COVID-19

[crazydoc]

Yes, it requires less of the stuff and takes it directly to where it's needed, they say. Injection dosage 1 = inhalation dosage 3.
Equals patient treatable tripled. However, this med more effective in early stage of infection, it seems.

Other medication
Blood thinners against clotting

A little off topic:
Gilead Sciences is making the injectable (estimated cost $4,460 per patient) and starting trials of the nebulized version. I doubt if the cost will be less even if the dose is cut. They will probably feel they can increase the price since it can save the cost of hospitalization for some patients (if it turns out it's useful for mild disease).
They also make Harvoni for hepatitis C, - the average wholesale USA cost for Harvoni was $1,125 per pill (one a day). An 8-week treatment course was $63,000 while a 12-week treatment course was $94,500 and a 24-week one $189,000. One reason given for the high price, besides the yada yada of development, was that it saved the patient (insurance) the cost of a liver transplant.
Hopefully the cost of remdesivir will come in at a reasonable level after taking development costs and a fair profit into consideration.

Here's another version:
Exactly how GILEAD arrived at the Harvoni price is clouded in secrecy however because of my contacts in the pharmaceutical industry I heard this story, which I believe is true.

When Gilead was certain that it had a cure for Hepatitis C it surveyed a number of USA based health insurance companies and asked how much it cost them if one of their customers caught Hepatitis C… from when they first contracted the disease until they died. It turned out that the cost was about US$200,000  per patient. So Gilead said something like ” so if we could cure 95% of your customers who have Hep C and charged about $80,000 per treatment that would be a price you would pay?”

So the story goes that Gilead worked out the cost of a person having Hep C to a health insurance company and then figured out what the maximum price they would be able to charge for Harvoni would be. The same logic applies to national health services in countries that offer health cover for their citizens.

So the price of Harvoni has nothing to do with research costs because Gilead purchased the technology for Harvoni. The price of Harvoni has nothing to do with manufacturing costs, because it actually costs very little indeed to manufacture a 12 week treatment of Harvoni. The Harvoni price has to do with greed… pure and simple corporate greed.

https://www.generichepatitiscdrugs.com/harvoni-price/

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm not sure we should corrupt the covid science thread with politics (prices), but the is a far different calculus between cures for otherwise chronic diseases (like Hep C) and this.

I recall the classic story when that crazy doctor came up with a cure for ulcers (bacterial), instead of the chronic gravy train of perpetual symptoms medication. IIRC it was a doc from Australia... go figure.. He was shunned and hated by the drug industry, for curing a previous cash cow, that kept giving and giving, until the cure stuck a fork in it.

JR

 

[Brian Roth]

I'm not sure we should corrupt the covid science thread with politics (prices), but the is a far different calculus between cures for otherwise chronic diseases (like Hep C) and this.

I recall the classic story when that crazy doctor came up with a cure for ulcers (bacterial), instead of the chronic gravy train of perpetual symptoms medication. IIRC it was a doc from Australia... go figure.. He was shunned and hated by the drug industry, for curing a previous cash cow, that kept giving and giving, until the cure stuck a fork in it.

JR

Ulcers guy:

https://www.eevblog.com/2019/04/16/eevblog-1201-nobel-laureate-in-the-eevblog-lab/

 

[Script]

if it turns out it's useful for mild disease

Not for mild disease cases. Mild cases don't necessarily need much (or any of this) medication.

Much more complicated. It seems effective, if at all, in early stage before symptoms get severe. However, not everybody gets severely ill... and supply of this med is limited.

 

[scott2000]

What confuses me a bit is I can't find any information if there has ever been a vaccine or even therapeutic for Mers or the original 2002 Sars Cov......

From what I can tell, Remdesivar was being tested in February  on monkeys for Mers....

I guess it's still good news regardless...

That hampster study is interesting...

these poor animals always linked to the cause and the cure... bizarre

 

[Script]

AFAIK, some virii are a bit 'dumb'. They knock out their hosts too quickly / effectively, so are 'easier' to contain.

 

[scott2000]

Makes sense.... Still seems a bit lazy not to explore past letting them loose/containment regardless... if that's the case

 

[Script]

Or, as in the case of Japan, somewhat ironically, containment has been so successful that they simply ran out of infected people to participate in trials of their own medication (called Avigan, originally invented in Japan against MERS or SARS, yet never really tested).

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/24/national/science-health/japan-coronavirus-patients-vaccine-trials/

But nothing to worry about really, as number of infections in Tokyo is going up again -- very slowly but steadily as of late  :-\

 

[scott2000]

That sucks.... We're not doing too hot in FL either I hear.....

Well at least they were on the track back here in 2014

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4136000/

Repurposing of Clinically Developed Drugs for Treatment of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection

"In order to prevent the emergence of a novel virus from growing into a pandemic or established human pathogen, it is critical that public health officials and clinicians be able to diagnose the infection, control its spread, and treat those afflicted. First and foremost, we need more countermeasures that can be used for the early phase of an epidemic to provide an immediate treatment response while more-appropriate therapies are being developed. "

 

[kambo]

these poor animals always linked to the cause and the cure... bizarre

very very bizarre! something else going on for sure,  we dont know  of!

 

[Tubetec]

The pharma industry is like a milking machine thats managed to latch itself onto insurances dick , and the shareholders are liking it , covid has only helped this wheel of fortune self perpetrate , if you happened to hit the right pharma stocks hard mid/late March  (lockdown) your probably rolling like a pig in sh!t now , but having to keep quiet about your luck/shame.
Id say the people who got out of Carnival(cruises) and into vaccines at the right time made a killing ,litterally .

