Similarly, the complete disregard by the medical community of playing their role in reminding others organizing protests to take steps to prevent participants from spreading the virus has been equally disturbing. I've heard literally nothing from the medical community about tips, methods, or instructions for ensuring protestors do not cause a new outbreak. There does not seem to be any innovation happening in helping people organize and protest while keeping social distancing in mind. I don't know what that would look like, but it's a moral failure that the problem hasn't been worked whatsoever. I haven't even heard stories of people just handing out masks. Things are quite dire.

I think this is a typical example of the medical community's method of communicating with the public - until they've studied something to death, they're too afraid to say anything, and if pressed, will just tell you to keep doing what you're doing, even if emerging evidence to the contrary and widespread anecdotal counter-examples are starting to surface.

Think about the whole mask fiasco at the beginning of this mess. The CDC actually told Americans that wearing masks might make them more likely to get the virus, despite masks being an effective preventive measure against all other known respiratory viruses to my knowledge, plus the widespread usage of masks by literally billions of people in Asia is a pretty good indicator that it can be done safely.

During "normal" times, this general approach may be 100% right, you need to be very sure you understand even low-incidence side effects before you tell 8 billion people what is good for them and what isn't. But that's simply the wrong approach in the face of a fast-moving pandemic - you need to be able to do basic risk/reward analysis quickly and recommend the path that is most likely to work, even if you're not 100% sure, and you're operating on some educated guesses in the absence of hard data.

Basically, they need to operate more like engineers and less like doctors, at least for a little while =)

Yeah, or they just say stuff anyway. Yesterday Slate reported [0][1] that a large body of the experts (I refrain from scare quotes, but they seem apropos these days) are saying the protests take priority over the public health emergency.

[0] https://slate.com/technology/2020/06/protests-coronavirus-pa... [1] https://reason.com/2020/06/03/what-happened-to-the-public-he...

Last month when people were protesting the shutdown itself I recall the predominant response was that protestors were violating social distancing protocols, endangering public safety, and should desist.

For people that are against the shutdown, this reaffirms the purely political nature of the policy.

> For people that are against the shutdown, this reaffirms the purely political nature of the policy

What does that mean? What is the nature of the policy and how is it purely political? (Obviously any policy is political, because it's a choice effecting the population)

It's clear by now that many of the so-called "experts" are ideologically driven. For instance the highly influential Professor Ferguson told governments around the world they needed drastic lockdowns, which he then repeatedly violated himself to sleep with his left-wing activist girlfriend.

One of the other 50 "experts" in the UK government's advisory group (SAGE) is not only a left-wing political activist who made huge donations to Labour but is actually a life long member of the Communist Party. That's totally absurd given the tiny membership it has, but somehow the government managed to recruit a literal communist to make policy.

Lockdowns have been designed by these people and are a nearly pure implementation of hard-left policies, of the sort normally only found in communist states. Censorship is rife, a pass is required to go outside, protest is banned, the private sector is being destroyed. Maybe it shouldn't be a big surprise when you look at who's been coming up with them.

Any scientist can tell you that it's hard to keep up with the literature, and it's very likely that many of them spoke out against make without reading the papers. I was taught as an undergrad that they don't work. Many of these things are passed down uncritically.

This issue demonstrates that we need to improve science communication. Many scientists and public health professionals declared outright that make don't work. This shows that they are either unfamiliarity with the totality of the literature or that they feel the need to give definitive statements. When some people provided evidence in favour of masks, some of them switched to saying that make are needed by medical professionals and that improper usage can increase your risk. A better approach would be to acknowledge that there is uncertainty at that in their view the evidence against masks outweighs that in favour. If they took this approach, it wouldn't seem like they just flip flopped when they started recommending make. Also, it's not hard to train people to use them, and condescending to treat people as being too stupid to wear them.

Given the risk/reward, and the high stakes nature of what we were about to go through, stating "no comment" on masks was pants-on-head stupid, because when medical folks say "there is no evidence to support" the press inevitably spins it to mean "this doesn't work." It highlights just how behind the medical field is when it comes to understanding how to incorporate human psychology, risk management, and other areas mastered by other industries to minimize harm.

I mean I agree that science community should consider some aspects of communication, but every participant in this chain should act responsibly. Once we put the blame squarly on the scientists, we absolve the actual bad actors.

