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Coronavirus

Mikey10 said:
I honestly cannot understand why some people can’t grasp this.

Medicine/science is the ONLY thing that can make a difference eventually. Until we make inroads into our treatment of this virus then the fear will remain - and while the fear remains we will largely be stuck in a form of national (and world) paralysis.

THE best thing to do now is buy time. Our knowledge of this virus increases every day.
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I can completely understand why people can't understand that.
I'm a smart guy and I've following everything closely - but even just reading DTA's posts put together in your quote gave an extra clarity for me.

We need war time type communication - exactly like above. This is what we are doing, this is why, this is the goal.
Here is the support you all need.
You need to do X,Y,Z
You must do A,B,C
You must not do 1,2,3

Do this voluntarily and we'll sort this together.
Don't do it and we'll force you to.
----

But that is not the leadership we are getting. We are getting wishy washy and reluctantly, not decisive and commanding.
The UK is really only a week in, so I can cut Johnson a bit of slack, he is learning this too. But he needs to sort his brick and do it now.
 
monkeybarry said:
I can completely understand why people can't understand that.
I'm a smart guy and I've following everything closely - but even just reading DTA's posts put together in your quote gave an extra clarity for me.

We need war time type communication - exactly like above. This is what we are doing, this is why, this is the goal.
Here is the support you all need.
You need to do X,Y,Z
You must do A,B,C
You must not do 1,2,3

Do this voluntarily and we'll sort this together.
Don't do it and we'll force you to.
----

But that is not the leadership we are getting. We are getting wishy washy and reluctantly, not decisive and commanding.
The UK is really only a week in, so I can cut Johnson a bit of slack, he is learning this too. But he needs to sort his brick and do it now.
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I don't understand why they say they dont want people to go to pubs but they have not shut them.
 
DTA said:
So you are saying that using existing safe medicines with track records will require trials for 18 months? Because that's not what I have been reading and hearing.
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To test if they're safe for use against this virus, yes.

Testing for general safety is one kind of clinical trial, this is usually run alongside efficacy and specific safety trials. Efficacy doesn't matter so much - we can skip them if the general side effect risk is low. As you said, general safety tests can be skipped as they're already complete.

The issue that we've never tested (and can't accelerate) is whether this particular strain and any of those medicines have side effects. For example, a drug could give us antibodies to fight the virus in the short term and leave our bodies incapable of producing them again in future, meaning the whole world dies in a year's time.

That's an unlikely outcome, obviously, but it's the kind of risk we still need to test for before administering a drug to millions or billions of people. Normally a risk is considered to have trended to 0 over 12-18 months (hence the expert predictions on timescale). I'm sure we'd shorten that to maybe 9-12 months but anything below that is an insanely high risk, given the number we need to inmoculate.

So far what I've read in the press is experts claiming 12-18 months and drug manufacturers claiming 3. In this case I'm inclined to lean towards those who aren't lobbying for a shortcut.
 
Mikey10 said:
This is good.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ting-covid-19-italy-vo?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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I would say that's obvious.

Let's look at this simply (I know it's not)

Let's say everyone who is vulnerable is over 60. They need to self isolate (and do it with dedication)

Let's say everyone under 60 only gets mild symptoms or at worst cold like or flu like symptoms (a bit sh.it for a week) and even asymptomatic.

What the under 60's need to do is ALL get it as quickly as possible so the over 60's can return to society.

The over 60's dedication to self isolating will hopefully keep the pressure off the NHS, the kids and adults all getting it ASAP means they can filter back to work and school ASAP. (And help the vulnerable)

The caveat is we would need to be sure (via volunteers) to test the antibody response to people who have already had it if exposed a second time.
(Natural antibody response is the Ferrari of vaccines)

As @scaramanga says ringfencing a group and then letting them back into a virus infected world has only kicked the can down the road. That why, as the report suggests, the two type of tests need to ramp up.

Put it this way. If your mother or grandmother was over 60 and you were told you can purposely infect yourself with this virus (and suffer, at worst, a cold/flu for a week) and in doing so it would save their life. Would you do it?.
 
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scaramanga said:
To test if they're safe for use against this virus, yes.

Testing for general safety is one kind of clinical trial, this is usually run alongside efficacy and specific safety trials. Efficacy doesn't matter so much - we can skip them if the general side effect risk is low. As you said, general safety tests can be skipped as they're already complete.

The issue that we've never tested (and can't accelerate) is whether this particular strain and any of those medicines have side effects. For example, a drug could give us antibodies to fight the virus in the short term and leave our bodies incapable of producing them again in future, meaning the whole world dies in a year's time.

That's an unlikely outcome, obviously, but it's the kind of risk we still need to test for before administering a drug to millions or billions of people. Normally a risk is considered to have trended to 0 over 12-18 months (hence the expert predictions on timescale). I'm sure we'd shorten that to maybe 9-12 months but anything below that is an insanely high risk, given the number we need to inmoculate.

So far what I've read in the press is experts claiming 12-18 months and drug manufacturers claiming 3. In this case I'm inclined to lean towards those who aren't lobbying for a shortcut.
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Can you show me a link where experts are saying that it will still take 12-18 months to start using EXISTING drugs on covid-19 patients serious condition? Because that's not my understanding at all.
 
DTA said:
Can you show me a link where experts are saying that it will still take 12-18 months to start using EXISTING drugs on covid-19 patients serious condition? Because that's not my understanding at all.
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I can tell you that's how long every approval for mass use of a drug for a different purpose has taken in the history of medical testing.

If they want to change the rules and procedures they can - it's in the hands of any government to do so. Problem is, one of the risk factors in these approvals is the number of people expected to take it. In this case that number's huge. It weighs heavily against the fact that they're not new drugs.

Just step through the process. Drugs show initially good results in hundreds or thousands of subjects. How long do you monitor those subjects before allowing the general population to go about their business as usual? At minimum it's months and months. It may be shorter than the worst case but it's still too long to stop the economy for.
 
I work in the Pharma Industry. Approval of a new drug application normally takes a year from submittal* to being approved. Both in the US (FDA) and in Europe (EMA).
I do believe that in the current situation the FDA have said that will consider a 'Rolling Review' for certain COVID-19 related applications. Basically it means send us what you have section by section and we will try to approve as quick as we can (within reason). It will still take some time.

*Note - Before being ready to think of submitting you would need to have completed the 5+ years of the research development cycle (Lab, Animals, Healthy Humans, Target Patients in large 2+ year clinical trials etc.)
 
I would add, Companies that have potential existing drugs have been scrambling to put together some clinical trial proposals recruiting patents in the US, China, UK, Japan. These clinical trials are being approved very, very quickly by the FDA.
 
dingdongo said:
I would add, Companies that have potential existing drugs have been scrambling to put together some clinical trial proposals recruiting patents in the US, China, UK, Japan. These clinical trials are being approved very, very quickly by the FDA.
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What would your estimate be for said existing drugs being used in Covid-19 cases? Especially the most severe?
 
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