14 ms·

Pfizer’s Covid-19 Pill is 89% Effective in Phase 2/3 Study

107 points by elorant 5y ago

baka367 5y ago
Cautiously hopeful that this does indeed work and that it does work for all variants... .. and that it also would not cost a fortune in 3rd world where we really need easily accessible and storable countermeasures against the bugger.
- jimmyearlcarter 5y ago
- xienze 5y ago
  - desine 5y ago
    - bhaak 5y ago
      I'm not sure the taxpayers will pay for that if you are unvaccinated. This pill is for "high-risk patients who took the antiviral within three days of symptom onset". The vaccination even seems to be a bit more effective than this pill?
      - johnisgood 5y ago
        But I am not vaccinated for health reasons. When are we going to start differentiating? Were I not a freelancer, I would have lost my job because I am not vaccinated, for health reasons. It is a pretty shitty thing to do to people.
        chki 5y ago
        I'm sorry if this is inappropriate but what health reasons prevent you from getting vaccinated?
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Msw242 5y ago
        There are allergies to vaccines (not to the dose, but to everything else that is in the concoction that enables it to work). Also, immunocompromised people often can't take vaccines. Usually you can get a doctor's note explaining this, and you can participate in daily life normally (like going to school or college, which rightfully require vaccinations). I don't know if policy around the COVID vaccine is different... But I'd be surprised if it were?
        CydeWeys 5y ago
        > Also, immunocompromised people often can't take vaccines. Nope. Immunocompromised people need extra doses of the vaccine, and even then it doesn't work as well. This is one of those false talking points that antivaxxers love to spread.
        Msw242 5y ago
        With over 300mm Americans, there is no one treatment plan for the entire country. Not every physician is recommending every single one of their patients get this or any other vaccine. There are public policy implications for serving those people.
        mlyle 5y ago
        It's just conflating/confused: * Immunocompromised people have poor efficacy with the vaccine even with boosters, like my dad who has SLL. * Other people who have autoimmune and inflammatory conditions are often immunocompromised (because of taking low dose chemotherapy, etc, to manage their conditions). Also, recommending a vaccine for these people is complicated, because vaccines can kick up immune and inflammatory responses and make their conditions worse. Most are still better off with the vaccine but I can understand both providers and patients being hesitant.
      - mlyle 5y ago
        > I'm not sure the taxpayers will pay for that if you are unvaccinated. Just about no matter what it costs, it's cheaper than you dying in an ICU.
    - viro 5y ago
      > for our democracy spreading. Don't go trying blame them for our actions. Assuming ur from the US or EU.
  - discordance 5y ago
    This didn’t work so well with the vaccine in developing countries
desine 5y ago
- ufo 5y ago
  Ivermectin acts on glutamate chloride ion channels. It is not a protease inhibitor. And even if it were (which it is not), something that inhibits one protease doesn't work on other proteases. We can't use HIV protease inhibitors to fight covid, for example.
  - desine 5y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/
    - ufo 5y ago
      "in silico" doesn't mean that is actually real. We are almost getting into 2022 now and there is ample evidence from prospective double-blind studies proving that Ivermectin doesn't work against covid. And here in Brazil we have a pile of corpses showing what happens when the government tries to use innefective drugs as the main answer to the pandemic.
- azinman2 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29249686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29249686
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  - desine 5y ago
    >Good luck! I look forward to your references to peer-reviewed, reproduced, double-blind studies upending decades of well established medical science. Why is my burden of proof higher than yours? I at least linked one study in my sibling comment. I haven't seen that from anyone, studying anything, in years. Around 2018 there were actually a ton of articles and discussions right here on HN about the reproducibility problem in science, and that there's no funding for reproducing studies anymore. Everything is just cite and move on. We were actually making significant progress in reforming our ideas of science, and the effects that scientific funding sources have on our knowledge, as a species (hint if it's not profitable we probably aren't studying it). That all got thrown by the wayside as "trust the science" became the political rallying cry of half the population over the last year.
beaned 5y ago
The vaccines were also lauded as 100% effective in the early days by Fauci and others, so just a reminder that time and reproducibility matter before being too confident about it.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  I don't recall a single instance of 100% efficacy claim. It was around 92-97%.
  - jmarbach 5y ago
    You are arguing over semantics. In reality, the Pfizer vax has proven to be less than 10% effective at stopping a future infection.
    - jjulius 5y ago
      - jmarbach 5y ago
        You are completely wrong -- totally warped by the narrative. Look at the Pfizer press release, Nov 9, 2020 - the first sentence: "Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis" https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-vaccine-candidate-against https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
        junon 5y ago
        Your own misunderstanding of the difference between SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 do not entitle you to assert anything about the subject.
        throwawayboise 5y ago
jmarbach 5y ago
- junon 5y ago
  Yes.
btmiller 5y ago
- marklubi 5y ago
  > The race to vaccinate enough people is frankly impossible considering how politically charged it became. Fucking Republicans. Please take your politically charged discourse elsewhere. This isn't the right place for mudslinging like this.
  - atonse 5y ago
    I do agree with the general sentiment of keeping politics out of it. But sadly there do seem to be some pretty strong correlations at a county level across the US. It could also be rural/urban cultural divides but the more obvious one is simply politics.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      There are a large number of blacks and young people who are not vaccinated. This is a bipartisan thing.
      - nojito 5y ago
      - javagram 5y ago
