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I was not aware that Nordstrom sells Birdies — but if you've been looking for an elevated slipper/mule that's super comfortable that you can wear outside or inside, they're getting great reviews. I really kind of like these feather-trimmed mules, which are a nice way of adding a little bit of fancy while you're at home or running errands. They're 40% off, too — they were $140 full price but are now $83.98. You can see the entire collection of Birdies here, and you can get $20 off your first order with this referral code. The Lovebird Feather Trim Mule
This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!
Sales of note for 8.30.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – 30% off full-price purchase; $99 jackets, dresses & shoes; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off
- Bergdorf Goodman – Final Days Designer Sale, up to 75% off; extra 20% off sale
- Boden – 20% off
- Brooks Brothers – Extra 25% off clearance
- Eloquii – Up to 60% off everything; extra 60% off all sale
- J.Crew – 40% off sitewide; extra 60% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 20% off orders $125+; extra 60% off clearance; 60%-70% off 100s of styles
- Lo & Sons – Summer sale, up to 50% off (ends 9/2)
- Madewell – Extra 40% off sale; extra 50% off select denim; 25% off fall essentials
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Rothy's – End of season sale, up to 50% off
- Spanx – Lots of workwear in the big sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 25% off regular-price purchase; 70% off clearance
- White House Black Market – Up to 70% off sale
Some of our latest posts here at Corporette…
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Anon
I’m 99% sure this slipper is a character from Fraggle Rock.
Anonymous
HAHAHA I cackled at this. Thanks for the afternoon laugh!
Pure Imagination
This has to be a late April Fool’s joke. $140 full price??!!?!
Elegant Giraffe
That was my reaction too. So hideous.
Ellen
I would not wear this at Dad’s house. He went out to pick up his copy of the NY Times wearing a pair of slippers and stepped in poopie. I can’t imagine how much of that poopie would have stuck to these fuzzy mules! DOUBEL FOOEY!
Vicky Austin
My first thought was “wait, which Muppet is that?”
ohMinnow
ahahahahaha!
No Longer Anon
I was going to say Sesame Street costume leftovers.
Anonymous
Red Fraggle?
crim lawyer
I love this but I would look ridic, the shoe would never stay on my foot and it would look like garbage due to the snow and muck everywhere where I live. Maybe one day :)
Housecounsel
This is just the thing missing from my global pandemic wardrobe.
lady in red
I have ladybug slippers this color . . . is that considered business professional?
Monday
For Zoom, absolutely! It’s like having a face for radio–you have shoes for Zoom.
Anon
This made me LOL. Shoes for Zoom.
cathy
What are some blogs you read during the work day?
I know this question sounds awful, but I just need a brief distraction when switching between work tasks. I literally read one tweet or one comment here, less than a minute of distraction, but looking for things like that.
Pure Imagination
I don’t really read blogs during the work day, but I keep checking Callie Coles’ Instagram account obsessively. The combination of wide open spaces, horses, ponies, cute British children, and chickens is getting me through the day today. It’s great for 30 seconds of distraction.
BB
Totally random list: Ask A Manager blog, Slate’s Dear Prudence, Lucy Knisley’s Twitter (fun comic book artist)
Vicky Austin
I LOVE Lucy Knisley! I go back and reread her tribute to Linney more often than I like to admit.
BB
OMG the one where she has to let him go? I’ve read that SOOOO many times and it’s an instant tear jerker for me. I ugly cried when I first read it! So beautiful! I can’t wait for her Linney book next year, and have you seen her new “foster” kitty?!
BB
let her* go…I always forget she was a rare orange girl kitty
Vicky Austin
Foster kitty??! No! Off to go check…
Abby
I read R29 Money Diaries pretty regularly. I also will check luxe strategist and frugal girl once in a while if I’m not as busy.
Carrie
We have similar interests. Thanks for the luxe strategist rec!
PolyD
Looks Good From the Back. They are very real and I love their writing. I also read Wardrobe Oxygen, and the Blue Color Red Lipstick woman (Adina?) is active on Instagram these days.
Jules
Blue Collar Red Lipstick, I think – yes?
(And I’m laughing at the typo because one of my law partners is from Appalachia and I admit to teasing him because he pronounces color and collar basically backwards from standard American English – Hey, John, what collar is your color?)
Mallory
Love Tom & Lorenzo for fashion and culture stuff. Example from today:
https://tomandlorenzo.com/2020/04/an-eye-popping-salute-to-the-golden-age-of-20th-century-dandyism-mens-fashion-circa-1968-75/
Anonymous
Do these come with a cigar3tt3 holder?
ohMinnow
…. or turban ?
Senior Attorney
And the matching flowy negligee.
