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Here is a story from US News about German’s COVID-19 death rate that demonstrates how one should hesitate to draw conclusions from the face of a statistic.  First, some basic math.  The death rate for COVID-19 (indeed any rate) is based on a fraction.  We all learned in grammar school that fractions have two parts:  a numerator (the number on top), which is divided by the denominator (the number on bottom).  The fraction for the death rate is [total deaths]/[total cases]. Now, it should be obvious that there are two ways for the rate to go down.  (1) hold the line on total deaths in proportion to total cases  OR  (2)  pump the number of total cases in proportion to Read More ›

BREAKING: Professor Raoult has released a further result. Using Google Translate on two tweets: Our two articles published this evening help to demonstrate:      1. The effectiveness of our protocol, on 80 patients.      2. The relevance of the association of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, thanks to research carried out in our P3 containment laboratory. https://t.co/Y91bsFOgB2      – Didier Raoult (@raoult_didier) March 27, 2020 and: New article published online by my teams: in vitro demonstration of the hydroxychloroquine / azithromycin synergy to counter the replication of SARS-COV2      In vitro testing of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin on SARS-CoV-2 shows synergistic effecthttps: //t.co/KUaag6N5FF      – Didier Raoult (@raoult_didier) March 27, 2020 Here is a chart in one of the Twitter threads, which seems Read More ›

Here we go: I am an ER MD in New Orleans. Class of 98. Every one of my colleagues have now seen several hundred Covid 19 patients and this is what I think I know. Clinical course is predictable. 2-11 days after exposure (day 5 on average) flu like symptoms start. Common are fever, headache, dry cough, myalgias(back pain), nausea without vomiting, abdominal discomfort with some diarrhea, loss of smell, anorexia, fatigue. Day 5 of symptoms- increased SOB, and bilateral viral pneumonia from direct viral damage to lung parenchyma. Day 10- Cytokine storm leading to acute ARDS and multiorgan failure. You can literally watch it happen in a matter of hours. 81% mild symptoms, 14% severe symptoms requiring hospitalization, 5% Read More ›

Our interlocutors in the comment thread to Leading Scientist Walks Back Doomsday Claim suggest that the doomsday scientist (Neil Ferguson) who panicked the world did not walk back his claims. They say his new statement is the same as his old statement, so “there is nothing to see here; move along.” Let’s test that claim. In the original report* Ferguson said “we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US” if there is no mitigation effort. That is what grabbed headlines and motivated politicians. Ferguson then discusses some intervention strategies, and on page 8 he writes that the “most optimal” combination of strategies “is predicted to reduce peak critical care demand by two-thirds and halve Read More ›

Fresh developments, even as in a now all too familiar development, a politically incorrect video vanishes from YouTube. The Boris Johnson case shows just how contagious this virus is, as he joins a list of leading politicians and members of their families. We definitely need a good treatment and we need it fast. In that light, let us see what is being picked up from Belgium: Belgium’s Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) is reserving hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, for patients who really need it in light of the new coronavirus (Covid-19). The drug, marketed under the name Plaquenil, has entered clinical trials in France and the United States, and its results against Covid-19 are promising, according to Read More ›

The Scientist who panicked the world with predictions of up to 2.2 million American deaths now says “never mind.” See here.

I do not think of myself as an optimist. I am way more Eeyore than Pollyanna. Recently, however, I declared there was reason to trust China’s “no new cases” data out of Wuhan. Maybe I was wrong. A friend points me to this article. “EBC News, a Taiwan cable news network, broadcast two such photographs dated March 20, which is two days after China reported there were no new local Wuhan infections. One of the notices, after announcing the new cases, read: “Do not go out, or gather, wash your hands, be careful, hold on, hold on, and hold on some more.”  EBC also broadcast video of a hospital in Wuhan that it says was taken on March 19 and Read More ›

Are the numbers from Wuhan too good to be true? Or has the medical community missed that elephant sitting in the corner? This article explores the question. Since the lockdown occurred later than it should have, travellers attending the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations transmitted the infection wherever they went. Most countries have focussed on identifying infections brought by travellers from such high-risk countries but the majority with COVID-19 infections now are showing increasing rates of local transmission. The signal from the Chinese puzzle could be that widespread infection is not inevitable and with stringent public health measures infection rate could be brought down to zero. That scenario does not make epidemiological sense. We have to conclude that China does Read More ›