Microbes could survive on planets with all-hydrogen atmospheres ABC
Touching the asteroid Ryugu revealed secrets of its surface and changing orbit Phys.org
Oil Stockpiles Have Stopped Growing in World’s Biggest Buyer Bloomberg
Factories Close for Good as Coronavirus Cuts Demand WSJ
Bond Market Veers From Historic Rallies to Record-Smashing Sales Bloomberg
Facebook and the Folly of Self-Regulation Wired
#COVID19
The science:
In Search of Preventative Strategies: Novel Anti-Inflammatory High-CBD Cannabis Sativa Extracts Modulate ACE2 Expression in COVID-19 Gateway Tissues (preprint) Preprints.org. From the abstract: “he extracts of our most successful and novel high CBD C. sativa lines, pending further investigation, may become a useful and safe addition to the treatment of COVID-19 as an adjunct therapy. They can be used to develop easy-to-use preventative treatments in the form of mouthwash and throat gargle products for both clinical and at-home use. Such products ought to be tested for their potential to decrease viral entry via the oral mucosa.” ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished…..
Medical oncologist explains the strange way sugar could alter coronavirus’s aggressiveness Alternet (Furzy Mouse). “Explains” is too strong. There’s been a recent focus on SARS-COV-2 mutations (e.g., to D614G), which have been criticized on the grounds that mutations in themselves have no clinical effect. This observation-based article is a proposal for such a clinical effect.
* * * Reopening:
New nightlife cluster causes spike in South Korea virus cases AFP
Wuhan reports first new coronavirus cases since end of lockdown FT
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Daily Situation Report Robert Koch Institute. Worrisome post-relaxation numbers:
Reopening in Douglas County, Colorado:
Happy Mother’s Day from C& C in Castle Rock, where the owner said this is almost double a normal Mother’s Day. pic.twitter.com/cPSzjmAfAg
— Nick Puckett (@nick__puckett) May 10, 2020
We’ll check back in a couple of weeks…
* * * Spread:
Applying principles of behaviour change to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission Nature. Handy diagram:
* * * Masks:
How masks went from ‘muzzle’ to fashion’s object of desire Agence France Presse
Coronavirus: Abrupt reversals on face mask policy raise new questions France24
New Orleans designer develops face masks with holes for sipping cocktails during the coronavirus era Times-Picayune (JB). Further to my post yesterday.
* * * Treatment:
Doctor Fired for Refusing to House Elderly With Possible COVID-19 Patient, Suit Alleges Mississippi Free Press
* * * Testing:
Interpreting Diagnostic Tests for SARS-CoV-2 JAMA
After Four Antibody Tests, I’m Still Not Sure I’ve Had Covid-19 Bloomberg
The US already has the technology to test millions of people a day MIT Technology Review. From April, still germane. The tech problems are never the interesting ones. Imagine a functional state….
* * * Finance response:
Effects of Covid-19 on the banking sector: the market’s assessment Bank of International Settlements
* * * Political response:
The Four Men Responsible For America’s COVID-19 Test Disaster Rolling Stone. A tick-tock. (And we still don’t know what caused the “manufacturing failure” with the CDC test. Why not?) While I experience a certain schadenfreude at contemplating punishment for elite failure, I’ve got a very long list of elite failures where that never happened….
Birx said ‘there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust’ in a White House coronavirus task force meeting Business Insider
Coronavirus updates: White House considers new measures after staffers test positive for COVID-19 ABC
Sioux tribe rejects South Dakota governor request to remove Covid-19 checkpoints CNN
Latest far-right tactic: Naming names, threatening people who report coronavirus lockdown violations LA Times
* * * Social determinants of health:
Nursing home residents and workers make up a third of coronavirus deaths. In some states, they account for half. Business Insider. To the ice floes!
* * * Travel:
The People Flying During The Pandemic And How Airlines Are Trying To Protect Them NPR
Major U.S. airlines endorse temperature checks for passengers Reuters
* * * Exit strategy:
The storm we can’t see WaPo. A must read.
The dark decade ahead The Week
* * * Remedies and ameliorations:
Americans waiting out coronavirus in Canadian and Mexican border cities reflect on time away ABC
China?
US-China economic decoupling accelerates in first quarter of 2020 FT
The financial world’s nervous system is being rewired The Economist. “[OneConnect] belongs to a new breed of Chinese firms that are rewelding the pipes channelling money in the developing world. They are waging a ‘proxy battle’ against American giants, says Huw van Steenis of UBS, a bank.”
Coronavirus: China faces historic test as pandemic stokes fears of looming unemployment crisis South China Morning Post
China tries to calm ‘nationalist fever’ as calls for invasion of Taiwan grow South China Morning Post
Vietnam enters day 20 without community transmission of Covid-19 VN Express
Masks and no touching: Indonesia aims to keep traditional markets alive Reuters. Probably wise, given that supermarkets are crowded, air conditioned, closed environments.
Buddhist monks in Cambodia and Thailand adapt rituals during pandemic The Star
India
The coronavirus is crushing India’s Bollywood, the world’s most prolific film industry CNN
India to ‘gradually’ restart railway operations in coronavirus lockdown easing Straits Times
Syraqistan
Twin shocks threaten Saudi crown prince’s grand reform plans FT
Iran Says It’s Ready for Unconditional Prisoner Swap With U.S. Amid Coronavirus Fears Time
Iraq’s new govt reaches out to October protesters Agence France Presse
Colombia’s military attache to Washington removed over spying scandal Columbia Reports
Europe/UK
Sweden unlikely to feel economic benefit of no-lockdown approach FT (no paywall).
Brexit gears grind slowly on as deadlines draw closer RTE (PD).
No end to UK lockdown but some measures will be eased, says PM Johnson Reuters
Coronavirus: French arrivals exempt from UK quarantine plans BBC
Russiagate
The national debt is out of control Robert Samuelson, WaPo. Right on cue….
