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CNN: Four Countries that Were Most Successful in Confronting Pandemic

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
53

CNN describes what four countries did to achieve control over coronavirus. The key to success, it appears, is to be prepared, to test extensively, and to act decisively.

The four countries are Taiwan, Iceland, South Korea, and Germany.

Their infection rates and death rates are well below those in the U.S., where states have had to compete for supplies and testing has been inaccessible for most people.

Taiwan, with a population of around 24 million people, has recorded just over 390 cases and six deaths, and yesterday, it reported no new cases at all. It’s managed to do that without implementing severe restrictions, like lockdowns, or school and nursery closures…

Compare that to the United States — now the world’s hardest-hit nation, at least in raw numbers — which has reported at least 26,000 deaths. Even when you take population size into account, a level of success like Taiwan’s could have meant just 83 deaths in the US.

Although Taiwan has high-quality universal health care, its success lies in its preparedness, speed, central command and rigorous contact tracing.

According to the COVID tracker, the US has thus far tested 3.5 million people, or about 1% of its population.

We are not testing enough people. The coronavirus is highly contagious. There is no vaccine. Many people carry the disease but are asymptomatic. Several states have announced that they are lifting restrictions on social contact without testing or a vaccine. To say this is dangerous is an understatement.

Categories Health, International

Richard Rothstein: Pandemic Reveals Dramatic Economic and Social Inequities

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
13

Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law and the classic Class and Schools has written an important article showing how the coronavirus is exposing and deepening the inequities in our society.

This article was originally published by Shelterforce: The Voice of Community Development.

Richard Rothstein writes:

The COVID-19 pandemic will take existing academic achievement differences between middle-class and low-income students and explode them.

The academic achievement gap has bedeviled educators for years. In math and reading, children of college-educated parents score on average at about the 60th percentile, while children whose parents have only a high school degree score, on average, at the 35th percentile.* The academic advantages of children whose parents have master’s degrees and beyond are even greater.

To a significant extent, this is a neighborhood issue—schools are more segregated today than at any time in the last 50 years, mostly because the neighborhoods in which they are located are so segregated. Schools with concentrated populations of children affected by serious socioeconomic problems are able to devote less time and attention to academic instruction.

In 2001 we adopted the “No Child Left Behind Act,” assuming that these disparities mostly stemmed from schools’ failure to take seriously a responsibility to educate African-American, Hispanic, and lower-income students. Supporters claimed that holding educators accountable for test results would soon eliminate the achievement gap. Promoted by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, the theory was ludicrous, and the law failed to fulfill its promise. The achievement gap mostly results from social-class based advantages that some children bring to school and that others lack, as well as disadvantages stemming from racial discrimination that only some children have to face.

The coronavirus, unfortunately, will only exacerbate the effects of these advantages.

With schools shut, white-collar professionals with college degrees operate homeschools, sometimes with superior curricular enhancements. My own children, with post-graduate degrees, are introducing my young grandchildren to Shakespeare and algebra, topics they would ordinarily encounter only in later grades. A friend, a biologist in normal times, now staying home from work, is taking her pre-school, kindergarten, and 2nd grade children for walks in the woods where they learn the names of birds, why goldfinches get their bright yellow wings, about sexual selection in birds and their funny displays to attract a mate, and how moss reproduces with spores. They found some of that moss in the woods and saw that when you touch the red part, it lets out a puff of tiny spores; this was a huge hit with the children.

In neighborhoods that are socioeconomically segregated, friends and classmates of children like these have similar experiences. Parents with full-time professional jobs never before had the opportunity to be full-time instructors, and many make the most of it.

Meanwhile, many parents with less education have jobs that even during the coronavirus crisis cannot be performed at home – supermarket clerks, warehouse workers, delivery truck drivers. Even with distance learning being established by schools and teachers—many of whom are now busy with their own children at home—too many students in low-income and rural communities don’t have internet access: 35 percent of low-income households with school-aged children don’t have high-speed internet; for moderate-income families it is 17 percent, and only 6 percent for middle-class and affluent families. When measured by race and ethnicity, the gap is greater for African-American and Hispanic families.

