At what point would you lock down again?

[wathe]

7 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

What positivity rates are you guys using?  Your state's or county's? 

Provincial.  My health unit rate is slightly lower (0.5%), but we are close to Toronto (0.7%) and adjacent to another health unit with a positivity of 1.4%.  We are also an area that attracts a lot of seasonal travellers.

[wathe]

1 minute ago, wathe said:

Provincial.  My health unit rate is slightly lower (0.5%), but we are close to Toronto (0.7%) and adjacent to another health unit with a positivity of 1.4%.  We are also an area that attracts a lot of seasonal travellers.

Quoting myself to say that I pick whichever one is worse, local vs provincial.  

[SKL]

I was using county.

[KSera]

8 hours ago, ktgrok said:

 

I have to say, its really frustrating to read and hear how it isn't dangerous for healthy kids with no underlying conditions when you HAVE a kid with an underlying condition. Those kids are treated as if they are expendable, or don't exist. 

 

I just ran across this lovely series of tweets that made me think of this thread. Yes, it’s true it’s not everyone else’s problem if someone has a kid with special needs that puts them at risk. But what a better place this world would be with more people like these kids:

 

[KSera]

triple Post 😳

Edited July 13, 2021 by KSera

[KSera]

Triple post 🙄

Edited July 13, 2021 by KSera

[Halftime Hope]

6 hours ago, KSera said:

But there is very little data it does any good, vs reams of data that the Covid vaccines are incredibly effective in preventing Covid entirely. On top of that, the safety profile in ivermectin is at much lower dosing than would be required to get plasma concentrations of ivermectin up high enough for it to be capable of killing SARS-CoV2. So, my question is why the very low amount and low quality data available for ivermectin is enough to widely recommend it, when the vastly more and higher quality data that Covid vaccines are preventing thousands of deaths every month in the US alone is not enough to recommend it. Put the other way, lack of vaccination is killing about 10,000 Americans a month, and that is rising rapidly right now.

Geez, we should be pursuing BOTH: IVM for all, and shots for all those who can or who want them. To suggest otherwise is a false dichotomy. 

Shots may be preventing many deaths, but they are also harming a percentage of people.  IVM should be rolled out worldwide immediately and concurrently with as many shots as are available for anyone who wants them.  At least IVM won't cause nearly as much collateral damage as the shots are, so eradicating this pandemic by any and all methods would be my choice.  

The bolded above in your quote is a misunderstanding that has been repeated over and over, mostly because people don't understand the process of testing in the lab when generating a proof of concept.  It is addressed quite nicely in a review paper written by the Japanese discoverer of ivermectin, Dr. Satoshi Omura. http://jja-contents.wdc-jp.com/pdf/JJA74/74-1-open/74-1_44-95.pdf 

"The first consideration should be focused on the setting of the sensitivity of the SARSCoV-2 infection for experimental systems in vitro. By use of Vero/hSLAM cells, the antiviral activity of the test drug is reliably measured. The sensitivity setting is set to be as low as possible, because it is necessary to eliminate false-positive samples. If the sensitivity is set high, the number of test drugs (noise) that give a positive reaction increases. Furthermore, if the setting is high, it becomes necessary to set secondary and tertiary tests to exclude false-positive samples. It seems that the sensitivity of the IC50＝2 μM set by Caly et al. was appropriate because neither false positives nor false negatives occurred. If the sensitivity of this test is set to 10 or 50 times higher, then changes in the IC50 (IC50＝0.2 μM, IC50＝0.04 μM, respectively) might be expected. Depending on the test cells, viral load, medium composition, and culture conditions, the experimental system in vitro can be set in different ways. Therefore, the paper by Caly et al. merely indicated that ivermectin was found to have anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in vitro—no more, no less. Extrapolating the results to evaluate clinical effects is too much of a leap."  So in other words, the values (2 micromolar) used in the lab testing were set to keep the tests simple, to provide proof of concept, not to set dosing in a clinical setting. 

The historical, standard dosing (150- 200 microgram/kg or 0.15 - 0.2mg/kg) that has been used for parasitic diseases is being used to great effect in ill patients with COVID.  In some severely ill COVID patients, and now with the more infective variants, some doctors who are treating high risk COVID patients are using 0.4 or up to 0.6 mg/kg. But that is only when it is clinically warranted.  In India and in Mexico, kits are being handed out which have either two or three doses of 12mg (0.15 - 0.2 mg/kg for an average-sized adult), combined with acetominophen and aspirin (Mexico) or perhaps AZ or doxy and zinc in India.  In Mexico, in particular -- perhaps not in all areas, but in many -- if you get tested at a public health clinic and test positive, you will be sent home with a kit to treat with the meds. 

IVM has been studied for malaria, even trialed in small trials at 10x higher doses, with no harm shown, (https://www.who.int/malaria/mpac/mpac-sept2016-invermectin-session9.pdf?ua=1) There are also individual case reports of massive dosing errors prior to COVID showing no harm. 

