Coronavirus

[RandomJohnny]

Sorry, I don't treat paranoid schizophrenia. You will need to go take your delusions elsewhere.

Notice how he didn't acknowledge any of the flaws in the non peer reviewed garbage he posted to push his agenda? Instead he just attempts another insult. Classic. And he does this every time.

Duke, seriously, what is your motive? Why have you spent 24 hours a day posting here for the last several months? You said you left medicine because it took up so much family time and now you spend all your free time posting here? Seems odd.

Is it because you have developed a little cult following of like 20 ppl? And it feels so good that you convinced them you are an "expert"? I get it, everyone wants to feel smart and important but objectively isn't this a little pathetic, no?

 

[Papafox]

I can see why someone would think that, and there is an argument to be made for it (as heaven help you and others have), however as I've mentioned probably 100 times in this thread, HCQ is not an aspirin. It is not a benign medication at all, and that is why you won't see it prescribed in the outpatient setting for COVID-19.

We are all here arguing about the IFR of COVID-19 and the prevalence in the community, so let me put this into perspective. HCQ the risk of QTc (heart arrhythmia) is very high, and apparently this is made worse by use of azithromycin with HCQ.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2765631

With risks like that, if we put 100 million people on HCQ, we could be talking about people dying from it by the tens to hundreds of thousands.

Here's Chart 4 of the NYU study that compares the use of HCQ & azithromycin with that same cocktail that also includes zinc. Looks like the findings are very encouraging when you look at the bottom line with three ***s that shows a comparison between the treatments when treatments begun in the ICU are excluded. That's a ration of 6.9% expired/hospice with zinc vs. 13.2% expired/hospice without zinc. The "Adjusted Odds Ratio" was 0.449, which is probably where the article writer got that 44% less death number.

You have to admit that's a pretty startling improvement in avoiding death when zinc is added to the equation and the cocktail is given early enough in the disease progression.

Ultimately, one needs to weigh the risks of heart issues vs. the possibly significant survivability of COVID19 if the cocktail is begun as soon as symptoms first appear. With the vast number of treatments with chloroquine or HCQ for COVID19 that have already taken place, I'm not convinced at all that the risks of the cocktail are great enough to outweigh the benefits in treating COVID19 when you see data such as that appearing in the table above.

 

[madodel]

View attachment 543397
Here's Chart 4 of the NYU study that compares the use of HCQ & azithromycin with that same cocktail that also includes zinc. Looks like the findings are very encouraging when you look at the bottom line with three ***s that shows a comparison between the treatments when treatments begun in the ICU are excluded. That's a ration of 6.9% expired/hospice with zinc vs. 13.2% expired/hospice without zinc. The "Adjusted Odds Ratio" was 0.449, which is probably where the article writer got that 44% less death number.

You have to admit that's a pretty startling improvement in avoiding death when zinc is added to the equation and the cocktail is given early enough in the disease progression.

Ultimately, one needs to weigh the risks of heart issues vs. the possibly significant survivability of COVID19 if the cocktail is begun as soon as symptoms first appear. With the vast number of treatments with chloroquine or HCQ for COVID19 that have already taken place, I'm not convinced at all that the risks of the cocktail are great enough to outweigh the benefits in treating COVID19 when you see data such as that appearing in the table above.

Maybe it is just the zinc. Seriously HCQ is not something to be playing with. When I told my wife (she's a Cardiologist) months ago that they were saying that HCQ was being used for COVID-19 first words out of her mouth were "Long QT syndrome". Her hospital had COVID-19 patients on it but only those in monitored beds. They saw no benefit and switched to Remdesivir. I have no idea if they used zinc as well. Now they only have a handful of COVID-19 patients in the units.

 

[Papafox]

Maybe it is just the zinc. Seriously HCQ is not something to be playing with. When I told my wife (she's a Cardiologist) months ago that they were saying that HCQ was being used for COVID-19 first words out of her mouth were "Long QT syndrome". Her hospital had COVID-19 patients on it but only those in monitored beds. They saw no benefit and switched to Remdesivir. I have no idea if they used zinc as well. Now they only have a handful of COVID-19 patients in the units.

