re: OT: Alabama Coronavirus Thread (see link in OP for case numbers and death totals in AL)

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Best I can tell from my own crude analysis of the reports, it seems to have the best chance of helping you if you are sick but not yet sick enough to require hospitalization with supportive care. If you are already to the point of being ventilated, it doesn’t seem to do much. But (again, personal analysis by a pharmacist who hasn’t done drug information analysis in 30 years since pharmacy school) that would make sense since the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combo seems to help the body clear the virus before the worst damage is done.

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That's precisely why I talked about the 15 minute point of care test as being just as important if the treatment turns out to do as you said. If you've got the ability to identify an infection immediately and a treatment that can keep most from getting really sick, you've got the upper hand.

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That doesn't make him right.

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That doesn't make him wrong either. Just saying.

What did he say that was wrong?

1) He hopes the drug works. Opinion but I would hope everyone would want something to cure people.

2) We need to get back to normal. It that not the goal and he never gave a time frame.


3) Small business needed to reopen. Again how is that wrong and still no time frame.

I would assume we all want this even though it may take some time and could be months but still I do not see anything that he said that was wrong.

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Dead people can't work and can't buy stuff.

For us to "get back to work," first we're going to need the availability of widespread testing and titer detection to determine who has developed immunity, and is therefore safe to return to work.

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Did he say anything to disagree with that or give a time frame?

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You do know you are responding to a man who is currently hospitalized with the Coronavirus, right?

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I wasn't vehemently disagreeing with him. I was just stating what I thought needed to happen before we can start a return to normalcy.

::beer::

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Germany has among the highest number of coronavirus cases worldwide, but a fairly low death toll so far. German virologists believe that is the result of early and extensive testing as well as the widespread availability of intensive care capacities. Patients from hard hit European countries are being flown to Germany for treatment.

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It makes me want to scream that the exact thing we failed at so profoundly:

Early and Extensive Testing to isolate and treat people before they call for an ambulance in near death condition and/or infect 5 others

is exactly what every country handling this without an Italy/Spain situation did very well.


Are the people in charge of the CDC, FDA, HHS just political hacks that each new administration puts in or are they more permanent positions?

The comedy of errors they had setting up testing in the USA has to go down as one of the most disastrous mistakes in our history.

Johnson and Johnson hopes to start testing its lead vaccine candidate starting in September and is ramping up production capacity to be able to produce 1 billion doses by sometime in early 2021 when they expect fast track approval by FDA.

Again, this is my take on this, is the Moderna vaccine that has already begun test at Emory is a novel type of vaccine from recombinant RNA that has not been previously used or approved for any disease yet. The J&J vaccine is using their subsidiary Jansen’s Advac technology that has already produced some existing vaccines and others that are in phase 2 and 3 trials for other diseases. In other words, it’s a semi-proven technology already. So J&J has been promised fast track emergency approval by FDA so they are building another plant here in the US to supplement their Dutch plant that can produce 300 million doses annually. This will increase total capacity to over 1 billion doses a year. That may be a little oversimplified but it’s pretty close to the mark.

The rest of 2020 may be a little dicey at times but it sounds like help is on the way. If we can continue to bend the curve and get things under control, I think things may improve significantly in the second half of the year. Not normal but closer to it.

LINK ]First Results From Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine May Take Two More Months

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Moderna is not the only vaccine maker racing to find a preventative treatment for the disease. An executive from Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. went on “60 Minutes” over the weekend to tell viewers that it would start a large mid-stage study by the end of the year, although the company had to yet to start testing its vaccine in humans.

There are no guarantees that either of the vaccines will work. The history of developing treatments and vaccines for outbreaks has been fraught with failure and has resulted in few pay offs for drug developers.

LINK ]Read more: The Search for New Drugs for Coronavirus Faces Long Odds

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Yeah, Surge, there’s some truth to that but modern technology has made the guessing game much more favorable. Now with fast genetic sequencing, AI, computer modeling, etc, they are a lot better at figuring out an answer.

^^^^^ This. I have had it up to my eyeballs with the politicization of things to the point where it endangers the people.

Many politicians are self-serving rather than serving our people. How many have gone to Washington a common man and returned a multi-millionaire? How does that happen on a $250k annual salary?

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