If Remdesivir Really Fails...
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@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
And a fine morning to you too, George.
Another thing to cheer you up:
Chinese scientists say the novel coronavirus will not be eradicated, adding to a growing consensus around the world that the pathogen will likely return in waves like the flu.
It’s unlikely the new virus will disappear the way its close cousin SARS did 17 years ago, as it infects some people without causing obvious symptoms like fever. This group of so-called asymptomatic carriers makes it hard to fully contain transmission as they can spread the virus undetected, a group of Chinese viral and medical researchers told reporters in Beijing at a briefing Monday.
With SARS, those infected became seriously ill. Once they were quarantined from others, the virus stopped spreading. In contrast, China is still finding dozens of asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus every day despite bringing its epidemic under control.
“This is very likely to be an epidemic that co-exists with humans for a long time, becomes seasonal and is sustained within human bodies,” said Jin Qi, director of the Institute of Pathogen Biology at China’s top medial research institute, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
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@George-K I wasn’t supposed to drink today. There goes that plan.
@LuFins-Dad said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@George-K I wasn’t supposed to drink today. There goes that plan.
I should retitle this the "Debbie Downer" thread.
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@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
And a fine morning to you too, George.
Another thing to cheer you up:
Chinese scientists say the novel coronavirus will not be eradicated, adding to a growing consensus around the world that the pathogen will likely return in waves like the flu.
It’s unlikely the new virus will disappear the way its close cousin SARS did 17 years ago, as it infects some people without causing obvious symptoms like fever. This group of so-called asymptomatic carriers makes it hard to fully contain transmission as they can spread the virus undetected, a group of Chinese viral and medical researchers told reporters in Beijing at a briefing Monday.
With SARS, those infected became seriously ill. Once they were quarantined from others, the virus stopped spreading. In contrast, China is still finding dozens of asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus every day despite bringing its epidemic under control.
“This is very likely to be an epidemic that co-exists with humans for a long time, becomes seasonal and is sustained within human bodies,” said Jin Qi, director of the Institute of Pathogen Biology at China’s top medial research institute, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
@George-K wait a minute! I thought they were saying that seasonal temp changes don’t have an effect on this thing?
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A government-run study of Gilead’s remdesivir, perhaps the most closely watched experimental drug to treat the novel coronavirus, showed that the medicine is effective against Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Gilead made the announcement in a statement Wednesday, stating: “We understand that the trial has met its primary endpoint.” The company said that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is conducting the study, will provide data at an upcoming briefing.
The finding — although difficult to fully characterize without any data for the study — would represent the first treatment shown to improve outcomes in patients infected with the virus that put the global economy in a standstill and killed at least 218,000 people worldwide.
Gilead's Futures:
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It is so surprising that the most expensive drug of all the possible treatments is the only option passing clinical trials.
Shocking!
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@George-K I wasn’t supposed to drink today. There goes that plan.
@LuFins-Dad said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@George-K I wasn’t supposed to drink today. There goes that plan.
Here's another reason:
As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750.
The projections, based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now.The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.
“There remains a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow,” the C.D.C. warned.
The projections confirm the primary fear of public health experts: that a reopening of the economy will put the nation right back where it was in mid-March, when cases were rising so rapidly in some parts of the country that patients were dying on gurneys in hospital hallways as the health care system grew overloaded.
“While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as well as we expected,” Scott Gottlieb, Mr. Trump’s former commissioner of food and drugs, said Sunday on the CBS program Face the Nation. “We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that.”
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@LuFins-Dad said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@George-K I wasn’t supposed to drink today. There goes that plan.
Here's another reason:
As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750.
The projections, based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now.The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.
“There remains a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow,” the C.D.C. warned.
The projections confirm the primary fear of public health experts: that a reopening of the economy will put the nation right back where it was in mid-March, when cases were rising so rapidly in some parts of the country that patients were dying on gurneys in hospital hallways as the health care system grew overloaded.
“While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as well as we expected,” Scott Gottlieb, Mr. Trump’s former commissioner of food and drugs, said Sunday on the CBS program Face the Nation. “We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that.”
@George-K said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
“While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as well as we expected,” Scott Gottlieb, Mr. Trump’s former commissioner of food and drugs, said Sunday on the CBS program Face the Nation. “We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that.”
R never dropped below one. At least reliably and sustainably.
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I would gladly live the rest of my life without seeing lazy sanctimonious potshots like those dominate our social conversations about everything.
@Horace said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
I would gladly live the rest of my life without seeing lazy sanctimonious potshots like those dominate our social conversations about everything.
But only if you disagree with them I presume.
Everyone's got strong opinions about this. I don't think it's especially egregious to moralize while the liberty whiners are doing exactly the same.
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@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
Convalescent plasma?
I've read that the immunity it affords is short-term, though it might be helpful as a therapy.
One thing that I find encouraging is we've never had so many scientists/companies etc working on one very specific condition.
Indeed. It's amazing to see this.
@George-K said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
Convalescent plasma?
I've read that the immunity it affords is short-term, though it might be helpful as a therapy.
