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If anyone wants to hear the thoughts of Procopious on the Justinian Plague (a far more dire affliction than Covid - probably Bubonic Plague) this guy reads it well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxQGgEcAwDs (good production too).

JWBS wrote:
If anyone wants to hear the thoughts of Precopious on the Justinian Plague (a far more dire affliction than Covid - probably Bubonic Plague) this guy reads it well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxQGgEcAwDs

We are not over it, infact if we get unlucky and this is a virus we maybee get a mutation of one that is even more deadly.
However that channel is indeed good.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Overread wrote:
You know its honestly rather scary when you're on the outside looking in that Trump is allowed to even make these wild claims on national television to his people. I wager in many other countries they'd have somehow gagged their leader or heavily curtailed what they were allowed to say during a disaster if they were prone to daftness of the scale of suggesting to inject disinfectant into peoples bloodstream.

It'd be unthinkable over here.
However unlike the US where top positions often of officials still change hand according to patronage system with each new president we have as a counter balance to the militia system for politicians a well disciplined and trained staff of officials at the federal level. Which often runs the country inbetween sessions and are responsible for basically everything, including army logistics, state television, statistics (very important) Medical planning, etc.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Ed conway, economics editor for sky, suggests a 10% one off wealth tax to pay for the lockdown.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/has-the-time-come-for-a-one-off-wealth-tax-mrt3bqs8m


Yeah, I can't see that happening.

As a concept affecting the super rich, maybee. However effectiveness depends o the strucutre of the tax system in place.

As far as I'm aware, Its a blanket 10% from everybody. I dont know if it only applies to assets like businesses or properties, or also to savings and stock holdings. either way, its an absurd concept. those super rich that everyone complains about will avoid the tax with their offshore holdings and other tax avoidance techniques. the poorest will be affected obviously, but if they dont have much they wont pay much. its the middle that will be affected most. small business owners, and people like myself, who (not blowng my own horn) have amassed properties and savings through hard work and good financial management. for example, if they were to tax me that now, on my property, stocks and shares, and savings, it would be a substantial sum.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
for example, if they were to tax me that now, on my property, stocks and shares, and savings, it would be a substantial sum.

Likewise. I'm lucky enough to have a large house, thanks to an inheritance from my grandparents. But I certainly don't have 10% of the value of it knocking around that I can chip in to the tax man.

Crispy78 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
for example, if they were to tax me that now, on my property, stocks and shares, and savings, it would be a substantial sum.

Likewise. I'm lucky enough to have a large house, thanks to an inheritance from my grandparents. But I certainly don't have 10% of the value of it knocking around that I can chip in to the tax man.

Similarly some of the "super rich" if priced on assets held (like land and properties) appear far richer than when you price things based on the income generated from those holdings. I would only imagine a 10% tax would be based on incomes and such rather than on owned assets because otherwise a vast majority of home owners would be unable to pay that kind of sum; especially in areas where house prices have grown over the years. For example many rural areas might have lower income local employment, but house prices are very high due to pressure from people in more affluent areas moving in.

10% wealth tax is absolutely just outrage-bait. Who does it go to? The people that have just paid it? That's probably this writer's most clicked story ever, and absolutely calculated to be so. He may as well have written "Cure for Covid has been found" and gotten something like the same result. In fact, were I this guy's editor, I'd fire him today.

Did a Cult Leader just instruct his followers to drink Kool Aid (or inject, in this case)?

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Overread wrote:
You know its honestly rather scary when you're on the outside looking in that Trump is allowed to even make these wild claims on national television to his people. I wager in many other countries they'd have somehow gagged their leader or heavily curtailed what they were allowed to say during a disaster if they were prone to daftness of the scale of suggesting to inject disinfectant into peoples bloodstream.

It'd be unthinkable over here.
However unlike the US where top positions often of officials still change hand according to patronage system with each new president we have as a counter balance to the militia system for politicians a well disciplined and trained staff of officials at the federal level. Which often runs the country inbetween sessions and are responsible for basically everything, including army logistics, state television, statistics (very important) Medical planning, etc.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Ed conway, economics editor for sky, suggests a 10% one off wealth tax to pay for the lockdown.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/has-the-time-come-for-a-one-off-wealth-tax-mrt3bqs8m


Yeah, I can't see that happening.

As a concept affecting the super rich, maybee. However effectiveness depends o the strucutre of the tax system in place.

