Covid-19: Treatments, Cures, and Vaccines

Here is the thing, even as I remind everyone I have little to no idea of what I am talking about on these subjects, but parrot a lot of the information that I hear on various podcasts, including the folks who do the This Week in Virology (which is really good for laymen. There is a belief that Monoclonal Anti-bodies, much like the current anti-virals will show very limited benefits at first. The reason given is that they are all currently given by I-V and therefore usually exclusively used at a hospital. The problem is, that once people are sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, they are usually beyond the infection, but have crossed into the cytokine overreaction (which is where the cheap steroids show the most benefit).

As I said, I do not know if it is true or not....that is why they need the trials and studies, but multiple virologists and epidemiologist and clinicians have all echoed similar thoughts.

 

MMr vaccine in Phase 3 trials for covid

Coronavirus Breaking News

MMR Vaccination May Protect People From Coronavirus Infection
Doctors and scientists announced on September 3, 2020, they are launching a Phase 3 clinical trial to evaluate whether the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine can protect healthcare workers against infection from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This trial aims to enroll up to 30,000 healthcare workers around the world.

“We know that the MMR vaccine is safe, and we think there are two main reasons that it could prevent COVID-19,” said one of the collaborative’s principal investigators, Michael S. Avidan, MBBCh, in a press statement.

“The first is this vaccine includes small amounts of live but very weakened MMR viruses. This type of vaccine appears to strengthen the body’s immune response to infections in general, not just to the viruses in that particular vaccine.”

A 2nd reason the MMR vaccine may be effective is that there are similarities between the weakened viruses in the vaccine and the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. All of these viruses have similar proteins on their surfaces that are involved in infecting cells in the body, so the researchers think that antibodies made in response to the MMR vaccine also may recognize and fight off the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

 

it appears that they are trying them as both a vaccine and as a treatment. dosed 48 people in phase 1 vaccine trials and are treating infected patients with them now

 

I had also read that there was some thought to using them as short term (3-6 months) preventative protection until vaccines were ready. It is really kind of amazing how much science is being thrown at this virus and its subsequent disease. As a physics guy, I nerd out trying to read and understand even 1% of what is going on, but I can appreciate how much effort and intellect is being thrown into trying to solve this prbolem. This seems like as promising an endeavor as any so far. Thanks for posting!!

 

Interesting. If the MMR vaccine does provide protection against the SARS-Cov-2 virus, I wonder if that may be a reason why children who contract Covid-19 are much less likely to experience serious symptoms. The standard explanation is that they have stronger immune systems than adults, especially older adults, however at least in the US, the overwhelming majority of children have also received the MMR vaccine.

 

I tested positive 5 weeks ago. Now no symptoms except fatique but just tested positive again today.
The Mystery of Why Some People Keep Testing Positive for Covid-19
As the pandemic continues, a growing number of people have faced the same dilemma as Forouzad. One doctor in San Francisco had multiple positive coronavirus tests at least 90 days out from her initial diagnosis. Facebook groups for people who identify themselves as long-haulers struggling with the lasting effects of Covid-19 have cropped up and are growing. Not everyone in these groups has multiple positive tests for the virus, but some do. Hints of the lasting presence of the coronavirus even arose in a report noted that a nasal swab conducted that day was positive for SARS-CoV-2. Before he was killed, Floyd had tested positive on April 3.
But CDC studies have not been able to grow any infectious virus from samples of people with Covid-19 more than nine days out from their diagnosis. This suggests to many scientists and doctors that the viral genetic material found in people after that time window is just the coronavirus fragments, which have no ability to replicate and be contagious.
But some virologists and doctors caution that there might be extremely rare yet consequential exceptions to this. Richard Randall, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom, doesn’t want to scare people with Covid-19, the majority of whom recover and are not infectious afterward, but he thinks that public health officials need to take a more nuanced view of how long the coronavirus lasts in the body. Although “it may be that 99.9% of people completely clear the virus within a few months,” he says, it’s “not an impossibility” that there might be a very tiny proportion of people who shed infectious virus for six months or a year. “Those people may act as seeds or reservoirs for the virus and potentially could be the source of a local outbreak,” Randall says. “I’m not saying that happens with Covid-19 because the data’s not there. But that happening would not be surprising.”

