Wisconsin woman who has been on Trump's miracle drug hydroxychloroquine for 19 years gets coronavirus
A woman who had been taking hydroxychloroquine for years, which Donald Trump boasts about and claims he is using to prevent Covid-19, has still caught the deadly virus. The woman identified only by her first name as Kim said she had been taking the anti-malaria drug for 19 years to help treat the pain caused by her lupus.
According to reports, the woman was devasted when she tested positive for the coronavirus. Now, she is warning people that the anti-malarial drug would not protect them from Covid-19. Kim said when the pandemic began, she only left home to go for grocery shopping.
However, by mid-April, Kim said she started feeling coronavirus symptoms. "Weak all over. Coughing, fever. The fever was very high. It just went downhill from there. I couldn't breathe more,” she stated. After these symptoms, she reportedly went to see her doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, but her conditions worsened.
Kim said when her condition did not improve, she went to urgent care, where nurses told her oxygen saturation levels were at 78 percent, which is normally supposed to be at 95 percent or higher. She later tested positive for Covid-19 at the Aurora Medical Center emergency room in Summit. "When they gave the diagnosis, I felt like it was a death sentence. I was like, 'I'm going to die’. I'm like, 'How can I be sick? How? I'm on the hydroxychloroquine.' They were like, 'Well, nobody ever said that was the cure or that was going to keep you safe' and it definitely did not,” Kim added.
She mentioned that she took all the necessary precautions while leaving the house to go to the grocery store. But Kim also had this thought in her mind that she would be safe because of what the POTUS has said about the drug she had been taking for years. But that did not help her.
Kim revealed that she was in the hospital for around a week before returning home. She shared that she was on oxygen and received plasma. Though she has mostly recovered, doctors have still asked her to be on oxygen at her home. "You're not safe taking that medication at all. (Hydroxychloroquine) is not going to prevent anything. You can still get coronavirus. It kind of makes me mad that (Trump) thinks it's going to do that and is telling the whole world it's going to do that,” Kim added.
In the past few weeks, Trump has repeatedly said that hydroxychloroquine could help treat or prevent coronavirus. He also recently revealed that he has been taking the drug for more than a week under his physician's care and that he felt fine.
On Monday, May 18, the president said: "A lot of good things have come out about the hydroxychloroquine. A lot of good things have come out and you'd be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the frontline workers before you catch it. The frontline workers, many, many are taking it.
“I happen to be taking it... hydroxychloroquine right now. A couple of weeks ago I started taking it. Here's my evidence. I get a lot of positive calls about it. The only negative I've heard was the study where they gave it was at the VA with, you know, people that aren't big Trump fans gave it."
However, several studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not a cure for coronavirus. Doctors have even warned against the side-effects of the drug if taken without a condition, like Kim's. “There is a potential for cardiac abnormalities, abnormal heart rhythm, eye issues. Those are all possible with its use,” Dr Joseph Rahimian, an abnormal disease specialist at NYU Langone Medical Center said.