Well, given the time constraints, and the fact that the previous paper was had a much weaker setup yet claimed efficacy, I think this paper is a good idea. Incidentally, it's not the only such paper; a chinese analysis from the early days came to a comparable conclusion.
Even based just on this evidence, the case for HCQ looks very, very weak. The only positive report was riddled with caveats that could easily explain a false-positive, and other reports see next to no effect.
Note that it's perhaps not so interesting whether it has some effect; for this to really matter, it needs to be somewhat significant effect (in the real-world impact sense, not the statistically measurable sense). And even a small sample can reliably detect large effects; several studies have now not found such an effect; ergo: it doesn't exist.
If HCQ has any benefit whatsoever as applied once very sick, the benefit is likely too small to matter much in terms of mortality. And it's unlikely to be relevant whether it works beforehand; there's no way to make enough to give it to everyone which is what you'd need to do if you wanted to significantly impact the pandemic if HCQ were prophylactic.
It seems very unlikely at this point that HCQ is going to matter much in the course of the pandemic.