BeenThatGuy
Betty Draper has the matching slippers and cigarette case
anne-on
And sleep set, which she wouldn’t hesitate to wear to shoot the neighborhood pigeons ;)
LaurenB
I think this is somewhat indicative of what we’ve talked about before – Kat is someone who is just a “buyer” in general. Me, if my feet are cold, I put on socks; if I need to go outside, I put on shoes — what’s the point of slippers, again, much less $140 ones?
Anonymous
So, my birthday is coming up at the end of April, and we’ll still be under social distancing restrictions, etc. My husband asked me last night what I’d like to do for my birthday, and honestly I’m not sure (and he’s usually great with gift ideas, activity ideas, and surprises, but is stumped due to the current circumstances). I’m turning 34, so it’s not a milestone birthday, but the plan was to do a cooking class with friends which I was looking forward to. Unsure when/if we’ll be able to gather that same group for a cooking class. Thus, l’m looking to crowd source ideas – how are you all making celebrations a little bit more special these days when you can’t go out to dinner or do an activity? To be clear – I think the drive by parades for kids parties or baby showers are an awesome idea for those celebrations, but that is 100% not for me. We’ve also been doing “fancier” takeout on the weekends to support some of our favorite restaurants. TIA!
Em
We did a virtual cooking class with another couple that was taught over Skype by a chef in her kitchen in Italy and it was awesome. My husband is not really into stuff like that and admitted after the fact that it was an amazing experience. Maybe you could still do your cooking class? The one we did was The Chef & the Dish (we did a class with Paola Martinenghi, but they have different chefs/cuisines).
CountC
No suggestions, but happy early birthday to you from another end of April-er! It will be my 40th and I was hoping to take a group of friend’s out to dinner at my favorite local brewery one night and then go into Philly to have dinner at my favorite restaurant there, but it looks like neither will be possible. I’m going to instead, get take out from the brewery, get dressed up and have a little home-party for myself.
Anon
Off topic – but what’s your favorite restaurant in philly? Always looking for recs for when this is over!
CountC
It’s specific to my dietary choices – Vedge. :) I will say that all meat-eating guests I have taken with me have very much enjoyed the food. The food is excellent (IMO)!
Anon
One of my friends had a birthday a week ago and my boyfriend yesterday. For my friend, her roommate organized a zoom call with about a dozen people. It was a nice chance to catch up with everybody and for her to get to see people on camera, instead of just by text. For my boyfriend, I ordered us a nice dinner on Saturday and made one of his favorite desserts. We dressed up for dinner and used my fancy dinnerware. It wasn’t the same thing is going out for her birthday, but was still a nice evening and he appreciated it.
Could you combine the two? Something on zoom with friends and a nice dinner with your husband?
Anon
Following for ideas. I’ll be 35 in early May which I know isn’t a huge milestone, but it felt significant to me and we had a nice weekend trip scheduled which is obviously now canceled.
Anon
I think 35 feels significant because it’s drummed into us as a fertility milestone.
Senior Attorney
Also you can be President of the United States.
Anonymous
Didn’t you hear? The minimum age has been revised to 70.
Anon
Commiseration. My 40th is in June and I was supposed to spend it on an African safari trip with my parents, DH and kids that was almost two years in the making. I know we’ll eventually go on safari (although probably without my parents, as their ability to do this kind of travel is rapidly declining) and that others are going through much worse, but I’m sad and have just accepted that my birthday is going to kind of s*ck this year.
Anonymous
My favorite restaurant in my town (Henrietta Red in Nashville) which has a fabulous female chef is doing online cooking classes. I would totally do one of those for my birthday if under quarantine.
SC
Following, and commiseration. My family of 3 will be celebrating all 3 birthdays and DH’s and my 10-year anniversary while in lockdown. I feel like I could make one birthday special and fun, but by the time the 4th quarantine celebration rolls around, it’ll be more depressing than anything.
ThirdJen
I work in healthcare IT. We just got an email asking for volunteers from “nonessential” IT folks to staff a pop up Covid area. I have two small children and a husband who is recently unemployed. My area is certainly nonessential. What would you do?
JB
I think this is driven by your comfort on your health. I am single, childless and desperately want to do my part (besides staying home), so I would leap on the chance. You have other people that you could be bringing the virus home to so that is a difference concern. I don’t worry about job security if that is playing any role in your decision making.
BeenThatGuy
I also work in IT. When I read your post, I thought, “I work in IT for a commercial real estate company. They would never ask me to clean a tenants space, service the elevators or knock on doors for rent”. What exactly are they asking you to do to “staff a pop up Covid area”? If the answer is set up the computers and technology for the medical staff, then yes. Set up, QA offsite and monitor remotely. If the answer is to do intake on patients, no.
Anon
I would wonder why you couldn’t do that remotely.
Vicky Austin
A friend said to me today, “It’s okay to just survive this.”
