The thing that worries me is the guy who gets up one morning with symptoms and then decides to self-medicate instead of seeking proper help.
If you take ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine to try and prevent infection and still get sick then you know it was not adequate in your case and you seek immediate professional attention.
It’s the delay that scares me... early treatment is important with covid.
Context is everything.
My own anecdote from January (before the vax were available), I saw my doc for an unrelated matter, and we had a brief chat about what he would recommend if I were to come down with the ‘rona. At the time, I was careing for an elderly relative in an assisted living facility, and the virus was just tearing through the place.
“Well, my first recommendation would be one of the monoclonals, as soon as you have symptoms”.
Great! I thought, problem solved!
“But the problem is, there’s limited availability, and you don’t meet the current criteria anyway...”
Long story short, and after I asked, he agreed that if the “mabs” weren’t available, he’d give me a scrip for ivermectin, with the warning that while he didn’t think it would hurt, he personally didn’t think it would do any good, either.
The point of this long-winded post being, when someone asks “does this stuff work”, we have to understand “compared to what?” Compared to waiting at home until your O2 sat is 84? I’ll take my chances with something that is unproven, but with a great safety profile. Compared to Lilly’s or Regeneron’s mabs? Yeah, I’ll have those.