The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Open Thread

As usual, feel free to use the comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

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38 Comments

  1. I like Fauci (or did, until just recently), but his response to a question about hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin evidence as (just) “anecdotal” was grossly wide of the mark, even if technically correct. The protocol combining these was recently shown to drop levels of covid-19 to basically zero, in 5 days.

    I agree with Laura Ingraham that, in an emergency, you shouldn’t wait on “randomized” studies.

    Something is very, very wrong, here. It’s a given that Big Pharma has corrupted Congress, and doubtless our regulators, but running out of ventilators is a bridge too far. Or, so one would think.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7whUqAAx8uM

    Meanwhile, the irrepressible Jimmy Dore is reporting that the manufacturer of hydroxychloroquine doubled it’s price on January 23rd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSRQwNSyn7w

  2. Hugh

    We are living and some of us will be dying in the Trump era, where there are lies, damn lies, and Trump, where there is no leadership, bad leadership, spectacularly bad leadership, and Trump.

  3. [sigh] Jared Kushner has the entire federal gov’t at his disposal, every health crisis org on the planet at his beck and call… and his brother’s father-in-law is doing pandemic response research for him on Facebook. Just let that settle in.

    Not like anyone could have predicted that the party of Nazis, compromised Russian assets, pedophile wrestling coaches, mall creepers, sex-trafficking plutocrats, blackout-drunk rapist judges, and bone saw murder apologists would also be the party of insider-trading pandemic profiteers, aeh?

  4. Ivory Bill Woodpecker

    This is what the resident quackery enthusiast wants the rest of us to drink:

    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement

  5. S Brennan

    Sad, disappointed that Tulsi dropped out of the race and rendered onto Biden support, the eventual nominee…she was obligated to under her debate agreement and verbal promises but still…

    I had hoped after Sanders folded [once again], Tulsi would [once again] take the suicidal charge forward. But, after all, she did that in 2016 and never so much as got a thank you from the Sanders people. Indeed, Sanders staff went out of their way to insult Gabbard in what can only be described as vicious sadism.

    Fortunately, 2020 will be the last we will ever hear of Sander’s “movement”, idolatry of men being what it is….an activity with a certain God given shelf life…the spasmodic collapse Sanders temple being only weeks away.

  6. Oh, wow! YOUTUBE CENSORSHIP ALERT!

    I was prompted to write up a post with a time line, due to a youtube I saw, today, of Anderson Cooper* and Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviewing Fauci, which ‘somehow’ missed the main point about hydroxycloroquine PLUS ZPAC being shown to essentially CLEAR PEOPLE OF COVID-19 WITHIN 6 DAYS. My timeline referred to 3 Ingraham youtubes, but when I got to Friday, I wanted to mention how unlikely that these stellar results were due to chance. The videos I had incorporated didn’t have the segment that dealt with this, so I just clicked on the link I posted in the first comment, which I believe had it.

    THAT VIDEO HAS NOW BEEN CUT TO 1 SECOND. THERE’S NO EXPLANATION OR WARNING THAT THE ORIGINAL VIDEO POSTED HAS BEEN GROSSLY MODIFIED.

    * former CIA intern, which may, or may not, be relevant

  7. The following makes most of the points I wanted to make, but I don’t want to put any more effort into it. Firstly, as mentioned in my previous comment, it looks like YT is censoring Laura Ingraham content related to hydrochloroquine + zpac treatment of covid-19. Secondly, I didn’t bookmark the CNN interview that triggered me to construct this timeline, and now when I search youtube, via “CNN Fauci Anderson Cooper Sanjay Gupta”, then sort by date, the 2 candidate videos that turn up appear not to include them asking Fauci about this treatment.

    Also, I accidentally cut, but didn’t paste, my explicit youtube links, and now they’re gone. (I’m working in notepad…) Not worth is to me to try and find them, again.

