A New Covid Study
Henry Ford Hospital Group (Michigan) released its peer reviewed observational study on using HCQ, HCQ+AZT, and AZT in the treatment of Covid 19. At 4:30 AM (can’t sleep sometimes), I read it and this is difficult reading while yawning. The stats are within the text of the limited study. I am not going to put them in this brief recital of the study. My version is not all inclusive and I may have missed some issues or facts of importance. I invite you to read it and form your own conclusions.
“Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, and Combination in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19″, Henry Ford Covid-19 Task Force, International Journal of Infectious Diseases, July 1, 2020
Cohort, Application, and Dosage:
All patients evaluated were 18 years of age and older and were treated as inpatients for at least 48 hours unless they expired within the time period. The primary objective was to assess treatment experience with hydroxychloroquine versus hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin, azithromycin alone, and other treatments for COVID-19. Treatments were protocol driven, uniform in all hospitals and established by a system-wide interdisciplinary COVID-19 Task Force. Hydroxychloroquine was dosed as 400 mg twice daily for 2 doses on day 1, followed by 200 mg twice daily on days 2-5. Azithromycin was dosed as 500 mg once daily on day 1 followed by 250 mg once daily for the next 4 days. The combination of hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin was reserved for selected patients with severe COVID-19 and with minimal cardiac risk factors.
The methodology of application and dosage appears to be similar to what was used in France and as detailed in others less exact reports. This is not a full-fledged study as one might find in an FDA report. It did involve ~2400 patients.
Limitations:
Include the retrospective, non-randomized, non-blinded study design. Also, information on duration of symptoms prior to hospitalization was not available for analysis. However, our study is notable for use of a cohort of consecutive patients from a multi-hospital institution, regularly updated and standardized institutional clinical treatment guidelines and a QTc interval-based algorithm specifically designed to ensure the safe use of hydroxychloroquine. To mitigate potential limitations associated with missing or inaccurate documentation in electronic medical records, we manually reviewed all deaths to confirm the primary mortality outcome and ascertain the cause of death. A review of our COVID-19 mortality data demonstrated no major cardiac arrhythmias; specifically, no torsades de pointes that has been observed with hydroxychloroquine treatment. This finding may be explained in two ways. First, our patient population received aggressive early medical intervention, and were less prone to development of myocarditis, and cardiac inflammation commonly seen in later stages of COVID-19 disease. Second, and importantly, inpatient telemetry with established electrolyte protocols were stringently applied to our population and monitoring for cardiac dysrhythmias was effective in controlling for adverse events. Additional strengths were the inclusion of a multi-racial patient composition, confirmation of all patients for infection with PCR, and control for various confounding factors including patient characteristics such as severity of illness by propensity matching.
The First (bolded) point made is important as all other commentary made concerning HCQ stressed early intervention in the treatment of Covid to prevent replication of the virus. Subsequent studies such as the VA study involved later intervention of treatment when using hydroxychloroquine.
A Suggestion for further study and a role in treatment:
Our results also require further confirmation in prospective, randomized controlled trials that rigorously evaluate the safety, and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine therapy for COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. Considered in the context of current studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, our results suggest that hydroxychloroquine may have an important role to play in reducing COVID-19 mortality.
This document is open to the general public. There is “nothing” blocking you from reading it.
That’s the best news I’ve heard about HCQ so far. My main worry is with the lack of randomization. It looks like the patients given AZM (with or without HCQ) had much higher mortality. This suggests that AZM was prescribed for patients who were in pretty bad shape when admitted. I also wonder about the ECK screening. Were there drop outs? COVID-19 is a blood disease as well as a respiratory disease, so bad numbers under disease stress could have removed patients from the HCQ group.
Personally, I think it would be great if HCQ, administered early, could make a real difference. With careful screening, it looks like it can be used pretty safely. I’d still trust the result of a randomized, blinded, controlled, blah blah blah trial more.
Sorry if I’m sounding negative, but I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up. Our local news reports the first community spreading, so COVID-19 seems less remote. We knew the lull would have to end.
