8 ms·
Is remdesivir the drug that can kill the coronavirus?
- tinus_hn 7y agoProbably not because it was suggested months ago already, so if it was a magical solution we’d know by now.
- kmlevitt 7y agoActually no we wouldn’t, because real clinical trials with thousands of subjects take a long time to wrap up, even when researchers are working at breakneck speed. FWIW The anecdotal evidence from doctors and patients who have managed to get a hold of some of it has been very good so far.
- roenxi 7y agoPlus, killing off the virus isn't necessarily going to be equivalent to observed outcomes. It is easy to imagine someone having no viruses but their lungs aren't working properly because of damage done so they are still sick. So even a perfectly efficacious drug would still not necessarily be an obvious miracle cure, depending on how the disease progression works. This is a good time to wait for clinical trials to finish.
- gridlockd 7y agoMost drugs aren't "miracle cures". Even a 50% treatment success rate would put it well ahead of many other staple drugs.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- confiscate 7y agoyes but, if in a trial, if one arm performs substantially different than the control arm (e.g. 50% or even 100% lower death rate), the large difference between arms can lead to investigators ending the trial early ironically, this happened in a previous 2019 trial of Remdemsivir, for a different virus, Ebola in that trial, 4 drugs for Ebola were tested, including Remdemsivir. 2 non-Remdemsivir drugs succeeded substantially--the large difference between those drugs and Remdemsivir, was enough to cause the investigator to end the trial early and drop Remdemsivir ironically, the investigator for that trial was none-other-than Dr. Fauci. Maybe that's why he hasn't mentioned Remdemsivir much on TV these days, based on his past professional disappointing experience with Remdemsivir also, double ironically, Remdemsivir was initially designed to treat Ebola virus, not for flu or coronavirus type viruses. The fact that after the Ebola trial, Remdemsivir was declared not that effective for Ebola (the very virus Remdemsivir was created for), means there is even less of a chance Remdemsivir will prove to be effective for Covid-19 in the current trials https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/finally-some-good-news-about-ebola-two-new-treatments-dramatically-lower-death-rate# https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/finally-some-good-ne...
- confiscate 7y agoas an extreme example if Remdemsivir cures 100% of all Covid-19 cases, halfway through the trial, they would have enough data to show a net positive benefit. They don't need to finish the whole trial to declare Remdemsivir useful the fact that they are running the whole trial to finish, most likely means the effect of Remdemsivir is not too noticeable. They need more data to get to statistical significance. Hence, they want the trial to run to original planned finish date. my guess is Remdemsivir probably has some positive effect. Say, 10% lower death rate if used during 1st few days of infection. Still great, much much better than our current situation of nothing. It would not cure Covid completely, but it would help substantially, especially in large populations of infected
- kmlevitt 6y agoLooks like you may have been right. Oh well, I hope it at least helps people at the early stages of the disease.
- LittlePeter 7y agoNo [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... I started to ignore clicking any HN article with title that starts with "Is", contains "I" (e.g. Why I use React), or contains "top N". I like it so far.
- playeren 7y agoTop 3 Headlines That I Ignore!
- jmnicolas 7y agoThe magical drug that can kill any virus is your immune system. Invest in it !
- GrumpyNl 7y agoHow do you invest in that?
- kmlevitt 7y agoEat well, sleep well, exercise keep your stress levels down. The most important things people can do if they’re worried about getting this virus.
- aplummer 7y agoIt can’t kill HIV for example.
- janpot 7y agoyour immune system overreacting kills you as well.
- prox 7y agoLike the article says, there have been some hopeful anecdotes, but that is a long way from an effective cure and rigorous testing phase. Aka to early to tell.
- elric 7y agoPrevious discussion regarding how difficult it is to produce remdesivir: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22783363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22783363
- m0zg 7y agoIt's remarkable how a non-randomized study of Hydroxychloroquine is anathema, yet a non-randomized study of Remdesivir that's paid for by its manufacturer and written up by that manufacturer's employee is not. Hmm, I wonder why that is. To top it off, it might actually have the same QT prolongation issues, because some other antivirals have them. That said, politics aside, I hope it works far beyond our wildest expectations so fewer people die.
- panpanna 7y agoWhy does this have to be political? One drug has turned out to be mostly ineffective and in some cases dangerous, people have died. Another one seems to work okay-ish in a huge coordinated experiment. I don't see where politics come into this.
- m0zg 7y agoYou can't support either of the assertions with available data. No control arm? You know bupkis. > people have died Citation needed. And no, aquarium cleaner dude is not what I mean by "citation".
- panpanna 7y agoBoth drugs are under trial but we have seen some leaks on HN already. Even without that, an unbiased person would at the very least be equally sceptical to both.
- Fjolsvith 7y ago> Even without that, an unbiased person would at the very least be equally sceptical to both. Unless you know someone who recovered after taking the drug.
- panpanna 7y agoSure, but that's at best anecdotal. At worst, the patient would have recovered anyway and the drug only made it harder. The official reports will be available in 2 weeks.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cheriot 7y ago> enough to supply more than 140,000 patients > the firm has set an “ambitious goal” of producing more than 500,000 treatment courses by October, and 1m by the end of the year So no. Even if this is a cure, the pandemic gets worse before it gets better.
- gridlockd 7y agoGlobal infection rate has stabilized, it's not getting "worse" in that sense. At that rate, there won't be much more than another doubling. If 80% of those infected do not need treatment at all, that amount of courses may well be sufficient, or close to it.
- aorth 7y agoI'm still waiting to see what happens in Africa and South America.
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoThere's no 5G there, so I guess nothing.
- teefcj 7y agoIt's stabilized under the current shelter in place regime, which will almost certainly have to be lifted at least partially for economic-political reasons. When that happens my guess is there will be new waves of illness.
- cheriot 7y agoThe places that are growing are too early in the curve to move that needle. The developing world got it first because people travel more, but the virus has reached poor countries and they won't have as many options.
- jhayward 7y agoI think this makes the mistake of thinking there is such a thing as a global infection rate. There are instead a couple of hundred separate epidemics, each with its own R0 and trajectory. It’s also dangerously wrong, but human nature, to look at the current state of epidemics and project their future state. Epidemics that have been suppressed rather than extinguished resemble unstable explosives. Just because they’re sitting there nicely today doesn’t mean they won’t explode 3 seconds from now.
- Protostome 7y agowhat is dead may never die