7/16/20 Some Promising Solutions For Covid-19?

    It always seems darkest before the dawn, and hopefully this is another example of this, what with states like Florida, Texas, and California, the three coolest states with fun to be had outdoors experiencing 20% of the world's new cases currently.  It is an impossible task to get the virus under control now, too many people have it and we are just not disciplined enough to do the right thing.  Shit, we did the right thing and the virus still came to our house via Boy's GF and her work at the grocery store.
    Luckily, I have been reading of some promising solutions and work being done in fighting the virus.  First of all, I notice that even though we have more cases than ever, the mortality rate has dropped off, there are currently 3432 deaths and 282,365 people actively infected.  This gives us a death rate of 1.2% which compares very favorably against the rest of the world.  Globally, there have been 580,038 deaths and 13,382,020 people infected.  This gives a death rate of 4.3% which is worse.  In the beginning, I remember seeing rates as high as 6 and 7% death rates.  OF course, 0% would be ideal, but in any given year, many people do die of just regular old influenza, the common cold.  In 2018 (the latest year with data), some 34,200 people died of the flu from CDC data, again mostly were elderly.
    This was supposed to be promising, sorry.  I read a small company out of New York announced today that they are ready to start human trials on their vaccine which according to one of the company founders, the vaccine has the highest number of antibodies, it readily neutralizes the virus cells, and the platform being used for this vaccine is safe and 98%effective in the elderly population, so it seems to be a solid contender.  Along with this company, Moderna, which has just finished a human trial and is ready to start a final human trial before it is ready to be introduced to the population.  There is even another company, Astrazeneca, which is the frontrunner and about to publish their data next week.
    A vaccine helps those who have not had the virus, I don't know that it helps those already infected and in a hospital.  In the US, the FDA has created a new task force CTAP (Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program) and they have already worked on looking at and evaluating over 510 drug treatment programs.  This is where medicines like Remdisivir and Dexamethasone which are medicines developed and normally used for other infections, being used to help seriously ill people fight the effects of the virus.  Enoxaparin, which has not really made the news, but is effective in breaking up clots which the body has been known to form post virus attack.  Unfortunately, they have had to deal with undoing the damage whether intentional or not by the president when he mentioned drinking bleach or injecting it, or standing in front of UV sources.  Both of these do kill the virus and we use them to clean surfaces at home in the form of bleach and disinfectants and UV light is used in medical facilities to sterilize equipment but they will readily also kill human tissue and cells, so it is a horrible idea to expose your body to them.  Finally, silver has also had to be mentioned as it has been sold by people that take advantage of naive people by the likes of Infowars host Alex Jones and that old televangelist, Jim Baker.  It does not do anything positive to the corona virus and it could harm the person ingesting it.  I like the simple solutions and one that I see on the list is simply laying the patient in the prone position, laying a patient on their belly, has been found to open up the lungs.  Wife told me that they had done this to a young girl from back home and I thought "what does that matter?", but I see now that it has a purpose.  This simple act has prevented many patients from not even needing to be put on ventilators.
    I appreciate the efforts taken by the medical field.  They are put in the very dangerous role of standing in front of and facing the virus head on.  They do not get to hide like the bulk of us at home.  Many have even gotten sick and even died from being exposed in their work environment.  Wife and I were talking about the fear of getting sick and not only surviving but what the cost of hospitalization might be as some of these medicines sound like they may be costly.  My take is that if we get that bad and they can keep us alive, the cost doesn't matter so much.  I would prefer to survive, I kind of want to be around for a while longer.