Sofistek-
My apologies. I am sure I was over-focusing on that word you used - expendable. That word drove my response. I’m really glad you weren’t trying to guilt younger people into hiding and throwing away their future and careers in order to keep you personally safer.
Really, I’m glad that’s not what you were saying. 
There’s a lot of fear going around. We will find out, a year from now, when we have a lot more information, just how much fear was merited by the facts. I’m guessing - in retrospect - we will assess that it was more than a little overdone.
Just a guess, of course.
I am a health tech consultant. I work with hundreds of doctors at dozens of practices. I have made it a point to ask many of them their opinion on the safety of the HCQ protocol. The vast majority of them not only believe that HCQ is safe if properly prescribed, MANY of them admitted they have a personal stockpile of HCQ to treat family and friends, should the need arise!! I found this to be amazing. MANY are also sick and tired of the politicians and the media dictating how they should treat their patients. Totally anecdotal but true.
I would expect that Sweden’s total death rate over the next few years will be lower than average because those sickly people who would have died then, died this year. Just thinking.
In our local nursing home where there has been 17 deaths - my friend’s 92 year old mother came down with CV19. She was treated with HCQ/AZ/Zinc and recovered promptly.
I don’t need a national policy, the approval of the fcking government, or anything beyond a doctor’s prescription and the common sense to see the long history of this drug in use to understand that it is safe enough. Everyone has their own risk tolerance and specific circumstances - experts disagree - some people have agendas.
I don’t GAF what you think about this course of treatment - other than my MD and pharmacist. I’ll decide. This shouldn’t be a political issue. We don’t have to have a national policy consensus or the stamp of approval from the FDA, CDC, WHO, or any other body of “experts” who have largely contributed to this crisis in the first place.
Rector
This should NOT be an issue for a governmental agency to act on.
There is no other medicine where the state governors have issued emergency orders on use. None!
There are no other medicines where off label usage is prohibited by law.This is absolutely beyond the pale.
I so hope that Sweden is right, I truly do. On the other hand I find it risky to assume that immunity exists for this virus. It exhibits features never seen before within one virus. People can seemingly recover, also per test, while the virus is still hidding in their bodies. Additionally, it is not certain that Antibody Dependent Enhancement can not occur. For SARS-Cov this possibility was not excluded (source). To me this is a dangerous gamble. For sure there will be a second wave, winter conditions will aggravate this (less solar exposure, more people indoors), combined with potential mutations, and combined with extraordinary virus behavior, the risk is non-zero that a second infection will be more devastating. Worst case, they primed the herd for severe effects of a second infection; especially if they believe that they are now safe and do not intervene at first sign of symptoms to counter a potential cytokine storm. Best case they are right (I hope and pray they are; this is the best scenario for all of us).
In other words (and to repeat myself), I would argue that this is not a convex strategy (in terms of Nassim Taleb). The probability is very high that they are right, so their gain is actually a minimized loss (as compared to countries with total lock downs). The probability that they are wrong is very small, but given the current state of knowledge, and given the fact that there are different chains per country, the probability is larger than zero. The outcome in this case could be that some, or many, people with immunity will succumb to cytokine storms. As a reference, now it is believed that the second wave of the Spanish flu, was devastating due to ADE (source).
To minimize the impact of this low probability, worst case scenario, I’m stocking up on (a reasonable amount of) supplements that support and regulate the immune system, and discussed (ad nauseam) a protocol with my family. We will use vitamine C till bowel tolerance to test if something is amiss at the first sign of flulike symptoms.
I’m not a doom and gloom person and I do not want to spread fear. But given the fact that we cannot see into the future, one might want to employ convex strategies (see for example source), and hedge ones bet. The cost could be small, especially if one considers that most of the stuff can be used anyway.
But again, I hope we do not have to worry about it at all, because we have other worries (money, food etc)
Take care!
It is virtually impossible to buy HCQ in the Netherlands, so I resorted to kinabast + zinc. I use vitamin C to bowel tolerance to test the effectivity. I started at 90 grams on Saterday, this morning (Tuesday), it was at 15grams. So I suspect that some components in kinebast (quinine?) is also acting as a zinc ionophore.
Sweden is certainly an unusual case in several ways. The most unusual aspect is the number of people who live in single person homes; 41% for the country as a whole and over 50% in Stockholm, their largest city. Culturally they would consider themselves a caring society (but see below). The levels of vitamin D in the population is high compared with other countries, even though it is at a high latitude. Sweden has a very low test rate compared with most rich countries.