In New York City, 300,000 students live in homes with no computer. The Philadelphia school system, a majority of whose students are from low-income families, initially chose not to conduct online classes during the coronavirus shutdown because it would be so inequitable: “If that’s not available to all children, we cannot make it available to some,” the schools superintendent announced. He has since relented and announced that the district would purchase Chromebooks and lend them to students without computers. This did not, however, solve the problem for students who have no high-speed internet service at home, something the district is trying to address, but only with great difficulty and not in time to bridge the current digital divide.

For students in some states, the shutdown could last for almost half the school year. The achievement gap between low-income and other children is already equivalent to at least two years of schooling. Might the coronavirus shutdown expand that by another half year?

We have evidence that tells us what to expect. Increased reliance on homework, for example, widens achievement gaps. Children whose parents can more effectively help with homework gain more than children whose parents can do so less well.

We also know that the educational gap is wider when children return after summer vacation than it was in the spring, because middle-class children frequently have summer enrichment that reinforces knowledge and experience. The larger gap shows up in test scores, but also in less easily quantifiable areas that are particularly valued in higher education, professional workplaces, and civic life, such as cooperative skills in group activities, possibly due to enrichment from things like summer camp and family travel.

Children living in low-income, disinvested, overcrowded, or less-safe neighborhoods are more likely to experience toxic stress from exposure to violence, homelessness, and economic insecurity that interfere with emotional health and learning, as well as leading to behavior challenges that affect the classroom environment for others.

For some, school is the safest place. Teachers report that when children in low-income neighborhoods who are living in overcrowded and highly stressed homes return to school after breaks, evidence of physical abuse is more noticeable. (Two examples of research on this can be found here and here). It is frightening to consider the consequences of a three- or four-month break when some children and parents will be isolated and frustrated in overcrowded conditions.

Congressional consideration of a massive economic program to minimize a virus-induced depression has properly focused on immediate needs to save small businesses, enhance and extend unemployment insurance, and guarantee sick leave. But when schools reopen, the expanded achievement gap will be in urgent need of intervention.

We can’t (and in a free society, probably shouldn’t) try to reduce the resources that advantaged parents can give children (although Philadelphia’s attempt to forego online instruction on equity grounds offers a contrary ideal). But we can increase resources for other children to provide more equity. Federal law now provides added support for schools serving low-income children. It enables, for example, the hire of additional teacher aides or reading specialists, the purchase of some additional curriculum materials, reduced class sizes in schools serving concentrations of low-income students, or a truncated summer school program focused on basic skills. The stubborn persistence of the achievement gap shows it is not nearly enough.

We should do much more. Not only should we substantially increase teacher pay, but also finance nurses, social workers, art and music teachers, instructional librarians, and after school and summer programs that not only provide homework help but clubs that develop collaborative skills, organized athletics, and citizenship preparation—like the expansive education that middle class children typically receive at parents’ expense.

Most important, all children should have publicly funded, high-quality early childhood education, including preschool for three and four year olds with evidence-based programs. If a research consensus exists on anything in education, it is that the socioeconomic gap in cognitive performance is well-established by age three.

The continued segregation of children by income and race, however, will dilute the impact of even these reforms. In the long run, redressing this segregation has the potential for a much bigger impact. That redress should include both opening up middle-class and affluent neighborhoods to diverse residents, and improving the quality of existing disadvantaged neighborhoods, not only with better resourced schools, but with mixed-income housing, transportation access to good jobs, markets that sell fresh food, and walkable options.

Americans have become dramatically more divided by income and wealth. Upward mobility has declined; inequality is increasingly transmitted inter-generationally. We can act to prevent the coronavirus from accelerating these trends.

__

*The estimates of achievement differences by parental educational attainment, and of how achievement gap can be expressed in “years of schooling” are based on an average of fourth and eighth grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The estimates were developed for this article by economists at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), using the online NAEP Data Tool. Martin Carnoy is a professor of education at Stanford University and an EPI research associate, and Emma Garcia is an EPI staff economist. I am grateful to them for their assistance.

Read other Shelterforce COVID coverage, or sign up here to receive Shelterforce Weekly in your inbox.

Categories Accountability, Health, Inequity

FOX New Guests Withdraw Their Statements About Coronavirus

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2020 //
35

FOX New commentators have been apologizing.

