Tuesday - March 17, 2020

A glimmer of hope? Or mabye 3 of them?

UPDATE: Chloroquine is actually Hydroxychloroquine, the same as hyrodxychloroquine sulfate, and is the common drug called Plaquenil or Quinprox. Aside from being a malaria treatment, Plaquenil is used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Extremely high doses can mess up your eyesight, causing retinopathy.

[ news today: ] Recent guidelines from South Korea and China report that chloroquine is an effective antiviral therapeutic treatment against Coronavirus Disease 2019.  Use of chloroquine (tablets) is showing favorable outcomes in humans infected with Coronavirus including faster time to recovery and shorter hospital stay.  US CDC research shows that chloroquine also has strong potential as a prophylactic (preventative) measure against coronavirus in the lab, while we wait for a vaccine to be developed.  Chloroquine is an inexpensive, globally available drug that has been in widespread human use since 1945 against malaria, autoimmune and various other conditions. 

“Data from the drug’s [chloroquine] studies showed ‘certain curative effect’ with ‘fairly good efficacy’ … patients treated with chloroquine demonstrated a better drop in fever, improvement of lung CT images, and required a shorter time to recover compared to parallel groups.  The percentage of patients with negative viral nucleic acid tests was also higher with the anti-malarial drug… Chloroquine has so far shown no obvious serious adverse reactions in more than 100 participants in the trials… Chloroquine was selected after several screening rounds of thousands of existing drugs.  Chloroquine is undergoing further trials in more than ten hospitals in Beijing, Guangdong province and Hunnan province.”

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[ China, exactly one month ago: ] Three potential anti-COVID19 medicines have been officially announced by the Ministry of Science and Technology: Favilavir [Fapilavir], Chloroquine Phosphate, and Remdesivir. They all initially showed more obvious curative effects and lower adverse reactions in clinical trials.
...
The other one with the most potential – so far – has been Remdesivir, which Gilead had already been developing as a treatment for Ebola disease and Marbug virus infections. It has subsequently also been found to show antiviral activity against other single-stranded RNA viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus, Junin virus, Lassa fever virus, Nipah virus, Hendra virus, and coronaviruses (including MERS and SARS viruses).

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[ Australia today: ] Queensland researchers find ‘cure’, want drug trial

Some patients who tested positive for coronavirus in Australia have already been treated with one of the drugs and “all did very, very well,” researchers say.
...
A team of Australian researchers say they’ve found a cure for the novel coronavirus and hope to have patients enrolled in a nationwide trial by the end of the month.

University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research director Professor David Paterson told news.com.au today they have seen two drugs used to treat other conditions wipe out the virus in test tubes.

He said one of the medications, given to some of the first people to test positive for COVID-19 in Australia, had already resulted in “disappearance of the virus” and complete recovery from the infection.

Prof Paterson, who is also an infectious disease physician at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, said it wasn’t a stretch to label the drugs “a treatment or a cure”.

“It’s a potentially effective treatment,” he said.

“Patients would end up with no viable coronavirus in their system at all after the end of therapy.”

The drugs are both already registered and available in Australia.
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One of the two medications is a HIV drug, which has been superseded by “newer generation” HIV drugs, and the other is an anti-malaria drug called chloroquine which is rarely used and “kept on the shelf now” due to resistance to malaria.

He said the researchers want to study them in a “very meaningful way” against the coronavirus to “try and alleviate that anxiety of Australians”.

I’ve got an idea for a clinical trial: at least 180,000 people wordwide have this bug. There are millions of doses of malaria pills sitting around everywhere. A whole bottle of pills is under $10. I say go for it.

It may also be the case that cholorquine works better with the HIV drugs, which I guarantee cost a whole lot more than a mosquito pills that’s been around since the 1940s.

And then there’s the zinc supplement thing, and the selenium supplement thing, and the vitamin C supplement thing. And I’ve read that South Korea and Japan are getting good results using some pancreatitis medicine that is not FDA approved yet.

On the third hand, absolute authoritarian lockdowns seem to have done the job in China. But they aren’t saying whether or not they’re feeding the entire country choloroquine tablets.

[ 2/6/20 China trying Remdesivir: ] Doctors in Washington State gave remdesivir to the first coronavirus patient in the United States last week after his condition worsened and pneumonia developed when he’d been in the hospital for a week. His symptoms improved the next day.

