Coronavirus Safety Protocol - please read and discuss

[Futureshock]

I thought he said he was not going to talk about this again? Not that he should STFU (at least people could converse about it), he should discuss it as he wants. He just said last week that he didn't want to bring the distraction to his team.

[Futureshock]

This comment was (a shot at Irvin really) funny:

cnc33 says:
July 19, 2021 at 4:56 pm
Take it from Michael Irvin. He’s right. That dude has put plenty of things in his bloodstream and lived to tell about it, Cole.

[Futureshock]

Meanwhile, also on the Bills...

Bills' Tommy Sweeney develops heart condition from COVID ...

Bills' Tommy Sweeney develops heart condition from COVID-19, what a cardiologist says it is

A cardiologist from Rochester Regional Health says you can't prevent myocarditis, but you can prevent COVID-19.

Bills TE Tommy Sweeney back to full strength after recovering ...

https://www.wivb.com › sports › bills-te-tommy-sweene...
Jun 9, 2021 — Sweeney was diagnosed with myocarditis, a heart condition that stems from Covid-19. It's inflammation of the heart muscle that can cause many ...

“It was mostly mild just the first couple days after I tested positive I had a cough stuff like that. I never felt anything in the heart area so it was really just those first couple days, had a cough and a fever but other than that really nothing which was kind of surprising to find out that they found that,” Sweeney explained.

I am glad Tommy is back to health and I hope there are no long term ramifications

[edindetroit]

Scientists hope they’re closing in on a cure for COVID-19

The last time the world needed an antiviral medicine as quickly as possible, Daria Hazuda, vice president of infectious disease and vaccine discovery research at Merck, answered the call. Around 150,000 Americans were infected with HIV each year when rates peaked in the mid-1980s, and by the year 2000 nearly 500,000 people had died of AIDS in the U.S. Hazuda's research at the time focused on HIV's ability to insert its genetic material into the human genome. Her lab developed a novel way to target that process with a drug called raltegravir, which was approved for use in 2007 and is still used today.

Now, she hopes to develop a drug for COVID-19 — at a substantially faster pace.

While most of the world's attention is currently laser focused on getting vaccines to more people to stem the spread of the coronavirus, there's also significant pressure on scientists to find a cure.

Doctors have some medications they can use to treat the effects of COVID-19, but developing a drug that targets the virus itself is a complex and costly procedure. More than a year into the pandemic only one antiviral treatment — remdesivir — is currently recommended for use in the U.S., and experts say it is not nearly effective enough.

"Vaccine manufacturers are making next generation vaccines to try and stay one step ahead, but it is unpredictable. So you need other interventions to address the potential evolution of the virus," Hazuda said.
"There was a tremendous sense of mission…. There was so much we all had to do."
She and her team, along with researchers at Miami-based Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, worked seven days a week in the spring of 2020 to find a possible treatment for COVID-19 and prepare for the clinical trials necessary to prove its safety and effectiveness. Their drug, molnupiravir, is one of two powerful medicines to treat COVID-19 that are nearing the end of clinical testing.

"The day started really early and ended really late at night," Hazuda said. "But there was a tremendous sense of mission. Everybody wanted to help even though they were exhausted. There was so much we all had to do."

Scientists are hopeful that new drugs designed to stop the virus' deadly reproduction could reduce hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. The drugs offer hope and a contingency plan for unvaccinated individuals, particularly in low-income countries lagging far behind in the race to vaccinate.
Chasing a moving target


Viruses mutate constantly, making it challenging to find a medicine that will not just work, but continue to work as the virus morphs. Mutations can change the shape of viruses' proteins and thereby make them resistant to drugs. The hunt for effective antivirals is largely a hunt for a "conserved target," such as a protein that rarely changes its shape even as the virus mutates.

Since scientists shared the sequenced genome of the novel coronavirus in January 2020 — detailing the specific genetic information and proteins of the virus — researchers have worked at breakneck speed to find a targeted medicine.

