Introduction

H5N1 is a looming threat, making regular headlines. The CDC has identified 66 U.S. human cases as of January 4, 2024. Scott Alexander has a recent post outlining the situation.

There are several FDA-approved prescription antiviral flu drugs. The newest, using a novel mechanism of action called "cap-snatching," is baloxavir marboxil (BXM, brand name Xofluza). It is on-patent and substantially more expensive than oseltamivir (OST, brand name Tamiflu, now available as a generic).

I built a Guesstimate model to model the impact of using Xofluza at various stages of illness. A few facts about it:.

• It is primarily based on data from the largest-to-date published clinical trials for BXM, as well as CDC flu modeling and some other flu-related academic literature.
• In Guesstimate, users can simulate different flu and patient characteristics, substituting their assumptions for mine.
• It models two flu types: normal-risk and higher-risk. Normal-risk flu is [...]

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Outline:

(00:05) Introduction

(02:09) Quantified example

(03:41) My opinion

(05:39) Navigating the model

(07:20) Funding and disclosures

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 5 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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