The amount of people not reading the article or the study is astounding.

This is not about Trump.
This is not about your conservative uncle.
This is not about America only.

This is about off label prescribing in ICU and ERs early in the pandemic with low evidence (theoretical pathways) in six countries which either gave explicit approval or unclear guidance that was interpreted as approval. It goes on to suggest that in a similar emergency future, the state agencies sould do better.

In the absence of restriction, the number of expected HCQ-related deaths is likely to be directly related to the promotion of its prescription by scientists, physicians and health agencies. In February and March 2020, the use of this treatment was widely promoted based on preliminary reports suggesting a potential efficacy against COVID-19 [80]. For instance, the use of HCQ markedly increased from mid-March to mid-April 2020 [81], [82] in France before a temporary recommendation supporting its use by the State Council was rapidly rejected [83]. Similarly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted a temporary emergency use authorisation for HCQ on March 28th 2020, which was finally revoked on June 15th 2020 [84]. In India, HCQ was also prescribed as a curative treatment to patients with COVID-19 and as a prophylactic treatment for front-line workers based on public authority guidance [85]. Conversely, the British government promoted HCQ use only within clinical trials, explaining the absence of cohort studies reporting the use of HCQ in the United Kingdom in the present study [86]. Consistently, a cohort of a multinational network showed a wide variation in the use of HCQ between countries, with 85% in Spain, 14% in the USA and less than 2% in China [80]. The rush to administer this treatment caused supply shortages in community pharmacies, forcing the implementation of dispensing restrictions [82]. Finally, the results of observational studies and randomized trials in May and June 2020, respectively, convincingly demonstrated that HCQ was ineffective and led to an increase in adverse events [4], [5], [12], [66], [73].