I can’t watch Trump’s press conferences. The frustration with their worthlessness is amplified by the danger we’re all in. Today was the first day that the only trusted voice, Dr. Fauci, was not present. People noticed. Why we shouldn’t listen:
- For the past two days (more?) Trump switched to calling coronavirus “Chinese virus” to trap any thinking person into focusing on his racism instead of his ineptness. That’s story has not become the main story, so I hope that the importance of focusing on the problem has weakened that particular distraction technique.
- OAN Reporter: “[Leftwing Media is] claiming u are racist for making these claims about Chinese Virus. Is it alarming that major media players just to oppose u are consistently siding w/ foreign state propaganda?” Trump: “They are siding w/ China” Updated: OAN reporter who attacked media at Trump presser previously peddled insane coronavirus conspiracy theory:
As Media Matters documented earlier this week, Rion reported on “information” she had received about the virus’s origins from conspiracy theorist Greg Rubini, who has said COVID-19 was “genetically engineered as a Bio-Weapon at the Univ. of North Carolina BSL-3 Lab.”
Rubini believes that the virus was produced as part of a “deep state” conspiracy to destroy the economy ahead of Trump’s reelection, and he even implicated the Trump administration’s Dr. Anthony Fauci in the plot.
- “I don’t know if they’re sitting like you people are sitting. You’re actually sitting too close. You should really… we should probably get rid of about another 75 80% of you and have just two or three that I like in this room. I think that’s a great way of doing it. We just figured a new way of doing it.” (my transcription)
- Asked why he used the term “Chinese virus,” President Trump said, “China tried to say… [coronavirus] was caused by American soldiers. That can’t happen… Not as long as I’m President.”
- Trump asked why the US wasn’t prepared with more testing if, as he claimed, he knew long ago it would be a pandemic: “We were very prepared. The only thing we weren’t prepared for was — the media. The media has not treated it fairly.” He’s just saying nonsense.
- “Other countries are following what I did.”
- “The 500 million N95 air-filtering respirator masks President Donald Trump said the federal government ordered could take up to 18 months to be delivered, according to the grant application.”
California governor projects “56% of state’s population will be infected” in the next 8 weeks
Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks: Would They Protect in an Influenza Pandemic?
I’m not sure how it took me until yesterday to start associating our current pandemic with the biological catastrophe described in the later books of Peter Watts Rifters series (free online here). In that, a primordial microbe that exists dormant on the ocean floor (dubbed ßehemoth) gets carried to the surface and results in a fast-transmitting, slow-symptomatic disease that gradually eliminates a person’s ability to process proteins (I’m not remembering the exact science, that sounds half-right) so that they effectively starve to death. Society crumbles in slow motion. Remembering this story, and its bleak cruelty, unnerves me during our current situation.
Revenge of the Pangolins(Or, The Epidemiology of Understatement)
There are, so far, at least two strains of COVID-19, the younger and more virulent “L-Type” being responsible for most of the symptomatic cases. But L is already waning—probably because of active control measures— leaving the more benign “S-Type” to outcompete it in the wild
Watts, a pessimist’s pessimist, feels that COVID-19 is not even close to what we should expect in the future, and so has an oddly optimistic take on what’s happening. China’s carbon emissions have dropped 25%. Canceled conferences may push organizations to primarily virtual gatherings and eliminate the associated air travel, along with development of better remote groupware tools. The US healthcare industry might finally get a boost (not holding my breath).
It’s 8:30 PM and the US is up to 13,680 (Johns Hopkins) / 13,859 (Worldometer) so we’ve doubled in 2 days, making my graph from yesterday already 3 days behind. I’ll redo it in a couple of days.
Updated the next day
As the coronavirus spreads, a drug that once raised the world’s hopes is given a second shot (16 Mar 2020) – Article from Stat (very respected journal, esp. for this COVID-19 pandemic) on remdesivir.
Vaccines being tested:
- Favipiravir – Antiviral, useful against influenza, West Nile, yellow fever.
- Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) Hydroxychloroquine sulphate (brand name: Plaquenil) – Useful against malaria.
- Remdesivir – Antiviral, useful against Ebola, Marburg, MERS, and SARS.
China has had successful tests against COVID-19 using all three.
Related diseases and viruses:
- MERS, SARS, COVID-19 – Coronaviruses.
- “pneumonia, meningitis and diarrhea can be caused by either bacteria or viruses.”
- Malaria – Infectious disease caused by a parasitic protozoa spread by mosquitoes.
What are these (types of germs)?
- Virus – Smaller than bacteria. Can only survive and replicate in a host’s cells. Bacteria, since they are cells, can be infected with a virus. Influenza, AIDS, MERS/SARS/COVID-19.
- Bacteria – Single-celled microorganisms with no nucleus. Staphylococcus (pneumonia, meningitis), Lyme disease (spread by ticks), chlamydia.
