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Celerity
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April 8, 2020
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has acknowledged her coronavirus strategy is 'a political choice'
COPENHAGEN — Denmark plans to reopen day care centres and schools on April 15 as a first step to gradually relax a three-week lockdown to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, the country's prime minister said on Monday. The Nordic country, which was one of the first in Europe to shut down, has seen the number of coronavirus-related hospitalisations and deaths stabilise over the past week.
It is now trying to balance the need to keep its population safe and the economic risks of a deep recession, tough decisions that many other governments around the world have lying ahead of them. "This will probably be a bit like walking the tightrope. If we stand still along the way we could fall and if we go too fast it can go wrong. Therefore, we must take one cautious step at a time," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a media briefing.
Denmark on March 11 announced closure of schools, day cares, restaurants, cafes and gyms, and shut all borders to most foreigners. Frederiksen day care centres and schools for children in first to fifth grade will reopen on April 15, which will allow parents to return to a normal workday. All remaining restrictions including a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people would stay in place until at least May 10, while a ban on larger gatherings would remain in place until August. Frederiksen cautioned that the gradual reopening would only happen if the numbers stay stable and she urged all Danes to stick to the government's guidelines on social distancing and hygiene.
The number of daily deaths slowed to seven on Sunday from 14 on Saturday and 18 on Friday, while the number of hospitalisations has fallen slightly over the past week. Denmark has reported 187 coronavirus-related deaths and total of 4,681 infected. "If we open Denmark too quickly again we risk that infections rise too sharply and then we have to close down again," Frederiksen said. Denmark is the second country in Europe to provide dates and details on a gradual reopening of its coronavirus lockdown after Austria earlier on Monday said it was preparing for a "resurrection" the day after Easter by reopening some shops.
snip
Denmark to Ease Restrictions Next Week After Coronavirus Lockdown
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/06/world/europe/06reuters-health-coronavirus-denmark.htmlDanish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has acknowledged her coronavirus strategy is 'a political choice'
COPENHAGEN — Denmark plans to reopen day care centres and schools on April 15 as a first step to gradually relax a three-week lockdown to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, the country's prime minister said on Monday. The Nordic country, which was one of the first in Europe to shut down, has seen the number of coronavirus-related hospitalisations and deaths stabilise over the past week.
It is now trying to balance the need to keep its population safe and the economic risks of a deep recession, tough decisions that many other governments around the world have lying ahead of them. "This will probably be a bit like walking the tightrope. If we stand still along the way we could fall and if we go too fast it can go wrong. Therefore, we must take one cautious step at a time," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a media briefing.
Denmark on March 11 announced closure of schools, day cares, restaurants, cafes and gyms, and shut all borders to most foreigners. Frederiksen day care centres and schools for children in first to fifth grade will reopen on April 15, which will allow parents to return to a normal workday. All remaining restrictions including a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people would stay in place until at least May 10, while a ban on larger gatherings would remain in place until August. Frederiksen cautioned that the gradual reopening would only happen if the numbers stay stable and she urged all Danes to stick to the government's guidelines on social distancing and hygiene.
The number of daily deaths slowed to seven on Sunday from 14 on Saturday and 18 on Friday, while the number of hospitalisations has fallen slightly over the past week. Denmark has reported 187 coronavirus-related deaths and total of 4,681 infected. "If we open Denmark too quickly again we risk that infections rise too sharply and then we have to close down again," Frederiksen said. Denmark is the second country in Europe to provide dates and details on a gradual reopening of its coronavirus lockdown after Austria earlier on Monday said it was preparing for a "resurrection" the day after Easter by reopening some shops.
snip
April 8, 2020
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1247297163396145152
Watch how radically taxes on the wealthy have fallen over the past 70 years:
https://twitter.com/TheLoveBel0w/status/1181046094236704776
'Eye-Popping': Analysis Shows Top 1% Gained $21 Trillion in Wealth Since 1989 While Bottom Half Lost $900 Billion
"The top one percent owns nearly $30 trillion of assets while the bottom half owns less than nothing."
