SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Fair point. I wonder if there is a threshold being used for 'infection' status, some recognizable bimodality between the number of particles you'll find there if you inhaled some and your immune system strongly suppressed their replication, and the number you'll find there if they are replicating avidly.

 

We’re still partway on this journey worldwide and there will be more analyses to come when we look back one day….

…any thoughts on this one? Politicised or a fair description of the situation…?

Why Denmark beat COVID and the U.S. didn't | The Week

 

idk if it is so much political as cultural. it is really difficult to compare one country to another. so many variables.
the article sounds political though.

 

This does match up with numerous other items I've been seeing.

But as an alternative to getting the vaccines, it has several downsides:
(*) it doesn't train the body to protect itself. It is just a treatment for an early stage active disease case, not a preventative against future disease. Its benefit fades in a few weeks, much more rapidly than the protection from the fading-faster-than-we-wished vaccines;
(*) for the public health authorities paying for it, it is vastly more expensive;
(*) supply is more limited, so it is more likely to be unavailable when one wants or needs it;
(*) for people concerned about 'unproven' or 'too rapidly released to market' or any of the other common reasons that people are expressing to be wary of the vaccines, there is no good reason why this treatment is of any less concern.

 

Over 100x cost differential is what I heard, or slightly over 2-kilobucks for the antibody dose.

 

There is also an additional aspect of ‘opportunity cost’, which is the cost of depriving a hospital bed and other medical resources from someone requiring another type of urgent medical treatment (e.g. cancer therapy).

For those of us with nationalised healthcare systems this is a very real metric as a backlog of this work has built up during our peak surges. For those with insurance backed healthcare, such costs are still there but more hidden from inspection. These might typically appear as a ‘higher than background’ increases in morbidity/mortality figures for non-Covid conditions.

 

The "street price" for Monoclonal antibody infusions are about $2k in the US according to the bill a family member got.
The real-world cost is anybody's guess.
Ask somebody like Senator Sinema.....

They DID get a bill.
No Gov'mint cheese in these here parts at the time.

People are smart.
Crowds are stupid.

Compliance IS key, which is why forced vaccinations and a dawn-to-dawn curfew figure prominently in success stories.
I believe we used the phrase "go ugly early" about a year and a half ago.

Not so easy to do in the "land of the free" but it is doable with one pen and one piece of paper.

You forgot the PITA factor.
Pretty soon they're going to figure out HOW WE MAKE the stuff.

 

If so, dot.gov isn't being offered much of a discount.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/regeneron-lilly-get-new-covid-drug-deals-from-government-2021-09-16

 

Interesting claims: Protein found on infected cells protects virus from immune system; remdesivir helps prevent hospitalization | Reuters

A protein called CD47 that helps damaged cells avoid destruction by the immune system may be contributing to severe cases of COVID-19, researchers believe. Drugs in development targeting CD47 may result in improved COVID-19 therapies, they suggested in a report published in Current Issues in Molecular Biology.
. . .
SARS-CoV-2 infection also increases levels of another protein, SIRPalpha, that partners with CD47 to trick the immune system into ignoring the sick cells.
. . .
The 562 patients in the study all had conditions that increased their risk for becoming critically ill. Half received three days of treatment with remdesivir - sold under the brand name Veklury - while the rest received a placebo. Four weeks later, 5.3% of patients in the placebo group had been hospitalized or died, compared to 0.7% of those who received remdesivir.
. . .
The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since World War II, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years, according to new data. In the 29 countries studied - the United States, Chile, and 27 in Europe - all but two showed reductions in life expectancy.
. . . ​

Access to full article may require a free registration.

Bob Wilson

 

you know, there are places on Earth that you can move to... that don't have all these pesky problems with rights... the govt just says "do as I say"and the people have no choice.

it's weird, no one wants to go to those places, they all want to come here.

head scratcher, I wonder why ?

 

I've found that most people who begin a conversation with this (or similar) thoughts really haven't BEEN many other places.

If you're going to cherry-pick snippets of conversation and post them out of context then perhaps you should consider a career as a journalist, or perhaps as a White House spokesperson.

What you're quoting is a comment about the relationship between compliance and outcome, and if you look at the data, there IS a clear, real-world, straight-line association with governments that go ugly early, and those with the fewest deaths per 100,000 from a deadly communicable disease.
The best modern example of this came from a commie country in 1972, which is in NO WAY an endorsement of that form of government!

In fact....the fatal flaw of Commie countries (intolerance of bad news) is probably what got this bug kicked off in the first place.

 

They want to catch COVID-19.

Bob Wilson

 

So booster shots were approved for those over 65 and I am 71. I went to the pharmacy expecting to find a line of smart Alabamians. No line.

Alabama has one of the lowest vaccination rates and fewest available ICU beds. No waiting and done. Better to be the brightest fish in the dummy pool. Everyone else is my meat.

Bob Wilson

 

a lot of clamoring here. just like the first shot, more takers than availability. it will calm down after the initial surge.
nationwide, it looks like cases are running about half of a few weeks ago.

 

Got mine:

Booster shot.

Bob Wilson