COMBATING CORONAVIRUS IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE

Fernando Alcoforado*

Several posts have been published through social networks trying to demonstrate that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are the medicine to fight Coronavirus, either with the opinion of doctors, or with the result of successful researches with the use of these drugs in the cure of countless patients. Opposed to this view are professors from Oxford University and Birmingham University who consider chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine harmful to health in the treatment of Coronavirus. The widespread use of hydroxychloroquine exposes some patients to rare but potentially fatal damage, including severe skin reactions, fulminant liver failure and ventricular arrhythmias (especially when prescribed with azithromycin), according to Robin Ferner of the Institute of Clinical Sciences at the University of Birmingham, and Jeffrey Aronson, from the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, UK.

It is auspicious to know that research carried out by the IHU Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, France, with patients from COVID-19, treated for at least 3 days with the combination Hydroxychloroquine-Azithromycin (HCQ-AZ) with a follow-up of at least 9 days demonstrated the effectiveness of the drug against Coronavirus. In addition to hydroxychloroquine, there is news that favipiravir, also known as Avigan, has been recommended by Chinese health authorities because it speeds up the recovery of infected people. Those who received favipiravir were negative for the virus after an average of four days after becoming positive, while those who did not use the drug needed an average of eleven days to recover. For Karl Popper the support of a theory or the result of a research is always provisional since its conclusions must always be tested empirically in other places by qualified scientists. This will have to be done for both hydroxychloroquine and favipiravir so that they can be considered as a solution for the cure of patients with Coronavirus. To try to solve this problem, Popper established what he himself calls the “deductive test method”.

To test a theory or the result of research with hydroxychloroquine and favipiravir, you can use Popper's method that proposes four steps, or types of evidence: 1st) Internal tests: seek the consistency of the conclusions drawn from the statement; 2o) Tests of form: it consists of tests to know if the theory is, in fact, an empirical or scientific theory or merely tautology, that is, an analytical proposition that always remains true, since the attribute is a repetition of the subject; 3rd) Innovation tests: verification if the theory is really new or is already understood by others existing in the system; and, 4) Empirical tests: verification of the applicability of the conclusions drawn from the new theory. Popper says that a theory or research result will be more valid the more it is falsifiable, that is, the more there are possibilities of being falsified and, even so, it continues to respond to scientific problems. Once proposed, speculative theories will have to be proved rigorously and relentlessly by observation and experimentation. Theories that do not exceed observable and experimental evidence must be eliminated and replaced by other speculative conjectures.

It is worth noting that the scientific method concerns a cluster of basic rules of how the procedure should be in order to produce scientific knowledge, whether it is new knowledge, a correction or an increase in previously existing knowledge. In most scientific disciplines, the scientific method consists of gathering verifiable empirical evidence based on systematic and controlled observation, usually resulting from laboratory or field experiments or research and analyzing them using logic. The scientific method is nothing more than logic applied to science. Therefore, the result of the research carried out by the IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France, on hydroxychloroquine and favipiravir recommended by Chinese health authorities can only be considered a demonstration of the effectiveness in combating Coronavirus if it is repeated in other places and reaches the same result with the use of the scientific method. In order to describe a law of nature, it is necessary to repeatedly test, collect and record the results, wait for this to be repeated with several other researchers before being considered valid. That is, a scientific law is valid when the scientific community, founded on particular experiences, reaps similar or supposedly equal results over and over again. Currently, hydroxychloroquine and favipiravir need to undergo rigorous tests to assess their effectiveness and the impact of their side effects.

The fight against Coronavirus is not reduced to the search for a medicine capable of curing patients. It is also necessary to develop a vaccine capable of preventing disease. On the vaccine against Coronavirus, researchers from the United States and Germany are ahead in this race and with about 20 groups dedicated to finding an immunization against the disease. China has developed its first prototype and the Ministry of Defense has announced that the country is ready to start clinical trials on humans. Volunteers between 18 and 60 are being called in to test the vaccine. The United States, which started the first phase of its clinical trials the day before the Chinese announcement, is also pursuing a quick, effective and safe solution. The vaccine problem, however, does not end with the discovery. It is necessary to carry out tests on human beings based on the scientific method to assess their effectiveness in preventing the disease. A vaccine should only be adopted after being tested repeatedly, collecting and recording the results, waiting for this to be repeated with several other researchers before being considered valid. Only then can it be produced on a large scale and distributed to millions of people. This cannot happen in less than twelve months.

It should be noted that the search for an adequate scientific method guided the action of most thinkers of the 16th and 17th centuries, standing out among them Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes and Isaac Newton, who with their contributions were decisive for the structuring of what we call today modern science. Galileo is considered the "father of modern science". For Galileo, the objective of the investigations must be knowledge of the law that presides over the phenomena. In addition, the main focus of science must be quantitative relations. From 1623, Galileo Galilei founded modern science with the formulation of the scientific inductive method that is still used today. Galileo's method is known as experimental induction. With Galileo, the study of nature took a different approach than Aristotle's when science became more experimental than speculative. With the establishment of the scientific method, the Aristotelian paradigm that prevailed until then was broken. Aristotle's scientific conceptions used only a formal and not an empirical methodology. Galileo was the first theoretician of the experimental method.

It can be said, therefore, that the result of any and all research is provisional since its conclusions need to be empirically tested elsewhere by qualified scientists to ensure its validity. Science progresses through trial and error, conjecture and refutation, according to Popper. The method of science is the method of daring and ingenious conjectures followed by rigorous attempts to prove them. Truth is the genuine aim of scientific research. The truth is an interpretation of reality, confirmed by other human beings and confirmed by mathematical equations forming a model capable of predicting future events in the same coordinates. For Leibniz, it would be necessary to distinguish two types of truth: on the one hand the truths of reason and on the other the truths of fact. The truths of reason state that a thing is necessarily and universally cannot be different from what it is, like mathematical ideas, being innate. The truths in fact, on the contrary, are those that depend on experience, expressing ideas obtained through sensations, perception and memory, being, therefore, empirical. According to Leibniz, the relationship between truths of reason and fact, judged by the rationalization of information, allows to know the reality.

From the above, it can be concluded that the use of hydroxychloroquine and favipiravir should only occur as a last resort for patients who are in the ICU and that, until a drug is developed to cure patients and a scientifically proven vaccine to prevent the population against Coronavirus, total social isolation is absolutely necessary at the moment worldwide to prevent the collapse of the health system that, under these conditions, cannot will be able to attend not only patients with Coronavirus, but also those affected by other diseases. Any solution other than this would mean exposing the population to the virus and consequent death, as has already happened in Italy and Spain.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globaliza??o (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,https://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globaliza??o e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporanea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, S?o Paulo, 2010), Amaz?nia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, S?o Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econ?mico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudan?a Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revolu??es Científicas, Econ?micas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Inven??o de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associa??o Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).