Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

The world has gone mad.

Here the city council just voted to pretty much give the local health department gestapo powers of the entire city. Brilliant move. Fuck civil liberties. Let an administrator who doesn't know dick about health care keys to the fucking city.

Idiots.

[iam416]

Michigan's expanded stay at home order goes into effect. Interesting that the ban specifically does not exclude lottery sales so long as social distancing is practiced. My neighbor (who raises chickens) can no longer step onto my property and give my wife eggs. I can not get into my car and go to my other home in Ogemaw county. But if I get pulled over by the cops, I tell him I'm on a scratch off run and he says have a nice day.

I suspect we're into the territory of very diminishing returns. But, hey, if you're against then you must be for mass burials.

[THE_WIZARD_]

I was just thinking that Talent...I'm investing in burial plots and caskets...to try to make up some of my 401k losses...

[Ghengis Jon]

Doesn't effect me at all. I'm home bound except when caring for 87 year old mom. I don't need to be 'ordered' to do something obvious.

Tell me what city you two are founding your business in. I'll schedule a Trump rally there with none of that commie social distancing or masks. I'll take 10% thank you.

[Jeff Buchanan]

"More Herd Immunity....less herd mentality..." Posted by Wiz

I actually think (hope is probably a better word) that officials at multiple levels are starting to think about and probably even planning for this. At least the places I want to be right now (FL, not GA) are hopefully thinking about this.

The article makes sense. I've read plenty of similar scholarly articles just like it but, as talent put it, if you're aligned with that kind of thinking, you are also for mass burials. Sad.

Like plenty of failed businesses looking for perfect data and a lot of it, the more agile and successful ones take a shot. A decision to open the economy can't be completely uninformed but neither can it be perfectly informed such that it, in absolute terms, it won't kill untold thousands unexpectedly.

..... and I can't disagree with talent's view that the decision to open the economy, sanctioned at a national level, any part of an economy in any region, is, in large part a political decision. IOW, no matter which approach you choose, you embark on it, you own it.

On that note, the piece Wiz posted, would seem to me to propose an approach that is a politically palatable and potentially claimable as a bipartisan approach. You're not walking an inevitable plank to political oblivion if Governors can strike a balance between the let them die and save them all constituencies.

[iam416]

The only way it's not a political decision is if the Governors, PDJT, Pelosi and some D Senators jointly endorse a plan. Then everyone owns it. Then you can disregard most of the politics. But, that ain't happening.

[Ghengis Jon]

DeVos is sued for not doing her job, settles agreeing to do her job, admits no wrongdoing, and her department declares victory over litigation delays. What a country!

https://apnews.com/b24b3bfde254c9352e24c90e5f90fb92

[THE_WIZARD_]

Of course my post about burial plots was tongue in cheek but the lib portion of the forum don't get it. Of course the claim of burying the covid victims in parks because they are running out of space is bullshit but nobody questions it. My niece actually works in healthcare in Westchester County NY and my sister tells me she's being laid off now because they amped up but now the hospital she works for has empty beds. Overall deaths in the US for the last month vs. last year same time period are actually down...in a pandemic? Hmmm. Wonder why. Of course some is the lockdown but not all of it...could it possibly be inflated covid deaths? No. I'm sure not. Is this a concern? Yes. Was it worthy of a nation wide shutdown? No. Now I hear if a small biz owner has to shutdown and apply for unemployment...which was CAUSED by the government and BULLSHIT DATA has to be DENIED benefits initially THEN reapply as an individual to get help. WTF???? Absolute god damn bullshit. As an owner of two small businesses dealing with this shit all of you cracking on me an other people in my position...you can go to hell. This is serious shit and until you know what we are going through you have no right to talk shit. The alleged "help" if and when it EVER shows up will be peanuts and thousands will never recover. But go ahead and continue your bs. I'm telling you this is fucking up our country far worse than you know.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Now Fauci wants "Immunity Cards" for people to travel? Good fucking god damn lord...

[Whitley]

Now Fauci wants "Immunity Cards" for people to travel? Good fucking god damn lord...

They have something like that in Germany.

And to restart the economy it is not a bad idea. That way you would not have to worry about being infected (if there is full immunity), but the real question is how much immunity and how long is it good for>?

[lineygoblue]

Hang in there, Wiz. Small business owners always get the short end of the stick when it comes to government "incentives". I'm hoping for the best for you and your business.

Maybe a faint light at the end of the tunnel? I mean, if U-M Medical feels this way ....

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/04/10/um-delays-field-hospital-use-amid-significantly-flattening-curve/5129794002/

[Jeff Buchanan]

CONCLUSIONS


In this cohort of patients hospitalized for severe Covid-19 who were treated with compassionate-use remdesivir, clinical improvement was observed in 36 of 53 patients (68%). Measurement of efficacy will require ongoing randomized, placebo-controlled trials of remdesivir therapy. (Funded by Gilead Sciences.)

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007016

[Ghengis Jon]

The New England Journal of Medicine? Bah! I'll believe it when Sean Hannity tells me so!

[Jeff Buchanan]

For what it's worth ...... reported COVID deaths are probably pretty accurate - I don't know of a solid methodology to exclude a patient with co-morbid conditions during an ongoing pandemic. Maybe after the pandemic is controlled.

What is required though is putting the COVID deaths in perspective. These pictures tell the story:

COVID deaths.PNG

COVID Deaths2.PNG

The article and charts are hear for those that can't read the charts:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/09/its-difficult-to-grasp-the-projected-deaths-from-covid-19-heres-how-they-compare-to-other-causes-of-death/

[Jeff Buchanan]

The New England Journal of Medicine? Bah! I'll believe it when Sean Hannity tells me so!

Right. As late as a week ago, I was like, hey, got a drug that looks like it works, go for it.

That really is a foolish approach although there are MDs who are doing just that and justifying it by saying it's better than doing nothing while waiting for inclusion in a controlled trial. Maybe.

I read a scholarly article on Wednesday that summarized all the medications known to have been tried in the setting of a patient(s) with a COVID diagnoses. There are well over 50 of them. Only a handful - may 4-6 - showed some level of effectiveness, however, none of the patients receiving such medications before late March, were in any kind of controlled study. Moreover, the case studies came from China (I've posted before about limitations to Chinese "studies") or Europe (still, not sufficiently controlled).

Given that, there is no way of determining if the drug actually is efficacious and that something else, unrelated to the drug itself, is responsible for improvement in a patient's clinical status, what doses work or don't work, what side effects can be attributed to the drug being tried. None.

As I recall, there are probably a dozen or so controlled studies going on involving upwards of 3000 patients - the drugs being tested are - for the most part - manufactured by the pharmaceutical companies doing the testing. Read into that what you want. Regardless, these controlled studies are set up to determine with a high degree of reliability the things the medical community needs to know to effectively administer a COVID drug.

Hydroxychloroquine is another drug, along with Remdisivir, that has shown effectiveness in patients who were administered it. I posted the known dosing schedule for Malaria last week and most physicians were administering it at those doses. However, controlled studies are looking at very different dosing strategies and after a few weeks we'll probably know the best one.

The sponsor of a drug trial designs it in consultation with panels of experts. There really is no, one, oversight body. It's up to the scientific professionalism of the researchers conducting the study. However, and this is why this term is important, when the study is published it is peer reviewed by the editors of the professional publications researches wish to publish their test results in. If it has errors or lacks adequate controls that produce faulty conclusions, it gets ripped.

This may sound like an unnecessary, time consuming process. It isn't if one really wants to know if a drug has promise or if it doesn't.