Study Showing That Hydroxychloroquine Reduces COVID Deaths by Half

The Predictor wrote:

3rd world countries have much lower life expectancies than those of the 1st world. The average death of COVID in the U.S. is 80. Since there are much less old people in 3rd world countries, it is safe to suggest that age is a significant reason there are less deaths. It is not safe to suggest that HCQ definitively is or isn't a factor of deaths because HCQ is used frequently in 3rd world countries.

This is a valid point. The other key factor on CFR is number of tests performed. A lot of country with high CFR's could only test very sick people more likely to die. But there have been studies done within a country with first-world medical care that have shown HCQ reduces death percent.

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

But there have been studies done within a country with first-world medical care that have shown HCQ reduces death percent.

Well, except there hasn't. Like we've said before. No trials have shown a benefit.

You will claim the trials did not test the exact dosage/timing/endpoint/whatever that obviously would show clear HCQ superiority. It's odd that no doctors can design a good trial, but you can!

Also worthy of mention is that roughly 89% of COVID hospitalized patients have underlying health conditions, so even if HCQ does benefit those without conditions, it wouldn't make a huge difference in the COVID death numbers.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6915e3-H.pdf

HCQ probably Fs up when you have the wrong underlying health condition, which is why we are seeing panic about the drug being so dangerous.

Primo, please post the studies you are talking about. Cheers.

The Predictor wrote:

Primo, please post the studies you are talking about. Cheers.

The Predictor, I predict (get it??) you might be waiting a while.

It doesn’t work. I live in a city with one of the best hospitals in the country and they’ve been trialing hydroxychloroquine and concluded it doesn’t work.

They’ve since moved onto another trial, which I don’t believe I can release info about yet.

Gina wrote:

If it works why are foreign countries not using it?

Are they in on the hoax to make trump look bad?

The media is owned and run by globalist-Marxists and covid fear empowers them infinitely. They will crush opposition at every juncture, right down to the research level. This is how the world works, has always worked, now it's just a "new boss", same as the old boss.

Well, now that we've established that only a lunatic would come to Letsrun for medical advice. I'm waiting for posts advocating exorcism. I'm sure there will be a study recommending it.

It’s instructive to watch the leftists who constantly tout their belief in “science” dismiss its efficacy simply because Trump spoke in favor of it. So now they feverishly work to try to discredit it despite several studies showing it can work for very sick people.

Leftists are very sick people.

can I go home now wrote:

It’s instructive to watch the leftists who constantly tout their belief in “science” dismiss its efficacy simply because Trump spoke in favor of it. So now they feverishly work to try to discredit it despite several studies showing it can work for very sick people.

Leftists are very sick people.

Its efficacy is based on what the medical experts say. It is Trump who ignores them. Just as you disregard those facts.

As a biochemist, I am amazed at how a simple innocent drug can get so politicized:

Lets just talk science here:

The most harmful part of COVID is the "cytokine storm" which is an autoimmune reaction.

There are numerous immunomodulatory drugs that have been used for decades to treat autoimmune diseases like Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis to name a few.

HCQ is one of them, so of course it works!

Problem is a lot of these drugs take a long time (3-6 months) to work and suppress/modulate the immune system. So treating with HCQ can only ever be a preventive measure and I think quite unsuited to this particular pandemic. People are getting infected at such a slow rate there is no point to put everyone on HCQ. HCQ is quite a safe drug in a risk/benefit scenario of arthritis, but this scenario changes when given to healthy people who may never be infected or suffer side effects anyway. Regular eye exams are a must when using HCQ.

Much better suited are quicker acting antiflammatories like NSAIDS and immunomodulators like Macrolide antibiotics (Azithromycin), Tetracyclines and Steroids (Dexamethasone). And these are standard treatments now anyway.

Makes no sense to put the entire population on an immunomodulator like HCQ for 1 year just to try prevent a cytokine storm in a few people who do eventually get infected.

Bottom line: HCQ works, but the COVID pandemic is an entirely useless case for it.

I respect your professional expertise but those medical experts dealing with the disease say Covid's effects can be very diverse and not confined to what you describe as an attack on the auto-immune system. What you call a "cytokinesis storm" was more apparently the case with the 1918 flu, which disproportionately affected younger people. Covid appears to be more diverse in its effects and in some ways less predictable. The experts are still trying to understand the disease.

You also appear to be missing a crucial point when you talk about a "slow rate of infection". The epidemiologists say that Covid is in fact highly infectious but what slows the rate of infection are suppression measures, like social distancing and masks.

Yes - hydroxychloroquine is effective for the diseases that it was introduced to combat, chiefly malaria, I understand - but that isn't Covid. From recent research we now have a growing medical consensus that the drug has no proven beneficial effect for Covid patients - either prophylactically or as a curative - and may in fact be dangerous for those who have heart conditions, which would be many Covid patients.

I also don't see that the experts are saying there is any drug yet available that either acts in preventing infection (if that's what you meant), or preventing the development of symptoms in those infected, or that will prevent the development of those conditions that would ultimately prove fatal in an infected person. All of that is what they are now looking for. But we do appear to know now that hydroxychloroquine has been ruled out as the answer.

Covid-19 is generally a mild, self-limiting illness.

However, most deaths occur due to lung failure from viral pneumonia or multiple organ failure - caused by an immune response called a "cytokine storm". Yes this happens in other diseases too.

Comorbidities play a big role here too, as well as secondary bacterial infections.

No I mean the rate of infection which of course includes all the measures which slows the rate. Covid itself is highly infectious.

I lot of drugs are repurposed from the disease they were designed to fight. HCQ also changes the pH of lysosomes so may prevent the entry of virions into the cytoplasm. That may simply delay infection not stop it. There is not good data on this.

Yeah, I should be clear, no drug will prevent infection 100% except a vaccine.

But here you are wrong, there are proven treatments for covid patients which reduce the death rate - dexamethazone, azithromycin and mechanical ventilators.

HCQ might work only as prophylactic, but it is totally not worth pursuing because of reasons. Efficacy has not well proven and HCQ got so politicized that I wouldn't trust much of the data anyway. It's like Coke funding their own studies to show sugar is not linked to obesity or diabetes.