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Post 09 Sep 2020, 11:16 am

Bangladesh may have enough Remdesivir...but does it have enough Ambien? Huh? I didnt think so. The US wins again...

Developing countries have enough supply because they use generics for the drug and that is not allowed in the US. And while the drug was helped developed by the US government funding and contributed to by government scientists, it was originally identified by Gilead and I didnt see anywhere that it was primarily developed by government research.

That being said, the question is whether given the government's partial involvement in developing the drug, generics should be allowed? I would think that during the pandemic at least they should be allowed. On the one hand, you want drug companies to make reasonable profits on drugs so that new drugs are developed in the first place; on the other hand, the NIH should be getting something for the US and cutting a better deal when it provides funding and other assistance for the development of a drug. We'll help you develop a drug...but in return generics can be used immediately. Or some other beneficial arrangement. Having the US help develop the drug and we pay retail prices and most of the rest of the world is paying wholesale...is, well, stupid.
Last edited by freeman3 on 09 Sep 2020, 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post 09 Sep 2020, 11:47 am

freeman3 wrote:Having the US help develop the drug and we pay retail prices and most of the rest of the world is paying wholesale...is, well, stupid.


Trump has attempted to put into place a plan so that the drug companies can only charge the US the average of what they charge other developed countries. Sometimes even our Jerk in Chief is correct on policy:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avikroy/20 ... 0d205c1860
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Post 09 Sep 2020, 12:00 pm

Yes, that is good policy.
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Post 09 Sep 2020, 1:55 pm

When the government of Israel provides funding for research or development, they take shares in any company that is formed around the products developed from the research. When royalties are paid, the Government of Israel is paid. These royalties, then form a pool of money for further investment.

I've always thought this was very clever.

In Canada government grants for medical research are well tracked and when and if products are developed as a result... the government insists on significant discounts... But then government negotiates and sets drug pricing - based upon guaranteed volumes for suppliers ...

Trump may be, like the proverbial blind squirrel, finding an acorn here... But as usual its a prescriptive solution. And dependent on ongoing negotiations as to what constitutes "the average price" and a "developed nation" etc.Complexity is the weapon used to hide profits.
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Post 10 Oct 2020, 7:56 pm

Brad mentioned back in July that South Dakota was doing quite well with Covid . I thought I would compare how the live free of (covid safety measures) or die (of Covid) states would compare with California and New York....Wisconsin is included because Republicans have bitterly (and successfully) fought the Democratic governor's pandemic safety measures

Current stats:

South Dakota: New cases=417/100,000; total cases=3.1% of population; #deaths=32/100,000
North Dakota: New cases=439/100,000; total cases=3.5% of population; #deaths=44/100,000
Montana: New cases=321/100,000; total cases=1.69% of population; # deaths=19/100,000
Idaho: New cases=232/100,000; Total cases=2.68% of population; #deaths=19/100,000
Wisconsin: New cases=306/100,000; total cases=2.67% of population; #deaths=25/100,000
New York: New cases=52/100,000; total cases=2.4% of population; #deaths=169/100,000
California: New cases=58/100,000; total cases=2.1% of population; #deaths=42/100,000

So those states listed above that were less stringent in their precautions and had been doing well...are not doing well now. Still doing better on deaths per capita but obviously that is going in the wrong direction. And New York is an outlier because it got hit so hard early on when we are starting to figure out to how to contain the virus and had not yet really come with ways to treat it.
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Post 13 Oct 2020, 9:11 am

The top ten states in terms of total cases per million residents are:

Louisiana . . . . 37,024
North Dakota . 36,397
Mississippi . . . 35,357
Florida . . . . . . 34,269
Alabama . . . . 33,871
South Dakota . 32,696
Tennessee . . . 31,875
Iowa . . . . . . . 31,759
Georgia . . . . . 31,299
Arizona . . . . . 31,056

source https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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Post 13 Oct 2020, 9:29 am

It used to be "better dead than red!". Now it's "better red and dead!"...
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Post 13 Oct 2020, 12:10 pm

https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june

Some where else there was a discussion about the reaction to Covid by State - especially after June 1. It was suggested that by June 1 the science behind how Covid 19 spread was pretty well settled and mitigation also understood. Mask, hand washing and social distancing. Most governments have settled on these and enforced them as strictly as necessary to control the spread. However .... there are exceptions.

The link above compares Covid spread (new cases per million pop.) in the US since June 1, and indicates the political leaning of the State (according to Cook reports) .Note that North Dakota doesn't appear on the list till mid August and rapidly climbs to the top.