The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
The US is going to emerge from this crisis way more unequal. Millions losing jobs & going deeper in
debt while the 1% bargain shops for equities to double & triple their wealth. The feudalistic mindset among the political class won't even consider a wealth tax to prevent this.https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1247297163396145152
Watch how radically taxes on the wealthy have fallen over the past 70 years:
https://twitter.com/TheLoveBel0w/status/1181046094236704776
'Eye-Popping': Analysis Shows Top 1% Gained $21 Trillion in Wealth Since 1989 While Bottom Half Lost $900 Billion
"The top one percent owns nearly $30 trillion of assets while the bottom half owns less than nothing."
The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
April 8, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/wisconsin-election-coronavirus/609496/
“I’m accused of trying to conduct a voter purge in the state of Wisconsin,” Rick Esenberg told me by way of introduction. Esenberg runs the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which is suing to force the state’s election commission to remove hundreds of thousands of “inactive” voters from the rolls.
I had called Esenberg to ask about the in-person election that Wisconsin was planning to hold tomorrow even as its citizens are under a statewide directive to stay at home amid the coronavirus outbreak. Democrats, including Governor Tony Evers, want to conduct the election by mail so that Wisconsinites don’t have to risk their health to go to the polls. The Republican-controlled state legislature is rejecting that idea—even though some studies suggest that voting by mail helps Republican candidates more than Democratic ones.
Why would Republicans oppose a measure that could make it easier—and safer—for people to vote? They’ve cited the logistical and legal hurdles of mailing every Wisconsin voter a ballot in such a short period. But at the heart of the dispute is a disagreement over the fundamental goal of the proposal—maximizing the number of people who can exercise their right to vote. “I’m not one of these people who says that’s necessarily an unalloyed good,” Esenberg told me. “To some extent, I do believe that if people are not willing to make some effort to vote, maybe that indicates that they’re not that interested and they’re not going to inform themselves, and it’s just as well that they don’t vote.”
To conservatives like Esenberg, prioritizing turnout as a benchmark is a mistake. “Should we evaluate the fairness of our voting laws simply by how many people vote, and that’s sort of the sign of a functioning democracy?” he said. “I don’t know that that’s true. Everybody votes in Cuba, but nobody thinks that’s a well-functioning democracy. I don’t worry as much about how many people vote. I think there’s a lot of people who aren’t particularly interested in voting.”
snip
they would once again try a poll tax (and this time it would be far more expansive in terms of states involved) if they thought they could get away with it
Wisconsin's Warning for the November Election
How are people expected to vote if they’re not supposed to even leave their homes?https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/wisconsin-election-coronavirus/609496/
“I’m accused of trying to conduct a voter purge in the state of Wisconsin,” Rick Esenberg told me by way of introduction. Esenberg runs the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which is suing to force the state’s election commission to remove hundreds of thousands of “inactive” voters from the rolls.
I had called Esenberg to ask about the in-person election that Wisconsin was planning to hold tomorrow even as its citizens are under a statewide directive to stay at home amid the coronavirus outbreak. Democrats, including Governor Tony Evers, want to conduct the election by mail so that Wisconsinites don’t have to risk their health to go to the polls. The Republican-controlled state legislature is rejecting that idea—even though some studies suggest that voting by mail helps Republican candidates more than Democratic ones.
Why would Republicans oppose a measure that could make it easier—and safer—for people to vote? They’ve cited the logistical and legal hurdles of mailing every Wisconsin voter a ballot in such a short period. But at the heart of the dispute is a disagreement over the fundamental goal of the proposal—maximizing the number of people who can exercise their right to vote. “I’m not one of these people who says that’s necessarily an unalloyed good,” Esenberg told me. “To some extent, I do believe that if people are not willing to make some effort to vote, maybe that indicates that they’re not that interested and they’re not going to inform themselves, and it’s just as well that they don’t vote.”
