And while there are other theories on why HCQ might help, I agree that this is the most promising; in particular because the one study that has actually studied HCQ with zinc suggests a significant benefit (almost cuts the rate of death in half):
https://www.medrxiv.org/conten...

I would like to see attempts at measuring zinc levels in COVID-19 patients to see if zinc deficient patients fall into a high risk group. I know they have done this with vitamin-D, but so far I have not seen any attempt to do this with zinc.

I have seen Chinese studies on what biomarkers predict death in COVID-19 patients. For example this is one claims with 90% accuracy that they can predict what patients will die with 3 biomarkers: LDH, c-reactive protein, and lymphocytes:
https://www.nature.com/article...

High LDH levels indicates the body is already falling apart and so is no big surprise that is a primary indicator of death. However there are studies that show c-reactive proteins and lymphocyte levels are both directly related to zinc levels. So it would be interesting to learn whether zinc deficiency increases the risk of COVID-19 death.

And here is an interesting link that speculates on the association between COVID-19 and zinc deficiency: https://www.insiderbaseball.co...

Anyways I would like to see a careful study of zinc deficiency in COVID-19 patients.

Here is one double blind controlled study that suggests hydroxychloroquine by itself does not provide much benefit as a preventive a measure:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/...

Even though this study was double blind, they surveyed the participants at the end of the trial as to whether they were given hydroxychloroquine or the placebo, and while many were not sure, of the ones that did think they knew, 86% correctly said they got the hydroxychloroquine and 68% correctly said they got the placebo.

Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc. The study you reference and the earlier ones you refer to don't include zinc. Here is a study that suggests that including zinc with the hydroxychloroquine provides a benefit:
https://www.medrxiv.org/conten...

Here is an interesting link that hints as to why zinc might be important:
https://www.insiderbaseball.co...

A study by New York University Grossman School of Medicine was just submitted on Friday for peer review that found HCQ with zinc sulfate reduced the death rate compared to using HCQ with no zinc. When Zinc was used the death rate was 13.1% and when zinc was not used it was 22.8%. So the death rate was almost cut in half when zinc was added. The study also found that once the patient got bad enough to enter the ICU the zinc did not seem to help. The study seemed to do a fairly rigorous job at making sure the two groups that were compared were fairly balanced in many important factors: sex, race, medical history, etc. https://www.medrxiv.org/conten... [medrxiv.org]

A study by New York University Grossman School of Medicine was just submitted on Friday for peer review that found HCQ with zinc sulfate reduced the death rate compared to using HCQ with no zinc. When Zinc was used the death rate was 13.1% and when zinc was not used it was 22.8%. So the death rate was almost cut in half when zinc was added. The study also found that once the patient got bad enough to enter the ICU the zinc did not seem to help. The study seemed to do a fairly rigorous job at making sure the two groups that were compared were fairly balanced in many important factors: sex, race, medical history, etc.

https://www.medrxiv.org/conten...

It has been known for many years (at least since 2014) that chloroquine helps zinc get into the cell. See this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Zinc has been known to inhibit virus replication,including SARS in vitro https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

So there is a reasonable basis for thinking the combination of hydroxychloroquine and zinc might work. Many people point this out, but for some reasons it gets ignored. Even many of the trials with hydroxychloroquine don't seem to be combining it with zinc, which seems strange given that zinc blocking the virus replication is the mechanisms cited in scientific papers as the basis for how hyroxychloroquine stops the virus.

Can someone please site a source for these quotes from the White House. Comments like this without source don't deserve to be modded up.

By giving up funds to Iran, Biden can now claim he helped get Hezbollah back on their feet.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... "Hezbollah is generally considered the most powerful non-state actor in the world, and to be stronger than the Lebanese Army."

I get the concern of the Russian pipeline, but I agree the US went too far.

On the US tariffs on Canadian steel; it sounds like the tariffs no longer exist; not sure why this was done in the first place. It is hard to get good news on such things as news is more political than informative these days.

Fair enough, Trump wanted to renegotiate NAFTA and get a better deal. And we got this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I suppose this is bullying to some degree. Better to find a win win deal in my opinion. So if Canada feels it got a bad deal than I agree that sucks.

Please give an example of where the United States bullies someone for their lunch money. I am curious as to what you mean by this.

The United States only bullies the actual bullies. Here is the official list of countries the US has economic sanctions on: https://www.treasury.gov/resou...

None of the countries on the list are good actors. Almost all of them are effectively dictatorships that control people through brutal force (i.e. bullies).

Maybe the US policies are dumb or ineffective, but what should the US do instead?

Before making jokes they should understand why he voted against coronavirus and not make up their own narrative about his intentions.

I somewhat misread your comment and you may have a point that some European systems being better for this type of situation, but whether you got HSA with high deductible or traditional insurance you will still be in the same situation. For many people in the USA HSAs are a good choice.. That was all I was trying to point out.

You are required to have a high deductible health plan in order to qualify for an HSA. So your hit by the bus scenario would be covered by this.

I think what you wrote about "He keeps committing obvious crimes" is false. In this particular instance we don't know what Dana Rohrabacher said to Julian Assange. We don't know if Trump asked Dana Rohrabacher to ask Julian Assange anything. So *obviously* there is no obvious crime here until you can establish the truth of what was said.