Unfortunately, they’re not the only ones. Of course, isn’t that how statistics usually go?
I’d love to see an actual, scientific approach to the numbers to see where things really land.
That’s one of the limiting factors. Testing. I would love to see evidence based statistics and numbers, but the reason public health is being so cautious is because we’re basically flying blind. And before we get into the cost, wide spread testing is way cheaper than these stopgap bills they’re passing to supposedly keep businesses and individuals afloat.
I do get that people want to reopen the economy. I’m in the medical field so I might be biased, but I’m not naive enough to think we can do this shelter thing indefinitely. But my biggest peeve is, we’re squarely in this whole pandemic thing, and testing is still not where it should be.
Sure, it won’t be a panacea, but we can actually start reopening things if we have the testing capabilities in place.
The other thing that bothers me is the amount of goal post moving that has occurred with the whole shelter in place thing.
It started out as a “we must flatten the curve by delaying infections to not overwhelm our medical facilities” to now a “we can’t re-open and risk people catching it until we know how to stop people from getting sick”.
There’s some major differences in the semantics there.
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Yeah, it’s definitely frustrating as things are fluid because we’re actually in the middle of the pandemic. What we will know in a year will be completely different from what we know now.
Are we overdoing it by closing everything now? It is possible. But because we don’t have the complete data, it’s hard to say. And I don’t know for sure if it IS worth shutting everything down. I’m torn between both sides here.
And what has been happening in NY is completely different than our hospitals in California. My hospital is not overwhelmed, we do have a few dozen patients with COVID19. But we were never at capacity because - we saw a large drop in people presenting with other conditions (which is very worrying), and the large scale shutdowns and social distancing did help to slow the spread, there’s no denying that.
But what works in one area like LA might not work for NYC. I think NY was only a few days behind California in shutting everything down, and their outbreak was way worse because of the likely differences in population density.
On another interesting note, the early hydroxchloroquine studies are showing no efficacy in treating covid, and mortality appears higher than placebo groups. The medical community warned of using a drug without scientific data of efficacy, and the early data is showing just that.
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Studies or study? I saw one study with statistically insignificant numbers and no peer review that was saying this counter to several other studies.
Of course there may be more and I haven’t been following this closely, so I could be totally wrong (and am happy to admit as much), but when this came up previously, it sure seemed like one poorly done study that didn’t past muster was being pointed at as proof that “orange man bad”.
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Also another interesting point of view - in order to properly conduct human trials for the vaccine, we actually still have to have the virus spreading naturally in order to properly assess efficacy between the vaccinated and placebo group.
Widespread shelter in place orders cannot be in place for this to happen. The trial would be invalid if everyone stays home (the data would be the same for vaccine and control groups).
Current trials show that rhesus monkeys are showing immunity in labs, but we can’t actually expose people to covid19, because of the same reason we can’t expose pregnant women to teratogenic substances to assess for fetal harm - ethics!
This is a hell of a conundrum. I’ve seen a lot of people (could I make a more anecdotal statement?) that are adamant that the shelter in place order should stay until a vaccine is widespread.
Damn chickens and eggs.
But it makes sense, right? How do we know if the vaccine works if everyone is staying home? I guess we could take a risk and just run the trials for safety, but it would be a big mistake to tout a vaccine that hasn’t been tested to actually work - even though it is promising in rhesus monkeys.
My parents-in-law are doing exactly that. They’re both over 70 with multiple comorbidities. They’re hoping for a vaccine, and haven’t stepped outside since this whole thing started.
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Oh, I 100% agree with you. I’m saying that those touting no reduction in stay at home orders until a vaccine exists are making an ignorant statement.
That obviously doesn’t apply to people that choose to continue to self-quarantine because of risk factors/comorbidities. They’re doing the right thing. A different approach for a different circumstance.
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ER doctors that own 9 clinics where they have personally conducted 5213 COVID tests for their patients, and saw only a 6.5% infection rate. I believe that Dr. Faucci has admitted that he hasn’t seen / treated a patient in over 20yrs, I believe its similar for Dr. Birx. The models used in Feb and then March depicted initially millions of potential deaths, in March, it was revised to 250k, than a few weeks later it was dropped to 160k, and then to 60k, so it’s apparent a model can tell you anything you want it to, and what you want your audience to believe.
Secondly, if you listen to the entire 1:20 minute video, you would understand they are in fact specialist in immunology and virology, and have work in that field for over 20yrs each.
I don’t believe they took their own rates, and extrapolated it to the entire state of California. I believe they took CA reported numbers, as well as the #'s the NY is reporting, to demonstrate that it mirrors closely to their own data, and also mirrors the infection rates between Sweden and Norway, the first of which didn’t quarantine, and the latter who did quarantine, and their point is both countries have the same infection and death rates.
Its an investment in time to listen and comprehend (something which the 3 reporters in the room couldn’t do) their statistical data, but for me it is compelling that quarantining healthy people is not working, and likely having a bad affect on people’s health and the economy, and is overkill now that we have 2mos of data to reflect on.
Do you not understand that they are saying, while sad and tragic, the same number / percent of people are going to die, whether we stay quarantined at home, or we don’t. 90% of the total # people who get infected and die have co-modalities like heart disease, diabetes, COPD etc, and that is more of the reason for their death, than the COVID.
You also keep mentioning you want to see “evidence based statistics and numbers” isn’t that exactly what these DR’s are sharing. That and they are reporting on the numbers reported by the states of CA and NY, and Sweden and Norway.
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There are about 150 studies with plaquenil, and some of the earlier studies are not promising, one being peer reviewed (but not randomized and not a big sample size). The best study so far is emulating a double blind, but still is not perfect. Regardless, the early numbers don’t look good, but you’re right.
