OT: COVID Science - Pfizer/Moderna vaccines >90% effective; Regeneron antibody cocktail looks very promising in phase II/III trial and more

[ArminRU]

Johnson & Johnson vaccine getting closer:

Janssen presents one-shot COVID-19 vaccine data

J&J subsidiary Janssen Pharma has presented updated Phase I/II antibody levels supporting a single shot administration for its COVID-19 vaccine.

european-biotechnology.com

South Africa was promoting yesterday that they are getting 9mil doses. A big trial was held there for J&J, so you gotta think the news that is coming hopefully by the end of the week will be good. Might even indicate it works on the South Africa strain????

South Africa to get 9 million J&J vaccine shots - ministry

South Africa, which has yet to receive its first coronavirus vaccine doses, will be getting 9 million from Johnson & Johnson, the health ministry said on Monday.

www.reuters.com

 

[RUBOB72]

So let’s see we have the UK , South African , Brazilian and covid19 lite. Which other strains have mutated?

 

[Joey Bags]

One thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is in-home transmission.

In three cases where I know an individual had a mild/moderate case of the virus they quarantined at home with the rest of the family and in all 3 cases no one else in the household came down with it despite the person having symptoms and despite living with each other. That's 12 people who had prolonged exposure who didn't end up getting it. I started reading up on this and there seems to be no consensus as to why this happens. Some studies have less than 20% of infected spreading to the household and others have it spreading to 50%+ of the household.

We take so many precautions to prevent spread in public but then you have private transmission rates that seem frequently to be way less than Rt=1. Anyone have any good literature that is considered sound reading on this phenomenon?

 

[NotInRHouse]

One thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is in-home transmission.

In three cases where I know an individual had a mild/moderate case of the virus they quarantined at home with the rest of the family and in all 3 cases no one else in the household came down with it despite the person having symptoms and despite living with each other. That's 12 people who had prolonged exposure who didn't end up getting it. I started reading up on this and there seems to be no consensus as to why this happens. Some studies have less than 20% of infected spreading to the household and others have it spreading to 50%+ of the household.

We take so many precautions to prevent spread in public but then you have private transmission rates that seem frequently to be way less than Rt=1. Anyone have any good literature that is considered sound reading on this phenomenon?

Were they quarantining at home (only staying in one area)? I have heard of keeping the infected to a bedroom and bathroom to limit the spread.

 

[Joey Bags]

Were they quarantining at home (only staying in one area)? I have heard of keeping the infected to a bedroom and bathroom to limit the spread.

I asked the same question and yes they slept separately and relaxed separately but would still be around each other at times throughout the day (greater than 15 min). In one case the person had symptoms for a full week before they got tested (thought it was a normal bug till they lost their smell then got tested). They basically acted business as usual that week.

Conversely the one family member of mine who passed from it caught it from a 2 min encounter with a caregiver when masks were worn by both of them.

 

[Jm0513]

Were they quarantining at home (only staying in one area)? I have heard of keeping the infected to a bedroom and bathroom to limit the spread.

I asked the same question and yes they slept separately and relaxed separately but would still be around each other at times throughout the day (greater than 15 min). In one case the person had symptoms for a full week before they got tested (thought it was a normal bug till they lost their smell then got tested). They basically acted business as usual that week.

Conversely the one family member of mine who passed from it caught it from a 2 min encounter with a caregiver when masks were worn by both of them.

My daughter was in the car(for more than 15min. She was practicing driving for 2 hrs one day) and kitchen at her dad's. She was there prior to testing positive and after. He tested negative and had zero symptoms. He is type O blood. (is that still a thing??)
Several of her friends also had Covid and none of the parents ever got it. Very odd

 

[Joey Bags]

My daughter was in the car(for more than 15min. She was practicing driving for 2 hrs one day) and kitchen at her dad's. She was there prior to testing positive and after. He tested negative and had zero symptoms. He is type O blood. (is that still a thing??)
Several of her friends also had Covid and none of the parents ever got it. Very odd

There has been speculation that having Type O blood would correlate to either a smaller likelihood of getting the virus or a smaller likelihood of getting severe symptoms.

Earlier on in the pandemic there were of number of infuriating self-aggrandizing media articles on this topic claiming it was a conspiracy theory (title would be something like "No, Type O blood does not mean you are less susceptible to COVID").

Fast forward to now and there is much more to this than conspiratorial fake news:

Type O blood linked to lower COVID risk, taking Vitamin D unlikely to help

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

www.reuters.com

 

[hrdcorhays]

One thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is in-home transmission.

In three cases where I know an individual had a mild/moderate case of the virus they quarantined at home with the rest of the family and in all 3 cases no one else in the household came down with it despite the person having symptoms and despite living with each other. That's 12 people who had prolonged exposure who didn't end up getting it. I started reading up on this and there seems to be no consensus as to why this happens. Some studies have less than 20% of infected spreading to the household and others have it spreading to 50%+ of the household.

We take so many precautions to prevent spread in public but then you have private transmission rates that seem frequently to be way less than Rt=1. Anyone have any good literature that is considered sound reading on this phenomenon?

My Brother's family is currently going through this. They think my niece got it from her hockey coach. Brother and sis-in-law showing symptoms, sis-in-law more severe than brother but she's able to truck through the day at least a little. Niece (8) tested positive but totally asymptomatic. 7 year old and 4 year old nephew negative. So strange.

The other thing sis-in-law said that I found interesting was the loss of taste and smell came after several days of other symptoms being present. I do wonder what we will ever learn about natural immunity and why some people get more significant cases. It just seems so random.

 

[bac2therac]

This is an excellent article here

The twisted, messy hunt for COVID-19's origin and the lab leak theory

A tangle of conspiracy and politicking has complicated the investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

www.cnet.com

 

[RU848789]

Interesting data out of Israel with regard to both incredible vaccination rate success (nearly 30% vaccinated so far and cases having dropped over 20% in recent days) and strong indications that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will lead to greatly reduced virus transmission rates (in addition to achieving the primary goal of nearly no severe COVID infections).

Israel did a fantastic job in both obtaining a large number of vaccine doses, paying a premium for these, and in utilizing their army and health care system to orchestrate an incredibly efficient vaccine rollout. That's easier to do in a country like Israel, where the military is deeply enmeshed in all aspects of life there.

With regard to the Pfizer vaccine's effectiveness, Israel and Pfizer have partnered closely to obtain a wealth of early data on a large number of people who have been vaccinated. Perhaps the most encouraging finding is that over 100 health care workers who received the vaccine were shown to have up to 20X the level of neutralizing antibodies (active against the virus), as compared to infected/recovered patients.

There is strong speculation that this high level of antibodies will greatly reduce the ability of the virus to replicate in numbers high enough to lead to significant transmission to other people, which would be fantastic. The jury is still out on that, but it's a great sign.

https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-has-vaccinated-27-of-its-population-for-covid-19-2021-1

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...vent-transmission-coronavirus-others-israeli/

 

[bac2therac]

oh look nothing to see here

US Scientist Who Led Charge Against COVID Lab Leak Theory Admits He Was Trying To Protect Chinese Scientists

The U.S. scientist behind an effort to stymie debate on the possibility that COVID-19 accidentally escaped a lab said he did so to protect Chinese scientists.

dailycaller.com

 

[ArminRU]

Interesting data out of Israel with regard to both incredible vaccination rate success (nearly 30% vaccinated so far and cases having dropped over 20% in recent days) and strong indications that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will lead to greatly reduced virus transmission rates (in addition to achieving the primary goal of nearly no severe COVID infections).

Israel did a fantastic job in both obtaining a large number of vaccine doses, paying a premium for these, and in utilizing their army and health care system to orchestrate an incredibly efficient vaccine rollout. That's easier to do in a country like Israel, where the military is deeply enmeshed in all aspects of life there.

With regard to the Pfizer vaccine's effectiveness, Israel and Pfizer have partnered closely to obtain a wealth of early data on a large number of people who have been vaccinated. Perhaps the most encouraging finding is that over 100 health care workers who received the vaccine were shown to have up to 20X the level of neutralizing antibodies (active against the virus), as compared to infected/recovered patients.

There is strong speculation that this high level of antibodies will greatly reduce the ability of the virus to replicate in numbers high enough to lead to significant transmission to other people, which would be fantastic. The jury is still out on that, but it's a great sign.

https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-has-vaccinated-27-of-its-population-for-covid-19-2021-1

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...vent-transmission-coronavirus-others-israeli/

Watching how cases and deaths trend in Israel will be really interesting to watch. We’ll all learn a ton from them.

