There has also been some correlative information about hyperferritinemia (high blood iron) and COVID-19. Some of that relationship, however, seems to run far ahead of observation. What is completely unknown (and why I have my doubts about some of the assertions) is whether the hyperferritinemia is a risk factor for cytokine storms, or if the virus itself is the causative factor for the hyperferritinemia. As may be immediately apparent, I have no expertise, and only limited experience, in the fields of biology and biochemistry (I used to be an EMT in my early adult worklife), but I am greatly interested and a quick study (or at least, used to be) so I want to understand this.
For me, the connections between treatments and this virus, that are best understood (by me), are the mechanisms that the medications address. Hydrochloroquine, for example, is used as a cytokine inhibitor (as I understand it), which for someone not succeptible to hyperproduction of cytokines or other inflammatory agents, would actually be worse for fighting off the disease process itself - by inhibiting the production of the very antibodies necessary to fight the virus (antigens). Am I misunderstanding this relationship?
The list of potential medications is long and daunting, but the mechanisms that they implicate is smaller. Each of those mechanisms, though, it seems to me, represents a double-edged sword - creating the possibility of side effects at least as deadly as, or potentially increasing the mortality of, the disease itself. We have little enough understanding of the disease to go tromping off into "cures" that may be of marginal value based on panicky expediency rather than careful analysis.
