A government-funded analysis found hydroxychloroquine ineffective for COVID-19, increases risk of death

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

26 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

There you go again.  Who's got the "PEOPLE ARE GONNA DIE" video? 

Nobody "panicked" about any immigrant caravan.  For your specific reference to Bush, 9/11 and murdered Americans mixed with just about every other nationality on the planet, I'd wager even you and your country stood behind the U.S. at that time to find and serve justice on those responsible.  (I know, Geoff, now you'll want to hash out the entire military effort for the following 10 years.  Go ahead, Geoff.  Go ahead.)

Did you also freak out at 4 American deaths at Benghazi? Now we've already had a minimum of 62,000 and many more to come and you guys are defending the president like mad.

What gives? Have you no sense of balance?

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

5 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

^ worth repeating.

There are many people who will cling to and push the panic narrative, regardless of any positive news.

Kinda like Mini Me CNN Clones.

I'm losing patience with trying to reason with those who insist on pushing a fearmongering addiction, like a drug pusher pushing fearporn crack onto others.

 

Some basic math.

Current world population is roughly 7.8 billion people.

So far, roughly 210 thousand people have died from Covid - 19 and the overall new numbers of deaths are now declining.

7.8 billion people divided by 210 thousand deaths ...

7,800,000,000 people  ÷  210,000 Covid deaths  =  STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT

229,000 dead now, so about +19,000 in the 5 hours since your post.

Rare disease researchers have a variety of sayings that essentially mean the same thing.

"It's only rare until it's you." 

 

It's also not great to use percentages with very small or very large numbers. "Lies, damn lies, and stats."

If I told you your drinking water was only 0.00001% lead would you drink it?  It sounds like a small number unless I state it is as 250 times the tolerable level of around 40 part per billion.

 

 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

12 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Did you also freak out at 4 American deaths at Benghazi? Now we've already had a minimum of 62,000 and many more to come and you guys are defending the president like mad.

What gives? Have you no sense of balance?

Yes, Geoff, I freaked out.  You should have seen me!  Running around, all riled up and freaked out!  (sarcasm, Geoff.  Don't want you coming back to me later saying I admitted to freaking out, not that you would.  Right, Geoff?)  If you mean senators grilling Hillary, who had responsibility for the safety and security of those poor fellows in Benghazi, they sure were pissed, but I still don't see them as freaked out.

Pick another one, Geoff.  Show off.  Go on.

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

9 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

Yes, Geoff, I freaked out.  You should have seen me!  Running around, all riled up and freaked out!  (sarcasm, Geoff.  Don't want you coming back to me later saying I admitted to freaking out, not that you would.  Right, Geoff?)  If you mean senators grilling Hillary, who had responsibility for the safety and security of those poor fellows in Benghazi, they sure were pissed, but I still don't see them as freaked out.

Pick another one, Geoff.  Show off.  Go on.

Trump supporters immediately assume he has no accountability for tens of thousands of deaths. On the other side, 3,000 deaths makes them support an attack on Iraq which had nothing to do with it, and 4 deaths makes them sure that Obama and Hilary are corrupt and incompetent.

I've got people on here accusing me of treason for saying that Trump should be held accountable. It's nuts.

[Ron Ron + 18]

13 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

Yes, Geoff, I freaked out.  You should have seen me!  Running around, all riled up and freaked out!  (sarcasm, Geoff.  Don't want you coming back to me later saying I admitted to freaking out, not that you would.  Right, Geoff?)  If you mean senators grilling Hillary, who had responsibility for the safety and security of those poor fellows in Benghazi, they sure were pissed, but I still don't see them as freaked out.

Pick another one, Geoff.  Show off.  Go on.

As I recall, in February and early March Trump insisted the WHO and China were exaggerating the risk. He complained that a 3.4% fatality rate was an exaggeration due to the lack of testing. He insisted that covid-19 was similar to the flu. At one point, the WHO was pleading with western nations to take the covid threat seriously. In recent week’s Trump has been telling us we have the best testing. New York, which has tested more than any other state. Yet, the official fatality rates in the metro NYC area are as high as 7%. At this point, in just 3 months more people have died from Covid-19 than during the 1967 flu outbreak. Should the senators grill Trump in an effort to learn why he ignored the early warning about the risks associated with covid-19. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

12 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Trump supporters immediately assume he has no accountability for tens of thousands of deaths. On the other side, 3,000 deaths makes them support an attack on Iraq which had nothing to do with it, and 4 deaths makes them sure that Obama and Hilary are corrupt and incompetent.

I've got people on here accusing me of treason for saying that Trump should be held accountable. It's nuts.

Is it your strategy to keep spewing until everyone just gives up and doesn't repeatedly go over and over and over any topic you like to throw out?  It might work, and then when you type something here, at least in your own mind, that will make what you type true.  Good thinking, Geoff.

