i absolutely don't see the need for a control group. We just need to monitor which patient had the treament and which didn't, globally. But if a doctor wants to prescribe all its patient with it, he should be allowed to, as long as it doesn't go against the traditional counter-indication for this very well known and very widely used on a global scale drug.
> We just need to monitor which patient had the treament and which didn't, globally
And you just described the reason for a control group. We simply do not have that information. Things are moving too fast and treatments have not been standardized yet, not to mention the built in variability between locations. If you want to know if a treatment is effective, you must have to comparable groups. The point of the control group is to gather that information. Just because there are many, many, global cases doesn’t mean you actually have been able to capture the data for a control. Things are moving that fast.
> But if a doctor wants to prescribe all its patient with it, he should be allowed to
And what about the supply of these drugs? There are people who do need these drugs for other conditions (I’ve read Lupus patients sometimes need it). These patients need the drug and the supply is getting scooped up by people who don’t know (a) if they have the virus and (b) if the treatment is effective. And if it is effective, is it effective for treatment of infection or prophylactically? Just because a drug is widely used does not mean that there is enough supply to distribute it to anyone who wants to try it.
These are major issues that can be answered with proper clinical trials. We know how to do this and they can (and are) being done as fast as possible.
I saw a retweet the other day by a Lupus patient who couldn't get their prescription refilled. That's going to make a crappy situation much worse for a whole class of people.
