Prophylactic dose of Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine
Some of this material is at http://mailstar.net/coronavirus.html.
Newsletter published on March 25, 2020
(1) Prophylactic dose of Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine
(2) Dr. Vladimir Zelenko successfully treats Hasidic Jewish patients
with HCQ, no need to go to Hospital
(3) CDC knew Chloroquine effective against Coronavirus since 2005; Class
Action against CDC
(4) Vladimir Zelenko's success is a setback for CDC, MSM & Big Pharma
which is developing a multibillion dollar vaccination program
(5) Medical Worker describes terrifying Lung Failure, even in young patients
(6) Virus is like "having glass in your lungs - every breath is a battle"
(7) Federal bureaucrats Red Tape: told doctor to stop testing
(8) Koreans flee Italy
(9) Koreans flee USA
(10) N. Koreans 'Starving to Death' Amid Border Lockdown
(1) Prophylactic dose of Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine
To protect yourself, take Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine, and Zinc.
The standard dosage to prevent Malaria: for adults, 2 x 250 mg tablets
of Chloroquine Phosphate, once a week after taking food; take them on
the same day each week.
The dose of Hydroxychloroquine as Prophylaxis to prevent Covid-19, from
the Government of India is:
[...] For healthcare workers, a dose of 400 mg twice a day on day 1,
followed by 400 mg once weekly for next 7 weeks, has been prescribed.
The medicine has to be taken with meals, as per the report.
The task force has recommended a dose of 400 mg twice a day on day 1,
followed by 400 mg once weekly for next 3 weeks for household contacts
of laboratory confirmed cases. This has to be taken with meals.
{endquote}
Coronavirus outbreak: ICMR recommends use of hydroxy-chloroquine for
critical COVID-19 cases
Hydroxy-chloroquine is recommended only for preventive treatment of
healthcare workers and individuals in close contact of coronavirus patients
Chitranjan Kumar New Delhi Last Updated: March 23, 2020 | 20:40 IST
The National Taskforce for COVID-19 recommends the use of
hydroxy-chloroquine for prophylaxis of SARS-CoV-2 infection for selected
individuals as follows:
Eligible individuals:
o Asymptomatic healthcare workers involved in the care of suspected or
confirmed cases of COVID-19
o Asymptomatic household contacts of laboratory confirmed cases
Dose:
o Asymptomatic healthcare workers involved in the care of suspected or
confirmed cases of COVID-19: 400 mg twice a day on Day 1, followed by
400 mg once weekly for next 7 weeks; to be taken with meals
o Asymptomatic household contacts of laboratory confirmed cases: 400 mg
twice a day on Day 1, followed by 400 mg once weekly for next 3 weeks;
to be taken with meals
Exclusion/contraindications:
o The drug is not recommended for prophylaxis in children under 15 years
of age.
o The drug is contraindicated in persons with known case of retinopathy,
known hypersensitivity to hydroxychloroquine, 4-aminoquinoline compounds
{endquote}
The next best remedy may be Olive Leaf Extract - take one tablet per day.
Bitter Melon, a vegetable which tastes like quinine and contains
closely-related compounds, would probably protect you.
Other herbal products which boost the immune system should help, e.g.
Noni juice or powder.
{endquote}
(2) Dr. Vladimir Zelenko successfully treats Hasidic Jewish patients
with HCQ, no need to go to Hospital
March 24, 2020
This doctor was already treating patients with Trump's 'gift from God'
drug - before FDA approval
Ari Feldman
March 24, 2020
On Tuesday morning, the controversial and experimental coronavirus
treatment program being run by a Hasidic doctor who claimed he had kept
more than 500 symptomatic patients out of the hospital was shut down. By
afternoon, after intervention from the White House, it was up and
running again.
The doctor, Vladimir Zelenko, has been in isolation because he is
immunocompromised. But he is directing perhaps the world's most
extensive, unsanctioned medical experiment related to coronavirus — the
use of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19, a
something President Donald Trump has been touting for days as a "game
changer" in the fight against the virus.
The experiment is controversial: Trump's top medical adviser, Dr.
