Donald Trump touted a medicine, originally intended for malaria, as the wonder drug for treatment of the coronavirus. It ends up he was wrong, not a big surprise. “Hydroxychloroquine, a medicine for malaria that President Donald Trump has touted as a treatment for coronavirus, was no more effective than conventional care, a study found.The report published by the Journal of Zhejiang University in China showed that patients who got the medicine didn’t fight off the new coronavirus more often than those who did not get the medicine.
The study involved j30 patients. Of the 15 patients given the malaria drug, 13 tested negative for the coronavirus after a week of treatment. Of the 15 patients who didn’t get hydroxychloroquine, 14 tested negative for the virus.One patient treated with hydroxychloroquine progressed to severe disease during the study. Four patients given the medicine developed diarrhea and signs of potential liver damage, compared with three getting conventional treatment.”
What is conventional treatment? Now we know, thanks to this study. It includes bed rest, oxygen inhalation, and the use of anti-viral drugs recommended in China’s treatment guidelines like lopinavir and ritonavir, and antibiotics when necessary. Now that does not sound that bad. It sounds like I could recover at home with an oxygen tank. This hysteria is absolutely ridiculous. Conventional treatment is a piece of cake. What does that mean? “The saying “a piece of cake” means something that’s simple to accomplish. … The Americanism cakewalk, used to mean “something easy,” came first, in the 1860’s — piece of cake wasn’t used until around 1936. Both cake and pie have a long history in the United States as metaphors for things that come easily.”
But back to Donald Trump, sometimes, I say onto you – you do not know your ass from a hole in the ground. It means you don’t know any better or not up for the job. Almost always used in negative constructions to describe someone’s ignorance or stupidity, such as: He doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.”
But he is smart, even brilliant, about this one. He said in a recent press conference: “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down,” he said, noting the disruption. “We’re not going to let the cure be worse than the problem.” Or, as he put it in a tweet in which he announced that he would soon be reassessing the federal government’s guidance for radical social distancing, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.”
I agree with you, scientific studies reported in this blog agree with you President Trump, open things up, even before Easter! The New Yorker let me down, I am so disappointed in you. Amy Davidson Sorkin in a recent article accused President Trump reckless in reopening the United States. Amy, Amy have you not read the recent research? Where are the fact checkers? This is what has happened – New York writers are working from home, she has kids and she cannot pay attention to what she is doing. This sounds harsh but it is so disappointing. The fact checkers must be at home with their kids as well, and not concentrating properly. Oh well! So I am in “home shelter” but I do not have any kids nipping at my heels. I am daily thankful that I did not have children. Now I was thinking about taking on a really, really big family but that does not seen to be happening.
This from CPI, who incidentally did not have children either:
The world has gone mad. There is no possible way to protect against every possible contaminant and I worry about the general psychological effects of the fear, the lack of contact (computers not the same) and the physical effect of lack of freedom. We will not speak of the economic cost. But I will say I’m sick of hearing and reading of how everyone from the government to my bank is with me in this time of trial and how they have my back. Not so fed up to start an insurrection though – not for introverts.
I so laughed when I read that – “Not so fed up to start an insurrection though – not for introverts”. CPI’s other nickname is CPO which stands for Complete Polar Opposites.- that is she and me. But CPO, although I am an extrovert that does not quit – I am not up for leading an insurrection either. There are many ways in which we are quite alike, CPI/CPO and me/I , other than the kid thing, we were both born in Saskatchewan (I think), we both have a keen sense of humour and we inspire one another with our different perspectives.
Our relationship has been largely a computer relationship – well not in the beginning as they had not been invented in 1958 when we were in high school. But even though we both lived in Vancouver from 2017-2019 we largely communicated by email and not in person. That is good these days as I am in San Francisco, she in Vancouver and we both are on lock down.
The tree I see from my bed gets more leaves every day. I shall include a picture of it – but not today, when there is even more hope for more leaves in the next few days.
