Antibody treatments will help slow the spread

The argument

A growing number of antibody treatments have shown success at either preventing or mitigating the effects of Covid-19. And with the prospect of a vaccine treatment still a few months out, antibody treatments could help stop the spread of the virus—and keep some patients alive. Jacob Glanville, CEO of the drug manufacturer Centifax, said that an antibody treatment could actually be more effective than a vaccine because of the risk that a Covid-19 vaccine would not be effective on everyone. According to Glanville, getting antibody treatments into hospitals would be like giving a patient an antiviral. They can take the medication, recover quickly, and go home, and it makes the virus much less deadly and significantly less scary to the population as a whole. Famed infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has also embraced antibodies, saying that they could act as a stopgap until we can have a widely distributed vaccine. The drug manufacturer Eli Lilly said that one of the antibodies they have tested—in a phase 2 trial of nearly 500 people—reduced hospitalization by 72 percent. Further, some antibodies tests are prioritizing treatment in patients most likely to have severe effects from the virus. The success of these tests alludes to a steep drop in the death rate, if the drugs were to be administered widely. Unlike vaccines, some of which have yet to be tested on humans, a number of antibody treatments are being used in select hospitals in the U.S. to combat coronavirus right now. The prospect that antibody treatments could be widely distributed by governments and drug manufacturers by January is incredibly high. If antibody treatments can be made widely available and continue to produce the results currently being posted, the pandemic—at least the deaths, fear, and steep social constraints—will be over.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Similar to vaccines, antibodies still have to go through extensive trials in order to be approved and used on the wider population. It could be a long time before any antibody treatments are distributed widely, and the effect it has could vary from patient to patient. There is not enough data out right now to make the conclusive argument that antibodies will be a solution to all Covid-19 cases everywhere, as Abhijit Duggal, a critical care specialist at the Cleveland Clinic who has treated people with Covid-19, said. Antibodies should not be looked at as an end to the pandemic but as a treatment akin to cancer treatment.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A phase-2 result in about 500 people is preliminary, and reducing hospitalisation among those treated is not slowing spread, since monoclonal antibodies are given to people already infected. Use in select hospitals is use under trial or emergency protocols rather than evidence of availability. [Rejecting P2] Expert opinion that something could serve as a stopgap is not a forecast that it will, and the argument's own sources describe a bridge to a vaccine rather than a substitute for one. The premise passes over the constraints the counter names — approval, manufacturing at scale, and the fact that these are infused treatments given patient by patient — and the conclusion quietly redefines the end of the pandemic as the end of fear and restrictions, which is not what the position states.