Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Adapting Over Time

Evolving,

Evolutionary success for the coronavirus family will be obtained through mutations that increase infections/spread, but decrease fatalities.
Coronavirus Mutates Into Now-Dominant, More Contagious Form As Doctors Ponder 'East Coast vs. West Coast' Strains

​About treating COVID-19 with hyrdroxychloroquine, and doing so early, not at death's door.
I reviewed the scientific literature on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin (AZ), and their use for COVID-19. My conclusions:

HCQ-based treatments are effective in treating COVID-19, unless started too late
.
Studies, cited in opposition, have been misinterpreted, invalid, or worse.
HCQ and AZ are some of the most tested and safest prescription drugs.
Severe COVID-19 frequently causes cardiac effects, including heart arrhythmia. QTc prolonging drugs might amplify this tendency. Millions of people regularly take drugs having strong QTc prolongation effect, and neither FDA nor CDC bother to warn them. HCQ+AZ combination, probably has a mild QTc prolongation effect. Concerns over its negative effects, however minor, can be addressed by respecting contra-indications.
Effectiveness of HCQ-based treatment for COVID-19 is hampered by conditions that are presented as precautions, delaying the onset of treatment. For examples, some states require that COVID-19 patients be treated with HCQ exclusively in hospital settings.
The COVID-19 Treatment Panel of NIH evaded disclosure of the massive financial links of its members to Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer of a competing drug remdesivir. Among those who failed to disclose such links are 2 out of 3 of its co-chairs.
Despite all the attempts by certain authorities to prevent COVID-19 treatment with HCQ and HCQ+AZ, both components are approved by FDA, and doctors can prescribe them for COVID-19.

​Professor Nate Hagens gives his Earth Day 2020 lecture on The State Of The Species​. 
I don't watch videos, but Nate, with background on Wall Street, then defecting to sustainability, and co-editing The Oil Drum, while it existed, is a rare exception. Nate not only holds the big picture in his cranium, but he is a very good painter with words, graphs and images.

Art Berman, who contributed to The Oil Drum, and also recommends Nate's lecture says it is 
Game Over For Oil, The Economy Comes Next
He thoroughly supports the ins and outs of that assertion. Enlightening reading about the inside of the oil and refining businesses.

Pepe Escobar looks towards the debut and rise of the blockchained digital-yuan, likely backed by gold in some way. 
It could bypass international and local banking in many ways, which would threaten the present global financial structure to it's core. 
(OK by me, I guess, but cash is not subject to sudden cancellation for targeted persons and groups.)
​  ​A new, radical paradigm shift is in progress. The U.S. economy may shrink as much as 40% in the first semester of 2020. China, already the world’s largest economy by PPP for a few years now, may soon become the world’s largest economy even in exchange rate terms.
​  ​The post-Planet Lockdown world – still a hazy mirage – may well need a post-Planet Lockdown currency.​  ​Under this new framework, nations won’t need to export more to China than they import so they have enough yuan to trade. And Beijing won’t have to keep printing yuan electronically – and artificially, as in the case of the U.S. dollar – to meet trade demands.​..​
​  ​The digital yuan will be effectively backed up by the massive amount of Made in China goods and services – and not by a transoceanic Empire of 800 Bases. And the value of the digital yuan will be decided by the market – as it happens with bitcoin...​ ​ But now the post-Planet Lockdown environment is shaping up as ideal for Beijing to make a move. Even before the onset of the Covid-19 crisis the predominant feeling among the leadership was that China is under a full spectrum attack by the United States government. Hybrid War already reaching fever pitch implies bilateral relations will only get worse, not better...
​  ​A key advantage of a sovereign digital yuan is that Beijing does not need to float a paper yuan – which by the way is being sidelined all across China itself, as virtually everyone is switching to electronic payment.
The digital yuan, using blockchain technology, will automatically float – thus bypassing the U.S.-controlled global financialized casino.
​  ​The amount of sovereign digital currency is fixed. That in itself eliminates a plague: quantitative easing (QE), as in helicopter money. And that leaves the sovereign digital currency as the preferred medium for trade, with currency transfers unimpeded by geography and, the icing on the cake, without banks charging outrageous fees as intermediaries.


​Concrete actions we can take (see how many you are doing, already) to merge into the post-COVID economy. 
Charles Hugh Smith​

Gearing Down 

No comments:

Post a Comment