Dr. Drew said on FOX News that the flu was far worse than the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed out that the coronavirus has a mortality rate that is ten times worse than the flu. Dr. Drew apologized.

Dr. Phil said that automobile crashes, swimming deaths, and smoking cause more deaths than COVID-19, yet we don’t close down the country for them. He claimed there were 360,000 swimming pool deaths annually, which was ten times the actual number. When reminded that automobile deaths, drowning, and smoking are not contagious, he apologized.

Dr. Oz said that schools should be reopened, even though there might be a mortality rate of 2-3% and got such a loud and angry response that he apologized.

FOX News did not apologize.

Categories Accountability, Health, Ignorance

Dana Milbank: Trump’s Big Lie About the World Health Organization

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2020 //
21

Dana Milbank is a regular columnist for the Washington Post.

He writes:

“It would have been so easy to be truthful.”

Thus spake President Trump this week on the very day he surpassed the milestone of uttering 18,000 falsehoods during his presidency, as tallied by the Post’s Fact Checker.

But on this day, Trump was not admitting to losing his own struggle with the truth. He was accusing the World Health Organization of “covering up the spread of the coronavirus” and failing to “share information in a timely and transparent fashion.” He declared he was cutting off funding for the world’s public health body in the middle of a pandemic.

The next day he called the WHO a “tool of China” and floated the vile conspiracy theory that the WHO deliberately concealed the danger of the virus: “There’s something going on” at the WHO “that’s very bad,” and “I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.”

This is not merely a falsehood. This is a damnable and murderous lie.

As Trump surely knows, and as I have learned from people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to me on the condition of confidentiality, 15 officials from his administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31. At least six other U.S. officials at WHO headquarters dedicated most of their time to the virus, and two others worked remotely with the WHO on covid-19 full time. In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body’s conclusions and recommendations.

Everything that the WHO knew, the Trump administration knew — in real time. As congressional investigators who requested WHO documents and communications are now learning, senior Trump administration officials — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Robert R. Redfield Jr., Anne Schuchat, Ray R. Arthur and Jeffrey McFarland; the National Institutes of Health’s Anthony S. Fauci and H. Clifford Lane, and many others — consulted with the WHO throughout the crisis.

Trump came to power on the basis of smears — against opponents, immigrants and minorities. Now he prepares to center his reelection campaign on demonizing China, even though he repeatedly praised China’s response to the virus, specifically that of his “very, very good friend,” Chinese President Xi Jinping. Key to this attack is making a scapegoat of the WHO, which fits his usual criteria because, like the U.N. and the World Trade Organization, it is an international entity (globalists!) run by a foreigner, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

But this smear is particularly deadly. As the virus bears down on less-developed countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, and South and Southeast Asia, the WHO has had to divert attention from the pandemic to defend itself against Trump’s smear and the loss of its top funding source, the United States. Thousands of Americans are dying needlessly because of Trump’s dithering. How many more around the world will die because of his scapegoating of the WHO for his own failures?

Almost immediately after China disclosed the outbreak, I’m told, 15 CDC officials at the WHO headquarters began working on covid-19 and other U.S. officials there were reassigned to the outbreak from their work on Ebola. U.S. officials participated in person in the twice-daily meetings of the WHO’s emergencies division. In addition to top-level conversations involving Redfield and Fauci, which would be expected, other Trump administration scientists were in all “incident-management” meetings and participated in the WHO’s pandemic “expert network.”

They participated in a teleconference between top WHO officials in Geneva and the WHO’s regional and national offices. When the WHO formed its “emergency committee” in January to fight the virus, Martin Cetron, the CDC’s head of quarantine and global migration, was on it. Schuchat, the CDC’s No. 2 official, and Lane, a Fauci deputy, were on the WHO’s “Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards.” Others worked with the WHO group coordinating research on therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. This is as it should be: The CDC and NIH experts did their job. It’s Trump who didn’t.
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Now Trump would blame the WHO for failing to sound alarms about the virus, even though the CDC had an office of 14 people in China “to contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread globally.” And he would blame the WHO for failing “to call out China’s lack of transparency” — even though, on Jan. 24, he tweeted: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”

Trump has decided that reelection requires him to attack the World Health Organization at the height of a pandemic. Multitudes could die for his lie.