(We were talking about the weird implications of some posts we’ve seen of the “if you don’t come out of this with six new hobbies you lack discipline” variety and were agreeing that generally, productivity expectations should be lowered across the board. I hope that helps somebody today!)
Senior Attorney
Yeah I think the people in Station Eleven were overachievers…
anne-on
None of the people in Station 11 (that lived anyway) had small children, special needs children, or had to try to work a normal workweek AND home school. I’d be all about deep cleaning, learning french, or esoteric baking projects if I had a 2 adult situation going on…
Pure Imagination
Who has been saying anything like that? I love discussions about hobbies (and therefore almost always follow/participate) and I’ve seen nothing like that here. Having hobbies has certainly helped me get through this, though, and I know I’ve posted about the positive mental impacts before.
Vicky Austin
Oh, this is absolutely not a knock on hobbies! I need yoga and books and music to get through this too and I know I’m not the only one. Nor did I see such negativity here, but I think maybe a lot of us are feeling external pressure to accomplish all the things, kondo the closets, have 3 lovingly prepared homemade meals a day, get the preschooler ready for her SATs and still kick ass at work. I thought my friend phrased it nicely and gave us all permission to give up the idea that this should feel like vacation somehow. :)
Cat
lol! I broke my own social media avoidance yesterday and saw the hashtag “April hustle brings May muscle” and… this is not convincing me that I am missing out.
My current goal is to get a handle on the stage of grief I am in w/r/t travel plans. I’m through denial because I’ve rescheduled plans from spring until mid to late summer (if the world is still upside down, they’re refundable or at least no change fees; if the world is operating, I’m going to have an incredibly inexpensive trip) … but not sure if that is bargaining or acceptance.
No Longer Anon
That is the most influencer slogan I have ever seen, and I followed a few pure barre studio owners for a long time.
Anon
I think there’s a big difference between external or internalized pressure and having a sense of purpose. It’s helping me to set goals of my own that are achievable right now.
Anon
I find those Facebook posts so offensive. Maybe it’s that I lack discipline, or maybe it’s that I’m battling anxiety and severe loneliness from being cooped up alone in a house or maybe it’s that I don’t feel Comfortable forcing multiple people to provide a non-essential service of mailing me some items so that I can start a new hobby or maybe it’s that I’m busy with other things like work.
Survival is all I’m going for right now.
Anon
I also hate the “your grandparents were called to war, you’re being called to sit on the couch” meme.
This is so much more to this than having to sit on the couch and watch some Netflix. We’re losing our jobs by the millions, our friends and family are dying (of Covid and all the other things like cancer) and we can’t be with them or hold funerals, our kids are not going to school and younger kids especially are totally isolated from peers, we’re trying to work full-time without any childcare, we have no idea when (or even if) life will go back to normal.
It’s not war, but it’s a real trauma and I hate that we have to minimize that.
Monday
Yeah, I think that meme only rang true at the very beginning of this process, and only for people with no risk factors who can work from home. Plenty of people are being “called” to do dangerous things now, alongside everyone who is struggling with the health and economic ramifications.
We need new, more honest and more inclusive memes. I think wartime propaganda actually isn’t far off the mark for what would actually resonate right now.
anon
+1 I actually wish we had some WWII style propaganda right now on the “stay home” front, framing it as your duty to fellow Americans, don’t panic buy, etc.
Anon
And sometimes – you just don’t feel like it and don’t require some random aim or goal to be happy. The “must hustle all the time” mentality is so prevalent because millenials and Gen Z are so under employed or stuck in the gig economy! It’s okay not to live life like that.
Anon
For me, breaking out my new sewing machine (which I had for last 1.5 years and never touched it after two failed attempts of sewing something) provided much needed distraction from the current reality and helped me stay inside the whole weekend. I spent the whole weekend and learnt how to handle the machine and made mask for myself, but had overcome a weird aversion I had developed towards sewing and handling the machine. It provided much needed distraction for me and I am inspired to sew more masks. I am inspired to make more masks now and do no contact drop offs to my friends. So picking up a new hobby is kind of helping me survive this.
Pure Imagination
That’s where I’m at as well. It’s not that I’m doing hobbies because I feel like I must be OMG productive, but because I enjoy them and because my anxiety increases tenfold when I have nothing going on in my free time besides social media. If social media or TV were helping, I’d just do those things because they’re easier, but they don’t help me in large quantities. Plus, I just love reading and am trying to see all this downtime as a gift that lets me do the thing I love more, even though there are other activities outdoors that I miss.
It all comes down to knowing what works for you. I see influencers giving me “permission” to “let my to-do list go and practice self-care” but I know that excessive unstructured time doesn’t actually make me more relaxed or resilient. I just ignore that advice or move on to something else (I love following positive people with shared interests instead). Do what works for you!