We can’t know for sure until we have a large double blind study with a narrow confidence interval. The studies I’m seeing right now have biases and confounding factors.
The overwhelming presence of patient influx at hospitals renders this statement untrue. Many of the people dying, aren’t dying because of exposure to the virus, but rather from lack of availability of care. And that goes for an ailment that falls outside of the grasp of respiratory complications. You could simply die from a heart attack in the case that no one is available to render the proper assistance and diagnosis/treatment.
That was definitely what was being claimed, however, other than in isolated areas, that doesn’t seem to be what’s actually going on.
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First of all, I’m trusting Dr. Fauci over these two any day. He is a board certified immunologist and has been the director of the NIAID for over 30 years. Bedside care of patients do not matter in this case. Do you think I trust my ER docs over an oncologist when taking care of cancer patients? Consults exist for a reason. And healthcare providers take heed of our specialists for a reason - they deal with this stuff every day. I’m sure you can understand in any field, expertise and experience matters.
The only specialties these two doctors have are emergency medicine - trust me, I checked. They’re neither immunologists or have any specialties in infectious diseases. They neither have the qualifications or experience to shape public health policy.
I don’t even know how to respond to this. To say that the exact same amount of people are going to die is completely false - whether we shelter in place, quarantine, or use social distancing. I don’t even have to poke holes in your logic because it’s actually illogical, maybe even crazy.
And I don’t think you know what real evidence based numbers are. How you arrive at these numbers matter more than the numbers themselves. If you want to get a scientific idea of infection rates, you can’t take their numbers seriously because these patients are all presenting with symptoms. We don’t actually have an accurate number of infected people in my county or California. That requires randomized testing, symptomatic or not. While their urgent care patient sampling is large enough, it has a glaring bias.
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What he said.
100x.
Great post. Thanks.
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Has anyone read any of these studies? VA study was flawed because:
- Only pulled VA data and did not meet or follow with any patients, pretty much they sat down and did some pivot tables
- Medication was given only to the highest risk group, with higher fever, and underlying conditions. In addition, it was given at late stages and not early as recommended by many doctors and without zinc. However, the group that took HCQ and zpack reported less than half the need for ventilation from the control group or group that got only hcq.
- Patients were mostly black males, not racist just saying not a good sample
- This was confirmed by VA secretary in an interview and he stated when Cuomo met with Trump he asked for more HCQ last week.
The Brazil study that was halted:
- Small sample
- They pretty much overdosed one group of patients with dosage of 1200mcg a day
- Never mentioned what happened to the patients that were getting the low dosage of Chloriquine. By the way Chloroquine while similar have different chemicals from my understanding.
Best case I have seen is Dr Rault in France, with over 3000 patients treated and great success. Quite a few doctors have spoken for it and not going to list them all as already did list them before. Patient’s experience and even Tom Hanks and hisnwife took it early in Australia. Even though miss Hanks complained of nausea from medication, which the virus makes you nauseous to begin with.
While everybody talk of science and studies best case are countries that implemented anti virals early including hcq, the anti hiv drug, and this other drug from Japan. South Korea case in point reccomended anti virals early. Bahrain and Costa Rica used them early. Australia used chloroquine and hcq early. Look at the success they have in mortality rate. I read italian news as well and doctors there now agree that best thing is to treat patients early at home with hcq and other medications. Recoveries have gone way up in italy since this shift. Turkey is doing the same thing and recoveries are increasing.
In the US take out NY and NJ and we doing well. I mean NYC would place people in ventilators and based on data 81% of patients on ventilators passed away. In addition, NY gives potential cures, only at last stages on life and never early. In addition, NY and NJ pretty much killed their nursing homes by placing covid patients in their midst of highest risk groups. FL and TX focused mainly in these high risk groups to protect them and look at amazing results. Miami with 2.7 million people only has about 270 deaths last i checked. .01% mortality rate. Yeah density will play a factor but to have such huge disparity is troubling. In addition, NYC has higher rates than Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, and Mumbai combined. NY has highest mortality rate than any country in the world. Now case could be made that they applying some liberal standards to coding covid19 deaths. However, NYC i know first hand for my friends father they gave him the drugs only 24 hours before he passed, when he had been in ICU for 3 days already. South Dakota never closed down and started early with treatment of anti virals and they doing well last week i checked.
Feel free to play with the data out there and draw your own conclusions. At this point not sure what the right answer is but the economic impact and other issues that brings forth need to be heavily considered. We flattened the curve and keeping people inside could end up being worse at this point. Focus on high risk groups but the rest need to start moving. My opinion of course. And based on Dr Birx US is first on testinf at 17 per 100k people. In addition, Fauci as of Feb 29 said to not worry about Covid19 but more about flu. Now i respect them but they have not been right in all of this the whole time and we have had some faulty model projections.
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While the majority of what you said may be right, you cant compare miami, south dakota, or texas to NY. Brooklyn by itself has more people then Miami, the population density is 10x what you see in the other places you mentioned. Of course it was easier to deal with this in SD, their biggest city has 170k people.
Mumbai, Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul combined was not a good statistic for you? Or nursing homes results for that matter?
No need to get up in arms…I was talking about within the U.S, hence my comment
I am not and sorry for sounding that way. Just giving a perspective and tried to include global and US specifics. As stated, it is tough to determine the right next steps but its clear that NY and NJ strategy hurt the most high risk groups in these states. However, as Cuomo said based on antibody testing the mortality rate even for NY is at .5%. Kind of what thise doctors from california were saying. Or Stanford study that found infection rates to be 50 to 80 times higher than reported in one county in California.
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