After two weeks battling COVID-19, State Rep. Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay) posted on Facebook that he needed his lungs X-rayed as his symptoms now included a recurring fever and a hacking chest cough. He remarked that the hydroxychloroquine therapy he had been on proved ineffective.
I've had a cold who knows how many times. I have never had to deal with anything like this. And for those who want to believe that (hydroxychloroquine) is some kind of magic solution, I'vve been taking that too (I don't oppose it, but I am tired of people pretending it is magic),he wrote in the post.
By the time the X-ray images came back showing lung damage serious enough that doctors ordered Fine to stay for observation, a debate over hydroxychloroquine raged on Fine's Facebook page.
Hydroxychloroquine as stated by many Doctors here and abroad is very effective. Had you been given that at the outset you might think it was magic indeed...wrote one user.
Was given it the day my test came back, Fine replied. Sorry to burst the magic bubble.
Further on, netizens commented that surely Fine must have not been taking the drug as prescribed or following protocol (there is none established by any medical authority).
"I'm over it," Fine texted FLORIDA TODAY from his Holmes Regional Medical Center hospital bed on Monday. "People should be able to use it if they want. But people should stop pretending it is some kind of magic potion as well. If they need proof, look at me."
Since the early days of the pandemic, excitement over the possibility that cheap, widely available drugs might be repurposed to combat the novel coronavirus has spurred a flurry of research and clinical trials. But one non-peer reviewed, clinical study from France, which has been widely derided for its shoddy methodology, including randomly eliminating test subjects without explanation, and small sample size, touted the effectiveness of the decades old anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine when used alongside azithromycin the antibiotic commonly sold as Z-Pak.
Fervor around a possible miracle cure exploded, fueled by anecdotal reports that patients recovered suddenly after taking the drug. Before science could validate the results of the study, the drug was seized on by President Donald Trump who along with allies such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis secured vast quantities of the untested cure at taxpayers expense.
