rationalskepticism.org

NineBerry";p="2742622 wrote:If there's a clinical trial, is not known yet whether the treatment actually helps. That's why a trial is needed in the first place. Knowing whether a treatment helps, in which situations and whether there are side effects.

My point is that the information posted before is useless to us who are not involved with the studies me. We can't know based on the information given whether the drug works or not. You need a controlled trial, actually several controlled trials, and then you can make a judgement.

B.C. could be reaching the 'maintenance phase' of its COVID-19 pandemic. Here's what that means

Don't think about booking haircuts or going to concerts anytime soon, but some changes could come

If you're going to go back to normal activities, it would be like 'OK, there's any sign of an outbreak, any person has been positive at work, immediately the [health] unit should be dispatched, the person should be tested, very meticulous contact tracing should be done,' " said Sadatsafavi.

"But that requires an order of magnitude of higher testing capacity than what we have now."

Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore–all southeast Asian polities with strong language, economic and cultural links to China, and situated in close proximity to it, have managed to date to keep their deaths to single digits.

They did this primarily by vigorous testing and tracing of infected persons.

The Taiwan government merged citizens’ recent international travel records with their digital health-insurance files and allowed doctors and pharmacists access to the information. Stiff fines were applied to quarantine violators.

Singapore took a similarly serious approach, deploying police to track down the contacts of infected residents and using government-issued cellphones to keep tabs on those in quarantine. Three local doctors said recently that “relative normalcy of day-to-day life has been maintained.”

The general approach in all three jurisdictions was a range of aggressive measures based on the view that COVID-19 would spread quickly and widely. This meant testing for infection quickly. Today, testing capacity for COVID-19 in Taiwan has reached 3,400 samples a day.

Violators of home isolation regulations were fined up to (US)$5,000. The price of surgical masks was brought down to (US) $.20 and production greatly increased.

OnOn Friday, Google and Apple joined together for an ambitious emergency project, laying out a new protocol for tracking the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. It’s an urgent, complex project, with huge implications for privacy and public health. Similar projects have been successful in Singapore and other countries, but it remains to be seen whether US public health agencies would be able to manage such a project — even with the biggest tech companies in the world lending a hand.

Macdoc";p="2742643 wrote:Reading challenged I guess....68 people in serious trouble with Covid-19 were actually helped.

In this cohort of patients hospitalized for severe Covid-19 who were treated with
compassionate-use remdesivir, clinical improvement was observed in 36 of 53 pa-
tients (68%). Measurement of efficacy will require ongoing randomized, placebo-
controlled trials of remdesivir therapy.

All received remdesivir for up to 10 days on a compassionate use basis, a program that allows people to use unapproved medicines when no other treatment options are available. Over 18 days, 68% of the patients improved

Compassionate Use of Remdesivir for Patients with Severe Covid-19
List of authors.
Jonathan Grein, M.D., Norio Ohmagari, M.D., Ph.D., Daniel Shin, M.D., George Diaz, M.D., Erika Asperges, M.D., Antonella Castagna, M.D., Torsten Feldt, M.D., Gary Green, M.D., Margaret L. Green, M.D., M.P.H., François-Xavier Lescure, M.D., Ph.D., Emanuele Nicastri, M.D., Rentaro Oda, M.D.,

Macdoc";p="2742646 wrote:Fine score one for you ....you aren't going to bullshit your way out of this. These people were in a clinical trial but their own choice and improved

All received remdesivir for up to 10 days on a compassionate use basis, a program that allows people to use unapproved medicines when no other treatment options are available. Over 18 days, 68% of the patients improved

in the eyes of the trained professionals that undertook the trials....

Compassionate Use of Remdesivir for Patients with Severe Covid-19
List of authors.
Jonathan Grein, M.D., Norio Ohmagari, M.D., Ph.D., Daniel Shin, M.D., George Diaz, M.D., Erika Asperges, M.D., Antonella Castagna, M.D., Torsten Feldt, M.D., Gary Green, M.D., Margaret L. Green, M.D., M.P.H., François-Xavier Lescure, M.D., Ph.D., Emanuele Nicastri, M.D., Rentaro Oda, M.D.,

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... 6?query=RP

FFS what does it take ...

