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Covid-19: Treatments, Cures, and Vaccines

Discussion in 'Too Hot for Swamp Gas' started by exiledgator, Apr 10, 2020.

  1. duchen

    duchen VIP Member

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    Shame you didn’t read the post. I linked the articles that address your comments. The studies show that the sting doesn’t work and is causing dangerous side effects so dangerous that trials have been canceled.
     
  2. duchen

    duchen VIP Member

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  3. duchen

    duchen VIP Member

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    Damn. In before I deleted. I forgot I was in the thread and deleted my post for stupidity.
     
  4. fda92045

    fda92045 GC Legend

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    Per CNN:

    A drug that’s been touted by President Trump as a “game changer” didn’t help hospitalized patients with coronavirus, and was associated with heart complications, according to a new study.

    “This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid-19,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug – heart toxicities that required it be discontinued.”

    The study was published Tuesday on a pre-print server and was not peer reviewed.

    In the study, among the 84 patients who took hydroxychloroquine, 20.2% were admitted to the ICU or died within seven days of inclusion. Among the 97 patients who did not take the drug, 22.1% went to the ICU or died.

    The difference was determined to not be statistically significant.

    Looking just at deaths, 2.8% of the patients who took hydroxychloroquine died, and 4.6% of the patients who did not take it died. That difference was also found to not be statistically significant.
     
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  5. exiledgator

    exiledgator Gruntled

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  6. Trickster

    Trickster VIP Member

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    New to the thread and haven’t read all the posts. Listened to On Point and have a few observation made by experts to pass on.
    No human has heretofore been affected by this virus and there is no natural immunity to it. Because of that, barring a miracle - which the epidemiologist didn’t rule out but was highly dubious of - the 12-18 months being put out there by all kinds of people for finding a vaccine is highly unlikely. Indeed, he’s known it to take up to 10 years. He doesn’t think that will be the case here. He also cautioned that any vaccine may not inoculate everyone.
    Our best hope until there is one is to find therapies that will reduce mortality, even though it is already relatively low.
    My two cents. There are 7.5 billion people on the planet, 330 million in America, and this isn’t the last epidemic. I don’t mean to suggest we should slow down our efforts to combat viruses, but if you do the math, you’ll realize a certain amount of culling in the natural order of things is inevitable.
     
  7. duchen

    duchen VIP Member

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    An epidemic of a mild cold is not the same as an epidemic of a pneumonia.
     
  8. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    okay..this one is interesting. my ignorant readers digest version...they have been developing vaccine that can be tailored to any virus and have tested it already and it produces the type of antibodies related to the one they programmed it to do. seems like they are tweaking the program to match covid19

    Israeli scientists: 'In a few weeks, we will have coronavirus vaccine'

    Israeli scientists are on the cusp of developing the first vaccine against the novel coronavirus, according to Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis. If all goes as planned, the vaccine could be ready within a few weeks and available in 90 days, according to a release. (Akunis made his statement at the end of February.)

    “Congratulations to MIGAL [The Galilee Research Institute] on this exciting breakthrough,” Akunis said. “I am confident there will be further rapid progress, enabling us to provide a needed response to the grave global COVID-19 threat,” Akunis said, referring to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

    For the past four years, a team of MIGAL scientists has been developing a vaccine against infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), which causes a bronchial disease affecting poultry. The effectiveness of the vaccine has been proven in preclinical trials carried out at the Veterinary Institute.

    MIGAL is located in the Galilee.

    “Our basic concept was to develop the technology and not specifically a vaccine for this kind or that kind of virus,” said Dr. Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology group leader. “The scientific framework for the vaccine is based on a new protein expression vector, which forms and secretes a chimeric soluble protein that delivers the viral antigen into mucosal tissues by self-activated endocytosis, causing the body to form antibodies against the virus.”
    In preclinical trials, the team demonstrated that the oral vaccination induces high levels of specific anti-IBV antibodies, Katz said.


    “Let’s call it pure luck,” he said. “We decided to choose coronavirus as a model for our system just as a proof of concept for our technology.”

    But after scientists sequenced the DNA of the novel coronavirus causing the current worldwide outbreak, the MIGAL researchers examined it and found that the poultry coronavirus has high genetic similarity to the human one, and that it uses the same infection mechanism, which increases the likelihood of achieving an effective human vaccine in a very short period of time, Katz said.

    “All we need to do is adjust the system to the new sequence,” he said. “We are in the middle of this process, and hopefully in a few weeks we will have the vaccine in our hands. Yes, in a few weeks, if it all works, we would have a vaccine to prevent coronavirus.”
     
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  9. mutz87

    mutz87 p=.06 VIP Member

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  10. tigator2019

    tigator2019 GC Hall of Fame

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    In my head--- UF
    90 days more after that ... "
    Once the vaccine is developed, it will take at least 90 days to complete the regulatory process and potentially more to enter the marketplace."
     
  11. Gator515151

    Gator515151 GC Hall of Fame

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    I've been trying to convince Mrs51 that sex kills corona virus. She must be going elsewhere for the cure.
     