A single case cannot determine whether a drug works, but a report on the Washington patient, in The New England Journal of Medicine, has nonetheless sparked excitement about the drug.

Another report published on Tuesday by scientists in China added to the enthusiasm, showing that remdesivir blocked the new coronavirus, officially known as 2019-nCoV, from infecting cells grown in the lab.

...

Gilead had stockpiled the drug, as well as the materials used to make it, for use against Ebola. The company is now using that stockpile for the trials in China and for individual patients like the one in Washington State

Remdesivir may also work against kitty cat coronavirus, which is a whole different thing.

More links to studies that say the same thing:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32164085
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15351731
https://www.healthline.com/health/coronavirus-treatment#potential-treatments
https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/comment/parallel-export-covid-19/

Posted by Drew458     on 03/17/2020 at 08:41 AM   
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Blood Type A More At Risk?

China: Higher Risk For Blood Type A People?

Lower for type O. No mention of B or AB at this point.

People with blood type A may be more vulnerable to infection by the new coronavirus, while those with type O seem more resistant, according to a preliminary study of patients in China who contracted the disease known as Covid-19.

Medical researchers in China took blood group patterns of more than 2,000 patients infected with the virus in Wuhan and Shenzhen and compared them to local healthy populations. They found that blood type A patients showed a higher rate of infection and they tended to develop more severe symptoms.

While the researchers said the study was preliminary and more work was needed, they did urge governments and medical facilities to consider blood type differences when planning mitigation measures or treating patients with the virus, known as Sars-CoV-2.

In contrast, “blood group O had a significantly lower risk for the infectious disease compared with non-O blood groups”, according to a paper they published on Medrxiv.org on March 11.

Of 206 patients who had died from Covid-19 in Wuhan, 85 had type A blood, which was 63 per cent more than the 52 with type O. The pattern existed across different age and gender groups.
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Blood type difference has been observed in other infectious diseases including Norwalk virus, hepatitis B and severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), according to previous studies.

Gao at the Tianjin lab said the new study “may be helpful to medical professionals, but ordinary citizens should not take the statistics too seriously”. “If you are type A, there is no need to panic. It does not mean you will be infected 100 per cent,” she said.

“If you are type O, it does not mean you are absolutely safe, either. You still need to wash your hands and follow the guidelines issued by authorities.”

Posted by Drew458     on 03/17/2020 at 06:41 AM   
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   Friday - March 13, 2020

Sure, Because China Lies About Everything

WHO: Europe Now COVID Epicenter

Europe is now the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, as more countries declared a national state of emergency over COVID-19.

”More cases are now being reported every day [in Europe] than were being reported by China at the height of its epidemic,” director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

He said 5,000 people have now died of the virus, calling it “a tragic milestone,” and urged governments to implement social distancing measures to slow the spread.

“Do not let this fire burn,” he said. ”Isolate the sick.”

China was burning the dead so fast that the pollution cloud could be detected from space. And then BING! just like that it was over? Not a chance. They’re hiding it, literally burying it, and you know they are.

But the EUropwienies can’t help themselves, they have to push the Socialist crap at the same time. So “isolate the sick”, but “keep the borders open”.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen has condemned some European countries for introducing blanket travel bans and border closures in response to coronavirus, saying: ‘The single market has to function’.

Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are among the nations forbidding entry to anyone arriving from Italy or without a certificate of health.

“It is not good when member states take unilateral action because it always causes a domino effect and that prevents urgently-needed medical equipment from reaching patients and hospitals,” she said.

“It amounts to the reintroduction of internal borders at a time when solidarity between member states is needed.”

Solidarity, eh? You mean like when Italy put out the call for help and not one other EU country responded?

A top Italian official knocked the European Union for leaving Italy’s plea for medical assistance unanswered while the coronavirus outbreak cripples the country.

Italy’s permanent representative to the EU, Maurizio Massari, wrote an op-ed in Politico on Tuesday asking for aid from EU members. The Italian official said that while the EU has ignored Italy’s requests for aid, China has begun assisting Italy bilaterally.

“Italy, the European country struck hardest by the coronavirus, has done everything it can to contain and manage the epidemic,” Massari wrote. “We must ensure, under EU coordination, the supply of the necessary medical equipment and its redistribution among those countries and regions most in need. Today, this means Italy; tomorrow, the need could be elsewhere.”

