Several pharmaceutical companies have been working on a pill to treat COVID-19 patients and two have advanced forward. Here’s how the COVID pill will change travel.
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Merck, Pfizer Announce COVID Antiviral Pills
Two pharmaceutical giants, Merck (with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics) and Pfizer have issued press releases outlining their antiviral drugs for treating COVID-19. The oral antiviral pills that each have developed help those who have contracted the virus rather than preventing contraction altogether.
This is of particular importance as vaccination rates have stagnated in the United States, and recent studies have shown that the efficacy of the vaccines wanes between three and six months following full vaccination. Those who have been vaccinated are encouraged to get boosters (in many cases, before other nations have received ample supply) due to this reduced effectiveness.
“The Oxford University study found at the time that 90 days after a second shot of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine, their efficacy in preventing infections had slipped to 75% and 61% respectively. That was down from 85% and 68%, respectively, seen two weeks after a second dose.” – Reuters
Continual boosters in perpetuity are unlikely to maintain high participation levels as we have seen with annual flu shots which, prior to the pandemic, saw about 25% utilization. The pill more or less eliminates the need for boosters and some might argue for vaccination at all.
Clinical trial results demonstrated a far lower risk of hospitalization and death. Rather than rewrite the genetic code as the vaccines do, these drugs:
“Both are protease inhibitors, which means they block a different enzyme (called a protease) that cuts apart long strands of nonfunctional viral proteins into smaller, functional proteins. PF-07321332 is the star of the show in the drug duo, working on the virus itself, while ritonavir stops other enzymes from destroying PF-07321332. Ritonavir plays the same defensive role in antiviral drug cocktails that treat HIV.” – NBC
Side effects were noted to be similar to placebo in the trials.
COVID Pill Bottom Line
Providing links and background about the pills are important (please read the articles included in the links.) While the pills offered by Merck and Pfizer do not “cure” COVID-19, cutting down on the severity of cases is an important advancement. Using the pill for COVID-19 antiviral treatment can help those who might have high risk factors like those with a history of heart disease or older age people who may have been advised against the vaccines due to those risk factors.
Pills are (big pun) easier to swallow for those around the world but especially for Americans.
“Americans love pills – that’s why I think this is going to be the game-changer.”
Watch @BillMaher and @kmanguward discuss @Merck‘s investigational Covid-19 antiviral treatment on #RealTime: pic.twitter.com/g2DthTx9ju
— Real Time with Bill Maher (@RealTimers) October 2, 2021
COVID International Travel Restrictions
COVID travel restrictions are a messy web of mixed qualifiers, waivers, differing permissions, quarantine requirements and processes. Some vaccines are accepted here but not there. Some countries require a negative test 96 hours in advance of travel, most 72 hours, the United States requires a negative test just 24 hours prior to entry.
As I outlined in another post, what it means to be “fully-vaccinated” could change as well with booster requirements added as Israel has done.
In other countries around the world, vaccination remains low. Exceptions like Canada, much of Europe, and Oceania don’t face this issue, but for residents of countries that have limited access to vaccination, low rates persist. Countries like China have high vaccination rates from Sinopharm and Coronavac, however these shots are excluded from the acceptable vaccine list for entry to many countries; they now have a solution to traveling again. In fact, half of the total vaccination shots administered (7.3 billion) were from those two Chinese vaccines.
With an approved (the pill has not yet passed FDA approval) COVID pill, vaccination could be encouraged, but not required. Tests would remain in place for countries that deem it necessary, but with a solution in place, a negative test would not have to bar entry necessarily. Quarantine requirements could vanish and countries could fully re-open.
Solves The Natural Immunity Dilemma
Currently, the United States does not recognize natural immunity as a valid replacement for vaccination outside of the first 90-days following a COVID recovery – and even that is simply because a person may still test positive during that period despite recovery from the virus.
For those with natural immunity who remain resistant, hesitant, or skeptical of the vaccines it poses a logical problem. If the antibodies are present at the time of travel, the traveler is no more likely to contract or pass on COVID-19 so why get the shot? Dr. Sanjay Gupta posed this question to Dr. Fauci a few weeks ago and Dr. Fauci, to his credit, had no “firm response.”
