New model predicts control of the pandemic, if we all just do a few things (Article)

BB the issue of the medical efficacy of hydroxy in treating Covid-19 was settled some time ago:

"Initially (on the surface at least), like the Black Knight versus Arthur, hydroxychloroquine looked fairly formidable as a potential treatment for COVID-19 based on anecdotal evidence. It wasn’t long, however, before the drip-drip-drip of negative studies soon rendered hydroxychloroquine a stump of a treatment, one limb at a time. Examples included the publication of a randomized controlled clinical trial of the drug as post-exposure prophylaxis that was entirely negative. This was followed by two more, first, a Spanish post-exposure prophylaxis trial that was also negative. Then there was the Recovery Trial from the UK. Most recently, last week the New England Journal of Medicine published a clinical trial of 667 patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 randomized to receive placebo or hydroxychloroquine (with and without azithromycin, yet!), with the primary outcome being clinical status at 15 days. It was completely negative. Two weeks ago yet another randomized controlled trial of hydroxychloroquine was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. It was a Spanish trial of 293 non-hospitalized patients with mild COVID-19. Guess what? It was negative. No benefit was observed with hydroxychloroquine beyond the usual care. None of this stopped a Yale epidemiologist named Harvey Risch from publishing a risibly, embarrassingly inept defense of the evidence base for hydroxychloroquine, which I interpreted as the Black Knight losing his last leg."

You can read the rest of that here https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/07/29/hydroxychloroquine-the-black-knight-of-treatments-for-covid-19/

One of the so-called doctors you champion - one Dr. Stella Immanuel - claimed this: "This virus has a cure. It is called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. I know you people want to talk about a mask. Hello? You don’t need a mask. There is a cure."

We all know there isn't a cure for Covid-19. Not hydroxy, not vitamin D, not zinc, not a combination of all of them. Nothing. If there were the entire world would be using it. There's no Big Pharma conspiracy, as Immanuel suggests, to deny us a cure. There are, however, plenty of quacks, and a cult that has formed surrounding hydroxy.

To say Immanuel is a little bit of an eccentric is like saying Muhammad Ali was a little bit of a boxer. Here from Wikipedia on her: "Emmanuel's medical claims are sometimes combined with her spiritual beliefs: many gynecological illnesses are the result of having sex dreams with succubi and incubi and receiving demon sperm; endometriosis, infertility, miscarriages, and sexually transmitted infections are caused by spirit spouses. She asserted in a 2015 sermon that space alien DNA is used in medical treatments and that 'reptilian spirits' and other extraterrestrials run the U.S. government. She also said in 2015 that Illuminati are using witches to destroy the world through abortion, gay marriage, children's toys and media (e.g. Harry Potter, Pokémon, Wizards of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana). In another 2015 sermon, she said scientists are developing vaccines to stop people from being religious." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/stella_immanuel

On a somewhat related matter, a new study on vitamin D has come out, showing it doesn't reduce the risk of depression, you can read it here https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/vitamin-d-supplements-do-not-reduce-the-risk-of-depression/

"As a number of countries moved expeditiously to contain the virus, the United States stumbled along in denial, as if willfully blind. With less than four percent of the global population, the U.S. soon accounted for more than a fifth of COVID deaths. The percentage of American victims of the disease who died was six times the global average. Achieving the world’s highest rate of morbidity and mortality provoked not shame, but only further lies, scapegoating, and boasts of miracle cures as dubious as the claims of a carnival barker, a grifter on the make."


https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

F8 said...

compiler said...
GOOD GRIEF! How many times do we have to be told the same things, over and over again.
I just don't recognize our once-great country. Stupidity reigns, as exemplified by the politicians who don't want to "require" use. For what? Our precious freedoms? You mean the freedom to infect and kill so many fellow Americans? These politicians have no shame. They just seek votes from like-minded geniuses. That is the REAL American tragedy, beyond the Virus itself.

Sorry to pull punches. Maybe next time I'll say how I really feel.

Mel

"Many who rode their bikes into Sturgis on Friday expressed defiance at the rules and restrictions that have marked life in much of the world during the pandemic.

“Screw COVID,” read the design on one T-shirt being hawked. “I went to Sturgis.”

And now they will go home, all over the country, and bring with them the virus that they got from fellow bikers who attended.



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/07/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-what-know-masks-attendance-rules/3321223001/

Pratoman said...

F8 said...

compiler said...
GOOD GRIEF! How many times do we have to be told the same things, over and over again.
I just don't recognize our once-great country. Stupidity reigns, as exemplified by the politicians who don't want to "require" use. For what? Our precious freedoms? You mean the freedom to infect and kill so many fellow Americans? These politicians have no shame. They just seek votes from like-minded geniuses. That is the REAL American tragedy, beyond the Virus itself.

Sorry to pull punches. Maybe next time I'll say how I really feel.

Mel

"Many who rode their bikes into Sturgis on Friday expressed defiance at the rules and restrictions that have marked life in much of the world during the pandemic.

