By Ken Gibson
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – The plague appears to be leveling off in New York, and Spain has reported the same. But leveling off at a point that reached a death about every two minutes. That news only affords us a glimmer of hope, not yet a quantum of solace.
7 pm is the highlight of the day for us. What once was a nuisance is now greeted with as much enthusiasm as a Yankee rout of the Red Sox at a home game in the Bronx. The sounds of silence are banished with noise, pure noise, each day at the appointed hour. Noise, wonderful noise, loud, raucous, arrhythmic noise, made by trash can lids clanged together in a deafening cacophony as the lead, with a chorus of cheers from every window.
And then we return to our misery.
So the news that the disease may have reached its peak is the best we have. We peruse the net and scan the paper in the hall, delivered in sterile plastic bags through which we read the headlines before the rightful owner takes possession of the New York Times.
Today the news was that despite Trump’s closing of the borders to flights from China, his orders were somehow flouted, and 430,000 people flew in from China; Wuhan contributed greatly to that amount.
Most distressing. Trump orders a closure of the border in time of national emergency, and people who think they know better disobey such crucial orders. Soldiers and sometimes civilians have faced the firing squad for this. Thousands have faced a slow, painful death thanks to these individuals not following an executive order, and the entire economy is in chaos; will heads roll or will the NY Times try to put the blame on Trump, and allow the guilty to carry on?
The first head to roll could well be that of New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who is refusing to allow coronavirus patients to take chloroquine, despite the latest round of medical findings, and the reports of American patients, that it works; one man in Florida was cured with it in 24 hours and says he is feeling great a week later. Cuomo puts us in danger; lacking a cure, patients will not only die, but increase the risk of spread to the entire nation. But to hell with America, some people are saying by their actions, letting in Chinese from Wuhan and putting their own theories about chloroquine ahead of the advice of doctors.
In addition to chloroquine (and hydroxychloroquine), another drug, Ivermectin, is being looked at as a cure. A commentor named Phil on this site was kind enough to mention it, and I just googled, finding that the ScienceDirect journal, Antiviral Research, published an article by a group of Australian researchers from Monash University in Melbourne reporting that Ivermectin appears to be effective at inhibiting the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
“We report here that Ivermectin, an FDA-approved anti-parasitic previously shown to have broad-spectrum antiviral activity in vitro, is an inhibitor of the causative virus (SARS-CoV-2),” the researchers write. “Ivermectin, therefore, warrants further investigation for possible benefits in humans.”
The leader of the research team, Dr. Kylie Wagstaff issued a statement, saying, “Ivermectin is very widely used and seen as a safe drug. We need to figure out now whether the dosage you can use it at in humans will be effective—that’s the next step,” Newsweek magazine reported. “We found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it.”
So there is another glimmer of hope, which we need to be looking at. On one hand, we cannot just jump to overly positive conclusions and use it without knowledge, on the other, we cannot allow armchair pundits to prevent its use.
Below is a link to the article from which I quoted, please read it in its entirety and keep your eye on this. Much as I like the 7pm jam sessions in the Big Apple, I would prefer to hear that a cure has been found and is being used, but it chloroquine, Ivermectin, or any other substance.
