The front page of the Washington Post for April 16 featured a story detailing the saga of individuals, who, when exhibiting likely COVID-19 symptoms were told to stay home. They did so, and infected other family members, some of whom died. So, staying home with your family could be more dangerous than walking past a stranger in a supermarket?
Perhaps it’s time to get the opinion of a real world-renowned virologist, to counterbalance the nearly useless modeling (cf. here) and posturing of so-called public health “experts” and bureaucrats.
Listen to Hendrik Streeck, MD PhD, Head of the Institute of Virology and Institute for HIV Research, University Hospital Bonn, Germany. He was announcing results from research based on surveys and investigations in homes across the Heinsberg region (known as Germany’s epicenter for COVID-19)—where more than 1,400 confirmed cases had been reported. The city has a population of ca. 250,000 and 46 coronavirus-related deaths.
“There is no significant risk of catching the disease when you go shopping. Severe outbreaks of the infection were always a result of people being closer together over a longer period of time, for example the après-ski parties in Ischgl, Austria.”
As to spreading via surface contamination, Streeck noted that “When we took samples from door handles, phones, or toilets it has not been possible to cultivate the virus in the laboratory on the basis of these swabs. To actually [catch] the virus it would be necessary that someone coughs into their hand, immediately touches a doorknob and then straight after that another person grasps the handle and goes on to touch their face.”
There is also the recently confirmed finding that COVID-19 is a droplet infection and cannot be transmitted through the air. According to virologist Christian Drosten, coronavirus is extremely sensitive to drying out, so the only way of contracting it is if you were to inhale the droplets. There have been various reports touting long viability for the virus on surfaces, but caution should be exercised in comparing ideal laboratory conditions to real life.
Streeck’s results are also a cause for some optimism. While 14% of his cohort were infected, the overall death rate is only 0.37% (compared to 0.1% for the flu). This is much lower than earlier speculations, but Streeck has sufficient data to make a proper calculation. As such, we seem to be much closer to the herd immunity that will be necessary to control this scourge.
Also in play is the notion of viral evolution, which suggests—at least in theory—that a successful virus would not kill off its host too soon. Thus, the virus would tend to become somewhat less virulent as it spreads from host to host.
One of the more bizarre criticisms of Streeck’s work was put forth by epidemiologist Gérard Krause who stated that they should not have counted every single person who tested positive, but “only take one person per household.” Because if one person in the household is infected, they rest will soon follow suit, and the result will be falsified.
So, to determine the infection rate—which is the number of people infected divided by the total population studied—you should not really use the total population. Could this derive from jealousy that Streek is getting all the publicity? Isn’t academic science wonderful?
Funny though, that Krause tacitly assumes that one person in a household will soon infect everyone else, which seems to strike at the very heart of “shelter in place,” doesn’t it? To cite just one example, CNN’s Chris Cuomo states that he infected his wife.
The idea of a lower fatality rate seems to be confirmed in a Danish study of 1,487 blood donors, 22 of whom tested positive for the COVID-19 antibodies. If this is extrapolated to the entire population of Denmark, it works out to 127,000 people being infected in the country. And based on 203 Danes found to have died of coronavirus, it gives a mortality rate of 0.16%. But, assuming that blood donors are healthier than the rest of the population, this figure needs to be adjusted upward a bit.
Which brings us to the stunning findings of Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University who plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. As it happens, irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in exactly the same way.
This is way too reminiscent of the old joke about someone who was sure he had the cure for the common cold. “Take a tablespoon of this elixir every day, and in seven to ten days, your cold will be gone.”
By Michael D. Shaw April 13, 2020
For those few people who still think that Science is a pure and untainted search for truth, working for the betterment of mankind, the unfolding drama of the novel coronavirus pandemic should definitely disabuse them of that notion. Let’s start with China’s shameful actions at the very beginning.