Anyone accusing Geoff of treason, stop it.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

56 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

229,000 dead now, so about +19,000 in the 5 hours since your post.

Rare disease researchers have a variety of sayings that essentially mean the same thing.

"It's only rare until it's you." 

 

It's also not great to use percentages with very small or very large numbers. "Lies, damn lies, and stats."

If I told you your drinking water was only 0.00001% lead would you drink it?  It sounds like a small number unless I state it is as 250 times the tolerable level of around 40 part per billion.

Flu, damn flu, and Covid.

Yes, I'm being flippant.  Sue me ...

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

4 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Flu, damn flu, and Covid.

Yes, I'm being flippant.  Sue me ...

This is killing A LOT MORE than Sleeping Sickness.  Lock us up til January!

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

2 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

This is killing A LOT MORE than Sleeping Sickness.  Lock us up til January!

Following up on my comment above, I just posted this comment elsewhere, poking fun of the panic

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

11 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Following up on my comment above, I just posted this comment elsewhere, poking fun of the panic

You had no idea when you posted that, did you:

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

14 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Following up on my comment above, I just posted this comment elsewhere, poking fun of the panic

We should be doing more about TB.

Unfortunately, the people who tend to die from TB fail to follow the first two rules of good health:

- Have money.

- Don't be poor

Rule 3 is important but not as important as rules 1 or 2:

- Be white

Edited April 30, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

 

6 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

You had no idea when you posted that, did you:

But have no fear, WHO is on it (just no, er, world lockdown is planned anytime soon, apparently, sadly, shoot!)

The End TB Strategy

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Dan Warnick

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

We're never getting out of the house now....

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

41 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

Is it your strategy to keep spewing until everyone just gives up and doesn't repeatedly go over and over and over any topic you like to throw out?  It might work, and then when you type something here, at least in your own mind, that will make what you type true.  Good thinking, Geoff.

Anyone accusing Geoff of treason, stop it.

Is I recall, you liked this comment accusing me of "sedition".

On 4/24/2020 at 9:38 PM, Gerry Maddoux said:

You're walking on the ledge of sedition, Geoff. I don't think you really want to do that. Yes, there's freedom of speech but when you speak to incite, well there you are, out there on that ledge. 

Which basically says that I should shut up and line up behind Trump.

The things that pass for "facts" here are by-and-large sourced from misinformation sites and untrustworthy sources. I prove that those sources are spouting nonsense and no one bothers to show why they are right, they simply continue to spout them.

When I put forward information based on actual, verifiable sources, does anyone bother to counteract the actual information or math that I show? No, they prefer to shout me down for pushing fear.

If we can't at least get to a set of facts that people can more-or-less agree on then no one will be able to discuss a way forward. Not being able to state facts because it's seditious is not helpful in any way. All you're doing is falling into the trap of "Trump good, liberal bad".

[Jeffrey Brown + 208]

34 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Following up on my comment above, I just posted this comment elsewhere, poking fun of the panic

Confirmed COVID-19 deaths per day worldwide are reportedly about 10,000 per day currently, which of course almost certainly understates the true mortality rate, given the excess deaths charts, versus seasonal norms, that the NYT and the Washington Post have published.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

In any case, the Trump Administration failed to implement the WHO testing standard that every other country in the world adopted.  South Korea adopted the WHO test and quickly implemented contact tracing and quarantine efforts.  Adjusted for population differences, the US loses in about 12 hours the number of confirmed COVID-19 fatalities that South Korea has had over the entire outbreak to date. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Jeffrey Brown

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

15 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

We should be doing more about TB.

Unfortunately, the people who tend to die from TB fail to follow the first two rules of good health:

- Have money.

- Don't be poor

Rule 3 is important but not as important as rules 1 or 2:

- Be white

My grandmother was in the hospital for two years with TB while her husband was away serving, post war, in Germany. She's 101 now and in misery at the care home because she's been locked down in her room. 😞

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

3 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Is I recall, you liked this comment accusing me of "sedition".

Which basically says that I should shut up and line up behind Trump.

The things that pass for "facts" here are by-and-large sourced from misinformation sites and untrustworthy sources. I prove that those sources are spouting nonsense and no one bothers to show why they are right, they simply continue to spout them.

When I put forward information based on actual, verifiable sources, does anyone bother to counteract the actual information or math that I show? No, they prefer to shout me down for pushing fear.

If we can't at least get to a set of facts that people can more-or-less agree on then no one will be able to discuss a way forward. Not being able to state facts because it's seditious is not helpful in any way. All you're doing is falling into the trap of "Trump good, liberal bad".

