First and foremost, I am not a medical professional and do not have any formal education on the matter. That being said, I can read. I'm not perfect, though, so please message me if I get something wrong.

• This is from another message I thought would be better off here.

Iver and hcq function both as a zinc ionophore. It's a fancy term that essentially means it introduces zinc into the ceII. Why is zinc important? While we don't necessary know the specific mechanisms surrounding it, it has been observed in numerous studies including PMC2973827 that it does have an effect on viruses.

Metallothionein's (a protein that binds to zinc and is likely simply there to maintain metal homeostasis in order to ensure you don't get psn'd from various metals, allowing the system to make use of them when needed, as well as protection from DNA dmg 30139373) role as having direct antiviral properties is kinda inconclusive and may very well just simply be indirect. That being said, it's been proven that rmving MT1 and MT2 which are metallothionein isoforms promotes HEPC whereas keeping them helps prevent it at least 29239069.

While it and zinc's antiviral role seems to differ from virus to virus and might even help promote some, if you look at the table of PMC6628855, you can see there are plenty that it does protect against, INCLUDING CORONAVIRUSES. Now while, yes, these levels are well above what is natural, it may be why an ionophore is needed in order to (temporarily) increase concentrations in the system.

Iver, HCQ, and Quercetin (25050823) have ionophore properties. By promoting zinc into the ceII and being "chaperoned" by metallothionein's, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that zinc has antiretroviral specific properties (though some can take advantage of it) and that zinc ionophores like Iver, HCQ, and Quercetin by way of common sense should help.