Anthony Fauci, has cautioned against use of the drug to treat the virus,
calling evidence of its effectiveness "anecdotal." On Monday evening,
New York banned off-label use of the drug, which is also used to treat
lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, outside state-approved clinical trials.
But on Tuesday afternoon Vice President Mike Pence announced on Fox News
that the Food and Drug Administration was approving off-label use of the
drug "right now."
"Doctors can now prescribe chloroquine for that off-label purpose of
dealing with the symptoms of coronavirus," Pence said.
Zelenko, 46, a Russian immigrant who became Hasidic as a young adult.
and runs a medical practice in Orange County, N.Y., has been doing that
for more than a week. His self-reported success — no deaths among any of
his clients, who are almost all Hasidic Jews — has given him an audience
on Fox News and across conservative news sites, as supporters of the
president look to bolster Trump's attempts to curtail coronavirus — and
the economic repercussions — as soon as possible.
Though he has been operating in uncharted medical territory, backed up
by only a small number of studies, Zelenko has attracted interest from
other doctors looking for ways to stem the growing wave of Covid-19
hospitalizations.
"I'm not claiming any miracle cures," Zelenko said in a telephone
interview Tuesday morning. "I'm creative, and I think out of the box. We
have an unprecedented health crisis — it requires unique thinking."
Zelenko has been urging people in the ultra-Orthodox world to stay calm,
even as he has sounded the alarm about potentially high rates of
infection in Hasidic villages and neighborhoods. In a video message
shared on WhatsApp, he said that the majority of people infected with
the virus will require no treatment.
"You gotta relax," he said, speaking from the driver's seat of his car.
"There is no room for young people to get nervous or cause hysteria, you
will all be fine."
Zelenko has been directing his medical staff from quarantine in his home
in Englewood, N.J., because he had his right lung removed last year
during treatment for lung cancer. He said he is taking a low dose of
hydroxychloroquine himself, prophylactically.
Zelenko said that he has been using a cocktail of drugs on his patients:
hydroxychloroquine, in combination with azithromycin — an antibiotic to
treat secondary infections — and zinc sulfate, which studies have
suggested slows down virus replication in the body. He said he had been
administering the cocktail to patients with shortness of breath of any
age, and those over 60 years old or who are immunocompromised and
exhibiting milder symptoms. He said he is not treating asymptomatic
people under 60 who are healthy or low risk.
He acknowledged that his regimen was new and untested, and that it was
too soon to assess its long-term effectiveness. But he said he thinks
the rewards of implementing his treatment method are much greater than
the risks of waiting to verify its efficacy, and he insisted that he is
seeing only positive results from using hydroxychloroquine, in
combination with two other drugs, on an outpatient basis for patients at
higher risk of dying from the virus.
His patients in Kiryas Joel are facing a potentially high rate of
infection, due to their density and to the village's slowness to shut
down all of its institutions in the wake of government-ordered school
closures and restrictions on social gatherings. Their spiritual leader,
Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum, has been diagnosed with the virus.
Zelenko declined to say whether he was treating Teitelbaum with the
regimen, but said that he could confirm that there was a "high" number
of infections among the religious and spiritual leadership of the town.
Zelenko said that about 350 of the roughly 500 patients he has treated
for coronavirus symptoms are from Kiryas Joel, while the other 150 live
in the Monsey area, where his second clinic is located. He said he has
largely not had his patients tested for coronavirus, because he worried
that waiting for test results to begin treatment would compromise the
treatment's effectiveness.
Shlomo Polachek, the patient representative for Hatzalah, the Orthodox
paramedic service, in Monroe, N.Y., which borders Kiryas Joel, said that
the Hasidic community there has seen three hospital admissions: two on
Monday afternoon and one on Saturday who was released within 24 hours.
"Here in Monroe, it seems to be an indication that it works for the
people," Polachek said of Zelenko's experimental treatment. "It's hard
to say for sure."
Trump has been pushing for broader use of hydroxychloroquine since last
week. On Sunday he said the drug "would be a gift from heaven, this
would be a gift from God if it works."