To conservatives like Esenberg, prioritizing turnout as a benchmark is a mistake. “Should we evaluate the fairness of our voting laws simply by how many people vote, and that’s sort of the sign of a functioning democracy?” he said. “I don’t know that that’s true. Everybody votes in Cuba, but nobody thinks that’s a well-functioning democracy. I don’t worry as much about how many people vote. I think there’s a lot of people who aren’t particularly interested in voting.”
snip
they would once again try a poll tax (and this time it would be far more expansive in terms of states involved) if they thought they could get away with it
April 8, 2020
It’s an Election Day, which often means your Tuesday evening edition of the On Politics newsletter focuses on what to watch for in the day’s primaries. But in Wisconsin — the first state to hold in-person voting while its residents are under a “safer at home” order — there will be no results reported until April 13, thanks to a messy back-and-forth of court decisions that mired the elections in chaos and confusion. So we don’t have much to watch for tonight, because we won’t know any results. What we do know is that in Milwaukee, the biggest city in the state and the base of Democratic voters in Wisconsin, voting has been a public health and civic catastrophe.
At each of the city’s five polling sites (in a normal year, there are 180 locations), voters waited more than two hours to cast their ballot, as lines of hundreds of people stretched for blocks. Many wore masks and kept six feet of distance in line, but not all. The scene was markedly different outside Wisconsin’s main urban areas. Officials in rural counties — especially Republican officials — reported few problems at the polls. In Sheboygan County, about an hour north of Milwaukee up the Lake Michigan shore, the local Republican chairman, Dennis Gasper, said he drove around to polling places this morning and found no issues. A lot of voters did not want to go to the polls: Nearly 1.3 million absentee ballots were requested through Monday, though only about 860,000 had been returned. And stories poured in today of voters unable to cast their ballots.
So, amid this confusion, one of the most pivotal swing states in the country held its spring elections today, with a closely watched State Supreme Court race hanging in the balance. Though the polls close at 8 p.m. Central time, it’s likely that the weeks that follow will be filled with even more legal challenges.
So stay tuned, and stay safe.
NYT Newsletter: Some People Got to Vote Today
Voting in Wisconsin today.It’s an Election Day, which often means your Tuesday evening edition of the On Politics newsletter focuses on what to watch for in the day’s primaries. But in Wisconsin — the first state to hold in-person voting while its residents are under a “safer at home” order — there will be no results reported until April 13, thanks to a messy back-and-forth of court decisions that mired the elections in chaos and confusion. So we don’t have much to watch for tonight, because we won’t know any results. What we do know is that in Milwaukee, the biggest city in the state and the base of Democratic voters in Wisconsin, voting has been a public health and civic catastrophe.
At each of the city’s five polling sites (in a normal year, there are 180 locations), voters waited more than two hours to cast their ballot, as lines of hundreds of people stretched for blocks. Many wore masks and kept six feet of distance in line, but not all. The scene was markedly different outside Wisconsin’s main urban areas. Officials in rural counties — especially Republican officials — reported few problems at the polls. In Sheboygan County, about an hour north of Milwaukee up the Lake Michigan shore, the local Republican chairman, Dennis Gasper, said he drove around to polling places this morning and found no issues. A lot of voters did not want to go to the polls: Nearly 1.3 million absentee ballots were requested through Monday, though only about 860,000 had been returned. And stories poured in today of voters unable to cast their ballots.
So, amid this confusion, one of the most pivotal swing states in the country held its spring elections today, with a closely watched State Supreme Court race hanging in the balance. Though the polls close at 8 p.m. Central time, it’s likely that the weeks that follow will be filled with even more legal challenges.
So stay tuned, and stay safe.
April 7, 2020
"You should not stress yourself out," Linnea Nyman replies to the question if she is worried about the corona virus. Photo: Simon Rehnström
Stay home at Easter. This has been the message from the authorities, the prime minister, and even the king, to the Swedes in recent weeks. And it has been repeated many times. Many people are therefore expected to cancel their Easter trips and more will remain in Stockholm. In recent days, the warm weather has meant that many Stockholmers have taken to the outdoor cafés around town. At one of the outdoor restaurants at Medborgarplatsen (my interjection: this is very near to where we live), friends Elin Sundström and Linnea Nyman sit and eat food. The Corona pandemic is not something they feel worried about. 'You should not stress yourself out', says Linnea Nyman. The two friends are far from alone in the square. The restaurants around are full of people who are acting just like Elin and Linnea; meeting friends and eating food. 'It's okay to be out, as long as you are not close to people. But you should not push the boundaries, I think' says Elin Sundström. 'But it's a little scary. There are many who are sick now', she continues.
