COVID19 Roundup--Mostly Good News

Today we'll try to stay focused beyond the numbers and provide links to articles and blogs that discuss developments and trends that will play out increasingly in the coming weeks.

Obviously, the questions of more widespread testing and potential specific treatments for COVID19 lead the way.

Naturally politics is involved at every step of the way. Don Surber has done the hard work--slogging through liberal propaganda--to arrive at the truth:

Democrats fear a cure

The biggest fear for Democrats today are chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Democrat governors in Michigan and Nevada have banned their use to fight COVID-19, not because the drugs may harm people but because the drugs may work.

The party's flying monkeys in the press are casting shade on this possible cure.

Surprised? Me neither. Trading on the deaths of innocent people is par for the course for The Despicable Party. The liberal flying monkeys are doing their best to paint Trump as anti-science and worse but, as we've discussed for weeks now, the knowledge of chloroquine's (and its derivatives) potent antiviral action has been known for well over a decade. The drug itself and its potential side effects have been known for many decades as well. Who should get chloroquine+ treatment and when is a question that can be easily sorted out:

... "German drugmaker Bayer, which holds the original chloroquine patent, was the first to get involved when Chinese officials approached the company as that nation’s outbreak raged in early February. The experience provided lessons for how to use the drug, said Matthias Berninger, a Bayer public affairs executive, like that it works best when given to people soon after infection, rather than waiting until they’re hospitalized in an intensive care unit and forced to use a respirator. 

"Now New York, with 60% of new U.S. corona virus infections, is the emerging front line of the pandemic. Bayer has donated three million pills to the federal government, confident from its experience in China that the drug could push down the number of people who need to go to the hospital — so long as it goes to the right patients." 

Thus it isn't crazy old Orange Man with a hare-brained idea. 

This is science.

Note that the benefits of chloroquine+ treatment is enhanced by or works in tandem with two other factors/issues that have been very much in the news lately.

Very widespread testing of any sort--whether traditional nose/throat swabs or serological tests--can help identify carriers of the virus even while they may still be asymptomatic. That will insure that the treatment is directed to the people for whom it will do the most good. There's good news on that front: Abbott Labs Unveils COVID-19 "Gamechanger": Portable Test Can Detect Virus In Under 5 Minutes. Widespread testing and faster testing--just what the doctor ordered!

At the same time we can see that chloroquine+ treatment, by keeping more people out of hospitals, can take pressure of our healthcare system and insure that ventilators will be available when needed. Thus preventing hospitals and medical personnel from being overwhelmed.

It will take time, but from these developments I think we can begin to see an overall strategy for dealing with the SARS2 pandemic taking shape: Rapid identification of infected persons and treatment with chloroquine+ therapy, reservation of ICU beds for those who can't be helped with that treatment. This could lead to a loosening or--better--a more targeted application of social distancing guidelines that would get more and more people back to a relatively normal life. Could this happen in a matter of weeks? Much will depend on how much we learn about the situation in the US during the next 2-3 weeks and how quickly testing and treatment can be widely deployed.

Following up on my late post yesterday re 'herd' immunity, Steve Sailer (What Went Wrong with the British Plan) quotes Scott Alexander (The British Reversal). Alexander's explanation mirrors the reservations expressed by the UK experts whom I cited. Note too that Boris Johnson called Trump and asked for ... more ventilators:

A UK critical care doctor on Reddit wrote a great explanation of their recent about-face on coronavirus strategy. 

They say that over the past few years, Britain developed a cutting-edge new strategy for dealing with pandemics by building herd immunity. It was actually really novel and exciting and they were anxious to try it out. When the coronavirus came along, the government plugged its spread rate, death rate, etc into the strategy and got the plan Johnson originally announced. This is why he kept talking about how evidence-based it was and how top scientists said this was the best way to do things. 

But other pandemics don’t require ventilators nearly as often as coronavirus does. So the model, which was originally built around flu, didn’t include a term for ventilator shortages. Once someone added that in, the herd immunity strategy went from clever idea to total disaster, and the UK had to perform a disastrous about-face.

And finally, two links to articles showing liberals slipping into the realm of the politically incorrect--I mean, New Yorkers fleeing the virus are like illegals, too, right?

Fauci: Italy "Hit Very Badly" By COVID-19 Due To Prevalence Of Chinese Tourists 

“Italy got hit very badly because they had a large number of importations from China by Chinese tourists,” Fauci said. 

“Before they even knew what was going on, there was enough baseline people spreading that it essentially got out of hand, and it became difficult for them, as good as they are, and they’re very good, to be able to contain it in a way that is contact-tracing. It was more mitigation,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases continued.

Scrap One Belt One Road for ... The Great Wall?

Rhode Island National Guard to Conduct House-to-House Searches For People Who Came From New York

Dems turning on Dems. Gotta luv it.