Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Looks like remdesivir had some positive results against COVID-19. As reported in STAT news: The preliminary data showed that the time to recovery was 11 days on remdesivir compared to 15 days for placebo, a 31% decrease. The mortality rate for the remdesivir group was 8%, compared to 11.6% for the placebo group; that mortality…
Treating serious cases of COVID-19 is expensive. Treatment may require ICU beds, ventilators and lots of specialized staff time. So clearly, COVID-19 is destroying health insurers bottom lines…isn’t it? Not according to a recent article by Kaiser Health News. Because of the quarantine, many individuals are delaying or foregoing elective surgeries. Of course, the costs…
The Economist has a interesting article on how the Latin American health care system is/will be able to cope with a potential increase in cases of COVID-19. In general, the Latin American health care system may be better than many naive outside observers may think. …Latin American health systems, though still smaller and less well…
On March 9, I wrote a post titled “COVID-19 in context” which showed that COVID-19 (annualized) death rate would make it the the 27th leading cause of death worldwide. By March 21st, it was the 17th leading cause of death. Now, on March 31st, COVID-19 is the 13th leading cause of death (worldwide), if we…
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act has been passed by the Senate and signed by the President. There are mixed opinions about this specific bill, but certainly a bailout/relief package of some size was needed. What is in the package? The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has a nice visualization.
COVID-19 Links What’s coming with COVID-19? The cost of sending everyone checks. Hotel industry cuts 40% of workers due to COVID-19. Inter Miami promotes social distancing. NBA player’s mom in coma due to COVID-19 Other links: What’s in the bailout bill. Decreasing marginal returns to drunk driving stringency? Did Medicaid expansion increase access to opioid…
As for other “moneyed interests,” no fewer than 30 Big Pharma and small biotech firms are racing for treatments and vaccines. Moderna turned around a vaccine batch in just 42 days. Gilead Sciences is already in Phase 3 trials for its remdesivir treatment for Covid-19. Straight off President Trump’s announcement of FDA approval for antimalarial…
On March 9, I wrote a post titled “COVID-19 in context” which showed that COVID-19 was the 27th leading cause of death worldwide. Now that we are two weeks later, it is worth revisiting where we are. As you can see from the WHO situation report from March 22, the growth in the number of…
For those interested in a global view, the World Health Organization (WHO) Situation Reports are required daily reading. Key notes from the March 19, 2020 situation report: Seven new countries/territories/areas (African Region [3], Eastern Mediterranean Region [1], European Region [1], and Region of the Americas [2]) have reported cases of COVID-19. • The number of…
Interesting video on exponential growth, logistic curves, contagious disease and COVID-19 from the always enlightening 3Blue1Brown.