On December 10, 2019, Wuhan seafood merchant Wei Guixian was feeling ill, and sought treatment for flu-like symptoms. By the 16th, she was admitted to a local hospital, suffering from a “ruthless” infection, and by the end of the month was quarantined. She has subsequently recovered. On December 30, Ai Fen, of Wuhan Central Hospital, posted information on WeChat about the new virus. She was reprimanded for doing so and told not to disseminate information about it. The next day, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization.
However, on January 1, 2020, the Hubei Provincial Health Commission ordered labs, which had already determined that the novel virus was similar to SARS, to stop testing samples and to destroy existing samples. In the ensuing weeks, Chinese scientists mapped the virus’ genome, although they waited several days before releasing this information. They also underplayed how much the infection was proliferating.
Infamously, on January 14, the now brutally-politicized WHO parroted the Chinese government’s ridiculous contention that “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.” Sure thing. A virus already identified as being similar to the notorious SARS is spreading like mad, and there is “no clear evidence.”
Detailed modeling published in March suggests that if interventions by the Chinese could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent, and 95 percent respectively—significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.
And, then, of course, there is the “Orange Man Bad” aspect of this whole affair. Trump was roundly condemned for his late January travel ban from China to the US. Indeed, on February 4, clueless (if not totally corrupt) WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (not a medical doctor) opined that “Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit.” Typically, few media outlets retracted their denunciations when it became obvious that Trump was absolutely correct in his actions.
Trump is also being criticized for his advocacy of hydroxychloroquine, in combination with various other drugs, as a possible treatment for COVID-19. The concept of using this sort of therapy is based on reports going back to at least 2005 that chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread. Early publications on efficacy against COVID-19 include this paper, and the work of Didier Raoult et al.
There seem to be people objecting to this therapy simply because they believe that more deaths would be harmful to Trump’s reelection possibilities. Some media figures are even citing the absurd case of a person who ingested a fish tank cleaner in the hopes of gaining some benefit, implying that Trump is somehow responsible.
There are also quasi-legitimate objections. In ideal circumstances, all drugs would be subjected to randomized, double-blind controlled trials, of large size. Certainly, numerous pointy-heads have reminded us of this. But what they purposely do not detail to the lay public is that such a paradigm would require some Josef Mengele type figure first dividing the subjects into those who would get the active drug, and those who would not (even if it is random). Thus, in contradiction to all medical ethics, a possibly beneficial treatment would be denied to half the subjects, during a pandemic.
Not really the same as proving out a new weight-loss drug or skin cream, is it?
And, if this were not bad enough, the notably rare side effects of hydroxychloroquine—a drug in wide use for decades—have been played up. Bear in mind that dozens of drugs that went through supposedly rigorous randomized clinical trials have been pulled off the market.
In other words, sometimes the “gold standard” for proving out drugs is not always so golden. But leave it to feckless academics and political hacks to gin up a blatantly self-serving controversy—at exactly the wrong time.
More On COVID-19
“There is no significant risk of catching the disease when you go shopping. Severe outbreaks of the infection were always a result of people being closer together over a longer period of time, for example the après-ski parties in Ischgl, Austria.”
As to spreading via surface contamination, Streeck noted that “When we took samples from door handles, phones, or toilets it has not been possible to cultivate the virus in the laboratory on the basis of these swabs. To actually [catch] the virus it would be necessary that someone coughs into their hand, immediately touches a doorknob and then straight after that another person grasps the handle and goes on to touch their face.”
There is also the recently confirmed finding that COVID-19 is a droplet infection and cannot be transmitted through the air. According to virologist Christian Drosten, coronavirus is extremely sensitive to drying out, so the only way of contracting it is if you were to inhale the droplets. There have been various reports touting long viability for the virus on surfaces, but caution should be exercised in comparing ideal laboratory conditions to real life.
Streeck’s results are also a cause for some optimism. While 14% of his cohort were infected, the overall death rate is only 0.37% (compared to 0.1% for the flu). This is much lower than earlier speculations, but Streeck has sufficient data to make a proper calculation. As such, we seem to be much closer to the herd immunity that will be necessary to control this scourge.
Also in play is the notion of viral evolution, which suggests—at least in theory—that a successful virus would not kill off its host too soon. Thus, the virus would tend to become somewhat less virulent as it spreads from host to host.