Conclusion
Treating this infectious disease outside of the hospital system is the key to being able to resume as close as we can get to life as we knew it. Acceptable vaccines, methods, boosters, and quarantines can all go away if COVID can be effectively treated. Requirements for testing could be standardized and global travel could re-open.
What do you think? Is a COVID-19 pill (these or others developed) going to re-open borders?
I am very hopeful that the pill will be the game-changer that you outlined.
I can’t wait for it to be widely distributed around the world so that we can travel like before.
I hope all of this happens very quickly.
Yeah, I highly doubt these anti-science anti-vaxxers are going to start taking some Covid pill anytime soon…far smarter to keep taking the Joe Rogan-recommended horse paste of course
So angry, even on a Sunday morning. Seriously why do you feel people who disagree with you are inferior?
Why are you upset others make a choice that has ZERO effect on your life? The vaccine and boosters WORK so you and I will be fine. Why are cases soaring in states with the highest vaccinated rates?
I really do feel bad for you, as you do for me. No insults today just a belief in that you can be a better person if you tried and dropped all the hate.
Even CNN’s resident medical expert debunked the Joe Rogan horse dewormer thing, but reality is a hard thing to accept for Don Lemon stans.
Don Lemon’s time is coming when Dustin Hice’s lawsuit comes up in early 22. Even CNN wouldn’t be able to cover up his sexual harassment, the details of which are disgusting, even if both are gay.
CNN didn’t like how the Joe Rogan interview went so they changed the story. Even the Washington Post is asking them to change another of their stories that was proven to be a lie. And Fox is guilty of the same stuff on the right side. No wonder most Americans don’t trust the media.
You lose any and all credibility when you say BS like Horse paste
You know Ivermectin is approved for human use, including in some countries for Covid, just not for covid here in the USA. You’d make a far stronger argument if you simply spoke the facts and said it is not FDA approved for the covid indication
Expect any credible statements from UA-CCP and you will be repeatedly disappointed. Ivermectin has long been used to protect folx from maladies like river blindness, mainly in Africa. What does UA-CCP care about some dumb African horse-paste eaters, though, amirite? The discoverers of ivermectin won the Nobel Prize for. Can you believe that? They must be a couple of QAnon MAGA cultists!
As for the new antiviral pills, Matt Taibbi had an interesting posts related to Merck’s molnupiravir in early October:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/did-political-and-media-bias-stall
Former HHS officials say they tried to accelerate funding for what became Merck’s new “miracle” drug last year, but were blocked. How culture-war stupidity may have cost “tens of thousands” of lives
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-cult-of-the-vaccine-neurotic
In other words, it took less than 24 hours for the drug — barely tested, let alone released yet — to be accused of prolonging the pandemic. By the third day, mentions of molnupiravir in news reports nearly all came affixed to stern reminders of its place beneath vaccines in the medical hierarchy, as in the New York Times explaining that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who initially told reporters the new drug was “impressive,” now “warned that Americans should not wait to be vaccinated because they believe they can take the pill.”
…
As a student in the Soviet Union I noticed subscribers to what Russians called the sovok mindset talked in interminable strings of pogovorki, i.e goofball proverbs or aphorisms you’d heard a million times before (“He who takes no risk, drinks no champagne,” or “Work isn’t a wolf, it won’t run off into the woods,” etc). This was a learned defense mechanism, adopted by a people who’d found out the hard way that anyone caught not speaking nonstop nonsense could be suspected of harboring original thoughts. Voluble stupidity is a great disguise in a society where silence is suspect.
We’re similarly becoming a nation of totalitarian nitwits, speaking in a borrowed lexicon of mandatory phrases and smelling heresy in anyone who doesn’t. This cult reflex was bad during the Russiagate years, but it’s gone into overdrive since the arrival of COVID. The CNN writer who thinks it’s necessary to put a disclaimer in the lede of a story about molnupiravir, of all things, is basically claiming he or she is afraid a theoretical unvaccinated person might otherwise read the story and be encouraged to not take the vaccine.