        Actually, political affiliation is the strongest demographic predictor for Covid-19 vaccine refusal. Check the actual stats. Unfortunately a lot of GOP leaning media sources including top rated Fox News opinion hosts have been spreading FUD about the vaccine for a year. People listen to their trusted news hosts and media sources…
        cltby 5y ago
        > Check the actual stats 60 % of Republicans have received at least one dose [1], but only 51 % of blacks have done the same [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/17/counties-voted-trump-higher-covid-death-rate https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/17/counties-vot... [2] https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-...
MaxMoney 5y ago
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  On first encounter, it doesn’t yet exist. Same reason it might not be sensible to have sex unprotected with a syphilis patient.
  - MaxMoney 5y ago
hunterb123 5y ago
- warning26 5y ago
  You can enable "Show Dead" in your user prefs if you want to see flagged comments. Spoiler alert: they're all conspiracy theorizing about how this _proves_ that the entire pandemic is all a part of Pfizer's master plan for making money.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    You didn't summarize the flagged posts I did see correctly, this is exactly why I don't support censoring them. Even to your summarization, that's up for those reading to decide. I don't blindly trust a single pharma company after the opioid scandal. Conspiracies are not impossible, and if you want to dispel a theory, do it, don't censor it. Also at a certain point you cannot see flagged comments, even with "show dead" enabled.
  - pokstad 5y ago
    Not what I read. A bunch of the flagged posts are people doubting the efficacy.
  - dang 5y ago
    "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- solarkraft 5y ago
  A downvote, too, is not meant as a "disagree" button, but for comments hindering a productive discussion. I can assure you almost all of them are flame-bait.
  - greyface- 5y ago
    "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement." -pg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
thisiscorrect 5y ago
It will be interesting to see if this pill could be used as prophylaxis too, instead of only after the onset of symptoms. Might help with the need to recognize symptoms fairly early on.
- JanSt 5y ago
  $500-700 per 5 day course and very limited supply (<100m courses in 2022 planned)
whb07 5y ago
- eli 5y ago
  The data was real the first time. The virus got worse.
  - tim333 5y ago
    Presumably this data is against Delta or an earlier variant but by the time it's in use covid will be 99% Omicron. I wonder how that will effect things.
    - adriancr 5y ago
      sadly by the time omicron would reach 99% we might have another variant and cycle repeats. Data released is with what was present, in time we'll get for the rest as well... Omicron right now is too new to actually know effectiveness...
  - rimiform 5y ago
    I suspect the worry is that it will be similar for the pill. Highly effective now, but less effective for future variants.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Well, the more fronts on which we attack the vaccine, the barder it will be to to evolve against all of them.
    - eli 5y ago
      "Highly effective now" sounds like the best one can reasonably expect. Though I am very interested in the early work on a pan-coronavirus vaccine
  - whb07 5y ago
JohnTHaller 5y ago
This will be useful for the hundreds of thousands of organ transplant recipients like my Dad. The two dose vaccines generally have no effect. Didn't with him or any of the other patients under his doctor's care. Luckily, he was part of the ~40% where the 3rd dose had some effect. Nowhere near healthy folks but at least some. For the other 60%, a drug like this will be life-saving.
pokstad 5y ago
Does this mean COVID is over? I thought once the vaccines were available we could move on with life, but somehow the goal posts kept moving. Will people accept the much smaller risk of hospitalization once this pill is available?
- joe_guy 5y ago
  > but somehow the goal posts kept moving. The virus changes, so the end conditions change. It's frustrating but it is what it is.
  - jimmyearlcarter 5y ago
- epgui 5y ago
  The goal posts do keep moving, because vaccination uptake is slow, people keep arguing against public health measures, and while we waste time delaying measures or implementing half baked measures, the virus evolves.
  - 650 5y ago
    Look at BC Canada, 90% vaccine uptake (2 doses). Very strong public masking. Vax passport checking at most businesses. More restrictions recently introduced. Hospitals on the verge of being overwhelmed.
    - magicalist 5y ago
      > 90% vaccine uptake (2 doses) 82% > Hospitals on the verge of being overwhelmed There's 191 people in the hospital in BC for covid right now[1]. Current preparations are for if omicron has exponential growth over the next several weeks. [1] https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a6f23959a8b14bfa989e3cda29297ded https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a6f23959a8b14bfa989...
    - epgui 5y ago
ohiovr 5y ago
Sure are a lot of missing comments here. It seems hardcore leftists love diversity in everything except diversity of opinions. Ah this place is basically group think extreme. More interesting than Reddit usually but just as hostile to debate about subjects that go against the TV gods or popular culture. Basically the internet is becoming little clicks of people that dare not even speak up for fear of losing more than something like posting privileges to a website. You think this issue is not political? It has been politics from the very first minute we saw it on TV.
- tommit 5y ago
  What are you on about? And how is this comment at all contributing to a healthy discussion?
stunt 5y ago
It doesn't help that public is too sensitive about this subject. Government can't scrutinize companies like Pfizer enough if they are worried about public reaction. And I'm not too surprised if some companies rush since a lot of money is on the table. To be fair, this is the best effort we have ever had to develop a vaccine. So I don't think it's fair to blame these companies if their vaccine wasn't effective on new variants as they initially promised. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't thoroughly scrutinize them.
- throwoutway 5y ago
  > So I don't think it's fair to blame these companies if their vaccine wasn't effective on new variants as they initially promised. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't thoroughly scrutinize them. It depends. On example: If they hid data that propped up their number, then we should blame. Otherwise we should not blame them. Either way, there needs to be scrutiny so that they don’t feel they can easily hide things that matter to public health

