[cherylncliff]

There is no evidence to date that this drug is effective in any way against COVID 19. In many of the cases where people taking it recovered, they were also given steroids (now known to improve chances of recovery) as well as other treatments. In controlled studies among health care workers and several other large scale controlled studies, there was no benefit to taking hydroxychloroquine. While this is an old, well studied drug, it does have the risk of some substantial side effects including ocular toxicity and death. In fact, one clinical study was terminated early due to the higher than expected death rate in the hydroxychloroquine arm of the study. The FDA, after reviewing all of the data, withdrew its emergency use approval. You might as well take sugar pills and leave the hydroxychloroquine for the patients who really need it for diseases where it is approved.