By Modesto P. Sa-onoy
Whenever people we know die from Covid-19 and fear grips those infected, while Dr. Edsel Salvana pontificates against HCQ, I cannot help but feel helpless. It is as if even hope in Pandora’s Box had escaped. Only the belief in a merciful God and life after death that we are consoled and we yield to God’s will.
I recall the allegorical poem of Dante Alighieri, “Divina Commedia”, written at the beginning of the 14th century which seems to apply to those who are infected, and even to families of the unfortunate.
In his poem, Dante described hell and wrote, “All hope abandon ye who enter here.” He spoke of those who enter the gates of hell who have no more recourse but to suffer the torments of the dammed.
How does this passage apply to the pandemic? Plenty. Dante’s line means that people who end up in hell should stop believing or hoping that something will happen. It is consignment to perpetual despair.
While it may be too much to apply Dante’s allegory to those infected by the virus, still the fear of infection alone and the thought there is no cure or hope for a treatment because the possible treatment is being withheld by Salvana and company, is enough to force people to the brink of depression. Their only hope is their strength of will to survive and God’s mercy.
People in authority who refuse to grant the Covid-19 victims even a slimmer of hope are depriving and practically telling them to “abandon all hope”.
The situation today is that people don’t know what to do, how they could be cured of the virus. The government promises nothing except to wait for the vaccine that nobody knows may or may not come next month or next year. Many die not because of the virus but of fear.
I have cited several studies and experiences of doctors who have used hydroxychloroquine and its “cocktail” of other drugs but Salvana slammed these doctors with a dogmatic declaration the drug does not work, echoing the position of the Department of Health and the World Health Organization. And since they are in control of this country’s response to the pandemic and had threatened those who advocated the use of HCQ’s but offering nothing, people – patients and doctors alike – are left without recourse but wait.
Indeed, Salvana’s solution is to wait, “not now” he declared, because the randomized control trials have not yet been completed. So while he and his cohorts force people to wait, patients are dying.
If people in 1942 had the mindset of Salvana, Anthony Fauci, the DoH and the WHO, hundreds of thousands of people, soldiers especially, would have died during World War II. They would have banned the use of penicillin because it had not passed their rigid RCT requirements.
Penicillin was first used on one patient in 1942 and then ten and immediately mass-produced because of the great demand on the battlefield. Penicillin helped reduce the number of deaths and amputations of troops during World War II. The US produced 2.3 million doses of this drug for the invasion of Normandy in 1944.
But let us allow the anti-HCQ doctors to exercise their power over life and death and wait for their “effective medicine”. The issue however is people cannot wait, they are dying, economies are collapsing, the number of hungry people is running into millions in the Philippines alone and fear stalking the land, paralyzing as it were the doctors from fulfilling their duties to give their patients what they believe works.
In critical moments when hundreds are dying, should authorities be rigid scientists unmindful of the plight of people? Assuming that HCQ works only in 30% of the cases considering the claim of other doctors that it worked, should the government deny this slim 30% chance? Thirty or ten percent chance is better than nothing. Death waits for no Salvana or anyone to find a 100% cure.
When a person is drowning, should he wait for a yacht and not grab a plank or a straw?
By what right does the camp of Salvana have to deny the doctor and the patient a small chance to survive? They are playing gods with feet of clay.