Although pre-clinical data are still scarce and results from clinical trials currently underway are awaited, remdesivir has been and is still used in many patients for the treatment of forms of COVID-19 of differing severity, as part of compassionate use or expanded access programmes. Despite these premises, the recent publication in a prestigious journal of the first case-series of COVID-19 patients treated with remdesivir under a compassionate use programme has been welcomed with considerable scepticism, if not open hostility