It's funny, because as a scientist I though "why in the word is anybody even talking about this paper, it's way too preliminary to be of general interest." No other tiny, flawed study like this would generate hype unless it had been picked up by some rumor machine.

And I guess the reason is that we have a terrible executive that doesn't understand basic science and has weaponized his followers to politicize science to their own ends.

To have the President is the US be the source of rumors is such a shame. We have fallen so far as a country, to such pitiable depths of poverty of mind.

It was talked about a fair bit before Trump got on to it. You may have noticed there is a pandemic going on many deaths so it's natural to be interested in remedies.

The data - 100% of the azithromycin + hydroxychloroquine group better after 6 days is promising even if it's a small sample.

conspiracy theorist

You're just witnessing the old joke IRL: If Trump could walk on water, the Left would complain that he can't swim.

I'm not saying this works, but it does seem to me that for severely ill patients there's no harm in doing a large-ish field trial. Prophylactic use should receive more scrutiny.

Right. Like why not give it to those willing to try who can't get a vent in Italy.

They do in fact "give it to those willing to try" in Italy, France, and China at a minimum. Probably elsewhere as well. Here in the US we're instead engaging in purely partisan bickering as to whether or not it should be available (which is not the same thing as pervasive use).

>You're just witnessing the old joke IRL: If Trump could walk on water, the Left would complain that he can't swim.

The skepticism is due to false claims like "anybody that wants can get a test" [1]

But as you say, maybe they shouldn't blame Trump since he says it's not his responsibility [2]

Anyway, why do any treatment if the virus is a hoax[3], hype[4] and fake news[5]

Or at worst, it is only one person coming from China and is totally under control [6]

Certainly the president is not concerned at all about the White-house [7]

And all this must be true because has has known it was a pandemic all along [8]

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres...

[2] https://youtu.be/NezEbDx4B9A?t=102

[3] https://youtu.be/NezEbDx4B9A?t=57

[4] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12369751966423900...

[5] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12370045091566428...

[6] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-on-coronavirus-from-ch...

[7] https://youtu.be/NezEbDx4B9A?t=78

[8] https://youtu.be/NezEbDx4B9A?t=109

He never called virus itself a hoax. He called the accusations that the administration's response was ineffective a "hoax". There's a difference. Didn't read the rest of your partisan drivel, sorry.

You were extremely lucky to read only the one point that has been in the news as not entirely correct, missing the other dozen or so that are difficult or impossible to refute.

Like supporters of Oberan, Erdogan, Bolsonaro, Modi, Putin, Duterte and Maduro, any damning direct quotes will always be claimed to mean something else entirely.

The larger issue is that the leader's supporters know what he is and his relationship to the truth. They know when he looses the popular vote, has consistent majority disapproval and acts with dubious legality. These things don't mater. If fact, that he can retain power in spite of these things is considered a virtue.

They elected him because of single minded ruthlessness and willingness to break laws to permanently eradicate liberalism and the viability of opposing parties. The mere promise of this is so thrilling to them that any action the leader takes is defended or obfuscated unwaveringly even when the defenders don't fully believe or aren't really comfortable with it themselves.

This works both ways though. I hope you're smart enough recognize that. There's literally nothing Trump can say or do to earn the approval of those suffering from TDS. He could say "water is wet" and you'd still argue that's not the case.

Even before he was president, his calls for infrastructure were praised by democrats. And many on the left praised his calls for tariffs.

But after leading chants to lock up political rivals and repeatedly calling the free press the "enemy of the people"[1], there is indeed nothing any politician from any party with any agenda could ever do to become normalized by democratically minded people.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_people#Marxist%E2...

But they are "the enemy of the people" figuratively speaking. They lie _all the time_, they're routinely caught and called out, and they continue to lie. The only two journalists that I know of who point out this sorry state of affairs are Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald. Neither is a fan of Trump in the least. Everyone else is perfectly OK with it. Far fewer people trust the press than the president.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/08/18/rasmussen...

