Remdesivir: A New Vaccine to Combat COVID-19?

By Kenneth Yang

Fairmont Preparatory Academy

As people expressed an increasing concern on the state of the pandemic, a discussion emerged amongst the chaos: Is there a vaccine for the virus? Recent news articles have shown that scientists are developing a vaccine called Remdesivir. There have been many controversial takes on the issue and some of the patients that took the test run of the vaccine raised suspicions. The question is, since a newly developing vaccine came out to combat COVID-19, is it a vaccine that should be recommended by doctors or should it be labeled too risky for patients?

Overall, there has been positive feedback on the vaccine from both patients and doctors. According to CBS News, a patient named Drew McDonald stated, “By the time I left the hospital, I was improving drastically.” Although the article did not say whether he was fully cured or not, it was an indication that the vaccine was effective within the clinical trial. However, most of the results were from patients themselves as anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is what doctors rely on when the only outcome that can be received is feedback from participants. With that in mind, many political analysts and scientists look upon the outcome with much uncertainty to whether the Remdesivir was realistically effective. Since the patients know that the Remdesivir is a new vaccine in clinical trials, positively tested patients took this vaccine, convinced that they would be cured, which is a possible indication of a placebo. With that factor in mind, such evidence cannot be fully depended on and needs further analysis to determine whether Remdesivir is guaranteed to be effective or not.

Some agree with the idea of further experimentation as Chanah, a rising junior at Cypress High School, states, “I would not recommend the drug to patients and that the vaccine needs more experimentation before being able to securely recommend it to people taking the vaccine.” These recommends provide and consider the absolute safety of the patients, calculating in the risks and concluding that we need a full guarantee of a cure for the people diagnosed with COVID-19.

Others have left the deciding factor to the patients. Daniel Kong, a rising junior at Sunny Hills High School, states, “I would leave it up to the patients to decide whether taking the risk is worth it or not.” This allows the patients to take full control of their choice at hand, and deciding upon themselves whether to take the Remdesivir or not.

It shows as if Remdesivir possesses much speculation upon the matter, which should mean that the Remdesivir is not a vaccine that should be recommended to patients. There should be further experimentation required with more positive outcomes in order to conclude and officially release the vaccine to patients. Giving the vaccine means a life or death situation for the patients. We must make sure that we guarantee the patient’s life before being able to give a vaccine that is “proven” to work.