Edit: Changed hydroxyquinone to the correct hydroxychloroquine.
Edit: Changed hydroxyquinone to the correct hydroxychloroquine.
To give an answer to this endless debate, a proper, randomized clinical trial is needed. And the conditions set correctly, too: lopinavir and ritonavir were, per NEJM, not successful, but a later study in Lancet showed that administration at earlier time points (within 7 days of symptom onset) might be working and needs more investigation.
I know Novartis is running a trial, and so is U of Minnesota[1] which has finally completed enrollment and will release results after peer review.
Oh, and more on topic, it looks like Twitter has blocked a legitimate page of the Canadian part of the same group of trials[2].
[2] https://twitter.com/DrToddLee/status/1261442201369939968
[1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/no-benefit-fro...
The positive studies suffer from the same issues, by the way. Especially controls are pretty bad.
These studies can't give the answers that a proper randomized controlled trial (against placebo), like the U of Minnesota one (but there are a few others) can.
Some studies focus on mortality, but I doubt HCQ helps there: like remedisivir, the measure should be time to symptom clearance / hospital discharge. Time of administration also matters a lot (see again the NEJM paper on lopinavir / ritonavir, a failure, then the Lancet paper that gives more insight at earlier time points). One study I've read gave HCQ at 16 days post symptom onset (median): that time is definitely too late for any antiviral therapy.
I reiterate: I have no personal interest in having HCQ succeed. What I want to see is good science.