Several have been tried as the pandemic has persisted, but one clearly outclasses the others in terms of effectiveness.
Hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies are some of the most-talked about drugs when it comes to COVID-19. CBS Dallas spoke with Dr. Robert Gottlieb, of the Baylor Scott & White Research Institute, to learn more about each. “There are many therapies that work on paper, or even in the laboratory, that don’t work when you bring them to a human” Dr. Gottlieb told us. “We have to remember that we’re not trying to treat a virus in a test tube, we’re trying to treat a virus in a human being.” At the beginning of, doctors tried everything they could to save lives, including some treatments that are now proven not as effective as once thought. With more research, doctors now better understand which ones actually work, and have the science and data to back it up. “We’ve clearly studied hydroxychloroquine,” said Gottlieb. “We’ve shown that… it just doesn’t help for the virus.” Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug also used to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Early studies showed promise in a laboratory setting, and doctors thought the drug could help keep people’s immune systems from overreacting, but Gottlieb said peer reviewed studies found that it does not benefit patients hospitalized with COVID-19. “We can draw a very complex pathway of why it should work, but we can’t will it into existence as an effective therapy. The data is the data.” A second treatment showing promise, at least for severe cases of COVID, is an antiviral called remdesivir.
