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

fiercebiotech.com

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

#321

Post by Filligree »

jayknight wrote: post #260
colordrops wrote: post #110

Does anyone have a sense as to when US society will completely eliminate COVID measures? Is it just me or is there no clear exit criteria anymore? This will go on forever without exit criteria.

This is a good article. I'm firmly on team do-what-it-takes-to-stop-the-spread, but no one has an exit strategy. I got a booster and we have appointments for two of our three kids to get there first shot. By mid-December I'm hoping to not have to think much about it anymore. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/what-amer...

There are two possible exit strategies.

- Vaccinate everyone who can be vaccinated, at gunpoint.

- Allow everyone who is vulnerable to die, at which point the death rates will drop.

Choose. Which one do you want?

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

#322

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

timr wrote: post #176
dontcare007 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's just it, there's less than a 2% chance of dying even if you get COVID.

It's much higher than that for easily identifiable subgroups -- elderly people and obese people being trivial examples. The control arm of this study had a rate of "hospitalization or death" of 7% because they selected for subgroups at high risk. It's fine to acknowledge that aggregate risk of Covid is low (and indeed, more people should acknowledge that fact), but we must also acknowledge that it is a serious risk f…

Especially when we note that the clinic definition of obesity is much smaller than people think of, and 42% of Americans qualify.

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

#325

Post by jeffbee »

thr0w72594 wrote: post #268
colordrops wrote: post #110

Does anyone have a sense as to when US society will completely eliminate COVID measures? Is it just me or is there no clear exit criteria anymore? This will go on forever without exit criteria.

Subramanian Kumar 2021 [1] found that there is no correlation between vaccination rates and new case rates on a country-wide level, or a county-wide level in the United States. This tracks with Dr. Vanden Bossche's assessment [2] from March of this year that mass vaccination with prophylactic vaccines will actually prolong and worsen the pandemic due to shedding of infectious variants. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…

Imagine having this data and concluding there is no relationship between vaccination and new case rate.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/t...

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

#326

Post by AndrewBissell »

selimthegrim wrote: post #279
thr0w72594 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subramanian Kumar 2021 [1] found that there is no correlation between vaccination rates and new case rates on a country-wide level, or a county-wide level in the United States. This tracks with Dr. Vanden Bossche's assessment [2] from March of this year that mass vaccination with prophylactic vaccines will actually prolong and worsen the pandemic due to shedding of infectious variants. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…

Vanden Bossche seems alone in this regard? Surely NPIs would ameliorate that?

Aside from islands closing their borders and implementing extremely strict testing and quarantine regimes (and even these don't hold up forever), the evidence for the effectiveness of NPIs is a lot thinner than you might intuitively expect.

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

#327

Post by pezzana »

neltnerb wrote: post #210

If you take an antiviral like this, do you still develop a good immune response to reinfection? I wonder because almost everyone who might end up needing this isn't vaccinated (based on hospitalization rates) so I hope that at the end they also end up having some immunity to catching it again at least. In the moment of course it is better to use than not.

No. There's a big difference between drugs and vaccines. The drug doesn't generally illicit an immune response, but the vaccine is designed to do exactly that.

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

#328

Post by Vrondi »

jayknight wrote: post #260
colordrops wrote: post #110

Does anyone have a sense as to when US society will completely eliminate COVID measures? Is it just me or is there no clear exit criteria anymore? This will go on forever without exit criteria.

This is a good article. I'm firmly on team do-what-it-takes-to-stop-the-spread, but no one has an exit strategy. I got a booster and we have appointments for two of our three kids to get there first shot. By mid-December I'm hoping to not have to think much about it anymore. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/what-amer...

You mean you're going to skip the rest of the boosters they'll want you to get each quarter forever?

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

#329

Post by foolfoolz »

pell wrote: post #133
blackbear_ wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soo, kinda like for a vaccine? (And to clarify what I am saying, even though the vaccine does prevent death, there is still considerable push back. Not sure why it will be different for this drug)

From what I understand it's taken once an infection is already established. Maybe it's easier to convince the "skeptics" under those circumstances to take potentially life-saving medicine.

this drug (and all covid medicine) at this point is no longer about people hesitant to take the vaccine. this is about going back to a pre covid life. the vaccine does not protect you fully from covid 19. states in the u. s. and some eu countries have very high vaccination rates and still saw a wave of covid go through them, examples: vt, nh, de, nl. in all these places roughly 70% vaccination rate and many vaccinated people testing positive, some vaccinated dying.

when this happens governments get scared. they start doing mask and vaccine mandates. things shut down. what if you could still have these waves but nearly eliminate the chance of anyone dying? then we could start treating this like an endemic cold or flu. i think these waves in high vaccine areas show convincing “vaccine skeptics” is not the gate to get there. we could be 100% vaccinated in areas and still see covid waves. the question is can we make it less risky to the point where we can go back to where we were

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

#330

Post by mherdeg »

Steltek wrote: post #220
Fellshard wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm guessing you only get this pill if you're hospitalized with severe symptoms. In which case, you're still occupying hospital beds/resources, which is the main remaining threat to rational society.

> which is the main remaining threat to rational society

What is a "rational society" and what threatens it?

My default view is Rawlsian: I'd like to live in a society which maximizes the well-being of the least well-off people, even if that's not currently me. In that framework one threat from a pandemic is that some at-risk people might die (people with some health conditions will die when infected and may not respond well to vaccination); that threat can be mitigated if people develop treatments, apply nonpharmaceutical interventions like indoor masking, and participate in community inoculation.

There are other very different notions of a "rational society". In some, the premature death of people who are elderly, medically at-risk, or choose to avoid vaccination might be preferred outcomes. Hmmm.

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