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South Dakota Chooses Trump Wonder Pills; Minnesota Invests in Covid-19 Testing for Everyone

As doubts mount over hydroxychloroquine, driving Fox News to an embarrassing gaslighting-by-silence over their once-touted wonder drug, South Dakota presses forward with Governor Kristi Noem’s much-vaunted trial of the unproven application of the malaria drug to covid-19. But we’re still short on testing supplies to identify who’s got covid-19 and might need HCQ or treatments with proven benefits.

Meanwhile in Minnesota

Gov. Tim Walz unveiled his much-anticipated “moon shot” testing strategy on Wednesday so that Minnesota can fully track the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused 179 deaths in the state, and diagnose all cases of people with the infectious illness.

Standing with leaders of Mayo Clinic, the University of Minnesota and HealthPartners, the governor said that this $36 million agreement will result in the most aggressive COVID-19 testing program in the nation and allow for the diagnostic testing of as many as 20,000 samples per day — beyond the 5,000 per day that he had said was necessary.

“We are smothering this issue of testing with talent, I would argue, better than any place on this planet,” he said.

While it might take a couple of weeks to reach full capacity, the state already has the ability to test as many as 8,000 samples per day now that its public, private and hospital labs are coordinating efforts, said Jan Malcolm, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health [Jeremy Olson and Briana Bierschbach, “Gov. Tim Walz Announces Plan to Expand COVID-19 Testing,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2020.04.22].

South Dakota’s governor chooses to fawn over Il Duce’s pseudoscience, while Minnesota’s governor chooses to do real practical public health. That difference alone could be enough to tell the kids to move to Minnesota.

30 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2020-04-23 08:01

    New report out says nearly everyone in a NY covid-19 hotspot on ventilators died. I will find the report later.

  2. cibvet 2020-04-23 10:28

    More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study. Researchers found that 28 percent of patients given hydroxychloroquine died, while 11 percent died with normal care.

    Is there no shame in this country that veterans in this country are being used as test subjects for experimental medicine. I would suggest we use facial recognition of the protesters and when they get sick, use them as test subjects.

  3. Mike Livingston 2020-04-23 11:05

    This a copy of an email I sent to mike rounds this am regarding covid=19 oversight. I wonder who profited from the distribution of the HCQ to the VA and dept. of corrections where the expendables are?

    United States Public Health Service Modernization Act of 2019 (S. 2629) — Senators Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Doug Jones (D-Ala.): This bill will allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a ready reserve of public health professionals to ensure we are prepared to respond to a national or public health emergency.

    The country is in a crisis and playing the blame and shame game makes it worse, and whenever someone involved in governance resists oversight I can’t help but wonder what they are trying to hide. The Executive Branch and the Attorney General are apparently conspiring to usurp the power from the so called equal branches at the behest of the oligarchs. In my opinion if there is ever a time to invoke the 25th amendment this is it.
    Respectfully Mike Livingston

  4. jerry 2020-04-23 11:19

    Avera and Sanford agreed to the madhatter’s plot so they can make more money treating the heart ailments/disease they caused with fraudulent drug plan. We are told this is a war so then

    “Nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners, including children, by Nazi Germany in its concentration camps in the early to mid 1940s, during World War II and the Holocaust. Chief target populations included Romani, Sinti, ethnic Poles, Soviet POWs, disabled Germans, and Jews from across Europe.” Let the good times roll. If you have dementia, you’re in the front of the line.

  5. mike from iowa 2020-04-23 11:32

    That was the one, Mr Newquist. Many thanks from low infection rate (so far) NW iowa.

  6. Jenny 2020-04-23 13:12

    https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/04/20/days-after-liberate-minnesota-tweet-pres-trump-says-he-received-a-very-nice-call-from-gov-walz/
    Our Governor Walz is the real deal, he knows how to get things done and works long hours to do it and understands it takes teamwork. It doesn’t hurt that Walz is also a very personable and genuine leader and leaves the politics out of it when he needs help from the White House.
    It is nice to live in a state where there is true leadership and compassion for the people. I feel sorry for South Dakotans to have such lack of concern from their Governor Palin. Having a sense of decency goes a long way and Noem doesn’t have that way. She’s too stubborn to budge.
    PS I dare say, Even Orange Man came away liking Walz. :)

  7. Moses6 2020-04-23 14:47

    The Spencer Nebraska boy has done a good job trying to contain the virus in Minnesota, unlike the subsidy queen.Or the mayor I was for it before I was against it great actor.