    Timeline

    Mon
    YT A first mentioned, Hydroxychloroquine described as safe, been around since WW 2
    “strong reasons to believe” can be used prophylactically
    “5 cents a tablet” (Ingraham had taken chloroquine)
    z pac not explicitly mentioned, but HQ patients tested negative for CV within 6 days

    Tue
    (7:15 YT B) Fauci interviewed, speaks about “anecdotal” evdidence, but ONLY MENTIONS HYDROXYCLOROQUINE

    Thu
    Trump mentions hydroxycloroquine in the CV briefing
    Fauci again describes as “anecdotal”

    Fri
    (YT C :35) Fauci asked about HQ as prophylaxis, he describes the claim as “anecdotal”; AFAIK, this is exactly right, in the sense of JUST “anecdotal”. AFAIK, there was no study to support this; certainly, nothing mentioned in A or B
    Even if HQ is useless as a prophylactic, as a treatment, together with ZPAC, the recent experiment pointed to this combo as stunningly effective
    (YT C 2:16) graph of data showing HQ + ZPAC vs. controls vs. HQ

  8. Jace

    These four distilleries in NH have converted some or most of their operations to the production of hand sanitizer -not to sell, but to donate to first responders, clinics, community outreach and county health programs. All four were waiting for BATF to lift a ban.

    Flag Hill Distillery of Lee, NH
    Smoky Quartz of Seabrook, NH
    Djinn Spirits of Nashua, NH
    Steadfast Spirits of Concord, NH

    Something to keep in mind.

    Flag Hill’s manager thinks they can be up to 45 gallons a day, by Thurs.

  9. Zachary Smith

    Headline: As Covid-19 catastrophe grows, Evangelical Missionaries target uncontacted tribes

    Brazil has a right-wing government. I can’t say anything about the accuracy of this story, but my searches for information about that “New Tribes Mission” didn’t turn up anything I’d call nice. Using missionaries to wipe out the savages so their land could be taken. Such a scheme might work.

    http://www.brasilwire.com/as-covid-19-catastrophe-grows-missionaries-target-uncontacted-tribes/

  10. Zachary Smith

    https://www.ianwelsh.net/open-thread-48/#comment-111808

    The MOA blogger is out with a new post in which he comments about the anti-malaria drug as a coronavirus treatment. IMO his version of events makes a lot more sense than those of professional jackass Laura Ingraham or the omniscient stable genius Trump.

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/03/coronavirus-on-western-government-failures-and-possible-therapies.html

  11. MOA says, “During the cause of a SARS-CoV-2 infection the virus does starts to multiply in the throat but it then migrates down into the lower lung. Only there begins the virus to grow in really big numbers and to cause damage. While that happens the virus count in the throat region goes down.”

    Yet, if you look at the graph of data shown by Laura Ingraham (2:35 @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KsSet1ZN4&t=234s) , you can clearly see that the viral load of the controls is virtually unchanged, over the 6 day test period. So, what is he talking about?

    Furthermore, the graph suggests that hydroxychloroquine is far less effective alone than when combined with azithromycin. From the comments in the MOA, the Chinese are already using hydroycholorquine as a Plan B, when their basic regimen isn’t working:

    “If the basic regimen is not effective, chloroquine phosphate can be used on adults between 18-65 years old (weight ≥ 50 kg: 500 mg bid; weight ≤50 kg: 500 mg bid for first two days, 500 mg qd for following five days).”

    So, the Chinese find it useful, even without the synergy provided by the zpac.

    MOA also says, “During the cause of a SARS-CoV-2 infection the virus does starts to multiply in the throat but it then migrates down into the lower lung. Only there begins the virus to grow in really big numbers and to cause damage. While that happens the virus count in the throat region goes down. The French researchers did not know that.”

    Supposedly, the proof of that – i.e., what the French didn’t know – and not just the claim that they didn’t know, are contained in the German transcript. I don’t read German, so will disregard, until I see otherwise (in English). Since covid-19 kill mostly by ARDs, I find this claim of French ignorance to be doubtful.

    The really critical thing, at this time, is whether the disease can at least be arrested enough to keep people from needing a ventilator, or getting them off a ventilator.

    N.B. My cousin has a lot of Nigerian patients, who have taken HQ. Developing allergies to it is an issue.

  12. Chuck Mire

    An Ex-Health Insurance Executive blows the whistle on his former employers

    Coronavirus Pandemic Reveals Just How Devastating the Greed of For-Profit Insurance Industry Has Become. Remember: For-profit insurers are in the business to make a profit. Period.

