Trump has COVID-19. I’m curious about the alleged treatment from Dr. Vladimir Zelenko.

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

October 2, 2020

Trump has COVID-19.

At least since March, and possibly even earlier, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko from New York has been claiming to have a high rate of success treating COVID-19 patients.

His alleged treatment uses hydroxychloroquine, but it’s different from all the other hydroxychloroquine treatments for two reasons.

The first difference is that Dr. Zelenko uses a triple combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin.

The second difference is that Dr. Zelenko starts treating patients in the first few days of infection, before they become sick enough to require hospitalization.

Other treatments that use hydroxychloroquine have been discredited, but those other treatments do not match these two criteria.

I don’t don’t know if Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment actually works or not.

In my opinion, one of the two following things must be true:

1) Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment does not work, which means that conservatives and libertarians (including myself) have fallen for a scam.

2) Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment really does work, but liberals have chosen to ignore, dismiss, and belittle it.

Anyway, on July 3, preprints.org reported the following on Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment:

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202007.0025/v1

COVID-19 Outpatients – Early Risk-Stratified Treatment with Zinc Plus Low Dose Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: A Retrospective Case Series Study

Of 335 positively PCR-tested COVID-19 patients, 127 were treated with the triple therapy. 104 of 127 met the defined risk stratification criteria and were included in the analysis. In addition, 37 treated and eligible patients who were confirmed by IgG tests were included in the treatment group (total N=141). 208 of the 335 patients did not meet the risk stratification criteria and were not treated. After 4 days (median, IQR 3-6, available for N=66/141) of onset of symptoms, 141 patients (median age 58 years, IQR 40-60; 73% male) got a prescription for the triple therapy for 5 days. Independent public reference data from 377 confirmed COVID-19 patients of the same community were used as untreated control. 4 of 141 treated patients (2.8%) were hospitalized, which was significantly less (p<0.001) compared with 58 of 377 untreated patients (15.4%) (odds ratio 0.16, 95% CI 0.06-0.5). Therefore, the odds of hospitalization of treated patients were 84% less than in the untreated group. One patient (0.7%) died in the treatment group versus 13 patients (3.5%) in the untreated group (odds ratio 0.2, 95% CI 0.03-1.5; p=0.16). There were no cardiac side effects. Conclusions: Risk stratification-based treatment of COVID-19 outpatients as early as possible after symptom onset with the used triple therapy, including the combination of zinc with low dose hydroxychloroquine, was associated with significantly less hospitalizations and 5 times less all-cause deaths.