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I'll comment again on this - if the cytokine storm is "debunked", why did dexamethasone have such a positive effect on survival rate (as it's an immune system/i

I'll comment again on this - if the cytokine storm is "debunked", why did dexamethasone have such a positive effect on survival rate (as it's an immune system/inflammations suppressant). This, coupled with how ventilated patients were situated in bed increased survival rates. Recall, for the first few months "reefer trucks with dead people" keep appearing in the news, which sorta spurred trying literally anything that could keep people alive. Fortunately, some existing meds worked, vaccines and treatments appeared with amazing speed and the virus's mutations worked in our favour. And Omicron eventually appeared.

hammock 3y ago
>some existing meds worked Which?
- jleyank 3y ago
  Dexamethasone, for one. Might be others in that category as I forget all that went down in early 2020 regarding all of the anti-immune drugs that were tried. There's been a tremendous large and small molecule increase in such things and they'd be ignored if they showed something but less than the cheap/old steroid. It was a "throw against wall and hope it sticks" time. Googling finds literature articles discussing such things, but "steroid + rapid vaccines + rapid mutation" made it less interesting considering clinical trials of guesses and possibilities. They had a virus sequence almost immediately which enabled various types of vaccines to start development. In my wife's case, possibly coincidentally, lung inflammation/shortness of breath went away with the first vaccine doses. Can't be sure re: long covid as we had no test saying it was covid back then.