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

blogs.sciencemag.org

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

#71

The key may not be a vaccine but simply staying alive. Covid-19 kills with a "cytokine storm": cytochine release syndrome(cytokine storm): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome Article discussing coronavirus et al and cytochine storm: "Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... From the article:…

I haven’t seen anyone say it kills with a cytokine storm — spanish flu did that.

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

#72

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…

That's not the rate limiting step. It takes time to determine if the vaccine works. Getting this wrong would be disasterous.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`...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.

Also see thalidomide in Europe

Wow looks like there are still people around who suffered deformities because of the mistakes in approving thalidomide.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15536544

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

#74
I see a lot of panicky comments, both in real life and in this very thread.

I know COVID19 is different from a regular flu, but is it more serious? "Regular" flu is very contagious and kills lots of people every year. It's ok to study coronavirus and to try to find ways to effectively manage it, combat it or prevent the disease -- but why are we panicking? Nobody panics about the flu and it's proven to be fatal for a lot of people every year. Why the panic with coronavirus, why are people in this very thread worrying about "the death toll"? Is there any projection that the death toll is going to be higher than usual for a flu?

For what it's worth, my doctor told me "it's like a flu, don't worry". A doctor friend of mine told me the same.

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

#75
post #7

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.

There’s no guarantee any of those will work and none of them will be ready before it goes pandemic.

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

#76
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lon…

I would love if some absurdly rich person started an initiative donating life-changing money, like a few hundred millions or so, to any expert who finds himself in a situation being asked questions like this by the president and who then stands up to Trumps' stupid Hey-I'm-the-frickin-president-and-you-don't-want-to-say-no-to-me-that's-why-I-just-stubbornly-suggest-what-I-want-to-hear-long-enough-until-you-give-up ta…

I assume that they screen the experts beforehand for this sort of thing; the experts in question are being amazingly (IMO far too) diplomatic under the circumstances. It would arguably be more responsible to simply state clearly that he is wrong.

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

#77
post #74

I see a lot of panicky comments, both in real life and in this very thread. I know COVID19 is different from a regular flu, but is it more serious? "Regular" flu is very contagious and kills lots of people every year. It's ok to study coronavirus and to try to find ways to effectively manage it, combat it or prevent the disease -- but why are we panicking? Nobody panics about the flu and it's proven to be fatal for a…

The death rate of COVID-19 is at about 3.4% on average. In comparison, the death rate of seasonal flu is about 0.1% in the US. No, it is not "like" the flu.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/03/who-says-coronavirus-death-r...

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

#78
post #49

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…

Sources? It seems far too early and there isn't enough reliable observational data, much less scientific trial data, available for broad "scientific agreement".

Although obviously the accuracy of China's data is in question, it's promising that they were able to get the reproduction rate below 1 pretty quickly. And within Wuhan itself the spreading seems to have slowed with something like 0.6% of the population of 11 million infected.

Not to mention in China outside of Wuhan/Hubei, which have conditions much more similar to most of the rest of the world in having some advanced warning of the virus, the spread seems also to have slowed down at a much much lower infection rate.

Based on this information it's not clear to me where the "40-70% of the world getting infected" idea is coming from, though I've seen a few headlines reporting that too.

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

#79
post #74

I see a lot of panicky comments, both in real life and in this very thread. I know COVID19 is different from a regular flu, but is it more serious? "Regular" flu is very contagious and kills lots of people every year. It's ok to study coronavirus and to try to find ways to effectively manage it, combat it or prevent the disease -- but why are we panicking? Nobody panics about the flu and it's proven to be fatal for a…

It's 1-2 orders of magnitude more deadly than the flu. Some estimates are between 2 and 4% fatality rate for the Covid-19. Flu is 0.1%.

That fatality rate average masks that it is far deadlier for the elderly and high risk patients, with as much as 10-20% fatality rate for that demographic.

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

#80

The key may not be a vaccine but simply staying alive. Covid-19 kills with a "cytokine storm": cytochine release syndrome(cytokine storm): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome Article discussing coronavirus et al and cytochine storm: "Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... From the article:…

source?
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