[News] The Coronavirus Good News thread

[SK1NT]

Brighton won't lose a match for a few weeks.

I do really like the air pollution stories.Another here over China: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51691967

 

[Bry Nylon]

We'll come out the other side of this with a bit more perspective on what's really important in life. So enjoy the little things, because one day we'll look back and realise they were actually the big things.

And we will come out the other side of this.

 

[Mellotron]

We’ll be able to act like double hard ******** when we’re old, telling the nippers we survived a global pandemic so they can go and bloody well clean their room.

 

[dingodan]

Some of this has been hinted at over the last few weeks, but it does sound promising. An effective cure/treatment seems like the best hope we have of avoiding a really really rough year or more.

"Australian researchers claim two existing drugs could 'cure' COVID-19 after patients they tested responded 'very well' to treatment"

"Queensland researcher claims HIV and anti-malaria drugs may be the cure"

"A team of infectious disease experts at the University of Queensland in Brisbane say they have seen two existing medications manage to wipe out COVID-19 infections.

Chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, and HIV-suppressing combination lopinavir/ritonavir have both reportedly shown promising results in human tests and made the virus 'disappear' in infected patients."

"Queensland researcher, Professor David Paterson, said he hopes to enrol people in larger scale pharmaceutical trials by the end of the month."

"Professor Paterson said it wouldn't be wrong to consider the drugs a possible 'treatment or cure' for the deadly respiratory infection.

He explained that when the HIV medication lopinavir/ritonavir was given to people infected with the coronavirus in Australia it led to the 'disappearance of the virus'.

He told Australian news site news.com.au: 'It's a potentially effective treatment.

'Patients would end up with no viable coronavirus in their system at all after the end of the therapy.'

Although the treatment had been effective in a smattering of cases, there hasn't been any controlled testing like what would be needed to test a new drug, Professor Paterson said.

'That first wave of Chinese patients we had (in Australia), they all did very, very well when they were treated with the HIV drug,' Professor Paterson said.

'What we want to do at the moment is a large clinical trial across Australia, looking at 50 hospitals, and what we're going to compare is one drug, versus another drug, versus the combination of the two drugs,' Professor Paterson said."

"Lopinavir/ritonavir, the anti-HIV drug being tested, is most commonly sold under the name Kaletra.

It is an antiviral medication which can be taken twice a day by people infected with HIV in order to reduce levels of the virus circulating in the body.

Regular use of the medication is intended to stop HIV progressing to AIDS, which is fatal, and may also reduce the risk of people transmitting the infection to others.

It is a type of drug called a protease inhibitor, which works by stopping viruses from using an enzyme called protease, which is vital for them to be able to spread.

Without protease viruses cannot make the fully-matured clones that they need to be able to infect other healthy cells, so the infection can't spread.

This ability to stop a virus from reproducing and infecting new cells is believed to be what apparently makes Kaletra an effective coronavirus treatment."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-Australian-researchers-CURE-coronavirus.html

Sounds like we have already moved to make sure it will be available to treat cases here, would be interesting to know if it is being used at all yet for current patients.

The UK government has banned the parallel export and “hoarding” of three drugs being used to treat coronavirus patients in China in anticipation of shortages in Britain following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The export of the US-based AbbVie’s Kaletra / Aluvia, a combination lopinavir and ritonavir, the generic drug chloroquine phosphate and the generic drug hydroxychloroquine is being restricted to meet the needs of UK patients, the government said.

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/comment/parallel-export-covid-19/

 

[Bozza]

Some of this has been hinted at over the last few weeks, but it does sound promising. An effective cure/treatment seems like the best hope we have of avoiding a really really rough year or more.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-Australian-researchers-CURE-coronavirus.html

I can't recall which NSCer it was, but someone posted about this at least a month ago as he had read about the effectiveness of these drugs and ordered a load of the generic version from India.