But the experimental use of the drug goes against public-health
officials' more cautious approach. Fauci, a top doctor at the National
Institutes of Health, suggested that he would only make the drug
available under the auspices of a controlled clinical trial.
On Monday evening, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo released an executive
order that effectively ended pharmacists' ability to prescribe
hydroxychloroquine for use in treating Covid-19, and prohibited any
experimental use of the drug outside of state-approved clinical trials.
On Tuesday morning, at a press conference, he said that New York
hospitals would begin using the drug that day, after Trump had
encouraged him to try hydroxychloroquine on patients already admitted to
hospitals.
"He sent it to me, I'm using it, today," Cuomo said. "If it works, great."
Zelenko said the idea behind his approach is to treat the spread of the
virus in the body before it damages the lungs beyond repair. Once the
lungs of a Covid-19 patient exhibit what's called acute respiratory
distress syndrome, according to WHO, the patient's likelihood of death
is about 50%, according to early estimates.
His method is based on very rough data presented in recent studies. One,
from China, found that hydroxychloroquine was effective at stopping the
spread of the novel coronavirus in petri dishes. A study from France
released last week, based on a sample size of 20 patients, suggested the
combination of the drug with azithromycin, a common antibiotic, appeared
to be helpful in lowering the amount of coronavirus the body, and
therefore buying time to treat the disease.
{WRONG: The French study announced that its treatment CURED the disease
- Peter M.}
However neither study was comprehensive or done in a controlled setting,
which is why health officials have pushed back against the use of the
drug. But Zelenko said that his method, despite being untested, is
necessary, as health officials predict more than 1 million deaths across
the United States. He said he believes it is safe, because so far he has
recorded minimal side effects.
"It's a no brainer — in the right subset of patients," he said.
Already, public health officials in India and Jordan have authorized use
of hydroxychlorquine for treating Covid-19. Some doctors in the U.S. are
using the drug to treat the disease as well, as well as using it
themselves to stave off infection as they treat coronavirus patients.
Trump has latched onto it as a "game changer" in fighting coronavirus as
he pushes to reopen the American economy sooner than many health experts
are advising. He wrongly stated last week that the FDA had approved the
drug for treating the coronavirus. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said
the drug would only be available "in the setting of a clinical trial — a
large, pragmatic clinical trial."
Zelenko said that he felt that hydroxychloroquine was not being taken
seriously as a treatment due a combination of factors, including
conservativeness on the part of the government's medical establishment
in requiring a controlled clinical trial, as well as the fact that Trump
himself has been pushing for the use of the drug.
"And this is a political year, with a presidential election, and there
are forces at play that would prefer to see the economy collapse rather
than President Trump to look good, in my opinion," Zelenko said.
Zelenko has already taken his message to Fox News commentator Sean
Hannity's news program. On Monday evening, on his cable TV program,
Hannity also read from a letter that Zelenko said he sent to Mark
Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, and praised Zelenko's methods.
"I'm just blown away by all this," Hannity said in the radio interview.
Zelenko said that his regimen is also being studied by medical officials
in Israel and Brazil.
He said that he has also been contacted by dozens of doctors interested
in his regimen. One doctor who called him, Dr. Avery Knapp, a
neuroradiologist with a practice in Florida, said that he realizes
Zelenko's method is untested, but wants the government to investigate to
see if his results are real.
"It seems to me to be a very interesting approach," said Knapp, who said
he is not involved in treating coronavirus patients. "There's not a lot
of US studies, but he's taking basically what a lot of hospitals are
doing for inpatient, and he's taking it one step further, which is
taking it to higher risk outpatients." ...
{video} STUNNING! NY Doctor Vladimir Zelenko Finds 100% Success Rate in
350 Patients Using Hydroxychloroquine with Zinc (VIDEO)
by Jim Hoft March 23, 2020
Over the weekend Dr. Vladimir Zelenko from New York state announced he
has found a treatment against the coronavirus with a 100% success rate
on 350 patients.
Dr. Zelenko joined Sean Hannity earlier today on his radio program to
discuss the results from his test.