With the situation you describe above, the fault is with the press for not doing due diligence. Not with the scientists telling the facts.

- It is truly agonizing that one must choose between civil disobedience and protecting the health of your loved ones, but that is a choice we are now all forced to make.

- Large public gatherings, even if outdoors, have heightened risk of transmission, especially if people are gathered together closely as they are certain to be at most protests.

- As such, the risk of contracting COVID-19 is high at protests, if the disease is present in the local population. Here is data to help you decide if that is the case for your local area: XXXX

- To understand the risks involved, based upon your own circumstances, here is data on the mortality and other health risks to those who you may transmit the disease to: XXX. If you choose to protest, consider adjusting other factors to minimize your exposure to these individuals. If you cannot, try to find ways to participate in the protest that minimize your own risk of becoming a vector. Or, if possible, quarantine your self for at least 7 days or at most 14 days from friends and family members who are at the highest risk.

Of course, stuff like this hasn't been written, and it takes not being paranoid of being labelled as not supporting the protests to write it. It should be culturally acceptable to say clearly and without risk that if you see your actions as a potential risk of killing your relatives, perhaps the right choice is in fact to participate in the protests without physically gathering. Given this message was not shared, we are basically relying for the most part on luck and on-site countermeasures, vs people choosing to not go, since the response so far implies that is not a moral choice to make.

I'd say you should ask somebody who lived during the AIDS epidemic denial years of the early–mid '80s, but most of them are no longer with us for some reason.

There are two worst case scenarios here - Firstly, politicians pushing unproven drugs on the general population, causing unnecessary deaths. Secondly, treatments which may have some efficacy being abandoned because of a reaction against those politicians, potentially causing a failure to bring an effective treatment to bear.

Both of these can be true at the same time.

Where you personally draw the line between "authority figure spouting off about something in official capacity" and "pushing" is up to you, but it's hardly delusional. It's also a hypothetical worst case scenario, if you read what I actually wrote.

It's "unproven" as a treatment for COVID but pascal's wager would say that there is no harm in taking it.

That's nonsense, plenty of approved medicines have pretty crazy side effects, and can do more harm than good if taken when they aren't needed.

Pascal's wager, about the existence of god, is also incorrect FYI. It posits that you should believe in god because you have nothing to lose. Amongst other criticisms it fails to take account of the negatives of adhering to a belief system, and it fails to take account of the possibility of choosing the wrong god(s).

Looking at some of the specifics, these don't look like "honest" mistakes, and I'm doubting any integrity on the part of the peer reviewers and the Lancet too with how blatantly false some of their data are. It doesn't even pass the smell test:

https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/126610886125...

I don't think you can blame the media here.

They reported on extremely important and relevant scientific research that was credible by any kind of reasonable journalistic standard. How could they have done otherwise?

Contrasting the research claims against the claims of "a certain politician" would be a natural and necessary part of that.

Some commentators went too far -- some always do, often the same ones -- but the failing here wasn't generally the media.

> Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work?

I don't think that's being forgotten that outside the lunatic fringe. Notice that this story is getting wide coverage, just like the coverage of the original finding.

0. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

The issue of bring Trump into this is tougher. I'm not an American, and don't follow his speeches. I've seen many articles start out with "the drug that Trump irresponsibly hyped up has been proven not to work". To me, it feels like Trump is their main focus instead of the science. Now, if Trump has repeatedly hyped this drug I think that it would be reasonable. Is that the case, or is it the case that the media continue to bring up something he said weeks ago?

Trump pointed to doctors publishing reports of how they were using it in China and Korea, amongst others. That regimen, incidentally, seemed to involve a loading dose, followed by about five days, taken in conjunction with azithromycin and zinc. Innocuous, except for extreme edge cases (source: I took HCQ for years and am overly familiar with its health risks, zpacks and zinc speak for themselves). It was suspected (confirmed, I think) that he ended up taking this regimen himself.

Trump may also have known then (as do any of you smart folk) that the odds of a working vaccine for any coronavirus are long, to be generous. So antiviral treatments become pretty important when you know there's probably no vaccine coming. [1]

He also called in a favor to Modi when India (HCQ's primary producer) put a hold on all exports of the drug, and got millions of doses shipped to the US.

