SubJeff on 22/1/2021 at 18:03
The vaccination program has been handled very badly though, with people booked for the 2nd vaccine being turned away.
We need another election already.
Harvester on 25/1/2021 at 12:55
We have a 9 PM - 4.30 AM curfew since Saturday. Some degenerates are protesting the curfew, or I should say there are plain riots going on.
(
https://nos.nl/video/2365922-in-beeld-gewelddadige-uren-na-ingaan-avondklok.html) https://nos.nl/video/2365922-in-beeld-gewelddadige-uren-na-ingaan-avondklok.html
In this 2 minute video (just images, knowledge of Dutch language not required), first you see The Hague, the second city you see is Enschede, a city in the east of the country where I live. I heard the police sirens yesterday night, but I live too far from the city center to hear anything else, thankfully.
Corona policy protesters claim the corona policies of closed stores/bars, and only take-out/delivery at restaurants, are inhumane because these places are at risk of going bankrupt. But then these people break the windows of these very same stores. And they're saying normal healthcare for regular health issues is diminished because everything revolves around corona care. But then they try to break windows of the hospital in my city (and they've destroyed a corona test facility in another town). I seriously can't even...
Azaran on 25/1/2021 at 15:11
Another drug showing positive results, (
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/covid-19-montreal-heart-institute-concludes-colchicine-is-effective) colchicine, a common anti inflammatory.
Quote:
An extensive study launched by the Montreal Heart Institute last March has concluded the anti-inflammatory medication colchicine can reduce some of the complications associated with COVID-19.
In a statement issued Friday, the institute described its findings as a “major scientific discovery” that could help millions of COVID-19 patients around the world.
Colchicine, an oral tablet that's inexpensive and easy to make, is already known and used for other diseases. The study looked at its effects on 4,159 COVID-19 patients.
Patients involved needed to be over the age of 40 and have at least one risk factor for possible complications. The results showed the medication helped reduce hospitalizations by a quarter, the need for mechanical ventilation by half and deaths by 44 per cent.
Researchers involved believe colchicine could become the first oral medication to be used to treat non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Article content continued
In a statement, Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, director of the MHI Research Centre, said the medication could have a “significant impact on public health and potentially prevent COVID-19 complications for millions of patients.”
The institute said prescribing colchicine to patients could also help lower the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 and “reduce healthcare costs here and around the world.”
Called “COLCORONA,” the clinical trial was conducted in Canada, the United States, Europe, South America and South Africa.
The institute had received a $3-million grant to fund the trial in May.
faetal on 25/1/2021 at 16:28
Colchicine reduces inflammation by fucking with white blood cells (reduced division, motility, inflammatory processes), which are presumably needed to fight the infection, so it will be interesting to see how that pans out.
Relevant journal article (
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0242318) here (not sure if it's the one the article above refers to or not).
SubJeff on 25/1/2021 at 21:57
It's also a potential real mofo in overdose, and it's not hard to OD on.
I'll watch this one with caution.
Starker on 28/1/2021 at 12:42
The US doesn't seem to know what to do with all the hydroxychloroquine (apparently, donating it to malaria patients is out of the question for some reason):
Quote:
(
https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/oklahoma-trying-to-return-its-2m-stockpile-of-hydroxychloroquine/)
The Oklahoma Attorney General's Office has been tasked with attempting to return a $2 million stockpile of a malaria drug once touted by former President Donald Trump as a way to treat the coronavirus.
In April, Gov. Kevin Stitt, who ordered the hydroxychloroquine purchase, defended it by saying that while it may not be a useful treatment for the coronavirus, the drug had multiple other uses and “that money will not have gone to waste in any respect.”
Quote:
(
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/06/11/florida-ordered-1-million-doses-of-a-trump-touted-drug-hospitals-didnt-want-it-1292638)
TALLAHASSEE — Florida is sitting on more than 980,000 unused doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug President Donald Trump touted as a “game changer” in the fight against the coronavirus, after only a handful of hospitals in the state asked for access to the medicine.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said in April that the state was getting 1 million doses of the drug. The announcement was made during a press conference that came across as a commercial for hydroxychloroquine. Held in the Florida Cabinet room, the event featured the video testimonial of a patient who had taken the drug, a question-and-answer session with a doctor who endorsed the treatment, and DeSantis touting the drug by name, even as he referenced other experimental treatments for Covid-19 only vaguely.
Despite the governor's pitch, few hospitals have requested the drug, which was provided free-of-charge from Israeli drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals in a deal DeSantis said was facilitated by U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
SubJeff on 28/1/2021 at 16:18
This is why I urge extreme caution on these experimental treatments. So many will come to nothing and here are choice cases where the over enthusiasm sans der evidence has lead to stupid stupidity.
faetal on 28/1/2021 at 17:34
That's good news (and not too unexpected given how little freedom the virus has to change its spike protein without losing ability to keep infecting).
If this vaccine gets rolled out in a sustained fashion and there is a low level of anti-vax / spontaneous clinical trial armchair experts (I'll wait until it's tested properly types), then the rate of mutation will decrease proportionate to how many humans are still propagating it - reducing it to the level of a seasonal flu virus (albeit one with worrying severity & morbidity).
We won't quite be back in the good old days of "yes, I too lost a sibling to tuberculosis", but slightly less comfortable during the seasonal virus outbreaks.
I can also see there being an annual Rona Jab to keep on top of any mutations which do manage to evade the vaccine.
That's my current take anyway, may change when we find out more.
SubJeff on 28/1/2021 at 19:30
That's my take too. Fingers crossed.