Is there a cure for the new coronavirus?

Editor's note: Here's a look at all the drugs that are being tested for COVID-19 treatment.

COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, has spread to every continent except Antarctica. Not too long after the virus was first discovered at the end of December, labs turned their sights toward treatment.

Currently, however, there is no cure for this coronavirus, and treatments are based on the kind of care given for influenza (seasonal flu) and other severe respiratory illnesses, known as "supportive care," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These treatments essentially treat the symptoms, which often in the case of COVID-19 involve fever, cough and shortness of breath. In mild cases, this might simply mean rest and fever-reducing medications such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) for comfort.

In hospitals, doctors and nurses are sometimes treating COVID-19 patients with the antiviral drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, which seems to suppress the virus' reproduction in at least some cases. This is somewhat surprising, Michigan Tech virologist Ebenezer Tumban told Live Science, as Tamiflu was designed to target an enzyme on the influenza virus, not on coronaviruses. The National Institutes of Health has begun a clinical trial at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to test the antiviral remdesivir for COVID-19, the agency announced Feb. 25. In China, doctors are also testing an array of other antivirals originally designed to treat Ebola and HIV, Nature Biotechnology reported.

In cases in which pneumonia inhibits breathing, treatment involves ventilation with oxygen. Ventilators blow air into the lungs through a mask or a tube inserted directly into the windpipe. A New England Journal of Medicine study of 1,099 hospitalized patients with the coronavirus in China found that 41.3% needed supplemental oxygen and 2.3% needed invasive mechanical ventilation. Glucocorticoids were given to 18.6% of patients, a treatment often used to reduce inflammation and help open airways during respiratory disease.

There is no vaccine for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Scientists are working to develop one, Hilary Marston, a medical officer and policy advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said in a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health webcast on Monday (March 2). 

As of March 14, doctors in Seattle are recruiting volunteers to participate in a clinical trial for an experimental vaccine for COVID-19 that's being developed by the biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics. However, biomedical ethicists are concerned that a critical step in vaccine development was skipped. In order to fast-track the vaccine, the researchers didn’t first show that it triggered an immune response in animals, a step that is normally required before human testing, Live Science previously reported.

The researchers did begin testing the experimental vaccine on lab mice on the same day they started recruiting people for the clinical trial, Stat News reported. The mice did show an immune response that was similar to the one triggered by an experimental vaccine for a related coronavirus MERS-CoV. (Vaccines work by priming your immune system to recognize a virus like SARS-CoV-2 as an enemy and put up an attack against it.)

Related: How this experimental vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 would work

Even so, doctors aren't sure how much this "fast-tracking" will speed up the time it takes to develop and bring such a vaccine to market. 

Before this experimental vaccine was in the works, Marston had said not to expect a vaccine in the near term. "If everything moves as quickly as possible, the soonest that it could possibly be is about one-and-a-half to two years. That still might be very optimistic," Marston said. 

Coronavirus basics

The novel coronavirus, now called SARS-CoV-2, causes the disease COVID-19. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019, though it seems to have been spreading well before that date. Since then, it has spread to every continent except Antarctica. The death rate appears to be higher than that of the seasonal flu, but it also varies by location as well as a person's age, underlying health conditions, among other factors. For instance, in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, the death rate reached 2.9%, whereas it was just 0.4% in other provinces in China, according to a study published Feb. 18 in the China CDC Weekly.

Scientists aren't certain where the virus originated, though they know that coronaviruses (which also include SARS and MERS) are passed between animals and humans. Research comparing the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 with a viral database suggests it originated in bats. Since no bats were sold at the seafood market in Wuhan at the disease’s epicenter, researchers suggest an intermediate animal, possibly the pangolin (an endangered mammal) is responsible for the transmission to humans. There are currently no treatments for the disease, but labs are working on various types of treatments, including a vaccine. 

Originally published on Live Science. 

