But doctors, based on the experiences of doctors in New York and elsewhere, avoid ventilators when possible and keep Ms. Hernandez on high oxygen flow. through a nasal tube. She is in the maximum setting, but she can talk to the clinical team and exchange text messages with her daughter, who is also a Methodist inpatient with the coronavirus.
“I took it seriously,” Hernández said of the virus. But he joined a small eight-person party for his granddaughter’s birthday, a decision he now described with regret. “Just a birthday cake. What is a healthless birthday cake?
She is receiving remdesivir, an antiviral that was tested in clinical trials in New York and Houston, among other cities, and a new experimental medication.
Methodist was part of two remdesivir essays. But because the investigation has ended, he and other hospitals now depend on the state’s drug allocations. As virus cases increased, supplies ran out, said Katherine Perez, an infectious disease specialist at the hospital. “In Houston, at every hospital that received the drug, everyone has used it,” he said.
The hospital received 1,000 vials, its largest batch, just over a week ago. Within four days, all patients who could be treated with it had been selected, and pharmacists were waiting for another shipment.
A new opportunity to try remdesivir in a clinical trial in combination with another drug may provide some relief. As cases increase, Methodist researchers are inundated with offers to participate in the studies, with about 10 to 12 new weekly opportunities centrally examined. Without solid research, “your option is to do a lot of unproven, potentially harmful, potentially useless interventions for very sick people who depend on you,” said Dr. H. Dirk Sostman, president of the Methodist institute of academic medicine. .
Convince the public
Dr. Boom, the Methodist executive director, said that if he could preserve one thing from the New York experience in March, it would be how the country came together as it had in previous disasters.
