It's not going to be a game changer, but fluvoxamine may become a game modifier in this pandemic. The antidepressant is cheap, generic, and shows promising early studies at reducing hospitalization from COVID-19 by about 30%, when taken by individuals with early symptoms.
A nice discussion is available at Vox, and Mark cited early studies a few days ago. Here is one study, and you can find others. Go to google, especially google scholar.
Now, look: the only game changer is going to be widespread vaccination throughout the world, and the pharmaceutical companies’ keeping up with the changing virus. And, it's not a game, no matter how prominently game theory and the other battalions, probability and statistics, factor in this war.
But fluvoxamine holds promise. It also has some biologic plausibility—the anti-inflammatory connection (shared by other drugs, that have not panned out). From that Vox article:
It turned out that one of the SSRIs that worked well, fluvoxamine, binds to a receptor in cells that regulates cellular stress response and the production of cytokines, proteins that tell the body something is wrong and cause inflammation.
Let me say one more thing: just because fluvoxamine is an anti-depressant doesn't mean that it can't work against this virus. It drives me kind of nuts to hear criticisms of ivermectin treatment on the basis that it is used as a horse dewormer, sheep dip and anti-scabetic in humans. We don't say, “Oh, aspirin was invented to reduce fevers, so it can't work on headaches; and it can't work to prevent heart attacks or ischemic strokes. Couldn’t possibly work on Kawasaki’s or JRA.” I mean, that's just stupid. It’s fun to denigrate covidiots, but let’s do it based on fact.
One more one more thing: a nationalized electronic medical records system, coupled with a decent artificial intelligence, would come up with all sorts of treatments, cures, associations, etiologies, etc., etc. Right now, it would be very easy for researchers – – and I'm sure—they are hot on this—to mine data from patients on the antidepressant.
Keep your eye on fluvoxamine.
(n.b.: fluvoxamine) and sound-alike fluoxetine are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants used to treat depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders.)