> I've read very similar arguments to justify using hydroxychloroquine without a good RCT last year The big RCTs for Hydroxychrloriquine used almost toxic dose

> I've read very similar arguments to justify using hydroxychloroquine without a good RCT last year The big RCTs for Hydroxychrloriquine used almost toxic doses in very late treatment stages, when there's no viral replication. These were studies that were designed to fail in order to discredit early treatments. The corruption of medical sciences has happened many times before (e.g. tobacco industry, asbestos, Vioxx, opioids...) HCQ is only effective in the early viral replication stage, (the first few days after symptoms). For example, in a peer-reviewed study of 29K patients for early treatment, it showed a 73% reduction in death. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567576921002721 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156757692... If you only include early treatment studies, you do see that HCQ definitely helps. https://hcqmeta.com/#fig_fpearly https://hcqmeta.com/#fig_fpearly https://hcqmeta.com/#exc https://hcqmeta.com/#exc That said, the results for HCQ compared to Ivermectin are less consistent, it only works early stages, it has no anti-inflammatory effect, the improvements are smaller, and there are more adverse effects. The risk/benefit there is smaller, but it's still much better than the current approach which is take paracetamol until you're sick enough to go the hospital. There are zero RCTs for paracetamol. If you're curious about the case for Ivermectin, this is a good video to start with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkIKCbwBcLU&t=708s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkIKCbwBcLU&t=708s