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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Here’s Hoping!

Here’s Hoping!

by | 91 Comments

This post is in: 

I’m sure this is a lie, or that he’s getting a micro dose, but:

President Trump told reporters Monday that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine for about a week and a half and that the White House physician knows he is taking the anti-malaria drug despite the fact that he continues to test negative for the coronavirus.

Let’s see here. The FDA has advised against using hydroxychloroquine because it causes QT elongations and/or ventricular tachycardia, both heart rhythms that lead to faints and (if we were all very good boys and girls this year, and Santa is feeling veerry generous) death. So if Trump keels over on the toilet, we know why.

(Just in case you aren’t keeping up with failed treatments, hydroxywhatever, in addition to perhaps killing you, doesn’t fucking work for COVID.)

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    I’m guessing either he’s lying or he’s actually getting a placebo because his doctor figured that was, by far, easier than talking him out of taking hydroxychloroquine.

  2. 2.

    debbie

    Other side effects of hydroxychloroquine are deposits on the lens in the eyes which are not reversible. There’s also possibility of damage to the liver.

  3. 3.

    rafah

    My guess? His doctor is giving him some sugar pills to get the guy off his back.

  4. 4.

    Steeplejack

    I’ve been off line all day, and I did a full Danny Thomas spit-take when I came home a little while ago and saw this. Twitter is going nuts.

    One gem (among many):

    This will be the single greatest encapsulation of Fox News I will ever post:

    Fox News now warning viewers they could die from taking the thing they said was a cure for the disease they said was a hoax.

    https://t.co/qKgcJLK4c9

    — The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 18, 2020

  5. 5.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Somewhat related: apparently, the predicted second surge of cases in states such as Texas, Florida, and Georgia hasn’t happened (yet?) and any increase in numbers is allegedly because of increased testing. It’s been 3 weeks since these states have opened up. Is this true?

    Johns Hopkins Data Shows COVID-19 Deaths Have Declined in the US for the 4th Consecutive Week

    Texas reported its highest single-day increase in new COVID-19 cases as restaurants, salons, and cinemas open to the public

    Reddit comment in that thread given gold:

    0and20: For those that formulate their views based on headlines without reading the articles:

    Gov. Greg Abbott said he expected the number of positive cases to continue to rise as the state plans to increase the amount of testing in “most high-risk areas: nursing homes, meatpacking plants, and jails.”

    This is due to increased testing. More importantly, the objective of the lockdown was to ensure hospital capacity. Seems like Texas has that under control

    While Texas has had a high number of news cases, it has had a relatively low death toll compared to states of similar size, like New York and California. According to the Houston Chronicle, Abbott attributes the lower death toll to the continued availability of available hospital beds in the state.

    According to the report, approximately 1,791 people are currently hospitalized in Texas, which has over 17,000 hospital beds still available

    Edit:

    Later on:

    0and20:

    I’m referring to people on this subreddit that find it completely insane for a state like Texas to begin reopening. Those people seem to think the entire country is facing the same dynamic that the west coast/ NYC metro is facing.

    amy_amy_bobamy: Well, hopefully Texas is using the guidelines on who reopens and how. I’m in California. We have the highest population but our per capita death rate is pretty low. We are on par with Oklahoma.
    I’m very puzzled by the current stats. Texas has the second highest population but is doing even better in their per capita death rate than we are. When did you guys start shelter in place?
    Also, Florida has over 25% of their population 65 years and older and yet they’re doing fairly well so far.

     

    0and20: To be clear, I don’t live in Texas. But I think one of the reasons Texas and Florida are doing so well is because they are comprised of much more suburban, car-oriented communities that make it more difficult for COVID to spread.

    I live in center city Philadelphia, the second most dense downtown next to manhattan. Almost everyone I know uses public transit to get to work.
    We have been doing pretty well so far, we have even converted stadiums and large venues into hospital beds.
    But they are not being used. Hospitals are not overwhelmed, Nurses are being laid off. If the objective is to make sure we have healthcare capacity, we have it. Meanwhile, many small businesses are being destroyed. I would personally be in favor of lifting some of the lockdown measures. No, not a full reopen, but we have the capacity to lift some measures.

  6. 6.

    download my app in the app store mistermix

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, for two reasons:

    1. The “openings” were over-hyped and not everything openend up.
    2. People are not idiots and don’t want to die, so whether or not everything is opened, people aren’t going out.

    Also, I should have followed the link:  deaths are a lagging indicator.  We wouldn’t see an uptick from deaths yet.