In some severely ill patients, and now with the more infective variants, doctors who are treating high numbers of COVID patients are using 0.4 or up to 0.6 mg/kg.  Remember, this is a far lower dose (1/5th) than the studies that showed no ill effect using 2mg/kg.   

Finally, there is a group in France that has been studying extended release, low dosing systems for use in combating malaria. 

Because IVM concentrates in lung tissue, and is better absorbed when ingested with fats, rather than the traditional dosing on an empty stomach, some clinicians wonder if it may, in time, prove effective in preventing COVID at even lower doses, when taken consecutively. That's an educated guess, though. 

That's all I've got. I'm providing information that anyone can examine for themselves if they choose to.  

[Halftime Hope]

11 hours ago, Penelope said:

One thing I think about: There is such a thing as post-viral syndrome following all sorts of viruses. And we have never had a very effective flu vaccine, or vaccines for most of the other viruses that regularly infect children. It’s an interesting rabbit hole for perspective for anyone concerned about long Covid in children.
 

Incidence in adults seems correlated with number and severity of symptoms, and symptoms in kids are most often mild or none.  Example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01292-y

Studies on long Covid in children, for those that might not have seen them.

Australian study, posted in other threads.https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00124-3/fulltext

UK study using Zoe app, also posted in other threads. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.05.21256649v1
 

Ciao Corona Swiss study, from earlier in thread. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21257255v2

German study of adolescents: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.11.21257037v1.full

Not long Covid, but death risk, in UK as in US, primarily in those with underlying health conditions. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57766717
 

 

 

 

I appreciate that last link.  It is reassuring, although I still feel so badly for those parents. Can you imagine having fought through years of illness with a severely ill or disabled child only to have them fall to COVID. I'd be beside myself, I think. 

[KSera]

17 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:

8 hours ago, KSera said:

 

Geez, we should be pursuing BOTH: IVM for all, and shots for all those who can or who want them. To suggest otherwise is a false dichotomy. 

Shots may be preventing many deaths, but they are also harming a percentage of people.  IVM should be rolled out worldwide immediately and concurrently with as many shots as are available for anyone who wants them.  At least IVM won't cause nearly as much collateral damage as the shots are, so eradicating this pandemic by any and all methods would be my choice.  

It’s not that I think no one should try ivermectin, it’s that the people who advocate ivermectin for all by and large are also spreading false information about vaccines and discouraging people from getting vaccinated. It’s possible we will eventually find that ivermectin does indeed help (we still have not much in the way of large, well controlled trials to indicate that), but we KNOW that the vaccines prevent nearly all Covid deaths. Ivermectin does not. Maybe it will help, but discouraging vaccine while saying ivermectin is a miracle cure is irresponsible and is causing many deaths. That’s the issue I have with it. 
 

As an aside, as far as historical use of ivermectin goes, the dosing for an oral medication for parasites in the intestinal track will be different than for a virus in the respiratory system that will need to be reached via reaching sufficient blood stream concentrations. 

[easypeasy]

I'm replying before I read the entire thread - but it would take a LOT for our family to lock down anywhere near as tight as we did the first time 'round. I honestly don't think the other 4 adults in our immediate family could handle it. I think it would take people bleeding out of their eyes with symptoms of this disease before we'd be able to muster up the energy to lock down that tight again.

It'd be worse this time around because - the first time we didn't *know* what it would feel like. But with hindsight now - oof. And with having full freedom to go pretty much anywhere right now... I don't think we could manage another season of holing up. Especially if the vaccines are still basically working for the most part.

[Bootsie]

I would lock down if the local public health situation warranted it; to me that would mean things like the ability to provide medical care, basic services, and in-person schooling were threatened.  This could be due to the number of people seeking medical care, lack of supplies and resources, or lack of available workers.  

If there was evidence that there was a variant that had a significant increase in hospitaliztion, death, or severe long-term side effects, especially if it seemed to be resistant to the vaccination, then I would consider locking down for personal health reasons.  I do not pay too much attention to positivity rates at this point, espeially comparing local rates to those in other places, because the population that is being tested has changed so much.

[TravelingChris]

I am not locking down again.  No reason too.

[ktgrok]

12 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yep, I'm still doing things. But I'm thinking about what happens if it keeps going up 😕 . I'm a planner. 

I feel like I should clarify in that I mean we still mask if around others other than my parents, one select family we've seen twice, and once around my sister and her kids and for that they didn't do any indoor activities for the 2 weeks beforehand. 

10 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, I might ask them to mask in playgrounds again. 

The kids are in (outdoor) camp this week and they are masking all day. They are managing. They can manage playgrounds as well. 

The problem here is it is SO hot and humid that masking on a playground is miserable. Yesterday I simply took the trash out to the curb and came in my and my body was covered in sweat. It was like walking into a steam shower. Any significant time outdoors = clothes wet and sticking to your body. A mask doing that would be awful. So, we just are not going to playgrounds and such. 

10 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

What positivity rates are you guys using?  Your state's or county's? 

