[American Thinker] Very soon after the coronavirus hit America, reports emerged that chloroquine, an older malaria drug, and its analog, Hydroxychloroquine, were helpful against the virus, especially when used in conjunction with azithromycin, an antibiotic. Trump expressed a strong hope that these drugs would effectively treat those with serious coronavirus cases.
The media reflexively struck back. They first accused Trump of lying about the drugs’ potential value. Now that it’s become clear that Trump was accurate, the media have a new tactic, which is to present chloroquine as a deadly drug that will kill more than it cures. For the media, it’s never about the actual issue; it’s always about "getting" Trump.
On Sunday, American Thinker ran Andrew Longman’s excellent summary about chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, and azithromycin. Before reading this post, you might want to refresh your knowledge by reading that article. The takeaway is that these drugs have been around for a long time, so doctors are familiar with them; that there’s an increasing body of evidence that they work; and that the Trump administration got the FDA to allow doctors to prescribe them "off-label" or for "compassionate use" (that is, for a purpose other than treating malaria). (Just two recent examples of successful chloroquine use are here and here.)
On Saturday, Trump tweeted out his hope that Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, when taken together, could save lives. Please note that he didn’t say they "would" save lives, just that they had a "real chance" to change the outcome:
#6
I wondered if hydroxychloroquine is related to the old anti-malarial drug quinine. On a web search I read one claim that quinine is too simple so big pharma wants to make a more complex synthetic and thereby make more money. Dunno if that's true or not. I'm still looking. But then I read that tonic water contains small amounts of quinine. So, it may be that gin and tonic is the cure!
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/24/2020 11:56 Comments ||
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Chloroquine is a synthetic version of quinine, another old malaria drug that is a lot less popular these days. Prior to the end of World War II, the latter was the preferred drug for malaria despite its side effects.
Due to this similarity, some people think tonic water products, such as Schweppes and Canada Dry, might be beneficial against SARS-CoV-2. These beverages contain dissolved quinine, which explains their somewhat bitter taste.
However, there is currently no evidence that tonic water, or quinine, could inhibit the novel coronavirus. This may be because scientists have focused more on chloroquine in their studies.
In fact, the most popular hypothesis of how the natural compound fights malaria parasites takes much from what researchers have observed when studying chloroquine.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/24/2020 12:03 Comments ||
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Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are synthetic forms of quinine, which is found in the barks of cinchona trees of Latin America and has been used to treat malaria for centuries.
Some in the wider scientific community have cautioned more research is needed to prove that they really work and are safe for COVID-19.
But French drug maker Sanofi said on Wednesday it was ready to offer the French government millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine, sold under its brand name Plaquenil, in light of a "promising" study carried out by scientist Didier Raoult of the IHU Mediterranee Infection in Marseille.
Raoult reported this week that after treating 24 patients for six days with Plaquenil, the virus had disappeared in all but a quarter of them.
The research has not yet been peer reviewed or published, and Raoult had come under fire by some scientists and officials in his native France for potentially raising false hopes.
"I'm just doing my duty, and I am happy to see that now eight or nine countries recommend chloroquine treatment for patients with this new coronavirus," he told AFP.
Several clinical trials are also underway in China, where authorities have announced positive results but not yet published their data.
Karine Le Roch, a professor of cell biology at the University of California, Riverside told AFP she was encouraged by recent work in France and China.
"I will say there is a very small number of patients, but if the results are correct, it seems to indeed decrease the viral loads of infected patients," she said.
"It's encouraging but we have to make sure the results are accurate and then confirm that with a larger number of patients."
Scientists understand how these alkaloid compounds work at the cellular level to fight malaria parasites -- but it's not yet known how they are fighting the coronavirus, Le Roch added.
"It's highly possible that this compound is changing the acidity of the cells infected with the virus," she told AFP.
"And then the enzymes that are needed for the virus to replicate cannot work as efficiently as they would work without the drug."
But not everyone is convinced.
Writing in the journal Antiviral Research, French scientists Franck Touret and Xavierde de Lamballerie urged caution, noting that chloroquine had been proposed several times for the treatment of acute viral diseases in humans without success, including HIV.
They added that finding the right dose was crucial because "chloroquine poisoning has been associated with cardiovascular disorders that can be life-threatening."
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/24/2020 12:13 Comments ||
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#10
Ref #7: Due to this similarity, some people think tonic water products, such as Schweppes
Much more effective when mixed with a jigger of Isle of Harris.