2020
Voters Listened When Trump Downplayed the COVID-19 Threat. But Will They Blame Him for the Fallout? Morning Consult
Our Famously Free Press
Big Tech Has Crushed the News Business. That’s About to Change. NYT
Gunz
Not all that’s made of wood:
The dude taking the selfie has a gun made out of wood. You can see the grain and knots. Total cosplay. pic.twitter.com/O9VYmMp9t6
— Jason Smith (@infotranecon) May 9, 2020
Check the thread for more hilarity.
Class Warfare
Hearst Loses Big at the National Labor Relations Board New York Magazine
The Fragility of the Global Nurse Supply Chain The Atlantic
Coronavirus: Male security guards, chefs and taxi drivers among those most likely to die with COVID-19, says ONS Sky News. Australia.
These are the most dangerous jobs you can have in the age of coronavirus NBC. The United States.
‘I’m scared to return’: Nebraska meatpacking workers and their families speak out Omaha World-Herald
Cleanup on aisle everywhere: A day in the life of supermarket workers during coronavirus Los Angeles Times
Restaurant Workers Are Testing Positive for Covid-19. What Businesses Do Next Is Uncertain. Washingtonian
The Bailout Is Working — for the Rich Pro Publica
Where Have All the Briskets Gone? Texas Monthly (Re Silc).
The Crisis of a Lifetime (interview) George Soros, Project Syndicate
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
Happy Mama's Day pic.twitter.com/vOt0H6YRVT
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) May 10, 2020
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
132 comments
Comments are closed.
Working link for “Microbes could survive on planets with all-hydrogen atmospheres”:
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/microbes-survive-planets-hydrogen-atmospheres/story?id=70581628
At least for me, it doesn’t work without the “id=” parameter.
Thanks, fixed.
United doesn’t seem to be trying that hard. A UCSF doctor, coming home after several weeks in New York City helping coronavirus patients, shared his shocking experience of traveling on a packed flight back to SFO. … “We are about to land & I just wanted to say a few things. 1) people on this plane are scared/ shocked. 2) I have no idea why most of them are traveling. 3) I am with a group of 25 nurses and doctors who have been working in NYC hospitals for the past 2-4 weeks. We are coming home,” Weiss tweeted Saturday.
The reason planes are packed is airlines are making it so. Punch up a city-pair you used to travel and see how few flights there are. They are cancelling flights a couple of weeks and even days out and putting people on whatever they can get them to accept.
These days, people are getting a crash course in trying to see the difference between preference, even revealed preference, and forced choice.
Where nature imitates art, as in the Ozark show (sorry for the Wikipedia link), characters said that when rational arguments don’t work, use force. Now it is harder to discern given the set dressing and too many directors.
Not just force but BFI, Brute Force & Ignorance.
Came home from Fl 2 weeks ago, from small airport to small airport. Seat selection showed about 6 rows between me and anyone else, would have canceled if plane was to full. As I step on the plane I see it’s at 50% capacity. They had combined two flights coming north. They did space everyone 1 seat apart but it was full like this. Turned out ok but I think I would have driven had I known this upfront.
Most of our representatives fly or travel by train to DC, I imagine.
I suppose it’s a new experience now.
The fly chartered, I would imagine.
Maybe the Senate and the Pelosis and McConnells of the world do. But I would regularly be on flights with one of the East TN reps (Jimmy Duncan Jr) when flying from Knoxville. And have seen other house members when flying from the DC area or routing through Charlotte.
I think most of the House, at least, gets to share the indignity of flying with the proles out of DCA.
There’s an article in Le Monde this morning reporting on a United Airlines flight from Newark to Jackson Hole via Denver. Full social distancing theater in the airports and then a packed plane. No open seats. There’s a photo.
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/05/11/a-vos-risques-et-perils-comment-j-ai-repris-l-avion-aux-etats-unis_6039256_3210.html
I hope Cheney was heading home on that flight. But wait! The US Govt. probably gave him his own plane if not Halliburton.
Maybe his new Coast Guard Gulfstream C-37A, “Dark Side One?”
He had to ‘downgrade’ to the Gulfstream from his old Vice Presidential aircraft, the Boeing C-37, a variant of the 757.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfstream_V
This is the style to which the grifters are accustomed.
And this is a 4-5 hour flight or so, isn’t it? Lots of exposure time.
If someone is infected, they all end up infected. The rule as you know is to limit the opportunity for infection by decreasing the amount of time exposed to the infection. Why are any airlines flying?
Maybe they’re arguing they’re faster = healthier than buses or Amtrak?
Fauci won’t appear in Senate after exposure to White House staffer infected with coronavirus, Pence will also be self-isolating NY Daily News
Seeing quite a few articles from multiple sources in my news feed that Pence will not in fact be self isolating.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/11/coronavirus-live-updates-mike-pence-white-house-fauci-reopenings/3089822001/
For some reason, what with Mother’s day just occurring, this comes to mind: If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off it too?
As an excuse to avoid “transparency” (that idiot word), it beats sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a committee hearing room in the Capitol and saying “I don’t remember” and “could you please repeat the question>” over and over and over.
fresno, you talking about suicide by bridge or BASE jumping?
Bsoder
May 11, 2020 at 12:46 pm
I was talking about when you are a kid and you want to do something stupid because all your friends are doing something stupid, and your mom says, “would you jump on a bridge (implying that you would die) just because your friends jumped off a bridge”
In this case, I am referring to Pence, who because Trump won’t wear a face mask, Pence won’t either, even though Pence is old enough (as is Trump) to be at increased risk should he be infected.
It just shows the incredible power of the group are tribe in steering human behavior.
Elephant antidote
I can hear the mama elephant now – get away from that nasty whatever it is, you don’t know where its been!
The elephant trump with its many muscles looks like a form of communication. First she says with the trump “stop” and later “follow me by my right”. The baby elephant obeys mom.
