Thought of the Day - July 2 - Incremental COVID-19 Treatment Improvements

Back in March COVID-19 became the most deadly disease on the planet, killing more people per day than Tuberculosis. As of mid-April more than than half a million people had died of COVID-19, greater than the number of people who die from seasonal flu in a year.

While the worldwide number of cases reported on a daily basis continues rise, we are now closing in on 200,000 new cases a day, the good news is the number of daily deaths has plateaued at a little under 5,000. There are several of reasons for this:

• Testing continues to be improved thus we are actually detecting a higher percentage of infected people (such as those with mild symptoms) than ever before;

• The application of therapeutic treatments have also greatly improved.

While no miracle breakthrough treatments have been found (there is no cure) we know far more about the effects of COVID-19 on the body. For example in the early days the cry was for ventilators. Now ventilators are rarely used even for the most chronic cases (85% of people died when ventilators were used) and less intrusive CPAP and oxygen treatments are more common. Moreover we know how and when to suppress the body's immune response, for example when to decrease fever and address inflation. Next we understand the need to treat underlying heath issues, that COVID-19 exacerbates. Finally there is a growing body of body of knowledge on the successful application of a wide-range of existing therapeutics such as steroids, statins, blood plasma, anti-coagulants and yes even hydroxychloroquine with greater success.

In the long run we may find efforts in the incremental improvements in treatment saves more lives than development of a potential cure, moreover better treatments can also lead to improved recovery by reducing organ damage and thus long-term side effects.

Cheers

Cliff