  7. 7.

    feebog

    This really is the ultimate “boy cries wolf” situation is it not?  On the one hand you want to count it as lie number 18,543.  On the other hand you have visions of the fat orange bastard face planting into a rosebush during a press conference.

  8. 8.

    MattF

    The odd thing about the claims for a hydroxychloroquine treatment is that it’s probably a scam, promoted by a physician gone rogue. I guess Trump sees promoters of scams as allies and fellow-geniuses– however, reality may intrude, whether Trump believes in it or not.

  10. 10.

    Josie

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): 
    The part of Texas I’m in has only been open for a week. It is true that the meat packing plants have been increasing the numbers due to more testing. The thing is, however, that those cases will probably spread to the communities around them pretty soon.

  11. 11.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    He also snorts Adderall daily. Which is really the preventative?

  12. 12.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  Cases, tests and deaths are all increasing rapidly in Texas, but I don’t know how they can conclude that therefore the increase in cases isn’t real. When Massachusetts was in the exponential-growth phase, for a while tests and positive cases were growing at about the same rate so the positive fraction was roughly constant, but it certainly didn’t mean nothing was increasing for real.

  18. 18.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @rafah:

    I’d like to think that was true because it would mean someone was behaving with ethics and sense. But those things seem to be less widely spread than I assumed. So who knows.

  19. 19.

    JMG

    If the President’s heart went blooey, any physician who gave him that drug would be on the fast track to SuperMax. I bet the hardest part of the treatment is telling Trump why each dose looks like a little Fred, Wilma or Dino.

  20. 20.

    JPL

    We are having spikes in both positive cases and deaths due to the virus in rural areas of GA

    Of course we have having an increase of folks saying that how do we know it was Covid-19 that caused the death.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    hydroxychloroquine would be, like, a triple-digit score on Scrabble, man

  22. 22.

    Montanareddog

    I will bet my house that Trump is not taking hydroxychloroquine. This is Mr “Sharpie a weather map” doubling down on his bullshit again.

  28. 28.

    West of the Rockies

    A church in a town 20 minutes from mine defied the governor’s order and had a service on Mother’s Day. The next day a member (a member alright!) tested positive.  So, while I hope they didn’t create a very local hotspot, if no one else tests positive, all the god botherers will strut around pleased with themselves and inspire others to follow/folly in their footsteps.

    Who would Jeebus infect?

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    Brit Hume is trying to downplay this on Twitter: “does anyone REALLY believe trumpov is taking hydroxywhatever?”

    silly us, taking the president* at his word, Brit!

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Roger Moore

    Silly crazy zealots. It’s not the towers, it’s the devices.

    Did anyone ever hear about covid-anything before we had cell phones?

    //

  34. 34.

    Mikeindublin

    Tom Hanks’ wife took hydroxychloroquine for Corona Virus if I remember.  Said the side affects were so bad she had to crawl across the room it was so painful.

  36. 36.

    japa21

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Just wanted to update you. Surgery went well. We need to wait a few days for pathology results but the doctor was using the term benign in terms of what he thinks the results will be.

  37. 37.

    BruceFromOhio

    With Ohio joining the covidiocy, I’m looking for positives, hospitalizations, ICU admittance, and deaths to curve upward starting the day after Memorial Day, and then continue climbing into mid-June. June 8 is two weeks after MD, that will be the next peak. Will be an interesting anthropological exercise to see if Governor DeWine keeps his word, or, as I will, let Gaia and Darwin conclude.

    Am enjoying the covidiocy cross-over with the ammosexuals in the political cartoons, could be a two-fer bonus round. For those tsk-tsk’ing about wishing for harm to others, I say, be prepared to be hit by a car if you insist on playing in traffic.

  38. 38.

    West of the Rockies

    @Montanareddog:

    I agree.  Clump is pissed off for looking stupid over the hydro shit, so he’s blathering on to demonstrate how he knows more than the doctors (and generals, physicists, football players, soda jerks, teachers, rabbis, biologists, plumbers–basically, anyone ever).

  40. 40.

    Mary G

    I took it for 30+ years and was fine with regular blood tests and eye exams. Only feeling slightly worse without it. Trumpov said at one time that “we have” 29 million doses, which are certainly no longer worth what they thought, so he’s hyping it so he can recoup some of the losses.

  42. 42.

    BBA

    I have no idea whether next week he’ll say he was being sarcastic, or he’ll say he’s been taking HCQ for decades and that’s how he’s stayed so healthy.

