COVID-19: Vaccine/antidote and testing procedures Megathread [Mod Warning - Post #1]

timsey tiger · 23-08-2020 09:36PM

drunkmonkey wrote: »

China backing Biden all the way.

Like every sane person on the planet, then.

Hmmzis · 23-08-2020 09:40PM

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Any word on improved treatments for this?

Surely they've learnt what works better since March and this is why we're seeing vastly reduced mortality numbers? (or a big part of it at least)

Contrary to this though, I have seen Doctors online say they're giving the exact same drugs now for treatment as they were in March

Reduced mortality is mostly down to younger age groups getting infected now. Not much in the drug arsenal has changed. There is some Remdesivir, but mostly it's down to steroids for late stage theraphy (Dexamethsone) and improved nursing protocols (i.e. not just shoving everyone on a vent at the first sign of oxygen trouble). Also, less load on hospitals means more attention can be given to each individual case, that alone can lead to substantially better outcomes.

Gael23 · 23-08-2020 09:41PM

What brought the Spanish flu pandemic to an end? I can’t imagine there were any vaccines then

drunkmonkey · 23-08-2020 09:41PM

Ok Plasma Treatment seemingly, anyone know anything about that type of treatment?

Trump to announce emergency authorization of plasma treatment for COVID-19

https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/trump-to-announce-authorization-of-plasma-treatment-for-covid-19/

drunkmonkey · 23-08-2020 09:43PM

Gael23 wrote: »

What brought the Spanish flu pandemic to an end? I can’t imagine there were any vaccines then

Herd immunity, you either survived it and gained immunity or you dided.

froog · 23-08-2020 09:44PM

Gael23 wrote: »

What brought the Spanish flu pandemic to an end? I can’t imagine there were any vaccines then

it burnt itself out after killing 50 million people (3% of the global population at that time).

ShineOn7 · 23-08-2020 09:49PM

Hmmzis wrote: »

Reduced mortality is mostly down to younger age groups getting infected now. Not much in the drug arsenal has changed. There is some Remdesivir, but mostly it's down to steroids for late stage theraphy (Dexamethsone) and improved nursing protocols (i.e. not just shoving everyone on a vent at the first sign of oxygen trouble). Also, less load on hospitals means more attention can be given to each individual case, that alone can lead to substantially better outcomes.

Great answer, thanks

I'm surprised and disappointed that not much has improved re: drugs

dominatinMC · 23-08-2020 10:05PM

froog wrote: »

it burnt itself out after killing 50 million people (3% of the global population at that time).

50 million - that's mad, I didn't realise it was so bad. Given that we are approx. 8 months into this pandemic with circa. 800k deaths worldwide, I wonder if it's the case that this virus is less deadly than that one, or on this occasion have we responded better with rapid spread of information, more advanced medicine, etc.?

Hmmzis · 23-08-2020 10:13PM

Gael23 wrote: »

What brought the Spanish flu pandemic to an end? I can’t imagine there were any vaccines then

It simply ran its course, the remnants of it are still kicking around though - H1N1 influenza.

There are lots of ideas and theories about why the Spanish Flu version of H1N1 was so deadly. The thing though is, that since it's still an influenza strain, the contagiousness and therefore the natural reproductive rate isn"t all that high when it comes to infectious diseases. Here is one estimation based on schools, so would be on the higher side (it's the 2009 pandemic version, still H1N1 though):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5510564/

Even with those numbers you can see that at the 30-40% penettation rate it simply can't sustain itself and gets reduced to background levels. When it comes to the general population at large, the penetration levels for H1N1 would be even lower for it to 'run out of steam' so to say.

When it comes to SARS-cov-2, data coming out of India might be quite telling soon enough. New Delhi was up to 29% prevalence and Pune was over 50% already.

Here is the report from Pune:
http://cms.unipune.ac.in/~bspujari/Covid19/Pune2/Pune_Serosurvey_Technical_report-17_08_2020.pdf

froog · 23-08-2020 10:13PM

dominatinMC wrote: »

50 million - that's mad, I didn't realise it was so bad. Given that we are approx. 8 months into this pandemic with circa. 800k deaths worldwide, I wonder if it's the case that this virus is less deadly than that one, or on this occasion have we responded better with rapid spread of information, more advanced medicine, etc.?

it's an interesting but gruesome story, check out the wikipedia article on it to start with. basically an absolute **** show worldwide made much worse by world war I.

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

Micky 32 · 23-08-2020 10:14PM

froog wrote: »

it burnt itself out after killing 50 million people (3% of the global population at that time).