Although they made some confusing comments today on the efficacy after the first dose. Seems like they were expecting high efficacy after dose 1, which was never studied or promised.

 

[CERU00]

oh look nothing to see here

US Scientist Who Led Charge Against COVID Lab Leak Theory Admits He Was Trying To Protect Chinese Scientists

The U.S. scientist behind an effort to stymie debate on the possibility that COVID-19 accidentally escaped a lab said he did so to protect Chinese scientists.

dailycaller.com

I place great value in Numbers contributions. They show such a wealth of knowledge and understanding. However, I would offer this criticism... He relys very heavily on, and shows complete trust in, specific sets of experts. Placing trust in anything or anyone with connections to the CCP is absolutely dangerous. I'm convinced that the money they throw around has entangled and compromised much more (people and institutions) than we are aware. Unfortunately, I think we'll live to see some very tragic consequences of this naivety toward the CCP.

 

[RU848789]

And another really good paper came out today in the prestigious journal Cell, this time from Crotty and Settes (Crotty did the great paper a few months ago on profiling immune responses in infected/recovered patients, posted above), providing a great overview of the literature, to date, on the adaptive immune system and its role in COVID infections and vaccines. If you ever wanted to know anything about the human immune system and how it fights viral infections, it's probably either in here or in the bibliography. The summary is below. I assume @UMRU is all over this one. 😄

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092867421000076

Summary: While there is much more to be learned about adaptive immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and their relationships to disease severity, immune memory, protection, and vaccines, an extraordinary amount has been accomplished during 2020. Studies of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, and antibodies together in larger cohorts of acute patients, representing a range of disease severity, are needed to further understand mechanisms of protective adaptive immune responses to COVID-19. Big unknowns remain about variable kinetics of viral loads and duration of infection and the connections between those parameters and adaptive immunity and immune memory. Understanding heterogenous disease manifestations of COVID-19 remains a major knowledge gap, and exploring relationships between those phenomena and adaptive immunity is a priority. Additionally, duration of immune memory, and protective immunity, to SARS-CoV-2 after COVID-19 and in response to COVID-19 vaccines will be a high priority for years to come.

A really important paper came out yesterday in Nature by a group mostly from Rockefeller University, which dovetails nicely with the results from the Crotty paper linked above, with regard to the adaptive immune response in people who were infected with COVID and have recovered. While that paper was more of a review, in general of what's been seen so far in infected/recovered, this new paper is a deep investigation into a fairly obscure, but very important element of the immune response - that of memory B cells and the role they play over time in producing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

And as often happens with groundbreaking research, Derek Lowe is right on top of this one with a fantastic blog entry on this paper, doing his usual excellent job of explaining the deep science to non-immunologists with a decent general science understanding. And the key finding with these memory B cells is that while neutralizing antibodies wane significantly months after recovery, the B cells remain "on guard" ready to crank up the immune machinery to produce more of those antibodies - but not just those - they've also shown that these B cells "evolve" to produce new and improved antibodies that can recognize and neutralize an even broader array of anitgens, which should potentially help fight off even new variants of the virus (as happens for other viruses). See the excerpt below; the full blog entry and the Nature paper are also linked below.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/01/19/memory-b-cells-infection-and-vaccination

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03207-w

And looking at those B cells showed some interesting patterns. There were a variety of them at both the 1-month and 6-month points, but they changed over time. Some of the clonal lines that were present earlier had disappeared, while new ones had continued to show up. The distribution was different as well: at the earlier point, the most common B cell clones were a greater percentage of the whole than at the 6-month point, for example. The authors say: “We conclude that while the magnitude of the RBD-specific memory B cell compartment is conserved between 1.3 and 6.2 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, there is significant clonal turnover and antibody sequence evolution, consistent with prolonged germinal center reactions.“

What’s that antibody evolution look like, then? The good news is that the ones from the six-month check showed both increased potency and an increased range of responses against various protein mutations. That includes many of the ones that are in the news these days, things like R346S, Q493R, and E484K. But while the one-month antibody samples were unable to recognize these and bind to them, the six-month ones were.

