However, the question about COVID-19 affecting minorities soon morphed into something much different after one county commissioner and health board member made several dubious claims.
Adams County commissioner and Southwest District Health board member, Viki Purdy, said:?
"There's something that you're missing when it comes to the Black, Hispanic and Asian population: they are all very low naturally in vitamin D, and that's what we've been talking about the last couple of meetings is, why aren't we telling people they need to check their vitamin D levels, start taking vitamin D, zinc, and is there something else we need to consider here as a board to push forward here, a protocol of hydroxychloroquine for those patients, that an early protocol when they get COVID-19 so that they don't have lung damage, they don't end up in the hospital.
"There is a very large trial that was placebo-controlled where half the patients got hydroxychloroquine, zinc, vitamin D, and the other half didn't, and there was no difference.
There is a tsunami of evidence that hydroxychloroquine and zinc and other antibodies work together and they work very well, especially in the early protocol," Purdy said.
We reached out to commissioner Purdy and asked for a copy of those articles she referenced.
The highly respected Henry Ford Health System just reported, based on a large sampling, that HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE cut the death rate in certain sick patients very significantly
However, that study has been widely criticized for two reasons - patients also received a steroid in addition to hydroxychloroquine, which has been proven to help in the recovery of COVID-19 patients, and because it is an 'observational study,' instead of a 'randomized study.'
In June, the Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use of the drug to treat certain patients hospitalized with COVID-19 when no clinical trial was available
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