One thing that I find encouraging is we've never had so many scientists/companies etc working on one very specific condition.
Indeed. It's amazing to see this.
FDA approved convalescent plasma today. Honestly I thought it already had emergency approval but cool all the same.
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@George-K said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
Convalescent plasma?
I've read that the immunity it affords is short-term, though it might be helpful as a therapy.
One thing that I find encouraging is we've never had so many scientists/companies etc working on one very specific condition.
Indeed. It's amazing to see this.
FDA approved convalescent plasma today. Honestly I thought it already had emergency approval but cool all the same.
@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@George-K said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
Convalescent plasma?
I've read that the immunity it affords is short-term, though it might be helpful as a therapy.
One thing that I find encouraging is we've never had so many scientists/companies etc working on one very specific condition.
Indeed. It's amazing to see this.
FDA approved convalescent plasma today. Honestly I thought it already had emergency approval but cool all the same.
Since Trump was the one who broke the log jam, I'm sure you disapprove.
They've been using convalescent plasma down here for awhile, FDA be damned. Plaquenil cocktail, too. Doesn't always work, but sometimes the plasma therapy can be jaw dropping.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/08/24/remdesivir-disappoints-again-14982
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An 11-day randomized Phase 3 trial of almost 600 patients, all with moderate COVID, was conducted to compare the clinical status (2) of three groups (~200 patients each) on day 11:
patients who received remdesivir for 5 days
patients who received remdesivir for 10 days
patients who received standard care
The findings were a bit strange. On day 11, patients who had received five days of remdesivir showed a statically significant improvement compared to those who received standard care but not a clinically significant difference. And the patients who received a 10-day course (3) of the drug experienced no difference, either statistically or clinically.The conclusion, as stated by the authors, is rather obvious:
Among patients with moderate COVID-19, those randomized to a 10-day course of remdesivir did not have a statistically significant difference in clinical status compared with standard care at 11 days after initiation of treatment. Patients randomized to a 5-day course of remdesivir had a statistically significant difference in clinical status compared with standard care, but the difference was of uncertain clinical importance.
D. Brainard, MD, et.al., JAMA. Published online August 21, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.16349
Two clinical trials involving more than 1,600 patients have shown effects ranging from none to modest. It is difficult to imagine that the hopes of remdesivir being a silver bullet to conquer COVID will ever be realized, at least not as an IV treatment for hospitalized patients. But it is still possible that the drug hasn't been given a fair shake. As a direct-acting antiviral, early administration is important and no patients in either of these trials were given the drug until they were already hospitalized and quite ill. It is possible (perhaps even likely) that no antiviral drug, no matter how potent, will be able to alter the course of COVID when given days/weeks after the start of the infection. Perhaps the best shot for remdesivir would be very early administration, perhaps as in inhaled powder after a rapid diagnostic saliva test. (Gilead is working on a dry powder formulation.)
Or, more likely, as is the case in drug discovery, the first drug to treat a condition or infection is rarely the best. The first HIV/AIDS drug, AZT, did little or nothing to prolong the lives of AIDS patients after one year of therapy. The first direct-acting hepatitis C drugs, boceprevir and telaprevir (2011) were relegated to the antiviral scrap heap within a couple of years as they were replaced by the much superior Sovaldi, which itself has been replaced by more potent drug combinations. Such is the nature of drug discovery,
If a game-changing COVID antiviral drug is ever found, it is quite possible that it doesn't exist yet.
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@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@George-K said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
Convalescent plasma?
I've read that the immunity it affords is short-term, though it might be helpful as a therapy.
One thing that I find encouraging is we've never had so many scientists/companies etc working on one very specific condition.
Indeed. It's amazing to see this.
FDA approved convalescent plasma today. Honestly I thought it already had emergency approval but cool all the same.
Since Trump was the one who broke the log jam, I'm sure you disapprove.
They've been using convalescent plasma down here for awhile, FDA be damned. Plaquenil cocktail, too. Doesn't always work, but sometimes the plasma therapy can be jaw dropping.
@Jolly said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@George-K said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
@jon-nyc said in If Remdesivir Really Fails...:
Convalescent plasma?
I've read that the immunity it affords is short-term, though it might be helpful as a therapy.
One thing that I find encouraging is we've never had so many scientists/companies etc working on one very specific condition.
Indeed. It's amazing to see this.
FDA approved convalescent plasma today. Honestly I thought it already had emergency approval but cool all the same.
Since Trump was the one who broke the log jam, I'm sure you disapprove.
They've been using convalescent plasma down here for awhile, FDA be damned. Plaquenil cocktail, too. Doesn't always work, but sometimes the plasma therapy can be jaw dropping.
Saw a news report (anti-Trump of course) saying that convalescent plasma hasn't been thoroughly tested yet and it could be "dangerous".
What about regular plasma given to people all the time. Is that somehow dangerous? It's just plasma for crying out loud. Like Hydroxychloriquine used safely for years under the care of a physician. Now suddenly it is a dangerous, unpredictable drug.