{see video}
The New York doctor also posted a video explaining his success with
hydroxychloroquine and Zinc . His treatment resulted in the shortness
of breath issue being resolved in 4 to 6 hours. Dr. Zelenko in his
study had zero deaths, zero hospitalizations and zero intubations!
Later on Monday evening Sean Hannity invited two more medical experts on
to discuss Dr. Zelenko's coronavirus results. The two doctors were
cautiously optimistic.
Via Hannity:
We updated this post to note Dr. Zelenko used Zinc supplement and not
Z-Paks in his treatement.
(3) CDC knew Chloroquine effective against Coronavirus since 2005; Class
Action against CDC
Delingpole: Chloroquine Known as Effective Against Coronavirus Since 2005
James Delingpole
19 Mar 2020
The world economy is collapsing because of the terror and mounting death
toll caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. But the anti-malarial drug
chloroquine is effective both as a prophylactic and treatment for the
virus – and the medical establishment has known about this since at
least the SARS coronavirus outbreak in 2005. What the hell is going on?
Yesterday, I reported the existence of three studies, all claiming that
chloroquine phosphate had proved effective in treating the COVID-19.
This has since been confirmed by a more recent open-label non-randomised
clinical trial in France by Didier RTaolt M.D. / Ph.D et al, completed
just days ago. The sample was small but the results were convincing.
As the summary reports:
100% of patients that received a combination of HCQ and
Azithromycin tested negative and were virologically cured within 6 days
of treatment.
In addition, recent guidelines from South Korea and China report
that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are effective antiviral
therapeutic treatments for novel coronavirus.
But the story gets more extraordinary still. It turns out that the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has known since at
least 2005 that chloroquine is effective against coronaviruses.
In 2005, Martin J Vincent et al published a study in Virology Journal
titled 'Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection
and spread.'
Here are its findings:
Background
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is caused by a newly
discovered coronavirus (SARS-CoV). No effective prophylactic or
post-exposure therapy is currently available.
Results
We report, however, that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects
on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are
observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after
exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic
advantage. In addition to the well-known functions of chloroquine such
as elevations of endosomal pH, the drug appears to interfere with
terminal glycosylation of the cellular receptor, angiotensin-converting
enzyme 2. This may negatively influence the virus-receptor binding and
abrogate the infection, with further ramifications by the elevation of
vesicular pH, resulting in the inhibition of infection and spread of
SARS CoV at clinically admissible concentrations.
Conclusion
Chloroquine is effective in preventing the spread of SARS CoV in
cell culture. Favorable inhibition of virus spread was observed when the
cells were either treated with chloroquine prior to or after SARS CoV
infection. In addition, the indirect immunofluorescence assay described
herein represents a simple and rapid method for screening SARS-CoV
antiviral compounds.
It ought to be no surprise that chloroquine is effective against both
SARS and COVID-19. After all, they are both coronaviruses and COVID-19
has often been described in medical and research sources as SARS-2.
Chloroquine works by enabling the body's cells better to absorb zinc,
which is key in preventing viral RNA transcription – and disrupting the
often fatal cytokine storm.
As at least one person has noticed, the implications of this are
enormous. If the medical establishment – including CDC – has been aware
of the efficacy of chloroquine in treating coronavirus for at least 14
years, why has it not been mass produced and made available sooner?
effective treatment for COVID-19 and a prophylactic against infection.
There are grounds for everyone that has suffered and the families
of those who have died for a Class Action Law suit against the CDC
— Ian Wilson (@Le_Nautonnier) March 19, 2020
Here, you might have imagined, is the dream solution: a stop gap
treatment for coronavirus which could save many lives and obviate the
need for this global lockdown which is destroying our economies.
Why isn't the solution being shouted from the rooftops?
One possibility, as I suggested yesterday, is that there is no money in
it for Big Pharma. Chloroquine is a generic drug. That's why Big
Pharma's lobbyists have worked hard to persuade governments that there
can be no acceptable solution till a patented vaccine is brought on to
the market. Even if this happens it won't be till long after the
pandemic is over – probably not till at least next year.
