Doctors ‘keep an open mind’ about unproven coronavirus drug, but worry it could do more harm than good

For President Trump, whether Covid-19 patients should take a once-obscure malaria drug is not even a close call: “What do you have to lose?” he said during a briefing this week. “And a lot of people are saying that, and are taking it.”

For physicians on the frontlines, the question of whether to use that drug or other unproven medicines is among the most challenging they’ve faced: They’re trained to make decisions based on rigorous data but have little to go on in treating patients with an entirely new disease.