Also can you cite the solid research showing hydroxychloroquine + arithromycin failing for covid-19?
Keep in mind that the lack of rigor in the current pre-peer review literature coming out means that you have to take everything into account and with a grain of salt. For example, a drug showing effectiveness might have been with a mild case that started with a low viral load and wouldn’t have progressed any way (this is just an example, I’m not saying that is the case). Since the therapeutic index is so low, you can’t just dial up the dosage to treat severe cases that actually require pharmaceutical intervention, because it’s a non-starter.
[0]: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/chloroquine-and-hydroxychloroq...
Also you do a lot of work to make it sound like a foregone conclusion it doesn’t work (appeals to authority in “anyone paying attention”).
The problem is there is now a lot of anecdotal evidence of it working from good sources (teams of doctors on frontlines from around the world). So really you can’t appeal to anyone paying attention.
This is a comment I posted to HN three weeks ago, when I was pretty sure (but unfortunately wrong!) that the suggested chloroquine dosage for purportedly treating covid-19 was being reported in the wrong units because it was so high, using only the information in the FDA docs on the chloroquines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22611041
Choloroquine is very well known to have an extremely low therapeutic index (ratio of fatal dosage to effective dosage) and people (well, non-infant children) have been known to die from just a 1g dose. The recommendation for Covid-19 starts at an order of magnitude higher than the recommended FDA dosage for malarial suppression.
(Pretty much) everything can kill viruses at high enough doses. The question is if it can do it without killing the patient as well, and it is eminently clear from existing, solid research that choloroquine doesn’t fit that bill.
Hydroxychloroquine is better tolerated than chloroquine base, but not that much more to sufficiently matter. It also has its own horrible dangers (including complete blindness from accelerated macular degeneration) that have been well documented at long-term “low” dosages; it is not a stretch to assume they would happen with short term high dosages.
There is a reason these only work in vitro - you don’t have to worry about killing the patient there.