Its striking how there are two realities .
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Post 13 Oct 2020, 3:00 pm

rickyp wrote:https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june

Some where else there was a discussion about the reaction to Covid by State - especially after June 1. It was suggested that by June 1 the science behind how Covid 19 spread was pretty well settled and mitigation also understood. Mask, hand washing and social distancing. Most governments have settled on these and enforced them as strictly as necessary to control the spread. However .... there are exceptions.

The link above compares Covid spread (new cases per million pop.) in the US since June 1, and indicates the political leaning of the State (according to Cook reports) .Note that North Dakota doesn't appear on the list till mid August and rapidly climbs to the top.

Its striking how there are two realities .


That's very interesting. Note that if you run deaths per million residents you get a different picture. Blue states still dominate that list; perhaps the red states are experiencing more cases, but they aren't experiencing the same death rates?
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Post 14 Oct 2020, 12:22 am

Ray Jay wrote:That's very interesting. Note that if you run deaths per million residents you get a different picture. Blue states still dominate that list; perhaps the red states are experiencing more cases, but they aren't experiencing the same death rates?

The total deaths tracks are based on cases since Mar 1, so includes the early period of the ourbreak which hit the North East and West Coast hardest.

When you run the "new deaths" track, the top states from mid-July onwards are pretty much dominated by the red states.

North Dakota is currently way ahead on over 80. Then Arkansas and South Dakota in the mid-40, then Mississippi in the low 30s. The highest blue state is Illinois, in 16th place, with just under 16 deaths per million per week.

Overall, the worst hit states for deaths are still NY, NJ,Mass, Conn, Louisiana and RI. But we have a winter to get through and the prevailing rate is high in many other states.
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Post 14 Oct 2020, 12:55 am

Those northeastern states got hit early on when the virus spread exponentially with few if any safety precautions and hospitals were overwhelmed, patients got inadequate treatment with some dying at home, and doctors really had almost nothing to treat parients with. Those states have the excuse that they were hit early before it was clear that the virus had even arrived, it was not known what had to be done to control the virus and doctors had few treatments

Whereas, it is inexcusable ideology and hubris that is getting those red states in trouble.

Some of those red states are playing with fire thinking they can just manage the virus and keep death rates low. The problem is that the virus if left unchecked hits a tipping point where hospitals get overwhelmed and the death rates will skyrocket. It may even be that as community spread gets so high patients get sicker as viral loads get higher. Something happened in New York/NJ, Spain and Northern Italy where the virus got out of control and a lot of people died. Those states with exponential growth rates of new cases need to clamp down now like right now. They may have relatively low death rates now but they may not remain low. And winter is coming...
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Post 14 Oct 2020, 4:14 am

freeman3 wrote:Whereas, it is inexcusable ideology and hubris that is getting those red states in trouble.

Some of those red states are playing with fire thinking they can just manage the virus and keep death rates low. The problem is that the virus if left unchecked hits a tipping point where hospitals get overwhelmed and the death rates will skyrocket. It may even be that as community spread gets so high patients get sicker as viral loads get higher. Something happened in New York/NJ, Spain and Northern Italy where the virus got out of control and a lot of people died. Those states with exponential growth rates of new cases need to clamp down now like right now. They may have relatively low death rates now but they may not remain low. And winter is coming...

Agreed.

The other lesson from the March wave is that where the data says you are is actually a week or two behind where you actually are. The incubation period is several days, symptoms can start off light or go away, people only get tested for symptoms, severe issues often take over a week to appear for those patients, and deaths are some time later (longer now that we have better care than before).

So waiting until hospitals are already overwhelmed is a really bad idea.
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Post 14 Oct 2020, 6:43 am

So, three weeks till the election and Trump is holding packed rallies in "battleground states" with few masks in use...
In two weeks a significant portion of those attendees will be too sick to make it to the polls and vote. And Trump voters tend to vote in person....

Its like Trump is trying to sabotage his few remaining chances.
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Post 15 Oct 2020, 12:27 am

rickyp wrote:So, three weeks till the election and Trump is holding packed rallies in "battleground states" with few masks in use...
In two weeks a significant portion of those attendees will be too sick to make it to the polls and vote. And Trump voters tend to vote in person....

Its like Trump is trying to sabotage his few remaining chances.

The actual numbers probably won't make a difference. But it says a lot about how much he values his own supporters. It's looking more like a cult every day.
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Post 15 Oct 2020, 10:36 am

danivon
The actual numbers probably won't make a difference

Probably not.
But consider that Trump won Michigan by only 10,070 votes over Clinton. It wouldn't take a lot of supporters getting sick...

I suspect that his erosion of support since he last debate has to do with his previous supporters encountering reality - versus Trumps blandishments. A suburban housewife who witnesses how seriously her children's schools treat the threat, . who may know neighbors who have family in the hospital, etc. The greatest dose of reality would be getting sick ones self and feeling the effects for weeks..