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Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

  • CurlyBrick
    Wow what a wonderful way to treat this! I will try to get the word out! Thank you so much. For Humanity!
    Reply
  • JeetsN123
    You do realize that vaping weed was probably what caused that "gooey substance of semi solid-fluid consistency"? Vaping is extremely dangerous, and the vapors involved will destroy your lungs before COVID-19 gets to them.
    According to Healthline.org, 'Marijuana smokers tend to have more cough, mucus, and wheezing in comparison to people who don’t smoke."
    I implore you not to try this, as it will kill you before the coronavirus can.
    Reply
  • JeetsN123
    JeetsN123 said:
    You do realize that vaping weed was probably what caused that "gooey substance of semi solid-fluid consistency"? Vaping is extremely dangerous, and the vapors involved will destroy your lungs before COVID-19 gets to them.
    According to Healthline.org, 'Marijuana smokers tend to have more cough, mucus, and wheezing in comparison to people who don’t smoke."
    I implore you not to try this, as it will kill you before the coronavirus can.
    Research from the American Lung Association says that vaping can cause bronchitis, mucus, and eventually COPD.
    "Pot smoking doubles a person's risk of developing a regular hacking cough. It also triples the risk of coughing up phlegm and suffering from wheezy constricted breathing, researchers found."
    ""You would worry about people being more susceptible to pneumonia, and of course, the end result of chronic bronchitis, if it persists long enough and is severe enough, is what we call COPD -- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," Edelman said."
    Credit to https://consumer.healthday.com/Please do not smoke weed to cure the coronavirus. It will not work. The effects of vaping cause all of these ailments, and you do not want you lungs weakened when a respiratory disease is going around.
    Reply
  • JeetsN123
    CurlyBrick said:
    Wow what a wonderful way to treat this! I will try to get the word out! Thank you so much. For Humanity!
    PLease, please, please do not do this!
    Reply
  • Leachim777
    You speak based on your assumptions, I guarntee you that you can save lives with this, as I had an attack of respiratory difficulties to the extent I was feeling sort of on the way to the line between life and death. In the moment of despair, I knew that I had some hashish my friend gave me for free a while ago. I did not use it as like I wrote before, I am not into that high personally on a daily basis. As I was feeling of great need, I assembled another highly improvised vaping depice out of another beaker as the one I made in the photos I gave to my friend for medicinal purposes as he has in general a chronic COPD condition. I vaped it and the first effect it has that in that moment of critical adrenalin respiratory difficulties it calmed my body down and helped me to breathe more normally. My body is still dealing with the new genetic code, but the vaping of marijuana has helped me a lot and who knows if I was someone with a very low immune system, this means life or death!

    This is SERIOUS!

    I would not write this here, if I was not 100% certain it can save peoples lives!!!

    Do you understand what great responsibility it means for someone to write a medical method without any clinical trials?

    Hence your concern, but I want to educate you that marijuana has been used as medicine for thousands of years and there are thousands of medical studies done on marijuana that point to it's medicinal properties and at times it has proven to actaully cure people of cancer, these are real stories of the real people that have the experience of being healed with this heavenly herb. The studies based on marijuana have led to the discovery of the endocannabinoid system that both THC and CBD have effect on. The stimulation of the marijuana molecules on the endocannabinoid system is probably the primary reason behind how it can help people infected with SARS-CoV-2 and also vaping marijuana is super healthy for the lungs based on the medical studies. I will bring the book with the references to the studies addressed in a later post to back up what I am saying with actual real medical studies. I am not making this up, I have discovered that vaping marijuana is super healthy for the lungs personally and especially now where I had the personal opportunity to test it myself on myself in the critical moment.

    For the time being, if you experience life and death respiratory situation, then vape decarboxylated marijuana, for it will help you and could save your life depending on how severe the symptoms.

    Some say not to do this?

    Say it to the man that is on his death bed and is powerless grasping for whatever help is at hand!

    Such a man if given to vape marijuana being told that it will help him, will receive help, for for that man it was a matter of life and death anyway and in the case it will kill him, it was at least worth a try as he was going to die anyway, but in the case it will save his life then who are you to educate on what is good or not for the human body?

