triplehorn

^^^ the protest scene today outside the White House. From the look of it, they’re doubling it up and protesting Trump being a maskless and dangerous national derelict. Another possible attempted church fire? Wouldn’t be Floyd protesters.

His politicization and absence of leadership amidst multiple unfolding catastrophes represents an imminent danger to us all.

8pm-6am curfew in effect for PDX tonight in response to last night’s dwtwn riot.

dp dammit

[pandemic infused social firestorm] "Hey everybody, look up! MARS !!!"

The past couple weeks have been pretty wild with the criticized Lancet publication spurring the WHO pronouncement on Wednesday to temporarily suspend the testing of HCQ in Covid-19 patients following safety concerns. It resulted in nations around the globe taking sides this week as to whether they were abandoning use of HCQ and halting study trials, or forging ahead with it based on their own medical community determinations of safety and benefit through first hand treatment of their populations. India's ICMR finds it safe and is forging ahead with HCQ Lancet spooked Canada, but after a pause, found no safety issues and resumed their 9 ongoing trials. German clinical trial of HCQ paused even though director sees "no evidence of side effects" and is confident that it will resume shortly. (subscription) More responsive to your question - treatment benefits beyond primary safety questions - Turkey is also forging ahead with HCQ and appears to have it dialed in: The article has a section dedicated debate over HCQ. From the article: "Chief doctor Nurettin Yiyit - whose art work is on the hospital walls - says it's key to use hydroxychloroquine early. "Other countries are using this drug too late," he says, "especially the United States. We only use it at the beginning. We have no hesitation about this drug. We believe it's effective because we get the results." They are all saying early application is key, not after you've been symptomatic for a week or had progression of severity requiring hospitalization. This is the common observation and practice in Italy, India, Turkey, other European countries, and in various nations in SE Asia. So far Zinc is not even a part of MSM reporting on this matter. However, there has been one study (non-gold standard) to date out of NYU the other week suggesting Zn added to the HCQ appeared to have a sizable benefit.

to be clear, those above numbers got qualified as not being verified and it's obvious totals don't square between number sets. Emptywheel linked above is a fourth set of numbers that support the trend. I missed other discussions about it but the numbers seem to suggest possible suppression, yeah? Would be a big deal.

Saw this graphic regarding splitting off deaths from Covid vs those categorized as "pneumnia". I haven't verified the numbers myself, but fwiw: couple tweets also honing in on a pattern (again I haven't checked CDC myself to verify)

Cue the HIV/Ebola/Covid monkey borne end times viral chimera.

Hundreds of South Korea schools close again after reopening "Seoul (CNN)More than 500 schools closed again Friday to students after briefly reopening, as South Korea moves to stamp out a resurgence of the coronavirus in the capital, Seoul, and its surrounding metropolitan area. Parks, art galleries, museums and theaters operated by the government in the Seoul metropolitan area -- home to about half the country's population of nearly 52 million -- have also been closed to the public for the next two weeks. Government hosted events in the metropolitan area will be canceled or postponed as well, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said Thursday. The authorities have recommended that private academies and internet cafes there close too until June 14. [...] South Korea has been held up as a model of how to limit the spread of the coronavirus without a widespread lockdown, thanks to its rigorous testing, contact tracing and quarantine program. Its struggle to prevent new outbreaks of the disease despite these stringent measures highlight the difficulties other nations can expect to face as they ease lockdown restrictions." ----> Sounds crappy, but that's what smart responsible leadership having its shit together actually looks like.

Outstanding quote. It accounts for the fact that American character - human character - is inclusive of all those facets as a part of our nature. Trump channels and amplifies our worst potentials. On a bad day, all of us can look personality disordered. Trump makes it a regular state of mind. Get rid of the piece of shit and our strengths and healthier attributes will start to get reasserted. But Trump isn’t the beginning or end of it. The potential for the bad shit to resurface isn’t ever going away, and that’s fine.

Or what “easing restrictions” means. Were entire states opened up at once, or were qualifying counties opened up while others within a state remained more shut down due to prevailing outbreak conditions? The latter example is how it should be done.

Always be honest and provide support for the grief. The cover-up is always worse than the crying.

Someone convince me this sideshow isn’t scripted.

I heard a Stanford microbiologist talking about the same capacity to measure viral load in sewage as a prevalence indicator and that they're ready to talk contracts to deploy their system to states/communities. With the transmission rate of this bug (4 day doubling time unopposed), a full week of advance notice is an eternity. Getting targeted counties/communities to temporarily double down on mask wearing and distancing could stop this bug cold with that kind of early warning.

Alabamans defend hitting the beach: “...According to one beachgoer, identified as Bailey Karr, “Everybody’s got to go somehow.” “You mean die?” the CNN correspondent asked. “Yeah, but in a way — I mean, I don’t want to die,” the recent college graduate replied. “But if that’s what God has in store for my life, then that’s okay.” [...] Yet another beachgoer defended not wearing a mask because Donald Trump doesn’t wear one in public. “I mean, if he’s not wearing a mask, I’m not wearing a mask. If he’s not worried, I’m not worried,” he told Tuchman.”

ie, folks with advanced covid illness sick enough to require hospitalization.

Yes, absolutely it can be both. This quote from the article in the tweet: "The decision was made after an observational study was published in the medical journal The Lancet on Friday, which described how seriously ill Covid-19 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were more likely to die." and they add this: “a cause-and-effect relationship between drug therapy and survival should not be inferred” Here's a good counter-breakdown of the referenced Lancet article: The total absence of discussion making the distinction between actual early application versus starting when hospitalization is needed is beyond head scratching.

They used hamsters infected with covid to model transmission and concluded that masks confer an estimated 75% reduction in transmission. The epidemiologic math shows that reducing social contacts by 80% (without masks) drops the R0 to below 1.0 and the virus fairly quickly stalls out and gets contained. Basic mask wearing takes you a long way to achieving that sub-1.0 R0. It just underscores that beating this virus can be done without a miracle of science and medicine with the right communication to all people.

2 seconds to confrontation

For some reason this evening, it feels like the hologram is actually, finally glitching.

Seriously though, I don't expect them to just dose a billion people. They make it very clear that this should only occur strictly in the context of medical consideration of individual history with ongoing medical monitoring. I'd expect the Have's in India will be able to access and pay for individual prophylactic treatment if they choose to. But I also expect they will zero in on the most efficient way to administer it to as many affected people as possible within whatever logistic limitations they identify.

I hear India has a history of some hangups on class.