Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[Sibiriak]

[mccoy]

3 hours ago, Ron Put said:

If I recall, there was a woman from the same hospital which a couple of months ago came out saying that the Italian government is over-reacting, but she was savaged in the Italian and the British press, called incompetent and there were calls for her to be fired.

Yet now, with the lock  down for which others will pay, we have 33000 dead in Italy, which is likely higher than the real number, since not all the "probables" died from Covid-19. 

To place it in perspective, the 2017-2018 flu season death toll in Italy was at 25000+, with barely a mention.  

Ron, you remind me of my office boss, you guys are probably the most stubborn people I've ever met. I take it back though, my boss is more flexible than you are since, after lengthy and detailed discussions, if he sees the logic behind it he's ready to change his mind.

[mccoy]

2 hours ago, Sibiriak said:

Nice, kudos to the artist!

[Gordo]

Scientists Question Data, Ethics, Findings of Lancet HCQ Study

[TomBAvoider]

This is how unpredictable everything is - we're trying to divine what the economy is going to be like, and since it depends to a degree on the pandemic, we can't even predict what the pandemic is going to look like world-wide, and then we don't know how the politicians and public is going to react. Meanwhile, another unpredictable factor popped in with the riots - and who can predict that a trigger like that would pop up? Now I read that even the riots will have some economic impact - who could have foreseen that?

Anyone that tells you they know how things will turn out even short term, is deluded at best.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/racism-riots-economics-baltimore-recovery

That was then. How will it be now, given that the riots now are nation-wide?

[drewab]

Our favorite doctor, Michael Greger, is back with a video (part of a multi-part series) titled 'Where Do Deadly Coronaviruses Come From?'

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/where-do-deadly-coronaviruses-like-mers-cov-come-from/

I won't spoil some of the action in it, as there is some good content IMO! 

[Ron Put]

5 hours ago, mccoy said:

Ron, you remind me of my office boss, you guys are probably the most stubborn people I've ever met. I take it back though, my boss is more flexible than you are since, after lengthy and detailed discussions, if he sees the logic behind it he's ready to change his mind.

mccoy, I'll take this as a compliment :)  But can you point to me what logic am I missing?

----  Is it not a fact that in 2017 Italy's flu mortality rate was close to 25000 (I found a specific estimate)?

----  Is in not true that all the deaths attributed to Covid-19 in Italy are at 33000, allowing for all the "probables" being confirmed, which is unlikely?

The difference is 8000 deaths, which in a country with a population of 64 million is not significant.  To place it in perspective, heart disease kills close to 45000 more Italians than French, even though France has slightly larger population, and nobody bats an eye.

Part of the explanation for Italy's high Covid-19 mortality rate is that Italy had two below average flu seasons, with 2020 being particularly mild, which left a lot of vulnerable people who may have died from the flu susceptible to the coronavirus.  Add to this the fact that Italy has had a strong ani-vaxer movement and has among the lowest vaccination rates on the continent (including for secondary infections like bacterial pneumonia), and it helps explain how the stars aligned just in time for Covid-19.

I am not arguing that Covid-19 is not serious, it is.  It has killed a lot of people in a few areas like Italy, probably more than any flu season in the last decade.  Worldwide, the Covid-19 deaths are still a third of the death from the 2017-18 flu season.

And now comes the question everyone should be asking:  Was the hysteria fed by bad data, groupthink, censorship and attacks on those who questioned the crazy models justified?  And just as importantly, was the wrecking of the Western economies, with all the hurt and yes, deaths, it is yet to bring, justified?

If we don't ask such questions, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

I am all ears.

[Sibiriak]

The Rich Love India's Lockdown.  For the Poor It's Another Story

Estimates show the lockdown is pushing tens of millions of Indians below the poverty line.