I cited both, but I look more at my county and the neighboring county (I live on the county line and shop in the next county over mostly - people mix and mingle amongst those two counties and in fact the city I live in spans both)

I also look at the various individual counties, just to skim quickly. I live in an area where tourists both local and international come to visit, so just looking at my local area isn't enough. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

The problem here is it is SO hot and humid that masking on a playground is miserable. Yesterday I simply took the trash out to the curb and came in my and my body was covered in sweat. It was like walking into a steam shower. Any significant time outdoors = clothes wet and sticking to your body. A mask doing that would be awful. So, we just are not going to playgrounds and such. 

Yeah, we weren't going to playgrounds until VERY recently. We've only been doing it for a month or so, and now I'm again thinking about whether it's a good idea or not 😕 . 

We're currently cautiously seeing a wide group of people: we're just not doing indoor stuff (although we again have babysitters, too -- vaccinated, of course.) Again, this all felt fine with a 0.3% positivity rate, lol. I just don't know how long it'll stay feeling fine. 

[ieta_cassiopeia]

Positivity is officially 2.6% where I live, despite many people not being able to access testing (still!). My local hospital is not one of the ones turning non-essential surgeries away due to COVID, but it wouldn't take much worsening of the situation for the careful balance the hospital has achieved to be broken, and the liberties people have started taking over masks won't show up in cases for another week, or hospital admissions for another 3.

Under those circumstances, unlocking would be irresponsible of me. We'll see if the situation has improved in a few weeks' time.

[Not_a_Number]

7 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

Shots may be preventing many deaths, but they are also harming a percentage of people.  IVM should be rolled out worldwide immediately and concurrently with as many shots as are available for anyone who wants them.  At least IVM won't cause nearly as much collateral damage as the shots are, so eradicating this pandemic by any and all methods would be my choice.  

I don't know why you think IVM will cause no side effects. Pretty much every medicine causes SOME side effects. Someone will be allergic. Someone's body will react badly in some other way. It's exactly the same thing as with the vaccines, except MUCH less studied.

Vaccines and medicines are non-trivial events. If you do a large volume of them, you WILL see things. The rate at which we're seeing serious vaccine issues is small. The rate one will see serious IVM issues is also probably small, but you bet we'll see a few serious things that happens with rates of one in a million or more, and also a few less serious things at much higher rates. 

[I talk to the trees]

*sigh*  A month ago, I was hopeful. The numbers were dropping, and it looked like a somewhat normal summer was within reach. Now, we are back at 6.8% positive, cases are on the rise, and no doubt death rates will follow the trend. Honestly, this is no real surprise, because where I live, the vaccination rate will stay low because of politics, and around here, July 4th= time to get drunk and blow things up, so I was expecting a bit of a surge after the holiday, but hoping for better. Now, I’m back to feeling very uncomfortable just walking the dogs in the park, since there is no way to know if that unmasked person who refuses to give you space on the trail is vaccinated (given the rates here, and the experiences I have had recently, the answer is probably no.) And then there are the kids (of course they aren’t vaccinated!) who think they just have to pet every dog that they see.  🙄 So although I really, really want to be out and about, I guess I am headed back into 100% lockdown. I’m glad that dd is currently doing research in a high vax area, but concerned about her resuming in person classes at her college here in the fall (currently 4.8% positive, but sure to rise when students return.) 
 

I am so freaking tired of stupid.  I’m ready to move back north to Mordor now. At least most of the orcs there have been vaccinated. 

[regentrude]

Several folks mentioned using positivity rates as a measure. Why? Wouldn't the positivity rate entirely depend on how many and how sick people test? If there's a ton of testing, like mandated on schedule,  rate will be much smaller than if there's only a few sick folks testing and noone else.

Edited July 13, 2021 by regentrude

[KSera]

13 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Several folks mentioned using positivity rates as a measure. Why? Wouldn't the positivity rate entirely depend on how many and how sick people test? If there's a ton of testing, like mandated on schedule,  rate will be much smaller than if there's only a few sick folks testing and noone else.

It seems relevant to me if the positivity rate is high. A lot of mandated testing could make the rate lower than the actual risk level, but if it's high, then there really are a lot of people in the community with Covid. Before all the routine testing, positivity was a better metric than it is now. I still think it's useful. A place that has a 20% positivity rate? Yeah, I'm not going indoors with people until that goes down.

[Not_a_Number]

19 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Several folks mentioned using positivity rates as a measure. Why? Wouldn't the positivity rate entirely depend on how many and how sick people test? If there's a ton of testing, like mandated on schedule,  rate will be much smaller than if there's only a few sick folks testing and noone else.

No, not entirely, but it's true that it's a much worse metric than it used to be, before there was as much testing. 

I tend to use a mix of "absolute cases" and positivity. If you follow positivity, you'll see it's genuinely a smoother curve than absolute cases, and less susceptible to weekend issues and such. On the other hand, it's certainly the case that below a certain positivity, absolutely cases are more meaningful. 

When we were tracking this ages ago, I remember that at some point, cases became more predictive than positivity, but it took something like half a year, and I don't know if they stayed more predictive or not -- I haven't tracked. I wouldn't be surprised, though... but either way, I think of both as valuable. 

