4 ms·

It feels to me that the medical community at large looks almost exclusively at data regarding severe cases. I'm certainly no medical expert but it seems reasona

It feels to me that the medical community at large looks almost exclusively at data regarding severe cases. I'm certainly no medical expert but it seems reasonable to me that the treatments for someone who is literally dying from COVID could be completely orthogonal from those who are in the early stages of the infection. My understanding of severe cases is that the body is no longer or not only fighting the virus but also it's own immune response amongst other things (e.g. blood clotting). And that outcomes are mostly determined by how well the individual is able to weather the storm of their own immune system attacking them. I would not expect aspirin or similar treatments to have much effect when the patient has gotten to this point. Thought certainly, there could be some treatments that help which would prevent this from happening in the first place. And, I'm aware of the research (and money) being poured into antivirals. Of course that's a thing. I'm sure there are billions if not trillions to be made off a pill you "simply take daily" to prevent the "severe and long covid." The headlines write themselves. But I seriously wonder what research is being done on "mild" covid cases using more cheap/traditional medicines. I know where I live, the doctors don't even talk to you unless your case gets severe - basically once you need oxygen supplementation. Prior to that, you're told to stay home and rest. I'm not even sure they create a record in their medical system.

phkahler 5y ago
>> It feels to me that the medical community at large looks almost exclusively at data regarding severe cases. I'm certainly no medical expert but it seems reasonable to me that the treatments for someone who is literally dying from COVID could be completely orthogonal from those who are in the early stages of the infection. This seems to be a problem with every account of "treatment X doesn't work". They wait until someone is half dead, use X, patient dies at same rate as without X, conclude X is worthless. "preventive" or "protective" are different words than "curative" and that seems to get overlooked in a lot of cases. Doctor A: When I see someone with Covid Symptoms I give XYZ and they never end up in the hospital. ER Doctor: We've tried X,Y, and Z in every combination with patients on ventilators and none of that saves them with any statistical significance. They can both be correct.
- Jabbles 5y ago
  Obviously the medical community is aware of this. Take for example the very recent approval of Molnupiravir: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59163899 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59163899 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116044 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116044 We conducted a phase 3, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of treatment with molnupiravir started within 5 days after the onset of signs or symptoms in nonhospitalized, unvaccinated adults with mild-to-moderate, laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 and at least one risk factor for severe Covid-19 illness.
- manwe150 5y ago
  The challenge is that you don’t necessary want to be often taking lots of drugs “just in case,” since they can have their own long-term issues (just browse the other comments here for discussion). Also, adverse-drug interactions is potentially a a major killer already in the US, sometimes from doctors making mistakes, and often from people using OTC drugs outside of their safe regime. So then, we might wait until it is clear that intervention is necessary, but now the intervention also probably needs to be much more aggressive. And besides, we do have a pretty good preventative/protective option already in vaccines. It is only when breakthrough cases lead to hospitalization that we then need to pull out the backup strategies, otherwise, we’ve seen that statistically our primed immune systems are usually pretty good at dealing with it on their own.

phkahler 5y ago

>> It feels to me that the medical community at large looks almost exclusively at data regarding severe cases. I'm certainly no medical expert but it seems reasonable to me that the treatments for someone who is literally dying from COVID could be completely orthogonal from those who are in the early stages of the infection. This seems to be a problem with every account of "treatment X doesn't work". They wait until someone is half dead, use X, patient dies at same rate as without X, conclude X is worthless. "preventive" or "protective" are different words than "curative" and that seems to get overlooked in a lot of cases. Doctor A: When I see someone with Covid Symptoms I give XYZ and they never end up in the hospital. ER Doctor: We've tried X,Y, and Z in every combination with patients on ventilators and none of that saves them with any statistical significance. They can both be correct.

Jabbles 5y ago
Obviously the medical community is aware of this. Take for example the very recent approval of Molnupiravir: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59163899 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59163899 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116044 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116044 We conducted a phase 3, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of treatment with molnupiravir started within 5 days after the onset of signs or symptoms in nonhospitalized, unvaccinated adults with mild-to-moderate, laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 and at least one risk factor for severe Covid-19 illness.
manwe150 5y ago
The challenge is that you don’t necessary want to be often taking lots of drugs “just in case,” since they can have their own long-term issues (just browse the other comments here for discussion). Also, adverse-drug interactions is potentially a a major killer already in the US, sometimes from doctors making mistakes, and often from people using OTC drugs outside of their safe regime. So then, we might wait until it is clear that intervention is necessary, but now the intervention also probably needs to be much more aggressive. And besides, we do have a pretty good preventative/protective option already in vaccines. It is only when breakthrough cases lead to hospitalization that we then need to pull out the backup strategies, otherwise, we’ve seen that statistically our primed immune systems are usually pretty good at dealing with it on their own.