I know several people who click on the plethora of sky-is-falling links. I get that the media loves terrifying stories because those generate the most links. I get that this is a tough situation and that quite a lot of people are going to get seriously sick no matter what. Nevertheless, there are many signs of progress that may, possibly, tend to get buried in the world-is-ending stories. So, here:
Cutting Through the Fog Around a Cure for COVID-19
UPMC, Pitt scientists unveil potential COVID-19 vaccine
It will take some time, but rest assured: a coronavirus vaccine is coming, and it will work.
I haven’t read any of those articles. I just present them to you, in case you would like to read some optimistic articles.
And of course there are nice small-scale stories, like this one:
Boston police officer buys groceries for single mom
I do read pessimistic articles as well as optimistic ones. Here are my actual, real predictions:
–The drugs that are under investigation will work, and they will very substantially lower the risk of catching this virus. I mean, everyone is going to catch it eventually, but once the drug regime has been tweaked and all the drugs are easily available, very few people will have to worry particularly about catching it.
–The blood plasma thing will pan out, but maybe not for the most critically ill patients. But it will turn out to be useful for a large percentage of patients.
–A vaccine of some sort will be available long before experts say it will; eg, way before 2 years.
Here is something I would like to see that I think will happen:
–A ton of drug manufacture will come back to this country, and stay here for at least 50 years before people forget that outsourcing all drug manufacture to China is a really stupid thing to do.
Here is something I would like to see that I don’t think will happen:
–The FDA gutted and every single person over the rank of administrative assistant fired. The CDC as well. I remember clearly a time when I thought those organizations were competent. Not anymore. I cannot believe the overwhelmingly awful, terrible, horrible, no-good response to this virus that we have seen from both organizations.
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Mmmm. I read that first link. 37% of doctors is not a ‘majority’. That is ‘widespread disagreement’ by any measure.
And we won’t all get infected if we get a vaccine before being exposed.
I am very suspicious of this kind of thing, because too much hoping for the best gets in the way of planning for the worst…which helps explain where the US is today, when compared to other countries.
Derek Lowe is a lot less bullish on chloroquine and hydrochloroquine. (And on the lack of rigor of the French researcher who’s been pushing it most strongly.) It’s not ruled out by any means, but it’s still in the “insufficient data, cross your fingers” stage.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/more-on-cloroquine-azithromycin-and-on-dr-raoult
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/31/comparing-chloroquine-trials
Of course I hope it pans out.
Oh dear. I only noticed *now* the similarity between family names in the two plotlines in Pure Magic. I did assume it was there.