Subject: COVID-19
It is funny. People around me is pointing fingers about how badly the coronavirus crisis is being handed in the US as if Americans were a bunch of useless morons, and I personally think that the people doing the pointing is doing it waaaaay worse.

We humans are pathetic.

The other day I received a message from someone (who should have
known better) to the effect that if I thought I might have COVID 19,
I could kill it by gargling Hydrogen Peroxide!

You could probably kill it by sticking a flamethrower in your windpipe ;)

China lies. NY has no clue how many they have because they don't have
nearly enough tests. Who knows how many Chinese people have died?!

The chinese people are parts in a big government machine. Individual parts in a machine can, and should, be replaced if they are no longer serving their purpose to keep the machine running.

Unfortunately, we're talking about a culture that just doesn't have the same respect for the sanctity of life as the cultures that most of us come from.
That's what permitted "wet markets" to continue existing even though they're an obvious health risk. That's what makes the leaders feel that it's acceptable to lie to the rest of the world if it makes the rest of the world's death numbers look bigger than the ones they're reporting locally. That's what makes it acceptable for them to play dirty tricks with international trade even when life-saving medicine is at stake.

I personally think the China death tool is substantially higher than they're reporting, possible by multiple orders of magnitude.

Rumors are starting to come out of China that the real number of deaths is around 45,000.

2020-03-30 15:55 from Ragnar Danneskjold
Rumors are starting to come out of China that the real number of deaths

is around 45,000.

I had heard of a similar number just in Wuhan, days ago. I don't want to imagine the numbers today, in the whole of China.

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

"No shit, Sherlock", everyone else says

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

Radio Free Asia is publishing an anectodal report that Chinese funeral homes are unable to keep up with the demand. The report [ https://tinyurl.com/tn73uke ] claims that cremation incinerators are breaking because they're running 24/7 and stuffing too many bodies in at one time, and even that terminally ill and unsaveable patients are being stuffed into body bags and cremated alive.

There's no way of determining whether any of this is true, but I choose to believe bad things about bad people.

holy furry fuck.

Newest conspiracy theory -- although it sure sounds plausible:

* Big Pharma is spreading FUD about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin+zinc as a cure for the china virus. Whoever comes up with a vaccine for the virus stands to make billions selling it to everyone ... but if the virus can be effectively treated with existing generics that are plentiful and cheap, the expensive and proprietary vaccines will have very little value.

With people like Bill Gates heavily invested in outfits like Abbott Labs and loudly pushing mandatory vaxx ... gosh, I really do want to believe this is true. And it might be.

Vioxx. That's about all you need to think about. Pain medication. Worked great. Caused strokes and heart attacks.

Testing is important. REALLY important as part of the process for any drugs being given to lots and lots of people.

Thalidomide. There's another fun one.

Sure you can say that the people who want to vaccinate don't want a drug to be a cure-all. The other side is that lots of people can see the eventual gargantuan lawsuits that can and will come down as people take the drugs that weren't tested intelligently. Yes. Use the drugs for people who need it right now. Give it to anyone and everyone. But test.. test.. test. Find out what the heck is also happening.

It is funny you bring this up. I have been saying for months that whatever cure is deployed in the near future will probably untested and have side effects, because I am such an optimistic person.

I suspect that Aahz may know a thing or two about clinical trials.

Obviously there should be massive effort going into fast-tracking those trials.
But in the mean time people are dying, and there is a large and growing body of anecdotal evidence that HCQ is working -- enough that the FDA has issued an emergency use authorization [ https://www.fda.gov/media/136534/download ] for it. It authorizes health care providers to use it to treat ChinaVirus patients weighing more than 110 pounds for whom no clinical trial is available or feasible. They've been instructed to watch for side effects and are required to report their patients' progress back to the FDA.

Of course it's not ideal. It's literally a gamble with someone's life as the stakes. But given the reputation of most of the people in the anti-HCQ camp, I will gladly take that gamble if I get sick.

*sigh* hydroxychloroquine studies I've seen are just laughable. For example the one where it was

* non-randomized
* no control group
* other antiviral drugs were used in every single patient
* none of the patients actually had lab-confirmed covid.


I haven't seen a single study that looks remotely good, although admittedly I haven't been able to look in much detail.

The bigger issue is that HCQ suppresses parts of the immune system. There is every reason to have some concerns about its safety. It may only be a plausible treatment in those who are experiencing those cytokine storms, but I don't hear many trials being that careful about who it's applied to.

Hey all. Here's the link to get some idea of the testing going out there. Not all of them use HCQ but it will give you an idea. To LS's point, there's real science and study following accepted practices for a lot of them.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=COVID-19+AND+%22Coronavirus+Infections%22

This is the Internet! How dare you interrupt our speculation and hyperbole with actual data!