Thanks for the datapoint, @madodel . If HCQ + zinc is as powerful as the table I posted suggests, then the benefits for patients who fit into one of the high risk groups for COVID19 could be immensely greater than the risk from heart issues that might arise from its use. It really comes down to weighing one risk against the other. The problem with COVID19 is that if it progresses to the point where the patient needs to go on a ventilator, survival is maybe 25%. That's a wickedly dangerous situation. I'm willing to bet that the risks of the drugs are greatly outweighed by their benefits to COVID19 patients over age 65 and those with underlying conditions. Let's hope we can get some studies with real numbers regarding the risks of using HCQ & azithromycin together. Maybe HCQ plus zinc is the way to go for patients who would likely fair poorly with COVID19 because azithromycin has been known to contribute to heart arrhythmia. Lets hope we can see some real numbers so that we can do a real comparison of risks vs. benefits.

 

[SageBrush]

A recent Quinnipac poll asked whether trump should wear a mask

Two-thirds of voters, 67%, said they thought Trump should wear a face mask in public, with the vast majority of Democrats, 90%, saying he should and most independents, 66%, in agreement. Thirty-eight percent of Republicans said he should wear a mask.

I'm always surprised at just how well trump knows his base. Maroons, the lot of them

 

[SageBrush]

Low population density

In Stockholm ?

 

[linux-works]

A recent Quinnipac poll asked whether trump should wear a mask
I'm always surprised at just how well trump knows his base. Maroons, the lot of them

that's not the correct spelling. see below:

 

[N5329K]

Thanks for the datapoint, @madodel . If HCQ + zinc is as powerful as the table I posted suggests, then the benefits for patients who fit into one of the high risk groups for COVID19 could be immensely greater than the risk from heart issues that might arise from its use. It really comes down to weighing one risk against the other. The problem with COVID19 is that if it progresses to the point where the patient needs to go on a ventilator, survival is maybe 25%. That's a wickedly dangerous situation. I'm willing to bet that the risks of the drugs are greatly outweighed by their benefits to COVID19 patients over age 65 and those with underlying conditions. Let's hope we can get some studies with real numbers regarding the risks of using HCQ & azithromycin together. Maybe HCQ plus zinc is the way to go for patients who would likely fair poorly with COVID19 because azithromycin has been known to contribute to heart arrhythmia. Lets hope we can see some real numbers so that we can do a real comparison of risks vs. benefits.

As I understand it, HCQ is a very effective zinc ionophore; ie, it opens cellular doors to let in the zinc, which is not an easy thing to do. Zinc, as we know, interferes with the ability of a virus to replicate, which is a handy thing. In vivo, cells treated with HCQ and zinc light up when analyzed for zinc penetration through the cell wall. Unfortunately, it is a zinc ionophore with side effects (and a not insignificant number of people who need it on-label for their own diseases). Some of those side effects are serious. A few are fatal.
Quercetin (OTC supplement) is also a zinc ionophore, but it's not as effective at shoving zinc through the cell wall as HCQ. That said, it also has no side-effects (that I've heard about).
Zinc seems to be an important actor in this viral arms race. HCQ and Querectin are just vehicles for delivering the zinc payload. One has side effects. The other, not so much.
That's what I've gleaned, anyway.
Robin

 

[dfwatt]

In Stockholm ?

Obviously not in Stockholm but overall Sweden is a relatively large landmass for only 10 million people. That's less than the number of people in the metropolitan New York City area

 

[FreshPrince]

View attachment 543397
Here's Chart 4 of the NYU study that compares the use of HCQ & azithromycin with that same cocktail that also includes zinc. Looks like the findings are very encouraging when you look at the bottom line with three ***s that shows a comparison between the treatments when treatments begun in the ICU are excluded. That's a ration of 6.9% expired/hospice with zinc vs. 13.2% expired/hospice without zinc. The "Adjusted Odds Ratio" was 0.449, which is probably where the article writer got that 44% less death number.

You have to admit that's a pretty startling improvement in avoiding death when zinc is added to the equation and the cocktail is given early enough in the disease progression.

Ultimately, one needs to weigh the risks of heart issues vs. the possibly significant survivability of COVID19 if the cocktail is begun as soon as symptoms first appear. With the vast number of treatments with chloroquine or HCQ for COVID19 that have already taken place, I'm not convinced at all that the risks of the cocktail are great enough to outweigh the benefits in treating COVID19 when you see data such as that appearing in the table above.

How did they normalize for age and comorbidity? Age and/or comorbidity can significantly affect the severity of COVID-19. This kind of stats remind me of article I recently read:

Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real

Which means science is broken.