Kalesberg:
You are fine. I refuse to put all the data out here and request others to read the Observational study by a reputed Medical Organization. The P Values are good and the results of using combinations or HCQ appear to be good. The doses given are in line with what was used in South Korea, China, and France as well as other nations. This makes a big difference in outcomes and deaths.
They will continue to use it due to their findings.
The RECOVERY Trial Reports on Hydroxychloroquine
Science – June 5
The RECOVERY trial is a large effort in the UK to evaluate several potential therapies, and today its organizers announced results from an evaluation of the hydroxychloroquine treatment arm:
And there, I think, we have it. Martin Landray of Oxford, a leader of the trial, told Reuters “This is not a treatment for COVID-19. It doesn’t work” …
Fred:
Just in the comment section of MedPage Today and referring to the discontinuation of the UK study:
Dosage is important as well as timing. The dosage in the Henry Ford hospital Observational study was less.
Another study. Now this one is from another country, it may be no good as these are not Americans. Healthcare workers & SARS-CoV-2 infection in India: A case-control investigation in the time of COVID-19
There are other studies cited in the comments section here: End of the Road for HCQ in COVID-19? Main issue with the UK study was timing of the dosage and also the size of the dosage. Read the comments section, the comments by other medical practitioners.
A Cheap, Simple Way to Control the Coronavirus
NY Times – Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Michael Mina – July 3
Simple at-home tests for the coronavirus, some that involve spitting into a small tube of solution, could be the key to expanding testing and impeding the spread of the pandemic. The Food and Drug Administration should encourage their development and then fast track approval.
One variety, paper-strip tests, are inexpensive and easy enough to make that Americans could test themselves every day. You would simply spit into a tube of saline solution and insert a small piece of paper embedded with a strip of protein. If you are infected with enough of the virus, the strip will change color within 15 minutes.
Your next step would be to self-quarantine, notify your doctor and confirm the result with a standard swab test — the polymerase chain reaction nasal swab. Confirmation would give public health officials key information on the virus’s spread and confirm that you should remain in quarantine until your daily test turned negative.
E25Bio, Sherlock Biosciences, Mammoth Biosciences, and an increasing number of academic research laboratories are in the late stages of developing paper-strip and other simple, daily Covid-19 tests. Some of the daily tests are in trials and proving highly effective.
The strips could be mass produced in a matter of weeks and freely supplied by the government to everyone in the country. The price per person would be from $1 to $5 a day, a considerable sum for the entire population, but remarkably cost effective. …
Fred:
Thanks, that is something one would call novel. Thanks for mentioning it. I know my wife and I are fearful of exposure to Covid when we go out to the store, etc. Even if you did it every other day, it would give a degree of safety we do not feel right now.
Related article, same journal:
An Observational Cohort Study of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin for COVID-19: (Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
It can be said that SARS-CoV-2 caught the world by surprise. In large part due to globalization, the virus quickly evolved from a serious regional concern to a worldwide pandemic, the likes of which are unprecedented in the last century. In a matter of weeks, COVID-19 became a leading cause of death, with a potential staggering death toll in 2020. Due to a heavy burden of illness, and in the absence of proven therapies, several experimental treatments have been and continue to be prescribed outside of clinical trial settings. Of the potential therapeutic options that showed early promise, few have generated as much controversy, or been subject to such politicization, as hydroxychloroquine. In this issue of the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, Arshad et. al have added more fuel to the fire. …
An Observational Cohort Study of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin for COVID-19: (Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Pts in the HCQ treatment arm received steroids at a rate more than twice that of the arm not receiving HCQ. I had a hard time figuring out how they decided who should receive HCQ and who didnt. Also, the death rate for those not receiving HCQ was, I thought, pretty high. Our peer mortality rate (Mid sized academic hospital) is about 19%. Their arm without HCQ was 26%. We are at 14% without using HCQ, but we do use steroids.
What this study shows is that we need randomized, prospective studies. (I chair a medical department and read tons of studies. Have for over 30 years.) We should take this seriously because it is a large study but being retrospective and having a few red flags we need better studies. (The timing issue is nonsense. It is a pill, not dialysis. You dont need special gear or super special staff to initiate treatment.)
