The White House is 0-for-3 on touting Covid cures. Will number four be the charm?

Coming September 1st to your phone or inbox: The NPC Healthbiz Weekly, a weekly briefing on topics pertinent to healthcare marketers and executives. From Chronicle Companies, organizers of the 14th National Pharmaceutical Congress, which begins Oct. 21. More info at pharmacongress.info

⇒ Issue #103 (In numerology, 103 is pragmatic and self‑reliant.)
⇒ Confirmed Covid cases in Canada as of 08/28: 128,836*
⇒ Confirmed Covid fatalities in Canada as of 08/28: 9,148*
⇒ Worldwide Covid cases as of 08/28: 24,487,569*
⇒ Worldwide Covid fatalities as of 08/28: 832,378*

August 28, 2020— Welcome to your end-of-the-week edition of the Daily CurveFlattener. Eagerly waiting to welcome in the weekend (and just as eager to give you your Covid-19 update) is editorial assistant Jeremy Visser.

It has been impossible to follow Covid-19 updates recently without also following American politics. U.S. President Donald J. Trump has been infamous for shouting out his newest Covid cureall from the rooftops. Most famous was hydroxychloroquine, but we cannot forget the "We could maybe bring the ultraviolet light inside the body," or the more recent support of oleandrin, with a little help from the My Pillow guy (see DCF passim.) 

The most recent of Pres. Trump's ever-evolving repertoire of suggestions is blood plasma treatment. After accusing the FDA of purposefully delaying the Covid-19 vaccine trials for political purposes, he turned around and used the emergency authorization of plasma treatment, announced a day before the Republican National Convention, as the main talking point during the RNC. He termed his decree a "very historic breakthrough".

Replacing Mr. My Pillow as Trumps' Pharmaceutical Pitchman is the Commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Hahn, who claimed that "Thirty-five more people out of 100 would survive the coronavirus if they were treated with the plasma." After howls of outrage from scientists and former FDA officials, who pointed out that Dr. Hahn was grossly overstating preliminary findings of the Mayo Clinic observations, Hahn responded to set the record state.

Dr. Hahn used Twitter to clarify that "the criticism is entirely justified. What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction, not an absolute risk reduction."

COVID CHRONICLE 08/28/2020

• McMaster University associate professor and hematologist Dr. Donald Arnold is heading the proposed Convalescent Plasma for Covid-19 Research (CONCOR) trial to test the efficacy and safety of treating Covid patients with blood plasma.
• In a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Public Health and Surveillance, researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have found a majority of fraudulent Covid-19 posts on Twitter and Instagram. The posts contain links to financial scams and possible counterfeit goods for Covid-19 products and unapproved treatments.
• An article posted in JAMA Network Open looked at 62 community health workers in India who counselled patients and were at risk of contracting Covid-19.  19% of the workers contracted Covid-19 and were then compared to workers who continued to provide counselling after adding a face shield to their PPE equipment. The study suggested that adding face shields to regular PPE may have led to reduced ocular exposure or contamination of masks or hands, resulting in no further workers contracting Covid-19.
• An article posted in CMAJ looked at Covid-19 rates among Canadian Indigenous peoples. Those living on First Nations reserves had only one-quarter of the positive cases of the general population, as well as a fatality rate one-fifth of the general population. Health officials have attributed these differences to "extraordinary" public health measures taken by Indigenous communities.

WHAT CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON TODAY

I'm working on an article for our Chronicle of Healthcare Marketing that details the first episode of the NPC Podcast, in which Peter Brenders interviews Durhane Wong-Rieger from the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders. It ties together several other episodes and will have links to those as well as our past NPC Webinars.

RIGHT NOW WE ARE LISTENING TO... 

Periphery IV: HAIL STAN. Not especially new, but as I get back into waking up early enough to beat the heat for a run, this album makes its way alongside the rest of Periphery's discography for some excellent, angry running music. I find the best motivator for putting your feet to the pavement is to put some metal to your ears.


TONIGHT WE ARE READING... 

House of Blades by Will Wight. As my colleague Kylie Rebernik starts my book club recommendation, I'm rushing to finish his first trilogy before I start his most celebrated novel. Shh. Don't tell her.


HOW IS YOUR WEEK GOING?

Please make use of the comments section at the Daily CurveFlattener, to let us know what you're up to today. Or feel free to check in via LinkedIn, email, or your choice of connector. By all means, pass this newsletter along to your colleagues.


Stay in touch, stay safe and enjoy your weekend. Watch for your copy of Skin Spectrum Weekly on Monday, Aug. 31 and the new NPC Healthbiz Weekly on Tuesday, Sept. 1. Editorial Director Allan Ryan will be back on Wednesday, Sept. 2 to resume your Covid-19 updates.