Yet another peer-reviewed study shows hydroxychloroquine is effective.
Conclusions
This study extends the understanding of outcomes in Covid patients, who require IMV. Only 3.5% of the Cohort “walked out of the hospital”. While several factors have been associated with outcome in hospitalized Covid patients, few are associated with outcome in Covid patients requiring IMV.
Most Covid studies have not considered days of therapy, cumulative dose, or weight-adjusted dosing. We found that when the cumulative doses of two drugs, HCQ and AZM, were above a certain level, patients had a survival rate 2.9 times the other patients. By using causal analysis and considering of weight-adjusted cumulative dose, we prove the combined therapy, >3 g HCQ and > 1g AZM greatly increases survival in Covid patients on IMV and that HCQ cumulative dose > 80 mg/kg works substantially better. These data do not yet apply to hospitalized patients not on IMV. Since those with higher doses of HCQ had higher doses of AZM, we cannot solely attribute the causal effect to HCQ/AZM combination therapy.
However, it is likely AZM does contribute significantly to this increase in survival rate. Since higher dose HCQ/AZM therapy improves survival by nearly 200% in this population, the safety data are moot. However, given the data presented here, the studies reporting HCQ’s effect of QTc intervals need to be re-evaluated.