Tag: hydroxychloroquine

The Latest COVID-19 Treatment Regimens

The latest COVID-19 treatment regimens do not include zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D, CBD oil, azithromycin, or hydroxychloroquine.

As cases surge once again, let’s do an update on COVID-19 treatment regimens, after all, you have likely been hearing about cures and treatments for months now, right?

This doc also has a daily "immune booster" regimen that has you taking zinc, aspirin, vitamin B12, vitamin D3, NAC, vitamin C, probiotics, CBD oil, and Elderberry, in addition to taking hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, budesonide, methylprednisolone, losartan, and ivermectim when you get sick with COVID-19.
This doc also has a daily “immune booster” regimen that has you taking zinc, aspirin, vitamin B12, vitamin D3, NAC, vitamin C, probiotics, CBD oil, and Elderberry, in addition to taking hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, budesonide, methylprednisolone, losartan, and ivermectim when you get sick with COVID-19.

Unfortunately, despite the “treatments” that some folks are pushing, there still isn’t a cure and there aren’t many treatments that are very effective for COVID-19.

Sure, the FDA has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for some treatments, including monoclonal antibodies, convalescent plasma, remdesivir, bamlanivimab, baricitinib, and casirivimab and imdevimab, but many are either for patients with severe COVID-19, who are progressing to severe COVID-19, or they are in limited supply.

The Latest COVID-19 Treatment Regimens

But why wouldn’t you take over a dozen medicines if someone on the Internet tells you they read a bunch of well designed studies, he has the support of “America’s Frontline Doctors,” and he has his own statistics proving they work?

Take home point - don't trust a health care provider who says that masks and lockdowns do nothing.
Take home point – don’t trust a health care provider who says that masks and lockdowns do nothing.

Because it all quickly falls apart if you really take a close look at what he is doing.

Consider Dr. Procter’s comparison of “death rates”…

He is trying to talk about the case fatality rate, but fails to mention any of the things that would cause his practice to have lower rates than the rest of the world, especially younger patients without many co-morbid conditions who aren’t yet hospitalized.

How many of Dr. Procter's patients are over age 65?
How many of Dr. Procter’s patients are over age 65?

And the bias in his data aside, there is evidence that shows his recommended treatments don’t work.

Some are even dangerous.

“The results of an observational study suggest that delayed viral clearance may be a concern in patients with non-severe COVID-19 who are receiving corticosteroids without antiviral drugs. Corticosteroids have also been associated with delayed viral clearance and/or worse clinical outcomes in patients with other viral respiratory infections.”

Therapeutic Management of Patients with COVID-19

So you should likely avoid these medications and unless you have a vitamin deficiency (zinc and vitamin C deficiency are very uncommon in developed countries), there is likely no good reason to take extra or high doses of vitamins to try and prevent or treat COVID-19.

The latest NIH recommendations for treating COVID-19 in non-hospitalized patients.

You should certainly make sure you are getting plenty of all of these important nutrients, especially vitamin D, but understand that the kind of multi-drug COVID-19 treatment regimens you might see some doctors pushing are not proven, are not recommended, and likely won’t help you get better any faster.

And again, some are harmful!

So why do some people think they work?

“Garlic is a healthy food that may have some antimicrobial properties. However, there is no evidence from the current outbreak that eating garlic has protected people from the new coronavirus.”

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public: Mythbusters

Probably the same reason that some folks think that eating garlic works against COVID-19 – it is a highly variable disease and some people have very mild symptoms and get better quickly. If you are lucky enough to be one of these people and you tried some alternative treatment, you will likely associate your quick recovery with that treatment, even if it was just a coincidence.

“New symptoms are usually due to the virus rather than side effects of medications.”

Brian Procter, MD

And if you are really lucky when following one of these treatment regimens, you won’t suffer any side effects as you try to recover from your COVID-19 symptoms. Especially if you are being treated by a doctor who might ignore those side effects…

So what treatments can work?