Edited July 13, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[regentrude]

18 minutes ago, KSera said:

It seems relevant to me if the positivity rate is high. A lot of mandated testing could make the rate lower than the actual risk level, but if it's high, then there really are a lot of people in the community with Covid. Before all the routine testing, positivity was a better metric than it is now. I still think it's useful. A place that has a 20% positivity rate? Yeah, I'm not going indoors with people until that goes down.

We don't have any mandated testing locally. I assume that only people with sickness symptoms go for a test. So if they're sick, and 20% of the sickness is Covid, that doesn't tell me anything about community spread

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, regentrude said:

We don't have any mandated testing locally. I assume that only people with sickness symptoms go for a test. So if they're sick, and 20% of the sickness is Covid, that doesn't tell me anything about community spread

Technically, if that were true that'd be pretty good. That was my operating assumption before -- that it told you the percent of sick people with COVID. Assuming the percentage of people who are sick at all isn't varying wildly, that's actually not such a bad statistic. 

The problem is that the level of overall sickness does vary, plus it's not only the sick people testing anymore 😛 

[Ausmumof3]

17 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

Geez, we should be pursuing BOTH: IVM for all, and shots for all those who can or who want them. To suggest otherwise is a false dichotomy. 

Shots may be preventing many deaths, but they are also harming a percentage of people.  IVM should be rolled out worldwide immediately and concurrently with as many shots as are available for anyone who wants them.  At least IVM won't cause nearly as much collateral damage as the shots are, so eradicating this pandemic by any and all methods would be my choice.  

The bolded above in your quote is a misunderstanding that has been repeated over and over, mostly because people don't understand the process of testing in the lab when generating a proof of concept.  It is addressed quite nicely in a review paper written by the Japanese discoverer of ivermectin, Dr. Satoshi Omura. http://jja-contents.wdc-jp.com/pdf/JJA74/74-1-open/74-1_44-95.pdf 

"The first consideration should be focused on the setting of the sensitivity of the SARSCoV-2 infection for experimental systems in vitro. By use of Vero/hSLAM cells, the antiviral activity of the test drug is reliably measured. The sensitivity setting is set to be as low as possible, because it is necessary to eliminate false-positive samples. If the sensitivity is set high, the number of test drugs (noise) that give a positive reaction increases. Furthermore, if the setting is high, it becomes necessary to set secondary and tertiary tests to exclude false-positive samples. It seems that the sensitivity of the IC50＝2 μM set by Caly et al. was appropriate because neither false positives nor false negatives occurred. If the sensitivity of this test is set to 10 or 50 times higher, then changes in the IC50 (IC50＝0.2 μM, IC50＝0.04 μM, respectively) might be expected. Depending on the test cells, viral load, medium composition, and culture conditions, the experimental system in vitro can be set in different ways. Therefore, the paper by Caly et al. merely indicated that ivermectin was found to have anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in vitro—no more, no less. Extrapolating the results to evaluate clinical effects is too much of a leap."  So in other words, the values (2 micromolar) used in the lab testing were set to keep the tests simple, to provide proof of concept, not to set dosing in a clinical setting. 

The historical, standard dosing (150- 200 microgram/kg or 0.15 - 0.2mg/kg) that has been used for parasitic diseases is being used to great effect in ill patients with COVID.  In some severely ill COVID patients, and now with the more infective variants, some doctors who are treating high risk COVID patients are using 0.4 or up to 0.6 mg/kg. But that is only when it is clinically warranted.  In India and in Mexico, kits are being handed out which have either two or three doses of 12mg (0.15 - 0.2 mg/kg for an average-sized adult), combined with acetominophen and aspirin (Mexico) or perhaps AZ or doxy and zinc in India.  In Mexico, in particular -- perhaps not in all areas, but in many -- if you get tested at a public health clinic and test positive, you will be sent home with a kit to treat with the meds. 

IVM has been studied for malaria, even trialed in small trials at 10x higher doses, with no harm shown, (https://www.who.int/malaria/mpac/mpac-sept2016-invermectin-session9.pdf?ua=1) There are also individual case reports of massive dosing errors prior to COVID showing no harm. 

In some severely ill patients, and now with the more infective variants, doctors who are treating high numbers of COVID patients are using 0.4 or up to 0.6 mg/kg.  Remember, this is a far lower dose (1/5th) than the studies that showed no ill effect using 2mg/kg.   

Finally, there is a group in France that has been studying extended release, low dosing systems for use in combating malaria. 

Because IVM concentrates in lung tissue, and is better absorbed when ingested with fats, rather than the traditional dosing on an empty stomach, some clinicians wonder if it may, in time, prove effective in preventing COVID at even lower doses, when taken consecutively. That's an educated guess, though. 

That's all I've got. I'm providing information that anyone can examine for themselves if they choose to.  