#12
"Some in the wider scientific community have cautioned more research is needed to prove that they really work and are safe for COVID-19."
Folks like Fauci will continue to say there is "no evidence" until there are double blind, placebo controlled studies. That is how their world works. In the meantime, chloroquine is saving lives.
[Jpost] Analyzing the specific data of each country separately suggests that there is a light at the end of the tunnel ‐ and that the tunnel is not that long.
It has been four months since COVID-19 hit the world. The virus, which caused major global disruptions to public health, economies and societies, planted massive worldwide panic of the unknown. Now, after several months, I believe a closer look at the numbers provides real ground for optimism with regard to how long this storm will last.
Despite being engaged in the medical equipment business for decades, I do not claim any expertise in biology, immunology, microorganisms or infectious diseases. Numbers, however, can provide an explanation to natural phenomena even in places where the relevant science cannot. After investigating several sources of statistics about the disease, its rate of spread, the rate of new cases, the death rate and more, a certain pattern emerged.
Continued on Page 49
#1
The alternative explanation is that the rate of infection goes down because people start following quarantine rules - as soon as the later are relaxed ...
#2
a multivariate problem where the quality of the data is part of the problem
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/24/2020 9:24 Comments ||
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#3
France had almost 4k new cases today so contrary to the opinion, new cases did not stabilize at ~2000
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/24/2020 10:56 Comments ||
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#4
Like most viruses, it will expand rapidly until it infects everyone it can easily infect. Then the numbers will go down until there is a big enough pool of non-infected hosts (like removal from quarantine) and then the infected numbers will shoot up again.
[GeopoliticaFutures] The United States is under enormous pressure. The nature of the particular pressure is unique, though pressure on the United States from various forces is normal, as it is with other nations. What makes this pressure unique, aside from its biological origin, is that it has been so intense that virtually all systems are seeking to cope with the problem, both in defining and responding to it. This is largely true of all countries, but each responds to it differently, based on their institutional and cultural frameworks that existed before the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... outbreak. Much of what we say about the virus is universal, and there are commonalities in the response, but ultimately each nation's response must be understood on its own terms. Understanding the model allows us to understand events, stresses, failures and successes.
At the moment, there are four distinct systems operating in the United States: the medical, the economic, the social and the geopolitical. Controlling these, and in turn being controlled by them, is the political structure. This obviously includes the president, on whom attention is always focused, but let's not forget the rest of the executive branch and the vast and distinct bureaucracies operating within it, the judiciary, the Congress, and every state government. Already we have seen that, in times of crisis, the individual states are the most decisive actors in the short run.
Continued on Page 49
[Spiked] People’s refusal to panic has been a great source of frustration for the establishment in recent years. ’The planet is burning’, they lie, in relation to climate change, and yet we do not weep or wail or even pay very much attention. ’I want you to panic’, instructs the newest mouthpiece of green apocalypticism, Greta Thunberg, and yet most of us refuse to do so. A No Deal Brexit would unleash economic mayhem, racist pogroms and even a pandemic of super-gonorrhoea, they squealed, incessantly, like millenarian preachers balking at the imminent arrival of the lightning bolt of final judgement, and yet we didn’t flinch. We went to work. We went home. We still supported Brexit.
This strange, fascinating tension between the apocalypticism of the intellectual and cultural elites and the scepticism of ordinary people is coming into play in the Covid-19 crisis. Of course, Covid-19 is very different to both No Deal Brexit and climate change. It is a serious medical and social crisis. In contrast, the idea that leaving the EU without a deal would be the greatest crisis to befall Britain since the Luftwaffe dropped its deadly cargo on us was nothing more than political propaganda invented from pure cloth. And the notion that climate change is an End Times event, rather than a practical problem that can be solved with tech, especially the rollout of nuclear power, is little more than the prejudice of Malthusian elites who view the very project of modernity as an intemperate expression of speciesist supremacy by mankind.
The media are at the forefront of stirring up apocalyptic dread over Covid-19. In Europe, there is also a performative apocalypticism in some of the more extreme clampdowns on everyday life and social engagement by the political authorities, in particular in Italy, Spain and France. Many governments seem to be driven less by a reasoned, evidence-fuelled strategy of limiting both the spread of the disease and the disorganisation of economic life, than by an urge to be seen to be taking action. They seem motivated more by an instinct to perform the role of worriers about apocalypse, for the benefit of the dread-ridden cultural elites, rather than by the responsibility to behave as true moral leaders who might galvanise the public in a collective mission against illness and a concerted effort to protect economic life.
