Elizabeth Weise / USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO – Doctors and scientists are working furiously to find effective treatments for the illness caused by the new coronavirus but are cautioning the public not to self-medicate or hoard mentioned drugs not yet proven to work.
Despite widespread rumors, social media reports and President Donald Trump’s own optimism surrounding the effectiveness of several existing drugs, so far there are no proven treatments for COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
“There’s no magic drug out there right now,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a news conference Thursday.
When COVID-19 treatments do arrive, they will likely fall into two categories, experts say. The first will be aimed at slowing down replication of the virus in patients early in the disease. The second will help stop the deadly autoinflammatory response in the lungs in its critical stage.