Abby
I think I struggled with this a lot when this all started. I like maximizing my productivity so I have more free time to have fun, but I had to tell myself it was okay to not get 10 things done a day because we are gonna have a LOT of days of being home. So now I still write in my agenda everything I want to do for the day but laundry gets one checkmark, and folding the laundry gets another (:
Anonymous
I saw this Washington Post article that basically reaffirms that it’s ok to not be productive during this pandemic:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/productivity-coronavirus-pandemic-projects/2020/04/06/742edf54-76e4-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html
Anon
No new hobbies for me. I got laid off and immediately started contract work. The getting up to speed period is taking me longer than expected and the client is up against a rigid deadline. So basically I cook dinner and watch 1 hour of TV if I’m lucky, otherwise b@lls to the walls all day and night and weekends.
That said, I’d actually like to do contract work instead of FT in an office for a while. I don’t think the virus thing is going away any time soon and the thought of getting on crowded public transit again any time soon makes me shudder. I would have to buy my own benefits but I make so much more on a hourly basis as a contractor, if I can keep busy I would come out ahead.
Any other contract employees on here want to share their thoughts? This is all new to me.
brokentoe
Just make you you actually are charging enough to compensate for your benefits, higher tax rates, necessary insurance (e.g., E & O), retirement contributions, etc. It may look like a lot more than your hourly rate before,but trust me, it’s not always easy to make the numbers work to your advantage. Make sure you’re talking to someone who has experience in your field and does it or at minimum a tax professional.
Anon
Thanks. I’m making twice as much per hour as my old salary and in my field that seems to be a typical consulting rate of pay.
Anon
I’d love to have time to reorganize my closet or work on my hobbies but alas I’m working 70+ hours a week on the covid response (non medical capacity).
I have no free time during the week and on my one day off a week I’m too tired to do anything (but still have to do laundry, food shopping, cleaning, etc) so my closet will remain cluttered and my hobbies will remain on the back burner.
Anonymous
Thank you for this! I was starting to feel bad that I haven’t cleaned out our closets or reorganized our kitchen (both need to be done) during this time, but I can barely keep up with my children (ages 9 and 11–so somewhat self-sufficient, but still need supervision with school work and everything else haha) and their schooling and my own work as a lawyer. It is a struggle! I have been feeling guilty about the amount of screen time they have, but I have to be able to get my own work done too and putting on a show for them helps so much.
Anonymous
This might be a dumb question, but do I need one of those plastic mat things under my chair in my home office? If so, what kind? My office is carpeted, but it’s not a “low pile” carpet that I would associate with a commercial space. Most of the mats I’m seeing on Amazon say they are meant for low pile carpets. Will that work on regular residential carpet? Am I going to ruin my carpet if I don’t get one?
Anon
It shouldn’t ruin your carpet. Get one so you can roll your wheelie chair around.
Anon
Counterpoint (sort of). The carpet where my wheelie chair lives is DESTROYED after four years of WFH full time. It is cheap, apartment carpet, and the complex has agreed to replace it (as part of my lease renewal after being in this unit for five years) so I’m not fretting it but I would def get a mat if you own your home. Whichever one you can find. I plan to get one after replacing my carpet. (Clarification: I think it’s actually the pad that is destroyed, not the carpet. There is no give whatsoever under the carpet, but the carpet doesn’t actually look bad.) Anyhow, if it’s your “owned” home, get a mat. Otherwise, meh? I wouldn’t bother, TBH.
hydroxycloroquine
why is this not being used more? i feel like the media is victimizing people by refusing to promote it.
Anon
Because there’s little evidence it’s actually effective and it has very serious side effects including sudden heart attacks. And it is being used, there are several ongoing clinical trials, including at least one in the US. If the trials prove its effective, it will obviously be used more widely. But right now evidence of efficacy is anecdotal and limited at best.
Anonymous
There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that it IS working effectively when combined with azithromycin (Z-Pak) and zinc sulfate when administered to a covid-19 patient early. doctor’s all over the world are using it for themselves and covid-19 patients. it’s been FDA approved since the 50s for malaria, lupus etc. and its a cheap generic. it’s been used for pneumonia for a long time. seems like a win for everyone except big pharma which stands to profit from a vaccine.
Also, if your loved one were in the hospital, are you saying you wouldn’t want to try it?
Anon
Ahh, yes, anecdotal evidence, exactly what I want informing my treatment, especially when it comes with harmful side effects!
Anon
I will be relieved it turns out that it works (though I thought it was already being used and people were still not making it, if we’re relying on anecdata). At the same time, there’s something so desperate seeming about dredging up the modern equivalent of tonic water, like the best we can do is an all purpose tonic. Maybe it just adds to the feeling that we haven’t made a lot of progress since the 19th century that’s helping us now, at least until we have a vaccine.
Anon
Anecdotal evidence isn’t really worth anything. So some people took it and got better, maybe those people would have gotten better without it. You need controlled, randomized trials to see if it’s actually effective.
And no, I wouldn’t want my loved one having an experimental treatment with life-threatening side effects unless the treatment was known to be effective for the disease. I’d be all for my family member getting a plasma transfusion from a survivor, because there’s no downside to that, so if it doesn’t work it’s no worse than doing nothing. Chloroquine is NOT harmless, and it’s naive to think it has no risks just because it’s been successfully used in treating malaria, which is an extremely serious illness.
LaurenB
“Doctor’s all over the world”? Go back to Fox News; this is an overachieving chick board where we use proper spelling and grammar.
Anon
In which case, your question mark belongs INSIDE the quotation marks. If you’re going to bash someone else about their grammar, you had better make sure your grammar is absolutely perfect first. After all, this IS an overachieving chick board where we use proper spelling and grammar.
Have a Snickers.
Anon
The question mark would only fall within the quotations if quoting a question. The mechanics here were correct.
LaurenB
No, I used the quotation marks correctly. Nice try.
AIMS
Because it hasn’t been proven to work, Donald.
Sorry- that was too tempting!
But yes because it hasn’t, and because nobody responsible wants to get people’s hopes up or make them not take the disease seriously because you can just take this (unproven) treatment. I don’t think anyone is being victimized – you don’t need to ‘promote’ it, doctors knows about it as an option. And also all Fox News does is promote the sh*t out of it. So um yeah.
Anonymous
what about the democratic rep from Michigan? she is crediting it for saving her life, and trump with raising her awareness of the drug and it saving her life. google it.
Anon
LOL
LaurenB
What about her?
Anonymous
Because it’s not yet proven to actually help with Covid and has potentially dangerous side effects and because people should get medical advice from actual doctors, not the media/the president? And because now people with other conditions it’s actually proven to help are having trouble getting it?
And while we’re on the topic, there was a recent study that ivermectin was effective in 1 study in a lab setting at killing coronavirus. Ivermectin is used in animal dewormers. Do not, I repeat, do not, go to your local tractor supply company and buy horse dewormer thinking it will treat you for Covid. Some of our local TSC have moved it behind the counter because #peoplearestupid.
CountC
I know it shouldn’t, but as a horse person, this made me laugh.
There was a older couple in AZ who drank fish tank cleaner because it had chloroquine in it and the man died. People need to listen to medical professionals. Not someone who thinks he might be able to play on one TV.
Anonymous
The posts about it on my local equestrian facebook groups have been gold.
Anon
Now I kind of want to know what they think about all the people who use horse paste instead of Soolantra.
cbackson
I mean, I am 100% team Don’t Take Random Drugs…but ivermectin is administered to almost 300 million people annually. It’s used to treat river blindness and lymphatic filiariasis, and it’s actually somewhat famous because Merck donates it on an unlimited basis for that purpose. I used to work for the program that manages the donation program. So it’s best known as a veterinary drug but the idea of giving it to humans isn’t wacky.
That said, we’ve known for a long time that it can kill viruses in a lab setting but I don’t think that’s ever been documented in actual humans or even in animals. And while it’s generally well-tolerated in the dose we use for parasitic infections, no idea if that dose would be remotely effective for a viral infection. That’s why we need to do tests instead of randomly giving random people whatever we find on the shelf in whatever dosage a doctor guesses might work.
The problem with all these anecdotal stories is that we have no idea if chloroquine or remdesivir or whatever was actually the thing that helped, and without experimental controls, we never will. Yes, sometimes you make exceptions for therapeutic usage, and we can even learn from that if the therapeutic usage is broad enough and standard enough. But in this case we don’t even really know enough about the course of this disease to have a sense of whether what we’re doing is helping or the person would have recovered anyway.
Anonymous
I’m not saying using it as a human drug is crazy, I know it is. I’m worried about the people who think what they can buy off-the-shelf (which is animal dewormers since the human doses require actual prescriptions) is ok for human use.
CountC
Yea this. I was laughing at the image of someone going to TSC and shooting a tube of equine wormer down their throat, not ivermectin as an actual useful treatment for certain things.
Nesprin
Because it has not been proven to work. Let me say that again: It has not been proven to work.
Furthermore, it has a high risk of significant side effects especially in the high risk categories, including sudden cardiac death from QT prolongation and potentially fatal interactions with metformin. It is near criminal to promote an unproven therapy with this sort of risk on the almost negligible quality of evidence for hydroxycholorquine, or chloroquine or for that matter azithromycin and zinc.
Clinical trials fail over 90% of the time. Until a potential therapy is tried in large numbers of people with the disease and compared to a control group, it has not been shown to work, and in fact, the chance is essentially 9/10 that it will not work.
