Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

There are a couple of problems. The first is that nobody is quite sure just how the disease transmits. Whilst the Chinese claim its going down there nobody really knows, and all anybody seems to know is that you can catch it but there may be no evidence of it on the person you supposedly got it from. Add in that there is still no test for it in the United States and it will take over a year for the FDA to ok it even if we have one right now. Remember too that this one was changing as it was ripping through China. There is also no reason to assume it can't do that again. There is also no cure and no shot.

I guess the main problem is that nobody really knows that much about corona virus. This tends to convince me that there is, really, no idea of how we should guard against something nobody knows much about in the first place. The best idea, therefore, is to believe our dear leader, Donald the Horrible when he tells us that HE has it all under control and not to worry but buy stock now.

Its also kinda heartwarming to understand that Trump fired the people who - On reflection you can read all about the Genius of Tripp'n Trump here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/3...states-public-health-emergency-response/

You might pass the word as the Dems, in their infinite wisdom have chosen to beat the hell out of each other rather than pointing out just how incredibly incompetent Trump actually is. Then, of course, we all get to die............

And this is how we have a

Zombie Apocalypse

That's what a lot of people are thinking.
What's most disturbing is the notion that TrumpCo probably wants to use it as an excuse to postpone or cancel the election.

Another good selling point, it is better than drinking bleach...

I've been telling you, the singularity is nigh: IBM says human knowledge is doubling every 12 hours now.

COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped


They are short-circuiting the usual method for making vaccines by using the virus gene sequence and building mRNA specific for the virus:

Another company has an anti-viral drug called Remdesivir that shows activity against SARS and MERS (also Corona viruses) and trials will start with some of the people shipped here after the cruise ship fiasco.

Even if either or both of these are successful, the big challenge will be to keep the virus contained until enough people have the vaccine.

Wonder what they plan to charge the average uninsured American for this vaccine? It will be free in most other countries. But not here.

Might be a good time to be selling Medicare For All.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Climate Crisis... SOLVED!!

I think it still needs to be tested by the FDA?

Of course they both do, but they can short circuit clinical trials if people are dying. That really only applies to the anti-viral drug: If they are dying anyway, might as well try it. The first study is designed as a classic blind study where some people get the drug and others get placebo. But if they get a good response to the drug, they then give the placebo folks the drug later for humanitarian reasons.

The vaccine is a bit trickier. You need to give it to a limited bunch of people to see if it is safe first. As long as nobody in that group starts making antibodies against their own cells and nobody has an acute allergic reaction, it is deemed safe. Then you want to check for effectiveness. There is already a great place to do that: Wuhan, China. Vaccinate 100,000 people and see if anybody comes down with the disease. Even if it just makes the disease less lethal, that is a win.