Application of integrative medicine protocols in treatment of coronavirus disease 2019

Since the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was discovered in Hubei, it has rapidly swept across the whole country and many overseas regions. At present, there are no specific drugs and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 in modern medicine. Therefore, the therapy is mainly symptomatic for treatment. According to the instruction-spirit of “Following the development rules of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), inheriting the essence and keeping the integrity and innovation” and “attaching equal importance to TCM and Western medicine” by President Xi Jin-ping, many local hospitals has established and improved the cooperation mechanism between traditional and modern medicine. And many protocols on the prevention & treatment have been published. By retrieving these protocols, opinions of academicians and scholars, and clinical therapies reported by medical research institutions, we summarized the main prevention and cure methods of COVID-19, and found that the clinical application of integrative medicine protocols have obvious advantages in improving patient symptoms, shortening the course of disease, delaying the progress of disease, and reducing mortality. The integrative medicine can play an active role in COVID-19’s prevention and treatment.