Message From Gonzaga about Fall Classes

[kitzbuel]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...gtype=Homepage

Gonzaga one case.

Lol with Tennessee Knoxville with 1. They had 5 or 6 come up on the football team and then officially decided to quit reporting.

[basketballzag]

Serious question., will schools need to shut down now when influenza season begins? If so, is this the new normal in America?

I had COVID back in late Feb/March and due to a medical misdiagnosis by an incompetent doctor its spiraled out of control into a really dangerous bout of double pneumonia in both lungs. I was a couple of hours from being put on a ventilator. Luckily my primary care physician stepped in and took over and prescribed me hydroxychloroquine and gave me a strong shot of antibiotics. The hydroxychloroquine provided me with relief within hours and I recovered within 10 days. I've had close to twenty five friends who have contracted it as well and most of them were also given hydroxychloroquine (few others were given Levoflaxcin) with a strong antibiotics shot and everyone recovered fairly quickly from it. At least with my personal experience if my wife or children contracted COVID I know our doctors would give the same treatment that they gave me to recover.

However, I do understand the dilemma with elderly and sick patients who already have compromised immune systems and the need to quarantine so while it does suck at least there are remedies that are currently available to treat the virus. My 2 cents.

[sullyzag66]

https://www.up.edu/coronavirus/index.html

The University of Portland announced yesterday that all Fall classes will be conducted online and dorms will be closed.

Finally, decisions regarding UP Athletics and the state of our fall sports will be determined by West Coast Conference and NCAA leadership in the coming days.

[Zagceo]

I had COVID back in late Feb/March and due to a medical misdiagnosis by an incompetent doctor its spiraled out of control into a really dangerous bout of double pneumonia in both lungs. I was a couple of hours from being put on a ventilator. Luckily my primary care physician stepped in and took over and prescribed me hydroxychloroquine and gave me a strong shot of antibiotics. The hydroxychloroquine provided me with relief within hours and I recovered within 10 days. I've had close to twenty five friends who have contracted it as well and most of them were also given hydroxychloroquine (few others were given Levoflaxcin) with a strong antibiotics shot and everyone recovered fairly quickly from it. At least with my personal experience if my wife or children contracted COVID I know our doctors would give the same treatment that they gave me to recover.

However, I do understand the dilemma with elderly and sick patients who already have compromised immune systems and the need to quarantine so while it does suck at least there are remedies that are currently available to treat the virus. My 2 cents.

congrats!!!!

must have been a terrifying experience for you and your family.

[basketballzag]

congrats!!!!

must have been a terrifying experience for you and your family.

It was definitely an unpleasant experience that I don't wish on anyone. I'm just lucky I had a smart doctor because a lot of people didn't and died. In the early days the death rate skyrocketed because they didn't know how to treat it so they were giving tamiflu and prednisone out which is a dangerous combo if you have COVID.

[MDABE80]

I had COVID back in late Feb/March and due to a medical misdiagnosis by an incompetent doctor its spiraled out of control into a really dangerous bout of double pneumonia in both lungs. I was a couple of hours from being put on a ventilator. Luckily my primary care physician stepped in and took over and prescribed me hydroxychloroquine and gave me a strong shot of antibiotics. The hydroxychloroquine provided me with relief within hours and I recovered within 10 days. I've had close to twenty five friends who have contracted it as well and most of them were also given hydroxychloroquine (few others were given Levoflaxcin) with a strong antibiotics shot and everyone recovered fairly quickly from it. At least with my personal experience if my wife or children contracted COVID I know our doctors would give the same treatment that they gave me to recover.

However, I do understand the dilemma with elderly and sick patients who already have compromised immune systems and the need to quarantine so while it does suck at least there are remedies that are currently available to treat the virus. My 2 cents.

Congrats BBZ. I don't know what Cad might think on this but given early (within 24 hr of symptom onset) Hydroxychloroquine Seems to work well with Zinc. I'd like to know what the "shot" was.maybe you don't know... probably Zithromax. I presented a paper years back that showed sick people do not remember giving informed consent so maybe you do not know. Although Fauci is correct that we need a placebo controlled randomized trial...........I doub tthat 'll happen. All the studies produced so far showing HCQ had no effect, the drugs were given late in the course of disease when an infection was well along. Key is that there were only minorcomplications. One, whihc is prolonged QT interval giving rise to irregular heart beats..........it's just not being seen. Some in rare cases but there are few baseline studies that were done prior to HCQ. Up to 2000 irregular beats / 24 Hrs are accepted as normal in the general population...

