Government is good at imposing overarching regulations. Making finely tuned (or even roughly tuned) adjustments to fit particular circumstances? Not so much. This is nowhere more apparent than in the government’s decision to shut down “elective” procedures everywhere, even though the need to so so varied in the extreme from place to place. This article provides some details on the fiasco. a friend who works in a cardiac intensive care unit (ICU) in rural Virginia called recently and told me about how they had reorganized their entire system around caring for coronavirus patients. They had cancelled most “non-essential” procedures, imposed furloughs and pay cuts, and created a special ICU ward for patients with COVID-19. So far, they have had only Read More ›

Jerry drew our attention last night to a radio interview by Dr Vladimir Zelenko. In this interview, he summarises his approach and rationale, giving results and making several announcements. (Unfortunately, the media cannot be embedded at UD as it is not YT. Kindly, go here; and make sure your browser has no active ad blocker.) On listening last night, here are my first observations on highlight points: Brazil and Israel are doing his early treatment, clinical diagnosis (backed up by nasal swab test), outpatient-oriented dosage for vulnerable patients protocol, ALT-1. He has treated 405 in that profile and sees 95% reduction on the expected death rate for the n-BAU baseline. He points out that the Raoult [by implication] protocol, which Read More ›

. . . and, they expect a secondary wave. Sermo is a global Doctors’ forum site, which allows building of a global consensus of Physicians. As a part of its efforts, it has had a “statistically significant” survey of over 6,000 doctors, regarding Covid-19. Excerpting the just linked report: Largest Statistically Significant Study by 6,200 Multi-Country Physicians on COVID-19 Uncovers Treatment Patterns and Puts Pandemic in Context April 2, 2020 Sermo Reports on Hydroxychloroquine Efficacy, Rise in Prophylaxis Use; Over 80% Expect 2nd Outbreak New York, New York – April 2, 2020 – Widespread confusion, conflicting reports, inconsistent testing, and off-indication use of existing and experimental drugs has resulted in no single source of information from the frontlines. To create a Read More ›

Now that France has approved Hydroxychloroquine after Prof Raoult’s second test, it is helpful to go back and roll the tape. We need to understand why we are where we are now, over a month after China — which, unsurprisingly, did a lot of the early work on Covid-19 that we are all relying on now — published information on promising drugs. Here is Clinical Trials Arena, February 18th: 18 February 2020 News Coronavirus: Chloroquine yields positive data in Covid-19 trial Early data from clinical trials being performed in China has revealed that chloroquine phosphate could help treat the new coronavirus disease, Covid-19. China National Center for Biotechnology Development deputy head Sun Yanrong said that chloroquine, an anti-malarial medication, was Read More ›

First, Dr Vladimir Zelenko speaks: While, the Governor blocks: Sisolak signed an emergency order earlier Tuesday barring the use of anti-malaria drugs for someone who has the coronavirus. But Sisolak’s order does not apply to patients who are hospitalized with coronavirus. The order restricting chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine came after President Donald Trump touted the medication as a treatment and falsely stated that the Food and Drug Administration had just approved the use of chloroquine to treat patients infected with coronavirus. Sisolak said in a statement that there’s no consensus among experts or Nevada doctors that the drugs can treat people with COVID-19. Actually, as Pharmacy Times reported, Thu March 19: Pharmacy Times FDA Announces Two Drugs Given ‘Compassionate Use’ Status Read More ›