| Author | Message | ||
     Ratbuell |
I have a friend with RA. Either it's a mild case, or she's stubborn as a mule about the pain...or both. They have her on HCQ to treat those symptoms, and the extent of her dealing with the RA is, she doesn't work out as much as she used to due to joint pain and aches. I am on another board, where there is a member with RA who is vehemently AGAINST the use of HCQ to treat COVID...because it means he will not be able to get the meds he needs to "combat the debilitating pain". I'm torn on this one. Does it suck to be in pain all the time? Yup. Happens to me every day. My legs were rebuilt after a major accident in 2008 and I spent 6 months learning to walk again. Every step I take, hurts...but I'm walking. It's a fair trade in my mind. This guy on the other forum is adamant about not wanting HCQ to be "re-routed" to treat COVID patients, because it will "deprive" people like him who truly "need" it to lead a "normal daily life". OK, first off...I live in pain every day so my perspective may be a bit slanted, but my first gut reaction is HTFU. If there's a chance a particular medication, normally used to treat aches, pains, and chronic joint pain, can be used to SAVE LIVES...well...I'd think keeping people ALIVE would take precedence, at least in the immediate sense. Personally, I'd like to see all of us, instead of a second round of stimulus checks, receive a bottle of HCQ with dosage for a month. Or, a voucher for pickup at the local CVS. We're seeing enough evidence (at least in my mind) that this stuff works. Let's pump up production and get the shit out there into the hands of the general public, not only as a treatment for people who already have the disease, but as a prophylactic for people who DON'T have it (such as our first responders, and medical staff), to help keep them from getting it in the first place. Thus, cutting the need for emergency production of respirators and PPE. At the very least, this can buy us as a nation, some valuable time while we work on a true vaccine. Get the FDA out of the way, make the pills, and let's start TREATING this thing. | ||
| Sifo |
Ratbuell, I was thinking about our conversation this morning while walking the pup out in the woods. It's a great time to reflect. I certainly don't mean to come off like I'm cheering for the virus. Far from it. It's hurting almost everybody on the planet, myself included. I understand your desire to want all of this to stop so that you can go back to life, going to work, making a living, socializing again, etc. I understand that large gathering is your business. Here's my perspective on all of this. I doubt I can have any real impact on the world on this. I do think that being informed about what is heading our way can certainly help us react and plan for what's ahead. Unfortunately that does mean paying attention to things that we would prefer to ignore. It's up to individuals to do what's best. Government is terrible at doing what best for the people. I was trying to warn people months ago of the coming lock down. Not cheering for it, but hoping to help people get their heads around it and plan for it. Had the government done the shut down earlier, we would be in much better shape already. It really falls on the state and local governments IMO. I certainly don't want D.C. controlling me in Northern MI. It's bad enough having the Governor, down state, treating us the same as the Detroit area. Bottom line, we had an opportunity to do simple things like start wearing masks early on. Something that cheap and simple would have helped. A lot! Blake is right in that we are seeing a leveling of the infections. I agree, it's great news. I'm still somewhat cautious on that data though. There was a big backlog in testing. I know someone back in IL who has symptoms, but has been waiting for his test results. At least his wife got hers back negative. If the infection rate were magically level, you could easily fool yourself looking at the data as testing ramped up. Getting test kits out was the first hurdle. There was a backlog in labs to give results though. As they catch up on the backlog, it would be natural to see a decline in positive tests, even with that magical level infection rate. The real world data has lots of noise built in. I'm hopeful though. Here's the problem though. Let's assume the leveling of infections is for real. Why has it happened? It's safe to say that we haven't had enough infections to create any meaningful herd immunity. It's almost certainly the shut down of life as we new it. If we suddenly go back to life as we knew it, we are almost certainly going to have a second spike in infections. We don't have any vaccine for this yet. I know they are saying it's being worked on and we could have it eventually. Here's a wrinkle in that idea though. Corona virus also causes the common cold. Different strain, but related. They never have been able to come up with a vaccine for the common cold. All my life, I've heard that if someone could cure the common cold, they would become instantly rich. I believe that to be true, yet it still hasn't happened. I forget the reasons why, but that particular strain of virus simply doesn't lend itself to vaccinations. Will that be true of the Covid-19 strain? I have no idea. I think in the short term, we will have the best results from learning to treat it better once infected. I know numerous trials are underway on treatments. Hopefully something will prove to be very effective and affordable. Chloroquine certainly look promising. Why chart mortality instead of confirmed cases? 