March 21, 2020

Coronavirus - On Western Government Failures And Possible Therapies

The U.S. intelligence services fear to come under questioning for not raising enough warning about the novel coronavirus pandemic. To prevent any criticism they asked their favored stenographers to write an exculpating piece.

Thus the Washington Post headlines:

U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic

U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting. The intelligence reports didn’t predict when the virus might land on U.S. shores or recommend particular steps that public health officials should take, issues outside the purview of the intelligence agencies. But they did track the spread of the virus in China, and later in other countries, and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak.

If the spy services were really concerned about the issue why did they not warn the public? Instead of leaking new idiotic fairytales they could have leaked a warning about the pandemic. Instead we were given this:

If the intelligence services had taken the pandemic seriously they could have warned the public via their countless stenographers in the media. Instead they kept the media filled with false anti-Russian stories and told Trump that the Chinese are lying which they were in fact not. And now they blame Trump for not listening to them.

Trump of course would have not have believed the intelligence reports anyway. Why would he? The FBI and CIA have for three years tried to get him impeached. They created Russiagate based on a fake dossier. They lied to get FISA warrants to spy on his campaign. When Russiagate finally fell apart the CIA sent a fake 'whistleblower' to launch Ukrainegate. In Trump's place there is no reason to believe a word of whatever any of the 'intelligence officials' say.

The intelligence services failed to issue effective warnings. But they were not the only ones. All institution in 'western' countries and their leaders have lacked in their preparation for a larger outbreak.

China warned us early on. The WHO was informed in late December. On January 3 the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was informed by his Chinese colleagues. After China recognized that the new SARS-CoV-2 virus indeed jumped from person to person it took radical measures to get a grip on the epidemic and those measures have worked well. China has only 3,255 death in a nation of 1.4 billion people. Today all checkpoints were removed from Wuhan city and life there is slowly turning back to normal.

Other Asian nations have likewise reacted fast and effectively. It was and is the 'west' which, despite having been warned, is responding poorly to the crisis.

In 2002/2003 Asian countries fought the SARS epidemic. In 2015 South Korea had a large outbreak caused by the MERS virus. Those countries have learned the lessons from the outbreaks and worked early on to keep the current curves flat. Why was no western country able to learn from them?

Iona Craig أيونا كريچ @ionacraig - 18:22 UTC · Mar 21, 2020 You know the world has turned upside down when family and friends - including Yemeni friends in the UK, US & India - are telling you to stay in Yemen for your own safety. In a time of world firsts. In 10yrs living in or reporting on Yemen, 5 of them in war time. It's a 1st for me.

Meanwhile we learn more about the new virus and about possible therapies. This though isn't a reasonable one:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 14:13 UTC · Mar 21, 2020 HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents).....

...be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE!

@US_FDA @SteveFDA @CDCgov @HSgov

The claim that the anti-malaria drug (hydro-)chloroquine helps in SARS-CoV-2 infection cases comes from two Chinese studies which are only based on in-vitro tests on the virus and human cells. The doses were relatively high and chloroquine is know to have some bad side effects. There is also no sound way yet to get chloroquine into the lower lungs where the virus resides and where it would be actually needed.

There is also a small French trial with chloroquine based on real patients but which is unfortunately invalid. It was a non-randomized study with only 42 patients of which 6 dropped out.

The researches counted the number of viruses before and after the medication to see if it works. But they only took swabs in the throat to look for viruses. During the cause of a SARS-CoV-2 infection the virus does start to multiply in the throat but it then migrates down into the lower lung. Only there does the virus begin to grow in really big numbers and to cause serious damage. While that happens the virus count in the throat region goes down. The French researchers did not know that.

The above details are from the daily podcast no. 17 by Professor Dr. Christian Drosten, the chief of the virology department at the Charité in Berlin. German transcripts are available here. Drosten was involved in several clinical case studies with Covid-19 cases during which every development was measured and detailed. He knows how the disease proceeds.

There is more to be criticized in that French study. Gaetan Burgio, a geneticist at the Australian National University, summarizes his own critique:

In short, all this hype on the clinical trial is based on a open label, non randomized and underpowered clinical trial on HCQ treatment against #COVID19 with viral load as an outcome that was not properly measured in 2/3 of the control cohort !!! So to answer the question: What is the evidence of justifying using HCQ or CQ as a prophylactic or curative treatment against #COVID19. The simple or short answer is NONE. To ascertain it, we need a proper and powered randomized clinical trial While I understand we are in a #COVID19 pandemic, there is no reason or whatsoever to throw away all the evidence based medicine and not doing rigorous science or a randomized clinical trial !

Chinese researcher believe they will have more success with interrupting the bonding process with which the virus sneaks into the cell:

The virus uses the outreaching spike protein to hook on to the host cell, but normally this protein is inactive. The cleavage site structure’s job is to trick the human furin protein, so it will cut and activate the spike protein and cause a “direct fusion” of the viral and cellular membranes. Compared to the Sars’ way of entry, this binding method is “100 to 1,000 times” as efficient, according to the study.

...

Chinese researchers said drugs targeting the furin enzyme could have the potential to hinder the virus’ replication in the human body. These include “a series of HIV-1 therapeutic drugs such as Indinavir, Tenofovir Alafenamide, Tenofovir Disoproxil and Dolutegravir and hepatitis C therapeutic drugs including Boceprevir and Telaprevir”, according to Li’s study. This suggestion is in line with reports by some Chinese doctors who self-administered HIV drugs after testing positive for the new coronavirus, but there is as yet no clinical evidence to support the theory.

There are now dozens of ongoing trials with real patients. Thousands of capable researchers are working on a therapy for the Covid-19 disease and on a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 virus. In a few months we are likely to have both available.

Meanwhile we can stay out of the way and learn how to make our own face masks.

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Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the issue:

Posted by b on March 21, 2020 at 19:17 UTC | Permalink

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