Interpretation of the results of this study is limited by the small size of the cohort, the relatively short duration of follow-up, potential missing data owing to the nature of the program, the lack of information on 8 of the patients initially treated, and the lack of a randomized control group. Although the latter precludes definitive conclusions, comparisons with contemporaneous cohorts from the literature, in whom general care is expected to be consistent with that of our cohort, suggest that remdesivir may have clinical benefit in patients with severe Covid-19. Nevertheless, other factors may have contributed to differences in outcomes, including the type of supportive care (e.g., concomitant medications or variations in ventilatory practices) and differences in institutional treatment protocols and thresholds for hospitalization. Moreover, the use of invasive ventilation as a proxy for disease severity may be influenced by the availability of ventilators in a given location. The findings from these uncontrolled data will be informed by the ongoing randomized, placebo-controlled trials of remdesivir therapy for Covid-19.

Macdoc";p="2742646 wrote:Fine score one for you ....you aren't going to bullshit your way out of this. These people were in a clinical trial but their own choice and improved

All received remdesivir for up to 10 days on a compassionate use basis, a program that allows people to use unapproved medicines when no other treatment options are available. Over 18 days, 68% of the patients improved

Macdoc";p="2742688 wrote:You can only know they improved in the eyes of the professionals conducting the study and that the same professionals suggested more trials are warranted as a result.
If you really think 68% improved on their own ..... pity the planet.

Study will enroll patients with severe and moderate COVID-19
Outside of clinical trials, remdesivir only has been available to patients with COVID-19 under compassionate use - the use of unapproved drugs when no other treatment is available.

"This trial will help give us more robust data about effectiveness and side effects of this drug," Shankaran said.

To qualify in the phase III randomized, trial, patients must be hospitalized with moderate to severe COVID-19 with lung abnormalities. Patients at Rush now are being given the option of enrolling in the study, which launched at Rush on April 3.

The study will include two groups of randomized patients with COVID-19; those with moderate or severe disease.

In the study, patients will receive either remdesivir or a nonactive substitute. This medication will be given intravenously for five to ten days. All patients also will receive supportive care (treatment of symptoms and side effects).

"We will be looking at how long the patients are sick, if they had to be intubated and whether this treatment helps patients recover faster," Shankaran said.

"Patients who agree to participate in this study will be followed closely during their hospitalization and up to a month after starting on the drug to evaluate how they are doing and how they are recovering. We will also evaluate for any side effects to the drug," she added.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200 ... ID-19.aspx

As China fights to prevent a second wave of COVID-19, two experimental vaccines will be trialed on humans, state media Xinhua reported on Tuesday.

The experimental vaccines are being developed by a Beijing-based unit of Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech, and by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an affiliate of state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group.

In March, China gave the green-light for another clinical trial for a coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by military-backed China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and HK-listed biotech firm CanSino Bio, shortly after U.S. drug developer Moderna said it had begun human tests for their vaccine with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

kiore wrote:Tested myself today with one of the new IgM/IgG antibody rapid test, will be ramping up testing soon and wanted to see how to plan the practical delivery of this. Test was relatively simple to use, single blood drop type and you can write unique identifier on the strip itself to avoid mis-identification/mis-labelling. These kinds of tests not that accurate as disease testing but should be pretty accurate for establishing immunity. They are easy to read the possible results generated are as below:
IgM -ve / IgG +ve Prior infection.
IgM -ve / IgG -ve No prior infection / too early in illness / non converter.
IgM +ve / IgG -ve Early stage infection.
IgM +ve / IgG +ve Increasing immunity from current infection

I was kind of hoping for the first one, but got the second one as I am asymptomatic this probably means both negative.