WTF has happened in the US today?

[Bearbehind]

They’re showing 14,500 new cases today but it’s not on any news I can find

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

*number of fatalities, posted, that is ... infections are somewhere in line ...

The numbers are crap. Everywhere except perhaps South Korea/Singapore. Nowhere is testing nearly enough or contact tracing sufficiently for accurate figures.

More interesting to me is the rate of change in % positives (compared to those tested). A week last week we were sitting at 1.5(ish)% positive. Today we are over 7% positive.

There is no evidence for hydroxychloroquine, and there have been a spate of overdoses on it in countries where you can get it over the counter.

Yes there is, just look in the right places! Yes it is toxic but paracetamol can kill you just needs to be used under medical supervision and its not just hydroxychloroquine, add in azithromycin and its a real game changer!

techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/french-study-finds-anti-malarial-and-antibiotic-combo-could-reduce-covid-19-duration/

And there is a PDF on that site but read it carefully or else you'll come to incorect conculsions!

www.mediterranee-infection.com/hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-as-a-treatment-of-covid-19/

And some about an antiviral, none are a magic bullet as none will exist for a while and thats a vaccine, but for the time being they all are undergoing further studies and are looking promising.

www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0

There will be big increases every day this week in the US as testing capacity is about to expand. My state has been holding off on testing until extras come in as they needed to retain some for hospital cases and tracking contact.

It's scary as many of the rural areas of our state are showing community spread, yet they are really far from hospitals or even doctors.

I don’t think you can generalize about the US.
Most of the action is taken at the state level. I live in Ohio which has been very proactive. My son in San Francisco has been locked down for a week. But in Florida they have been partying.
Schools, universities, bars, restaurants and churches have been shut for a week here. Most non-food shops are closed, except chemists.
The message has been simple and repeated constantly: stay at home.
I don’t know anyone who is socializing!

The level of testing and who you test is going to affect the number of cases and the mortality rate obviously.

Many people might have been infected and could test positive - but haven't been tested because the disease didn't show many symptoms.

If you only test certain groups with severe symptoms, then the mortality rate is going to be possible to compare relative to that group who got tested.

I don't think anyone can really say what the mortality rate is if you get the disease - because we don't know how many people have had the disease and have not been tested.

We do know the numbers who have died though.

The link the OP has posted is for a page on a website that shows total global deaths. The actual figure for total deaths in the USA on the same website under countries is much lower: 414. We must be really careful about what we post!!

Cases are going to grow a lot but US has 360 million people

Leader board... Like a sick Olympics.

How is this not a bad dream or episode of Black Mirror?!

It's so much easier to get a test now. I'm in a major US city.

Meanwhile in my state it just became much harder to get a test. We had drive-thru testing last week, but yesterday all the health systems agreed to make the criteria for needing a test much stricter.

Showing symptoms and having had exposure to someone with Covid-19 no longer qualifies you for a test here. In that case the assumption is that you have Covid-19 and you stay home and look after yourself unless you need further medical care.

No mass testing in evidence in my neck of the US woods yet.

There will be big increases every day this week in the US as testing capacity is about to expand.

Testers need to use PPE equipment to carry out each test, and they don't have enough. My state hasn't slowed down testing because of lack of tests. They've slowed down because of lack of PPE equipment.

hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin negatively interact with each other.

Although hydroxychloroquine is somewhat successful on its own, I thought it was chloroquine and azithromycin which was the game changing combination.

For those saying Germany is not counting deaths as part of the CoViD statistics - not true. The head of the Robert Koch Institute (virology institution responsible for the scientific response) has confirmed that anyone who tested positive for corona before dying is counted, whether there was an underlying condition or not.
The one thing Germany is not doing that eg Italy apparently does is carrying out post-mortem tests if someone had another condition but was not diagnosed positively in hospital beforehand. The head of the RKI said he thought this figure would be comparatively small and could not account for the seemingly low rate in Germany. The RKI view is that it's partly Germany testing so many people and thus picking up milder cases, partly chance that so far the people who tested positive in Germany have been younger on average than in Italy (I think 47 versus 63)and that Germany will 'catch up' in the next few weeks

Although hydroxychloroquine is somewhat successful on its own, I thought it was chloroquine and azithromycin which was the game changing combination.