Categories Accountability, Health, Lies, Trump

The Intercept: How Trump’s Propaganda Video Backfired

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2020 //
43

A few days ago, Trump opened his daily press briefing with a White House-made video intended to prove that he acted decisively to counter the coronavirus threat. The video was a response to a major story in the New York Times about his failure to take the virus seriously but to compare it to the common flu. Trump
smiled smugly as the taxpayer-funded tribute to Trump played.

As this story in the Intercept by Robert Mackey demonstrates, the video had a fatal flaw. Its timeline showed that Trump did nothing in the month of February, at a time when decisive action as needed.

The reporters were not fooled.

But, as CBS News correspondent Paula Reid pointed out to Trump after the video ended, there was a huge gap in the timeline: It mentioned absolutely no action by him in February and there was, as the Times had noted, a period of “six long weeks” after the travel restrictions until he “finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing.”

In fact, the only entry on the video timeline for February — the month Trump held mass campaign rallies and described criticism of his handling of the virus from Democrats as “their new hoax” — was February 6: “CDC Ships First Testing Kits.” The fact that those test kits were defective, a massive failure at a critical moment, seems like an odd thing to brag about.

Having seemed so pleased with himself while the video was playing, Trump looked stunned by Reid’s observation that its timeline showed the period of inaction the Times had described. “The argument is that you bought yourself some time,” by imposing the partial travel ban from China, Reid noted. “You didn’t use it to prepare hospitals, you didn’t use it to ramp up testing.”

As Trump interrupted to denounce her as “so disgraceful,” the correspondent pressed on to ask what, exactly, Americans were supposed to take away from his gauzy video tribute to himself? “Right now nearly 20 million people are unemployed. Tens of thousands of Americans are dead. How is this sizzle reel or this rant supposed to make people feel confident in an unprecedented crisis?”

Trump had no response but to shift back to praising himself for restricting travel from China in January. “But what did you do with the time that you bought?” Reid asked. “The month of February… the video has a gap.”

After the briefing, Eric Lipton, one of the authors of the investigation that so enraged Trump, observed on Twitter that nothing in the video or the president’s comments “undermines even a single fact in the stories we published over the weekend.”

“The truth remains that the nation’s top health advisers concluded as of Feb. 14 that the U.S. needed to use targeted containment efforts to slow the virus spread,” Lipton added. “Trump then waited until March 16 to announce his support for these measures.”

Thank heavens for the free press!

Categories Health, Lies, Propaganda, Trump

Brazil Halts Trial of Trump’s Favorite Drug Because of Risks

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2020 //
36

Brazil halted a trial of the drug cocktail that Trump and Giuliani have endorsed:

A small study in Brazil was halted early for safety reasons after coronavirus patients taking a higher dose of chloroquine developed irregular heart rates that increased their risk of a potentially fatal heart arrhythmia.

Chloroquine is closely related to the more widely used drug hydroxychloroquine. President Trump has enthusiastically promoted them as a potential treatment for the novel coronavirus despite little evidence that they work, and despite concerns from some of his top health officials. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval to allow hospitals to use chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine from the national stockpile if clinical trials were not feasible. Companies that manufacture both drugs are ramping up production.

The Brazilian study involved 81 hospitalized patients in the city of Manaus and was sponsored by the Brazilian state of Amazonas. It was posted on Saturday at medRxiv, an online server for medical articles, before undergoing peer review by other researchers. Because Brazil’s national guidelines recommend the use of chloroquine in coronavirus patients, the researchers said including a placebo in their trial — considered the best way to evaluate a drug — was an “impossibility.”

Despite its limitations, infectious disease doctors and drug safety experts said the study provided further evidence that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which are both used to treat malaria, can pose significant harm to some patients, specifically the risk of a fatal heart arrhythmia. Patients in the trial were also given the antibiotic azithromycin, which carries the same heart risk. Hospitals in the United States are also using azithromycin to treat coronavirus patients, often in combination with hydroxychloroquine.

Categories Accountability, Health, Trump

South Dakota: Governor Refuses to Take Action to Protect Against Coronavirus

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2020 //
35

The governor of South Dakota is determined not to take any action to restrict individuals’ freedom of movement, like telling them to stay home, closing gatherings, or imposing any limits on freedom of action. Meanwhile the giant Smithfield pork processing plant has closed down because of the spread of the virus, and Sioux City has become a “hot spot.” But the Governor has a plan that she has worked out with Jared Kushner.