I don't think our businesses, our livelihoods, our sanity can wait that
long. Do you?
(4) Vladimir Zelenko's success is a setback for CDC, MSM & Big Pharma
which is developing a multibillion dollar vaccination program
GR Editor's Note
This is a "potential" slap in the face to the CDC, the US media and Big
Pharma which is developing a multibillion dollar vaccination program.
Big Pharma's intent -with the support of the Western media - is to
suppress relevant information on the features of the virus and how it
can be cured. Treatment is currently the object (in several countries
including the US) of debate by virologists and physicians. Dr. Zelenko's
treatment on the use of hydroxychloroquine is in this regard of utmost
importance.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 24, 2020
***
Over the weekend Dr. Vladimir Zelenko from New York state announced he
has found a treatment against the coronavirus with a 100% success rate
on 350 patients.
Dr. Zelenko joined Sean Hannity earlier today on his radio program to
discuss the results from his test.
The New York doctor also posted a video explaining his success with
hydroxychloroquine and Zinc. His treatment resulted in the shortness of
breath issue being resolved in 4 to 6 hours. Dr. Zelenko in his study
had zero deaths, zero hospitalizations and zero intubations!
Later on Monday evening Sean Hannity invited two more medical experts on
to discuss Dr. Zelenko's coronavirus results.
The two doctors were cautiously optimistic.
(5) Medical Worker describes terrifying Lung Failure, even in young patients
A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even
in His Young Patients
"It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus
patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching
this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions
coming out of his tube."
by Lizzie Presser
March 21, 5 a.m. EDT
As of Friday, Louisiana was reporting 479 confirmed cases of COVID-19,
one of the highest numbers in the country. Ten people had died. The
majority of cases are in New Orleans, which now has one confirmed case
for every 1,000 residents. New Orleans had held Mardi Gras celebrations
just two weeks before its first patient, with more than a million
revelers on its streets.
I spoke to a respiratory therapist there, whose job is to ensure that
patients are breathing well. He works in a medium-sized city hospital's
intensive care unit. (We are withholding his name and employer, as he
fears retaliation.) Before the virus came to New Orleans, his days were
pretty relaxed, nebulizing patients with asthma, adjusting oxygen tubes
that run through the nose or, in the most severe cases, setting up and
managing ventilators. His patients were usually older, with chronic
health conditions and bad lungs.
Since last week, he's been running ventilators for the sickest COVID-19
patients. Many are relatively young, in their 40s and 50s, and have
minimal, if any, preexisting conditions in their charts. He is
overwhelmed, stunned by the manifestation of the infection, both its
speed and intensity. The ICU where he works has essentially become a
coronavirus unit. He estimates that his hospital has admitted dozens of
confirmed or presumptive coronavirus patients. About a third have ended
up on ventilators.
His hospital had not prepared for this volume before the virus first
appeared. One physician had tried to raise alarms, asking about negative
pressure rooms and ventilators. Most staff concluded that he was
overreacting. "They thought the media was overhyping it," the
respiratory therapist told me. "In retrospect, he was right to be
concerned."
He spoke to me by phone on Thursday about why, exactly, he has been so
alarmed. His account has been condensed and edited for clarity.
"Reading about it in the news, I knew it was going to be bad, but we
deal with the flu every year so I was thinking: Well, it's probably not
that much worse than the flu. But seeing patients with COVID-19
completely changed my perspective, and it's a lot more frightening."
This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people.
"I have patients in their early 40s and, yeah, I was kind of shocked.
I'm seeing people who look relatively healthy with a minimal health
history, and they are completely wiped out, like they've been hit by a
truck. This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy
people. Patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen,
and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut
down and can't breathe at all."
They suddenly become unresponsive or go into respiratory failure.
"We have an observation unit in the hospital, and we have been admitting
patients that had tested positive or are presumptive positive — these
are patients that had been in contact with people who were positive. We
go and check vitals on patients every four hours, and some are on a
continuous cardiac monitor, so we see that their heart rate has a sudden
increase or decrease, or someone goes in and sees that the patient is
struggling to breathe or is unresponsive. That seems to be what happens
to a lot of these patients: They suddenly become unresponsive or go into
respiratory failure."
