Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

blogs.sciencemag.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 262 posts

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#41

Post by econcon »

thenewnewguy wrote: post #38
econcon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had same reaction, it happened in Torino, Italy. I've no idea why I am being downvoted for reporting simply what she told me.

You are downvoted for passing off your uneducated (in the field of health) opinion that her illness was coronavirus as fact, and for implying that antibiotics somehow could help with the coronavirus directly (i.e. in fighting the virus not preventing secondary infections) in any way (they can't).

>You are downvoted for passing off your uneducated

I asked her again, now it's confirmed it's Coronavirus. It takes time to get lab test, they can't confirm it immediately it seems for now.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#42

Post by ceejayoz »

allemagne wrote: post #37
m0zg wrote: post #3

Ctrl+F "remdesivir". No results in the article. Epic fail. There's really no cure for the Trump Derangement Syndrome, though.

If anyone reading is concerned that the author is being too harsh on Trump's "surreal" summit on Monday (which certainly could be possible despite being heavily credentialed), please judge for yourselves: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres... >THE PRESIDENT: ... You take a solid flu vaccine — you don’t think that would have an impact or much of an impact on corona? >DR. SCHLEIFER: No. >DR. F…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/03/trumps-ba...

“And how long would that take?” Trump asked. The CEO said it would take months and then head into phase three. “All right. So you’re talking within a year.”

“A year to a year and a half,” Fauci again clarified.

“Well, but, Lenny is talking about two months, right?” Trump said, incorrectly referring to Schleifer’s August estimate.

“A little — a little longer,” Schleifer again clarified. “A little longer.”

“A couple of months, right?” Trump pressed. “I mean, I like the sound of a couple of months better, I must be honest with you.”

...

Soon, Trump returned to his preferred months-long timetable. Asked by a reporter whether he’s comfortable with this taking longer than that, Trump again sounded as though he hadn’t heard everything the CEOs and experts had just told him.

“I don’t think they know what the time will be,” Trump said. “I’ve heard very quick numbers — a matter of months — and I’ve heard pretty much a year would be an outside number.”

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#43

Post by UncleOxidant »

daxorid wrote: post #35
shrubble wrote: post #30

Is it the case that SARS (of many years ago) had a vaccine developed for it, but it had too many side effects or was not effective enough to get past trials? And that while this virus is different it is similar in many respects... leading me to think that a vaccine may also be difficult to produce.

Yes, the SARS vaccine virtually guaranteed severe lung scarring if you were re-exposed to full-strength SARS: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Would this also the case if someone who had SARS and recovered was re-exposed to SARS?

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#44

Post by allovernow »

shrubble wrote: post #30

Is it the case that SARS (of many years ago) had a vaccine developed for it, but it had too many side effects or was not effective enough to get past trials? And that while this virus is different it is similar in many respects... leading me to think that a vaccine may also be difficult to produce.

There was is one paper[0] where 4 candidates were tested on a number of animal species. In all but one variant, immunity was successfully conferred by the vaccine.

However, in all successful cases, the vaccines triggered some sort of autoimmune response wherin upon exposure to the pathogen post vaccination, lung damage resulted[0].

Now I believe this has something to do with another nefarious speculated property of SARS-CoV-2: Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE). Can't find the original source but here[1] researchers also speculate about ADE. The gist is that your antibodies, instead of neutralizing the virus, actually enhance its ability to enter your cells[2]. I don't know if this is confirmed, but multiple sources have made the suggestion. If this is the case, typical vaccines actually may be dangerous. Now I'm not not an expert but I believe there is a way to create a vaccine which avoids ADE, but AFAIK that hasn't been done for the previous SARS strain. This was a problem with MERS too btw.

0. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Credit to user daxorid for the link.

1. https://www.virosin.org/fileZGBDX/journal/article/vs/newcrea...

2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhanceme...

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#46

Post by econcon »

ceejayoz wrote: post #32
econcon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't know it's Coronavirus tho, they didn't test for it. Calling it Corona is just my speculation based on who she worked with in the clinic where she's a nurse.

So "This was Coronavirus" was actually bullshit.

Not really, she's a nurse - she had told me that she cared for a boy who died from Coronavirus and no one getting same symptoms and bronchitis after sometime.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#47

Post by blobbers »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

`...would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug.`

Thanks for saying this, and rightfully so! Approving a bad drug in the world where distribution channels are very well set up could have disastrous effects.

We can point to things like the opioid crisis in the USA right now - a drug that is so addictive it should have never been put into use the way it was.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#49

Post by bhanhfo »

Scientific agreement seems to be that ~60-70% of the population will get infected. It is just not sure if within months or (hopefully!) years.

And no drugs within at least one year.

Edit: Source => Original in German here: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/gesundheit/krankheiten-experte-e...

Express UK translated it here: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1249963/Coronavirus-n...

The guy interview is Prof. Drosten. He is the co-discoverer of the SARS virus, and is one of the top 10 guys in this field.

PS: Sorry for not adding the source right away.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#50

Post by WaltPurvis »

m0zg wrote: post #7
hprotagonist wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met Derek Lowe personally. He's got 35 years in the game as a bench chemist working on theraputics and knows this world inside and out. What are your similarly long-term credentials that give you such definitive knowledge?

^ and he's still wrong. There are several drugs and vaccines undergoing trials as we speak, and being given to patients in China. At least two drugs, Remdesivir and Chloroquine have shown efficacy already. Chloroquine is a generic that costs a dollar a bucket and can be produced in any quantity.

These are antiviral drugs that may partially lessen the effects for some people who are already demonstrably sick (Remdesivir is administered intravenously to patients who are already hospitalized and is only in very first stage of initial trials). They will do very little to stop the spread of the virus.

(Also, perhaps if you read the article instead of just doing Ctl-F for Remdesivir, you'd have noticed that he said he plans to discuss specific drugs in an upcoming post.)

Post reply on HN