That paper cited by the president (well he would be citing it if he knew what citing meant).
have you read it? its a pre publication piece that is going into a relatively reputable journal but is not yet peer reviewed.
thing is the population size in the test group and the control group is remarkably small N=36 (20 case and 16 control). the results claimed are that 100 percent of the test group recovered. Except if you read the paper the study was conducted over a 6 day period and only those patients who completed all 6 days of treatment were included (n=20) but there were 26 people initially enrolled in the study. So what happened to the other 6 who did not complete the course of treatment?
Well 3 ended up in ICU before the 6 day study period was completed, they were excluded form the results,
One had a strong allergic reaction to the Hydroxychloroquinine and was taken off the study.
One appears to have discharged them selves form the hospital and was not traced (ie “bugger this for a game of soldiers i’m off” )
and the sixth, unfortunately succumbed to the virus (he died) on day 2 or 3 of the study it is not clear which.
These people were all excluded from the final assessment of 100 percent PCR negative test results after 6 days. Of the 20 people who did complete the study 6 were asymptomatic at the start and end of the study. It is really easy to get a 100 percent recovery rate when you exclude everyone who’s condition got worse.
I think there may well be some potential in this regimen for those not allergic to the treatment but this is a very small study and the data need to be reviewed, I get that you want to show the impact of the full course of treatment but to exclude patients who either died or were sent to the ICU is highly questionable. I certainly would not lift quarantine or social distancing based just on this...