Anonymous
+1. There are a number of existing compound and combinations of compounds that are being tried in clinical trials. We will get a rolling set of reports on what looks like it helps and what doesn’t, starting this month.
Anon
Yup. I’m optimistic that in a few weeks we will know what actually works. Hundreds of drugs are being tested.
Anon
Because there will be people who tries to self medicate and do something like this:
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/24/820512107/man-dies-woman-hospitalized-after-taking-form-of-chloroquine-to-prevent-covid-19
Leave the diagnosis and treatment to qualified medical professionals, please.
Anon
Looks like it is being used..
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hydroxychloroq/special-report-doctors-embrace-drug-touted-by-trump-for-covid-19-without-hard-evidence-it-works-idUSKBN21O2VO
Anonymous
+1
Anonymous
taking fish tank cleaner, that’s called natural selection. i’m asking why everyone seems to be so against it when it can be prescribed by a doctor.
Anon
This is cruel. For generations, people who don’t have health insurance have bought meds from fish supply stores. Clearly this product wasn’t safe, but I can see how that might not be patently obvious to someone who had purchased other meds there before to avoid the costs of obtaining a prescription.
Anon
What? I’m from a third world country and even we don’t buy meds from fish supply store.
Anon
Yep, it’s a thing. I’ve bought plenty of Fish-cycline and Fish-floxacin over the years mostly for animal use, but have occasionally needed it myself.
Anon
apparently Trump also has a financial interest in a company that makes it
Anon
Yea, what a surprise. /s
Anonymous
if you bothered to read past the headline you would know that his investment is that trusts have investments in a Dodge & Cox mutual fund, with Sanofi as the largest holding. Sanofi makes this drug, which is out of patent at this point. are you going to say that anyone with mutual funds are complicit? it’s beyond ridiculous at this point.
Anonymous
Because its side effects are cardiac in nature. That in and of itself requires that it be given very carefully — regardless of whether it works or not. This isn’t one of those — take 2 of these because they worked for someone’s cousin’s hairdressers neighbor and see how the person feels.
Senior Attorney
Oh FFS…
Anonymous
I don’t want the media to “promote” medications. And I don’t want an orange-faced a$$hat with a B.B.A. to promote, from the center ring of his circus, medications of unknown efficacy just because he is desperate to move on from a crisis he can’t handle and he and his family own stock in the maker.
Anonymous
so you’re content to chill under house arrest for 8 months? ok boomer.
Anon
Uhh….those are not the only two options here. This and hundreds of other drugs are in clinical trials currently. We’ll know more in just a couple weeks. Nobody is saying chloroquine should be ignored, just that it needs to be known to be effective before it’s put into widespread use. The timeline for that is a couple weeks, a month or two at most, not the better part of a year.
anon
… are you literate?
Anonymous
You were responding to me. I am not a Baby Boomer, but if I’m honest, I’d be okay with scientists running the first clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine using Millenials. Move Fast and Break Something!
Anon
Not the person you’re responding to, but since the overwhelming majority of people who get severely ill from this are elderly, obviously the studies have to be run on the elderly to determine efficacy. Millennials would also presumably be way less susceptible to the serious side effects of the medicine, so what works in people under 40 is not going to translate to people over 70.
Anonymous
Anon @7:03 – Bless your heart. Of course what you say is true, but that was not the point of my post at all.
Anon
Donald, is that you?
Article in HuffPo today – POTUS has investments in this. No doubt that’s why he’s promoting it. The ultimate snake oil salesman.
Anonymous
he has mutual funds that have an interest in sanofi which makes it. you guys need to put on your critical thinking hats.
Anon
OMG go away, you harmful and dumb pos
Anonattorney
I can’t stand Trump. Can’t stand him. I think he botched our response to covid, I hate his daily “briefings” (but to be fair, I also don’t watch them), and I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.
But I’m starting to get a little tired of the energy wasted on attacking him on issues that aren’t *as* important as other issues. This is his MO. He does so much to rile up his opponents that we can’t keep track of what’s important anymore. So we bite at the little things and, as a result, there’s too much noise.
The hydroxycloroquine may work. Underplaying a possible aid in this pandemic simply because it was promoted by Trump is not helpful.
Anonymous
No one is underplaying it because it was promoted by Trump. We are underplaying it because the medical community has not deemed it to be efficacious. If Trump were shouting from a loudspeaker something that Dr. Fauci had whispered, I would thank Trump for repeating it so everyone can hear. He is literally sidelining and contradicting top-notch medical professionals to feed his fever dream (pun intended).
Anon
Yes, exactly. If Trump were saying something truthful and optimistic, I would be delighted, much as I despise him. It’s simply untrue that chloroquine is known to be effective for this. In fact the first *controlled* studies suggest it isn’t any more effective than placebo.
