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Final stage of Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine will start in July and Brit final stage starts this month.
Today in Bloomberg;
Moderna Vaccine Trials Moving Fast With Final Study in July
By Robert Langreth
June 11, 2020
Moderna Inc. said it had selected a dose for a final-stage clinical trial of its coronavirus vaccine that should begin in July, as the company moves ahead rapidly with its innovative approach to trying to prevent Covid-19.
The final study, which will include 30,000 people, will be conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S. Its primary goal will be to show the vaccine prevents people from developing symptoms of Covid-19, Moderna said in a statement. A secondary goal will be to show the vaccine keeps people from getting severe cases requiring hospitalization.
Shares of Moderna climbed 3.2% to $61.98 at 8:26 a.m. in New York. The stock has more than tripled in value since the start of this year.
The announcement is another indication that coronavirus vaccine trials are moving ahead at a remarkable pace. On Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson said it would begin early trials of its Covid-19 vaccine in the second half of July, ahead of its previous schedule to begin testing in September.
Last month, Moderna began a second-stage study of its vaccine, called mRNA-1273, in 600 healthy adults. In the statement Thursday, the company said it had already enrolled 350 people in the trial, including a cohort of 300 healthy adults 54 years and younger, and the first 50 of 300 older adults.
Some vaccines are moving into clinical trials even faster than Moderna’s. A shot co-developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc is starting final-stage clinical trials this month -- and the U.K. company said Thursday it had recruited Emergent BioSolutions Inc. to help with development and manufacturing.
China has begun offering employees of some large state-run companies the option of being inoculated with two coronavirus vaccines currently in development.
Moderna Vaccine Trials Moving Fast With Final Study in July
By Robert Langreth
June 11, 2020
Moderna Inc. said it had selected a dose for a final-stage clinical trial of its coronavirus vaccine that should begin in July, as the company moves ahead rapidly with its innovative approach to trying to prevent Covid-19.
The final study, which will include 30,000 people, will be conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S. Its primary goal will be to show the vaccine prevents people from developing symptoms of Covid-19, Moderna said in a statement. A secondary goal will be to show the vaccine keeps people from getting severe cases requiring hospitalization.
Shares of Moderna climbed 3.2% to $61.98 at 8:26 a.m. in New York. The stock has more than tripled in value since the start of this year.
The announcement is another indication that coronavirus vaccine trials are moving ahead at a remarkable pace. On Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson said it would begin early trials of its Covid-19 vaccine in the second half of July, ahead of its previous schedule to begin testing in September.
Last month, Moderna began a second-stage study of its vaccine, called mRNA-1273, in 600 healthy adults. In the statement Thursday, the company said it had already enrolled 350 people in the trial, including a cohort of 300 healthy adults 54 years and younger, and the first 50 of 300 older adults.
Some vaccines are moving into clinical trials even faster than Moderna’s. A shot co-developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc is starting final-stage clinical trials this month -- and the U.K. company said Thursday it had recruited Emergent BioSolutions Inc. to help with development and manufacturing.
China has begun offering employees of some large state-run companies the option of being inoculated with two coronavirus vaccines currently in development.
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I remember Doctor Fauci...
Fauci is the guy who attended several White House meetings where he told America we needed more testing, testing, testing. Three months later, we have the testing and some people are befuddled that more testing reveals additional positive cases of COVID-19.
This weekend I talked with a guy who made it sound like testing was the culprit. My response (to him) was testing doesn't create more virus. Why would you think that?
He was of the opinion that we didn't need so much testing as the numbers were significantly going up! Well duh. Now we have the tools/means to get more accurate findings of asymptomatic cases who could spread the virus without knowing it.
I shouldn't have to tell you this as we all hear it from nearly every news source as it comes from the White House.
This weekend I talked with a guy who made it sound like testing was the culprit. My response (to him) was testing doesn't create more virus. Why would you think that?
He was of the opinion that we didn't need so much testing as the numbers were significantly going up! Well duh. Now we have the tools/means to get more accurate findings of asymptomatic cases who could spread the virus without knowing it.
