lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
You’re talking about a major breakthrough in antiviral medication. Even with huge investments that wasn’t going to happen in a couple of years.
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Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion
- Thread starter Parker in NYC
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Andrew C
You know what's funny?
Companies like Merck and Pfizer already made significant strides in this area (supply shortages currently and unfortunately), without the investment I would have liked to see.
Chip Chipperson
Well-Known Member
It also assumes that the pharmaceutical companies weren't working on that early on, as if they just developed the recently authorized antivirals by snapping their fingers. It's amazing that people keep pushing a limited-use treatment that is less effective than vaccines at avoiding hospitalizations (although the Pfizer one is much closer than the other one).
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
And what do they need to make the pills have a larger window of efficacy and be able to be self administered at home? It’s easy to say they just should have had more money to make a major medical breakthrough.
Andrew C
You know what's funny?
It is amazing that people don't want to push both, when we know very well not everyone is going to be vaccinated. Heck, it can even benefit the vaccinated.
Posted back in October.
Treatments are hard. It's not like it was just being ignored.
Andrew C
You know what's funny?
"...drawn criticism for not doing for oral therapies like Paxlovid what it did for vaccines: that is, placing a big bet on them before the results were in.
"And so the [significant] orders were only placed after the trials showed the benefit," Topol said. "That basically was part of that vaccine-only strategy: that the idea was, the government thought that vaccines were going to do the job and didn't put a bet on the pills. It was actually worth the bet at the time, especially when you look backward. I think the whole idea is, you pull out all the stops."
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
FYI, more information on the blood shortage... this has become critical at a national level. If there is a blood drive in your area and you are eligible to donate, please do it.
And... nobody is doubting the importance of treatment, but realize that this much, much more difficult than prevention. Coming up with new antiviral medications involves completely new paradigms, many of which will not pan out. It is a VERY difficult, labor intensive and expensive process. Existing anti-viral medications largely have not worked against COVID, so we needed to come up with completely new strategies from scratch. Not matter what people on here might think, this can't just happen with the snap of a finger, no matter how much money you throw at the problem.
The vaccines, by contrast, largely work under existing paradigms by tried-and-true principals. The only major difference with the current COVID vaccines are their novel delivery mechanisms, and even these were pre-existing when COVID struck.
And... nobody is doubting the importance of treatment, but realize that this much, much more difficult than prevention. Coming up with new antiviral medications involves completely new paradigms, many of which will not pan out. It is a VERY difficult, labor intensive and expensive process. Existing anti-viral medications largely have not worked against COVID, so we needed to come up with completely new strategies from scratch. Not matter what people on here might think, this can't just happen with the snap of a finger, no matter how much money you throw at the problem.
The vaccines, by contrast, largely work under existing paradigms by tried-and-true principals. The only major difference with the current COVID vaccines are their novel delivery mechanisms, and even these were pre-existing when COVID struck.
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How many different companies did we order vaccines ahead of time from? Was it more than 10 we bet on?
That tweet says there were more than 470 treatments reviewed. Should we have placed orders for all 470 of them?
All 11 of the treatments that were approved (at time of tweet) have significant constraints. They're a much riskier bet than the vaccine bets were for pre ordering.
Now that we have approved, even with the constraints on usage, ordering more is clearly a good idea. Which seems to be what we're doing.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Do you have any evidence that treatments aren't being developed? Why not encourage vaccination as the best, easiest, and most preemptive safeguard of all?
Andrew C
You know what's funny?
Should have placed bets on some of them IMO. Like the one from a top company who was also developing a vaccine. And it seems I am not the only one who feels this way.
Anyways, hopefully moving forward we can increase supply. It’s seems that it is months away though.
Chip Chipperson
Well-Known Member
It's not a matter of not wanting both available. I already said that there needs to be treatments available because there is a percentage of the population that is unable to get vaccinated or has less benefit from vaccination due to medical issues (allergic to vaccine ingredients, immunocompromised) but this particular part of the conversation sprouted from another poster advocating that treatments are just as good or better than vaccinations, which is clearly false and was just an attempt to push anti-vax narratives.
Chip Chipperson
Well-Known Member
Well if better supply of antivirals is months away, perhaps people should bet on the preventative measure that is readily available and does a better job of preventing hospitalization and death. We'd all be better off if they did that instead of spouting lies about vaccines.
DisneyCane
Well-Known Member
What "lies" are "they" spouting and who is "they?"
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
Interesting. I wasn't aware of this difference before.
The puzzle of America's record Covid hospital rate
Europe has fewer Covid patients in hospital now. Why are the US and Canada bucking the Omicron trend?www.bbc.co.uk
This article kind of touches on it, but here in BC, our top doctor said that most our hospitalizations are Delta still.
So while Omicron has taken over as the most transmitted / most cases, delta is certainly still here.
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
What’s so magical about pills that someone who’s unwilling to get a vaccine from Pfizer will happily take a treatment from Pfizer?
I find it odd there are people who will gleefully ingest anything if it comes in pill form but they have concerns about vaccines.
We could create a hundred treatments but they won’t accomplish anything if the anti-vax crowd won’t use them.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
There is no logic with those types.
Vaccine: in and out of body within days.
Pills: a constant regiment - meaning more chances for actual side effects.
1) It's political now, so nobody is changing sides on the vaccine at this point.
2) By the time they actually catch it, they're more willing to accept some risk to end their suffering.
hopemax
Well-Known Member
How would we be feeling if we spent a ton of money on treatments that performed well against Delta and earlier variants, but like Regeneron and the other monoclonal that do not work against Omicron? Warehouses full of expensive treatments that are useless? This all looks like hindsight. Should we have built a deeper bench? Always. But that takes commitment even when it looks unnecessary.
DisneyCane is worried about the costs of spending $2.5 billion on rapid tests that “don’t work” except they do work when viral loads are high enough. What is someone like him going to say about $100 billion spent on development of drugs that don’t work on whatever variant blows through? Up until Omicron the vast majority thought we already had everything we needed. And the rest were being ridiculous about the remaining trajectory of the pandemic.
People who have taken the pandemic seriously from a public health standpoint don’t have to be convinced that more could have been done to prepare for waves. And should be done for future ones. It’s everyone else you need to convince that it would have been worth the $$$$$$$ investment. Everyone with the power made a business decision. An economic decision. One that made sense up until the point the virus bodychecked again.
DisneyCane is worried about the costs of spending $2.5 billion on rapid tests that “don’t work” except they do work when viral loads are high enough. What is someone like him going to say about $100 billion spent on development of drugs that don’t work on whatever variant blows through? Up until Omicron the vast majority thought we already had everything we needed. And the rest were being ridiculous about the remaining trajectory of the pandemic.
People who have taken the pandemic seriously from a public health standpoint don’t have to be convinced that more could have been done to prepare for waves. And should be done for future ones. It’s everyone else you need to convince that it would have been worth the $$$$$$$ investment. Everyone with the power made a business decision. An economic decision. One that made sense up until the point the virus bodychecked again.
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