What is the Call going to be on Monday

[curious]

4 minutes ago, barryb said:

Are you missing Thomass?

I am. I was wanting to ask him today what to do when they change from half cup to full cup blinkers and see if he could get that reported in the gear changes. I only noticed when they were about to jump.

Edited April 19, 2020 by curious

[Maximus]

1 hour ago, barryb said:

In all honesty I think because it’s called Black November and it just got dumped in there.

to remind him of all the years he hasn't backed the winner of the Melbourne Cup and NZ Cup?

[Hesi]

Clever

[Hesi]

11 hours ago, barryb said:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/16/health/coronavirus-remdesivir-trial/index.html

This article in the NY Times, I thought was very informative

The Story of Remdesivir

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there should be no big-pharma haters in pandemics.

By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

• April 17, 2020
• •  
  •  
  •  
  • 1011

 

 

 

 

A vial of the drug remdesivir is visually inspected at a Gilead manufacturing site in the United States. Credit...Gilead Sciences, via Associated Press

 

Diana Brainard is nowhere near close to celebrating.

Dr. Brainard is the head of antiviral clinical research at Gilead Sciences, the Bay Area biotech giant whose drug portfolio includes the antiviral medicine remdesivir. On Thursday, Stat, the superb medical-news website, reported some of the leaked results of a pair of Phase 3 clinical trials of the drug at the University of Chicago. Of 113 patients with severe cases of Covid-19 who were treated with daily infusions of remdesivir, most were discharged from the hospital in under a week, and only two died.

That sounds like fantastically good news, but Dr. Brainard has caveats and cautions. The Chicago story, she told me in a phone interview this week, is still anecdotal. The trial did not include a control group. Hard data, once it comes, can be hard to interpret. “We have to assess whether the drug is working without having a clear picture of what is typical with this disease,” she says.

But whether remdesivir turns out to be effective or not — and it’s always wise to curb one’s enthusiasm about supposed miracle cures — the remarkable thing is that it’s available at all. It began life in 2009 as a potential treatment for hepatitis C, but didn’t work as hoped. It got a second chance during an Ebola outbreak in Congo. It showed limited effects but proved safe to use on people.

Lab tests, however, suggested it might have potent effects against coronaviruses such as those that cause SARS and MERS. As it became clear that Covid-19 was also caused by a coronavirus, remdesivir was one of the few potentially helpful drugs ready to be in clinical trials. Gilead began distributing it on a compassionate-use basis on Jan. 25.

 

 

“By March we were getting hundreds of requests a day,” Dr. Brainard says. “We needed to pivot to a different kind of system — expanded access. Instead of providing the drug to each patient individually, you provide it to individual physicians and they administer it as they see fit.”

 

It was around that time that I first started paying attention to this story, thanks to a reader with a severely sick young relative who couldn’t obtain remdesivir. The relative has since come off a ventilator and is staging a painful recovery, but his family felt Gilead had been capricious in the ways it made the drug available.

 

• Thanks for reading The Times.

Subscribe to The Times

 

Dr. Brainard is aware of the agony such families face: “The majority of us are infectious-disease physicians, and we know what it’s like to treat a critically ill patient deteriorating before our eyes.” Especially now, Gilead and its biotech peers have to walk a fine line between offering hope and inflating expectations, and moving with all possible speed as well as utmost caution. A manufacturing glitch can become a corporate disaster. A small delay can mean tragedy for an untold number of families.

“Facts and science are hard masters, and we can’t build the factory until we know the medicine,” Kevin Sharer, the former C.E.O. of biotech giant Amgen, told me Friday. “Ultimately there’s an element of chance we cannot control.”

The next step is to inspect the data from Chicago and other concurrent studies of remdesivir now involving 6,000 participants with severe symptoms. If the results hold up — the if always has to be stressed — the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies would have to provide approval. That could take a full year, barring an expedited process. Then production of the drug would need to ramp up quickly, no small thing as remdesivir requires complex manufacturing techniques.