Hazuda's experience with HIV and Hepatitis C helped her team quickly rule out targets in the SARS-CoV-2 structure that were likely to change as the virus mutated and focus instead on "very highly conserved targets to minimize the potential of developing resistance," she said.

Antiviral medications often target a virus during the process of replication, when it uses our cells' resources to make copies of itself — leading to cell damage and the release of more virus.

By early March of last year, Hazuda had narrowed her search to compounds aimed at proteins that could copy the virus's genetic material. Her team came across a pre-clinical publication from an Emory University scientist on molnupiravir, a compound initially developed for influenza and other viruses. Research suggested the compound could make it harder for the virus to replicate itself by interrupting the RNA polymerase enzyme, which acts like a copy machine for the viral genome. In various academic labs, molnupiravir has demonstrated activity against flu and many different types of coronavirus, including MERS and the common cold.

"We were very interested in finding an agent that would have the potential to be not only active against CoV-2, but potential future outbreaks or pandemics caused by other coronaviruses," Hazuda said.

Because Ridgeback Biotherapeutics had the rights to molnupiravir, Merck began collaborating with the smaller pharmaceutical company to test the safety of the compound and prepare it for clinical studies.

The idea is that molnupiravir could be taken as an oral pill by symptomatic patients who test positive for COVID-19, before their illness is severe enough to require going to a hospital. The hope is that it can stop the virus in its tracks, before it can replicate uncontrollably and cause a person to become more sick.

Megan McGrew / PBS NewsHour

One phase 2 clinical study showed that molnupiravir is unlikely to significantly change the illness of those people who are hospitalized with COVID-19, but Hazuda is hopeful that phase 3 trials — expected to conclude by the end of the year — will demonstrate its effectiveness as a treatment that can be used outside of the hospital for people with mild to moderate cases.

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, the director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, also spent the spring of 2020 looking for a medication that could thwart the coronavirus' lifecycle, but at a different stage. He sought a drug that influences the human proteins that the virus uses to build its components.

Because viruses hijack human cells and use their proteins (called factors) and other materials for their own purpose, identifying the factors they rely on can be a first step toward halting their actions.

Garcia-Sastre's collaborators at the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, identified more than 300 human factors most likely to make an impact on viral replication. Then, his lab tested around 90 drugs that are known to affect these factors. They landed on plitidepsin, an injectable medicine developed by Spain's PharmaMar and used in patients with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. It was shown to interfere with the function of a human factor called eEF1A, which the virus uses in the assembly of its proteins.

So far, plitidepsin seems to overcome some of the difficulties in finding a drug that targets virus replication. One is that often their effectiveness in the lab or in animal testing doesn't carry over to humans. Another is toxicity: The concentrations required can cause undesired effects in human cells. Plitidepsin passed the critical phase 1 clinical trial conducted in Spain, showing that toxicity is not a barrier to use. The ongoing phase 3 clinical trial will show whether plitidepsin decreased days of hospitalization for COVID-19 patients.

The study, expected to be completed in August, will compare plitidepsin's effectiveness to remdesivir, the current standard of care, which also works by inhibiting replication and can shorten hospitalization for COVID-19 patients by four days, on average. Where remdesivir has fallen short on decreasing the deadliness of the virus, Garcia-Sastre hopes plitidepsin will demonstrate life-saving potential.
The cost of discovery


While doctors have blood thinners and steroids to treat the symptoms of a raging COVID-19 illness, developing a new medicine that specifically targets the virus itself can take many years, explained Bhaven Sampat, an economist and associate professor at the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

By repurposing an existing medicine and using already-developed compounds, both Garcia-Sastre and Hazuda shaved precious time off the drug development process. Piggybacking off already identified candidates also helps sidestep some of the cost spent on basic research.

"That's particularly useful because you don't have to reinvent the wheel in a way," Sampat said.

Remdesivir, so far the only antiviral approved for COVID-19, benefited from the same leg up. Developed nearly a decade ago and shown effective against other coronaviruses including Ebola, SARS and MERS, it was fast tracked for use against COVID-19 and greenlit by the FDA in October 2020.