Steve:
What I see and believe is the FDA is dead set against doing much with HCQ due to political reasons and trunp touting it.
I worked at Baxter in new products and pilot production for things like heparin, bubble oxygenators, CF and CD Dialyzers, etc. Not a medical person, technically and math oriented, and handled the supply chain such as flying 747s of cupraphein to the US from Germany. Marsh Abbey (secretary and legal wizard at Baxter) used to send me to meeting he did not want to attend.
Being who I am, I have an interest in these papers also. It takes me a bit longer to pick up on it and I read them several times. In LSS, results point in a direction which requires further study. The P-values are good on this one and we should be doing deep dives into this following the dosages the Koreans, Didier, and this study used which are similar and have not been applied in other trials. You are correct, it is a pill, add the zinc and use the HCQ as an ionophore for it, the AZT to fight the infection and other variations if needed. If HCQ works as it appears to, we should be moving heaven and earth to get it approved. I agree lets get on with the randomized study if that is what it takes.
It is like they are stalling on this with a million excuses.
I would like to know how they decide who gets it the same as you do. It sounds too much like a Sophie’s choice.
I appreciate your input.
It’s crucial to understand that there are not just a couple of pharma drugs that are effective in the treatment against Covid-19 but also a natural very safe cheap remedy that’s BOTH a preventative and therapeutic against Covid-19, the proper use of vitamin C — see orthomolecular d ot o r g (click on ‘Library’ and then ‘News Releases’ and read the editions from about February of 2020 on forward)
A lot of this is based on Nobel laureate Linus Pauling’s pioneering work. HOWEVER….. everyone should keep the following in mind, especially now with the corona scamdemic going on: there are many bogus voices around who strive to distract the public from (1) the value of vitamin C therapy and (2) the fact that Pauling’s VALID work with vitamin C supplementation has been “falsified” by data distortions and lies, and he as a person (a double Nobel laureate) has been slandered as some deluded idiot by the criminal medical establishment and its countless quackwatch shills, lackeys, ignoramuses, and trolls for decades and it continues today — search for the scholarly report “2 Big Lies: No Vitamin Benefits & Supplements Are Very Dangerous” by Rolf Hefti (a published author of the Orthomolecular Medicine News organization). The same corrupt criminal people (and their uninformed followers) are behind the organized suppression, lies, and half-truths spread about the value of vitamin C therapy against covid-19 — see orthomolecular d ot o r g
But you can’t discredit the facts with lies. That only exposes and discredits the liars (see citations above).
The fact that we are dealing with a VERY CRIMINAL OFFICIAL POWER STRUCTURE (the Deep State, governments, WHO, official corporate medicine, CDC/Fauci, the mainstream media, paid off scientists, Bill Gates, etc) that constantly hoodwinks the unsuspecting public with MANY BIG LIES can easily be recognized by anyone with two working brain cells when reading this one sentence by a former US government official, Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., in his article ‘The Cost of Big Pharma’s Covid-19 Vaccine Will Be Paid in Lives and in Billions of Dollars’:
“A corrupt establishment and media that can sell us 9/11, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russiagate and a large number of other lies can also sell us on locking up a successful treatment in the closet while we await a vaccine.”
or from another article of his:
“In “freedom and democracy” America there is only official truth, and it is a lie. […]. […] when I told the truth that Russiagate was a hoax, which it has proved to be, an anonymous website, possibly a CIA or NATO operation called “PropOrNot,” included this website among its fake list of 200 “Russian agents/dupes.” The Washington Post, a believed long-time CIA asset, hyped the PropOrNot revelation as if it were the truth. With “Russiagate” in full hype, the purpose was to scare readers away from those of us who were exposing the hoax. […]. The way those with agendas control the explanations is by shouting down those who provide objective accounts. Social media is part of the censorship. Explanations out of step with official ones are labeled “abusive,” and in “violation of community standards.” In other words, truth is unacceptble. […]. Everyone who uses social media is by their use supporting censorship. Facebook imposes fascist censorship in order to protect official explanations. The presstitutes and universities do the same. In America truth has lost its value. […]. Even a public health threat like coronavirus is politicized. […]. If you are Big Pharma, NIH, CDC, or the research professionals dependent on grants from these sources, you want a vaccine, not a cure. This means a long wait, assuming an effective and safe vaccine is possible. […]. The hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), zinc, and intravenous vitamin C treatments, which have proved to be effective, are badmouthed by Big Pharma and its minions. In other words, the profit agenda over-rides health care and the saving of lives. […]. It is all about money. There are no profits for Big Pharma or a chance for patents for Dr. Fauci unless inexpensive HCQ, zinc, and Vitamin C can be sidelined.”