  • monoclonal antibodies, but except for sotrovimab, they don’t work well against the Omicon variant
  • high-titer COVID-19 convalescent plasma, but only only for the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 early in their disease course or hospitalized patients who have impaired humoral immunity
  • paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) – an oral antiviral that was recently authorized and can be given twice a day for 5 days to those nonhospitalized patients who test positive for SARS-CoV-2,who are at least 12 years old with mild to moderate COVID-19 and who are at high risk of disease progression
  • remdesivir – an IV medication that can be given once a day for 3 days to those nonhospitalized patients who test positive for SARS-CoV-2,who are at least 12 years old with mild to moderate COVID-19 and who are at high risk of disease progression
  • molnupiravir – was recently authorized and can be given twice a day for 5 days to those nonhospitalized patients who test positive for SARS-CoV-2, who are at least 18 years old with mild to moderate COVID-19 and who are at high risk of disease progression
  • dexamethasone – typically only used in hospitalized patients who require oxygen

And of course, better than getting sick and relying on these treatments, you should encourage everyone to get vaccinated and boosted!

More on COVID-19 Treatment Regimens

Misinformation about COVID-19 Deaths

All of the misinformation about COVID-19 deaths from folks pushing propaganda is easily debunked if you do even a little bit of research.

We are over six months into the pandemic and if there is one thing folks should understand, it is that there have been a lot of deaths from COVID-19.

The number of COVID-19 deaths in the US literally doubled in just a few months this summer, but that's hard to see on this chart because of the scale she used. #propaganda
The number of COVID-19 deaths in the US literally doubled in just a few months this summer, but that’s hard to see on this chart because of the scale she used. #propaganda

Unfortunately, propaganda and misinformation about COVID-19 deaths makes that hard to see for some folks.

Misinformation about COVID-19 Deaths

Fortunately, you can keep from being fooled if you check the data on COVID-19 yourself.

Remember, data doesn’t usually lie.

Melissa Floyd's graph on daily new COVID-19 deaths actually doesn't paint the rosy picture she wants. While daily deaths have been down from the start of the pandemic, they then rose again and are just recently declined from those peaks in the past few weeks.
Melissa Floyd’s graph on daily new COVID-19 deaths actually doesn’t paint the rosy picture she wants. While daily deaths have been down from the start of the pandemic, they then rose again and have just recently declined from those peaks in the past few weeks.

But it can certainly be manipulated or misrepresented though.

See how the type of graph representation makes all the difference?
See how the type of graph representation makes all the difference?

That’s why some folks don’t realize that even if COVID-19 deaths have decreased a bit in the last few weeks, there are still over 1,200 deaths a day in the United States!

What other misinformation might you hear about COVID-19 deaths?

This should be big news, as these folks are fact checking their own propaganda! They even highlight the explanation from the CDC that "For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned."
This should be big news, as these folks are fact checking their own propaganda! They even highlight the explanation from the CDC that “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.”

Have you heard that only 6% of COVID-19 deaths are actually caused by COVID-19???

“For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.”

Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics

It’s not true.

The CDC was just saying that people who die with COVID-19 often have other comorbid conditions, such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes, etc. But these aren’t just high risk conditions that they had before they got COVID-19.

They include all of the “conditions contributing to deaths where COVID-19 was listed on the death certificate,” including things like respiratory arrest, cardiac arrest, and sepsis, etc. It’s the why you died with COVID-19…

Other propaganda and misinformation about COVID-19 deaths include that:

  • COVID-19 death rates have been inflated and hospitals are reporting all deaths as COVID-19 related to make more money
  • routine use of hydroxychloroquine would reduce COVID-19 deaths
  • the United States has one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 deaths in the world
  • the CDC used flu and pneumonia deaths to inflate the COVID-19 death count
  • in the middle of the pandemic, the CDC reduced the COVID-19 death toll
  • the flu is killing more people than COVID-19
  • all non-COVID-19 deaths have increased during the pandemic because of lockdowns
  • kids aren’t dying from COVID-19
  • the strategy in Sweden proves that we could have done much less and had the same number of deaths

Don’t believe any of it (see below – all of the claims have been debunked over and over again) or the folks that are steering you away from the truth – that COVID-19 is a serious, life-threatening disease, especially for those who are high risk.

