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

fiercebiotech.com

101–110 of 1001 posts

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

#101

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).

The same antivaxxers who ”refuse to take experiemental drugs from big pharma Pfizer” will gobble this pill down no questions asked.

Which just proves, the anti-vaxxer moment is based on the primitive instinct of ”pain and needles=bad”

Being scared of vaccines should be considered the same thing as having a fear of dentists. Or pets hating going to the vet.

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

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Vaccine doesn't prevent spreading.

Citation needed - and note I didn't say it prevents "100% of spreading"

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

#103

Earlier 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?

If everyone was vaccinated it would make a big difference.

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

#104
post #46

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...

I don't think either of those sources justifies "does little to prevent spread." The language used in them is considerably more hedged, eg:

"But growing evidence suggests that, with the Delta variant, fully vaccinated people can still transmit the virus."

And this:

"Unfortunately, the vaccine’s beneficial effect on Delta transmission waned to almost negligible levels over time. In people infected 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, both in the UK, the chance that an unvaccinated close contact would test positive was 57%, but 3 months later, that chance rose to 67%. The latter figure is on par with the likelihood that an unvaccinated person will spread the virus."

Is also not super relevant— what most people want to know is not whether a breakthrough infection is capable of spreading it, but whether you're more likely to get a breakthrough infection. I think most vaccinated people (which is most people in rich countries now) care much more about the unvaccinated -> vaccinated transmission and the vaccinated -> vaccinated transmission than they do about vaccinated -> unvaccinated.

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

#105

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 LUCIFERASE!

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

#106
post #86

> This is a completely novel molecule... Then do we understand the risk profile of this thing? That sounds like the sort of innovation that people would want to be at the back of the queue for. Side effects don't have to happen in the next 6 months.

If the consequence of not taking it is death, I think people would run to the front of the queue, though.

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

#107

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).

Easy - just brand it "ivermectan" and sit back and relax

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

#108

Did 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...

That’s correct. If a positive effect in the treatment arm of the study is found to be strong enough, it is deemed unethical to continue giving patients the placebo as control. Hence, they terminate the study and proceed to the next phase of approval

That it's unethical to continue giving half the participants a placebo makes sense.

I am curious though: do they ever continue with the trial, with the patients on the actual drug? Might that be useful for monitoring rare-ish side effects, even if the drug is highly effective?

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

#109
post #97
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.

Yeah it's not really researchers that I'm worried about, it's their bosses.
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