NY Hospitals Giving Very Ill COVID-19 Patients Large Amounts of Vitamin C, Says Doctor

Seriously sick coronavirus patients in New York state’s largest hospital system are being given massive doses of vitamin C — based on promising reports that it’s helped people in hard-hit China, The Post has learned.

NTD Newsroom

Published: 3/25/2020, 1:22:52 PM EDT

NY Hospitals Giving Very Ill COVID-19 Patients Large Amounts of Vitamin C, Says Doctor — A medical worker wears a protective mask and gear as he tends to a patient inside CCP virus intensive care unit at Brescia Poliambulanza hospital in Lombardy, Italy, on March 17, 2020. (Pierco Cruciatti/AFP via Getty Images)

Very ill COVID-19 patients in New York state who are being given a high dose of vitamin C are doing much better than those who do not receive the dose.

“The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C,” said Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, reported the New York Post on Tuesday.

“It helps a tremendous amount," Weber said, adding that it's "not highlighted" because it's not a unique or special drug.

Vitamin C supplements in a file photo. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) — Vitamin C supplements in a file photo. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Critically ill CCP virus disease patients are given 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C intravenously administered—more than 16 times the recommended daily intake, which is set by the National Institutes of Health at 90 milligrams for men, and 75 milligrams for women. NTD refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China before it was transmitted worldwide.

Jason Molinet, a spokesman for the Northwell group which operates 23 hospitals in the state, said vitamin C is "widely used" elsewhere but said it's not clear how many of the 700 CCP virus patients in their system are receiving vitamin C.

Weber said that patients' vitamin C levels drastically drop when they are overtaken by an inflammatory overreaction, or sepsis caused by the virus, so it “makes all the sense in the world to try and maintain this level of vitamin C,” Weber said.

Vitamin C is often administered in combination with a cocktail of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin, various biologics, and blood thinners. New York hospitals have permission as of Tuesday to administer hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin together to seriously ill patients.