If only President Trunk had a nose like Pinocchio’s, he could use it to shepherd the entire nation as easily as Mummy Elephant does her child.
Hahaha what a way to correct my mistake. In Spanish we say “trompa” that automatically went to trump. My bad
It was a collaborative effort. Because of your [not] bad, Ignacio, xkeyscored was able to make a great joke! Thanks, you guys! I appreciate the laugh.
And he could do it for peanuts!
Ha!
Elephant antidote
I can hear the mama elephant now – get away from that nasty whatever it is, you don’t know where its been!
Baby elephant: “But mum, it might be our last chance to see them in the wild.”
“Happy Mother’s Day from C& C in Castle Rock”
Somebody should go check on the Coronavirus infection rates for Douglas County, Colorado in about a fortnight’s time. Still, the owner was happy about all this business so bully for him-
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/05/10/castle-rock-cc-coffee-reopens-coronavirus/
I wasn’t surprised to see all the idiots in that video. That’s the new Colorado. Very different than the state I was forced to leave over 8 years ago after the banksters were allowed to steal my beloved home.
I went to the Denver burbs over the weekend to spend the night with my son & his wife, whom I hadn’t seen since leaving the state. A now 3 1/2 hour drive away.
The traffic was horrendous and every pullout was completely packed with cars as folks headed for the mountains to hike–despite the fact this state is now in ‘stage 2’, “Safer at Home”, where our governor has told people ‘if you don’t live in the mountains don’t go there! Stay within ten miles of home.”
NOBODY listened, as evident from the video. (I went to get a new hard drive and OS installed on my computer by my son)
It was complete madness on the highways.
I had to stop for gas once, wearing my mask and gloves.
Although many were also wearing masks, there were still (too) many without them. All headed to the mtns, no doubt.
Sadly, it’s true, that ‘you can never go home again’. *sniffle*
UPDATE:
The video and story of this restaurant is now all over the news.
The governor is pissed and they were served with a shut-down order for 30 days.
They’ve ignored it and remain open, with people flocking there.
The owner was interviewed and said he sees places like Walmart open, and HE needs to be open, too, so he is. (Hey, I get that he needs to make money, but at the cost of how many lives?)
The self-righteousness of people such as he and those patrons really irks me.
Here in the dust bowl of the valley between the mountains we will continue to keep the gate locked, with its sign I put up reading, “Homeowner at high risk. Please call instead”, with his phone #.
(My roommate is a former mechanic who still works on cars, so as many as a dozen people would stop by in a day–some just to bullshit, with none wearing masks nor concerned. We are both ‘high risk’).
There are just too may people who don’t care about anyone else but themselves, so those of such like mind can just stay the f**k away now.
(The linked story wouldn’t let me read it without paying, so not fully aware of what it disclosed)
> They’ve ignored it and remain open, with people flocking there.
Just like Elon Musk. Elite impunity is now seeping down to the local business level. Predictable and predicted from 2009 onward.
The only place safer to be than a single family home with no essential workers is outside. The sun will kill the virus in about two minutes, and the wind and air flow make it difficult to be constantly exposed to an infected person enough to contract the disease.
If I lived in an apartment complex with recirculating air going throughout the entire building, I would rather spend most of my time outside in nature while practicing social distancing. Much safer than going to a grocery store too. It is dumb to try to prevent people form going outside.
I would also encourage people to purchase their food from outdoor farmers markets instead of enclosed grocery stores.
We’ve been having our food delivered; lucky to be able to do that.
The farmer’s market here, much as I’d love to go, is generally very crowded – too crowded for social distancing. Haven’t tried it since Covid – should check their website.
the face mask ALL the cool kids will be wearing
https://twitter.com/FemaleBernieBro/status/1259162957885386754
Nice mask and a good message, but I’m not sure that it’s wise to display one’s policy preferences in such an “in your face” way.
Friday, while cycling to some necessary tasks, wearing face covering (plain vanilla, no decorations), a pedestrian who was not wearing face covering spat at me. I had given him a wide berth and the spittle landed on the ground, but it was an unsettling experience. I continued on without comment, but felt a bit shaken for a while.
My county is Trump country in a blue state. I’m guessing that the spitter was expressing some form of class or partisan hatred, but other interpretations are possible.
However much I may agree with the message, I don’t think I’m going to feel easy about wearing a bumper sticker across my face.
People in times of plague have been known to intentionally infect others. Kind of like the US’s former operational plan during the Cold War, when the Empire had over 20,000 nuclear warheads and the target ers had run out of places to make the shoes jump and included the capitals and industrial bases, so no former competitor like Brazil or Vietnam or wherever could “take over” after us Muricans were wiped out.
We are not nice people, altogether…
There were “intentionally infect” rumors during the plague outbreak before the Great Fire of London, but Defoe seems to think that the stories were largely false. From Journal of a Plague Year:
“Another thing might render the country more strict with respect to the citizens, and especially with respect to the poor, and this was what I hinted at before: namely, that there was a seeming propensity or a wicked inclination in those that were infected to infect others.
There have been great debates among our physicians as to the reason of this. Some will have it to be in the nature of the disease, and that it impresses every one that is seized upon by it with a kind of a rage, and a hatred against their own kind—as if there was a malignity not only in the distemper to communicate itself, but in the very nature of man, prompting him with evil will or an evil eye, that, as they say in the case of a mad dog, who though the gentlest creature before of any of his kind, yet then will fly upon and bite any one that comes next him, and those as soon as any who had been most observed by him before.
Others placed it to the account of the corruption of human nature, who cannot bear to see itself more miserable than others of its own species, and has a kind of involuntary wish that all men were as unhappy or in as bad a condition as itself.
Others say it was only a kind of desperation, not knowing or regarding what they did, and consequently unconcerned at the danger or safety not only of anybody near them, but even of themselves also. And indeed, when men are once come to a condition to abandon themselves, and be unconcerned for the safety or at the danger of themselves, it cannot be so much wondered that they should be careless of the safety of other people.