So the media treated this recurring talking point as him irresponsibly endorsing the drug and stories started coming out to make it a "gotcha" moment, including the ludicrous story of a retired engineer who drank pool cleaner containing chloroquine phospate, implying he did so only because of Trump's "endorsement" [1]. Further, any story of a retroactive analysis showing inefficacy of HCQ or better - health risks - got an inordinate amount of coverage (inordinate, considering such studies were no better than the evidence promoting it, or made claims of unrealistic health risks).

If you didn't watch the source material of Trump's statements, but relied on new reports, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he has been giving medical treatment advice this whole time and causing deaths from people drinking clorox. It stands to reason, though, that the same sources that pushed Russiagate [3] for years may not be the best authorities on what Trump has or has not said.

[0] https://www.c-span.org/video/?470503-1/president-trump-coron...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/22/why-we-might-n...

[2] https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-no-ho...

[3] https://theintercept.com/2020/05/14/new-documents-from-the-s...

People ask the question "how can I use this to help me politically?" versus "how can this help fight the epidemic?".

There is, to say it mildly, a bit of controversy about them in the academic world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices

But we should still make sure these behaviors are not rewarded. Science was right when they called against "Pandemic Research Exceptionalism". I think at this point in time, where available knowledge has increased a little, we can afford to be stricter than before.

It’s really frustrating that the theorized mechanism of HCQ effectiveness as a prophylactic is its ability to transport zinc across cell walls (zinc interrupts the viral RNA replication), yet these trials don’t include zinc supplements.

Check the supplementary data. There were confounding factors, but a group of patients took zinc, and there is no difference between the two groups.

Bear in mind that this study has no say on the use as a treatment.

Sorry for my language.

I have a feeling that choice of words was deliberate. ;-)

We're hoping for _a_ treatment to work. Trump's motivations were largely self-interest, financial investments and other.

We didn't celebrate because Trump was wrong. There was skepticism about the treatment, but he (not a physician) was up there pimping it. Even he didn't necessarily believe it was the cure. For all he said that, he said "Hey, take it anyway, why not? Can't hurt!" (when indeed it can). Finally came conclusive evidence that "You are wrong. Be quiet." Though Trump being Trump, that didn't overly work.

It's no different to "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, who once lodged an appeal / protest against a drug being approved...

Not because it was dangerous. Or less effective. Or more expensive.

No, in fact it was safer than treatments out there. And more effective. And cheaper.

And all those reasons meant he opposed it. Because it wasn't _his_ drug. People who say "Big Pharma is holding the cure to cancer", etc., all those conspiracy theories? Shkreli literally opposed a better drug because it would cost him and his company profits.

He has three trusts who have holdings in Sanofi, the manufacturer. For one of the trusts, Sanofi is the single largest holding.

> a generic $0.04 drug.

Not sure where you're getting that. GoodRx: "The lowest GoodRx price for the most common version of hydroxychloroquine is around $14.95, 91% off the average retail price of $174.01." https://www.drugs.com/price-guide/hydroxychloroquine has it at around $0.63-$0.80 per dose.

It's also 5 doses of that drug dose per person per 48 hours. The standard dosing regime is 14 days. Seven million confirmed cases and we're in the realm of $200M. Prophylactic dosing is the same, for how many millions of people, and now we're talking a lot of money and a lot of financial interest.

It's the same with people that were applauding healthcare workers but now have no issues with protesters that don't take any COVID measures.

It's terrible that health is politicized, it should be above all parties.

I also have a bit of an issue with your statement about Trump's motivations.

Just these presumptions are why some people didn't want the medicine to work, while in reality we can all only just guess about his motivations.

I also think you are trying to say there is some inconsistency between applauding health workers for doing necessary work that put them in danger of catching and spreading covid, and applauding protesters for doing necessary work that put them in (much less) danger of catching and spreading covid?

Three of Trump's personal trusts have investments in Sanofi, the manufacturer of HCQ. In fact, in one of the trusts, Sanofi is the largest holding. So I don't think it's entirely unwarranted to question motivations.

Celebrating someone being wrong is, agreed, wrong.

The words of this certain politician have a lot of weight and probably caused a lot of attention to be diverted from real research into looking into this. We can’t chase every crackpot theory only because it’s coming from somebody powerful.