UK Study Finds COVID-19 "Miracle Cure" Can Save Gravely Ill Patients

By Tyler Durden:

Summary:

• China tightens restrictions as another 40 cases confirmed
• Chinese markets remove all imported salmon
• Chinese customs officials now testing all imported meat and fish for COVID
• Number of US states with rising COVID cases declines to 22 from 23
• Global case total breaks above 8 million
• Study finds only 50% of US care homes have been expected for COVID-19 protocols
• Deaths nearing 450k
• UK study finds cheap preexisting steroid drug is COVID-19 'miracle cure'
• Popular IMHE COVID-19 projections show 200k+ deaths likely by October

* * *

Just before 10pmET last night, public health officials in Beijing announced that 40 new cases of the novel coronavirus had been confirmed across China, with 27 of those cases in Beijing. That's roughly half of the 80+ cases reported across China over the weekend, as officials step up new measures to suppress the latest cluster, which the CCP has strived to blame on Europe.

Notably, party officials have tried to blame the latest outbreak in Beijing on imported European salmon (officials say they initially detected the virus's presence on a cutting board where imported salmon had been processed inside the Xinfadi market). As a precaution, officials closed 11 markets in the area and institute travel bans on "high risk" residents while closing residential compounds and placing tens of thousands of Beijing residents on partial lockdown as the city pushes to run more than 90k tests per day. .

More bizarrely, customs officials have started testing all meat imports (even as China continues to suffer from a shortage of pigs thanks to the 'pig ebola' that swept the country's farmers last year), while local officials have been tasked with "intensive" testing meat already on the shelf. Tests being used are the same nucleic acid tests being used on patients.

Chinese state-controlled media have raved about the sudden dangers of salmon consumption, prompting markets across the country to toss imported salmon, wasting good nutritious imported seafood for the sake of protecting the new narrative. Further imports of the stuff have been banned (at least temporarily), as BBG reports.

What's more, Shanghai will quarantine everyone arriving in the city from mid- to high-risk areas of Beijing for 2 weeks, a city official announced Tuesday. Three bus terminals that handle highway bus traffic between Beijing and Shanghai have also been temporarily shuttered.

As expected, the global outbreak reached a new milestone overnight, passing the 8 million case mark, as cases reached 8,005,294, according to Johns Hopkins University.

<iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cases-covid-19?country=BRA~IND~ITA~MEX~RUS~ESP~GBR~USA~OWID_WRL" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>

<iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-deaths-covid-19?country=BRA~IND~ITA~MEX~RUS~ESP~GBR~USA" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>

As China and India engage in the most contentious border dispute in nearly 50 years, health officials in India reported 10,667 new infections over the past 24 hours, down from 11,502 the prior day, raising the countrywide total to 343,091, while the country's fatalities neared the 10k mark (9,900, up 380 from Monday morning). India has seen new cases skyrocket since it started easing its restrictive lockdown.

While the US and the American press have focused most of their attention on vaccine trials and remdesivir, another cheap already extant drug has reportedly been found to definitively reduce COVID-19-related mortality according to a new study from Oxford. Patients on ventilators - ie those in the worst shape - saw the biggest reduction in mortality. "It's the only drug so far shown to reduce mortality...and it reduces it significantly."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">⚠️Breaking: new trial find first drug to reduce <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> mortality- For patients on ventilators the anti-inflammatory dexamethasone cut death risk from 40% to 28%. For patients on O2, death risk cut from 25% to 20%. Modest, but best of all: costs &lt;$10! 🧵 <a href="https://t.co/9mOpLMVVKI">https://t.co/9mOpLMVVKI</a></p>&mdash; Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1272868694738325505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Per the BBC, a cheap and widely available drug called dexamethasone has been found to help seriously ill patients suffering from COVID-19. UK experts say the low-dose steroid treatment is a major breakthrough in the fight against the virus as it reduced the mortality rate of the most vulnerable patients by one-third.

To be sure, Dr. Feigl Ding noted in a twitter thread that the results are promising, but that declaring the drug a "miracle cure" is a little premature.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">⚠️Breaking: new trial find first drug to reduce <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> mortality- For patients on ventilators the anti-inflammatory dexamethasone cut death risk from 40% to 28%. For patients on O2, death risk cut from 25% to 20%. Modest, but best of all: costs &lt;$10! 🧵 <a href="https://t.co/9mOpLMVVKI">https://t.co/9mOpLMVVKI</a></p>&mdash; Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1272868694738325505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Still, the study found that the inexpensive drug significantly reduces mortality in the most seriously ill patients, while having little effect on patients who aren't all that sick.

During an interview on CNBC, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA director, said the study was well-organized and its findings - that a low-cost steroid can significantly reduce mortality among the most seriously ill patients - represent a major breakthrough. He also offhandedly noted that the CDC had discouraged the use of steroids like Dexamethasone.

After a wave of new coronavirus cases were reported in Tokyo over the past week, Japanese officials have set out to try and determine how extensively the virus penetrated Japanese society during its original run. Antibody tests reportedly suggest that 0.1% of Tokyo residents have been infected with the virus.

South Korea reported 34 new cases Tuesday, down from 37 a day ago, raising its total infections to 12,155, with 278 deaths.
New Zealand reports two new cases, both related to recent travel from the UK after PM Jacinda Ardern declared the country "coronavirus free" last week, though she warned that new infections could arise due to international travel and commerce.

Moving on to the US, Politico reports that 1000s of nursing homes across the country have not been inspected to see whether staff are following proper procedures to prevent a deadly viral outbreak, after deaths in long-term care facilities accounted for a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths. Despite this, only a little more than half of the nation’s nursing homes had received inspections, according to data released earlier this month.

As scrutiny of Florida's testing data intensifies, Texas public health officials reported a pullback in newly confirmed cases on Monday, with new cases rising 1.4% vs. Prev. 7-day average of 2.3%.

A few days ago, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington raised its projections for COVID-19 deaths to 170k+ by the end of the summer. Now, it's raising that forecast slightly to account for the surge in new cases in states like Florida and Texas. The new national forecast calls for 200k+ cases (201,129) by October, while death toll figures for Florida are expected to climb 186% to 18,675 from 6,559.

Though the number of new coronavirus deaths across the US has been trending downward, new cases have started to trend higher again as the new hotspots compensate for the drop in infections across the NYC greater metro area. Notably, the NYT removed California from its list of states where new cases are rising, as state officials saw the critical new cases number decline over the course of the past week.

Source: NYT

Beijing will hold another press briefing at 8pm local time (8amET) as it returns to the 2-briefings-a-day schedule to which it adhered during the heyday of the outbreak in Wuhan, though it's unclear how much of the briefing will focus on the virus given the renewed tensions with India.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Beijing has another press briefing scheduled at 8 p.m. local time on the COVID-19 outbreak. Unclear what will be disclosed - the city has been holding 2 briefings per day since the cluster emerged.</p>&mdash; Vincent Lee (@Rover829) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rover829/status/1272858647442276352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


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