But I choose to give this grave debate a quite different turn, and answer it or resolve it all by saying that I do not grant the fact. On the contrary, I say that the thing is not really so, but that it was a general complaint raised by the people inhabiting the outlying villages against the citizens to justify, or at least excuse, those hardships and severities so much talked of, and in which complaints both sides may be said to have injured one another; that is to say, the citizens pressing to be received and harboured in time of distress, and with the plague upon them, complain of the cruelty and injustice of the country people in being refused entrance and forced back again with their goods and families; and the inhabitants, finding themselves so imposed upon, and the citizens breaking in as it were upon them whether they would or no, complain that when they were infected they were not only regardless of others, but even willing to infect them; neither of which were really true—that is to say, in the colours they were described in.”
RE: Medical oncologist explains the strange way sugar could alter coronavirus’s aggressiveness
This sugar response may have more to do with our own glucose pathway. They think there is a link between G6PD genetics (which causes Favism) and SCV2 infection outcomes. G6PD is needed for glucose metabolism and people with this deficiency produce less NADPH. NADPH is needed to recycle Glutathione and lower oxidative stress.There are other pathways that produce NADPH but this is a biggie since it is created by our main energy source, glucose. (Yes, glucose is not unhealthy).
G6PD Deficiency will also cause the hyperglycemia they are seeing. And by the way, bad idea to take hydroxychloroquine if you have G6PD Deficiency.
So I think that oncologist is on the wrong track. It might be that the Italian, Grecian, Spanish, Arabic, Jewish (Kurdish) population, who are more likely to have the deficiency, made it more of a problem in NY.
The only true medicine is personalized medicine.
Whoa Krystyn. We are so comfortable with population based models and the fact that *I am in a high risk group* and therefore blah blah.
Can you expand on that last sentence?
We can say in general that high oxidative stress causes issues, but how each person creates those high levels of oxidative stress will depend on personal differences in their genetics and environment.
Did that help?
Krystyn, do you have any information regarding Chromium Picolinate and glucose utilization and whether it pertains in any way to this discussion?
No, not really. Chromium increases a specific glucose transporter and that’s about it.
Thanks, as always!
Others seem to think the only true person is a medicalised person.
humans are bags of water and chemicals.
there is a large range (in molecular biology terms) in the composition of those chemicals in each person—whether because of genetics, environment/diet.
Personalized mediciene means looking at both the genetic and chemical makeup of each patient (via testing) to get a custom course of treatment
> Personalized mediciene means looking at both the genetic and chemical makeup of each patient
As well as the social determinants of health (which, as with stress, operate down to the molecular level).
And ugly bags of mostly water, at that.
I saw what you did-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43DJ1sJJ6Hw
… And by the way, bad idea to take hydroxychloroquine if you have G6PD Deficency
Bad idea to take it anyway if the intent is to mitigate COVID-19. A new report by the New England Journal of Medicine puts to rest the question of hydroxchloroquine. Based on the study, it provides NO benefit. Here is the study:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2012410?query=C19&cid=DM91569_NEJM_Registered_Users_and_InActive&bid=193180241
In the following YouTube, Dr. John Campbell goes over the results of the study in detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XCP1WzOY6M
This study on hydroxychloroquine is taken from those admitted to hospital. And looking through that study I see no mention of the word Zinc which should be used in conjunction with it. And correct me if I am wrong but I believe the whole point of using hydroxychloroquine & zinc is that you are supposed to take it at the beginning of an infection when it is most effective and not when you have crashed and are being carted off to a hospital.
Look, I have no idea how effective it is though there are some promising studies that have been done. What I am saying is if you are going to do a study, then there should be honest studies done. Testing a combination of drugs designed for the early days of an infection but doing it on serious cases in a sort of Hail Mary tactic in a hospital setting does not cut it for me. I want serious test & studies that are peer-reviewed – not Stanford-style studies.
Using hydroxychloroquine outside a hospital context brings additional risks.
Agreed. You have to bring in people who have just been infected into a facility into individual rooms so that they could be treated and monitored. Plenty of empty hotels could be hired and used for this to save strain on the hospital system, Any that get seriously ill you send off to hospital but either way, you would manage to get good data.
At last, thanks Kev; We seem to conflate prevention with treatment and I think many assume that they are the same thing or use the same drugs. They are not the same and this hasn’t been put across to people trying to understand. Prevention; HCQ appears to lessen the symptoms and or interfere with the virus in its attempt to invade and replicate. Use it to prevent the virus from taking over your meatbag. I read that the problem with HCQ is the elongated cardiac signature (Q-T in some people. I have also read that there has never been substantiated reports of harm. People take it regularly for other diseases. We would have reams of data if it were harmful.
Treatment; Having to react to the virus is quite different than preventing it. The BIG voice is trying to sell new untested treatments are being represented by the news media for the profit of big pharma. No one that relies on money is going to recommend something that doesn’t cost more money, more money. They are lying and making up BS about proven medications that work to support new ones that no one has any proof they will work.
All this is supported by a rep from the pharma industry telling us that all that medicine has learned is now false and you must listen to me when I tell you. Dr. Fuchi is one prime example. He has lied about the virus, yet is somehow respected for his medical opinion? He cowtows to the Orange when he knows the drivel is false and damaging. He claims facemasks don’t work and now recants his idiotic statement. After weeks of this why would anyone trust the dribbler to say anything true ever? It defies logic and reason, and they are our last chance.
Now the undoing of the only thing keeping people from becoming infected is undone. Reopening, the end of the storm and bright light shines for the first time evah……
Our leaders won’t wear masks or practice any of the protective/preventative measures they tell us we must endure. I for one find this the perfect expression ingrained idiocy. Is it ego? Are they afraid they will say something meme worthy but because of a mask they won’t be remembered?
sorry, but folks, prevention and treatment are so different. Masks are for both. Distancing and avoiding contact are for both.
