The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the drug baricitinib, in combination with remdesivir, for the treatment of suspected or laboratory confirmed COVID-19 in hospitalized adults and pediatric patients two years of age or older requiring supplemental oxygen, invasive mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
In a clinical trial of hospitalized patients with COVID-19, baricitinib, in combination with remdesivir, was shown to reduce time to recovery within 29 days after initiating treatment compared to patients who received a placebo with remdesivir. The safety and effectiveness of this investigational therapy for use in the treatment of COVID-19 continues to be evaluated. Baricitinib is not authorized or approved as a stand-alone treatment for COVID-19.
CDC Warns Against Thanksgiving Travel as Covid-19 Cases Spike
Americans should avoid travel for Thanksgiving, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Thursday. It was a last-minute attempt by the nation’s leading public health agency to curb what’s sure to be yet another dangerous spike in Covid-19 cases if families gather next week. “In the last week, we’ve seen over a million new cases,” Erin Sauber-Schatz, head of the CDC’s Community Interventions and Critical Populations Task Force, said Thursday on a call with reporters. “Thanksgiving is a week away.”
Still, the CDC stopped short of mandating that Americans refrain from traveling. “It’s not a requirement. It’s a recommendation for the American public to consider,” Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s Covid-19 incident manager, said on the call. “Right now, especially as we’re seeing this sort of exponential growth in cases, and the opportunity to translocate disease or infection from one part of the country to another, it leads to our recommendation to avoid travel at this time.”