I shouldn't have to tell you this as we all hear it from nearly every news source as it comes from the White House.
World Health Organisation
Failed us in a massive way. If you agree, please sign the petition via the link below, and share on social media
online today!
Tibet, South China Sea, India, Vietnam and now Hong Kong---with Taiwan next in the glory line up....
...Democracy Wall, Tienanmen, Uighur Gulag Archipelago, and so on ... Those with eyes and ears will know. Communist China has much to account for, at least for the fair minded. Many a thing not right with the failed Communist state. VERY not right.
Communist? Hardly. Repressive state run MONOPOL Capitalist, better said. But if not the economics, at least the repression qualifies as a far left arrangement.
That would be a ONE PARTY STATE, with national congress votes running almost two thousand for, to one or two against. In the case of the draconian new HK laws to subvert human rights/basic freedom of dissent, tellingly, only one vote against.
Like many such governments, the old MAN Han guard at the top, with totalitarian power, beyond challenge or input from it's citizens, is increasingly paranoid. Fear of loosing totalitarian power/civil revolt is behind almost all actions.
The royal scam of it all ---we keep the bacon on the tables, you all acquiesce,--- is facing strong water, food, energy, health and employment nose winds. The bacon is under threat, so the paranoia and repression deepen. More and more every day citizens know what cooks. Will the balance tip in favor of so many decent and talented Chinese people?
Disappearing, or worse, human rights attorneys. Bans on political thought or action for students, even at elementary school levels. Hiding important medical information. Silencing physician scientists. The Red Guard. Gang of four. The famines. Re-education protocols. Great leap backward, with back yard iron production. Confiscation of rural land, family farmed for generations, to build bridges and high rent complexes to nowhere. On again, off again (always off for high party members) one child dictate. Support for little Rocket haircut man. But don't take my words for any of it. The world is hip. Not least Africa, with belt and road up the well greased hind side. And I here digress not.
At the prestigious Vierk Institutet for Disorders of Cognition and Behaviors, we are considering the evidence.for another alt left human affliction. Horse Blinder Sinophilia Syndrome. HBSS. And the clinical evidence is showing it to be even more devastating, especially to the marginally educated, than even the formidable Trump Derangement-Hilary Deficit disorders.
Just keep an eye out for the signs of these two serious maladies. Cardinal, evidence based diagnostic clues include the inability to acknowledge all of the above, in the case of the PRC. Instead, actually supporting the new laws in HK as somehow appropriate, and even saying the equivalent of ---many other countries act these ways. Really? How quaint.
In the case of our Brilliant and Dazzling President Trump, a similar one track obsessive thought diathesis.. For the few TD-HDS victims writing/copying fake news here, substitute autopilot, rage-filled hate, ---for blind devotion to the many anti human rights crimes in China.
Calls into question more generalized co-morbid progressive deficits, as to character and judgment. So we see bragging over the most silly things, such as a job at the bottom of the academic pecking order, accomplishments in school days, and the pathetic rest of it. Fearfully correcting what's been written. Replying first to ones own blog.We assume it's all driven in large part by a need to overcompensate for many life failures, as with jobs, music, etc. In these cases, sooner or later, it surfaces, and we see many other such life disappointments, such as in marriage, parenting, finances. and more. And crippling envy/obsessive fear of their superiors in this life. Even school yard type bullying as to physical characteristics. There's a guilty need to admit these sins, and together with the braggadocio, it's a most striking disease complex.
But the sad attempts at overcompensation hide little. Indeed, it all supports the many diagnostic data and impressions.
Communist? Hardly. Repressive state run MONOPOL Capitalist, better said. But if not the economics, at least the repression qualifies as a far left arrangement.
That would be a ONE PARTY STATE, with national congress votes running almost two thousand for, to one or two against. In the case of the draconian new HK laws to subvert human rights/basic freedom of dissent, tellingly, only one vote against.
