Coronavirus

[Cigarbutt]

@investor20

Any update on vitamin C?

Is it true that there are limitations on selling Zinc supplements in Canada now?

Interesting recent publication.  This is in French.  I used translator:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S015196382030627X

"During an epidemic of scabies in nursing homes where residents received oral IVM, we report its impact on Covid-19 which occurred in parallel."

"All the observed cases of COVID-19 in EHPAD-A "treated" by IVM were minor, without death during the study period, while residents of EHPAD "controls" (without IVM), matched according to age, number and socio-economic level, showed a higher frequency of COVID-19 and a higher mortality."

Sixty-nine residents (including resident-1) and 52 EHPAD-A staff received IVM: median age 90 years (84–94), 78.3% women, 98.6% at least one comorbidity at risk of Severe COVID-19.

.....................................

There was one anectodal news about use of Ivermectin in Canada in a longterm healthcare center in a similar setting of using Ivermectin for scabies.  Below is the video.  Glad finally someone looked at it more formal research article.

Please listen to 2-6 minutes.  This is way back in June.

Only for discussion.. Not a suggestion for any treatment.  Please consult your doctor for any treatment

i just spent a few short minutes reviewing what you posted and will reply in short form.

-The vitamin question C question was because a champion of various alternative treatments, that you often refer to, used to (in the spring) suggest this was a miracle treatment. It seems the miracle has transmogrified.

-i don't follow zinc-supplement regulations that closely and my only relevant experience is when someone recently tried to sell me a radon detector for my basement (read about it, it's interesting). When i asked for independent thought time, the person suggested a zinc supplement as an alternative. And then i wondered.

-The ivermectin stuff is interesting. The MD in France who is the lead investigator is specialized in skin disease (and skin manifestations of sexually transmitted diseases) and has an interest in scabies (and automatically ivermectin; careful here: everything may look like a nail). She (et al) appears to be reasonable. i'm not sure why ivermectin has not been more studied and there may be some inertia from pharma for various reasons including limited profit potential but i don't see a material conspiracy. There are reasons why it could work and there are major reasons why it may not and the recommendation to go over and above observational and anecdotal evidence applies. As an aside, i was able to watch and listen to two short presentations of potential skin manifestations of covid since last April (dermatology). In the first one, many ideas were submitted (correlation) and, in the second, most correlated findings were simply that, correlated. Peer review can be a pain for career advancement.

-The youtube person is a dentist (who may have a vitiligo problem to attend to). Still, one has to hear (and analyze) what she says. She refers to anecdotal evidence for ivermectin.

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@Gregmal

You may have noticed that this board has been drifting (to where?). It looks like removing the political threads may be a step in the right direction. Over time, i try to improve. How? By trying to include necessary and relevant information (room for improvement there). i wonder if it's worth trying to contribute in a way as to maintain the constructive aspect. However, i've become convinced that our respective senses of humor are not quite compatible (in most cases). Making friends in this competitive forum can only be an unexpected side effect. Near graduation, a mentor (i did not realize it then) expressed that first, you have to competent. What's second? It's up to you to figure out, he said. (people said he had been a real jerk at some point but he was hit by a nasty disease and then he asked to teach the ethics class)

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@boilermaker75

i'm about to send you a private message.

[elliott]

My wife and I had antibody testing done last week and the test did not detect any.  Perhaps her Nov 19th covid-19 positive PCR test result was a false-positive?  So that stinks, it cancelled our Hawaii plans.  Whatever we had it drained our energy and made us dizzy just walking around.

 

Yesterday, my 12 yr old son reported chills, body aches, nasal congestion, felt as though a rash was coming on, and had a 101 fever.  So I'm off to get him tested today.  He was last at school on Tuesday, which was 5 days before these symptoms hit -- right on time.

 

My understanding is that PCR false positives should be close to zero, but that, in practice, this is not the case.

 

However, in practice, there are other ways that false positives can arise. Samples can get mixed up, software glitches can produce erroneous interpretations of test results, and mistakes can be made when entering or communicating data. Because of the high degree of duplication of the targeted genetic segments by PCR tests (which, depending on the number of duplication cycles run, can multiply an initially low concentration of these segments by a billion times or more), trace amounts of contamination can produce false-positive results that are indistinguishable from true positive results. Such minute levels of contamination can be extremely hard to control. False positives from contamination have been regularly documented in diagnostic PCR tests, including in the most highly regarded laboratories.

 

You probably know more about it than me, though. In any case, I wish your family stays well.

 

quote source:

https://www.icd10monitor.com/false-positives-in-pcr-tests-for-covid-19

[cubsfan]

I'm generally just having some fun with this. I do think the politicians are pieces of shit.

 

Well, good point really: the more power you give politicians in this Covid situation, the more they ignore the real problems of our country:

 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/21/overdose-outnumber-coronavirus-deaths-in-san-francisco/

 

621 people have died in San Francisco of drug overdoses – that equates to nearly four times as many as have been killed by COVID-19.