Editors’ Picks

The Virus Closed Her Bakery. Now She’s Working Nonstop.

‘Corona-Shamed’: George Stephanopoulos, J. Lo — Maybe You?

The Food Expiration Dates You Should Actually Follow

 

Given the stakes involved, it seems perverse not to root for Gilead’s success. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there should be no big-pharma haters in pandemics. Last year, Elizabeth Warren wrote that “giant drug companies only care about one thing: raking in profits on the backs of patients.” I wonder if the Massachusetts senator would have the nerve to say that to Dr. Brainard and every other private-sector scientist laboring to find cures under the intense strain of this global emergency.

It’s also worth asking what this story says about the notion that the pandemic somehow proves Bernie Sanders right. Medicare For All, achieved through wrenching changes at ruinous expense, might provide “coverage” for every American, including the millions of newly unemployed.

But that’s of little help without effective diagnostic tests, therapies and vaccines, which typically emerge from profit-seeking companies operating in fiercely competitive and well-regulated marketplaces. Whatever the fate of remdesivir or any other drug, one lesson from this pandemic is how dependent we are for our survival on an innovative and robust pharmaceutical industry. Maybe we should do more as a country to cultivate it than tear it down.

In the meantime, we’re left to wait. “Nobody is drinking any champagne, it’s premature to celebrate, nobody wants to jinx anything,” Dr. Brainard says of the mood among her colleagues. Skepticism is always a sound scientific attitude. For the rest of us: Cross fingers.

[curious]

2 hours ago, barryb said:

Well that makes Ashley out to be a fool, the misinformation around is dangerous.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/121115525/coronavirus-sewage-testing-for-covid19-begins-this-week

It makes more sense to me that they are doing that. Haven't had a listen yet to see where Ashley said they weren't or would not. It was recommended.

[Globederby19]

14 hours ago, Hesi said:

Haven't read up about it, but was it brought back to NZ by all those returning from the war in Europe

Quarantining may have been difficult then

And as apposed to Wuhan being the starter point for Covid19, the Spanish Flue had its beginnings in America and was carried to Europe by its forces.

One all. 

[mardigras]

On 4/19/2020 at 9:11 AM, Hesi said:

Maybe okay for returning residents, but surely not workable for tourism

If they had a 5 min, bullet proof test for the virus at the border, why would that not be workable, also for gatherings, a bit of a pain but workable?

Some clever company will come up with a quick test.

Victoria are suggesting it unlikely they would be opening borders to international travel until 2021 (unless a vaccine is available)

[curious]

3 hours ago, barryb said:

Well that makes Ashley out to be a fool, the misinformation around is dangerous.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/121115525/coronavirus-sewage-testing-for-covid19-begins-this-week

The question was Australia and some European countries are testing sewage to see how widespread it is. Is that something that we can do and if we can do it, would we?

The response from Ashley was:

Not sure how many countries are actually doing it and I'm not sure Oz is. I'd be interested to that. It's one of the options that you can use as overall surveillance. For example, you'll know that there's testing of sewage for illicit drugs to get an idea of what the prevalence of use might be in specific communities. The RNA-PCR testing is very sensitive so you could do sewage testing but you would still need a reasonable rate of infections in the community to be able to detect it. ESR is just looking at how they would do that if it was to be part of our ongoing surveillance.

He may not have been fully up with the play as to where ESR were at with this but that response seems totally consistent with both the recommendations and the ESR report. Don't get an inkling from there that it has been ruled out, more that it is being seriously considered as an addition to the arsenal.

[curious]

17 minutes ago, mardigras said:

Victoria are suggesting it unlikely they would be opening borders to international travel until 2021 (unless a vaccine is available)

Interesting to see how Te Akau will utilise their reportedly acquired 12 boxes at Flemington then. That said, VIC appear to have the virus pretty well under control.

