Remember when the United States President Donald Trump suggested 'heat' as a possible killer of Coronavirus? It turns out recent studies may have connected this theory on the x-ray radiation experiment they created. Using an x-ray machine, experts found that elderly patients have more chances of speeding up 'clinical recovery' in the span of three days.
Can 'heat' kill the Coronavirus?
South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday, July 15, about a study conducted by Atlanta University using an x-ray machine as a possible treatment against Coronavirus.
10 elderly patients with COVID-19 were part of the experiment. The ages range from 43 to 104 years old with a median age of 78 years old. Most of the patients involved were African Americans.
The study concludes that the clinical recovery using the x-ray medication is a "well-tolerated, inexpensive, and globally available Covid-19 treatment," said the research team from Emory University in Atlanta, in a non-peer-reviewed paper posted on Medrxiv.org on Tuesday.
Research finds out that radiation therapy was only actually done in three days. This was compared to the common treatments such as the remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine drugs that were said to treat COVID-19 patients.
Trump believes 'heat' can kill COVID-19
The radiation experiment, which started on April 24, is called RESCUE 1-19. A day after this, Trump suggested the 'heat vs COVID-19' theory. He said that there are possibilities that the virus could be killed or removed through a powerful light-- likely the UV ray released in an x-ray.
"Suppose that we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it is ultraviolet or just very powerful light," Trump said in a briefing to the nation on the lawn of the White House.
However, researchers from Atlanta don't accept this claim. They said that there is no connection between their study and Trump. They're all just pure coincidence.
"[I am] not exactly sure what he was referring to," he said. "X-rays are not exactly the same thing. I guess if he had said more powerful energy, beyond the light wave spectrum, or the UV spectrum, then that would be a better quantification of X-rays."
The heat did not kill the virus
As explained, COVID-19 patients have some hyperactive immune cells. These are the reasons for a patient's tendency to weaken his immune system. The x-ray serves as the barrier between the virus and the cells-- allowing more time for the patient to prevent the spread of the virus, all over the body.
