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  • we're gonna turn now to the race to save the most severe patients.

  • And Diane Sawyer has been following a pioneering effort by the medical community to meet the challenge of the times.

  • It involves people who have recovered from the virus donating blood so that their antibodies might save another.

  • What if all of us got together doctors and donors and that we could do something that might help Diane tonight?

  • On Friday, we told you something new was about to happen, and over the weekend it began.

  • We want to hold on to hope.

  • I'm just hoping that this type of therapy will prove beneficial.

  • We just hope it worse, because there's nothing so far that has worked in a definitive fashion.

  • We need something that can help us change the change, the paradigm here to really move the needle.

  • It's the moment Hope is joined to the power of medical science and nationwide coalition of hospitals.

  • It is experimental, they're starting very slowly, but this is the question they want to answer.

  • Can people who have recovered from the virus donate potentially life saving antibodies in their blood to those who are very sick?

  • So when you allow yourself to drain on hope.

  • What's the first sign?

  • You would love to see that it's working.

  • We'd love to see fewer people ending up in the intensive care unit.

  • We'd love to see people getting discharged from the hospital sooner, and that would be an amazing thing if it comes to, as you can see, how it begins in this video from the lab at Mount Sinai.

  • Inside those wells are antibodies from donors who had the virus.

  • The more intense the color, the more antibodies three patients were infused with out of bodies at Mount Sinai in New York on Saturday to patients at Houston Methodist on the same night.

  • When will you know if it's working?

  • The truth is, we don't know, Diane.

  • This is really a first time that this type of activity has been done on Kobe 19 patients, and we're adopting a wait and see attitude.

  • Is there anything you want to say to everyone in the country who has been tested positive about coming in and donating the difference that can make?

  • There will be ample opportunity for anyone who's been documented to be a covert night positive patient to eventually give plasma in their community.

  • They're monitoring what's happening across the country.

  • At the Mayo Clinic.

  • We believe this is the best chance we have for a disease modifying treatment in the short term are.

  • Currently we have about 40 different academic medical centers involved in this in about 20 different states.

  • Which brings us back to the people.

  • They're counting on people who have recovered from the virus after testing positive.

  • Not Sinai tells us the ideal time for donation.

  • Maybe some 21 2 28 days after first symptoms like this young man who's eager to help if I have no resistance to it that can then be helped to somebody who's elderly or somebody was sick, I would feel honored to do that in any way that I can.

  • And if you think you could be a donor, check online in your area.

  • These doctors are so inexhaustible, so strong.

  • One of them said to me, David, we just want to show the young doctors when the day is going to be tough, you take the next step forward back to you.

  • Thank you, Diana.

  • We need hope wherever we can find it, and so let's bring in Dr John Aston, our chief medical correspondent, Jen is reporting from home, As is many members of our team here and genuine.

  • I've been talking about what Diane's been reporting on for several nights now and give us an idea of the medical community.

  • How hopeful is the community that this could need a treatment that could help?

  • Perhaps some of the most severe patients?

  • There's a lot of hope David all about convalescent serum.

  • We still don't exactly know when these antibodies to Corona Virus peak or when the right time to give them to a patient who's ill with covert 19.

  • But the real hope, because it's shown some promise in other viruses like SARS, is that it can not only hope a patient who's ill but help protect us from future infections with Corona virus.

  • So there's a lot of attention on this right now, and a lot of Hope and Jen, for folks who are wondering, Do you have immunity after you have this?

  • Even if you were a symptomatic and didn't even realize you had Corona virus, well, that's part of the unknown, and that's why they're gonna be looking at these antibodies when they show up when they peak.

  • And are they effective at protecting others and ourselves as well as treating?

  • So it's all about the antibody and immune response.

  • All right, Dr.

  • John Aston has been with us every step of the way.

  • General, check back in with you shortly.

  • Hi, everyone.

  • George Stephanopoulos here.

  • Thanks for checking on ABC News YouTube channel.

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  • The ABC News After breaking news alerts Thanks for watching.

we're gonna turn now to the race to save the most severe patients.

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