  45. 45.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Having watched the video now, I think this person from twitter dot com is on to something

    Matt Bors @MattBors ·51m
    In ten seconds Trump goes: – many are taking it – I’m taking it! – when? right now! – in fact, I started it weeks ago
    If you’ve ever had a friend who just cannot resist one-upping everyone over drinks you will instantly recognize these classic bullshitter tactics.

    one thing I haven’t seen mentioned much is he stumbled into this revelation while whining about Dr Bright  .

  47. 47.

    debbie

    @BruceFromOhio:

    DeWine read the riot act to the restaurant/bar owners who earned citations from the Health Department over the weekend. And then Husted stepped up and read it to them realllll slow so that they would understand.

    (It was fun listening to today’s press conference.)

  51. 51.

    Mai naem mobile

    I hope I am around for when the real documents come out about Donny and the hydroxyquinone. I am guessing that will be decades into the future like Nixon’s stuff. You can take super small doses prophylactically for malaria but it’s got the big side effect for the wrong people. The big company pushing this is owned by a couple of South Asians who belong to Donny’s NJ Golf Club.  I’m waiting for when Steve Bannon decides it’s time for the South Asians’ time in the barrel because you know that little fact will be used then.  First he came for the muslins, then Messiicans…gays…black wimmens….Chinese…we got lots of time till November for every group.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    Gotta love that nanny who’s ambling around thinking that having already had COVID-19 meant she had immunity. smh

  54. 54.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @khead:

    I believe something along those lines was suggested in one of those threads I linked to and it was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. These people absolutely love to think of themselves as even-handed and super-logical. That redditor I quoted in #5 is an example; the smugness just radiates from the screen

  55. 55.

    Karen

    I have Rheumtoid Arthritis and took Plaquenol for two years. You have to get your eyes checked all the time or you can go blind. Hopefully…

  60. 60.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Baud: Correct, it has. Some people will believe anything.

    In another story, a woman was interviewed who said she wasn’t scared by something that didn’t even have a “real name” yet. Presumably, either she’ll take it seriously if it is officially named Lungpox or she believes that COVID-19 is powerless if it doesn’t have a name she thinks of as “real”.

  61. 61.

    Montanareddog

    @West of the Rockies: next he will announce he is snorting Lysol and shoving UV incandescents up his ass.

    He is a full-time idiot but on the rare occasions even he realises he  has made a fool of himself, he cannot bear it and has to revisit it, like a dog to his vomit.

  63. 63.

    JPL

    Pompeo on trump’s orders sold military arms to Saudi, and now trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine.     okie dokie.

  64. 64.

    Mai naem mobile

    I’ve been watching Sarah Cooper’s version of Donny enough that I am going to wait to see her do it.  He’s just way more palatable with Sarah Cooper lipsynching him. She will probably be sniffing a can of spray paint not just a sharpie when she does this one.

  65. 65.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @JPL:

    We are having spikes in both positive cases and deaths due to the virus in rural areas of GA

    Of course we have having an increase of folks saying that how do we know it was Covid-19 that caused the death

    Not surprising in rural areas. I bet most rural Georgians don’t take the virus seriously

    And that argument is the most stupid and maddening one possible. “They were going to die anyway. COVID didn’t really kill them!” ?

  66. 66.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    @download my app in the app store mistermix:

    … deaths are a lagging indicator. We wouldn’t see an uptick from deaths yet.

    Yep. Any uptick would start off slow and asymptomatically snowball a few weeks later. We probably won’t notice it until there are a lot of people infected, AND they start showing symptoms severe enough to require hospitalization. Say 6-10 weeks after relaxing constraints.

  68. 68.

    Another Scott

    @BruceFromOhio: The UW historical numbers latest are from May 10, but deaths weren’t past a peak, and daily infections were clearly rising from a local minimum a few weeks earlier in Ohio.

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/ohio

    It’s understandable that people want to assume that it’s less dangerous now that some places successfully passed a peak.  But too many people are ignoring the fact that:

    1. There is no treatment.
    2. There is no cure.
    3. There is no vaccine.

    The only thing that flattens the curve is people being smart, meaning:

    1. Wearing masks and using good hands-cleaning techniques.
    2. Keeping away from people’s breaths, coughs, and sneezes.
    3. Minimizing duration inside with other people in the same space.

