<story><title>Covid-19’s stop-gap solution until vaccines and antivirals are ready</title><url>https://www.globalhealthnow.org/2020-03/covid-19s-stop-gap-solution-until-vaccines-and-antivirals-are-ready</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>_bxg1</author><text>This crisis is the first event in my lifetime that&amp;#x27;s given me any optimism about our ability, as a global civilization, to solve problems and get things done. I don&amp;#x27;t feel like we&amp;#x27;ve seen humanity at its best in several decades. Shame it always takes a catastrophe (and an immediate one at that; see climate change) to bring it out.</text></comment>
<story><title>Covid-19’s stop-gap solution until vaccines and antivirals are ready</title><url>https://www.globalhealthnow.org/2020-03/covid-19s-stop-gap-solution-until-vaccines-and-antivirals-are-ready</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rsfern</author><text>Formal writeup here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jci.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;view&amp;#x2F;138003&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jci.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;view&amp;#x2F;138003&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edit: lots of interesting details. a couple takeaways:&lt;p&gt;1. “Depending on the antibody amount and composition, the protection conferred by the transferred immunoglobulin can last from weeks to months.”&lt;p&gt;2. One of the proposed deployments is to protect frontline health care workers from infection (and remove their need to quarantine) until a vaccine can be developed&lt;p&gt;3. This treatment was apparently used for quite a few other outbreaks, including the 1918 flu epidemic, MERS, and there is a report of it being used against the novel Coronavirus in China</text></comment>