Why Are So Many People In Italy Dying Of The Coronavirus?

One of the great mysteries of this coronavirus pandemic has been the widely varying death rates that we have been witnessing all over the globe. For example, the death rate in Italy has been many times higher than the death rate in South Korea, and that has greatly puzzled the experts. Initially I thought that perhaps Italy was dealing with a different strain of the virus than South Korea was, and that may still turn out to be true once we learn more. But another potential factor has emerged that I wanted to share with my readers, because it has to do with something that might be in your medicine cabinet right now. Health authorities in Europe are now warning that ibuprofen may accelerate the multiplication of the virus, and they are instructing everyone not to use it.

On Saturday, the health minister of France sparked headlines all over the globe when he tweeted the following

“The taking of anti-inflammatories [ibuprofen, cortisone … ] could be a factor in aggravating the infection. In case of fever, take paracetamol. If you are already taking anti-inflammatory drugs, ask your doctor’s advice.”

Unfortunately, many people in Europe have been immediately reaching for ibuprofen once they get the virus because they want something that will help them deal with the pain.

In fact, researchers discovered that most Italians that developed serious complications once they caught the coronavirus had been taking ibuprofen at home

They studied why the disease pathway in Italy is more serious, finding that most patients took ibuprofen at home. Researchers joined the virus and ibuprofen in the laboratory and came to the conclusion that administering ibuprofen accelerates multiplication of the virus and is related to a more serious course of the disease. They recommend to avoid ibuprofen and to administer paracetamol, aspirin, diclofenac.

Consultant Pediatrician in London John Greenwood was quoted as saying: “We have just been sent a medical alert that no one is to use anti-inflammatories (e.g. Ibruprofen, Voltarol, naproxen, and others) for pain or high temperature. Use paracetamol instead. There seems to be a link between severe cases of COVID-19 affecting young people with no underlying illnesses and taking anti-inflammatories. Initial reports started coming from French doctors on Friday. This has been confirmed by infectious diseases consultants here – there are four young people in ICU in Cork who have no underlying illnesses – all were taking anti-inflammatories and there are concerns this has caused a more severe illness.”

This information needs to get out to everyone as quickly as possible, but so far the mainstream media in the United States has been very slow to pick up on this story.

And that is extremely unfortunate, because accurate information could make the difference between life and death in a lot of cases.

On Facebook, a British man named Dan Collins shared what happened when he gave his very young daughter ibuprofen to treat her coronavirus infection…

To those of you that have children please read

If your child has symptoms of corona virus, DO NOT give them ibuprofen

Amelia’s been unwell since Tuesday, cough, fever, cold. This morning she came into my room and got into my bed burning hot and not wanting to get up. Anyone that knows Amelia knows that this isn’t like her at all! Once she’s awake she’s awake and spends the day bouncing off the walls! We took her temperature and it was 38, along with every other symptom of corona virus, so called 111 who said they’d send out paramedics within 2 hours to check on her

We couldn’t get calpol anywhere in staple hill yesterday so got nurofen instead thinking nothing of it, within an hour of giving her nurofen she dropped dramatically. She was panting while trying to breathe, her heart rate was very rapid, she couldn’t keep her eyes open, couldn’t lift her head up, her body was shaking, she started being sick on herself and her temperature had risen to 39.4!

We called back up and they sent out an emergency ambulance, once the paramedics got here they managed to bring her temp and stats down a bit, they’re still higher than normal but not dangerous high anymore. Now she’s back on calpol she’s back to just being her poorly self. The paramedics only told us while here that were not to give her ibuprofen!

The paramedic said about self isolating and calling back if her temp rises that high again, so I asked if it’s just for the 7 days as it’s already been 5 days but they said that as she has all symptoms were to keep her isolated until all symptoms are gone.

So please don’t give them ibuprofen!

For those that aren’t familiar with “Nurofen”, the primary active ingredient it contains is ibuprofen.

If we don’t get the word out about this, a lot of otherwise mild cases could become very serious, and our hospitals will be even more overwhelmed.

In the United Kingdom, one doctor is already warning of a complete and utter national nightmare.  The following comes from an article entitled “I’m a Doctor in Britain. We’re Heading Into the Abyss.”

Ten days ago, I was asked to see a patient. I’m a respiratory specialist in an intensive-care unit at a hospital in London, so it wasn’t surprising that the patient needed a ventilator. It seemed fairly typical. But the patient turned out to have the coronavirus — our hospital’s first case and one of nearly 2,000 people who have so far tested positive in Britain. I hadn’t worn a mask. Soon I developed a cough.

Though I experienced neither fever nor breathlessness, I was told to self-isolate for 14 days. That’s where I am now, in self-isolation. And I’m not the only one from my hospital. After just one patient with Covid-19, a quarter of our junior staff are off with coughs and sniffles we would normally work through. A single case of the coronavirus has wreaked havoc in our hospital.

Of course the U.S. is facing a similar scenario.

In fact, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio just warned that his city “will run out of medical supplies” in just a matter of weeks…

New York City has recorded 1664 new cases of COVID-19 in a single day, taking the total number to 3615.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the shocking statistic in a press conference held Thursday afternoon, with the official number soaring by over 1000 in the hours since state Governor Andrew Cuomo updated the public earlier in the morning.

He later told CNN that the city will run out of medical supplies in between two and three weeks if infections continue at the current rate.

And New York City pediatric surgeon Cornelia Griggs just wrote an open letter to the New York Times in which she proclaimed that “the sky is falling”, and she ominously warned that we are about to face an absolutely unprecedented public health crisis that we are not ready for

Alarmist is not a word anyone has ever used to describe me before. I’m a board-certified surgeon and critical care specialist who spent much of my training attending to traumas in the emergency room and doing the rounds at Harvard hospitals’ intensive care units. I’m now in my last four months of training as a pediatric surgeon in New York City. Part of my job entails waking in the middle of the night to rush to the children’s hospital to put babies on a form of life support called ECMO, a service required when a child’s lungs are failing even with maximum ventilator support. Scenarios that mimic end-stage Covid-19 are part of my job. Panic is not in my vocabulary; the emotion has been drilled out of me in nine years of training. This is different.

We are living in a global public health crisis moving at a speed and scale never witnessed by living generations. The cracks in our medical and financial systems are being splayed open like a gashing wound. No matter how this plays out, life will forever look a little different for all of us.

Anyone that is not taking this outbreak seriously at this point is just being delusional.

One patient that survived the virus says that she constantly felt like she had glass in her lungs, the Washington Post is projecting that 1.1 million Americans could die in a “worst-case scenario”, and the virus is now starting to make a big time comeback in countries where it was thought to be contained.

It appears that we are going to be fighting this virus for a long time to come, and it is absolutely critical that we get people the information that they desperately need.

Unfortunately, many in the mainstream media appear to be more concerned about what their advertisers will think, and that is extremely unfortunate.


Originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse.