Coronavirus

[dfwatt]

My guess is that CFS is a mixture of autoimmune dysfunction like you said, neurotransmitter disorders, and one or more other things, depending on the person/specifics..

One of the worst concepts ever advanced was presented to me when I was in training (some time in mid 1700's!) was that the brain is an "immune privileged site". Utter hogwash as it turned out and it has set back the understanding of depression, Alzheimer's disease, and a bunch of other refractory problems very significantly a for quite a long time. The CNS has its own dedicated immune system in terms of glial and astrocyte populations with glial cells as the resident phagocytes. And this local system of course is in constant communication with the immune system in the periphery.

Anything that affects the immune system affects neuroplasticity, circadian regulation, and multiple amine and neuropeptide systems in ways that we barely can index or measure. The immune system is inter penetrant with every other signaling system in the CNS and with behavior directly in ways even most physicians don't often full appreciate. We know this because of the conserved syndrome of "sickness Behavior" which is shown in all vertebrates and which reflects the inhibiting effect that pro inflammatory cytokines have on the deep motivational systems in the midbrain, somewhat mis-categorized as "the reward system". It's more a system for the seeking of rewards in other words for generalized motivational arousal and it has a bunch of other connections to other brainstem and subcortical systems. But it's pretty clear that sickness behavior is a conserved part of immunocompetence such that we go home and rest or perhaps more colloquially we slink back to our cave and sleep it off. This actually improves our immunocompetence. If on the other hand we resist this ancient program, try to run around in the world and do our normal activities when we are seriously ill we find we are saddled with fatigue, cognitive fog, and anything but our best performance, and the performance of our immune system suffers too. In this sense organism defense against pathogens and running around in the world/learning and neuroplasticity ("doing our thing") are functionally counterposed vectors. You can't optimize for both.

 

[Papafox]

Yeah - mixed results = not so good.

You want a CLEAR CUT improvement. Not something where you have to "hope" and "wish" and do all kinds of advanced statistics to see the result.


We are now over two months into the HCQ story, with tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of people having taken it for COVID-19. If it were that effective, we would know by now.

Everyone now is just looking for these tiny, marginal effects. When you get that small, you then have to start having serious conversations about the benefits outweighing the side effects.

Basically, everyone still looking at HCQ is splitting hairs and is too emotionally attached to this medication.

I think the mixed results of the studies have more to do with the conditions in which HCQ was administered (with or without zinc, early or late in disease progression) and not having to do with the effectiveness of the drug combo.

Looking at the NYU study, the number of patients involved that took all three substances, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin was 400, which roughly corresponds with the number of patients New York physician Zelenko prescribed this combo to treat for the virus. Although the NYU study doesn't mention Zelenko, his patients are an obvious target for a retrospective study. Using this protocol, a 44% reduction in deaths, verified by a study from a reputable medical school, is worth further study. Eliminating nearly half the deaths in a patient group is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[bkp_duke]

Zelenko has been debunked, you need to find a more credible source.

And if there were truly a 44% reduction in deaths, that would be astounding. That's about 10X better than what is seen with Remdesivir.

 

[FreshPrince]

This is actually one of my significant concerns in terms of possible long-term effects from covid-19 infection. When I was a staff member at our Alzheimer Disease Clinic I used to see a lot of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome status post viral infection, and we now know that chronic viral infection may be a pathway indeed an underappreciated pathway into Alzheimer disease. Severe chronic viral infections segue in a still mysterious fashion into chronic fatigue syndrome in a highly variable percentage of the time anywhere from a few percent to up to 40 to 50% with some of that variability hinged to the type of virus but also some of it hinged to the severity of the initial infection and how symptomatic people were.

Chronic fatigue syndrome has been dismissed by a lot of Physicians but it's finally getting traction and recognition as a real syndrome even if we don't understand it very well. It could be some kind of neuroendocrine shift orchestrated by our immune systems possibly reflecting some kind of chronic over activation of the system, but we still lack a definitive understanding of mechanism. I wonder if it reflects epigenetic change but again I'm just guessing here. In any case it's really part and parcel of the long-term negative effects of severe viral infection and it's part of why you really don't want to mess with this kind of virus and if possible instead get immunity the easy way through a vaccination.

Why not consider that it's the severe autoimmune response to infection as the cause for ME/CFS or other illness, rather than the virus itself? In such scenario virus is not the cause but a trigger.