You sure?  I thought I gave that one a miss for that very reason.  Maybe I went back and "liked" it later.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

3 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

My grandmother was in the hospital for two years with TB while her husband was away serving, post war, in Germany. She's 101 now and in misery at the care home because she's been locked down in her room. 😞

Sorry to hear that.  🤝, OH, pardon me: 🙏

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

5 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

Sorry to hear that.  🤝, OH, pardon me: 🙏

No worries. We all forget that there are real people on the other side of the screen. Especially when we haven't interacted with real people in a while.🕊️

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Trump supporters immediately assume he has no accountability for tens of thousands of deaths. On the other side, 3,000 deaths makes them support an attack on Iraq which had nothing to do with it, and 4 deaths makes them sure that Obama and Hilary are corrupt and incompetent.

I've got people on here accusing me of treason for saying that Trump should be held accountable. It's nuts.

I'd never accuse you of treason. 

Blatant stupidity and TDS? Might have to accuse you of that. 

Please explain Mr 20-20 hindsight why the freaking President of the United States is personally responsible for every death in this country. None of that "buck stops here" claptrap, you're accusing him of personal responsibility, which only applies if he personally did something directly. 

Screw ups at CDC, which I documented here a month before you heard of it aren't personally his fault, especially if he didn't know about it. Is he omnipotent, omniscient? I don't think so. But yeah TDS 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

2 hours ago, Geoff Guenther said:

 "Trump good, liberal bad".

A bit Freudian there young man. Actually it shows up in the majority of your postings.

Trump was elected to end the progessive/liberal agenda, and to that point it is why his base is so united and stead fast.

While the liberal/resistance uses both the press and social media quite well each and every crisis they create turns into just another failure on their part.

What the liberal mind excels in is createtivity where they lack is fundamentals. 

Soon there will be enough statistical analysis to determine the how's and why's this virus took such a strong footing. That day does not bode well for those that cried havoc.

In the mean time carry on do what needs to be done. But plz add some fundamentals to your narratives this rumor has it is becoming rather...annoying.

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Eyes Wide Open

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

12 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

No worries. We all forget that there are real people on the other side of the screen. Especially when we haven't interacted with real people in a while.🕊️

My wife and son, and our dog, are with me.  No deaths in the house, yet (somebody hid all the knives).

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

11 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

My wife and son, and our dog, are with me.  No deaths in the house, yet (somebody hid all the knives).

My wife gave our kids scissors and made them cut fabric to make facemasks for neighbours. Word got out, so they're up to about 300 custom facemasks in the last month. Amazed the kids haven't used the scissors on each other yet.

Homeschooling is tiring, though. I can't wait 'til they're back.

[Ernst Reim + 33]

11 hours ago, 0R0 said:

The medical community is hanging on to piddly issues and not relating to the scientific results of the research. It is like checking for crossed "t" and dotted "i" but not reading any of the content. The results are clear, the control groups did not have to be randomized, the viral levels which are the output of the trial are hardly going to be affected by blind and randomized conditions. For a definitive medical trial you would want that, but that is a nit picking criticism as this trial was not about a cure for the disease, but about killing the virus. Medicine requires bludgeon to the head proof because doctors rarely know enough about the science to understand that aspect. 

Compared to the standard treatment (i,e, nothing directed at the disease) mortality is 5% of "confirmed cases" by @RSD's quoted number and hospitalizations are about 15%. How is that not a clear improvement?

How is it that the viral count reduction compared to non treatment is somehow not the main goal of this treatment and not deserving of a single comment?

Killing off the virus 2 weeks earlier than untreated recovered patients is "feeble evidence"?

Can you actually reason? 

Honestly, please read up on clinical trials and effect size. Sorry, but " the viral levels which are the output of the trial are hardly going to be affected by blind and randomized conditions. " is really plain wrong! Of course they are! That's why trials are randomized and blinded!

To go over this, again:

Placebo effect: It is known for decades, with hard, scientific evidence, that the placebo effect is real. That people have been cured of cancer because they were told that some distilled water is a newly developed wunder drug. Thus **any** medication in which people believe will have better results than no treatment, regardless whether the medication actually helps. If you would make a survey of HCQ treatment, nobody in clinical research would be surprised that HCQ helps Republican voters more than Democratic voters. Just plain because Trump advocated it and Republican voters trust him more. The power of believe is known. Now, the very charismatic rebel doctor Raoult

treats a group of volunteers with a drug. Of course, there will be a huge placebo effect! And yes, that will effect even "absolute values" such as virus load. If you treat terminal cancer patients and you achieve 50% survival, then you do not need a control group, since you compare to 100% expected fatality. But if you compare to something with such a small effect size as COVID-19, where most patients recover anyway on their own, nobody can take 2% death vs. 1-5% seriously if you do not have a control group and blind your trial.

