Australian scientists insist hydroxychloroquine COULD prevent people catching COVID-19 after giving the controversial drug to hundreds of health care workers
Australian scientists have vowed to continue investigating whether taking hydroxychloroquine can stop people becoming infected with coronavirus.
Researchers from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne believe the drug could prevent people catching SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19.
Hundreds of health workers in NSW and Victoria have been given the drug in the Institute’s COVID SHIELD trial in an effort to try and determine its effectiveness as a prophylactic.
Hydroxychloroquine was brought to public attention when US President Donald Trump said he was using the malaria drug to ‘protect’ himself from coronavirus.
Prescriptions for the drug subsequently skyrocketed, before it was removed from major testing trials as it proved to be ineffective in reducing the impact of COVID-19.
Scientific journal The Lancet published and later retracted a study based on false data that claimed coronavirus cases taking hydroxychloroquine had an increased death rate.
COVID SHIELD co-lead investigator Marc Pelligrini said researchers were not considering the drug as a treatment, but as a preventative.
‘The evidence that shows that the drug doesn’t particularly help with treatment really never deterred us because we always thought that … if the drug did have a role in preventing people from getting COVID-19, it has to be even before they were exposed to SARS-CoV-2,’ he told The Australian.
Test tube studies have found hydroxychloroquine can work to impede the replication of COVID-19 and discourage proliferation.
Claire Lobb is an emergency care nurse at The Alfred Hospital and among about 230 frontline healthcare workers signed up for the four-month trial.
‘Hydroxychloroquine is a drug that is cheap and readily available, with very few side effects. If there is a chance this drug could help prevent frontline healthcare workers from getting COVID-19, I think it is important that we do a proper clinical trial to test it,’ she said.
Ms Lobb said she was keen to be involved and excited at the prospect of finding out whether the drug was useful as a prophylactic.
‘To have a drug that is cheap and widely available to reduce transmission of the virus to frontline healthcare workers would be really helpful, especially while we are waiting for a vaccine,’ she said.
While the Australian researchers remain hopeful hydroxychloroquine could prevent COVID-19, a U.S. study found on Thursday the drug offers no protection.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found about 6.3 per cent of hospital workers who took the drug regularly caught the virus, compared to 6.6 per cent of people who didn’t.
The effect, they said, was ‘negligible’ and although a slightly higher proportion of people without the drug became sick, it was not a big enough difference to suggest hydroxychloroquine worked.
Whether or not the medicine could help treat people who already had Covid-19 was not studied.
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New CDC Coronavirus Survival Rates Torches the Democrats’ Lockdown Regime
I know a lot has happened recently. The 2020 election is entering its final stages. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18 at the age of 87, adding a SCOTUS fight to this cycle. It’s insanity. And yet, COVID is still around. Well, like any pathogen, it’s still around, but the panic porn has somewhat subsided. You drift further from the doom and gloom once you turn off MSNBC and CNN who weaponized this virus in an effort to better Joe Biden’s chances of winning the election. At the very least, panic and mayhem almost always impact a sitting administration to its detriment. Donald Trump has been heavily slammed by the fake news press, despite enacting an agenda that Joe Biden said he would do if elected. The only exception being a national mask mandate, which he stepped away from on constitutional grounds, and a new lockdown regime…if recommended by the experts.
You mean, the experts who worried about protesters wanting to re-open their businesses to feed their families but endorsed the mass protesting done by Black Lives Matter activists. Oh, and most of these devolved into outright rioting, but whatever, right? You can riot but can’t feed your family. Being outside is risky…unless you’re protesting in support of liberal causes. The virus is not transmissible le in that situation. That’s our medical expert class, a bunch of ‘woke’ quasi-Democrat operatives that spread fear porn 24/7 on these liberal networks. Well, a new CDC study on COVID survival rates just wrecked the Democrats’ lockdown protocols—and Joe Biden’s plans for a new national lockdown. Why? Well, because the survivability rate for almost everyone, even the elderly is 90+ percent.
And let’s not forget that Democrats are responsible for a lot of the US-based deaths with their nursing home policy. Yes, forcing these locations in which house our most vulnerable can end with deadly consequences and it has, with almost half of the US death toll being traced to these facilities. No other party has done more to increase the death rate and suffering than the Democratic Party. Also, those with co-morbidities are also vulnerable, as they are regarding any virus. People fighting cancer, history of lung infections, organ transplants, etc., have always been vulnerable. COVID is no different.
I’ll concede that a brief lockdown at the outset of this thing when we knew next to nothing might have been necessary just to keep cases down. Now, that’s not to say I’m not saying we know a whole lot now because we still don’t, but the market was sinking faster than the Andrea Doria and some form of government action usually stabilizes things. And then, Democrats decided to arbitrarily extend these lockdowns and establish a power-grabbing regime. Typical. It’s as expected and a consequence in areas we already knew were to be anti-freedom: blue states.
Some of us overreacted, yes. I raise my hand, but now it’s time to end this nonsense. Florida and Indiana are now fully open. It’s time everyone else does the same. For the healthy, in all age groups, it seems almost everyone recovers. Should people remain vigilant and be safe? Sure. Wash your hands and the like, but this virus and the fear that comes with it is over. No one wants to get COVID obviously, but let’s stop treating this thing like it’s some new virus a la The Andromeda Strain.
