As the novel coronavirus disease 2019 and its variants continue to rage into the second year of a global pandemic, many success stories of applying Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) to treat COVID-19 patients continue to emerge from China and other part of the world. Herewith, from a systems medicine perspective, the authors analyze those experiences and categorize them into four major treatment principles: (1) focusing on eliminating toxins in the early stage of the disease, (2) tonifying deficiency of the body throughout the entire disease course, (3) treating the affected lung and intestine simultaneously based on visceral interactions, (4) cooling blood and removing blood stasis at the later stage, as well as interpret the rationale of these principles. This is helpful not only in reducing the complexity of promoting the CHM applications to enhance anti-COVID-19 efficacy, but also in ramping out the process of integrating traditional Chinese medicine with modern medical practices.

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In a recent clinical trial, Hinman and colleagues concluded that "neither laser nor needle acupuncture conferred benefit over sham for pain or function in patients older than 50 years with moderate or severe chronic knee pain", which contradicts with NIH's recognition and the positive clinical experience of most acupuncturists. This review article highlights-major shortfalls from Hinman et al's clinical trial as follows. Laser acupuncture, defined as «low intensity laser therapy to acupuncture points", should not be labeled as acupuncture. A sham acupuncture control was not-set by the trialdesign. As for the trial design, there was a greater degree of randomness in selecting acupoints and inconsistencies of needling parameters among multiple subjects, acupuncture providers and facilities. Furthermore, the acupuncture needles used in this study were also too short to achieve any targeted efficacy, and the total number of treatments was insufficient, which is less than that commonly applied by most acupuncturists. In addition, the trial lacked observations or comparisons of short-term acupuncture efficacy. By revealing these shortfalls of Hinman et al's clinical trial, one may understand more about the paradox of acupuncture efficacy for chronic knee pain.