 

[dfwatt]

Why not consider that it's the severe autoimmune response to infection as the cause for ME/CFS or other illness, rather than the virus itself? In such scenario virus is not the cause but a trigger.

That's what I was saying actually. Viral infection produces some kind of unknown possibly autoimmune or other trajectory into chronic fatigue. Fatigue in infection is not caused by the pathogen, it's caused by our own immune system. See my last post for details on this.

 

[GFernandes]

Hello all, moron-cave master here again. I want to summarise my points and I hope to be treated with respect. I don't want just to be a contrarian, I truly believe locking down the world and instigating fear was a mistake that has killed/will kill many more and reduce the quality of life overall for many others. Please refrain from going into calling me a moron(again) until you read this till the end.

Im going to analyse Europe only. Later on i might do the same for USA, but I believe Europe has enough scale and variety to make my point:

Every year there is a pool of people that is susceptible to death. Being old is the main factor. Having comorbidity is the other. If less people died in 1 year, next year will have a bigger pool of people.

Lets take look at Influenza, please check both these websites:
European all-cause excess and influenza-attributable mortality in the 2017/18 season: should the burden of influenza B be reconsidered? - ScienceDirect ( specially table 2 )
euromomo.eu

For Euromomo website, please take notice they are not using deaths/100.000 people anymore, so I made those calculations for you and compared them to 2014/2015 ( a bad influenza year ):

2014/2015 ( week 40 to week 20)
Total:43.63 excess deaths/100.000 population

2019/2020 ( week 40 to week 19 - next week ill update, excess mortality is reaching the baseline - this period includes influenza(weak season + COVID )
Total: 52.39 excess deaths/100.000 population

2020 - only COVID period ( week 8-19 )
Total: 42.6 excess deaths/100.000 population

What we can see is that when thee pool of susceptible individuals is rising and we have a strong strain ( 2014/2015 and COVID ) the number of deaths jumps up. Before 2014/2015 we had 2013/2014 at -1,39 and 2012/2013 at 17,25. Before COVID we had 2018/2019 at 15.6 ( calculated from Euromomo #s and population ) and this year was being very weak at ~10.0.

So in both cases we had a bigger than usual pool of susceptible individuals to a strong strain of respiratory disease.

While its true that 52.39/43.63 = 20% more than a strong influenza year it is also true that is within the 7-10% of deaths that this type of disease causes:

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docse...est&checksum=6A9E6324D569E0913B7DEDB03DA4B9C4
( CHECK 3.7 )

The vast majority of deaths every year is due to Cardiovascular and Cancer. Both together represent 60-70% of deaths. 20-25% is other diseases. Respiratory falls in the 7-10%.

Exogenous factors like :"accidents, suicides, homicides and other causes" are insignificant at 3-4%,some rose and some lowered due to lockdown so I believe they should be disregarded for this discussion.

What should NOT be disregarded is the lack of care for the main causes of deaths, cancer and cardiovascular. I've got family working in a private cardiovascular clinic, and you can ask anyone in the same field: they had 20-30% of the normal amount of people having strokes coming in. People were afraid of going to hospital. Routine checks for cancer were not made ( these deaths do not happen now, but increase the probability they will happen later). We worsened the probabilities for the 60-70%( maybe even more if we count the "other diseases" ) of deaths during this period.

Knowing this im asking you: Is it too much to think that this 20% excess ( representing 1-2% in overall yearly deaths ) is caused by lockdown, now that you know what actually kills most people?

The lockdown also had an impact in our quality of life now and for the foreseeable future, you guys know perfectly what are the economical impacts of this.

To be clear, I don't blame politicians for taking the measures they took. What we knew at the time was that this is much worse than what we now know it is. It could mean extinction with the numbers that were coming out of China ( first WHO document from Wuhan mentioned 13% death rate ).

Gonçalo

 

[Causalien]

But, but, but, they are foreigners. You can't trust foreigners.

It's funny...

But I wonder how much truth is in that joke.

 

[Causalien]

Just curious . . .what track record is that? I would bet you have no professional background in healthcare, biology or the sciences. A track record of wild unsupported statements? And what is your specific evidence that chronic reinfection is taking place routinely? Other than just your hunch? Curious if you have any version of a reliable source or if this is just passing on a rumor. As for the dark notion that you could splice covid-19 or SARS 2 to rabies to get a super pathogen, that's a wild idea.

