"There is a medicine already"

"Quarantine in Luzon to be lifted once Antibodies are available"

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/202...tibodies-against-COVID-19-are-available-.html

Duterte: "There is a medicine already, an antibody of a giant pharmaceutical. They are beating each other to it. They say by May, they would start to market and sell it."

So, there's a 'giant' pharma company already producing a cure and they're having it available by May and nobody else noticed so far. I wonder if there's anybody to proof-read what he's going to say in these press conferences?

The only thing I can imagine he's talking about is Plasma transfer from recovered people to severely sick people in the hopes it might help. Problem - you need many recovered plasma donors and the infrastructure to process and distribute that to those who need it. And, oh, there's never been a study to prove that it actually helps with COVID-19 and doesn't make things worse. It is more like the thing they try just when all other hope is lost.

Probably related:

"De Leon said he was prompted to seek information on Duterte’s health following his recent press conferences and addresses on COVID-19 where he “barely finished a single full sentence, and a lot of people had difficulty following what he was saying.”"

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/13/Rodrigo-Duterte-Supreme-Court-health-records.html

 

I read the article in CNN and was equally puzzled. As you say, it can be derived only as plasma from recovered patients (but how do we know for sure they are not carrying residual virus as some 'recovered' are retesting positive again) - or it could be produced by injecting the virus into another species and collecting that plasma, but I have not heard of that being done yet for Covid-19 (also the issue that we will not know if the virus might mutate within that other species). Best to use only part of the virus, or a weakened (attenuated) or killed virus - but scientists will know that (we hope!) as that will be the basis of producing a vaccine.

I can't see it being something bought off the shelf!

Perhaps he is thinking of an antibody TEST (looking to see if people have natural antibodies to the virus rather than giving them antibodies), so that people will know if they are immune and can rejoin their workplaces. That has always been the key target to aim for but there seems very slow progress on developing it.