Q: Does ibuprofen make COVID-19 worse?
A: There is no evidence that ibuprofen or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can make COVID-19 cases more severe. You should consult your doctor before changing medications.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, misleadingly claimed that 19 states — “almost 40% of the country” — “have less than 200 cases” of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. In fact, 17 states with 7.2% of the U.S. population have fewer than 200 confirmed cases each.
President Donald Trump and coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said the United States had done more testing for COVID-19 infections in eight days than South Korea had done in eight weeks, but that ignores the fact that South Korea has a much smaller population. On a per-capita basis, the U.S. lags behind the Asian country, and other nations.
President Donald Trump recently said “close to 100 million people died” from the 1918 Spanish flu, and that “if you got it you had a 50/50 chance, or very close, of dying.” But 100 million is a high-end estimate of global deaths from that influenza pandemic, and we found no evidence the case fatality rate for those who had it was 50%.