All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Ivermectin Demand Surges Though It Doesn’t Work for Covid-19 – The New York Times (Me: Self-delusion reaches pandemic level)

For the past week, Dr. Gregory Yu, an emergency physician in San Antonio, has received the same daily requests from his patients, some vaccinated for Covid-19 and others unvaccinated: They ask him for ivermectin, a drug typically used to treat parasitic worms that has repeatedly failed in clinical trials to help people infected with the coronavirus.

Dr. Yu has refused the ivermectin requests, he said, but he knows some of his colleagues have not. Prescriptions for ivermectin have seen a sharp rise in recent weeks, jumping to more than 88,000 per week in mid-August from a prepandemic baseline average of 3,600 per week, according to researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some pharmacists are even reporting shortages of the drug. Travis Walthall, a pharmacist in Kuna, Idaho, a town of about 20,000 people, said that this summer alone he had filled more than 20 ivermectin prescriptions, up from two or three in a typical year. For the past week he has not been able to obtain the drug from his suppliers; they were all out.

Mr. Walthall was astonished, he said, at how many people were willing to take an unapproved drug for Covid. “I’m like, gosh, this is horrible,” he said.

While sometimes given to humans in small doses for head lice, scabies and other parasites, ivermectin is more commonly used in animals. Physicians are raising alarms about a growing number of people getting the drug from livestock supply centers, where it can come in highly concentrated paste or liquid forms.

Calls to poison control centers about ivermectin exposures have risen dramatically, jumping fivefold over their baseline in July, according to C.D.C. researchers, who cited data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Mississippi’s health department said earlier this month that 70 percent of recent calls to the state poison control center had come from people who ingested ivermectin from livestock supply stores.

Dr. Shawn Varney, a toxicologist and medical director for the South Texas Poison Center, said that in 2019 his center received 191 calls about exposure to ivermectin; so far this year the center has received 260 calls and is on pace to reach 390 by the end of the year. The vast majority of the recent calls came from people who took a veterinary product in an attempt to treat or prevent Covid-19.

“Everyone wants some cure for Covid because it’s such a devastating illness,” Dr. Varney said. “I plead with people to stop using ivermectin and get the vaccine because it’s the best protection we have at this point. Everything else is risk after risk.”

Rand Paul: ‘Hatred for Trump’ blocks Covid study of horse drug ivermectin | Rand Paul | The Guardian (Me: Absolute liar – both drugs mentioned have been studied and the horse drug was recommended based on a fraudulent study – As fraudulent at Sen. Paul!)

“So someone like me that’s in the middle on it, I can’t tell you because they will not study ivermectin. They will not study hydroxychloroquine without the taint of their hatred for Donald Trump.” Trump both promoted and said he was using hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, when in office. Doctors warned against side-effects and studies said it had little or no effect in preventing hospitalisation or death from Covid-19.

Source: Rand Paul: ‘Hatred for Trump’ blocks Covid study of horse drug ivermectin | Rand Paul | The Guardian

As Hurricane Ida Strands Thousands, the Police Would Rather Focus on “Anti-Looting” Patrols – Mother Jones

Just to emphasize the point: In the middle of a natural disaster, with elderly people stuck at home in dangerous heat, as boats and helicopters scour the state to find people who fled to their attics and rooftops, the cops seems less interested in helping residents access life-saving essentials than they do in criminalizing them. “[T]he city is powerless and underwater,” one lawyer with the Twitter handle Jane, Esq. tweeted, “& they’re using their resources for…anti looting. [T]his is a poster example for defund the police.” Source: As Hurricane Ida Strands Thousands, the Police Would Rather Focus on “Anti-Looting” Patrols – Mother Jones

Vaccination foes target homes of L.A. City Council members – Los Angeles Times

“Whoever votes yes, we’re coming to your door,” the man said, according to the video. “We’re coming to your home. You want to intimidate us? We’re coming to you now.” At another point, he said that if the vaccine mandates passes, “civil war is coming, get your guns.” (Me: He should be arrested for inciting violence!)

Source: Vaccination foes target homes of L.A. City Council members – Los Angeles Times

Covid in Scotland: Cases doubling weekly after restrictions eased – BBC News

Covid cases in Scotland have roughly doubled every week since restrictions eased, leading to an increase in hospital admissions. More than 500 people with Covid-19 are in hospital and case numbers hit a record high at the weekend. According to the latest WHO figures, Lanarkshire and Glasgow’s health board areas had Europe’s highest case rates. National clinical director Prof Jason Leitch said the NHS was stretched and elective surgeries could be delayed. Scotland wanted “to get on top” of the virus and may need a “reverse gear” on some restrictions, he told the BBC. On Sunday 7,113 positive tests were recorded compared with fewer than 1,500 on 9 August, when most of the Covid restrictions in Scotland were lifted. Physical distancing rules and the limits on gatherings were removed, and all venues were allowed to reopen.

Source: Covid in Scotland: Cases doubling weekly after restrictions eased – BBC News

Biden’s long road to resettling evacuated Afghan evacuees in the US – Vox

Afghan allies are being transferred to third countries or sent directly to the US

After announcing the withdrawal deadline in April, the Biden administration put its faith in the SIV program, which has existed since 2006, as its primary means of bringing Afghans to the US. But an intense, 14-step application process and a significant backlog that piled up during the final months of the Trump administration have made it an onerous immigration pathway for many who aided the US war effort, even before Kabul fell to Taliban control.

Applicants are required to submit significant documentation, including a recommendation letter from their senior US-citizen supervisor. But many Afghans who would otherwise be eligible for the program have difficulty obtaining that recommendation letter, especially in cases where they worked as contractors.

Even if an applicant can gather the required documents, they have faced lengthy wait times before they are ultimately approved for a visa. By law, SIVs are required to be processed within nine months, but in practice, the average processing time has always been longer than that.

The Trump administration actively stonewalled the program, meaning that not a single SIV was processed between March 2020 and January 2021. In response, a federal judge ordered the government to come up with a plan to process these applications in a timely manner after thousands of SIV applicants sued. Yet it’s still been taking about two years to process the applications.

Now, the Biden administration is surging resources to speed up processing of SIV applicants, who are being sent to third countries temporarily before being brought to the US. According to the State Department, the US government has been issuing SIVs at a rate of more than 800 per week — an eightfold increase over the course of a few months.

Source: Biden’s long road to resettling evacuated Afghan evacuees in the US – Vox

US tops 100,000 daily COVID-19 hospital cases | CIDRAP (Me: Unvaccinated and Southern states point US in wrong direction!)

For only the second time during the 18 months America has been battling COVID-19, the country reached 100,000 daily hospitalizations due to infection with the virus, matching the previous record seen last winter. In several states, the fourth wave, or summer surge caused by the Delta (B1617.2) variant, has led to hospital bed and healthcare worker shortages. Intensive care units (ICUs) have reached capacity in places such as Georgia, Mississippi and Florida. In those states, elective surgeries have been put on hold. Today during an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting on COVID-19 vaccines, committee members heard that 23 states are reporting over 80% of ICU capacity is being used by COVID-19 patients. The ACIP advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Source: US tops 100,000 daily COVID-19 hospital cases | CIDRAP