HCQ has many laudable qualities for dealing with COVID, but its the Zinc that does the job of killing it off. The ZPack provides all of the horrid side effects that people point at. (Avoid it unless secondary bacterial infections are an issue)
But, no there are other compounds at act as Zinc ionophores. (Allow Zinc to cross the cell barrier) Most effective and available is Quercetin. But even Green Tea has compounds that act as a Zinc Ionophore. Quercetin doesn’t have anywhere near the safety record of HCQ however, and it would be the fastest and safest alternative.
The deal with Quercetin is that it impacts your liver and thus drugs that are metabolized to make them effective or remove them from the system by the liver can have enhanced or reduced effectiveness. If you are taking them, you need to consider carefully. If you check WebMD you will find a whole pile of question marks not hard statements of this issue or that.. HCQ - 70 years of safe experience with very particular issues. The whole thing of discrediting it is like discrediting aspirin. Aspirin has really negative side effects in certain cases, but for the most part it is still one of the best drugs available to humanity.
HCQ is pretty awesome but once someone is intubated, not going to make as much a difference, but as HCQ alone it probably is still very helpful, but this is just a shadow of what it could have done in combo with Zinc a few days earlier if it was given.
No arguments there. 8>)