Hydroxychloroquine linked to ~17,000 deaths during Covid

Nearly 17,000 people may have died after taking hydroxycholoroquine during the first wave of Covid-19, according to a study by French researchers.

The anti-malaria drug was prescribed to some patients hospitalized with Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic, "despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits," the researchers point out in their paper, published in the February issue of Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy.

Now, researchers have estimated that some 16,990 people in six countries — France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the U.S. — may have died as a result.

That figure stems from a study published in the Nature scientific journal in 2021 which reported an 11 percent increase in the mortality rate, linked to its prescription against Covid-19, because of the potential adverse effects like heart rhythm disorders, and its use instead of other effective treatments.

Researchers from universities in Lyon, France, and Québec, Canada, used that figure to analyze hospitalization data for Covid in each of the six countries, exposure to hydroxychloroquine and the increase in the relative risk of death linked to the drug.

In fact, they say the figure may be far higher given the study only concerns six countries from March to July 2020, when the drug was prescribed much more widely.

Hydroxychloroquine gained prominence partly due to French virologist Didier Raoult who had headed the Méditerranée Infection Foundation hospital, but was later removed amid growing controversy.

It was also considered something of a “miracle cure” by the then-U.S. President Donald Trump, who said: “What do you have to lose? Take it.”

Source.

Covid 19 has become a pandemic of the willing

They are the new 99 percenters — the vast majority of Americans who are getting serious cases of COVID-19 or dying are unvaccinated.

While COVID-19 cases continue to spike across the US, the overwhelming majority of deaths and hospitalizations from the virus continue to overwhelmingly be among unvaccinated Americans, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30, about 99 percent of hospital admissions were among those who hadn’t been fully inoculated, which is defined by the CDC as two weeks after the second dose of a Pfizer or Moderna shot or two weeks after Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose jab.

As of Aug. 30, a little over 1.6 million Americans were hospitalized with COVID-19 — but only about 0.65 percent of them, or 10,471 patients, were fully vaccinated, the CDC data show.

Read the rest here.

Idaho's medical system is on the brink of collapse

The state has one of the lowest vaccination rates and hospitals are so overwhelmed that they are preparing to ration care based on the likelihood of survival.

Details

COVID in Holy Cross Monastery

At least 19 of the monks are ill, some seriously. Archimandrite Seraphim and two monks have been hospitalized though their prognosis is favorable. Due to this serious situation the monastery has been temporarily closed to visitors. Prayers are urgently requested.

Details here.

HT: ByzantineTexas

The AP take a look at the history of Covid Conspiracy Theories

BRUSSELS (AP) — The rumors began almost as soon as the disease itself. Claims that a foreign adversary had unleashed a bioweapon emerged at the fringes of Chinese social media the same day China first reported the outbreak of a mysterious virus.

“Watch out for Americans!” a Weibo user wrote on Dec. 31, 2019. Today, a year after the World Health Organization warned of an epidemic of COVID-19 misinformation, that conspiracy theory lives on, pushed by Chinese officials eager to cast doubt on the origins of a pandemic that has claimed more than 2 million lives globally.

From Beijing and Washington to Moscow and Tehran, political leaders and allied media effectively functioned as superspreaders, using their stature to amplify politically expedient conspiracies already in circulation. But it was China -- not Russia – that took the lead in spreading foreign disinformation about COVID-19’s origins, as it came under attack for its early handling of the outbreak.

A nine-month Associated Press investigation of state-sponsored disinformation conducted in collaboration with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, shows how a rumor that the U.S. created the virus that causes COVID-19 was weaponized by the Chinese government, spreading from the dark corners of the Internet to millions across the globe. The analysis was based on a review of millions of social media postings and articles on Twitter, Facebook, VK, Weibo, WeChat, YouTube, Telegram and other platforms.

Chinese officials were reacting to a powerful narrative, nursed by QAnon groups, Fox News, former President Donald Trump and leading Republicans, that the virus was instead manufactured by China.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Beijing has used its expanding megaphone on Western social media to promote friendship and serve facts, while defending itself against hostile forces that seek to politicize the pandemic.

“All parties should firmly say ‘no’ to the dissemination of disinformation,” the ministry said in a statement to AP, but added, “In the face of trumped-up charges, it is justified and proper to bust lies and clarify rumors by setting out the facts.”

Read the rest here.

Instagram Bans Robert Kennedy Jr

The old lefty is a longtime anti-vaxxer and promoter of debunked pseudoscientific theories and dangerous medical quackery. 

Details

Metropolitan Hrizostom (Jević) is hospitalized

The acting primate of the Serbian Orthodox Church has been hospitalized with Covid 19. Metropolitan Hrizostom assumed the position following the death of Patriarch Irenej on November 20.

