Whilst the results of this trial are to be welcomed, the issue about mortality rates once you are hospitalised with COVID are still very sobering. The results showed that if you ended up on a ventilator, then without this drug, you have a 41% of dying, with the drug treatment, your chance of dying falls to 28%. If you are on oxygen treatment, without the drug there’s a 25% chance of dying and with the drug 20%. If you’re in hospital and receive neither oxygen or are put on a ventilator, then there’s a 13% chance of dying - the drug treatment made no difference to this group.
The best ‘treatment’ of all is still to avoid getting infected in the first place especially if you are clinically vulnerable. When I read up about the trial, I concluded that I would still not be changing my behaviour anytime soon whilst we still have 1000s of new infections every week.