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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%

#511
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> ...but it does little to prevent spread. Actually it does reduce transmission https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccinated-people...

Vaccination slightly reduces the risk of transmission for individual interactions (at least for a while) but that just stretches the curve out a little. Since SARS-CoV-2 is now endemic throughout the worldwide human population (plus several other mammal species) we can all expect to be exposed multiple times throughout our lives no matter what we do. Fortunately the vaccines are very effective at preventing deaths.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

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

#512
post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know but I haven't had a cold or any other infection in 18 months so I hope that wearing masks on trains, planes and buses stays forever. Also, shaking hands was always barbaric and I don't miss that, either.

What a horrible idea. I'm not willing to wear a mask just to avoid a cold. We cannot allow irrational germaphobes to seize control of our society in the name of "safety".

jesus people they said they hope it stays: aka socially it becomes normalized. No one is advocating forcing people to wear masks forever.

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

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know but I haven't had a cold or any other infection in 18 months so I hope that wearing masks on trains, planes and buses stays forever. Also, shaking hands was always barbaric and I don't miss that, either.

My personal opinion, which reasonable people may of course disagree with depending on how they weight various factors, is that forcing people to regularly hide their faces in public is too large a price to pay to avoid sometimes getting a cold.

Maybe not forcing, but if people did it as a curtesy to not get other people sick? Of course, that already happens in some places, and will never happen in others.

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

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've done that for decades in this country. > All 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) mandate diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, rubella and chickenpox. In addition, every state except Iowa mandates immunization against mumps. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/08/states-have...

The comparison to mandates for children to receive well-tested and -understood vaccines, against illnesses far more threatening to them than Covid, for the narrow purpose of attending public school, is so dishonest as to be a form of gaslighting. FWIW I believe Florida is in the process of relaxing mandates for some of the other required vaccinations -- certainly there is now political hay to be made from doing so be…

"well-tested and -understood vaccines"

In what way are the COVID vaccines not well-tested or not well understood? I understand many laypeople want to declare an arbitrary length of time that they can pretend means a new drug is safe. But the professionals who have informed opinions on the matter are essentially in unanimous agreement that these vaccines have been proven safe.

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

#515
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Your children do not need it - perhaps you should evaluate whether they are in an 'at risk' category like the Nordics https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have died from all causes: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Se... Sweden halts Moderna:…

From the nature.com link that you posted:

“The low rate of severe acute disease is important news, but this does not have to mean that COVID does not matter to children,” says paediatrician Danilo Buonsenso at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome. “Please, let’s keep attention — as much as is feasible — on immunization.”

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

#516

> Pfizer’s phase 2/3 trial randomized non-hospitalized adult COVID-19 patients who were at high risk of progressing to severe illness to receive placebo or Paxlovid, a combination of the protease inhibitors Oh, a protease inhibitor you say? I was told those were horse dewormers by the media. This whole thing is bullshit. With this much money at stake we were never going to learn the truth.

Except this is studied and dosed appropriately vs. tacking a bunch of Ivermectin and shitting your intestines out based on a half-truth you read about from Facebook.

I lost a family member to one of those "supposedly treats Covid" drugs. It was called Remdesivir, and it had the full blessing of the people who told you Ivermectin causes you to shit your intestines out.

It causes kidney failure. Just the thing for treating someone whose lungs are filling with fluid from viral pneumonia.

I really wish at the time they went in the hospital (in December) that I had known the WHO had withdrawn it from their recommended treatment list the month before, in November 2020. BUT that particular piece of news was not important to the people who run the big propaganda campaign against Ivermectin.

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

#517
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've done that for decades in this country. > All 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) mandate diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, rubella and chickenpox. In addition, every state except Iowa mandates immunization against mumps. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/08/states-have...

This would be acceptable to me if the vaccinations were in any way comparable. The diseases you speak of have been known for centuries (I am comfortable being wrong on that) and the vaccines have been tested and are understood as part of being distributed for decades. This is a common argument, and honestly it's garbage.

"the vaccines have been tested and are understood as part of being distributed for decades."

Obviously during the first years they were in use these vaccines had not been "distributed for decades". That's the era we're in with COVID.

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

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr. Kevin J. Downes receives money from Pfizer: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/art.41772

Do you have an explanation for how he's wrong?

Did I say he's wrong? I'm simply pointing out a conflict of interest, which is a legitimate fact to bring to light.

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

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some patient next to them are not even offered to be part of this draw, and winning this draw (i.e. getting the real medicine) may lead to severe adverse effects. It would be unethical if this placebo was given in place of a known working alternative treatment.

> It would be unethical if this placebo was given in place of a known working alternative treatment. From what little I know of cancer treatment, that isn't how studies are generally run. When you're part of a trial, you're either given the experimental treatment, or the "standard of care", not a placebo. So for cancer at least, you're either getting a novel treatment, or standard chemo.

in this case there was no standard of care

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

#520

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)

Oh I think it will be gladly accepted by unvaccinated folk. The reason being is most unvaccinated people don’t believe it isn’t effective, they don’t like being forced to protect themselves by a bunch of moral busybodies. I just accepted as soon as we saw that covid was spreading so quickly, welp I’m gonna get that. I figured I wouldn’t be that affected by it and wasn’t. Our parents said, well if I get it I get it, a…

>The reason being is most unvaccinated people don’t believe it isn’t effective, they don’t like being forced to protect themselves by a bunch of moral busybodies.

I think this is something that's very understated in public discussion around COVID-19, I got vaccinated because I weighed up the odds and thought it made sense from both a social and a personal cost/benefit perspective. I didn't get vaccinated because I was gaslit into it by the government's "nudges", nor did I get it because I was nagged or shamed into it by those who can't keep their noses out of other people's business. There's few things I dislike more in a person than a Puritan wagging finger, yet all the messaging around the pandemic was nothing but wagging fingers.

People don't like being manipulated, even if it's "for their own good" or even "for the greater good". People aren't stupid either, they know when authority figures aren't being entirely upfront with them. As well-intentioned as the measures were, the institutions who imposed them have burned up a lot of public trust in the process with the use of fear and coercion as a tool to manage the pandemic as well as being a bit economical with the truth instead of just saying "we don't know" where appropriate. I think the unfortunate persistence of the anti-vax movement is partially down to this instinct for authoritarianism and shaming people rather than extending an olive branch.

I do wonder if "vaccines mean we can permanently rid ourselves of masks, distancing, and other authoritarian restrictions" would have been more effective as a campaign than "get the vaccine or you're a horrible selfish piece of crap who probably wants to bump off grandma for her inheritence". Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but I think it would.

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