One of the more bizarre criticisms of Streeck’s work was put forth by epidemiologist Gérard Krause who stated that they should not have counted every single person who tested positive, but “only take one person per household.” Because if one person in the household is infected, they rest will soon follow suit, and the result will be falsified.
So, to determine the infection rate—which is the number of people infected divided by the total population studied—you should not really use the total population. Could this derive from jealousy that Streek is getting all the publicity? Isn’t academic science wonderful?
Funny though, that Krause tacitly assumes that one person in a household will soon infect everyone else, which seems to strike at the very heart of “shelter in place,” doesn’t it? To cite just one example, CNN’s Chris Cuomo states that he infected his wife.
The idea of a lower fatality rate seems to be confirmed in a Danish study of 1,487 blood donors, 22 of whom tested positive for the COVID-19 antibodies. If this is extrapolated to the entire population of Denmark, it works out to 127,000 people being infected in the country. And based on 203 Danes found to have died of coronavirus, it gives a mortality rate of 0.16%. But, assuming that blood donors are healthier than the rest of the population, this figure needs to be adjusted upward a bit.
Which brings us to the stunning findings of Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University who plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. As it happens, irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in exactly the same way.
This is way too reminiscent of the old joke about someone who was sure he had the cure for the common cold. “Take a tablespoon of this elixir every day, and in seven to ten days, your cold will be gone.”
For those few people who still think that Science is a pure and untainted search for truth, working for the betterment of mankind, the unfolding drama of the novel coronavirus pandemic should definitely disabuse them of that notion. Let’s start with China’s shameful actions at the very beginning.
On December 10, 2019, Wuhan seafood merchant Wei Guixian was feeling ill, and sought treatment for flu-like symptoms. By the 16th, she was admitted to a local hospital, suffering from a “ruthless” infection, and by the end of the month was quarantined. She has subsequently recovered. On December 30, Ai Fen, of Wuhan Central Hospital, posted information on WeChat about the new virus. She was reprimanded for doing so and told not to disseminate information about it. The next day, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization.
However, on January 1, 2020, the Hubei Provincial Health Commission ordered labs, which had already determined that the novel virus was similar to SARS, to stop testing samples and to destroy existing samples. In the ensuing weeks, Chinese scientists mapped the virus’ genome, although they waited several days before releasing this information. They also underplayed how much the infection was proliferating.
Infamously, on January 14, the now brutally-politicized WHO parroted the Chinese government’s ridiculous contention that “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.” Sure thing. A virus already identified as being similar to the notorious SARS is spreading like mad, and there is “no clear evidence.”
Detailed modeling published in March suggests that if interventions by the Chinese could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent, and 95 percent respectively—significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.
And, then, of course, there is the “Orange Man Bad” aspect of this whole affair. Trump was roundly condemned for his late January travel ban from China to the US. Indeed, on February 4, clueless (if not totally corrupt) WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (not a medical doctor) opined that “Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit.” Typically, few media outlets retracted their denunciations when it became obvious that Trump was absolutely correct in his actions.
Trump is also being criticized for his advocacy of hydroxychloroquine, in combination with various other drugs, as a possible treatment for COVID-19. The concept of using this sort of therapy is based on reports going back to at least 2005 that chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread. Early publications on efficacy against COVID-19 include this paper, and the work of Didier Raoult et al.
There seem to be people objecting to this therapy simply because they believe that more deaths would be harmful to Trump’s reelection possibilities. Some media figures are even citing the absurd case of a person who ingested a fish tank cleaner in the hopes of gaining some benefit, implying that Trump is somehow responsible.
There are also quasi-legitimate objections. In ideal circumstances, all drugs would be subjected to randomized, double-blind controlled trials, of large size. Certainly, numerous pointy-heads have reminded us of this. But what they purposely do not detail to the lay public is that such a paradigm would require some Josef Mengele type figure first dividing the subjects into those who would get the active drug, and those who would not (even if it is random). Thus, in contradiction to all medical ethics, a possibly beneficial treatment would be denied to half the subjects, during a pandemic.
Not really the same as proving out a new weight-loss drug or skin cream, is it?
And, if this were not bad enough, the notably rare side effects of hydroxychloroquine—a drug in wide use for decades—have been played up. Bear in mind that dozens of drugs that went through supposedly rigorous randomized clinical trials have been pulled off the market.
In other words, sometimes the “gold standard” for proving out drugs is not always so golden. But leave it to feckless academics and political hacks to gin up a blatantly self-serving controversy—at exactly the wrong time.
More On COVID-19
By Michael D. Shaw April 27, 2020
1. Did the SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) virus originate in that infamous Wuhan lab?
There are actually two labs in the Wuhan area where bats and humans interact. One is the Institute of Virology, eight miles (12.9 km) from the wet market; the other is the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, barely 300 yards (274 m) from the notorious wet market. Urgent safety issues relative to both labs were raised two years ago in State Department cables.
The Institute of Virology Lab claims a Biosafety Level 4 status, while the Center claims BSL-2 status. As anyone involved with quality control knows, certifications are only as good as the diligence of the certificate holder to maintain the necessary conditions and procedures. These labs were certified by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment, but how often they are inspected is unknown. Indeed, the Chinese government has not exactly been forthcoming with details on these labs.
Simply put, unless we can see the quality audit records of the labs, any self-proclaimed BSL level–especially as promoted amidst otherwise harsh secrecy–is pretty thin gruel. So, could a leak have occurred? Absolutely! Please note that the fact that a virus could have leaked from either lab does not mean that it was also engineered there as a bioweapon. Beware of those sources that deliberately conflate these two points, in an attempt to paint the “leak” scenario as a conspiracy theory.
Would such a leak be deliberate or accidental? There is no way to tell–any more than you could tell if a dropped pass were intentional or just legitimately missed by the receiver.
As to the “bioweapon” aspect, this, too, would be extremely difficult to prove. The best arguments against this delve into arcane details of viral genetics. But even those very experts quoted allow themselves some wiggle room:
Importantly, it (the virus’ particular spike protein) hasn’t been seen in wild coronaviruses, per Kristian Andersen, PhD, of the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, and colleagues. Although the “diversity of coronaviruses in bats and other species is massively under-sampled”–absence of evidence might not be evidence of absence.
As I indicated in a previous article, the concept of using this sort of therapy is based on reports going back to at least 2005 that chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread. In fact, Dr. Anthony Fauci himself supported the use of this drug for coronavirus. That’s why his current skepticism is a bit disingenuous.
The Trump-hating legacy media seem to be clearly lining up against hydroxychloroquine. On the one hand, they condemn the positive results of Didier Raoult as not being a fully-qualified clinical trial (which Raoult himself states); but then endlessly proclaim the preliminary results of a far-from-perfect VA study showing negative results.
The VA study was not peer-reviewed, and was anything but a randomized trial. Here’s an excerpt from the report:
“However, hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients with more severe disease, as assessed by baseline ventilatory status and metabolic and hematologic parameters. Thus, as expected, increased mortality was observed in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, both with and without azithromycin.”But, there is a whole lot more wrong here and none of it is being reported in the legacy media, in their zeal to attack Trump…
- Inexplicably, the VA study did not use zinc–a key component touted by many physicians, including Los Angeles emergency room specialist Dr. Anthony Cardillo. Zinc is also used in the protocol of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko.
- The hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were predominantly elderly black male veterans with comorbidities (including heart disease, asthma, liver disease, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and cancer), while the control group had less severe patients. You can draw your own conclusions as to why black subjects were singled out.
- Co-author S. Scott Sutton has a flagrant conflict of interest in that he has been paid to write three studies for Gilead Pharmaceuticals, maker of Remdesivir, a drug in trials to treat COVID-19.
- The conclusions of this study have been contradicted by the head of the VA.
Finally, I refer you to an interesting theory on COVID-19, from NYC ER doc Cameron Kyle-Sidell, who has been deep in the trenches with these patients. Could the disease be causing diffusion hypoxemia?