As governors across the country fell into line in recent weeks, South Dakota’s top elected leader stood firm: There would be no statewide order to stay home.
Such edicts to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Kristi L. Noem said disparagingly, reflected a “herd mentality.” It was up to individuals — not government — to decide whether “to exercise their right to work, to worship and to play. Or to even stay at home.”


And besides, the first-term Republican told reporters at a briefing this month, “South Dakota is not New York City.”


But now South Dakota is home to one of the largest single coronavirus clusters anywhere in the United States, with more than 300 workers at a giant ­pork-processing plant falling ill. With the case numbers continuing to spike, the company was forced to announce the indefinite closure of the facility Sunday, threatening the U.S. food supply.


Increasingly exasperated local leaders, public health experts and front-line medical workers begged Noem to intervene Monday with a more aggressive state response.
“A shelter-in-place order is needed now. It is needed today,” said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, whose city is at the center of South Dakota’s outbreak and who has had to improvise with voluntary recommendations in the absence of statewide action.
But the governor continued to resist.

Instead, she used a media briefing Monday to announce trials of a drug that President Trump has repeatedly touted as a potential breakthrough in the fight against the coronavirus, despite a lack of scientific evidence.
“It’s an exciting day,” she boasted, repeatedly citing her conversations with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Categories Health

The Washington Post Gives Trump 4 Pinocchios for Touting Unproven Drug

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2020 //
12

The Washington Post Fact Checker has reviewed Trump’s relentless promotion of an anti-malaria drug and determined that his advocacy is misleading ungrounded in science. Trump received a four Pinocchio rating, the highest possible lie.

But I think it could be, based on what I see, it could be a game changer.” 
— President Trump, at a White House news briefing, March 19, 2020
“

Hydroxychloroquine — I don’t know, it’s looking like it’s having some good results. That would be a phenomenal thing.” 
— Trump, at a White House news briefing, April 3
“

What do you have to lose? I’ll say it again: What do you have to lose? Take it. I really think they should take it.” 
— Trump, at a White House news briefing, April 4
[[

“It’s this powerful drug on malaria. And there are signs that it works on this. Some very strong signs.” 
— Trump, at a White House news briefing, April 5


The world is looking for answers in the search for a treatment for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which has claimed more than 100,000 lives across the globe. President Trump has repeatedly touted the anti-malarial medications hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as that much-needed solution.


Even before Trump started talking about the drugs, studies abroad sparked interest in them as a potential cure. News about the drugs spread quickly online, percolated to the media and the White House.
Scientists have since pointed to major flaws in those original studies and say there is a lack of reliable data on the drugs. Experts warn about the dangerous consequences of over-promoting a drug with unknown efficacy: Shortages of hydroxychloroquine have already occurred, depriving lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients of access to it.

Doctors say some patients could die of side effects. Other potential treatments for covid-19 could get overlooked with so much concentration on one option.


The Fact Checker video team has reconstructed how the claim spread online and illustrates the troubling consequences of such misleading hope in the drugs.


The Facts


Conversation around hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as potential treatments for covid-19 started in China in late January. According to Kate Starbird of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, tweets from media organizations — including Chinese state outlets — and investors highlighted past studies in which the medications were tested as cures for severe acute respiratory syndrome. (The 2005 tests never made it to human trials.) They also pointed to statements from the coronavirus research center in Wuhan, China, suggesting the drugs could be used to fight covid-19.



Renée DiResta, technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, found similar trends on Facebook and Instagram in February. The number of total posts and interactions increased, and Internet speculation spread beyond China to Nigeria, Vietnam and France.


A large portion of activity online at the end of February and early March appeared in French and centered on a study published by French researcher and doctor Didier Raoult.


The spread in the U.S.


Raoult’s findings helped bring the theory to the United States. However, scientists have since discredited the trial, pointing to major flaws in the way it was conducted. The journal that published the study announced on April 3 that it did not meet its standards.


