Paxlovid is a combination of something new, PF-07321332, a new protease inhibitor specific for the Covid virus, and something old, Ritinovar, another protease inhibitor that we have been using for years in HAART for treating HIV. It inhibits the breakdown of other protease inhibitors giving them a longer half-life in circulation.
Drug researchers have been mining drugs that we already have, and know about their dosages and side effects/toxicity. Ritinovar was fortuitously found when they were screening known drugs for binding to the spike protein target Angiotensin converting enzyme. It was thought to be a possible treatment for Covid because of it's binding to target. It must not have been very effective, by itself in vitro, but i will look it up.
So, it looks like they found the right drug to pair with PF-07321332 to increase its efficacy, but found it for the wrong reason.
So someone figured it was worth a try, and it does seem to be a game changer in that even if us boosted folks still get infected, there is an oral med that doesnt have the administration problems of the monoclonal cocktails. Of course, the anti-vax game also changes as it is likely that it will be used, similar to DeSantis pushing the monoclonal treatment rather than immunization. The game gets a little more complicated, as now there is evidence that the SARS-COV2 can be reverse transcribed and inserted into cellular DNA. This is being looked into as a possible cause of long Covid, as you can find viral genome in the absence of viral replication.
It would indeed be ironic if the truly deluded Q-types, who are afraid that the government is trying to populate their bodies with micro-robots in vaccines, got their genomes infiltrated and colonized with SARS-COV2, because they avoided the vaccines and ended up with long long Covid.
No doubt someone will consider trying some of the reverse-transcriptase inhibitors that we use for HAART. One problem with that is that RT inhibitors mess with the fidelity of transcription, and when that happens it increases the probability of new mutant variants with new multiple drug resistance.
All the more reason for vaccine mandates, otherwise, what could go worng with moar variants?
TAT