107 points by elorant 5y ago

Cautiously hopeful that this does indeed work and that it does work for all variants... .. and that it also would not cost a fortune in 3rd world where we really need easily accessible and storable countermeasures against the bugger.

jimmyearlcarter 5y ago
xienze 5y ago
- desine 5y ago
  - bhaak 5y ago
    I'm not sure the taxpayers will pay for that if you are unvaccinated. This pill is for "high-risk patients who took the antiviral within three days of symptom onset". The vaccination even seems to be a bit more effective than this pill?
    - johnisgood 5y ago
      But I am not vaccinated for health reasons. When are we going to start differentiating? Were I not a freelancer, I would have lost my job because I am not vaccinated, for health reasons. It is a pretty shitty thing to do to people.
      - chki 5y ago
        I'm sorry if this is inappropriate but what health reasons prevent you from getting vaccinated?
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Msw242 5y ago
        There are allergies to vaccines (not to the dose, but to everything else that is in the concoction that enables it to work). Also, immunocompromised people often can't take vaccines. Usually you can get a doctor's note explaining this, and you can participate in daily life normally (like going to school or college, which rightfully require vaccinations). I don't know if policy around the COVID vaccine is different... But I'd be surprised if it were?
        CydeWeys 5y ago
        > Also, immunocompromised people often can't take vaccines. Nope. Immunocompromised people need extra doses of the vaccine, and even then it doesn't work as well. This is one of those false talking points that antivaxxers love to spread.
        Msw242 5y ago
        With over 300mm Americans, there is no one treatment plan for the entire country. Not every physician is recommending every single one of their patients get this or any other vaccine. There are public policy implications for serving those people.
        mlyle 5y ago
        It's just conflating/confused: * Immunocompromised people have poor efficacy with the vaccine even with boosters, like my dad who has SLL. * Other people who have autoimmune and inflammatory conditions are often immunocompromised (because of taking low dose chemotherapy, etc, to manage their conditions). Also, recommending a vaccine for these people is complicated, because vaccines can kick up immune and inflammatory responses and make their conditions worse. Most are still better off with the vaccine but I can understand both providers and patients being hesitant.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > I'm not sure the taxpayers will pay for that if you are unvaccinated. Just about no matter what it costs, it's cheaper than you dying in an ICU.
  - viro 5y ago
    > for our democracy spreading. Don't go trying blame them for our actions. Assuming ur from the US or EU.
- discordance 5y ago
  This didn’t work so well with the vaccine in developing countries

