This study is worth knowing about because it potentially opens the door to another way of dealing with covid-19.

Doctors have noticed that asthma patients have not had an increased susceptibility to catching covid.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/why-are-patients-with-asthma-not-at-increased-susc

The Oxford study suggests that asthma preventers (containing budesonide which is also found in hay-fever nasal sprays) relieves covid symptoms and reduces the need for hopitalisation.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-09-common-asthma-treatment-reduces-need-hospitalisation-covid-19-patients-study

I strongly encourage people to read the above and to do some research. The internet is an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to help keeping in front of covid.

Regards,
Noel

This coincides with what a doctor in Texas has been saying since last July:

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/some-texas-doctors-are-treating-covid-patients-with-a-silver-bullet-drug-that-hasnt-been-fully-tested/

https://texashillcountry.com/doctor-claims-silver-bullet-covid/

There are other posts saying the same thing.

Hi Mario.

Excellent. It's always reassuring when others discover it, too.

Thanks for the articles. They're good reading.

One of our universities was involved in the Oxford investigation that started around March 2020 (according to the below article, at least).

https://www.theage.com.au/national/queensland/over-the-counter-inhalers-suppress-severe-covid-symptoms-trial-finds-20210210-p5716m.html

The asthma preventers are not available over-the-counter here in Australia but nasal spays for hay fever, which contain the same drug (budesonide), are available over the counter.

Asthma preventers that contain budesonide are not sold over the counter here either. There are a couple that help breathing (Primatene Mist) that are sold over the counter but they do not contain budesonide.

Mario,

Given your articles along with the Oxford univ. one, it sounds like there is something in this approach that works.

When the same information is discovered by multiple, unrelated sources, that always boosts confidence.

Nice share Noel. I love the news I'm hearing with how well Australia has done with COVID. The people there actually listened and observed the safety protocols.

Hi Steve,

Yes. Both Videotrack and I are in the state (Victoria) that went through Australia's second wave.

When we reached 725 positive cases in one day, Victoria's Premier put us into Stage 4 lockdown. We had 4 months of lockdown at various stages: masks, social distancing, staying home except for 1 hour per day to exercise (going to medical appointments, essential shopping, etc. was permitted), curfew, not having guests at home, etc. For a while we were also only permitted to travel within a 5 kilometre radius.

The underlying principle was to keep people from mixing as much as possible so the virus had no where to go and no way to travel. While the restrictions might sound harsh, we have an exceptionally good state leader and around 99.9% of 6,000,000 people jumped on board with him and his Chief Health Officer. I had no doubt that I was in safe hands.

Wherever I went, people were happy and joking. I didn't run into any who complained. The mood was, "It is what it is so let's just do it and get on top of it." And we did. We're one of the few places in the world to tame covid. When we were up to 725 positives tests in day, I read somewhere a while back that Britain (or maybe France or Spain — I can't recall exactly which) had a similar number at the same time. They went one way and we went the other.

Today (Feb. 11) we have 10 cases. These came about from travellers who quarantine for 14 days before coming into the community. Prior to these quarantine cases, there was a time that we had no positive test results for something like 60 days. The Australian Govt. and State Govt. financially supported a lot of people through this.

Victoria was the only place in Australia that went through this second wave and extended lockdown, and we managed to stop covid breaking loose and creating an Australia-wide problem. Victoria is now predicted to lead Australia out of economic gloom. So the lockdown was actually a good thing.

Murdoch Media (lots of newspapers and SkyNews) did their best to undermine all we were doing to get on top of covid. They were relentless and insidious. Pretty much no one listened to them and we just travelled on following the lead of our premier.

When I look around the world, I see what could have been. It's awful.

Hmm... I said much, much more than I intended. If you get to this line, though, thank you for reading through it all.

All the best,
Noel

P.S. Videotrack's experience may be different from mine. I can only talk about my area.

Steve, the people in some countries are just better educated and more civilized. I will refrain from naming names...lol

Billy

Thanks Noel. The information is quite informative. The doctor in Texas would have been better received if he would have stuck to the facts.

Further investigation by the University Of Oxford and others have given good reason to believe there is value to the use of corticosteroid for reducing serious symptoms of Covid-19. I for one would be in favor of giving this approach a try on a limited basis. There can be serious side effects of using inhaled corticosteroids but they are not very common. So I don't see this as a very risky medication to try.

I think this medication would be very useful to try in Brazil for example where the death rate is very high and oxygen supplies are limited at best and hospitals are unable to treat everyone who needs treatment.

In the United States there has been an intense effort in the development of vaccines but less effort placed on treatment medications.

One of the problems in this country has been the polarization and politicising of the issue. Also well respected doctors have denied out of hand that this medication could work without any research to back up their position.