[caduceus]

I'm reluctant to talk about HCQ on this BB board, because like everything, sadly it's apparently become a bigger issue than medical science. Suffice it to say, the overwhelming bulk of recent studies (and some are randomized, controlled trials) show no benefit, either with or without azithromycin, or with or without zinc or vitamin C. There have been adverse events. Some trials have been halted early because the treatment arms suggested the risk outweighed any benefit. Could that change with further study? Maybe. I'm doubtful though, based on what I've seen.

No provider or center I'm aware of, based on recent evidence, is using HCQ for anything other than lupus and malaria (or other on-label indications) at this point. That's all I'm going to say about it.

Some antivirals, some steroids, clot prophylaxis, and convalescent plasma have all shown benefit in treatment to various degrees. None of them are definitive cures. That's all we got right now.

P.S., Glad you're better BBZ!

[MDABE80]

To be clear(er) no randomized clinical trials when the drugs were given early.... carry on.. What we're seeing on post is akin to a capillary leak with a picture more like shock lung.......some hemorrage and some exudates. I'm wondering if the Decadron work doesn't prevent that. Time will tell.

Cad I do think an early aggressive approach is the work that needs to be done...much the same as early intervention in myocardial infarcts. If the issue of "early" is hard to determine, I'd randomize anyway, if the patients don't have disease on testing ( assuming the tests are accurate) stop the therapy. Simple approach I think.

[JPtheBeasta]

There’s some confusion about inpatient and outpatient treatment with HCQ when it gets reported in the media. The doctors who are anecdotally doing well (with several studies behind them) with it seem to be the outpatient folks in the early treatment phase. It would be pretty easy to prescribe a bunch of persons HCQ and zinc (without heart issues) at initial diagnosis with Covid and compare the result statistically.

These studies we are looking at are somewhat like giving people Tamiflu 1 week into influenza, or acyclovir a week after a herpes episode and saying that it doesn’t help.

At least one safety study reportedly was with very high dose HCQ, so now that has to be something to watch out for, and it isn’t always easy to find this information.

[caduceus]

There’s some confusion about inpatient and outpatient treatment with HCQ when it gets reported in the media. The doctors who are anecdotally doing well (with several studies behind them) with it seem to be the outpatient folks in the early treatment phase. It would be pretty easy to prescribe a bunch of persons HCQ and zinc (without heart issues) at initial diagnosis with Covid and compare the result statistically.

These studies we are looking at are somewhat like giving people Tamiflu 1 week into influenza, or acyclovir a week after a herpes episode and saying that it doesn’t help.

At least one safety study reportedly was with very high dose HCQ, so now that has to be something to watch out for, and it isn’t always easy to find this information.

Ugh. (and why am I talking about this again???? I said I wouldn't, but this misinformation angers me). You should stay within your lane. Here's Dr. Fauci (who basically wrote THE textbook of my entire profession, and which is the gold standard of medical literature [Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, of which I have four copies within reach]):

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s statement on hydroxychloroquine at the House coronavirus hearing on July 31. He said: “any and all of the randomized placebo-controlled trials, which is the gold standard of determining if something is effective, NONE of them had shown any efficacy by hydroxychloroquine”.

Here's the transcript: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts...script-july-31

If that's not enough, watch the short video here: https://youtu.be/zFTDjQcT4tI?t=9

Armchair doctors are so getting on my nerves. I'm tired of having to repeat myself. Stop speculating. Show me a peer-reviewed RCT paper supporting your evidence, or get out.

[Zagceo]

these type of moves only lead to more questions.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-authors-retract-hydroxychloroquine-safety.html

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2021225

not a good look

[caduceus]

these type of moves only lead to more questions.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-authors-retract-hydroxychloroquine-safety.html

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2021225

not a good look

Not if you've been following the medical literature. This is the kind of conspiracy crap that gets people killed. Neither of these studies were prospective, randomized, controlled trials, and are exactly the types of poorly designed trials that Dr. Fauci was railing against in my last post. Low powered, retrospective review studies that add little to the science. This has nothing to do with a "look," but also has very little to do with the large amount of evidence that HCQ has any benefit whatsoever in the treatment of Covid-19. If you don't know the power of study design, you shouldn't spout what's a "good look."

