Treatment and medical care for the novel coronavirus is “getting better,” according to a new report from USA Today, which included interviews with a number of medical experts.
The report — which you can read at USA Today — explain that the U.S. had little information on how to treat COVID-19 when it first arrived. Doctors used ventilators, fever reducers and more to help people breathe.
Now, therapies have been introduced to help people. There has also been an additional 150 treatments and at least 50 antivirals being tested to help people, too.
According to USA Today, the potential therapies being tested align with the following categories:
Antivirals that slow or block the virus’s expansion in the body will be most effective early in infection, before the virus is fully established.
Convalescent plasma and antibodies that provide immune weapons to attack the virus once it’s established could help control infections and avoid the need for hospitalization.
Immune system modulators, most that tamp down an overreacting immune system, will be particularly useful later in the course of disease, when the immune response rather than the virus drives the patient’s condition.
Anti-coagulants that stop or slow blood clots that can cause organ damage or stroke are likely to be most useful in patients having a serious reaction to the virus.
That said, doctors told USA Today there are still a lot of questions about the coronavirus, and not one treatment is going to save everybody. People have different responses to different treatments, after all.
“We still need to be pushing very hard and thinking very creatively about how to match treatments to the right patient,” said Dr. John Wherry, director of the institute for immunology at the Perlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Read more at USA Today.