Chloroquine on Google Trends | Hacker News Reader

Chloroquine on Google Trends

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30 pointshamilyon241 comments

"fever shortness of breath" filtered by metro region has been what I look at every day for more than a month now. It is a window into where community spread has been appearing (and people are googling their symptoms) and it is this weird view into the future of what will be reported in the news. Watching it spread county by county from the main cities to elsewhere in the country has been something.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=fever%20sh...

Yikes Arkansas. That is not good news at all since it is one of the poorest states in the country.

Since you've been watching this search trend, do you have any insights you could summarize?

Just because a state has one reported case from one person flying in doesn't mean it was showing up in the community.

Florida was showing up early on even before it was being talked about, let alone the weird anti-talking about it they seem to be doing. I would not want to be living there now.

Overall it has been playing out like you would imagine. Hot spots with big airports seem to light up first. Then the surrounding areas and slowly spreading out via the highway system.

If there every is a real zombie apocalypse West Virginia, Vermont and Wyoming all seem to be the best places to go.

I have been taking screenshots since March 11th (when it seemed to suddenly overnight be "everywhere") so you can scroll through and see how quickly this has spread

https://imgur.com/gallery/IaFgXiF

This corroborates your observation about Florida: https://healthweather.us/

This is actually causing a severe shortage at many pharmacies and hospitals. People are rushing out and hoarding this drug, preventing us from having adequate supplies for treating the serious cases.

Do you have a citation?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/health/coronavirus-chloro...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22639267

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/flor5z/please_sto...

Isn't this a prescription controlled drug?

Yes, but many doctors aren't as ethical as they should be.

Even worse, it’s leaving people with Lupus and arthritis in a position to quit the medication that’s keeping them alive/comfortable cold turkey.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/health/coronavirus-chloro...

And then you get this word salad that sounds like a forward from grandpa, early AOL era (even including all-caps): “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)”

All based on some data from a Petri dish, and a non-randomized trial where they measured “virus load” by eyeballing it: https://mobile.twitter.com/GaetanBurgio/status/1241201751916...

This is insanity, Nero-style (only without actual style). You couldn’t kill more people if you tried.

Faulty generalization = the fallacy of examining just one or very few examples or studying a single case, and generalizing that to be representative of the whole class of objects or phenomena.

Does it even work on a Covid-19 infection?

Serious question? People still don't follow relevant news, do they...

The evidence that it helps as a treatment is spotty.

E.g. https://mobile.twitter.com/GaetanBurgio/status/1241201751916...

Good question, seems like it's still being determined, but apparently the US president has made some statements that suggest it does. Being a doctor does come naturally to him of course.

I think the best answer is that it is under study and good science takes time. Initial indications are positive but anecdotal. More data is needed. This is from Dr. Fauci yesterday.

There is reasonable hope for better treatments from a range of drugs but for each one you need quality studies to determine the effect size, dosage, risk/benefit, and statistical significance. If we can slow this pandemic we will have more time for the science, plus many other preparations that are happening in hospitals.

Wash your hands, limit social contact, stay informed.

Here's a review of one of the papers that has been causing some of the hype:

https://mobile.twitter.com/GaetanBurgio/status/1241201751916...

My layman's understanding is that there is theory to support it and some treatment centers are trying it out, but there isn't quality evidence to suggest wide spread adoption.

What would explain the differences among the 50 states? There seems to be quite a wide range.

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) be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE!

Wrote president Trump a few hours ago on twitter.

I really hope this is right as the two drugs are cheap, generic and have been around for some time.

> The FDA has moved mountains... be put in use IMMEDIATELY

The FDA didn't really have to do anything. Doctors could prescribe it for off-label use already.

The president really shouldn’t write this stuff in his twitter though:

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3076240/coron...

Coronavirus: Nigeria reports chloroquine poisonings after Donald Trump touts antimalarial drug as treatment

That article is trying so hard. Way too hard. Any drug can kill you if you overdose it. If I remember right, 400 mg is the prescribed dosage. They are trying to make it seem that it can overdose easily but nope - at least 2g is needed to overdose. I can smell their bias in their reporting, they are trying to make the President look bad.

I propose those who say this doesn't work and "2 grams will kill you" simply tell their doctors to not prescribe the drug, and let the dice fall as they may. You don't have to take it. This will put the current controversy to bed pretty quickly if death rate with is lower than death rate without, which we'll see in as little as 2 weeks. If everyone takes it it'll be much harder to see if it's effective.

Trump should leave it to the experts ... he is snake oil huckster.

It's going to end up killing people. Chloroquine is nasty stuff and irresponsible to be hawking...pharmaceuticals can cause as much damage as they can prevent! There is no clinical basis and Trump continues to hawk it ultimately because he is so vested in hotels and hospitality and is more focused on financial damage control of his own investments than the health and safety of the American people.

I really don't get where this comes from. It's a generic drug that's been used for 70 years all over the world in tens of thousands of patients to treat malaria. It's already standard of care in China and South Korea where the recovery rates are high and the death rate is low.

I think your extreme Donald Trump hatred is clouding your judgement.

No, I don't hate anyone. Dosage. I have taken Chloroquine before, it is not as run of the mill as you think. Extreme side effects.

I am not a doctor, but there is a book named "Self-determined Dying: Manual for a rational Suicide by Chloroquine".

There is also a retinopathy named after Chloroquine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine_retinopathy

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8674334

You can overdose on it if you take more than 1.7 grams. The recommended dose is 400mg. For reference, you can overdose on tylenol and die if you take 4 times the recommended dosage.

The retinopathy happens after several years of taking the drug for rheumatoid arthritis. The course of treatment is six days for coronavirus.

> You can overdose on it if you take more than 1.7 grams. The recommended dose is 400mg. For reference, you can overdose on tylenol and die if you take 4 times the recommended dosage.

Now tell us what the half life of chloroquine is compared to acetaminophen..

Evidently short enough that people can take it for years.

I’ve been hopeful for CQ/HCQ since the French small study came out about 10 days ago... but i wish Trump hadn’t tweeted about it. Now we are being inundated with “CQ can kill you!” headlines, and people are trying to hoard it, harming the people already relying on it.

If you read the list of side effects for basically any drug on WebMD, you’d never take any medication again.

We just need to be patient and let the doctors/scientists do their work. Doesn’t mean we can’t be hopeful though.

I watched that press conference. He was trying to give hope to people and was optimistic. He even said he views things in the glass half full positive way. Even Dr Fauci said that they don't disagree - he just wants to see more studies because he's a scientist. It's the media's fault for trying to sensationalize it. I have pretty much stopped reading the media. They have cried wolf too many times now.

It is for Malaria not SARS and not even used anymore because of drug resistance.

Also please cite proof of "it's already standard of care" in China and S.Korea and nope Whatsapp or Facebook does not count.

For China: https://covid-19.alibabacloud.com/

Here's a comprehensive guide for treatment of covid-19 for hospital operators. Search for chloroquine:

https://www.alibabacloud.com/zh/universal-service/pdf_reader...

South Korea (plaquenil is a slightly modified version of chloroquine):

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/12/South-Kor...

> I really don't get where this comes from

It's hepatoxic and stays in your system for months. I believe side effects can include permanent blindness and psychosis.

https//www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-woman-husband-died-chloroquine-warns-not-to-trust-trump-2020-3

Some fools in Nigeria already got chloroquine poisoning all because of this ... people are desperate in such times.

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