Yet before the record could be set straight, the hypothesis spread widely on U.S. social media. The Fact Checker has refrained from linking to original posts on the drugs to avoid giving further oxygen to misleading information.
According to Starbird, the first viral tweets were posted by Paul Sperry, a staunchly conservative author, on March 9 and 11.

A blockchain investor, James Todaro, then tweeted a link to a Google document he co-wrote with Gregory Rigano about the potential cure on March 13. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk retweeted that Google doc on March 16, writing, “Maybe worth considering chloroquine for C19.”

The faulty research then appeared in the Gateway Pundit, Breitbart and the Blaze. It ultimately made its way to Fox News, first appearing on Laura Ingraham’s program on March 16. Fox News shows hosted by Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson went on to promote the drugs and continue to do so.


On March 19, Trump first mentioned hydroxychloroquine at a White House news briefing. DiResta’s analysis showed that the following week, the claim started to spike in the United States, with 101,844 posts on Facebook. Starbird reports Trump’s first mention set off a surge in attention, seeing tens of thousands of tweets per hour in late March.
Data from Brandwatch, a digital consumer intelligence company, as well as DiResta and Starbird, show the total number of mentions about hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine increased in late March and early April.




Trump and his allies, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and his personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, tweeted about the drugs in late March. These posts saw the highest percent of reach, according to Brandwatch data, at some of the sharpest spikes in social media mentions online.



Trump again spoke about the drugs at news conferences on April 3, 4 and 5. Mentions on Twitter skyrocketed on April 6.


The science 


As attention on the drugs became even more prolific — online, in the media and from the president — scientists say there is only “anecdotal evidence” on the drugs. To a layperson, that may not sound bad, but it’s actually an insult in the scientific community.


Anecdotal evidence refers to people’s personal stories about taking the drugs and has no basis in scientific data. It’s akin to a Yelp review. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, has consistently said there is not enough evidence to support the drugs as a viable treatment for covid-19.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted tests on the drugs in treating SARS in 2005. Results showed the drugs had anti-viral effects on cell cultures. However, it did not work in studies on mice. According to David Boulware, professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, that “is a little bit of a red flag.” Moreover, it was “not a clinical trial and did not look at the effect of chloroquine on humans,” according to a CDC spokesman.


Boulware is conducting a clinical trial on using hydroxychloroquine for prevention or early treatment of covid-19 in humans, but he says it is too early to know whether the drug works.
“

That’s our goal, to really rapidly identify as quickly as possible, does this actually work or not? Because there’s a lot of hubbub about it now,” Boulware said. “But there’s very little evidence that we actually have that this has a clinical benefit, which is kind of bad for something that’s being very heavily promoted. We should probably have some data and some science behind it.”


Yet the World Health Organization, university labs and governments around the world are conducting larger clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in treating covid-19.


Asked whether chloroquine was a possible cure for covid-19, Janet Diaz of WHO told reporters on Feb. 20 that the organization was prioritizing other therapeutics: “For chloroquine, there is no proof that that is an effective treatment at this time. We recommend that therapeutics be tested under ethically approved clinical trials to show efficacy and safety.” A few weeks later, both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine were included in a mega-trial WHO launched.



The Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use approval to distribute millions of doses of the drugs to hospitals across the country on March 29.
“

During the evaluation of the criteria under which to issue an EUA, it was determined, based on the scientific evidence available, that it is reasonable to believe that the specific drugs may be effective in treating COVID-19, and that, given there are no adequate, approved, or available alternative treatments, the known and potential benefits to treat this serious or life-threatening virus outweigh the known and potential risks when used under the conditions described in the EUA,” an FDA spokesman told the Fact Checker in an email.


Luciana Borio, the former head of medical and biodefense preparedness at the National Security Council, criticized the FDA’s EUA announcement and has called for a randomized clinical trial of the drugs.
“

I think that it was a misuse of emergency authorizations of the authority that the FDA has. Because it gives this credence that the government is actually backing, and it’s so common for people to equate that with an approval,” Borio said.


When asked whether any of the completed studies have provided substantial evidence that the benefits of the drugs outweigh the risks, Borio responded, “Not at all. No study was done in a way that would allow that conclusion.”


The consequences


Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are commonly used by patients with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. The attention around the drugs caused a panic, in which doctors and patients rushed pharmacies, resulting in a major shortage of the drugs. Consequently, some patients have reported not being able to access the medicine they need.


