yes but, if in a trial, if one arm performs substantially different than the control arm (e.g. 50% or even 100% lower death rate), the large difference between arms can lead to investigators ending the trial early
ironically, this happened in a previous 2019 trial of Remdemsivir, for a different virus, Ebola
in that trial, 4 drugs for Ebola were tested, including Remdemsivir. 2 non-Remdemsivir drugs succeeded substantially--the large difference between those drugs and Remdemsivir, was enough to cause the investigator to end the trial early and drop Remdemsivir
ironically, the investigator for that trial was none-other-than Dr. Fauci. Maybe that's why he hasn't mentioned Remdemsivir much on TV these days, based on his past professional disappointing experience with Remdemsivir
also, double ironically, Remdemsivir was initially designed to treat Ebola virus, not for flu or coronavirus type viruses. The fact that after the Ebola trial, Remdemsivir was declared not that effective for Ebola (the very virus Remdemsivir was created for), means there is even less of a chance Remdemsivir will prove to be effective for Covid-19 in the current trials
if Remdemsivir cures 100% of all Covid-19 cases, halfway through the trial, they would have enough data to show a net positive benefit. They don't need to finish the whole trial to declare Remdemsivir useful
the fact that they are running the whole trial to finish, most likely means the effect of Remdemsivir is not too noticeable. They need more data to get to statistical significance. Hence, they want the trial to run to original planned finish date.
my guess is
Remdemsivir probably has some positive effect. Say, 10% lower death rate if used during 1st few days of infection. Still great, much much better than our current situation of nothing. It would not cure Covid completely, but it would help substantially, especially in large populations of infected
care to give some examples? Because I am a curious reader who does not live in Iceland and don't have the context to be able to identify the embellishments
sure it's always frustrating because it does nothing to change the narrative of what's repeated outside of Iceland regardless of the truth.
>"At 32, Stefansson is the most famous thief ever to emerge from this polite and friendly island, ranked by the Global Peace Index as the world’s most peaceful nation."
Patently false. So far our most famous criminal would be (Tomas)[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/europe/iceland-murd...] or runner up for any of the various banking / cartel that siphoned money out of the country during the crash. Sindri doesn't even register with most people here except as a petty thug. Bjarni Ben the old prime minister or Sigmundur David both appeared in the Panama Papers here as well.
>It was cryptocurrency, ironically, that helped save Iceland after the bankers bankrupted it.
I have no idea where the author got this but Cryptocurrency has provided any material benefit to Iceland in any form or shape, I say this even though I'm a BTC advocate. First it was our fishing industry which was able to sell high abroad and return with Euros to exchange for ISK and then it was the tourism boom (as much as we all hate it here) from 2014-onwards. Crypto currency mining here doesn't employ anyone, doesn't get aggressively taxed (it should) and often gets industrial market rates on large enough consumption (just like the aluminum smelters).
Oh and to correct another misunderstood thing about Iceland we get around 70% of our power generation from HYDROpower not Geothermal like everyone things (that goes towards home heating mostly). Which means .......Dams, lots and lots of dams flooding areas of Iceland and destroying the nature the tourists come to see.
> Today, Bitcoin mines consume more energy than all of Iceland’s homes combined.
This is just repeated ad-nauseam abroad now more than any other statement and its entirely attributed to a single electrical engineer for the electric producer company who was commenting on if the building trend kept at the same rate back in 2018. It didn't obviously but any idiot journalist now stumbles across some _other_ article saying it so they just repeat now too. Smelting consumes FAR more electricity here than any other industry.
These are just a handful, nobody likes these guys here, no one is cheering for them we're mostly embarrassed that they're gleefully unaware of badly they make Iceland look international as the posterboys for big, dumb, meat-head rubes, that were used by a foriegn criminal who never got caught. Classic Icelandic hnakkar.
ironically, this happened in a previous 2019 trial of Remdemsivir, for a different virus, Ebola
in that trial, 4 drugs for Ebola were tested, including Remdemsivir. 2 non-Remdemsivir drugs succeeded substantially--the large difference between those drugs and Remdemsivir, was enough to cause the investigator to end the trial early and drop Remdemsivir
ironically, the investigator for that trial was none-other-than Dr. Fauci. Maybe that's why he hasn't mentioned Remdemsivir much on TV these days, based on his past professional disappointing experience with Remdemsivir
also, double ironically, Remdemsivir was initially designed to treat Ebola virus, not for flu or coronavirus type viruses. The fact that after the Ebola trial, Remdemsivir was declared not that effective for Ebola (the very virus Remdemsivir was created for), means there is even less of a chance Remdemsivir will prove to be effective for Covid-19 in the current trials
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/finally-some-good-ne...