Outdoor restaurants have been filled with people in recent days. Photo: Simon Rehnström
In mid-March, Gothenburg and Stockholm, among others, announced that the permits would be approved for outdoor dining. Something that usually applies from April 1 began to apply two weeks earlier. The reason is that the Public Health Authority has assessed that it is less contagious outdoors than indoors. As previously, restaurant owners should reduce congestion, keep good distances between guests, avoid guests hanging out at the bar and refer guests to table service and staff go out with food and drinks to guests.
But there are no exact details of what applies to outdoor seating. State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said during Tuesday's press conference that all businesses in the country must make a risk assessment and take measures to reduce the risk of infection spread. We remind you of rules for congestion for restaurants and bars. The rules also apply to outdoor seating, which not everyone seems to have perceived, he says. But who makes sure the rules are followed? Police nationally say that no special supervision or intervention is made at restaurants and outdoor restaurants due to the coronavirus. In public gatherings, restaurants are not included, says Anna Engelbert, press secretary at the police, appealing to the government's ban on public gatherings and public events with more than 50 people.
The City of Stockholm states that the municipality will not close or withdraw permits for outdoor cafés that are open. There is no ban either.
At Nytorget, as well as at Medborgarplatsen, many had made their way out in the fine spring weather. Photo: Simon Rehnström
snip
sigh
In regards to crowded outdoor seating in Stockholm: "Don't stress us out" (translated from SvD)
https://www.svd.se/trangt-pa-uteserveringar-stressar-inte-upp-oss"You should not stress yourself out," Linnea Nyman replies to the question if she is worried about the corona virus. Photo: Simon Rehnström
Crowded in the inner city as many stay at home, Easter holidays and warm weather. Now the outdoor seating is filled in corona times. It is less infectious outdoors - but there are also rules that apply there.
Stay home at Easter. This has been the message from the authorities, the prime minister, and even the king, to the Swedes in recent weeks. And it has been repeated many times. Many people are therefore expected to cancel their Easter trips and more will remain in Stockholm. In recent days, the warm weather has meant that many Stockholmers have taken to the outdoor cafés around town. At one of the outdoor restaurants at Medborgarplatsen (my interjection: this is very near to where we live), friends Elin Sundström and Linnea Nyman sit and eat food. The Corona pandemic is not something they feel worried about. 'You should not stress yourself out', says Linnea Nyman. The two friends are far from alone in the square. The restaurants around are full of people who are acting just like Elin and Linnea; meeting friends and eating food. 'It's okay to be out, as long as you are not close to people. But you should not push the boundaries, I think' says Elin Sundström. 'But it's a little scary. There are many who are sick now', she continues.
Outdoor restaurants have been filled with people in recent days. Photo: Simon Rehnström
In mid-March, Gothenburg and Stockholm, among others, announced that the permits would be approved for outdoor dining. Something that usually applies from April 1 began to apply two weeks earlier. The reason is that the Public Health Authority has assessed that it is less contagious outdoors than indoors. As previously, restaurant owners should reduce congestion, keep good distances between guests, avoid guests hanging out at the bar and refer guests to table service and staff go out with food and drinks to guests.
But there are no exact details of what applies to outdoor seating. State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said during Tuesday's press conference that all businesses in the country must make a risk assessment and take measures to reduce the risk of infection spread. We remind you of rules for congestion for restaurants and bars. The rules also apply to outdoor seating, which not everyone seems to have perceived, he says. But who makes sure the rules are followed? Police nationally say that no special supervision or intervention is made at restaurants and outdoor restaurants due to the coronavirus. In public gatherings, restaurants are not included, says Anna Engelbert, press secretary at the police, appealing to the government's ban on public gatherings and public events with more than 50 people.
The City of Stockholm states that the municipality will not close or withdraw permits for outdoor cafés that are open. There is no ban either.