The usage goes back some years to SARS: https://thorax.bmj.com/content/59/3/252

EDIT: looks like they're giving it a shot in India - https://www.indiatoday.in/india/sto...tonavir-case-to-case-basis-1656488-2020-03-17

 

[RossyG]

I think this counts as positive news.

 

[spence]

No air travel = the planet might yet be saved. Convert all the planes into affordable housing and everyone holidays in their home country in the future reinvigorating each country’s tourism sector post-Corona. Win win.

 

[spence]

Petrol prices continue to drop

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Christ.

Another CV thread.

I'm fast losing consciznssss

 

[LamieRobertson]

Harry’s losing consciousness

 

[Notters]

I can't stand Tories and Boris is everything I cannot stand about them but even I think he appears to be a man of action being prepared to change direction if required only a couple of days ago we were heading for the herd mantra but when models showed this was likley to be a huge mistake we over night changed course now that takes courage self belief and leadership.

Nah. Right from the beginning they said they would start off slowly then ramp up. Then the media said they were doing nothing. This is exactly what I was expecting,though maybe a little quicker.

 

[RossyG]

Hmm...

 

[dingodan]

Hmm...

View attachment 121141

I thought that was highly suspect but his twitter seems legit, and umn.edu is legit.

Also:

This is his trial:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04308668?term=boulware&draw=2&rank=2

Drug: Hydroxychloroquine

Mentioned in these articles (different trials from elsewhere, same drug).

“We were able to ascertain that patients who had not received Plaquenil (the drug containing hydroxychloroquine) were still contagious after six days, but of those that had received Plaquenil, after six days, only 25% were still contagious.”

Chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine have previously been used to treat coronavirus patients in China, in ongoing Covid-19 clinical trials.

https://www.connexionfrance.com/Fre...ssful-Covid-19-coronavirus-drug-trial-results

The patient’s close contacts would be administered hydroxychloroquine, a drug for malaria and rheumatoid conditions because laboratory experiments suggest it prevents this strain of coronavirus from reproducing.

“The goal of our study is to separate the transmission chains,” Oriol Mitja, researcher at Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute, told a news briefing.

Patients with coronavirus can infect between 5% and 15% of the people they come into contact with during the 14 days after starting to show symptoms, he said. The trial’s goal is to reduce that number below 14 days and also to reduce the percentage of contacts infected and researchers plan to analyze the results in 21 days.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...otential-coronavirus-treatments-idUSKBN21331M

 

[Palacefinder General]

Hopefully we can move on from the gang mentalities of left wing and right wing and just do what’s right wing.

WTF!?

 

[kevo]

I can't stand Tories and Boris is everything I cannot stand about them but even I think he appears to be a man of action being prepared to change direction if required only a couple of days ago we were heading for the herd mantra but when models showed this was likley to be a huge mistake we over night changed course now that takes courage self belief and leadership.

Their batshit idea (going against every other country's policies, as well advice from the WHO) will result in thousands more deaths. They had NO CHOICE but to change direction.

You sound like Boris fan girl Laura K telling the nation "the science has changed". It's utter bull****. Many more people will die unnecessaily because of this government.

 

[OzMike]

I didn't struggle to get a parking spot near to the site this morning and no queue for coffee.

 

[rogersix]

Jehovah’s Witnesses will be chuffed everyone’s at home.

even better, they have also been stood down

 

[Fungus]

Read about this earlier - those canal images are quite shocking. More here on pollution levels.........

https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-covid-19-is-doing-to-our-pollution-levels

Very interesting... "according to Burke, even conservatively, it's very likely that the lives saved locally from the reduction in pollution exceed COVID-19 deaths in China."

Some other excellent points too.

 

[Fungus]

Harry’s losing consciousness

Never heard of that band.

 

[Norman Potting]

Their batshit idea (going against every other country's policies, as well advice from the WHO) will result in thousands more deaths. They had NO CHOICE but to change direction.

You sound like Boris fan girl Laura K telling the nation "the science has changed". It's utter bull****. Many more people will die unnecessaily because of this government.

I think this belongs in the Private Fraser (we're dooooooomed) thread