Why is there no discussion of the fact that the virus shows that it was altered by “insert” ie; gene transplant that has no analog in nature? Did someone use Crispr? Will anyone but Dr. Martenson mention it?
” altered by “insert” ie; gene transplant that has no analog in nature “, I have looked at hundreds of samples and can find no such thing. Got some evidence based evidence?
I happen to be another non believer in Pharma just like you. Most of their treatments are there to extract more money. We know that their medicines don’t do anything to cure and at best they reduce the symptoms. It’s the body that cures itself and if at some point the body itself cannot fight a disease modern medicine can’t either.
So people who take blood pressure medication, in some cases due to genetic factors beyond their control, should stop taking their medication and allow their body and or a change in diet and exercise to heal themselves? Some people can do that, but others would not be able to control their blood pressure w/o the meds and would probably suffer severe ailments or even die. Modern medication does help keep people alive and functional.
SOME medications help keep people alive and functional. Trick is to know which ones.
Yeah, I cannot stress this enough. I was able to not have to take cholesterol medications and reverse my familial hyerlipidemia unlike the rest of my family since I can stick to a very strict and plain diet.
However, pharma is always the only thing suggested by doctors. In fact, my doctor warned me against dietary changes and did not even want me to try it. She apologized three weeks later.
> Why is there no discussion of the fact that the virus shows that it was altered by “insert” ie; gene transplant that has no analog in nature?
Because it wasn’t. Don’t talk nonsense.
Absolutely, I can`t see how these compounds with potential anti-viral activity will be of any use once a person is bad enough to be hospitalised, yet we keep being told that chloroquine doesn`t work – whenever you look at the detail it is always being used on very sick people. I`ve even heard that often by that stage no virus is found on testing but don`t have a link to offer.
Chloroquine might work prophylactically (with extra Zn of course)- wonder how all those people who take it permanently like people with rheumatoid athritis are doing if they catch this virus (not good subjects tho as they have immune system problems)
Dishing out chloroquine to everyone for prophylaxis would almost undoubtedly create many problems, though it could be an idea for certain groups.
Some of my “intrepid traveler” friends recall being “dished out” HCQ or CQ for their travels to endemic malaria lands. They were told to start dosing themselves well before they left home. No side effects from HCQ/CQ during or after their journey were recalled.
100s of millions of doses of HCQ/CQ have been taken over the years. There is a section at the WHO website about HCQ use against malaria…..WHO says, no problems….
My wife has Lupus and has been taking 600mg twice per day of Hydroxychloroquine for over 3 years. She has had no side effects from the drug. The main side effect her Rheumatologist told her she should be concerned about is one that can only happen if you take the drug for extended periods of time like at least 6 months. The doctor said that in some rare circumstances people being to loose their vision after taking it for extended periods of time which is why my wife has to see an Ohthomologist every 6 months to make sure her eye sight is not deteriorating.
Most long term treatments for Lupus involve using one of two drugs in conjunction with Hydroxycholorquine. They are Methotrexate and CellCept. Prednisone is also used to help stop the inflamations when severe flare ups happen as well. However the main point of Lupus patients taking Methotrexate or CellCept is to kill their immune system. It seems the most effective way to get an immune system to stop attacking its own body is to destroy the immune system.
So there are many people like my wife with Lupus that have extremely compromised immune systems who are at risk of dieing from this virus.
In December, I got extremely sick for 2 weeks. I did not eat one piece of solid food for the entire two weeks. I lived off of fruit and vegetable juices. I have never been that sick in my entire life. I believe I had Covid-19. My wife slept in the same bed as me and stayed in our house and took care of me the entire time. She never got sick at all.
I believe that it her taking a steady dose of Hydroxychloroquine is the reason that whatever virus took me down for two weeks did not replicate enough in her body to make her sick. We talked to her Rheumatologist two wekks ago and she told us that almost every doctor she knew treating Covid patients have been taking Hydroxycholorquine hoping it will act as sufficient prophylactic for them. The doctors are not overly concerned with the side effects because they know the correct dosage to give themselves to mitigate the side effects.
I personally do not trust Dr. Fauci, the NIH or the CDC. They keep calling Hydroxychloroquine “unproven” and perform these trials on only severe Covid patients instead doing what most European countries did in giving the patients Hydroxychloroquine early in the disease. Then they rig a remdesovir trial and do not have a placebo to compare the remdesevir patients to and call it a “promising” drug and should be the standard of care when the results did not look promising at all to me and about 25% of the patients had serious side effects including organ failure.
Of course our government want a patented drug to be the standard of care instead of a generic drug like Hydroxycholorquin. The pharmaceutical companies have multi million dollar jobs waiting for the government murderers if they can successful push a patended drug or a vaccine to be the standard of care.
The New England Journal of Medicine is a serious group and the studies were done on a significant sample (1376 patients). While not as good as a double blind study, it is largely all we have got for this particular usage. While the study may not answer your question, that is not make it a dishonest study (“if you are going to do a study, then there should be honest studies done.”). The study group does not at all have the issue(s) that the Stanford group (that you refer to) had. This wasn’t facebook subjects, it was people with COVID-19 being admitted to a hospital in New York state. As to relevance, the study attempts to answer questions asked by of many hospitals and doctors as to the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine upon admittance to a hospital. Prior to the study, a special permit was issued just for just such usage by the food and drug administration and guidelines were issued, so efficacy in such situations is germane. From the abstract:
Your question(s) are high on many people’s list of “want to knows,” but if the NEJM undertook this, it is certainly because there was a considerable medical demand for answers specific to it’s aims.
Finally, I may be wrong, but I see some issues with your question and would be curious as to your take. Prior to admittance to a hospital, unless administered or taken under the prescription of a doctor, hydroxchloroquine can be dangerous. Since, particularly in the US and Europe, hospitals and doctors generally don’t want potential covid-19 patients that are not sick enough to warrant admittance to a hospital, you have a problem finding them, determining appropriate prescriptive measures and then gathering a good appropriately homogeneous sample size for such a study. Then, there are various different supplements besides zinc that are of interest so you either greatly complicate the parameters of the study or you require separate studies for each group.