    By Wendell Potter -03.18.2020

    https://tarbell.org/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-reveals-just-how-devastating-the-greed-of-for-profit-insurance-industry-has-become/

    This same information was sent as a series via his twitter account in ten consecutive tweets

    https://twitter.com/wendellpotter/status/1238569855936106496

  13. Chuck Mire

    Dr. David Ho is Leading Four Research Teams to Find a Coronavirus Treatment | Amanpour and Company

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-rYVWmqoI

    Dr. David Ho is a world-renowned doctor and researcher on the frontlines of the crisis. In the 1990s, he invented the AIDS cocktail, a drug strategy recognized as a turning point in the fight against the disease. Now he’s racing to battle COVID-19, leading four teams working to find a treatment. Using the video communication tool Zoom, Dr. Ho joins Walter Isaacson to explain the lessons we should have learned from the 2003 SARS outbreak and his predictions for the coming months.

    The current test that is being administrated is NOT the full test that is successfully being administrated in South Korea. Our current tests (which are not yet widely available – even swabs are made in Italy) are called PCR tests (swabs from the nose or the mouth – looking for the viral RNA). The additional tests used in China, South Korea and Europe are antibody and antigen tests which tells if the body has been exposed to the virus and mounted an immune response. Until this test is out in huge numbers into society, there can be no accurate understanding of the total penetrance of the virus into the population – we are operating blind. That is what Dr. Ho is rushing to get accomplished by getting the FDA to relax their rules in the interest of speed for antibody tests that have been developed in his lab at Columbia Medical School.

  14. Zachary Smith

    From the Hullabaloo site: Bill Barr hard at work undermining democracy

    My reading of it all is that The Authorities could decide you’re some kind of menace, and throw you into jail until the “emergency” is over. Recalling the adage that they can indict a ham sandwich if it pleases them to do so, and that there are currently 31 continuing Emergencies dating back to 1979, this could mean you might come out of the dungeon they tossed you into and go straight to the Nursing Home.

    Yes, the link says the Democrats may not allow this. But recall how very eager those same Democrats have been to “cooperate” with the Republicans. Besides all the general brotherly love, they also have a tendency to make trades. Say, “we”ll give you the Forever Jail” bit if you’ll promise to increase Unemployment Benefits by 2%. Obama was just itching to cut Social Security in his Grand Bargain. I’ve read that the Monica crisis was all that saved us from male Clinton making the same Social Security cuts.

    The Power Elites try to never let a good crisis go to waste, so there is no telling what they’re going to be putting in the highly opaque 600 page “Relief” bills rushing through Congress.

    https://digbysblog.net/2020/03/bill-barr-hard-at-work-undermining-democracy/

  15. Bill

    What is really getting me angry is that POTUS is claiming he did not know anything about this virus, but I knew in January and bought my first supplies nearly two months ago. I am a grade 7 teacher in a rural part of Canada and do not have the world\’s \’best\’ intelligence services to guide me [but do have the Peak Prosperity website and Chris Martinson]. Certain politicians are saying China lied about this virus and should pay, but isn\’t that what US politicians have been doing for the last 6-8 weeks?

  16. Zachary Smith

    https://www.ianwelsh.net/open-thread-48/#comment-111840

    Trump is incapable of focusing on more than one thing at a time, and even that’s a chancy proposition if there is an opportunity to talk about himself.

    In early January he was murdering the Iranian General Soleimani, and took a full week to unwind from that.
    For the next several weeks he was involved in the Impeachment charade.
    After that he fluttered around in his butterfly-brain mode until appointing Pence as Disease Czar on February 28.
    There were more weeks of claiming AND ACTING like everything was under control.
    Lately Trump has been touting miracle cures and saying no matter what happens, he was always doing the best possible job and if everything wasn’t totally perfect, it was somebody else’s fault.