Insight or insider trading ,very hard to tell in the era of worldwide media connectivity, one man getting rich makes another poor thats the only thing you can bank on , much more going on here than a virus , its a consolidation of wealth on one hand , and a ripping off on the other .

David .

 

[Script]

We're not doing too hot in FL either I hear.....

Sunbelt states being watched very closely worldwide.

Is virus moving on there to more rural areas and different social areas ?

 

[scott2000]

I haven't looked....  I wouldn't be surprised..... This thing is showing up everywhere.. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

The pharma industry is like a milking machine thats managed to latch itself onto insurances dick , and the shareholders are liking it , covid has only helped this wheel of fortune self perpetrate , if you happened to hit the right pharma stocks hard mid/late March  (lockdown) your probably rolling like a pig in sh!t now , but having to keep quiet about your luck/shame.

Ignoring the millions of lives saved by modern medicine.

New drugs are not a sure thing (milking machine), they involve massive up front investments into testing new drugs that don't always work... The drug companies must extract as much revenue as they can from their hits, to pay for all the misses.

Of course its more complicated than that when government injects themselves into drug pricing decisions.

Id say the people who got out of Carnival(cruises) and into vaccines at the right time made a killing ,litterally .

literally? Does that mean something different where you live?

Insight or insider trading ,very hard to tell in the era of worldwide media connectivity,

insider trading is illegal and traders with large suspicious profits often get investigated and caught.

one man getting rich makes another poor thats the only thing you can bank on ,

exchanging shares at a price mutually agreed to by both parties is not a wealth transfer.

much more going on here than a virus , its a consolidation of wealth on one hand , and a ripping off on the other .

David .

Seriously?  We have a covid politics thread but this isn't even politics.  : (conspiracy?)

JR

 

[scott2000]

Sunbelt states being watched very closely worldwide.

Is virus moving on there to more rural areas and different social areas ?

One weird thing I just noticed on the FL Covid page was the ratio of positive to negative tests for non-residents compared to residents in some counties so far.... and looking more......randomly selecting a bunch of others seems like a pretty weird similar pattern....

Broward County                                          Seminole County

Residents                                  Residents                         
Positive: 29,675                                                Positive: 1,955
Negative: 252,903                                            Negative: 30,896

                                                                             
Non-residents                                  Non-residents
Positive: 520                                                              Positive: 11
Negative: 966                                                              Negative: 30
                                                                                           

Osceola County                                                            Duval County
Residents                                              Residents
Positive: 1,434                                                              Positive: 4,077
Negative: 21,856                                                          Negative: 85,152
                                                                                             

Non-residents                                          Non-residents
Positive: 51                                                                        Positive: 94
Negative: 27                                                                      Negative: 528


Orange County                                                                    Hillsborough County
Residents                                                                      Residents
Positive: 7,697                                                                        Positive: 7,941
Negative: 114,150                                                            Negative: 102,606
                                                                                                       

non-residents                                                  non-residents
Positive: 150                                                                                Positive: 77
Negative: 957                                                                            Negative: 345
                                                                                               

 

[crazydoc]

My guess would be that they're doing large scale screening of county residents, and mostly testing non-resident visitors who seek medical care because they feel sick, so the positive percentage is much higher.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I heard a suggestion from Fauci (I think) to pool spittle from a group of people for testing and if the test is negative the entire group is considered negative. If the group tests positive then follow up test all the individuals. This may be more cost effective for testing entire sports teams or large groups of office workers. I suspect they may already do this for some circumstances.

I am in no hurry to get tested, nor do I want to have a reason to.

JR

PS: Is it just me or is the accuracy of the different tests still in question? These are not simple binary results, but biased with varying degrees of false positives or false negatives depending upon test design criteria. 

 

[scott2000]

My guess would be that they're doing large scale screening of county residents, and mostly testing non-resident visitors who seek medical care because they feel sick, so the positive percentage is much higher.

Sounds logical..

I went down the east coast just for kicks... same thing... Guess it's just the way the math works out or something....

St Johns-residents Positive: 669                    non residents- Positive: 13
                                      Negative: 17,543                                            Negative: 18

Flagler- residents  Positive: 266                    non residents  Positive: 8
                                      Negative: 7,314                                              Negative: 30

Volusia  residents  Positive: 1,590                  non residents  Positive: 15
                                      Negative: 34,633                                            Negative: 82

Brevard residents Positive : 1,282                non residents    Positive: 15
                                      Negative: 37,909                                              Negative: 6

Indian River residents Positive: 530              non residents Positive: 11
                                              Negative:12,233                                      Negative: 58


Miami is wild...... ???.... wt? ??? ???
Non-Florida Residents:                       
        Positive: 520
      Negative: 966

Florida Residents:
Positive:  29,675
Negative: 252,903


Starting up at the panhandle is the same.....Really strange.......






                                         
                                                                                                                           

 

[JohnRoberts]

A new suggestion that we may have 10x the number of virus cases undiagnosed. This would suggest that the death rate is lower also. (Of course some fraction of unspecified deaths may need reclassification.)

JR 

 

[scott2000]

I'm not sure it matters.... Arizona is freaking out now.... Their first death was like March 2nd.... almost 4 months ago?
They have around 1500 deaths so far....  out of 7 million people.....

What bugs me is that they're showing pictures of people floating down the river in rafts or people lying on the beach and playing in the ocean...

and headlines like
"Young adults are driving the surge in coronavirus cases in Arizona, Florida, and Texas, officials say. Patients’ median ages are dropping."


See if you can spot the elephant in the water...lol