At Nytorget, as well as at Medborgarplatsen, many had made their way out in the fine spring weather. Photo: Simon Rehnström
snip
sigh
April 7, 2020
https://thebanter.substack.com/p/trumps-cult-is-committing-suicide
Back at the end of February, I told my wife that we were going to start stocking up on non-perishable groceries and other stuff we would need to be holed up in the apartment for an extended amount of time. She thought I was crazy but she did it because she trusted me. This was a couple of weeks before I fully understood just how badly Trump and his regime of imbeciles were bungling the response to Covid-19. I was just reacting to reports that a deadly flu-like sickness was spreading and I realized that even under the best of circumstances, something like that would be brutally hard to stop. Ebola is deadly but not extremely contagious (it’s not airborne) which is why I wasn’t too worried about it despite living in a community with a good number of immigrants that come and go from West Africa. Covid-19 was very different and that was obvious (to me, at least) once I realized how much damage it was doing overseas.
So over the next 3 weeks, as more cases spread throughout the country and Trump played golf, we bought more supplies. Joe Biden, it should be noted, warned us and was ignored by almost everyone, including the press. Then the weekend of March 13 came. Alexandria City schools closed for three weeks (before closing for the year) and the supermarkets were stripped bare. Suddenly, it became very, very real for Debbie. She finally joined me in Act II. It was not a great weekend for her. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe me, necessarily, it’s just that it was abstract until it wasn’t anymore. She still prepared for it and didn’t insist it wasn’t happening but Covid-19 wasn’t triggering her Spidey Sense whereas mine had been screaming like a 4-alarm fire for 3 weeks at that point. Meanwhile in Trumpland, not only did the MAGA Moron Mob not believe anything was wrong, they were going to prove it even if it killed them.
Dying To Own The Libs
It’s a little hard to blame the Moron Mob for ignoring the virus at the beginning. Just about their entire information bubble was lying to them about it, and that bubble is sealed tight. From Trump to Fox to AM Hate Radio to right wing hate sites, all the mob heard was, “It’s a hoax!” So naturally, that’s exactly how they responded. But later, when Trump realized that maybe he couldn’t bluster, bully, lie and cheat a virus into submission, and started to kind of sort of treat it like it was real, the mob continued to refuse to accept reality. This is something a little different. In conservative circles, Trump’s word is law. It does not matter what he said yesterday, all that matters is what he said today. White Republican voters have been conditioned through decades of propaganda to rewrite their own memories so that we’ve always been at war with Eastasia and right now, Trump is very clear that hundreds of thousands of people dying is the best case scenario. And yet, a dangerous number of dangerously stupid people are proudly marching towards their death.
The Washington Post reports:
It’s rare that a single paragraph unintentionally captures the quintessence of right wing insanity but there it is. When it comes to understanding right wing ignorance, it is important to understand the different mobs within the GOP and how they are responding to the current pandemic.
snip
Trump's Cult Is Committing Suicide To Own The Libs
The dumbing down of the Republican base is reaping a bitter fruit.https://thebanter.substack.com/p/trumps-cult-is-committing-suicide
Back at the end of February, I told my wife that we were going to start stocking up on non-perishable groceries and other stuff we would need to be holed up in the apartment for an extended amount of time. She thought I was crazy but she did it because she trusted me. This was a couple of weeks before I fully understood just how badly Trump and his regime of imbeciles were bungling the response to Covid-19. I was just reacting to reports that a deadly flu-like sickness was spreading and I realized that even under the best of circumstances, something like that would be brutally hard to stop. Ebola is deadly but not extremely contagious (it’s not airborne) which is why I wasn’t too worried about it despite living in a community with a good number of immigrants that come and go from West Africa. Covid-19 was very different and that was obvious (to me, at least) once I realized how much damage it was doing overseas.
So over the next 3 weeks, as more cases spread throughout the country and Trump played golf, we bought more supplies. Joe Biden, it should be noted, warned us and was ignored by almost everyone, including the press. Then the weekend of March 13 came. Alexandria City schools closed for three weeks (before closing for the year) and the supermarkets were stripped bare. Suddenly, it became very, very real for Debbie. She finally joined me in Act II. It was not a great weekend for her. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe me, necessarily, it’s just that it was abstract until it wasn’t anymore. She still prepared for it and didn’t insist it wasn’t happening but Covid-19 wasn’t triggering her Spidey Sense whereas mine had been screaming like a 4-alarm fire for 3 weeks at that point. Meanwhile in Trumpland, not only did the MAGA Moron Mob not believe anything was wrong, they were going to prove it even if it killed them.
