COVID-19 Megathread 4: Grandma Got Run Over by the Dow Jones

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/Mike_Eckel/status/1250515775712038912

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1250514460399321094

[GP270watch]

 Pass economic sanctions on the world's top provider of cheap goods and manufacturing at a time when you need to manufacture massive amounts of resources for a pandemic.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1250482670326472705

[GeorgiaModerate]

On a lighter note, here's an idea for a treatment approach:

https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1961/10/09 (start there and read the next 5 days)

[ilikeverin]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1250505096384991233

On top of this, too, I'd also say I've been pleasantly surprised that (1) people taking social distancing seriously has meant (2) fewer dangerous behaviors that we take for granted in our day-to-day lives (especially driving), which has meant (3) fewer other trips to the ICU, so (4) the ICU rush has been less terrifying than expected.

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/StarTribune/status/1250517014764048390

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Remember when Andrew Cuomo was screaming about how he needs 40k ventilators? (“You pick the 26,000 who are going to die”)

Turns out NY didn’t anything near that, just as Trump said. Now, Cuomo and company are giving away ventilators cause they got too much

http://www.foxnews.com/us/cuomo-says-new-york-giving-away-some-ventilators-coronavirus-outbreak-stabilized-there.amp

Why doesn’t anyone call out Cuomo on his overdramatic nonsense? He overdramatized to grab headlines and make himself look good.

Ya know, sometimes it's better safe than sorry.

[CellarDoor]

Remember when Andrew Cuomo was screaming about how he needs 40k ventilators? (“You pick the 26,000 who are going to die”)

Turns out NY didn’t anything near that, just as Trump said. Now, Cuomo and company are giving away ventilators cause they got too much

http://www.foxnews.com/us/cuomo-says-new-york-giving-away-some-ventilators-coronavirus-outbreak-stabilized-there.amp

Why doesn’t anyone call out Cuomo on his overdramatic nonsense? He overdramatized to grab headlines and make himself look good.

He didn't do it to grab headlines or make himself look good.  He did it because when you are preparing for an emergency, you prepare for the worst.  How many ventilators would he have needed if the people of NYC didn't follow social distancing/stay-at-home orders?  

There is a lot of uncertainty in a crisis like this, and Cuomo was following the advice of scientists at the time based on the information/uncertainty at the time.  There doesn't need to be a political reason for everything.

Edit: I hope you are not trying to make the argument that, because they ended up needing less ventilators than they initially thought, Trump is proven to be full of wisdom on the subject.  He also predicted when we were at 15 cases nationally that it would suddenly disappear and those cases would be down to zero in a short amount of time.  We are now at 640K cases, 28K deaths (reported) and in the midst of one of the most serious economic crises in the history of this country.  Perhaps had Trump prepared at all, let alone prepare for worst like Cuomo, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Remember when Andrew Cuomo was screaming about how he needs 40k ventilators? (“You pick the 26,000 who are going to die”)

Turns out NY didn’t anything near that, just as Trump said. Now, Cuomo and company are giving away ventilators cause they got too much

http://www.foxnews.com/us/cuomo-says-new-york-giving-away-some-ventilators-coronavirus-outbreak-stabilized-there.amp

Why doesn’t anyone call out Cuomo on his overdramatic nonsense? He overdramatized to grab headlines and make himself look good.

He didn't do it to grab headlines or make himself look good.  He did it because when you are preparing for an emergency, you prepare for the worst.  How many ventilators would he have needed if the people of NYC didn't follow social distancing/stay-at-home orders?  

There is a lot of uncertainty in a crisis like this, and Cuomo was following the advice of scientists at the time based on the information/uncertainty at the time.  There doesn't need to be a political reason for everything.

Exactly this.  You prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.  If the worst turns out not to happen -- especially if your preparations have helped to achieve that outcome -- then it's a cause for gladness, not blame!

This administration's approach has been to prepare for the best and hope the worst doesn't happen.

[ProudModerate2]

In unprecedented move, Treasury orders Trump’s name printed on stimulus checks

The Treasury Department has ordered President Trump’s name be printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said.

The unprecedented decision, finalized late Monday, means that when recipients open the $1,200 paper checks the IRS is scheduled to begin sending to 70 million Americans in coming days, “President Donald J. Trump” will appear on the left side of the payment.

It will be the first time a president’s name appears on an IRS disbursement, whether a routine refund or one of the handful of checks the government has issued to taxpayers in recent decades either to stimulate a down economy or share the dividends of a strong one.

One word ... Narcissism.

[ProudModerate2]

Different, recent trial results on a clinical trial of chloroquine diphosphate.