Like many such governments, the old MAN Han guard at the top, with totalitarian power, beyond challenge or input from it's citizens, is increasingly paranoid. Fear of loosing totalitarian power/civil revolt is behind almost all actions.
The royal scam of it all ---we keep the bacon on the tables, you all acquiesce,--- is facing strong water, food, energy, health and employment nose winds. The bacon is under threat, so the paranoia and repression deepen. More and more every day citizens know what cooks. Will the balance tip in favor of so many decent and talented Chinese people?
Disappearing, or worse, human rights attorneys. Bans on political thought or action for students, even at elementary school levels. Hiding important medical information. Silencing physician scientists. The Red Guard. Gang of four. The famines. Re-education protocols. Great leap backward, with back yard iron production. Confiscation of rural land, family farmed for generations, to build bridges and high rent complexes to nowhere. On again, off again (always off for high party members) one child dictate. Support for little Rocket haircut man. But don't take my words for any of it. The world is hip. Not least Africa, with belt and road up the well greased hind side. And I here digress not.
At the prestigious Vierk Institutet for Disorders of Cognition and Behaviors, we are considering the evidence.for another alt left human affliction. Horse Blinder Sinophilia Syndrome. HBSS. And the clinical evidence is showing it to be even more devastating, especially to the marginally educated, than even the formidable Trump Derangement-Hilary Deficit disorders.
Just keep an eye out for the signs of these two serious maladies. Cardinal, evidence based diagnostic clues include the inability to acknowledge all of the above, in the case of the PRC. Instead, actually supporting the new laws in HK as somehow appropriate, and even saying the equivalent of ---many other countries act these ways. Really? How quaint.
In the case of our Brilliant and Dazzling President Trump, a similar one track obsessive thought diathesis.. For the few TD-HDS victims writing/copying fake news here, substitute autopilot, rage-filled hate, ---for blind devotion to the many anti human rights crimes in China.
Calls into question more generalized co-morbid progressive deficits, as to character and judgment. So we see bragging over the most silly things, such as a job at the bottom of the academic pecking order, accomplishments in school days, and the pathetic rest of it. Fearfully correcting what's been written. Replying first to ones own blog.We assume it's all driven in large part by a need to overcompensate for many life failures, as with jobs, music, etc. In these cases, sooner or later, it surfaces, and we see many other such life disappointments, such as in marriage, parenting, finances. and more. And crippling envy/obsessive fear of their superiors in this life. Even school yard type bullying as to physical characteristics. There's a guilty need to admit these sins, and together with the braggadocio, it's a most striking disease complex.
But the sad attempts at overcompensation hide little. Indeed, it all supports the many diagnostic data and impressions.
Anthony Fauci pleads with you to NOT infect others or yourselves; social distance & wear mask
Yesterday in The New Yorker;
In response to:
Anthony Fauci Issues a New Coronavirus Plea
By Amy Davidson Sorkin
July 1, 2020
At times, in his Senate testimony on Tuesday, Anthony Fauci sounded as though he had pretty much given up on Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci sat in a Senate hearing room that had been reconfigured for social distancing and listened, mask at hand, as Patty Murray, of Washington, described the consequences of America’s failure to manage its pandemic. The tally of cases was soaring in a majority of states, particularly in the South and West; Murray, speaking by video, quoted a C.D.C. official who had warned that there was “too much virus to control in the U.S.” Murray stated the obvious: “Our strategy hasn’t worked.” What, she asked, did the federal and state governments need to do to turn the numbers around?
“I am also quite concerned,” Fauci replied. He reeled off some of the statistics that Murray had alluded to—“surges” in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas alone, he said, accounted for half of the new confirmed cases, which now amount to more than forty thousand a day. Later in his testimony, in answer to a question from Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Fauci said that he would not be surprised if the number of new cases reached a hundred thousand a day. (He declined to make a guess as to how many deaths that would amount to.) Perhaps, Fauci added, some states had reopened “too quickly”; even in ones where the governors and mayors had acted properly, he had seen “in clips and in photographs . . . individuals in the community doing an ‘all or none’ phenomenon”—by which he meant “either be locked down or open up in a way where you see people at bars, not wearing masks, not avoiding crowds, not paying attention to physical distancing.” To halt the pandemic, Fauci said, “I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort.”