A key problem with this performative apocalypticism is that it fails to think through the consequences of its actions. So obsessed are today’s fashionable doom-predictors with offsetting what they see as the horrendous consequences of human behaviour ‐ whether it’s our polluting activities or our wrong-headed voting habits ‐ that they fail to factor in the consequences of their own agenda of fear. Greens rarely think about the devastating consequences of their anti-growth agenda on under-developed parts of the world. The Remainer elite seemed utterly impervious to warnings that their irrational contempt for the Leave vote threatened the standing of democracy itself. And likewise, the performative warriors against Covid-19 seem far too cavalier about the longer-term economic, social and political consequences of what they are doing.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/24/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
Stop this panic. Let us breathe, and think, and look beyond the moment.
All of us will die; our elderly parents will die at some point; we too will (if we're lucky) live to their age before we pass into the next world.
But is it worth it to destroy our children's hopes for a better life in order to prolong their grandparents' lives a few years?
Is it worth it to ruin 50 million, 80 million, 100 million lives to prolong the lives of ten or twenty thousand elderly Americans?
Did we learn nothing, nothing at all, from the over-emotional, over-hasty, ill-advised botchjob reactions to 811 and to the 2008 financial panic? Nothing?
#5
Everything in life comes down to the real vs the ideal.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/24/2020 8:11 Comments ||
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#6
Did we learn nothing, nothing at all, from the over-emotional, over-hasty, ill-advised botchjob reactions to 811 and to the 2008 financial panic? Nothing?
I ask: Is it worth it?
Ah'm starting to think that if you get the bug, it will have been worth it.
#11
Well don't worry about it too much, there was a genius on here just yesterday assuring us that shutting down the world economy won't lead to bankruptcies or economic ruin, so I guess we can all just take a couple of months off economically and all will be well while income slows to a crawl.
#12
Actually Crusader there's good news (no snark): policymajers are clearly moving in your/my/our direction on this issue.
The evidence is that the political stock of Governor Cuomo -- the prime advocate now for what Dr. David Katz of Yale calls a balanced and "vertical" or "surgical" approach -- Cuomo is soaring now in the eyes of Democratic Party insiders. There's a lot of talk now that he should be the Dems' nominee.
Be patient. The rest of the crew will come around in due course.
#13
Market's soaring now. It'll tank again a couple times more and bounce around in the next couple of weeks, but if the Trump/Cuomo balanced approach gets implemented during these next few weeks, then the markets will have hit bottom and confidence will soon come back. I'm betting it will happen by end of April -- perhaps when we see leveling off of the spike in unemployment claims in that month's report.
#14
I’m curious about thevery near term effects of cashflow in the dense urban array and how much longer they remain at “normal” levels of violence. The assumption among law enforcement seems to have been that the entitlement support system coupled with small levels of actual commerce were supported clandestinely by massive amounts of drug trade. A purely cash business. With the massive drop in employment and public self-isolation, reducing the drug customer base cash flow into these areas, when will shortages produce criminal violence for basic commodities I am actually surprised it has been so tranquil but wonder if that is due to under-reporting by the MSM?
#15
You'll only know if they can't hide the smoke. Because what I'm hearing is that robbery and assault are already happening at store parking lots in the 'nice neighborhoods'. Only Black Friday level stuff, but still.
#16
This has probably already appeared on The 'burg, but it seems appropriate here. To paraphrase CS Lewis: “This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by a virus, let that virus when it comes find us doing sensible and human things, but with social distancing in the near term to slow it down — teaching remotely, reading, listening to music on our stereos, bathing the children, exercising at home, chatting to our friends over a video conference — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about viruses. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/24/2020 12:50 Comments ||
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[Climate Home News] Governments and financial institutions are under growing pressure to make economic bailouts designed to counter the coronavirus pandemic dependent on climate action in the longer term.
Over the last week, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stopgap measures have been announced to fight the coronavirus and limit economic shortfalls.
In the US, industries are scrambling for a share of a $1 trillion-stabilisation package with the aviation industry expected to receive a large chunk.
Last week, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a €870 billion ($781bn) emergency bond-buying programme to stabilise the euro zone economy until the end of the year ‐ the equivalent of 7.3% of the euro area’s GDP.
In contrast, the EU Commission has promised a trillion euros over a decade to finance its Green Deal and support the union’s plan to be the first climate neutral continent by 2050.
