A critical question for sceptics is whether there are any effective treatments for COVID-19 because if there are then the case for prolonging the lockdown is weakened. So far, the most promising candidates are Hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir and, most unexpectedly, Ivermectin, a drug for treating head lice. Which of these potential treatments hold most promise? As background, a quick introduction to what a virus actually is, and how COVID-19 acts on the body. This wonderful article from Scientific American clearly explains how viruses are simply fragments of DNA. Not life as we know it, they cannot respire, cannot replicate without a host, but they can invade host cells, take over the nucleus and reprogram it to create clones of themselves, which then explode out of the used cell to continue the cycle of infection.
The virus is passed through the transmission of droplets exhaled, coughed or sneezed out by infected persons. Initially, the virus attacks exposed cells of the throat and eyes to invade and clone itself. Once established, the infected cells start to shed the cloned virus, and in the body’s attempts to expel it by coughing and sneezing, a cycle of infection is created as the host sheds virus cells into the surrounding environment, where they can survive in the air or on surfaces. Over the course of a few days the host’s immune system kicks in and creates sufficient antibodies to overwhelm the virus and stop it spreading within that host. By then, however, the virus has already moved on to its next victim(s).
From antibody tests recently carried out in the US, it appears that for the huge majority of those infected, that is as serious as it gets. Many people are asymptomatic or suffer such mild symptoms that they don’t bother to seek medical attention. However, COVID-19 can also lead to pneumonia, more often in the elderly and those with comorbidities, which itself causes further, more severe complications as the lungs fail to deliver sufficient oxygen around the body, causing Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and the eventual failure of major organs.
So when considering the effectivness of various treatments, we need to be clear about what those treatments are targeting. Of the pharmaceutical treatments, some are antivirals, aimed at inhibiting the ability of the virus to clone itself. Others are aimed at the secondary pneumonia and associated respiratory failure. A third group is aimed at the immune system, trying to prevent it over-reacting to the virus and triggering the onset of pneumonia. Ivermectin inhibits neurotransmission of parasites. Non-pharmaceutical interventions aimed at individual patients are focused on providing additional oxygen to the lungs. The active monitoring of blood oxygen saturation levels is being touted in this New York Times article as helping to predict the onset of severe pneumonia, even in patients who were asymptomatic for the virus.
Remdesivir was developed by Gilead Sciences, Inc. to fight the Ebola virus, but was never proven in clinical trials to be effective and is not licensed for use. It is designed to directly act as a virus inhibitor, overwhelming the virus’s own ability to replicate itself. There were six trials of its effect on COVID-19 patients in progress, but two in China have been terminated due to lack of available participants. The others are as yet inconclusive.
Lopinavir/retonivir (also marketed as Kaletra) is a combination of direct acting antivirals that also work by inhibiting the replication of the virus. It has been proven effective in HIV and used successfully for over 20 years, but so far has not been proven effective against COVID-19.
Hydroxychloroquine has also been put forward as a virus inhibitor, although acting to increase the overall pH level of the cell-level environment, inhibiting the ability of the virus to replicate. A note of caution: the March 20th ‘clinical trial’ conducted by Dr Didier Raoult, director of the Research Unit in Infectious and Tropical Emergent Diseases (URMITE) in Marseille, which seemed to show that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment, has been heavily criticised.
Interferons, which act indirectly on viruses by triggering autoimmune reactions in the body, are currently being tested for COVID-19. However, the disruption caused to the immune system could have catastrophic consequences, particularly for patients whose immune systems are already compromised or who are suffering with COVID-19 pneumonia.
Host-directed therapies, such as Naproxen (marketed as Aleve), whereby specific immunity pathways are modulated to relieve inflammation, are also suggested as being possible routes forward to relieve late-stage respiratory distress, and trials are underway. But at the moment no approvals for this use have been granted. Steriods also fall into this category.
Ivermectin is used in parasitic infections, but had shown antiviral properties during the West Nile virus outbreak. Laboratory cell culture tests have shown it to be able to kill COVID-19 within 48 hours, but there are major concerns about its toxicity to humans.
Convalscent blood plasma is a biologic route also being pursued, which saw some successful use against SARS.