desine 5y ago

ufo 5y ago
Ivermectin acts on glutamate chloride ion channels. It is not a protease inhibitor. And even if it were (which it is not), something that inhibits one protease doesn't work on other proteases. We can't use HIV protease inhibitors to fight covid, for example.
- desine 5y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/
  - ufo 5y ago
    "in silico" doesn't mean that is actually real. We are almost getting into 2022 now and there is ample evidence from prospective double-blind studies proving that Ivermectin doesn't work against covid. And here in Brazil we have a pile of corpses showing what happens when the government tries to use innefective drugs as the main answer to the pandemic.
azinman2 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29249686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29249686
jiggawatts 5y ago
- desine 5y ago
  >Good luck! I look forward to your references to peer-reviewed, reproduced, double-blind studies upending decades of well established medical science. Why is my burden of proof higher than yours? I at least linked one study in my sibling comment. I haven't seen that from anyone, studying anything, in years. Around 2018 there were actually a ton of articles and discussions right here on HN about the reproducibility problem in science, and that there's no funding for reproducing studies anymore. Everything is just cite and move on. We were actually making significant progress in reforming our ideas of science, and the effects that scientific funding sources have on our knowledge, as a species (hint if it's not profitable we probably aren't studying it). That all got thrown by the wayside as "trust the science" became the political rallying cry of half the population over the last year.

beaned 5y ago

The vaccines were also lauded as 100% effective in the early days by Fauci and others, so just a reminder that time and reproducibility matter before being too confident about it.

xboxnolifes 5y ago
I don't recall a single instance of 100% efficacy claim. It was around 92-97%.
- jmarbach 5y ago
  You are arguing over semantics. In reality, the Pfizer vax has proven to be less than 10% effective at stopping a future infection.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    - jmarbach 5y ago
      You are completely wrong -- totally warped by the narrative. Look at the Pfizer press release, Nov 9, 2020 - the first sentence: "Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis" https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-vaccine-candidate-against https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
      - junon 5y ago
        Your own misunderstanding of the difference between SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 do not entitle you to assert anything about the subject.
        throwawayboise 5y ago

jmarbach 5y ago

junon 5y ago
Yes.

btmiller 5y ago

marklubi 5y ago
> The race to vaccinate enough people is frankly impossible considering how politically charged it became. Fucking Republicans. Please take your politically charged discourse elsewhere. This isn't the right place for mudslinging like this.
- atonse 5y ago
  I do agree with the general sentiment of keeping politics out of it. But sadly there do seem to be some pretty strong correlations at a county level across the US. It could also be rural/urban cultural divides but the more obvious one is simply politics.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    There are a large number of blacks and young people who are not vaccinated. This is a bipartisan thing.
    - nojito 5y ago
    - javagram 5y ago
      Actually, political affiliation is the strongest demographic predictor for Covid-19 vaccine refusal. Check the actual stats. Unfortunately a lot of GOP leaning media sources including top rated Fox News opinion hosts have been spreading FUD about the vaccine for a year. People listen to their trusted news hosts and media sources…
      - cltby 5y ago
        > Check the actual stats 60 % of Republicans have received at least one dose [1], but only 51 % of blacks have done the same [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/17/counties-voted-trump-higher-covid-death-rate https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/17/counties-vot... [2] https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-...

MaxMoney 5y ago

ceejayoz 5y ago
On first encounter, it doesn’t yet exist. Same reason it might not be sensible to have sex unprotected with a syphilis patient.
- MaxMoney 5y ago

hunterb123 5y ago

warning26 5y ago
You can enable "Show Dead" in your user prefs if you want to see flagged comments. Spoiler alert: they're all conspiracy theorizing about how this _proves_ that the entire pandemic is all a part of Pfizer's master plan for making money.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  You didn't summarize the flagged posts I did see correctly, this is exactly why I don't support censoring them. Even to your summarization, that's up for those reading to decide. I don't blindly trust a single pharma company after the opioid scandal. Conspiracies are not impossible, and if you want to dispel a theory, do it, don't censor it. Also at a certain point you cannot see flagged comments, even with "show dead" enabled.
- pokstad 5y ago
  Not what I read. A bunch of the flagged posts are people doubting the efficacy.
- dang 5y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
solarkraft 5y ago
A downvote, too, is not meant as a "disagree" button, but for comments hindering a productive discussion. I can assure you almost all of them are flame-bait.
- greyface- 5y ago
  "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement." -pg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

thisiscorrect 5y ago

It will be interesting to see if this pill could be used as prophylaxis too, instead of only after the onset of symptoms. Might help with the need to recognize symptoms fairly early on.

