Craving a COVID Cocktail

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Some people may prefer a vodka martini, but I want my COVID Cocktail.

As each day passes and governments begin to talk about opening up, I ask myself, “Yes, it would be nice to get out a bit more, making certain that I had my mask on and trying to avoid coming within six feet of others.” But what will it take to really get back to normal, to go to a restaurant or a movie or a ballgame, or to be near my children and grandkids without thinking about the spread of disease and fears of hospitalization and death?

The most obvious answer is a vaccine, something that will inoculate me from contracting the disease, most likely a shot very much like the shot I’m already used to taking for the “ordinary” flu. But the experts who do this for a living, the scientists rather than the politicians, tell us that we’re not going to have a vaccine scientifically proven to be both safe and effective for at least a year to a year and a half. So I ask, is this the best that I can expect? Is this sad, sheltered life what I’m going to have to get used to for a very long time?

Ah, but that’s where my cocktail comes in. Anyone who can remember back to the 1980’s and early 90’s and the scourge of AIDS will remember how it sped through the gay community and other elements of the population, taking human life in the same ruthless way as we are seeing now. In this instance, COVID-19 has decimated the elderly community worst, but it has also taken on all comers, ravaging people of every age, gender, and nationality.

Do you ever wonder why nobody much talks about or worries about AIDS these days? The virus is still very much alive. There’s no vaccine, so you can still become HIV positive, and the virus itself is no less deadly. The answer is very simple: We have highly effective treatments. Infected individuals can go to their doctors, receive a “cocktail” of drugs, and live long healthy lives. The HIV message, just like the message about so many infectious diseases these days: You don’t want to get the disease, but if you do, it’s not a big deal–because we have drugs that can make you better.

So where do we stand on COVID treatments these days? So far, we know to avoid The Donald’s treatments. Drinking Lysol or bleach will put you out of your misery quickly, and hydroxychloroquine doesn’t seem efficacious. In fact, recent research indicates not only that it doesn’t work, but that it comes with the danger of cardiac complications. Remdesivir has shown promise, and clinician-researcher teams worldwide are discovering daily that combinations of drugs, in inventive mixtures and at various doses, are beginning to show real promise.

The trouble with vaccines is that you give them to healthy people and then you have to wait…and wait… and wait to see if they develop symptoms—or dangerous side effects–in greater numbers than controls over an extensive period of time. Research on treatments isn’t simple, but the results are so much more obvious and timely. You give the drug to people and see if they recover in greater numbers and/or more quickly than controls. Do people with comparable problems who’ve had the treatment live in greater numbers than people who haven’t.

So I’m certainly rooting for a vaccine. Vaccine makers, make me immune, keep me healthy. But getting back to a truly normal life in a reasonable time, before I get really old(er), is tied to finding effective treatments. Tell me I can go to Fenway Park, and if the guy behind me sneezes and infects me, my doctor can give me a drug concoction that will get me feeling well within a week, and my whole way of thinking about life among other humans is changed.

All this sort of conjures up the old image of witches sitting over their cauldron mixing their magical elixirs (Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble). But these modern day sorcerers are developing potions to make you well rather than ill, and they wear lab coats and accept Medicare.

Tell me that you have a magical potion, the COVID Cocktail, that can make me better, and voila, I’m pretty much back to normal. If you can do that, I will give you a big hug (and neither of us will worry much about infection).