The high dose CQ arm presented more QTc>500ms (25%), and a trend toward higher lethality (17%) than the lower dosage. Fatality rate was 13.5% (95%CI=6.9-23.0%), overlapping with the CI of historical data from similar patients not using CQ (95%CI=14.5-19.2%). In 14 patients with paired samples, respiratory secretion at day 4 was negative in only one patient. Interpretation Preliminary findings suggest that the higher CQ dosage (10-day regimen) should not be recommended for COVID-19 treatment because of its potential safety hazards.

French study finds hydroxychloroquine doesn't help patients with coronavirus.

A drug that's been touted by President Donald Trump as a "game changer" didn't help hospitalized patients with coronavirus and was associated with heart complications, according to a new study.

"This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid 19," said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug -- heart toxicities that required it be discontinued."

Trump has said that hydroxychloroquine shows "tremendous promise" and has made it sound like the drug is harmless. "I think it's going to be great," Trump said at a White House briefing on March 19.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/15/health/new-french-study-hydroxychloroquine/index.html

[Virginiá]

Recap time:

Trump’s Entire Coronavirus Response Is Massive Political Corruption

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-checks-name-slush-fund-ventilators.html

Trump has never respected any meaningful distinction between the federal government and the Trump Organization. He expects every federal employee, especially its law-enforcement agents, to advance his personal political agenda. He has functionally mixed its budget with his own by having the government pour money into his properties, and he has treated its official powers as if they are his own personal chits. The authority he has gained through the emergency response to the coronavirus has vastly expanded the potential for corruption, and every sign indicates that Trump is already engaging in systemic abuse.

Some of the corruption is lingering just below the surface. Trump is speaking constantly with corporate leaders, who can position themselves at the front of the line for federal contracts or relief payments. He supports bailouts for industries with a shaky claim to the public purse, like cruise lines, and has staunchly opposed any rescue for the United States Postal Service, which handles essential government communication. Trump of course has been trying to force the post office to raise rates on Amazon, in retaliation for Jeff Bezos’s ownership of the Washington Post. The economic crisis has put the post office on life support, giving Trump the leverage he wants to make it punish a detested rival.

Trump has treated the distribution of the federal government’s supply of emergency medical equipment like he is walking around the neighborhood with a money clip, pulling out bills and patting grateful recipients on the cheek. When New York governor Andrew Cuomo noted that he retains power to reopen public spaces, Trump exploded, “I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence! That won’t happen!” Trump routinely threatens Democratic governors not to complain about his mismanagement if they want help from Washington, conflating the authority of the government with his own authority (“When they disrespect me, they are disrespecting our government”). He has used the precious supply of ventilators as in-kind contributions, allowing endangered Republican allies like Martha McSally and Cory Gardner to hold them up as proof of their clout.

When Congress handed Trump control of half a trillion dollars in spending authority, it insisted on establishing some loose oversight requirements. Trump has diligently trashed them. When he signed the economic rescue bill, he added a statement that he would refuse to follow its express requirement that the inspector general report if the administration is withholding information from Congress. He quickly fired the inspector general who was tasked with overseeing the bailout fund, and replaced him with a member of his impeachment defense team. There is little mystery about Trump’s intention. He blurted it out: “I’ll be the oversight.”

When the next Democrat is sworn in as president, every Republican who said nothing here or waved away Trump's abuses needs to buzz off when it comes to oversight, "fiscal responsibility" or any sort of accountability. Actions here -or lack thereof - won't be forgotten.

[Grassroots]

Remember when Andrew Cuomo was screaming about how he needs 40k ventilators? (“You pick the 26,000 who are going to die”)

Turns out NY didn’t anything near that, just as Trump said. Now, Cuomo and company are giving away ventilators cause they got too much

http://www.foxnews.com/us/cuomo-says-new-york-giving-away-some-ventilators-coronavirus-outbreak-stabilized-there.amp

Why doesn’t anyone call out Cuomo on his overdramatic nonsense? He overdramatized to grab headlines and make himself look good.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish by bragging about lower than expected hospitalizations?

[Omega21]

Different, recent trial results on a clinical trial of chloroquine diphosphate.

The high dose CQ arm presented more QTc>500ms (25%), and a trend toward higher lethality (17%) than the lower dosage. Fatality rate was 13.5% (95%CI=6.9-23.0%), overlapping with the CI of historical data from similar patients not using CQ (95%CI=14.5-19.2%). In 14 patients with paired samples, respiratory secretion at day 4 was negative in only one patient. Interpretation Preliminary findings suggest that the higher CQ dosage (10-day regimen) should not be recommended for COVID-19 treatment because of its potential safety hazards.

French study finds hydroxychloroquine doesn't help patients with coronavirus.

A drug that's been touted by President Donald Trump as a "game changer" didn't help hospitalized patients with coronavirus and was associated with heart complications, according to a new study.

"This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid 19," said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug -- heart toxicities that required it be discontinued."

