Distribution of preprint by google drive remains highly suspect, as does the fact that the nominally illustrious first author communicates by a gmail address despite google scholar listing him as having a normal educational email address https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=n8EF_6kAAAAJ...

That said, i know plenty of intensely brilliant weirdo researchers -- but i'd take this with big grains of salt. and i have no idea why a z-pak is a booster for an antiviral therapy.

1. the evidence-free claim of “full peer review”, 2. the fact that patients who refused or met “exclusion criteria” for the drug served as a portion of the control group, and were the only members of the control group from the same region as the experimental group, 3. the removal of people from the experiment group because they went to the ICU or died (only three of first and one of second, but a rather bizarre thing to happen before claiming 100% cure), 4. the lack of coverage from any major news source, despite this being reported about a day ago.

- The twitter guy makes the peer review claim, and i think it's wrong. he is not an author of the paper or affiliated with them, he's just shilling it to elon musk for reasons.

- regionality isn't something i'd considered. I can understand the exclusion group being the control in exeptional cases, like a global pandemic.

- of more concern to me are the either confusing or cargo-culted figures at the end. what in the world is a t- and p value column doing next to age data? why are there nominal p-values per day of administration?

- there might not be coverage, but merck is shipping a boatload of the stuff anyway: https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/bayer-preps-u-s-donation...

For coronaviruses chloroquine works by increasing endosomal pH and interfere with terminal glycosylation of the cellular receptor.[42][43] In late January 2020 during the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak, Chinese medical researchers stated that exploratory research into chloroquine and two other medications, remdesivir and lopinavir/ritonavir, seemed to have "fairly good inhibitory effects" on the 2019 novel coronavirus. Requests to start clinical testing were submitted.[44][45][46] Chloroquine phosphate had been also proposed as a treatment for SARS-CoV with in vitro tests successfully inhibiting the virus.[47]

On 19 February 2020, preliminary results found that chloroquine may be effective and safe in treating COVID-19 associated pneumonia.[48][49] There is evidence to indicate the efficacy of chloroquine phosphate against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, on Vero cells.[50] The Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology and the Guangdong Provincial Health and Health Commission issued a report stating that chloroquine phosphate "improves the success rate of treatment and shortens the length of patient’s hospital stay" and recommended it for patients diagnosed with mild, moderate and severe cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia.[51]

Chloroquine have been recommended by Chinese, South Korean and Italian health authorities for the treatment of COVID-19 [52][53][54], however they have noted the important contraindications for people with certain heart conditions, diabetes, etc.[55][56] In February 2020, both drugs were shown to effectively inhibit COVID-19 in vitro [57], however a further study concluded that hydroxychloroquine was more potent than chloroquine, with a more tolerable safety profile. [58] Preliminary results from a multicentric trial, announced in a press conference suggested that chloroquine is effective and safe in treating COVID-19 associated pneumonia, "improving lung imaging findings, promoting a virus-negative conversion, and shortening the disease course".[59]

On 16 March 2020, advisor to the French Government on COVID-19, Professor Didier Raoult, announced that a trial involving 24 patients from the south east of France supported the claim that chloroquine was an effective treatment for COVID-19.[60] 600mg of hydroxychloroquine was administered to these patients every day for 10 days. The drug appeared to be responsible for a "rapid and effective speeding up of their healing process, and a sharp decrease in the amount of time they remained contagious".[61] The study also suggested that taking chloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin - which is known to be effective against complications from bacterial lung disease - led to even better outcomes. Professor Raoult said the results showed there was "a spectacular reduction in the number of positive cases" with the combination therapy.[62] At 6 days, among patients given combination therapy, the percentage of cases still carrying SRAS-CoV-2 was no more than 5%.[63]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marybethpfeiffer/2020/03/18/sci...

An old malaria and autoimmune drug is showing promise as a potential treatment for COVID-19 – although health officials are urging caution until clinical trials are done.

The drug, hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil, was reported March 9 in Clinical Infectious Diseases journal to be effective at killing the virus in laboratory experiments. In a letter in Cell Discovery Wednesday, the study’s authors, mainly from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, wrote, “(W)e predict that the drug has a good potential to combat the disease.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/here-are-some-exi...

That's the kicker. We are still waiting to see. One guy did it. Now others need to try it and see if it helps.

How would that help vs a virus? Or does it just help the body from having other unrelated things to also fight?

The study itself is interesting, I’m sure, to people in the field (though reading about the study is a bit odd. Of their test group they simply remove six from consideration for reasons like “they died”), but is irrelevant to a layman.

We are undoubtedly going to have hundreds of “this is the cure” claims that aren’t the cure. The way this is presented has significant indicators of not being credible.

Google Drive, some guy claiming that something that isn't peer reviewed at all is "full peer reviewed", pimped on Twitter. Is HN this gullible? How is this nonsense at the top?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine

I don't know how difficult scaling up production is, but the above numbers make me hopeful.

Sample size is only 36. 20 treated patients. 16 control.

[0]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/186Bel9RqfsmEx55FDum4xY_IlWS...

There are widespread report of lung damage for severe Covids patients who recover.

"A renowned research professor in France has reported successful results from a new treatment for Covid-19, with early tests suggesting it can stop the virus from being contagious in just six days.

Professor Raoult is an infectious diseases specialist and head of the IHU Méditerranée Infection, who has been tasked by - and consulted by - the French government to research possible treatments of Covid-19."

https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/French-researche...