Adding, however, that I agree with your challenge to my initial posit, “Bad idea to take it anyway if the intent is to mitigate COVID-19.” Way too broadly put, but again, there are significant issues with home use.
> I believe the whole point of using hydroxychloroquine & zinc is that you are supposed to take it at the beginning of an infection when it is most effective and not when you have crashed and are being carted off to a hospital.
Exactly. One is not really testing a drug but a protocol for using the drug.
Read the comments to John Campbell’s linked video. They are uniformly scathing, and often entertaining, in a scathing sort of way. People are aware of the Gilead Share Price pump, via acts of omission (no zinc, and administering HCQ too late in disease progression). More bad science to pique our interest!…..
Or, if your twisted enough to be fair minded, watch the next day’s YouTube in which Dr. Campbell responds to those comments.
I get it that everyone want an effective treatment, but that doesn’t define the NEJM as pimping for big money.
The storm we can’t see–
Indeed, a must read. We all know this is true:
Here’s the problem. As Lao-Tzu puts it:
#1 (Ursula K. le Guin trans.)
Our elites are “ever-wanting souls” if there have ever been such people. They are used to merely envisioning something and their dream becomes reality because their power over the rest of us humans makes their wishes into reality.
But they have no power over the virus. Yes, they’ve used their power yet again to take advantage of a crisis for the time being, but around the world, having power over humans seems to confer little ability to limit the virus’s devastating effects on the system built by our rulers. Our faith in our elites’ ability to provide even a basically safe environment has been fundamentally shaken, and their alternating between wishful thinking and kamikaze fatalism is doing nothing to augment our confidence.
A myriad of answers to the situation are out there, but TPTB can’t see them because their ever-wanting souls blind them. It will take those not so used to getting their way to find a livable way to cope.
Mandate of Heaven….lost?
The 21st century version of it, a stew of Bernays and 9/11 fear-mongering. What they created to justify their rule is coming back to bite them because they can’t manage even the illusion of safety in this situation. The best they can do is to exhort people to be brave warriors when they’ve spent the last twenty years using boogah-boogah to control the masses. Hell, the whole country is basically founded on the bedrock fear-mongering of “Do what your boss tells you or starve.”
Reasonable alternatives exist that could preserve our elites’ basic usefulness, but they all seem to violate some religion of theirs.
Devising solutions…
Per Wikipedia 1957 1958 Influenza Panmdemic, (today it would not likely be called that), the first case was in Guizhou, China, either late 1956 or Feb 1957 (sounding familiar?).
A vaccine entered trial on July 26, 1957.
On Oct of the same year, vaccine was available in the UK…initially in limited quantities.
Can we do as good or better this time?
Meditate upon The Mandate of Heaven and how it corresponds with The Iron Law of Institutions.
LOLGOP
@LOLGOP
· May 9, 2020
Nothing says I care about economy more than wearing a bazooka so your sandwich artist doesn’t get too creative
Gun nutz get hungry too!
You mean they don’t want wooden replicas of sandwiches?
Maybe someone can have a giant wooden pen, which can be mightier.
Look at me! I can carry a Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun on my shoulder!
That’s a bit of a giveaway, even before one notices the wood-grain finish on the receiver housing.
You look at these guys and all you think is what a bunch of bankers. And now they are being mocked by the internet for their troubles. But it did not have to be this way. They could have done something else which would have brought them fame instead, and not ignominy & laughter. So, what if instead of mocked-up guns and the like, that they had carried mocked up weapons from sci-fi films which would have delighted a lot of people and had people checking what they were carrying. Those who tried to mock them would have been mocked themselves. So, what sort of weapons?
How about the Armat M41A Pulse Rifle from the movie “Aliens”, the Morita Assault Rifle from the movie “Starship Troopers”, maybe a Lightsaber from “Star Wars”, the Proton Power Pack from “Ghostbusters”, the Zorg Industries ZF1 from “The Fifth Element”, etc. They would have been lauded for their originality instead. Here are some examples-
https://vocal.media/futurism/10-top-sci-fi-film-firearms
Maybe it’s irony. Now I’ve seen that I’m seriously thinking of making a cardboard replica 60mm mortar that I can pull around on a little wagon.
I recall Caesare Borgia and the fake ceramic cannons, from a TV series, against the French army.
Kinda like the Quaker guns of the American Civil War-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_gun
I think the story about the sativa- cdb… as a measure to protect oneself from infection could be improved if it were employed with a good swish and gargle of black rum….. That’s my “go to”
I’ll be more accepting of my daily CBD intake knowing it might be protective, though it looks like might is an essential word here.
Good for the Oceti Sakowin! They as supposed to be a nation but are never allowed to act like one. I hope this leads to a resurgence of pride and an end to the psychological warfare and depression of their nation.
This is an interesting article about zinc and the immune system.
https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/zinc-hope-in-corona-fight/cid/1771935
ive been talking zinc supplements after seeing the same stuff online and the comments of one of the NC commentators (Krystna). zinc is a bit tough to find in my neck of the woods
important to take copper as well as prolonged high zinc intake displaces copper. some supplements combine the two–most dont.
as with anything, dont just hyperdose oneself with a chemical cuz of an article
My understanding is that you shouldn’t take zinc and copper at the same time, as the zinc will prevent absorption of the copper. Best to take them at different times of day.
Yes, this.
I was taking zinc long term and gave myself neutropenia. I took 2mg of cooper for about a week and everything came back to normal.
I’m curious about zinc since as I understand (or misunderstand) it, zinc has a hard time entering the cell without somehting such as hydroxychloroquine to “carry” it in.
Is it useful regardless or does some small amount manage to enter the cell without assistance?