Dying To Own The Libs
It’s a little hard to blame the Moron Mob for ignoring the virus at the beginning. Just about their entire information bubble was lying to them about it, and that bubble is sealed tight. From Trump to Fox to AM Hate Radio to right wing hate sites, all the mob heard was, “It’s a hoax!” So naturally, that’s exactly how they responded. But later, when Trump realized that maybe he couldn’t bluster, bully, lie and cheat a virus into submission, and started to kind of sort of treat it like it was real, the mob continued to refuse to accept reality. This is something a little different. In conservative circles, Trump’s word is law. It does not matter what he said yesterday, all that matters is what he said today. White Republican voters have been conditioned through decades of propaganda to rewrite their own memories so that we’ve always been at war with Eastasia and right now, Trump is very clear that hundreds of thousands of people dying is the best case scenario. And yet, a dangerous number of dangerously stupid people are proudly marching towards their death.
The Washington Post reports:
In some cases, skeptics have been slow to acknowledge the science behind the spread of the novel coronavirus. In others, such as Florida, politicians took heed of demands from the business community, which lobbied DeSantis as recently as during a Monday webinar to balance medical imperatives with economic needs. Elsewhere, adamance about local autonomy was pronounced. Some, meanwhile, maintained that it was religious authority that mattered.
It’s rare that a single paragraph unintentionally captures the quintessence of right wing insanity but there it is. When it comes to understanding right wing ignorance, it is important to understand the different mobs within the GOP and how they are responding to the current pandemic.
snip
April 7, 2020
Trump going insane, saying WHO should have called it a pandemic MONTHS before they did, and saying
he is putting a 'powerful hold' on US funding to them.
April 7, 2020
Biggest single day deaths here in Sweden, US equivalent of 3700, US-equivalent 16,600+ new cases
259,000 US equivalent cases. The new cases broke a downward trend, so we will have to see what happens the next several days, and we still are not wide-scale testing at all, and are not in lockdown.
https://c19.se/en
Norway
Denmark
Finland
this article below was posted only 9 hours ago but says we have only 477 deaths, now we have 618 and counting
Sweden, which refused to implement a coronavirus lockdown, has so far avoided a mass outbreak. Now it's bracing for a potential surge in deaths.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-no-lockdown-test-thousands-deaths-expected-2020-4?r=US&IR=T
April 7, 2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X20300858
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X20300858/pdfft?md5=6dfd30ea643276b5150c9baee103a3f3&pid=1-s2.0-S0399077X20300858-main.pdf
The COVID-19 epidemic is the worst worldwide pandemic in a century with more than 500,000 cases and 25,000 deaths so far. In France, more than 30,000 cases have been reported up to March 27, and nearly 2,000 have died. Pending the availability of a vaccine, there is a critical need to identify effective treatments and a number of clinical trials have been implemented worldwide. In France, following the results of a clinical study in Marseille, there is considerable interest for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 disease, and the French Ministry of Health recently allowed the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 disease pending the results of ongoing clinical trials (3). In their study, Gautret et al. reported a 100% viral clearance in nasopharyngeal swabs in 6 patients after 5 and 6 days of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (3). This rate of viral clearance was lower with hydroxychloroquine alone (57.1%) and was only 12.5% in patients who did not receive hydroxychloroquine (p< 0.001).
snip
No Evidence of Rapid Antiviral Clearance or Clinical Benefit With Combination of Hydroxychloroquine
and Azithromycin in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Infectionhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X20300858
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X20300858/pdfft?md5=6dfd30ea643276b5150c9baee103a3f3&pid=1-s2.0-S0399077X20300858-main.pdf
The COVID-19 epidemic is the worst worldwide pandemic in a century with more than 500,000 cases and 25,000 deaths so far. In France, more than 30,000 cases have been reported up to March 27, and nearly 2,000 have died. Pending the availability of a vaccine, there is a critical need to identify effective treatments and a number of clinical trials have been implemented worldwide. In France, following the results of a clinical study in Marseille, there is considerable interest for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 disease, and the French Ministry of Health recently allowed the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 disease pending the results of ongoing clinical trials (3). In their study, Gautret et al. reported a 100% viral clearance in nasopharyngeal swabs in 6 patients after 5 and 6 days of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (3). This rate of viral clearance was lower with hydroxychloroquine alone (57.1%) and was only 12.5% in patients who did not receive hydroxychloroquine (p< 0.001).
