(Excerpted)
Thanks, anonymous.
COVID-19 never killed anybody
by Ted Noel MD July 7, 2020 in Healthcare, Opinions
If all you get is the Wuhan Flu, you may get a bit sick, but you won’t even need to go to the hospital. You’ll get over it. That’s because you don’t get a “Cytokine Storm.”
In plain English, CS is a different disease process. It’s an uncontrolled release of signaling molecules that engage the immune system at ludicrous speed. A number of different infections can trigger it. An infection is needed before the Storm can start, but the Storm is a different process.
Once it’s underway, it drives the train. We know that the risk of dying from CS following COVID-19 in Florida if you are under age 25 is 0.02%, but if you are over 85, it’s 24.5% (FL Dept. of Health as of July 6).
That 1,225x difference in risk proves that something else is in play. The infection is necessary, but it’s not sufficient. CS requires something more than just infection such as COVID-19, SARS, or H5N1 flu.
In general, age and infirmity are correlated with bad outcomes, but we don’t know in any detail what factor within those categories is needed. What we do know is that the interventions that work don’t have all that much to do with antiviral effects.
Multiple studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine works to reduce severity and duration of the infection complex (COVID + CS) if given in the earlier stages of the disease. We also know that HCQ has both antiviral and immune modulating effects. Which of its effects is important with COVID-19 is not entirely clear.
But as we look further, studies have shown that dexamethasone, a common, inexpensive steroid, has beneficial effects, most likely by reducing CS. And new reports indicate that early administration of budesonide, an inhaled steroid that only gets to the lungs, can rapidly reverse the onset of CS.
The common feature of these treatments is an anti-inflammatory effect. HCQ is a mild anti-inflammatory, inhaled budesonide works the same way in the lung, and dexamethasone is a more potent systemic anti-inflammatory.
If we add suggestive data that non-steroidal anti-inflammatories may reduce inflammatory symptoms of respiratory virus infections, we start to see a strongly suggestive picture that CS is the major culprit.
When we look at drugs with antiviral effects, the picture isn’t so clear. A search of PubMed reveals no strong candidates for therapy. Lay news reports have remdesivir reducing hospital stays, but detailed studies are still in the pipeline.
In short, antivirals don’t seem to be all that useful in advanced COVID-19 cases. At the same time, viral load on admission does not seem to match outcome. - But viral load does match inflammatory markers in critically ill patients.
Putting the viral load data together doesn’t tell us much. That suggests that antiviral therapy isn’t likely to be terribly helpful in the critically ill patient. And that seems to be what we’re seeing. - The disease that kills people is CS, not COVID-19.
https://noqreport.com/2020/07/07/covid-19-never-killed-anybody/
Interesting. A few perhaps random thoughts. I read a lot about cytokine storm here and on a flu form staring around 2006 (gack, that’s long time ago).
In the “Spanish” flu CS did accompany many deaths but it also did attack many younger persons including very health and robust people in young and middle adulthood.
So there is something very different about covid.
I have read recently about “covid toes” where they turn purple/blusish, and this is a symptom of CS, which in the Spanish flu, often turned the whole body or parts it, dark purplish blue.
If anti-inflammatories are helpful in covid, there are many powerful herbal ones that may be helpful. I actually woke up this morning with a sore throat and my first what was “eeek covid” and I will start maxing on herbs that are strongly anti-inflammatory, cannot hurt. Two that pop into my mind are turmeric and elderberry. Maybe I’ll put a list together and post on the Natural Health thread along with your article.
save for later thanks
As I have been saying, waiting for a cure for COVID-19 is a bit like waiting for a street car in Sioux Falls, SD. But best not to tell Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo or any blossoming Dem tyrants - lock those citizens in their homes until they crawl on their knees begging to worship you.
Or move the New York Stock Exchange and Disney Land to Sioux Falls, SD.