Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/rzwFSA0Q4D8   Persons who experience a CoVid relapse after taking a 5 day course of the Pfizer protease cocktail Paxlovid all carry high viral loads for 9 to 16 days after beginning the drug.  Researchers at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s and Mass. General Hospitals followed 7 participants who redeveloped CoVid after apparently successful Paxlovid therapy.   All 7 participants experienced symptom improvement and negative home CoVid tests after their 5 days on Paxlovid.  Then, an average of 4 days after stopping the drug regimen, symptoms returned accompanied by a significant viral load that was present for another 5 to 12 days.  The recovered virus was sequenced in 6 of 7 participants and no resistance-associated mutations were detected.   If you develop CoVid and receive Paxlovid, be prepared to continue your home testing for at least 2 to 3 weeks after beginning the drug.   We don’t know as yet for certain but we do suspect that there are symptom-free recurrences during which vir