Also, if nothing else, watch this MUST-SEE documentary: is d o t gd/uQH5Lb
And if you still do not think that covid-19 is a planned scamdemic ponder this statement by the American investigative reporter Jon Rappoport:
“Since planes fly back and forth, and since all sorts of Westerners travel to the rainforests, why haven’t we seen whole native tribes wiped out by viruses from the deep dark streets of Brooklyn? It would even seem that viruses, common in, say, Norway, would cause trouble in Oregon. Why does it have to be “viruses from jungles?” Or other faraway places like China? […]. […] is it possible that jungles and Africa and China are typically chosen for virus fairy tales because, in the minds of many Westerners, they satisfy a requirement of “strange,” “different,” “primitive,” and so on? We’re talking theater here—and when you stage a propaganda play (fiction), you want to tap into the reflex instincts of the audience. The Hartford Virus, the Des Moines Virus, the Vancouver Virus just don’t fit the bill. Because they can’t drive up the fear that jungles or Africa or China can. […]. We NEVER hear killer virus stories about germs traveling from Europe and America to Asia and Africa. Why not? Because such a story won’t sell. It won’t bite. This is called a clue. It tells you that virus-stories are shaped and managed and written and managed and broadcast according to a plan that has nothing to do with actual disease.”
But having true knowledge like that is not enough in itself, YOUR BEHAVIOR must reflect the implications of that knowledge…. ESPECIALLY NOW IN THE FACE OF THIS MASSIVE EVIL SCAM. As the American social critic Paul Rosenberg pointed out in his article ‘Nothing Changes As Long As You Obey’:
“I hear the same complaints about politicians that you do. And while I understand them, the fact is that complaining accomplishes almost nothing. And there is a very simple reason why complaining has no real effect: BECAUSE THE COMPLAINERS KEEP RIGHT ON OBEYING. As long as you obey, the things you complain about will keep on happening.”
And Edmund Burke said:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.”
How deadly is the coronavirus? Scientists are searching for a definitive answer
More than six months into the pandemic, the coronavirus has infected more than 11 million people worldwide, killing more than 525,000. But despite the increasing toll, scientists still do not have a clear answer to one of the most fundamental questions about the virus: How deadly is it?
A firm estimate could help governments predict how many deaths would ensue if the virus spread out of control. The figure, usually called the infection fatality rate, could tell health officials what to expect as the pandemic spreads in densely populated nations like Brazil, India and Nigeria.
In poorer countries, where lethal threats like measles and malaria are constant and where hard budget choices are routine, the number could help officials decide whether to spend more on oxygen concentrators and ventilators, or on measles shots and mosquito nets.
At present, countries have very different case fatality rates, which measure deaths among patients known to have had Covid-19. In most cases, that number is highest in countries that have had the virus the longest.
According to data gathered by The New York Times, China had reported 90,294 cases as of Friday and 4,634 deaths, a case fatality rate of 5 percent. The United States, which has had a record number of new daily cases six times in the past two weeks, was very close to that mark. It has had 2,811,447 cases and 129,403 deaths, about 4.6 percent.
Ten sizable countries, most of them in Western Europe, have tested bigger percentages of their populations than the United States has. Their case fatality rates vary wildly: Iceland’s is less than 1 percent, New Zealand’s and Israel’s are below 2 percent. Belgium, by comparison, is at 16 percent, and Italy and Britain are at 14 percent.
