A glimmer of hope

Hola pandemic pals,

It’s the middle of June and COVID-19 is still here. In fact, the data indicates it’s just getting started. We’re seeing the largest daily spikes of new cases since scientists began tracking the disease back in December of 2019. At the rate we’re going, experts figure about one in every five people could end up contracting a “serious” case of the disease.

That’s the bad news. But, as you can see above, there’s some good news. The number of cases have gone up with the number of tests performed, but the number of deaths is trending downward. This means, in most places, medical professionals are doing a better job identifying and treating the most severe cases.

Now for the best news: there’s a new “breakthrough” treatment that’s experimentally shown to improve outcomes in the worst COVID-19 cases. It’s not a vaccine or cure, but preliminary research shows that dexamethasone, a steroid, experimentally reduces the risk of dying from serious cases of the disease by one-third. There’s still more research to be done before the inexpensive, widely-available drug is given the all-clear, but current research indicates doctors should start using it to treat the worst cases immediately.

Interestingly, dexamethasone was used in previous coronavirus treatment trials in conjunction with hydroxychloroquine. The latter drug, a malaria treatment, has since been determined ineffective at reducing mortality rates in patients with COVID-19.

The ever-increasing number of daily cases is cause for concern, especially without a vaccine on the horizon. But dexamethasone is a potential game-changer for COVID-19 outcomes. And that’s cause for celebration. Not only could the treatment save hundreds of thousands of lives, but studying its efficacy could lead to a cure or at least better upstream treatments. If we can’t beat the coronavirus, hopefully we can at least take it down a few notches.

Tweet thread of the week

Some of the new cases likely represent increased diagnostic testing.For example, in California the number of hospitalized cases and ICU pts with COVID has remained steady despite a rise in cases, suggesting that more diagnostic testing is a big factor there. 2/x

— Tom Inglesby (@T_Inglesby) June 15, 2020

¯_(ツ)_/¯

In this section, one of our writers will share one weird internet thing they’ve been obsessing over while in lockdown. This week, I’m sharing another of mine. My favorite thing on the internet is when someone tries to school the wrong person online. We’ve all seen it. Some random person will get in a debate with someone online only to find out that they’re arguing with a world’s leading expert on the subject matter. Perhaps the most famous example of this is when people try to tell Tom Morello, the lead guitarist from Rage Against the Machine, to stick to music. Like shooting fish in a barrel: pic.twitter.com/hxvZ6GgoH5 — Tom Morello (@tmorello) June 6, 2020 It’s the ultimate dunk. Some blowhard comes at an expert out of left field and, without being a jerk about it, the expert gets to put them in their place.  It’s even more fun when the person being dunked on is a celebrity: Unfortunately, it takes a perfect storm for one of these to occur in the wild. That’s why I spend an embarassing amount of time on Reddit’s r/DoYouKnowWhoIAm board.