I know this isn’t answering your question, but how could this claim possibly make any sense? To slow the country-wide transmission rate substantially with a prophylactic intervention, wouldn’t you have to give it to similarly many people as you give vaccines?
They did give it prophylactically to a lot of people. In Goa they prescribed it to all people over 18. According to Google the COVID-19 case rate peaked in Goa on May 11, 2021 which is a day after the decision to give out ivermectin prophylactically. I would guess that everybody in Goa who has access to COVID-19 testing also has access to ivermectin.
After the state Congress chief of Goa Girish Chodankar tweeted on May 23, 2021 that giving out ivermectin prophylactically is a scam you get a short spike up again in the COVID-19 data. This is an anecdote and not proof, but it’s a good anecdote. People frequently argue that government policy on issue X worked frequently with worse data.
Uttarakhand decided a day later then Goa to give out ivermectin and also had a day after their anouncement their peak according to the Google data.
If you believe the case number to be real and not faked to make ivermectin look good this is a huge coindidence. It’s also a bit odd that the efffect is immediately after the anouncement.
Thanks for explaining, that sounds interesting. I remain skeptical about the numbers, though, because (a) it just seems so odd that a country with 4% vaccination percentage now distributed something useful successfully to enough people to significantly reduce spread, and (b) the timing sounds too coincidental to me, and not very plausible. But there’s maybe a >1% chance that there’s something interesting going on here. :)
I think the vaccination rate is mainly low because of supply issues with the vaccine. On the other hand ivermectin is easier to produce and given that it was used for treatment before that point pharmacies likely had stocked it.
People in remote villages without any access to vaccines or ivermectin likely won’t get COVID-19 test, so I expect them to not be in the offical case count. The case count is likely only counting those that have access to the medical system.
A recent meta analysis found ‘Low-certainty evidence found that ivermectin prophylaxis reduced COVID-19 infection by an average 86% (95% confidence interval 79%–91%).’
If ivermectin did have that effect, it’s plausible that you see immediate effects on the case rate. Currently, we only have that low-certainty evidence from trials and the case studies from India I spoke about above, so I don’t have any certainty that this is what actually happens.
Given that the reduction of 86% through ivermectin would likely be independent of vaccines, common knowledge that ivermectin works might allow us to easily drive SARS-CoV-2 to exstintion if it works.
There were calls in 2018 to investigate repurposing Ivermectin for influenza. The best case scenario would be that it works prophylactically against flu as well and we get rid of flu while we are at it.
There’s a lot of uncertainty here, but there the potential of a lot of value to be gained, so the value of information is very high.
They did give it prophylactically to a lot of people. In Goa they prescribed it to all people over 18. According to Google the COVID-19 case rate peaked in Goa on May 11, 2021 which is a day after the decision to give out ivermectin prophylactically. I would guess that everybody in Goa who has access to COVID-19 testing also has access to ivermectin.
After the state Congress chief of Goa Girish Chodankar tweeted on May 23, 2021 that giving out ivermectin prophylactically is a scam you get a short spike up again in the COVID-19 data. This is an anecdote and not proof, but it’s a good anecdote. People frequently argue that government policy on issue X worked frequently with worse data.
Uttarakhand decided a day later then Goa to give out ivermectin and also had a day after their anouncement their peak according to the Google data.
If you believe the case number to be real and not faked to make ivermectin look good this is a huge coindidence. It’s also a bit odd that the efffect is immediately after the anouncement.
Thanks for explaining, that sounds interesting. I remain skeptical about the numbers, though, because (a) it just seems so odd that a country with 4% vaccination percentage now distributed something useful successfully to enough people to significantly reduce spread, and (b) the timing sounds too coincidental to me, and not very plausible. But there’s maybe a >1% chance that there’s something interesting going on here. :)
I think the vaccination rate is mainly low because of supply issues with the vaccine. On the other hand ivermectin is easier to produce and given that it was used for treatment before that point pharmacies likely had stocked it.
People in remote villages without any access to vaccines or ivermectin likely won’t get COVID-19 test, so I expect them to not be in the offical case count. The case count is likely only counting those that have access to the medical system.
A recent meta analysis found ‘Low-certainty evidence found that ivermectin prophylaxis reduced COVID-19 infection by an average 86% (95% confidence interval 79%–91%).’
If ivermectin did have that effect, it’s plausible that you see immediate effects on the case rate. Currently, we only have that low-certainty evidence from trials and the case studies from India I spoke about above, so I don’t have any certainty that this is what actually happens.
Given that the reduction of 86% through ivermectin would likely be independent of vaccines, common knowledge that ivermectin works might allow us to easily drive SARS-CoV-2 to exstintion if it works.
There were calls in 2018 to investigate repurposing Ivermectin for influenza. The best case scenario would be that it works prophylactically against flu as well and we get rid of flu while we are at it.
There’s a lot of uncertainty here, but there the potential of a lot of value to be gained, so the value of information is very high.