Study shows Remdesivir ineffective against COVID-19

[thewayne]

Joining the ranks of hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir showed no reduction in outcomes or ventilator rates in people infected with COVID-19. Which is too bad, it would be nice to have more effective drugs against this virus. But anti-viral medication is tricky stuff, and we've only been fighting this particular bastard for ten months.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-remdesivir/who-study-says-remdesivir-did-not-reduce-mortality-in-covid-19-patients-ft-idINL4N2H63XG

Comments

[dewline]

Disappointing news, yes...

[thewayne]

That's what happens sometimes when you try a drug intended for another disease for something else.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

[silveradept]

Ah, that's too bad. That also can't be good for the fool of 1600, since that was supposedly one of the treatments put to use on him for his infection.

[thewayne]

It was indeed one of the treatments in the cocktail that he was given.  And it's a tens of thousands of dollars treatment, which insurance companies will be glad to see go away and hospitals and the drug company will not!  Considering the Orange Idiot conflates the name of the drug company with the name of the drug, maybe this will be one less thing for his tiny little mind to track. The monoclonal antibodies are probably what did the trick.  The steroids are curious.  Normally you don't give them early as they suppress the immune system, which you don't want early on.  And you only give them on serious cases, as in 'this dude is going on a ventilator in a few days if things don't turn around'.  As far as we know, and since we see this idiot EVERY. SINGLE. DAY., we don't think he was that seriously ill unless it took a crazy rapid acceleration.  So I think his doc jumped the gun on the steroids.  The normal progression of the disease is a 10-14 day period, which he's just now reaching the end of.  There's just no telling how many people he exposed, the ass. You know, I didn't like GWB.  I'd call him an idiot, no problem.  But as I recall, I'd never call him an ass.  He'd never be this stupid - I don't think - if he caught such a highly transmissible disease.  It's amazing how someone could show him up as a paragon of wisdom and virtue.

[graydon]

I suspect that the steroids were required, and that the combination of the steroids and the antibodies works much better than either alone. Monoclonal antibodies that are even the tiniest bit off cause allergic reactions and flu-like symptoms; suppressing your immune system is kinda a feature, under the circumstances. And they did this while he was in hospital so probably while he was in a full-on isolation ward and at low risk of anything opportunistic.

Massively risky but they seem to have gotten away with it.

[moxie_man]

Maine was one of the testing grounds for this and yes, from what little I heard/read, it didn't seem to do much to help. So, this report is of little surprise to me.

[thewayne]

Kind of a bummer, it would have been nice had it been effective.  But they were charging a small fortune per dose for it.  No surprise there.

[moxie_man]

Which is insulting (charging a fortune) as you, I, and other tax payers funded most of the research.

[thewayne]

What I would like to see is something like a cap on what you can charge, plus a repayment where a percentage of your profits goes back into the NIH research grant fund.