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yes but, if in a trial, if one arm performs substantially different than the control arm (e.g. 50% or even 100% lower death rate), the large difference between

yes but, if in a trial, if one arm performs substantially different than the control arm (e.g. 50% or even 100% lower death rate), the large difference between arms can lead to investigators ending the trial early ironically, this happened in a previous 2019 trial of Remdemsivir, for a different virus, Ebola in that trial, 4 drugs for Ebola were tested, including Remdemsivir. 2 non-Remdemsivir drugs succeeded substantially--the large difference between those drugs and Remdemsivir, was enough to cause the investigator to end the trial early and drop Remdemsivir ironically, the investigator for that trial was none-other-than Dr. Fauci. Maybe that's why he hasn't mentioned Remdemsivir much on TV these days, based on his past professional disappointing experience with Remdemsivir also, double ironically, Remdemsivir was initially designed to treat Ebola virus, not for flu or coronavirus type viruses. The fact that after the Ebola trial, Remdemsivir was declared not that effective for Ebola (the very virus Remdemsivir was created for), means there is even less of a chance Remdemsivir will prove to be effective for Covid-19 in the current trials https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/finally-some-good-news-about-ebola-two-new-treatments-dramatically-lower-death-rate# https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/finally-some-good-ne...

confiscate 6y ago
as an extreme example if Remdemsivir cures 100% of all Covid-19 cases, halfway through the trial, they would have enough data to show a net positive benefit. They don't need to finish the whole trial to declare Remdemsivir useful the fact that they are running the whole trial to finish, most likely means the effect of Remdemsivir is not too noticeable. They need more data to get to statistical significance. Hence, they want the trial to run to original planned finish date. my guess is Remdemsivir probably has some positive effect. Say, 10% lower death rate if used during 1st few days of infection. Still great, much much better than our current situation of nothing. It would not cure Covid completely, but it would help substantially, especially in large populations of infected
- kmlevitt 6y ago
  Looks like you may have been right. Oh well, I hope it at least helps people at the early stages of the disease.

confiscate 6y ago

as an extreme example if Remdemsivir cures 100% of all Covid-19 cases, halfway through the trial, they would have enough data to show a net positive benefit. They don't need to finish the whole trial to declare Remdemsivir useful the fact that they are running the whole trial to finish, most likely means the effect of Remdemsivir is not too noticeable. They need more data to get to statistical significance. Hence, they want the trial to run to original planned finish date. my guess is Remdemsivir probably has some positive effect. Say, 10% lower death rate if used during 1st few days of infection. Still great, much much better than our current situation of nothing. It would not cure Covid completely, but it would help substantially, especially in large populations of infected

kmlevitt 6y ago
Looks like you may have been right. Oh well, I hope it at least helps people at the early stages of the disease.