    I hope your supplies are being kept updated, for we still have no idea how bad things are going to get with the coronavirus epidemic. Worse, there is always the possibility of other things happening. Lots of other diseases lurk out there, and not all of them affect humans. (this isn’t to say we can’t have two Pandemics going on at the same time) There could be another corn blight, a cattle/pig/chicken disease outbreak. India and Pakistan could exchange some nukes. A really big volcano could go off somewhere. Because the US Power Elites have destroyed our government, the response to any of these events will look a lot like what the Trumpies have done to us recently. Chaos and incoherence.

  17. Mojave Wolf

    Going to save any other comments till later, but my one comment for now —

    @S Brennan — right there with you on the Tulsi disappointment / bitterness. Signed in from work earlier this week primarily to express this. Quoting myself from the “Lessons of the Virus” thread:

    Saw that Tulsi is dropping out, which is disappointing, but worse, endorsing Biden, who is everything she hated and has fought against (even destroyed her career fighting against)(were he less mentally deficient, he almost certainly would have been in on the “how to make an example of this person for defying us” talks). Am as bitterly disappointed as when Bernie gave up with barely a hint of fight, and moreso in some ways, because Tulsi, until now, had been a true fighter.

    I really don’t want to have to vote for Trump. Have already decided to vote against the Dem party across the board, because their entire leadership and anyone in their image has to be replaced across the board for there to be any hope in the future. The Republicans suck too, but they are at least more up front about what they stand for, and from what my wife tells me are actually being more populist in their response to current problems than idiot “give them tax credits and let’s take a lot of extra time to do the means testing which will still leave some needy people out” Pelosi and the rest of the Dem establishment. The Greens are so messed up I not sure they even send the right message with a protest vote.

    Hopefully we shall see some sort of realignment soon where SOME viable party actually cared about working people and saving the planet, is reasonably honest about things, and is at least sorta competent. Otherwise, might as well sing along with Everclear’s “Santa Monica”, and “swim out past the breakers / and watch the world die.”

    Also agree w/you about Bernie’s failure to reign in his staff when they repeated MSM/MIC/DNC slander & libel about Tulsi, made far worse by his stabbing Teachout & Sirota in the back for saying 100% verifiably true things about Biden, who stands for everything Bernie is opposed to as much as he stands for everything Tulsi is opposed to. I don’t have the hostility towards him that you do (or anything resembling it; I still credit him for there being any hope at all in politics and proving that there is a real possibility of an alternative to the Reality Checker solution or complete despair or waiting on supernatural/alien intervention, tho we probably have to get hand-counted hand marked paper ballots to have any shot of getting it) but his failure to have the back of someone who not only had his at every turn even to the point of damaging & possibly ruining her career over it when she was the Dem’s golden girl of the future is totally indefensible, inexcusable, infuriating and kinda disgusting. (he’s still light years better than any of the dems other than her even w/that said; or possibly Ojeda)

    Still dismayed that she went so “Biden is a good hearted guy (NO) and has the aloha spirit (NO) and this is the best thing to for the country (NO, making three increasingly obvious lies in a row, along w/the rest). I get she signed the pledge, tho I don’t get that she or Bernie have to honor it given that I think there’s an unspoken “for me to do this you have to not screw me over and give me an actual shot” plus the whole “contracts signed w/a gun to the head are not valid”, and “you can’t run unless you make this stupid promise” is one of those.

    Will save everything else for one of my full off days tomorrow or Monday, but wanted to comiserate.

  18. ~ Using missionaries to wipe out the savages so their land could be taken. Such a scheme might work.

    I wish I could chuckle like Jabba the Hutt.

  19. “Cuomo’s coronavirus TV briefings may have Biden, Sanders worried” @ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomos-coronavirus-tv-briefings-may-have-biden-sanders-worried

    I don’t understand why Sanders would be worried, as he seems to have already conceded a loss. But Biden being worried makes sense.

    I don’t know what Cuomo’s positions on anything national are, nor his “corruption profile”, so to speak. One thing seems self-evident. He’s a better crisis manager than Trump.

  20. Hugh

    Sunday NYT has a front page story on Sanders’ “mistakes” as well as another cover story on him in its Sunday magazine. The premise is wrong in that until the coup against Sanders initiated by Obama and the Clintons, Sanders looked like he was going to run the table. The conservative Democrat vote was split among Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar.

