NEWS YOU CAN USE: How Not to Tank Your Relationship in Quarantine. Some tips in The Atlantic from Roy Baumeister and me on how to avoid going negative when spending 24/7 with your beloved. For a fuller discussion of the negativity effect, you can hear me on Krys Boyd’s NPR show, Think. Roy discusses it (and other issues in social science) on Scott Barry Kaufmann’s Psychology Podcast. And for the fullest discussion, of course, there’s our book, The Power of Bad.
AT AMAZON, ASICS Men’s Gel-Kayano 25 Running Shoes.
SO MAYBE SOCIAL DISTANCING IS WORKING: “Currently, the doubling time is 4.1 days, versus the value of 2.32 days computed not too many days ago.” What I’m noticing in my area is that people got a lot more careful about 7-10 days ago. If that’s general, it could account for the change.
AT AMAZON, deals in Cookbooks, Food & Wine.
THIS SEEMS PLAUSIBLE: Being Receptive to Bullsh*t More Generally Can Predict One’s Love of Essential Oils.
JOHN HENRY, RADIOLOGIST VERSION: AI may not be better than experts at reading medical scans.
RIP: Tom Coburn was one of the best senators of our era.
As can be deduced by a Kremlinologist-style analysis of his New York Times obit:
ITALIAN-STYLE TRIAGE IS FORBIDDEN: HHS Office of Civil Rights says no rationing care based on age or disability.
IMPOSSIBLE. TRUMP ENDORSED IT AND SOME GUY DRANK FISH TANK CLEANER, SO IT CAN’T POSSIBLY WORK: Coronavirus cure: French researchers completed new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19.
In 80 in-patients receiving a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, the team found a clinical improvement in all but one 86 year-old patient who died, and one 74-year old patient still in intensive care unit. The team also found that, by administering hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, they were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form, who was over the age of 86, and in whom the evolution was irreversible, according to a new paper published today in IHU Méditerranée Infection.
“For all other patients in the cohort of 80 people, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin resulted in a clinical improvement that appeared significant when compared to the natural evolution in patients with a definite outcome, as described in the literature. In a cohort of 191 Chinese inpatients, of whom 95% received antibiotics and 21% received an association of lopinavir and ritonavir, the median duration of fever was 12 days and that of cough 19 days in survivors, with a 28% case-fatality rate (18),” the research team said.
The team went on to say: “Thus, in addition to its direct therapeutic role, this association can play a role in controlling the disease epidemic by limiting the duration of virus shedding, which can last for several weeks in the absence of specific treatment. In our Institute, which contains 75 individual rooms for treating highly contagious patients, we currently have a turnover rate of 1/3 which allows us to receive a large number of these contagious patients with early discharge. Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are extremely well-known drugs which have already been prescribed to billions of people.”
“In conclusion, we confirm the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine associated with azithromycin in the treatment of COVID-19 and its potential effectiveness in the early impairment of contagiousness. Given the urgent therapeutic need to manage this disease with effective and safe drugs and given the negligible cost of both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, we believe that other teams should urgently evaluate this therapeutic strategy both to avoid the spread of the disease and to treat patients before severe irreversible respiratory complications take hold,” the team concluded.
This sounds very promising.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Cuomo Threatens to Sue Rhode Island For Crackdown on New York Visitors.
FASTER, PLEASE: Israeli doctor in Italy says new, innovative treatments ‘flattening the curve:’ Carmi Sheffer describes connecting patients to ventilators via scuba gear, placing them on stomachs, in battle with unpredictable virus which ‘spreads like wildfire’ among elderly. “One technique he said had yielded dramatic results was to have patients lie on their stomach instead of on their back while on a ventilator.”
BEING THERE: Joe Biden Thinks He Used To Be A Professor? Biden: “When I left the United States Senate, I became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.”
(Classical reference in headline.)
THEY SHOULD LOSE FEDERAL FUNDING FOR THIS: Penn State violated Title IX by suspending accused students before they can respond, feds say. Examples must be made.
WASHINGTON POST WORRIED THAT HOMESCHOOLING DURING COVID-19 LOCKDOWN WILL ‘SET BACK A GENERATION OF CHILDREN.’
The Post is receiving an impressive — and well deserved — Twitter ratio for their efforts:
Exit quote, as collated by Twitchy: “Two months away from public schools is going to set back a generation? One could argue that a number public schools have been setting kids back for generations.”
BILL DEBLASIO ON MARCH TENTH: We want to encourage New Yorkers’ going out.
CHINA HOPES YOU WON’T NOTICE THIS: Hong Kong Police Arrest Opposition Politician Under Colonial-Era Law: Police say Cheng Lai-king, a member of the Democratic Party, was arrested for ‘seditious intention’ in relation to Facebook post.
If you want to tell them you noticed, they can be reached here.
DISPATCHES FROM AIRSTRIP ONE: 1984 Comes to Britain. “This is what amazed me: the Derbyshire police have sent drones out, to catch citizens going for unauthorized walks” — and tweeting the results to shame local citizens. “When the current madness is behind us, we will need to reflect on how easily governments, via orders that may or may not have any legal basis, have done away with our basic liberties, and on how few have objected.”
WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT EXPERTS? Experts say face masks can help slow COVID-19, despite previous claims.
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