This shows pretty conclusively that the combination of HCN + zinc makes a huge difference when you give it to patients not sick enough to need the ICU yet. It also shows that it has very little effect on patients that need the ICU.
How do we know that HCQ lets zinc in through the cell membrane and that blocks virus replication? Because that has been proved with human cells in vitro, and sure enough it also works in vivo as shown in the study I quoted with p = 0.004
It's the combination of HCQ + zinc that is effective early with p = 0.004. To bad those poor lupus and RA sufferers weren't taking any zinc. BTW, I'm not taking HCQ because it's prescription and a bit dangerous. I'm taking quercetin and zinc (below the recommended zinc safe dose) because quercetin is a zinc ionophore like HCQ, but very safe.
(Sorry, used HCN as abbreviation for hydroxychloroquine at times)
I'm not sure about pretty conclusive, buddy.
Show me a study with:
One arm with HCQ alone.
One arm with HCQ + zinc.
One arm with zinc alone.
One arm with placebo.
THEN and only then, we'd have a pretty conclusive answer, if the arm with HCQ + Zinc performed better than all other three, to a statistically significant level.
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But we are doing the same. I'm taking quercetin 250mg twice a day and zinc 30mg once a day, and Vitamin D 5,000 units per day, vitamin C 500mg twice a day.
And I'll not be taking HCQ either. I'm totally and utterly unconvinced that HCQ has any effect whatsoever against the SARS-CoV-2, and it sure can prolong the QTc. I believe that the risks (significant) outweigh the benefits (none).
Look, these lupus and RA patients who were on HCQ and contracted COVID-19 at exactly the same rates of those who were not on it, and progressed to severe cases at exactly the same rates of those without it, do have zinc in their bodies. Most people have normal levels of zinc. So wouldn't you expect at least some advantage of HCQ in that situation? The fact that none has been found, now in multiple studies, doesn't bode well for its efficacy against COVID-19.
Just today, the Health Minister of Brazil, a doctor, quit because the idiotic president there, Bolsonaro a.k.a. the Tropical Trump, tried to force him to recommend HCQ, and he refused saying there is no scientific evidence of its efficacy.
I mean, if YOU are so convinced of HCQ's efficacy, shouldn't you be taking it as prophilactic?
I won't. I don't think it confers a prophilactic protection, and I don't think it helps mild, moderate, or severe cases. The overwhelming majority of the evidence so far points to it being useless. I'd even question the agenda of the very few studies that indicate some hint of usefulness when all the others unanimously show that it doesn't work.
You do know that this has now evolved into a politically-charged issue, right? Now, President Maduro of Venezuela is pushing it too.
It reminds me of issues such as research on racial differences. You find right wing-biased papers insisting with racial differences in the human species, while left wing papers will show that the human species doesn't really have races, biologically speaking, but just cosmetic differences (a position I believe in, based on histocompatibility data, in the fact that your black neighbor can be a better kidney donor for you than one of your white relatives.