 

The most recent data released on Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) indicates that approximately 81,230 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12-months ending in May 2020, a new record.

“The increases in drug overdose deaths appear to have accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CDC noted.

[Gregmal]

^ I haven't really been in touch with what grade school and above kids are doing bc I dont have kids that age. But I was shocked to learn from a tenant that these kids legit are sitting in front of a computer from 8-2 everyday. Personally, I never would have made it through grade school if I had to do the same. Would have lost my mind listening to all that boring stuff with no interaction or break.

[Spekulatius]

I'm generally just having some fun with this. I do think the politicians are pieces of shit.

 

Well, good point really: the more power you give politicians in this Covid situation, the more they ignore the real problems of our country:

 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/21/overdose-outnumber-coronavirus-deaths-in-san-francisco/

 

621 people have died in San Francisco of drug overdoses – that equates to nearly four times as many as have been killed by COVID-19.

 

The most recent data released on Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) indicates that approximately 81,230 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12-months ending in May 2020, a new record.

“The increases in drug overdose deaths appear to have accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CDC noted.

 

81k death is an increase of 12k over the 69k overdosing death in 2019. 12K<<326k incremental death due to COVID-19 so it is not “the real problem” by a wide margin.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/podcasts/20190911/20190911.htm

[beerbaron]

I'd add that overdose death was trending up big time pre COVID.  COVID does not help... but doing A-B is a bit misleading.

COVID did not slow the opioids, I'd probably attribute 10-15% increase du to COVID, similar to alcohol usage.

I remember a year ago there was a thread talking about opioids epidemics... before COVID.

 

BeerBaron

 

 

[Liberty]

https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html

[StubbleJumper]

https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html

 

 

Let's give Dr. Dalal a bit of credit here.  He brought the vitamin D issue to this forum back in the spring.  I thank both you and Dr. Dalal for that insight.  As I have suggested in the past, it's a classic application of Pascal's Wager.  Spend $10 on 300 tablets of vitamin D, at worst you've wasted your money and there's no harm, at best it might save your life or at least reduce the significance of a covid episode.  Muscleman also brought this forward a number of months ago, so thanks to him too.

 

 

SJ

[KCLarkin]

https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html

 

 

Let's give Dr. Dalal a bit of credit here.  He brought the vitamin D issue to this forum back in the spring.  I thank both you and Dr. Dalal for that insight.  As I have suggested in the past, it's a classic application of Pascal's Wager.  Spend $10 on 300 tablets of vitamin D, at worst you've wasted your money and there's no harm, at best it might save your life or at least reduce the significance of a covid episode.  Muscleman also brought this forward a number of months ago, so thanks to him too.

 

 

SJ

 

I generally agree with this, but the studies I've seen suggest that Vitamin D might be a marker rather than the protective agent. This letter doesn't seem to address this issue? I only see a tiny pilot study.

 

I'm shocked that Vitamin D hasn't been studied more since the correlation is so strong.

 

[Cardboard]

So useless:

 

WHO chief scientist warns against Covid complacency, says herd immunity unlikely until end-2021

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/23/who-some-level-of-herd-immunity-may-be-reached-by-end-2021-.html

 

Why do we need these morons? Unbelievable that tax payers have to pay for so many people to give their opinions and who provide zero cure, zero relief, zero PPE and certainly not any kind of useful guidelines as they screwed up:

 

1- Calling it a pandemic: was done well after any common mortal knew.

2- Kept telling for a long time that masks were no good.

3- Played around with testing results creating false positives now adjusting which will show vaccines as more effective than they are.

 

Yet we still have a lot of people on this website who you would think should be rational still begging for more of these leeches. More of what I would call fake scientists. Crazy!

 

Unless of course it is the kind of "service" that they provide for a living with fat salaries and pensions to show up to work 35 max hours per week.

 

Watch the incentives as would say Charlie Munger. Yup!

 

Cardboard

[Spekulatius]

My wife just got the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine today. So far, so good.

 

Some unrelated stuff:

My wife talked with an ICU nurse at the hospital and she mentioned they that generally don’t administer Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases any more. Frontline treatment are steroids and often it is just that.

 

[boilermaker75]

My wife just got the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine today. So far, so good.

 

Some unrelated stuff:

My wife talked with an ICU nurse at the hospital and she mentioned they that generally don’t administer Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases any more. Frontline treatment are steroids and often it is just that.

 

Maybe why GILD is near a 52-week low?

[Spekulatius]

My wife just got the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine today. So far, so good.

 

Some unrelated stuff:

My wife talked with an ICU nurse at the hospital and she mentioned they that generally don’t administer Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases any more. Frontline treatment are steroids and often it is just that.

 

Maybe why GILD is near a 52-week low?

 

I owned GILD and sold during a spike due to Remdesivir news and it turned out the right decision. Remdesivir was never central to the thesis though, but the pipeline disappointments and continued issues with their Hep C franchise are putting a lid on the stock.

