Gilead begins UK trials of COVID-19 drug remdesivir

 

A drug that could help treat coronavirus is to be trialled in patients at hospitals across England and Scotland. The trials of Remdesivir have been fast-tracked and will take place in 15 NHS centres. Manufactured by pharmaceutical company Gilead, the drug is one of many being tested across the world as a treatment for Covid-19.

It is a broad-spectrum antiviral agent that has been demonstrated in animal models against multiple emerging viral pathogens including Mers and Sars, which are also coronaviruses. Gilead has initiated two phase 3 randomised studies to evaluate the safety and efficacy of its investigational treatment Remdesivir in patients with moderate to severe Covid-19.

 

The two studies will initially take place at

• Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust


• Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust


• Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (adult services)


• Manchester Royal Infirmary, and Wythenshawe Hospital.

Other participating centres are:

• Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust


• London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust


• The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust


• University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Also included is

• King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust


• Royal Lancaster Infirmary


• Glasgow Queen Elizabeth University Hospital


• Edinburgh Western General Hospital


• University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust


• Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/coronavirus-drug-remdesivir-set-trialled-18022116

Just a shocking day , I said to a friend at lunchtime  we could get to between 750 and 1,000 deaths per day for a short period , the thing is we don't know as no one has a handle on how the reporting works.

Sad to hear of 20, 30 and 40 year olds poorly just goes to show , all at risk

 

Oh and I change my mind more than the weather Tump can shut his mouth also.

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So much for having the best scientists in the world (see Imperial).

Perhaps we should give up now, go back to the catastrophic herd immunity policy, raise the numbers of deaths to ~10,000 per day and have it all done by summer.

 

I don't think our number of deaths will peak before mid-April.

Yeah, who needs experts, eh?

😳

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We need experts (I am one), but we can do without exceptionalism and arrogance.

Assuming the analysis of cases is reasonably accurate, it's an incubation period of 7-14 days and then another week or more before the infection leads to death, in those severe cases. Given we are just over a week into the tighter restrictions then I would expect the number of cases to start to decline next week and the number of deaths in the following week, which would be w/c 13 April; pretty much as you suggest.

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It's just different experts will have different models and different theories. If they all had the same model and same theory you wouldn't have different experts (funding councils would say: X is already doing this using this approach, no money for you, and professor Y drops out of academia). So basically while the experts agree on basics (durr) they must disagree on a lot of points, and when applied to something like epidemiology which is inherently chaotic, different starting conditions and assumptions amplify all the way down the timeline. 

 

Basically it's like the weather (basically)

Quite right, Gandalf - but people often choose that kind of expression as a "code" for the more complex underlying scientific reality - at least I hope that is what they are doing. Does anyone believe viruses have intentions and plans?

When we watched the  footage of the transmogrification of Nightingale Hospital I remarked to my other half I hoped someone was taking a time lapse film of it. I am pleased to say they did - and if folks have not yet seen it, it's here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52112652/

Meantime, RAF Woodhall Spa - sometime home of the Dambusters, is being signalled as a possible local mortuary site.

Coronavirus: RAF Woodhall Spa 'may be virus mortuary

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-52120992

Stay safe

Roger

 

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I've not seen any arrogance from any of the experts; maybe some of the reporting of what's been said has been less than accurate or reasonable (caveats and footnotes tend to be forgotten).

Given that nobody had ever seen SARS-Cov2 before and only really had the data from the initial Chinese outbreak (which reflected their containment measures) I think the modelling and the guidance has been pretty good. I am not convinced that the herd immunity strategy was based on expert advice from epidemiologists or virologists; more likely it was the result of adding the economic and social dimensions to the decision-making pot.

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I have been thinking the same.

Oh for an ensemble suite....

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What I refer to is back at the time of the herd immunity policy in mid-March: we were told (and I don't mean just here) that we have the best scientists in the world and questioning the policy was wrong. We have lots of great scientists in many fields, but not everyone is good.

