The White House offered new hope on Wednesday in the search for medical treatments dealing with the Coronavirus, as government researchers said a worldwide study conducted in hospitals showed the drug remdesivir had reduced the recovery time for patients hit by the virus.
"This is really quite important," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, as he detailed the high points of the study while sitting across from President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
"What it is proven is that a drug can block this virus," Fauci added, as he said the feds would work with the drug maker Gilead to see about getting supplies to hospitals.
"The mortality rate trended towards being better in the sense of less deaths in the remdesivir group," Fauci added.
Asked about a separate study from China released a few hours earlier - which showed little help for those dealing with the Coronavirus - Fauci brushed off the findings as insignificant.
"I don't like to poo-poo other studies, but that's not an adequate study," Fauci declared. "And everybody in the field feels that."
But while the Gilead study evaluated by the feds found remdesivir helped, the Chinese study came to a much different conclusion.
"In this study of adult patients admitted to hospital for severe COVID-19, remdesivir was not associated with statistically significant clinical benefits," read the findings as printed by the Lancet, a major health journal.
Fauci said the new study reminded him of similar points in the 1980's when he was involved in the search for AIDS treatments, which gave rise to other ideas and developments.
"We think it's opening the door," Fauci told reporters.
Fauci was clearly much more enthusiastic about the remdesivir study than work surrounding hydroxychloroquine, which had been boosted by President Trump and conservative media stars.
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