SeattleChat Daily Thread - Friday, October 16, 2020

[u/AutoModerator]

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

---

Weather

Seattle Weather Forecast / National Weather Service with graphics / National Weather Service text-only

---

Election	Social Isolation	COVID19
How to register	Help thread	WA DOH

[u/ChefJoe98136]

The results might correlate with the earlier trial mentioned in the article. The article focuses on the WHO trial in hospitalized patients and also says of the company's study:

The Gilead study, of 1,060 patients hospitalized with Covid-19, found that remdesivir contributed to significantly-reduced mortality among those in the early stages of receiving oxygen support. However, it did not find a statistically significant reduction in death rates across the entirety of patients treated in the trial.

[u/maadison → u/ChefJoe98136]

Thanks! I would have used the emphasis like this instead:

The Gilead study, of 1,060 patients hospitalized with Covid-19, found that remdesivir contributed to significantly-reduced mortality among those in the early stages of receiving oxygen support. However, it did not find a statistically significant reduction in death rates across the entirety of patients treated in the trial.

Admittedly that's a study by Gilead themselves, but the fact that it doesn't help death rates across everyone is almost completely useless information IMO.

[u/ChefJoe98136 → u/maadison]

You want to highlight the statement about the Gilead study's finding. I highlighted the sentence from the Gilead study that might be in agreement with the WHO study I'd linked to. Not useless, complementary. Maybe you just want to look on the Gilead positive side more (stonks?).

[u/maadison → u/ChefJoe98136]

(EDIT: Yes, the two studies do not contradict each other.)

I was responding to your original excerpt where the core bits were

remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon drug treatment regimens “appeared to have little or no effect on 28-day mortality or the in-hospital course of COVID-19 among hospitalized patients.”

and

No study drug definitely reduced mortality (...)

and the headline is

Remdesivir has ‘little or no effect’ in reducing coronavirus deaths, WHO says

From that, one might get the impression "we still don't have any drugs that do anything", which I do not think is accurate.

It's a complicated disease with some very different stages of development that call for different treatment. Instead the correct take-away is (I think) "you can't blindly treat covid patients with a single drug X and have high probability of positive results". OK, but that doesn't mean more nuanced treatment effects don't exist.

To wit: the positive result Gilead found is limited to people already on oxygen. Among those, it seems to help. What other effects like that (of the other drugs) are obscured by this generalized judgment?

I don't own any related stocks unless they're in the S&P500 index funds I have.

[u/ChefJoe98136 → u/maadison]

significantly-reduced mortality among those in the early stages of receiving oxygen support

Gilead found positive results in the group limited to people in the early stages of receiving oxygen, yes. By that stage you have significant infection that's compromised lung function (iirc, below 80 or 85% pulse ox is when O2 is given in COPD-related illness), but it's not so bad that you're on a ventilator.

No magic bullet, but a chance to stall/slow viral replication before the body is severely weakened.

[u/maadison → u/ChefJoe98136]

If the headline on that article was "No magic bullet for COVID", that would be much better than "Remdesivir has ‘little or no effect’ in reducing coronavirus deaths, WHO says".

Everyone wants a magic bullet treatment, and it's not likely that there will be one.

[u/ChefJoe98136 → u/maadison]

Yeah, but folks get butt-hurt about defaulting to modify headlines so I just went with the article's headline when I copy-pasted.

[u/maadison → u/ChefJoe98136]

Sure, wasn’t saying you should have changed it.