    Like I said already, I am not a doctor of medicine, despite my first ambitions were to become a doctor and after several failed attempts to get into St George's Medical School, I eventually decided and realized that I would make a much better doctor as a chemist and as chemistry was my love since an early age, it was a very natural transition. My friends the chemists from Poland are already in the process of a cure for cancer in the form of a complex of gold. During their studies they have discovered that all cancer cells had something in common, first they all were gold hungry, meaning they will eat gold as though it is food for them, secondly they all had a slightly acidic pH due to the process of lactic fermentation that allows the cell to manufacture it's own energy and therefore survive literally forever without oxygen. Based on these two concepts, they have created a complex of gold, perhaps octahedral in structure, with possibly 3 groups of CO2 and 3 groups of hypochlorite. I do not know the details of the structure, but I can assume the previously mentioned based on the mechanism of this complex. So, the gold complex, possibly introduced intravenously enters the blood. The complex passes by a cancer cell and is naturally absorbed by it. The gold complex has been designed so as to be stable at a pH >7, meaning not acidic. Now, when the complex enters the cancer cell, the complex is suddenly in an acidic environment. The even slight acidic conditions in the cancer cell cause the complex to fall apart, releasing the hypochlorite that begins to destroy the internal structures of the cell such as the various organelles and at the same time CO2 gas is released. Now every gas at a given temperature and pressure will occupy a certain volume, so the CO2 when it was part of the gold complex it was bound to it chemically by a dative-covalent bond and did not exist as separate molecules of CO2 gas in the atmosphere would behave. The moment a certain amount of the CO2 molecules is released, suddenly the gas molecules will expand to occupy the volume based on kinetics and literally blows up the cancer cell from within thereby destroying it's cell membrane, thereby exposing the contents to be dealth with and swept up by the immune system.

    As I was writing this, I had another episode with the respiration system, did the same thing straight away and it helps ALOT!

    Put it in simply, I have not tested this new medical method of treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infection on any other human being other than myself, I can safely say that it did not kill me, but it did bring great relief.

    Also garlic, hot chillies, ginger are very good medicinal foods as they boost the immune system and help to deal with both viral and bacterial infections.

    Please do not delete this post. It is really not right to deprive the world to judge for themselves about what can help mankind and what cannot.

    Please apply with care to those in most need.

    To be continued...
    Reply
  • AugustAmbrose
    I'm stuck at home so I'm just googling ideas for a coronavirus cure....I'm not trying to be a crackpot. I'm just bored and thought a longshot is better than no shot. So, I've read that some think a cytokine storm may be to blame for why some people have severe reactions to the coronavirus. Then I've found that interleukins 1, 12, and 17 are thought to play an important role in cytokine storms. When looking up why children don't seem to have severe reactions to the virus, I found that children often don't have as high of levels of IL-12 as adults.....so maybe IL-12 plays a big factor in determining how our body reacts to the virus. Does anyone know of a IL-12 suppressor?? Preferably something easy for a lay person to get and doesn't have severe side effects. Any thoughts would be welcome. Again, I know it is a long shot, but it is a better way to spend my time than playing video games...
    Reply
  • sas
    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/coronavirus-immune-system-rejuvenation-newton-lee/?trackingId=5Jz0nkvMSb%2B%2B5HwoY7RJCQ%3D%3D
    Reply
  • JeetsN123
    Leachim777 said:
    You speak based on your assumptions, I guarntee you that you can save lives with this, as I had an attack of respiratory difficulties to the extent I was feeling sort of on the way to the line between life and death. In the moment of despair, I knew that I had some hashish my friend gave me for free a while ago. I did not use it as like I wrote before, I am not into that high personally on a daily basis. As I was feeling of great need, I assembled another highly improvised vaping depice out of another beaker as the one I made in the photos I gave to my friend for medicinal purposes as he has in general a chronic COPD condition. I vaped it and the first effect it has that in that moment of critical adrenalin respiratory difficulties it calmed my body down and helped me to breathe more normally. My body is still dealing with the new genetic code, but the vaping of marijuana has helped me a lot and who knows if I was someone with a very low immune system, this means life or death!

    This is SERIOUS!

    I would not write this here, if I was not 100% certain it can save peoples lives!!!

    Do you understand what great responsibility it means for someone to write a medical method without any clinical trials?

