Perhaps it's the very fact that dexamethasone was useful (and therefore used) that explains why you never hear about it. Since you mentioned the political cont

Perhaps it's the very fact that dexamethasone was useful (and therefore used) that explains why you never hear about it. Since you mentioned the political context, it's not necessarily just "something that works" that you're looking for in a political sense, but "something that works that THEY don't want you to have." If everyone agrees on it, there's no action, no wedge. The fact that most people are going to recover anyway is also fertile ground for snake oil, as everyone runs their own uncontrolled experiment and declares success when they survive, and most do.