Television journalists think they’re making a searing point by endlessly pointing out that hydroxychloroquine has not been 100% proved as an effective treatment against the coronavirus. In reality, they’re foolishly refuting a claim that no one is making.
CNN’s John Berman on Monday told White House trade director Peter Navarro that he is, in fact, not a medical doctor and is therefore unqualified to treat patients infected with the virus.
Thank God Berman saved all those people not waiting for treatment from Navarro, who has yet to show up at any of the daily press briefings with a white coat and stethoscope.
You don’t have to be a surgeon, pediatrician, or even veterinarian to repeat the things published by scientists and, yes, even other medical professionals, which is that there is reason to believe that chloroquine may, at the very least, help patients mitigate the infection’s symptoms.
And that’s all that Navarro, President Trump, and Anthony Fauci have been doing: repeating the evidence that it may — may — be useful.
Navarro told Berman that the federal government has dispensed the drug en masse to hospitals in virus hot zones where doctors can make the decision whether they want to prescribe the drug to their infected patients. He said that doctors in New York are in fact making great use of it. (If you want your hydroxychloroquine, you can keep your hydroxychloroquine!) And he said, accurately, that one very limited study has showed that some patients recovered quicker when treated with the drug.
The World Health Organization itself has found some hope in the treatment.
But Berman, who perhaps wasn’t listening, asked Navarro why, then, is Fauci, the leading government authority on infectious diseases, “wrong about this.”
What?!
Navarro had not contradicted anything Fauci said. The TV clip that Berman played of Fauci to make his own dumb point even proved it. What Fauci said in that clip was, “I think in terms of science, I don’t think we can definitely say it works.”
Where’s the problem?
In a separate recent interview, Fauci was asked if he would use hydroxychloroquine to treat an infected patient, and he said, “Yes, of course. I mean, particularly if people have no other option, you want to give them hope.”
But Berman was adamant. “What are your qualifications,” he asked, exasperated, “to weigh in on medicine more than Dr. Anthony Fauci? Why should we listen to you and not Dr. Fauci?” Navarro said again, accurately, that he had seen what experts have said and the evidence so far available.
Trump has said nothing different from Navarro or Fauci. “We’ll see what happens,” he said at one press briefing, “but there is a theory out there that for the medical worker, doctor, it may work.”
Why are we debating this? Why are the media arguing against points that no one is making?
I assume it’s because they’re all perpetually negative pessimists, a useless position at precisely the time that everyone needs to be hopeful.
Recall that experts told us that it was pointless to wear masks over our noses and mouths in public to reduce the risk of spreading the virus, guidance that seemed to fly in the face of all common sense and personal experience. They’ve changed their mind on that one.
The science is still out on hydroxychloroquine. But, in the meantime, let’s look at the evidence and not the media.
