Category Archives: Mr. Corona

My sweetheart is pretty amazing. Not only is she tall , athletic, and beautiful, but she has one more advanced degree than me, is a “push-hard” doctor (PhD), unlike her “muddle through” (MD) husband. As a senior scientist for NASA, she helped put together the space station and plan missions to Mars. She’s now aContinue reading “wifey’s turn”

Back on March 19, I posted “smokin’ corona” (https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/326).  Inspired by meeting some old girlfriends outside the hospital by the bus stop for a “break”, I had to wonder if their habit of periodically bathing their lungs with toxic tobacco smoke might even be protecting them from Mr. corona.  Ultimately I concluded alas no.  PatientsContinue reading “smoke ’em if you got ’em?”

Distillers from all over the country are converting their operations from making perfectly good and much needed booze into making hand sanitizer.  I’d first heard this as a joke, directed at entrepreneurs converting their operations into COVID-19 activities. I first became aware of it when my favorite whiskey distiller, Traverse City Bay Whiskey, sent meContinue reading “how clean?”

In my March 22 blog post, describing each of the drugs the Chinese had been using to treat COVID-19, I mentioned the agent remsdesivir, which works by acting as a nucleotide analog of adenosine (remember the 4 letters of the language of God: ATGC https://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/1416542744/ref=sr_1_1?crid=149QA07AXVVM1&keywords=the+language+of+god&qid=1584884234&sprefix=the+langua%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-1), taken up into the new RNA being made by the virusContinue reading “remdesivir”

In looking for something else in Journal-Lancet, the long defunct journal of the South Dakota State Medical Society, I came across this article in the 1919 volume, written by Dr. Morton Field of Northfield, Minnesota. The Spanish Flu epidemic was still raging and he decided to treat some of his patients with quinine. Lo andContinue reading “1919”

The rare times I’m out and about these days, I don’t see too many smiles.  I don’t think that’s because everyone is terribly depressed, but people are anxious and many if not most are covering up their faces for protection from dreaded Mr. Corona.  But does this make any sense, or are people just clingingContinue reading “Who was that masked man?”

On March 30th, in plenty of time to avoid being taken for an April Fool’s joke, California Governor Gavin Newsome issued executive order N-39-20  https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.30.20-EO-N-39-20-text.pdf giving the Director of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) the authority to waive professional licensing requirements for the healing arts boards under DCA during the COVID-19 State of Emergency.  AnyContinue reading “Come back West, old man?”

An article in the New York Times yesterday gave a face to a controversial treatment for COVID-19 that’s been the stuff of rumors for weeks https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/technology/doctor-zelenko-coronavirus-drugs.html.  Dr. Zev Zelenko, primary care doctor to his community of 35,000 Hadassic Jews in Kiryas Joel, about an hour’s drive from Manhattan, has been treating even mild cases withContinue reading “Want a Z-Pac with that Plaquenil?”

On Sunday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the Health and Human Services’(HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (ASPAR’s BARDA) for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for coronavirus treatment. The agency allowed for the drugs to be “donated to the StrategicContinue reading “Hello Plaquenil! You too, Aralen”

The Department of Internal Medicine (my home) at the University of Michigan Medical Center devoted its weekly Grand Rounds to a discussion of the first 30 days of COVID-19 here. Just last week, the hospital opened a new ward – the 32 bed RICU (Regional Infectious Containment Unit) – devoted to the care of COVID-19Continue reading “Michigan COVID-19 Update”