JanSt 5y ago
$500-700 per 5 day course and very limited supply (<100m courses in 2022 planned)

whb07 5y ago

eli 5y ago
The data was real the first time. The virus got worse.
- tim333 5y ago
  Presumably this data is against Delta or an earlier variant but by the time it's in use covid will be 99% Omicron. I wonder how that will effect things.
  - adriancr 5y ago
    sadly by the time omicron would reach 99% we might have another variant and cycle repeats. Data released is with what was present, in time we'll get for the rest as well... Omicron right now is too new to actually know effectiveness...
- rimiform 5y ago
  I suspect the worry is that it will be similar for the pill. Highly effective now, but less effective for future variants.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Well, the more fronts on which we attack the vaccine, the barder it will be to to evolve against all of them.
  - eli 5y ago
    "Highly effective now" sounds like the best one can reasonably expect. Though I am very interested in the early work on a pan-coronavirus vaccine
- whb07 5y ago

JohnTHaller 5y ago

This will be useful for the hundreds of thousands of organ transplant recipients like my Dad. The two dose vaccines generally have no effect. Didn't with him or any of the other patients under his doctor's care. Luckily, he was part of the ~40% where the 3rd dose had some effect. Nowhere near healthy folks but at least some. For the other 60%, a drug like this will be life-saving.

pokstad 5y ago

Does this mean COVID is over? I thought once the vaccines were available we could move on with life, but somehow the goal posts kept moving. Will people accept the much smaller risk of hospitalization once this pill is available?

joe_guy 5y ago
> but somehow the goal posts kept moving. The virus changes, so the end conditions change. It's frustrating but it is what it is.
- jimmyearlcarter 5y ago
epgui 5y ago
The goal posts do keep moving, because vaccination uptake is slow, people keep arguing against public health measures, and while we waste time delaying measures or implementing half baked measures, the virus evolves.
- 650 5y ago
  Look at BC Canada, 90% vaccine uptake (2 doses). Very strong public masking. Vax passport checking at most businesses. More restrictions recently introduced. Hospitals on the verge of being overwhelmed.
  - magicalist 5y ago
    > 90% vaccine uptake (2 doses) 82% > Hospitals on the verge of being overwhelmed There's 191 people in the hospital in BC for covid right now[1]. Current preparations are for if omicron has exponential growth over the next several weeks. [1] https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a6f23959a8b14bfa989e3cda29297ded https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a6f23959a8b14bfa989...
  - epgui 5y ago

ohiovr 5y ago

Sure are a lot of missing comments here. It seems hardcore leftists love diversity in everything except diversity of opinions. Ah this place is basically group think extreme. More interesting than Reddit usually but just as hostile to debate about subjects that go against the TV gods or popular culture. Basically the internet is becoming little clicks of people that dare not even speak up for fear of losing more than something like posting privileges to a website. You think this issue is not political? It has been politics from the very first minute we saw it on TV.

tommit 5y ago
What are you on about? And how is this comment at all contributing to a healthy discussion?

stunt 5y ago

It doesn't help that public is too sensitive about this subject. Government can't scrutinize companies like Pfizer enough if they are worried about public reaction. And I'm not too surprised if some companies rush since a lot of money is on the table. To be fair, this is the best effort we have ever had to develop a vaccine. So I don't think it's fair to blame these companies if their vaccine wasn't effective on new variants as they initially promised. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't thoroughly scrutinize them.

throwoutway 5y ago
> So I don't think it's fair to blame these companies if their vaccine wasn't effective on new variants as they initially promised. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't thoroughly scrutinize them. It depends. On example: If they hid data that propped up their number, then we should blame. Otherwise we should not blame them. Either way, there needs to be scrutiny so that they don’t feel they can easily hide things that matter to public health