Resounding calls have been made for governments and international financial institutions to put the clean energy transition at the heart of stimulus packages, once the human tragedy eases. Almost 15,000 people have died in the pandemic with more than 340,000 confirmed cases by Monday.
"We have a responsibility to recover better" than after the financial crisis in 2008, UN secretary general António Guterres warned.
"We have a framework for action ‐ the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. We must keep our promises for people and planet," he added.
But short-term measures designed to stabilise the economy are so far doing little for the transition.
#2
They have a framework for action alright. It's the same one they've always had, surrender your finances, surrender your agency, go the Hell back to work and shut up.
Most amazing agenda known to Mankind, cures literally everything!
[Armstrong] The coup that has been waged from the left against the right is an all-out global political war. They succeeded in bringing Germany to its knees and surrender its culture of austerity. Here in the United States, the Democrats have coordinated with these dark forces seeking not only same-day registration to allow illegal aliens to vote and overrule actual working Americans, but tucked in their proposals we find the seeds to cancel US paper dollars as well which is the political agenda in Europe.
The Democrats are trying to use this economic collapse which is increasingly looking like it has been staged by the Deep State & the WHO of the United States to further the Marxist agenda because they know the system is collapsing. Therefore, as the markets crash, the Democrats include in their demands for a massive stimulus package the creation of a ’digital dollar’ and the establishment of ’digital dollar wallets.’ As I have warned, they will simply outlaw cryptocurrencies and probably take blockchain for themselves. This has been the covert agenda of the IMF for some time now.
[Washington Examiner] The coronavirus pandemic could help President Trump win reelection because it has pushed Joe Biden out of the headlines, according to a former adviser to President Bill Clinton.
"This crisis completely changes the presidential race overwhelmingly in Trump’s favor," Dick Morris, who was Clinton’s political adviser and later campaign manager, told radio show host John Catsimatidis on Sunday.
"There is no more oxygen left in the room for Joe Biden. ... He can’t say anything. He can’t campaign. He can’t attack Trump. He can’t talk about [the coronavirus]. There is nothing left for him to say," he added. "Biden is kind of an afterthought. He’s almost in the history books."
Biden, who is likely to win the Democratic presidential nomination, and his rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have been sidelined from campaigning across the country because of the pandemic. Trump has also canceled campaign events, but the White House has held daily news briefings on the crisis.
Morris argued Hurricane Sandy had a similar effect on President Barack Obama’s reelection and other policy issues that could derail Trump’s chances of keeping the White House have been brushed under the rug as the coronavirus pandemic takes precedence.
"There are no other issues anymore in America. Nobody’s thinking about immigration, or income inequality, or climate change," he said. "All Trump has to do now is be a good president. ... Ride out this epidemic. Succeed in containing it, and he’s home free."
Morris has previously been critical of Biden’s chances of winning the White House, questioning his mental acuity.
"I don’t think that Biden has much of a chance of defeating Trump. I think that Biden is a very fragile candidate," he said earlier this month. "Biden should be required to have a test for Alzheimer’s disease. We can’t elect a president who has that deterioration of the brain setting in at the start of his term."
#2
The thing to keep in mind about Joe is that if the wheel ever falls off your canoe, he'll personally fill your doghouse with flapjacks...and you can take that to the bank Mister.
American Greatness via Instapundit
In all the gloom and doom, and media-driven nihilism, there is actually an array of good news. As many predicted, as testing spreads, and we get a better idea of the actual number and nature of cases, the death rate from coronavirus slowly but also seems to steadily decline.
Early estimates from the World Health Organization and the modeling of pessimists of a constant 4 percent death rate for those infected with the virus are for now proving exaggerated for the United States. More likely, as testing spreads, our fatality rates could descend to near 1 percent.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Caveman Circus] He comes every day to talk to his dad since the nursing home is in lockdown.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[Climate Home News] Governments and financial institutions are under growing pressure to make economic bailouts designed to counter the coronavirus pandemic dependent on climate action in the longer term. 
[Armstrong] The coup that has been waged from the left against the right is an all-out global political war. They succeeded in bringing Germany to its knees and surrender its culture of austerity. Here in the United States, the Democrats have coordinated with these dark forces seeking not only same-day registration to allow illegal aliens to vote and overrule actual working Americans, but tucked in their proposals we find the seeds to cancel US paper dollars as well which is the political agenda in Europe.
