Coronavirus Breakthrough: Dexamethasone proves first cheap, widely available life-saving drug for seriously ill Coronavirus patients

BBC ^ | 06/16/2020 | Michelle Roberts

[SeekAndFind]

RE: On the other hand, while the change is “significant”, it is not really an effective treatment, in that lots of people who get the treatment still die.

The best part: Unlike remdesivir, it’s not an obscure, expensive medication. It’s a common steroid. Cheap and widely available.

The study randomly assigned 2,104 patients to receive six milligrams of dexamethasone once a day, by mouth or intravenous injection. These were compared to 4,321 patients assigned to receive usual care alone.

In patients who needed to be on a ventilator, dexamethasone reduced the death rate by 35%, meaning that doctors would prevent one death by treating eight ventilated patients. In those who needed oxygen but were not ventilated, the death rate was reduced 20%, meaning doctors would need to treat 25 patients to save one life. Both results were statistically significant.

There was no benefit in patients who didn’t require any oxygen.

One in 25 sounds underwhelming in the abstract sense but it amounts to thousands of saved lives given the magnitude of the death toll in the U.S.

[DoodleDawg]

Can you elaborate as to why ?

Corporate profit taking. Same reason why insulin has skyrocketed in price over the past few years. Why someone like Shkreli will buy a medication and raise the cost of the daily dose from $5 a day to $500. This is an opportunity for the manufacturer to make a killing.

[SeekAndFind]

Question: Is Dexamethasone produced by ONLY ONE company? Or are there others that make it (like Hydroxychloroquine )?

A little research tells me that NOT ONE company monopolizes it.

See here:

https://www.tradeindia.com/manufacturers/dexamethasone.html

[RBW in PA]

"If roughly the same number of people are getting sick each day as were getting sick weeks ago, and yet the number of deaths is declining, why is that?"

Perhaps the number of deaths are declining is because the real cause of death is being placed on the death certificates? Don't forget that when this fraud started many deaths were listed as COVID-19 per CDC guidance, even if this was not the case.

[9YearLurker]

Their very same study that they are quoting from here is the one where they tested HCQ without zinc and then made a lot of noise about it not making a difference.

Playing for maximum PR, they slammed HCQ before releasing this supposed good news.

Notably, they refer to their study as being randomized, but with no mention of it being double-blind.

[CharlesWayneCT]

“the death rate was reduced 20%, meaning doctors would need to treat 25 patients to save one life.”

Journalists are really bad at math.

The study clearly states that it reduced deaths from 25% to 20%, which means for every 100 people on oxygen, 5 lives are saved, meaning you have to treat 20 patients to save one life, not 25.

[CharlesWayneCT]

The category of “confirmed cases” is based on level of testing.

We don’t test 100% of the people. We don’t even test 100% of the people who come in with symptoms.

BUT, over time, we have increased testing, including increasing tests of people randomly, increased contact tracing tests, and increased random drive-thru tests.

As we test more people who have NOT had symptoms, we find minor cases and asymptomatic cases that two months ago would never have been known (this is what Trump was saying about how increased testing means we have increased confirmed positives).

So, we are counting more of the asymptomatic and mild cases, so the ratio of deaths to cases drops.

Meanwhile, actual deaths are dropping because, of the “severe cases”, they are dropping. Either because we are getting fewer cases overall, or because the virus has become less lethal, or because we have gotten better at medical treatment (like not putting people on ventilators as often). Probably a mix of all three.

Or, as my daughter said, maybe we’ve just already killed most of the old people who were near death. Or maybe we have gotten much better at keeping the disease from getting into nursing homes.

[Jane Long]

*

[WildHighlander57]

Wow! Thanks for posting this!

[jimfree]

Makes sense. I’ve had steroid treatments for asthma.

[Malsua]

The Eastern Virginia Medical School has been talking about steroid treatments for about 6 weeks now. It is part of their treatment protocol.

https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/Marik-Covid-Protocol-Summary.pdf

[Tunehead54]

In my mind, if a patient testing positive for CV-19 may be dead in 3 or 4 days, a double blind sugar pill (placebo) vs. a test drug is unconscionable.

Give them ALL damn near anything that has a reported success.

Then they can go play with their petri dishes. ;-)

Just posting - I think you’d agree with me. IMHO.

[Tunehead54]

BTW its HCQ plus ZINC as everybody except Big Pharma, the NIH, the CDC, the WHO, and the DEMS know.