The story of hydroxychloroquine is much misunderstood. People remember it as “Trump’s horse dewormer” but it was one of the first potential treatments to emerge

The story of hydroxychloroquine is much misunderstood. People remember it as “Trump’s horse dewormer” but it was one of the first potential treatments to emerge in the Chinese standard of care in the early stages of the pandemic. That fact, combined with the “fog of war” and that we know hcq is well tolerated in humans makes it a fairly reasonable bet. The bet being wrong is a separate matter to whether or not it was reasonable. Conversely, I would argue the early anti-mask messaging was unreasonable based on similar logic (well bounded and low costs, potentially high benefits). The conclusion that I know some people took away from it is that critical thinking is not an evolutionarily favored trait in certain administrative roles.