Coronavirus

[Mikado463]

Thanks for the link to that NPJ Vaccines paper. The introduction and discussion sections are a good read.

The authors careful attention to the SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses generated by the vaccine are excellent. Those immune T-cell responses look like they're durable and adaptive. It took a lot of work to get all that good info.

It would be very interesting to try a combined vaccination scheme: the 1st dose would be this new SARS-CoV-2 ferritin nanoparticle vaccine, followed by a boost using one of the mRNA vaccines. Would that result in better or different (longer lasting) immunization than two doses of the ferritin nanoparticles, or two/three doses of mRNA vaccines?

I love a good cocktail ..........

 

[Mr._Clark]

The omicron surge in some areas is really quite astounding:

Omicron Drives U.S. Virus Cases Past Delta’s Peak (Published 2021)

Cases are shooting up, I.C.U.s are stretched thin and booster vaccinations are lagging. Signs point to an intense winter wave in the United States.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Mr._Clark]

The surges in New Orleans, Miami, and Houston are starting to show up on the risk level map at globalepidemics.org. These localized "wildfires" in areas that previously had low infection rates seems to be a new pattern compared to the geographic spread of the past few months. I'm guessing this is due to the extremely high infectiousness of this variant.

Risk Levels - Global Epidemics

RISK LEVELS First published in July 2020, our COVID-19 risk levels dashboard served as a tool for the public to track the pandemic in real time. As the pandemic has evolved and testing and reporting data have changed significantly, we have retired the dashboard as of December 2022. To explore...

globalepidemics.org

 

[Swerd]

Based on some google searching, it appears to me that the number of drugs that could interact with Ritonavir is quite large (608 according to the drugs.com website)(drugs.com also lists 5 disease interactions).

This [drug interaction] is completely outside of my wheelhouse, so I have no idea how difficult it will be to manage all of these potential interactions.

It's barely within my wheelhouse, and I've been aware of it for over 20 years. Those long drug interaction lists you found may look daunting, but in practice, most of them can be managed. What matters most is how much and how often you take those drugs – dose & schedule – the total exposure. I'm guessing that the dose of Paxlovid is low enough, and the 5-day schedule is short enough, to make for a small manageable problem. Note that the FDA is allowing Covid-19 patients to take Paxlovid at home. If it were more dangerous, they would require it be given only to patients while hospitalized. Eventually, the FDA will require Pfizer to run some small phase 1 clinical trials to see what dose levels are safe in people with various levels of impaired liver function.

Good physicians and pharmacists are well aware of this problem. That's why they're always asking about what other prescription and non-prescription drugs you take.

 

[Swerd]

I love a good cocktail ..........

So do I. My favorite is an Old Fashioned.

 

[mtrycrafts]

So do I. My favorite is an Old Fashioned.

You mean you don't like New Fashioned?

 

[TLS Guy]

Interesting. I had read about potential issues with Ritonavir and other medications, but (as I recall) the issues were raised by Merck which made me wonder if it was exaggerated.

Based on some google searching, it appears to me that the number of drugs that could interact with Ritonavir is quite large (608 according to the drugs.com website)(drugs.com also lists 5 disease interactions).

Ritonavir Interactions Checker - Drugs.com

673 medications are known to interact with ritonavir. Includes amlodipine, atorvastatin, metoprolol.

www.drugs.com

Of these, 213 are listed as "major" drug interactions, and 354 are listed as "moderate":

Ritonavir Drug Interactions - Drugs.com

673 drugs are known to interact with ritonavir.

www.drugs.com

More google searching for most common prescriptions suggests that (as of 2019) quite a few of major and moderate drugs are very commonly prescribed:

The Top 300 of 2022

The 300 most common medications on the outpatient market -- the top 300 of 2022

clincalc.com

According to the website above, there are 24.5 million people in the U.S. taking Atorvastatin alone, which is in the major drug interaction category according to drugs.com.

This is completely outside of my wheelhouse, so I have no idea how difficult it will be to manage all of these potential interactions.

Those interactions make the drug virtually useless. That interaction list is pretty much the whole pharmacopeia. The list contains, a huge number of cardiovascular drugs, lipid lowering drugs, antihypertensives, diabetic drugs, lipid lowering drugs, and immune modulators. So many of these drugs could not be stopped, and goodness knows how you would go about modifying doses.

It looks to me this drug should not have got approval, at the least it looks like an in hospital drug only for a lot of patients, and certainly not something to prescribe over the phone.

 

[Mikado463]

So do I. My favorite is an Old Fashioned.

Manhattan for me

 

[cpp]

Florida breaks record with 31,758 new COVID cases
The 31,758 cases, attributed to December 23 in the latest federal data released, surpasses the previous record of 27,669 from Aug. 26.

Here are the updated Florida numbers as of Friday afternoon:

• 3,864,288 total cases
• 62,347 deaths

 

[mtrycrafts]

Florida breaks record with 31,758 new COVID cases
The 31,758 cases, attributed to December 23 in the latest federal data released, surpasses the previous record of 27,669 from Aug. 26.

