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Comment by aantix | Hacker News Reader

Take Vitamin D/C/Zinc/Niacin and build up natural immunity?

There's a social-acceptability phenomenon where people say one thing (e.g. in surveys) and do another (e.g. what they buy).

Relatively early in 2020, some grocery and pharmacy shelves were completely emptied of Vit C/D/Zinc/Quercetin. When they were restocked, they would sell out again, even with per-customer quotas. This took place even with a complete news blackout on early treatments. As with HCQ/Ivermectin, we have decades of data showing very low risk of adverse effects from these early treatments. So the worst case is that people waste money on placebos. But there are studies showing that early treatment helps some (not all) patients to recover more quickly.

Just as we don't know why some people are injured by vaccines, we don't know why some people are not helped by early intervention with supplements. More studies are need for both, including funding for autopsies of those who die and retroactive genomic sequencing of virus/vaccine/supplement samples collected from the most severely affected cases.

India (origin of Delta) provides comparative data because some areas have rejected Ivermectin while other areas have embraced it. This is a ZH (sorry) article, but it uses data from Johns Hopkins, https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/indias-ivermectin-blackou...

> This data shows how Ivermectin knocked their COVID-19 cases and deaths - which we know were Delta Variant - down to almost zero within weeks. A population comparable to the US went from about 35,000 cases and 350 deaths per day to nearly ZERO within weeks of adding Ivermectin to their protocol.

> Let us look at the August 5 numbers from Uttar Pradesh with 2/3 of our population. Uttar Pradesh, using Ivermectin, had a total of 26 new cases and exactly THREE deaths. The US without Ivermectin has precisely 4889 times as many daily cases and 191 times as many deaths as Uttar Pradesh with Ivermectin.

At present, there are billions of dollars of economic incentives for suppression of early treatment, because vaccines are still under EUA that could be questioned by the availability of therapeutics with decades of safety data. If the FDA fully approves one or more vaccines in September 2021, perhaps there will be more economic incentives to perform research and studies of therapeutics.

Merck (original holder of the Ivermectin patent) is developing a new patented therapeutic for early treatment of Covid. Time will tell whether this is a genuinely new treatment or an "evergreen" variant of Ivermectin to obtain patent revenue. Either way, it would mean that at least one Big Pharma company has an economic incentive to promote early therapeutics for Covid, which could provide some balance to the currently polarized treatment landscape.

> there are billions of dollars of economic incentives for suppression of early treatment, because vaccines are still under EUA that could be questioned by the availability of therapeutics with decades of safety data

Conspiracy theory. Rather old and naive, I should add.

Zero Hedge is a cesspool of pseudo-science when it comes to COVID. The best data source can be twisted into complete nonsense when folks have political agendas - so namedropping JHU in that context is just empty rhetoric.

Well, maybe it's not "empty" rhetoric, since clearly some naive folks are persuaded by it.

Is there a better analysis of cross-region variations in Delta cases and deaths in India, which identifies non-Ivermectin factors for the difference in outcomes?

What you're doing is called a character attack. I agree with you about zero hedge, but that doesn't change what you're doing. A character attack is usually used when one doesn't have a counterpoint against the point being countered.

"There are financial incentives to sell vaccines" might be a conspiracy theory, but anyone not considering this reality a factor is delusional. I don't think they're selling us snake oil and scaring us into getting it, but there is definitely a motive beyond (but probably including) public health and that is to recoup the cost of development of the vaccine, at the very least.

If you don't make it clear that bullshit is bullshit, if you pretend like it belongs to the realm of sanity, then the debate becomes a farce - some kind of Monty Python absurd comedy.

Sure, but "there are financial incentives to push vaccines" is not bullshit. It is very real, and probably a non negligible factor in how the PR around them is being handled. Not to say public health is not a factor, probably the largest factor, but profit is always a factor as well and in this case would be a very real perverse incentive.

Drowning in details, missing the larger point that actually matters - are you a software engineer?

How would an in-hospital treatment of Ivermectin reduce the number of cases? It's only being used when people are already in the hospital with symptoms, which really should have almost zero impact on the spread of disease.

Ivermectin proponents recommend early treatment, including outpatient and prophylactic usage with zinc to slow viral progression: https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/

But that wouldn't have much effect on cases, unless they simply stop counting cases.

CQ doesn’t work in the real world as opposed to in the lab because the virus uses TMPRSS2 as opposed to cathepsins to enter.

It's sad that this comment (and probably mine) downvoted despite being a reasonable long-term response to this virus.

Instead of mandating this vaccine worldwide, why don't we focus on collectively building a better / stronger health that would prevent the large majority of severe cases?

I haven't seen an evidence that supplements would prevent the majority of severe cases, or the neurological damage done (in even mild cases). Is this something backed up by data?

Health goes beyond taking nutrients (although they might help). Here we're talking about exercise, nutrition, mental health etc:

- None of those were advocated by governments during this pandemic.

- Some measures (lockdowns, etc.) were detrimental to individual health and (imo) contributed to complications we've been seeing.

This is generally backed up by common sense (which - just like the flu - has mysteriously disappeared in the past 2 years)

What's mysterious about the flu disappearing? The precautions taken to reduce COVID were extremely effective against influenza. Given that it was much more broadly circulating, and therefore a large percentage of the population had antibodies to dominant strains (more than COVID even now), one would expect masks and isolation to basically destroy it's spread no?

It's also possible that viral disease dynamics are just like that, with one virus dominating at a time (amongst this class of highly contagious respiratory viruses).

Is neurological damage in mild cases backed up by data? The only study I saw was based on self reporting and an Internet based IQ test.

Also considering perhaps 30% of the world has had covid now (anyone have the exact figure?) that would be an unbelievable amount of brain damage. I’d think we’d be aware of that if one in three people had recent brain damage.

The CDC estimates that 36% of Americans have been infected so far.

I'm neither a researcher or doctor, but I've seen numerous articles that describe this. Anecdotally, I've had multiple people (acquaintances and family) suffer from neurological effects.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32696341/ https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Current-Research/Coronavirus-and-N...

Thanks for finding some papers but I’m not sure they support OP’s claim.

I’ll admit I don’t understand the first one. Somehow they’re claiming covid causes Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s? How can we know that after less than two years?

The second one is clear to mention “ Most people infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus will have no or mild to moderate symptoms associated with the brain or nervous system. However, most individuals hospitalized due to the virus do have symptoms related to the brain or nervous system, most commonly including muscle aches, headaches, dizziness, and altered taste and smell.”

So They are claiming an effect but not for mild cases like OP said and not really claiming brain damage anyway.

Anyything that makes your immune system work properly will help, the reason Covid is even a subject is that there is a silent epidemic of immunocompromised people, a large number of which are unaware that they are - the kind of people who routinely get sick in the winter, for instance. It's very strange that we are pretending that healthiness doesn't exist or can't be improved. It can, and rather easily and cheaply (yes, Vitamin D is one, but also, especially for Covid, anything that improves vascular function, as the etiology of Covid is closely linked to vascular health... which is where Niacin (vitamin B3), vitamin C, and reducing /eliminating sugar come in).

why does improving vascular function help with dealing with covid?

  > etiology of Covid is closely linked to vascular health...

any links about that? im curious to take a look

If you look up "covid vascular" you'll find plenty of references. Seeing how it affects most people with chronic conditions associated with such problems (hypertension, diabetes), I'm convinced it's a correct assessment.

interesting, thanks, ill take a look

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