It’s all interesting but both Mexico and India still have a high number of hospitalisations and deaths? If it was massively successful surely that wouldn’t be the case.  It may be effective at a low level but it doesn’t seem to be as effective as vaccination.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Ausmumof3

[Ausmumof3]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Technically, if that were true that'd be pretty good. That was my operating assumption before -- that it told you the percent of sick people with COVID. Assuming the percentage of people who are sick at all isn't varying wildly, that's actually not such a bad statistic. 

The problem is that the level of overall sickness does vary, plus it's not only the sick people testing anymore 😛 

Also as people get back out you get more other colds and flus.  In some ways positivity can then be seen more as a measure what percentage of circulating viral illness is Covid versus something else.  As the other illnesses get going again that percentage is likely to be a bit lower maybe.

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, I talk to the trees said:

*sigh*  A month ago, I was hopeful. The numbers were dropping, and it looked like a somewhat normal summer was within reach. Now, we are back at 6.8% positive, cases are on the rise, and no doubt death rates will follow the trend. Honestly, this is no real surprise, because where I live, the vaccination rate will stay low because of politics, and around here, July 4th= time to get drunk and blow things up, so I was expecting a bit of a surge after the holiday, but hoping for better. Now, I’m back to feeling very uncomfortable just walking the dogs in the park, since there is no way to know if that unmasked person who refuses to give you space on the trail is vaccinated (given the rates here, and the experiences I have had recently, the answer is probably no.) And then there are the kids (of course they aren’t vaccinated!) who think they just have to pet every dog that they see.  🙄 So although I really, really want to be out and about, I guess I am headed back into 100% lockdown. I’m glad that dd is currently doing research in a high vax area, but concerned about her resuming in person classes at her college here in the fall (currently 4.8% positive, but sure to rise when students return.) 
 

I am so freaking tired of stupid.  I’m ready to move back north to Mordor now. At least most of the orcs there have been vaccinated. 

I’m still hopeful that with many of the vulnerable vaccinated death rates won’t follow case rates as closely, they seem to be climbing a little in the UK but we’re yet to see for sure.  That’s not to say they won’t increase but hopefully less than they would have.

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

Several folks mentioned using positivity rates as a measure. Why? Wouldn't the positivity rate entirely depend on how many and how sick people test? If there's a ton of testing, like mandated on schedule,  rate will be much smaller than if there's only a few sick folks testing and noone else.

Plenty of people here are testing for work place requirements, or sports, etc. In addition to people who are sick. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

It’s all interesting but both Mexico and India still have a high number of hospitalisations and deaths? If it was massively successful surely that wouldn’t be the case.  It may be effective at a low level but it doesn’t seem to be as effective as vaccination.

Don’t forget Brazil. The Ivermectin evangelists always conveniently forget about Brazil. 
 

btw- I have taken Ivermectin. It is not a benign drug. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

btw- I have taken Ivermectin. It is not a benign drug. 

Does it have unpleasant side effects? 

[Acadie]

17 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

btw- I have taken Ivermectin. It is not a benign drug. 

My mom has environmental illness and has to be very careful about even household substances, never mind meds. Her doctors both said, based on their experience with other patients, that they thought an mRNA vaccine would likely be safer for her than ivermectin. 

When people say ivermectin has such a great safety record I think that's a talking point, not based on actual data or patient experience. 

[Meriwether]

A county near me has a 13% positivity rate - and two positive cases in the past 7 days. I don't find the percent positive to be a meaningful statistic in that scenario.

[KSera]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

We don't have any mandated testing locally. I assume that only people with sickness symptoms go for a test. So if they're sick, and 20% of the sickness is Covid, that doesn't tell me anything about community spread

The thought is that since only a certain percent will present with symptoms and only a certain percentage of those will test, it tells us something about how much of the iceberg we’re catching and how big the actual iceberg will be. I do think that falls apart at extremes on either end—when there’s lots of testing of asymptomatic people and when resources are so stretched that fewer people can get tested. 

4 minutes ago, Meriwether said:

A county near me has a 13% positivity rate - and two positive cases in the past 7 days. I don't find the percent positive to be a meaningful statistic in that scenario.

I agree. It does make you wonder, though. That means only 15 people were tested in the past 7 days. If 2 of those 15 were positive, it does make you wonder how much more Covid is in the community and just not being tested. Hospitalization is probably a more useful metric, but in places with good vaccination coverage, hospitalization and cases aren’t as closely linked as they used to be (fortunately). 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, KSera said:

I agree. It does make you wonder, though. That means only 15 people were tested in the past 7 days. If 2 of those 15 were positive, it does make you wonder how much more Covid is in the community and just not being tested. Hospitalization is probably a more useful metric, but in places with good vaccination coverage, hospitalization and cases aren’t as closely linked as they used to be (fortunately). 

Yep. In that case, I would say that neither the absolute number of cases nor the positivity are particularly meaningful. 

What it does mean is that no one cares whether there's any COVID in the community, since no one is testing, lol. That would make me more freaked out than the numbers... 

[Meriwether]

5 minutes ago, KSera said:

I agree. It does make you wonder, though. That means only 15 people were tested in the past 7 days. If 2 of those 15 were positive, it does make you wonder how much more Covid is in the community and just not being tested. Hospitalization is probably a more useful metric, but in places with good vaccination coverage, hospitalization and cases aren’t as closely linked as they used to be (fortunately). 