Some have said it could have been up to 100 million.

drunkmonkey · 23-08-2020 10:16PM

eigrod wrote: »

It’s been hard to take anything Trump has said seriously for the past 3+ years, but the next 3 months are going to be off the scale. Let’s see what Dr. Fauci says before giving this ‘breakthrough’ any credibility.

Dr. Fauci was appealing for Plasma, it's possible Fauci had Trump's support they have been working on it together.
https://www.cdc.gov/video/socialmedia/HHS/Dr-Fauci-Plasma-Donation-PSA.mp4

froog · 23-08-2020 10:17PM

can someone explain this to me? according to the oxford vaccine team, they need people to get infected in the community to pass the phase 3 trial. i thought by the time you get to phase 3 you had proven it actually works and just needed to prove no serious side effects? and can they not just infect people in a controlled lab setting? seems like a mad way to test a vaccine. especially as according to them the vaccine could take a long time if infection rates starting dropping a lot.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage

Stark · 23-08-2020 10:20PM

Well they've been able to verify that exposure to the vaccine produces an antibody and T-cell response. Which means there's a high likelihood that the vaccine works. But you can't be 100% sure that the virus doesn't have tricks up its sleeve to evade those responses. You can only be sure when people have been exposed to the real deal.

drunkmonkey · 23-08-2020 10:20PM

froog wrote: »

can someone explain this to me? according to the oxford vaccine team, they need people to get infected in the community to pass the phase 3 trial. i thought by the time you get to phase 3 you had proven it actually works and just needed to prove no serious side effects? and can they not just infect people in a controlled lab setting? seems like a mad way to test a vaccine. especially as according to them the vaccine could take a long time if infection rates starting dropping a lot.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage

This is the problem your not allowed infect otherwise healthy people. Look up Nuremberg agreement, phase 3 trials will take years if not fast tracked.

irishgeo · 23-08-2020 10:32PM

froog wrote: »

can someone explain this to me? according to the oxford vaccine team, they need people to get infected in the community to pass the phase 3 trial. i thought by the time you get to phase 3 you had proven it actually works and just needed to prove no serious side effects? and can they not just infect people in a controlled lab setting? seems like a mad way to test a vaccine. especially as according to them the vaccine could take a long time if infection rates starting dropping a lot.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage

The Oxford vaccine is so far ahead because it's actually a SARS/MERS vaccine but it's rather to hard to test on a virus that's pretty low or non existent in the population.

The sad thing is a few SARS vaccines were looking good but when the virus died out the funding died out too. We might been in s better place if we kept up the funding.

timsey tiger · 23-08-2020 10:39PM

froog wrote: »

can someone explain this to me? according to the oxford vaccine team, they need people to get infected in the community to pass the phase 3 trial. i thought by the time you get to phase 3 you had proven it actually works and just needed to prove no serious side effects? and can they not just infect people in a controlled lab setting? seems like a mad way to test a vaccine. especially as according to them the vaccine could take a long time if infection rates starting dropping a lot.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage

Excellent point, but thankfully we're the "good guys" and our medical ethics, mean we'd only do this is some pretty extreme situations. There was some discussion about "challenge trials", give it a Google.

timmy_mallet · 23-08-2020 10:45PM

froog wrote: »

can someone explain this to me? according to the oxford vaccine team, they need people to get infected in the community to pass the phase 3 trial. i thought by the time you get to phase 3 you had proven it actually works and just needed to prove no serious side effects? and can they not just infect people in a controlled lab setting? seems like a mad way to test a vaccine. especially as according to them the vaccine could take a long time if infection rates starting dropping a lot.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage

Christ!

drunkmonkey · 23-08-2020 11:10PM

Go to 36.55 minutes. There claiming a 35% case mortality rate drop using the plasma. FDA approved. It's probably something we should be doing if it that useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRZZt-KOY1A

darjeeling · 23-08-2020 11:17PM

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Great answer, thanks

I'm surprised and disappointed that not much has improved re: drugs

Unfortunately I'm not so surprised that we haven't got a good early treatment.

The only approved effective antiviral, remdesivir, has to be given intravenously - i.e. in hospital.
But by the time patients are admitted, it's often too late for the drug to be useful.

A macaque study showed that remdesivir worked well when given around peak viral load (link).
In humans peak viral load occurs between symptom onset to +5 days (metanalysis study), so newly-admitted patients typically already have declining viral loads and have already entered the second, immunopathological phase.

An effective orally or nasally administered antiviral could be very useful if given earlier after symptom onset, or even prophylactically in outbreak situations.
There is one such possible drug, called NHC (beta-D-N4-hydroxycytidine, also EIDD-2801) that works similarly to remdesivir but is orally administered.
This drug was in the news around March/April and there are some ongoing trials that will report soon.