    I would assume this is the NYT’s attempt to write Sanders’ political obituary and blame him for his own demise. It’s funny that they are giving him more page space here than when his campaign was doing better. They continue to turn the shiv though and I really don’t think it has occurred to them yet that many of his supporters, progressives and Millennials, in particular, are not going to run out and vote for Joe Biden. It always comes back to this, Establishment Democrats would rather lose with Biden than win with Sanders. They can neither see nor care beyond this election. This is true of both the party’s older leaders and its new up and coming ones, Kamala, Beto, Julian, MayoPete, Klobuchar. They’ve thrown the party’s future, progressives and Millennials, under the bus again. At the same time, Boomers are dying off as are older African-Americans. African-Americans have an outsized influence within the party but don’t have the numbers to swing elections nationally and this is especially true of those in the South. So it is that South Carolina, a state that Democrats have no chance of winning in the national election, becomes decisive in determining who (Biden) the Democratic nominee will be. It makes no sense. Maybe it will work one more time but I kind of doubt it. But what then? after they have burned all their bridges with the younger voters they will need to keep the party viable.

  21. From “Toxicologist says anti-malaria drugs show ‘promise’ in treating coronavirus” @ https://www.foxnews.com/media/toxicologist-reacts-after-trump-announces-fda-making-anti-malaria-drug-available-to-test-covid-19-treatment

    The toxicologist, a Dr. Chris Martenson, said

    “What we don’t know yet is how much better are these patients actually fairing from a long-term outcome?” he said.”And let’s be clear about this: This is not a cure. We don’t know if it works on a preventative basis yet. But what this does is it seems to give a better outcome once in the clinic.”

    Caveats aside, Martenson added: “THIS IS THE MOST PROMISING THING I HAVE SEEN SO FAR.” (emphasis mine)

  22. From “Cuomo: NY to conduct drug trials for coronavirus treatment ” @ https://auburnpub.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/cuomo-ny-to-conduct-drug-trials-for-coronavirus-treatment/article_0fb6c870-7e29-5ee5-8bda-bbda132a5418.html :

    “New York will conduct trials for drugs that could be used to treat patients with the novel coronavirus who are seriously ill.

    Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will send 10,000 doses of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine to New York. Azithromycin is an antibiotic and hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria.

    Cuomo spoke to President Donald Trump on Friday and expressed interest in conducting trials in New York.”

    From that last sentence, it appears that Trump expedited Cuomo’s request. If so, and it’s successful, we’re going to be hearing about it every day for the next 1-5 years. 🙂

  23. Z

    I’m not angry with Sanders overall. He’s a 77 year old man who pushed himself hard, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, to try to create positive change for the working class and I respect that he came off the hospital bed and from a minor heart attack to continue the fight. The notion that he sacrificed all that energy and time to sheepdog for the corporate democrats is beyond ludicrous, the type of sh*t that only clowns who angrily defended Bill Clinton’s record for damn near two decades and cried “Pravda!” when people pointed out how damaging Bill Clinton’s reign was to this country would believe.

    But Brennan, go ahead have your sorry little “victory” dance. Good for you, our chances for universal healthcare have taken a major setback so you won’t have to worry about people getting ten chest x-rays for kicks, or more to the point: you won’t have to pay anything extra for other people because you already got affordable healthcare. And hey Brennan, here’s another little pathetic bonus for you: you don’t have to worry about people taking extra free breath mints from restaurants anymore, now do you?

    As far as that NY Times article about the demise of Sanders’ campaign, which I haven’t read and have only seen excerpts of, the thing that bothers me most from what I’ve heard is that he supposedly didn’t want to attack Biden because him and wife thought of Biden as a friend. If that is in fact true, that does piss me off. I had always assumed that his stance was that attacking Biden would make Bernie look worse so he decided to take the high road. I don’t agree with that, but it’s somewhat defensible as a strategy.

    I tend to think that wasn’t the full reason and that Lyin’ Liz’s misogynist attacks threw the Sanders’ campaign off its stride because they were in the process of attacking Biden on SS and whatnot when Lyin’ Liz* came to the rescue and put them on their heels.

