Bill Engelhardt

The fashionable ensemble 

Al Peffley

Bill, I am fantasizing that she is wearing her daytime jammies under that fashionable Needless Mark-up (Texas nickname for Macus Neiman store) trench coat. LOL!

I'm so happy not to be living near or working in Seattle any more...for many reasons other than just pandemic abatement issues.

Here's another interesting article I read today:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/a_solution_to_covid19_is_in_sight.html

State and Federal Government leadership is not working together in many states. This is a two month to longer problem that must be addressed without politics, hoarding, post-incident prepping that should have been done prior to this outbreak, and name-calling. This too shall pass.

Tom Chavez

I hope everyone’s doing alright. I haven’t let Kalindi go shopping for three weeks. She used to go practically everyday—“We are out of this or that.” She’s been good about it. 

I’ve been going once a week to Sprouts—great selection of fruits, veggies, grains and nuts—wearing an N95 mask. My iPhone doesn’t recognize me when I wear a mask. 

Kalindi read that the next two weeks will be peak infection; now she doesn’t want me to go. So she ordered online from Amazon/Whole Foods today. They delivered within two hours on the front porch—milk, veggies, and fruit. 

We cleaned the packaging with Lysol, and processed everything to eliminate viruses. It’s like living on a new planet. 

Take care everybody!

Tom Chavez

Al, Korea Biomed Review gives very clear instructions for application of antiviral and anti-malarial therapy. They advised against mixing antiviral drugs with anti-malarial drugs.

http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=7428

Gregg Wilson

I might become a widower. Bonnie was on the net and told me that some virus patients were suffering some brain damage.

I said "Oh, I can easily lose some brain power, with room to spare!"

She almost died laughing.

Al Peffley

We need an adequate test system for the masses now to only quarantine those infected with the virus and let the rest of society return to work and perform needed food and hygene services. A mass produced vaccine is still many months away. Gregg made this rapid testing point early on in these discussions.

The western states' and provinces' regional pandemic exercise that I participated in 2009 (during the MERS epidemic) assumed, from Canada's SARS experience, that it would take a pandemic at least two full months to run its course (unless it mutates and spikes again, like the Spanish Flu did in 1919-20.) Defining and testing a prophylactic medication antidote is still certainly a work in progress. We must stop the virus attachment to cells process before the virus kills remaining uncompromised lung cells in the human host. Bacteria eating the dead cells used for virus replication will finish the job, so a medicine prescription set will be desired for patients with severe bacterial pneumonia infections as well. The antibacterial medicine cannot kill off the good bacteria in the the digestive tract or the patient dies also of Sepsis (septic shock - like my brother had with severe pneumonia complications and died last November.) Mixing medicines can be deadly.

Here is a graphic of the COVID-19's viral throat and lung cell infection and viron replication process that we need to stop for effective infection abatement and recovery:

The lung cell dies because the virus robs it of vital RNA components in a healthy lung cell nucleus to replicate. We have to stop the attachment for entry and that "transcription splicing" sequence for this virus strain to be defeated. This one replicates fast!

But first, we need to identify by reliable and simple testing methods who is carrying the virus and who is not. Then we can use medicine to stop the "viron" from using its hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) protein structures (those little leg-like projections on the outside of the COVID-19 viron) to attach to the human cell's outer membrane covering (without damaging the host cell's integrity and function.) Those virons are only 80-120 nm in size and they usually infect throat tissue on their way to the lungs of the host. Throat swab collections, like we do for identifying streptococcus bacterial infections, might be more reliable for tests than nasal swab techniques. A sore throat is the first symptom of a COVID-19 infection.

