Game Changer: New Covid Treatment Pill Could Be Key To Ending Pandemic - Rachel Maddow - MSNBC

[Rhiannon12866]

Rachel Maddow reports on Pfizer's new Covid treatment pill, Paxlovid, which has been granted emergency use authorization by the FDA, and the potential role the treatment could play in significantly reducing hospitalizations and deaths among the unvaccinated and medically vulnerable. Aired on 12/22/2021.

[PSPS]

1. Um, no. This reduces the severity of sickness but doesn't prevent infection or contageousness

[thesquanderer]

13. If it virtually eliminates hospitalizations/deaths, then it achieves the same goals as the vaccine

...with the big unknown right now probably being how much of a factor long covid remains for the unvaccinated who get covid but cure it with drugs.

[PSPS]

14. Wrong. A vaccine prevents infection in the first place.

The reduction of severe illness is certainly worthwhile but avoiding infection in the first place is the goal.

[thesquanderer]

15. Society-wide, the goal is to minimize hospitalizations and deaths.

One's personal goals may differ. But the idea of mandating masks and/or vaccines is to minimize hospitalizations and deaths. If virtually no one was being hospitalized or dying from it, there would be no consideration of mask/vaccine mandates. If these drugs had been developed and were widely available ahead of the vaccines, the vaccine would have been a relatively minor development, and no big deal as far as whether someone chose to get one or not.

[PSPS]

16. I'm sorry but you couldn't be more wrong.

This shifting of the goal posts is quite disconcerting because what you're endorsing is the acceptance of a mere palliative as a solution to the pandemic as if that will be the end of it. While a palliative will, as you correctly describe, "minimize hospitalizations and deaths," it will not prevent infection and, thus, the virus will continue to spread and mutate. And this palliative has not been shown to reduce the incidence of long covid in those infected.

Your heart is probably in the right place but, to declare that, "society-wide," the goal is to let infections continue to spread is exactly the wrong direction to take.

I'll leave it at that. My goal here isn't to start a back-and-forth argument and I've said my peace. Have a happy holiday!

[thesquanderer]

17. Just some clarification...

re:

This shifting of the goal posts is quite disconcerting
...
to declare that, "society-wide," the goal is to let infections continue to spread is exactly the wrong direction to take.

To clarify, I'm not suggesting shifting the goal posts or taking a different direction... I'm suggesting that the goals and direction of the society as whole (by which I mean the government, as opposed to individuals) has always been to do whatever is needed to minimize large-scale hospitalizations and deaths, and that's all. The emphasis on vaccinations has always been the means toward that end, and if other means arise, that vaccine emphasis can diminish. So as I see it, it's not that the goal/destination is changing, but there may be a shift in how we proceed toward that goal. Once drugs that can prevent 100% of serious illness/death exist and are widely available, the relevance of the vaccine is much more limited. (Especially if--as appears to be the case--the drug prevents near 100% of hospitalizations and deaths, which is more protection offered even by three vaccine doses.)

I'm not taking a stand here on whether it is right or wrong that this alone (minimizing large scale hospitalizations/deaths) should be the only goal of the public policy on covid. I'm just saying, from the CDC and government's perspective, my understanding is that it is the goal, with again, vaccinations being merely the best currently available way to achieve it.

Put differently, if before the vaccine, there had quickly been a widely available drug that cured covid, do you think they ever would have closed schools, or stopped people from traveling? I think that the drug alone would have been sufficient for the government to tell people to go on living their lives basically as normal, vaccine or no. And if they subsequently came out with a vaccine as well (but the drugs already existed), I don't think there would be any talk of things like Biden's mandate on business with 100+ employees. (In fact, if a drug cure was widely available, I don't think we'd even see so much as a mask mandate on airlines, regardless of whether vaccines did or did not exist.)

So I'm not suggesting any change in policy, any change in the goal or direction... I'm suggesting that, rightly or wrongly, the goal/direction of the society (government) all along has been to do (and to only do) what is needed to prevent large numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. Which will ultimately leave it strictly up to us as individuals as to whether we want the additional protection a vaccine provides in preventing us from getting it in the first place.

One other tangential thought... If we have a drug that prevents 100% of hospitalizations and deaths in those infected, at that point, covid becomes less dangerous in that respect than the flu... and while flu vaccines are highly recommended, we don't insist on vaccinations, or on masks during flu season. Maybe we should, because many lives would be saved, but that's not enough to meet society's threshold, of what government should do. (Whether the government should be more proactive there is a different conversation, but again I'm talking about what is, not would should or shouldn't be.)

Your heart is probably in the right place...My goal here isn't to start a back-and-forth argument and I've said my peace. Have a happy holiday!

I appreciate that, and same to you. And I feel the same, at least now I feel fully explained. And likewise, I'm sure your heart is in the right place, and wish you happy holidays as well!

[AncientAndy]

18. Vaccinated people are still getting infected, though.

We can use these pills to treat the breakthrough cases.

[drray23]

2. if anything it will encourage the unvaccinated to stay that way

they will say there is no need to get vaccinated, they can just take the pill if they get covid.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. I think you're right.

I don't know what is wrong with these deluded anti-vaxxers. All I had to do was hear the news and I got my vaccination ASAP, this virus sounded like the stuff of nightmares. And now I'm boosted, persuaded my brother to get his, too. But apparently these anti-vaxxers only decide to get it if they're dying. Have they been living under a rock?? People are dying, over 800,000 in less than two years. How can anyone ignore that??

[magicguido]

10. So they fear the vaccine but not this drug? Why?

[thesquanderer]

11. They'll take the drug for the same reason they ask for the vaccine AFTER they get sick.

Because once they actually experience covid, any alternative starts looking good.

In the mean time, they'll laud the drug, not because they think they'll ever have to take it (they already believe they're unlikely to get covid), but because its existence lessens the pressures on everyone having to get vaccinated.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. The unvaccinated made their choice: no mandates

Don't waste these FDA-approved pills on the stupid.

And please explain how the anti-vaxx crowd reconciles these pills with vaccines. I mean these will be government approved, and in their body if they take them.

But you know, beach, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin are all hokey-dokey, right?

[Rhiannon12866]

5. That's the best point which should be addressed.

If they refuse the vaccine because they "don't know what's in it," why would they take these pills?? They "don't know what's in them," either.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Rachel's report did say they had to be taken immediately when symptoms appear

Not much risk of anti-vaxxers doing that. They believe they are invincible.

and you really formed the argument precisely!

[Rhiannon12866]

7. That's what's so frustrating - why single out this lifesaving vaccine??

All of us have gotten numerous vaccines for our entire lives. If we hadn't, this generation would still be dying of polio and smallpox - and I'm willing to be that very few ever asked "what was in" them.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. They've politicized the vaccine. Just like they bake their religion into wedding cakes.

In my unexamined opinion, these people are a generation re-enacting their permissive childhoods as narcissistic/borderline adults. There are no boundaries that they recognize. They can look at something and instantly recognize their version of truth behind the reality. So there is a lot of paranoia in them too.

[thesquanderer]

12. They'll take them because, at that point, they're sick. Different mind-set from when you're well.

Also see post #10.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. This definitely won't end the pandemic

but will at least reduce the need for the immuno-compromised, fully-vaxxed and boosted, to be able to treat themselves at home and not overwhelm the hospitals.

Hopefully it will be found to be effective with a larger population than the trials without any major side-effects.