Corona Virus #7

[Jstpssng]

This is bad news. It is evidence that the FDA has bowed to political pressure from the WH to bypass their normal expedited approval process in order to make chloroquine available. Very sad day for the FDA as they will have this hanging over the agency's head for decades to come. Science, not politics, should dictate when expedited approval is given in emergency situations. The FDA head had already indicated after Trump's press conference a week or so ago that chloroquine for coronavirus had not yet met their standards for approval for off label use. There has been no additional data since then, just political pressure. The head of the FDA should resign as this is the equivalent of having the Attorney General arrest someone based solely on pressure from the WH without appropriate investigation. Very sad day.

It also means that it may be difficult now for people with legitimate need for chloroquine to get their prescriptions filled as every yahoo in town is going to pressure their primary care doc to give them a prescriptions "just in case".

The FDA was established about 110 years ago precisely because it was necessary to have some control over snake oil salesmen who where bamboozling the public with "medications" that were either useless or toxic. The FDA has over the past century done an excellent job preventing US citizens from being cheated and poisoned. The scientific process/wall the FDA established works and became a model for other countries. It is really sad to see this black mark on their otherwise proud history.

In case some of you are unaware, the whole business about chloroquine started with a weirdo French physician who treated just over 20 patients. It was not a controlled trial and the outcomes were not so different from what would be expected with no therapy. This anecdotal paper was picked up by two Americans, one a physician who specializes in cryptocurrency speculation and the other a non physician/non scientist, who put together a truly awful and exaggerated "white paper" based on the French MD's unpublished report. Neither is a scientist or has any background at all in virology or public health. They claimed to have worked with Stanford Medical School (Stanford denies this) and University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB denies this too). Here is a link to an article that provides some background (yes, I know HuffPost is not as authoritative as Brietbart or Fox for some of you but read the article for an overview and then do your own research): The Hucksters Pushing A Coronavirus ‘Cure’ With The Help Of Fox News And Elon Musk | HuffPost

As I mentioned in another thread-or perhaps earlier in this one- people are already having problems getting their prescriptions refilled. Unfortunately you are pointing out a few things which I had already suspected.

 

[IslandTractor]

My BIL has a house on Vinalhaven. There are some rough rednecks up there. His house was badly vandalized. Rednecks on drugs is bad medicine!

Chris

We don't have "Rednecks" in New England. We have "Swamp Yankees". A closely related but not identical breed. One difference is that they are fed on lobster not barbeque. Indeed, while the island has a big summer population from NY and MA, Vinalhaven's year round population is almost entirely lobster fisherman. Tough crowd.

 

[rswyan]

To be clear (the quote from my post (my comments were in caps and I was replying to the first sentence) said "The virus molecules remain very stable in external cold, or artificial as air conditioners in houses and cars.
NO EVIDENCE OF THIS. VIRUS PARTICLES ARE VERY STABLE AT MINUS 70 DEGREES CELSIUS WHICH IS WAY COLDER THAN A HOUSEHOLD FREEZER. NO EVIDENCE THAT "NORMAL" TEMPERATURES THAT HUMANS LIVE IN MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO HOW LONG THE VIRUS REMAINS INFECTIOUS.")

My point was that in a virus lab we freeze viruses to minus 70 celsius to keep them stable. They are stable for years at that temperature. Putting a virus in a freezer at minus 20 celsius (typical household freezer) will not keep the virus stable and it will deteriorate, especially with thawing and refreezing as in a frostless fridge. However, if you took a virus contaminated object and put it in the freezer for a day or two it might well still have some active infectious viral particles when you took it out. Freezing in a household fridge is not the same as wiping with dilute 1:50 Clorox solution for example.

Thanks for the clarification Doc ... :thumbsup:

 

[IslandTractor]

The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed. – DNyuz

Yes. Very sad story. Sounds like someone in 2009 had the right idea to prepare for the next respiratory virus pandemic but that selfish commercial interests ruined the well conceived plan. Of course today nobody at the big medical device company that kiboshed the program to build tens of thousands of affordable ventilators can "remember" why they pulled the plug. It seems the company feared that the cheap but adequate ventilator design would interfere with sales of a fancier model that the company manufactured. An example of "catch and kill" just like when a magazine or newspaper buys an article and then doesn't run it.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

115 nursing home residents, staff test positive for COVID-19 in Sumner County, Tenn.

