COVID19 Update - Day 166

US Tests: 71,693,547*

US Cases: 5,677,847*

US Deaths: 168,858*

Worldwide Cases: 23,349,139*

Worldwide Deaths: 807,383*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

Trump made a self-proclaimed "historic announcement" today about a new tool to fight the coronavirus.  Specifically, he announced that the FDA (likely under pressure from Trump) has issued emergency use authorization to treat coronavirus patients with convalescent blood plasma.

Despite Trump's typical hyperbole, along with his assurances that the treatment is safe and effective, there's actually little reason to believe that any of it is true.  Moreover, this therapy has already been used on more than 70,000 patients, and is available to anyone that wants it.  And it's likely that Trump himself knew there was little to be excited about in the announcement, as he left the press conference after taking only three questions --- instead of congratulating himself at length, in his usual style.

(It's also worth pointing out Trump's bizarre accusation that his own agency was trying to block the use of convalescent plasma until after the election, in an effort to sabotage his campaign).

Nevertheless, although there's still no proof of the treatment's efficacy, there's at least a CHANCE that it could help:

The idea is that people who have been sickened with COVID-19 and then recovered will have antibodies in their blood that helped them fight off the infection. By giving that convalescent plasma to sick patients, those antibodies should in theory help a patient currently sick with COVID-19 recover. It's an approach to treating pandemic diseases that has been around for a century or more.

Blood serum from recovered COVID-19 patients is also being studied as a means of preventing the disease.

It's still unclear whether plasma treatments are effective for people with COVID-19. A recent non-peer-reviewed study posted online reported on more than 30,000 patients receiving convalescent plasma; it showed that the more antibodies there were in a particular batch of convalescent plasma, the more effective the plasma was in preventing death.

But the study was lacking a control group, that is, a group receiving a sham injection, so it's difficult to make firm conclusions about the results. Other studies have failed to show a definitive benefit.

So --- far from it being in any way historic, the use of convalescent plasma is more correctly categorized as a "promising maybe".

In that regard, this announcement is truly light years ahead of other major announcements Trump has made during the pandemic, like his relentless flogging of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, and even --- unbelieveably --- injecting disinfectant into the lungs.