As COVID-19 cases become more prevalent in the general population, you may need to understand the available treatments. From a public health perspective, prevention is preferred over treatment so it is still important to continue to masking, maintaining distance from others, and staying up to date with vaccinations 😷 Around 80% of the population have mild symptoms and can recover safely at home 🏡 If you have moderate or severe symptoms, your treatment will depend on clinical efficacy, availability, feasibility of administering, drug interactions, and which variants are most prevalent in your neighborhood ☀️ In December 2021, the FDA re-issued a warning that Ivermectin currently has insufficient evidence for treatment of COVID-19. Ivermectin is still under investigation in clinical trials, but currently the NIH cites a total of 9 clinical studies that show no improvement in symptoms, and no differences in mortality or hospital length of stay 🧐 FDA Emergency Use Authorized Monoclonal Antibodies include: bamlanivimab plus etesevimab*; Bebtelovimab OR casirivimab plus imdevimab*, Sotrovimab*, Tixagevimab Plus Cilgavimab, where * means paused due to reduced Omicron susceptibility 🦠 For non-hospitalized patient, antiviral therapy is recommended (Paxlovid preferred over Remdesivir). If those are not available/feasible/clinically appropriate, use antiviral Molnupiravir or antibody Bebtelovimab. Hospitalized patients are given Remdesivir as it needs to be administered with an IV over a period of three days 🏥 The PCR test is the most accurate diagnostic test. The rapid antigen test can provide a quicker diagnostic result and is available at-home, however it is less accurate and interpretation is dependent on whether you are symptomatic and in a community of high prevalence or have high exposure ❤️ Having symptoms is an indication that you may be infected, but being asymptomatic does not mean you are not infected nor does it mean your viral load is lower than someone who is symptomatic 🤒🥰

COVID-19 treatments: antivirals or antibodies?

As COVID-19 cases become more prevalent in the general population, you may need to understand the available treatments. From a public health perspective, prevention is preferred over treatment so it is still important to continue masking, maintaining distance from others,…

COVID-19 testing: PCR or rapid?

As you may have heard, Biden recently approved at-home tests for households delivered by USPS. As we increasingly face COVID-19 testing situations, we will talk about which test is appropriate for when and what it tells you.  The PCR test…

When does a COVID-19 variant become a concern (for you)?

Executive Summary The UK, South African and Brazilian variants are of concern because of increased prevalence and they carry mutation(s) such that vaccine and antibody therapies have shown less neutralizing activity in the labEarly Novavax clinical trial findings showed lower…