“Italy has already asked to activate the European Union Mechanism of Civil Protection for the supply of medical equipment for individual protection,” Massari added. “But, unfortunately, not a single EU country responded to the Commission’s call. Only China responded bilaterally. Certainly, this is not a good sign of European solidarity.”

Posted by Drew458     on 03/13/2020 at 11:34 AM   
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It’s National Emergency Day! Woo Hoo Wu Flu !!!

President Trump 3pm To Address The Nation

President Donald Trump plans to declare a national emergency on Friday over the coronavirus outbreak, invoking the Stafford Act to open the door to more federal aid for states and municipalities, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Trump is under increasing pressure to act as governors and mayors nationwide step up actions to mitigate the spread, closing schools and cancelling public events. The president said he will hold a news conference at 3pm in Washington.

The move would allow the government to martial additional resources to combat the virus, and also marks a symbolic turning point for the president, who has repeatedly compared the coronavirus to the seasonal flu and insisted that his administration had the outbreak under control.

The Stafford Act is how the federal government opens the disaster relief money faucet. However, once that lever gets pulled, expect the states to start locking things down even further.

The Stafford Act is a 1988 amended version of the Disaster Relief Act of 1974. It created the system in place today by which a presidential disaster declaration or an emergency declaration triggers financial and physical assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency[3] (FEMA). The Act gives FEMA the responsibility for coordinating government-wide relief efforts. The Federal Response Plan includes contributions from 28 federal agencies and non-governmental organizations, such as the American Red Cross. It is named for Sen. Robert Stafford (in Senate 1971–89), who helped pass the law.

Congress amended it by passing the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, in 2006 with the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, and again in 2018 with the Disaster Recovery Reform Act (DRRA

Here’s Fox News with their report:

President Trump announced that he plans to hold a press conference Friday afternoon to address the coronavirus crisis, as concerns over the spreading outbreak wreak havoc on the economy and American life.

Fox News is told the president is expected to declare a national emergency.

“I will be having a news conference today at 3:00 P.M., The White House. Topic: CoronaVirus!” he tweeted.

The announcement comes as major sporting and other events are called off or postponed, businesses across the country institute telework policies, government buildings and schools shutter and other disruptions rock the nation, amid efforts to curb the transmission of the virus.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/13/2020 at 11:19 AM   
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   Friday - March 06, 2020

Bio Jihad?

Pretty much what I implied the other day. If you think this is an accident, or just a case of someone being uppity and stubborn, think again.

Italy: Patient Zero is a Pakistani who ignored quarantine to deliver take-out Chinese food to hundreds

The man, a Pakistani, although asymptomatic, was invited by Italian health authorities to place himself in quarantine at his home in the Pavia area, but did not follow the suggestion and went on as if nothing had happened at the Chinese restaurant where he worked.

A young man of Pakistani origin residing in a municipality of Lomellina, in the Pavia area, tested positive for the Coronavirus and was asked to stay home for two weeks so as not to infect others.

According to Adnkronos, instead the foreigner ignored what should be common sense, and thought it well not to respect the quarantine. And he compounded the risk by making home deliveries of Chinese food.

Fortunately, the Carabinieri of the local station, who intervened following an anonymous report by some particularly attentive citizen, thought about stopping the careless migrant. The military intervened to return him to his home, at least for the period provided for by the protocol in cases like this.

The migrant was reported for failure to comply with the provisions of the judicial authority, an offense for which imprisonment of up to three months is foreseen or a maximum fine of 206 euros, as required by article 650 of the Italian penal code.

The Carabinieri have been busy reconstructing all the movements of the young man, in order to identify as many people as possible with whom he came into contact. In the meantime, the military has closed the Chinese restaurant.

The province of Pavia, as well as the entire Lombardy region, has been particularly affected by the Coronavirus epidemic. The alarming numbers led to the decision to keep Italian schools closed for another week, not only in Lombardy but also in Veneto and Emilia-Romagna, as well as other regions.

And just like Kung Flu, this bio-jihad attitude is contagious too.

Expect such actions to become major felonies real soon, and expect that even saying such things will soon be categorized as hate crimes.

Let no crisis go to waste. Forward the State!!

Posted by Drew458     on 03/06/2020 at 11:04 AM   
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