Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
It comes up again and again.
Hydroxychloroquine (which I will refer to as HCQ to save space and keystrokes) as a potential treatment or cure for COVID-19.
President Donald Trump, who has yet to admit error in any part of his life, let alone his chaotic presidency, still insists that HCQ is effective in treating COVID-19, even while doctors and medical studies worldwide repeatedly conclude it is not.
HCQ combined with azithromycin, a powerful antibiotic, does not work either. Evidence that a combination of the two drugs might, emphasis on might, be effective in treating COVID-19 has also been discounted in better designed, medically reviewed, studies.
HCQ and azithromycin are both legitimate drugs. HCQ is helpful in preventing and fighting malaria, especially if treatment starts early in malaria’s onset, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. It also is effective in treating lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, under a doctor’s care.
Why it works doctors aren’t really sure, but documented experience shows that it does.
Azithromycin, as an antibiotic, works to fight bacterial infections, not viral ones like COVID-19, according to doctors and drug companies alike.
One website, Drugwatch.com, describes azithromycin as “an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections such as bronchitis, pneumonia, and infections of the ears, lungs and other organs.”
It cannot fight the coronavirus, even in combination with HCQ.
This does not mean an antibiotic cannot be helpful to a COVID-19 patient, though. Azithromycin can ward off secondary bacterial infections that are likely to attack a patient’s airways and lungs when they are weakened by COVID-19.
Such decisions, however, must be left up to doctors. Real doctors. Not doctors who rail about alien DNA and sex with demons, and not ophthalmologists who are no longer in practice.
Remdesivir? A big maybe, but it prevents viruses from reproducing. We can hope COVID-19’s virus is one of them.
Why conservatives advocate HCQ against all medical evidence and shun masks, which have proven effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19, is a question that will forever remain in the realm of political mysticism.
A similar question is why right-wing “analysts” say the only reason HCQ is discredited is the president’s advocacy of it, playing into Trump’s enormous capacities for self-pity and blame-shifting, when the only reason they support the drug’s use for COVID-19 is that the president does.
COVID-19 is one of the scariest developments in human history. You can’t blame doctors and scientists for raising their hopes when some drug or treatment shows promise in fighting it, but they are also the first to tell us to wait until promise becomes verified through rigorous testing and review.
In the meantime, wear masks (Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert’s mask did not give him COVID-19.), maintain six feet of social distance from everybody, stay home whenever you can, wash your hands frequently, get tested if you develop COVID-19 symptoms, and frequently sanitize surfaces that receive public use.
And wait as long as we have to for a vaccine.
It’s not politics, it’s common sense.
Steve Hansen writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: