When it became apparent that COVID-19 would not just be a medical event that happened over there but was going to affect everything I started jotting some notes. They have remained in Drafts for over a month, but now I am going to start publishing these diary entries mostly just to document the strangest, most unexpected experience of my medical career.
After the second week of peak COVID; a week where I had my own COVID scare, worked har, lost patients, and had a Quarantine Zoom Seder; I was relaxing on twitter, feeling pretty good when the NEJM dropped the first data on Remdesivir. It was a report on the compassionate use program. One of our patients at St Johns had been part of the program. The data looked promising and it was being published in the highest journal of the land. I had seen the article after reading about it from one of the top doctors on Twitter, Eric Topol.
And after scanning the abstract, I quickly tapped out my š„-take.
It may not be my most populat tweet but it is certainly in the top 10.
It may have been popular but mostly at my expense. I was not ratioed, but it sure felt like it. Comments were about 10:1 opposed to my enthusiasm. Here are a few of the best:
My Tweet was the lead in coverage over the reaction to the study by WebMD. No, they didn’t reach out to me for comment.
So now it seems like I own remdesivir. See Waitzman’s comment when the Executive Deputy Editor of NEJM presented Grand Rounds at Beth Israel.
And this week, the study, and my tweet were part of The Curbsiders
And I was Exhibit A in the ID Journal Club Chat (#IDClub)
I think it was an unfortunate tweet made too quickly in the evening. I was hoodwinked by the authority of the NEJM and Topol. It probably dropped my credibly as a science communicator. But the importance of this moment is quickly approaching zero as placebo controlled remdesivir data (both positive and negative) begins to emerge. Live and learn. Tweet and move on.