How does the immune system do this? It comes down to follicular dendritic cells (FDCs), a specialized cohort that displays antigens on their cell surface for an extended time in the “germinal centers” where B cells replicate. You’ll find them in lymph nodes, spleen, bone marrow, and other tissues (here’s a review article on the subject). They’re quite odd, with unusual cellular structures (very few visible organelles in their cytoplasm and an overall large, spread-out net-like structure). They secrete chemokine signals that attract B cells, allowing them to be exposed repeatedly over the long term to the antigens that they present on the FDC surfaces (which are technically in the form of “immune complexes” there).

 

[RU848789]

oh look nothing to see here

US Scientist Who Led Charge Against COVID Lab Leak Theory Admits He Was Trying To Protect Chinese Scientists

The U.S. scientist behind an effort to stymie debate on the possibility that COVID-19 accidentally escaped a lab said he did so to protect Chinese scientists.

dailycaller.com

I place great value in Numbers contributions. They show such a wealth of knowledge and understanding. However, I would offer this criticism... He relys very heavily on, and shows complete trust in, specific sets of experts. Placing trust in anything or anyone with connections to the CCP is absolutely dangerous. I'm convinced that the money they throw around has entangled and compromised much more (people and institutions) than we are aware. Unfortunately, I think we'll live to see some very tragic consequences of this naivety toward the CCP.

Thanks, mostly. I would at least challenge you on one thing: I've been highly critical of China hiding the risks from this virus and the extent of the epidemic in Wuhan over the first few months of the outbreak. Since then, I don't think I've consciously been promoting viewpoints that come from the CCP, but will acknowledge it's possible I've simply missed such connections. Most of the virologist papers I've cited weren't from scientists associated with the CCP (Daszak hasn't been one of my sources). I also think quite a few basic virus/medical/clinical papers out of China have been quite good - at least the ones that get through peer review - probably because they have no conection to what the government did or did not do during the early months.

Also, bac may find this suprising, but I thought the CNET article was pretty well done. What I liked about it was it completely dismissed the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 being "engineered/created" in a lab, which is something I've been sharing for months. And its presentation of the potential lab release, which I still think is far less likely than natural evolution, was at least done from the perspective of: "here's something that could have happened as an accident," not "look, here's the aboslute truth we know from xyz shady source proving a lab leak is the source" and it also reiterates that natural evolution and a jump somewhere to humans is still the most likely explanation. The biggest reason why the "lab leak" theory is unlikely, as per my post below from months ago, is that the WIV lab never published any coronavirus sequences being worked on that were anywhere close to SARS-CoV-2 and they were fairly prolific producers of papers. Doesn't "prove" it wasn't accidentally released from there, but makes it far less likely.

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...es-interventions-and-more.191275/post-4558420

 

[RU848789]

One thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is in-home transmission.

In three cases where I know an individual had a mild/moderate case of the virus they quarantined at home with the rest of the family and in all 3 cases no one else in the household came down with it despite the person having symptoms and despite living with each other. That's 12 people who had prolonged exposure who didn't end up getting it. I started reading up on this and there seems to be no consensus as to why this happens. Some studies have less than 20% of infected spreading to the household and others have it spreading to 50%+ of the household.

We take so many precautions to prevent spread in public but then you have private transmission rates that seem frequently to be way less than Rt=1. Anyone have any good literature that is considered sound reading on this phenomenon?

All of these observations can be "valid" at the same time, because every case of transmission is somewhat unique. The fundamental problem, which I've posted about a lot, is that, as I said in the post below in bold caps: WE WILL NEVER HAVE MORE THAN IMPERFECT, INFERENTIAL KNOWLEDGE OF HOW THIS VIRUS IS TRANSMITTED. This is because we can't ethically run the experiments we'd need to run to fully define the transmission variables involved, i.e., we can't purposely dose uninfected human subjects with the CV to see what happens and we know from much less deadly viruses (where this has been done) that the uncertainty in the dozens of variables involved makes it very hard to predict transmission parameters and rates.

It's why the guidances on things like masks, distancing, contact time, hand-washing, indoor vs. outdoor, sneezes vs. breathing, etc. are just that - guidances, since the data on transmission are, by necessity, in the big picutre probabilistic, but the outcomes for any individual are binary, i.e., either you get it or you don't. Given all those uncertainties and the extraordinarily high infection risk my wife has is why we've essentially had no contact with anyone for 10 months, other than sitting outside more than 10 feet away with some friends/family and never going to indoor locations with crowds (only going on off hours and ordering much of what we need).