1) That's what I'm interested in. Maybe the confirmed cases counting has finally stabilized and become reliable for statistical analyses, but it doesn't catch the effects of various treatments now making their way into the system, and I'm very interested in that being captured by the data, so mortality it is. Isn't death is the major concern, so mortality is what to chart. We cannot assume that ratio of confirmed cases to mortality will remain constant and claim to be scientific minded. I guess our interests in this differ. It's not that I don't care about the mortality, but mortality is stopped if you stop the disease. You are correct though, the ratio between confirmed cases and mortality will almost certainly change as soon as an effective treatment is proven and widely used. 2) The mortality data is just the only reliable data going back more than two weeks. The testing was not comprehensive and timely until a few weeks ago as the backlog was cleared. Yet, mortality continues to follow confirmed infections. 3) Across nations and continents, I just don't trust the testing and confirmed case data to remain consistent or stable. On that, we can agree. I've been somewhat entertained by the fact that the Worldometer website was publishing graphs that were "World minus China". They didn't say it, but clearly, they saw the lying and gave the ability to filter them out. BTW, my wife knows someone who has now tested positive. | ||
| Sifo |
Watched Dr. Oz on Fox this morning talking about hydroxychloroquine. More evidence coming in that it is effective against COVID-19 and that it may prevent you from getting the disease if you’re on it. That would make sense. The chloroquine blocks the virus from being replicated. So if you are on the drug and get exposed, it simply can't replicate in your body. | ||
| Tpehak |
I am surprised that more than 1000 people still die in New York each day due to coronavirus when Dr. Zelenko found 100% successful treatment weeks ago. | ||
| Sifo |
As to when the Coronavirus hit these shores, I'm increasingly thinking late October, mid November. Just curious, what makes you think that? | ||
| Ratbuell |
It's safe to say that we haven't had enough infections to create any meaningful herd immunity. Wrong. It is NOT safe to say that, because we don't know how many people are infected. We know how many people present SYMPTOMS...but we don't know how many are infected. This is my main point in all of this - we do not know, and will probably never know, the true transmission rate of this disease, nor will we know the true number of cases...because we aren't testing everyone. How do we KNOW how many people with the disease, actually present symptoms? It could be 1%. It could be 95% (I'd say 100% but we do know that there are SOME who carry it, who never present). It could be anywhere in between. Until we test everyone, we'll NEVER know. Hell, until we test ANYONE who doesn't present...we'll never know. But right now, we are specifically and purposefully EXCLUDING people who don't present...and that sort of action will never fill that data column. Therefore...there COULD be herd immunity. If it's as contagious as they say it is...there would HAVE to be. See my prior post - my math may not be the best, but still - it illustrates the point that if THAT many people are passing the disease to THAT many more, we would have to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of bodies around the world by now. I'll ask again - why don't we? I still posit the reason for that is, there is a portion of our human race who never presents symptoms, even though they are carrying (and likely transmitting) this disease. And that portion of our race is larger than ANY of the pundits, or projections, or talking heads, or doctors, are telling us. The math just doesn't work otherwise, if it's supposed to be THAT contagious, and THAT dangerous. And again - until we test every living soul on earth (or at least SOME people who don't present, in meaningful quantities)...we'll never know. | ||
| Ratbuell |
I am surprised that more than 1000 people still die in New York each day due to coronavirus when Dr. Zelenko found 100% successful treatment weeks ago. The FDA won't get out of the way, and allow the treatment protocol to be used widespread. And, many locales (NY included) have issued directives FORBIDDING the use of HCQ for treatment of "diseases it was not designed to treat", i.e. Lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The President is pushing for its use, and numerous samples around the GLOBE have shown it works...but the MSM and the FDA refuse to get out of the way and allow us to treat the disease. | ||
| Sifo |
