Coronavirus

[Pureblood 7,452]

11 minutes ago, TD_LFC said:

They didn't just start calling it horse paste, people were taking the version meant for horses.

It's the same active ingredient.

 

Tastes okay, too.  Except straight after toothpaste.

[Pureblood 7,452]

16 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Are there any other drugs you’d be happy to trial this way? The vaccine for example? 

Try it alongside the vaccine.

[Rico1304 8,768]

3 minutes ago, Pureblood said:

Try it alongside the vaccine.

Why? Why not try sherbet didbabs too?  In order to try it we need an idea why it may work.  If it doesn’t work then all we’ve done is make pharma companies rich - which was your main gripe against the vaccine.  

[Pureblood 7,452]

2 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Why? Why not try sherbet didbabs too?  In order to try it we need an idea why it may work.  If it doesn’t work then all we’ve done is make pharma companies rich - which was your main gripe against the vaccine.  

Because sherbert dibdabs don't have antiviral properties against RNA viruses. 

[Jose Jones 3,189]

6 minutes ago, Pureblood said:

I'm not sure about mechanism of action as that's beyond my understanding.  There's an article in Nature which examines its antiviral properties.  In particular, it seems to perform well against RNA viruses.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-020-0336-z

 

Conclusion

In this systematic review, we showed antiviral effects of ivermectin on a broad range of RNA and DNA viruses by reviewing all related evidences since 1970. This study presents the possibility that ivermectin could be a useful antiviral agent in several viruses including those with positive-sense single-stranded RNA, in similar fashion. Since significant effectiveness of ivermectin is seen in the early stages of infection in experimental studies, it is proposed that ivermectin administration may be effective in the early stages or prevention. Of course, confirmation of this statement requires human studies and clinical trials.

 

Ivermectin, owing to its antiviral activity, may play a pivotal role in several essential biological processes, therefore it could serve as a potential candidate in the treatment of different types of viruses including COVID-19. Clinical trials are necessary to appraise the effects of ivermectin on COVID-19 in clinical setting and this warrants additional investigation for probable benefits in humans in the current and future pandemics.

Yeah, some of the earliest experiments of Ivermectin in the lab during the COVID period were done down here:

 

https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2020-articles/Lab-experiments-show-anti-parasitic-drug,-Ivermectin,-eliminates-SARS-CoV-2-in-cells-in-48-hours

 

You'll note they have obviously had to add some "don't take it" some stuff at the top to the original report.

They are still progressing with it, but have not published anything further.  

https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2021-articles/monash-university-update-on-ivermectin-research

 

Most drugs these days will generally not get approval from regulators unless there is a known mechanism of action - i.e. what it is actually doing and how it does it.  

[Pureblood 7,452]

2 minutes ago, Jose Jones said:

Yeah, some of the earliest experiments of Ivermectin in the lab during the COVID period were done down here:

 

https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2020-articles/Lab-experiments-show-anti-parasitic-drug,-Ivermectin,-eliminates-SARS-CoV-2-in-cells-in-48-hours

 

You'll note they have obviously had to add some "don't take it" some stuff at the top to the original report.

They are still progressing with it, but have not published anything further.  

https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2021-articles/monash-university-update-on-ivermectin-research

 

Most drugs these days will generally not get approval from regulators unless there is a known mechanism of action - i.e. what it is actually doing and how it does it.  

I don't have faith in the regulators.  It's every man for themselves, as far as I'm concerned. 

[Bjornebye 33,147]

1 hour ago, Pureblood said:

I take it twice a week.  I've spent about £30 on it, I think.  

 

I'll stop when there's a low transmission rate, or might just stop anyway and only use it if I get symptoms.  I'm mulling that over.  I started using it at the beginning of the UK delta wave.

Delta wave? We're still in the delayed first wave that ended last winter mate. 

 

Jokes and piss-taking aside, you're liked TK. Get the vaccine and stop dying on a shitty hill. The case/death stats speak for themselves. 

