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There are two very promising medical developments that are being reviewed by the FDA for application against COVID-19.

The first is a French study that used the malaria drug, chloroquine along with an anti-biotic, azthromycin, to treat 22 individuals with the disease. Six of the 22 were asymptomatic carriers. In all cases the patients showed near complete reduction of the viral load within 6 days.

The second development was a serum (blood sample) test that was developed in China that detected the COVID-19 antibodies and could be mass produced and applied to many more asymptomatic people in this country than the expensive PCR (DNA sample) testing being used now on only those who show symptoms or know they had contact with an infected person. This would allow many more people to have confidence they weren’t carriers and could go back to work.

The small sample size of the French study is not large enough for the FDA to trust that the therapy can be used on a wider American population without doing harm so larger phase 3 randomized trials are underway and could take a few weeks.

The FDA still needs to validate the Chinese serum tests to ensure that they meet US standards for false positives and, most significantly, false negatives. This will take months but is promising.