New York mass wedding organized in secret

A Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn planned the wedding of a chief rabbi’s grandson with such secrecy it was able to host thousands of maskless celebrants without the city catching on.

Despite a surge in COVID-19 cases, guests crammed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the Yetev Lev temple in Williamsburg for the Nov. 8 nuptials — stomping, dancing and singing at the top of their lungs without a mask in sight, videos obtained by The Post show.

Organizers schemed to hide the wedding of Yoel Teitelbaum, grandson of Satmar Grand Rabbi Aaron Teitelman, from “the ravenous press and government officials,” says a detailed account in the Yiddish newspaper Der Blatt, the publication of the Satmar sect.

Read the rest here.

The arrogant and callous disregard for the public safety on display here is simply breathtaking. It is clear that these people believe they are somehow special and above the law, and free to endanger their neighbors and fellow citizens at will. If I were a New Yorker I would be furious. This is not a minor infraction of indoor accommodation limits or failure to space adequately between tables in a restaurant. Criminal charges should be filed. And if somebody dies as a result of being infected via this event, those charges should include negligent manslaughter.

Patriarch Irinej is seriously ill

Word from the Serbian Orthodox Church that H.H. Patriarch Irinej's condition has deteriorated as a consequence of Covid 19. Details.

Worries are rising over COVID deniers and anti-vaxxers

Story here.

This could be a problem, but I think it's manageable. There are some people who subscribe to pseudoscientific beliefs and or conspiracy theories regarding vaccines and others who simply deny that Covid exists at all or if they concede its existence, they claim it is being overblown and that the reports of mass infections and deaths are false. Happily those subscribing to these delusional views are not huge in numbers. But there are enough that in some situations they could pose a serious health risk if you get a bunch of unvaccinated people in large groups.

On the one hand I dislike direct coercion in matters of conscience. So I would be opposed to laws mandating vaccination under pain of fine or jail. But on the other hand it is a well established principle of law that society does have the right to impose reasonable regulations to protect the public health. So my response would be to take steps to limit the ability of vaccine resisters to pose such a threat.

* Require all persons booking commercial airplane flights anywhere in the US, or overseas if bound for the US, to affirm under penalty of perjury that all those booking have been vaccinated. No vaccination... no plane trip.

* Ditto interstate bus and train tickets and all cruise ships/ocean liners.

* Require affirmation of vaccination as a condition for applying for or renewing a US passport.

* Hotels should be encouraged to require registering guests to affirm that they have been vaccinated.

* States should require students registering for schools and university to provide evidence of vaccination.

None of these measures are unreasonable as a public health response to a dangerous pandemic. People will still be able to refuse vaccination, but there will be consequences that for many will be inconvenient. They could still travel by private vehicle and children could be home schooled. Obviously, any such regulations should not be imposed until a vaccine has been available to the general public for a sufficient amount of time that anyone wanting one will have had the opportunity to get the jab.

The President's Health

Obviously this is very close to the only topic in the news right now and I have little to add to the endless analysis. I wish Mr. Trump a speedy recovery. 

Beyond which, far from being surprised by his illness, I think it remarkable that he avoided infection for as long as he did, given his open disdain for most of the medical community's advice intended to reduce risk of contracting or spreading the virus. It was all but inevitable that this would end badly, and so it has. The irony is that the president's determination to attend and host events where masks and social distancing were not only not required, but discouraged, has now resulted in a wave of infections among prominent Republicans. 

I noticed on a somewhat fringy rightwing forum last night, that conspiracy theories were spreading that this was some kind of biological warfare attack by Democrats on the GOP. Given the level of damage inflicted one could almost forgive such lunacy. But as is so often the case; the fault here rests entirely with  President Trump's reckless behavior.

Schismatic Patriarch Filaret is hospitalized with COVID-19

Patriarch [sic] Filaret, 91, who leads the large Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate, contracted COVID-19 and was subsequently hospitalized, the church confirmed Friday in a statement shared on its website and on Facebook. In a follow-up statement shared Tuesday, the church said its leader’s health is “stable” as “treatment continues...”

Read the rest here.

Contra Conspiracy

Ignore the conspiracy theories: scientists know Covid-19 wasn't created in a lab.

There is a lot to be upset with China over, including aspects of how they handled the pandemic. But it is extremely unlikely it was man made by them or anyone else. 

Defying Conventional Wisdom, Mexico's Leftist President Rejects Bailouts and Stimulus Spending

MEXICO CITY — For the second time in a month, top business leaders sat down with Mexico’s president to implore him to do more to save the economy.

People were losing jobs by the tens of thousands, they warned. Small and medium-size companies, which employ more than 70 percent of the Mexican work force, were running out of cash. The government needed to intervene, they argued. The data was irrefutable.

