My ruminations about Covid 19

[LSJohn]

This is just some stuff I'm observing and thinking about. I'll probably want to add to it later. Make of it what you will; I don't know myself how much of it is relevant to the way we should be guided. USA 50 million +/- tests Worldometer Corona virus USA says: 3,926,000 alleged positives. (Some were presumptive, we don't now how many) 1,800,000 recovered 144,000 deaths 1,982,000 currently active positives (about 1 person in 166.) ================ Testing records 7.8% positive overall, more than that recently. Regarding these, we can suspect that there is at least some bias toward positives among those people who choose to present themselves for testing. These numbers indicate a case mortality rate of 3.7% (3.7% of the people who catch it will die and it will be attributed as the cause of their deaths.) We hear reports that much of the recent upturn in cases is positives found among a much younger cohort than had been seen previously. We can suspect from media reports and our own observations that many adults under 30 seem to have been far less cautious than other groups. At the time it didn't seem as crazy as it is looking now, given that their group showed a very small percentage of infections in their group previously. I heard a report earlier today that a substantial group -- I think it was 18 -- of infants had tested positive in one locale (I think I heard somewhere in Texas, but don't quote me.) Anyway, my thoughts about that is that there are two possible explanations: either the virus has mutated, or; the test protocol in that locale was compromised in some way, because the very young were previously getting infected at a rate of 1 in 1000 or some other crazy number I could have made up (77% of statistics are made up.) Still trying to find US figures, but in Great Britain, only 33% of the people who test positive have or ever develop symptoms. (Based upon reporting on July 7.)

 

[LSJohn]

From CDC on July 17 for the week ending July 11:

"Based on death certificate data, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 8.1% during week 27 to 6.4% during week 28, representing the twelfth consecutive week during which a declining percentage of deaths due to PIC has been recorded. The percentage is currently above the epidemic threshold and will likely change as additional death certificates for deaths during recent weeks are processed. "

People who die from Flu or pneumonia are in this count whether or not they have tested positive for Cov 19. The week ending July 11 was the 12th week in a row that the percentage of all deaths attributed to PIC declined.

 

[LSJohn]

Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients That Should Be Ramped Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis

Abstract. More than 1.6 million Americans have been infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and more than 10 times that

academic.oup.com

Dr. Harvey Risch, Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health

Hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin has been widely misrepresented in both clinical reports and public media, and outpatient trials results are not expected until September. Early outpatient illness is very different than later hospitalized florid disease and the treatments differ. Evidence about use of hydroxychloroquine alone, or of hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin in inpatients, is irrelevant concerning efficacy of the pair in early high-risk outpatient disease. Five studies, including two controlled clinical trials, have demonstrated significant major outpatient treatment efficacy.

 

[LSJohn]

How a False Hydroxychloroquine Narrative Was Created, and More - LewRockwell

It is remarkable that a series of events taking place over the past 3 months produced a unified message about hydroxychloroquine, and produced similar policies about the drug in the US, Canada, Australia, NZ and western Europe. The message is that generic, inexpensive hydroxychloroquine is...

www.lewrockwell.com

Dr. Meryl Nass

"Hydroxychloroquine has been used safely for 65 years in many millions of patients. And so the message was crafted that the drug is safe for its other uses, but dangerous when used for Covid-19. It doesn't make sense, but it seems to have worked. "

/snip

"Situations that were controlled to show no benefit included 3 large, randomized, multi-center clinical trials (Recovery, Solidarity and REMAP-Covid), the kind of trials that are generally believed to yield the most reliable evidence. However, each of them used excessive hydroxychloroquine doses that were known to be toxic and may have been fatal in some cases; see my previous articles here and here. [up to 2000 mg/day were adminitered; standard for malaria is 200 mg per week; for Lupus and Lyme disease, 200mg/day; recommended for Covid, 200mg once or twice per day, and most proponents recommend taking azithromycin or doxycycline and supplemental zinc with it.]

"[to conceal its effectiveness] You prevent or limit use in outpatients by controlling the supply of the drug, using different methods in different countries and states. In NY state, by order of the governor, hydroxychloroquine could only be prescribed for hospitalized patients. France has issued a series of different regulations to limit prescribers from using it. France also changed the drugs' status from over-the-counter to a drug requiring a prescription."

/snip

"...stop[ped] use of hydroxychloroquine, allegedly in response to the fabricated Lancet study, in France, Italy and Belgium (countries with very high COVID mortality rates) then Portugal then Switzerland. But Switzerland restarted using HCQ 15 days later.This created a natural experiment in Switzerland. About 2 weeks after hydroxychloroquine use was halted, death rates approximately tripled, for about 15 days. Then, after its use was allowed again, two weeks later death rates from Covid fell back to their baseline.