 

And from a "leftist" perspective (no endorsement implied):

Across Colombia, red flags of despair fly as harsh Covid lockdown is extended for a third time

Colombia’s infection rate is relatively low, but its ruthlessly enforced lockdown is causing hunger and nationwide anger. In the working class districts of Bogota, signs of desperation are everywhere.

Quote

Bogota, Colombia — Red flags hang draped from the doors, rooftops and windows of Bogota’s impoverished southern neighborhoods. They symbolize the suffering wreaked by a now thrice-extended house-arrest and quarantine policy purportedly aimed at containing the Coronavirus.

While the pandemic has infected only a few thousand people out of a population of more than thirty million in Colombia, the quarantine has caused prolonged unemployment, a wave of housing evictions, and rioting; fueling scourges like domestic violence while pushing many to the edge of starvation.

Colombia’s tragedy mirrors those of the many developing countries which followed the strict lockdown polices promoted by the W.H.O. and its second-largest funder, the mega-billionaire Bill Gates. The precarious state of existence for many citizens of global South countries has nothing to do with infectious disease, but with policy.

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Gordo]

7 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

How will it be now, given that the riots now are nation-wide

They have actually started to go global now, Spain: https://mobile.twitter.com/the_real_fly/status/1267912613037514753

France: https://mobile.twitter.com/jeromeroos/status/1267909349453807616

Looks like something similar happened during the Great Depression (tied to high unemployment which makes people desperate):

Edited June 3, 2020 by Gordo

[Sibiriak]

Quote

Ron Put [The Guardian:]   The World Health Organization struggled to get needed information from China during critical early days of the coronavirus pandemic...

 

  If only China had been forthright from the beginning and told the world the truth--that Covid-19 is  little worse than a “mild flu” -- just think of all the draconian, economy-crashing lockdowns that would have been avoided..

[Sibiriak]

Man Behind Sweden’s Controversial Virus Strategy Admits Mistakes (June 3, 2020)

Quote

Sweden’s top epidemiologist has admitted his strategy to fight Covid-19 resulted in too many deaths, after persuading his country to avoid a strict lockdown.

“If we were to encounter the same illness with the same knowledge that we have today, I think our response would land somewhere in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done,” Anders Tegnell said in an interview with Swedish Radio.

[...]At 43 deaths per 100,000, Sweden’s mortality rate is among the highest globally and far exceeds that of neighboring Denmark and Norway, which imposed much tougher lockdowns at the onset of the pandemic.

“Clearly, there is potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden,” Tegnell said.

[...]Some lawmakers in Sweden’s parliament were quick to weigh in. Jimmie Akesson, the leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, tweeted that the comments by Tegnell are “astonishing.” 

“For months, critics have been consistently dismissed. Sweden has done everything right, the rest of the world has done it wrong. And now, suddenly, this,” Akesson said.

[Sibiriak]

15 hours ago, Gordo said:

Scientists Question Data, Ethics, Findings of Lancet HCQ Study

 

See also:

A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling

Governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company

Surgisphere, whose employees appear to include a sci-fi writer and adult content model, provided database behind Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine hydroxychloroquine studies

[mccoy]

17 hours ago, Ron Put said:

mccoy, I'll take this as a compliment 🙂 But can you point to me what logic am I missing?

----  Is it not a fact that in 2017 Italy's flu mortality rate was close to 25000 (I found a specific estimate)?

Heck, no, where those numbers came from? Istat in Italy is the actuarial agency which releases the official data on mortality. These are the 2017 data on flu (influenza): in 2017 there have been 663 flu deaths, of which 260 male subjects, 403 females.

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by mccoy

[mccoy]

the above is the initial cause of death. Allowing for CV and respiratory complicacies after flue, the numbers increase but not so much. we only have estimates, which are in the region of 1000 deaths per average year.

The indirect method to estimate flue mortality in a season is excess all cause mortality, which yields peaks in the winter season. The same method has been used by Istat to estimate the Covid19 deaths and the peak overwhelms all flue peaks in the latest 5 years. I've posted many of those graphs previously.

[Dean Pomerleau]

Looks like I may have been wrong in my recent prediction that hydroxychloroquine would turn out to be an effective prophylactic based on Trump starting to take it after talking with a researcher from UMinn who was running a trial to test the idea.

Here are highlights of the now published UMinn study from an NPR article out just minutes ago. It doesn't look like the paper is yet available on the NEJM website.

No Evidence Hydroxychloroquine Is Helpful In Preventing COVID-19, Study Finds

Taking hydroxychloroquine after being exposed to someone with COVID-19 does not protect someone from getting the disease.

That's the conclusion of a study published Wednesday involving 821 participants. All had direct exposure to a COVID-19 patient, either because they lived with one, or were a health care provider or first responder.

To qualify, people had to be within a few days of their encounter with a COVID-19 patient and not have any symptoms of the disease themselves. Encounters meant being within 6 feet of a sick person for more than 10 minutes while wearing neither a face mask nor an eye shield or while wearing a face mask but no face shield. The volunteers received either a five-day supply of hydroxychloroquine, or a placebo.

As Rajasingham and her colleagues report in the New England Journal of Medicine, 107 of the 821 participants developed disease; 49 in the group receiving hydroxychloroquine and 58 in the placebo group. That turned out to be a reduction in risk of 2.4 percent. That difference was not statistically significant, and "it's also not clinically meaningful," Rajasingham says. She would like to have seen a reduction of 30% or more before recommending hydroxychloroquine to asymptomatic patients. She says hydroxychloroquine can have serious side effects, although the side effects reported in this study were relatively mild.

I'm not sure why the difference in the rate of infection between the two groups (49 vs. 58) is only a risk reduction of 2.4 percent - perhaps it was a result of adjusting for confounders. The article doesn't mention if participants were given zinc along with the hydroxychloroquine, so I think it safe to assume that they weren't. So perhaps there still is some hope for its effectiveness as a prophylactic. It will be useful to see the full published study to know the answer to these open questions.

--Dean

Update: This Business Insider article explains the 2.4%. It also provides more info on side effects, which were statistically higher (although mild) in the hydroxychloroquine group:

The researchers tracked both groups, who routinely filled out online surveys about their health. Approximately 12% of people taking hydroxychloroquine got COVID-19 compared to 14% of the placebo group, according to a University of Minnesota press release. The difference was not statistically significant.

However, one finding was meaningful between the two groups: those taking hydroxychloroquine had much higher rates of side effects. About 40% on hydroxychloroquine registered side effects compared to 17% on placebo. These were mild reactions — most commonly nausea, diarrhea, or vomiting — with no reported serious side effects.

[Gordo]

Why didn't they use zinc?  Worthless...

[Ron Put]

12 hours ago, mccoy said:

Heck, no, where those numbers came from? Istat in Italy is the actuarial agency which releases the official data on mortality. These are the 2017 data on flu (influenza): in 2017 there have been 663 flu deaths, of which 260 male subjects, 403 females. ...

 

mccoy, virtually no country in the world tracks flu deaths. Some places like California, track flu deaths in infants, but numbers like the ones you site are normally deaths where no other underlying cause was evident, so "flu" was entered in the death certificate.  If this is how Covid-19 deaths were counted, well over 97% would have other major underlying causes listed, not Covid-19.  The CDC, WHO and a few other agencies run models to estimate the flu impact, with final official numbers usually published a couple of years after each season.

I was actually being restrained and cited only "flu" deaths.  But, if you count the way Covid-19 deaths are counted, which includes influenza-like illness (ILI), but without the added "probables", you get this:

"During the 2016/17 season, the number of ILI-attributable excess deaths was 43,336, 57.9% more than the previous season."

Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons)
 

And again, the point is not whether Covid-19's mortality is like the flu's (it's actually lower), but whether the hysteria and the lockdowns which destroyed the Western economies and will have impact for years to come were justified.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Ron Put

[Dean Pomerleau]

Here is the full text of the UMinn hydrochloroquine prophylactic study [1]. The accompanying review letter discusses some of the paper's limitations, but weirdly doesn't mention the lack of a zinc chaser:

This trial has many limitations, acknowledged by the investigators. The trial methods did not allow consistent proof of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 or consistent laboratory confirmation that the symptom complex that was reported represented a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Indeed, the specificity of participant-reported Covid-19 symptoms is low,6 so it is hard to be certain how many participants in the trial actually had Covid-19. Adherence to the interventions could not be monitored, and participants reported less-than-perfect adherence, more notably in the group receiving hydroxychloroquine. In addition, those enrolled in the trial were younger (median age, 40 years) and had fewer coexisting conditions than persons in whom severe Covid-19 is most likely to develop,7 so enrollment of higher-risk participants might have yielded a different result.

The trial design raises questions about the expected prevention benefits of hydroxychloroquine. Studies of postexposure prophylaxis are intended to provide an intervention in the shortest possible time to prevent infection. In a small-animal model of SARS-CoV-2 infection,8 prevention of infection or more severe disease was observed only when the experimental antiviral agent was given before or shortly after exposure. In the current trial, the long delay between perceived exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and the initiation of hydroxychloroquine (≥3 days in most participants) suggests that what was being assessed was prevention of symptoms or progression of Covid-19, rather than prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

 So this study is far less than perfect and leaves open the possibility that hydroxychloroquine (plus zinc?) may still turn out to be an effective prophylactic against the virus.

--Dean

------------

[1] The New England Journal of Medicine

A Randomized Trial of Hydroxychloroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19

David R. Boulware, M.D., M.P.H., Matthew F. Pullen, M.D., Ananta S. Bangdiwala, M.S., Katelyn A. Pastick, B.Sc., Sarah M. Lofgren, M.D., Elizabeth C. Okafor, B.Sc., Caleb P. Skipper, M.D., Alanna A. Nascene, B.A., Melanie R. Nicol, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Mahsa Abassi, D.O., M.P.H., Nicole W. Engen, M.S., Matthew P. Cheng, M.D., et al.
June 3, 2020

Abstract
BACKGROUND
Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) occurs after exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). For persons who are exposed, the standard of care is observation and quarantine. Whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent symptomatic infection after SARS-CoV-2 exposure is unknown.

METHODS
We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial across the United States and parts of Canada testing hydroxychloroquine as postexposure prophylaxis. We enrolled adults who had household or occupational exposure to someone with confirmed Covid-19 at a distance of less than 6 ft for more than 10 minutes while wearing neither a face mask nor an eye shield (high-risk exposure) or while wearing a face mask but no eye shield (moderate-risk exposure). Within 4 days after exposure, we randomly assigned participants to receive either placebo or hydroxychloroquine (800 mg once, followed by 600 mg in 6 to 8 hours, then 600 mg daily for 4 additional days). The primary outcome was the incidence of either laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 or illness compatible with Covid-19 within 14 days.

RESULTS
We enrolled 821 asymptomatic participants. Overall, 87.6% of the participants (719 of 821) reported a high-risk exposure to a confirmed Covid-19 contact. The incidence of new illness compatible with Covid-19 did not differ significantly between participants receiving hydroxychloroquine (49 of 414 [11.8%]) and those receiving placebo (58 of 407 [14.3%]); the absolute difference was −2.4 percentage points (95% confidence interval, −7.0 to 2.2; P=0.35). Side effects were more common with hydroxychloroquine than with placebo (40.1% vs. 16.8%), but no serious adverse reactions were reported.

CONCLUSIONS
After high-risk or moderate-risk exposure to Covid-19, hydroxychloroquine did not prevent illness compatible with Covid-19 or confirmed infection when used as postexposure prophylaxis within 4 days after exposure. (Funded by David Baszucki and Jan Ellison Baszucki and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04308668. opens in new tab.)

DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2016638

[Dean Pomerleau]

Here is a neat interactive visualization of cases, deaths and tests by country. Here are two views - total deaths per million and total new daily deaths per million. The first shows how much Europe has dominated the total deaths per million and how North and South America (with UK, Kuwait and Sweden) are dominating the new cases per million.

--Dean

[Ron Put]

Dean, pretty graphics, but when you have small samples deaths per million cen be grossly misleading, so I don't see the point, other than driving irrational fear (and trying to make poor Sweden look bad).

 To illustrate how nonsensical it is, look at San Marino having by far the most "deaths per million" according to Worldometer:




The bottom line is, despite the hysteria and even counting "probables," worldwide deaths from Covid-19 are still less than a third of the worldwide flu deaths in 2017-18.

Cheers.

[AlPater]

2 hours ago, Ron Put said:

(and trying to make poor Sweden look bad)

Coronavirus: Sweden's Tegnell admits too many died

• https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52903717

[Ron Put]

6 hours ago, AlPater said:

Coronavirus: Sweden's Tegnell admits too many died...

BBC has been beating the hysteria drum, just like the NYT, so their headline reflect their spin to justify their position. 

Of course too many died. Just like, if asked, anyone sane would say that too many die from the flu (2000-4000 per year in Sweden, compared to 4400 Covid-19 deaths).

This is what Tegnell said, which was span in the BBC headline:

"But in an interview in Stockholm on Wednesday, Tegnell said he has no regrets, and is “still confident” that Sweden’s strategy “is working, in broad terms. But like any strategy, it needs to be adapted all the time.”"

Perhaps BBC should be reminded of the predictions it kept repeating, about 750,000 dead in the UK and 2 million dead in the US?

And perhaps they should run a headline "WE WERE WRONG!"?  It'd be at least honest to all those who lost their jobs, their businesses and some, their lives because of deferred medical care....

Edited June 4, 2020 by Ron Put

[Sibiriak]

On the other hand:

Quote

The scientist behind lockdown in the UK has admitted that Sweden has achieved roughly the same suppression of coronavirus without draconian restrictions.

Neil Ferguson, who became known as “professor lockdown” after convincing Boris Johnson to radically curtail everyday freedoms, acknowledged that, despite relying on “quite similar science”, the Swedish authorities had “got a long way to the same effect” without a full lockdown.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/02/prof-lockdown-neil-ferguson-admits-sweden-used-science-uk-has/

Too many people died.   In both countries.  Primarily because both countries failed miserably to implement a comprehensive and effective plan to protect those at high risk,   including and especially those in nursing homes.  

Such a plan,  combined with a "middle way" approach to restrictions,  would have achieved far lower mortality rates with far less economic disruption,  imo.

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Ron Put]

19 minutes ago, Sibiriak said:

... Primarily because both countries failed miserably....

Of course hindsight will expose errors from which we could learn.  But one needs an open discussion to do so, not publicly slandering and calling for the firing of experts who questioned the crazy predictions which led to the lockdowns, or taking their interviews off FB.

And let's not equate the consequences:  The UK has a much higher death toll than Sweden, despite destroying its economy and locking down, with much more hurt to come. 

Sweden, on the other hand might have 5000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to 2000-4000 deaths from the flu, and to its overall death rate of 90000+ in an average year.  Sweden does apparently have much larger nursing home centers than the other Scandinavian countries, which made it harder to isolate the vulnerable elderly. 

Weigh the cost and tell me which was the better way?

BTW, here is what Dr. Fauci said in March, a couple of days before that faithful call by WHO's Tedros for Chinese style lockdowns, because Covid-19 is NOT as contagious as the flu and can be stopped, unlike the flu:

Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted
If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.²
 

[BrianA]

Reduced Vitamin K Status as A Potentially Modifiable Prognostic Risk Factor in COVID-19

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0457/v2