Rather than obsessing about each and every micronutrient, wouldn’t it be better to simply go with “every adult should try to eat a balanced diet with lots of fresh fruit and veggies and take a daily multivitamin supplement”?
“Colombia’s military attache to Washington removed over spying scandal”
Putting on my tin foil-cap, could he have been the liaison between Washington and elements in Colombia plus those Keystone Cop mercenaries that tried to invade Venezuela from Colombia? They tried to kill the King and failed so now that network is maybe being rolled up by the Colombians for bringing the country into disrepute.
Nice theory. I couldn’t figure out from the article what-all it was about but one thing I’m sure of – the real story is both more banal and more brutal than we will ever know. Omerta rules.
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2020/05/housing-park-employees-and-concession-workers-could-be-tricky
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a fair schwag of shared housing in Sequoia NP, and if anything was probably over-shared by seasonals the past 5 summers, as AirBnB et al in town took away the possibility of a May to October finance, er lease.
Our much beloved Superintendent Woody Smeck will be leaving after overseeing opening, we were fortunate to have his talent & wisdom the past 7 years, one of the keepers.
“Coronavirus: French arrivals exempt from UK quarantine plans”
So the UK is finally, finally going with a quarantine. But they are not doing it now for France even though they have their own problems. And this policy will be reviewed later on. This sounds like it was formulated using the Oddly Specific Kamala Harris Policy Generator this-
https://perchance.org/pgk4gv0c6p
Re the antidote
Some time ago a wag noted that the donkey was giving eweber rides…..
And how long until we learn that someone is trying to monetize a donkey portal? /s
Antidote de Jour queries:
How long are the lambs in the pockets?
What is left in the pockets when the lammy-wammies are removed at destination?
Not so cute after all eh? (ref. Donkey)
Pip-pip!
“Vietnam enters day 20 without community transmission of Covid-19”
Let’s see. Let us review the historical record here-
Vietnam – 1, French military – 0
Vietnam – 1, US military – 0
Vietnam – 1, Chinese military – 0
Vietnam – 1, Coronavirus – 0
I am starting to see a pattern here.
Afganistan 1 – the USSR 0?
I think Genghis took it though.
As did Iskander, and he ended up marrying Roxana.
Back to Vietnam, way back, I think a Han general Ma Yuan defeated the people there. Before that, a Qin general, Zhao Tuo did the same, and made himself the founder of Nanyue kingdom.
More ancient still, a prince from Sichuan, possible of the Sanxingdui culture, was believed, perhaps just a myth, to be an earlier rule of Vietnam.
Vietnam exists because of 1,000 years of resisting The Central Kingdom.
And to correct MLTPB:
Afghanistan – 3, UK, USSR, USA – 0
They don’t call Afghanistan the place that empires go to die for nothing.
https://hotair.com/archives/taylormillard/2020/05/10/finger-pointing-begins-ahmaud-arbery-case/
We’re now at the finger-pointing stage of the Ahmaud Arbery case where the so-called “law enforcement” officials need to come up with some explanation on why it was almost swept under the rug.
…
Glynn County Commissioners Allen Booker and Peter Murphy started the blame game by telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that police wanted to arrest the suspects in Arbery’s murder but Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson said, “No.”
…
Johnson stuck up for herself late Friday claiming she’s as innocent as freshly fallen snow because police buggered things up.
===============================================
And so on for a while with a number of other law/judicial officials.
Incompetence or evil?
Why not both
“Money is irrelevant. They pay any price because they are desperate,” one high-level official in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling CDU/CSU group told Reuters. – France24
Above quote related to mask shortages in an article explaining how governments worldwide were stating masks were unnecessary as a necessary white lie because there were insufficient quantities available for medical personnel. Don’t like it, but accept the reality whilst wondering; why not tell us the truth and suggest bandanas from the get go instead of lying? I believe ‘we the people’ would have made do with the alternative in support of the doctors, nurses, and other hospital personnel.
However, my point in sharing this quote is because I believe it’s THE guiding principle regarding drug pricing in the USA. And this one sentence explains my support of Senator Bernie Sanders despite an adult lifetime of voting Republican. For him to cease campaigning for the good of the Democratic party is a betrayal. I will NEVER vote for good old Joe.
Re Sanders, the rot runs deep.
I got an email yesterday wanting me to sign a petition to “demand” hazard pay for the frontline workers providing the rest of us with essential services and goods.
This bothered me until I recognized what is so wrong with this. A lot of us GIs got hazardous duty pay in Vietnam, I think it amounted to about $30 a month (yes, those dollars were “worth” more than today’s). GIs today doing the Empire’s stupid bidding in far-flung activities can get up to $150 per month, a little more for officers, senior NCOs and paratroopers doing “high-altitude, Low-opening” SEAL and Special Forces type sneak jumping. I guess a hazard pay for wait staff, nurses and doctors, caregivers in nursing homes, sales clerks and staff in supermarkets, can be “adequately compensated” for the risks they pretty uniformly are coerced by the neoliberal structure into facing (“Work, or don’t eat!”) and the lack of health care, by a $2 or $3 an hour pay bump.
What really ticked me off was that “and safe working conditions” was mentioned only in a passing afterthought.
So we can assuage our progressive collective guilt by maybe mandating that Bezos and Kenneth M. Sullivan, CEO of Smithfield Foods, Inc, pay their slaves another couple of bucks an hour, doing nothing about the working conditions there. Just odd that AOC and Bernie are pumping for us other mopes to contribute our spare change to various funds they are managing, which we have to believe are actually distributing this crowdsourcing money to worthy beneficiaries. When trillions of funny Munny have sluiced out of the common pot into the coffers of the Very Special Potentate Few… With damned little attention to those working conditions that can and should be fixed, in addition to the couple of bucks that is supposed to “compensate” for the risks people are forced to be subjected to.