The lung is filled with so much fluid, displacing where the air
would normally be.
"It's called acute respiratory distress syndrome, ARDS. That means the
lungs are filled with fluid. And it's notable for the way the X-ray
looks: The entire lung is basically whited out from fluid. Patients with
ARDS are extremely difficult to oxygenate. It has a really high
mortality rate, about 40%. The way to manage it is to put a patient on a
ventilator. The additional pressure helps the oxygen go into the
bloodstream.
"Normally, ARDS is something that happens over time as the lungs get
more and more inflamed. But with this virus, it seems like it happens
overnight. When you're healthy, your lung is made up of little balloons.
Like a tree is made out of a bunch of little leaves, the lung is made of
little air sacs that are called the alveoli. When you breathe in, all of
those little air sacs inflate, and they have capillaries in the walls,
little blood vessels. The oxygen gets from the air in the lung into the
blood so it can be carried around the body.
"Typically with ARDS, the lungs become inflamed. It's like inflammation
anywhere: If you have a burn on your arm, the skin around it turns red
from additional blood flow. The body is sending it additional nutrients
to heal. The problem is, when that happens in your lungs, fluid and
extra blood starts going to the lungs. Viruses can injure cells in the
walls of the alveoli, so the fluid leaks into the alveoli. A telltale
sign of ARDS in an X-ray is what's called ‘ground glass opacity,' like
an old-fashioned ground glass privacy window in a shower. And lungs look
that way because fluid is white on an X-ray, so the lung looks like
white ground glass, or sometimes pure white, because the lung is filled
with so much fluid, displacing where the air would normally be."
"With our coronavirus patients, once they're on ventilators, most need
about the highest settings that we can do. About 90% oxygen, and 16 of
PEEP, positive end-expiratory pressure, which keeps the lung inflated.
This is nearly as high as I've ever seen. The level we're at means we
are running out of options.
"In my experience, this severity of ARDS is usually more typical of
someone who has a near drowning experience — they have a bunch of dirty
water in their lungs — or people who inhale caustic gas. Especially for
it to have such an acute onset like that. I've never seen a
microorganism or an infectious process cause such acute damage to the
lungs so rapidly. That was what really shocked me."
"It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus
patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching
this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions
coming out of his tube and out of his mouth. The ventilator should have
been doing the work of breathing but he was still gasping for air,
moving his mouth, moving his body, struggling. We had to restrain him.
With all the coronavirus patients, we've had to restrain them. They
really hyperventilate, really struggle to breathe. When you're in that
mindstate of struggling to breathe and delirious with fever, you don't
know when someone is trying to help you, so you'll try to rip the
breathing tube out because you feel it is choking you, but you are drowning.
"When someone has an infection, I'm used to seeing the normal colors
you'd associate with it: greens and yellows. The coronavirus patients
with ARDS have been having a lot of secretions that are actually pink
because they're filled with blood cells that are leaking into their
airways. They are essentially drowning in their own blood and fluids
because their lungs are so full. So we're constantly having to suction
out the secretions every time we go into their rooms."
"Before this, we were all joking. It's grim humor. If you are exposed to
the virus and test positive and go on quarantine, you get paid. We were
all joking: I want to get the coronavirus because then I get a paid
vacation from work. And once I saw these patients with it, I was like,
Holy shit, I do not want to catch this and I don't want anyone I know to
catch this.
The medical details in this story were vetted by an infectious disease
doctor, a cardiologist and an internist at three different hospitals.
All of the information about ARDS, the condition that the respiratory
therapist describes, was fact-checked against peer-reviewed articles and
UpToDate, a resource for physicians to check current standards in care,
clinical features, and expected complications and outcomes.