Anonymous
are you serious? there is literally a comment on this very thread that says “POTUS has investments in this. No doubt that’s why he’s promoting it. The ultimate snake oil salesman.” there may be legitimate reasons not to hail it as a panacea but people ARE downplaying it because trump says it will help. scroll up and see.
as far as fauci, he is saying its anecdotal because it hasn’t been tested on covid, ok fine. i don’t get why this is so hard for people to understand. would you normally use unproven but promising drugs? No, not usually. would you use them in a desperate situation (as we are told this is)? yes, duh…
Anon
Covid isn’t life-threatening for everyone though. Chloroquine has been and should continue to be given to dying people as an experimental treatment, but the majority of people who get Covid won’t die or even be hospitalized. Giving an experimental treatment with life-threatening side effects to everyone with a positive test might very well do more harm than good which is why Fauci etc is not endorsing this as a silver bullet.
Anon
Anonymous at 5:33, you need to brush up on your logic.
I believe both that:
1) Hydroxychloroquine isn’t (yet) known to be an effective COVID-19 treatment, because Dr. Fauci and other infectious disease experts have said it hasn’t yet been demonstrated to be effective; and
2) There are a number of reasons why Trump might exaggerate or lie about its effectiveness, among them an economic interest in the success of the company that makes it.
There’s absolutely nothing inconsistent about these two statements, and it doesn’t imply that I’m downplaying chloroquine simply because Trump said it works great. I believe it’s not yet known to be effective because so far there’s no solid evidence that it’s effective. I also believe Trump has a vested interest in lying about it. Not mutually exclusive. (Although fwiw, I personally suspect that Trump is lying about it because he thinks delivering good news about the virus will help the stock market and his re-election chances, not because of any financial interest in any particular company.)
Anonattorney
I don’t think that you’re right. The NYT article I read said that many doctors are prescribing it for covid (the FDA has approved its use) because they have seen at least some positive effects. They are waiting for more studies to get more information.
I’m also not sure I understand the criticism against ramping up production. Trump’s financial stake in a fund that owns shares of a manufacturer of the drug aside, the biggest problem with Trump pushing hydroxychloroquine was that it was leading to a decreases in the drug’s availability for patients with other conditions, where the drug is proven to be effective. Okay, so let’s make more of it! I’d rather we ramp up production now, than wait until the studies are done. Isn’t that proper preparedness?
I guess I just don’t get the outrage on this one. Again – I can’t stand the man. But this issue pulls focus.
Anon
So you trust Trump over Fauci, an actual medical doctor? Because Fauci is urging caution and saying this is not a proven treatment. Maybe it’s promising (I’m not sure, because the first controlled study wasn’t great), but even if it is promising we need to wait until we know more before touting it as a proven treatment. No one is saying to stop clinical trials or compassionate use (where dying people can access experimental treatments) but simply that more evidence is needed before we decide it’s the best drug and should be given to everyone with Covid.
anon
Y’all are plum loco as my grandpa used to say, if you wouldn’t take cloroquine or hydroxycloroquine because Trump promoted them. I didn’t vote for Trump and don’t like him. I first learned of cloroquine or hydroxycloroquine from my brother, an MD and an anthrax and infectious disease doctor. Weeks before trump touted it. Over 70% of doctors are prescribing it – why? Not because trump played it up, but because doctors in China, Spain and Italy prescribed it and it might work. Are there other cures? No. Is it a miracle? No. Is it worth a try? Yes. I would shout from the rooftops to get this for me or anyone else in my family.
But everyone is missing the main point – it doesn’t matter what Trump says. I can’t prescribe it for myself. My doctors, who are smart, wouldn’t prescribe it if I begged for it if it would harm me or my heart. To say that you wouldn’t take it if you were sick because it’s unproven is a waste.
Off-label drugs have been used for years. I’m fighting a rare cancer now and am taking a drug “Off-label” because there have been no studies on my cancer with this or any other drug: There’s no money in running studies on rare, orphan diseases or cancers. But my doctor prescribed it because it works in other cancers and is “relatively” safe. It saved my life. Cloroquine is like that. It’s a “relatively” safe drug if heart studies are done on the patient before prescribing. Most likely it’s a better bet than the other treatment for covid …which is…nothing.
I get the hatred of Trump. But not taking (hydroxy)cloroquine if prescribed by your doctor would be more stupid than some of the things Trump says.
And cloroquine is off-patent. No one is making huge amounts of money off it. I bet Trump and many, many politicians have investments in drug and medical companies.
Unless he owns a controlling interest in Sanofi (he doesn’t), he would only stand to make a couple thousand, if that, if the stock does well. He didn’t engineer the use of this drug – it happened in China before the virus was known outside of China. But I would say his reason for recommending it is to give people hope. Maybe that’s stupid, but again, it wouldn’t keep me from taking it if I got Covid.