[mardigras]

Just now, curious said:

Interesting to see how Te Akau will utilise their reportedly acquired 12 boxes at Flemington then. That said, VIC appear to have the virus pretty well under control.

I guess horse transport doesn't count - so long as you have personnel to deal with them each end. Or if you have exemption from Australia allowing you to enter the country (or have permanent residence/citizenship).

[curious]

1 minute ago, mardigras said:

I guess horse transport doesn't count - so long as you have personnel to deal with them each end. Or if you have exemption from Australia allowing you to enter the country (or have permanent residence/citizenship).

Yes, true. There will be ways to manage it.

[Freda]

1 hour ago, curious said:

Yes, true. There will be ways to manage it.

Opie has just been over and now back, he will be required to isolate if he makes the decision to return.

I shouldn't imagine it would be difficult to send staff over with isolation requirements,  and then receive the horses?

[Hesi]

So we have a pretty clear indication from the Govt, that we will almost certainly be at Level 2 in 3 weeks

What is the future plan for racing

RITA's last word on this, was they would deliver a communique with new dates etc etc on Mon/Tues

This is the best scenario they could have hoped for, so I presume the contents would have been ready to go, just waiting on today's announcement

[Freda]

If i read it correctly,  the statement from Rita will be released on April 27th.

Which makes all the puffery from Bernard/Nztr somewhat premature. 

[curious]

3 hours ago, Hesi said:

So we have a pretty clear indication from the Govt, that we will almost certainly be at Level 2 in 3 weeks

What is the future plan for racing

RITA's last word on this, was they would deliver a communique with new dates etc etc on Mon/Tues

This is the best scenario they could have hoped for, so I presume the contents would have been ready to go, just waiting on today's announcement

No. That was NZTR. So we should see that tomorrow I assume.

Meeting News

The draft calendar announcements regarding dates from July through to November has now be delayed until Monday/Tuesday

[curious]

So, yes. Given today's announcements and Bernard's statements about training, trials and racing resuming under level 3, I'd assume there is no real Covid-19 related reason for next season's programme to be much different from usual.

[Maximus]

20 minutes ago, curious said:

So, yes. Given today's announcements and Bernard's statements about training, trials and racing resuming under level 3, I'd assume there is no real Covid-19 related reason for next season's programme to be much different from usual.

except that there is proposed legislation due to be signed off by 30 June and a shiteload of uncertainty about the TA's revenues in the forseeable future (not much live sport to bet on globally, so revenue will be down bigtime). You can expect significantly fewer meetings; lower stakes, and a raft of other cost savings ...except they'll still find a way to pay themselves far too much to far too many to do far too little while the workers at the coalface carry on for even less than they were getting before. Only the smart ones with good contacts and some kind of reputation will bugger off to Oz

[curious]

On 4/20/2020 at 7:54 AM, Hesi said:

This article in the NY Times, I thought was very informative

The Story of Remdesivir

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there should be no big-pharma haters in pandemics.

 

Meanwhile, hopes have been dashed about the effectiveness of an initially promising drug to treat Covid-19, reports the Guardian. In the first full trial of Remdesivir, it was found to be no better than a placebo.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/high-hopes-drug-for-covid-19-treatment-failed-in-full-trial

Edited April 23, 2020 by curious

[Hesi]

I reckon 99% of the keyboard  experts wouldn't  know what a placebo is

[Freda]

26 minutes ago, Ashoka said:

Hesi...

Just for you...a great song...

https://youtu.be/OMaycNcPsHI

 

It is indeed.

[Hesi]

37 minutes ago, Ashoka said:

Hesi...

It's the name of a band, you aging hippie. 

Living under a rock...some people...

Double blind placebo?

[Maximus]

On 4/24/2020 at 10:35 AM, Ashoka said:

Hesi...

It's the name of a band, you aging hippie. 

Living under a rock...some people...

careful, some of us choose to live under rocks

[Buller Rep]

I believe that a placebo is the medication that RITA had been dishing out since they have been in operation, until it changed about 14 days ago.