“Screw COVID,” read the design on one T-shirt being hawked. “I went to Sturgis.”

And now they will go home, all over the country, and bring with them the virus that they got from fellow bikers who attended.



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/07/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-what-know-masks-attendance-rules/3321223001/

############

the largest gathering in the world that was not cancelled because of the virus. and right here in the covid capital of the world!

And I note, the other day I was in a restaurant/deli picking up carry out, and I overheard the manager saying to the cashier, "People don't get it. If we don't require masks, then the state will shut us down."

F8 said...
demon sperm Billy BoB

lol

Buddy Blank said...
Billy you linked an article from Science-Based Medicine that you purport champions the hydroxy cult. It does nothing of the sort! It is a take down of the hydroxy cult.

Yes, it is what you say. So I have replaced the link quoting and trashing the article with a link to the actual article. BTW, this left wing guy( I assume he is that since he speaks often about right wingers) you quote so often, why should I believe him over Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD , Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health, who wrote the article mentioning the results in Switzerland and Para of Brazil, which he trashes? I see that he is David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery. But what puts him so far above all of these other MDs and researchers whose work he trashes, including Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD , Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health? He may be right, but this Yale Epidemiologist thinks he is wrong. Me, I don't yet know which one is right. I do know that India has been using it and their survival rate puts us to shame.
....................................................................................................

BTW, Buddy, I got this from your guy, Gorski, so thanks for that. He referred me to the site about studies that have been retracted. This one is a retraction of a study that " had concluded that hydroxychloroquine was linked to a higher risk of death among some COVID-19 patients". I remember when that study was big news. But, it turned out to be no good and had to be pulled. https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/04/lancet-retracts-controversial-hydroxychloroquine-study/

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 8/8/2020 12:32:38 PM (GMT-6)

Buddy Blank said...
I'm not sure you're being entirely candid with me BB. I detect certain sentiment about the "lockdowns" (that never happened), your continual championing of Sweden (despite their atrocious handling of the pandemic, which resulted in the elderly being sacrificed), your puffing up this hydroxy nonsense, suggesting vitamins (either swallowed or IV can cure Covid-19), along with well-known former threads going back months and months (perhaps years), that lands you in a certain category.

Gorski has this, among other things, to say about Risch: "This far into the pandemic, with double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trials starting to be published and showing, each and every one of them so far, that hydroxychloroquine shows no benefit versus COVID-19 (I’ll discuss them shortly), let’s just say that I am flummoxed to find, in the midst of a crisis, that a seemingly respected epidemiologist is fighting for a drug that almost certainly doesn’t work based on low quality and anecdotal evidence when far higher quality evidence is becoming available and even the bulk of the observational evidence has been negative, with one notable outlier. I am even more flummoxed to find that Newsweek provided this epidemiologist a platform to promote this argument, particularly given how he based it primarily on a commentary and review that he wrote in May, which is basically ancient history as far as the evidence base for hydroxychloroquine goes."

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/07/24/harvey-risch-defends-hydroxychloroquine/

Read his entire takedown of Risch (link directly above), it's darning.

meanwhile we are predicted to have 300k deaths by the end of the year and florida doubled its death count in a month -- from 4k to 8k.

Buddy Blank said...
I'm not sure you're being entirely candid with me BB. I detect certain sentiment about the "lockdowns" (that never happened), your continual championing of Sweden (despite their atrocious handling of the pandemic, which resulted in the elderly being sacrificed), your puffing up this hydroxy nonsense, suggesting vitamins (either swallowed or IV can cure Covid-19), along with well-known former threads going back months and months (perhaps years), that lands you in a certain category.

Gorski has this, among other things, to say about Risch: "This far into the pandemic, with double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trials starting to be published and showing, each and every one of them so far, that hydroxychloroquine shows no benefit versus COVID-19 (I’ll discuss them shortly), let’s just say that I am flummoxed to find, in the midst of a crisis, that a seemingly respected epidemiologist is fighting for a drug that almost certainly doesn’t work based on low quality and anecdotal evidence when far higher quality evidence is becoming available and even the bulk of the observational evidence has been negative, with one notable outlier. I am even more flummoxed to find that Newsweek provided this epidemiologist a platform to promote this argument, particularly given how he based it primarily on a commentary and review that he wrote in May, which is basically ancient history as far as the evidence base for hydroxychloroquine goes."

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/07/24/harvey-risch-defends-hydroxychloroquine/

Read his entire takedown of Risch (link directly above), it's darning.

Well, I'm sure you are right about me and various questionable attributes of mine. As for everything you have mentioned, we have already discussed them ad infinitum. The only thing that is relatively new for discussion is your man Gorski. And why I should trust him on the subject of epidemiology more than I should trust the Yale epidemiologist Risch? Especially since everything he discusses is always done in an insulting and put down manner. But, one of them is right, one is wrong, I'm just not sure which, and see no reason I should trust Gorski, a surgical oncologist, over Risch, MD, PhD , Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health?

GoBucks said...