    Hence your concern, but I want to educate you that marijuana has been used as medicine for thousands of years and there are thousands of medical studies done on marijuana that point to it's medicinal properties and at times it has proven to actaully cure people of cancer, these are real stories of the real people that have the experience of being healed with this heavenly herb. The studies based on marijuana have led to the discovery of the endocannabinoid system that both THC and CBD have effect on. The stimulation of the marijuana molecules on the endocannabinoid system is probably the primary reason behind how it can help people infected with SARS-CoV-2 and also vaping marijuana is super healthy for the lungs based on the medical studies. I will bring the book with the references to the studies addressed in a later post to back up what I am saying with actual real medical studies. I am not making this up, I have discovered that vaping marijuana is super healthy for the lungs personally and especially now where I had the personal opportunity to test it myself on myself in the critical moment.

    For the time being, if you experience life and death respiratory situation, then vape decarboxylated marijuana, for it will help you and could save your life depending on how severe the symptoms.

    Some say not to do this?

    Say it to the man that is on his death bed and is powerless grasping for whatever help is at hand!

    Such a man if given to vape marijuana being told that it will help him, will receive help, for for that man it was a matter of life and death anyway and in the case it will kill him, it was at least worth a try as he was going to die anyway, but in the case it will save his life then who are you to educate on what is good or not for the human body?

    Like I said already, I am not a doctor of medicine, despite my first ambitions were to become a doctor and after several failed attempts to get into St George's Medical School, I eventually decided and realized that I would make a much better doctor as a chemist and as chemistry was my love since an early age, it was a very natural transition. My friends the chemists from Poland are already in the process of a cure for cancer in the form of a complex of gold. During their studies they have discovered that all cancer cells had something in common, first they all were gold hungry, meaning they will eat gold as though it is food for them, secondly they all had a slightly acidic pH due to the process of lactic fermentation that allows the cell to manufacture it's own energy and therefore survive literally forever without oxygen. Based on these two concepts, they have created a complex of gold, perhaps octahedral in structure, with possibly 3 groups of CO2 and 3 groups of hypochlorite. I do not know the details of the structure, but I can assume the previously mentioned based on the mechanism of this complex. So, the gold complex, possibly introduced intravenously enters the blood. The complex passes by a cancer cell and is naturally absorbed by it. The gold complex has been designed so as to be stable at a pH >7, meaning not acidic. Now, when the complex enters the cancer cell, the complex is suddenly in an acidic environment. The even slight acidic conditions in the cancer cell cause the complex to fall apart, releasing the hypochlorite that begins to destroy the internal structures of the cell such as the various organelles and at the same time CO2 gas is released. Now every gas at a given temperature and pressure will occupy a certain volume, so the CO2 when it was part of the gold complex it was bound to it chemically by a dative-covalent bond and did not exist as separate molecules of CO2 gas in the atmosphere would behave. The moment a certain amount of the CO2 molecules is released, suddenly the gas molecules will expand to occupy the volume based on kinetics and literally blows up the cancer cell from within thereby destroying it's cell membrane, thereby exposing the contents to be dealth with and swept up by the immune system.

    As I was writing this, I had another episode with the respiration system, did the same thing straight away and it helps ALOT!

    Put it in simply, I have not tested this new medical method of treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infection on any other human being other than myself, I can safely say that it did not kill me, but it did bring great relief.

    Also garlic, hot chillies, ginger are very good medicinal foods as they boost the immune system and help to deal with both viral and bacterial infections.

    Please do not delete this post. It is really not right to deprive the world to judge for themselves about what can help mankind and what cannot.

    Please apply with care to those in most need.

    To be continued...
    I'm not saying the weed is the problem, I'm waiting for doctors and scientists to say for sure if THC and CBD and all that other stuff is good or bad. Vaping, on the other hand, ever since Juul came out, has been very well studied and it has been proven that vaping can create compounds that will ruin your lungs, which is the very last thing you want to happen in these times.
    Reply
  • Z0z
    Hi.I used to have many respiratory and flu like problems.To cure my self i warmed up glass of red wine,this remedie is old but,very effective,and enjoyable :)
    Reply