“Early Treatment” is a right-wing buzzword
“Early Treatment” is a right-wing buzzword which is tied directly to the right-wing covid contrarian marketing of hydroxychloroquine, colloidal silver, and ivermectin, from early in the pandemic. It’s being repurposed to refer to Paxlovid treatment, which needs to be prescribed before covid progresses to severe and requires hospitalization. But “started on day 7” is hardly “early” considering that many people don’t have covid that last more than a week. And that’s what the CDC[1] and the NHS[2] both say — that it can be started as late as day 7.
I’ve not come across any official documentation or prominent mainstream doctors using the phrase “early treatment” when talking about Paxlovid. That’s probably because this phrase was heavily emphasized very early in the pandemic by right wing weirdos as the “key” to covid being no big deal, because, they claim, you just do “early treatment” with quack products, unproven remedies, vitamin supplements, or in some cases wellness influencers saying you don’t need anything if you’re fit. There are numerous bogus assertions by anti-vax proponents that “early treatment was suppressed” in order to promote vaccination.
Something called The Wellness Company posted that as recently as 2023 on Linkedin, to this day promoting a drug[3] that’s been shown to be ineffective for treating covid, but the anti-vax camp, including Peter McCullough and RFK Jr., continue to assert that lives were being saved by “early treatment” with repurposed drugs and vitamin supplements, despite this having been completely debunked and disproven through trials on those very products. “Early Treatment” was long the moniker of the right-wing politically motivated movement described by Allison Neitzel in May 2023 on Science-Based Medicine as coercively making it so Brazilian HMOs were “incentivized to “study” treatments for COVID with no proof of effectiveness.”[4]
It would seem that there is no great reason to use the phrase “early treatment” in a legitimate way, and every reason to avoid it — unless someone deliberately wants to evoke the right-wing pandemic disinformation movement concepts.
1- CDC — COVID-19 Treatment and Preventive Medication — Updated Apr. 16, 2024 Don’t delay: Treatments must be started within 5–7 days after you first develop symptoms.
2- NHS — How and when to take Paxlovid It’s important that you start taking Paxlovid within 5 days (or 7 days, if advised by a healthcare professional) of getting COVID-19 symptoms.
3- The Wellness Company on Linkedin, Mon, 03 Jul 2023 02:16:40 GMT (UTC) The Untold Truths About COVID-19, Per Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough • Early treatment was suppressed to prepare the population for mass v. • Hydroxychloroquine has anti viral properties against SARS v’s.
4- Science-Based Medicine — Repurposed to Radical: How drug repurposing created a global right-wing market for COVID early treatment fraud. A condensed timeline of the events, people, and far-right global politics that repurposed science and medicine to promote fake miracle cures for COVID-19 and spread deadly disinformation with a focus on the United States, France, and Brazil. — Allison Neitzel on May 18, 2023 It shows the pressure and intimidation exerted on physicians by executives and politicians to prescribe hydroxychloroquine and other medications that were part of the “Early Treatment” of COVID. It also reveals the blatant violation of Article 35 of the Declaration of Helsinki and tactics used to coerce or deny a patient’s ability to provide informed consent. The harsh reality is that people died in these studies and that was covered up by leadership.
