George Rebane
Here are some points about our country’s approach to fighting the C19 coronavirus.
The main reason the media reporters and the administration are talking past each other about what C19 response policies to follow or even how to evaluate what’s being done is that no one is astute enough to put their finger on the widely different and competing utilities or figures of merit that the various parties are trying to maximize. Here are three distinct ones.
UTrump tries to find a balance between the economy (GDP$) and the mortality of C19 (total number dead) by appropriately trading off weighting constants C1 and C2. I’m not sure that any of them on Team Trump are either bright enough or courageous enough to tell the President that this is what his gut is telling him to do, and that this can be put on a more rigorous basis for making defensible policy decisions.
When we listen to medicos like Drs Fauci or Brix, they claim to be apolitical, and the policies they recommend attempt to maximize UMedico by minimizing the number of dead. None of those guys concern themselves with the economy or the longer term health impacts of an economically destitute country. They focus on the here and now of saving lives, period.
And then there’s the Democrats whose utility is all about getting back into power and putting the country on a solid road to socialism cum communism. They could give a big rat’s ass about a recovering economy or minimizing the number of C19 deaths. Their utility UDems is the converse of UTrump. The want the economy to take the biggest conceivable hit, and have as many people die as possible, all of which, no matter the numbers, they will blame on Team Trump. Their Big Lie will be that things would have been much better under a Dem (Hillary?) administration, and we’ll be happy dancing again as soon as we throw Trump out of office.
If those reporters would understand any of this, they could perhaps quit asking profoundly stupid questions and write some cogent reports that sort out the apparent differences between the gaggle of factions in the public forum.
Then there’s the matter of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZ) the policies toward which I have covered elsewhere in these pages. Trump and I promote the use of these proven malaria fighting and anti-biotic drugs for ameliorating C19 both as a prophylactic and as a therapeutic. The tests (albeit of limited sample sizes) that have been done with these drugs in treating C19 have already delivered impressive results. And a big study is underway to measure its effectiveness. But I (and Trump?) take great hope in promoting their immediate use in that they are already being successfully used in the US in this pandemic, and healthcare workers, led by the physicians, are prescribing them for their own use and hoarding the supplies of HCQ and AZ whenever they can get their hands on it. They know these drugs are safe, and they have nothing to lose in taking them.
So here’s the Rebane Doctrine for the prescription and use of HCQ and AZ. The Dems are on record vilifying the President for being a proponent of something they consider to be unproven, ineffective, and possibly dangerous. Whether they believe their own crap is irrelevant, refer again to the utility function discussion above. Almost everyone on the Right wants HCQ and AZ as quickly as they can get their hands on it. And if we believe the numbnuts on the Left, they want nothing to do with it, and would be glad to have the folks on the Right scarf it up. So as these two drugs become available, let’s have the Repubs and the Dems agree on a distribution policy based on party registration. Those who are registered Repubs are first in line to get the drugs, and those registered as Dems either don’t get them, or are last in line if they have a belated epiphany. Both sides win; what’s not to like?
[6apr20 update] And here is some more dismal news on how government bureaucracies are impeding the fight against C19 in their approach to approving and/or promoting the use of HCQ and AZ by hospitals and our personal physicians. These are the same guys to whose care and feeding our Left wants to turn over our nation’s healthcare industry. And here more evidence from the field comes in. (H/T to readers)
[10may20 update] HCQ as a SARS prophylaxis was discovered over 15 years ago, and (to my knowledge) first published in the Virology Journal here. HCQ’s successful clinical uses against C19 have been reported from both Wuhan and Singapore, and most recently its robust use in Costa Rica (here). Further reports about its successful uses, especially preventing progress of the disease in early onset patients, is becoming available in dribs and drabs from all over, including the US. Why ‘dribs and drabs’? That is because here in America the Left has politicized the attempts at its widespread clinical uses for the obvious reasons involving President Trump. (more here) We recall, that ALL things new in science and technology have had to surmount intense opposition from the then entrenched establishments, both technical and political. In this litigious land it takes rare courage for physicians to wander too far from the CYA comforts of ‘standard of care’, and the Left and their lamestream lackeys have driven a stake in the ground about HCQ being the one therapeutic that is too far afield – ‘Physician, be forewarned!’
But rejoice, the pushback on the Left has now progressed from ‘HCQ is ineffective, harmful, and dangerous’ to a ‘Large Study Suggests Malaria Drug Hydroxychloroquine Doesn’t Help COVID-19’ in the just published 7may20 New England Journal of Medicine. Therein the strongest statements against HCQ that the authors can make is that (all italicized emphases mine)
- “Hydroxychloroquine has been widely administered to patients with COVID-19 without robust evidence supporting its use.”
- “The study found no significant link between use of hydroxychloroquine and intubation or death.”
- “Our strong feeling is the drug should not be routinely administered to patients with COVID-19.”
What they all avoid denying is the effectiveness of HCQ in the early onset phases of C19.
As more evidence of the ‘dribs and drabs’ that substantiate HCQ uses, consider two recent French studies – here and here.
The bottom line is that no medicine is 100% effective for all cases of any single disease in all of its phases. But HCQ is now known to be sufficiently effective in the treatment of C19, enough to scare the bejeezus out of Left’s leadership as they attempt to fashion their anti-Trump campaign, while saddled with their champion Bumblebrain sporting Pelosi’s kerchief in his gauntlet.
rebanesruminations.com 
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