Harsh words.
He’s being more pro-active in addressing the problem than anyone else is, and he has good reason.
He said he’s tested over 200 people in his community and 65% of the tests came back positive. That essentially means most of his entire community of 35,000 has probably been exposed. Some of them are probably resistant and some remain unexposed, but not a large percentage. But that large a sample means that if someone comes in with symptoms, he probably has contracted the virus. So he treats them. Makes sense to me. (Note: I am assuming that he’s talking about testing a somewhat random sample here, and not just people who come in with symptoms and I’m assuming that because he should know that he can’t extrapolate tests on his sick patients to the entire community. I could be wrong though.)
He’s also added zinc to the protocol, which from what I’ve read is a good idea.
I think it’s fair to assume that well over half the people he’s treated, and probably closer to 90% of them, have CoVid-19. The fact (assuming he’s being truthful) that none of them have progressed to ventilators is nothing short of amazing, but he’s saying even more that that. Out of 500 patients treated he’s had zero hospitalizations! Even if he’s exaggerating by leaving out a dozen or so, that’s still a fantastic result.
In short, ignoring his story, or brushing him off without checking the facts is more than a bit silly. If there are big holes in his story, they’ll be obvious soon enough. If we had a functioning news media today, we’d know the facts by the evening news because they’d have been all over it and we’d know exactly how his patients were doing, with first hand reports, etc. (Yes, despite HIPPA). But we don’t, so we have to wait for the truth to come out in dribs and drabs, if ever.
It’s a very good idea to try to treat people to prevent severe illness. Many have considered it. If hydroxychloroquine is scarce, it is less so than ventilators.
If you can test 200 people as a random sample, you can test all your treated patients, even if you start treatment before results are returned. Treating before results should depend on time to get results and severity/progression of signs and symptoms.
If he is going to use limited resources, he has at the very least an obligation to other people, to collect data which would benefit the greater community.