Has COVID changed your relationships?

[Dancing Fire]

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Development of small molecule drugs is not as easy as you think.

But you believe in the fast track development of the vaccine?

 

[oakleaf]

I don‘t speak to certain extended family members anymore after they sent me a facebook message about how I should go to jail (be executed?) for helping to administer COVID vaccines.

 

[Lookinagain]

But you believe in the fast track development of the vaccine?

So believing in other medications to fight the virus is a dangerous, fascist propaganda ?...

Responding to you is just so not worth it anymore!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Responding to you is just so not worth it anymore!

Because you know I'm right...

 

[mom2dolls]

Covid has quite drastically changed relationships in my life. My best friend and I are barely speaking after this year of events. I think some choose to use Covid as an excuse for bad behavior or lack of support. Yet, on the other hand choose to do certain things for others or themselves when it is convenient. Sick of not getting the support and compassion deserved when my father died earlier this year, but when they needed something due to a family death, I am expected to drop everything to help them. Nope, boundaries are a beautiful thing expect to those that don't respect them!

 

[m-cubed]

But you believe in the fast track development of the vaccine?

Vaccines are relatively well understood technology. You present an antigen (in one of many different ways), maybe add an adjuvant to amp up the immune response. Fiddle with the booster regimen, make sure you don’t see antibody-dependent enhancement, etc. It’s not quite that simple (example 1 would be all the HIV vaccine failures), but it’s utilizing the same machinery and pathways (antigen processing, antigen presentation, T and B cell responses, etc) to attack different things you are trying to vaccinate against. Delivery (we’re talking how to get the active agent to the place it needs to be in your body, not how to get the vials to your pharmacy) is pretty well worked out on these, too. Vaccines are amazing because it doesn’t take much active agent to get your body working to deliver that desired response. You deliver that little bit of active agent, usually to the muscle, 1, 2 or 3x over time and you’re good to go.

When it comes to small molecule drugs, we are talking different pathways for each drug. That’s a lot of new biology to work out, though hopefully you’re got some knowledge to start. You’re often trying to inhibit a viral protein (let’s simplify and say ”gum up the works”). So we have to get a compound that is potent enough to gum up the works for that specific viral protein and with an amount you can safely get into a human. It’s got to not gum up other proteins in the human body that might be sort of similar to the virus protein we are targeting, at that concentration, noting that the higher dose you need to give, the more likely you get non-specific gumming up of other stuff. The compound has got to have appropriate properties (solubility, hydrophobicity, etc) to be delivered to the tissue of interest at the level needed. If we’re talking oral tablet, does it get through the gut to the blood or do drug transporters excrete it back into the gut? What is the blood concentration over time, and how frequently do you need to dose to keep the blood concentration at a sufficient level to get to the tissue of interest at the right concentration. So we’ve got efficacy to work out, delivery, formulation, ADME issues, and then we’re looking at safety assessment. The phase 3 trial on molnupiravir had a treatment group of less than 400 patients. For a short course like is proposed for this drug, the risk is less compared to a drug given for a long time (for example that would apply to prophylactic small molecule drug treatment to prevent COVID), but that’s still a pretty small group in which you probably will miss low frequency safety issues.

I think it’s wonderful that we are getting some positive results from new therapies, but there’s a reason the vaccines came out in Dec 2020 and drug therapies are lagging behind. We absolutely need treatments because this virus will cause breakthrough cases in vaxxed folks, and there are those who cannot receive a vaccine because of medical contraindications or who don’t respond because of immunocompromised status. But we need to reduce the population who need them as much as possible by vaccinating everyone we can.

 

[Lookinagain]

Because you know I'm right...

Ah....no. Because you won't recognize anything other than what you want to. I think you are VERY wrong, but again, it's not worth responding to your posts about the vaccines because no matter how many facts are presented to you, you keep repeating your same points, which have been debunked over and over again.
Oh, and by the way, if I thought you were right, I'd say so.
That's all I'll say to you about it (at least until you at least come up with something new).

 

[seaurchin]

Ah....no. Because you won't recognize anything other than what you want to. I think you are VERY wrong, but again, it's not worth responding to your posts about the vaccines because no matter how many facts are presented to you, you keep repeating your same points, which have been debunked over and over again.
Oh, and by the way, if I thought you were right, I'd say so.
That's all I'll say to you about it (at least until you at least come up with something new).

Definitely. I'm just going to block him. :/

 

[Calliecake]

I hope you and your family stay safe @Dancing Fire. Talking to you about this is like hitting my head against the wall. And no, I don’t think you are right.

 

[Dancing Fire]

I hope you and your family stay safe @Dancing Fire. Talking to you about this is like hitting my head against the wall. And no, I don’t think you are right.

I still wanna talk politic with your dad...

 

[Dancing Fire]

Definitely. I'm just going to block him. :/

Most members do when they know I'm right. It is hard for them to face the facts.

 

[Dancing Fire]

He isn’t vaccinated. It makes me sad.

Don't worry he survived for two yrs now. unlike me whom still go to the bar drinking.