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It’s after 11, time to post a take on CHLOROQUINE
Stories like this present the chloroquine thing as primarily a story about Trump amplifying viral right wing nonsense (“a distinctly modern tale of misinformation within a global information ecosystem” etc) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/hydroxychloroquine-trump-coronavirus-drug
They’re not...wrong? But IMO they’re missing the most interesting part of the story. Doctors in both China and South Korea, the two places that appear to have most thoroughly beaten back the virus, both advised colleagues elsewhere to use it
That’s....significant? Not in a clinical trial sort of way, obviously this is still very unproven. But I dunno - if both the Chinese National Health Commission and the Korean CDC are both saying it’s worked for them, that’s something to listen to?
Anyhow for what it’s worth, here’s what the Korean CDC was saying more than a week before that French study came out https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/12/South-Korea-experts-recommend-anti-HIV-anti-malaria-drugs-for-COVID-19/6961584012321/
And here’s how the NYT describes what China’s main medical association was advising in early March https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/magazine/first-coronavirus-patient-new-jersey.html
Anyhow my point here isn’t that chloroquine is some miracle cure – nobody knows, scientists will soon have better information. But the idea of this originating as Trumpworld / Fox / internet weirdos hawking a random French study is wrong and kind of provincial