  8. DaveFromNowhere 2020-04-23 15:35

    Be careful about citing the recently published VA study as proof of the inefficacy or lack of safety of hydroxychloroquine for COVID19.

    Although it was among the largest studies with 368 patients the study was not a randomized, controlled study, hence does not rise to the level of scientifically accepted “proof” of anything, anymore than do the many anecdotal reports which tout the success of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. In other words, the VA study is also best regarded as anecdotal at this time.

    The conclusion of the VA study specified: “These findings highlight the importance of awaiting the results of ongoing prospective, randomized, controlled studies before widespread adoption of these drugs [hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin].” https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1.full.pdf

    Randomized, controlled studies of chloroquine/hydroxychloroqine are currently in progress at Columbia University in NYC and Washington University in St. Louis–which is why I question the need for South Dakota to conduct a separate study, other than for supposed political reasons.

  9. jerry 2020-04-23 17:11

    trump, EB5 Rounds and Tall guy Thune hate veterans. They’ve always hated us veterans with their actions. They speak empty words and promises, but you don’t have to scratch their surface very hard to see the hate. They’re killing our healthcare workers, the ones who care for those who served with many being fellow veterans. Forcing the sharing of masks, our third world system is broken.

    “BOSTON (AP) — As she treated patient after patient infected with the coronavirus at a Veterans Affairs medical center in New York City, Heather Espinal saw stark warning signs.

    So many nurses had called in sick, she said, that the Bronx facility was woefully understaffed. It lacked specially equipped rooms for infected patients, she said, and didn’t have enough masks, gloves and other protective gear to guard against the spread of the highly contagious disease.

    Espinal, a member of the union National Nurses United, says she and her colleagues were told to do the best they could, using a single N95 face mask for an entire shift rather than getting a new one for each patient. In early April, she tested positive for COVID-19.” https://apnews.com/2e86b87b7e14a56a95518e8fb4127a4b?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

    No paper in the state will ask these crooks and liars directly to defend their inaction’s either. These two frauds sit in the majority Senate and yet, they do nothing…Ever..

  10. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2020-04-23 18:08

    DaveFromNowhere, how well equipped are South Dakota’s private healthcare providers to conduct such research compared to the universities you mention? How do the sample populations on which they can test HCQ compare to the populations those universities will be studying?

  11. Debbo 2020-04-23 18:17

    The Roger Cornelius Memorial Cartoon by Marty Two Bulls

    is.gd/Rt9OzR

  12. John 2020-04-23 19:39

    Note quite on topic, but NY Gov Andrew Cuomo cranked the Senator McConnell and republicant nonsense out of the park today.
    McConnell mused the states, cities, counties, could declare bankruptcy rather than receive federal recovery assistance.

    Gov Cuomo countered that if the states of NY, Michigan, Illinois, California – declared bankruptcy that would crated the US economy. Perhaps those governors should consider of letter of intent that if they do not receive recovery assistance by May First, that they’ll consider Senator McConnell’s suggestion.

    Gov Cuomo continued noting that NY state pays far more into the federal government than it receives. On the other hand, Kentucky [and other red states] are the true bail out states receiving far more in federal hand outs and aid than those states provide funds for in taxes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vON5QhGU1AM

    It’s long past the time for South Dakota to stop being a welfare state. Cancel the sales tax exemptions. Tax the estate industry [that’s where the real money is.] It’s long past the time for South Dakota to START acting as if it were self-reliant.

  13. Debbo 2020-04-23 20:14

    This illustrates the thoroughness with which the Democratic Minnesota Gov. Walz administration is addressing this pandemic. It’s really stunning.

    is.gd/ZRzTaU

  14. Richard Schriever 2020-04-24 08:06

    Hey DaveFromNowhere, Do Trump’s views on hydroxychloroquine EVEN rise to the level of anecdotal anything? Or are they strictly a personal dream/belief?

    PS, Are you really a scientist – or not? “Anecdeotal evidence” is still “evidence”.

  15. Richard Schriever 2020-04-24 08:21

    PPS, NONE of these studied will be true “random selection” and thus generalizable to the population as a whole. They are all restricted to patients in the control of the various individual experimenters. While they may be randomly ASSIGNED from within those groups, those groups on the whole will not contain randomly selected individuals, they will likely contain ONLY patients who are ill enough to be hospitalized.

    SOME of those those patients will include random “assignment” to treatment variation(s). They MAY in fact also contain variant strains of the virus. They MAY also be receiving varying levels of OTHER treatment(s). Therefore there will be all sorts of possible INTERACTION effects at play. This all makes for a very “dirty” experiment from a pure research design POV.