One needs to do their on research to the extent they can and be aware of the fact that several things have been suggested which have proven to have no value.

The problem with doing your own research here in the United States is that approximately 50% of the population cannot read at an 8th grade level.

The methods to control Covid-19 are well known as have been shown in China, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand to name a few.

We will be lucky if we can vaccinate our way out of this mess. That may or may not work. So possible solutions such as you are directing our attention too need to be explored.

Billy

I read Noel's post then I just remembered another Doctor saying that,
so I went to post but Mario already said what I was going to say.
As usual youtube decides what works and what doesn't by looking at one of the links:

I always cringe when I read about a totally untested treatment and the proponent uses words like “common sense” and “intuitive” to explain the rationale for the treatment.

Just thinking out loud here.....

I wonder if the inhalers create a dependency on them?

When I was young, I had a friend who was addicted to Afrin. If he quit spraying it in his nose his sinuses would swell to the point where they were uncomfortable. He had to go to a doctor who gave him some other drugs to help with his withdrawal.

I have no idea if the inhalers would do that, but if I were to consider trying an inhaler, I'd investigate the side effects first.

- - - - - -

I was one of the lucky ones who reacted quickly when I saw an article in the newspaper saying local hospitals got a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines, and I've had both shots. In another week I'll have a 95% chance of being immune. I'll still follow all the CDC and WHO guidelines because I think the contagious disease scientists know more than politicians, pundits, preachers, propagandists, and people with other fields of knowledge.

Insights and incites by Notes

No worries, very good info. The U.S. could have benefited by using the examples used by your country. Thanks a lot!

Doctors can legally prescribe medications that have FDA approval for reasons other than the original intent of the medication. It is call "off label" use and is quite common.

Tocilzumab, a medication originally developed for arthritis is being used in some hospitals to reduce the effects of Covid-19.

While the first use of budesonide may have been purely experimental or intuitive the data was the reason serious science was used to explore the possibility that it could be useful.

I like Keith, "cringe when I read about a totally untested treatment and the proponent uses words like “common sense” and “intuitive” to explain the rationale for the treatment."

It depends on who is making the claim. It is common sense and intuitive to a doctor that certain medications "perhaps could" be useful to treat to Covid. They are allowed by US law to use there "common sense and intuition" to try medications developed for other purposes and often do. They are also responsible for the outcomes of their actions. The threat of legal action often constraints doctors in hospitals from trying things. It is a ballance, some people will die because they did not try and some will die because they did try.

I have little interest in what youtube has to say or the media. I want to read the technical information that is peer reviewed from a well known and respected institution. People who depend only on social media, youtube, and the news media as their only source of information will be hard pressed to make logical informed decisions about what to believe.

In a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic we will always take some level of risk because we have no other real choice. Nothing to my knowledge other than remdesivir has been actually approved by the FDA in the fight against Covid-19. The FDA is looking at things every day so they may have approved things I am not aware of. The FDA has granted an emergency use authorization for several things to include at least two vaccines not because they like doing that but because they have no other real option. So far it looks like that was a risk well worth taking.

At the end of the day Civid-19 where it has been controlled, it did not happen due to medication. It was brought under control by well known simple public health measures, mask wearing, seperating people, limiting movement, testing and contact tracing. Where those public health measures have not been adopted early on large amounts of people have died.

I have a serious interest in biochemistry and Covid is only one subject I am studying.

I know this is not a subject matter we normally discuss on this forum but it effect is relevant to all of us, plus the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are dying.

Billy

Hi Notes.


I think exactly the same way. That's why I love the internet. It's very easy to find the information. I also (a) make sure that the sites I go to are reputable and (b) look for confirmation on three or four other reputable websites.



I've been doing some work on "Efficacy" versus "Effectiveness" of vaccines. Non-medical journalists use the two terms loosely and interchangeably. The words are not synonyms, though.

An efficacy of 95% does not mean that 95% of people are immune after taking the vaccine. All the current vaccines offer pretty much 100% protection in one form or another. For example...

• all vaccines seem to reduce severity of COVID if one catches it
• all vaccines significantly reduce the likelihood of death from COVID
• it's also possible that all vaccines increase the likelihood of being asymptomatic if one catches the virus (since efficacy is determined by only looking at symptomatic cases unless otherwise noted)

In Phase 3 testing of vaccines, two groups of approximately the same size are created. One group gets the vaccine (vaccinated group, Group A) and the other group gets a placebo (unvaccinated group, Group B).

Efficacy is then determined by comparing who developed symptoms in the two groups. Here's an example of how the calculation is done...

