Effectiveness of plasma treatment 

—Who’s FDA Chief ‘s math teacher

On the day of the news conference, I was driving from Michigan back to my home in Ohio.  I heard Dr, Hahn said in the news conference that the new treatment, could reduce mortality by 35 percent. He went on by saying “that the data meant that of 100 people who are sick with covid-19, 35 would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.” When I heard that , I was thinking, who’s his math teacher? I didn’t think that’s how reduction  mortality rate is calculated!  But I suspect edI misheard what he said,  a science doctor would never make such mistake . Today I managed to find an article on the event. to my surprise, he just did say that! 

This is what I believe should be the interpretation of “could reduce mortality by 35 percent.”

of 10,000 people who are sick with covid-19,  assuming without the new treatment, based on the the current mortality rate in the country, 5.93m cases , 182k  deaths (3%) that means 300 patients would die. Now with the new treatment, the mortality is 65% of 3%, that means the new mortality is 1.95% instead of 3%. So with the new treatment of 10,000 people who are sick with covid19, only 195 people would die. It would save 105 lives out of 10,000 patients. That is the effectiveness of the new treatment!

So, use the data context Dr. Hahn referred , the statement should be as following: 

that the data meant that of 100 people who are sick with covid-19, 1.05 would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.

Is this a “game changer “ as our president said in the news conference? You figure.

However, in my opinion, there is a good chance we could go back to pre-COVID 19 time, well, sort of , with a $5 BinaxNOW covid19 test card invented by Abbott , which just received FDA’s EUA on Thursday.

Let’s say, in the morning you drive to office, arrived at the car park outside your office, you are given this $5 test card, 15 minutes later, it tells you are positive or negative of covid19. If you are positive, you call your doctor and go from there, if you are negative, you pick up your stuff walk in to your office work as per normal. No face masks, no social distancing. 

Full disclosure: the moment I heard the news about this $5 test card, I went on bought 100+ of Abbott’s stock.