    But then again they will NOT be strictly anecdotal.

    Compromises of this sort are the best one can do in light of the situation. And FYI – there have been similar experiments using CH18H26CIN30 in other countries (Brazil and Italy jump to top of mind) with results similar to the VA study.

  16. Robin Friday 2020-04-24 16:27

    When a president answers a question from a legitimate member of the press who asks a question in public with “Because I’m the president and you’re fake news”, that’s not a leader. I am appalled at this level of mentality in our supposed leader. I have been appalled before, but Mark is right, it’s time to take him out. And by that I mean nothing but remove him from the presidency. And NOW, not wait for November. That’s what the 25th Amendment is for. And I know that can’t happen with our current Senate either, but we as a people need to get him delivered out of the White House and delivered back to his ivory/gold tower–or at least overseen by an Alzheimer’s unit. I haven’t previously been one of those who says “dementia”, I think it’s more neurosis, but whatever it is, it’s worsening with age and stress and temperamental unsuitability for where he is.

  17. mike from iowa 2020-04-24 16:29

    Time or past time for the 25th amendment, Robin.

    Last updated: April 24, 2020, 21:21 GMT
    United States
    Coronavirus Cases:
    912,908
    Deaths:
    51,609

  18. Robin Friday 2020-04-24 17:07

    yes, Mike. It’s just that I’m so appalled at the road this has taken. I’ve been appalled all along but there comes a time. . .

  19. jerry 2020-04-24 17:08

    Turns out that trump was a paid shill for this guy. There is nothing that these republicans won’t do for a buck.

    “The leader of the most prominent group in the US peddling potentially lethal industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for coronavirus wrote to Donald Trump at the White House this week.

    In his letter, Mark Grenon told Trump that chlorine dioxide – a powerful bleach used in industrial processes such as textile manufacturing that can have fatal side-effects when drunk – is “a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body”. He added that it “can rid the body of Covid-19”.

    A few days after Grenon dispatched his letter, Trump went on national TV at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on Thursday and promoted the idea that disinfectant could be used as a treatment for the virus. To the astonishment of medical experts, the US president said that disinfectant “knocks it out in a minute. One minute!” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus

  20. jerry 2020-04-24 17:13

    We still don’t know who trump was the middle man for regarding the injections of sunlight. Could be the Mr. Pillow man as he kind of seems a little weird, but hey, injecting sunlight might make you feel that way. One things for sure, the grift continues, even when we are at almost 52,000 dead people.

  21. jerry 2020-04-24 17:24

    Putin has hurt his knee from slapping it so hard while laughing, even Little Kim perked up from his hospital bed and proclaimed “See, I told you he was a dotard”. The only ones who are still on the dark side with trump are EB5 Rounds, Tall Guy Thune and Dirty Johnson…oh and Pickles, the South Dakota governor.

  22. mike from iowa 2020-04-24 19:22

    Last updated: April 25, 2020, 00:18 GMT
    United States
    Coronavirus Cases:
    923,634
    Deaths:
    52,092

  23. mike from iowa 2020-04-25 12:04

    drumpf body count opening bid…..

    Last updated: April 25, 2020, 17:01 GMT
    United States
    Coronavirus Cases:
    931,544
    Deaths:
    52,936

  24. mike from iowa 2020-04-26 14:25

    drumpf body count….

    Last updated: April 26, 2020, 19:20 GMT
    United States
    Coronavirus Cases:
    977,572
    Deaths:
    55,009

    One change I have noted is those recovered from Covid 19 have now doubled the death count.

  25. Debbo 2020-04-26 17:59

    Sheila Kennedy ponders why there are still people who support Medical Moron. With help from the Guardian, she posits 3 answers:

    1. “uneducated or stupid people who occupy an ‘alternative fact’ universe”

    2. “plutocrats and other beneficiaries of fiscal favoritism who care about nothing but their own pocketbooks”

    3. “fear of being ‘replaced,’ of losing White Christian male privilege”

    is.gd/6Xh35Q

  26. leslie 2020-04-26 19:22

    Trump is a crisis happening amidst a crisis. Thursday Limbaugh and Hannity were still rationalizing Trump’s idiocy concerning ingestion of lysol and UV light. When Dems throw him out of office it will take years to repair Republican damage they used him as their puppet to inflict on the rest of us. We have 10 years to cut carbon emissions by half.

Comments are closed.