Further Reading
‘Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread‘, Martin Vincent et al, Virology Journal, August 22nd 2005
‘The Open-Air Treatment of PANDEMIC INFLUENZA’, Richard A. Hobday and John W. Cason, American Journal of Public Health, October 2009
‘Studies claim malaria drug Chloroquine effective against coronavirus‘ by James Delingpole, Brietbart, March 18th 2020
‘Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial‘, Didier Raoult et al, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, March 20th 2020
‘Man dies after taking chloroquine in an attempt to prevent coronavirus‘, NBC News, March 24th 2020
‘COVID-19: More hydroxychloroquine data from France, more questions‘ by Véronique Duqueroy, The Hospitalist, April 1st 2020
‘Frequently Asked Questions for COVID Management Support Document‘, Massachusetts General Hospital, April 1st 2020
‘EMA recommends Remdesivir for Treatment of COVID-19 Under Compassionate-Use Rules‘, by Cory Renauer, The Motley Fool, April 3rd 2020
‘Coronavirus hope as drug prescribed for head lice “completely stops the deadly infection replicating in cells within 48 hours”‘ by Vanessa Chalmers, Mailonline, April 4th 2020
‘LA doctor seeing success with hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19‘, Eyewitness News, ABC, April 7th 2020
‘BCG jabs mean you are six times less likely to get coronavirus, study finds‘ by Verity Bowman, The Telegraph, April 8th 2020
‘Israeli COVID-19 treatment shows 100% survival rate – preliminary data‘ by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman, The Jerusalem Post, April 8th 2020
‘A promising COVID-19 treatment gets fast-tracked‘ by George Spencer, Johns Hopkins Magazine, April 8th 2020
‘Vitamin D Supplementation Could Possibly Improve Clinical Outcomes of Patients Infected with Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-2019)‘, by Mark Alipio, SSRN, April 9th 2020
‘Doctor gambles on clot-busting drug to save virus patients‘ by Lauran Neergaard, AP News, April 11th 2020
‘Ebola drug shows promise in early coronavirus trials‘ by Tom Whipple, The Times, April 13th 2020
‘Is it dangerous to take ibuprofen?‘ by Dr Roger Henderson, Spectator USA, April 14th 2020
‘Coronavirus patients given US trial drug remdesivir “are off ventilators in a day”‘ by Rhys Blakely and Alex Ralph, The Times, April 18th 2020
‘Are viruses alive?‘ by Luis P. Villareal, Scientific American August 8th 2008
‘The infection that is silently killing coronavirus patients‘ by Dr Richard Levitan, New York Times, April 20th 2020
‘Largest analysis of hydroxychloroquine use finds no benefit for coronavirus, increased deaths‘ by Nathanial Weixel, The Hill, April 21st 2020
‘French researchers to test nicotine patches on coronavirus patients‘ by Kim Willsher, The Guardian, April 22nd 2020
‘Smoke fags, save lives‘ by Chrisophter Snowdon, Spiked, 23rd April 2020
‘Smokers “four times less likely” to contract Covid-19, prompting nicotine patch trials on patients‘ by Henry Samuel, The Telegraph, April 23rd 2020
‘Donald Trump suggests injecting people with ‘DISINFECTANT’ and hitting ‘the body with a very powerful light’ could kill coronavirus in bizarre White House briefing outburst‘, Geoff Earl, MailOnline, April 24th 2020
‘Remdesivir: Drug has “clear-cut” power to fight coronavirus‘ by James Gallagher, BBC News, April 29th 2020
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The word ‘man’ is not gender specific. It refers to homo sapiens it has nothing to do with gender. Mankind doesn’t just mean all men. I am perfectly happy to deal with mental defectives up to a point but this is just retarded beyond comprehension.
Womens sh1t
Gender is a term which applies only to language as used in Latin, for example, masculine, feminine, neuter.
Only mental defectives believe it has meaning in biology. Could a tulip have ‘gender’, or a wasp?
They use it other countries to refer to us male and female. They say Englishman in north European languages. Don’t let yourself be swayed by spazzes lest you start resembling them.
It is a complete ignorance of Germanic languages. And even when they use Greek and Latin they get it wrong. What is homphobic? Fear of the same? It isn’t homo as in ecce homo or behold the man. And even if it was it would mean fear of the male. This is baby stuff and yet you let them get away with it.
Good grief, this is pathetic. What kind of man wishes to erase words that are deemed too ”masculine-specific”? Maybe the Director General identifies as a militant feminist or something, God knows! Anyone would think these nutty Woketards were available in both genders….
”Signed off by WIPO director general Daren Tang, the guidelines are ‘not prescriptive and common sense and clarity of text should always prevail’.
WIPO said the document was ‘designed to be a straightforward awareness-raising exercise for our colleagues on how to use language that resonates with the widest possible audience, which may include avoiding terms that are linked to one specific gender when other neutral, more-inclusive words are available.”’
It started to degrade rapidly in the early 1990s and has continued at an accelerating pace ever since. You can’t just suddenly find yourself aghast as if you have been asleep for the last thirty years. Like Jefferson said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. If you lacked vigilance before then you need to look at that. Self-examination is vitally important when it looks to you like something new confronts you.
It started back in the 1960s with the Hippies and feminist movement.
Ironically it is women today who are reaping what they sowed back then.
Maybe take a leaf out of the rulebook of Millwall Foot Club – we are Millwall, nobody likes us and we don’t care.
The point is that give them an inch and they will take a mile that is in their nature. Next time around don’t even give them an inch they have done nothing to earn it. Yes it means more work and watchfulness but if you can’t do that then you aren’t able to defend anything.
