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

Post by jpindar » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

jennyyang wrote: post #130

the_af wrote: 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…

A single individual getting coronavirus isn't a big deal. Chances are they will be fine. The problem is that it's very infectious, R0 could be 6+ where the flu is about 1-2. That means it's 3-6 times more contagious than the flu, so it spreads very very quickly. At the same time, it causes severe symptoms in 15-20% of cases. When these people have access to medical care, they will likely survive. But if they don't ge…

Post by viklove » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

mhb wrote: post #188

metalliqaz wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about psychology, not numbers. the parent post referenced Thalidomide. a disaster like would seriously shake public confidence in medicine, across the board

The public seems able to understand that there is a cost/benefit tradeoff in driving cars. They could probably understand that idea in the case of drug approval also.

Post by addandsubtract » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 12:26 PM UTC

bhanhfo wrote: post #116

wh-uws wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will definitely need to link to a source that specifically mentions the 70% figure to stop the downvoting. I have not seen speculation like that only numbers about the virality and mortality rate (both much lower than that)

Source added, excerpt here: Professor Christian Drosten from the Charite clinic in Berlin, Germany, estimates the virus could infect up to 70 percent of the world or 5.2 billion people. He said: “Presumably between 60 and 70 percent of the people will get infected but we don’t know in what timeframe. “It can be two years or even longer. It will be more problematic if the infections occur in a short amount of time. “T…

Post by Chemranch2020 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 12:34 PM UTC

blobbers wrote: post #47

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.

Post by bluGill » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

mellavora wrote: post #194

bluGill wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raw materials are not my concern - the industries that supply them can get all the people they need from others. You might find yourself demoted from programmer to some third shift factory labor job, but with a few weeks training you can do it (with okay odds that you won't lose life/limb from missing some safety item)

You are conflating raw materials with trained employees. Which brings up another barrier to scaling up production. Raw materials: you need pipettes, chemistry hoods, etc, lots of specialized manufactured items, in order to build the production pipeline. Where do you get these? What if some of these components are manufactured in China, guess what is on hold? Employees. Vaccine production is high-skilled work. It isn'…