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...es-interventions-and-more.198855/post-4673618

 

[RU848789]

In case anyone saw reports recently about the possibility of the vaccine causing deaths in the elderly in Norway: Norwegian medical experts now say that there is no connection between the vaccine and the deaths.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/wor...ch-vaccine-and-deaths-in-care-homes-1.1149513

 

[ArminRU]

I wonder if there are rules around how frail is too frail to vaccinate. If you’ve ever been in a nursing home, you know that even the stress of moving some of these people could cause death.

 

[RU-05]

One thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is in-home transmission.

In three cases where I know an individual had a mild/moderate case of the virus they quarantined at home with the rest of the family and in all 3 cases no one else in the household came down with it despite the person having symptoms and despite living with each other. That's 12 people who had prolonged exposure who didn't end up getting it. I started reading up on this and there seems to be no consensus as to why this happens. Some studies have less than 20% of infected spreading to the household and others have it spreading to 50%+ of the household.

We take so many precautions to prevent spread in public but then you have private transmission rates that seem frequently to be way less than Rt=1. Anyone have any good literature that is considered sound reading on this phenomenon?

We went 5 for 5 in my house.. Though the one who brought it in didn't get tested immediately and instead went about life as if he had a cold. So we didn't behave as if Covid was in the house until we all had it.

 

[RU-05]

The other thing sis-in-law said that I found interesting was the loss of taste and smell came after several days of other symptoms being present. I do wonder what we will ever learn about natural immunity and why some people get more significant cases. It just seems so random.

My GF was the same, cold symptoms for about 10 days, then came a slight fever, fatique, and loss of t&s for another 10 days. Finally feeling better and back to work as of yesterday.

 

[WhiteBus]

This is an excellent article here

The twisted, messy hunt for COVID-19's origin and the lab leak theory

A tangle of conspiracy and politicking has complicated the investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

www.cnet.com

Wasn't one of the first medical personnel to die in China was a doctor who worked at the Wuhan Institute?

 

[RU848789]

Wasn't one of the first medical personnel to die in China was a doctor who worked at the Wuhan Institute?

Pretty sure you're thinking of Li Wenliang, a Chinese ophthamologist, who worked at Wuhan Central Hospital and became known as a whistleblower, as he shared information about the virus and was rebuked by the CCP for that. He later died of COVID.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

 

[RU848789]

My GF was the same, cold symptoms for about 10 days, then came a slight fever, fatique, and loss of t&s for another 10 days. Finally feeling better and back to work as of yesterday.

Fantastic news that you're feeling better!

 

[pmvon]

Pretty sure you're thinking of Li Wenliang, a Chinese ophthamologist, who worked at Wuhan Central Hospital and became known as a whistleblower, as he shared information about the virus and was rebuked by the CCP for that. He later died of COVID.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

Yes hospital doctor not Wuhan lab. Amazing how these ideas evolve and perpetuate. China has not helped their cause.

 

[wisr01]

I was vacciminated(popeye voice agigigig) today with my first dose of Moderna. Injection site pain kind of like a charlie horse.

 

[pmvon]

Why not ramp production of N95 masks and distribute them to every state for delivery to every household or hold community distribution? Get people wearing the right masks for a short period of time to help reduce the surge.

 

[bac2therac]

oh suddenly our little friend HCQ is back and part of recommended treatment

Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection

Approximately 9 months of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavius-2 (SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19]) spreading across the globe has led to widespread …

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[bac2therac]

and now the WHO comes out and questions the PCR testing, some of us were onto this before but it was shouted down..ie NY Times article.

means that if you are showing no symptoms and test positive with PCR testing, ANOTHER test should be run to confirm

wow

the timing of the announcement makes my head spin but I wont go there

 

[RU848789]

What does California have to do with Moderna producing a potential bad batch of a vaccine?

What does the high allergic reactions have to do California's crazy ideas? One has nothing to due with the other. Agree they are wacky with some of their ideas but that is a high number of reactions.

Just noticed this. Today, the California DOH, in conjunction with the CDC, said that they've analyzed the data and resolved that there is no significant risk from this batch of the Moderna vaccine, and that batch will be released for further vaccinations. They had had less than 10 allergic reactions and my guess is that was more than expected, but that it was simply a statistical anomaly (they do occur) and that the pause was just out of an abundance of caution, so that any risks could be evaluated more carefully. That's a good thing to do with a new vaccine.

https://www.kcra.com/article/pause-...vid-19-vaccines-health-officials-say/35272571

 

[RUBOB72]

What’s your opinion of the Eli Lilly antibody drug testing results posted today .

