Dr. Pierre Kory on health: what the evidence says · JRE #1671

What the evidence says 01 / RECORD

In November 2020, a WHO guideline panel issued a conditional recommendation against using remdesivir in hospitalized COVID-19 patients regardless of severity, based on pooled data from four randomized trials (about 7,300 patients) showing no clear effect on mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, or time to clinical improvement; that part of Kory's claim was accurate as of this June 2021 episode, when the WHO guidance against remdesivir was still in effect (WHO later revised its position in April 2022, moving to a conditional recommendation in favor of remdesivir for severe COVID-19). In the US, remdesivir received FDA approval and was incorporated into NIH and IDSA treatment guidelines as a treatment option for hospitalized patients and became a common therapy, but utilization data from large retrospective cohorts show initiation rates around 50-55% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in 2021-2024, with usage varying by disease severity, hospital, and time period (reaching up to roughly 79% among ventilated patients at the 2020 peak). This falls well short of "every single" hospitalized patient receiving the drug, so the claim of universal administration is an overstatement, even though remdesivir did become a widely used standard-of-care therapy in US hospitals.