Just look at Sweden…

“More than 5,500 people have died with Covid-19 in this country of just 10 million. It is one of the highest death rates relative to population size in Europe, and by far the worst among the Nordic nations. Unlike Sweden, the rest all chose to lock down early in the pandemic.”

Did Sweden’s coronavirus strategy succeed or fail?

They did much less and have far more deaths than their neighboring countries.

And remember that the high number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States could have been even higher, in the millions, if we had done less.

Do more. Don’t listen to or share misinformation from folks pushing propaganda about COVID-19.

More on COVID-19 Deaths

Why Do Some People Still Think Hydroxychloroquine Works for COVID-19?

We are more than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic and we are still talking about hydroxychloroquine, a dangerous treatment that doesn’t work.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage throughout the world, we don’t have a vaccine, there are few treatments and no cure, and as some still refuse to wear masks in public or social distance, there are still those think that hydroxychloroquine works.

We are still talking about hydroxychloroquine.

Can you guess why?

Why Do Some People Still Think Hydroxychloroquine Works for COVID-19?

Sure, it’s not complicated…

The US has a stockpile of hydroxychloroquine.

There are plenty of people pushing for the continued use of hydroxycloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, even though many experts were skeptical from the beginning and there are new warnings from the FDA.

“Based on its ongoing analysis of the EUA and emerging scientific data, the FDA determined that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA. Additionally, in light of ongoing serious cardiac adverse events and other potential serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for the authorized use.”

FDA cautions against use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for COVID-19 outside of the hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems

But how do these folks convince anyone to listen to them?

Zev Zelenko is one of the doctors pushing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.

Mostly it is because people want to believe that there is a treatment, especially when the alternative is doing nothing.

Dr Urso is another doctor pushing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.

They want to believe, even though that false hope for an effective treatment puts them at risk of dangerous side effects.

An extra risk without any benefits, as hydroxycholorquine doesn’t actually work as a COVID-19 treatment.

“We know that every single good study – and by good study I mean randomised control study in which the data are firm and believable – has shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of Covid-19.”

Anthony Fauci on Coronavirus: Hydroxychloroquine ineffective says Fauci

Again, then, why do so many people think that hydroxychloroquine and these other protocols actually work?

In addition to some poorly done studies that say it works, it is mostly because of the anecdotal data and testimonials they are hearing from the doctors who have appointed themselves experts on treating COVID-19.

How are they determining that false negatives are really false negatives?
How are they determining that false negatives are really false negatives?

For example, is the fact that there are no deaths and only one hospitalization on this list of COVID STATS from the McKinney Family Medicine a good reason to take hydroxychloroquine?

“The overall cumulative hospitalization rate is 120.9 per 100,000 population.”

COVIDView Weekly Summary

Of course not, especially when you consider that you likely wouldn’t expect any hospitalizations or deaths when you only have 271 COVID-19 patients.

Wait, why is that?

With a hospitalization rate of 120 per 100,000 cases, you can expect one person to be hospitalized for every 1,000 cases!

Of course, that rate is higher in groups with higher risk factors, but even if all of the patients at McKinney Family Medicine were older and had some risk factors, it is doubtful that you would expect more than one hospitalization.

“Mild to moderate (mild symptoms up to mild pneumonia): 81%”

Interim Clinical Guidance for Management of Patients with Confirmed Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Remember, most people with COVID-19 have mild symptoms and recover without any specific treatments.

Unfortunately, some don’t, especially those in high risk groups.

Craig Spencer warns that anecdotes about hydroxychloroquine are harming people.

And that’s why we need to work to control COVID-19 with face masks, social distancing, handwashing, testing, contact tracing, and quarantining, and stop all of the pseudo-scientific nonsense about hydroxychloroquine and other COVID-19 misinformation.

More on Hydroxychloroquine

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