"We found an 8.5-fold reduction in hospitalizations and no fatalities compared to our controls," said senior author Dr. Richard Schwartz. He's chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
"Both of those are pretty significant endpoints," Schwartz said in a college news release.
After doing nasal flushing only 1.3% of the participants needed hospitalization and none died, compared with about 11% of people from a matched control group who either landed in the hospital or died.
"The reduction from 11% to 1.3% as of November 2021 would have corresponded in absolute terms to over 1 million fewer older Americans requiring admission," the researchers concluded. If the findings are confirmed in other studies, the potential reduction in illness and death worldwide could be profound, they said.
The researchers believe that the salt water (saline) inhibits the COVID virus' ability to infect cells in the nasal cavity, mouth and lungs.
source: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/