Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Medications that might help against SARS-CoV-2

Yep, and between the West, and China, they will need them all for their phase 3 tests which, apparently, China is actually starting right now. Not only that but Brazil itself REALLY needs the tests because, if even one works, it will save the lives of thousands of Brazilians which is also a good thing.

Kindofa good thing!

Now, if we could actually get tests that work better, can be done at home (don't need labs), and are easily available and will check not only if one is infected but also checks for anti-bodies to prove they have weathered the storm (thought I would throw a little bit of wishful thinking into the mix).

The active infection tests are probably as good as they can be, and that is "not very good". They can detect the presence of the virus RNA, but are plagued by false negatives. This is not because the test is faulty. It's because there was little RNA where they swabbed. Rectal swabs would probably work a lot better, but nobody wants to do that! (Medical people AND patients.) They also can return positive results when all the active virus is gone and the patient is shedding old virus RNA fragments. To make a test that can tell the difference would require live cell cultures and cost thousands of dollars per test.

The antibody tests suck as well, not because of the tests (assuming a good brand) but because so many recovered victims do not make a lot of IgG antibodies. The full adaptive immune response takes a while and apparently lots of people clear the virus before the B-cells start making those antibodies. It does not mean they are not immune: There are memory B-cells that might know how to make antibodies, but never really got stimulated. We don't know and we don't know how long they will remain active.

60 Minutes said the FDA is now scrambling to pull ineffective tests off the market. Another Trump Administration fck-up.

Well, there are some pretty lousy tests. But even with very good ones, there are still sampling problems. That long nasal swab is supposed to hurt like a bitch, but very few nurses want to do that. Mine just tickled a bit. No wonder it was negative. It was also about 10 days after first symptoms, so there may not have been any virus present in my throat by then.

About all tests can tell you is if you have a positive PCR test and then another positive test a few days later, you do have it. If you have a top-quality antibody test (like Abbott or Euroimmun) with a positive result, then you do have antibodies.

Negative test results for either PCR or antibody don't tell you anything: Maybe you have it, maybe you don't. Maybe you had it, or maybe not.

Rather stunning news today from UK: A company growing interferon beta has done a private study with placebo arm that showed their "drug" gave proven Covid-19 patients a 79% improvement in terms of needing ventilator or death. It's an inhaled mist dose that costs about $20 EU per day. Treatment is typically six days, and it works in patients at all phases of the disease.

I quote "drug" because it's actually cultured in a bacteria or yeast vat with the human interferon beta gene transplanted. That's why it's so cheap. Therapeutics are really getting good. By the time we have vaccines, we may not need them much.

This interferon actually works in a similar manner to ivermectin. SARS-COV2 sends some protein into the host cell nucleus to shut off the cell's manufacture of interferon. That makes the cell and surrounding cells more able to be infected, because interferon does a bunch of good stuff for defending against viruses. Ivermectin prevents the bad protein from entering the nucleus.

The interferon treatment supplies the interferon the cell would have manufactured normally.

Very fascinating.

This past weekend on NPR, one of the Saturday shows' hosts' wondered how did we get here from there with the Covid-19 virus.

One the doctor/scientists interviewed likened the virus to a predator movie. The Covid-19 virus is dead, non-living. It has proteins on its outer shell that attaches itself to host cells. Once the Covid is able to attach itself, it "wakes-up" the Covid virus and becomes a living organism able to take over the infected cell's genetic material and infect and duplicate.

The zombie apocalypse.

Imagine now there is no anti-body protection ...

SARS-COV2 is indisputable evidence for evolution. It isn't alive. It's just a very complex 30000+ strand of RNA with all the instructions for making more of itself. Nothing but chemicals, put together in just the right way to be so effective. Nothing but evolution made it. Mutation and Natural Selection, again and again. Every step-wise little improvement went on to reproduce, and out-compete the unimproved version.

I think it is pushing us toward The Singularity. What we are learning will lead to defeating every virus. Cancer will lead to immortality. Lethal genetic diseases will lead to the ability to freely turn on and off or modify any gene in our bodies. Alzheimer's will lead to the ability to upload our minds into android bodies so we can explore the galaxy.

or it could be the hand of God saying humans are a failed experiment .... let's see if they do better next lap

The one thing evolution has always led to is extinction.

It's not the hand of god, Mr. Porter, it's the reality of science.