Weak Evidence for Convalescent Plasma in the Treatment of COVID-19 .

Convalescent plasma was authorized for emergency use in the U.S. with great optimism, but the supporting evidence remains surprisingly thin. When the randomized trials—the highest-credibility studies—are examined, plasma simply doesn’t demonstrate meaningful clinical benefit. Across two RCTs, there was no reduction in mortality, no improvement in discharge or recovery times, and no clear advantage in disease severity scores. Some lab findings, like faster viral clearance, look encouraging, but they haven’t translated into better patient outcomes. Non-randomized studies often report positive signals, but without proper control groups, they can’t answer whether plasma truly works. With low-certainty evidence and small, early-terminated trials, the bottom line is that plasma remains unproven, and larger, rigorous RCTs are still needed before it can be considered an effective COVID-19 therapy.