Bridging Insights: on the Efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Treating COVID-19 Patients

Since the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19 hereafter), a generous amount of resources and labour -from across many different regions of China -have been dedicated towards better integration of Traditional Chinese and Western medicine. Concerted efforts to unite the two schools were exerted upon all stages of treatment: from diagnosis, to prescription, to proprietary procedures. These measures have effectively leveraged the prowess of traditional Chinese to raise rates of recovery and reduce that of mortality. Not only does the State clearly advocate for strategies which “adhere to the merging of Traditional Chinese and western medicinal concepts; strengthen scientific research; accelerate screening for high clinical-efficacy drugs”, practice has shown -in community measures as well as in clinical treatments -that equal emphasis on Chinese and Western medicine is a step towards optimising treatment efficacy. Chinese history tells of many past epidemics from which the use of traditional Chinese medicines has accumulated a wealth of experience: Japanese encephalitis in the 1960s, haemorrhagic fever in the 1990s, and SARS in 2003.