 

Read elsewhere that countries in Africa that used live MMR vaccine were having lower than expected rates

 

South Korea also has a national program of MMR boosters for adults. It is believed this has played a role in the very low death toll in that country. However, an awful lot of this is speculation with limited data to support it. However, it is really good to hear that people are truly looking into the links here. Other groups are looking at whether the standard flu vaccine would also perform the same "immune system priming" that the MMR shot is thought to perform.

 

Pitt Scientists Discover Tiny Antibody Component That is Highly Effective in Preventing and Treating SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Animal Models

 

Lilly’s Covid-19 antibody helps patients rid their systems of virus sooner

A drug being developed by Eli Lilly helped sick patients rid their systems of the virus that causes Covid-19 sooner and may have prevented them from landing in the hospital, according to newly released data. The drug is what is known as a monoclonal antibody, which experts view as being among the most likely technologies to help treat Covid-19. It’s a manufactured version of the antibodies that the body uses as part of its response to a virus.

“This is a good start,” said Eric Topol, the director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “A lot is pinned not only on Lilly but on the whole family of these [monoclonal antibodies], because even though they’re expensive and they’re not going to make a gajillion doses, they could make a big difference in the whole landscape of the pandemic.”

Lilly, which is developing the drug with the biotechnology firm AbCellera, tested three doses of its antibody against placebo in a trial enrolling about 450 patients recently diagnosed with mild to moderate Covid-19. The middle dose, 2,800 milligrams, met the trial’s primary goal of significantly reducing patients’ levels of SARS-CoV-2 after 11 days.

But other doses of the drug did not meet that goal, including a higher dose of 7,000 milligrams and a lower one of 700 milligrams. That could raise the risk that the benefit was due to chance, because normally one expects a medicine to become more effective as the dose increases, known as a dose response.

 

This was one of the most confusing results to date. Headlines read about how this helped, but in the end, it showed no benefit at any dose level in viral load at the 11 day mark. I think results like these should continue to highlight why it takes years to bring drugs to market and reinforce for people that there is not likely to be a magic bullet that rids us of this virus overnight, not even effective treatments for quite a while.

 

Not to go all Q-Anon here, but there really is a big, big difference between "either considered unlikely to be associated with the vaccine or there was insufficient evidence to say " . I am going to guess that this what goes on all of the time and the general public is not watching every moment of every trial so we do not know it, but it would be tad bit more reassuring if there was less ambiguity. Further, if this happens again, it will crush attitudes towards vaccinations I am afraid.

Side effect which paused Oxford, AstraZeneca clinical trial 'unlikely' related to COVID-19 vaccine

 

agreed, the one result in the decrease in number of people that had to be hospitalized was good but could have been random

 

The FDA still has not approved the trials to start again in the US. How long before Trump puts his finger on that scale?

 

If the ability to determine the root cause of the neurological problems do not exist, I am not sure what the delay would accomplish anyway. I would guess that there a lot of data collected on the "mild side effects" as well and FDA wishes to review all of those along with the one UK patient. However, hard to believe that they would find something that doctors and regulators in the UK would have missed or ignored.....

 

An experimental drug targeted for cancer initially, has proven an effective anti-viral in lab settings. The drug appears to block the proteins that viruses need to reproduce in our cells. The drug, in its current form, is an oral medication. If it makes it through trials it would be that silver bullet people are looking for to fight the infection in the very early stages.

VCU study shows the experimental drug AR-12 could be a promising COVID-19 treatment

 

biggest challenge would be detecting infection in the very early stages

 

Just like the flu in that regard. If you have rapid testing available, you have a much, much better shot of catching and treating people.

Meanwhile, it would be nice if a by-product of all of this is rapid, home testing for other things, especially the flu. If you catch that early, Tamiflu actually can work.

 

agreed. I have a stockpile of Tamiflu just for that purpose. prior to covid, the flu was fairly easy for me to self diagnose