Incredible. It seems the only reason the media was so against hydroxychloroquine is because Trump was publicly optimistic about it - likely because he was briefed on it being used in non-clinical capacity.
Several early studies failed to show benefit. Not everything is a media conspiracy. Science is an evolutionary process.
That said, this study is interesting, but there's more to look at here than just HCQ. Specifically, this study isn't truly looking at the effects of AZM + HCQ in isolation:
Steroids were given to 78.9% of the HCQ group, 74.3% of the HCQ+AZM group, but only 35.7% of the control group. Thus, the groups were clearly not being treated the same in other ways besides whether or not they got HCQ. There are already studies showing that certain steroids can significantly cut covid mortality:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/16/major-study-finds-common-steroid-reduces-deaths-among-patients-with-severe-covid-19/Also noteworthy is that the HCQ-only patients were in the best shape at the start - they had the lowest mean mSOFA (a screening for organ failure) score, which is one measure of overall patient duress.
Based on this, it's impossible to say how much of the total effect can be attributed to HCQ itself. Not dismissing the study, but there's clearly more work to be done to hone in on what the optimal treatment protocol for Covid is, and in isolating the impacts of individual components. Remdesevir has shown measurable benefits too, as has dexamethasone. Clearly *something* about the treatment group led to better outcomes in the above study, but there were more differences between the groups besides just HCQ. Understanding all of that is the key to developing the best possible treatment protocols. The optimal treatment protocol will probably eventually involve multiple drugs - though it's not clear which combination is best at this point.
Conclusion:
In this multi-hospital assessment, when controlling for COVID-19 risk factors, treatment with hydroxychloroquine alone and in combination with azithromycin was associated with reduction in COVID-19 associated mortality. Prospective trials are needed to examine this impact.
For the sake of accuracy, there's absolutely nothing in this study to suggest that azithromycin did anything useful. The AZM+HCQ group fared worse than the group with HCQ alone(although they were also objectively sicker), and there's no statistical difference in mortality rates between the control group and AZM alone.