As far as I'm aware, Its a blanket 10% from everybody. I dont know if it only applies to assets like businesses or properties, or also to savings and stock holdings. either way, its an absurd concept. those super rich that everyone complains about will avoid the tax with their offshore holdings and other tax avoidance techniques. the poorest will be affected obviously, but if they dont have much they wont pay much. its the middle that will be affected most. small business owners, and people like myself, who (not blowng my own horn) have amassed properties and savings through hard work and good financial management. for example, if they were to tax me that now, on my property, stocks and shares, and savings, it would be a substantial sum.

well then it's stupid, because it's the little persons that are keeping the economy liquid due to expenses and income are about equal.

I think they should sell Corona Bonds - Offer a smallish rate of interest, it will still be better than putting it in a savings account at the moment, and may well be less of a cost to the treasury than international borrowing.

 Slinky wrote:
I think they should sell Corona Bonds - Offer a smallish rate of interest, it will still be better than putting it in a savings account at the moment, and may well be less of a cost to the treasury than international borrowing.

That's not a bad shout actually. Especially as my bank informed me only last week that my ISA interest rate has dropped from 0.35% to 0.01%
I'd be happy to invest in the future of the country.

It seems that the Govt has already started...

https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/uk-launches-massive-bond-sale-fund-coronavirus-fight-200423074102823.html

 Skinnereal wrote:
Can the number of deaths be directly linked to Trump explaining his "good you-know-what"? Can he be held responsible for them?

Also, did any experts get to look at the material he wheeled out beforehand? Who told him that "Sunlight impedes virus transmission"?

Seeing president can't be criminally charged and republican senate won't vote against rep president even if they admit he is guilty of what he was charged in impeachment(and reverse for democrats also applies) the first time he can be held responsible is in november unless he can find some legal way to postpone it. I have been told by those better knowleadgable about US laws that the president elections are flat out matter for congress which president can't mess around on himself no matter what emergency order he tries. He could order shut down phones and internet, put in troops to roads etc but not postpone elections without congress saying "aye" which is unlikely with one house controlled by democrats.

Let's just hope nobody is stupid enough to actually try that grand idea. Though seeing precedence(RIP the old guy that drank fish tank cleaner...) not too hopeful about that.

Why he has to improvise those statements etc and not run his ideas through at least some experts. Even if he doesn't have brightest minds available this should be fairly trivial for even less good expert to get rid out of his statements in advance if he bothered to ask in advance.

Well this got a bit drowned out by several pages of reacting to you-know-who . But can non-subscribers see this NYT article?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html

Hoping so (if their coronavirus coverage is free like many places)? It is showing a just over 20% infection rate in a sample test population from NYC, which would also indicate a 0.5% mortality rate. So scary in the sense that it's more contagious and widespread than we realized, but also less deadly. All of this is preliminary and needs more testing to verify, but really interesting...

The UV light suggestion is like saying that the best treatment for termites in your house is the precise application of a flamethrower to the affected areas, which is a sure-fire way to kill nests.

Frankly, there should be a law against the passing of false or just plain untested medical treatments or theories as "legitimate new things", even at the highest levels.

Needed to sign in account but no need to subscribe.

Good news indeed if already 20% of NYC has caught it. Means it's not that deadly as it could be.

Locally here in Finland doubt it has spread nearly as fast. For one lockdowns have been in place and for example whole Uusimaa was cut off from rest of Finland beyond essential traffic so cases outside Uusimaa stayed low quite long. If even 10% would already be infected though there would be about 130 cases for each reported which makes mortality rate not as severe as it could have been.

Makes me hope the infected % is atm as high as possible. We are coping with the patients atm so the more of Finland is infected atm the better it means long run.

Hopefully the result was if anything too small % than too big %. The bigger it is the more people deal with it with little to no effects and less deaths this will cause in the end.

Upside?

This could prove an interesting data point for tracing the impact of Woo Medical Claims.

I mean, anyone injecting themself with disinfectant is gonna be headed for hospital, surely? And even those that don’t, well not to over egg the pudding, pretty sure it’ll come out in the autopsy.

For those with an interest in highlighting the dangers of Woo Peddlers and their crazy schemes (kid got autism, squirt this bleach up his nips, BANG AND THE AUTISM IS GONE!), this could be just the evidential cudgel needed to challenge its growth.

 Ouze wrote:
The TV movies about this period in time are going to be amazing.