Another existing drug, ivermectin, may also have potential against SARS-CoV-2. A May meta-analysis suggests it could speed recovery and reduce mortality from COVID-19. The idea is controversial; some experts are unconvinced while proponents are eager to put it to use as a cheap, effective treatment. The anti-parasitic, developed by Merck in the 1980s, is no longer under patent. The company has contended there is not sufficient evidence for its use against COVID. Merck declined to respond to PBS NewHour's request for comment.

Developing a new drug oftentimes costs more than $1 billion dollars, a financial and technological burden typically shared by federally and grant-supported research labs (often at universities), which do basic research to identify drug candidates, and pharmaceutical companies, which bring medicines through expensive clinical trials to market.

The National Institutes of Health is responsible for administering $41.7 billion annually for medical research with an additional $4.9 billion allotted for COVID-19 research. But the percent of the U.S. government's budget dedicated to scientific research and development hit a 60-year low in 2019.

Meanwhile, private entities, such as pharmaceutical companies, have greatly increased their spending on research. "Public and private sectors play complementary but usually distinct roles," said Sampat, who studies NIH funding.

The country's vulnerability during this pandemic has boosted interest in recommitting to basic research in the form of increased federal spending. Biden's administration proposed budget increases of 20 percent or more for the NIH, Centers for Disease Control, and the National Science Foundation, which could help support future discovery and protect against the next pandemic.
"It was kind of like the wild, wild west out there, and that's a problem."
Public funding more often is directed at basic research that enables the development of treatments for rare diseases or diseases of which little is known. Pharma companies tend to put most of their R&D budgets into medicines that will be widely used and turn a profit. Both entities consider protection against future pandemics.

Over the course of the pandemic, the development of a treatment has had to compete with vaccine development for limited funding. "I'm not saying we should have spent less on vaccines — I think we should have spent just a lot more on therapies. And I think there's still time to do so," said Sampat.

Money isn't the only crucial resource subject to competing priorities. Deciding where to direct the limited pool of people eligible to enroll in clinical trials requires oversight from federal regulating bodies, such as the FDA and NIH. Leaders must be aware of all of the possibile medicine candidates to help promote work on the most promising ones.

"I think the NIH could have done more of that," Sampat said. "The coordination point is central. It's as important, if not more important, than the funding point. It was kind of like the wild, wild west out there, and that's a problem."

If funding and clinical trial participants are directed towards a medicine — such as hydroxychloroquine — that does not yield results, that limits the pace at which other drugs can be studied.

There is much to be learned about how best to accelerate the process of drug development so that we are better prepared to face the next pandemic. But figuring out how to evaluate the effectiveness of funding of research and development is difficult; scientific discovery builds upon itself and it is hard to know the importance of new knowledge until it can be put to use, sometimes in unexpected ways. "To attribute the outcomes we care about for these investments, it's a very, very tricky thing and something that Congress, economists and others have struggled with for 60 or 70 years," Sampat said.

If plitidepsin or molnupiravir doesn't make it out of clinical trials successfully, both Hazuda and Garcia-Sastre are sure that their work will not be in vain. Perhaps the drugs can lead researchers in the right direction for treating COVID, or provide a jumping off point for the next great medical need. Because molnupiravir has shown activity against strains of coronavirus that cause the common cold, it may be studied for this purpose in the future or other viruses entirely.

"If it doesn't work, why doesn't it work?" Garcia-Sastre said. "Can we learn something for why it's not working that will help us to get better?"

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/hea...ir-plitidepsin

[Futureshock]

Is Cole Beasley trying to get cut?

Posted by Mike Florio on July 22, 2021, 8:10 AM EDT

USA TODAY Sports

Shortly after Bills receiver Cole Beasley‘s initial Twitter tirade about the COVID vaccine, Beasley quickly decided to say nothing further.

“I don’t want [to] be any more of a distraction to my team so that’s where I’m leaving it,” Beasley said last month.

