Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Larch]

It's hard not to laugh but it's really not funny that the President keeps giving false and extremely dangerous information and "advice" on medical matters.  The doctors and medical professionals in these briefings have an ethical duty to step forward immediately - then and there - and contradict these kinds of statements.  The US national response is being hampered by the fact the professionals in charge of that response are not speaking truthfully and effectively on certain matters out f fear of giving personal offense to the President, as if they were courtiers in a Stalinist regime and not public officials responsible to the American people.

Problem with that is that if you do so you get pushed away, apparently.

Top vaccine expert says he was fired for resisting Trump on hydroxychloroquine
Rick Bright, who directed key government agency, tells New York Times refusal to embrace unproven treatment led to departure

A senior US government doctor who worked on the search for a coronavirus vaccine has claimed he was fired after resisting Donald Trump's push to use the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Rick Bright was this week ousted as director of the US health department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or Barda, and as the deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response.

In a stunningly candid statement, Bright highlighted his refusal to embrace hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug relentlessly promoted by the president and Fox News despite a lack of scientific studies.

"Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit," Bright said.

"While I am prepared to look at all options and to think 'outside the box' for effective treatments, I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public."

Asked about Bright at the White House coronavirus briefing on Wednesday, Trump said: "I never heard of him. If a guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. You'd have to hear the other side. I don't know who he is."

Trump repeatedly touted hydroxychloroquine as therapy for coronavirus, pointing to a Democratic state representative in Michigan who claimed it benefited her and frequently asking: "What do you have to lose?"

But on Tuesday an analysis of the drug's use in US veterans hospitals found no benefit.

Bright added: "I insisted that these drugs be provided only to hospitalised patients with confirmed Covid-19 while under the supervision of a physician. These drugs have potentially serious risks associated with them, including increased mortality observed in some recent studies in patients with Covid-19.

"Sidelining me in the middle of this pandemic and placing politics and cronyism ahead of science puts lives at risk and stunts national efforts to safely and effectively address this urgent public health crisis."

Bright has reportedly hired lawyers Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, whose clients have included government whistleblowers and Christine Blasey Ford, who went public with allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh during his supreme court nomination in 2018.

On Wednesday, Ronald Klain, who led the Obama administration's response to an Ebola outbreak in 2014, tweeted: "Dr Bright is a professional – an expert on vaccines – who I met during the Ebola response. If this is true, it ... represents an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to put politics ahead of science and safety."

Dr Bright said he would request that the health department inspector general investigate the way in which the Trump administration has "politicised the work of Barda, and has pressured me and other conscientious scientists to fund companies with political connections and efforts that lack scientific merit.

"Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics."

Bright, whose entire career had been spent in vaccine development, had led Barda since 2016. He was moved to a less influential post at the National Institutes of Health.

He told the New York Times: "I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the Covid-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.

"I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science – not politics or cronyism – has to lead the way."

[garbon]

Problem with that is that if you do so you get pushed away, apparently.

That's probably on the better side of do no harm.

We know that the Trump government will not stand for adults to be in the room, so no use hoping for that.

[garbon]

Poor Matt Hancock. You really do have a bum hand when BBC Breakfast is successfully grilling you.

[Malthus]

Well, the US President has just mentioned a possible cure - injecting disinfectants. The problem is almost solved! 😀

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-suggests-injection-disinfectant-beat-coronavirus-clean-lungs-n1191216

I could not believe it, so I actually watched the clip.  Yes, he really said it 

It would be funny, if this level of dumb didn't have consequences.

Not funny at all.  It is not hard to imagine that one or two people in the US may actually follow their president's advice and drink some disinfectant, causing severe damage to their bodies or even death.

That's part of the "consequences" I was talking about.

[Josquius]

Serious question here. Is there anyway Trump can be held legally liable for this stupid advice to drink bleach?

[The Brain]

Serious question here. Is there anyway Trump can be held legally liable for this stupid advice to drink bleach?

No. You'd have to convince the GOP that drinking bleach is bad.

[The Brain]

"I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science – not politics or cronyism – has to lead the way."

A nice sentiment, but it isn't shared by the American people.

[Josephus]

Technically an act of God, since Trump doesn't say anything that isn't inspired by the Holy Spirit

[Sheilbh]

Serious question here. Is there anyway Trump can be held legally liable for this stupid advice to drink bleach?

I don't know about him, but I understand Fox are slightly concerned about whether they could be exposed for some of their reporting/opinion pieces either downplaying the virus or, say, pushing that anti-malaria drug that actually has worse outcomes.

[Tamas]

Positive but level-headed piece by Bill Gates: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2020/04/23/bill-gates-on-how-to-fight-future-pandemics


It is a very telling picture of our species that this guy was loathed by most people for the good part of two decades (and going back to that now) while at the same time Steve Jobs was revered as a god.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I was going to go ingest sunlight but it's cloudy today. Mr. President help what should I do?? 

[Tamas]

I was going to go ingest sunlight but it's cloudy today. Mr. President help what should I do?? 

I'd try getting UV light into your veins somehow.

[Syt]

There's always UV bullets.

[garbon]

I was going to go ingest sunlight but it's cloudy today. Mr. President help what should I do?? 

Tanning bed?

[garbon]

In fact, perhaps Bjork foretold of the cure:

I have a recurrent dream
Every time I feel a hoarseness
I swallow warm glowing lights
My mother and son baked for me

They make me feel so much better
They make me feel better