I think where you're going with that assumes that this isn't a glimpse of the future. While Mr. Trump may be a unique personality facing a unique crisis, I'm still not ready to assume that.

 Ouze wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Fun fact injecting Alcohol in such a way is one of the most painfull ways to do something

Not to mention a total waste of alcohol that could have been butt-chugged.

Just don't google that... you'd need a brain bleach.

Kinda interesting how now that we found out hydroxychroquine kills more people than it helps when used to treat covid, we're now just kind of pretending that wasn't a thing, huh?

Because that statement is missing a lot of context.

Hydroxychroquine is a medication that need to be carefully prescribed, especially if the patient is diagnosed with cardiovascular issues.

It's primarily used for prophylaxis anti-Malarial treatments and certain auto-immune diseases (ie, Lupus and arthritis). It's an old, old drug discovered back in the 50's widely used medication.

The missing context here is that this med was hoarded earlier on the pandemic by folks concerned for Lupus and other auto-immune patients. Then the panic buys in the early days by everyone. There was a nationwide shortage, such that, guidance was issued to prescribe it as a last resort. Meaning, patients already compromised in the ICU, likely on the ventilator.

Here's the thing: If a patient finds themselves on the ventilator, it's very sketchy at that point (morbidity at that point is around 50%).

More clin trials and investigation is needed for this drug AND the literature suggests that this med would only be effective either prophylactically or early on the disease phase. We simply do not know enough at this point.

Even the Gilead anti-viral drug Redemsivr seems "hit or miss". That's why we do these studies.

The TV movies about this period in time are going to be amazing.

Movie tag line: "Just when you thought it couldn't get crazier... it does!"

Is it normal for any US President to be this free from any kind of oversight restraint type stuff?

I don't think any president since T. Roosevelt has been this prone to speaking "off the cuff" and I use those words only as a civil alternative to what I really think. And T. Roosevelt was still a functional human being in his own right. It's a completely out-of-context problem. There is no safety net for "what if the President is just daft?"

 Ouze wrote:

JWBS wrote:
[Honestly never heard of it until now. So people are trying home remedies? And I imagine these people probably aren't even infected?

Oh yeah, one guy and his wife drank fish tank cleaner (chrolorquine phosphate) right after the President suggested hydroxychlorquinine. .

Coronavirus is definitely no longer a concern for him.

You don't hear much of that story since it was found out that the woman was rabidly anti-Trump and there are police reports of marital disputes. That whole story seem sketchy as feth anyways.

That's like buying rat poison at your hardware store for personal consumption because someone said blood thinning meds was first discovered to be used to kill rodents.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
Not entirely. I've seen a couple of commentators suggest that it's just a media beatup to discredit the treatment.

I think my least favorite thing about this current timeframe in the US is literally everything now has to be filtered through this stupid red\blue lens. Someone says something dangerously stupid? You're just biased, as your bias has any relevance as to whether or not those ideas are dangerously stupid, and often, consistently so. It wasn't this way not that long ago - the country was previously capable of coming together during a disaster. Now I don't even see a way forward to getting there.

Honestly, it's been that way for as long as I can remember. (I've been politically aware since the 2nd Reagan admin).

The only "pause" of that "red\blue lens" was after 9/11... and even that only lasted a few months.

I'm not sure I see a way forward either.

 LordofHats wrote:

Is it normal for any US President to be this free from any kind of oversight restraint type stuff?

I don't think any president since T. Roosevelt has been this prone to speaking "off the cuff" and I use those words only as a civil alternative to what I really think. And T. Roosevelt was still a functional human being in his own right. It's a completely out-of-context problem. There is no safety net for "what if the President is just daft?"

Well, there is. Legal repercussions for spreading false information which can lead to harm. Only a moron would end up getting into the situation where such a thing would apply to them and maybe seeing morons get sued into oblivion, fined or imprisoned might act as a deterrent for other morons running for the presidency. Or at the very least they'll hide away from press briefings or only read off the cards given to them by the specialists who are the ones who should actually be giving these press briefings.

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
CA is utterly screwed by the shutdown. We're going to lose all of our small businesses and millions will be unemployed permanently. Its too late for no damage to be done

I think you posted some pretty questionable ideas in that post but I want to single this one out in particular. Why will millions be unemployed permanently? How could you form such an idea?

If you are a 20 year old dishwasher that got laid off, you're saying he might live to 100 and not work again for the next 80 years?