Before last week, the World Health Organization had no official estimate for the infection fatality rate. Instead, it had relied on a mix of data sent in by member countries and academic groups, and on a meta-analysis done in May by scientists at the University of Wollongong and James Cook University in Australia.
Those researchers looked at 267 studies in more than a dozen countries and then chose the 25 they considered the most accurate, weighting them for accuracy, and averaged the data. They concluded that the global infection fatality rate was 0.64 percent.
How deadly is the coronavirus? Scientists are searching for a definitive answer.
More than six months into the pandemic, the coronavirus has infected more than 11 million people worldwide…
Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak
By The New York Times – Updated July 5
Fred:
Abstract: “Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is the causative agent of the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic. Initial estimates of the early dynamics of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, suggested a doubling time of the number of infected persons of 6–7 days and a basic reproductive number (R0) of 2.2–2.7. We collected extensive individual case reports across China and estimated key epidemiologic parameters, including the incubation period (4.2 days). We then designed 2 mathematical modeling approaches to infer the outbreak dynamics in Wuhan by using high-resolution domestic travel and infection data. Results show that the doubling time early in the epidemic in Wuhan was 2.3–3.3 days. Assuming a serial interval of 6–9 days, we calculated a
median R0 value of 5.7
(95% CI 3.8–8.9). We further show active surveillance, contact tracing, quarantine, and early strong social distancing efforts are needed to stop transmission of the virus.”
High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2
Mutated COVID-19 Viral Strain in U.S. and Europe 10 Times More Contagious than Original Strain
Researchers have been analyzing and tracking the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, since it first appeared in China in January. Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have found that the strains spreading so quickly in Europe and the U.S. have a mutated S “spike” protein that makes it about 10 times more infectious than the strain that originally was identified in Asia. The research was published online on bioRxiv and has yet to be peer-reviewed.
The mutation does not appear to make the virus any more deadly than it already is, but it does appear to make it significantly more contagious. The original strain in China is dubbed D614, while the one found in the UK, Italy and North America by May is dubbed G614. …
But, no worries…
Trump Claims 99 Percent of Coronavirus Cases Are ‘Harmless’ in Fourth of July Speech
… (Trump) claimed that testing has shown that 99 percent of coronavirus cases “are totally harmless” — although Johns Hopkins University has estimated the fatality rate in the United States is 4.6 percent, according to CNN. All cases are harmful as those who are asymptomatic can also spread the virus. …
Did a Mutation Help the Coronavirus Spread? More Evidence, but Lingering Questions
NY Times – July 2
For months, scientists have debated whether a variant of the coronavirus that has come to predominate in much of the world did so partly because it is more transmissible than other viruses.
On Thursday, a team of researchers reported new evidence that is likely to deepen the debate rather than settle it, experts said; too many uncertainties remain, in a pandemic that changes shape by the day.
The new report, posted by the journal Cell and led by investigators at Los Alamos National Laboratory, suggested that the variant did have such an advantage. Other researchers said the findings were not yet definitive.
The underlying question is as important as ever, both for understanding the early phases of the pandemic and anticipating how it will progress in the coming months. If the genetic glitch that defines the variant, known as D614G, imparted even a slight increase in transmissibility, it would help explain why infections exploded in some regions and not in others with similar density and other attributes. Others experts argue that it is far more likely that the variation spread widely by chance, multiplying outward from explosive outbreaks in Europe.
Last month, virologists at Scripps Research, Florida, found that viruses with the D614G mutation were far more infectious than those without it, at least in cell culture. Those differences are necessary for higher transmission to occur in the real world, but hardly sufficient; there is no evidence that the D614G variant makes people sicker.
The new paper, led by Bette Korber, a theoretical biologist, presents evidence in the form of lab findings, tests of infected patients and a broad statistical analysis of the pandemic as the D614G variant repeatedly took over in cities, regions and countries. “The consistency of this pattern was highly statistically significant, suggesting that the D614G variant may have a fitness advantage,” the authors concluded.
In an interview, Dr. Korber said that the three lines of evidence “all support the idea this is quite likely to be a more transmissible virus” than other variants. She added: “It is the dominant virus in the world, it only took about a month for that to happen, and it’s now the one we should be looking at.”