Just read back to the beginning of this thread and validate the time I posted the information to when they get confirmed. You'll notice that I was about 1~ 2 month ahead from publicly released information. If you are too lazy to do a search, not much I can do about that.

I am only sparsely posting about this now because I am too lazy to repeat all the same *sugar* I knew since January.

As for properly linking source etc and prove the research. Again, too lazy now when a simple google search on your end can prove them.

My sources are confidential, just like my sources for investment. As for whether or not they are legit... you'll just have to take time and track my record to find out yourself.

 

[AZRI11]

Zelenko has been debunked, you need to find a more credible source.

And if there were truly a 44% reduction in deaths, that would be astounding. That's about 10X better than what is seen with Remdesivir.

Thanks to Trump vs The World we will not know if there were benefits to taking hydroxychloroquine with zinc. Some hospitals with give this combo, but it probably won't be part of any study. I pray that (Trump) never mentions NAC.

 

[Electroman]

I've been watching the results from HCQ usage carefully and there's mixed results. When HCQ or Chloroquine was given in combination with zinc and Azithromycin, and given early enough to prevent the battle in the lungs, then most data I've seen so far suggests it is reasonably effective. For example consider this recent finding by NYU's Grossman School of Medicine researchers that the drug combo led to 44% fewer deaths than in patients compared to those not on the combo. I find such results intriguing, not overwhelmingly conclusive, but intriguing. We really do need a controlled study in which the preferred use of HCQ is tested, and that includes being given in combination with zinc and azithromycin and being given to patients who are in at risk groups but given soon after detection of the virus so that the viral counts can be pulled down within a half dozen days so that ICU, ventilators, and the battle in the lungs can largely be prevented.

That's my wish: do a study of Hydroxychloroquine in the usage that makes the most sense (in combo and given relatively early in disease progression). Until that test is done this drug combo should not be eliminated as a possible treatment. You as a man of science should really be hoping the test is done as well so that we can either agree that HCQ has value as a treatment when done correctly or we can dismiss this treatment candidate and move on. What's been done in the past is certainly NOT conclusive.

Spot on. Most of the early studies of HCQ were with advanced patients and some of them died due to existing cardio problems. So HCQ got a bad rap early on, with Orange buffoon adding fuel to that by recommending it. But for what I am reading now, it seems HCQ when administered early on has a good potential to save the patient from even hospitalization or going into ICU.

If I wear the conspiracy hat, it seems that big pharma wants to push a new drug to make billions, and push a narrative that no existing drugs not only cannot aid in the fight, but they are dangerous too. If you look at every HCQ death it is related to very old patients with an existing heart ailment. I wouldn't put past the current CDC to blindly bat for big pharma on this.

 

[RobStark]

IHME website has a new feature

 

[traxila]

Zelenko has been debunked, you need to find a more credible source.

And if there were truly a 44% reduction in deaths, that would be astounding. That's about 10X better than what is seen with Remdesivir.

How was Zelenko debunked? Would love to see a follow up or rebuttal to his claims.

My searches have not yielded results. Do you have a link to more information than the same 669 patients over and over again with no additional documentation?

 

[linux-works]

I'm wondering what makes a super spreader.

helpful picture of what a super spreader may look like:

 

[TEG]

Or...

 

[dfwatt]

Just read back to the beginning of this thread and validate the time I posted the information to when they get confirmed. You'll notice that I was about 1~ 2 month ahead from publicly released information. If you are too lazy to do a search, not much I can do about that.

I am only sparsely posting about this now because I am too lazy to repeat all the same *sugar* I knew since January.

As for properly linking source etc and prove the research. Again, too lazy now when a simple google search on your end can prove them.

My sources are confidential, just like my sources for investment. As for whether or not they are legit... you'll just have to take time and track my record to find out yourself.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. Then again, neither do you. The notion of "secret or confidential" sources in relationship to biological science is a contradiction in terms. There is no evidence that significant numbers of people are routinely reinfected. That's just not true.

 

[RandomJohnny]

Spot on. Most of the early studies of HCQ were with advanced patients and some of them died due to existing cardio problems. So HCQ got a bad rap early on, with Orange buffoon adding fuel to that by recommending it. But for what I am reading now, it seems HCQ when administered early on has a good potential to save the patient from even hospitalization or going into ICU.

If I wear the conspiracy hat, it seems that big pharma wants to push a new drug to make billions, and push a narrative that no existing drugs not only cannot aid in the fight, but they are dangerous too. If you look at every HCQ death it is related to very old patients with an existing heart ailment. I wouldn't put past the current CDC to blindly bat for big pharma on this.

