[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by PearlJam

Are we incorrectly attributing many of these regular yearly deaths as "due to Covid"?

The British government would like people to think so. They have just "revised down" the deaths, saying that those people had died of something else. I remember Margaret Thatcher revising the inflation calculation (one major contributor was removed) to make inflation less. Governments seem to think this kind of statistical juggling actually changes things.

Did they enquire if the people who died of something-else might have survived the something-else if they had not recently "recovered" from covid-19?

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

This deaths due to Covid (primary cause is Covid) vs deaths with Covid (primary cause is something else) is a fascinating and politically charged debate in western media, as far as I have read. For whatever reasons, some media organizations exaggerate the deaths with Covid to create more panic.

Do you have any evidence of that? Sure, I know, newspapers tend to about bad news, as it sells better than good news, but I strongly suspect that this allegation is simply a slur... Perhaps originating with same government sources who want to play down the figures. Of which, of course, I have no evidence.

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by proton

Seems hospitals are giving meds just to pad bills, or through demand for action fro patients and their families. Ivermectin seems in that category, although I only have read about the other 3 I mentioned.

I am more interested in Ivermectin because it does not belong to the other category of expensive drugs like Favipiravir/Remdesivir etc.

IIRC, an Ivermectin tablet costs Rs. 10 and a 3 day course would cost around 500 Rs. if we also include in the Azithromycin/Doxycycline/Zinc etc.

Remember HCQ was cheap drug as well but got kicked out of the race to treat Covid - some say because it was inffective but there is also a growing consensus that the pharma-politico nexus is at play to promote expensive drugs produced by high stake Pharma cos (read Giliead etc) like Remdesivir while sidelining cheaper ones like HCQ.

Ivermectin is one such cheap drug.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Remember HCQ was cheap drug as well but got kicked out of the race to treat Covid - some say because it was inffective but there is also a growing consensus that the pharma-politico nexus is at play to promote expensive drugs produced by high stake Pharma cos (read Giliead etc) like Remdesivir while sidelining cheaper ones like HCQ.

There is a lot of consensus in whatsapp discussions I fear. This isn't a question of cheap or costly.

The ones ending with vir are "retrovirals", nearly all of them are extremely expensive, even the older ones like Remdesivir, and none of them as yet have been made to target Covid specifically.

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by hserus

There is a lot of consensus in whatsapp discussions I fear. This isn't a question of cheap or costly.

https://nypost.com/2020/08/09/is-the...isease-devine/

What makes the hydroxychloroquine story more sinister is that the negative publicity played right into the hands of Big Pharma, whose lobbyists background susceptible journalists, members of Congress and their staffs to advance their interests.

The pharmaceutical-industrial complex doesn’t like cheap off-patent drugs such as hydroxychloroquine because they don’t provide huge profits in the way that new drugs and vaccines do.

At that same press conference, Trump added less effusive praise for the antiviral drug remdesivir, saying it “seems to have a very good result.”

Remdesivir is produced by pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, which charges $3,120 per treatment compared with $37 for 100 tablets of hydroxychloroquine.

It’s curious, as several doctors have pointed out, that all the attacks after Trump’s press conference were on hydroxychloroquine and not on remdesivir, which also had no clinical trial showing it to be effective at the time.

Who had the financial incentive to discredit hydroxychloroquine but the drug companies that compete with it?

And that brings us to another cheap off-patent drug that has been around for half a century, has been used safely to treat parasitic infections, from lice to river blindness, and also is on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines: ivermectin.

Australian gastroenterologist Thomas Borody has found ivermectin is a promising treatment for COVID-19 when combined in a “triple therapy” with zinc and the antibiotic doxycycline.

He calls it a “wonder drug” but said last week that the trick is “treating patients very early.”

But results using the drug off-label have been promising.

In Bangladesh, 400 patients with mild to moderate symptoms were treated and 98 percent cleared the virus within four to 14 days.

In the Dominican Republic, in 1,300 patients the average duration of infection fell from 21 days to 10 days.

And in sick patients at Broward County Medical Center in Florida, mortality fell by 48 percent.

The results have been so remarkable that the government of the most populous Indian state, Uttar Pradesh, last week approved the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 patients and as a prophylactic for front-line workers.

But Borody has not been able to find a drug company interested in paying for clinical trials for a cheap drug that won’t reap them profits.

But it’s not too far-fetched to say that its success will be over Big Pharma’s dead body.

[BLACKRiVAL]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Palpitations and tachycardia can also be due to Anxiety and stress.

And also, fever can cause palpitations.

By the way you mentioned that you had received Ivermectin combo. How was your response to it. Did you get immediate relief on taking Ivermectin combo ? Any side effects of the medicine ?

Yes palpitations and tachycardia can be due to stress and anxiety or fever but its been a month since fever has subsided yet I get palpitations though tachycardia is better.

Regarding ivermectin, I had taken it along with zinc and doxycycline and it didnot do anything extraordinary. Except me and my family no one took ivermectin in my village but everyone had the same symptoms and same timeline of recovery indicating that it didnot help in faster clearance. Also my grandpa was taking higher doses of ivermectin and azithromycin was also added to the combo but still he had to be hospitalized in view of falling oxygen saturation and increasing lung inflammation due to pneumonia.

