So as good as a vaccine basically?
Comparable individual outcome, worse societal outcome - you still spread it, so no reduction in overall cases, unlike a vaccine.
Vaccine doesn't prevent spreading.
Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
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Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this drug less experimental than the vaccines?
That is a valid question but another thing to note is that you wouldn’t be giving this drug to the vast majority of people who do not get any symptoms from a Covid-19 infection. Nor would you be forcing people to take this drug.
Which is a fair viewpoint from the societal level, but not as much for the individual level, which was implied in the parent message - i.e. how can "I'll take experimental treatment B instead of experimental treatment A" be an argument for not taking experimental treatments in general?
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#93> There were six hospitalizations and no deaths among the 607 patients who received Paxlovid within five days of symptom onset, compared to 41 hospitalizations and 10 deaths in the placebo cohort. How does this work? You sign up for the program when you're sick and you might get meds that help you? That would really suck if a loved one was in the program and died because they happened to get the placebo.
It's unusual but not unheard of for trials to be stopped ahead of schedule because of this - the treatment is so clearly and substantially beneficial it's considered unethical to continue depriving the control group of the treatment. When to Stop a Clinical Trial Early for Benefit: Lessons Learned and Future Approaches: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.111...
In this case the alternative to the trial would be the ‘dangerous’ option of no treatment. So that doesn’t really apply here.
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
For protecting yourself, probably, for protecting others and helping prevent the virus from spreading and mutating, no.
Didn’t we establish last week the vaccine is not effective at stopping the spread of the virus?
Depends on how you define effective.
Forever? No. Perfectly? No.
They do have an measurable impact on transmission, especially soon after vaccination. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
For protecting yourself, probably, for protecting others and helping prevent the virus from spreading and mutating, no.
Didn’t we establish last week the vaccine is not effective at stopping the spread of the virus?
No.
The vaccines are not 100% effective at preventing spread (nor for preventing serious illness, for that matter).
That is not even remotely the same as "not effective".
In practice, the vaccines (with the possible partial exception of the J&J single dose) provide significant reduction in both spread and serious illness.
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#96Sounds like same/similar rate as Ivermectin - if proper protocol followed.
No, that has nowhere near the same efficacy.
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it's here in _two_ years
One one side: great job, pharma industry! We're gonna live forever! On the other side: what are you folks not curing, with your magic powers, just because you know you won't be able to make a buck from it...?
Researchers in pharma are working extremely hard and almost always in good faith. I know this is probably tongue-in-cheek but it's not true.
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comparable individual outcome, worse societal outcome - you still spread it, so no reduction in overall cases, unlike a vaccine.
Yet, with the COVID vaccine, you still spread it, too: https://theexpose.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Pierpont-Why... https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7031e2-H.pdf https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3897733 So, how could the outcome at the societal level be worse?
Do you have a source for R0 being _absolutely equal_ in vaccinated vs unvaccinated?
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#99We had reports of people who wanted to take weird-ass drugs-of-the-day just to refuse getting vaccinated. And screaming "conspiracy" when their efficacy was not confirmed to be as high as they expected. Good that we have something that actually works, bad that some assholes will use it as an excuse not to get vaxxed, completely missing the point (among others, trying to prevent something worse than Delta).
Genuine question: is it necessary to get vaxxed if - all else held the same - the cost is not significantly higher for the antiviral? Wouldn't that cut the risk down so significantly that we can safely say, "Vaccinate if you're at-risk for your own protection, and have negligible risk otherwise"? This changes the entire risk calculation.
Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%
#100Did anyone hear NPR's reporting on this? They said the early study was originally halted BECAUSE of it's positive effects at preventing hospitalization and death... very weird, I hope it is a typo or I'm understanding it wrong...
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