• if 6 people in Group A develop symptoms and 56 people in Group B develop symptoms, then
  
  ◦ Percentage = (6/56) x 100 = 10.7%
  ◦ Efficacy = 100.0 – 10.7 = 89.3%
• Thus Efficacy indicates the number of people in Group A, the vaccinated group, who developed symptoms is 89.3% less than the number of people in Group B who developed symptoms.

When COVID-19 burst into the world it was brand new and nobody knew what was going to happen. During this time, learning about COVID was primarily through trial and error; that is, "hope we don't make a mistake but if we do then let's learn from it." It's really good to see that scientists are now getting on top of this so quickly.

I watch a lot of series on Netflix from around the world. In all 2020/21 dramas from the countries I watch, I now often hear English terms such as "social distancing", "flatten the curve", "lockdown", "PPE", "curfew", etc. It's eye-opening.

Regards,
Noel

Yesterday, we had 11 cases of one of the latest mutations of COVID. Today, that has grown to 16. In an attempt to surmount this, our state Premier and his health team are putting Victoria into a 5-day, circuit breaker lockdown. If anyone is interested, the below link shows what that looks like.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/statement-premier-85

Sorry to hear you guys are going back into lockdown. This pandemic is a ongoing disaster for the whole world.

Let's hope all these continued efforts continue to produce the remarkable results you guys have had to date.

28,281 people have died here in the state of Florida where I live to date with no real end in site. I rode my bike around the neighborhood today and no one had a mask on.

Billy

Billy,

Thanks. We'll get through it.

With this weekend being Chinese New Year celebrations and Valentines day, it's pretty easy to see why authorities went for lockdown. The potential to create a disaster from these two events is significant. Since we've been there and done lockdown before, while it's annoying, we now know what to do and we know its effective.

I'm so sorry to hear about so many people dying. 28,000 people is an enormous number. And you'd probably multiply that by 10 or 20 for the number of people who will be deeply saddened by the passing of their loved ones. Here in Australia, we've been spared such agony.

Wherever I go in my area, 9/10 people are wearing masks. Not so much outside, if space permits for social distancing, but certainly in shops, and other indoor settings where the public go.

When I think of reducing my chances of catching COVID, I think of the Swiss Cheese model below (virologist Ian Mackay came up with this). Each slice of cheese has holes in it so one slice is not 100% effective at stopping everything. When multiple slices are randomly assembled, though, chances increase that anything that passes through earlier slices of cheese will be stopped by a latter slice.

I like this analogy.

Regard,
Noel

I'm concerned about all the festivities in Tampa from the Super Bowl. That really looked like a super spreader event as there was lots of news footage of the maskless in large groups.

Noel, sorry to read this. But I'm glad your country has recognized the problem and is quickly responding to the changes

Hi Noel,

Thanks for that explanation. I learn something every day, and that was a nice piece of information.

Notes

Me also Steve. Perhaps slightly less concerned due to receiving my second Pfizer shot today.

I know people are really excited about the NFL and football and for sure the Super Bowl. But I don't see how they could assume the right to put other peoples lives in danger by not wearing a mask. But then again, if you drive around in Miami/South Florida for a few hours, you will soon realize many truly strange thing happen here...lol

I quess the only real action we can take is to protect ourselves and families to the extent that is possible by understanding the real risk and using whatever mitigation is available.

Perhaps all this is another reason to use BIAB...to distract myself from thinking so much.

Billy

I have been searching for any double blind studies relating to the use of anti-asthmatic agents, inhaled corticosteroids, ICS, beclomethasone, budesonide, fluticasone, mometasone furoate, ciclesonide, flunisolide.

There is positive anecdotal evidence of these corticosteroids being useful as posted by Noel and others. I have read reports from Oxford University that provide some science related to this issue. Oxford has done a rapid review of evidence for treatment or prevention of Covid-19 using corticosteroids.

I have not found any controlled human testing to look at. I seen reports that South Korea may be doing some trials.

I am looking for hard scientific data if it exist, on both in vitro and in vivo studies.
I know that China has done some limited testing.

I have a fairly developed general concept of how corticosteroids work and have some reason to believe they may be very useful...just my unproven thinking/guessing. I was vaguely aware that steroids were being used/tested but Noel got me to seriously digging into this. Thanks Noel...I think...lol

If any of you know of such data please inform me.

Cheers,

Billy

EDIT: If any of you have a interest in the mRNA vaccine and would like to read about the human genome this is a site that can explain in understandable terms how it works. https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project

Very interesting read thank you. I've been using asthma preventors and inhalers for years so this was a great piece of news thanks. In the UK I think we've had one of the highest death rates in the world. Too many morons telling us it's a hoax.