September Updates: The Covid-19 Research You Might Want to Hear

Here’s a brief description of the 11 articles (friend linked) in Microbial Instincts in September in chronological order. Note that some of these will be added to the publication later. I hope you will this useful.

1. The First Clinical Trial to Support Vitamin D Therapy For Covid-19: A pilot randomized controlled trial showed, for the first time, that vitamin D3 therapy in the form of oral calcifediol reduced the risk of admission into the intensive care unit (ICU) by 93% compared to no calcifediol in Covid-19 patients. This trial supports prior evidence that low vitamin D3 status increases the risk of more severe Covid-19. Further, vitamin D3 regulates the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) and the immune system, both of which are critical determinants of how one responds to Covid-19.
2. Hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19: Conclusions of 3 New Meta-Analyses: The controversial hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is arguably the most studied drug for Covid-19. Three recent meta-analyses concluded that HCQ does not affect the clinical progression or death rates of Covid-19. It instead brings side effects, especially gastrointestinal ones. Yet HCQ is still being studied in over 100 on-going Covid-19 clinical trials as HCQ still has potential as a drug to boost zinc therapy.
3. Clarifying the True Fatality Rate of Covid-19: Same as the Flu?: It is easy to confuse epidemiological concepts such as mortality rate, case fatality rate (CFR), infection fatality rate (IFR), and excess…