The first COVID-19 treatment

[John Clark]

Oxford University researchers say that a very cheap steroid drug called "dexamethasone" that has long been safely used to treat arthritis can save the lives of about a third of severely ill COVID-19 patients, such as those who are sick enough to be put on a respirator, it doesn't seem to help much for patients who are only slightly sick. Britain’s health ministry Immediately approved dexamethasone for this purpose, imposed export restrictions on it, and has already stockpiled 200,000 doses.

This comes from the journal Nature, so it has my full attention:

Coronavirus breakthrough: dexamethasone is first drug shown to save lives

 John K Clark

[Jason Resch]

John,

That's good news, and it is in line with these protocols, which seem to indicate there are two phases of the disease which require very different treatments:

https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf

It seems in the first phase there is viral replication but in the second it becomes a disease of inflammation and of the immune system overreaction. Steroids in general are useful at suppressing the immune system, so it makes sense that dexamethasone would show promise in severely ill patients who have entered the second phase of the disease.  Suppressing the immune system, however, is not what you want to do during the first phase of the disease as that will exacerbate viral replication.

Jason

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