Anonymous
+100000
also, adding plum loco to my vocabulary immediately! lol
NYCer
So well put!
Voice of Reason
Thank you so much for being the voice of reason here! I swear, for a group of intelligent women, I have never seen so much stupidity and ridiculousness in one place. You rose above all that and I applaud you.
Anonymous
You are right, but most of the posts above were reacting to the second sentence of the original post, which suggests the media should be promoting use, not the first sentence, which asks why we are not using it more. Two very different issues.
Anon
Hah, this comment is def trolling.
FWIW I’ve been keeping tabs with the treatment guidelines at the large NE hospital system where I work. They initially recommended hydroxychloroquine but most recently have removed it from guidelines. More interestingly, they also removed the recommendation for IL-6 inhibitors, the drugs they were giving to patients with ARDS thinking it would help with the “cytokine storm.” Anyway, this is just to say that the picture is changing quickly.
I think we like to think that doctors make their decisions based on science, but politics and cost absolutely play a role. In a crisis situation, with limited high quality studies available, these other factors might play an outsized role, and we might end up only knowing the right choices (or “best in a series of poor options”) in hindsight.
Anon
I’m disappointed that IL-6 inhibitors were either ineffective or too expensive. I know I would want the option if the issue were just the expense.
Annette
For those of you who are WFH and have video calls – where are you taking them and what’s your background? I’ve loved seeing this in a non creepy, non judge mental way – it’s just interesting to see how people live/work/decorate, and to see their dogs and cats.
I’m in the basement, with some bookshelves and nondescript pillars behind me.
Anon
It’s annoying, because my home office doesn’t have doors and I can’t do video calls from my bedroom as that feels too intimate to me. So when I have to be on video, DH takes the kids to the basement and I use the dining room.
Anon
You could use your bedroom and a virtual background. Some of them are very non-descript.
ollie
I’ve also been enjoying this…I’m in the office nook in my dining room with our display of mugs and wineglasses behind me. One of my coworkers has a very fancy office bookshelf situation that makes her look like she’s in a library.
Anon
My home office has southern facing windows at my back, which can get very bright and distracting. My current background is the Golden Gate Bridge (virtually) but at least on zoom, it’s not perfect at detecting where I end and the background starts. Sometimes my hands disappear and reappear while I’m talking (yes, I unfortunately still talk with my hands on zoom.)
Anon
I talk with my hands A LOT and have had to move them higher so that they are in the frame. :) Blocks my face, but … eh, still seems to help convey concepts to clients.
Anonymous
I am in a room with rustic wood panelling and a wood ceiling. It looks like I am in a cigar box.
New manager
Has anyone read Radical Management? What did you think of it? A lot of management books seem hokey, this one a little but less so
Anonymous
I want the person who keeps bitching about the economy being shut down to put the blame for that where it belongs, which is on DJT. His administration bungled testing, and bungled travel restrictions and as a result we went from containment to contagion. If you don’t want this to happen again vote for competence and fund “the deep state,” subject matter experts who should have remained in place across administrations like they usually do.
Anon
I’m no fan of DJT and testing was definitely bungled in the beginning, but pretty much every county in the world is completely shut down now, and to the extent that other countries are having better health outcomes a lot of it can be chalked up to a more compliant population (most of Asia, Germany) or a younger, healthier population (US has a lot of overweight people with underlying conditions). It’s nearly impossible to contain this kind of virus in the sense that you can just go about normal life and expect it not to spread. I truthfully think we’d also be on lockdown if Obama or Biden was President. Probably we would have gone on lockdown even earlier with a Democrat president, which would have saved lives, but not the economy.
Anon
Guess what? You can be a Democrat, not have voted for Trump and still think the economic fallout is worse than the problem it’s purporting to fix. Actually, Democrats tend to care more about people who aren’t lawyers and investment bankers who will be “just fine” and who from their extremely privileged positions condescend to people here.
LaurenB
But whether the fix to the problem (the shutdown) is worse than the problem it’s trying to fix is something that can be modeled. And so far all of the reputable models indicate that the economic damage that would be done by lifting shutdown restrictions would be *worse* than the economic damage currently being done by the shutdown, because so many more people would die or require hospitalization and that would impact the economy, too.
Anonymous
There are no reputable models of the disease. They have been off, every single time (thank GOD) but let’s reopen the economy.
Ridin’ with Biden
Bye bye, Bernie! Some good news for the day.
Except for that Bernie Bros have bought into the “Biden is mentally fading” thing lock, stock and barrel. Bro, if you don’t think that all 75+ year olds have some level of cognitive decline, including your golden boy, you’re delusional.