First the day’s Paxlovid news. Joe Biden has tested positive again for covid, three days after getting the all-clear.
Such ‘rebounds’ are well known with Pfizer’s antiviral, which - at $500 a pop - was pushed to the forefront of early treatment ahead of many better candidates (whose very mention causes official shirts to be torn off green bodies and stuffed into the mouths of white-coated advocates).
Igor Chudov has been tracking the issue of rebounds from Paxlovid, and when Paxlovidian Joe Biden announced himself free of covid - again - he boldly predicted that nah, he’ll be positive again in four days.
"I am calling it: in four days, Biden will announce that he is positive again, is having “mild symptoms”, will have another course of Paxlovid.
He will be thankful to Pfizer for vaccines and Paxlovid "
Just to insert a little anglocentrism in honour of the Commonwealth Games - the NICE guidelines covid recommendations are (to avoid ivermectin like the plague, and) to take Paxlovid as, essentially, early treatment. This is for people at risk of progression to severe covid, but the cost of the treatment is in any case a natural limiter for the NHS.
You can get the NICE guidelines on your MAGICapp:
7.1 Antivirals
Info Box
As of 13 April 2022, NICE has made recommendations for people at high risk of progression to severe COVID-19 on the use of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir (Paxlovid), remdesivir, and molnupiravir. The relative effectiveness of these treatments, and the effectiveness of these treatments when used in combination, has not been established.
Remember Doctors being censored and sanctioned for even talking about ‘unproven treatments’ like HCQ and ivermectin?
Well gerraloadothis, under ‘Rationale’:
“This recommendation is informed by the results of the EPIC-HR trial, which included only unvaccinated people. The trial ran before the emergence of the Omicron variant.”
Pfizer said it’s rare, of course:
“Pfizer has said that from more than 300,000 patients it is monitoring who received the 5-day treatment, around 1-in-3,000 – about 0.03% – reported a relapse after taking the pills.”
Lol, that 1 in 3000 is making a lot of noise.
“That is a lower rate than Pfizer saw in its Paxlovid clinical trial, where about 2% of participants experienced a rebound in viral levels after completing treatment.”
I’ve not followed it closely, but Chudov’s confident prediction indicate he doesn’t think it’s 2% either.