Fauci is, of course, right about personal responsibility; everyone has a role to play in stopping the coronavirus. But he was less clear about how that rallying cry fits into any federal or even state-government public-health strategy. The great cause of confusion is that we have, at the moment, an all-or-none President, whose exercise of personal or political responsibility in dealing with this crisis is around the level of zero. At times, it sounded as though Fauci had pretty much given up on Donald Trump, and had no option left but to appeal directly to the American people. He could only hope that they would pay attention to his warnings rather than to Trump’s tweets mocking people who wear masks, or the clips and photographs of the people in the crowd, very few of them wearing masks, at the President’s indoor events. (At a rally in Tulsa, campaign workers reportedly removed labels encouraging social distancing from seats.)
That disconnect was not lost on Murray, who followed up by saying, “I assume that would mean that elected and community leaders need to model good public-health behavior and wear a mask.” Fauci, rather than simply saying yes, repeated the C.D.C.’s mask recommendations—wear one in public areas and crowded spaces. It is a depressing commentary on how distorted the Administration’s response has been that Fauci might regard a straightforward statement about what leaders should do as a matter to be handled delicately.
Even some Republicans are recognizing the destructive madness wrought by Trump’s hostility to masks. The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, has come around, and tweeted a call for masks. Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, opened Tuesday’s hearing with an impassioned plea for mask wearing, which he credited with keeping him and others in his office healthy when one member of his staff tested positive......
Anthony Fauci Issues a New Coronavirus Plea
By Amy Davidson Sorkin
July 1, 2020
At times, in his Senate testimony on Tuesday, Anthony Fauci sounded as though he had pretty much given up on Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci sat in a Senate hearing room that had been reconfigured for social distancing and listened, mask at hand, as Patty Murray, of Washington, described the consequences of America’s failure to manage its pandemic. The tally of cases was soaring in a majority of states, particularly in the South and West; Murray, speaking by video, quoted a C.D.C. official who had warned that there was “too much virus to control in the U.S.” Murray stated the obvious: “Our strategy hasn’t worked.” What, she asked, did the federal and state governments need to do to turn the numbers around?
“I am also quite concerned,” Fauci replied. He reeled off some of the statistics that Murray had alluded to—“surges” in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas alone, he said, accounted for half of the new confirmed cases, which now amount to more than forty thousand a day. Later in his testimony, in answer to a question from Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Fauci said that he would not be surprised if the number of new cases reached a hundred thousand a day. (He declined to make a guess as to how many deaths that would amount to.) Perhaps, Fauci added, some states had reopened “too quickly”; even in ones where the governors and mayors had acted properly, he had seen “in clips and in photographs . . . individuals in the community doing an ‘all or none’ phenomenon”—by which he meant “either be locked down or open up in a way where you see people at bars, not wearing masks, not avoiding crowds, not paying attention to physical distancing.” To halt the pandemic, Fauci said, “I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort.”
Fauci is, of course, right about personal responsibility; everyone has a role to play in stopping the coronavirus. But he was less clear about how that rallying cry fits into any federal or even state-government public-health strategy. The great cause of confusion is that we have, at the moment, an all-or-none President, whose exercise of personal or political responsibility in dealing with this crisis is around the level of zero. At times, it sounded as though Fauci had pretty much given up on Donald Trump, and had no option left but to appeal directly to the American people. He could only hope that they would pay attention to his warnings rather than to Trump’s tweets mocking people who wear masks, or the clips and photographs of the people in the crowd, very few of them wearing masks, at the President’s indoor events. (At a rally in Tulsa, campaign workers reportedly removed labels encouraging social distancing from seats.)