The report also acknowledged that other alternate explanations were possible, including so-called founder effects — an advantage rooted in chance, and in the dynamics of transmission in regions where the variant first took off. Other research has found no evidence of increased transmissibility for D614G, and for many scientists the question remains an open one.
“It’s exciting to see a group take on the challenge of solving this, and the differences they report are intriguing, particularly the consistency across geography,” said Dr. Marc Suchard, a biostatistician at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine. “But this is an extraordinarily challenging problem, the evolution and demography are complex, so there’s much more work to be done.”
Dr. Korber helped focus scientists’ attention on the D614G mutation in early May, when she posted a paper arguing that “when introduced to new regions it rapidly becomes the dominant form.” The new report expands on the previous one, and Dr. Korber said that her group intended to continue its investigation by testing different variants in animals, to see if differences in transmission are detectable.
DNA Linked to Covid-19 Was Inherited From Neanderthals
NY Times – July 4
A stretch of DNA linked to Covid-19 was passed down from Neanderthals 60,000 years ago, according to a new study.
Scientists don’t yet know why this particular segment increases the risk of severe illness from the coronavirus. But the new findings, which were posted online on Friday and have not yet been published in a scientific journal, show how some clues to modern health stem from ancient history.
“This interbreeding effect that happened 60,000 years ago is still having an impact today,” said Joshua Akey, a geneticist at Princeton University who was not involved in the new study.
This piece of the genome, which spans six genes on Chromosome 3, has had a puzzling journey through human history, the study found. The variant is now common in Bangladesh, where 63 percent of people carry at least one copy. Across all of South Asia, almost one-third of people have inherited the segment.
Elsewhere, however, the segment is far less common. Only 8 percent of Europeans carry it, and just 4 percent have it in East Asia. It is almost completely absent in Africa. …
Fred:
This is something I had not read before, Thanks!
Fact check: Trump falsely says 99 percent of coronavirus cases are ‘harmless’
via @BostonGlobe – July 6
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is understating the danger of the coronavirus to people who get it, as more and more become infected in the U.S.
In his latest of many statements playing down the severity of the pandemic, Trump declared that 99% of cases of COVID-19 are harmless. That flies in the face of science and of the reality captured by the U.S. death toll of about 130,000. Trump also sounded a dismissive note about the need for breathing machines.
Throughout the pandemic, Trump has declared it under control in the U.S. when it hasn’t been. His remarks on that subject and more from the past week:
VIRUS THREAT
TRUMP: “Now we have tested over 40 million people. But by so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.” — Fourth of July remarks Saturday.
THE FACTS: This statement does not reflect the suffering of millions of COVID-19 patients.
The World Health Organization, for one, has said about 20% of those diagnosed with COVID-19 progress to severe disease, including pneumonia and respiratory failure. Whatever the numbers turn out to be, it’s clear that the threat is not limited to the merest sliver of those who get the disease.
Aside from that, those with mild or no symptoms also can spread the virus to others who are more vulnerable.
Asked Sunday to defend Trump’s claim, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn declined to do so. He instead urged Americans not to back off the federal government’s public health measures urging social distancing and wearing a mask.
“What I’ll say is that we have data in the White House task force,” Hahn told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Those data show us that this is a serious problem. People need to take it seriously.”
TRUMP: “Our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. … Anybody need any Ventilators???” — tweet Saturday.
THE FACTS: No, increased testing does not fully account for the rise in cases. People are also infecting each other more than before as distancing rules recede and “community spread” picks up. And as cases surge, so has demand for ventilators once again in parts of the U.S.
“One of the things is an increase in community spread, and that’s something that I’m really quite concerned about,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, testified Tuesday.
Adm. Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services official overseeing the nation’s coronavirus testing efforts, told Congress on Thursday that the increases can’t be explained by just additional testing. “We do believe this is a real increase in cases because of the percent positivities are going up,” he said.