[Nelly-Matip 8,314]

10 minutes ago, Pureblood said:

I don't have faith in the regulators.  It's every man for themselves, as far as I'm concerned. 

Indeed. Put all your faith in Justus R. Hope instead. Seems a sensible strategy 

[Pureblood 7,452]

Just now, Bjornebye said:

Delta wave? We're still in the delayed first wave that ended last winter mate. 

 

Jokes and piss-taking aside, you're liked TK. Get the vaccine and stop dying on a shitty hill. The case/death stats speak for themselves. 

I'm team 'mect.

[Bjornebye 33,147]

1 minute ago, Pureblood said:

I'm team meff

Tru dat brrrap 

[Rico1304 8,768]

25 minutes ago, Pureblood said:

Because sherbert dibdabs don't have antiviral properties against RNA viruses. 

Prove it.  

[Jose Jones 3,189]

27 minutes ago, Pureblood said:

I don't have faith in the regulators.  It's every man for themselves, as far as I'm concerned. 

Faith in them to do what?

[Pureblood 7,452]

Just now, Jose Jones said:

Faith in them to do what?

Give ivermectin a whirl.  I have to take it upon myself to have it, if I want it.  I don't think it will be approved.

[Jose Jones 3,189]

Just now, Pureblood said:

Give ivermectin a whirl.  I have to take it upon myself to have it, if I want it.  I don't think it will be approved.

Well it would need someone to lodge an application for it first as a Covid treatment (in whichever regulatory jurisdiction you'd like to pick) - presumably one of the same manufacturers who currently have it registered for parasitic treatment and are a regulated manufacturing site would be quite excited to do that. 

They would need to provide clinical trial data to show efficacy (safety is already taken care of).

 

Then you (the manufacturer) would need to convince governments to buy it for their population.  That's more of the giving it a whirl part, than the regulatory bit (which is more just the facts).

[General Dryness 10,032]

2 hours ago, M_B said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59418127

 

Covid: New heavily mutated variant B.1.1.529 in South Africa raises concern

We're back in familiar territory - growing concern about a new variant of coronavirus.

The latest is the most heavily mutated version discovered so far - and it has such a long list of mutations that it was described by one scientist as "horrific", while another told me it was the worst variant they'd seen.

It is early days and the confirmed cases are still mostly concentrated in one province in South Africa, but there are hints it may have spread further.

Immediately there are questions around how quickly the new variant spreads, its ability to bypass some of the protection given by vaccines and what should be done about it.

There is a lot of speculation, but very few clear answers.

So, what do we know?

The variant is called B.1.1.529 and is likely to be given a Greek code-name (like the Alpha and Delta variants) by the World Health Organization on Friday.

It is also incredibly heavily mutated. Prof Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation in South Africa, said there was an "unusual constellation of mutations" and that it was "very different" to other variants that have circulated.

"This variant did surprise us, it has a big jump on evolution [and] many more mutations that we expected," he said.

In a media briefing Prof de Oliveira said there were 50 mutations overall and more than 30 on the spike protein, which is the target of most vaccines and the key the virus uses to unlock the doorway into our body's cells.

Zooming in even further to the receptor binding domain (that's the part of the virus that makes first contact with our body's cells), it has 10 mutations compared to just two for the Delta variant that swept the world.

This level of mutation has most likely come from a single patient who was unable to beat the virus.

A lot of mutation doesn't automatically mean: bad. It is important to know what those mutations are actually doing.

But the concern is this virus is now radically different to the original that emerged in Wuhan, China. That means vaccines, which were designed using the original strain, may not be as effective.

Some of the mutations have been seen before in other variants, which gives some insight their likely role in this variant.

For example N501Y seems to make it easier for a coronavirus to spread. There are others in there that make it harder for antibodies to recognise the virus and might make vaccines less effective, but there are others that are completely new.

Prof Richard Lessells, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, said: "They give us concern this virus might have enhanced transmissibility, enhanced ability to spread from person to person, but might also be able to get around parts of the immune system."

