There Is No trumpian Miracle Cure

As far back as when trump HAD to confront the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has clung to this idea that a particular drug already existing - hydroxychloroquine - was a means of fighting the disease.

In the process, thousands of people bought that "miracle" cure up, depriving it from those people who DID need that drug to treat their malaria, Lupus, and other disorders: causing an unwanted shortage for a drug that had actual scant evidence - barely anecdotal - of it working against the coronavirus.

A couple of weeks ago, some medical facilities -desperate on their own terms - decided to use hydroxychloroquine to combat the illness, especially among some veterans' hospitals (I would hope they received informed consent when they did this).

And now, the results are starting to show (from Marilynn Marchione at AP News):

A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.

The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday.

The study was posted on an online site for researchers and has not been reviewed by other scientists. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia paid for the work.

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.

Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either.
Researchers did not track side effects, but noted a hint that hydroxychloroquine might have damaged other organs. The drug has long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death...

If you want anecdote, other reported cases show people taking Hydroxychloroquine died from heart attacks, which is kinda what the article is saying that previous paragraph.

During the earliest stages of this crisis, you could tell trump was eager for this drug to pan out, that having a quick and easy miracle cure on hand would have resolved the pandemic within weeks and he wouldn't have to make hard choices on overseeing nationwide provisions, funding hospitals, providing emergency financial aid to states overwhelmed by the financial impositions of shutting things down to reduce the spread of the virus...

But he wasted all this time, all OUR time, pursuing a quick fix for something - a lethal coronavirus - that does not obey the whims of political leaders or pundits.

And this is all happening as more Red State governors - Gods help us - are pushing to re-open a lot of public businesses before we are ready for it. We don't have enough testing kits to make sure people are safe. We don't have enough medical supplies for our hospitals who are running out of resources and workers (who are falling ill as they are most exposed to the virus). We don't have a cure at hand to reduce the impact of COVID-19, no vaccine ready in time until (hopefully) September (still five months away).

We are deep in the heart of the pandemic, America. Any sign of "flattening" the curve of infection merely means we have to keep doing what we're doing now - Social Distancing and STAYING AT HOME - to keep the risk low.

But trump and the Republicans can't abide that. It disrupts their economic plans, it weakens their arguments about Capitalism and employment, it threatens to shift more burden on a Federal government they DARE NOT allow to work properly.

So trump will distract his followers with calls to protest, accuse others of failing the nation, and push for re-openings that will only spike the infections.

I said back in January 2nd of this year that 2020 escalated pretty quickly. Hell, it's been escalating every day now.

We need to stay alive and healthy by November to fix what's truly broken. You want a miracle cure, America? Vote trump and his Republican cronies out of power. That's the cure we need.