We await further developments.
Still More On COVID-19
1. Don’t believe the death numbers.
From the get-go, the CDC’s “Guidance for Certifying Deaths Due to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19)” seemed a bit off. Certainly, this oft-cited paragraph raised a few eyebrows…
“In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed.” In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely. However, please note that testing for COVID–19 should be conducted whenever possible.”
There is also the somewhat murky fact that hospital reimbursements increase with a COVID-19 diagnosis, even if there may be legitimate reasons for this. One excuse is that the hospitals are losing revenue on delayed elective procedures, which may not be all that “elective.”
Given the current politico-health hysteria, Kevin McCullough offers this example:
“A patient gets admitted to the hospital for organ failure due to late stage cancer. If the patient comes into contact with COVID-19 in the hospital and the virus shows up in a test either before or after death, that’s a COVID-19 fatality. Same with a heart attack/heart disease. Same with fill in the blank. Never mind that as a nation we lose 54,000 persons a month to heart disease, and 50,000 per month to cancer. But by juicing the numbers, it appears Fauci/Birx get to extend the misery, heighten the panic, and continue to command relevancy.”
Related to this is that the number of people infected by the virus is much higher than previously assumed. The takeaway here is that the calculation of COVID-19’s fatality rate (number of deaths/total number of those infected) is profoundly impacted by our lack of knowledge on both the numerator and the denominator.
We already covered the amazing findings of Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, which compared “shutdown” countries to those that operated almost at business as usual, with some restrictions. The virus progressed in just the same way in either case. We would do well to recall that our own mass hysteria began with Dr. Fauci parroting the ridiculous model proposed by Professor Neil Ferguson of the UK, in which 2.2 million Americans would die from coronavirus.
Notably, this is not Ferguson’s first terrible epidemiological model. He also completely botched the 2001 Mad Cow Disease projections. So why is anyone even listening to this guy? I guess nothing succeeds like failure and cf. here.
As to Fauci–who seems to do little more than rely on other “experts,” despite his extraordinarily long tenure in public health–why is he apparently unable to evaluate outside information to synthesize his own policy? Indeed, a bright high school student could research and report the opinions and findings of others. But that’s only the beginning of the exercise. Shouldn’t we expect more of our leaders?
Questioning of the continuing shutdown–even by medical personnel on the front lines–is not be tolerated, and a highly-viewed video was taken down by YouTube. Many are dismayed at the power grabs taken by certain governors. Some voices are even more dire.
Only a few weeks ago, there was a big concern over availability of ventilators for COVID-19 patients. But, that seems to be changing. Renowned ventilator expert Luciano Gattinoni said that “I realized as I saw the first CT scan…that this had nothing to do with what we had seen and done for the past 40 years.”
In an article published on March 30, he and his colleagues stated that COVID-19 does not lead to typical respiratory problems. Patients’ lungs were working better than they would expect for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome; they were more elastic. As such, mechanical ventilation should be given “with a lower pressure than the one we are used to.”
Now we have the ventilator shortage that wasn’t. More media hype. What a shock.
It’s not a game-changer in that people taking remdesivir recovered in 11 days on average, compared with 15 days for those on a placebo. ACSH’s Josh Bloom is not too excited. And, the cynic in me wonders why these results are being hyped, while anything regarding hydroxychloroquine is either dismissed or not covered at all–unless it is negative. Or, as Court Anderson puts it:
“So, an expensive drug that has never been approved to treat any illness is getting hyper-tracked, while an inexpensive, well-known drug, one that has been shown in multiple studies to be effective at treating coronavirus, remains underutilized.”
Michael J. Goldberg MD, well-known to those in the Neuro-Immune Dysfunction Syndrome community, has long held that many supposedly healthy individuals may be walking around with an overly activated immune system, and higher than normal viral titers in their blood. He argues that this could be a factor in the outcomes of some COVID-19 patients. Goldberg offers his recommended blood tests to all interested parties.
No comments:
Post a Comment