Well I definitely come to a different conclusion reading this. I don't claim to be any kind of medical expert on anything, I'm looking for scrutiny.
So at the start of the study, 6 of the 36 patients were completely asymptomatic
Why is that discrediting? It just means they were infected without showing symptoms.
22 more had only upper respiratory symptoms (no lung involvement).
Again why is this discrediting? Don't illnesses, particularly viruses, affect people differently? They do characterize those with upper respiratory symptoms as being "infected", and having "infection symptoms", meaning they're all still infected with the same thing, regardless of the specific symptoms or complete lack of symptoms.
So later on in the study:
The proportion of patients that had negative PCR results in nasopharyngeal samples significantly differed between treated patients and controls at days 3-4-5 and 6 post-inclusion (Table 2). At day6 post-inclusion, 70% of hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were virologicaly cured comparing with 12.5% in the control group (p= 0.001). When comparing the effect of hydroxychloroquine treatment as a single drug and the effect of hydroxychloroquine and azithromyc in combination, the proportion of patients that had negative PCR results in nasopharyngeal samples was significantly different between the two groups at days 3-4-5 and 6 post-inclusion (Table 3). At day6 post-inclusion, 100% of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin combination were virologicaly cured comparing with 57.1% in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine only, and 12.5% in the control group (p<0.001).
I take this to mean that, regardless of symptoms displayed, individuals infected show a cure rate of 70% and 100% when coupled with azithromycin. Going so far as to say "virologicaly cured". Small sample size needing additional testing for sure, but it looks promising to me.
The combination of the two medications seems (if this study can be confirmed) to be somewhat helpful in clearing the viral infection in people who have either no symptoms or only upper respiratory symptoms. Trouble is, most of those people would never have gotten severely ill, much less died, even if they got no treatment at all.
It's not clear what benefit there really is to speeding up viral clearance, beyond allowing people to stop self-isolating a few days earlier. That's a good thing, to be sure, but hardly a huge breakthrough that could significantly change the deadly course of this pandemic. Most of the rushed research/observations on transmission that we've seen so far suggest that asymptomatic people who test positive for the virus have minimal ability to transmit it to other people.
What we urgently need is a way prevent people from dying and/or needing extended periods of intensive care to survive, and it's not clear that this drug combination has any effect at all on meeting that need. This guy running around hollering "100% cure rate" is just being irresponsible. The study he's citing makes no such claims, so we should be asking why he's making them, especially when he knows full well he's communicating to a general audience that will jump to a happy conclusion without checking the facts.
Most people who are asymptomatic or have only upper respiratory symptoms are never going progress to the lung involvement, which is the only thing that kills. Most of them would have gotten well without any treatment whatsoever.
Did the hydroxyquinolone (with or without azithromycin) speed up their clearance of the virus by a few days or even a bit more? Very likely. But this guy is going around claiming the study showed a "100% cure rate", and strongly implying that this is a cure rate for COVID-19, and that this is some huge breakthrough that may end the pandemic. It is not. It's interesting, may be somewhat helpful, and other researchers were already familiar with its effects.
Well I definitely come to a different conclusion reading this. I don't claim to be any kind of medical expert on anything, I'm looking for scrutiny.
Why is that discrediting? It just means they were infected without showing symptoms.
Again why is this discrediting? Don't illnesses, particularly viruses, affect people differently? They do characterize those with upper respiratory symptoms as being "infected", and having "infection symptoms", meaning they're all still infected with the same thing, regardless of the specific symptoms or complete lack of symptoms.
So later on in the study:
I take this to mean that, regardless of symptoms displayed, individuals infected show a cure rate of 70% and 100% when coupled with azithromycin. Going so far as to say "virologicaly cured". Small sample size needing additional testing for sure, but it looks promising to me.
This virus only reproduces in the lungs.
The combination of the two medications seems (if this study can be confirmed) to be somewhat helpful in clearing the viral infection in people who have either no symptoms or only upper respiratory symptoms. Trouble is, most of those people would never have gotten severely ill, much less died, even if they got no treatment at all.
It's not clear what benefit there really is to speeding up viral clearance, beyond allowing people to stop self-isolating a few days earlier. That's a good thing, to be sure, but hardly a huge breakthrough that could significantly change the deadly course of this pandemic. Most of the rushed research/observations on transmission that we've seen so far suggest that asymptomatic people who test positive for the virus have minimal ability to transmit it to other people.
What we urgently need is a way prevent people from dying and/or needing extended periods of intensive care to survive, and it's not clear that this drug combination has any effect at all on meeting that need. This guy running around hollering "100% cure rate" is just being irresponsible. The study he's citing makes no such claims, so we should be asking why he's making them, especially when he knows full well he's communicating to a general audience that will jump to a happy conclusion without checking the facts.
Correct. Why? Because he is a lizard.
Most people who are asymptomatic or have only upper respiratory symptoms are never going progress to the lung involvement, which is the only thing that kills. Most of them would have gotten well without any treatment whatsoever.
Did the hydroxyquinolone (with or without azithromycin) speed up their clearance of the virus by a few days or even a bit more? Very likely. But this guy is going around claiming the study showed a "100% cure rate", and strongly implying that this is a cure rate for COVID-19, and that this is some huge breakthrough that may end the pandemic. It is not. It's interesting, may be somewhat helpful, and other researchers were already familiar with its effects.