From what I gather (CBC.ca), this drug requires 10 pills, taken over a course of severa days, for a cost of $700.
Yes, $700 for a 50% effective treatment, rather than a vaccine (90% effective prevention) which is either free or about $40 (Pfizer) if it’s not government-subsidized.
For $700! Once again, money and fools go separate ways.
50% effective against hospitalization or death is pretty big, especially among people who have already contracted COVID-19.
That’s true, and I don’t mean to denegrate an effective treatment for COVID, especially when compared to the snake oil that’s being peddled. As a means of mitigating the effects of a breakthrough infection (or of possible infections of a more vaccine-resistant variant), this option may well be a lifesaving treatment method, and that is worth celebrating.
It’s just that the death rate is near zero for vaccinated people, the vaccines are easily available and free (in the US), and yet over a third of the eligible population has not taken it. It’s frustrating that so much money ($700 pp) will be spent mostly treating people who refused the free vaccine in the first place.
With breakthrough cases and people with compromised immune systems, it was never going to be an either-or proposition. We will need both vaccines and antivirals to return to some semblance of normal.
It rankles me too that the unvaccinated will use this as another excuse not to get vaccinated, but anything that stabilizes the healthcare system so that people with other injuries and ailments can get treatment is a win in my book. I just hope that the unvaccinated get stuck with the bill in that case.
Not to mention: what prevents it from causing random mutations in the RNA of the virus that results in a deadlier, more transmissible strain?
mRNA does not affect the DNA, because it doesn’t enter the cell nucleus where the DNA is. Just like the vaccines.
No. They’ll take it because its the RED PILL ! (Or they wont, because they see it as intentionally marketed to them.)
Did their marketing people (or anyone there) know how familiar a red pill is to conspiracy theorist / QAnon people?? Either they are incredibly cynical or incredibly ignorant.
And J&J and AZ vaccine costs less,
An encouraging preliminary result, to be sure, but 385 people is a very small test. Let’s not get too excited until the effect holds at scale.
Honestly, I wish preliminary studies weren’t ever promoted in the media at all. It creates so much confusion in the public about how science works.
(wherein I boast, as my sister is a Senior Scientist at Merck, and this is her project and team. All kudos to her and them!)
Ahem. cough, cough , ahem.
BUT IT HASN’T BEEN TESTED ENOUGH!! It’s Big Pharma pushing their experiments on us. It’s just a hoax to make Trump look bad! It hasn’t been approved! I’m not putting weird chemicals in MY body!
etc. etc. etc.
That’s what they’ll say, anyhow.
As another therapy for Covid, it sounds promising.
But if they got vaccinated in the FIRST PLACE, they wouldn’t HAVE to resort to these Plan B therapies.
Nice details. Apparently after 14 days if one gets rek’d by the virus it’s not the virus hanging around but the immune reaction to everything with an ACE2 receptor having taken a hit that gets a body coughing up its circulatory/respiratory systems. $700 doses of caution for the kid (like 4-11 y.o.,) eh? They would have to be a pretty rotten kid to consider slighting it, though. (Not infant oncology here.)
I hope they test it on horses first.
Ivermectin was a hoax pushed by big pharma to unload tons of unwanted livestock dewormer before it expired and needed to be thrown out, which would have resulted in millions in big pharma losses. And that worked out quite well for them.
What has facebook and twitter been saying about these new [1000s of times more expensive than the vaccine] pills?
Huh? Do you have even a tiny sliver of evidence to back that up? Because the manufacturer was quick and forceful in their statement condemning the use of ivermectin for COVID. It’s not like they were even half-hearted about it; they jumped all over it and stated in no uncertain terms not to do so and that doing so is just plain stupid.
No offense- but how do I know that nonsense isn’t part of the scam.
But that’s what they want you to think…