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  12. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    If they can do it in 180 days they will be 6 - 12 months ahead of everybody else and 3 - 5 years faster than normal
     
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  13. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    another drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis tried and succeeded in quieting the cytokine storms that seem to be the genesis of the organ failures causing death

    Emergency room doctor, near death with coronavirus, saved with experimental treatment
    The immune system normally uses proteins called cytokines as weapons in fighting a disease. For unknown reasons in some COVID-19 patients, the immune system first fails to respond quickly enough and then floods the body with cytokines, destroying blood vessels and filling the lungs with fluid.

    The doctors tried a drug called Actemra, which was designed to treat rheumatoid arthritis but also approved in 2017 to treat cytokine storms in cancer patients.

    “Our role was to quiet the storm,” said Dr. Samuel Youssef, a cardiac surgeon. “Dr. Padgett was able to clear the virus” once his immune system was back in balance.

    Dr. Matt Hartman, a cardiologist, said that after four days on the immunosuppressive drug, supplemented by high-dose vitamin C and other therapies, the level of oxygen in Padgett’s blood improved dramatically. On March 23, doctors were able to take him off life support.
    ...............…..........
    As Padgett got to know Youssef, Hartman and other team members, they told him about a 33-year-old woman — a mother of three — who was in the hospital as well, also having experienced a cytokine storm. He saw the team’s excitement when they tried the approach on her, and she too recovered.
     
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  14. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    ECMO - machine takes blood, strips co2, adds oxygen, sends blood back to body effectively taking place of lungs for covid patients whose lungs have failed

    ECMO therapy helps COVID-19 patient recover

    Enes Dedic became seriously ill from the coronavirus.

    At the worst point, he was in a medically induced coma and is now the first person with COVID-19 in Arizona to survive the ECMO therapy or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation at John C. Lincoln Hospital.
    ECOM therapy was a shot in the dark – it had worked in other lung illnesses but there wasn’t a lot of data to show it could work for COVID-19 patients.

    “Functionally like an artificial lung that we use to supplement the patient's own breathing on the ventilator,” said Dr. Ovil.

    The ECMO machine removes blood from the body, pumps oxygen into the blood, then pumps it back into the body.

    Doctors say it's not a cure – it just buys the patient more time to recover from the virus.
     
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  15. Trickster

    Trickster VIP Member

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    Sorry, I'm not sure what your point is.
     
  16. Spurffelbow833

    Spurffelbow833 GC Hall of Fame

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    Timeline | History of Vaccines
    Timeline | History of Vaccines
    FIG 1 Timeline of major events in influenza vaccine development....

    It is silly and dangerous to pin all of our hopes for "getting back to the new normal" on a vaccine. A casual browsing of vaccination history shows that these things don't happen overnight. Vaccines have to be tested. Vaccines fail, often with devastating results. Sometimes, a vaccine is never found at all. People who are saying we'll have one in 12-18 months have absolutely nothing to pin that on and more to refute it.

    Are we supposed to just hole up and live on love no matter how long it takes? I don't think the banks are going to stand for that. Even if they don't start threatening to repossess until people go back to work, how many people are going to lose their homes because they can't keep up with the mortgage? This shutdown is going to create untold hardship and horror for millions of people if the powers that be insist on holding out for a vaccine. We need treatments, and we need to be willing to settle for the best we have until something better comes along. And get this country back to work!
     
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  17. g8trjax

    g8trjax GC Hall of Fame

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    According to many on here, when they rush that sucker out in 6 months, if you're not on board, tough chit. It won't be mandatory but it will be mandatory.
     
  18. exiledgator

    exiledgator Gruntled

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    Yesterday, reading about hypoxemia, I was wondering if a machine like this existed. Seems like a necessary thing in extreme cases.
     
  19. 96Gatorcise

    96Gatorcise GC Hall of Fame

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    Tampa
    Abbott Launches Third COVID-19 Test, a Laboratory-Based Antibody Blood Test That Will Ship in the U.S. Starting Tomorrow | BioSpace


    ABBOTT PARK, Ill., April 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) announced today the launch of its third COVID-19 test, a lab-based serology blood test for the detection of the antibody, IgG, that identifies if a person has had the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Antibody testing is an important next step to tell if someone has been previously infected. It will provide more understanding of the virus, including how long antibodies stay in the body and if they provide immunity. This type of knowledge could help support the development of treatments and vaccines.......

    Abbott is significantly scaling up its manufacturing for antibody testing and is expecting to immediately ship close to 1 million tests this week to U.S. customers, and will ship a total of 4 million tests in total for April. The company is ramping up to 20 million tests in the U.S. in June and beyond as it expands the tests to run on its new Alinity™ i system. Abbott also will be expanding its laboratory antibody testing to the detection of the antibody, IgM, in the near future.
    -------------
    4 million tests for April and ramping up to 20 million for June.

    How can you open up the economy May 1st when only 1% of the population can be tested for antibodies?
     
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  20. gatorpa

    gatorpa GC Hall of Fame

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    We have used ECMO for about 30+ years essentially like a heart lung machine.
    COVID seems to "breakdown" the iron from our hemoglobin which causes the tissue hypoxia. Hemoglobin carries the O2 to the tissues and organs, so essentially takes away the busses. That's part of the reason the Vents aren't working its not a ventilation problem, it's an oxygen carrying capacity issue. This leads to tissue death and the cascade of toxics released and multiorgan failure.
    ECMO adds more oxygen to the blood but we still need more buses, hence blood transfusions with whole blood.
     
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