NIH Offers Depressing “Treatment Guidelines for COVID-19” Patients                   
[Thursday, April 23, 2020]

The NIH put together a panel of all major government and professional organizations to create COVID-19 treatment guidelines and the outcome was a report that strongly “does not recommend” any of the treatment options tested or used so far in patients and offers a bleak perspective of the status of the disease management. It basically tells the physicians to keep doing what they already are with no strong recommendations about what could help and what not. It is hard to feel good after reading the report and, a very depressing read, if you are a patient or a healthcare worker managing the patient. The report does not recommend against any pre- or post-exposure prophylaxis or any specific tests or treatments and goes on to strongly state that “no drug has been proven to be safe and effective for treating COVID-19. There are insufficient data to recommend either for or against the use of any antiviral or immunomodulatory therapy in patients with COVID-19 who have mild, moderate, severe, or critical illness.”  Because the report does not make any treatment suggestions, its name “Treatment Guidelines for COVID-19” is inappropriate. Rather it should have been called “Current Status of COVID-19 Treatments”. That apart the report misses on discussing the preliminary results from patient experiences and physician opinions. The panel would likely have benefited from having representatives from the industry and even patients. It does not appear that the panel considered patient experiences. It also does not include any international representation. Other countries, particularly China and Italy, which had far bigger per capita incidence of the disease could probably have shared their experiences about what they did and are doing to manage the pandemic. These deficiencies in the review process are evident in the non-“recommendations” offered in the report. It is strongly advised that the report not be read by the patients, their families or the physicians who treat them.