Related
PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - It could be a light at the end of the tunnel many have been looking for. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Chief of Emergency Medicine Dr. Donald Yealy told reporters at a video news conference, "It looks like we've flattened the curve."
Yealy was describing the graph of new COVID-19 cases in the Pittsburgh area that appears to have flattened out in recent days.
"The number of people seeking and receiving care is increasing, but we're not seeing the spikes or the surges that have been seen in other parts of the country."
In Pennsylvania, while the number of new cases is increasing more dramatically, Yealy sites a well respected University of Washington model that predicts the peak in new cases will come this weekend.
Yealy spoke at a video news conference to announce the launch of a new type of clinical trial into treatment for COVID-19. Called REMAP-COVID, Dr. Derek Angus says it uses the same kind of artificial intelligence that Google and Amazon use to identify which advertisements should be delivered to people when they are online.
In this case, computer learning tells doctors which of the several or more experimental treatments delivered to patients sick with COVID-19 are working or show promise.
"We do not have the luxury of time, we must try to learn while doing," said Angus.
A patient who agrees to enroll in REMAP-COVID would randomly get one or more experimental drugs while others would get traditional therapy. Artificial learning determines which patients among many hundreds are doing better with certain drugs and those drugs are then favored among new patients until a more definitive conclusion can be reached.
Dr. Angus was asked if some therapies have already proven to be more effective?
"That's the point, we don't know. There really are hundreds of therapies."
The anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine touted by President Trump and others as having anecdotal success will be included in the study.
___Listen to KDKA Radio on the RADIO.COM AppTell your smart speaker to "play News Radio 10 20 KDKA"Receive email updates from KDKA RadioFollow KDKA Radio: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram