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This is an image of the back label on a PolymeraseChainReaction (PCR) test kit currently in widespread use at hospitals around the country.

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Steve Scalise: New York Families Asked Me to Get Coronavirus Data Hidden by Andrew Cuomo

Rep. Steve Scalise (D-LA) said New York families who had loved ones die from coronavirus are contacting his office for help obtaining information from Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) related to nursing home deaths, offering his comments on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

Cuomo neglected to use assets made available to him by the Trump administration as part of New York’s coronavirus response, explained Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Verma also noted that Cuomo and other Democrat governors issued coronavirus-related directives contrary to federal government guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Just in New York, over 2,500 seniors died that should not have died if those [CDC] guidelines were followed,” said Scalise, referring to Cuomo’s policy of placing coronavirus-infected seniors into nursing homes. “So we’ve been trying to get the full data. It’s almost like [Cuomo] is proudly saying, ‘I don’t have to give you the data.’ This is a guy who used to give press conferences for hours at a time talking about transparency and honesty, and he has the data, and he’s bragging that he doesn’t have to show us what really happened in his state.”

Scalise said, “I’ve got more families in New York that have contacted my office telling us to keep fighting to get this data, because they lost loved ones. They lost their moms. They lost their grandparents, and the governor of their own state won’t even tell them what happened and why, because he’s trying to cover this up.”

New York’s true nursing home death toll cloaked in secrecy,” wrote the Associated Press on Tuesday:

New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there.

That statistic could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire.

Cuomo dismissed calls for an independent inquiry of what took place in New York’s nursing home’s a “political” pursuit to undermine him.

https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/08/14/steve-scalise-new-york-families-asked-me-get-coronavirus-data-hidden-andrew-cuomo/

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New studies show risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and death decreases with hydroxychloroquine use

The drug has been politicized in the US

Two recent studies support the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 that can reduce the chance of hospitalization or death, refuting narratives in the media that the drug is dangerous and being pushed by President Donald Trump for political reasons.

Hydroxychloroquine is a relatively cheap and readily available drug that has been used for decades to treat malaria. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors around the world have vouched for positive results seen in patients who take it.

What do the studies say?

A study out of Italy found that HCQ reduces by 30% the risk of death for COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized. The result comes from an observational study of more than 3,400 COVID-19 patients in 33 Italian hospitals.

"We observed that patients treated with hydroxychloroquine had a 30% lower in-hospital mortality rate compared to those not receiving this treatment," said Augusto Di Castelnuovo, epidemiologist at the Neuromed Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, currently at Mediterranea Cardiocentro in Naples. "Our data were subjected to extremely rigorous statistical analysis, taking into account all the variables and possible confounding factors that could come into play. The drug efficacy was evaluated in various subgroups of patients. The positive results of hydroxychloroquine treatment remained unchanged, especially in those patients showing a more evident inflammatory state at the moment of admission to hospital."

Another study, which looked at outpatient cases in New Jersey, found that a prescription of hydroxychloroquine reduced the risk of hospitalization by 47%. Because the study was conducted early in the pandemic, when mostly only symptomatic people were being tested, researchers believe their sample of more than 1,200 patients represents people with relatively more advanced cases of COVID-19.

The study concluded that hydroxychloroquine can be effective when given early after a COVID-19 diagnosis, and the study found there was no increase in negative side effects for people who took the drug. One concern about HCQ has been the potential for it to cause heart problems in some patients.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/new-studies-hcq-covid-hospitalizations-deaths