The following is from an article in the Korea Biomedical Review from Feb 13th: Physicians Work Out Treatment Guidelines For Coronavirus
They didn't use Azithromicin, the second drug in Raoult and Zelenko's programs, but used Lopinavir and Ritonavir instead. These are protease inhibitors used to treat HIV/AIDS, and don't seem to be as effective as Azithromicin, and also seem to be the cause of most of the side effects. But it shows that any hysteria about "OrangeManBad" chloroquine is total nonsense.
South Korea, of course, has the lowest death rate out of all infected countries, only 2 deaths per million population. (Anecdotally, as Dr. Fauci would say.)
Relevant bits follow:
"For the antiviral treatment, the doctors recommended lopinavir 400mg/ritonavir 100mg (Kaletra two tablets, twice a day) or chloroquine 500mg orally per day.
"As chloroquine is not available in Korea, doctors could consider hydroxychloroquine 400mg orally per day, they said. There is no evidence that using lopinavir/ritonavir with chloroquine is more effective than monotherapies, they added.
"Combining lopinavir/ritonavir with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine could cause serious arrhythmias and drug interactions due to the increased QT interval, the task force said. Thus, the combination should be administered cautiously, in a very limited case, it emphasized.
"The antiviral treatment for the new coronavirus will be most suitable for seven to 10 days. Still, the period could be shortened or extended depending on clinical progress, the doctors said.
"The doctors did not recommend the use of ribavirin and interferon as the first-line treatment because of many side effects.
"Physicians should consider using ribavirin and interferon only if lopinavir/ritonavir or chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine does not work, or the administration is impossible."
I don't know how to link a translated page so I've cut and pasted the good parts with a link to the French at the end. Something tells me Trump and this guy would get along well.
LE PARISIEN: The government has authorized a large clinical trial to test the effect of chloroquine on the coronavirus. Is it important to you to have obtained this?
DIDIER RAOULT. No I do not care. I think there are people who live on the Moon and who compare the therapeutic trials of AIDS with an emerging infectious disease. I, like any doctor, once it has been shown that a treatment is effective, I find it immoral not to administer it. It's that simple.
What do you say to the doctors who call for caution and are reserved about your tests and the effect of chloroquine, especially in the absence of further studies?
Understand me well: I am a scientist and I think like a scientist with verifiable elements. I have produced more data on infectious diseases than anyone in the world. I'm a doctor, I see sick people. I have 75 hospitalized patients, 600 consultations per day. So the opinions of each other, if you knew how I don't care. In my team, we are pragmatic people, not TV set birds.
How did you come to work on chloroquine and tell yourself that it could be effective in treating coronavirus?
The problem in this country is that the people who speak are of gross ignorance. I did a scientific study on chloroquine and viruses thirteen years ago which was published. Since then, four other studies by other authors have shown that the coronavirus is sensitive to chloroquine. All this is not new. It is suffocating that the circle of decision-makers is not even informed of the state of the science. We knew about the potential effectiveness of chloroquine on viral culture models. We knew it was an effective antiviral. We decided in our experiments to add a treatment of azithromicyne (an antibiotic against bacterial pneumonia, Editor's note) to avoid bacterial secondary infections. The results were dramatic in patients with Covid-19 when azithromycin was added to hydroxychloroquine.
What do you expect from larger-scale trials around chloroquine?
Nothing at all. With my team, we believe we have found a cure. And in terms of medical ethics, I believe that I have no right as a doctor not to use the only treatment that has so far proven successful. I am convinced that in the end everyone will use this treatment. It's just a matter of time before people agree to eat their hats and say, this is the thing to do.
But are there not rules of prudence to respect before administering a new treatment?
To those who say that we need thirty multicenter studies and a thousand patients included, I answer that if we were to apply the rules of current methodologists, we would have to redo a study on the interest of the parachute. Take 100 people, half with parachutes and the other without and count the dead at the end to see what is most effective. When you have a treatment that works against zero other treatment available, this treatment should become the benchmark. And it's my freedom to prescribe as a doctor. We do not have to obey government orders to treat the sick. The recommendations of the High Health Authority are an indication, but it does not oblige you. Since Hippocrates, the doctor has done for the best, in the state of his knowledge and in the state of science.
Do you think that confining the population will not be effective?
Never before has this been done in modern times. We were doing this in the 19th century for cholera in Marseille. The idea of confining people to block infectious diseases has never been proven. We don't even know if it works. It is social improvisation and we do not measure its collateral effects at all. What will happen when people are going to stay locked up, behind closed doors, for 30 or 40 days? In China, there have been reports of suicides for fear of the coronavirus. Some will fight among themselves.
And should we generalize the wearing of masks?
It is difficult to assess. We know that they are important for healthcare personnel, because they are the rare people who really have very, very close relationships with patients when they examine them, sometimes 20 cm from their face. It is unclear how far viruses fly. But certainly not more than a meter. So, beyond this distance, it may not make much sense to wear a mask. In any case, it is to hospitals that these masks must be sent as a priority in order to protect caregivers. In Italy and China, an extremely large part of the patients turned out to be healthcare personnel.
There seem to be a lot of pedes here who are declaring the end of globalism in the wake of the corona hoopla.
To the contrary, I suspect the lovely gargoyles across the aisle will play it for all it's worth.
Why do they care about global cooling / warming / climate change / the Climate Crisis™?
The whole purpose of the climate change ideology is to set up institutions of transnational control, and use them to undermine national sovereignty. Because it's not your climate or mine, it's our climate, all of us interdependent, one world, kumbaya et cetera.
And because it's a transnational system, that means they have to control the whole thing, because it's no use controlling just a part, and because we can't possibly do it ourselves.
Well pandemics are transnational too. Viruses don't respect borders, which means the institutions that guard against them must be transnational as well. And if they have to undermine national sovereignty just a teensy bit in order to prevent a pandemic, well, if it saves one life it will be worth it.
And that little infographic about flattening the curve suggests their paradigm shift: the replacement of treatment by preemption.
A smarter way to fight disease? No doubt.
It also means they can fake a new virus every year, and demand immediate closures, lockdowns, and surveillance - for your own good of course, and more importantly for your grandma's, and your neighbor's grandma, and the doctors and the nurses and the baby seals.
They've already identified the online army of panic-mongers and Facebook nannies who'll be willing to help enforce it, and they've established all the rhetorical precedent they need in order to censor skeptics and dissenters for the purpose of "saving lives", and tech companies will be expected to line up to do their part in helping with all this, and will somehow force themselves to do so.
Really we should find a way to preempt the need for preemption, and censor everyone ahead of time. ("If it saves one life..." ) And teach the school kids about it, and make it the plot of Hollywood films, and fire college professors who don't demonstrate their obedience with sufficient prostration.
And please don't be surprised to learn that each virus will have a second wave, and a third.
Close the borders, sure. End globalism! But viruses are sneaky little bastards. They always manage to get released, somehow, when and where you least suspect it.
In case you're wondering, the head of the WHO - and by extension the guy who'll be in charge of keeping you safe and healthy from all these scary viruses, and that at the cost of only the temporary suspension of a few nonessential civil liberties - is a member of a political party styling itself the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
He probably just got there by accident.
