Hydroxychloroquine: It’s as if the Left want the pandemic in the US and UK to be worse. By David Evans.
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), sold under the brand name Plaquenil among others, is a medication used to prevent and treat malaria … rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and porphyria cutanea tarda. …
Common side effects include vomiting, headache, changes in vision, and muscle weakness. Severe side effects may include allergic reactions, vision problems, and heart problems. …
Hydroxychloroquine was approved for medical use in the United States in 1955. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. In 2017, it was the 128th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than five million prescriptions.
It’s also cheap, and widely used near the equator to guard against malaria.
Covid19Crusher has a mountain of tweets arguing that HCQ is a fairly effective prophylactic for COVID-19, that is, it guards against COVID and helps reduce its spread. It doesn’t cure a person with advanced COVID, but if people are taking it then they are unlikely to get serious COVID — as demonstrated by the populations that happens to be taking it as an anti-malarial. If taken as a treatment early in a COVID infection, it reduces the chances of COVID advancing to the serious and deadly phase. Sample:
That the US and UK bureaucracies pooh-pooh HCQ, while refusing to even discuss the obvious measure of closing the borders (except with quarantine, of course), reminds me of China — perhaps there is an ulterior agenda in play?
Everything China did — not warning the world, keeping quiet about its spread, “it’s just like the flu,” “closing borders is racist”, preventing those fleeing Wuhan from going to the rest of China while allowing them to travel internationally, preventing investigation, causing WHO to delay spreading the alarm, etc. — all had the effect of sickening its industrial competitors.
Everything the US and UK left/bureaucrats/media did — not closing borders in time, “closing borders is racist”, not closing borders while in lockdown thus preventing the lockdown from dramatically reducing new cases like everywhere else that locked down, extending lockdown to regions that didn’t need them or when there is little risk, discouraging HCQ use, etc. — all have the effect of worsening the pandemic in the US and UK, increasing the economic pain for people outside their class, and reduce the chances of Trump being re-elected.
Coincidences? At some point, you really have to wonder.
hat-tip David Archibald