Ratbuell, I think this will be my last response to you until you have something new going on. It just seems like you are unwilling to let facts shape your reality. How do we KNOW how many people with the disease, actually present symptoms? It could be 1%. It could be 95% (I'd say 100% but we do know that there are SOME who carry it, who never present). It could be anywhere in between. We can't KNOW with absolute certainty. We do have some very worthwhile data though. https://www.foxnews.com/health/half-people-coronav irus-have-no-symptoms-data-show Three instances where WuFlu was very bad and entire populations were tested. Silly me, I did the math on the data they presented and it came out to IIRC about 36% of cases were asymptomatic, not the headline number of 50%. But again, I'm willing to go with the absurd, so let's assume it's 75% are asymptomatic. We currently have about 1,365,000 cases confirmed globally. If we use the absurd number of 75%, that would mean about 5,460,000 total infected out of a 7.8 billion population. Let's to to 99%. That would mean about 136.5 million infections out of 7.8 billion. So while we don't KNOW how many are infected, we do KNOW, with a very high degree of certainty, that we are nowhere near achieving herd immunity. Take it to the next order of magnitude of 99.9%. Same result. I'm not sure how else to get you to understand this point. | ||
| Sifo |
So the creepy video guy took a couple of days off. Last nights video is quite good though, with some good things happening. Info on chloroquine and some other treatments. Also some info on why chloroquine probably can't be used universally. Not really surprising. Feel free to ignore it. Honestly, most of this thread would have been eliminated had just a few key people watched one or two videos early on.  | ||
| Ratbuell |
Then explain to me where - using the numbers YOU quote - over a third of the people with the disease never show symptoms? More than 1 in 3 is not a fluke. Especially without vaccination. Granted, the definition of "herd immunity" using vaccinations, is between 83-94%. But again - 1 in 3, naturally immune, zero immunizations? That's a significant ratio - and that's, by your own admission, a conservative estimate. Something is already present in the "herd" that keeps these people from having symptoms or issues. And, this brings another logistical question to my mind. I understand wanting to "save" testing kits for those showing symptoms...but...why? If they have symptoms, and we know how this disease presents by now...why are we using test kits on these obvious cases? Why don't we earmark the test kits for people who DON'T present? I would think THAT would be the more important use of those kits...once you present, it's kinda obvious you need treatment. And, it's not like we have to narrow down "why the fever?" since we don't have a true vaccine, or treatment, for COVID yet. If we had a vaccine, yes, it would be important to know the exact disease to administer the proper treatment...but at this point, to my understanding, that is not the case and all we're really doing is treating whatever symptom presents - fever, respiratory, etc. Please, correct me if I'm wrong on that one. And even if HCQ becomes a widespread 'treatment' for this, it is also fully usable as a prophylactic measure, so dosing people who don't have COVID will still have potentially positive results. It just strikes me that a smarter use of the test kits, would be to specifically test NON-symptomatic people, so we could quarantine infected people BEFORE they presented symptoms. Like the town in Italy did. Right now, we're closing the gate after the horse gets out when we wait for symptoms before we test and quarantine. | ||
| H0gwash |
I don't think they can make tests fast enough to do that yet. | ||
| Sifo |
Then explain to me where - using the numbers YOU quote - over a third of the people with the disease never show symptoms? More than 1 in 3 is not a fluke. Especially without vaccination.
Here's the numbers from a previous post. Granted, the definition of "herd immunity" using vaccinations, is between 83-94%. But again - 1 in 3, naturally immune, zero immunizations? That's a significant ratio - and that's, by your own admission, a conservative estimate. Something is already present in the "herd" that keeps these people from having symptoms or issues. Why some have no symptoms. There could be lot's of reasons. One well known reason is that the immune system does it's job before symptoms develop. Some people have stronger immune systems than others. Also when you get infected, the viral load will vary greatly from case to case. If someone manages to sneeze into your mouth, the viral load is going to be far greater than touching the keypad on an ATM with your bugger picker. Same stuff happens with the cold and flu. Sometimes it knocks you on you ass, sometimes you barely notice. I'm sure it also happens without ever noticing. And, this brings another logistical question to my mind. I understand wanting to "save" testing kits for those showing symptoms...but...why? If they have symptoms, and we know how this disease presents by now...why are we using test kits on these obvious cases? Why don't we earmark the test kits for people who DON'T present? Resources and diagnosis. Resources should be fairly obvious. Diagnosis is important if you want to treat diseases correctly. What do you do if you have a patient with Covid symptoms, but they test negative? You may retest to make sure it wasn't a false negative, but it's also time to look at other diseases. Diagnosis is just eliminating possibilities until you hit one you can diagnose. Sometimes they never figure out what you have. I would think THAT would be the more important use of those kits...once you present, it's kinda obvious you need treatment. And, it's not like we have to narrow down "why the fever?" since we don't have a true vaccine, or treatment, for COVID yet. If we had a vaccine, yes, it would be