I am not a doctor or credentialed scientist, just an systems analyst with some knowledge of biological pathogen agents that were encapsulated and produced as hybrid bioweapons in Asian labs (mostly in Russia during the 1980's and early 1990's.) Many of the agents produced originally came in "the wild" from Africa and Asia regions' soil and animal life (including insect carriers.) In some cases these viral pathogens have been combined to make an extemely lethal hybrid agent with inserts that enable it to replicate and mutate at a highly accelerated rate. To defend against these known human-engineered bio-threats, national labs and university medical centers have tested them to find antiviral antidotes. These studies are very dangerous, complicated, and expensive laboratory research programs with high security and strict pathogen isolation requirements. Mistakes are often tragic and lethal to those exposed to contaminated materials that get accidentally released outside and inside the restricted access lab environment. TMI?

Why are there no reports of high-level Chinese Government officials in Beijing or Shanghai that have tested positive for the virus infection since they are reasonably located close to Wuhan? Just curious...

Al Peffley

UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

The days of the week are now called:  Thisday, Thatday, Otherday, Someday, Yesterday, Today, & Nextday!

Tom Chavez

Questions about the US$ and World Economy

Gregg, here’s from zerohedge.com, Chuck Butler and Global Macro Investor. I don’t understand. Perhaps you or someone else can explain why? (Original excerpts in black, mine this color)

COVID-19 appears to have impacted the fiscally-conservative regions of the brains of politicians more than many thought possible as left, right, and center seem to agree that more spending is good, more helicopter money is even better, and more zeros in the national debt is best!

The latest utterance from Speaker Pelosi – that the next, fourth, round of virus-relief stimulus must be at least $1 trillion – appears to have confirmed one thing: both parties supporting gold $10,000.

Don’t forget – the $13 trillion short dollar positions (foreign dollar debt held mainly by foreign corporation and investment vehicles) is the largest position ever taken in the history of global financial markets.

It can only mean a massive, uncontrolled dollar rally. Why? Excess dollars from the politicians should weaken the greenback. And how is that related to $13 trillion in foreign dollar debt?

QE will not fix this. Swap lines will not fix this. A debt jubilee would fix this or multiple trillions of dollars in write-downs and defaults.

It is dollar strength that brings the world to its nadir (just like the 1930s). It is the dollar system that is the really big problem.

The dollar has eaten all of its competitors and now it is going to eat itself. This will eventually break the dollar after a super-spike as global central banks are forced to find alternatives. Is this because all the excess dollars are being loaned out, and a strong dollar makes debts impossible to repay?

The world’s elite have long wanted to replace the U.S. dollar with a single global super-currency, as The World Bank’s former chief economist said in 2014, it will create a more stable global financial system.

“The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises,” Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank. “The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency.”

Chuck Again…. Yes, I want to make something perfectly clear here…  All the deficit spending, all the Fed’s measures, all of it, is only here to extend the bad loans that everyone has made, and to provide short-term liquidity….  I’m just saying… 

Debtors need dollars to repay/service their loans, demand for the dollar makes it more expensive, and everyone defaults? Is that the gist? How can the dollar and gold both go up in price? Is gold going up in expectation that with a world currency, the dollar is toast?

Tom Chavez

The Debate over Hydroxychloroquine

President Donald Trump: “If it does work, it would be a shame we did not do it early. What do you have to lose? But what do I know? I’m not a doctor. But I do have common sense.”

Dr. Daniel McQuillen, infectious disease specialist at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Massachusetts: “Anecdotally, it may have had limited effect in patients with milder disease. However, the drug has had no effect in limiting or slowing progression of our patients that have been at or near ICU level when they arrived.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: “In terms of science, I don’t think we can definitively say it works. The data are really just at best suggestive. There have been cases that show there may be an effect, and there are others to show there’s no effect.”

Rudy Giuliani: “We’ve got to take a little risk, goddamnit, if we want to save lives. We are looking at a slaughter.”

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania: “We need to rely on data. There are no proven benefits … many of us in the health community are suspicious, because you use the drug with patients who are doing well. We call that patient selection, and that’s probably what we’re seeing in most of the positive reports. Those patients may have done well anyway without the drug.” 

White House Economic Adviser Peter Navarro argued in a meeting of the White House Coronavirus Task Force that there was indeed enough evidence to prove hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness.

