re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) ***W.H.O. DECLARES A GLOBAL PANDEMIC***

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If the number of cases of COVID-19 is actually 10 times what we think it is in the US, are we going to do more harm than good if this is basically on par with H1N1 for 80-90% of the population?

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I think it’s pretty likely this is the case.

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Can you get hydroxychloroquine OTC?

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No. Both are prescription medications.

Although in Europe you definitely don’t need a script for azithromycin and you may not need one for hydroxychloroquine (not sure, it does have some serious side effects in rare cases or if you take too much)

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Great info, but I have another takeaway... This is one more data point that says that COVID-19 is much more pervasive than we think it is. If the number of cases of COVID-19 is actually 10 times what we think it is in the US, are we going to do more harm than good if this is basically on par with H1N1 for 80-90% of the population?

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It’s possible. I never like to base anything on one study. I would like to see the actual data and I would like to see it repeated. On the other end of the spectrum is the diamond princess which didn’t show very many asymptomatics.

I’m encouraged by this data, but I think the jury is still out.

Stinkdawg can you call her doctor and ask if they have samples or if they have any suggestions? Have you tried another pharmacy and if they have it you could have the prescription transferred.

Chloroquine has a slightly higher pKa which is a fancy way of saying it’s more basic. This means it would be more effective in alkalizing endosomes and lysosomes which is a proposed mechanism for both agents.

The trade off is hydroxychloroquine is better tolerated

I wonder if there’s detailed info on the mild Diamond Princess cases?

I could see a dual confirmation bias since it’s probably pretty hard to do blind or double-blind studies on this at the moment.

(1) Asking random members of the general public if they’ve had any symptoms consistent with COVID, and then testing them

(2) Doing the reverse on the Princess, testing everybody and then asking them to report any/all symptoms they have while riding it out in quarantine that following few weeks.

Group 1 may forget a few coughs in the past week, and probably wouldn’t have noticed a mild fever lasting a few hours.

Group 2 would have reported about that one time they coughed, whether/not it had anything to do with COVID.

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U of Florida dental student tested positive last week; university kept it quiet

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Is the term dumbasses appropriate here???

Stanford Professor: Data Indicates We're Severely Overreacting to Coronavirus

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The woefully inadequate data we have so far, the meta-research specialist argues, indicates that the extreme measures taken by many countries are likely way out of line and may result in ultimately unnecessary and catastrophic consequences. Due to extremely limited testing, we are likely missing “the vast majority of infections” from COVID-19, he states, thus making reported fatality rates from the World Health Organization “meaningless.”

“Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes,” Ioannidis explains. With very limited testing in many health systems, he suggests, that “selection bias” may only get worse going forward.

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Ioannidis then zooms in on the “one situation” where “an entire, closed population was tested”: the Diamond Princess cruise ship’s quarantined passengers. While the fatality rate was 1.0%, he points out, the population was largely elderly, the most at-risk demographic. Projected out onto the age structure of the U.S. population, he calculates, the death rate is more like 0.125%, with a range of 0.025% to 0.625% based on the sample size:

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases — a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.

“That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done,” Ioannidis stresses. “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.”

For those who argue that the high fatality rate among elderly people indicates that the death rate cannot be as low as 0.05%, the professor notes that “even some so-called mild or common-cold-type coronaviruses that have been known for decades can have case fatality rates as high as 8% when they infect elderly people in nursing homes.”

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LINK

We checked the suppliers last week just to see what was available and hydroxychloroquine was readily available and pretty cheap. I bet the availability part will change soon. We couldn't figure out where it was manufactured. Do you know?