may have closed and you have to deal with
its complications.
CURRENTLY: Clinical trials with anti-in-flammatory
drugs continues; the first doses
of the antiviral drug remdesivir have arrived;
and dozens of people have received antibody
treatments from the blood of those who test-ed
positive for the Covid 19 but no longer
have symptoms.
Covid-19 Remdesivir blocks the corona-virus’s
RNA enzymes needed to replicate its
genetic material and proliferate in our bodies.
As of May 8, 2020 the FDA issued an emer-gency
use authorization which allows the drug
to be given to patients with COVID-19 only
if they are severely ill.
ON A POSITIVE NOTE:
NIH, May 8, 2020: According to Anthony S.
Fauci, M.D “We now have solid data showing
that remdesivir diminishes to a modest degree
the time to recovery for people hospitalized
with COVID-19. We are now examining if
adding an anti-inflammatory agent can pro-vide
additional benefit for patients, including
improving mortality outcomes.”
May 9, 2020: Early data shows that a triple
antiviral therapy may be safe and effective in
treating patients with mild to moderate cases.
Drugs used in the study are already approved
to treat other illnesses. A combination, or
cocktail, of drugs will provide a more effective
and more complete therapy that blocks the
virus from replicating.
VACCINES prevent disease by boosting a
person’s natural immune response against
a microbe that they have not encountered
before. Coronaviruses have historically been
hard to make safe vaccines for, partly because
the virus infects the upper respiratory tract,
which our immune system is not great at
protecting.
April 30, 2020 Status of research for a
Covid-19 vaccine. There are 8 vaccine can-didates
in Phase 1 & 2 clinical trials. 3 use
inactivated or
killed virus. 2 use
a modified cold
virus to deliver
the protein that
will stimulate the
immune response.
The final 3 are
gene-based vac-cines
which con-tain
a gene or part
of a gene from
the virus but not
the virus itself.
Ad d i t i o n a l l y
there are 94 vac-cines
candidates
in preclinical
studies.
Vaccine trials
t r a d i t i o n a l l y
take decades. In
the race against
COVID-19, we don’t have that time. To have a
vaccine by next summer will require both luck
and cutting corners never cut before. Current
rules are meant to protect volunteers from
harm, but with the growing global death count
from the coronavirus scientists are asking:
Is it acceptable to deliberately infect healthy
people with a disease that could kill them,
and for which there is no cure?
The process is complex. First scientists must
find a way to trigger the body to produce anti-bodies
against the Covid-19 virus, then test it
in cell cultures and animals. (The pre-clinical
phase). Human testing comes next. Phase I to
ensure the vaccine is safe. Phase II looks at
how the immune systems respond to the vac-cine
as well as safety and side effects. Phase
III is pivotal. Tens of thousands of people are
given the vaccine and compared with people
who received a placebo. Looking for common,
along with rare, side effects. Only after Phase
III is complete can a manufacturer apply for a
license to market the vaccine for human use.
Scientists hope to speed up the process
by running tests for each phase at the same
time. Companies and nonprofits are pouring
billions into the search. The rules also are
being loosened. The FDA is working close-ly
with companies that have vaccine trials
underway to streamline the process as much
as possible.
COVID-19 VS INFLUENZA: As the
COVID-19 outbreak continues to evolve,
comparisons have been drawn to influenza.
Both cause respiratory disease, yet there are
important differences between the two and
how they spread. This has implications for
the public health measures that can be imple-mented
to respond to each.
May 5, 2020 COVID-19 is not the seasonal
flu. In many ways, it is much worse. That can
be seen by the large number of deaths that
have already occurred. One of the biggest
challenges is it is completely new. There’s a
lot we don’t know about it, how it spreads,
how it infects people, how it causes damage
in the body, how the immune system responds
to it. The situation is changing rapidly. Since
this disease is caused by a new virus, people
do not have immunity to it. The mortality
rate of COVID-19 at present is thought to
be substantially higher than most strains of
the flu.
May 1, 2020 “The flu kills more people
than coronavirus. Why shut down the econ-omy
for this? “
But the US death toll from coronavirus this
year has exceeded the high-end estimate for
flu deaths. And coronavirus has killed at a
much faster rate than the flu, claiming all
those lives in just 3 months.
Consider: People who get sick from the flu
will quickly know they are sick and likely stay
home, avoiding contact with others. Experts
say the number of flu deaths could be dras-tically
reduced if more people got flu shots.
Even if you get a flu vaccine and later catch
the flu, the symptoms are usually less severe.
Covid-19 is a very contagious disease capable
of being spread by people who are asymptom-atic,
a challenge for communities hoping to
end their shutdowns. The incubation period
can be anywhere from 3- 14 days, according
to Harvard Medical School.
A SOBERING NOTE: Epidemiologists have
said somewhere between 40 - 70 % of the
population will likely become infected in the
next couple of years if there is no vaccine and
the public does not take aggressive measures
to limit the spread. The US could potentially
experience 1 million deaths if half the pop-ulation
became infected and no efforts were
made to limit the contagion. This is 20 times
worse than a bad flu season.
FINALLY: Keep up to date on rapidly
changing information!
Get the latest public health information
from CDC: https://www.coronavirus.gov
Get the latest research information from NIH:
https://www.nih.gov/coronavirus
PLEASE REMEMBER TO:
DON’T FORGET TO:
June 2020 ¢ NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER 9
/www.coronavirus.gov
/coronavirus
/www.coronavirus.gov
/coronavirus