It is, this is the last part of that article i reffered to that was writen in the main by french medics with input from China its only just been published so early days yet!

Such results are promising and open the possibility of an international strategy to decisionmakers to fight this emerging viral infection in real-time even if other strategies and research including vaccine development could be also effective, but only in the future. We therefore recommend that COVID-19 patients be treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people in order to curb
the spread of COVID-19 in the world.

Further works are also warranted to determine if these compounds could be useful as chemoprophylaxis to prevent the transmission of the virus, especially for healthcare workers. Our study has some limitations including a small sample size, limited long-term outcome follow-up, and dropout of six patients from the study, however in the current context, we believe that our results should be shared with the scientific community.

The demand for the anti viral remdesivir has gone thru the roof! Early days for this one some clinical trials underway there too.

www.statnews.com/2020/03/22/gilead-suspends-access-to-experimental-covid-19-drug-remdesivir/

Hydroxychloroquine is much safer than the media is trying to make it sound, for fear of people stockpiling it of course. I've been taking it every day for 10 years (lupus) and all throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding without any problems. It's very toxic in high doses but so is paracetamol.

Long term therapy needs regular blood and eye tests just to be safe. However I can't imagine HCQ alone being dangerous as an acute treatment for a very short period of time (obv excluding allergies and other drug interactions). In light of how terrifying Covid19 is, I'm sure every person will be swallowing HCQ if offered!

This comment from a med site site may say the real rason why!

Of course the big pharma companies don't like this 'cuz it's generic and cheap. They want their expensive new unproven drugs rather than using something old & won't generate profits. CNN is downplaying this, saying it's all anecdotal with no studies -- which this french study proves is a lie.

The Chinese & South Koreans have also tested this aside from other countries but you won't hear it from CNN 'cuz their big pharma sponsors & gold ratings will be tarnished if people stop caring 'cuz it's under control.

*Justaboy - These conspiracy theories are really not helpful. I would expect big pharma would prefer a world that has not been plunged into global recession as a result of covid-19. Additionally, from a purely economic perspective, the more older people and people with underlying medical conditions who live, the better. They are the people using most of their drugs and an excellent source of profit to them.

OchonAgusOchonO That was on a well respected journal and it seems that others are coming to the same conclusions.

Anyway its an opinion .. and there are many of those around!

You are right as if they do prodcue their super whizz bang cure and its too expensive, who will afford it ?..

@Justaboy - I have no doubt that big pharma are willing to do plenty of morally dubious things in order to protect profits but I really don't think it would be in their interest to suppress a cure for covid-19 at the moment.

I'm a bit confused about your source though. Is it a comment on a website, which would be unedited and no more reputable than mn, or is it a reviewed article or editorial comment in a journal, which would obviously carry more weight?

I’m also assuming you paraphrased as I’ve never seen a well-respected journal use “cuz”

The head of the Robert Koch Institute (virology institution responsible for the scientific response) has confirmed that anyone who tested positive for corona before dying is counted, whether there was an underlying condition or not

Yes I listened to the press conference on Friday and also heard him say this.

Ochon

You can only have a conspiracy theory against something that is true.
People cover up so much by cally conspiracy, when it can't be as we don't know the truth and are never told it.
Why should we be told anything, we are just collateral damage, surely you know this?

I'm sorry @Devlesko but I don't really understand your point?

A theory is something that has not yet been proven to be true or false so a conspiracy theory may be either true or false and, until there is evidence one way or the other, nobody knows which.

The reason I said that conspiracy theories are not helpful at the moment is because there is a lot of fear around and people may not apply their normal critical thought processes to these theories. This can result in more fear and panic, which helps nobody.

News report about US - the price of medical supplies and equipment is going through the roof as states are bidding against each other.

www.physiciansweekly.com/u-s-states-cities-beg/

OchonAgusOchonO

Its down the bottom of the reader comments here!..

techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/french-study-finds-anti-malarial-and-antibiotic-combo-could-reduce-covid-19-duration/

And lo and behold!, it does work according to the the New York times!

nypost.com/2020/03/22/florida-man-with-coronavirus-says-drug-touted-by-trump-saved-his-life/

Another very promising drug us now to get more expensive!

theintercept.com/2020/03/23/gilead-sciences-coronavirus-treatment-orphan-drug-status/