There have been many examples of variants that have seemed scary on paper, but came to nothing. The Beta variant was at the top of people's concerns at the beginning of the year because it was the best at escaping the immune system. But in the end it was the faster-spreading Delta that took over the world.

Prof Ravi Gupta, from the University of Cambridge, said: "Beta was all immune escape and nothing else, Delta had infectivity and modest immune escape, this potentially has both to high degrees."

Why do new variants of Covid-19 keep appearing? Laura Foster explains

Scientific studies in the laboratory will yield give a clearer picture, but answers will come more quickly from monitoring the virus in the real world.

It is still early to draw clear conclusions, but there are already signs that are causing worry.

There have been 77 fully confirmed cases in Gauteng province in South Africa, four cases in Botswana and one in Hong Kong (which is directly linked to travel from South Africa).

However, there are clues the variant has spread even more widely.

This variant seems to give quirky results (known as an S-gene dropout) in the standard tests and that can be used to track the variant without doing a full genetic analysis.

That suggests 90% of cases in Gauteng may already be this variant and it "may already be present in most provinces" in South Africa.

But this does not tell us whether it spreads faster than Delta, is any more severe or to what extent it can evade the immune protection that comes from vaccination.

It also does not tell us how well the variant will spread in countries with much higher vaccination rates than the 24% of South Africa that is fully vaccinated, although large numbers of people in the country have had Covid.

So for now we are left with a variant that raises significant concerns despite huge holes in our knowledge, and is one that needs to be watched closely and asks deep questions about what to do and when. The lesson of the pandemic is you can't always wait until you have all the answers.

Resident Evil was an ace game.

 

I reckon we're all going to be playing it one day.

[Bjornebye 33,147]

1 hour ago, General Dryness said:

Resident Evil was an ace game.

 

I reckon we're all going to be playing it one day.

We’re playing it right now in real life 

[Jose Jones 3,189]

2 hours ago, General Dryness said:

Resident Evil was an ace game.

 

I reckon we're all going to be playing it one day.

New Zealand is officially the best place in the world to ride out a zombie apocalypse isn't it?  You should be ok.

[TheBitch 3,865]

Good luck with the ‘mect, TK. 

[General Dryness 10,032]

3 hours ago, Jose Jones said:

New Zealand is officially the best place in the world to ride out a zombie apocalypse isn't it?  You should be ok.

Yeah. I genuinely fear for you guys though.

[General Dryness 10,032]

4 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

We’re playing it right now in real life 

I've told you a million times, do not exaggerate.

[CapeRed 366]

7 hours ago, General Dryness said:

Resident Evil was an ace game.

 

I reckon we're all going to be playing it one day.

Yes this years early Chrimbo present from my corner of the universe. Just when I could see some light at the end of the tunnel.

[No2 1,649]

I was sceptical of the last variant and I'm sceptical of this one. For me it's sign of a Government that fucked up and lost control and needs to be able to blame it on something it had no control over.

[Anubis 21,355]

I’m just pleased to know that Neddy…. …sorry, Martin…. …sorry, Pureblood, will now be free of the lice and scabies that have blighted his existence.

[chrisbonnie 1,125]

I'm not one for conspiracies when it comes to covid,

 

But with new lockdowns looming, it's extremely coincidental that a new variant has reared its ugly little head isn't it. 

 

Saying that though, I remember this time last year listening to an interview with someone involved with the Oxford vaccine and they where adamant another variant wouldn't push the Kent one out, and we all saw his that played out once delta came around. 

 

So I suppose nothing is impossible with this fucking thing. 

[Section_31 24,484]

7 minutes ago, chrisbonnie said:

I'm not one for conspiracies when it comes to covid,

 

But with new lockdowns looming, it's extremely coincidental that a new variant has reared its ugly little head isn't it. 

 

Saying that though, I remember this time last year listening to an interview with someone involved with the Oxford vaccine and they where adamant another variant wouldn't push the Kent one out, and we all saw his that played out once delta came around. 

 

So I suppose nothing is impossible with this fucking thing. 

Shady as fuck the whole thing, by all accounts mutations are supposed to make viruses weaker not stronger.