BillyBob@388 said...
Do you have the links for " Multiple trials, thousands of patients", so that we can analyze them? Are these the same trials that had to be retracted? Did they start the drug when it was too late, since it is well know to work much better early on? Did any of them use zinc with it? Did they use a toxic dose, or did they use the typical dose that has been given to patients for Lupus or malaria for 50 years?

Happy reading. As they say in Spanish, gay gezundt.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2019014?fbclid=iwar3gnu4zf9_2yz8uujz8nh2jdhlgzkdxjbzfpeaplohg_36rk-gdwvu5bf0

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.15.20151852v1.full.pdf?fbclid=iwar3x2mofvnnvrz4zfjnl2oihznaqoiwd4w_xt0gxj3xebu5hlwtibpppgpc

https://www.youcanknowthings.com/post/that-newsweek-article-review-of-yale-epidemiologist-s-key-to-defeating-covid?fbclid=iwar3yrgaqpmwadfff0-chh9s2zxskshumxamm0btq09o9aii5qedfbrittrc

Thanks, I will try to find time to wade through these.

I have already skimmed thru these ( don't have the energy to be thorough) and it at least looks bad for the old HCQ, Henry Ford, India and Switzerland be danged. However, in article number 3, I see this:
"What is an 'adequate' control group and why is it important? A study must have a control group (a similar group of patients who did not get the treatment) to know if any benefit you see is actually from the drug(s) and not from something else about the population you are studying. ................All of these can impact clinical outcomes, thus an adequate control group is essential to make any meaningful conclusions about whether or not a drug really works. So what do I mean by 'adequate control group?' I mean that we can be reasonably convinced that the patients in the control group are similar enough to the patients in the treatment group that we can think of them as roughly equal groups of people (at least, equal in terms of factors that impact how sick they become / their risk of dying)...".

So, seems to me, the Henry Ford Study had an adequate control group. That is, if we trust the Henry Ford researchers to make sure that all groups were about equally sick and had equal co-morbidities. And, looking over the details in the study, it looks like they are certainly in the ball park. For example, for the co-morbity of race, I see that in the neither med group(who had the twice as high death rate) there were 45% blacks and 60% in the HCQ alone, and in the HCQ+Zith group(middle death rate) there were 54% black. Since blacks have been dying at a much higher rate than whites, tese line up favors the "Neither drug" group. Same for BMI, slightly favors the "neither drug" group, 29% vs 33%. In fact, BMI > 30 was 39% for the neither drug group and 52% for the HCQ group. Going down through the table, I see some are a little worse comorbidity with the "neither drug group" and a little more sometime with the "HCQ alone group"- for instance about 50% more chronic lung disease in the HCQ group(that seems like a big one) and more hypertension and about 30% more diabetes. So, some of these(but not all) very important comorbidities were stacked slightly against the HCQ alone group or against the HCQ + AZM.

But over all, it looks like these groups were pretty closely matched. So, it appears there is indeed what she calls "an adequate control group". So, therefore, the Henry Ford Study is a controlled study. And it conflicts with the studies in the links you have provided. Hmmmmm. So, which to go by? I'm not sure. And the Henry Ford trial had NO heart related SEs, some of the studies you linked to did.

But here is a big one that some one brought up earlier: did some of those who got HCQ also get steroids? Yes. But guess what? Some in ALL groups got steroid, 36% in the "no HCL or AZM" group, and 78% in the hydroxychloroquine(HCQ) only group, and 74% in the "both drug" group. So on the one hand, more steroid in the HCQ alone group may have favored them and accounted for some of their fewer deaths. OTOH, the "both drug" group got steroid at almost an identical rate to the "HCQ" group, but had a 30% higher death rates than that group. So, that variable probably accounted for at least some of the results in favor of the HCQ alone group, but was it significant? We need a study on steroid alone to see how much that drops death rate, if any.
https://www.ijidonline.com/action/showfulltablehtml?ishtml=true&tableid=tbl0005&pii=s1201-9712%2820%2930534-8

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 8/8/2020 3:40:26 PM (GMT-6)

BB per the preeminent expert in the U.S.A., Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Henry Ford study was flawed. I'm surprised, or maybe not, that you're still trying to promote it, HCQ, and unproven vitamin treatments.

Fauci: Henry Ford Health's hydroxychloroquine study 'flawed'
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/07/31/anthony-fauci-henry-ford-health-hydroxychloroquine-study-flawed/5559367002/

After Fauci criticism, Henry Ford Health clams up on hydroxychloroquine study
https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2020/08/03/henry-ford-fauci-trump-hydroxychloroquine-covid-19/5573656002/

And here's a snippet from the real NPR article from May.

"And the revised estimates support an early prediction by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force. In an editorial published in late March in The New England Journal of Medicine, Fauci and colleagues wrote that the case fatality rate for COVID-19 "may be considerably less than 1%."

But even a virus with a fatality rate less than 1% presents a formidable threat, Rivers says. "That is many times more deadly than seasonal influenza," she says."