COVID treatment

Suddenly, we have hope.

Doctors are now able to treat severe cases of Covid, with no ventilators, in most cases, and no deaths so far, with the new method. (Report by NBC4 of Los Angeles area, May 6, 2020.)

"I am 100 percent convinced that if we follow these protocols, we can prevent patients from needing mechanical ventilation and going on respirators," said Dr. Tom Yadegar, MD, a pulmonologist and medical director of the intensive care unit at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, and the protocol report's principal author.

They have found an explanation for the sudden deterioration in some cases. The most devastating damage is caused not by the virus directly, but by the response of the patient's own immune system at an extreme level known as a cytokine storm.

Dr. Yadegar says that in those cases, reining in the immune system takes precedence over the virus -- slap that patient with immune suppressants.

How to identify which new cases will lead to respiratory failure? By tracking key protein markers.

The report is titled "COVID-19 Cytokine Storm: Identification and Treatment." Available online.

"The most important thing for me is to get this to the doctors on the front lines," Yadegar said.

Has anyone told our hospitals about this breakthrough? If so, then we can start going back to work, carefully, so as to not overwhelm the providers of this new method.

Wiley Hollingsworth,

Pullman