In the 20 counties that make up our region (the only place I know to look for statistics on it), there are a total of 9 people with Covid in the hospitals. I don't know if all of them are in because of Covid. They used to maintain a website with that information, but when cases got lower they stopped.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Meriwether said:

In the 20 counties that make up our region (the only place I know to look for statistics on it), there are a total of 9 people with Covid in the hospitals. I don't know if all of them are in because of Covid. They used to maintain a website with that information, but when cases got lower they stopped.

Well, it sounds like you aren't having a serious COVID wave, which is good... 

[Jean in Newcastle]

50 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Does it have unpleasant side effects? 

Lots of tummy related side effects:  nausea, diarrhea etc. 

also fatigue and weakness. 
 

There are other side effects but these are the ones I had. 
 

Now obviously side effects aren’t the same in everyone and they can be worth it if the medicine does what it’s supposed to do. But I have not seen any legitimate studies that show that Ivermectin helps with Covid. 

[Ausmumof3]

27 minutes ago, Meriwether said:

A county near me has a 13% positivity rate - and two positive cases in the past 7 days. I don't find the percent positive to be a meaningful statistic in that scenario.

Sounds like no one is getting tested so you basically would have no idea of the cases other than severe ones that make it to hospital.

[KSera]

19 minutes ago, Meriwether said:

In the 20 counties that make up our region (the only place I know to look for statistics on it), there are a total of 9 people with Covid in the hospitals. I don't know if all of them are in because of Covid. They used to maintain a website with that information, but when cases got lower they stopped.

Sounds like you could possibly be somewhere similar to South Dakota? In the case of SD, cases are low right now despite people not caring very much about Covid because so much of the population has had Covid already. The case rate is the same per capita as Vermont (where people have been much more cautious). The difference being that SD had six times the death rate per capita as Vermont in order to get there 😢. It’s also just random though, and some places have been lucky not to get hit hard so far. Hopefully it stays that way. 

[Halftime Hope]

19 hours ago, KSera said:

It’s not that I think no one should try ivermectin, it’s that the people who advocate ivermectin for all by and large are also spreading false information about vaccines and discouraging people from getting vaccinated. It’s possible we will eventually find that ivermectin does indeed help (we still have not much in the way of large, well controlled trials to indicate that), but we KNOW that the vaccines prevent nearly all Covid deaths. Ivermectin does not. Maybe it will help, but discouraging vaccine while saying ivermectin is a miracle cure is irresponsible and is causing many deaths. That’s the issue I have with it. 
 

As an aside, as far as historical use of ivermectin goes, the dosing for an oral medication for parasites in the intestinal track will be different than for a virus in the respiratory system that will need to be reached via reaching sufficient blood stream concentrations. 

It's almost like you didn't read my post. I may have been too wordy with the references and lengthy quote. 

Clinicians and public health experts all over the world are using IVM for treating COVID illness and for prophylactic dosing at the same doses as they have for parasitic infections, and they are doing so with remarkable success. You, KSera, may hypothesize that different doses will be needed, but those using it had been sticking pretty closely to the 150 - 200 microgram/kg dosing used since the late 1970s. 

For some fascinating history on the drug, people might enjoy this:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/  (Written in 2011.)

For the record, there are other doctors around the world treating COVID successfully with a number of repurposed drugs, not just this particular one.  

[Halftime Hope]

13 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I don't know why you think IVM will cause no side effects. Pretty much every medicine causes SOME side effects. Someone will be allergic. Someone's body will react badly in some other way. It's exactly the same thing as with the vaccines, except MUCH less studied.

Vaccines and medicines are non-trivial events. If you do a large volume of them, you WILL see things. The rate at which we're seeing serious vaccine issues is small. The rate one will see serious IVM issues is also probably small, but you bet we'll see a few serious things that happens with rates of one in a million or more, and also a few less serious things at much higher rates. 

When we reach 3.7 billion doses of vaccines, let's compare adverse reaction data, OK?  😉  We have that much safety data for IVM already; by comparison, the vaccine safety data is the loser.  (Actually, untreated COVID is the real loser, which brings me back to treating COVID again, and to repurposed, effective drugs.)   

Edited July 14, 2021 by Halftime Hope

[KSera]

14 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:

It's almost like you didn't read my post. I may have been too wordy with the references and lengthy quote. 

Clinicians and public health experts all over the world are using IVM for treating COVID illness and for prophylactic dosing at the same doses as they have for parasitic infections, and they are doing so with remarkable success. You, KSera, may hypothesize that different doses will be needed, but those using it had been sticking pretty closely to the 150 - 200 microgram/kg dosing used since the late 1970s. 

For some fascinating history on the drug, people might enjoy this:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/  (Written in 2011.)

For the record, there are other doctors around the world treating COVID successfully with a number of repurposed drugs, not just this particular one.  