It’s a horse de-wormer that specifically isn’t for treating Covid
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2021/08/29/ivermectin-a-40-year-old-anti-parasitic-now-embedded-in-a-covid-19-culture-war/?sh=2eca20cfce09
meds are used for off label use ALL of the time. it’s been around for DECADES like HCQ and if people want to try it, who the F cares. what is it to you?
@UA-NYC – In fairness, you’re “debunking” other commenters yet repeating the debunked and recanted Ivermectin horse de-wormer nonsense.
“Do you think that’s a problem that your news network lies,” Rogan asked. “Dude, they lied and said I was taking horse dewormer.”
“Yeah, yeah yeah, they shouldn’t have said it was horse” dewormer, Gupta responded. “If you got a human pill, because there were people who were taking it, the veterinary medication, and you’re not obviously because you got it from a doctor, so it shouldn’t be called that.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/576723-gupta-tells-joe-rogan-cnn-shouldnt-have-called-ivermectin-horse-dewormer
Might help to learn the history of Ivermectin, Kyle. Was developed for animals:
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/ivermectin-mectizan.html
Later used for humans? Sure. But, you know, not actually recommended for Covid treatment, and not effective either. But nice in just feeding into the anti-vaxxer talking points.
Also, some good information on the toxic effects of using ivermectin to try and treat Covid:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2114907
Good to read before you come rushing to the defense of it. The NEJM maybe is just slightly more reputable than an anti-vaxxing site or random Insta posts that apparently are NBFD around here.
@UA-NYC – CNN made the claim, their own doctor recanted it “they shouldn’t have said that.” It’s NBD that CNN incorrectly labeled the wrong medicine given the name, but to continue to spout it makes it no different than spreading other fake news. I’m not a doctor, I haven’t taken it and don’t intend to, but if Dr. Gupta says it was incorrect by his own employer, then that should be qualified enough.
Pretty sure Kyle will go with the truth, UA..
https://americasfrontlinedoctors5.com/treatments/ivermectin/
Ok I’m lost. If people are afraid of a shot because it is “unproven” then why are they not afraid of a new pill? The logic by anti vaxxers makes no sense although I suppose logic is never an anti-vaxxer’s strong suit…
There are more long-term ramifications from getting a vaccine that reprograms your immune system than an antiviral therapy.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/infection-control-and-hospital-epidemiology/article/original-antigenic-sin-a-potential-threat-beyond-the-development-of-booster-vaccination-against-novel-sarscov2-variants/C8F4B9BE9E77EB566C71E98553579506
https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/mass-vaccination-may-permanently
https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/more-on-original-antigenic-sin-and
That’s because critical thinking is lost in members of a cult.
Exactly. Follow the science! Follow the science! Follow the science! Follow the science! Flatten the curve! Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives!
Hope all these people stop dropping dead suddenly. See all slides. Must be dying suddenly from COVID?! rightttt. smdh.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CWQcY05FCmE
Hey, do you want to post any other examples of a single person dying and magically extrapolate that to “all vaccines are bad and killing people but the MSM doesn’t want to tell you that”? SMFH.
German news agency compiles a list of 75 European athletes who have died “suddenly” in the past 5 months since being fully vaccinated. (Source: https://threader.app/thread/1455320859753787396)
Please. Enjoy your boosters until you die suddenly.
Heart attacks kill 18mm people globally each year. One in three people die from a heart attack. And guess what, I bet a lot of them are vaccinated too!
Mental disorders are increasingly affecting people these days. Get yourself some help already.
Yeah and they are all healthy athletes in the best shape and prime of their lives.. guess what — 75 healthy athletes don’t have heart attacks within 5 months of being vaccinated, but nice try! FOH
People, don’t you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me
Are we too blind to see?
Do we simply turn our heads
And look the other way
UA is an angry young man. Unless of course he is meeting TPG in a airport restroom, then it’s all good. Except for the guy in the stall next door listening to the rhythmic slapping while just trying to do his business.