In recent days, Beasley has returned to Twitter with plenty more to say about the vaccine. He started by retweeting messages from others regarding the vaccine, and then he began sharing his own thoughts.

He started by taking issue with Michael Irvin’s position that players who don’t get vaccinated don’t want to win. Beasley then suggested that a vaccinated teammate was sent home on Monday. (The Bills did not respond to a request from PFT for comment/confirmation on this contention.) Beasley then objected to the fact that a reporter retweeted Beasley’s contention as “news.”

He then said he’ll get the vaccine and become an advocate for it, if Pfizer puts a percentage of its earnings from the vaccine in his wife’s name.

Beasley later said he was kidding about it, after Mark Cuban offered to give Beasley’s wife a share of Pfizer stock. Beasley then offered to explain to Cuban by phone the reasons for believing that the NFL’s 2021 COVID rules will result in more games being canceled this year than last year. (Although the NFL postponed a handful of games in 2020, it canceled none.)

Beasley seems to have concerns both about the vaccine and the league’s rules for vaccinated players, who will be tested once every 14 days while unvaccinated players are tested daily. (Beasley believes it’s a weekly test for vaccinated players; the NFL has told PFT that vaccinated players will be tested once every 14 days.)

Although we’ve decided not to write a story about every (or any) Beasley tweet after posting on his disagreement with Irvin, there’s a broader question that needs to be asked, now that the dust has settled on his more recent, extended Twitter comments. Is Beasley trying to goad the Bills into cutting him?

It’s likely not a coincidence that Beasley abruptly decided last month to stop being a “distraction” and the fact that Bills coach Sean McDermott admits he spoke to Beasley about his initial Twitter assault against the NFL’s rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated players.

At one point on Tuesday, Paul McLeary of Politico.com observed regarding Beasley’s disclosure of a vaccinated teammate being sent home, “Buffalo Bills management must love this.” Said Beasley in response: “We don’t have a game for a month and a half it’s not hurting anyone.”

That’s a confusing response from Beasley. Obviously, players can create distractions or otherwise anger team management by things said and done before Week One. Beasley surely is smart enough to realize that, isn’t he?

So that’s why it’s easy to wonder whether he’s trying to get himself cut by the Bills. The question then becomes whether he wants to play for some other team — or whether he’s hoping to become some sort of a martyr who becomes a hero of those who share his views, finding a way to profit from those who would make him, essentially, a Colin Kaepernick of the right.

It would be wrong for Beasley to be shunned by the league for his views on the vaccine and the NFL’s rules regarding it, every bit as wrong as it was for Kaepernick to be shunned for his decision to exercise his right to not stand for the national anthem. But many of those who applauded the shunning of Kaepernick will cry foul if/when Beasey gets released and then can’t find another team.

I’m not saying Beasley actually wants to be cut and then shunned. I’m only saying that his most recent antics on Twitter invite speculation that he’s possibly trying to engineer that outcome. Why else would he embrace creating a distraction for the Bills on this issue, a month after he vowed not to?

[Futureshock]

They're full of sh!t if they cut him. I can't say I agree with what he says, but I'd fight for his right to say it. America is less America every day.

[Futureshock]

Baker Mayfield: Higher vaccine rates create a competitive advantage

Posted by Mike Florio on July 21, 2021, 1:42 PM EDT

Getty Images

Cole Beasley may not want to hear it, but it’s the truth. NFL teams with higher vaccination rates will have an edge over teams with lower vaccination rates.

Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield addressed that point earlier today, while speaking at a youth football camp.

“It’s a competitive advantage, but it’s also way more than that,” Mayfield said, via Jake Trotter of ESPN.com. “It’s about safety, just general health and well-being of human life.”

That’s why Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin has linked willingness to be vaccinated with desire to win. It’s another box to check on the path to a potential championship. Vaccinated players, who will be tested once every two weeks, won’t have the constant, daily risk of suddenly becoming not available to practice or play — and they definitely won’t have to worry about finding out on game day that they can’t go. Also, the vaccinated players won’t operate under the screwy COVID protocols of the 2019 season.

