A few of my friends/colleagues have been working on an antibody treatment with a bunch of other labs for everything from getting microbe to produce the antibodies to making a stabilized solution so they can package this treatment into doses and whatnot. With everything going on this week, it got a bit buried that Covid-19 is still a thing, but work on cures/vaccines has also not ceased. And this is a definitive turning of the corner - no “this might help” or “this might be a sign”. A straightforward “This is a treatment and it works like this:”.
This article does a good job outlining some of the timeline of the project and how it all came together, but for a short tl;dr - They have already begun testing a few variations in NY hospitals to treat patients who are suffering from Covid. At the same time, Eli Lilly has already been manufacturing batches of this treatment so that if/when it gets approval, they have inventory ready to go. Expected full approval and rollout is early autumn at the latest. Wouldn’t be surprised if initial results cause some larger spread “testing” in hotspots to start knocking down infection numbers.
Hearing from friends about the results coming together has been very uplifting in the past few weeks so I figured I’d share it now that the press releases have been hitting national news. This isn’t a vaccine, and is more of a temporary solution, but it also has an immediate effect and can go a long way towards protecting healthcare workers, and for an immunocompromised person or the elderly, it might be their only defense if vaccines won’t be effective for them.