That disconnect was not lost on Murray, who followed up by saying, “I assume that would mean that elected and community leaders need to model good public-health behavior and wear a mask.” Fauci, rather than simply saying yes, repeated the C.D.C.’s mask recommendations—wear one in public areas and crowded spaces. It is a depressing commentary on how distorted the Administration’s response has been that Fauci might regard a straightforward statement about what leaders should do as a matter to be handled delicately.
Even some Republicans are recognizing the destructive madness wrought by Trump’s hostility to masks. The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, has come around, and tweeted a call for masks. Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, opened Tuesday’s hearing with an impassioned plea for mask wearing, which he credited with keeping him and others in his office healthy when one member of his staff tested positive......
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Ladies of CS?
If your husband said to you, he wants to put you up the duff, would you say yes or no?
000
000
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The book of life....?
How do you know your name is in it?
..................................................................?
..................................................................?
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I can't breathe...
I grew up in a house where both of my parents were heavy smokers. This may have been the main factor to my childhood asthmatic condition. Although I wasn't sickly, cigarette smoke, perfume and chemicals would bring on asthma attacks. We lived down the street from the incinerator (with 2 smoke stacks) and across the road from a company that packed aerosol containers. Not a neighborhood to brag about.
Moving to Miami was better as we were a few miles from the ocean and never were concerned about pollution. The issue I had was my neighbors with night blooming jasmine bushes that could bring on an asthma attack in a heartbeat. As I got older things got better and in my teenage years, I played sports and my asthma subsided. I controlled attacks with an over-the-counter inhaler.
In the last 30 years I've been involved with the manufacture of cabinets. From production kitchen cabinets to high-end custom furniture. This environment had me directly in contact with products that were painted. First it was lacquer and over the years finishing materials evolved to catalyzed acrylics which are far more hazardous to the environment.
One business, had the office above the factory and the fumes from the freshly painted products would bleed into the air conditioning system. They finished spraying paint around 4pm and I was there until 7 with the garage door open and large fans pulling fresh air into the building. It was unsafe to be in the building with the doors closed and no fans.
I did a project with enamel paint and used multi-layer filter masks. That wasn't enough. I should have used a mask with carbon cartridges. The asthma lingered and my family doctor sent me to a Pulmonologist for an x-ray and evaluation. Steroids and prescription inhaler. That was around ten years ago. Since then, I've become highly sensitive to chemicals in my environment.
The last place I worked at used to supply the air freshener Febreeze in the restrooms. To me, that stuff is like Kryptonite to Superman. I would place a can of Lysol disinfectant next to the Febreze and to my liking my coworkers would use the Lysol!
Under normal circumstances I only use an inhaler once or twice a week. However, I'm now working for a remodeling company and their warehouse is stocked with all kinds of supplies including tile, carpet underlayment and cabinets. The a/c is shared between the office and warehouse and as soon as I enter the building, I start sneezing. Within 2 hours, I have asthma bad enough to restrict my breathing and have been using the inhaler 4 times a day, often no relief until an hour or two after I leave the building.
My outside appointments are 2 or 3 per day and I'm allowed to work from home, but we have walk-in clients and I need to be there or the leads will go to the other salesmen.
Moving 50 miles from the medical center in Miami, I found a one near my office. My new doctor referred me to a specialist who called for x-rays, steroid based inhaler and a lung capacity test coming up at the end of the month.
In the mean time, I bought a special 3-stage HEPA air purification system and ran it in the office all night. The air was noticeably better and I was able to make it to noon before the asthma started affecting me. I need to go through the warehouse and find out what (exactly) is bothering me and possibly cover at area with tarp or plastic sheeting.
Worst case scenario actually has a few possibilities... No decision as I'm not going there. At least not for now.
Moving to Miami was better as we were a few miles from the ocean and never were concerned about pollution. The issue I had was my neighbors with night blooming jasmine bushes that could bring on an asthma attack in a heartbeat. As I got older things got better and in my teenage years, I played sports and my asthma subsided. I controlled attacks with an over-the-counter inhaler.
