America is getting ready to go back to work with one issue on its mind, ”If I go back to work, could I get sick and possibly die?” We have been told that vaccination could be more than a year away and also that the COVID-19 could come back in the winter and be as bad, if not worse than it is now. It seems the average American is very uneasy about leaving his home to go back to work. If that is true, then why is the announcement from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, (NIAID), a part of the NIH, so important that the Gilead drug Remdesivir has met its primary target in the treatment of COVID-19? By the way, do you know what COVID-19 stands for? In case you are not prepared for a trivia question, here is the answer: coronavirus disease of 2019.
While other clinical trials are still being conducted, given the most recent data, the expectations are for similar results. A critical part of the NIAID trial was to test 5 days vs. 10 days of treatment. What the study found was that the 5-day treatment was very close to the 10-day treatment in terms of the percentage of the people who recovered and went home. If we can cure the critically ill faster, then we can send them home sooner with less treatment cost. More trial results are expected over the next 30 days, and if they continue to be as effective, look for the FDA to announce the approval of Remdesivir as the only FDA approved treatment for COVID 19. This is sorely needed as the following statistics show: According to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 map, on a global basis over 3.1 million people have been infected, and over 218,000 people have died from COVID-19. As of April 29, the United States has identified 1,013,160 people who have tested for the COVID-19 virus, and 59,113 Americans have died. The White House has said that it supports a recent increase in the death projections to 74,000.
In countries all over the world, there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of persons still in hospital being treated for the virus. Until today, the world has been waiting for a vaccine that originally might have been 12 to 18 months away. In the United States, the FDA has not approved any treatment for the COVID-19 virus; however, on April 28, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that “Japan is on the verge of initiating a fast-track approval process for Remdesivir, the experimental Gilead Sciences antiviral, to treat patients infected by the novel coronavirus.” I believe that other nations soon will follow the direction of Japan. Hopefully, the United States will be one of them.
Stock markets around the world are reacting favorably to the news about Remdesivir. This success, if it continues, will be the silver bullet that the world has been waiting for. It will take some time, however, for the real impact of this treatment to sink in for investors to begin to take an honest look at the company’s potential.
If we genuinely believe that we are going to get a second wave of the virus in the fall, Remdesivir could well be our greatest weapon in stopping the spread of COVID-19.
At this time, let me ask all of you to participate in an online survey. Go to Danperkins.guru and answer this one question: “Would your concern about going back to work be reduced if you
knew that there was a drug that could cure you if you got sick?” I will let you know the results of the survey in a future commentary.
BREAKING NEWS
Anthony Fauci, the head of NIAID and the government’s top infectious-disease specialist, said at a White House meeting with President Donald Trump and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards that the trial showed a significant positive effect on the virus and that the results “were quite good news.”
Fauci called the study the “first truly high-powered randomized placebo-controlled trial” of remdesivir.
Dan Perkins is a published author of 4 novels on nuclear and biological terrorism against the United States and is a current events commentator for over 20 news blogs. He recently has had commentaries posted on Flag&Cross and Clash Daily. He regularly appears on radio and TV between 40 and 60 times a month, depending on the news cycles, and on about 1,400 radio stations and TV networks. Dan’s newest show is called “America’s Cannabis Conversation” on the W420radionetwork.com, a new show that broadcasts Saturday each week at 4:20 PM local time. More information on Perkins can be found at his web site danperkins.guru.