The FDA has withdrawn any indicated use for HCQ for Covid-19 whatsoever.

If you want a very comprehensive deep review of the scientific literature that's non-conspiratorial, and an easy read, I highly recommend this link: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...ence-treatment

This pretty much sums up what every doctor I know has seen.

[Zagceo]

Not if you've been following the medical literature. This is the kind of conspiracy crap that gets people killed. Neither of these studies were prospective, randomized, controlled trials, and are exactly the types of poorly designed trials that Dr. Fauci was railing against in my last post. Low powered, retrospective review studies that add little to the science. This has nothing to do with a "look," but also has very little to do with the large amount of evidence that HCQ has any benefit whatsoever in the treatment of Covid-19. If you don't know the power of study design, you shouldn't spout what's a "good look."

The FDA has withdrawn any indicated use for HCQ for Covid-19 whatsoever.

If you want a very comprehensive deep review of the scientific literature that's non-conspiratorial, and an easy read, I highly recommend this link: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...ence-treatment

This pretty much sums up what every doctor I know has seen.

Why the personal attacks? Can't we dialogue without it?

This was a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.... how can a study so poorly conducted get published by NEJM in the first place?

[JPtheBeasta]

The Lancet most definitely had to retract a HCQ safety study due to bad data from Surgisphere. It put the WHO's HCQ study on hold temporarily. THIS is the kind of stuff that results in unnecessary deaths (delaying studies that may help with future treatments)

[caduceus]

Why the personal attacks? Can't we dialogue without it?

This was a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.... how can a study so poorly conducted get published by NEJM in the first place?

It's not a personal attack. If you regularly follow the medical literature, you would know that retractions happen all of the time. With the ongoing pandemic, and absolute rush to publish coronavirus information rapidly (to save lives), it's unsurprising that rushed studies get rushed results, and rushed peer reviews. It's not that difficult to understand. But some people jump on it like it's unexpected. Bigger studies come out, calmer heads prevail, and we get the information we need. <sigh>

It would be in everyone's best interest to read the link I posted previously. It very much details our current knowledge of HCQ in the face of this pandemic.

NEJM is obviously a good journal. I've been reading it since I was a teenager. I've seen common retractions (or revisions) for decades. But one comes out in this situation, and everyone who's not a doctor has their head fall off. It's infuriating. I've seen dozens of posts elsewhere from people with zero medical training espousing this garbage on social media. You have to look at the bulk of the literature, not focus on one study or two, unless it's groundbreaking. Barely any retrospective study EVER has been groundbreaking (maybe the one on smoking and lung cancer 40 years ago).

I said before, if it's the very minimal you do...follow Fauci. He's a brilliant man. He knows more studies than I can probably review in my lifetime. HIV is barely in the news today solely because of his enduring and unselfish work (and he's Jesuit trained! Holy Cross, Batman!).

Today, he said if we don't get U.S. infections down to 10,000 a day in the next month, we are pretty much doomed. In the last week, infections have been averaging 60 to 70 thousand per day. That's a very tall order. It won't happen without drastic measures. Bickering over retrospective studies and one single drug that has very largely found to have zero efficacy in this situation is petty and a waste of time. I posted several weeks ago that we had three months to get our house in order before influenza, and school season begins. We now have basically a month. Get prepared now, my friends.

While this calamity is going on:

• Get a flu shot
• Wash your hands often
• Wear a mask when you are out of the house
• Avoid large crowds
• If you leave the house, it better be essential
• Stop doing stupid stuff like going to parties and barbecues and sleepovers and playdates
• Visiting extended family is just as dangerous as visiting a stranger's home
• Don't dine inside at a restaurant, or go to a theater, or get on a plane
• Don't do anything non-essential with people outside your household without distancing AND mask. The same applies if it's essential (mask AND distancing)
• Follow Fauci's direction
• Pray daily for a safe and effective vaccine by 2021

These are not difficult things to do. We have to smash down the new cases dramatically, and soon. No matter of economic boost will fix anything unless we deal with the DISEASE first. After six months of this, that's pretty obvious.

Please stay safe. Be proactive my Zag friends. Protect your family. True information is absolutely powerful. Don't be dissuaded by the garbage that proliferates in most online discussion forums. Fred Rogers said, in times of crisis, "Look for the helpers."