Such a rapid and full viral clearance was quite unexpected and we wished to assess in a
prospective study virologic and clinical outcomes of 11 consecutive patients hospitalized in
our department who received hydroxychloroquine (600 mg/d for 10 days) and azithromycin
(500 mg Day 1 and 250 mg days 2 to 5) using the same dosing regimen reported by Gautret et
al. (3).
prospective study virologic and clinical outcomes of 11 consecutive patients hospitalized in
our department who received hydroxychloroquine (600 mg/d for 10 days) and azithromycin
(500 mg Day 1 and 250 mg days 2 to 5) using the same dosing regimen reported by Gautret et
al. (3).
snip
These virologic results stand in contrast with those reported by Gautret et al. and cast doubts
about the strong antiviral efficacy of this combination. Furthermore, in their report Gautret et
al also reported one death and three transfers to the ICU among the 26 patients who received
hydroxychloroquine, also underlining the poor clinical outcome with this combination. In addition, a recent study from China in individuals with COVID-19 found no difference in the rate of virologic clearance at 7 days with or without 5 days of hydroxychloroquine, and no difference in clinical outcomes (duration of hospitalization, temperature normalization, radiological progression) (4). These results are consistent with the lack of virologic or clinical benefit of chloroquine in a number of viral infections where it was assessed for treatment or prophylaxis with sometimes a deleterious effect on viral replication (5-8).
In summary, despite a reported antiviral activity of chloroquine against COVID-19 in vitro, we
found no evidence of a strong antiviral activity or clinical benefit of the combination of
hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of our hospitalized patients with
severe COVID-19. Ongoing randomized clinical trials with hydroxychloroquine should provide
a definitive answer regarding the alleged efficacy of this combination and will assess its safety.
about the strong antiviral efficacy of this combination. Furthermore, in their report Gautret et
al also reported one death and three transfers to the ICU among the 26 patients who received
hydroxychloroquine, also underlining the poor clinical outcome with this combination. In addition, a recent study from China in individuals with COVID-19 found no difference in the rate of virologic clearance at 7 days with or without 5 days of hydroxychloroquine, and no difference in clinical outcomes (duration of hospitalization, temperature normalization, radiological progression) (4). These results are consistent with the lack of virologic or clinical benefit of chloroquine in a number of viral infections where it was assessed for treatment or prophylaxis with sometimes a deleterious effect on viral replication (5-8).
In summary, despite a reported antiviral activity of chloroquine against COVID-19 in vitro, we
found no evidence of a strong antiviral activity or clinical benefit of the combination of
hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of our hospitalized patients with
severe COVID-19. Ongoing randomized clinical trials with hydroxychloroquine should provide
a definitive answer regarding the alleged efficacy of this combination and will assess its safety.
April 7, 2020
Gov. Tate Reeves is facing criticism over his slow response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves quietly signed a proclamation on Friday designating April "Confederate Heritage Month."
Reeves is currently facing heavy criticism over his delayed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reeves' proclamation was posted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, according to a report on Sunday by the Jackson Free Press, but did not appear to be publicized elsewhere. His office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the designation.
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Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam
Mississippi governor secretly designates April 'Confederate Heritage Month'
https://americanindependent.com/tate-reeves-confederate-history-month-mississippi-governor-coronavirus-gop-covid-19/Gov. Tate Reeves is facing criticism over his slow response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves quietly signed a proclamation on Friday designating April "Confederate Heritage Month."
Reeves is currently facing heavy criticism over his delayed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reeves' proclamation was posted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, according to a report on Sunday by the Jackson Free Press, but did not appear to be publicized elsewhere. His office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the designation.
snip
Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam
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