[Peregrine]

A good and balanced article on COVID politics: https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/23/put-straw-man-pandemic-denial-out-of-its-misery/

 

Hopeful that slowly and surely more balance is being brought to the public discussion.

[KCLarkin]

Dr. Fauci understands the difference between In Vitro and In Vivo. That's why he is a respected scientist and not an idiot on twitter.

[Investor20]

Dr. Fauci on herd immunity:

 

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he said.

 

“Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

 

“We really don’t know what the real number is,”

 

“I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

 

Great - an health czar who determines herd immunity based on polls.

 

https://nypost.com/2020/12/24/fauci-covid-herd-immunity-requires-90-to-be-infected-or-vaccinated/

[Spekulatius]

Dr. Fauci on herd immunity:

 

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he said.

 

“Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

 

“We really don’t know what the real number is,”

 

“I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

 

Great - an health czar who determines herd immunity based on polls.

 

https://nypost.com/2020/12/24/fauci-covid-herd-immunity-requires-90-to-be-infected-or-vaccinated/

 

It seems that other sources have a more nuanced recap what Fauci actually said. One thing is sure - if a more transmissible form of COVID-19 starts to dominate, the threshold for herd immunity will go up.

[Investor20]

Dr. Fauci on herd immunity:

 

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he said.

 

“Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

 

“We really don’t know what the real number is,”

 

“I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

 

Great - an health czar who determines herd immunity based on polls.

 

https://nypost.com/2020/12/24/fauci-covid-herd-immunity-requires-90-to-be-infected-or-vaccinated/

 

It seems that other sources have a more nuanced recap what Fauci actually said. One thing is sure - if a more transmissible form of COVID-19 starts to dominate, the threshold for herd immunity will go up.

 

On other hand case fatality rates have been falling.  The deaths in UK per day are far lower today than in first wave.

 

That could be because of better medical care or the mutation.  However, new hospitalizations is also low and hardly any medicine is offered before hospitalization.

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/weekly-hospital-admissions-covid?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&country=~GBR

 

Whether the vaccine would lead to herd immunity to a large extent depends on how much the vaccine reduces transmission, which they dont know, which is what Dr. Fauci should say, not cite polls.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9018547/Pfizer-CEO-not-certain-covid-shot-prevents-transmission.html

Pfizer CEO admits he is 'not certain' their COVID-19 shot will prevent vaccinated people from spreading the virus

[Investor20]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X18305103?via%3Dihub

Influenza vaccination in the elderly: Is a trial on mortality ethically acceptable?

Accepted 11 April 2018

 

Highlights

 

  The effect of influenza vaccination in the elderly on mortality is not documented by direct evidence from randomized trials.

 

    It has been argued that new placebo-controlled trials are needed to resolve this uncertainty.

 

    A comprehensive review on the ethical challenges of such trials is lacking.

 

    Our analysis shows that such trials are both ethically and scientifically problematic.

 

    Proponents of new placebo-controlled influenza trials are invited to challenge the ethical analysis provided in this essay.

 

I thought this is interesting, now that there is a demand for RCT to use HCQ+Zinc or Ivermectin, etc during a pandemic.

[Gregmal]

Absolutely hilarious.

 

 

 

[cubsfan]

^ Damn. Those pictures say it all!

[clutch]

Absolutely hilarious.

 

 

What's (not) funny is that I'd bet that those who argue for the strongest measures in a public forum like here all broke rules one way or another.

[Spekulatius]

Absolutely hilarious.

 

 

What's (not) funny is that I'd bet that those who argue for the strongest measures in a public forum like here all broke rules one way or another.

This guy blocked me, I have no idea why. I recall him being a TESLAQ fellow, but I am not exactly a bull. probably no big loss that I can‘t read his tweets.

[Spekulatius]

Study from Germany in the Munich area:

-about 3.3% have antibodies (2x the value from April)

- 0.47% derived IFR rate (which is a 2x the guesstimate from the CDC)

- 4250 samples

 

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/studie-rund-drei-prozent-der-muenchner-mit-corona-infiziert,SK3xCl6

The dark matter of undetected infection is way lower than it was during the first wave In March/ April due to more testing.

[Investor20]

Meta-analysis of Ivermectin for WHO

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOAh7GtvcOs

 

Dr. Andrews Hill's Ivermectin meta-analysis, from University of Liverpool, England, supported by The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. 

 

And look at the Conclusions slide at 10.55 minutes. 

 

This is a drug that is described by CDC for among other applications, for head lice:

 

"Given as a tablet in mass drug administrations, oral ivermectin has been used extensively and safely for over two decades in many countries to treat filarial worm infections. Although not FDA-approved for the treatment of lice, ivermectin tablets given in a single oral dose of 200 micrograms/kg or 400 micrograms/kg repeated in 9-10 days has been shown effective against head lice. It should not be used in children weighing less than 15 kg or in pregnant women."

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lice/head/treatment.html

 

GoodRx has Walmart price at 20$.

https://www.goodrx.com/ivermectin

 

Not a suggestion for treatment.  Please consult your physician for treatment.  Only for discussion