Last spring, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) set up a special website compiling guidance on how to treat COVID-19 patients, intended as a resource for physicians and researchers. We featured this source in an issue a couple of months ago, but I wanted to revisit it today because the site’s one-year anniversary is coming up this week!
According to Dr. Fauci, who gave the site a shout-out at the White House COVID-19 press briefing this past Friday, the website has seen 3.8 million American users and 2.6 international users since its launch on April 21, 2020. There have also been 23 updates to the guidelines themselves.
It’s pretty universally acknowledged in the science/health world that the U.S. federal public health agencies abdicated a lot of responsibility in 2020. But the NIH was one part of the infrastructure that kept chugging along, both through its support of vaccine development and its leadership in the global medical community. This website is a small part of those efforts.
Happy birthday, COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines! I hope your usage rate goes down through the rest of 2021.