Finally found the actual study the article references, as there was conveniently no link provided. First red flag of reliability. It's a retrospective observational study, not controlled, not blinded, definitely not the level of evidence required to change practice. See for yourself.

[ijidonline.com]

From the study itself, if you make it through to the end:

"However, our results should be interpreted with some caution and should not be applied to patients treated outside of hospital settings. Our results also require further confirmation in prospective, randomized controlled trials that rigorously evaluate the safety, and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine therapy for COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. Considered in the context of current studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, our results suggest that hydroxychloroquine may have an important role to play in reducing COVID-19 mortality."

So far, every study attempted to determine safety and efficacy has either been aborted due to safety concerns or found to do more harm than good when used for treatment of serious illness. The ONLY potential role left for this one is possible prevention or risk for infection minimization on the front end, regarding which studies are underway.

Jacar, SEVERAL studies using this drump favorite have been quickly abandoned because the death rates of test subjects were Much higher than without it! (from cardiac problems, a known effect of this drug even for the malaria patients who need it)

Pass

You take it... I'll pass

You'll note that age over 64 was a strongly correlated to dying from COVID as HCQ was correlated to decreasing deaths. You will also note the HCQ receiving cohort had way fewer people over 64 than those who didn't receive it. The HCQ group also received more steroids.

This kind of thing is why one study is not used to determine public health policy and other researchers will try to reproduce the results multiple times. They may do, or they may not. Only time will tell.