    But if that was the full reason for the Sanders’ campaign not attacking Biden, it’s completely indefensible because when it’s “us, not me” you have to be willing to sacrifice your personal relationships for the greater good.

    *I fully expect Lyin’ Liz to be named as Biden’s running mate and become the candidate when they shortly put Sloppy Joe, who hasn’t been heard from much recently, out to pasture.

    Z

  24. Z

    One of the rumors passing around the intertubes is that the reason that Biden hasn’t shown his face lately is that he had a stroke from the cocktail of drugs they gave him for that last debate. That is not crazy talk. At all. They had that dude tuned up just right for that debate, that was Biden back from the Obama years, and frankly I was stunned at how on point he was. Any person who has been following his decline has to suspect that they had him jacked up on something.

    Just imagine after the corporate democrats pushed a candidate who is obviously in cognitive decline to be the nominee using all their power with donors and their media, even pushing the vote forward with a pandemic loose and endangering the public and more than likely leading to deaths, all to deny Sanders the nomination that they also drugged Biden to the point that they caused him to have a stroke?

    Again, not crazy talk, at all. You can imagine why they’d be hiding that right now until they get the nomination.

    Sloppy Joe might already be out to pasture. Or who knows? Maybe even dead. We might actually have a “Weekend at Biden’s” situation.

    Z

  25. Z

    By the way, I have another comment caught in moderation, and I’m starting to develop a theory as to why this happens.

    I generally copy what I write and then send it, but when I don’t do that it seems like the odds of my comment being caught in moderation increases considerably.

    So my theory is this: it’s best to wait a little bit after you are done typing your comment before you send it because when you send it just after you are done typing it’s still being processed in Word Press so when you send it it’s not been fully processed by Word Press and that causes it to catch.

    Z

  26. nihil obstet

    Sanders is an effective politician.

    Forgive my use of “left” and “right” here, but it’s the language propaganda permits us to use for the different factions. I read somewhere that the extreme left and the extreme right hate him for the same reason — he gets the most left-wing legislation possible through the Congress. So the right wing hates that he moves policy leftwards, and the far left hates him because he compromises. Compromise has rightly become an obscenity, since the Democrats have used it to mean “move governance to the right, only not as far as Republicans wanted”. But when it means “move governance to the left, only not as far as I would like”, I don’t have a problem. Sanders has consistently voted against right wing sadism, and consistently voted for policies only if they are overall better than the status quo.

    He can’t be effective if he insults his colleagues. Yeah, I’d like to see him rally to the support of Sirota and Teachout, but politics ain’t beanbag as they say. The two are active enough to understand what the politician who has to wangle legislative support from other politicians does. And it would be great if he could tell that despicable hack Biden off. But then, great for what? A few feelgood moments? Is it worth it to alienate a man who might become president if you’re going to be working still in the Senate?

    Let’s not fall into the trap of regarding political campaigning as a great righteous Hallmark movie.

  27. Z

    My off-the-cuff sense of right and left wing politics is that a combative politician like Trump has a better chance of gaining power in right wing politics because the electorate on that side tends to be more simpler and it’s between the good and bad guys for them and they like to think they are the good and the others are the bad and they like seeing someone beating up on the bad.

    On the left though it’s more about trying to see the good side of the members on your side, which often truly isn’t the case in their hearts but their selfish need to feel virtuous feeds that mind-f*cked behavior, so a combative left wing politician runs into more resistance on his side.

    So, for a left wing politician being “mean” is more likely to turn off your following while for the right it fuels it.

    Look at it this way: there are no myriad of ways to deploy identity politics on the right, is there? You basically only have us and them and there’s no way to divide them into smaller parts. Identity politics only flourishes on the left, where there are a million and one ways to divide the electorate because they are often not emotionally anchored enough to hold their ground.

    Z

  28. Doctor shows how to use 1 ventilator for 4 patients with similar lung conditions and capacity:

    http://www.tathasta.com/2020/03/in-stroke-of-genius-doctor-turns-1.html

  29. S Brennan

    Agree Mojave, I am disgusted that Tulsi took her endorsement farther than it had to go. Like Bernie in 2016 and like Sanders after 2016, I’ll have a hard time listening to Tulsi from this time forward…unlike the Bernie crowd, who seem to enjoy being misled.

