Translating evidence into practice during the COVID-19 pandemic: pitfalls and mileages

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to national healthcare systems and economies because of its unpredictable progress, the failure to successfully protect vulnerable populations, the paucity of proven therapies pending the development of effective vaccines, and the emerging evidence of long-term sequelae affecting different organs and systems.1–3 Despite these uncertainties, tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers have been published over the last few months on all aspects of the disease, including the effects of different pharmacological treatments. The rapid understanding of the mechanisms involved in the host interaction and replication of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the agent responsible for COVID-19, has led to the early identification of specific agents that could be repurposed for the management of the disease.4