4 ms·

Two-thirds of severe Covid-19 cases improved on Gilead drug remdesivir

17 points by lawrenceyan 7y ago

et2o 7y ago
It’s really hard to know what to make of this data without a control arm. The patient selection becomes key to estimating the effect of on the outcomes, but the patients were not all extremely sick to start, and the patient inclusion criteria is super unclear. https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/pulmcrit-eleven-reasons-the-nejm-paper-on-remdesivir-reveals-nothing/ https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/pulmcrit-eleven-reasons-the-nejm...
nscalf 7y ago
Just like every treatment protocol, this will have to be tested properly to see: if it is actually effective, what are the risks, who would this work for, etc. I view what we’re doing right now as buying time for treatment protocol testing, since right now our treatment is to help the symptoms. Only once we have something, maybe this, that has been testing and shows to decrease the length of time being sick and severity of illness can we go back to our normal lives.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Exactly. A vaccine will take too long, but we could maybe afford to quarantine long enough for a treatment to surface.
hedora 7y ago
Why didn’t they just do a double blind trial?!? This is stats 101 stuff. How did the people that designed this study get promoted to a position where they could do so much damage? Sometimes I wonder if the entire coronavirus response this embarrassingly incompetent, or if the news somehow picks the worst of the worst.
- lowdose 7y ago
  The entire coronavirus response has been this embarrassingly incompetent because "the news" is in their own category at least as incompetent and thereby not able to pick the worst of the worst. To quote Eric Weinstein: it's as if you are watching a magician perform and someone switched the lights on.
- MurMan 7y ago
  This is a report of the results of using the drug on a compassionate-use basis. The intent of the doctors was to save lives, not provide your "stats 101 stuff". I think it's shameful to broad-brush the entire coronavirus response as incompetent.
kian 7y ago
aren't 50% of severe covid-19 cases improving from normal treatment? Would this imply about a 33% improvement over standard care (modulo concerns about patient selection criteria?)
hcknwscommenter 7y ago
As my advisor always used to say. If you didn't include a control, you didn't do an experiment. It's that simple. THe results are promising, but you have to keep in mind what that really means. It means, we haven't proven that it doesn't work. SO there is a chance that it works and we don't know how big that chance is. It also means that we haven't proven that it causes more harm than good. So there is a chance that it does indeed do more harm than good.

17 points by lawrenceyan 7y ago

et2o 7y ago

It’s really hard to know what to make of this data without a control arm. The patient selection becomes key to estimating the effect of on the outcomes, but the patients were not all extremely sick to start, and the patient inclusion criteria is super unclear. https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/pulmcrit-eleven-reasons-the-nejm-paper-on-remdesivir-reveals-nothing/ https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/pulmcrit-eleven-reasons-the-nejm...

nscalf 7y ago

Just like every treatment protocol, this will have to be tested properly to see: if it is actually effective, what are the risks, who would this work for, etc. I view what we’re doing right now as buying time for treatment protocol testing, since right now our treatment is to help the symptoms. Only once we have something, maybe this, that has been testing and shows to decrease the length of time being sick and severity of illness can we go back to our normal lives.

_bxg1 7y ago
Exactly. A vaccine will take too long, but we could maybe afford to quarantine long enough for a treatment to surface.

hedora 7y ago

Why didn’t they just do a double blind trial?!? This is stats 101 stuff. How did the people that designed this study get promoted to a position where they could do so much damage? Sometimes I wonder if the entire coronavirus response this embarrassingly incompetent, or if the news somehow picks the worst of the worst.

lowdose 7y ago
The entire coronavirus response has been this embarrassingly incompetent because "the news" is in their own category at least as incompetent and thereby not able to pick the worst of the worst. To quote Eric Weinstein: it's as if you are watching a magician perform and someone switched the lights on.
MurMan 7y ago
This is a report of the results of using the drug on a compassionate-use basis. The intent of the doctors was to save lives, not provide your "stats 101 stuff". I think it's shameful to broad-brush the entire coronavirus response as incompetent.

kian 7y ago

aren't 50% of severe covid-19 cases improving from normal treatment? Would this imply about a 33% improvement over standard care (modulo concerns about patient selection criteria?)

hcknwscommenter 7y ago

As my advisor always used to say. If you didn't include a control, you didn't do an experiment. It's that simple. THe results are promising, but you have to keep in mind what that really means. It means, we haven't proven that it doesn't work. SO there is a chance that it works and we don't know how big that chance is. It also means that we haven't proven that it causes more harm than good. So there is a chance that it does indeed do more harm than good.