What’s Newt Reading; April 15, 2020

What Newt’s Reading Dr. Fauci clarified his weekend remarks and explained to the media that President Trump is listening to the experts as part of his decision-making process. – Newt Fauci Fires Back at Media, Says Trump Has Gone Ahead With Every Recommendation By Virginia Kruta Daily Caller Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday that President Trump listens to and acts on his and other experts’ recommendations to fight the coronavirus. Fauci explained at a briefing from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, of which he is a member, that a hypothetical answer he gave during an interview the prior day had led a number of news outlets to suggest the president had ignored calls from experts to “shut down” the country. Fauci clarified that President Trump accepted his initial recommendation to issue guidelines for social distancing and, later, another recommendation to extend social distancing for more weeks. “CBS’ Paula Reid asked Fauci whether he was clarifying the comment voluntarily or because he’d been instructed to do so, prompting Fauci to rebuff her. ‘I am doing it — everything I do is voluntary, please. Don’t even imply that,’ he said.” Dr. Scott Gottlieb is exactly right in defining therapies for COVID-19 as the key to economic recovery. The Trump administration should focus as much on finding and publicizing effective therapies as on mitigation. – Newt Bet Big on Treatments for Coronavirus By Scott Gottlieb Wall Street Journal Even if the coronavirus stalls or the number of cases decrease in the summer, the virus will return in the fall — along with the prospect of large outbreaks. The economy will also not return to normal even when the lockdowns end, as people will still be reluctant to crowd in stores and restaurants. “The only way out is with technology. Aggressive surveillance and screening can help warn of new infection clusters that could turn into outbreaks, but that won’t be enough. A vaccine could beat the virus, but there won’t be one this year. The best near-term hope: an effective therapeutic drug. That would be transformative, and it’s plausible as soon as this summer. But the process will have to move faster.” There are two promising approaches to move such a drug to market. One approach involves “antiviral drugs that target the virus and block its replication.” The other approach involves antibody drugs, which “mimic the function of immune cells” to fight infection and reduce the risk of contracting the coronavirus. Manufacturers and regulators, especially the Food and Drug Administration, need to collaborate with drug developers in innovative ways to accelerate the process. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as a polio survivor from his childhood, discusses the similarities between the fear and uncertainty with today's COVID-19 and the poliovirus from before the 1950s. - Newt For McConnell, Virus Carries Echo of His Boyhood Polio By Lisa Mascaro Associated Press Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s earliest childhood memory is the day he left the polio treatment center at Warm Springs, Georgia, for the last time. As a young boy, McConnell fought polio, and he carries that experience with him today during the coronavirus pandemic. “Why does this current pandemic remind me of that? I think No. 1 is the fear,” McConnell said in an interview with the Associated Press. “And the uncertainty you have when there’s no pathway forward on either treatment or a vaccine and that was the situation largely in polio before 1954.” McConnell added that he wants more money for health care in the next congressional aid package to help find a vaccine for the coronavirus, noting how impactful the polio vaccine was. I’m glad to see South Dakota and Gov. Kristi Noem take initiative by launching a full clinical trial to test hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness in treating the coronavirus. - Newt South Dakota Launches Clinical Trial of Hydroxychloroquine By Nathaniel Weixel The Hill South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said Monday that her state will be the first in the country to conduct a full clinical trial to test the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating and potentially preventing the coronavirus. The study will initially include 2,000 outpatient individuals exposed to the virus, including front-line health care workers and other high-risk patients. Hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria, but there is anecdotal evidence that the drug is also effective in treating the coronavirus. President Trump and others have advocated seeing whether the drug could be a possible treatment for the virus. "Our goal is to meaningfully advance the science around COVID-19 so physicians can be better prepared to respond to and treat this novel virus in the future, especially for our populations most at-risk,” Sanford Health's chief medical officer, Allison Suttle, said in a statement. “By doing clinical trials during this pandemic, we are trying to find treatments and, thereby, hope.” (Gingrich 360 works with Sanford health.) Beijing is censoring Chinese scientists’ academic research on the coronavirus, knowing any objective study to investigate its origins would show the Communist Party initially suppressed news of the virus and faked data that misled the world about the scope of the coming threat. - Newt China Squelches Science in Latest Coronavirus Coverup By The Editorial Board New York Post The Chinese government is censoring Chinese scientists’ papers on the coronavirus, suppressing research that exposes the ruling Communist Party’s bungling as the local outbreak became a global pandemic. The Ministry of Education issued a directive saying, “Academic papers about tracing the origin of the virus must be strictly and tightly managed.” As a result, multiple Chinese universities had to delete online notices of forthcoming papers. One Chinese researcher told CNN that this censorship is a “coordinated effort from to control narrative and paint it as if the outbreak did not originate in China.” There is much that we still don’t know about the virus, and scientists need all the data they can get to help policymakers figure out how to stop the pandemic and end or reduce global lockdowns. But the Chinese government knows that any objective study to investigate the origin of the virus will show the Communist Party initially suppressed news of the virus and faked data that misled the world’s experts about the scope of the coming threat.hinac

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