 

[Postman_1]

and now the WHO comes out and questions the PCR testing, some of us were onto this before but it was shouted down..ie NY Times article.

means that if you are showing no symptoms and test positive with PCR testing, ANOTHER test should be run to confirm

wow

the timing of the announcement makes my head spin but I wont go there

View embedded media

Funny some of us have been saying this for a while now. I recall hearing Bill Spadea on 101.5 saying this over a month ago as well. Then people said we were donwplaying the virus because we gave them facts and $cience.

 

[bac2therac]

yup and crickets from the usual suspects who downplayed the nytimes article that was posted months ago.

 

[goru1869]

yup and crickets from the usual suspects who downplayed the nytimes article that was posted months ago.

I knew and posted a few the numbers were all B.S. from the start. NEVER believe ANYTHING a public servant says.

 

[ArminRU]

Funny some of us have been saying this for a while now. I recall hearing Bill Spadea on 101.5 saying this over a month ago as well. Then people said we were donwplaying the virus because we gave them facts and $cience.

View embedded media

The question is, does having a more sensitive test mean we catch cases earlier? If that’s the case, don’t touch the tests.

 

[pmvon]

Defense Production Act, FEMA and the National Guard. Get it all going. Can we produce more vaccine more quickly? The actual vaccine?

Numbers any thoughts?

 

[goru1869]

Funny some of us have been saying this for a while now. I recall hearing Bill Spadea on 101.5 saying this over a month ago as well. Then people said we were donwplaying the virus because we gave them facts and $cience.

View embedded media

I did hear Bill Spadea talk about this also he has mentioned it a few times. Funny how this comes out the day after the lap top liar takes office. Ya know Beijing biden.

 

[WhiteBus]

I did hear Bill Spadea talk about this also he has mentioned it a few times. Funny how this comes out the day after the lap top liar takes office. Ya know Beijing biden.

400k died from Covid under Trump. Let's see how many die under Biden, the President with an actual plan.

 

[RU848789]

oh suddenly our little friend HCQ is back and part of recommended treatment

Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection

Approximately 9 months of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavius-2 (SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19]) spreading across the globe has led to widespread …

www.sciencedirect.com

Posts like these and others from questionable twitter feeds are why you have low credibility on the topic of COVID. Did you even read the paper? It is not, in any way, a "recommendation" of use of HCQ. This is about potential off-label use of HCQ for mildly ill COVID patients, since HCQ is not approved for use for COVID (bold part in the excerpt below from the paper), given its general failure to show any efficacy in post-exposure prophylaxis and in both mildly ill and hospitalized COVID patients in randomized, controlled clinical trials, none of which the article even acknowledges.

Combination Antiviral Therapy
Rapid and amplified viral replication is the hallmark of most acute viral infections. By reducing the rate, quantity, or duration of viral replication, the degree of direct viral injury to the respiratory epithelium, vasculature, and organs may be lessened.16 Additionally, secondary processes that depend on viral stimulation, including the activation of inflammatory cells, cytokines, and coagulation, could potentially be lessened if viral replication is attenuated. Because no form of readily available medication has been designed specifically to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication, 2 or more of the nonspecific agents listed here can be entertained. None of the approaches listed have specific regulatory approved advertising labels for their manufacturers; thus all would be appropriately considered acceptable “off-label” use.

In case anyone is interested, below is the link to a WaPo article summarizing the two RCTs on mildly ill outpatients being treated with HCQ mentioned above. I posted these awhile back, but basically, the studies by Boulware (MN) and Mitja (Spain) show fairly conclusively that HCQ has no efficacy in mildly ill COVID patients. This is bad science and Elsevier should know better than to publish this, especially since the article didn't even mention these two definitive studies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...-not-effective-early-treatment-mild-covid-19/

 

[goru1869]

400k died from Covid under Trump. Let's see how many die under Biden, the President with an actual plan.

YEAAAAAAAAAA . You believe the numbers and what public servants say ? And how many have died because of murphy ? It is his state and HIS plans in long tear care facilities . How about HIS plan in vet homes ? Have a swell night .

 

[MulletCork]

100 million vaccines in 100 days right?
The clock has started ticking....