Dr. Megan L. Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University: “There are side effects to hydroxychloroquine, it causes psychiatric symptoms, cardiac problems, and a host of other bad side effects. There may be a role for it for some people. But to tell Americans ‘you don’t have anything to lose,’ that’s not true. People certainly have something to lose by taking it indiscriminately.”

Dr. Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania: “the idea that you’re going to take it as a prophylactic when it’s totally unproven: bad idea. If you have a serious illness like lupus, it’s worth taking. But if you’re taking it because you want to prevent COVID-19, that’s not a good idea.”

Bill Engelhardt

Sign of the times

Tom Nixon

Tom Chavez, if your doc’s above think Hydroxychloroquine is so dangerous, why are hundreds of doctors in our country and thousands around the world prescribing it for their patients with Covid-19?

Gregg Wilson

Yes, thousands of persons are dying but that is irrelevant to long term studies being done by CDC, etc. We must wait a very long time to see if graphical studies finally confirm that hydroxychloroquine is totally effective in relieving COVID19 - with no side effects!

I suggest an expansive, extensive double blind test to see if the sky is blue.

Tom Chavez

Reply to Tom Nixon and Gregg Wilson:

Legally, medical drug use must be approved by the FDA under laws intended to uphold scientific standards for the protection of patients. 

Hydroxychloroquine use has recently been legally authorized. Doctors are using it in the hope that it will help, because they have nothing that has been scientifically proven.   

The FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EAU) for hydroxychloroquine suflate and hydroxychloroquine phosphate for unapproved use as an emergency measure under certain conditions and restrictions.

You can see the original authorization here: 

https://www.fda.gov/media/136537/download

Please read it. This is not a trivial question of whether or not the sky is blue. People's lives and health are at stake. 

Al Peffley

No drug should be taken "indiscriminately" without being administered and monitored by knowledeable professional flu treatment healthcare providers. Black market drugs from Asia, Central America, and South America can be high risk medicine products with poor quality and no professional oversight QA. Some of the ACA "generic" drugs I have taken that were made in Asia lack ingredients that make them more effective and safe to take in the proper dose for each specific patient's needs and side effects tolerance. The FDA does not seem to care about the differences as long as statistics give them an excuse to authorize general use. Listen to or read the acceptable "side effects" of the "FDA-approved" drugs advertised daily on TV!

People who reach the ICU level of COVID-19 infection care probably have irreversable lung cell damage and severe secondary bacteria infections (duh!) Drugs can't recreate new healthy cells (and neither can the host if the immune system is disabled or destroyed.)

Trauma treatment doctors are trained to react to immediate patient critical health problems as first responders, and often are not advanced treatment specialists. They are subject to ACA law rules and regulations that are based on statistical data collections and lengthy central committee approval processes (read the ACA.) MD common sense judgements and doctor-patient decisions are discouraged in all socilaized medicine systems that limit health care account services and reallocate limited, available resources to those who can't pay for servces (or won't.)

Academic researchers are usually more focused on the statistical data than a practicing MD is on the infected patient. The patient data lacks any personal relationship to the cases making up the sample of the infected population. Most research trials specialists will probably never see any of the population sample die of the infection (nor want to see the misery and absolute frustration of the deadly process.) The infection test labs become overwhelmed just like the hospital system in a pandemic.

So many doctors have been sued for malpractice that the the whole profession avoids making public statements about any potential drug that the politically-correct medical bureaurats won't and don't endorse.

Even if a doctor had some good advice to offer, who would trust 90% of the media to not report it incorrectly or out of context?

Some of those MD comments appear to be anecdotal and very protective. Nothing is for sure for every patient. If this probem was easy, medical reseachers would have found the absolute cure for HIV by now.

Reliable and quick TESTING is the silver bullet that will identify the infected population before a prophylactic medication program is globally initiated and monitored for current response needs and future event stockpile resources. Yet I repeat myself...

