The state on Friday loosened restrictions on using a controversial malaria drug for COVID-19 patients, making it more readily available for people in nursing homes and other facilities. The decision comes amid reports of nursing home residents dying from complications of the disease and after some doctors, politicians and pharmacists had called for a change in the state's rules. Until Friday's order, doctors had been barred from prescribing hydroxychloroquine and some other drugs to treat COVID-19 outside of hospitals unless patients tested positive for the virus.