Every night should be like Heartbreak Hotel until you get it. And when you do get it it then it should be the same. This isn’t like everything else wher eif you follow it then it will lead to some sweet outcome or reward. A stark confrontation with nastiness for decades and an ongoing assault. If you don’t have the stomach for that then you can offer nothing to defend the spirit of your country.
Swapping “hand made” for “man made” could lead to trade description violations.
“Man” is a contraction of the Latin “manus” meaning hand.
The word “hand” has long been used in occupations to describe a worker – “all hands on deck”, charge-hand, for example.
Foreman, postman, fireman, policeman – can be viewed in that context.
Shouldn’t ‘Man’s best friend’ be ‘A faithful canine’? We wouldn’t want to upset any female canines would we?
(large scoop of sarcasm)
They are properly referred to as bitches.
Same as the word master in IT. Not meant to use master branch in Git nor master and slave. People ought to stop worrying about silly word salad and offending people with trivia and actually solve the world’s reals problems.
These NGOs are heavily staffed, and led, by women if you open your eyes, you will notice how this type of mental derangement and unneeded bullshine always starts after women take charge. Instead of focusing on the important, day to day delivery of an organisations primary purpose, they wander off into womens favourite territory: gossip, scandal, emotioneering, safetyism, feelings, anxiousness, jealousy, love and romance, mental wellbeing, gender quotas, DEI. All completely irrelevant to operational delivery and regularly spaffing away millions of (insert currency) on womens nonsense
Hmmm…sorry not sorry to rain on your women-hating parade with a dose of reality but, including the Director General, WIPO has 6 men and 3 women in charge. But don’t let inconvenient facts get in the way of your obviously ingrained contempt towards the opposite sex. I’m sure those 3 pesky females ganged up on the boss in the gender neutral toilets and bullied him into signing off on the above claptrap. I mean, there’s no other explanation, is there?
https://www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/management.html
“Women hating parade” Oh purleeze!
Its not a case of counting up the chromosomes on the board, governing body etc. Its the one of the downsides (and there are undoubtedly upsides) of the feminisation of society in general, which has got us into a lot of distracting byways like this one.
(woman here BTW)
What’s interesting is your consistent tendancy to follow me round the comments sections misconstruing my posts. Perhaps read back and observe that I’m fact-checking one of our resident misogynists. WIPO evidently is not ran by a majority of females. Who’s talking about society as a whole?
Only you. Try sticking to the point at hand.
And besides, who exactly is responsible for the so-called “feminisation of society” if most of the people in a position of leadership, across all sectors, including politicians, are male?
Strange as it may seem to you, I don’t exactly warm to people who have an obsessive compulsion to denigrate an entire gender whenever they feel the need because they’re triggered by a particular article. I know, I know, I’m such an anomaly.
As I suspected, tumbleweeds….
Isn’t it interesting when the facts don’t support somebody’s narrative how it all goes quiet? Funny that.
Alpha males are at the top of every greasy pole – this doesn’t mean they have to be good looking hunks, they can be intellectual and successful nerds now on very large salaries. In any event they attract women like you wouldn’t believe unless you have seen it with your own eyes.
So when discussing the feminisation of society, you can leave out those alpha males / directory generals they are not interested in such things. But in as much as feminisation of the workforce helps the alphas who are not affected by it and hinders their rivals who are, they are all for it.
What words can be possibly be more inclusive than Man and Woman? There are two sexes; everything else is chemistry and psychology.
Funny how abandoning the sex-neutral masculine usage in favour of “gender-neutrality” has only served to emphasise sex differences.
The story misses a fundamental, in short there are obviously too many employees, with too little to do, paid too much of our money, who are justifying their roles by making this stuff up. Suggestion get rid of at least half of the UN staff and managers including senior team and perhaps they will focus on useful things that actually help humanity rather than divides it.
Well it could be worse. The boss of the UN could be female! I mean, imagine…
Given that everybody seems able to self-identify as a standard lamp or anything else these days, if I want to be called an Englishman I’ll damn well be called an Englishman, thank you.
Mad dogs and technocrats go out in the mid day sun
Out in the mid day, out in the mid day, out in the mid day sun.
He is an Englishman!
For he himself has said it,
And it’s greatly to his credit,
That he is an Englishman!
For he might have been a Roosian,
A French, or Turk, or Proosian,
Or perhaps Itali-an!
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations
He remains an Englishman!
He remains an Englishman!
G&S
So Foxtrot Oscar UN.
One of my pet hates is in cricket
You no longer have batsmen, you have batters – so we are told.
I can see that might help in a mixed sex cricket team – I’m not totally unreasonable.
Its also (unsurprisingly) used in Women’s cricket, you can’t have batswomen.
However, if you concede no runs in an over, it is still a maiden.
What about that caped crusader, what should (he) be referred to as?
Someone, please stop this madness, it needs to end!