 

[SageBrush]

Obviously not in Stockholm but overall Sweden

The so-called Swedish experiment is mostly about Stockholm, and a few smaller cities.

Put another way, the histogram of population density vary much favors urban living so land mass per capita is misleading. From Wikipedia

A total of 8,016,000 – 85 per cent – of the Swedish population lived in an urban area; occupying only 1,3 per cent of Sweden's total land area, and the most populous urban area is Stockholm at 1,4 million people.

Addendum: Google provides some more numbers:
Los Angeles County population density: 2100 per mile*mile
Seattle is about 8000 per mile*mile
Sweden overall: 63 per mile*mile
BUT, 85% of Swedes live in 1.3% of the landmass which works out for them to be 0.85*63*77 =
.... 4123 people per mile*mile

So double that of Angelenos, but ~ 1/2 that of Seattle

 

[Dr. J]

Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real

Which means science is broken.

 

[deonb]

I voted for Trump, and I still think his administration is a *sugar* show.

I'm curious - were you expecting something else?

His administration is behaving exactly like I expected it would.

But I just assumed that's what his followers wanted (and still want). What is it that you thought would be different?

 

[madodel]

I'm curious - were you expecting something else?

His administration is behaving exactly like I expected it would.

But I just assumed that's what his followers wanted (and still want). So what is it that you thought would be different?

I know a couple of people who voted for Trump because they hate politicians and just wanted something different. They now regret it and they never expected the incompetence and criminality and complete denial of reality. I'm surprised that there wasn't something similar to the complete disaster of the non-response to COVID-19 and the truly sad destruction of the CDC occurring earlier in his regime.

Edit:I forgot they also really hated the Clintons and especially Hillary, which while I wasn't a fan of her, she was probably the most qualified and experienced person to ever run for the position. Love Hillary or hate her, things would have gone dramatically different with this pandemic had she been President.

 

[Dr. J]

I'm surprised that there wasn't something similar to the complete disaster of the non-response to COVID-19 and the truly sad destruction of the CDC occurring earlier in his regime.

It was clear from the transition, at least to Michael Lewis, who warned of us of stuff like this.
https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Risk-Michael-Lewis/dp/1324002646

 

[dhanson865]

Woman with lupus took hydroxychloroquine for 19 years, still got COVID-19

 

[renim]

Thus the need for RCTs.

Papafox's link showed that the double HCQ & azithromycin, was requiring zinc to be effective (so a triple drug). (Retrospective obersvation, so now a mere hypothesis)

So to be speculative, oyster/seafood eating regions do better tham non oyster/seafood regions when on HCD re coronvirus. (Due to zinc)

Even more pertinent, will plant phytates Dietary Factors Influencing Zinc Absorption - PubMed (ie cereals and corn) in the diet block the usefullness of HCD but allow the negtives to remain?

 

[Noneduck]

I can see why someone would think that, and there is an argument to be made for it (as heaven help you and others have), however as I've mentioned probably 100 times in this thread, HCQ is not an aspirin. It is not a benign medication at all, and that is why you won't see it prescribed in the outpatient setting for COVID-19.

We are all here arguing about the IFR of COVID-19 and the prevalence in the community, so let me put this into perspective. HCQ the risk of QTc (heart arrhythmia) is very high, and apparently this is made worse by use of azithromycin with HCQ.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2765631

With risks like that, if we put 100 million people on HCQ, we could be talking about people dying from it by the tens to hundreds of thousands.

This is exactly right. I am surprised that there is really any debate about this. Among my medical colleagues there is no enthusiasm for hydroxychoroquine (with or without zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D or anything else) given its risk profile. In medicine there is a thing for number needed to treat (NNT) and number needed to harm (NNH). We like the NNT to be low, the number of people that you need to treat with the medication to get a one favorable outcome, like survival from COVID-19; and the NNH to be high - the number of people you need to treat before you get one adverse, harmful side effect, like a cardiac rhythm disorder. For hydroxychloroquine the NNH probably exceeds the NNT.

 

[Electroman]

For hydroxychloroquine the NNH probably exceeds the NNT.

So is that a favorable statement for HCQ? Or should I read between the lines and conclude it is not?

 

[renim]

Australia reached 100 covid19 deaths

(6 of those report to my state QLD, very similar population size as NZ)

Still very little fatality for under 59 yr olds. But of course highest infection in 20-29 yr olds.

Last weekend stroll, no masks, plenty of breeze, plenty of physical distance between household groups.