Fauci announces ACTT-1 remdesivir results at the White House
At an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci announced preliminary results from the NIH-sponsored Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT-1), the first U.S. randomized, placebo-controlled trial of a COVID-19 treatment. The NIAID data safety board found hospitalized patients receiving remdesivir recovered a median 11 days versus 15 on placebo (31% faster, p<0.001); a mortality difference (8.0% vs 11.6%) did not reach statistical significance (p=0.059). Fauci called the drug's effect significant but said it was 'not a silver bullet,' and the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for remdesivir two days later, on May 1.
Primary quotes
“The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery. It was 11 days compared to 15 days.”
White House, April 29, 2020 (NPR audio transcript)
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Related contentions
Unresolved. The efficacy question for ivermectin in COVID-19 is largely settled against benefit in the major RCTs, but the dispute over the tone and legality of the FDA's messaging — and over whether early dismissal distorted research and prescribing — remains contested in court (Apter v. HHS, revived by the Fifth Circuit in 2023 and later settled with the FDA removing the posts) and in public debate.