important to know the exact disease to administer the proper treatment...but at this point, to my understanding, that is not the case and all we're really doing is treating whatever symptom presents - fever, respiratory, etc. Please, correct me if I'm wrong on that one. And even if HCQ becomes a widespread 'treatment' for this, it is also fully usable as a prophylactic measure, so dosing people who don't have COVID will still have potentially positive results. Well aside from the diagnostic benefits of knowing the disease you are treating, and the statistical benefits, consider that it took time to ramp up to do a few hundred thousand tests. Only 7.8 billion to go! You are correct that we have pretty much been just treating the symptoms. It's what you are left with when you don't have proven treatments available. That will change for the better with time. HCQ as a prophylactic? Not proven, but it does make sense that it would work. Availability is one problem. There are 7.8 billion people to protect. Another problem is that chloroquine does have some serious side effects, especially with certain medical problems. My understanding is that heart problems, including high blood pressure are big issues with chloroquine. It just strikes me that a smarter use of the test kits, would be to specifically test NON-symptomatic people, so we could quarantine infected people BEFORE they presented symptoms. Like the town in Italy did. Right now, we're closing the gate after the horse gets out when we wait for symptoms before we test and quarantine. Agreed to some degree. They are still trying to get people to understand that this is worse than the flu though. | ||
| Tpehak |
Do you think this virus epidemic is how nature controls people population? | ||
| Ratbuell |
It is my understanding that the HCQ side effects truly only come into play after extended, heavy use. As in, years of usage. See my post above, from 10:05, about friends who have RA and are prescribed this medication. Per that post, I would hazard a guess that compared to a dirt nap? Most folks would risk some potential dizziness and hair loss and nausea. I sure as hell would. As for the test kits, I still posit that if we have limited resources, and if we REALLY want to slow the spread...we should dedicate those resources to actually STOPPING the spread, and identifying asymptomatic carriers, BEFORE they have a chance to spread the disease any further. That just seems logical to me when dealing with a "highly contagious" disease and the shutdown of Western society. | ||
| 86129squids |
Gotta throw this in...  | ||
| Tpehak |
Children playgrounds are wrapped with yellow tape here in Seattle. | ||
| Strokizator |
So far I've gotten: Free premium channels from DirecTV Free data minutes from Verizon A check from the govt (maybe) And a 30 day free trial of socialism Just give me my freedom back and keep all that other shit | ||
| Tpehak |
You mean give me back my freedom to infect another people. | ||
| Strokizator |
Yeah, thanks for correcting me. That's exactly what I meant. •••••• | ||
| Aesquire |
Do you think this virus epidemic is how nature controls people population? Yes. In general terms. If you want to get theological, there's a thread for that. I generally accept Murphy's Law as "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" but as a general principle, not a sentient thing. There's also comets, asteroids, Supervolcanos, and possibly Redacted that periodically cull the species. | ||
| Tpehak |
"The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" That sounds too optimistic | ||
| Sifo |
Tom, >>> ...we have still had exponential growth in deaths up past 10,000 as of today. Not according to the data. We've been well out of exponential growth for almost a week now. Are you sure about that? https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/  | ||
| Tpehak |
If you take Derivative of that line you will have deaths speed, if you take Integral of that line you will have total amount if deaths. If you take Derivative of that line twice you will have deaths acceleration. (Message edited by TPEHAK on April 07, 2020) | ||
| Ourdee |
If you could get the number fudging out of it..... | ||
| Ourdee |
Our daily infected increase rate should be on the decline now. The death charting should follow by two weeks. | ||
| Ourdee |
Post your' own prediction if you don't like mine. | ||
| Ourdee |
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| Ourdee |
Yalp, take a break for a minute, brethren. | ||
| Ourdee |
It's always the little one while her girlfriend watches. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/04/62065/ References the jump to humans ( or accidental release ) in November. But doesn't detail why that conclusion. https://www.zerohedge.com/health/some-bad-news-jpm -what-happens-after-we-pass-virus-peak Unreliable fear mongering source, but mentions second wave I suspect the arguments here are a bit like betting on the baseball game in the third inning when the score is close and the scoreboard is broken. Meanwhile I'm a bit busy with health problems with relatives and friends that are only related to Covid-19 by the hospitals being thought too dangerous to go to. With some justification. I'm dealing with my doctors by phone appointments, which cost the same as actual meetings, and the only health care pros I'm seeing in person are at the labs for blood draws. Bless you all. |
