GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — As the nation grapples with the COVID-19 virus US Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brett Giroir says progress is underway in creating a proper treatment for the disease.
Right now, COVID-19 has no actual medicine approved by the FDA to treat it. While some early test results with medicines like the anti-malarial drug chloroquine have shown promise, no medicine has proven itself effective in fighting the virus.
“The things we do to normally treat it, like oxygen and other support, are really effective but we don’t have a medication that’s proven to actually combat this,” Giroir said on WTAQ’s ‘The John Muir Show’ on Friday.
Giroir says there’s a chance that the current wave of COVID-19 isn’t going to be the last we’ve seen of the Coronavirus.
“Once we flatten the curve and get rid of it this time, the next time it comes, if it does come back, we will have very good information on chloroquine, we will have a vaccine in trial,” Giroir said.
The good news? Most people won’t need hospital treatment.
“Most people who get this are going to be just fine, it causes a mild illness,” Giroir said. “There are many people, particularly the elderly and those with chronic conditions and sometimes, just ordinary healthy people, who can get very, very ill.”
He praised the government’s ongoing social distancing efforts.
