the rain woke me up this morning…it rained all day…I toyed with the idea of walking in the rain…like the song…”getting soaking wet…torturing my heart by trying to forget”… trying to forget about our mess…our surreal mess…then decided it was stupid… The Force crying for the human race…especially Italy and Spain…where deaths are in the hundreds every day…Italy the hardest hit, followed by Spain…where a Madrid ice rink is being used as a makeshift morgue for the victims of the virus…trump continues to spread misinformation to we the people…no sign of Tony Fauci on the daily briefing…trump doesn’t like the face of truth contradicting him…and then there’s state TV, Fox News making a complete 180…failing to rein in the Fox hoax narrative they’ve been echoing trump’s narrative…and it’s coming home to roost, what a mistake it was to downplaying the coronavirus pandemic…trump giving us a rosy picture…in the midst of more than 43,000 infected, 533 deaths in the U.S…hinting today it will be over soon…and normal life with return soon…he wants to open our country again…relaxing social distancing…”we are not built to be shut down”…so the economy will rebound before the election… meanwhile the $2 Trillion aid bill has been stalled in the Senate… Moscow Mitch’s plan wants to give Steve Mnuchin a $500 Billion slush fund to do with what he will without oversight and not having to disclose what he’s doing with the money for 6 months… having his boss’ back…most likely funneling millions to the trump properties and the interests of his children…today trump said he would do oversight… well, that’s a good idea!, the fox guarding the hen house…we are still sadly behind testing…we only did 352 tests in the month of February… we are sadly in need of ppe…personal protective equipment…masks having to be re-used…all this, sadly putting our health care workers and doctors at risk…there’s Rand Paul, testing positive for the virus…putting the white, old men in the Senate at risk…going to the Senate lunch room…the gym and pool…having the distinction of being the first Senator to come down with the coronavirus…putting Romney and Mike Lee, both Senators from Utah into self-quarantine because of Paul… when trump was told that Romney was in self-quarantine today, he said “that’s too bad”…asked if he was being sarcastic, he said “not at all”…part of Rand Paul’s statement “For those who want to criticize me for lack of quarantine, realize that if the rules on testing had been followed to a tee, I would never have been tested and would still be walking around the halls of the Capitol. The current guidelines would not have called for me to get tested nor quarantined. It was my extra precaution, out of concern for my damaged lung, that led me to get tested.”…Paul is a doctor, should he know better?…probably…part of his lung was removed in 2019, he suffered six broken ribs that injured his lung after a neighbor tackled him to the ground in late 2017 over what the man said was a dispute about lawn care…you’re not allowed to assault a member of Congress, the neighbor paid dearly for his blades of grass…maybe Romney and Lee will pay dearly also…
New Mexico is under an 18 day stay at home order…joining other states…
trump keeps touting the malaria drug Chloroquine…giving false hope…promising drugs and a vaccine coming quickly…health officials ( like Fauci ) say chloroquine hasn’t been tested properly yet…we learn from a Buzzfeed News article by Brianna Sacks of an elderly man in his sixties in Arizona taking chloroquine phosphate, used to clean aquariums…and dying, his wife also critical but will recover due to being able to throw up the drug…”The elderly man died after taking chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks. Trump has been promoting chloroquine as a potential treatment for the coronavirus.
Trump has repeatedly said the drug could be instrumental in the fight against the coronavirus. In a press conference last week, he said the drug, which the FDA has not yet approved for treating COVID-19, “could be a game changer.”
“And maybe not. Maybe not, but I think it could be, based on what I see, it could be a game changer. Very powerful, they’re very powerful,” he said.
The next day, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, bluntly walked back Trump’s assertions.
“The answer is no,” he said in response to reporters’ questions about the drug as a coronavirus treatment, calling the evidence “anecdotal” and emphasizing that there has not been any official studies.
“We’re trying to strike a balance between making something with a potential of an effect to the American people available, at the same time that we do it under the auspices of a protocol that would give us information to determine if it’s truly safe and truly effective,” Fauci said. “But the information that you’re referring to specifically is anecdotal — it was not done in a controlled clinical trial. So you really can’t make any definitive statement about it.”
Fauci later went on Fox News to emphasize that there is no “definitive proof” the drug is effective.
But on Saturday, the president heralded the drug’s promise again, tweeting that coupling chloroquine with the antibiotic azithromycin has “a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”
In their announcement, Banner Health experts stressed that “chloroquine, a malaria medication, should not be ingested to treat or prevent this virus.”
“Given the uncertainty around COVID-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” said Brooks. “The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.”
Kramer-Ainza added that the health system is hoping this is the first and last chloroquine case it sees.
“When you hear panic from trauma doctors facing these types of situations on top of everything else they’re dealing with, you know it’s serious and scary,” she said.
Nigeria has reported two cases of chloroquine poisoning since Trump’s initial comments, Bloomberg reported.
In a tweet, the country’s health department implored people not to self-medicate for COVID-19. The World Health Organization has not approved chloroquine to fight the virus, the Nigerian health organization said, and scientists are still working to confirm whether it’s safe.
✔@realDonaldTrump
HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents)….
#FactsNotFear @WHO has NOT approved the use of chloroquine for #COVID19 management. Scientists are working hard to confirm the safety of several drugs for this disease. Please DO NOT engage in self-medication. This will cause harm and can lead to death. #COVID19Nigeria
In the US, there is currently no approved drug to treat people with COVID-19. In a recent statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that “based upon limited in-vitro and anecdotal data, chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine are currently recommended for treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in several countries.”
However, the drug is still under investigation in clinical trials, and the CDC said there is no available data on how much to give a patient or how long they should be taking the medication. Doctors have been reporting mixed and different dosages, the CDC said.
Banner Health is now urgently warning doctors about the medication.”
so much for trump’s “medical degree” from trump university…don’t listen to trump…the distractor-in-chief…
Just Walking In the Rain…remember Johnny Ray?
Getting soaking wet
Torturing my heart by trying to forget
So alone and blue
All because my heart still remembers you
They always stare at me
Shaking their heads in sorrow
Thinking how we met
Knowing things have changed
Somehow I can’t forget.
Art Salazar 