In the last 30 years I've been involved with the manufacture of cabinets. From production kitchen cabinets to high-end custom furniture. This environment had me directly in contact with products that were painted. First it was lacquer and over the years finishing materials evolved to catalyzed acrylics which are far more hazardous to the environment.
One business, had the office above the factory and the fumes from the freshly painted products would bleed into the air conditioning system. They finished spraying paint around 4pm and I was there until 7 with the garage door open and large fans pulling fresh air into the building. It was unsafe to be in the building with the doors closed and no fans.
I did a project with enamel paint and used multi-layer filter masks. That wasn't enough. I should have used a mask with carbon cartridges. The asthma lingered and my family doctor sent me to a Pulmonologist for an x-ray and evaluation. Steroids and prescription inhaler. That was around ten years ago. Since then, I've become highly sensitive to chemicals in my environment.
The last place I worked at used to supply the air freshener Febreeze in the restrooms. To me, that stuff is like Kryptonite to Superman. I would place a can of Lysol disinfectant next to the Febreze and to my liking my coworkers would use the Lysol!
Under normal circumstances I only use an inhaler once or twice a week. However, I'm now working for a remodeling company and their warehouse is stocked with all kinds of supplies including tile, carpet underlayment and cabinets. The a/c is shared between the office and warehouse and as soon as I enter the building, I start sneezing. Within 2 hours, I have asthma bad enough to restrict my breathing and have been using the inhaler 4 times a day, often no relief until an hour or two after I leave the building.
My outside appointments are 2 or 3 per day and I'm allowed to work from home, but we have walk-in clients and I need to be there or the leads will go to the other salesmen.
Moving 50 miles from the medical center in Miami, I found a one near my office. My new doctor referred me to a specialist who called for x-rays, steroid based inhaler and a lung capacity test coming up at the end of the month.
In the mean time, I bought a special 3-stage HEPA air purification system and ran it in the office all night. The air was noticeably better and I was able to make it to noon before the asthma started affecting me. I need to go through the warehouse and find out what (exactly) is bothering me and possibly cover at area with tarp or plastic sheeting.
Worst case scenario actually has a few possibilities... No decision as I'm not going there. At least not for now.
A bit of good Covid-19 news for a change
It seems that perhaps a cheap widely available steroid helps reduce the death rate in severe cases of Covid-19. However, this does not mean that the risk of death from Covid-19 is no longer real. In addition it does not mean that you should be taking this steroid at home.
From CNN;
(continued in my first comment below)
From CNN;
In response to:
Commonly used steroid reduces risk of death in sickest coronavirus patients, preliminary study results suggest
The widely available steroid drug dexamethasone may be key in helping to treat the sickest Covid-19 patients who require ventilation or oxygen, according to researchers in the United Kingdom.
Their findings are preliminary, still being compiled, and have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal -- but some not involved with the study called the results a breakthrough.
The two lead investigators of the Recovery Trial, a large UK-based trial investigating potential Covid-19 treatments, announced to reporters in a virtual press conference on Tuesday that a low-dose regimen of dexamethasone for 10 days was found to reduce the risk of death by a third among hospitalized patients requiring ventilation in the trial.
"That's a highly statistically significant result," Martin Landray, deputy chief investigator of the trial and a professor at the University of Oxford, said on Tuesday.
"This is a completely compelling result. If one looks at the patients who did not require ventilators but were on oxygen, there was also a significant risk reduction of about one-fifth," Landray said. "However, we didn't see any benefit in those patients who were in hospital, had Covid, but whose lungs were working sufficiently well -- they were not taking either oxygen or on ventilators."
Landray added that "there are outstanding questions" and people treating Covid-19 at home should not be taking dexamethasone on the back of these results.
"We have not studied patients in the community," Landray said. "We show no effect in the patients who are not on oxygen and we did not study the patients who are not in hospital."
The dexamethasone arm of the Recovery Trial closed last week and researchers are now compiling its data. It included about 2,100 hospitalized Covid-19 patients who were randomized to receive dexamethasone, and about 4,300 hospitalized Covid-19 patients who were randomized to receive the usual standard of care at their hospitals.