Virologists who had warned of the likelihood of another new betacoronavirus crossing into humans, following SARS-1 and MERS, have lamented the failure to develop a broad spectrum antiviral against these viruses.

The finding in 2018 that villagers in south west China had antibodies against bat betacoronaviruses (link) showed that spillover from bats to humans is ongoing, so a new zoonosis and subsequent pandemic was not unlikely.

Incidentally, and further justifying concerns about viral crossover from bats to humans, a recent genetic sequence analysis concluded that the virus is unlikely to have passed through a pangolin or other intermediate host, but probably came direct from bats (link).

darjeeling · 23-08-2020 11:20PM

froog wrote: »

can someone explain this to me? according to the oxford vaccine team, they need people to get infected in the community to pass the phase 3 trial. i thought by the time you get to phase 3 you had proven it actually works and just needed to prove no serious side effects? and can they not just infect people in a controlled lab setting? seems like a mad way to test a vaccine. especially as according to them the vaccine could take a long time if infection rates starting dropping a lot.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage

I'm not sure there would be many volunteers in a challenge trial if there were going to be a placebo arm!

Also, phase 1 and 2 trials in tens to low hundreds of volunteers will show up common side-effects, but some less frequent effects may only appear during phase 3 when the drug is given to thousands of people from all age ranges.

timsey tiger · 24-08-2020 08:52AM

darjeeling wrote: »

I'm not sure there would be many volunteers in a challenge trial if there were going to be a placebo arm!

Also, phase 1 and 2 trials in tens to low hundreds of volunteers will show up common side-effects, but some less frequent effects may only appear during phase 3 when the drug is given to thousands of people from all age ranges.

There would be no problem with volunteers. However, if you tried doing what you suggest with the placebo, you'd end up in jail.

XsApollo · 24-08-2020 09:02AM

I’d nearly volunteer myself at this stage.
Sick of it.

stevek93 · 24-08-2020 09:40AM

My Covid test has turned into a a bit of a mess. I rang the National Virus Reference Laboratory now and just as well. They don’t give out results anymore but fair play to them they did mention my mobile number was one digit incorrect I would have been left waiting forever.

I rang the HSE they said they can’t do anything about my incorrect number number and they can’t give me my test results either go phone your GP.

Phoned GP and told them story, they said HSE are useless. Anyway waiting on a doctor to phone me now to sort all this out. :rolleyes:

Van.Bosch · 24-08-2020 11:17AM

stevek93 wrote: »

My Covid test has turned into a a bit of a mess. I rang the National Virus Reference Laboratory now and just as well. They don’t give out results anymore but fair play to them they did mention my mobile number was one digit incorrect I would have been left waiting forever.

I rang the HSE they said they can’t do anything about my incorrect number number and they can’t give me my test results either go phone your GP.

Phoned GP and told them story, they said HSE are useless. Anyway waiting on a doctor to phone me now to sort all this out. :rolleyes:

I thought they texted you the appointment details - how did they do that if the mobile was wrong?

stevek93 · 24-08-2020 11:27AM

Van.Bosch wrote: »

I thought they texted you the appointment details - how did they do that if the mobile was wrong?

Maybe the person who carried out the test wrong it down wrong? He did ask me my mobile number.

timsey tiger · 24-08-2020 05:03PM

stevek93 wrote: »

Maybe the person who carried out the test wrong it down wrong? He did ask me my mobile number.

Two separate systems, set up this year for data, sounds about par for hse.

timsey tiger · 24-08-2020 05:08PM

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Dr. Fauci was appealing for Plasma, it's possible Fauci had Trump's support they have been working on it together.
https://www.cdc.gov/video/socialmedia/HHS/Dr-Fauci-Plasma-Donation-PSA.mp4

"working together on it" :rolleyes: do you think Trump suggested it straight after the disenfectant and strong light inside the body, but the fake media didn't report it.

4068ac1elhodqr · 24-08-2020 08:06PM

drunkmonkey wrote: »

This is the problem your not allowed infect otherwise healthy people. Look up Nuremberg agreement, phase 3 trials will take years if not fast tracked.

Isn't there a provision for 'emergency licencing' to bypass/skip the regular standard multi-stage testing or phases, and push straight to production, Gates mentioned it before.

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/What-you-need-to-know-about-the-COVID-19-vaccine

Afterall the previous record of 5yrs is going to be hit out of this ballpark for this one with the 18mth target.

Btw, no ones mentioned that: any vaccine will likely be a multi-delivery delivery as solutions develop, you could well need a second (or thrid) additional shot. Again something Gates has mentioned.

ShineOn7 · 25-08-2020 01:24AM

https://twitter.com/TomPelissero/status/1297711784044957699

COVID-19: Vaccine/antidote and testing procedures Megathread [Mod Warning - Post #1]

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