"I worked a long stretch of days last week, and I watched it go from
this novelty to a serious issue. We had one or two patients at our
hospital, and then five to 10 patients, and then 20 patients. Every day,
the intensity kept ratcheting up. More patients, and the patients
themselves are starting to get sicker and sicker. When it first started,
we all had tons of equipment, tons of supplies, and as we started
getting more patients, we started to run out. They had to ration
supplies. At first we were trying to use one mask per patient. Then it
was just: You get one mask for positive patients, another mask for
everyone else. And now it's just: You get one mask.
"I work 12-hour shifts. Right now, we are running about four times the
number of ventilators than we normally have going. We have such a large
volume of patients, but it's really hard to find enough people to fill
all the shifts. The caregiver-to-patient ratio has gone down, and you
can't spend as much time with each patient, you can't adjust the vent
settings as aggressively because you're not going into the room as
often. And we're also trying to avoid going into the room as much as
possible to reduce infection risk of staff and to conserve personal
protective equipment."
"But we are trying to wean down the settings on the ventilator as much
as possible, because you don't want someone to be on the ventilator
longer than they need to be. Your risk of mortality increases every day
that you spend on a ventilator. The high pressures from high vent
settings is pushing air into the lung and can overinflate those little
balloons. They can pop. It can destroy the alveoli. Even if you survive
ARDS, although some damage can heal, it can also do long-lasting damage
to the lungs. They can get filled up with scar tissue. ARDS can lead to
cognitive decline. Some people's muscles waste away, and it takes them a
long time to recover once they come off the ventilator.
"There is a very real possibility that we might run out of ICU beds and
at that point I don't know what happens if patients get sick and need to
be intubated and put on a ventilator. Is that person going to die
because we don't have the equipment to keep them alive? What if it goes
on for months and dozens of people die because we don't have the
ventilators?
"Hopefully we don't get there, but if you only have one ventilator, and
you have two patients, you're going to have to go with the one who has a
higher likelihood of surviving. And I'm afraid we'll get to that point.
I've heard that's happening in Italy."
(6) Virus is like "having glass in your lungs - every breath is a battle"
MARCH 22ND, 2020
What Does Having Coronavirus Feel Like? Here's What Survivors, Patients Say
By Joseph Curl
DailyWire.com
The Associated Press has a "nut graf" (a single paragraph inserted into
articles on the same topic) in every one of its stories about the
coronavirus.
"For most people, the new virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms,
such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people
with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness,
including pneumonia. The vast majority recover," the AP says.
Fox News also has an explanatory paragraph in many stories: "The disease
is also known to cause mild, cold-like symptoms for 80 percent of those
infected, with most people who test positive recovering over time,
according to the World Health Organization (WHO)."
But according to some who have contracted the virus — people of all ages
— the symptoms were much worse than advertised.
Conner Reed, 25, told Sky News that he thought he was going to die.
"It was a case of going to bed, waking up and not being able to
breathe," Reed said. "It scared me because breathing is a necessity of
life. If you have the flu, you feel like you're going to die but you're
really not. But when your lungs get affected, that's when it really
scared me."
He said at one point during his infection, he couldn't speak at all.
Still, he recovered. "The best case of recovery is having enough rest
and keeping quarantined and being by yourself," he said.
Then there's Geneva Wood, 90. She contracted coronavirus at Life Care
Center senior care facility in Seattle, Washington; 30 deaths have been
linked with the center. In fact, 62% of the roughly 130 elderly
residents were infected.
Despite her age, Wood got better. "It's the Potato Soup!!! She knew
that's what she needed to help her get better! It's working and the
doctor and nurses are wanting the recipe!" her daughter Cami Neidigh
wrote on Facebook.
Chris Kane, a 55-year-old Washington resident, picked up the virus while
on a business trip in Florida, according to ABC News. He said his first
major symptom was a steady pressure on his chest. "What got me kind of
nervous was when my chest started to feel like, you know, an elephant
was standing on [it], basically tough to get your breath," he told ABC News.
Kane was treated with remdesivir, an antiviral therapy that was used
successfully in Ebola treatment. "My breathing got better, [it] wasn't
as painful. I was able to move around the room," he said. His wife told
NBC News: "We are 100,000 percent convinced that the remdesivir turned
things around for him."
