I would love to see that study done right. All of these retrospective studies are just data mining. As I said before, if nobody did the effective thing, then you can't find it by data mining. But in that study quoted in my first table, they DID do the effective thing. And when they mined the data, they DID find it.
That effective thing was to divide patients into not so sick versus very sick groups when first seen, then they gave one group within those HCQ + zinc, versus the other arm who did not receive zinc supplements. For people who were not so sick when first given treatment, those who got zinc with their HCQ were around half as likely to die as the people who got no zinc. p = 0.004 means something really happened. You can't ignore p = 0.004. It is not proof, but it's highly suggestive.
Is there any such suggestive data for quercetin? Just in vitro data that shows it is an effective zinc ionophore, as far as I know.
Yes, you can ignore it if you have no control and no paired randomization. It's possible that it is just a fluke or due to some other still unknown intervening factor.
Like I said, proof only comes from RCTs. Nothing short of that delivers proof.
Like I said, what you are saying could be explained if the active principle is the zinc rather than the HCQ.
