A Good Source on COVID-19 Therapies

The below is a slightly edited version of a post I recently left at the Member Forum of the Harry Binswanger Letter. --ed

Azithromycin, a drug often paired with Hydroxychloroquine, in attempts to treat COVID-19. (Image by Anonymous1941, via Wikipedia, license.)

Derek Lowe, a medicinal chemist with a blog hosted by the journal Science, has been following and commenting on news of various therapeutics being tried or proposed for COVID-19 patients. (The blog, In the Pipeline, appears here.)

I have found Lowe's writing on this topic quite accessible and informative. For example, he takes time to explain, in terms intelligent laymen can understand, things like effect size in clinical trials. (Search "parachute" in this post for that example.)

Lowe's April 11 comments on Hydroxychloroquine are here.

He opens with the following pithy summary: "The numbers will not clear anything up." He quickly gets down to business, including discussion of a dangerous side-effect of the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination I don't often hear others in media (especially conservative media) bring up.

I make this recommendation as someone who has a bioscience -- but not a medical -- background. The usual caveats about reading critically and considering how what he says fits in (or doesn't) with the rest of your knowledge apply.

-- CAV