“I have other data,” shrugged the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, according to two businesspeople with direct knowledge of that conversation in April. “You do whatever you think you need to do, and I’ll do what I need to do.”

Across the globe, governments have rushed to pump cash into flailing economies, hoping to stave off the pandemic’s worst financial fallout.

They have mustered trillions of dollars for stimulus measures to keep companies afloat and employees on the payroll. The logic: When the pandemic finally passes, economies will not have to start from scratch to bounce back.

In Mexico, no such rescue effort has come. The pandemic could lead to an economic reckoning worse than anything Mexico has seen in perhaps a century. More jobs were lost in April than were created in all of 2019. A recent report by a government agency said as many as 10 million people could fall into poverty this year.

Yet most economists estimate that Mexico will increase spending only slightly — by less than 1 percent of its economy — a small amount compared with many large nations.

The reason? Critics and supporters agree: Mr. López Obrador.

Hostile toward bailouts, loath to take on public debt and deeply mistrustful of most business leaders, Mexico’s president has opted largely to sit tight despite what is expected to be widespread pain up and down the economic ladder.

Read the rest here.

The Times is obviously not happy. But while Mexico may endure some serious near term pain, in the long run they may emerge in a much stronger position economically than many of their neighbors, both south and north of their border, by not saddling their people with staggering levels of debt.

Meanwhile on Wall Street

As the nation appears to be collapsing into an economic depression (see previous post) Wall Street has been singing its favorite song. After the initial panic of late February and March, the stock market has been rallying. The S&P 500 has recovered around half of its losses as investors seem determined to ignore the steady stream of bad news. Are they right? How long will this last? Hmm...

The Economy: How bad will it get?

 

The overwhelming consensus is that the best case scenario, is going to dwarf all other post World War II recessions. Many economists expect both the economic contraction and real unemployment figures to rival those of the early 1930s in the dark days of the Great Depression.

So, are we going to have a depression? That would depend on how deep the economic downturn goes, and importantly, how long it lasts. It is almost a running joke that use of the 'D' word is prohibited in academia and among business people, as well as the talking heads on the various financial news networks, except when used in historical reference to the events of the 1930s. And it  doesn't help that there is no hard and fast definition of what constitutes a depression.

Most economists and historians have avoided labeling any of our post-war downturns as depressions, though I would argue that two probably meet the vague definition. The first would be the downturn that began in the last year of the Carter administration and continued through the first couple of years of the Reagan administration. Roughly late 1979 to 1983. The second would be the most recent financial crisis of twelve years ago. A number of countries and regions, notably in southern Europe, never recovered and were still experiencing devastating unemployment aggravated by sovereign debt crisis right up to the arrival of COVID-19.

To my mind the odds of a quick 'V' shaped recovery that Wall Street seems to be hoping for are poor. The economy, especially in our globalized era, cannot be turned on and off like a light switch. When you break the glass and hit the red button labeled "Emergency Stop," the engine is going to seize. In furtherance of the damage to the engine is that we don't have either a cure or a vaccine anywhere on the horizon. This means all of the global distancing rules are going to remain in effect for the foreseeable future. And the mass unemployment is going to send shock-waves out inflicting even more damage. Unemployed people generally can't afford much in the form of goods and services. So what we have is the prospect of an economic contraction functioning like a giant snowball rolling down hill while gaining both size and velocity.

Fortunately we do have a few things going for us. The first is that we have learned a bit since the 30s. So the catastrophic policy mistakes of that era are, we hope, unlikely to be repeated. Raising taxes (both Hoover and FDR), massive increase in government regulation of the economy (FDR), tightening monetary policy (the Fed of the early 30s) and raising protectionist tariffs (Hoover). The last one is a bit alarming since we have a president who is enamored of economic protectionism.

Also unlike in the 30s, we do have something of a social safety net. Granted, it is among the weakest in the developed world. But it is like noon on Miami Beach compared to the long winter of the early 30s where the unemployed and homeless were almost entirely dependent on private charity, which quickly became overwhelmed.

Which brings us to; where are we going? There are just too many variables to give any kind of concrete prediction. But I will make a few general observations. The medical community seems resigned that this thing is going to be with us for years. So until a vaccine is developed we can expect succeeding waves of COVID. Some of those could be worse than what we have experienced thus far and could inflict even more loss of life and economic damage. Unemployment is likely to breach 20% and the contraction in GDP is unlikely to be less than 25%. In that scenario I don't see even the beginning of a meaningful recovery for at least a year, and more likely two to three.

So... depression? Yeah, very likely. Great Depression Part II? I doubt it. It was the government that put the "Great" into the depression of the 1930s. And while I always encourage taking a deep breath before putting any upward limit on the stupidity of politicians and bureaucrats, if... we can avoid the mistakes of the Hoover/Roosevelt years, I am cautiously hopeful that the worst will be over within four to five years.