In the trial, dexamethasone was provided at a dose of 6mg once a day for up to 10 days, administered either as an injection or taken orally. The researchers reported no serious adverse events among the patients taking dexamethasone, but the results are preliminary.
"At this stage, we found no clear adverse effects of doing this. Let's recognize that there are sort of two messages here. In the people who required oxygen or ventilation, it clearly works, and the benefits are biggest for those on ventilators. In the people in hospital with Covid who do not require oxygen -- so, their lungs are working moderately well -- then actually there's no benefit," Landray said on Tuesday.
"In the trial, our focus was on mortality, which obviously a drug can affect in either direction, but the overall results in the patients on oxygen and ventilation was a clear, clear benefit," Landray said, adding that deaths in the study were examined over a 28-day period. "We've looked, for example, were there deaths due to other forms of infection, which are sometimes considered a risk? And the answer is no, there was no excess of any other particular cause of death."
Dexamethasone is typically used to treat certain forms of arthritis, severe allergies and asthma, among other conditions, including certain types of cancer. Side effects can include upset stomach, headache, dizziness, insomnia and depression. GoodRx estimates the drug can cost as low as about $8. ...
Commonly used steroid reduces risk of death in sickest coronavirus patients, preliminary study results suggest
The widely available steroid drug dexamethasone may be key in helping to treat the sickest Covid-19 patients who require ventilation or oxygen, according to researchers in the United Kingdom.
Their findings are preliminary, still being compiled, and have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal -- but some not involved with the study called the results a breakthrough.
The two lead investigators of the Recovery Trial, a large UK-based trial investigating potential Covid-19 treatments, announced to reporters in a virtual press conference on Tuesday that a low-dose regimen of dexamethasone for 10 days was found to reduce the risk of death by a third among hospitalized patients requiring ventilation in the trial.
"That's a highly statistically significant result," Martin Landray, deputy chief investigator of the trial and a professor at the University of Oxford, said on Tuesday.
"This is a completely compelling result. If one looks at the patients who did not require ventilators but were on oxygen, there was also a significant risk reduction of about one-fifth," Landray said. "However, we didn't see any benefit in those patients who were in hospital, had Covid, but whose lungs were working sufficiently well -- they were not taking either oxygen or on ventilators."
Landray added that "there are outstanding questions" and people treating Covid-19 at home should not be taking dexamethasone on the back of these results.
"We have not studied patients in the community," Landray said. "We show no effect in the patients who are not on oxygen and we did not study the patients who are not in hospital."
The dexamethasone arm of the Recovery Trial closed last week and researchers are now compiling its data. It included about 2,100 hospitalized Covid-19 patients who were randomized to receive dexamethasone, and about 4,300 hospitalized Covid-19 patients who were randomized to receive the usual standard of care at their hospitals.
In the trial, dexamethasone was provided at a dose of 6mg once a day for up to 10 days, administered either as an injection or taken orally. The researchers reported no serious adverse events among the patients taking dexamethasone, but the results are preliminary.
"At this stage, we found no clear adverse effects of doing this. Let's recognize that there are sort of two messages here. In the people who required oxygen or ventilation, it clearly works, and the benefits are biggest for those on ventilators. In the people in hospital with Covid who do not require oxygen -- so, their lungs are working moderately well -- then actually there's no benefit," Landray said on Tuesday.
"In the trial, our focus was on mortality, which obviously a drug can affect in either direction, but the overall results in the patients on oxygen and ventilation was a clear, clear benefit," Landray said, adding that deaths in the study were examined over a 28-day period. "We've looked, for example, were there deaths due to other forms of infection, which are sometimes considered a risk? And the answer is no, there was no excess of any other particular cause of death."
Dexamethasone is typically used to treat certain forms of arthritis, severe allergies and asthma, among other conditions, including certain types of cancer. Side effects can include upset stomach, headache, dizziness, insomnia and depression. GoodRx estimates the drug can cost as low as about $8. ...
(continued in my first comment below)
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