The first article is a BIG DEAL to me because of this line: "48,000 deaths could have been prevented." 48,000 and patients AND doctors are both invovled.

Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/health/paxlovid-covid-treatment.html

With Covid deaths rising to about 1,500 per week, researchers question why Paxlovid use has remained low among high-risk patients.

SWIPE: A study of a million high-risk people with Covid found that only about 15 percent who were eligible for the drug took it. If instead half of the eligible patients in the United States had gotten Paxlovid during the time period of the research, 48,000 deaths could have been prevented, the authors of the study, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, concluded.

It’s not because people don’t know about the drug — most do — but the reluctance seems to come from doctors worried about interactions with other drugs and people wary of a possible rebound case or the metallic aftertaste.

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Nearly 17,000 people may have died from hydroxychloroquine: study
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4389800-hydroxychloroquine-deaths-study/

Nearly 17,000 people across six countries may have died because they took hydroxychloroquine (HQC) during the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020, according to a new analysis published by French researchers.

Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malaria drug that was prescribed off-label to treat COVID-19 in the early stage of the pandemic, as researchers and physicians scrambled to find a way to combat the disease. It was also proposed as a preventative measure.

In February and March 2020, the use of this treatment was widely promoted based on preliminary reports suggesting a potential efficacy against COVID-19. However, subsequent studies showed that not only did the drug have no benefit, it also resulted in a significant increase in risk of death.

According to the researchers from Lyon, France, and Quebec, Canada, providers still prescribed hydroxychloroquine to some patients hospitalized with COVID-19 “despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits.”

The analysis found an estimated 16,990 excess deaths across six countries — Turkey, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and the U.S. — were likely attributed to hydroxychloroquine use.

The researchers analyzed other studies that tracked hospitalizations, exposure to hydroxychloroquine and the relative risk of death from the drug.

The toxicity of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19 was partially due to cardiac side effects, such as abnormal heart rhythms.



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Opinion: The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-04/covid-2024-flu-virus-vaccine

The pandemic is far from over, as evidenced by the rapid rise to global dominance of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2. This variant is a derivative of BA.2.86, the only other strain that has carried more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein since Omicron first came on the scene more than two years ago. This should have warranted designation by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern with a Greek letter, such as Pi.

By wastewater levels, JN.1 is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.

In several countries in Europe, wastewater levels reached unprecedented levels, exceeding Omicron. Clearly this virus variant, with its plethora of new mutations, has continued its evolution with mutations adapted for infecting or reinfecting us.

(MOre at link)