 

12 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:

When we reach 3.7 billion doses of vaccines, let's compare adverse reaction data, OK?  😉  We have that much safety data for IVM already; by comparison, the vaccine safety data has already lost.  

Maybe I’m communicating poorly tonight. This is the second thread I’m getting that feeling. My point with ivermectin really has nothing to do with the dosing— I said that was just an aside. My point, as is demonstrated with your second quote, is that the majority of people advocating for ivermectin are at the same time discrediting vaccines. The vaccines keep nearly all people who get them from dying of Covid. Over 99% of those who died of Covid in the US last month were unvaccinated. That’s almost 10,000 lives saved last month alone. And arguably more, because if not for the vaccine, our transmission counts would be higher, especially with Delta. There is no such data on that many lives being saved with ivermectin. It might help some, but we don’t have enough data yet to even show that. So when people say ivermectin is the miracle cure and vaccines are dangerous, it’s beyond frustrating. These people are killing people by the thousands with this propaganda and dragging this pandemic out long past when it could have ended in this country. It upsets me. A lot. 

[Halftime Hope]

15 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

It’s all interesting but both Mexico and India still have a high number of hospitalisations and deaths? If it was massively successful surely that wouldn’t be the case.  It may be effective at a low level but it doesn’t seem to be as effective as vaccination.

Except that IVM has not been widely rolled out in India; last I heard, there were 7 out of 13 states using it? Compare the states using it versus those not, and you get a pretty good feel for the difference made. 

Same for Mexico:  their numbers actually look really good considering the variants. We actually have a higher case count per 100K! So, yes, cases are going up, but a relatively small amount compared to the rate of increase in January. When you consider the lack of availability of healthcare resources, the fact that their cummulative death rate per 100K is only twice ours (0.08 US versus 0.15 Mex), when only 20% of their population is vaxxed? That's downright miraculous: they are doing something right. 

 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Halftime Hope

[Halftime Hope]

21 minutes ago, KSera said:

 

Maybe I’m communicating poorly tonight. This is the second thread I’m getting that feeling. My point with ivermectin really has nothing to do with the dosing— I said that was just an aside. My point, as is demonstrated with your second quote, is that the majority of people advocating for ivermectin are at the same time discrediting vaccines. The vaccines keep nearly all people who get them from dying of Covid. Over 99% of those who died of Covid in the US last month were unvaccinated. That’s almost 10,000 lives saved last month alone. And arguably more, because if not for the vaccine, our transmission counts would be higher, especially with Delta. There is no such data on that many lives being saved with ivermectin. It might help some, but we don’t have enough data yet to even show that. So when people say ivermectin is the miracle cure and vaccines are dangerous, it’s beyond frustrating. These people are killing people by the thousands with this propaganda and dragging this pandemic out long past when it could have ended in this country. It upsets me. A lot. 

I'm not discrediting vaccines. Can we speak data here?  I'm saying vaccines do have side effects, and trying to compare the side effects of vaccines to those of ivermectin, like someone did above, is a fools errand.  Ivermectin wins on safety profile hands down, and it seems to be quite effective at preventing and treating COVID.  So how about we use BOTH as medically indicated? 

I'm also saying: it will take years for the worldwide population to get vaccines. In the meantime, let use ivermectin and save some lives, OK?  Also, for those who want to, how about they have the option to prophylax and treat with ivermectin.  This is not a zero sum game.   

I'm all for any and all means to alleviate illness and suffering.  And with that, I'm done.  

I'm sorry this went off the OP's topic.  If I had children for whom I was responsible -- mine are grown -- I'd be talking to my doc about having a treatment plan in case they caught COVID, because in every other illness, that's what we do (have a treatment plan), and I see no reason to treat this one any differently. 

[BusyMom5]

I just don't know what to do.  I have some kids too young for vaccination, others who are vaccinated.   All of my kids are so ready to be out and about!  I'm not looking forward to telling them we are scaling back.  The older vaccinated ones are just as likely to get the varient and bring it home- its going crazy here, and not just in the unvaccinated!  Feeling like its hopeless and I just need to give up and accept the risk- expect to get sick!

[Pen]

47 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:

I'm not discrediting vaccines. Can we speak data here?  I'm saying vaccines do have side effects, and trying to compare the side effects of vaccines to those of ivermectin, like someone did above, is a fools errand.  Ivermectin wins on safety profile hands down, and it seems to be quite effective at preventing and treating COVID.  So how about we use BOTH as medically indicated? 

I'm also saying: it will take years for the worldwide population to get vaccines. In the meantime, let use ivermectin and save some lives, OK?  Also, for those who want to, how about they have the option to prophylax and treat with ivermectin.  This is not a zero sum game.   

I'm all for any and all means to alleviate illness and suffering.  And with that, I'm done.  

I'm sorry this went off the OP's topic.  If I had children for whom I was responsible -- mine are grown -- I'd be talking to my doc about having a treatment plan in case they caught COVID, because in every other illness, that's what we do (have a treatment plan), and I see no reason to treat this one any differently. 

