Seems like that should be up to the doctors. Especially in the severe cases where the potential side-effects of the treatment are ... not dying or - at worst - still dying?

The recent studies with Hydroxychloroquin and Chloroquin combined with Azithromycin - if they ramp up in a timely fashion - make a compelling argument for the stay-at-home orders. If we delay the initial spike just 4-6 weeks and that allows companies in Israel to donate 6 million plus tablets of life saving medicine to us then maybe when this nightmare hits the full population we lose thousands instead of a few million people. I share your friend's (acquaintance's) concern that there is only so much financial damage we can incur before it gets worse than doing nothing, but the rapid testing of the pharmaceuticals is a solid pro argument. Other pro-social-distancing arguments could be that buying 4-6 weeks for the hospitals to stock up on protective equipment for the workers and expanding bed capacity is a big deal. The local hospital ICU flooding at 50 beds instead of 20 beds combined with the new meds could make a massive difference in the long term death toll.

I really liked how the Elder Scrolls series handled this. Humans aren't all just humans. Each race of humans has unique stat bonuses and unique magical powers. Nords are not Bretons are not Imperials are not Redguards. If each subrace of elf and dwarf has distinct stats and powers to go along with their distinct appearance - might as well sign the humans up for the ride.

Texas isn't doing a mandatory stay-at-home order yet, but Dallas county just kicked it off yesterday so that's about 3 million people parked in their homes.

That's two people who self-poisoned versus the reportedly 100% success rate of doctor-supervised patients on the Chloroquine + Azithromycin cocktail. Sadly, more panic-buying in that story. Humans are awful when they're in herd-panic mode.

I hope nobody is making *that* argument. I know I'm concerned about the measures, but more along the lines of, "How much economic damage can we endure before it's worse than the alternative?" As an irrational extreme example: If we self-quarantine until 300 million of us starve to death then that would be worse than letting the disease run its course. Somewhere between that ridiculous extreme and doing nothing is an optimal point where we get the greatest reduction in death. I have concerns - and many do - that in our frenzied rush to fight this illness that we'll end up doing as much or even more harm than doing nothing would have done. Folks are not handling this in a rational calm manner. Here's the canned goods aisle at my local grocery store.

That's why most of these preventative measure seems so silly to me. People can by asymptomatic for 10 days while spreading COVID-19 everywhere. Certainly taking temperatures - which they did at my kid's daycare before closing completely - is completely useless. "Billy, it seems you have a temperature so you can't come inside today. Now I just need to send home everyone who has interacted with you or anything you've touched or in any room you've coughed/sneezed in for the last 10 days..." Decorative solutions will not help us.

This is my concern for the quarantine efforts. How much financial ruin can we absorb before the remedy is worse than the disease?

Though in this case the side-effect of not getting the medication is often death. If they reserve the treatment for severe cases we should see a major drop in the death rate as they've already shown with the trial runs. Though, admittedly, the sample sizes were small.

On the super positive side they've run case studies in three different countries and they're having 100% success rate with Chloroquine (Malaria drug) and Azithromycin (z-pack - common as common gets). They're currently trying to race approval through the FDA and get local manufacture of the Chloroquine in the USA. This thing might be beat in the very near future. Apocalypse averted.