In areas of the U.S., the demand for ventilators is approaching the highs seen in April. For instance, the number of patients requiring ventilators in Miami-Dade County has increased from 61 two weeks ago to 158 on Saturday, according to Miami-Dade figures posted by the county online. The highest number of patients on ventilators was 198, on April 9.
As for Trump’s point about mortality coming down, Fauci said that is not a relevant measure of what is happening in the moment with infections. “Deaths always lag considerably behind cases,” he said. “It is conceivable you may see the deaths going up.”
TRUMP: “We’ve made a lot of progress; our strategy is moving along well. …We’ve learned how to put out the flame.” — Fourth of July remarks Saturday.
TRUMP, describing the COVID-19 threat as “getting under control”: “Some (places) were doing very well, and we thought they (the virus) may be gone and they flare up, and we’re putting out the fires.” — remarks Thursday on a jobs report.
TRUMP: “I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” — interview Wednesday on Fox Business Network.
THE FACTS: “The virus is not going to disappear,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert. Nor can it be considered “under control” and its flame “put out” as cases have been surging to fresh daily highs.
The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. per day has roughly doubled over the past month, hitting over 50,000 this past week, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. That is higher even than what the country experienced from mid-April through early May, when deaths sharply rose.
Fauci warned last week that the increase across the South and West “puts the entire country at risk” and that new infections could reach 100,000 a day if people don’t start listening to guidance from public health authorities to wear a mask and practice social distancing.
Arizona, California, Florida and Texas have recently been forced to shut down bars and businesses as virus cases surge. The U.S. currently has more than 2.7 million known cases and many more undetected.
Fauci has said there “certainly” will be coronavirus infections in the fall and winter.
___
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: “While we’re monitoring about 16 states that are seeing outbreaks, it represents about 4% of all the counties in this country.” — interview with CBS aired on June 28.
THE FACTS: That’s a misleading portrayal of the virus threat. More than 20% of Americans actually live in those relatively few counties.
The White House provided The Associated Press with the full list of U.S. counties that reported increases in COVID-19 cases as of a week ago, when Pence and other administration officials repeatedly cited the low county tally. The list showed 137 of the 3,142 counties in the U.S. that were under a higher alert — indeed, about 4% in that snapshot of time.
But measured by population, those counties represent a vastly higher share — more than 1 in 5 people in the U.S.
Altogether there are 68.3 million people living in those 137 counties, while there is a total U.S. population of 322.9 million. That means 21.1% of U.S. residents actually live in the virus “hot spots” identified in the list.
…
Why were we so late responding to Covid-19?
via @statnews – NAT KENDALL-TAYLOR – JULY 6
Blame it on our culture and brains
From the recent rise in Covid-19 cases linked to reopening in states across the country to the models showing that shutting down the country even two weeks earlier would have saved almost 55,000 lives, this pandemic is shining a spotlight on our inability to act early and preventively.
It reminds me of the fable about the ant and the grasshopper. In it, the ant works prudently all summer and is prepared when winter hits, while the grasshopper lives it up during times of warmth and abundance only to suffer when things freeze up.
Why are humans like the grasshopper, frequently not seeing the need to act until it’s too late?
Part of the answer lies in how our cultural and cognitive systems work. Our brains are programmed to prioritize the present and undervalue the future. Our psychology has evolved to make us good at thinking about immediate exchanges and benefits, but we have difficulty getting behind approaches that require us to do something now so nothing bad happens in the future.
Even though contagious outbreaks have occurred in the past, and despite exhortations from public health experts that they would happen again, we lacked the systems and mindsets to proactively respond to Covid-19.
The lack of public will and demand for prevention makes it difficult for policy makers to build prevention into our public health systems and institutions. It’s easy for elected officials to win favor by putting out small fires or building infrastructure that improves people’s lives in tangible ways — things like new roads or faster broadband. But it’s hard to win elections by using valuable public resources so nothing bad happens.
But if we don’t demand prevention, we are unlikely to get public health systems that deliver it.
People are not willfully illogical in not getting behind these solutions. It’s just that our brains and culture get in the way.
