Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you mention hydroxychloroquine as if it were snake oil? At least some hospitals here administered it as part of their covid routine, ostensibly because they believed it helped according to the science.
As far as I understand, they were using it before we had the vaccine as "it might work, it might not, better than nothing". But I don't know the details. I think the practice was discontinued later? But the space it occupied in the public debate (at least around here) was the same Ivermectin does now - not "better than nothing" but "use this instead of the vaccine because evil media and pharma and gubmint is lying to…
People would go in Twitter and shout "people promoting HCQ are idiots!" while their grandpa was in the hospital on that very drug as administered by doctors.
Neither side has been entirely rational.