Comprehensive look by @DhruvKhullar on where we stand. "Three kinds of therapies currently in development—antiviral drugs, antibodies, and immunomodulators—may be ready soon. Alone or in combination with a vaccine, they could help us turn the tide." newyorker.com/science/medica…
"...a silver-bullet vaccine may not be in the cards, at least not right away."
giving antivirals to those who never require hospitalization that could change the course of the pandemic. Treated people will walk around shedding less virus, reducing the chance that they’ll pass it to others. Treatment, if it’s given early enough, becomes a form of prevention.
More than seventy thousand Americans have already received convalescent-plasma therapy for covid-19. Bach, the drug-policy expert, is appalled that the United States has not completed a single randomized controlled trial to judge its efficacy.
“It’s an abomination,” he said. “I can’t believe none of these world-class institutions have run a proper RCT to get definitive evidence of effectiveness.
Immunomodulating drugs don’t stop the virus from replicating; instead, they try to restrain this devastating hyperinflammatory cascade. There’s mounting evidence that these medications could work for patients in the second phase of covid-19.
The case-fatality rate for the coronavirus has been hard to pin down, in part because it’s never quite clear how many people have been infected.
And yet, whatever the rate, the dozens of therapies in development will almost certainly decrease it. Lower it enough and the world-stopping phase of the pandemic could come to an end.
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