- Protozoa – Single-celled organisms that can be free-living or parasitic. Feeds on organic tissue and microorganisms. Ex.: Malaria, taxoplasmosis, cryptosporidiosis.
(Fun fact: In college, when water from Lake Allatoona was spreading cryptosporidiosis, I won 2nd place in an art dept. contest to illustrate the cause. My entry was a National Enquirer cover showing Egyptian pyramids and aliens living at the bottom of the lake.)
Updated 28 Mar 2020
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
Here’s a date-ordered summary aggregation of the research I’ve done so far on HCQ studies. The articles that references these had some of the additional information noted. Some articles reference “the French study” or “the Hong Kong” study and the referent is unclear. I’ve attempted to specify correctly.
What if hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work? What if it does? Right now, we don’t know from Stat 27 Mar 2020. Stat is the source of reporting on COVID-19 research. Some important facts:
Angiostrongylus cantonensis eosinophilic meningitis: a clinical study of 42 consecutive cases in French Polynesia. (published 26 Feb 2014) – French study of 42 patients. Three statisticians reviewed the data (see Statistical review of Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial.) and concluded that the way it was designed makes the results look better than they are.
- Only 36 of the 42 were included in the study.
- There was no randomization.
- The control group was poorly chosen.
In Vitro Antiviral Activity and Projection of Optimized Dosing Design of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (published 9 Mar 2020) – Shanghai study of 30 patients. Had randomization between HCQ and control groups.
Both our study and theirs had many limitations,” Chen wrote. “But personally, I would say that hydroxychloroquine was not a ‘magic’ drug, if there is any antiviral effect. And in fact, hydroxychloroquine has never been effective in any viral diseases, despite its in vitro [in a petri dish] antiviral activity.
from Jun Chen, one of the authors of the Shanghai study
The Trumpian French Doctor Behind the Chloroquine Hype from Slate, 30 Mar 2020
The doctor who has all of the Internet-degreed Scientists declaring victory on Twitter is Didier Raoult. An although he has many legit awards, some of his scholarly techniques can be seriously questionned:
[Raoult] publishes more papers in a month than most productive researchers publish in a career. Raoult’s method, according to one critic, is to task a young researcher at IHU with an experiment, then co-sign the piece before it is submitted to publication.
Also see his controversial (spelled “idiotic”) critiques of climate change.
W/r/t HCQ, he performed a study in Mar 2020 of 24 individuals who had tested positive for COVID-19. After six days of HCQ, 3/4 were cured. And although this is a different study from the 2014 French study referenced several paragraphs above, apparently the same mistakes were made, weakening considerably any findings:
Critics argue that not only were there too few subjects in the chloroquine study, but that some of them dropped out during the trial, potentially skewing the results.
Sound familiar? Raoult also went to YouTube instead of any journal or peer review. Maybe to expedite the knowledge transfer to allow other researchers to confirm? However, that could easily be accomplished by sending it to research institutions rather than the aforementioned Respected Internet Scientists.
The damage to serious understanding of a potentially useful drug has been done in order to get his name in the spotlight.
There’s a separate Chinese study I see referenced online titled Efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19: results of a randomized clinical trial from 22 Mar 2020 treating 62 patients. This is distinct from the 9 Mar 2020 one referenced above (In Vitro Antiviral Activity…), and in fact it may have a circumspect reference to that or other “in vitro” studies. This may have more solid research, but with no control group it’s uncertain.
Updated 7 Apr 2020
Small Trial Suggests Antimalarial Drugs Not Effective For Treating Coronavirus from ScienceAlert, 6 Apr 2020
This article is by a medical chemist who specializes in antivirals and coronaviruses. The studies that are referenced (added to table above):
- Paradoxical Effect of Chloroquine Treatment in Enhancing Chikungunya Virus Infection from MDPI, 11 May 2018
- A pilot study of hydroxychloroquine in treatment of patients with common coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) from Zhejiang University Journals, 29 Feb 2020
- No Evidence of Rapid Antiviral Clearance or Clinical Benefit with the Combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Infection from Médecine et Maladies Infectieuses, 30 Mar 2020
- Efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19: results of a randomized clinical trial from medRxiv, 31 Mar 2020
- Clinical and microbiological effect of a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in 80 COVID-19 patients with at least a six-day follow up: an observational study
Detailing the currently thin, and thinning, evidence:
However, a study just published in a French medical journal provides new evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not appear to help the immune system clear the coronavirus from the body.
…
There are already other clinical studies that showed it is not effective against COVID-19 as well as several other viruses.
Several of the studies show it only effective for patients with mild symptoms. One study showed most of the benefits are for the flu.
Updated 13 Apr 2020
Anti-malarial drug touted by Trump was subject of CIA warning to employees from The Washington Post, 13 Apr 2020