This is exactly what is happening. It is so obvious it isn't even funny. Don't let the pretend MDs here try to convince you of anything else. The media propaganda flies in the face of logic. Also, Trump knows exactly what he is doing and it is for the "conspiracy" you just cited. Everyone thinks Trump is just flying off the cuff with his comments about HCQ but he is sneaky like a fox. Imo, he was laying the groundwork for this for quite some time as he knows just as well how corrupt big pharma is and how embedded they are with government institutions including Fauci. Think about this----the negative spin on HCQ from the media just keeps the drug a topic of discussion. If Trump didn't recommend it or take it himself----would there be anything to bring it to people's attention other than the first reports? Don't you think he knows it is going to be blasted all over the media in a negative light? It doesn't matter. It is very much like Tesla and Elon, even the bad news is good news. It creates awareness. Many people are wiser and more skeptical than the loud voices on this thread. The skeptical public may be portrayed as idiots but they have a lot more logical sense than what is displayed here.

Agreed, RCT would be great and I think Trump keeping it in the limelight will help to force this because I can guarantee big pharma and the corrupt bureaucracy wants nothing to do with a cheap drug that has been safe/effective for 50 some years.

 

[dhanson865]

"I knew what I thought going in [about the coronavirus]. I didn’t think it was as serious as it was until after things started happening," he said. "I thought I was young enough for it not to affect me, and I know a lot of people think that.

"I wanted to show it can happen to anyone. It doesn't matter if you're young or old, have preexisting conditions or not. It can affect you."

As he sat in his bed in a Boston hospital's coronavirus ward, Mike Schultz chatted with one of his favorite nurses about his treatment of being sedated and intubated.

"I thought only a week had gone by," he said.

That's when she let him know he hadn't been in the ward for one week — he'd been there for six.

"I was so weak. This was one of the most frustrating parts," he recalled. "I couldn’t hold my cellphone; it was so heavy. I couldn’t type, because my hands shook so much."

The 43-year-old nurse from San Francisco had no underlying health conditions. He normally worked out six or seven times a week. He weighed about 190 pounds. When he spoke with us on Tuesday, weeks after he'd been able to start eating foods again, he weighed just 140 pounds. His lung capacity is only now starting to slowly come back.

 

[lascavarian]

If you look at every HCQ death it is related to very old patients with an existing heart ailment. I wouldn't put past the current CDC to blindly bat for big pharma on this.

Try to resist these conspiracy theories. There is always a new one. You can only rely on rigorous clinical studies that have been duplicated at multiple centers. Extraordinary claims require extensive proof. Biology is complex and the immune system really complex.

There is no getting around the need to deliver the studies. Clinical studies are very Very hard to do well and for good reason. The studies deliver the facts and not the wishes we all want to be true. Facts are expensive, stubborn and often disappointing but they move us out of a morass of mere wishes. Just my 2 cents.

 

[dfwatt]

Spot on. Most of the early studies of HCQ were with advanced patients and some of them died due to existing cardio problems. So HCQ got a bad rap early on, with Orange buffoon adding fuel to that by recommending it. But for what I am reading now, it seems HCQ when administered early on has a good potential to save the patient from even hospitalization or going into ICU.

If I wear the conspiracy hat, it seems that big pharma wants to push a new drug to make billions, and push a narrative that no existing drugs not only cannot aid in the fight, but they are dangerous too. If you look at every HCQ death it is related to very old patients with an existing heart ailment. I wouldn't put past the current CDC to blindly bat for big pharma on this.

I think you're confusing the CDC with the FDA. It's not that big Pharma isn't greedy but that doesn't mean that there is a conspiracy theory level explanation for everything. There's simply an absence of good data supporting any form of efficacy. There is decent data that in severe patients HCQ does not help and may make things worse. Whether it helps early on in milder patients or whether it helps prevent infection remains to be seen. I'm strongly suspicious that any protective effect it has may be limited to its role as a zinc ionophore, meaning that it allows zinc into the cell where zinc interferes with viral hijacking of ribosome factories. But there may be other less toxic ways to elevate zinc levels in vulnerable cells.

 

[eevee-fan]

I know someone who was on HCQ for lupus and got COVID. Anecdotals are just that unfortunately.

Looks like the difference comes down to being admitted to a hospital in China.