Here are the updated Florida numbers as of Friday afternoon:

• 3,864,288 total cases
• 62,347 deaths

Is the governor governing or just curled up someplace or trying to hide all this bad news?

 

[cpp]

Is the governor governing

He hasn't said a word.

 

[Mr._Clark]

He hasn't said a word.

What's really curious is all the secrecy surrounding breakthrough cases in Florida. I can't help but wonder if DeSantis doesn't want the public to know that the unvaccinated are ending up in the hospitals (assuming that this is what's happening).

>>>For more than two months, the Tampa Bay Times and other news organizations have been asking Florida for data that breaks down how many vaccinated people have been infected, hospitalized or died of COVID-19.

They are called “breakthrough” cases, data that would show how effectively the vaccine has protected Floridians — and how vulnerable the unvaccinated are.

But the Florida Department of Health has continually refused those requests, citing what public health and legal experts say are misplaced privacy concerns.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also refuses to release that data, deferring to the state on whether to share it publicly.<<<

Why won’t Florida, CDC release state’s breakthrough COVID data?

Want to know how effective the vaccine is in Florida? Neither state nor federal officials will share that data with the public.

www.tampabay.com

 

[cpp]

What's really curious is all the secrecy surrounding breakthrough cases in Florida. I can't help but wonder if DeSantis doesn't want the public to know that the unvaccinated are ending up in the hospitals (assuming that this is what's happening).

>>>For more than two months, the Tampa Bay Times and other news organizations have been asking Florida for data that breaks down how many vaccinated people have been infected, hospitalized or died of COVID-19.

They are called “breakthrough” cases, data that would show how effectively the vaccine has protected Floridians — and how vulnerable the unvaccinated are.

But the Florida Department of Health has continually refused those requests, citing what public health and legal experts say are misplaced privacy concerns.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also refuses to release that data, deferring to the state on whether to share it publicly.<<<

Why won’t Florida, CDC release state’s breakthrough COVID data?

Want to know how effective the vaccine is in Florida? Neither state nor federal officials will share that data with the public.

www.tampabay.com

DeathSantis controls all.

 

[eljr]

You might be a little on the fatalistic side. I don't see deaths going up much in South Africa or Europe, but the hospitalizing is going up. BTW I'm triple vaxed and still wear a mask indoors but that's just me.

all wise and prudent people have taken the booster and remain masked.

 

[eljr]

Your post sounds like an audiophile salesman just as the customer is about to leave the store without buying anything.

The CD just predicted 1 out of every 3 Americans will get this. Truth is not fanaticism just because the message is extreme.

 

[eljr]

So you are the 'Grinch'

No, I am the hard rock of reality. That said, I love he Grinch.

 

[Trell]

The CD just predicted 1 out of every 3 Americans will get this. Truth is not fanaticism just because the message is extreme.

Surprisingly many fail to recognize this about truth.

 

[Trell]

In Sweden I can't get the booster until January when it'll be released for a wider population.

Britain hands out the booster as Christmas present:

Thousands line up for ‘jingle jabs’ on Christmas in England

Health Secretary Sajid Javid urged people to “make the booster a part of your Christmas this year.”

www.politico.com

 

[Mr._Clark]

DeathSantis controls all.

Perhaps it should be “Death Santa”?

 

[Mr._Clark]

The CD just predicted 1 out of every 3 Americans will get this. Truth is not fanaticism just because the message is extreme.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington is predicting 60% of the U.S. will be infected within 2-3 months, but the director of the IHME says 90% "might never show symptoms."

I'm skeptical with regards to the low severity. It's unclear what this "might" is based on (second link below).

>>>“We are expecting an enormous surge in infections ... so, an enormous spread of omicron,” IHME director Dr. Chris Murray said Wednesday, according to USA Today. “Total infections in the U.S. we forecast are going from about 40% of the U.S. having been infected so far, to having in the next 2 to 3 months, 60% of the U.S. getting infected with omicron.”

Murray noted that more than 90 percent of those infected with omicron might never show symptoms, leading researchers to predict that only about 400,000 cases may be reported.
As of Thursday, the U.S. has about 51.6 million confirmed cases since the pandemic began, according to the latest Johns Hopkins data.

While the latest strain is likely to lead to soaring infections due to its high transmissibility, it is also expected to be less severe than previous variants.

“In the past, we roughly thought that COVID was 10 times worse than flu and now we have a variant that is probably at least 10 times less severe,” Murray said, according to the news outlet. “So, omicron will probably … be less severe than flu but much more transmissible.”<<<

140M new COVID-19 infections possible in first two months of new year, experts say

The U.S. may see as many as 140 million new COVID-19 infections in the first two months of 2022, according to new modeling data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (…

thehill.com

>>>Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said that with so much unknown now about omicron, he would take any projection "with a grain of salt."

"Some of the qualitative things they are saying seem somewhat reasonable, but it is hard to say for sure at this point," Lessler said in an email to NPR. "I certainly would say far too much is unknown about Omicron right now to make what I would consider a formal forecast or single projection."<<<

Omicron will cause more infections but lower hospital rates, analysis shows

University of Washington research predicts the omicron wave will infect more than 400,000 people a day in the U.S. when it crests in about six weeks.

www.npr.org