 

486 patients were confirmed to have died up to 5pm yesterday in England

They were aged between 13 and 99 all had underlying health issues apart from 20 aged between 13 and 93

Staff at a hospital have warned they could "limit services" to patients with coronavirus "to a bare minimum", over fears for their own safety. In a letter to management, medics at Southend Hospital in Essex say they are not receiving the correct personal protective equipment (PPE). BBC Essex has been told that a quarter of Southend's medical staff are off sick with coronavirus symptoms. In the letter, clinicians at Southend A&E note:

• "PPE is being rationed", that "there is limited stock" and what is available is being "locked away from staff and not accessible"


• Staff are said to be "petrified" working in the hospital and claim that most have not been tested for the virus


• Staff also say that many "are reluctant to work in this [high-risk] area" because of safety issues "but continue to do so as we have the welfare of our patients foremost"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-52118437

Well, as I thought, the action of Viruses are simply highly complex chemical reactions (say something nearest to something like condensation polymerisation, but many, many times more complex). They all involve electron transfer as driving forces. The elements of RNA, plus proteins & fats (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur & phosphorus) all trying to attain most stable oxidation states.

Viruses are not intelligent entities & certainly nothing supernatural*! Viruses do not care about survival, they only care about the mechanism above. 

*Not that anyone on TWO have suggested the latter, but I feel some people seem to behave as if it is (say bowing to to order of nature).

Hopefully, a glimmer of good news, but don't hold your breath yet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52111674.

(sorry if it's already been posted).

Have a word with the President of Burundi, will you?

There had been doubts over Burundi’s claim that no-one in the country had coronavirus. The president’s spokesperson said the nation was an exception because it put "God first"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-47639452 at 0833

(God was listening and did a bit of smiting - they now have two cases)

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Breaking: Italy have reported 4,782 new cases and 727 new deaths

• New cases up 729


• New deaths down 110

Changes with yesterday

Toronto tightens restrictions for up to another 12 weeks

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/social-distancing-measures-covid-1.5517307

While I'm sure that medically this makes sense, I'm not sure that all the population will comply with partial house arrest for another 3 months while watching their business go under or being stuck in their apartment. Canadians are a pretty socially minded bunch in the main but this is going to start to test it - and people under pressure don't always think rationally or altruistically.

We're only a couple of weeks in and I already know of people who are struggling with the restrictions, both financially and psychologically. There is going to be increasing tension on this I'm afraid. I hope I'm wrong.

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IMO the amount of control the Indian government can exert is minimal compared to the Chinese. This is not a comforting thought when there's a deadly virus on the loose.

So, looking further ahead, the disease is likely to become endemic in India (Iran, Indonesia etc) and, much though I dislike strict border controls, we may have to adopt them for some time to come (and, yes, I realise that this was your preferred solution)

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Just read this on the BBC:

On hospital admissions, she [Doyle] says they have now been increasing for the last three days.

Didn't the medical expert only yesterday (or possibly the day before) say that admissions had stabilised?

 

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It strikes me that the government’s approach is still herd immunity ‘by stealth’.
After all if that was your plan, this is how you’d do it.
We look to be heading for an earlier, much steeper peak and the government are still fudging around the C19 tests and PPE (seriously, another day without proper answers) and are putting all their eggs in the antibody test basket, which will take an age to produce for the whole population (remember people will often need more than one of these).

Also remember the letting in of flights from affected areas, without testing. 

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Yes these charts show data up to and including yesterday. Hospital admissions today showed and increase in London in particular. With the numbers today, I can only see that getting worse. 

Yesterday they were talking about green shoots.

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Public opinion isn't impressed with the government's handling of testing. Not that partisan a spread compared to what you sometimes see, 57% of conservatives think the government have handled it either fairly badly (41%) or very badly (16%)

 

Two thirds of Brits (66%) believe the UK have handled coronavirus testing badly, following criticism of the testing numbers when comparing to other countries https://t.co/YfaMBfIxPr #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/oMk5tBwUNn

— YouGov (@YouGov) April 1, 2020

I don't think so. They are probably doing everything they can now to contain it, but belatedly.