 

19 minutes ago, BusyMom5 said:

I just don't know what to do.  I have some kids too young for vaccination, others who are vaccinated.   All of my kids are so ready to be out and about!  I'm not looking forward to telling them we are scaling back.  The older vaccinated ones are just as likely to get the varient and bring it home- its going crazy here, and not just in the unvaccinated!  Feeling like its hopeless and I just need to give up and accept the risk- expect to get sick!

@BusyMom5
this is exactly the type situation where being aware that there is not just a zero-sum game possible makes sense IME 

if you look into the treatment and prophylaxis options that exist — whether for use “instead of” or “in addition” to vaccines your family has had or has not had  (depending on person) may perhaps help you to feel less hopeless 

 

also though you will perhaps just consider  such things as “conspiracy theory” it is possible that getting more of a handle on how people who see things differently than the dominant current view here on Wtm (and mainstream media) could possibly help you to feel less hopeless

 

“Accepting risk” with some medicines, etc, on hand feels different than accepting risk with a sense of personal helplessness and believing that there will be no treatment offered or possible short of getting sick enough for hospitalization/icu type stage

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Pen

[Pen]

3 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Does it have unpleasant side effects? 

it probably depends on the person — I would expect that with most things anyway, whether food, medicine or anything else individual people react individually 

 

for me, taken properly (correct dose for body weight and large glass of water with it—and I prefer with some food rather than empty stomach ) I have no negative side effects I am aware of at all.   (I also take a variety of other supplements which may make my situation different than other people’s, including NAC or SAMe to help protect liver, Vitsmin D3 and its cofactors etc.) 
 

On the contrary, It has helped to some degree to alleviate some effects/symptoms (and I hope maybe actual is gradually killing off residual hiding spirochetes)  of long haul chronic Lyme disease! 
 

(because I knew if might help with Lyme, and I knew some people with Lyme or similar illnesses got bad herxheimer reactions, I eased gradually onto Ivermectin to not have a massive herxheimer reaction.  ) 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Pen

[Pen]

3 hours ago, Acadie said:

My mom has environmental illness and has to be very careful about even household substances, never mind meds. Her doctors both said, based on their experience with other patients, that they thought an mRNA vaccine would likely be safer for her than ivermectin. 

When people say ivermectin has such a great safety record I think that's a talking point, not based on actual data or patient experience. 

obviously each person has to make the best personal decision he or she can 

I have to delete some current photos to do it, but when I free up my allowed images space, will try to give a screen shot of some data comparisons — it will be from a non USA data site that I find easier to use than Vaers.

[Pen]

@Acadie

Cannot post photos or screenshots at this time.

 

VigiAccess adverse reactions had over 1 million adverse reactions for Covid 19 vaccines recorded  (1,372,540)

under 6000 adverse reactions for Ivermectin recorded  (5,520)

 Consider the orders of magnitude of difference. 

 

Anyway, I hope your mother has done well. I also have environmental illness. It’s very hard to deal with.  I have lived in tropics country where Ivermectin is otc, so probably don’t have a fear of it that many Americans, Canadians, or Australians may have. Otoh I tend personally to do badly with “vaccines”. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Pen

[wathe]

6 hours ago, regentrude said:

Several folks mentioned using positivity rates as a measure. Why? Wouldn't the positivity rate entirely depend on how many and how sick people test? If there's a ton of testing, like mandated on schedule,  rate will be much smaller than if there's only a few sick folks testing and noone else.

It's correlated well here with hospitalizations and deaths, but percent positivity rises earlier, while hospitalizations and deaths lag behind.

Lots of people are getting covid tests who don't have symptoms here:  Nursing home staff are all tested weekly, every hospital inpatient gets a covid test at the time of admission, no matter what the reason for admission (including obstetrics, orthopaedics, etc), all patients  getting discharged to a nursing home get another test before discharge, all patients having surgery for any reason get a covid test etc.  

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

Except that IVM has not been widely rolled out in India; last I heard, there were 7 out of 13 states using it? Compare the states using it versus those not, and you get a pretty good feel for the difference made. 

Same for Mexico:  their numbers actually look really good considering the variants. We actually have a higher case count per 100K! So, yes, cases are going up, but a relatively small amount compared to the rate of increase in January. When you consider the lack of availability of healthcare resources, the fact that their death rate per 100K is only half of ours 0.08 versus 0.15, when only 20% of their population is vaxxed? That's downright miraculous: they are doing something right. 

 

 

 

I’m not sure where you’re getting the death rates from death rates per million on worldometer are actually very similar for Mexico and the US?  India’s is somewhat better but it’s widely accepted that that is a massive undercount.  I haven’t honestly seen country level data to be super useful other than for very broad brush trends because there’s so much difference in reporting methods and accuracy between countries.  I still think that is ivermectin was having the kind of results that vaccine is (reduction in hospitalisation and death of around 90pc) we would have some better evidence for it at this point.  That’s not to discount that it may have some impact just that it’s not at the same level. 

[TechWife]

I haven’t been following this thread, but we have followed the recommendations of our county and state health departments all along. I don’t think another wave would change our methodology.