Thanks for the link. Our exposure to the COVID-19 risk at a church and in the hospital came out TN. There's no community testing so we're blind as to our exposure.

 

[newbury]

I have a coffee canister with water and bleach, every time I go into a store I wash my hands upon returning to the truck. Today I picked up some cash to go register my truck... and dunked it right into that same water/bleach solution. Then I realized that the town office is closed for the duration.

How does that work with dollar bills?

Thanks for the link. Our exposure to the COVID-19 risk at a church and in the hospital came out TN. There's no community testing so we're blind as to our exposure.

No testing, no problem reported.
I'd like to see current statistics on testing by state and smaller, like vox Coronavirus: Number of cases, deaths, and tests by US state - Vox shows.
But it seems like some places will test you if you cough, other places you need to be spitting blood.

 

[ruffdog]

For some families, the 3+ week wait for economic help is going to be VERY hard. Some have been laid off for 2 weeks already and 3+ more is bad. The $1200 per person will not go far for the people that are in dire need. They need to get back to work but the virus prevents that. If they get sick it will be very bad too.

 

[rswyan]

This is bad news. It is evidence that the FDA has bowed to political pressure from the WH to bypass their normal expedited approval process in order to make chloroquine available. Very sad day for the FDA as they will have this hanging over the agency's head for decades to come. Science, not politics, should dictate when expedited approval is given in emergency situations. The FDA head had already indicated after Trump's press conference a week or so ago that chloroquine for coronavirus had not yet met their standards for approval for off label use. There has been no additional data since then, just political pressure. The head of the FDA should resign as this is the equivalent of having the Attorney General arrest someone based solely on pressure from the WH without appropriate investigation. Very sad day.

It also means that it may be difficult now for people with legitimate need for chloroquine to get their prescriptions filled as every yahoo in town is going to pressure their primary care doc to give them a prescriptions "just in case".

The FDA was established about 110 years ago precisely because it was necessary to have some control over snake oil salesmen who where bamboozling the public with "medications" that were either useless or toxic. The FDA has over the past century done an excellent job preventing US citizens from being cheated and poisoned. The scientific process/wall the FDA established works and became a model for other countries. It is really sad to see this black mark on their otherwise proud history.

In case some of you are unaware, the whole business about chloroquine started with a weirdo French physician who treated just over 20 patients. It was not a controlled trial and the outcomes were not so different from what would be expected with no therapy. This anecdotal paper was picked up by two Americans, one a physician who specializes in cryptocurrency speculation and the other a non physician/non scientist, who put together a truly awful and exaggerated "white paper" based on the French MD's unpublished report. Neither is a scientist or has any background at all in virology or public health. They claimed to have worked with Stanford Medical School (Stanford denies this) and University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB denies this too). Here is a link to an article that provides some background (yes, I know HuffPost is not as authoritative as Brietbart or Fox for some of you but read the article for an overview and then do your own research): The Hucksters Pushing A Coronavirus 舛ure With The Help Of Fox News And Elon Musk | HuffPost

Twitter Deletes Fox News Star Laura Ingraham’s ‘Misleading’ Post Touting Coronavirus Cure

 

[rswyan]

For some families, the 3+ week wait for economic help is going to be VERY hard. Some have been laid off for 2 weeks already and 3+ more is bad. The $1200 per person will not go far for the people that are in dire need. They need to get back to work but the virus prevents that. If they get sick it will be very bad too.

Assuming they actually get the $1200 in any kind of a reasonable time frame ...

IRS orders office evacuation, affecting most agency employees - POLITICO

 

[California]

... Putting a virus in a freezer at minus 20 celsius (typical household freezer) will not keep the virus stable and it will deteriorate, especially with thawing and refreezing as in a frostless fridge. However, if you took a virus contaminated object and put it in the freezer for a day or two it might well still have some active infectious viral particles when you took it out. Freezing in a household fridge is not the same as wiping with dilute 1:50 Clorox solution for example.

Just so I'm clear on this - putting the package in a household freezer is only slightly better than leaving it on the counter - ?