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I think Dr Hahn misspoke here. I think he meant to say something to the effect of: "if the preliminary analysis of this observational study hold up with proper trials for every 100 people who would have died, 35 would be saved." https://twitter.com/US_FDA/status/1297662384060981248
Since "100 people who are sick" is hard to interpret the number saved, but if we assume an underlying case fatality rate of 25% at 30 days, as observed in the study, perhaps 8 people would be saved per 100. Of course you can't directly translate these numbers.
It will be interesting to see: 1) the summary of other data reviewed by FDA; 2) the independent statistical analysis done by FDA; and it would be helpful to make the data set available to experts in causal inference in observational data (or publicly available).
The law allows FDA to make this decision and the data are "promising", but the majority of promising therapies turn out to fail when put to the proper test. Human biology is complex. I believe the community will rally and get the trials done.