Tom Chavez

I quoted a few top authorities in the administration and medical fields regarding chloroquine, simply to inform about the debate. The drug’s effectiveness is uncertain. I am not advocating either way.

Rudy Giuliani falsely stated that chloroquine is proven 100% effective against covid-19. People may think, therefore, that they need not strictly follow safety quidelines, because there is a sure cure. Based on what we know now, there is not.

If I get covid-19 and my doctor recommends chloroquine, I will take it understanding that it is not a silver bullet, and that it may not be effective.

If the doctor asks me to help my lungs fight the disease by deep breathing or holding my breath for 10 seconds, I will try my best, even if it is extremely painful. I will not avoid the pain, in the unproven belief that chloroquine will cure me.

I will act based on factual evidence and not on wishful thinking. 

The FDA is requiring doctors to send in data about the effectiveness of chloroquine use. Eventually they will reach definite conclusions. It is not for me to prejudge the result.

Tom Nixon

Hi guys, I think my positive response of its use with Covid 19 patients is from my own experience of taking chloroquine (plaquenil) for a short time for arthritis. I didn’t tolerate it well  and because of a heart arrhythmia concern, my doc switched me to methotrexate which I’m still on. The concern with plaquenil is retina damage and heart damage.....but both over long term use. Eye and heart checks every six months unless notable issues in between.  I’m not a doc but I don’t think those factors really come into play with a one week plus use of it when fighting a deadly virus. And Giuliani is a blow hard that needs to be ignored. Cheers!

Al Peffley

Hi, Tom Nixon. I read about the same side effect problems with the drug that you are sharing with us. Thanks for the input. On top of those potential side effect issues, every injested drug taken orally effects your liver (the largest essential organ in the human body.) It has been reported by Indian epidemeology scientists that the novel COVID-19 virus appears to respond favorably to new AIDS HIV medication treatments.

Here is a good article on American ingenuity at its best:

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/covid-19-help-fleets-of-innovators-make-3d-printed-face-masks/?utm_campaign=Breaking%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=86002969&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9989TSNQ-R8CWEP-RMNTKbsJdZQoqWNDE2OVtZDuiVrE2YRJXKdYmJC4r21p_ZZCRopZLqIOj9b1KRX1QtwgiKtQA1rg&_hsmi=86002969

Solvay S.A. is a Belgian chemical company and a leading manufacturer of hydrogen peroxide products in the world market. We have a large Solvay hydrogen peroxide production plant here in Longview. I think it is the largest H2O2 plant on the west coast of CONUS. Even at a low solution content percentages of 3%, H2O2 should NOT be taken internally (swallowed) if it is used as a mouth wash antiseptic treatment. Extended use on skin layers can cause cell damage just like household bleach disinfectants. Wear latex gloves when using it for surface cleaning around the house. No virus can survive direct exposure to H2O2 (ref.: "Biohazard"; by Col. Ken Alibek, MD, and former Russian Biopreparat Director before defecting to the US.)

Tom Chavez

Bill Engelhardt

Be sure to follow our president's lead and dont forget your facemasks. 

Tom Chavez

A rare fireball, almost as bright as the moon, lights up the sky over Chile’s Atacama Desert. Fireballs are meteors brighter than the planet Venus. Most visible meteors are caused by particles ranging in size from a small pebble to a grain of sand. The brilliant flash of light is not caused so much by the mass but by its high kinetic energy, generated by speed. A fireball like this is generated by a tennis ball-size meteoroid and may reach the ground in the form of a small rock, depending on its composition (ice, metal, or rock).

Al Peffley

Al Peffley

A Hydroxychloroquine medicine information update from UW Medicine Offices (Sorry -- it was sent as a single image file to me, so this is a screenshot view; download it to expand the text size for easier reading):

Diane Paulson

Thanks for the cartoon Al Peffley, I shared on FB...

Bill Engelhardt

Tom Chavez

Coronavirus Graffiti from around the World

taken from USA Today