01-18-2022, 10:00 AM
(01-18-2022, 12:39 AM)jeffster Wrote:(01-17-2022, 06:34 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Multiple defences to combat this: distancing, masking, vaccines, drugs. No one thing will be enough on its own.
The drugs could end up be the game changer.
Or so I hope.
Paxlovid was reported as reducing the probability of hospitalization or death by 89%, which is an impressive number, even allowing for confidence intervals. But that's for high-risk adults, who are more likely to be hospitalized; for the general population the number may be less impressive.
The other question, if you want to consider this the new normal, is how would people get Paxlovid. At the moment it's prescription only, so you would need to go to the doctor's office as soon as you have symptoms and the rapid test is positive, get a prescription, and then go to a pharmacy to get it filled. Depending on how common COVID-19 is in the future, that could turn the family doctors into a bottleneck.
So, I see this as more of another arrow in the quiver rather than a solution to COVID-19 in itself.