End the lockdowns. Also, to all the medical experts, your time is up. We’re done. Go away and learn to not be idiots when offering advice because a lot of what was shoveled into the media was straight-up ‘woke’ nonsense. No, racism isn’t as deadly as COVID, which was offered as a justification for why no one went ‘COVID Karen’ over the mass protests. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio, another idiot, delayed opening schools but was going to allow daycares to open. That makes no sense. If anything, we saw why Democrats can’t govern.
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AG Barr Is Making America Safe Again. Will He Get Credit for It?
For years, Democrats have gone to great lengths to punish Americans for exercising their Second Amendment rights while ignoring career criminals breaking the law and carrying out violent crimes with firearms.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into states across the country, successfully limiting the ability of law-abiding citizens to fight back against those who want to do them harm. Through his gun control lobbying organization, Everytown, Bloomberg has made it harder for women to defend themselves against domestic abusers, stalkers and easier for criminals to prey on the innocent. Everytown and other anti-rights groups conveniently target law-abiding citizens because it’s easier and cowardly while they refuse to do the hard, dangerous work of going after violent criminals illegally using or possessing firearms.
Under the leadership and tenure of Attorney General Bill Barr, the Department of Justice has done the hard work to go after the criminals wreaking havoc in the streets. Through Operation Legend, which was implemented earlier this year, federal law enforcement agencies have aggressively gone after those who Barr and federal prosecutors call “the trigger pullers” and have taken hundreds of illegal firearms off of the streets. They’re also going after those who knowingly and illegally sell guns to criminals.
“We’ve dedicated hundreds of the federal government’s best investigators, analysts, fugitive trackers and other experts to work with our state and local colleagues in law enforcement here in Chicago to help get violent criminals off the streets and I am pleased to report Operation Legend is working. Crime is down and order is being restored to this great American city,” Barr said during a press conference earlier this month.
These efforts have led to a substantial decrease in violence carried out by criminals using guns. In Chicago, the murder rate has been cut in half since July thanks to federal efforts to take bad guys off the streets. In total, Operation Legend has resulted in the arrests of 2000 individuals for serious crimes, 592 of them have been charged federally. Nearly 600 illegal firearms have been seized.
This is a substantial change from the previous administration. Under Attorney Generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, federal prosecutions against those using firearms to carry out crimes plummeted. The result was more innocent victims and increased crime in America’s most vulnerable communities.
“While President Obama decries gun violence and presses for more laws to restrict ownership, his Justice Department has prosecuted 25 percent fewer cases referred by the main law enforcement agency charged with reducing firearms violence across the country, a computer analysis of U.S. prosecution data shows,” the Washington Times reported in 2014. “Federal prosecutors brought a total of 5,082 gun violation cases in 2013 recommended by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, compared with 6,791 during the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency in 2008, according to data obtained from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. The 2013 totals represent a 42 percent decline from the record number of 8,752 prosecutions of ATF cases brought by the Justice Department in 2004 under Mr. Bush, according to the data.”
Barr is reducing gun violence by upholding the law and putting bad people in prison. Will he get credit for it?
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Telemundo’s Poll Offered Some Very Bad News for Joe Biden
This could hand the crucial swing state of Florida to Trump
Is it because he quasi-endorsed or didn’t push back as hard as he should against the far-left’s agenda during the primaries? Do they know he’s a weak sauce candidate? Or is it because his Hispanic outreach operation has been all-in-all total garbage? On the latter point, it might not be the case of bad outreach operations because the difference in preference regarding who won the first presidential debate is so large. It’s as vast as the Pacific Ocean.
While many noted how the first debate went off the rails between President Trump and Joe Biden, Hispanic voters overwhelmingly picked Trump as the winner. In fact, Trump crushed Biden 66/34 regarding who they think won the first duel. It goes in keeping with the polling data that Trump has been doing well with Latinos. You see this in Miami-Dade County, Florida, a key Democratic bastion, where Trump has been doing mighty fine with this voter bloc, causing some Democrats to worry. Well, I’m sure Telemundo’s poll didn’t neutralize those fears:
That’s quite a trouncing.
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Florida’s Governor Has Taken GIANT STEP Towards Taking Care Of Rioting Thugs!
Governors actually hold a great deal of power, it’s why they are the one person that can stop an execution from taking place.
With all of the rioting going on these past few months, it is about time someone does something about it.
The state of Florida is going to get tough on people who engage in violence during protests, Florida’s Republican governor said Monday in announcing new legislation.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said his proposed legislation will impose felony-level penalties on anyone who damages property, causes injury or destroys public property during a protest.
“Recently in our country we have seen attacks on law enforcement, we’ve seen disorder and tumult in many cities,” DeSantis said.
Florida’s legislature won’t begin its annual 60-day session until March, so it’s somewhat unusual for the governor to announce a legislative proposal so far in advance. But DeSantis has the support of incoming Senate President-designate Wilton Simpson and House Speaker-designate Chris Sprowls, along with local law enforcement agencies throughout the state.
Democratic leaders criticized the measures as a ploy to help President Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Florida’s 29 electoral votes are a key to Trump’s re-election and polls show a tight race with former Vice President Joe Biden.
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
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