Coronavirus Updates

[Innula Zenovka]

New antibody mix could form 'very potent' Covid-19 treatment, say scientists

Researchers say development could lead to a coronavirus treatment that can be mass produced

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sovereignty]

New Treatment for Covid-19 Shows Promise, but Scientists Urge Caution

The inhaled form of interferon beta tested by Synairgen was shown to reduce the odds of hospitalized patients becoming severely ill — needing ventilation, for example — by 79 percent compared with patients who received a placebo.

ETA:

The study could not rule out that the drug was only marginally effective.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

New antibody mix could form 'very potent' Covid-19 treatment, say scientists

Researchers say development could lead to a coronavirus treatment that can be mass produced

www.theguardian.com

I mean, not that I expect most americans will be able to afford anything like this, but just that it seems possible for the rest of the planet makes me happy.

 

[danielravennest]

POTUS - most patriotic American alive and your favorite president!

 

[Veritable Quandry]

 

[Sovereignty]

Check out This Week in Virology if you want, a podcast now also on YouTube thanks to Zoom.

Plus side: a bunch of Ph.D. and MD types sit around and talk about virology for two hours as if it were a cooking or travel show on NPR.

Minus sid: a bunch of Ph.D. and MD types sit around and talk about virology for two hours as if it were a cooking or travel show on NPR.

Claim to fame: They've had Anthony Fauci on the show twice, once seven years ago and once just this week. Fauci wouldn't waste his time with wackos, would he?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

CBD For Coronavirus? New Study Adds Evidence For Cannabis As Covid-19 Treatment

New evidence is adding support to the theory that cannabis derived CBD may help those suffering from the severe lung inflammation that occurs in more serious cases of COVID-19. The study suggests that CBD may positively impact ARDS- a dangerous symptom in COVID-19.

www.forbes.com

(And even if it doesn't work, it makes lockdown a bit more bearable, or so I'm told)

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Coronavirus in Scotland: Efforts to develop 'sophisticated' antibody test

It could tell people how their body reacted to Covid-19 and how badly they might get it in the future.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Innula Zenovka]

'Major' breakthrough in Covid-19 drug makes UK professors millionaires

Synairgen’s share price rises 540% on morning of news of successful drugs trial

www.theguardian.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

'Major' breakthrough in Covid-19 drug makes UK professors millionaires

Synairgen’s share price rises 540% on morning of news of successful drugs trial

www.theguardian.com

Ouch.

While the founders have made a packet, long-suffering investors in Neil Woodford’s former flagship fund have missed out. Woodford, who was known for taking bets on early-stage medical stocks, had been one of the biggest single investors in Synairgen through his equity income fund. But the administrators sold the fund’s holdings in Synairgen last month for less than £10m, about a quarter of the value of the shares today.

Emphasis added.

 

[Sovereignty]

Problems With Trump-Touted COVID-19 Test Pile Up

They are talking about the Abbot ID test which returns a result in 10 minutes, but how much of the backlash is due to Trump's endorsement and how much of it is based on science?

Michael Mina is crusading for the use of similar fast turnaround, lower sensitivity tests because:

a) The tests are sensitive down to the level of transmissibility.
b) The so-called false negatives it generates are clustered around people who are not transmissible.
c) With daily testing a missed positive that we care about one day will be picked up the next day.
d) Using cheap, frequent, fast-turnaround tests like these will drive down the rate of transmission quickly.
e) Relying on the current high sensitivity, expensive, slowwww turnaround test is wasting money and resources.

 

[Beebo Brink]

So this is strange.
During Coronavirus Lockdowns, Some Doctors Wondered: Where Are the Preemies?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

US ‘failures’ are holding back search for coronavirus drugs

Treatment of Covid-19 in America has been fragmented and uncoordinated, says expert leading UK programme

www.theguardian.com

The global effort to produce useful anti-Covid medicines is being hampered by the US because researchers are testing drugs in “an arbitrary, willy-nilly way”, the expert leading the UK’s programme has warned.

Britain’s Recovery Trial programme, which has involved 12,000 patients at several hundred British hospitals, has already pinpointed one promising new drug to tackle the disease and also highlighted two others – previously thought to be potential life-savers – as being useless.

But the failure of the US medical system to match this output has meant that other promising treatments that could have been cleared for widespread use have still to be evaluated. In particular, convalescent plasma (blood plasma that is taken from Covid-19 patients and which contains antibodies that could protect others against the disease) has still to be properly tested on a large-scale randomised trial.

Crucially these trials needed very large numbers of patients and no single hospital has enough for such research. Britain has had one key advantage – a centralised National Health Service. By contrast, the US health service is fragmented and its only success in pointing a possible treatment has been highlighting the usefulness of the highly expensive drug remdesivir for speeding recovery of some Covid-19 patients.

“There are lots and lots of small drugs trials involving a few dozen or a few hundred patients going on in the US but nothing of any substance,” added Landray. “They are failing to do large, randomised trials and that ends up providing bad medicine. It makes the practice of medicine poorer and the outcomes for patients poorer.”

 

[Beebo Brink]

SARS-CoV-2 continues to reveal the fractures in our society.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The British success is mostly because of the Recovery trials, but partly because the British government messed up so badly at the beginning of the crisis so the trials had plenty of patients to work on, it seems.

Though so does the US, of course.

Britain wins rare praise for leading race to test life-saving Covid drugs

UK’s high infection rate and centralised NHS have enabled Recovery team to help victims across the world

www.theguardian.com

 

[danielravennest]

SARS-CoV-2 continues to reveal the fractures in our society.

I'm convinced the failures in dealing with the virus are deliberate. Since the early hot spots were in big democratic cities, they seem to hope it will kill more of them off. Of course, like so many other things, they got it wrong. Just as many people in other areas are dying from it. It just took longer to reach critical mass in places like Oklahoma. Another example of deliberate sabotage is ex-felons on Florida. If they still owe the state for fines, they can't get cleared to vote. So LeBron James just gave a six figure sum to pay off some of these fines. Former convicts have a hard time finding a job, so even a relatively small fine can be a challenge to pay.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Boris Johnson just proudly had to tell the world that soon there will be less of himself.

 

[Govi]

Boris Johnson just proudly had to tell the world that soon there will be less of himself.

It's doubtful he can carry this on to its richly deserved end.