    Disagree on Bernie though, I can’t stand pricks who are incapable of showing loyalty to their troops.

    I think Tulsi’s, over the top, apologia had less to do with a signed contract and promises made and more to do with pulling Bernie’s knives out of her back and sticking them between Bernie ribs. Be gone Bernie, you fooled me once in 2016 but, the millennials…look for them to support a good fleecing in 2024.

    And please…don’t cry for Bernie though, he made out handsomely for taking the dive in 2016

  30. different clue

    Jimmy Dore very recently did a program on the Tulsi Gabbard endorsement of Joe Biden.
    I watched it slowly and carefully and it explained some things. Among many other things, it noted the severe lack of support that Sanders or the Sanders group ever gave Gabbard at any point in the Democratic Party persecution and suppression of Tulsi Gabbard. Beyond that, since I really can’t paraphrase a program in a comment, I would suggest that anyone interested also watch it carefully and slowly. There is value between Dore’s tangential rant-episodes and constant cuss-word touretting.

    Here is the link.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ4VYo3dGPM

  31. nihil obstet

    What I know of the history of the left and of the faux-left Democrats does not lead me to think that either abjures meanness.

  32. NRG

    I discussed the quinine situation with a PhD. biologist who gave me the lowdown on the single scientific paper on its possible anti-viral properties. It was poorly conducted, with control patients located in a different country than the group that were administered the drugs. It was extremely preliminary, and published in a lesser, lower-impact scientific journal. Further, folks with diseases like Lyme need the drug, which is actually efficacious against their serious health problems despite pretty severe side effects. In other words, it’s exactly as Fauci said.

    It’s not impossible that we run across some “magic bullet” among drugs that have already been tested for safety in humans. It is unlikely, though. I see more optimism from medical scientists about possible solutions based on mimicking a genetic quirk found in ~10% of white people the confers partial resistance to the worst effects of a wide array of viruses (CCR5 mutation). Research is quite advanced on drugs to mimic the response those with the mutation have to a severe viral infection. It has been underway for some time in relation to HIV, among other viruses (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3185609/). At best, it keeps ill people from getting worse and dying. You may recall hearing about this gene in relation to the scientist who gene engineered a couple of infants in China to have the mutation last year in an attempt to confer HIV resistance.

  33. You have a point, Z, they tend to be more simpler (sic)

    Oh, and, ahh… if you put your hat on just so, it won’t show.

  34. “In other words, it’s exactly as Fauci said.”

    I’ll meet your Fauci + Ph.D. biologist, and raise you the following, from a French public health expert. I don’t know French, so ran it through a Google translator, with surprisingly good results. I suggest everybody translate it, and read it in its entirety. (Came across this via “jackrabbit”, a commentator at MOA)

    http://jdmichel.blog.tdg.ch/archive/2020/03/18/covid-19-fin-de-partie-305096.html

    Here are some quotes:


    End of the game ?!
    The world’s leading expert in communicable diseases is Didier Raoult. He is French, looks like the choice of a Gaul out of Asterix or a ZZ top who would have put his guitar on the side of the road. He heads the Institut Hospitalier Universitaire (IHU) Méditerranée-Infection in Marseille, with more than 800 employees. This institution has the most terrifying collection of bacteria and “killer” viruses in the world and is one of the best centers of competence in infectiology and microbiology in the world. Professor Raoult is also ranked among the top ten French researchers by the journal Nature, both for the number of his publications (more than two thousand) and for the number of citations by other researchers. Since the start of the millennium, he has followed the various viral epidemics that have struck people and established close scientific contacts with his best Chinese colleagues. Among his great deeds, he discovered treatments (notably with chloroquine…) which appear today in all textbooks of infectious diseases in the world.
    On February 26, he published a resounding video on an online channel (including the word ” tube “) to affirm : ” Coronavirus, end of game ! ”
    The reason for his enthusiasm ? The publication of a Chinese clinical trial on the prescription of chloroquine, showing the suppression of viral carriage in a few days in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Studies have already shown the effectiveness of this molecule against the virus in the laboratory ( in vitro ). The Chinese study confirmed this effectiveness in a group of affected patients ( in vivo ). Following this study, the prescription of chloroquine was incorporated into the recommendations for the treatment of coronavirus in China and Korea, the two countries which have succeeded in controlling the epidemic…
    Chloroquine is a molecule placed on the market in 1949, widely used as an antimalarial. All travelers from tropical countries will remember the tablets of nivaquine ( one of its trade names) which were prescribed to them as a preventive against malaria. This remedy was then replaced by others for certain geographical areas, remaining in use for certain destinations.
    As for hydroxychloroquine ( trade name : plaquenil), it was prepared in 1955 and exhibits hydroxylation on one of the two ethyl groups in the side chain.