Anecdotally, (from my son who lives in Sweden) they are encouraging work from home - both he and his partner’s firm are having their staff work from home. We think my son has had the disease, (he had a lot of the symptoms including a high temperature, but he was never tested so did he?) although he and his partner are staying at home and only going out for shopping and exercise. Most of his aquaintances are doing the same.
As you pointed out, the number of cases keep growing. However an exponential curve with a very low exponent is very similar to a straight line for a long time, so I am holding my judgement on Sweden. I think that there is a possibility that they may have a lot more trouble brewing, but due to circumstances relating to their culture, it may not become obvious until several months from now.
As to the caring society, look at the following new report on the BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52704836
(Suspect this may be a cased of diverting attention from our country’s performance where there have been a large number of COVID deaths in care home - here is someone doing even worse than us.)
What about my right to privacy! Why isn’t this a decision that should be made between me and my doctor?
I am absolutely appalled that the governor of VA who supports post birth abortion (Keep it comfortable while the mother and doctor decide what to do with the failed abortion) has blocked doctors from prescribing HCQ and tasked pharmacists to report off label use of HCQ.
We let a 20 yo young woman who is too young to buy alcohol or tobacco, kill her baby but forbid a 50 yo woman that doesn’t have lupus from taking a drug for a week that five of her friends take daily and have for years.
Sweden ranks 6th in the world in cases per mil.
They are sacrificing their aged population. Sounds good if you are a millenial. Senior? Not so much.
371 deaths per million. Not too good.
Sweden is doing worse than the other Scandinavian countries.
Every country is different in many ways. You cannot cut and paste approaches.
" The FDA, CDC and WHO have got my back. I just hope they’ll soon pull the knife out."
(Paraphrase)
Yesterday I watched a podcast with Jason Goodman and Ole Dammegaard. Ole is a native Swede who now lives in Spain. Both he and Jason are excellent & credible researchers and provide high quality presentations and commentary. You can watch a 20 min. intro here and a longer presentation on Subscribestar or Patreon. I learned a lot I never would have known. Highly recommended because of how Sweden connects to the big picture of reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ljJOmE7oc
MM, I haven’t seen any breakdown by race, but I assume the dark skinned Somali refugees also are dying from Covid-19 at a higher rate than the general population.
I had placed an order for HCQ from River Pharmacy a few months back hoping it would be an option if needed.
They just informed me that India has made it illegal to export HCQ to individuals, so the order was canceled.
I am thinking that India may need the supply for their own uses.
You guys (gals) can create every mind bending chemical from natural products. Just how hard is it to make a reasonably non toxic form of hydroxychloroquin from chinchona bark, anyway?
She’s brave and beautiful. I hope she has a Go Fund Me Acct. Like Greg Anderson in Washington. I suspect we will all have to take a stand sooner or later. Get ready.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZeMHVbg9KU
I don’t make those kinds of assumptions. Most of the dead were over 70 and in care homes.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52704836
I looked it up out of curiosity and to avoid making assumptions.
The immigrant population is being disproportionately affected.
However it is not just the Somalis. Sweden’s laissez faire approach has led to lack of communication to all minorities. That includes, Iranis, Iraqis and others. It is also true of other Scandinavian countries. Partly this is due to racism and also class. Just like everywhere lower income people are the ones suffering the most, including economically.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/coronavirus-takes-toll-swedens-immigrant-community-70593594
I continue to wonder why states such as MA and MI with strict lock downs and similar population to Sweden (~10M) have significantly higher death rates than Sweden. (Especially MA!) Maybe over time this will change but I think there are other answers. Strict lock downs don’t seem to be all that effective. (And consider that 66% of NYC hospitalizations were of people who were sheltering in place at home.) A month ago I was gung ho on strict lock downs and thought Sweden was making a mistake. Now that more data and science is in, I have changed my mind on both. Can we have some honest discussions rather than trying to protect our position or push an agenda?
If anyone has not seen this story it’s important. Greg worked for Port of Seattle as a police officer. He made a video and posted it on youtube for fellow officers, regarding constitutional rights, etc. He explains his story briefly here. It’s a must watch. His go fund me acct. set up by a friend of his wife is now over 425K!!!..(He hit a nerve!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MniaQ6lw81I