    I fear that 2-3-4 weeks from now, we’re going to have many, many people getting sick and dying for no good reason.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Josie:

    Exactly. Same with prisons. The staff and their families will still go out into the community for groceries

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Partisan control may (or may not) dictate any actions taken (or not taken) by the government but partisan control in and of itself does not stretch the legal umbrella of protection to encompass it ipso facto mooting any actions by or within the state.

  71. 71.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @download my app in the app store mistermix:

    That tracks with everything I’ve read. Sometimes I think I’m living in a bubble on BJ when I come across contrary information that sounds reasonable on the surface (it helps with a tone that suggests you’re the crazy/hysterical one). Then I find out they’re full of shit

  73. 73.

    Spanky

    I’m gonna guess that that placebo is in the form of a red pill. At least it would be if I was prescribing it.

  74. 74.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    You’re probably right on that count. Do you think Trump’s lying about taking hydroxi then? He has to have some financial stake in a pharmaceutical company that manufactures it

  75. 75.

    BBA

    @Another Scott: No good reason? Being trapped in your home for months on end carries severe mental costs, to say nothing of the financial impact of losing your job. Combine this with the fact that we aren’t any closer to curing or containing the virus than we were when we locked down, and I have to wonder what the hell the point of all this was.

    If we could do what Korea has done, there’d be a point. But we can’t.

  76. 76.

    tokyokie

    @Mai naem mobile:

    You can take super small doses prophylactically for malaria but it’s got the big side effect for the wrong people.

    According to my pharmaceuticals reference, hydroxychloroquine only comes in 200 mg tabs. A normal dose is 3 or 4 times that. I guess you could use a pill splitter to get a 100 mg dose, but I’m not sure whether that would be “super small.” But I’m guessing he’s getting a placebo and being told it’s hydroxychloroquine, if he’s taking anything at all.

  79. 79.

    debbie

    @tokyokie:

    They could have him on a related drug, chloroquine. It comes in different strengths.

    I think Trump’s just calling it hydroxychloroquine because he’s so proud of himself for saying the name without stumbling.

  80. 80.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: I have fond memories from >20 years back of the Flintstones Cave Bar in Göreme, Turkey, which you just ruined. Tessekurler!

  81. 81.

    Martin

    I love that he (claims he) didn’t start taking it until the studies came out showing it causes more harm than good.

  83. 83.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): One of the side benefits (to the current Misadministration) of classifying COVID-19 deaths as due to something else is that it reduces the number of people who know someone who died from the virus. It’s easy to dismiss the pandemic as “a hoax” or “nothing worse than the flu” until and unless reality shoves its way into your circle of acquaintances. I get the impression this was Putin’s aim as well in classifying so many Russian deaths as due to “pneumonia” rather than COVID-19.

  84. 84.

    Another Scott

    @BBA: Trouble is, the choice isn’t between a) stay locked down and b) open up.  The choice is between a) do sensible things to minimize deaths while minimizing damage to the economy and b) rush ahead willy-nilly and say, “eh, whachagonna do?, so let’s open on Tuesday!”.

    The economy is going to be hurting until people are confident that they won’t be hospitalized (or die) 2-3-4 weeks after going to the store or going back to work.  Only sensible policies will give people that confidence.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  85. 85.

    Melusine

    He sounded rather congested during the presser.

    Thoughts and prayers. To Cthulhu.

  86. 86.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Yeah, I thought the Russian numbers were bullshit. 200,000+ cases and only like 3000 deaths? In RUSSIA? Pull the other one Vlad

     

    @NotMax:

    Joking aside, I find myself hoping he is taking it. It would serve him right if he suffered serious health defects from it after he hyped it up and got several people killed

  87. 87.

    trnc

    @Jeffro: Brit Hume is trying to downplay this on Twitter: “does anyone REALLY believe trumpov is taking hydroxywhatever?”

    silly us, taking the president* at his word, Brit!

    No reason for Hume to believe his bs any more than we do. It’s the Facebook data security phenomenon – people assume a company is doing something unethical (stealing your data and profiting from it), so they throw up their hands and say, “Waddya gonna do?”

  89. 89.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    “I’m not just the owner of the Trump Hydroxychloroquine Company… I’m a customer!”

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @Another Scott:

    I fear that 2-3-4 weeks from now, we’re going to have many, many people getting sick and dying for no good reason.

    For one very good reason — they listened to Trump, did what he recommended, didn’t wear a mask because Trump doesn’t wear a mask, didn’t shelter at home, because Trump doesn’t do that…

    Everyone who dies of Covid-19 from here on out dies in part because trump spreads lies and superstitions about the disease.

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