    So what ?!
    Why talk to you about this ? Well because Professor Raoult and his teams are the best specialists in the world today in the use of chloroquine. He had particular had the brilliant idea to try it against intracellular bacteria (which penetrate the cells such as viruses), especially Ricksettia. The Marseille IHU therefore has unparalleled clinical and pharmacological experience in the use of this molecule.
    Chloroquine has also demonstrated potent therapeutic efficacy against most coronaviruses , including the dreaded memory loss SARS . Raoult therefore found in the Chinese clinical trial confirmation that chloroquine was also indicated against Covid-19.
    However, he was greeted like a hair on the soup, his colleagues immediately denigrating his proposal. Le Monde newspapers even went so far as to qualify his communication as ” fake news “, an accusation taken up on the website of the Ministry of Health for a few hours before being withdrawn.

    A study published in the Lancet journal on March 11 had meanwhile revealed a new but essential data : the time of viral carriage (duration between the beginning and the end of the infection – and therefore of possible contagiousness) is greater than that it was believed, with an average duration of 20 days. With the hydroxychloroquine / azithromycin combination, this duration is reduced to 4-6 days.
    The drastic reduction in viral delivery time not only gives hope of treating critical cases, but also of reducing the time it takes for an infected person to stop being contagious. And therefore presents enormous prospects for preventing the spread of the virus. This news is of course the best news we could have expected.

    Systematic testing would be easy to set up, as long as it is a health priority and organized, which the Koreans have done in record time. In Europe, we were completely overwhelmed, as if we lived in a different time. The authorities now understand that this is an absolute priority – following in this respect the insistent WHO recommendations.
    PRODUCING THE TESTS PRESENTS NO DIFFICULTY (EMPHASIS MINE) : ” It’s trivial PCR [polymerase chain reaction] that everyone can do, the question is the organization, not the technique, it’s not the capacity diagnostic, we have it , comments Raoult. It is a strategic choice which is not that of most technological countries, in particular the Koreans who are part, with the Chinese, of those who have mastered the epidemic by screening and treatment. We are capable in this country like anywhere else of doing thousands of tests and testing everyone. ”

  35. Z

    Ten Bears,

    I’m grateful that I don’t understand most of what you write.

    Z

  36. Z

    Sloppy Joe is supposed to address the public tomorrow from a studio in one of his mansions.

    I want see him physically interact with something, maybe hold something in his hands, preferably tomorrow’s newspaper, before I’ll be totally convinced that he’s not a hologram.

    Z

  37. NRG

    Wall o’ copy pasta from a rando’s blog. I’ll pass. I did almost add an advisory about information sources. Post a link directly to The Lancet and we can talk.

  38. My last comment has unfortunately fallen into the moderation black hole. I will avoid links in this comment.

    If you look at comment 195 at the moonOfAlabama post “Coronavirus – On Western Government Failures And Possible Therapies”, you will see references for using various forms of quercitin, e.g., a liposomal form, as an alternative to hydroxychloroquine.

    HQ is generally safe, but sometimes not. Furthermore, as my cousin has learned from his Nigerian patients that used it for malaria, you can develop an allergy to it. So, while the quercitin may not work as well as HQ, it could still be a lifesaver in some cases.

    Liposomes are really exciting delivery systems, that I had already heard of (and used). The comment also mentioned niosome, which I assume has a similar size, which dramatically aids absorption.

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