Try and find one legitimate news source for this story – one. You can’t do it – because you only traffic in conspiracy theory.
And if you actually read the list, it’s mainly a list of athletes who had heart conditions who are now fine…but you didn’t, you found a link that fit your sicko conspiracy narrative.
Here’s a legit article where you can, you know, educate yourself actually on athletes and hear conditions: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-cardiac-arrest/in-depth/sudden-death/art-20047571
Look, we can talk once the vaccines are taken off the market, which they will be. What will you be saying then? Every single rushed injection in history has been taken off the market. What don’t you get about that?
Re: heart attacks, it’s certainly VERY timely how now the MSM and Mayo and more are prepping everyone for heart attacks in the young and healthy, all the in the past month or two:
https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20211025/scad-heart-attack-killing-young-women
https://www.cminj.com/blog/whats-behind-the-rise-in-heart-attacks-among-young-people
We all know it’s because the vaccine. Brain dead fools like you choose not to admit it.
but the truth always comes out. it will take time, but the truth WILL come out and CANNOT be stopped. You’ll see.
my comment is awaiting moderation, as usual. FFS, this sites comment system blows. there have to be better options.
Matthew – you may want to clarify that the US only requires 24-hour testing for entry for those unvaccinated (and meeting the citizen/permanent resident requirement). For the vast, vast majority of people, it is the 3 day rule – and is actually more flexible than a hard 72 hour cutoff.
@Charles – This is Kyle, the author of this post. You’re correct, I will update that. Though the distinction kind of proves my point which is that the varying requirements for testing is all over the place.
Natural immunity is highly variable, much more so than vaccination.
It is unknown and cannot be assumed that boosters are needed forever. The hepatitis B vaccine is a 3 dose vaccine with a booster in 10 years. Covid may be similar. Or maybe 4 doses then every 5 years.
The pill is not a game changer in my opinion. It is just a good weapon.
Natural Immunity or BUST.
Totally acceptable in the EU
@Steve – not acceptable for entry or quarantine release (if required in that country.)
If you have the antibodies, you can’t use that test to enter Italy and frankly, I don’t think you can interact as normal without a vaccine but WITH natural immunity. I am open to correction, however.
So far all we have is press releases on the new drugs. No published studies.
The press release data for these proprietary new dugs is roughly similar to those of studies of the off-patent Ivermectin, one of whose paths of action is as a protease inhibitor.
The fat lady has not sung on the efficacy and longer term impact of these new drugs, nor on Ivermectin. These new drugs promise to do roughly the same thing that Ivermectin appears to do. It will be good to have them in our arsenal of tools against Covid, But it’s not likely to change the travel landscape in the near future. Expect continuing testing and vaccination requirements.
It will be interesting in the future if there is evidence of pharma funding and directing the attack on Ivermectin. It’s completely unwarranted at the same time as we are using remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies, and now the two new drugs. In fact it would be an interesting study to randomly compare blind assignment of infected patients to Ivermectin and the two new drugs.
How is this statement true: “The pill more or less eliminates the need for boosters and some might argue for vaccination at all.”
The pill is taken after you get Covid. Its better to not get Covid at all.
Also, while actual costs vary, the vaccine costs ~$25-50 to get, while these pills will cost ~$700. Plus you have to realize you may have Covid and not the flu, get diagnosed and a prescription, all within days of infection to avoid hospitalization.
The measles typically isn’t deadly, but we still take a vaccine for that. If the problem is an annual vaccine, well we do that for the flu, and most people I know take the flu vaccine every year.