But for now, I think we are just going to have fasten our seat belts and hang on. Because even the rosiest predictions suggest we are in for one hell of a bumpy ride.

(To those who are fortunate enough to be doing OK, please remember the many who are not.)

The Death of the Department Store: ‘Very Few Are Likely to Survive’

American department stores, once all-powerful shopping meccas that anchored malls and Main Streets across the country, have been dealt blow after blow in the past decade. J.C. Penney and Sears were upended by hedge funds. Macy’s has been closing stores and cutting corporate staff. Barneys New York filed for bankruptcy last year.

But nothing compares to the shock the weakened industry has taken from the coronavirus pandemic. The sales of clothing and accessories fell by more than half in March, a trend that is expected to only get worse in April. The entire executive team at Lord & Taylor was let go this month. Nordstrom has canceled orders and put off paying its vendors. The Neiman Marcus Group, the most glittering of the American department store chains, is expected to declare bankruptcy in the coming days, the first major retailer felled during the current crisis.

It is not likely to be the last.

“The department stores, which have been failing slowly for a very long time, really don’t get over this,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s Business School. “The genre is toast and looking at the other side of this, there are very few who are likely to survive.”

At a time when retailers should be putting in orders for the all-important holiday shopping season, stores are furloughing tens of thousands of corporate and store employees, hoarding cash and desperately planning how to survive this crisis. The specter of mass default is being discussed not just behind closed doors but in analysts’ future models. Whether that happens, no one doubts that the upheaval caused by the pandemic will permanently alter both the retail landscape and the relationships of brands with the stores that sell them.

Read the rest here.

Boris Johnson Hospitalized in ICU

Highly disconcerting news. Although the UK government is being extremely tight lipped, this must be said. People are not put into intensive care on a precautionary basis, especially in the middle of a pandemic with resources under severe strain. It must be assumed the Prime Minister is seriously ill and his condition is probably life threatening to at least some degree.

The Stock Market Bounces (and a personal note)

So the stock market just had it's best three day run since 1931. Yep, that's impressive. And I honestly hope that this is the first sign of confidence in a general economic recovery. But something worth remembering is that the early 30's on Wall Street became infamous for bear market rallies. These wild upward ticks, also known as suckers rallies or a dead cat bounce, never fully recouped the earlier losses and always preceded another sharp sell off. 

With a veritable wave of ugly news still waiting in the wings, I have no confidence in this stock market. And now that the government is printing money like it is water and monetizing the bond market, the only asset I'm nibbling in right now, is gold.

To be clear, I'm not making any predictions here. All I'm saying is that these are dangerous times economically and it does not feel like we are near the end. My gut says things may be just warming up. So if you have a well diversified portfolio (stocks indexed, bonds, a solid cash reserve and maybe some gold) I'd just sit tight and wait things out. Nine times out of ten, selling into a financial panic just locks in losses. But I'd definitely not be making speculative investments right now unless it was with money I could afford to lose.

[On a personal note; thank you to those who have inquired about my health. My symptoms have, thank God, been very mild. A persistent dry cough that turned into the achy blahs with on again off again low grade fevers. A little shortness of breath and the urge to lie down every time I did anything even remotely active. This has lasted for around three weeks now and I am sorry to say when it first started I didn't even realize my cough could be more than a reaction to my dogs shedding. Happily the symptoms have been fading lately to the point where I mostly feel fine now. I hope to be able to begin the seven day countdown either tomorrow or Saturday where if no symptoms return I can bust out of this joint. Options of places to go are pretty limited right now but even just a trip to the gas station would be a relief. Stay safe everybody.]

Study: COVID-19 Impacts Men, Women More Than All Other Genders Combined

BALTIMORE, MD—A new study by Johns Hopkins University found that the novel coronavirus is impacting men and women more than all the other genders combined.

According to the study, 100% of coronavirus cases have affected men and women and not a single other gender.

"It's incredible - we've found this virus is far more likely to affect biological males and biological females than any other biological gender," said Head of Gender Research Dr. Benji Charmin. "We thought the data had to be flawed, but we checked again and again, and sure enough, this thing is aggressively going after men and women and ignoring the other genders entirely."

He shrugged. "It's just science."

Progressives quickly applauded the virus for not attacking any of the other genders and only focusing on traditional, outdated, binary genders.

"Finally, a virus that ignores the demiboys, dragonkin, and those who identify as tater tots," said one activist in Portland. "It's about time the tables were turned. Thanks, COVID-19!" He then headed over to his local Communist cafe to lick a doorknob -- "just my little way of showing my gratitude."

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