Trump has said that hydroxychloroquine shows "tremendous promise" and has made it sound like the drug is harmless. "I think it's going to be great," Trump said at a White House briefing on March 19.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/15/health/new-french-study-hydroxychloroquine/index.html

Damn it. What about other drugs, I remember one Japanese drug that is also being tested?

We need something if we want to go back to how it was before.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Damn it. What about other drugs, I remember one Japanese drug that is also being tested?

We need something if we want to go back to how it was before.

Remdesivir is most promising, but the FDA won't approve it, because it just won't.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Remember when Andrew Cuomo was screaming about how he needs 40k ventilators? (“You pick the 26,000 who are going to die”)

Turns out NY didn’t anything near that, just as Trump said. Now, Cuomo and company are giving away ventilators cause they got too much

http://www.foxnews.com/us/cuomo-says-new-york-giving-away-some-ventilators-coronavirus-outbreak-stabilized-there.amp

Why doesn’t anyone call out Cuomo on his overdramatic nonsense? He overdramatized to grab headlines and make himself look good.

The media is the one building up the overblown hype... why would they ever report that they or anyone overreacted? Ive already seen responses from alarmists that deliberate overhype was "necessary" to scare people into obeying authority ...

[HisGrace]

A friend of mine told me that even a vaccine won't be very helpful, since the virus is likely to mutate and render such a vaccine useless. We will be socially distancing for many years to come.

Then they'e got to figure something else out because there is no point in living longer if you make everyone miserable. There's no point in living to be eighty if you're just going to spend your whole life alone in a room with your only link to the outside world being a screen.

If I was offered a choice of living a full life and living to be 70 vs eternal social distancing and living to be 80 I'd take the first choice and so would any sane person.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Indeed the media has not been all that helpful in this crisis, caring more about ratings than actually helping the public keep the right balance between worry and confidence. They are far from alone in not helping in this department however.

[Esteemed Jimmy]

Indeed the media has not been all that helpful in this crisis, caring more about ratings than actually helping the public keep the right balance between worry and confidence. They are far from alone in not helping in this department however.

[HillGoose]

A friend of mine told me that even a vaccine won't be very helpful, since the virus is likely to mutate and render such a vaccine useless. We will be socially distancing for many years to come.

Then they'e got to figure something else out because there is no point in living longer if you make everyone miserable. There's no point in living to be eighty if you're just going to spend your whole life alone in a room with your only link to the outside world being a screen.

If I was offered a choice of living a full life and living to be 70 vs eternal social distancing and living to be 80 I'd take the first choice and so would any sane person.

1000% agree, I don't know why there's this talk of "social distancing until 2022" like sorry but it's wrong to force the rest of us to sacrifice our futures so that people who were going to die soon anyway get a couple more years.

My wife was reading something a couple of days back, like 80% or something of the people who have died in TN would have likely died within a year from their underlying health conditions anyway. And I'm guessing almost all the rest were elderly and although you couldn't for sure say they were going to die soon they probably would have anyway.

[GP270watch]

Different, recent trial results on a clinical trial of chloroquine diphosphate.

The high dose CQ arm presented more QTc>500ms (25%), and a trend toward higher lethality (17%) than the lower dosage. Fatality rate was 13.5% (95%CI=6.9-23.0%), overlapping with the CI of historical data from similar patients not using CQ (95%CI=14.5-19.2%). In 14 patients with paired samples, respiratory secretion at day 4 was negative in only one patient. Interpretation Preliminary findings suggest that the higher CQ dosage (10-day regimen) should not be recommended for COVID-19 treatment because of its potential safety hazards.

French study finds hydroxychloroquine doesn't help patients with coronavirus.

A drug that's been touted by President Donald Trump as a "game changer" didn't help hospitalized patients with coronavirus and was associated with heart complications, according to a new study.

"This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid 19," said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug -- heart toxicities that required it be discontinued."

Trump has said that hydroxychloroquine shows "tremendous promise" and has made it sound like the drug is harmless. "I think it's going to be great," Trump said at a White House briefing on March 19.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/15/health/new-french-study-hydroxychloroquine/index.html

Damn it. What about other drugs, I remember one Japanese drug that is also being tested?

We need something if we want to go back to how it was before.

Favipiravir (Avigan) by Fujufilm is the Japanese drug.

 There is also an anti-parasitic drug that has been used effectively because doctors believe it somehow blocks the rna of Covid-19 allowing the body to fight off the virus since it can't replicate as quickly. It is called Ivermectin and has been used to fight parasites for decades. Doctors have anecdotal results of it working in 24-48 hours.

 

[Omega21]

A friend of mine told me that even a vaccine won't be very helpful, since the virus is likely to mutate and render such a vaccine useless. We will be socially distancing for many years to come.

Then they'e got to figure something else out because there is no point in living longer if you make everyone miserable. There's no point in living to be eighty if you're just going to spend your whole life alone in a room with your only link to the outside world being a screen.