BTW, your stat for the flu vaccine is wrong and no where close to reality. From the CDC website:
Vaccination coverage with ≥1 dose of flu vaccine was 63.8% among children 6 months through 17 years, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from the 2018–19 flu season, and flu vaccination coverage among adults ≥18 years was 48.4%, an increase of 3.1 percentage points from the prior season. Half (51.8%) of persons six months and older were vaccinated during the 2019–20 season, an increase of 2.6 percentage points from the prior season.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33729203/
“Results: The overall IHR was 2.1%”
2.1% of the cases result in hospitalization. 2,1%. To say that you need to get the pill quickly to avoid hospitalization is as false as Kirby claiming the Polaris service is top notch
While that is an interesting stat, there is also this:
“These drugs can be administered at any stage of the infection based on their mode of action,” said Fenyong Liu, a virologist at the University of California, Berkeley. However, they will be more effective if they are given in the early stages of the infection, he added, “because more severe complications and damage due to infection are always associated with later stages.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-antiviral-drugs-merck-pfizer-pills-work-rcna5317
Measles typically isn’t deadly?
https://www3.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14173:basic-measles-facts&Itemid=72231&lang=en
There were about 2.6 million deaths per year before vaccines were available. This was when the world’s population was about 60% smaller.
The COVID-19 vaccines are no measles vaccine. A sad irony of the hysterical response to COVID-19 is that vaccinations for other diseases have been impeded. COVID-19 overwhelmingly strikes down the old and unhealthy. Vaccines like MMR prevent deaths among the young with many years to live otherwise. No boosters every six months necessary!
Two issues:
If there’s an effective treatment, less people will do the right thing and keep their vaccinations up to date. That means more spread and lots more opportunities for new mutations.
I haven’t heard anything yet about whether the new treatments will stop the effects of Covid, like loss of taste and Long Haul issues.
Take a look at the UK’s vaccine surveillance report (see page 22). COVID-19 cases are twice as prevalent among doubly-vaccinated adults than unvaccinated for ages 40-69. Case rates are only much higher for unvaccinated children, but they are at very low risk for bad outcomes already. So, who is really spreading the virus?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1032859/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_45.pdf
@ Kyle (Author), where did you source this statement from “Rather than rewrite the genetic code as the vaccines do”. Please clarify. I am not aware of any vaccine rewriting anyone’s genetic code.
@Ted – The mRNA programs to create a spike protein in perpetuity. There’s only a single type of spike protein created (which is why the vaccines sometimes have difficulty with variants) and there is no way to turn off that spike protein production.
Not to be confrontational, but more to qualify this post and title, is this more about wishful thinking from an anti-vaxxer? It’s no secret that you are, Kyle. As such, I am curious if this is the sentiment of a person who is desperate to be back out in the world and so far is not welcome?
I imagine for those opposed to the vaccine that there is a hope with every therapy or alternative that someone out there in the world will welcome them. Because, you know, traveling to Houston is just not quite as sexy as, say, Bangkok.
The therapy development is good. It’s going to save lives as a backstop for many. But for now, and I imagine the next year or two, anti-vaxxers will be going nowhere special.
Spoken like a member of what Matt Taibbi called “the cult of the vaccine.” Why are you so desperate to have folx join your cult? Obey and you shall be rewarded, comrade.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-cult-of-the-vaccine-neurotic
Thailand already allows unvaccinated folx to enter. There is just that pesky 10-day quarantine. For the determined, though, there is a way.
Ah yes, citing a has-been “journalist” struggling to regain relevance. Calling 70% of the US as well as the scientific community a cult while you pick and choose what parts of science you choose to believe in sounds more cultish to me.
Why is it that outlets like the Times are afraid of what is happening at Substack? Taibbi is very much relevant and has amassed quite a large, politically diverse following.
I wasn’t aware that science was a consensus endeavor. Yes, let’s believe the public health establishment when they say that fighting white supremacy is the number one health priority in America just a few months into the pandemic, that spending time outdoors during lockdown was dangerous, that masks mandates work when they don’t regulate what kinds of masks are worn and how. Did your person with a vagina get morning sickness while pregnant? Doctors recommend thalidomide for that. Keep chanting “follow the science.” It signals that you don’t know anything about it.
“There is just that pesky 10-day quarantine”
I fully support this and the non-vaccinated having the freedom to travel. With a 10-day quarantine that is. lol.
You fully support being rewarded for obeying (unjust) orders? Did I see you in Nuremberg?
You might have! I was at the the Le Meridien there in September. What a coincidence!
The socialist authoritarians are winning in Austria. If they’d won in 1945, maybe you never would have had to go show up in Nuremberg at all.