Remdesivir vs Hydroxychloroquine
 

There's been news about both drugs recently, good, bad and mediocre. Before comparing what we know, it's helpful to look at some data taken directly from NYC health department, current epicenter of the pandemic.

25.8% of confirmed coronavirus cases have been hospitalized in NYC, 29.7% of those people died, and over 80% of those put on ventilators died. Overall death rate compared to confirmed cases is about 7%, but it's probably much less than that if you take into account antibody studies showing that many people get the disease and recover without ever being diagnosed. What we can conclude from this data is that your chances of dying go way up if you are hospitalized, and way way up if you are put on a ventilator.

COVID-19: Data - NYC Health

So let's compare remdesivir to hydroxychloroquine treatment.

Remdesivir is an intravenous drug, which means it is given only in hospitals at this point
Remdesivir is likely to be very expensive, costing over $1000 per day. Probably very high copays like other designer drugs.
The main supplier for the chemicals used in Remdesivir is in China.

Hydroxychloroquine is a pill that can be taken at home, before your symptoms warrant hospitalization
Hydroxychloroquine costs a dollar or two per day.
Hydroxychloroquine is made all over the world by many companies, there's no patent, and nobody stands to make billions if they use it.

A couple of clinical trials for remdesivir are being released, one published at The Lancet which said:

Our trial found that intravenous remdesivir did not significantly improve the time to clinical improvement, mortality, or time to clearance of virus in patients with serious COVID-19 compared with placebo.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...022-9/fulltext

Another trial done by on remdesivir has not yet been published, but DR Fauci leaked some details from it, calling it promising.

Fauci said the median recovery time for patients treated with remdesivir was 11 days, compared with the 15 days for patients in the placebo group. Death rate was 8% in remdesivir group vs 11% in placebo group, not significant.

That's better than nothing but certainly not spectacular. When they release the paper we'll know more.

As far as studies on Hydroxychloroquine, we don't have double blind studies yet but will soon. There are over 140 studies of HCQ plus various drugs listed at National Library of Medicine so hopefully we will have proof one way or the other shortly. There seems to be a consensus among Doctors using HCQ cocktails that it works best soon after symptoms develop, before you go to the hospital.

Here is a link to a letter by The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons about the good results of HCQ drug cocktails before disease progresses to hospitalization.

"In addition, Michael J. A. Robb, M.D., of Phoenix is compiling all reports as they come in. As of this date, the total number of reported patients treated with HCQ, with or without azithromycin and zinc, is 2,333. Of these, 2,137 or 91.6 percent improved clinically. There were 63 deaths, all but 11 in a single retrospective report from the Veterans Administration where the patients were severely ill."

AAPS Letter Asking Gov. Ducey to Rescind Executive Order concerning hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 - AAPS | Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

Looking at the data in the remdesivir study published in The Lancet (link above) is a graph showing viral load shows little difference between remdesivir and placebo groups.

Attachment 83917

Some sharp eyed MDs have noticed something very disconcerting about the NIAID clinical trial on remdesivir. They still have not published the paper but MDs have noticed something very strange.

They changed the endpoints for the study in mid April, while it was still going on. The endpoints are the various results they use to judge the drug's efficacy or not on a given parameter. Changing these during a trial is a big no no, and it's got lots of Doctors doubting the science.

It's like being in a race and suddenly declaring victory where you are instead of continuing on the finish line. Very disappointing, someone needs to ask Dr Fauci some very pointed questions.

I think it is too early to tell, and even when we get some valid statistics, there seems no one to dispense them. I am tired of accolades and exaggerations and promises.

I liked the way it used to work. Someone we could trust, telling us what happened.

Even Dr. Fauci can't pull it out of the air. They have just begin to ship quantities of the newest drug to test.

We have not agreed on much in the last 3 years or so, but on this...I agree with you.

ALL medical folks feel any vaccine or variant is minimum 8 months away.

Seems trust is non existant in today’s world.

A new retrospective study on hydroxychloroquine has been posted (preprint) Similar to the VA study except it shows success not failure. This new study used HCQ only, no azithromycin or zinc was used.

A retrospective look at 568 patients in Wuhan. All of them were confirmed positive and on mechanical ventilation, median age 68, 63% male. 520 of them had standard of care (various antivirals and antibiotics), and in addition 48 patients were treated with 200mg hydroxychloroquine (b.i.d.) They measured hospital stay, mortality, and IL-6 levels as well. And their results were quite striking: mortality was 18.8% in the HCQ group and 45.8% in the others. Patient IL-6 levels declined significantly in the treatment group, but not in the other cohort. The preprint’s Figure 3 also indicates that IL-6 went back up after hydroxychloroquine was discontinued.

Hydroxychloroquine application is associated with a decreased mortality in critically ill patients with COVID-19 | medRxiv

Hydroxychloroquine use must be OK, high level user announced today.
:beer3:

Yep, I suspected he might be, he's also taking zinc.

He's not alone, 1000s of Doctors doing the same. There's a clinical trial going on to see if it indeed works as a prophylactic.

If you watch certain news channels, all you will hear about hydroxychloroquine is that it failed in VA trials, it's dangerous to take outside of hospitals etc etc

Meanwhile prescriptions for it are soaring all over the world. The "very dangerous to take outside of hospitals" is especially funny. Millions and millions of people take it every day for lupus and arthritis and they are not in hospitals and not dying.

A lot of talking heads are going to be wearing their sad faces if you know who is proven to be right about his hunch.

As of this morning they all are, just not certain ones......

Neil Cavuto is not a Potus fan, well known for quite a while.

There is? He didn't just go off on his own? Can you please link us to that study??

I think this move will not go unnoticed by the huge group of savvy health service employees and their families who speak pretty good medicalize and who understand and follow all of the recent medicines used and discarded. People generally are much more aware of news on the virus. However the divide is huge. There are some folks who are following and believing a lot of incorrect information from very biased sources.

This is the second terribly outrageous medical faux pas that will have repercussions in how people check off things in November.

That high level user who just announced he was taking it said that a lot of doctor's and other front-line heroes were also doing it and he's received lots of calls touting the use of it. Can't you just take his word for it?

Dr. Ivette Lozano has been prescribing hydroxychloroquine with very good results. All we can do is hope and move on with our lives.

There are a lot of clinical trials going on right now using HCQ plus other drugs. Some as a treatment for covid 19 patients

Hydroxychloroquine and Zinc With Either Azithromycin or Doxycycline for Treatment of COVID-19 in Outpatient Setting - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov

And some using the drugs as a prophylactic like this one with front line medical workers.

Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin as Prophylaxis for Healthcare Workers Dealing With COVID19 Patients - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov

Trump did not just pull HCQ out of a hat. Lots of DOCTORS have told him that they think it works. When the numerous clinical trials publish their results, I will post about them. Clinical trials are expensive, they don't just start them on a whim, there are over 100 involving HCQ going on right now.

Medical faux pas? LOL Pretty sure that POTUS has a really good cardiologist. The whole scare tactic of the media calling HCQ a dangerous drug is laughable. Funny, we didn't hear scary stories about HCQ prior to POTUS touting it. Millions of lupus and arthritus
sufferers have been taking it daily for years. Pretty sure POTUS's cardiologist took a look at his QT intervals to see if their might be a problem, just like mine did when I asked him if I could take the drug if I got sick. Pretty sure POTUS can afford a $30 portable QT monitor to make sure he's ok. You're a woman right? Pretty sure you can have a private conversation with your Doctor and get an abortion without an act of Congress and the approval of the talking idiots on TV.

Terribly outrageous faux pas? Seen any interviews of the other guy lately?