They are supposed to inform. Instead, most of the time, they push disinformation to fit a predefined agenda. Jeff Zucker literally tells CNN talking heads what to say in his 9AM meeting. This is not "free press". This is a fucking disgrace, and it is actively harmful to "the people", especially when there's a crisis.

Let me give you an example: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/arizona-coronavirus-ch.... Unless you read the article carefully, you will get the impression that the man medicated himself with the actual chloroquine pills. This is NOT what happened: he ate god damn aquarium cleaner by the spoonful.

The front page of CNN is FULL of this bullshit. Literally all of the liberal outlets reprint these stories _knowing_ they are fake or misleading (just serarch Google for "chloroquine" and see for yourself, today - it'll be full of the same dude who ingested aquarium cleaner). And that's before we even mention lying by omission, which also happens all the time.

Your example wouldn’t even constitute a lie. It would be “misleading” at best.

But it’s not that, either. You’re making up a completely fact-free accusation:

The aquarium is mentioned in the headline

The second sentence is:

“It does not appear they took the pharmaceutical version of the drug, but rather "an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks," Banner Health said in a statement.“

If that constitutes „lying“ to you, it’s beyond hope.

That's because they've stealth-edited the headline. Look it up in other news sources. The initial headline was extremely, and deliberately misleading.

Here's what it was: https://twitter.com/axios/status/1242425467438858241?ref_src...

And if this does not constitute lying to you, you need to wake up.

#1: in context is a clearly forward looking statement, since the text surrounding it speaks of significant testing capacity coming online in the near future. Which it did. Currently labs in e.g. WA (original epicenter of the infection) are operating under capacity: https://twitter.com/UWVirology/status/1241953101076037632. NY is still challenging, but ramped up tremendously since then. I mean, you can armchair quarterback all you want, but those are facts. Capacity was promised, capacity is being delivered.

#2. Yeah, I will concede that this one wasn't the best wording. That's how he deals with clearly partisan hacks in the audience. If you think anybody in his opposition would publicly accept blame for _anything_ you're sorely mistaken. Do I need to remind you what the Congress has spent the entire January and half the February on?

#3. We've been over this.

#4. He's right, they are doing whatever they can to freak people out as much as possible, whether or not there's a reason to freak out. The risk was low to the average American at the time, and at below 150 cases per million it remains so even now. Moreover, if you conservatively (by which I mean all the currently active cases there end in a fatality, which is unlikely) extrapolate S. Korea numbers to 7x the population, you'll end up with fewer than 50K deaths. We could realistically end up in that situation, given that we have a comparable level of medical care, and given that Korea is perhaps the only country for which extensive, reliable test data is available.

#5. He's right. There's a ton of fake news, even from previously reputable sources. So much so in fact, that people are already writing papers about this: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/eci.13222

#6. This is from Jan 22. First case in the US was identified just 3 days before: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191. It did at the time seem that this could be "under control", especially considering that he was planning to shut down flights just 9 days later (something he was called a "racist" for at the time). You can say it ain't so with the benefit of the hindsight, but I bet you didn't think of this much in January, and if I told you several states would be in full lockdown, you wouldn't believe me.

7. In terms of the number of infections per million, the level of response, and the number of fatalities, we are in a "great" shape compared to most other places, including Korea, which is widely acknowledged to be a "success" as far as response measures and containment go. One thing we did fuck up is testing. That's being fixed as quickly as humanly possible: https://www.politico.com/interactives/2020/coronavirus-testi...

8. Meh. Weak sauce.

Anything else?

Why (from his point of view) would it be either/or? The latter claim could overlap with or imply the former. In principle, it doesn't have to, but saying the response was adequate certainly doesn't imply that liberals were correct about the magnitude of the threat.

Mind reading isn't a thing.

Right, so based on what I know, I can't speak to the state of his mind or all the things he said that indicate it. So if you think some people are wrong and your opinion is right, you might consider explaining why.