Psychological mechanisms like delay discounting, the tendency to take less now than the promise of more later, and normalcy bias, a cognitive response that pushes us to think that the future will be the same as the present, make it hard for our brains to process prevention arguments. Normalcy bias in particular is a barrier to preparing for disasters.
There are also cultural factors that make prevention a hard sell. Declinism is the belief that, compared to the present, the future is destined to be a dismal place. It is connected to fatalism — the belief that nothing can be done because problems are too deep and numerous. These two features of our common culture allow us to disengage from the abstract thinking needed to act preventively. If the future is destined to be dark, why bother being proactive?
Our culture’s strong sense of individualism also works against our ability to think preventively. We can see how making better individual choices and exercising willpower might prevent a problem, but struggle to see how changing systems can keep bad things from happening. The Covid-19 coverage, with its focus on individual behavior and heroic actors, has strengthened our sense of individualism and pushed systems-level prevention further out of mind.
But the good news for public health is that there are ways to short circuit these psychological processes and shift culture to broaden support for prevention. For example, messages that connect actions now with outcomes later, as the field of early childhood has done successfully, bolster support for preventive actions. Values that activate legacy thinking — the desire to leave something positive behind for future generations — are also effective in getting people to see the importance of doing something now for future benefits. And making sure that messages balance a focus on the urgency of the problem with the presence and power of solutions also make people more supportive of prevention.
One of the most powerful ways of building support for prevention is having an example of its importance that people personally connect with. This is exactly what we’re in the midst of now.
The pandemic is affecting our lives in ways that allow us to feel why it is so important to have robust preventive systems in place. This could create the kind of demand for prevention that policy makers can’t ignore. Hopefully it will result in a more prevention-oriented and equitable public health system. It could also increase our demand for prevention on other issues, leading to better mental health services, more proactive child protection systems, more affordable housing, and even more demand for action on climate change.
A cognitive perspective puts a different spin on the ant and the grasshopper fable. Maybe the grasshopper isn’t lazy or hedonistic. Maybe it has a cognitive system like ours: one engineered for the here and now. The Covid-19 pandemic might be a big enough wrench to bring our cognitive systems to a grinding halt, allowing us to see and prepare for the next winter.
April 27: World’s COVID-19 total tops 3 million cases”
May 9: Global COVID-19 total passes 4 million cases
July 3: Global Coronavirus Cases Rise to More Than 11 Million
April 29: US Hits 1 Million Coronavirus Cases, One-Third Of All The World’s Cases
June 11: US surpasses 2 million coronavirus cases
US COVID-19 total will soon reach 3 Million.
Medical groups urge Americans
to ‘resist confusing reopening with returning to normalcy.’
Three leading US health organizations urged Americans to wear masks when they leave their homes in an open letter published Monday.
(AHA, ANA, AMA)
US Will Pay $1.6 Billion to Novavax for Coronavirus Vaccine
NY Times – July 7
The Maryland-based company, which has never brought a product to market before, just made the biggest deal to date with the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed.
The federal government will pay the vaccine maker Novavax $1.6 billion to expedite the development of 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by the beginning of next year, the company said on Tuesday.
The deal is the largest that the Trump administration has made so far with a company as part of Operation Warp Speed, the sprawling federal effort to make coronavirus vaccines and treatments available to the American public as quickly as possible. In doing so, the government has placed a significant bet on Novavax, a company based in Maryland that has never brought a product to market.
Operation Warp Speed is a multiagency effort that seeks to carry out President Trump’s pledge to make a coronavirus vaccine available by the end of the year, but the full extent of the project is still unclear. …
Left out of Warp Speed, Novavax scores $60M defense contract for COVID-19 shot
Fierce Pharma – June 5
Novavax wasn’t included in the U.S. government’s group of COVID-19 vaccine finalists for Operation Warp Speed, but only days after news of those picks broke, the company has picked up a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.
The DoD awarded Novavax $60 million to help produce components of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, dubbed NVX‑CoV2373, in the U.S. Under the contract, Novavax will deliver 10 million doses of the vaccine to the DoD this year. Those doses could be used in mid- and late-stage testing or under an emergency use authorization from the FDA. …