Selection bias: Since Raoult decided not to use a control group, he has to compare his results against outside standard-of-care results. In controlled studies, people are either randomly distributed between control group and medication group or you use a randomized version of how you select patients. But you never let the actual guy running the study decide whom to include and whom to exclude. Even if you assume that he is absolutely objective (and, heck, I do not!) the existence of unconcious selection bias is also well established. Think about it: he just needed to have 2-5 patients with some pre-existing conditions which he considered "not suitable" for his study to strongly influence the results. (Again : effect size! Would not matter for terminal cancer patients.)

Even if you ignore this, he compares to general standard of care results. Which is impossible, because he cannot compare his 1000 patients to the whole population pretending that they are a representative example. We do not even know for sure what the actual fatality rate is exactly. But we know that it depends strongly on age. That it depends strongly on coexisting conditions. That it depends on race, but we do not know if that's genetics or just $$$. That is why he should have used a control group, randomly selected from the people participating in his study!

Counting bias. Another well established factor in clinical trials that if the evaluating scientist knows which patient is treated with medication and which with placebo, the results look better than if he does not know. Again, not because they are all cheaters, but because human brains are made to look for patterns and we unconsciously do this. 

All this would not matter if standard of care would be 50% fatality and he goes down to 10%. But it does matter with COVID19. It has nothing to do with "checking for crossed "t" and dotted "i"". It has something to do with the fact that his error bars are larger than his results.

I am not dumping on HCQ because of any anti-Trump feelings. I am not even convinced that HCQ does not work. (I am convinced that we would have seen much better hard evidence if it would be really a wonder drug.) But I am dumping on Raoult's results because they are plain useless even if HCQ works! If that guy would have done a decent job instead of having a "I am a great scientist, I do not need controls because I know that I am right" attitude, then we would know by now whether HCQ is an effective treatment and could have adapted our treatment plans accordingly. Instead he slowed everything down. HCQ trials are now a no-win game for researchers: if they find that HCQ helps, all the fame goes to the *&$ Raoult, even though they actually did the work. If they find HCQ to be ineffective, they get ripped apart by part of the media and get death threats on twitter. HCQ trials are running, but I would be surprised if they get a very big press.

PS: What really pisses me off about Raoult is the fact that he justifies avoiding control groups because "it is unethical to kill people". Heck, he does not know beforehand if HCQ helps.He does not even now for sure that it does not make matters worse. He starts from the fact that he's right and the whole study is based on this asssumption. And even if... there are ways around this. You can introduce control groups by delayed administration: Everybody is treated for three weeks, the control group gets 1 week placebo and then medication. If you randomize your control group and blind patients and researchers against who is on placebo for one week, you would see the control group going down on virus count one week later and thus prove the efficacy of HCQ!

Edited April 30, 2020 by Ernst Reim

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

13 hours ago, 0R0 said:

You are insisting on ignoring evidence in order to maintain a panic narrative in your mind. 

The HCQ and CQ were found to be too slow to act on their own. Dr. Roult thus tested it with another drug, azythromycin that is known to attack the RNA duplication process of infected cells, the HCQ treatment is only useful in conjunction with azythromycin. 

HCQ results in Dr. Raoults trial were better than Remdesivir from Gilead. 

Nobody is saying that HCQ should be favored over something else, it is part of the arsenal in the pharmacopia. perhaps famotidine will join the ranks too. The more options are available the better. Having a cheap drug with known and tolerable risks allows early intervention when symptoms are still mild and avoidance of a significant portion of hospitalizations and deaths and shortening of the contagion period. Doctors know whom is at risk when taking each of these drugs. 

The criteria by which Dr Fauci lauded remdesivir are the same ones that were met by Dr Raoult's HCQ/Z protocol, where virus loads were reduced to udetectable within 5-10 days at various early to serious stage infections. The only difference of substance made public so far is that nobody makes money off of HCQ/Z, but Gilead stands to make a fortune. The much less material difference is that the control group was without treatments while the remdesivir trial was on placebo and the HCQ/z control was  not treated in the same setting.

Watch for Fauci's department obtaining a gigantic donation from Gilead. It will explain it all.

 

Excellent points.  Profiting from pandemic panic.

The MSM seems to be pushing Remdesivir, a drug that barely reduces death and takes sickness down from 14 days to 11 days.

HQC+Z+Z has multiple studies that blow this out of the water.

It seems Trump has to push Remdesivir at this point because it gives enough hope to open up the country.

But we do not need to spend $1,000 for a dose of something that isn't as effective as a treatment that works better for a tiny tiny fraction of the cause.

For major Pharmaceutical companies, customers are more profitable than cures.

• Remdesivir 80% saw 11 day sickness instead of 14 day sickness  
• Cost is roughly $10,000

 

• HCQ + Zpac 90% saw 6 day sickness instead of 14 sickness
• Cost is roughly $20