The Dog That Has Not Barked

Why have we not heard results from any of the US studies of hydroxychloraquine yet?

The claim was that it can clear up symptoms from COVID-19 within five days. We have had lots more than five days since the US studies were announced. If the authorities have not managed to complete several tests, they are badly failing in their duty.

We should, logically, have heard either that it does or does not work by now.

There seem to be two possibilities: either it does not work, and the authorities do not want to say so, because the result might be despair in the general public; or it does work, but the authorities do not want to say so, because they do not have sufficient supplies.

At last evening’s presser, Trump asserted several times that more testing for antigens or antibodies, although desirable, was not needed in order to open the economy back up. This was striking; I had just written how this was indeed the key. Mike Pence kept speaking of “therapies,” or “medicines,” as the solution.

It seems to me he has to mean chloraquine et al. While there might be other promising drugs, almost anything else is going to take longer than the strategy of testing everyone.

It felt odd that he kept self-consciously using the vague term “therapies” (or was it “treatments”?) Then he clarified “medicines.” It was as though he was studiously avoiding the term “hydroxychloraquine.” Which might have started a run on the drug.

They presumably need somehow to shore up supplies. They seem to have shaken loose a large shipment from India. They may need to do more. Perhaps the shortage is not hydroxychloroquine, but zinc and azithromycin, which seem also to be parts of the suggested cure.

But whatever they plan to do, apparently, it will be faster than making enough test kits. Perhaps by May.

The case of Boris Johnson is troubling. Surely, as the PM, his British doctors would have had access to the drug. And he seems to have had a rough go.

But it would not be too surprising if, out of machismo and general lack of concern for his own health, he declined such treatment early on, figuring he could tough it out like the next guy. One gets the sense that he, and the British establishment, have not been inclined to take coronavirus that seriously.