Yesterday, the drug company Merck submitted their antiviral pill to the FDA for emergency approval. If accepted, this would be a first oral antiviral treatment for the coronavirus, and wouldn’t require hospitalization or an expensive, extensive infusion process. The pill doesn’t protect against getting infected by COVID-19, nor is it as effective in its treatment, though it would be a major step towards dealing with the virus. The medication would be taken by people who have exhibited early symptoms of COVID-19 and in early trials shows a 40-50% efficacy in keeping people out of the hospital.
I suspect that anti-vaxxers who have thus far refused to get the vaccine will see this as a great boon, keeping them from having to get vaccinated. And it is a great boon. A few things, though – this doesn’t replace getting vaccinated. That protects one from hospitalization and death at a very high rate of around 95%. Further, while the vaccine doesn’t keep a person from a breakthrough infection, it does have more protections against that, which in turn helps keep the spread of the coronavirus down. On the other hand, the antiviral pill has a rate to keep one from the hospital that’s only half as effective. Now, yes, 45-50% is very impressive – especially compared to zero percent without the pill. But when it comes to hospitalization that can lead to long-term health effects or death, I’d think most people would prefer better than two-to-one odds if given the choice. In addition, the vaccine is widely available – at the moment, however, there is a limit on the number of antiviral pills in exists, right now about two million, I believe. Certainly. that will increase in time. But when it’s your hospitalization and life on the line, “in time” is not another of those things most people generally want to screw around with. But there’s another significant issue that occurred to me. One of the main arguments that anti-vaxxers try to use is that the COVID-19 vaccines only have emergency approval from the FDA, never mind that 4.8 billion people around the world have had at least one dose of a vaccine, which has now been studied for over eight months. And another argument is that the vaccines are just a big scam by Big Pharma to enrich themselves. But many, if not most (if not almost all) of these same anti-vaxxers, who will likely celebrate the antiviral pill and rush to take advantage of its use, will blissfully ignore that the pill is developed by the exact same Big Pharma and will have been approved by the exact same emergency approval. So, on the one hand – a vaccine developed by Big Pharma that is 95% effective for hospitalization and death, offers some protection against infection, has been used by 4.8 billion people but “only” has emergency approval. While alternatively – we have an antiviral pill developed by Big Pharma that has a 40-50% efficacy rate for hospitalization and death, provides no protection against infection (and therefore allows for spreading it), has no usage around the world…and will only have emergency approval. The former will continue to be railed against in outraged protests by anti-vaxxers, the latter will likely be exalted as a savior by these outraged anti-vaxxers who rush to take it once they are already infected. Yes, some outraged protestors are upset (they claim) only by vaccine mandates. My observation, however, tends to be that most people who are anti-mandate ignore praise of vaccines and almost never mention support of the "personal choice" people make taking it. Allen West, for instance, as I wrote here yesterday, went on a 6-tweet rant against mandates and Big Pharma. Yet zero praise of vaccines. Further, my observation is that people protesting vaccine mandates are basically all unvaccinated – which means they were against vaccines long before mandates ever existed. So, in the end, this “outrage” is not about mandates. Nor is it really about emergency FDA approval of vaccines developed by the greedy Big Pharma. Because if it were, they would stand by what they call their “principles” and avoid the anti-viral pills that also only will have emergency FDA approval, developed by the greedy Big Pharma. But I’ll bet cash money that once there is emergency approval of the antiviral pill, most unvaccinated people who come down with early COVID-19 symptoms will fall over themselves rushing to get the pill. No matter what the approval or who developed it. I suppose that’s because it’s their deeply hypocritical and profoundly irresponsible and dangerous “personal choice.”
2 Comments
John
10/12/2021 08:12:23 am
I’m sure, at some point, the GOP will politicize the pill just like masks, vaccines, mandates and every other life saving measure in place.
Reply
Robert Elisberg
10/12/2021 09:08:56 am
John, thanks for your note. While I do agree that there will absolutely be a faction in the GOP who try to politicize the anti-viral pill when it gets FDA approval, they will have more of an uphill climb. That's because the pill is specifically for people for people who are showing early symptoms of COVID and likely *have been infected*.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|