#214 COVID Cakes 3: Llamas, Remdesivir, Strokes, Predicting the Future, and More!

Elevate your critical appraisal skills as we review the first RCT of remdesivir and share the latest and greatest COVID-19 stories including: Llama antibodies, Stroke statistics, Future Waves, Exit Strategies and Awake Proning. We’re joined by everyone’s favorite Curbsider/internist/epidemiologist, Rahul Ganatra MD MPH (@rbganatra). Rahul provides critical appraisal of the newest randomized control trial (RCT) on remdesivir from the Lancet, and gives us a lesson on why statistical power is so important to consider. We also share updates on strokes, awake proning, pandemic predictions, and we reveal another reason to love llamas (besides those luscious lashes). Llama mia, here we go again!

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Credits

• Written and Produced by: Sarah P. Roberts MPH, Rahul Ganatra MD, MPH, Emi Okamoto MD, Paul Williams MD and Matthew Watto MD
  
• Cover Art: Beth Garbitelli
  
• Hosts: Matthew Watto MD, Paul Williams MD, Rahul Ganatra MD MPH, Emi Okamoto MD , Sarah P. Roberts MPH,
  
• Editor: Matthew Watto MD (written materials); Clair Morgan of nodderly.com
  

Sponsor: VCU Health CE

Time Stamps

• 00:00 Intro
  
• 02:10 Fun animal facts: Llama antibodies
  
• 09:10 Remdesivir RCT by Wang et al
  
• 12:40 Power and Sample Size
  
• 16:32 Baseline Characteristics, Results and Author’s conclusions
  
• 19:15 Rahul’s conclusions: How chance and bias affected the results
  
• 24:00 Right censoring; Viral load and timing of antivirals
  
• 30:30 Final thoughts on Remdesivir RCT by Wang et al; Looking ahead to the NIAID (ACTT) trial
  
• 33:53 Are patients really having fewer strokes and heart attacks?
  
• 38:20 Awake proning
  
• 43:30 Paul teaches us not to use the term “happy hypoxemic”
  
• 45:00 CIDRAP viewpoint on future waves and exit strategies
• 50:22 Outro