Just because something is dangerous in overdose doesn’t mean that medical supervision is needed: for example acetaminophen, or even water. The relevant thing is that the therapeutic dose is close to the lethal dose for chloroquine, and chloroquine dosing is complicated.
Wei Dai’s first link was a doc with medical guidelines written by people with medical expertise (though not (explicitly) for civilians, I would expect legal risk to deter medical professionals from making guidelines for civilian use). That link is now dead, but archived here.
It included the South Korean guidelines:
According to the Korea Biomedical Review, the South Korean COVID-19 Central Clinical Task Force guidelines are as follows:
1. If patients are young, healthy, and have mild symptoms without underlying conditions, doctors can observe them without antiviral treatment;
2. If more than 10 days have passed since the onset of the illness and the symptoms are mild, physicians do not have to start an antiviral medication;
3. However, if patients are old or have underlying conditions with serious symptoms, physicians should consider an antiviral treatment. If they decide to use the antiviral therapy, they should start the administration as soon as possible:
… chloroquine 500mg orally per day.
4. As chloroquine is not available in Korea, doctors could consider hydroxychloroquine 400mg orally per day (Hydroxychloroquine is an analog of chloroquine used against malaria, autoimmune disorders, etc. It is widely available as well).
5. The treatment is suitable for 7 − 10 days, which can be shortened or extended depending on clinical progress.
Notably, the guidelines mention other antivirals as further lines of defense, including anti-HIV drugs.
My current strategy is to follow these guidelines (with hydroxychloroquine + zinc) if medical treatment is unavailable, there’s strong evidence that the illness is COVID-19, and serious COVID-19 symptoms are present. I’ll also have activated charcoal on hand to help mitigate accidental overdoses. I’m trying my best to familiarize myself with the risks involved so that I can make good decisions if the situation calls for it. Of course, my primary strategy is prevention in the first place.
Quoting Rob Wiblin:
“DO NOT TAKE IT OUTSIDE MEDICAL SUPERVISION: “Chloroquine is very dangerous in overdose.”″
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=886113990345&set=a.509700885225&type=3&theater
Just because something is dangerous in overdose doesn’t mean that medical supervision is needed: for example acetaminophen, or even water. The relevant thing is that the therapeutic dose is close to the lethal dose for chloroquine, and chloroquine dosing is complicated.
Hydroxychloroquine is 40% less toxic while still being effective, according to this article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0156-0
Medical supervision may not be available if current trends continue, so we must carefully weigh the options available to us.
This sounds like a prime opportunity for people with medical expertise to write guidelines on how to use it for civilians.
Wei Dai’s first link was a doc with medical guidelines written by people with medical expertise (though not (explicitly) for civilians, I would expect legal risk to deter medical professionals from making guidelines for civilian use). That link is now dead, but archived here.
It included the South Korean guidelines:
My current strategy is to follow these guidelines (with hydroxychloroquine + zinc) if medical treatment is unavailable, there’s strong evidence that the illness is COVID-19, and serious COVID-19 symptoms are present. I’ll also have activated charcoal on hand to help mitigate accidental overdoses. I’m trying my best to familiarize myself with the risks involved so that I can make good decisions if the situation calls for it. Of course, my primary strategy is prevention in the first place.
That’s great, thanks for the info.