Some very brief (It’s late!) comments on the recent results on hydroxychloroquine and dexamethasone 1/?

Firstly – understanding the surgisphere debacle is relevant to publishing practices especially in the ferment of a pandemic, but doesn’t itself say much about whether hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) works for #COVID19 or doesn’t. There's been more data on that 2/n

Out a while but this strongly suggests HCQ isn't worth pushing. Glad to see the @US_FDA has been paying attention https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/hydroxychloroquine-does-not-cure-covid-19-say-drug-trial-chiefs 3/n

Now the same, good (IMO) study finds dexamethasone has benefit in severely ill patients. This is unambiguously good news. It’s a steroid, it likely acts to reduce the highly active inflammatory response in those patients 4/n

However it is important to note the patients who benefited were those who were *severely ill*. Patients not requiring resp support saw no benefit. https://www.recoverytrial.net/files/recovery_dexamethasone_statement_160620_v2final.pdf 5/n

I am eager to see all the data, but this sort of thing is familiar to anyone who has looked at the challenges over the years in how to respond to sepsis. Here’s a good thread worth reading to the end https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1273016440832942080?s=20 6/