I mean, how even? The economy in 1918 after the Spanish Flu and WW1 was recovering by 1919 and totally recovered by 1921. Have you heard the phrase "Roaring 20s" before? It wasn't because "millions were permanently unemployed" after following pretty much the same kind of social distancing... and then they had a world war to boot.

Everything getting back to being the same as it was before the pandemic is very optimistic.We had the recession in 2008 and I don't recall the 2010s being a vibrant roaring economy. I'm not trying to be a prophet of doom, this pandemic isn't an existential threat to the US and I don't think we're going to end up living in Barter Town deciding if it's better to vote for Aunt Entity or Master Blaster to be in charge. However, I do think that there's a lot of evidence that makes me believe the recovery will not be quick or smooth at all.

We had 2.5 million people file for unemployment this past week which brings the total up to 26 million since the lock down started. That has predictably led to system crashes in the state unemployment departments as they weren't set up to handle this kind of massive spike.
Quick note to our nonAmerican Dakka-ites, in the US we don't have any legislation that is requiring the Federal government to cover lost wages due to the lockdown. Everyone who gets laid off during the lockdown has to file for unemployment with State in which they live to get money while they're out of work. Congress did pass legislation that called for everyone to get $1200, depending on how you filed your taxes that may have shown up via direct deposit or it may show up in the regular mail sometime, depending on other conditions. They also set up a small business loan fund but that ran out of money in a week (while Congress was on vacation) in part because it was so poorly written that Harvard, a private school with a $40 billion endowment laid off it's cafeteria workers and then collected $9million from the federal covid19 assistance fund that they then agreed to send back afte rthe media reported on it. Congress just now passed legislation to give more funding to the small business loan assistance program. Health insurance is also tied to employment so if the 26 million unemployed people were getting health insurance from their employer they've now either lost it or have to pay a much higher rate for it. If they didn't have health insurance from their employer they still don't have it.

Whenever this pandemic is over there's no guarantee that it has no short or long term effect on consumer demand. Will everyone go back to dining out at the same frequency? Will people go to movie theaters with the same frequency? How many people will have the desire or the means to open new restaurants or business? How easy will it be to get loans? There's already a glut of retail space still on the market from the 2008 recession and now we'll have even more vacancies.

The realistic best case scenario is that the 20 year old dishwasher gets laid off, files for unemployment and eventually gets through and does his paperwork that eventually gets processed and he gets a monthly check. Hopefully during this time he still manages to pay for his housing, utilities, food, etc. without getting evicted or having his car repo'd or having any medical emergencies. Then he collects unemployment until things are "normal" and either his previous employer reopens or he gets hired at a new restaurant. At his new job he can now earn hopefully more than minimum wage doing unskilled labor working full time hours with either no health insurance or very basic high deductible health insurance. He won't be able to accumulate much in the way of savings given his subsistence level wages and it will be a minor miracle if he manages to bootstrap himself up into a better career.

That's the best case scenario and it requires that coronavirus doesn't linger too long, that the State and Federal responses and assistance programs are timely and effective and that new jobs are created quickly and in large numbers. It's also still a suboptimal situation for both the dishwasher and our consumer based economy as a whole.

I've tried my best to stick to facts and not get too political in this post so hopefully the mods are ok with it. I think you're correct ouze in that things will bounce back to a certain extent and this isn't an existential threat to the country economically. However, I think a lot of discussion in this thread is getting derailed with extreme hypotheticals and it loses sight of some crucial facts: the pandemic is having a massive negative impact on tens of millions of Americans, a number far greater than the number of people getting infected with covid19. There are very legitimate concerns about the economic impact of the shut down notably from a humanitarian aspect of the amount of mental, emotional and financial suffering that tens of millions of Americans are enduring. I want us to do fight this pandemic as intelligently and effectively as we can. I also want my local coffee shop to reopen as soon as possible, not because I miss my morning latte but because the owner and the employees are suffering and the longer the lock down goes on the more likely it is that they'll all be unemployed without an income when it ends.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Is it normal for any US President to be this free from any kind of oversight restraint type stuff?

I don't think any president since T. Roosevelt has been this prone to speaking "off the cuff" and I use those words only as a civil alternative to what I really think. And T. Roosevelt was still a functional human being in his own right. It's a completely out-of-context problem. There is no safety net for "what if the President is just daft?"