No one in the family got any side effects from ivermectin. It is a very safe drug and has high therapeutic index.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Why did hydroxychloroquine get all the attention. Politics. It was the star of Trump's show. Oh, and bleach. Don't forget the bleach: hey, we were all injecting it, right?

What got the public attention was Trump's antics. But hydroxychloroquine also got a fair amount of medical attention, with see-sawing results, until it finally came down on the negative side.

Two things: WHO got in the hydroxychloroquine see-saw, which helped keep it in the public eye, which didn't work out too well for either of them; and, Goodness knows how many things have been tried on the ground, the media can't know or keep track of them all, and, at any one time may not know what to report.

[DigitalOne]

Antibody study finds 3.4 million in England had coronavirus

Source

A massive antibody study in England has found that 3.4 million people, or 6 percent of the country’s population, have contracted the coronavirus.

London, with a population of nearly 9 million people, was hit hardest, with 13 percent of residents having coronavirus antibodies.

Of those who tested positive for antibodies, 32 percent reported having no COVID-19 symptoms.

The figures are the result of research involving 100,000 people testing themselves at home for coronavirus antibodies from June 20-July 13.

Current confirmed numbers from UK (Source)
Cases : 313,798
Deaths : 41,347

This data suggests that prevalence of Coronovirus is around 10-12 times more than the confirmed cases, which brings down the IFR significantly.

[msdivy]

As on today, Aug 14th, 2020
Bangalore: 84,185
China: 84,786

On Aug 15th, Bangalore will overtake China (in total Covid-19 cases).

Beware



Avoid 3Cs

[Thad E Ginathom]

What's the latest on BCG and corvid-19? A news item flashed by suggesting that it is back on the menu as an enhancer of our bodies' defence mechanism.

What are the factors, apart from the possibility of it doing nothing at all, that should make us think of getting, or not getting it?

Answers from doctors particular appreciated, but all welcome to chip in

[vivek95]

Everything in this world was going about its routine because that is the way of life, not because it is safe. Covid is not the only damn disease and there are even more deadlier ones. Nothing is certain and nothing is safe all the time. Hope this unreasonable fear and paranoia regarding Covid starts decreasing today onwards. Happy independence day.

[TwinAlco]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Everything in this world was going about its routine because that is the way of life, not because it is safe. Covid is not the only damn disease and there are even more deadlier ones. Nothing is certain and nothing is safe all the time. Hope this unreasonable fear and paranoia regarding Covid starts decreasing today onwards. Happy independence day.

Exactly Doctor saab. More so it is very ironic in a motor based forum, wherein in India approximately 450 odd deaths happen on the road per day (~1.5 lakh annually). Comparing that to Covid-19 it is much more significant. Do we then stop hitting the roads and suspend all forms of travelling?

Living life itself is a day to day risk, simply sitting in bunkers indefinitely is akin to a vegetative state and not the actual essence of life.

The paranoia surrounding the virus is doing much more irreparable damage than the virus itself.

That does not mean that all care is disregarded.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Everything in this world was going about its routine because that is the way of life, not because it is safe. Covid is not the only damn disease and there are even more deadlier ones. Nothing is certain and nothing is safe all the time. Hope this unreasonable fear and paranoia regarding Covid starts decreasing today onwards. Happy independence day.

I look forward so much to celebrating independence from covid19!

As to all these other risks you people, including doctors, like to flaunt as apparent reasons not to be too worried about it, I'm not impressed.

A few months ago, I sat quite close to a friend of my wife. She had been sick on and off for quite a while and was consistently losing weight. Eventually diagnosed... One of these diseases you all like to talk about: TB. We did not catch it, and I have not heard of any family or mutual friend that caught it. I wonder... If it had been covid19?

Just want to have normal life. We are not being as careful as we were... We have had people working on all the steel gates and grills for a week, and some interaction is necessary. Can't know if I'll come to regret it.

At least I know I'm taking risk. Denial is not a vaccine.

[vishu2xll]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

My experience getting Covid-19

First let me congratulate you on winning the fight with COVID-19. Sorry to hear about your father. I pray that he recovers soon.

As someone who is in a similar situation, working at a COVID-19 FLTC, away from family, I can relate to your situation on a very personal basis. Your ways to stay motivated and keep on going in our profession, which at certain points is very thankless indeed, will definitely help me and many others.

Thank you doctor. Hope we get past this pandemic scarred, but unscathed.

[eyedocgb]

@Rationalist - Congratulations on winning the battle against Covid19 with prayers for your dad's early recovery. Intubating a patient without a PPE although risky, is one of the reasons we continue in this line of duty. Though as an Ophthalmologist in a private sector hospital in the top 13 notoriously affected districts (Kamrup Metro), I am not directly involved in Covid care, yet our OPD & OT 's have continued so as not to deny non Covid patient's care.

Having a microbiologist spouse (in charge of Covid lab) helped in learning about the latest information. We have to coexist with Covid while maintaining hygiene and personal safety, hoping that everyone realizes that Frontline warriors too have families and we see more basic equitable healthcare in our country. Thank you.

Mod Note - Please put space after a punctuation. Please proof read your post before submitting it.
Thank You.

[Rakmo]

Thank you for sharing your experience. It is really heart wrenching to read how much problems you faced in such a sort span of time. It could have broke anyone.

but you faced them straight on and got through the bad times.
This has taught me to be optimistic in bad times and value of human life.

I wish good times for you and your family ahead!