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US coronavirus cases rise 1.6% vs 1.2% seven-day average

Highest rate of change since June 1

US virus cases rose 34,284 in the past day. It’s the second day in a row above 30,000 after ranging from 19-28K in the prior week.
  • California 3893, or a 2.4% rise
  • Arizona 3109 or a 6.7% rise
  • Florida cases rose 4.5% compared to the seven-day average of 3.4%
  • Texas hospitalizations have hit a record for nine straight days and 4430 new cases
Highest rate of change since June 1
TexasAn equally hot spot right now is Brazil where cases jumped 34,666 in the past day and 1022 people died.
In Beijing there were another 22 confirmed cases on Saturday.
Meanwhile six members of Trump’s staff tested positive for the virus ahead of his rally in Tulsa. Crowds were smaller than anticipated. This was purportedly as he took the stage:
Trump rally empty

US hydroxychloroquine study shows no benefit to the drug for COVID-19

Study shows more deaths

The anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine wasn’t effective in keeping people with coronavirus from needed mechanical ventilation, according to a study of 368 patients in US veterans hospitals.
This wasn’t a blind test but here are the numbers, via AP:

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.

The upshot here could be that only cases that were particularly bad were given the drug, so the sample is biased. That said, it didn’t work.

Full-scale studies are coming in the days ahead.

Bill Gates donates $10 billion for vaccine research

bill-gates-1983Gates may be great with computers and technologies, but he’ll just waste money putting it into vaccines.  Best to spend it on sanitation, nutrition and refrigeration if he wants to help the most people of poor countries, because these three things were the major reasons why we had a dramatic decline in infectious diseases in America. DAVOS, Switzerland (Jan. 29) — The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $10 billion over the next decade to research new vaccines and bring them to the world’s poorest countries, the Microsoft co-founder and his wife said Friday.


Calling upon governments and business to also contribute, they said the money will produce higher immunization rates and aims to make sure that 90 percent of children are immunized against dangerous diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia in poorer nations.

“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” Bill Gates said in a statement. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”

Gates said the commitment more than doubles the $4.5 billion the foundation has given to vaccine research over the years.

The foundation said up to 7.6 million children under 5 could be saved through 2019 as a result of the donation. It also estimates that an additional 1.1 million kids would be saved if a malaria vaccine can be introduced by 2014. A tuberculosis vaccine would prevent even more deaths.

“Vaccines are a miracle,” said Melinda Gates. “With just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime.”

Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, called the Gates contribution unprecedented and urged governments and private donors to add to the initiative.

“An additional two million deaths in children under five years could be prevented by 2015 through widespread use of new vaccines and a 10 percent increase in global vaccination coverage,” said Chan.

The Gates statement said the foundation would help to dramatically reduce child mortality in the next 10 years and urged others to pitch in with research funding and other financial support for poor children….