I was about to post this. There are now two effective antivirals for COVID-19, developed relatively quickly, which makes me update towards antiviral development being a little easier and more promising than I thought.
In addition, the historic antivirals with great success are against HIV and Hepatitis C and are targeted against a chronic disease. Herpes and CMV have antiviral treatments and are somewhat more acute (though Herpes is a chronic disease with acute flare-ups), but COVID-19 is more acute than those two.
So my skepticism towards effective antivirals for acute illnesses is lower than before.
Thanks—yes, I have updated towards antivirals being more tractable, but it still seems clear that any such approach is not quick enough to matter for the most worrying existential / global catastrophic biorisks. So I’d still argue that it’s not the right focus for the (still frustratingly and unfortunately) limited pandemic preparedness dollars, even if it’s a useful investment overall.
I was about to post this. There are now two effective antivirals for COVID-19, developed relatively quickly, which makes me update towards antiviral development being a little easier and more promising than I thought.
In addition, the historic antivirals with great success are against HIV and Hepatitis C and are targeted against a chronic disease. Herpes and CMV have antiviral treatments and are somewhat more acute (though Herpes is a chronic disease with acute flare-ups), but COVID-19 is more acute than those two.
So my skepticism towards effective antivirals for acute illnesses is lower than before.
Thanks—yes, I have updated towards antivirals being more tractable, but it still seems clear that any such approach is not quick enough to matter for the most worrying existential / global catastrophic biorisks. So I’d still argue that it’s not the right focus for the (still frustratingly and unfortunately) limited pandemic preparedness dollars, even if it’s a useful investment overall.