One more reason to love gin and tonic! I had a feeling this old-time, classic drink crafted by the British to make malaria prophylaxis quinine more palatable and fun in colonial times, in India I believe, was a winner. From the bark of "cinchona" trees in Peru, quinine derivatives, are now showing some promise to treat SARS Cov-2. This is quite amazing.
Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
161–170 of 174 posts
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But if the experts are imperfect and people are banned from helping themselves then there really is a problem. Why? You're comparing apples and oranges. Perfect isn't a reasonable criteria. More effective than the average person is.
It wasn't a criteria; it was an observation that a system that allows people to help themselves in parallel to the experts is better. The options aren't "experts hold all the power" or "paniced hoarders have all the power". At the moment, the US has set the dial to experts holding all the power and badly flubbed the response; the obvious solution is a mix of expert- and non-expert- control so that when the experts in…
> when the experts inevitably muck up
> government doesn't seem to be reacting very quickly
> If the government encouraged prices to rise until supplies were only just running out and gave the medical system enough money to buy what they needed in that environment then the situation would resolve much more quickly
> So called 'panic buying' leads to a very healthy economic response after a month or two
Your argument would be stronger if you dropped the opinionated hyperbole.
If the government transferred funds through the market, vs direct purchases, then we'd be at the mercy of whatever the masses decided they wanted to buy.
As of a few days ago, this would have meant that millions of dollars went to toilet paper manufacturers.
You seem to be of the opinion that a free market knows best in crisis situations. I feel otherwise. Doubt I'm going to be able to change your mind.
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't a criteria; it was an observation that a system that allows people to help themselves in parallel to the experts is better. The options aren't "experts hold all the power" or "paniced hoarders have all the power". At the moment, the US has set the dial to experts holding all the power and badly flubbed the response; the obvious solution is a mix of expert- and non-expert- control so that when the experts in…
> when the experts inevitably muck up > government doesn't seem to be reacting very quickly > If the government encouraged prices to rise until supplies were only just running out and gave the medical system enough money to buy what they needed in that environment then the situation would resolve much more quickly > So called 'panic buying' leads to a very healthy economic response after a month or two Your argument…
> Your argument would be stronger if you dropped the opinionated hyperbole.
Not actually true, hyperbole doesn't change the quality of the evidence or the strength of the argument.
> As of a few days ago, this would have meant that millions of dollars went to toilet paper manufacturers.
Nothing wrong with that. If people feel a desperate need to buy overpriced toilet paper then the toilet paper manufacturers and distributors should be encouraged to take advantage of that. If a roll cost $30 that would stop people buying trolleys of the stuff all at once. Instead, shops in Australia have held prices steady and run out of toilet paper; leaving me peeved I have to say. The situation is pretty much strictly worse than if the free market was encouraged in times of crisis.
> You seem to be of the opinion that a free market knows best in crisis situations.
No, not at all. But suppressing free market forces in a crisis is one of the worst possible responses because it delays the corrective action by suppliers. Prices should be shooting up and down, and governments should be giving hospitals emergency funding so they can buy what they need. That'll provide the best signals of what is needed in a crisis. I bet the free market understood the need for test kits a lot more than the CDC did in America; there would have been hospitals crying out to test people.
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But going out and randomly buying medicine because it seems like it might work (even though it might not, but you're cured without it, which means you're going to go out and tell everyone else to go buy it too) might not necessarily be the best way to deal with this. Hey, that's okay, let me live or die on my own terms. It's my body. Stop trying to rule it. I'm not making you take it. How about you don't make me no…
> It's my body. ...but your body will take up a hospital bed and a team of healthcare professionals to deal with the side effects, thus taking them away from other patients.
All right, that's a fair complaint about the externalities. I will sign documentation excluding the need for cover in the shared medical system and commit $150k to disposal of my body should I die.
The amount is negotiable to release you from your responsibility to me.
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#165This is old news by this time. As I commented on previous threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22534339 Yes chloroquine has been shown effective in vitro ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0 ). Yes hydroxichloroquine has been shown effective in vitro very recently as well ( https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... ). Yes both compounds are already actively being used and…
Answering just so that I find your comment later
sorry if there is a smarter way to save comments
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chloroquine encourages cells to take in zinc, zinc inhibits RdRP, RdRP builds copies of viruses. Thats the mechanism that works in test tubes, but not in humans so far. Pulling Zinc into cells is what determines this hypothetical effect, not to be confused with whatever has the strongest side effects.
There are many papers online giving confidence that 50-80 mg zinc (gluconate) reduces colds by a day or two and 1000-2000+ IU vitamin D3 reduces flu by a day or two. So while I disagree with your conclusion that Chloroquine won't work, I wish I could give you 100 points for making the connection between zinc and RdRP. Edit: just did a search and your insight led to this study on zinc and Coronavirus from 2010: https:…
I didn't make any claim about whether it'd work or not- I stated that so far, it has only been proven in vitro.
Afraid that means I'll have to subtract 100 points from your tally and add a demerit for shoddy work during a crisis.
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#167This is old news by this time. As I commented on previous threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22534339 Yes chloroquine has been shown effective in vitro ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0 ). Yes hydroxichloroquine has been shown effective in vitro very recently as well ( https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... ). Yes both compounds are already actively being used and…
I remembered your comment today because we had a doctor call our pharmacy to order +1000 hydroxichloroquine tablets for everybody in his assisted living facility, requiring 12 tablets per patient for prophylactic use. Our Pharmacist in charge referred him to literature and informed him they would need an Rx for each patient even if we had that kind of supply, but overall this was not an appropriate practice without a full list of all medications that patients are currently taking. Anyway I thought you'd find this interesting.
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#168This is old news by this time. As I commented on previous threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22534339 Yes chloroquine has been shown effective in vitro ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0 ). Yes hydroxichloroquine has been shown effective in vitro very recently as well ( https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... ). Yes both compounds are already actively being used and…
If you don't mind, would you mind sharing the source for the hydroxychloroquine dosages you mentioned? I clicked your links (understand Italian) and as far as my computer gave me, none of them worked, which was strange but maybe a problem with my browser.
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#169I've been watching the videos in this youtube channel today, where the last couple of videos have talked about this finding : https://youtu.be/U7F1cnWup9M and https://youtu.be/vE4_LsftNKM Basically the goal is to allow zinc to get into a cell, it needs a helper to get inside the cell (a Zinc Ionophore). Apparently based on the 2nd video, Hydroxychloroquine is even more effective than Chloroquine. It's really importan…
I looked around and found naturally occurring zinc ionophores: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf5014633 Quercetin is present in Red Onions and Epigallocatechin-gallate in green tea. Don't know if they are as effective etc but there's got to be alternatives to Chloroquine....
I read some links implying that Quercetin was potentially useful against coronavirus, although they sounded a bit like PR/sales, and site that had links is down (bad sign?) so I can't find the links now.
Edit: https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/a-made-in-canada-solutio...
Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19
#170Crypto is great, you can see from price charts when they found potential cure. Bit like twitter, but faster.
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