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Life-saving coronavirus drug 'major breakthrough':
A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.
The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.
The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.
[...] The drug is already used to reduce inflammation in a range of other conditions, and it appears that it helps stop some of the damage that can happen when the body's immune system goes into overdrive as it tries to fight off coronavirus.
[...] In the trial, led by a team from Oxford University, around 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and were compared with more than 4,000 who did not receive the drug.
For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%. For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%.
Chief investigator Prof Peter Horby said: "This is the only drug so far that has been shown to reduce mortality - and it reduces it significantly. It's a major breakthrough."
[...] Dexamethasone has been used since the early 1960s to treat a wide range of conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
[...] The drug is given intravenously in intensive care, and in tablet form for less seriously ill patients. So far, the only other drug proven to benefit Covid patients is remdesivir, an antiviral treatment which has been used for Ebola.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:02PM
Yes, agreed on all points. You're one of the good ones. As much as I'd love to live in a libertarian utopia, reality is that there are varying degrees of evil in people and we either need laws and enforcement, or good people will get hurt (depending on your definition of "good").
I should start a journal discussion about the mod system. The recent "meta" discussion brought out some great ideas, including that coders are up to their ears in life so if any, changes won't happen soon.
Disappointment is born of expectations. A saying I say and write occasionally. Much easier said than done. I came here expecting (the problem) a (much?) better environment than slashdot. No need to repeat the whole story and history, right? Well, this place has been much worse than slashdot over the past year+, and by "worse" I mean 1) ton's of AC comments, 2) tons of AC troll, flamebait, and just plain idiocy, 3) flame throwing, 4) ad hominem and general attacking verbiage, 5) mod system abuse, and I'm sure I could list more.
It's sad, for me, because I'd love to have intelligent civil discussions like sometimes happen here. I only want to contribute in a positive way, but I'm very often afraid to post anything (so I usually don't, when I would otherwise). It's sad because there are some truly awesome people here. I think there are a couple of people who don't like me, for reasons beyond my understanding, and downmod me rather than be adult and post a contrarian response. A couple of logged-in people, and a couple of ACs have attacked me using language that indicates they're focused on me- they said so. I have many ideas for mod system reform, and one would be for people to know who modded them and how. As I've posted before, this place has turned into a biker bar brawl. Sad.