If I was offered a choice of living a full life and living to be 70 vs eternal social distancing and living to be 80 I'd take the first choice and so would any sane person.

1000% agree, I don't know why there's this talk of "social distancing until 2022" like sorry but it's wrong to force the rest of us to sacrifice our futures so that people who were going to die soon anyway get a couple more years.

My wife was reading something a couple of days back, like 80% or something of the people who have died in TN would have likely died within a year from their underlying health conditions anyway. And I'm guessing almost all the rest were elderly and although you couldn't for sure say they were going to die soon they probably would have anyway.

A new exponential increase in hospitalizations = system at capacity = people with other conditions have less access to care = possibly die.

Unless we get something to help with this, like a drug that at least eases the severity of the illness and thus shortens the length of hospitalization, things would not go back to the way there were, regardless of what the Govt says or does.

Plus, something about TN tells you sh*t all about the wider picture.

Social Distancing until 2022 could mean just no extremely large gatherings, so no, you're definitely not staying locked up that long lol, no country or economy could handle that.

Different, recent trial results on a clinical trial of chloroquine diphosphate.

The high dose CQ arm presented more QTc>500ms (25%), and a trend toward higher lethality (17%) than the lower dosage. Fatality rate was 13.5% (95%CI=6.9-23.0%), overlapping with the CI of historical data from similar patients not using CQ (95%CI=14.5-19.2%). In 14 patients with paired samples, respiratory secretion at day 4 was negative in only one patient. Interpretation Preliminary findings suggest that the higher CQ dosage (10-day regimen) should not be recommended for COVID-19 treatment because of its potential safety hazards.

French study finds hydroxychloroquine doesn't help patients with coronavirus.

A drug that's been touted by President Donald Trump as a "game changer" didn't help hospitalized patients with coronavirus and was associated with heart complications, according to a new study.

"This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid 19," said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug -- heart toxicities that required it be discontinued."

Trump has said that hydroxychloroquine shows "tremendous promise" and has made it sound like the drug is harmless. "I think it's going to be great," Trump said at a White House briefing on March 19.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/15/health/new-french-study-hydroxychloroquine/index.html

Damn it. What about other drugs, I remember one Japanese drug that is also being tested?

We need something if we want to go back to how it was before.

Favipiravir (Avigan) by Fujufilm is the Japanese drug.

 There is also an anti-parasitic drug that has been used effectively because doctors believe it somehow blocks the rna of Covid-19 allowing the body to fight off the virus since it can't replicate as quickly. It is called Ivermectin and has been used to fight parasites for decades. Doctors have anecdotal results of it working in 24-48 hours.

 

Thanks for the answer!

I really hope the Drug Agencies around the world will skip some of their bureaucratic nonsense and treat this with the urgency it requires.
 

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Apparently, Avigan just started its first American trials in Boston a few days ago, and Japan has significantly increased production.

The recent news about remdesivir has been discouraging, as China stopped their own trials of the drug because it was showing no benefit.

[Grassroots]

Different, recent trial results on a clinical trial of chloroquine diphosphate.

The high dose CQ arm presented more QTc>500ms (25%), and a trend toward higher lethality (17%) than the lower dosage. Fatality rate was 13.5% (95%CI=6.9-23.0%), overlapping with the CI of historical data from similar patients not using CQ (95%CI=14.5-19.2%). In 14 patients with paired samples, respiratory secretion at day 4 was negative in only one patient. Interpretation Preliminary findings suggest that the higher CQ dosage (10-day regimen) should not be recommended for COVID-19 treatment because of its potential safety hazards.

French study finds hydroxychloroquine doesn't help patients with coronavirus.

A drug that's been touted by President Donald Trump as a "game changer" didn't help hospitalized patients with coronavirus and was associated with heart complications, according to a new study.

"This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid 19," said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug -- heart toxicities that required it be discontinued."

Trump has said that hydroxychloroquine shows "tremendous promise" and has made it sound like the drug is harmless. "I think it's going to be great," Trump said at a White House briefing on March 19.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/15/health/new-french-study-hydroxychloroquine/index.html

Damn it. What about other drugs, I remember one Japanese drug that is also being tested?

We need something if we want to go back to how it was before.

Its just one study, plus there are a ton of other treatments that have shown promising. We will have Multiple treatments by summer.

A lot of this talk about "social distancing until 2022" is frankly dumb. First of all, we aren't going to be enacting social distancing guidelines while the initial crisis is over in two months, summer will not need social distancing. The general consensus is that contact tracing will be used so that social distancing doesn't have to be. There may be occasional flare ups in local areas, and the gov could just impose stay at home orders on those local areas until the threat subsides there. This isn't even mentioning the vaccine, in which the race for it appears to be going well, and one is expected to come out in spring 2021 if not before then.