Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The Democratic COVID-19 Testing Strategy

Senator Patty Murray has released a Democratic proposal to increase our capacity to test for the coronavirus.  The report quite rightly emphasizes that expanded testing is critical for containing the epidemic and re-opening the economy.  It criticizes the Trump administration for it’s failure to recognize the need for extensive testing: Democrats demand a clear, detailed […]

Michigan and lockdown politics

(Dan here…simultaneous and probably related is the declining testing being done currently, and the federal lack of keeping track of nursing home and other long term care facilities deaths, as this group double downs on the “re-0pening” without precaution.) Washington Post reports: If all roads in Michigan lead to the state capitol, conservative protesters on […]

From Social Distance to Social Justice: An Unsolved Riddle

In the last two weeks of March and the first week of April, 2020 16.5 million new claims for unemployment were filed in the U.S. After the novel coronavirus is successfully contained some but not all of those jobs will return. The post-pandemic economy will not be the same as the economy before and to […]

Remdesivir V

This is interesting. In addition to the two huge multi center phase III trials of Remdesivir for Covid 19 with estimated completion some time in May 2020, there is a smaller but very large trial in Beijing with estimated completion May 1 2020. The East is Remd ! May Day May Day May Day “Estimated […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 13: Plateauing and stasis

Coronavirus dashboard for April 13: Plateauing and stasis Here is the update through yesterday (April 13). The bottom line is that infections and deaths appear to have plateaued, while there has been no progress towards any “test, trace, and quarantine” regimen that is the necessary next step; and to the contrary Trump appears to be […]

The FDA

I am back complaining about the FDA as I have in The Ethics of Clinical Trials and 10 years earlier Clinical Trial Ethics (an aside — I had forgotten the old post and Google reminded me that I have been banging this drum for a decade). Now I have a lot of company, because of […]

Remdesivir IV

This post is not up to the standards of the New England Journal of Medicine Compassionate Use of Remdesivir for Patients with Severe Covid-19 is an important article written and published with amazing speed. The (many) authors (including professional writers) assess the experience of 53 “patients who received remdesivir during the period from January 25, […]

Can the House Democrats drive a hard bargain on CARES 2?

Michael Grunwald argues in Politico that House Democrats have a lot of bargaining power in negotiations over the next coronavirus relief bill, but that they are not aggressively using their leverage.  He suggests that Democrats are holding back because they are worried about being labeled obstructionist and getting blamed if legislation does not pass. I […]

Abbreviated Coronavirus dashboard for April 12: fundamentally, still flying blind

Abbreviated Coronavirus dashboard for April 12: fundamentally, still flying blind Here is the update through yesterday (April 11) This is an abbreviated version, covering just the essentials. Number and rate of increase of Reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com) Number: up +28,391 to 530,006 (vs. 35,219 prior peak on April 10) Figure 1 ***Rate of […]