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> Total isolation policies prevent broad population immunity. We know from decades of medical science that the population develops immunity while acquiring antibodies.

Look at the bigger picture. In today's immensely innovative world there will almost certainly be a vaccine or anti-viral or some effective treatment within a year or two.

The goal for those of us who are lucky enough (in normal times it can be a curse) to live on an island is not to hide out forever - it's to hide out until that treatment is available.



You're sincerely willing to wait an entire year for a vaccine that may not work when we already have effective treatments? That's insane


> when we already have effective treatments

Please don't spread misinformation.


How clever. Yes, we have high confidence that hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc are very helpful at treating it. We should let the virus circulate among low risk population, isolate/protect the vulnerable, and focus on treatments that we know have been effective in the past or are showing good results now. This perpetual waiting is insane.


> we have high confidence that hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc are very helpful at treating it

We most certainly do not (https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/04/hy...). No effective treatments are currently known. There's hope that monoclonal antibodies will work, but they come with their own list of caveats (https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/14/mo...).

Again, please don't make things up. Stop spreading misinformation! It's already incredibly difficult for laypeople to make sense of the chaotic, frequently changing, and often conflicting reports at this point.


I'm not making things up as much as you'd like to sound cute and demeaning. Here are just a few easy to find sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32205204

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32171740

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32373993


> as much as you'd like to sound cute and demeaning

My intention wasn't to demean but rather to provide a clear and understandable message for other readers who might lack the scientific background to critically evaluate your claims. I was also hoping that you'd take the hint that perhaps you lack the requisite background knowledge to commentate usefully on the topic.

The first two links are the ones with unexplainable results (to put it charitably) by the now infamous Dr. Raoult. The third one is a review which identifies previous successes in vitro and argues for further clinical trials to take place. In vitro studies are useful for identifying drug candidates to test but say absolutely nothing about whether something will work in practice.

Meanwhile, the link I provided in my previous comment neatly summarizes the current clinical data on the topic. In a nutshell, hydroxychloroquine does not appear to be particularly useful for treating hospitalized patients. It might or might not have some mild beneficial effects and it definitely has serious safety concerns; the arrival of additional clinical trial data in the near future should hopefully give us a more complete picture.

I stress again that there are currently no known effective treatments.


> In a nutshell, hydroxychloroquine does not appear to be particularly useful for treating hospitalized patients.

The early reports suggested it was only useful in combination with zinc supplements, which seems to have been largely forgotten or ignored, from what I've picked up on in comments and links across multiple sites over the past month or two.


Two of those are the discredited French study and the other is a metastudy that includes those findings along with lab results (ie, not actually showing it works in people).


... have I somehow fallen back in time into early April? Ridiculous chloroquine optimism is pretty passé these days.




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