time for adequate human studies won’t catch this northern winter’s wave, even assuming a vaccine is found and viable. an example of what can go wrong is, as I understand it, the sars vaccine used in china and allegedly? proposed by the CDC here but blocked by the NIH report on it.
possibly existing meds can inhibit replication (repurpose)?
once again, I am not sure if it is established that all survivors ever are completely clear of the virus (see the neuroinvasive article somewhere here). do these people become permanent periodic shedders? how do you even identify people who routinely test negative but later test positive?
if it were obvious then you end up with leper camps (difficult to imagine in today’s world) but I would think most are invisible.
like many here, I have a half dozen very disturbing questions which all have some basis in something reported somewhere (even china) but no real answers - or implied answers that are so terrifying I would like more corroboration, and no I don’t mean the CDC (the last entity to confirm anything ever. the ultimate pandemic lagging indicator).
If you read the NEJM article:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191
The first patient in the US was very nearly dead of bilobal pneumonia. On IV vanc with O2 supplemented. Still got worse.
Was given and IV dose of the Gilead compound, remdesivir, and literally overnight was off the supplemental O2.
“Treatment with intravenous remdesivir (a novel nucleotide analogue prodrug in development10,11) was initiated on the evening of day 7, and no adverse events were observed in association with the infusion. Vancomycin was discontinued on the evening of day 7, and cefepime was discontinued on the following day, after serial negative procalcitonin levels and negative nasal PCR testing for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
On hospital day 8 (illness day 12), the patient’s clinical condition improved. Supplemental oxygen was discontinued, and his oxygen saturation values improved to 94 to 96% while he was breathing ambient air. The previous bilateral lower-lobe rales were no longer present. His appetite improved, and he was asymptomatic aside from intermittent dry cough and rhinorrhea.”