Tara Jane Langston, 39, had a worse time with the virus. A frequent
gym-goer, she wound up in a London ICU hospital. She told The Daily Mail
that the virus is like "having glass in your lungs. It's hard to
explain, but every breath is a battle."
"It's absolutely horrible and I wouldn't want to go through anything
like this ever again," she said.
(7) Federal bureaucrats Red Tape: told doctor to stop testing
Coronavirus COVID-19 testing levels in the United States are the lowest
per capita. Here's why
By Emily Olson in Washington DC
Updated March 16, 2020 22:05:13
The United States, a nation with a population of 327 million, has tested
roughly 11,000 people for coronavirus.
South Korea, population 51 million, tests nearly 20,000 people per day.
Oh, and the two countries announced their first known cases of COVID-19
just hours apart.
Granted, it's hard to get an accurate measure of US testing levels
because there's no centralised reporting process (more on that below).
But no matter how you slice it, the US has done the fewest tests per
capita of any country affected by COVID-19.
Why are Americans — a people who pride themselves on being among the
world's most scientifically advanced — failing to measure up?
Let's take a look:
1. Right now, they couldn't get a test even if they wanted one
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 came on January 21, three weeks
after the news about the virus's hold on Wuhan spread globally.
On Feb 5, US authorities distributed kits to test 1,600 patients, but
they delivered slow results and doctors said those results were faulty.
Meanwhile, private testing was steeped in red tape.
The doctor who reported America's first known case told the New York
Times she had to break legal protocol to speak out.
Federal officials responded by telling her to stop testing.
Authorities have since relaxed restrictions, established an emergency
hotline to help doctors and invested millions in private companies
developing quick-turnaround tests.
President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration gives the
Federal Emergency Management Agency new decision-making authority.
It also establishes a testing system that looks somewhat like South
Korea's, with big-name corporations operating drive-thru clinics.
(8) Koreans flee Italy
Gov't to Send Chartered Planes to Italy to Evacuate Koreans
Arirang News
March 23, 2020 08:22
The government plans to send two chartered planes to evacuate Koreans
from coronavirus-ravaged Italy.
The Foreign Ministry said on Friday that about 570 Koreans in Rome and
Milan have expressed a wish to return home.
They had initially sought to arrange flights independently but faced
difficulties due to costs and travel restrictions within Europe.
(9) Koreans flee USA
Koreans Flee U.S. over Coronavirus
By Cho Yi-jun, O Youn-hee
March 24, 2020 10:02
Korean students and expats are fleeing the U.S. as a coronavirus
lockdown there looms.
Students are heading back to Korea in droves as schools and universities
have shut down and switched to online lectures. Many say they are
willing to pay for expensive plane tickets to return to Korea.
Surging infections in the U.S. and concerns over inadequate quarantine
efforts are compounded by fears that Korea may soon close its borders to
travelers from that part of the world.
At present, flights from the U.S. are 90 percent booked, and the prices
of economy-class tickets that usually cost around US$1,500 have doubled
or tripled. This is due both to surging demand and the number flights
from Los Angeles to Incheon decreasing from twice a day to just once and
from Washington to Incheon from seven days a week to just three.
The number of coronavirus cases among visitors to Korea has also surged.
According to quarantine officials, 47 cases were found at airport
screening booths here as of Sunday, up from 11 just a week ago.
(10) N. Koreans 'Starving to Death' Amid Border Lockdown
By Kim Myong-song
March 18, 2020 12:55
North Koreans are starving to death after the country closed its borders
to ward off coronavirus, putting an end to informal trade and smuggling
of vital supplies, sources claimed Tuesday.
"Many regions have been suffering from a shortage of daily necessities
since the regime banned both official trade and smuggling, prohibited
people from traveling between regions, and closed open-air markets," a
source said on Tuesday. "People are starving to death in both border
regions like Hyesan in Ryanggang Province and inland areas."
Prices have risen steeply as there have been no imports of food and
other household essentials like cooking oil, rice, wheat flour and sugar
from China. The border has been closed for more than 40 days.
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