Well, there is. Legal repercussions for spreading false information which can lead to harm. Only a moron would end up getting into the situation where such a thing would apply to them and maybe seeing morons get sued into oblivion, fined or imprisoned might act as a deterrent for other morons running for the presidency. Or at the very least they'll hide away from press briefings or only read off the cards given to them by the specialists who are the ones who should actually be giving these press briefings.

We are talking about the US. It is extremely hard to sue someone for harmful information as most of the time it is protected as freedom of speech.

Basically you need to prove intent to cause harm, and Trump being a moron pretty much protects him from it.

Politics has always been something that you don't bring up at parties. But it wasn't always like this. THIS is nuts.

Big reasons why include internet echo chambers not existing back then, no anonymous-ish internet communication driving conversation into a more aggressive and staccato thing, and news media that didn't target and bombard you with slanted information designed to outrage people of your particular political leaning.

Right now, more extreme people and opinions are driving more of the political conversation.

 gorgon wrote:
Politics has always been something that you don't bring up at parties. But it wasn't always like this. THIS is nuts.

Big reasons why include internet echo chambers not existing back then, no anonymous-ish internet communication driving conversation into a more aggressive and staccato thing, and news media that didn't target and bombard you with slanted information designed to outrage people of your particular political leaning.

Right now, more extreme people and opinions are driving more of the political conversation.

Too true. I think the conspiracy thread touched on with the posts about 24 hour news mirroring sports coverage. Politics has become very absolutist. It's very unfortunate because in an internet driven information age when there should be more transparency in governance than ever it's just as easy for politicians to hide and obfuscate their dealings. All they have to do is trot out some tangential issues that are good for getting controversy, outrage and extremism worked up and it the media gets their tempest in a teapot so nobody pays attention to what's actually going on. You can look at how many other countries are dealing with the pandemic and compare it to what we're doing in the US and highlight a lot of problems with our response. Then you look at all the coverage given to Federal legislation for covid19 and none if really examines the content of the legislation. Bad legislation is a much bigger problem, that's what actually impacts the country. The partisan bickering about credit and blame is secondary to what they're actually doing to the country.

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Fun fact injecting Alcohol in such a way is one of the most painfull ways to do something

Not to mention a total waste of alcohol that could have been butt-chugged.

Just don't google that... you'd need a brain bleach.

Kinda interesting how now that we found out hydroxychroquine kills more people than it helps when used to treat covid, we're now just kind of pretending that wasn't a thing, huh?

Because that statement is missing a lot of context.

Hydroxychroquine is a medication that need to be carefully prescribed, especially if the patient is diagnosed with cardiovascular issues.

It's primarily used for prophylaxis anti-Malarial treatments and certain auto-immune diseases (ie, Lupus and arthritis). It's an old, old drug discovered back in the 50's widely used medication.

The missing context here is that this med was hoarded earlier on the pandemic by folks concerned for Lupus and other auto-immune patients. Then the panic buys in the early days by everyone. There was a nationwide shortage, such that, guidance was issued to prescribe it as a last resort. Meaning, patients already compromised in the ICU, likely on the ventilator.

Here's the thing: If a patient finds themselves on the ventilator, it's very sketchy at that point (morbidity at that point is around 50%).

More clin trials and investigation is needed for this drug AND the literature suggests that this med would only be effective either prophylactically or early on the disease phase. We simply do not know enough at this point.

See, the problem is that hydroxychloroquine is an immunosuppressant. The idea was that it could help treat the cytokine storms that kill a lot of COVID patients. Trials showed that not only did it NOT do that, it increased the rate of death by about 10%, due to its severe cardiac side effects. Used as a prophylaxis it's likely to be even LESS effective, thanks to the aforementioned side effect (also blindness) and its immunosuppressant nature.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Politics has always been something that you don't bring up at parties. But it wasn't always like this. THIS is nuts.

Big reasons why include internet echo chambers not existing back then, no anonymous-ish internet communication driving conversation into a more aggressive and staccato thing, and news media that didn't target and bombard you with slanted information designed to outrage people of your particular political leaning.

Right now, more extreme people and opinions are driving more of the political conversation.

