Unfortunately no conclusive results yet on the benefits of any medical treatments on the corona virus.
There are over 40 medications being actively tested and several different vaccines in active human study. Other vaccines are in the pipeline but still in the animal testing phase. Reportedly 35 companies are actively pursuing vaccine products against SARS-CoV-2.
Again some preliminary information about using plasma from individuals, who have recovered from COVID-19, suggests it may be helpful in critically ill individuals. Current studies are on-going.
Some preliminary good news locally, nationally, and globally is that the rate of new cases and deaths appear to be lessening. This supports the benefits of the Stay in Place mandates. Also it shows that in countries that were hard hit before mandating physical distancing, their epidemics are being to wane.
This is all good news but does not lessen the duration of time we will have to be cautious. As I have said from the beginning, all of us will have to be infected or immunized before we can go freely about our lives as before.
China reports no new cases the last few days. Unfortunately China’s reputation for presenting reliable data has never been considered reliable, at least from sites with governmental oversight. If it weren’t for the proliferation of all the various social media platforms and news getting out from providers identifying this illness in December through these avenues, the pandemic could have been even worse.
Lastly, I try to avoid political commentary, except to clarify when a politician steps into the medical world to advise a treatment. So I must comment on President’s Trump’s recent statement to basically give everyone hydroxychloroquine. This could be called a first-year-medical-student mistake…at best. It’s the desire to treat based on theoretical considerations and the notion of why-not? It couldn’t hurt. It attempts to short-circuit answering the basic scientific question that should be asked before prescribing any treatment, “What is the believable and convincing evidence that supports the benefit of xyz treatment or intervention?”.
First, if we give people a drug that turns out to be unhelpful, then we have done
- nothing beneficial and
- contributed to a group of people, who in addition to having COVID-19, have experienced medication side effects and even death from the medication. No medication is without the potential for side effects.
Second, he admits that the federal government has stock piled 27 million doses for use. That’s one of the reasons there is a pharmacy shortage of the medication. And I can’t write a prescription to the federal government for hydorcholorquine, so who’s going to be able to get access to this stock pile.
I am sorry to see this degree of misinformation muddy the waters even more.
Dr. Gipson
Your posting last week about caring for masks was hugely helpful – I shared it with my entire
family and with Ellen’s family, and all were extremely appreciative. This week’s focus on the
hydrochloroquine issue is very much welcome. It was worse than painful to have Dr Fauci
overruled by a “second opinion” from a total non-player. Even harder to hear that the
Federal gov’t has such a massive stockpile of the drug. It only gives confirmation to the
suspicion, and I hate to use that word, but I think it applies here, that the Federal gov’t has
not been straightforward with information, management, and distribution regarding urgently
needed supplies – everything from masks, to ventilators, and now this drug. I pray we make it through this mess. But I’m afraid “…there’s a bad moon on the rise…” politically for all of us.
A growing number of instances of power- and money-grabbing are coming to the fore almost daily. FEMA taking ventilators from Colorado, 3M selling personal protective gear to the highest bidder (often foreign countries), the US taking Germany’s ventilators from the docks, people hoarding essential products and selling them at exorbitant prices. More of these instances will become apparent as time goes on. It is painful to see, and its costs in human lives will never be known.
I also think that there will be a reconsideration after this crisis subsides about how each government has served its people in a time of need. That will be most likely a quite heated conversation.