Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85% • Hacker News Board

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#111

Post by chadash » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #76

savant_penguin wrote: post #37

Earlier 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...?

Unfortunately, it's expensive. The cost of R&D to bring a new drug to market is around $1 billion, and this doesn't include the cost of marketing (though it does include the cost of drugs that fail the approval process)(see https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762311). At these numbers, it's hard to raise the money unless you think the drug is gonna be profitable.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#112

Post by tsywke44 » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #73

RicoElectrico wrote: post #50

We 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).

I think that crowd will hate on this new drug. It's from Big Pharma, very expensive, it's probably full of GMOs and brain-controlling chips from Bill Gates. They'll stick with their cheap, generic ivermectin.

No they won’t. conspiracy theories are based on instincts and emotions not any science or rationality.

pills are basically just food(=good) to the subconscious lizard brain, zero negative connotations from evolution, zero conspiracy theories

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#113

Post by kibwen » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #73

RicoElectrico wrote: post #50

We 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).

I think that crowd will hate on this new drug. It's from Big Pharma, very expensive, it's probably full of GMOs and brain-controlling chips from Bill Gates. They'll stick with their cheap, generic ivermectin.

And to be clear, this drug is not related to ivermectin: https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-067310377629

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#114

Post by adventured » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

widjit wrote: post #59

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Long covid" is an urban legend.

as someone who definitely had and suffered through long COVID, I would like to know what you think you are accomplishing by making false claims like this. do you think you're being edgy? what possible work is your ignorant comment doing?

It took me about six months to recover from Covid post infection. I got it in the early weeks of the pandemic; it took from around mid April to October of 2020 to get back to normal. I've felt fine since. I don't know what exactly they're calling long Covid these days, but the parent comment is pretty obviously ignorant.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#115

Post by tinus_hn » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

ralmeida wrote: post #92

tinus_hn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Imagine both the vaccine and the drug offer the same protection, and both come with a risk of 0.00001 that you will die from taking it.

Considering not everyone who gets infected gets symptoms, would it be illogical to not take the vaccine, just in case you get infected and get symptoms, but to take the drug once you do get infected and get symptoms?

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#116

Post by loceng » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

distantsounds wrote: post #96

loceng wrote: post #78

Sounds like same/similar rate as Ivermectin - if proper protocol followed.

No, that has nowhere near the same efficacy.

C19ivermectin.com - which includes well done and poorly done studies - lists 86% reduction with prophylaxis treatment.

You'll believe and weight a single study done by the company looking to make billions via a new patented drug over many third-party studies of a cheap off-patent drug though, won't you?

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#117

Post by ralmeida » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #46

ralmeida wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparable individual outcome, worse societal outcome - you still spread it, so no reduction in overall cases, unlike a vaccine.

I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated if they can, but it does little to prevent spread. Over the long run we'll all be exposed no matter what we do. The real benefit of vaccines is in reducing the risk of severe symptoms. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

> it does little to prevent spread

How much, exactly?

> Over the long run we'll all be exposed no matter what we do

Plausible, but your sources don't appear to support that, other than the claim from Mr. Pollard. Is there anything I'm missing?

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#118

Post by acdha » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #78

Sounds like same/similar rate as Ivermectin - if proper protocol followed.

Stop spreading disinformation. This has gone through studies showing significant positive benefits. Ivermectin has small studies with dubious methodology showing possible effects and larger studies with better methodology showing no benefit, along with substantial side-effects.

https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/05/26/bmjebm-2021-111...

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/content?templateType=full&ur...

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#119

Post by dangerlibrary » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

et2o wrote: post #97

toyg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Researchers need funding.

The problem with "Big Pharma" is generally not with the intentions or capabilities of the researchers - it's with the funding.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#120

Post by exogenousdata » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

phh wrote: post #13

> Pfizer used data on patients who were treated within three days of symptom onset as the headline finding in its press release > 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. > Like Merck, Pfizer excluded people vaccinated against COVID-19 from its late-phase study. No…

Yahoo news[0] and other news sources report significant efficacy even at the 5 day mark.

"Rates were similar for patients treated within five days of symptoms - 1% of the treatment group was hospitalized, compared with 6.7% for the placebo group, which included 10 deaths."

[0] - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pfizer-says-antiviral-pill-cu...