There are also potentially fatal side effects, such as sudden cardiac death, from taking the drug without proper oversight from a doctor. These dangerous yet rare side effects are often overlooked in conversation around the drugs.


Separately, some people have mistakenly taken other drugs that sounded like hydroxychloroquine after hearing about it so much to try to prevent covid-19. A man in Arizona died after taking chloroquine phosphate — a drug that sounds similar to chloroquine but is used to clean fish tanks.


Experts warn of the dangers of too much focus on one particular drug in a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. The attention could blind researchers and scientists to other promising treatments.


“It’s important that we don’t put all our eggs in this one basket and that we continue to look at some of these other well-known drugs,” said Katherine Seley-Radtke, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County.


The White House did not respond to our inquires.


The Pinocchio Test


Over the course of only a few weeks, posts online, the media and politicians turned chloroquine from an unknown drug to a “100% coronavirus cure,” misleading the public on its effectiveness and engendering unintended but negative consequences.



Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as treatments for covid-19 are not yet backed by reliable scientific evidence. In a pandemic, it’s important for everyone to follow the lead of scientists. Rumors on the Internet are the least reliable source of information. And politicians are not qualified to provide scientific advice, despite even the best intentions.
In particular, Trump’s incorrect comments on the drugs and his role in advocating for their use, based on minimal and flimsy evidence, sets a bad example. His advocacy for this unproven treatment provides potentially false hope and has led to shortages for people who rely on the drugs.

The president earns Four Pinocchios.


Four Pinocchios



Categories Health, Lies

Los Angeles: No Student Will Get an F and Schools Will be Closed Until the Fall

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2020 //
6

Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times reports that no student will get an F grade during the coronavirus closure, and schools will remain closed this summer.

Blume writes:

No student will receive a failing grade on their spring report card and Los Angeles campuses will be closed not only for the remainder of the academic year, but throughout the summer as well, the district announced Monday.

The actions are the latest sweeping measures taken by the nation’s second-largest school system in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is still no clear picture in testing, treatments or vaccines and we will not reopen school facilities until state authorities tell us it is safe and appropriate to do so,” L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner said during a Monday video briefing. “The remainder of the school year … will be completed in the current, remote fashion and we will have a summer session in a similar manner.”

The no-fail policy was posted in a late morning bulletin and confirmed by Chief Academic Officer Alison Yoshimoto-Towery, who spoke of educators’ concerns about the family hardships that are likely to limit students’ ability to learn in the district, where 80% of them come from low-income families.

Beutner praised the work of all district staff, especially teachers, during his video briefing, but acknowledged that all students have not had the same access to academic work since campuses closed on March 16.

“Many of the examples we see of successful video learning have a significant selection bias,” Beutner said. “Affluent families with resources at home, schools with years of training and limitless budgets and students with demonstrated aptitude to learn independently. Public schools have in their DNA the commitment to serve all students, irrespective of circumstance, and it will not be so simple.”

The state did not issue a universal mandate on grading, but California Department of Education guidelines say that schools should “enable students to complete state graduation requirements with needed flexibilities” associated with online learning. In their briefings, state officials have stressed that local educators intend to be understanding of students’ situations.

The state guidelines say that schools “should weigh their policies with the lens of equity and with the primary goal of doing no harm to students.”

Categories Closing schools, Education Reform, Health, Los Angeles

South Dakota: Major Meat Processor Closing

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2020 //
61

South Dakota is one of a very few states that has refused to take steps to protect their citizens from the pandemic. The governor said it’s a rural state and doesn’t need extraordinary measures.

She was wrong. One of the nation’s largest meat processors is located in South Dakota and it is closing down because so many of its employees have the coronavirus. Smithfield employees account for half the coronavirus cases in the state.

The owner of the plant says that other plants are in the same trouble and warns of a threat to the nation’s food supply.

One of the country’s largest pork processing facilities is closing until further notice as employees fall ill with Covid-19. The closure puts the country’s meat supply at risk, said the CEO of Smithfield, which operates the plant.

“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” the meat processor’s chief executive, Kenneth Sullivan, said in a statement Sunday.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” he said. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain.”

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/business/meat-plant-closures-smithfield/index.html

Categories Accountability, Health
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