Hydroxychloroquine as marketed in Europe
In France, the combination hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZ) is used in the treatment of COVID-19.
Methods
We retrospectively report on 1061 SARS-CoV-2 positive tested patients treated for at least three days with the following regimen: HCQ (200 mg three times daily for ten days) + AZ (500 mg on day 1 followed by 250 mg daily for the next four days). Outcomes were death, clinical worsening (transfer to ICU, and >10 day hospitalization) and viral shedding persistence (>10 days).
Results
A total of 1061 patients were included in this analysis (46.4% male, mean age 43.6 years - range 14-95 years). Good clinical outcome and virological cure were obtained in 973 patients within 10 days (91.7%). Prolonged viral carriage was observed in 47 patients (4.4%) and was associated to a higher viral load at diagnosis (p < .001) but viral culture was negative at day 10. All but one, were PCR-cleared at day 15. A poor clinical outcome (PClinO) was observed for 46 patients (4.3%) and 8 died (0.75%) (74-95 years old). All deaths resulted from respiratory failure and not from cardiac toxicity. Five patients are still hospitalized (98.7% of patients cured so far). PClinO was associated with older age (OR 1.11), severity of illness at admission (OR 10.05) and low HCQ serum concentration. PClinO was independently associated with the use of selective beta-blocking agents and angiotensin II receptor blockers (p < .05). A total of 2.3% of patients reported mild adverse events (gastrointestinal or skin symptoms, headache, insomnia and transient blurred vision).
Conclusion
Administration of the HCQ+AZ combination before COVID-19 complications occur is safe and associated with a very low fatality rate in patients.
Read the full study here.
A) They have NOT isolated pure COVID-19 (and actually don't claim to)
B) Without isolating it and comparing it to other properly purified and identified viruses, it CANNOT be claimed to be NOVEL (in other words, it could be any old virus)
C) So, no matter what test they come up with they don't know whats it's testing because they haven't taken the right steps (at all) in the right order.
From that:
A) Some tests (by no means all) seem to identify SOME of whatever is infecting people. (could be a number of viruses circulating out there and an individual could have more than one of them at the same time.)
B) HCQ + AZ reduces the severity of symptoms of whatever people do have quicker than no treatment and positive test responses go down at the same time
First conclusion: HCQ + AZ is pretty damn good (98.7%) at controlling/eliminating whatever viruses people actually have currently.
There's the kicker. We don't know what they have and it is common for several viruses and strains of the same virus to be floating around at the same time. That is colloquially called "The Cold and Flu season."
Hypothesis: HCQ + AZ is a general cure-all for many flu viruses and cold viruses (there are a fair number of different types of both) and perhaps other viruses. Dare I say, Tamiflu that works?
Questions: Did I miss something somewhere? Is there a hole in my logic?