We welcome the goals of using a science based approach to decisions regarding COVID-19, but noticed that the sheer volume of research and data, and the frequently contradictory conclusions from equally qualified experts, made it extremely difficult for anyone to choose the best options. Moreover, decision makers were very suddenly thrown into positions where they needed to make very rapid and very public decisions. The fact that the science based approaches resulted in different decisions around the world highlights this difficulty.

Whether it be treatments or interventions, the plethora of seemingly similar quality research supporting contradictory positions, and the use of digital echo chambers, facilitates widespread confirmation bias - evidence supporting any initial position can be easily found. Self-serving bias and cognitive dissonance further make it challenging to alter positions, especially for those taking very public and strong positions with serious implications.

We felt that attempts to organize and make the research and data easier to navigate, highlighting areas of applicability, and analyzing limitations, could potentially be beneficial.

All significant original contributions related to the use of the treatments we cover, including searches of the typical sources augmented by contributions from the community. Covering all research is important for HCQ in particular because it is easy to choose a search strategy that results in a subset of papers reporting a desired conclusion. This is especially so if one takes the conclusions reported in papers at face value without examining the actual data, methods, or regions of applicability.

We focus on the most effective/promising early treatments. There are many treatments that are helpful for late stage patients such as dexamethasone, however we do not have the resources to cover everything and currently focus on early treatment.

We are PhD researchers, scientists, people who hope to make a contribution, even if it is only very minor. You can find our research in journals like Science and Nature. For examples of why we can't be more specific search for "raoult death threats" or "simone gold fired". We have little interest in adding to our publication lists, being in the news, or being on TV (we have done all of these things before but feel there are more important things in life now).

There is no need to. We provide organization and analysis, but all sources are public and you can easily verify everything. For the meta-analyses, all data required to reproduce the analysis is contained in the appendix, with direct links to the original source papers. For the country-based analysis, all data is public and the analysis is simple to replicate. We also note that many equally qualified experts report contradictory conclusions. If you don't like our analysis, you can use our database to locate information you may have missed for your own research.

We have no funding, this is done in our spare time and we pay the web hosting fees personally (about $100 per month).

Yes. You can use any of our work free of charge.