Karl, thanks for your reports. This reminds me of battle where the command staff has to make sense of multiple, incomplete, incoherent, and conflicting, reports from the front. Cost of error is high.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of Karl > Wittnebel via Mercedes > Sent: Friday, March 20, 2020 12:00 AM > To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> > Cc: Karl Wittnebel <atypical...@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: A contrarian view on COVID-19, plus good news - > there's a CURE! > > Every medical center treating these patients, including ours, is using > hydroxychloroquine. It is an old and well known drug. Not a cure by any > means. We hope it helps. > > The epideliologic evidence is extremely poor quality; I will give him that. > But > the lack of high quality evidence applies to his position also. > > As is so often the case, this situation boils down to what to do in the > absence > of evidence. If everybody taking it easy for a week or three gives us some > time > to get better data, I am all for it. The testing is ramping up by the day and > it will > not be long until we have on demand testing for everyone at drive throughs. > That will give us a clear picture of true case fatality and how contagious it > is. > Those numbers can then drive policy. > > If he is wrong, we could be the next Italy. If the feds and states and cities > are > being overly cautious, things will be back to normal pretty soon. > > Garcetti put everyone in lockdown tonight, and then Newsom did the same for > the entire state of CA, or something like 37 million people. Interesting > times. > > Still waiting for the wave to break at work. We have a few cases, all elective > surgery is cancelled, all staff who can telecommute are doing so, all meetings > that can be done by phone are being done by phone. Lots of contingency > planning because Italy has lots of healthcare workers out with infection. We > remain very short of N95 masks. Not sure when that situation will improve. > Trump approved all the industrial n95 masks for sale to hospitals, but I think > many of them had already been hoarded by individuals. Basically you need a > bunny suit, an N95 and a face shield to stay healthy if dealing with large > numbers of infected patients. > > I dont have a problem with doing simple things to slow this down while we get > a better handle on it. Most of us believe it is out there multiplying, because > that is what contagious viruses do. Even if distancing only gives us some time > to get n95 masks to hospitals to protect doctors, nurses and other staff, it > will > have been worth doing. > > The hospitalized are pretty every divided age group wise. Young people are > dying in this thing. Not as often as old people, but often enough for everyone > to think seriously about it on a personal level. Not too many contagious > things > put 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 year olds in the hospital at similar rates. That is > what > is happening. Old people are recovering less, but lots of young people are > being hospitalized with viral pneumonia. > > Let's all hope the true prevalence of asymptomatic infection is much higher > than suspected and that the case fatality rates are wild overestimates. > > Karl > > > > On Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 1:43 PM Meade Dillon via Mercedes < > mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > > > First the good new: Cure? > > > > > > https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/old-malaria-drug-hydroxychloroquine-may- > > help-cure-coronavirus-study/ > > > > Next the contrarian. > > > > > > https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-epidemiologist-warns-that-coron > > avirus-crackdown-is-based-on-bad-data/ > > > > "A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal > > influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with > > potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be > > totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house > > cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally > > jumps off a cliff and dies." > > ------------- > > Max > > Charleston SC > > _______________________________________ > > http://www.okiebenz.com > > > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