Too true. I think the conspiracy thread touched on with the posts about 24 hour news mirroring sports coverage. Politics has become very absolutist. It's very unfortunate because in an internet driven information age when there should be more transparency in governance than ever it's just as easy for politicians to hide and obfuscate their dealings. All they have to do is trot out some tangential issues that are good for getting controversy, outrage and extremism worked up and it the media gets their tempest in a teapot so nobody pays attention to what's actually going on. You can look at how many other countries are dealing with the pandemic and compare it to what we're doing in the US and highlight a lot of problems with our response. Then you look at all the coverage given to Federal legislation for covid19 and none if really examines the content of the legislation. Bad legislation is a much bigger problem, that's what actually impacts the country. The partisan bickering about credit and blame is secondary to what they're actually doing to the country.

i feel like that has to do with the two party system. It leads to vastly more influence of the respective wings due to publicity.
A decent shattering via reform might need to happen for this effect to slowly subside, however then you'd end up with coalition politics potentially.

YOu'd have to change the basic political culture at an enormusly fundamental level and the outcome isn't necessarily better.

Okay guys, general discussion of the two party system is definitely no longer adjacent-enough to coronavirus to keep posting about here since we are trying our best to avoid politics (and thus keep the thread open) after all...

Let's try to get back on the more focused topic of coronavirus news / policies / statistics / etc. Thanks all

It's a bit early to say but the UK is showing some hope
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

There's a small potential drop in daily cases increase and a slight drop in the death rate. Though right now that seems to be just part of the smoothing of the curve process so still a bit early to see a drop off.

Oddly the recovered stats, which were showing there at one time, aren't now showing which is a bit of a pain since ideally we should be starting to see a rise in that value (one would expect)


Interestingly if we look here
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19roundup/2020-03-26

and scroll down the proportion of male to female deaths shows that men are more likely to die than women in the UK. Though its still somewhat early days, its still a significant enough value I think

Worldwide, it has consistently taken a greater toll on men than women. This article puts forward a few theories as to why:

https://www.businessinsider.com/men-women-coronavirus-death-rates-by-country-worldwide-health-habits-2020-4



A lot of it could simply be unhealthy habits (like smoking) or underlying conditions that the virus affects being more common in men, but that article also references a study (here, although it's gibberish to me) showing female mice are less susceptible to SARS, a very similar disease.

So, makes me happy for the women in my life being less at risk but yeah... looks like men are susceptible for possibly a variety of reasons.

 Laughing Man wrote:

See, the problem is that hydroxychloroquine is an immunosuppressant. The idea was that it could help treat the cytokine storms that kill a lot of COVID patients. Trials showed that not only did it NOT do that, it increased the rate of death by about 10%, due to its severe cardiac side effects. Used as a prophylaxis it's likely to be even LESS effective, thanks to the aforementioned side effect (also blindness) and its immunosuppressant nature.

The studies/trials are still incomplete for hydroxychloroquine.

Just as Remdesivir is still incomplete...while its on Phase 3 of their trials, this med is still bit of a "hit or miss" while showing knarly side-effects (primarily adverse renal functions).

The fact it's an immunosuppressant made it an early option because of the disease's damage to patient's pulmonary (lungs) system, because traditional steroid medications weren't as effective in transporting the ingredient past the lung gunk (hence why severe patients had to be ventilated). The body's immune system going into overdrive that seems to be part of the challenge with this disease.

Simply stated, we don't have enough information yet that hydroxychloroquine is effective and it's continued to be used during trials. It'll literally be years before we'd get a final determination, since it's so early. It's possible that no impact is found and they'll drop the study... but, we're not there yet.

A couple of points I’d like to emphasize with the readers here:
1) The mainstay treatement for covid19 remains to be SUPPORTIVE CARE. The current body of evidence does not meet the rigorous standards to support routine uses of any specific treatment regimen. Nor is there any panacea/cure at this time.

2) Whether or not to initiate therapy is at the prescriber’s discretion based on evaluation of risks and benefits with consultation with patients.

Standard supportive care consist of:
a. management of respiratory failure, ARDS, sepsis, septic shock
b. management of consistent fevers
c. antibiotic should ONLY be used for confirmed or strong suspicion of bacterial infection or sepsis

Frankly I'm hoping for a streamlined Convalescent Plasma treatment (like IVIG), which is a passive defense as a bridge until vaccines are available (an active defense). This passive defense has a shelf-life as your body doesn't produce those antigens on its own. The problem here is that while the Plasma treatment is an old procedure, harvesting plasmas and antigens is extremely expensive. Not sure how that would start out, but I suspect that the first responders, healthcare workers and those severely compromised would be able to get the plasma treatment this year.

We just need to weather storm for the next 12 months for, hopefully, a vaccine becomes available while practicing meaningful social distancing and engaging with full spectrum lab surveillance.