Starker on 24/8/2021 at 06:19
Quote Posted by SD
Maybe they all thought that touching Saint Jacinda's clothes would render them immune.
If I could switch out our prime minister for her, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Pyrian on 24/8/2021 at 07:24
U.K.'s current average daily death rate from Covid-19 (100/day) is more than 3 times New Zealand's total deaths from Covid-19 (26).
Starker on 24/8/2021 at 20:56
NZ's total number deaths is 2% of ours, despite having more than 3 times as many people. Turns out hiding in a closet is pretty damn effective in preventing unnecessary deaths.
faetal on 25/8/2021 at 11:09
Yeah, but don't forget that NZ has the unfair advantage of being an island, so could use that to avoid the worst of COVID. The UK can hardly be expected to compete with that.
Thirith on 25/8/2021 at 11:18
I see what you did there, faetal.
Azaran on 31/8/2021 at 18:32
Quote Posted by Tocky
Two people in my county today were admitted for Ivermectin poisoning. It's amazing. The same folks who tell you that you are a sheep for taking a proven vaccine will take worm medicine for horses because Fox News tells them to. You really cannot underestimate the stupidity of Fox News viewers.
Maybe they should stick with echinacea. It's harmless and (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7395221/) might actually help
Quote:
When assessing all human trials which reported changes in cytokine levels in response to Echinacea supplementation, the results were largely consistent with a decrease in the pro-inflammatory cytokines that play a role in the progression of cytokine storm and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), factors that play a significant role in the death of COVID-19 patients. While there is currently no research on the therapeutic effects of Echinacea in the management of cytokine storm, this evidence suggests that further research is warranted.
Pyrian on 31/8/2021 at 22:40
Or they could, y'know, get one of the several free and widely available vaccines that are proven to work really well. :p
faetal on 1/9/2021 at 13:45
That echniacea claim is relatively thin for now. Needs a targeted study, which it likely won't get as I am not sure it would be ethical to try echniacea on COVID patients in place of treatments with proven efficacy.
The immune system is complex as fuck, simply dialling back certain cytokines might not give the outcome you expect as there are so many interconnected cascades whcih determine the character of a response.
That said, it doesn't do any harm, so as long as it isn't used in place of a proven treatment, then no reason why not.
Azaran on 1/9/2021 at 14:05
Quote Posted by faetal
That said, it doesn't do any harm, so as long as it isn't used in place of a proven treatment, then no reason why not.
Well yeah of course.
Besides getting vaccinated, the only advice authorities are giving the general public if they get infected is 'isolate and hope for the best, and call 911 if things get rough'.
Considering the long term damage the virus causes, and the fallibility of vaccines, uncovering new treatments for Covid that can be used by the general population to mitigate it should be top priority.
faetal on 2/9/2021 at 01:07
Yes, but to my knowledge it's not been shown that long term COVID damage is tied specifically to cytokine storm and that echinacea intervenes to reduce the risk etc.
The trouble with crossing fingers for every potential remedy hinted at by preliminary research is that people end up with science fatigue from hearing about things which might work, but then don't.
It's the classic "One week red wine is good for you, the next week it's bad for you, I don't know what to believe" effect.
Drug discovery takes fucking ages, but targeted COVID (and related coronavirus, since further mutations are inevitable) treatments are being designed, just they can't be brought to clinical trial stage as quickly as vaccines, since the discovery process for vaccines is so much quicker - you just need to know which known proteins to use. This is why there is a flurry of research to see if any already marketed drugs (c.f. Ivermectin*) are able to be used to some effect while targeted drug development progresses - people are still dying, so there are enough severe cases to warrant a "we could try x" approach. Give it some more time and we'll start seeing COVID-first treatments start to get market authorisation.
* Some generic antiviral effects which could be therapeutic against COVID, but seems the effective dose is quite a lot higher than that of its primary indication against worms. Tends to be the case when using something outside of its targeted indication.
