I agree, I have an old Samsung phone from 2005 and I use it to ... phone, and send and receive SMS.Lol, Apple can get lost and people with 'limited resources' should not buy a $400 phone. Hell, people in general shouldn't spend $400 on a phone.
Better laws and better policies are the domain of governments, and we can argue about that until the cows come home. Better health, better conditions and better communication, on the other hand, should be the imperatives of all. And eventually, they will be.
In France, The Professor Raoult, who is a authority figure in the international scientific community, proposes the association of the antimalarial, the Hydroxychloroquine, and an antibiotic, the Azithromycin.
Hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19: an open-label, randomized, controlled trial
Objectives To assess the efficacy and safety of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) plus standard-of-care (SOC) compared with SOC alone in adult patients with COVID-19. Design Multicenter, open-label, randomized controlled trial. Setting 16 government-designated COVID-19 treatment centers in China...www.medrxiv.org
Early preprint, not peer reviewed.
Hydroxychloroquine tried in 150 patients. Compared to standard treatment, slightly less got better with it. It did improve the lymphopenia faster, and return C reactive protein to normal faster.
No major side effects identified in the cohort, at the given dose.
Looks like a wash. It didn't work after completion of this study, but did seem to affect the immune system in some positive ways. That is far short of measurable practical benefit needed to prescribe it.
So far it has not been positive for HOCQ, and severe side effects resulting in a higher death rate were reported previously. Disappointing overall, despite the early lab work.
So would I use it? On my own family?
Nope.
If new evidence turns up, I could change that position. But given existing data, we can predict that it has no strong benefit or that would have showed up by now, and we have established increased risk of death.
Changing instructions on the home package to Do Not Use. .
Going by the test results always supercedes the theory. That's iron clad.
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Of course they will. And of course they'll be correct. There are a lot of terrible people out there. From everywhere.
I am all for saving human lifes, anytime, as many as possible . It seems to be hardwired somehow . But it comes with reasonable questions, even before the 21st century, even before 7.8 billion people on Earth . Some questions will be applicable to the individual saved, some will be asked looking at the implications of number of humans rising, and rising . And rising .
science.sciencemag.org
Containment periods may be required until 2022, says Harvard study.
A study by epidemiologists from the American university suggests several years of social distancing, in successive waves, to fight against Covid-19.
AAAS
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What indeed? Perhaps their own health agencies in each nation? At least that way, any cannot be accused of covering for another country.
I am not informed enough about it.
"The ideal worldview is based upon the idea that humans are basically moral and good". Let's just cherry pick that one line.Given their profound corruption that's a big ask.
Why the same people tend to be political adversaries in issue after issue, as Jonathan Haidt (see: https://righteousmind.com ) and Peterson (See: from 4:56Source: https://youtu.be/UZMIbo_DxJk?t=296
) allude is because polity is fundamentally psychologic in nature (the extremes psychopathologic), with broadly two types of Worldview, and I do not know what Haidt or Peterson would call them but for purposes of illustration I shall call them the tragic v Ideal Worldviews:
The tragic Worldview, that views Man (and thus his civilisations) as flawed limited creatures, and the ideal Worldview that views Man as perfectible.
The ideal worldview is based upon the idea that humans are basically moral and good. They believe there is an ideal solution to every problem, and that compromise is never acceptable. Third party damage or side effects in enacting this solution is merely the smaller price of progressing toward the greater goal of an ideal or better society.
Ultimately they believe that man is morally perfectible. Because of this, they believe that there are some in society (oft themselves) who are further along the path of moral development, have overcome human self-interest and are largely --if not altogether-- immune to the temptations of political power and therefore can act as decision-makers for others.
It has been written that "if you want to test a man's character, give him [political] power."
(and for the life of me I cannot recall the origin, though it could well be in the Book of Proverbs
Conversely, the tragic Worldview is based upon the idea that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man --as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn alluded(1)-- inherently flawed and self-interested, despite our best intentions. Those with the tragic Worldview prefer the systematic processes of the rule of law and experience of tradition (as traditions tend to solve problems that we forget that we have). Compromise and dialog (literally two voices) is essential because there are no ideal solutions, only trade-offs, different selections of suckyness, and choosing the variety of suckyness that you can tolerate. Those with a tragic Worldview vision lean toward empirical evidence and time-tested structures and processes over intervention and personal experience. Ultimately, the tragic Worldview sees value in checks and balances and refuses to accept that all people could put aside their innate self-interest and overcome their intrinsic flaws.
(1) "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
-- A. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago.
( https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Gulag-...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1586971712&sr=1-1 )
The world before and the world after ?
Well, if you're on board with that, that actually makes me quite happy. Seriously. I still think we force reform in organizations - any organization - by firmly addressing the need for reformation, increased accountability and increased efficiency instead of binning them.
External agencies...like the WHO, you mean?
I see you're channelling the founding Fathers there (can't recall who said the by the people of the people line)
