[jyl]

In this patient set, Remedsivir is being used on patients who have "severe" disease but are NOT on ventilation, so not the most severe cases. If you want some context, I have been watching data for my state (Oregon) and the ratio of death to hospitalization is about 15%, meaning if your Covid case is serious enough that you are hospitalized, you still have 85% chance of recovering. If you are hospitalized and not on a ventilator, your chances of recovery are probably even better, maybe 90+%?

So what you'd want to see from this non-placebo-controlled data isn't that "most" of 125 patients (113 with severe disease) have recovered and only a couple have died - that might not be too different from what is happening anyway. You'd want to see that patients given Remedsivir improved much faster, avoided lung damage, etc.

This data is more interesting than the HCQ data so far, because that HCQ data is in mild or very mild cases, and the HCQ placebo controlled trials aren't showing any efficacy - but there is much more and better data to come. But do note this is the "best" observational data we've seen for Remedsivir, other similar data has shown lower % of patients improving (like 70%).

There are actual placebo controlled randomized trials of Remedsivir ongoing. People have been trying to read the tea leaves from what has and hasn't been said about those. For example: none have been halted early for efficacy (bad), none have been halted early for safety (good), the ones under GILD's control have been upsized and had the endpoints changed (unclear but potentially not-good).

Anyway, I think there is a reasonable chance that Remedsivir has some efficacy in severe cases, and if so it would be the first drug found to have any such effect.

The issues with Remedsivir is more logistical. It is an IV drug, so has to be administered in a hospital setting, i.e. you only get the drug if you're already very sick and taking up a bed. It is in very short supply, I recall that it took GILD a month to make enough drug for the current trials, and it is not an easy drug to make.