Since some treating physicians have achieved
99-100% success rates in
early outpatient treatment ever since March, that is also supported by
163 HCQ early treatment studies, 98 of them peer reviewed, with 100% of of the studies reporting positive effects, isn't it surprising that this study begins with the preposterous premise that:
"
Background:
No effective oral therapy exists for early coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)."
"Skipper CP, Pastick KA, Engen NW, et al. Hydroxychloroquine in Nonhospitalized Adults With Early COVID-19: A Randomized Trial. Ann Intern Med. Jul 16 2020;0(0):null. doi:10.7326/M20-4207
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-4207Funded by "private donors". I wonder what company the "private donors" were shilling for based on the study design? For openers, there is no reason to do
any trial of HCQ as a treatment for COVID-19, that does not also include zinc and Azithromycin (or Doxycycline), since the trio has been shown to be 99-100% effective ever since March. Therefore giving trial participants anything less, would be immorally and unethically killing some of them -
unless you select mainly younger healthy patients that are all going to get better on their own anyway - as this study did (in order to achieve their obvious goal of being able to say HCQ's effect was statistically insignificant, since they should know both groups would have low mortality even without treatment).
Why not try the test solely on elderly and high-risk individuals, with HCQ+AZ+zinc in one group and a placebo in the other? Because as competent treating physicians are well aware by now, 100% of the treated group would get better (if treatment began within 5 days of the presentation of symptoms), while 5-15% of the untreated placebo group could be expected to die. In other words, homicide or mass murder.
"Results:
Of 491 patients randomly assigned to a group, 423 contributed primary end point data. Of these, 341 (81%) had laboratory-confirmed infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or epidemiologically linked exposure to a person with laboratory-confirmed infection; 56% (236 of 423) were enrolled within 1 day of symptoms starting. Change in symptom severity over 14 days did not differ between the hydroxychloroquine and placebo groups (difference in symptom severity: relative, 12%; absolute, −0.27 point [95% CI, −0.61 to 0.07 point]; P = 0.117). At 14 days, 24% (49 of 201) of participants receiving hydroxychloroquine had ongoing symptoms compared with 30% (59 of 194) receiving placebo (P = 0.21). Medication adverse effects occurred in 43% (92 of 212) of participants receiving hydroxychloroquine versus 22% (46 of 211) receiving placebo (P < 0.001).
With placebo, 10 hospitalizations occurred (2 non–COVID-19–related), including 1 hospitalized death. With hydroxychloroquine, 4 hospitalizations occurred plus 1 nonhospitalized death (P = 0.29)."
"Limitation:
Only 58% of participants received SARS-CoV-2 testing because of severe U.S. testing shortages.
Conclusion:
Hydroxychloroquine did not substantially reduce symptom severity in outpatients with early, mild COVID-19."
The HCQ group only had 50% of the hospitalizations that the placebo group did, and one "nonhospitalized death". Which group would you have wanted to be in?
So if the HCQ participant that died, apparently wasn't even sick enough to be hospitalized before death, what did they die of? A car crash? Drowning in the bathtub?
Knowing what we know about COVID would we be surprised to learn that there were about 8 people over 70 years old? (deaths in any HCQ trial group, that did not also receive zinc and Azythromycin, should be no surprise)
So who was involved?
"
Of the 423 participants contributing data for the primary end point, there were 241 (57%) health care workers, 106 (25%) household contacts, and 76 (18%) with other exposures (Table).
The median age was 40 years (interquartile range [IQR], 32 to 50 years), and 56% (n = 238) were women."
So only a little more than half were tested for COVID. But let's presume they all had it anyway.
The problem is they started with younger people that rarely die of COVID, gave them hydroxychloroquine alone rather than a complete treatment protocol ("COVID Cocktail"), in order to produce a study that will not result in statistical significance. Any surprise here?
Two people died out of 423. That's less than a half of a percent mortality, when elderly and high-risk individuals that "go home and isolate" die at the rate of 5-10% without treatment.
But even in this case: "
With placebo, 10 hospitalizations occurred (2 non–COVID-19–related), including 1 hospitalized death. With hydroxychloroquine, 4 hospitalizations occurred plus 1 nonhospitalized death."
Let alone how ridiculous the initial false premise of denying hydroxychloroquine is effective, in light of
163 HCQ early treatment studies, 98 peer reviewed, with 100% of studies reporting positive effects. 64% is the median improvement: https://c19study.com/#earlyAnd most of those positive studies were compromised by not including zinc and/or azithromycin (or doxycycline)
or they could have achieved closer to the 100% success rate of Dr. Brian Tyson over 1,900 treated patients with 0 deaths and only one 4 day hospitalization.https://www.covid-19forum.org/index.php?topic=359.0