Beyond that, and as Mayfield said, it’s the right thing to do. Plenty of people have crowed about how they’re young and healthy and COVID can’t get them without ever once acknowledging (or even realizing) that other people aren’t as young and healthy and impervious to illness. Getting vaccinated means ending the threat presented by COVID.

But the issue continues to inexplicably be political, driven by supporters of the former president who loudly will insist (and I have the emails) that he should be praised for so quickly developing the vaccine that they refuse to ever take.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin continues to rub his hands together and laugh at all of us.

[Forsh]

The thing i can see Beasley having a little bit of a point (at least the wee beginnings of a potential point) is saying that he gets tested every day so he's not spreading anything ... whereas a vaccinated teammate could have Covid for many days, not be tested, and be spreading it around etc (only rated every 14 days)

Still, ideally the players who get vaccinated simply would be less likely to actually develop and spread Covid, but you hear differing info on that

I think the players should get vaccinated, but the way the rules are set gives him a position

[Forsh]

https://www.prideofdetroit.com/2021/...inated-players

This is such a pile of rubbish. So if a team has unvaccinated players who cause a Covid outbreak, not only could they have to forfeit the game (ok, I guess) ... but NEITHER team's players will receive their salary?

The NFL is stupid. Either make vaccination mandatory or shaddup with all the excess rules ... especially if they're announcing them in July, not sure

[jaadam4]

Just because Team A isn’t vaccinated and Team B is it doesn’t mean that Team A caused a breakout. The vaccines aren’t an end all. People getting the series of vaccines are still testing positive for COVID. Good on science for trying to end this shit but creating a shot in this quick amount of time isn’t going to happen. It will naturally fall off before science finds the correct cocktail. There’s too much longterm testing that needs to happen

[Forsh]

Just because Team A isn’t vaccinated and Team B is it doesn’t mean that Team A caused a breakout. The vaccines aren’t an end all. People getting the series of vaccines are still testing positive for COVID. Good on science for trying to end this shit but creating a shot in this quick amount of time isn’t going to happen. It will naturally fall off before science finds the correct cocktail. There’s too much longterm testing that needs to happen

Point is that if a team has enough Covid problems or whatever that they have to forfeit the game ... neither team gets paid. That's lunacy

Imagine if every team the Lions were set to play had major Covid outbreaks that week. The Lions would go 17-0, bye week in the playoffs ... but no stats and none of their players would've made a dime all season

[jaadam4]

Point is that if a team has enough Covid problems or whatever that they have to forfeit the game ... neither team gets paid. That's lunacy

Imagine if every team the Lions were set to play had major Covid outbreaks that week. The Lions would go 17-0, bye week in the playoffs ... but no stats and none of their players would've made a dime all season

Fair enough

[jaadam4]

Of course if the Lions go 17-0 because the other teams forfeit that means Goff is the best Qb ever!

[Futureshock]

https://www.prideofdetroit.com/2021/...inated-players

This is such a pile of rubbish. So if a team has unvaccinated players who cause a Covid outbreak, not only could they have to forfeit the game (ok, I guess) ... but NEITHER team's players will receive their salary?

The NFL is stupid. Either make vaccination mandatory or shaddup with all the excess rules ... especially if they're announcing them in July, not sure

On top of that, the players won’t get paid — none of them. The NFL indicates that if a game is cancelled due to a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players and cannot be rescheduled within the 18-week timeframe, “neither team’s players will be receive their weekly paragraph 5 salary,” otherwise known as their game check.

That's straight BULL

Of course if the Lions go 17-0 because the other teams forfeit that means Goff is the best Qb ever!

ONLY if he plays all 33 positions on the field in the playoffs and they win.

[Futureshock]

MFs always go too far OR not far enough. And it don't be by a little. So does the league not get paid by the networks? Do they just pocket the money? It doesn't sound right.

If I were a player and I got vaccinated, wore masks (still) got tested weekly (as a precaution) before every game and didn't get my money I would be trying to sue everybody.