There’s progressivism for ya…
We watched the Tara Reade interview with Megyn Kelly on Saturday morning and thought it was good. But I don’t see any impact from it in the rest of the infoworld. Is that the case or am I just not looking in the right places?
If you don’t see it, it didn’t happen.
Or, if you are CNN, this is more important (nothing on their page about TR); Why aren’t editorial boards screaming: Trump has to go?
The Rev Kev
May 11, 2020 at 10:27 am
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/483996291194605918/
You can’t leave out the “noisy cricket” from Men in Black
You know, in researching that comment, that gun came up a lot–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTqxFIpc1j4
The Rev Kev
May 11, 2020 at 11:00 am
As they always say, its not the size of your gun, but the power in your shot…
Future generations will look at Men In Black as a type of Rosetta Stone of quotes to decipher the behaviors circa the millennium.
Off The Street
May 11, 2020 at 11:24 am
Jay:
Wait a minute. You just flash that thing, it erases her memory, and you just make up a new one?
Kay:
A standard issue neuralyzer. (AKA how the MSM reports, omits, or modifies the “news” – standard operating procedure)
How about Gidney and Floyd’s scrootch gun?
“Wuhan reports first new coronavirus cases since end of lockdown”
This virus is so resilient. You turn your back on it and it roars back up again. It has done so here in China, in South Korea and in Germany as they started to re-open up again and ease restrictions. I was thinking about this point today when I realized that it was the Iceman of viruses. Bear with me a minute. In the 1986 film “Top Gun” you had one fighter pilot (played by Val Kilmer) that was nick-named “The Iceman”. The money quote from the film is-
“That’s him – Iceman. It’s the way he flies, ice cold, no mistakes. He wears you down, you get bored, frustrated, do something stupid and he’s got ya.”
Well that is this virus. “He wears you down, you get bored, frustrated, do something stupid and he’s got ya.” I can’t think of a better description of how this virus works.
Also roared back or is coming back in Singapore and, I believe, Iran.
As per playwright Eugene O’Neill… “The Iceman Cometh”.
And don’t forget George Gervin
+1
To use a less warrior-fetishizing analogy (ugh – Tom frickin’ Cruise), you could invoke Lt. Columbo … I seem to recall Peter Falk once describing his character’s tenacity in going after the murder suspect as “having Columbo on your trail is like being pecked to death by a duck”.
Ewmayer, now the duck has morphed into a black swan. Swans are fierce and , though beautiful in their appearance, are painful if in their space. I was told that innouncertain circumstances when, out if the blue, we crossed a hedge, onto a lake. I gasped at the regal pair and one hissed and glided toward me. We backed away and stayed safe.
You may have a point. With Columbo, a suspect would think that they were rid of him as he was leaving but then Columbo would stop at the door, turn around, and say “Oh, one more thing…” and then it would start all over again.
I used to like the writers conceit of having the Colombo character be both the ‘Good Cop’ and the ‘Bad Cop’ in the same scene.
You couldn’t have a cop like Columbo being made on TV these days. He is not ex-CIA/Special Forces, he is not young, not handsome, not slim, not sassy & full of one-liners and all the rest of it. Lots of those cop shows from the 70s were starring people that looked like everyday people but these days, not so much.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/11/us/fort-worth-texas-park-shooting/index.html
5 people were injured during Texas shooting at a park with 600 people
600 people!
Brian & SKM:(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/) NB the date.
That’s a good link on HQ. In vitro primate cells, and I have no idea if it became a preferred treatment, but there’s some interesting thinking on mechanisms.
Americans waiting out coronavirus in Canadian and Mexican border cities reflect on time away ABC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You wonder if French fled to other countries as the revolution came calling before Guillotine blades started falling, or was it even possible?
Given my druthers, i’d have preferred to watch comeuppance see us sometime, from a rented house in NZ instead, no need for a bunker. Been awhile, but I think you were allowed a 6 month stay per visit, as a holidaying Yank.
I have not received my half baked twelve hundred clams yet, imagine what people must be going through, newly unemployed, new sense of less worth, sometimes combined with anger issues, jumping through hoops to get ‘r done, but being stymied out of semollians.
When our societal pressure cooker explodes-rules & morals are so pre-plague.
Wuk
They caught Count Roblais and put him under the guillotine to get him to spill the beans on other regal escapees. He screamed arret! It was too late though. The moral of the story: “Don’t hatchet your counts before they chicken.”
‘You wonder if French fled to other countries as the revolution came calling’
Absolutely. There were thousands if not tens of thousands of French who fled France for England during the French Revolution. They formed their own communities there and went into business to support themselves. It was a popular place for French refugees and happened with the Huguenots previously as well as later with the French troubles of the late 1840s and the early 1870s. Happen to have a paper on my computer called “French Republican Exiles in Britain 1848-1870” from studying these movements.
Bond Market Soaring. This is sort of a funny post considering that anybody with an average IQ should have shifted to bonds back in January especially in light of a very profitable 2019 and the tsunami of articles in the MSM and econ journals predicting a recession in 2020-2021 (which turned out to be dead-on correct).
The Storm We Can’t See
Of course prescribes the “bailouts” that will be “required” for state, county, and city governments.
So here’s my question. The private sector has been forced to radical change. Resizing, downsizing, changing the product and delivery mix, laying off millions, or closing altogether.
So when do we get to hear about public sector doing their part? When do they start with the massive layoffs? When do the absolute armies of non-essential workers pushing papers, hounding people about parking tickets, or measuring the allowable width of handicapped ramps get to stand down? When do the armies of consultants and hangers on who rode Illinois finances into an absolute pit show up to work to find their “work” no longer exists?
If the private sector closes altogether, or the biggest of them only survives with political money from Father State, and the public sector stays intact, didn’t we already see a country that tried that? I believe it was called The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. You can watch as a modern-day visitor, the very engaging Bald and Bankrupt, has a look around to see how it all worked out for them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPprbc0U8yU